Forced happiness can take a heavy toll

THE support you get from your spouse or romantic partner may determine your personal growth and psychological wellbeing, a study suggests.

The findings showed a supportive spouse encourages his or her partner to embrace life opportunities by expressing enthusiasm about the opportunity, while also reassuring and talking about the potential benefits of taking on the challenge.

The spouses, who accepted challenges, showed an increase in their personal growth, happiness, psychological wellbeing and had a better relationship.

“Significant others can help you thrive through embracing life opportunities or they can hinder your ability to thrive by making it less likely that you will pursue opportunities for growth,” said lead author Brooke Feeney, Professor at the Carnegie Mellon University in the US.

For the study, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the team brought 163 married couples into the lab and gave one member of each couple a choice: either solve a simple puzzle or they were given an opportunity to compete for a prize by giving a speech.

The researchers then recorded the couples’ interactions as they decided whether to take on the challenge.

Participants with more encouraging partners were substantially more likely to decide to compete for the prize, while those with partners who discouraged them or expressed a lack of confidence more often chose the simple puzzle.

Six months later, those who pursued the more challenging task reported having more personal growth, happiness and better relationships than those who did not. – IANS DO YOU feel the pressure to put on a happy face when you are actually sad?

Beware, it can take a toll on your mental health, a study has shown.

The findings showed that the pressure to feel upbeat can make you feel downbeat, while embracing your darker moods without judging or trying to change them may help you cope with their stress more successfully.

“We found that people who habitually accept their negative emotions experience fewer negative emotions, which adds up to better psychological health,” said Iris Mauss, Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

By contrast, people who commonly resist acknowledging their darkest emotions, or judge them harshly, can end up feeling more psychologically stressed.

Those who generally allow such bleak feelings as sadness, disappointment and resentment to run their course, reported fewer mood disorder symptoms than those who critiqued them or pushed them away, even after six months.

“Maybe if you have an accepting attitude toward negative emotions, you’re not giving them as much attention. But if you’re constantly judging your emotions, the negativity can pile up,” Mauss said.

The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, tested the link between emotional acceptance and psychological health.

The results showed that those who felt bad about their negative emotions showed higher levels of well-being than lesser accepting peers.

And the group that typically avoided negative feelings reported more distress than their more accepting peers.

“It turns out that how we approach our own negative emotional reactions is important for our overall well-being,” explained Brett Ford, Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. – IANS DO YOU like Coke, while your partner prefers Pepsi?

Beware, difference in brand choices can affect our happiness in relationships more than shared interests or personality traits, suggests a study.

“People think compatibility in relationships comes from having similar backgrounds, religion or education,” says Gavan Fitzsimons, professor at Duke University in North Carolina.

“But we find those things don’t explain how happy you are in life nearly as much as this notion of brand compatibility,” Fitzsimons says.

The findings of the study showed that partners, who had low power in their relationships – those who do not feel they can shape their partner’s behaviour – tend to find themselves stuck with their partner’s preferred brands, leading to unhappiness.

“If you are lower in relationship AN EASY and natural way of getting rid of tanning is to stock oranges in your beauty cabinet, say experts.

Chandrika Mahendra, the principal scientist at the Himalaya Drug Company, and Bharti Taneja, beauty expert and director at Alps Beauty Clinic, have highlighted the benefits of oranges.

To get rid of tanning, make a paste of one tablespoon of orange peel powder, a pinch of turmeric, calamine powder or sandalwood powder and a few drops of natural honey. Apply on the face and gently scrub it for one minute, keep it on for five minutes, then rinse with water. power and have different brand preferences to your partner, you’re probably going to find yourself stuck with your partner’s favourite brands over and over again,” says researcher Danielle Brick, from the University of New Hampshire.

This could lead to a deathby-a-thousand-cuts feeling,” she says.

“Most couples won’t break up over brand incompatibility but it leads to the low-power partner becoming less and less happy.”

For the study, published in the Journal of Consumer Re s e a r ch, the team conducted experiments in several settings.

Orange juice contains citric acid that acts as a natural bleaching agent, so you can also freeze the orange juice in an ice tray and later rub it on your face to get an instant fresh look.

If nothing else, just use the pulp of an orange and massage it into your face. Do this regularly to fight tanning.

The orange peel contains a natural bleaching agent that helps lighten skin pigmentation. A peel-off mask,

However, all produced the same result.

The researchers used brand preferences in soda, coffee, chocolate, beer and cars to study individuals and couples, some of whom were tracked over two years.

These results were combined with findings on relationship power and happiness.

“It’s an extremely robust effect, we found it over and over and over again,” Fitzsimons says. – IANS enriched with orange extract, can prove effective in eliminating skin impurities and maintaining the natural oil-balance of the skin.

An orange-based face care range is a good pick. Vitamin C and the antioxidants present in the orange peel will work collectively to provide an even-textured skin and act as a natural cleanser, whereas ingredients such as honey and papain will eliminate impurities and tone the skin. – IANS