My friend was hoping to find some effective integrative medicine approaches to reducing his high blood pressure. He found the directions for this technique, and to his happy surprise, he reported he significantly reduced the amount of medication needed to lower his blood pressure to healthy parameters by using this technique regularly.

I discovered that whenever I was engaged in singing (sad or happy songs, it made no difference), I did not feel anxious or depressed. It felt as though the activity of singing changed something in my brain and nervous system. That’s exactly what music does.

So if you are having difficulty feeling understood by a family member, coworker, or friend, take a look at your own behavior first. Do you focus more on expressing yourself than you do on listening? Is your focus more, that is, on trying to be understood than to understand?

When you feel sorry for yourself, your heart is closed to the love and wisdom that is within you and all around you; when you choose to be kind to yourself and gentle with yourself, your heart opens to the love, wisdom and power of spirit.

The thing is, this does take some effort, but only because the positive does not shout for our attention in the way that fear and disappointment do. As organisms, we’re wired that way to survive, but it’s not what helps us to thrive! Here are 5 practices that can help to cultivate happiness.

Activity naturally helps to shift our attention away from the mind’s anxieties, connecting us instead with the body’s experience of the present moment, which is where we actually live, love, and connect with all that sustains us.