A new study has unveiled where happiness is being processed inside the human brain.
Neurologists from the Kyoto University have conducted a research in order to fully understand happiness by seeking its definition and formula, and how and where it is being made. The Japanese researchers have discovered the mechanism of happiness.
With the use of MRI scanners, the researchers examined the participants of the study by taking a closer look into their brains. The subjects answered surveys and described how happy they were about their lives.
The research found that those individuals who experienced higher levels of happiness had bigger grey matter in their precuneus which is the part of the medial parietal lobe that gets active when the person is conscious.
The once unclear meaning of happiness is now starting to be revealed.
"This new insight on where happiness happens in the brain will be useful for developing happiness programs based on scientific research", stated Wataru Sato, the head of the said research.
The scientists have concluded that overall happiness is a combination of all the happy feelings of an individual which results to satisfaction in life. Individuals who have bigger precuneus are said to have more neurons in the said part of their brain.
"Several studies have shown that meditation increases grey matter as in the precuneus," stated Sato in a press release.
Many believe that happiness can be achieved through living a healthy lifestyle and exercising, accumulating material possessions, and meditating. With the new neurological discovery, understanding the concept and mechanism of happiness would be easy for other researchers who are also working on the same topic.
"Over history, many eminent scholars like Aristotle have contemplated what happiness is," Sato pointed out.
The new discovery can give way to clearer understanding of happiness and identifying the true source of good feelings.
