Purposeful Life Gives Better Genes

In a Study scientists have discovered that Happiness born out of purposeful Life ,happiness born out of cherished and realized Goals showed very favorable gene-expression profiles in their immune cells.

Happiness and Genes.

In  simpler terms, your Genes develop better qualitatively than the Genes that have been coded in people who had relatively high levels of hedonistic well-being ” the type of happiness’ that comes from consummation self-gratification .(hedonistic or eudaimonic well-being. Hedonic well-being is defined as happiness gained from seeking pleasure; eudaimonic well-being is that gained by having a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life.

Genes become better with the Happiness that comes from  having a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life.

These people have better Antiviral properties,

It goes to prove the age-old wisdom that Happiness that comes out of  pursuing Ideals and finding/attempt to finding of the meaning of Life is better for the Organism.

The happiness of higher order comes with contentment that is born of Maturity and the realization that there are things that we can not control and yet we should try to seek the Truth or the meaning of Life.

One may note that it is the attempt at the realization or the Goal increases and consequently changes the Genes for the better, not the actual realization of the Ideal!

So Hinduism’s assertion that though Human Beings are limited, they can attempt at Realization of the Reality and in the process would become Happy in the Philosophical Sense.

This is the purpose of Yoga as well.

Story:

Steven Cole, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles has spent the last 10 years trying to figure out what makes the human genome tick. Specifically, how our genes respond to stress, misery, fear and various other forms of negative psychology.

But in his latest foray, Cole and his colleagues decided to look on the brighter side; they set out to see what biological implications happiness has on genes.

The researchers assessed and took blood samples from 80 healthy adults who were classified as having either hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. Hedonic well-being is defined as happiness gained from seeking pleasure; eudaimonic well-being is that gained by having a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life.

The team then mapped the different biological affects of both camps by using a gene-expression profile known as conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA). The CTRA is a shift associated with an increase of inflammation and a decrease inantiviral activities with the genes, reports Medical News Today.

The study showed that people who had high levels of eudaimonic well-being showed favorable profiles with low levels of inflammatory gene expression and exhibited a strong expression of antiviral and antibody genes. For the pleasure seekers, the opposite was true; those with high levels of hedonic well-being showed an adverse gene-expression profile, giving high inflammation and low antiviral/antibody expression.

The differences in genes persisted even though both groups were happy and felt comparable amounts of well-being.”

http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/different-kinds-of-happiness-affect-genes-in-different-ways-study

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