I am happy to announce that the Birmingham Wellness Center will be hosting the first ever Birmingham Community Wellness Day! Community Wellness Day is a national event that will be taking place during the fall in many communities around the country, all with the same goal: to educate residents with information critical to achieving total wellness. I recently read Marshall and Kelly Goldsmith’s article, “How Happiness Happens” (Bloomberg Business Week) which sparked an “ah-ha” for not only myself, but why Community Wellness Day is so important. One part of wellness we often overlook is happiness. The results of their study were quite surprising. There is a direct correlating between people’s happiness and meaning at work and at home. In an essence, “those who experience happiness and meaning at work tend also to experience them outside of work.” Because the environment between both work and home are significantly different, it begs to suggest that both happiness and meaning come from within us, not from where we are and those who surround us. The Goldsmith’s suggest that to understand how we feel, we must look at how we spend our time. Here are some suggestions to increase our overall happiness and wellness. Reduce TV watching. It’s stimulating but doesn’t increase overall satisfaction with life---at work or home. Cut back on surfing the Web for non-professional reasons (except to learn about health and wellness!) It’s negatively correlated with the experience of both happiness and meaning. Do as few chores as you can (what-ever that word means to you). Spend time exercising and with people you love (respondents who did this had more satisfaction with life at work and at home). Feeling challenged is linked to greater satisfaction, so challenge yourself. To check out the full article go to: www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_51/b4160092992355.htm