We spend a huge amount of time with TV. Watching TV is probably the world’s most popular pastime and is the greatest use of our time after accounting for sleep and work.

In the United States alone, people spend more than four hours a day watching TV.

Watching great television can be an enormous source of pleasure. Channel surfing, however, becomes a default activity that doesn’t add a lot to our happiness — yet we persist in watching.

So how does TV fit into happiness?

Have you ever fallen in love? Then you know what the poets, songwriters, gurus, playwrights, …

One of the things that surprises me most about happiness is the degree to which, for most people, outer order contributes to inner calm. More, really, than it should.

In the context of life of a happy life, something like a crowded coat closet or an overflowing in-box seems trivial — and it is trivial — and yet I find that I get a disproportionate charge of energy and good cheer from clearing clutter. An orderly environment makes me feel more in control of my life, and if this is an illusion, it’s a helpful illusion.

Even people who thrive on a little chaos tend to have a limit, and enjoy orderliness to some degree.

However, there’s a group of people who seem oblivious to clutter. They don’t appear to see it at all.

Psychologists are increasingly integrating alternative and complementary treatments into their work with clients, according to a recent article in Monitor on Psychology.

So what is alternative treatment? You may already have some experience with the most popular, according to the Monitor on Psychology. Meditation, biofeedback, hypnosis and progressive muscle relaxation are all popular complementary or alternative psychological treatments. 

Although you may be familiar with the most popular, there are dozens of alternative and complementary treatments, which typically fall into four categories:  mind-body medicine, biologically-based practices, manipulative and body-based practices and energy medicine.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Dr Amy James.

You’ve seen the pictures of men and women of the military rushing off planes and buses to greet their spouses and children. The smiles, the tears, the hugs and the fanfare warm the heart and cause tears to flood the eyes.

But what happens after the cameras are put away? What happens after the homecoming festivities are over? Do things go back to pre-deployment state or are they forever changed?

As a clinical psychologist who served in the United States Air Force, and as the spouse of an active duty Marine, I can personally and professionally report that for many, the homecoming is harder than the goodbye.

If you work with me, you will often hear me say, “The grass may be greener, but it still needs cutting.” This basically means that things can always be better, but you still need to work hard at reaching your goals.

Some people spend too much time comparing their success to others. They see only the wealth, friends, cars, houses or fame others have. They take those differences and conclude that they are somehow deficient, or a failure for not having the same life as these ‘obviously brilliant’ people.

On one level, observing what other people have gained and wanting to aspire to their success is a very human thing. It can be great motivation — if it’s taken as such. If you see other people doing well, reaching their goals and being rewarded for it, then you might want to ask yourself (or ask them) “What is it I need to do in order to follow a similar path to success?”

With all modesty, I do think my Four Categories of Personality may be one of my finest contributions to the study of human nature. Right up there with my abstainer/moderator split and under-buyer/over-buyer distinction.

In a nutshell, under this scheme, people fall into one of four categories: Upholder, Questioner, Rebel, or Obliger, depending on how they respond to external rules and internal rules.

Upholders respond to both inner and outer rules; Questioners question all rules, but can follow rules they endorse (effectively making all rules into inner rules); Rebels resist all rules; Obligers respond to outer rules but not to inner rules. To read more, go here.

I’m still refining this idea, and I’d be very interested to hear people’s thoughts on my further analysis.

At the recommendation of a friend, I read Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need. She told me that while she wasn’t writing a screenplay, the book was extremely helpful for writing any kind of story.

She’s right, it’s a fascinating look at storytelling, and it also includes some terrific exercises to foster creativity. This kind of playful thinking is fun. It’s fun to mess around with ideas, to have new thoughts, to come up with a great idea. It might even inspire you to write a screenplay or start a novel.

Into every life a little rain must fall. Does your rain come from a stray cloud on an otherwise sunny day, or is it from a gray, overcast sky that never goes away? Personal forecasts of sunny days and sunny moods contribute positively to a person’s health.

It is no surprise that a contented mind and cheerful spirit improve physiological functioning. We know the opposites — stress, depression and anxiety — can cause physical illnesses. Stress and depression both can lead to heart disease and heart attacks. People with heavy job stress have 50 percent higher health care costs.

It is a common misperception that life will always be better in the future: when we have a larger home, a nicer car, a corner office; when we are married, have children, or get divorced; once we finish a difficult task at work, or change jobs altogether.

In truth, life is always full of challenges. We must decide to be happy in spite of circumstances.

I love paradoxes, koans, parables, proverbs, Secrets of Adulthood, and aphorisms.

So how have I never come across poet William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell before?

When I found it the other day, I couldn’t believe I’d never read it before. Several of the proverbs were familiar to me, from other reading, but I didn’t know their origin in his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Blake’s “Hell,” by the way, is not the traditional Hell. Instead, it’s a place of “unrepressed, somewhat Dionysian [frenzied or undisciplined] energy” (at least that’s what Wikipedia says).

These proverbs are thought-provoking; I don’t agree with all of them, or understand all of them, but I love reading them. I’ve put some of my favorites in bold.

Over the weekend, I read David Rock’s very interesting book, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long.

One strategy particularly struck me. He suggested that if you’re feeling a negative emotion, you can work to reduce it simply by labeling it in one or two words.

Note, however, that thinking or talking at length about the emotional state tends to intensify it, while simply observing and labeling it helps to quell it.

I do this myself, instinctively. I find myself thinking, “I’m overwhelmed” or “I’m frazzled” or “I’m feeling defensive” — and it’s odd how calming it is. Just putting a label on a feeling helps me to master it.

Self-help is big business, but alas, not always a scientific one. Self-help …