True happiness can be obtained

I am a person who is always cold. I take jackets with me so I can eat in restaurants without freezing to death, and I have a blanket that is on the back of my recliner for extra warmth in the evening.

My husband, on the other hand, is always hot. It makes for an interesting marriage.

During one of my freezing spells during lunch one day, I decided to do a little research into why some of us feel cold all the time.

What I discovered didn’t exactly please me because part of the reason some of us always feel cold is actually do to our personal health.

Things like weight, anemia, malnutrition, infection or silent thyroiditis are all culprits in this game. Having regular check-ups and eating right helps a lot, but isn’t always enough.

Another reason for feeling cool is stress. This bad boy causes our autonomic nervous system to kick in, which causes blood to move toward our body’s core organs, leaving the outer extremities feeling cold.

This could explain my cold reactions since I teach in a middle school and that age level is a little stressful at times.

The last thing that affects your temperature is your level of happiness. If you are isolated, alone, depressed or unhappy, you may be prone to shivers and coldness.

Chris Riotta of “Science Says” put it this way, “When our hearts are cold, we are too.”

Now, many of these things we can’t control about our health. But we can fix our levels of happiness, and that, in turn, lowers our stress levels.

Catherine Sanderson, a psychology professor at Amherst College, recently gave a talk, “Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness,” in which she described things that we think will make us happy but don’t and things that really do.

She says: “It also turns out that people who have religious or spiritual beliefs are happier than those who don’t, no matter what their beliefs.”

Drawing close to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will bring a happiness that you can’t find anywhere else.

Isaiah 12:3 says it like this, “Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”

Maybe we all need a little more joy in our lives, and you get that only from a personal relationship with God. Other pleasures will fade but God’s love and happiness will last for an eternity.