Birmingham Post

The second week of a new year is always the hardest. T S Eliot was bang off target when he labelled April the cruellest month. The real human wasteland must be negotiated just seven days after the revelry of New Year's Eve.

January's first week is clouded by the emotional and physical hangover of the Christmas period. One can be forgiven for being down in the dumps, shedding a quiet tear as the tinsel is packed away and the pine needles are vacuumed up, but by week two, it is "buck up your ideas" time. It is time to snap out of it and get the show on the road.

Have you, though, got it in you to face up to the trials and tribulations that lie ahead, which, based on past experience, will bare striking similarities to those of the previous year?

The list of challenges might include: mortgage arrears, income tax demands, car payments, council tax rises, worries about your children's development (are they reading enough/binge drinking/cutting/shoplifting/having sex/having safe sex/smoking pot/chasing the dragon . . .?), health concerns (is that headache really a headache, or could it be Norovirus, or early-stage CJD?), workplace paranoia (why do junior colleagues know more about company machinations than you do?), and matrimonial/civil partnership concerns (are you giving enough/loving enough/sexy enough/sexy at all?).

Are you, in short, fit for purpose, or are you Network Rail-made flesh and blood?

The good news is that the answer to all your problems is not as intractable as one
might think. In fact, it's as easy as cracking a smile.

Positive psychology is the way to go. The boffins are all agreed. You will find happiness if you do what your granny did - and count your blessings. Unless, of course, you granny happened to be a domineering, bunny-boiling witch, in which case you are in a whole lot of trouble, should stop reading this column and seek urgent pharmaceutical intervention.

Harvard University's happiness guru, Tal Ben-Shahar, makes some pertinent observations concerning inner contentment, suggesting we make our lives far too complicated and try to cram too much into them. Such an approach, it is argued, can only lead to overload and an impending sense of depression and failure.

Professor Prozac invokes the scenario of listening to your favourite song, and then rating it out of 10. Now listen to your second favourite song, and rate it in the same way.

The chances are that you gave both songs a perfect 10, or a 10 and a 9.99.

"What, though, if you played the two pieces together? How would you rate your experience? Certainly not even close to a 10. There can be too much of a good thing, and when it comes to happiness, less is often more," contends Ben-Shahar.

This is definitely the case if you share Karren Brady's taste in music. The Birmingham City MD shared her favourite recordings with the nation on Desert Island Discs. Kazza's top tracks included Bonnie "Give me a Strepsil" Tyler's Total Eclipse Of The Heart and Puff Daddy's mawkish I'll Be Missing You, proving that while there can be too much of a good thing, there can also be too much of a bad thing.

Just imagine playing Bonnie and Mr Daddy's hits at the same time. That's got to be a straight red card for Ms Brady.

Happiness, then, is about savouring individual experiences, those events and interactions that boost the flow of the brain's joy-enhancing neurotransmitters, which are nature's own Ritalin.

It is possible, apparently, and quiet legal, to get high with a little help from one's friends. You just need to appreciate that you've got them in the first place.

Newly-emboldened with this philosophy, I called a chum with the intention of meeting for dinner. He told me he had the mother of all lurgies. "The wife's been choking on her own phlegm," he confided too readily.

"Ooo, Christ, I don't want that," I said, and hung up swiftly.

Because when push comes to happiness's shove, I'd rather be miserable than sick.