"Happiness always depends on oneself, well-being does not," says the doctor Mario Alonso Puig: how to achieve it

A clear and hopeful message in a language understandable to the majority.

Both virtues make Mario Alonso Puig a communicator capable of informing and reflecting on issues ranging from neuroscience to managing emotions, including the microbiota and the impact of discomfort on, for example, disorders of the digestive tract.

And to integrate them in such a way that we can think about the

dimensions as a whole.

 Those who conceive of these disciplines as independent may be skeptical about what this surgeon, who studied at Harvard University,

has to say about

Both from his networks and from his interviews and conferences, Puig urges people to use the tools that we

, nothing more and nothing less, feel better from every point of view.

And she will do it soon in the country, where she will be giving conferences and workshops during this month in Buenos Aires as well as in Salta and Bariloche.

This implies leaving fear and guilt behind, getting ready to meet another, and carrying out certain guidelines that help us.

How

, even if we don't feel like it.

In a world in which inequality, injustice and adverse material conditions prevail, ensuring that happiness depends on each person and that the smile has a power that we do not know, can be difficult to sustain.

However, the questions that Alonso Puig proposes to

in leading our own lives imply a deep reflection linked to self-knowledge.

—In what sense can happiness depend on oneself?

—You have to understand what we are talking about when we talk about happiness, since sometimes the language can be a little short.

I am going to explain what I understand by happiness, and distinguish it from something that generates a lot of confusion, which is subjective well-being.

Subjective well-being is everything that generates enjoyment in the senses, that is, if I eat a good barbecue, logically I will notice that in my palate, in my sight, in my taste.

If I travel well, I am going to enjoy with my senses that traveling well, in a comfortable car, etc.

Happiness is the

, and the heart only experiences joy when it is shared, that is, when there is another person or other people who are also enjoying what I enjoy.

That is to say, if I eat less barbecue but invite people dear to me to enjoy that barbecue, what I experience when I see their enjoyment, even though I eat less in quantity, that is happiness.

Of course, happiness depends on oneself, subjective well-being does not: if I am starving, then logically it will be very difficult for me to have those senses satisfied.

But happiness is something that I can choose, regardless of the environment.

—Even when the basic material conditions are not guaranteed, can you be happy?

-Yeah.

I know people with a very modest economic situation and yet they were capable of transmitting truly impressive joy, serenity, kindness, and I have also met people with quite significant economic power, and yet they did not transmit that joy or that kindness at all. inner peace, nor that will to meet.

So we have to be careful not to confuse the two.

For example, I have a friend who has a foundation in Bombay, India, and on one occasion I asked him why the girls in his orphanage smile, or why it is common to see young and not-so-young people in India smiling, if they have almost nothing.

And he told me "Mario, because

."

Smiling does depend on the person, the same as putting on a serious face.

So we have to separate the two things: obviously we need both things, on the one hand to satisfy our senses, not to be too cold or too hot, not to be hungry, not thirsty, to be covered in a place, and we also need the other, that is, it is not one or the other, it is both.

Subjective well-being does not necessarily depend on one, happiness always, because it does not depend on what you can receive but on what you can give.

—From what I understand, according to your point of view, happiness is always articulated with another, with others, while well-being is something rather individual...

Exactly, happiness is the expression of an encounter.

It is the expression of a connection, of a link.

In fact, the most important longevity study in the world, a study from Harvard University, concludes that the most important element in happiness is human relationships.

—How then could people who are alone achieve happiness?

That is an extremely important question because indeed there are many people who feel alone and they are not necessarily alone, they may be surrounded by other people, but they feel alone.

The human being is a

, and therefore has to generate links, I would recommend to a person who for different reasons experiences that loneliness, to have a companion animal.

It has been shown in medicine that the presence of a

can reduce a person's level of loneliness to an extraordinary degree, and they can be very affectionate.

—Among the things that one can do to achieve happiness, you highlight the power of a smile, even if it is not genuine.

What impact do you attribute to a smile both on your own physiology and on the well-being of others?

—Human beings live to a great extent trapped by two very dysfunctional feelings, one is

.

Both have a very negative effect, both on a biological level (that is, they physically damage the body) and on a mental level, since a person who lives in fear and feels guilty carries a burden that is difficult to bear.

So, when a person smiles, even if they don't feel it, simply by choosing that smile as a disposition, that smile not only goes outward, it also goes inward.

And what has been shown is that this smile has the ability to do several things: firstly, it reduces our fear, and secondly, it reduces our guilt.

When a person sees that another is smiling at them, there is a part of their nervous system called the anterior vagus, actually it is a whole set of systems, that somehow registers that they are in a non-dangerous environment, because when you have a willingness to smile, and we are not talking about an ironic smile but a

, to meet another person.

And that is usually incompatible with the desire to harm.

"Happiness does not depend on what you can receive but on what you can give," says Puig.

Photo courtesy.

So, this system that we have, which is constantly observing the environment to discover who is friend and who is foe, at the moment in which it receives a clue that the person who approaches has a disposition to connect and not to harm

precisely the anterior vagus nerve is activated, which has prodigious health effects.

at the brain level

.

And this has an impact, for example, on the digestive tract, which is very sensitive to the emotional states of the person.

And when someone is smiling, their digestive tract can work better because the digestive tract works especially badly when a person is afraid.

When that fear is dispelled, that digestive tract can somehow recover and start its function.

As a result of certain investigations carried out at Columbia University, in New York, when the digestive tract works well, the microbiota begins to produce a series of substances and a series of markers that also reach the brain through the posterior vagus and can change even the mood of a person.

In other words, we are talking about an extraordinary communication network whose superficial appearance is apparently a simple smile but, nevertheless, its deeper projections affect many dimensions of our life, not only our biological life but also our life. psychic.

—Now, if we focus on smiling despite everything, what happens to the causes of a person's discomfort?

If we think about being better without analyzing why we are wrong, are we not ignoring what is happening to the person, and how can we resolve their conflicts?

—I'm going to use an analogy: if I'm projecting onto a white wall and I see a fly on the white wall, it's absurd that I'm going to scare away that fly on the white wall if where it is is on my projector.

Many times, we do not realize that we are the cause of the effects that bother us so much.

And by not realizing that we are the cause of the effects that bother us, we attribute our discomfort to what is happening outside, and not to what we are projecting from within.

For example, I have known people who complain that other people do not want to be with them, and they believe that the problem lies with other people.

And what they are not seeing is how with their gaze, with their comments, with their tone, they are scaring other people away.

Fear and guilt are two of the feelings that cause us the most damage, says Alonso Puig.

Photo courtesy.

Of course, it is difficult for a person to open up to explore the question "what am I emitting to receive what I am receiving?".

I believe that the moment we find that many of the effects that we don't like have their cause in us, at the same moment that we change that cause, we will modify that effect.

What happens is that, because of how our mind works, which is a mind that has a series of dysfunctions, we see a separation between the interior and the exterior, and for us there is no connection.

That is to say, we are not aware that the fly that we see on the wall that bothers us is not on the wall, it is in our projector, and until we drive it away from the projector (which is the cause), we will not be able to drive it away from the effect. of the wall.

—Many psychoanalytic treatments point precisely towards the individual role that one has and the effect that this generates on things, but I understand that it is a conclusion that in many cases is reached after a long time of analysis.

Can you get to notice all that without therapy?

—First of all, I believe that it is great news, because if the effects that I see are harming me in my life, and I consider that I have nothing to do with it, then I have to accept my role as a victim, I am a victim of circumstances .

If, on the other hand, I recognize that perhaps part of what I project, of what I see outside, of the effects, I cause them, this is empowering me, because I can ask myself how to change

.

Regarding the question, in my experience, the simple willingness to try to observe without judging, without blaming, what one is emitting can be the way for that to completely transform it.

We don't necessarily have to think about great traumas, but simply to put the lens inward and ask ourselves a question: "What can I be doing so that this doesn't stop happening to me?"

That simple fact, that question,

can perfectly allow the person to begin to see what he had not seen, and then he can take responsibility for changing it.

It is true that there are situations that can be linked to a very deep trauma, and that will naturally benefit from psychotherapeutic accompaniment, of course.

Now, one should not delegate their responsibility to other people, we have the responsibility to be aware of what we are emitting, and not just complain about what we are receiving.

***

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