The Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Amit Sood led a research team studying tens of thousands of patients over the course of decades to learn the secrets to achieving happiness. Their research was recently released in The Mayo Clinic Handbook for Happiness.

They conclude that happiness is not a matter of circumstance, but a matter of choice. “Resiliency has everything to do with happiness,” Dr. Sood said in an interview with cbs New York. Essentially, happiness comes down to a matter of decision-making, and it takes practice.

Some keys to cultivating a happy lifestyle include: investing in relationships, expressing gratitude, being optimistic, having a sense of purpose, and living in the moment.

The Mayo Clinic’s findings provide scientific research to back up principles that were actually published thousands of years ago. The Clinic says that happy people lead lives built on these “pillars.” Not surprisingly, many of these “pillars” fall in line with biblical principles:

The Bible is packed with scriptures about how to lead a happy lifestyle.

The Mayo Clinic’s findings show that happiness isn’t something that certain people have and other people don’t—it’s available to anyone and everyone willing to work for it.

Their research shows that perhaps the biggest hindrance to being happy is thinking too much about one’s self. Wealth, status, material gain, none of this actually brings long-lasting happiness. That means, to achieve happiness a person must work to get their minds off themselves.

Herbert W. Armstrong was a man who searched for happiness. He found it by understanding and keeping God’s law (Proverbs 29:18). Here is what he wrote in his book The Seven Laws of Success:

Every individual was put on this Earth for a purpose! Every person was put here to become a success. Every human ought to enjoy the sweet taste of success—to find peace and happiness—to live an interesting, secure and abundant life! And in order that all might—if willing—reap such full and abundant rewards, the Creator set in motion actual, definite laws to produce that desired result.

Mr. Armstrong said that forgetting those laws is the “colossal tragedy of all history!” God designed man to live by a specific set of laws. He intended for man to be happy and to prosper (3 John 2), and the Bible is His written instruction about how to get there.

The Mayo Clinic’s research reinforces principles to achieve happiness, but nothing new has been discovered—God provided mankind with that instruction long before modern science. To learn more about those invaluable laws, request a free copy of Herbert W. Armstrong’s booklet, The Seven Laws of Success.