Your Phone vs. your Heart

By Barbara L. Fredrickson

You can read this Article in: www.nytimes.com

Can you remember the last time you were in a public space in America and didn’t notice that half the people around you were bent over a digital screen, thumbing a connection to somewhere else?

Most of us are well aware of the convenience that instant electronic access provides. Less has been said about the costs.

Research that my colleagues and I have just completed, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, suggests that one measurable toll may be on our biological capacity to connect with other people.

Our ingrained habits change us. Neurons that fire together, wire together, neuroscientists like to say, reflecting the increasing evidence that experiences leave imprints on our neural pathways, a phenomenon called neuroplasticity. Any habit molds the very structure of your brain in ways that strengthen your proclivity for that habit

Plasticity, the propensity to be shaped by experience, isn’t limited to the brain. You already know that when you lead a sedentary life, your muscles atrophy to diminish your physical strength. What you may not know is that your habits of social connection also leave their own physical imprint on you.

How much time do you typically spend with others? And when you do, how connected and attuned to them do you feel? Your answers to these simple questions may well reveal your biological capacity to connect.

My research team and I conducted a longitudinal field experiment on the effects of learning skills for cultivating warmer interpersonal connections in daily life.

Half the participants, chosen at random, attended a six-week workshop on an ancient mind-training practice known as metta, or “loving kindness,” that teaches participants to develop more warmth and tenderness toward themselves and others.

We discovered that the meditators not only felt more upbeat and socially connected; but they also altered a key part of their cardiovascular system called vagal tone. Scientists used to think vagal tone was largely stable, like your height in adulthood. Our data show that this part of you is plastic, too, and altered by your social habits.

To appreciate why this matters, here’s a quick anatomy lesson. Your brain is tied to your heart by your vagus nerve. Subtle variations in your heart rate reveal the strength of this brain-heart connection, and as such, heart-rate variability provides an index of your vagal tone.

By and large, the higher your vagal tone the better. It means your body is better able to regulate the internal systems that keep you healthy, like your cardiovascular, glucose and immune responses.

Beyond these health effects, the behavioral neuroscientist Stephen Porges has shown that vagal tone is central to things like facial expressivity and the ability to tune in to the frequency of the human voice. By increasing people’s vagal tone, we increase their capacity for connection, friendship and empathy.

In short, the more attuned to others you become, the healthier you become, and vice versa. This mutual influence also explains how a lack of positive social contact diminishes people. Your heart’s capacity for friendship also obeys the biological law of “use it or lose it.” If you don’t regularly exercise your ability to connect face to face, you’ll eventually find yourself lacking some of the basic biological capacity to do so.

The human body — and thereby our human potential — is far more plastic or amenable to change than most of us realize. The new field of social genomics, made possible by the sequencing of the human genome, tells us that the ways our and our children’s genes are expressed at the cellular level is plastic, too, responsive to habitual experiences and actions.

Work in social genomics reveals that our personal histories of social connection or loneliness, for instance, alter how our genes are expressed within the cells of our immune system. New parents may need to worry less about genetic testing and more about how their own actions — like texting while breast-feeding or otherwise paying more attention to their phone than their child — leave life-limiting fingerprints on their and their children’s gene expression.

When you share a smile or laugh with someone face to face, a discernible synchrony emerges between you, as your gestures and biochemistries, even your respective neural firings, come to mirror each other. It’s micro-moments like these, in which a wave of good feeling rolls through two brains and bodies at once, that build your capacity to empathize as well as to improve your health. If you don’t regularly exercise this capacity, it withers. Lucky for us, connecting with others does good and feels good, and opportunities to do so abound.

So the next time you see a friend, or a child, spending too much of their day facing a screen, extend a hand and invite him back to the world of real social encounters. You’ll not only build up his health and empathic skills, but yours as well. Friends don’t let friends lose their capacity for humanity.

Positive Psychology Interventions

By Dr. Simon Moss

You can read this Article in: www.psych-it.com.au

Overview

A variety of interventions have been developed to facilitate positive emotions, wellbeing, growth, creativity, relationships, fulfillment, and other desirable consequences (for related interventions, see appreciative inquiry and loving-kindness meditation). These interventions are, collectively, sometimes called positive psychology interventions (for possible mechanisms that underlie the benefits, see broaden and build theory).

To illustrate, in one study, Fordyce (1983) examined the utility of a program that was designed to enhance happiness, called the 14 fundamentals of happiness. Across several studies, some of the participants were exposed to this program. They learnt about 14 principles, including the importance of a busy life, social interactions, close relationships, meaningful work, organized plans, plausible expectations, orientation to the present, maintaining integrity, and optimistic thinking. Other participants were assigned to various control groups.

The happiness program did increase happiness. Furthermore, this program unearthed new insights, behaviors, and techniques to cope with difficulties.

Many other programs have also been shown to enhance well-being, especially in older people (for a meta-analysis, see Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009). Effect sizes tend to be moderate, approximating .3 (Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009).

To demonstrate, Seligman, Rashid, and Parks (2006) also developed a procedure that was designed to enhance happiness and wellbeing. Some participants were assigned to an intervention, demanding two hours a week for six weeks. In the first session, participants identified their key strengths and attempted to apply these strengths to their daily life. During the second session, participants reflected on three positive events during the day. In the third session, they imagined how they would like to be described during their obituary. Fourth, they wrote or read a letter to someone, expressing gratitude. Fifth, they learnt how to react positively and enthusiastically to favorable news from someone else. Finally, they learnt how to savor and enjoy daily experiences, like walking to class. The remaining participants were assigned to a control group, in which they were not exposed to any intervention.

One year later, individuals who had been exposed to the intervention, compared to the other participants, exhibited lower levels of depression. In another study, this intervention was also shown to curb depression in people diagnosed with unipolar depression (Seligman, Rashid, & Parks, 2006).

Savoring

Savoring refers to strategies that people use to maintain, or even to augment, their positive experiences (Bryant, 1989, 2003). Quoidbach, Berry, Hansenne, and Mikolajczak (2010) examined the utility of four spontaneous, rather than induced, savoring techniques. The first technique is called behavioral display in which individuals exhibit their positive affect through mannerisms and gestures, like smiling or pumping the air with their fist. The second technique is called being present and refers to deliberately maintaining attention on their immediate experience (for evidence of utility, see Bryant, 2003). The third technique is called capitalizing, in which individuals celebrate positive events with other people. The final technique is called positive mental time travel in which individuals remember past positive events or anticipate future positive events.

Furthermore, Quoidbach, Berry, Hansenne, and Mikolajczak (2010) also explored the impact of four dampening strategies–behaviors that, usually inadvertently, curtail positive experiences. The first strategy was suppression in which individuals attempt to repress or conceal positive feelings, perhaps because of modesty, shyness, or superstition. The second strategy is distraction in which individuals contemplate, or often worry about, issues that are unrelated to the positive experience. The third strategy is fault finding in which individuals direct attention to the shortfalls or limitations of some positive experience. The final strategy is negative mental time travel in which individuals attribute positive events to causes they could not control or imagine negative implications.

In particular, Quoidbach, Berry, Hansenne, and Mikolajczak (2010) investigated whether or not these strategies are associated with positive affect and life satisfaction. Being present and positive mental time travel were positively associated with positive affect, whereas capitalizing was positively associated with life satisfaction. Distraction was inversely associated with positive affect, and fault finding as well as negative mental time travel was negatively related to life satisfaction. Finally, individuals who utilized several savoring strategies, instead of only one of these techniques, were especially likely to experience this positive affect or life satisfaction. This application of many techniques might ensure sufficient variety and flexibility in the strategies that people adopt.

Hope

According to Snyder, Harris, Anderson, Holleran, Irving, and Sigmon et al. (1991), hope comprises two facets, called pathways and agency (see also Snyder, 2002). The concept of pathways represents the capacity of individuals to formulate plans to pursue their goals, uncovering alternative avenues and opportunities if obstacles arise. Agency represents the excitement, energy, determination and commitment that is needed to maintain these pathways.

Hope is often measured with a scale that comprises 12 items, called the Dispositional Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991). This scale measures both pathways and agency. This measure of hope has been shown to be positively associated with task performance on various tasks (e.g., Peterson, Gerhardt, & Rode, 2006) as well as the motivation to develop skills and expertise (e.g., Peterson, Gerhardt, & Rode, 2006), called a learning orientation.

As Bernardo (2010) highlighted, this questionnaire relates to the extent to which individuals feel they uncover their own pathways or feel committed to these plans. Nevertheless, hope can emanate from other sources, such as family, peers, or spiritual beings. Thus, Bernardo (2010) adapted the original scale to represent these other sources of hope. Typical questions included “My parents have lots of ways of helping me attain my goals”, “I have been able to meet my goals because of my friends’ help”, and “God has many different ways of letting me attain my goals”.

Personal hope was positively associated with facets that correspond to individualism, such as the degree to which individuals like to feel unique, competent, and responsible (Bernardo, 2010). Hope that emanates from the support of family or peers was associated with seeking advice, a facet of collectivism. Finally, hope that emanates from spirituality or divinity was related to the perceived importance of harmony, another facet of collectivism.

Dispositional hope might also curb the detrimental impact of rumination. In one study, for example, conducted by Geiger and Kwon (2010), participants completed a measure of rumination, in which they were asked to specify the extent to which they brood and reflect upon their experiences and feelings when upset. Next, they completed a measure of hope. Finally, to assess depression, the Becks Depression Inventory was administered. In general, brooding and reflection increased the likelihood of depression. However, when hope was elevated, this positive association diminished: Brooding and reflection were not as likely to culminate in depression.

Thus, regardless of whether individuals brood emotionally or reflect calmly, hope seems to be beneficial. Brooding and reflecting might both uncover plausible opportunities to improve the lives of individuals who also experience hope (Geiger & Kwon, 2010). That is, the pathways and agency that characterize hope might ensure that alternatives and possibilities that brooding and reflecting might unearth are perceived as feasible, curbing depression.

Cheavens, Feldman, Gum, Scott, and Snyder (2006) implemented an intervention that was designed to elicit a sense of hope. Some participants completed eight group sessions, each lasting two hours. During these sessions, participants discussed exercises such as setting meaningful and plausible goals, uncovering opportunities to fulfill these goals, unearthing sources of motivation to maintain this pursuit and prevent obstacles, evaluating progress, and modifying these goals and plans when necessary. Relative to a wait list control, these sessions were shown to improve agency, self esteem, and purpose as well as contain anxiety.

Feldman and Dreher (2011) examined whether a session that lasts only 90 minutes is sufficient to foster hope. In this session, participants were first instructed to identify a goal they would like to achieve over the next 6 months, such as lose weight or learn a skill. Over the next 20 minutes, they learn about hope, such as the importance of tangible goals, the need to identify pathways to achieve these goals, and techniques to instill a sense of agency. Third, on a piece of paper, participants transcribed their goals, recorded three steps they could achieve to fulfill this goal, and some obstacles that could impede each step, together with alternative pathways around these obstacles. In addition, they considered how they could maintain their motivation and capacity to complete these steps. Finally, they completed a visualization task in which they imagined how they would circumvent these obstacles, using all five senses to construct a vivid image. In the control condition, participants either completed a relaxation exercise or no exercise at all.

Participants completed a questionnaire before this intervention, after this intervention, and one month later. The questionnaire gauged a sense of hope and purpose in life. Progress on the goal was also assessed a month after the intervention. Relative to relaxation only, the hope intervention did enhance hope and purpose in life initially, but this improvement was not sustained a month later. However, the hope intervention, relative to the control groups, did enhance progress on the goal a month later.

Optimism

Shapira and Mongrain (2010) implemented and assessed a procedure that fosters optimism. Specifically, each day, over a week, participants were asked to envisage a positive future, perhaps 1 to 10 years from now, in various facets of their life: family, relationships, and work for example. They were then asked to write about these positive possibilities as well as existing issues they had solved in the future. They attempted to write about their activities at this time as vividly as possible. In addition, they were instructed to convey to themselves sage advice and important insights from the perspective of this future person.

In the control condition, each day, over the week, participants were asked to write about an early memory of their life. They described the activities they were undertaking, the feelings they were experiencing, and the people with whom they were interacting, if they could remember.

One week, one month, three months, and six months after this intervention, participants completed a series of measures that assessed their wellbeing. These measured included scales that gauge depression and happiness. Furthermore, they completed a questionnaire of self criticism, neediness, and connectedness.
Relative to the control condition, this optimism condition increased happiness over the next six months. This intervention diminished depression over the next three months.

Peters, Flink, and Boersma, and Linton (2010) developed another protocol to elicit optimism. Specifically, in this study, to elicit optimism, some participants wrote about their best possible self for 15 min . That is, they were asked to imagine their life if everything unfolded as they wanted. They were instructed to envisage that perhaps they have worked diligently and achieved their most important dreams. Once this image had been evoked, they wrote about this future for 15 minutes. Afterwards, they formed a vivid image of this account for 5 minutes. In the control condition, participants wrote about a typical day, but otherwise received similar instructions.

After they completed these exercises, they completed a measure of positive and negative affect. In addition, they answered questions that gauge the likelihood they feel that various positive and negative events will unfold, regardless of mood. For example, they were asked to indicate the likelihood they will become unwell or attract admiration.

Relative to the control condition, contemplation about the best possible self increased positive emotions and also augmented the perceived likelihood of positive events, representing optimism. Presumably, when individuals form vivid images of positive events, related consequences seem more probable. That is, events that can be imagined clearly seem more likely (for underlying mechanisms, see also fluency and the hedonic marking hypothesis).

5 Myths of Positive Psychology

By, Robert Biswas-Diener

You can read this Article in: www.psychologytoday.com

Psychology in general, and positive psychology in particular, are different from all other sciences. Because every human has personal experience with psychological concepts—emotions, motivation, and decision making, for instance—people tend to form opinions about these topics. You rarely find a lay person with a strong opinion about when to focus on “log income” (an economic term) or who has a favourite theory about “light refraction” (physics), or who believes that some of the results from research on telomeres (biology) may be overstated. By contrast, you often come across with people who hold a strong opinion about the causes of happiness or who can whip off some supposed statistic about the relationship between money and happiness. In part this is because people are generally more interested in happiness than they are in light refraction (sorry, physicists). It is also, in part, the result of misinformation and misunderstandings related to the science of positive psychology. Here are 5 commonly held assumptions about positive psychology topics that are—well—not true:

1. Severely disabled people adapt back to their earlier levels of happiness: In 1978, Brickman, Coates and Janoff-Bullman published an article on the happiness of lottery winners and accident victims. These days their findings are commonly interpreted by lay people as hopeful evidence that people can adapt to just about anything. Unfortunately, the original article showed that the 29 accident victims, interviewed between one month and one year following their accident, reported that they thought the accident was just about the worst thing that could have happened to them. They reported significantly lower pleasure and also remembered there past happiness as being significantly better than did members of a control group. Their current happiness was higher than you might expect and their predicted future happiness was no different from that of the controls. The authors concluded that disabled people tended to idealize their past and that this did not help their current happiness. This finding—that disability is psychologically difficult—has been replicated with larger samples using more sophisticated research designs. One interesting finding related to this topic is that income is a factor in how well disabled people adapt to their new circumstances with wealthier individuals—presumably—able to afford more help and conveniences.

2. 40% of your happiness is the result of your own choices: This idea is the result of a well-known pie chart created by Sonja Lyubomirsky who, interestingly enough, does not believe this myth herself. Lyubomirsky has simply summarized research that suggests that genetics, life circumstances and personal choices are all implicated in the differences in levels of happiness between people. Unfortunately, the public has run away with this pie chart and misinterpreted it as if it has something to do with an individual’s happiness; it does not. If you think about it, it is nonsensical to speak about 40% of your happiness being the result of personal choices. Further, within an individual it does not make sense to separate genetics from circumstances from personal choices. All three interact and mutually influence one another. In the end, it is the spirit of the pie chart that people warm to: the notion that you have some control over your own happiness. Rest assured, that sentiment is correct.

3. Making more money won’t make you any happier: This is a very popular myth and you hear it voiced in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is “money matters to happiness only up to the level of 10 thousand dollars a year and then it no longer matters” and sometimes it is “As countries get wealthier they do not enjoy a corresponding rise in happiness.” In either case the data don’t exactly back up these well-intended statements. People warm to these myths largely because of their anti-materialism messages. Unfortunately, gaining more income does appear to be associated with more happiness and—at the national level—household income reliably predicts happiness. This is because money can be translated to psychological security, more leisure and self-growth pursuits, better goal pursuit, better national infrastructure and a whole host of other individual and collective benefits. Again, the mis-interpreters may miss the mark on the research results but still hit home on an important message: placing income before people can detract from happiness and, at the national level, there can be environmental consequences for rampant consumption. A more accurate take-home would be “financial circumstances can affect happiness but is certainly not the most important factor.”

4. Good moods motivate change: There has long been an assumption on the behalf of lay people that emotions motivate behavior. You can see this when someone says “I only yelled because I was angry.” Modern scientists tend to distinguish between emotional expression (e.g. yelling) and the actual feeling of emotion. Emotions are information, giving you a quick thumbs up/thumbs down about the current quality of your life. Emotions provide insight. They can pave the way for change but they do not necessarily pave the way for change. People often try to avoid negative emotions because they fear they will cause negative actions and promote positive emotions because they believe these will cause positive actions. You can avoid this common trap by thinking of emotion as a highly sophisticated radar system scanning your horizon.

5. Happiness is our desired state: There is ample reason to believe that happiness is desirable. In one study people from around the globe rated being happy above other desirable goals such as falling in love or even getting into heaven. Not only that but there is emerging evidence that happiness boosts sociability, creativity and your immune system. Happiness may not cure cancer but it appears to be able to fend off the common cold. So it is easy to see why people think happiness is so desirable. It is important to note that while happiness is beneficial, it is not necessarily something we should experience intensely. One study, for instance, showed that extremely positive feelings can make other events seem less positive by contrast. Similarly, being completely satisfied with life appears to undercut achievement. Students who are very highly satisfied have lower GPAs than their counterparts who are merely satisfied and people who are in the 80% for cheerfulness and satisfaction make less money than do their super happy counterparts. It may be that there is more to life than getting good grades and making money but this is initial evidence that happiness is good for some things (e.g. health) but too much of it may run counter to achievement.

In the end it is not my intention to disparage the science of positive psychology. The number of useful findings that have emerged from this field are legion: positive moods boost immune functioning, keeping track of your kindnesses can promote happiness, people high in hope perform better on a wide range of tasks, celebrating the success of a romantic partner is a good predictor of relationship longevity, the list goes on. The findings are so many, and so far ranging, that we don’t need to waste our time clinging to myths that stem from mis- interpretations of research results.

What Is Positive Psychology, and What Is It Not?

By, Christopher Peterson, Ph.D.

You can read this Article in: www.psychologytoday.com

In less than a decade, positive psychology has caught the attention not only of the academic community but also the general public. I just did a google search for “positive psychology’ and found 419,000+ hits. That is obviously impressive, although keeping all of us positive psychologists humble is that my searches for the “Olsen twins” and “Britney Spears” produced 6,390,000+ and 113,000,000+ hits, respectively.

It is still good that larger world is interested in positive psychology, and probably even better that this interest does not entail morbid curiosity and the wish to witness a train wreck.

Regardless, the downside of whatever popularity positive psychology enjoys is the temptation for those of us associated with this new field to run ahead of what we know in pursuit of further popularity. So let me slow down and explain what positive psychology actually is and what we actually know.

Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living. It is a call for psychological science and practice to be as concerned with strength as with weakness; as interested in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst; and as concerned with making the lives of normal people fulfilling as with healing pathology.

Nowhere does this definition say or imply that psychology should ignore or dismiss the very real problems that people experience. Nowhere does it say or imply that the rest of psychology needs to be discarded or replaced. The value of positive psychology is to complement and extend the problem-focused psychology that has been dominant for many decades.

Several truisms underpin positive psychology. First, what is good in life is as genuine as what is bad–not derivative, secondary, epiphenomenal, illusory, or otherwise suspect. Second, what is good in life is not simply the absence of what is problematic. We all know the difference between not being depressed and bounding out of bed in the morning with enthusiasm for the day ahead. And third, the good life requires its own explanation, not simply a theory of disorder stood sideways or flipped on its head.

Positive psychology is psychology–psychology is science–and science require checking theories against evidence. Accordingly, positive psychology is not to be confused with untested self-help, footless affirmation, or secular religion-no matter how good these may make us feel. Positive psychology is neither a recycled version of the power of positive thinking nor a sequel to the secret.

Positive psychology will rise or fall on the science on which it is based. So far, the science is impressive. Consider what has been learned in recent years about the psychological good life, none of which was mentioned in any of the psychology courses I took a few decades ago:

• Most people are happy.

• Happiness is a cause of good things in life and not simply along for the happy ride. People who are satisfied with life eventually have even more reason to be satisfied, because happiness leads to desirable outcomes at school and work, to fulfilling social relationships, and even to good health and long life.

• Most people are resilient.

• Happiness, strengths of character, and good social relationships are buffers against the damaging effects of disappointments and setbacks.

• Crisis reveals character.

• Other people matter mightily if we want to understand what makes like most worth living.

• Religion matters.

• And work matters as well if it engages the worker and provides meaning and purpose.

• Money makes an ever-diminishing contribution to well-being, but money can buy happiness if it is spent on other people.

• As a route to a satisfying life, eudaimonia trumps hedonism.

• The “heart” matters more than the “head.” Schools explicitly teach critical thinking; they should also teach unconditional caring.

• Good days have common features: feeling autonomous, competent, and connected to others.

• The good life can be taught.

This latter point is especially important because it means that happiness is not simply the result of a fortunate spin of the genetic roulette wheel. There are things that people can do to lead better lives, although I hasten to say that all require that we live (behave) differently … permanently. The good life is hard work, and there are no shortcuts to sustained happiness.

My goals for the blog entries that will follow are two-fold. First, I plan to discuss recent research findings about the psychological good life. And second, I plan to discuss the most promising applications based on these findings. I hope you find what I say interesting, and I invite your reactions, positive or negative. But let’s try and base the discourse on what the evidence shows. As the saying goes, the plural of anecdote is not data.

4 Ways to Train Your Brain for Positivity

By, Jessica Stillman

You can read this Article in: www.inc.com

Not a natural optimist? Use these simple exercises to train your brain to more easily pick out the positive.

You know how when you play Tetris for awhile, even after you stop, you can still see those little falling blocks in your mind’s eye? The persistence of Tetris isn’t simply an annoying effect of a cleverly designed game, according to scientists. Instead it’s a reflection of something deeply positive about our brains-their plasticity.

That’s a according to a recent post by iDoneThis founder Walter Chen on productivity blog buffer. He cites studies on Tetris (yes, there is such a thing, and yes, this is going somewhere helpful to non-video game addicted entrepreneurs), which found that playing the game for a few hours a week over a period of months, actually changed the brains of players.

“Every time you reactivate a circuit, synaptic efficiency increases, and connections become more durable and easier to reactivate,” Chen writes, before summarizing the importance of the findings: “Whenever you do specific tasks over and over again, they take up less of your brain power over time.”

Learning Positivity

That’s probably not a shock to anyone who has learned to play the piano, speak a foreign language or even hit a tennis ball roughly where you want it to go. So what’s the big deal? This same brain plasticity allows you to master simple skills or sports, also allows you to train yourself to be more positive.

Chen quotes Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage who has previously spoken about his work on the brain and happiness to Inc. Just like we can train our brains to more easily recognize the patterns of Tetris, “we can retrain the brain to scan for the good things in life—to help us see more possibility, to feel more energy, and to succeed at higher levels,” Achor says, dubbing this ability “the positive Tetris effect.”

Happiness Homework

So how do you do this? Chen offers four very simple interventions that can, over time, actually rewire your brain to see things more positively:

– Scan for the 3 daily positives. At the end of each day, make a list of three specific good things that happened that day and reflect on what caused them to happen. The good things could be anything — bumping into an old friend, a positive remark from someone at work, a pretty sunset. Celebrating small wins also has a proven effect of powering motivation and igniting joy. As you record your good things daily, the better you will get and feel.

– Give one shout-out to someone (daily). I love this technique. Take the positive things you’re getting better at recognizing and let people know you’ve noticed. Take a minute to say thanks or recognize someone for their efforts, from friends and family to people at work. A great way to go about this is by sending 1 daily email to someone. It can be your old school teacher, whose advice you are now appreciating every day. A co-worker or someone you’ve only met. Show courage and say thanks.

– Do something nice. Acts of kindness boost happiness levels. Something as small and simple as making someone smile works. Pausing to do something thoughtful has the power to get you out of that negativity loop. Do something nice that is small and concrete like buying someone a coffee.

– Mind your mind. Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment without judgment. Opening our awareness beyond the narrowness of negativity can help bring back more balance and positivity into the picture.

Looking for more details? Chen’s post has much more on the science and what actually happens physically in your brain. You can also check out Achor’s interview about how happiness affects brain function (hint: it doesn’t make it worse), or get tips on how to reframe situations more positively in the moment from my colleague Geoffrey James. Finally, if you’re looking to add more mindfulness to your day, check out this post on how many entrepreneurs incorporate meditation into their lives.

Do you agree that it’s possible to alter you basic orientation towards the world and become more positive?

Social Connections Drive the ‘Upward Spiral’ of Positive Emotions and Health

By, Barbara L. Fredrickson

You can read this Article in: www.psychologicalscience.org

People who experience warmer, more upbeat emotions may have better physical health because they make more social connections, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The research, led by Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Bethany Kok of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences also found it is possible for a person to self-generate positive emotions in ways that make him or her physically healthier.

“People tend to liken their emotions to the weather, viewing them as uncontrollable,” says Fredrickson. “This research shows not only that our emotions are controllable, but also that we can take the reins of our daily emotions and steer ourselves toward better physical health.”

To study the bodily effects of up-regulating positive emotions, the researchers zeroed in on vagal tone, an indicator of how a person’s vagus nerve is functioning. The vagus nerve helps regulate heart rate and is also a central component of a person’s social-engagement system. Because people who have higher vagal tone tend to be better at regulating their emotions.

The researchers speculated that having higher vagal tone might lead people to experience more positive emotions, which would then boost perceived positive social connections. Having more social connections would in turn increase vagal tone, thereby improving physical health and creating an “upward spiral.”

To see whether people might be able to harness this upward spiral to steer themselves toward better health, Kok, Fredrickson, and their colleagues conducted a longitudinal field experiment. Half of the study participants were randomly assigned to attend a 6-week loving-kindness meditation (LKM) course in which they learned how to cultivate positive feelings of love, compassion, and goodwill toward themselves and others. They were asked to practice meditation at home, but how often they meditated was up to them. The other half of the participants remained on a waiting list for the course.

Each day, for 61 consecutive days, participants in both groups reported their “meditation, prayer, or solo spiritual activity,” their emotional experiences, and their social interactions within the last day. Their vagal tone was assessed twice, once at the beginning and once at the end of the study.

The data provided clear evidence to support the hypothesized upward spiral, with perceived social connections serving as the link between positive emotions and health. Participants in the LKM group who entered the study with higher vagal tone showed steeper increases in positive emotions over the course of the study. As participants’ positive emotions increased, so did their reported social connections. And, as social connections increased, so did vagal tone. In contrast, participants in the wait-list group showed virtually no change in vagal tone over the course of the study.

“The daily moments of connection that people feel with others emerge as the tiny engines that drive the upward spiral between positivity and health,” Fredrickson explains.

These findings add another piece to the physical health puzzle, suggesting that positive emotions may be an essential psychological nutrient that builds health, just like getting enough exercise and eating leafy greens.

“Given that costly chronic diseases limit people’s lives and overburden healthcare systems worldwide, this is a message that applies to nearly everyone, citizens, educators, health care providers, and policy-makers alike,” Fredrickson observes.

This work was supported National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH59615.

Sustainable Happiness? 6 Ways to Get There

By Catherine O’Brien, Ian Murray

You can read this Article in: www.yesmagazine.org

In the past ten years there has been an escalating interest in happiness. Hundreds of books and studies have emerged to guide us toward finding the good life, but achieving personal happiness is only a part of the equation. When happiness is partnered with well-being and sustainability it takes on a whole new dimension: sustainable happiness.

Sustainable happiness takes into account that happiness is interconnected with other people, other species, and the natural environment by a remarkable web of interdependence. This means that our daily actions and decisions contribute to—or detract from—our own well-being, and that of others. Sometimes things that make us happy may harm our community, ecosystems, or future generations.

Sustainable happiness can lead to a more sustainable lifestyle and greater life satisfaction—and sometimes it’s right at your fingertips. Other times it involves reawakening to the joy that comes from simple pleasures or generating options for a lifestyle change. Here’s how you can start:

1. Cultivate Appreciation

According to happiness experts, gratitude and appreciation are associated with happiness and life satisfaction. Taking a moment to experience appreciation is a marvelous counterpoint to the constant bombardment of media messages that tell us we don’t have enough stuff or that we aren’t good enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, and so on. Appreciation brings us into the present. Perhaps it’s taking a few seconds to feel the delicate warmth of a winter’s sun on your face, birds singing early on a spring morning, or the delicious aroma of coffee wafting from the kitchen. Allowing yourself to absorb and appreciate the moment can be an antidote to stress.

2. Embrace your Natural Highs

Natural highs are natural, everyday things that are found—sometimes literally—right under your nose, like the fragrance of a rose garden. Tuning in to your natural highs alone could bring you hundreds of daily experiences of delight and contentment. Have you ever stood under a tin roof and listened to the rhythmic drumming of rain while the moist air cools you on a hot summer day? How about the sound of children’s laughter in the park?

To seek out these experiences, simply pay attention to the wonder of the world around you.

Here are some of the natural highs people have shared during the course we teach in sustainable happiness:

Watching my daughter sleep

The smell of the earth thawing in the spring

Hearing an owl hooting at night

The cold side of a pillow

Feeling the sun on my face

The sound of an iceberg breaking apart

Hugs

Smelling flowers, especially roses

Gazing at the Northern Lights

Hiking in the woods

Riding my bike

Birds singing in early morning

Lying on the grass and enjoying a starry night

The moment of bursting to the surface while swimming
Watching a beautiful sunset

3. Chart Your Sustainable Happiness Footprint

Take a snapshot of a typical day with a Sustainable Happiness Footprint Chart. Just list your activities from the time you wake up until you go to bed (such as eating breakfast, going for a run, heading to work/school, etc). Each column demonstrates how these activities impact you personally, and how they may impact other people and the environment.

You may want to chart your Sustainable Happiness Footprint for a week. Take a look at your chart and ask yourself if there is one thing you might shift to enhance your well-being, or the well-being of other people, other species, or the natural environment. Click here to download a Sustainable Happiness Footprint Chart.

4. Create an Interdependence Map

The Sustainable Happiness Footprint Chart portrays the many decision points that are available throughout your day. You can create a more complete picture by drawing your own Interdependence Map—a visualization that demonstrates how your life is intertwined with the world around you. You can make your map as detailed as you like.

An Interdependence Map joins the dots of all the interconnections that contribute to the existence of a person, thing, or idea. You may think of it as a complex web that links us to others, both near and far, and all the things in between.

Imagine, for example, the story behind something as commonplace as a piece of paper. We can trace all of the factors that influenced its existence. If the paper was made from wood pulp, the map would include natural resources (trees, the sun, wind, soil, and water); historical inventions that affected the use of paper (printing presses); machines that were created to harvest trees, transport logs, and convert the wood into paper; energy sources for the various processes; water and chemicals at the paper mill; paper packaging resources; and even the human resources during all the stages of extracting, manufacturing, and transporting materials to the place where they are purchased.

Creating an Interdependence Map of your own can lead to important insights. The Interdependence Map for paper is quite basic in comparison to the complex webs that an individual might have. You could include: ancestors, family, friends, resources for shelter, transportation, food, energy sources for clothing, electricity, and heat. Remember that each of these items is a hub for other webs of interconnection too. The one for food alone would be extensive.

Once you complete the Interdependence Map, ask yourself this question: Is there one thing that I could change that would lead to sustainable happiness? Even one shift has ripple effects in the world. Many people find that changing something that contributes to their own well-being is a good place to start—like reducing the consumption of fast food, going for a walk after work, spending more time with family, turning off the TV, or starting a gratitude journal.

5. Make Your Own “Happy List”

Take a few minutes to list all the things that make you happy. Jot everything down that comes to mind. Once you’ve made your list, look at each item and ask yourself if it’s been too long since you engaged in something that makes your heart sing.
The final step is to take a look at your list through the lens of sustainable happiness. Then ask yourself if anything on your list is detrimental to you, someone else, or the environment.

6. Value Genuine Wealth

Genuine wealth is found in relationships, natural beauty, and an appreciation for life, loving, and laughing. Building genuine wealth can be as straightforward as taking time for family and friends and enjoying your natural highs. Try this:

– Make a list of all your genuine wealth. You could include family, friends, education, the natural world around you, health, sensory experiences, political freedom, the ability to love and laugh, etc.

– Ask yourself if you take any of these for granted.

– Is there anything on your list that you would like to increase or improve in order to enhance your genuine wealth? If so, what steps do you need to take to accomplish this?

– How are you contributing to the genuine wealth of other people or your community? Is there anything more that you would like to do?

Once you begin to draw on these sustainable happiness choices, you’ll likely discover that there are many new choices that you can make—and they’re already within your reach.

For more information on exploring sustainable happiness: sustainablehappinesscourse.com.