New Happiness Research From The UK

12Aug09

There’s a new research study out of the UK on what makes people happy, and it has some interesting results.

Happiness seems to be a top priority for the UK, as a lot of happiness research and experiments are conducted there. Good news for anyone living in the UK.

The researchers split more than 26,000 people up in to five different groups, four of which were assigned a different happiness exercise:

  • Group 1: Tasked with expressing gratitude
  • Group 2: Tasked with smiling
  • Group 3: Tasked with recalling a positive event from the day before
  • Group 4: Tasked with carrying out an act of kindness
  • Group 5: Tasked with thinking about what had happened the day before (control group)

After each group had completed their happiness exercise they were surveyed and their new happiness levels were compared to levels from surveys they had taken before their exercise.

As these are all proven happiness boosting exercises, all four groups experienced some amount of increased happiness. It was Group 3, however, that reported a more significant increase. Group 3 was found to be, on average, 15% happier than any of the other groups.

Of course the happiest person would be the person who did all four happiness exercises.

Here’s a short video summarizing the findings:

found via Wired

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The Army to Begin Using Resilience Training

25Jul09

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the army has decided to begin using the training provided by positive psychologists to better protect and sustain the mental health of troops in combat situations:

Worried about rising suicide rates and thousands of soldiers with posttraumatic stress disorder, the Army is launching the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program to help 1.1 million soldiers and their families cope more effectively with the stress of military life and combat.

Say what you will about the army, they seem to have their member’s best interests in mind and are not at all afraid to innovate and try something new. I know that they’re developing a lot of alternative fuel technologies too, which is very forward thinking of them. It’s that forward thinking attitude that I wish more big organizations (governments maybe?) would adopt.

Army sergeants may have a tough-guy image, but University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman thinks they’re in a perfect position to teach their fellow soldiers how to better handle emotions.

That is why sergeants – the line teachers of the Army – will be the first to receive resiliency training when a new project designed to revamp the Army’s approach to mental health rolls out next month. Fifty noncommissioned officers will go to Penn’s campus for a week of training by staff of the Positive Psychology Center, which Seligman directs. After that, 300 will arrive in November and December. They will take what they’ve learned about preventing psychological problems and living more fulfilling lives back to their troops, Seligman said.

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The First World Congress on Positive Psychology

11Jun09

If you’re in Philadelphia from June 18th to 21st you might want to check out the World Congress on Positive Psychology. The event is the first of its kind as positive psychology is still quite a new discipline. It likely wont be the last though, as some of the biggest names in the field are attending and over 1,500 people are expected to attend.

The event is geared towards researchers, people who have an interest in positive psychology, and everyone in between, so if you’re in the area and are interested about attending I would encourage you to go. I’m on the opposite side of the country so it would be a difficult for me, but hopefully some video shows up after the event and I can see what was talked about.

To get more info on the World Congress of Positive Psychology, go here.

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Be Optimistic, or Else

12May09

After a new study examining the link between heart disease, death, and optimism found that more optimistic people were less likely suffer both heart disease and death as a result of heart disease, the American Heart Association has put out a release highlighting the results.

The study was on women, sorry men, and found that:

Optimistic women have a lower risk of developing heart disease or dying from any cause compared to pessimistic women, according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers also reported that women with a high degree of cynical hostility — harboring hostile thoughts toward others or having a general mistrust of people — were at higher risk of dying; however, their risk of developing heart disease was not altered.

“As a physician, I’d like to see people try to reduce their negativity in general,” said Hilary A. Tindle, M.D., M.P.H., lead author of the study and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

“The majority of evidence suggests that sustained, high degrees of negativity are hazardous to health.”

I find it fascinating that these psychological changes can have such dramatic physical benefits as well. From the perspective of Western medicine it seems like such a strange idea, but from a more holistic perspective I suppose it makes a lot of sense.

The release from the American Heart Association also mentions:

Optimists were less likely to have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or depressive symptoms, smoke, be sedentary or have a high body mass index. However, the relationship between optimism and heart disease and death persisted even after considering all of these factors.

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A Positive Psychology Youtube Resource

12Apr09

Author and life coach Caroline Adams Miller has recently started a youtube channel, with several good videos up and, it’s safe to assume, more to come.

According to her bio, Caroline is also a graduate of the MAPP (Masters in Applied Positive Psychology) program at the University of Pennsylvania, which is taught in part by Martin Seligman, one of the most renowned positive psychologists out there.

You can see her youtube channel here.

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Hope as Medicine

17Mar09

There’s a fascinating article over at the Boston Globe on Jewish WW 2 survivors from the Lodz ghetto, which was a ghetto in Poland that had as many as 200,000 Jews living in it. The article explains how the doctors in the ghetto, having no access to medicine or equipment of any kind, used what they could scratch together, and in many cases used offered nothing to their patients but their presence and hope.

Ghetto doctors armed with little more than kindness and hope twice saved the life of Bursztajn’s father, Abraham. The first time, said Bursztajn, was when his father fainted after being tortured. A ghetto doctor revived him.

“I will die here,’’ his despairing father said to the doctor, an older man. “One of us will, but it will be me,’’ the physician answered. “I do not have any way to treat you, but you are young. If you don’t give up hope, you will survive.’’

Thanks to that doctor, his father did maintain hope, Bursztajn said, and that hope fueled his courage to resist.

It’s amazing what positive thinking and positive reinforcement from those around you can do to get you through illness, bad times, and whatever other barriers you encounter.

Sometimes, this kind of empathy all by itself can promote healing. In a study published in the July issue of Family Medicine, Dr. David Rakel, director of integrative medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, looked at 350 patients who were randomly assigned to one of three groups: no interaction with a doctor (the patients saw only study staff), a standard visit with a physician, and a visit in which the doctor asked more questions and tried to show more empathy. The patients then rated their doctors on empathy.

Rakel found that the 84 patients in the latter group rated their doctors best and got rid of their colds a day sooner than the others, and they had stronger immune responses on a standard test. Said Rakel: “Kindness matters.’’

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The How of Happiness on 20/20

15Feb09

There’s a video up on Youtube featuring Sonya Lyubomirsky on 20/20. She goes over some of the basics of happiness research and how it’s relevant to the average person’s life.

What’s interesting though is that the hosts profile twins who have very similar lifestyles but very different average happiness levels. Twins are used a lot in studies like this because they share genetics, so whatever differences in happiness that are left are, in theory, caused by life experience, which is under our control.

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You Owe it to Others to be Happy

13Jan09

You might think that your happiness begins and ends with you. If you thought that, you would probably also think that the happiness of others is fantastic, but has nothing to do with you.

But you would be wrong on both.

Human beings are, if nothing else, social animals. We interact with others constantly, we require it to stay sane. There’s a reason that solitary confinement is a punishment for criminals who are already being punished, and that infants that develop with little or no human interaction are, in many cases, irrecoverably mentally damaged. We need to interact because it fulfills a basic human need.

So there should be little doubt that our happiness affects others, and the happiness of others affects us. There’s research that estimates that the happiness, or conversely the depression of a spouse or life partner makes the other spouse or life partner almost 40% more likely to also be happy or depressed. Family, friends, colleagues, and even acquaintances all have an effect on us to one degree or another. The closer you are to the person, the more likely they are to affect you in a big way.

Which means two things:

  1. You owe it not only to yourself but to the people in your life to try and be happy. Just being a happy, positive person in someone else’s life can make a big difference to that person.
  2. You should avoid chronically negative people, the ones who are completely determined to make life miserable and find the very worst of any situation. Of course you could look at it from the other side, and say that by being close to that person you may change them for the better, but just like some people are determined to be happy, whatever the circumstances, there are people who refuse to be anything other than grumpy and depressed, and it might be better to save yourself, rather than stay on a sinking ship.

Above all though, think happy and be positive, and be one of the people who drags the happiness of the people around them up a bit, rather than one of the ones who drags everyone else down.

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A Quick Reminder: Change is Possible

22Dec08

There is no shortage of people who will be only too happy to remind you that changing yourself is not possible. They will scorn any arguments to the contrary and belittle the efforts of others who try to change and become better people.

Some people are quick to tell other people they cant change because they don’t want to believe change is possible themselves. They figure, “if s/he can change, I can change too.” Knowing you can change eliminates a big excuse that people put in front of themselves. If you cant change you never have to try to change, and risk failure.

Other people genuinely believe that changing yourself isn’t possible. They figure you’re born and you get what you get. This is much less negative than the “you cant change so don’t even try” people, but it’s still wrong.

I’m saying definitively that you can change, and that there is plenty of research to back it up. Most research puts the numbers somewhere around 50/40/10. For example Sonja Lyubomirsky, a much respected psychologist, says that potential happiness breaks down like this:

  • 50% of your potential happiness is genetics. This is the part you’re stuck with, until someone invents a miracle pill.
  • 40% is under your control. Keep in mind though that this swings both ways. Instead of being 40% more happy you can be 40% more depressed.
  • 10% is circumstantial. If you wake up late, skip breakfast and miss the important meeting, you’re not going to be quite as cheery as you normally would be.

You don’t have to go around debating every person that thinks change is impossible. Personally, I gave up a long time ago. One of the preconditions to changing yourself for the better is believing that change is possible, and I think it’s something that is very hard to convince people of. Sometimes it’s enough to put the seed in their mind and let it germinate, and hopefully they come to that conclusion by themselves.

The important thing it to know that change is possible, and to not let other people’s opinions make you second guess yourself on this issue.

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Laugh Your Problems Away

12Nov08

Laughter can be great medicine. If I had to guess, I would say that the relationship between the body, the brain, and laughter is a lot like the relationship between the body, the brain, and the smile.

There was a study done on smiling which showed that smiling releases all kinds of chemicals in the brain that make us feel warm and fuzzy. The researchers also found that it didn’t matter if it was a real smile or a fake smile, the end result, the warm and fuzzy feelings, were the same. The mind doesn’t care if you’re faking it.

And I’m betting that laughter is the same. Melissa Wanzer, EdD, professor of communication studies at Canisius College in Buffalo, has done some fascinating work on the power of laughter:

“If employees view their managers as humor-oriented, they also view them as more effective,” notes Wanzer. “Employees also reported higher job satisfaction when they worked for someone who was more humor-oriented and used humor effectively and appropriately.” Wanzer and her colleagues found that humor is an effective way to cope with on-the-job stress – again, when used appropriately.

Wanzer also recently collaborated on research that found aging adults who used humor more frequently reported greater coping efficacy, which led to greater life satisfaction. This was the third study she conducted, with three different populations, where the conclusion was the same.

But what if you don’t consider yourself to be particularly funny? Wanzer says that while you can’t change your personality, you can find ways to integrate humor into your day-to-day life and change your communication patterns.

The only part I take issues with there is that you can’t change your personality. I don’t believe that for a minute. If you want to become a funny person don’t think for a second that you can’t. Humor is a skill, like public speaking. It can be developed. There are more than a few comedians out there who would probably agree with me.

But whether you want to be a comedian or just relieve a little stress, try to work some humor in to your life. You’ll be glad you did.

Laughter is the Best Medicine via Science Daily

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Self-Help 2.0: How to Use Psychology for Personal Growth