by Yeah Dave (David Romanelli), on Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:29pm PDT
We’ve all heard countless studies, articles and TV interviews on happiness. But the other day I stumbled upon something that is just now being revealed to the media for the first time.* It's a 72 year old study that began all the way back in 1937 when 268 Harvard University sophomores were asked to participate in a study measuring “a formula-some mix of love, work, and adaptation-for a good life.” And while many of those who were college sophomores in 1937 are now dying or in their fading twilight, this study continues to be diligently maintained to this very day.
And never before has science been able to report such fascinating and thoroughly time-tested results on happiness. Following are 3 powerful lessons from this study.
1. Have a Healthy Outlet
So many of the people in this study seemed to have all their ducks in a row. In their prime years in the 1950’s and 1960’s, they were making big money in powerful careers. They had beautiful families and lived in idyllic neighborhoods. Oddly enough, later in life, many of these fortunate people ended up breaking down mentally and physically. Why? If one didn’t have a healthy outlet for their fears, nerves, and struggles, it was only a matter of time before repressed demons erupted to the surface. The happiest people in this study had a healthy outlet. They were altruistic or had a rich sense of humor. They funneled their issues into sport, “their lust into courtship.”
It’s something important to consider. As the study proves, a human being can get away with sustaining daily nerves, fears, and doubts for a number of years. But ultimately, such a nervous nelly will crack. If you haven’t already, develop an outlet…find a sport, commit to helping others, lighten up, and laugh more often. A wise one said, "A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs, jolted by every pebble in the road."
2. Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously
This study, as reported in Atlantic Magazine, was summed up beautifully by the journalist Joshua Shenk: “Herein lies the key to a good life--not rules to follow, nor problems to avoid-- but an engaged humility, an earnest acceptance of life’s pains and promises.”
In other words, one can only carry the burden of a big ego and lots of pride for so long before your proverbial knees will buckle. Don’t take life too seriously. We all have weaknesses. Do you really want to battle your dark side year after year? Or might it just be time to lay down your arms, take a deep breath, and enjoy life. It’s shorter than you think.
3. Happiness Must be Shared
The other night I was watching the movie adaptation of Into the Wild, the true story of Chris McCandless . Fed up with the rat race, McCandless graduated college in the early 1990's, left his worried parents in the dust, sold all his belongings, and ventured deep into the Alaskan wilderness. Before dying of starvation, he seemed to regret his isolationist ways and wrote these last words in his journal, “Happiness only real when shared.” According to the 72 year old study, McCandless was spot on. In the study, those who spent too much alone time ultimately struggled. The happiest subjects in the study were those who sustained meaningful, healthy relationships with friends and family. One can never give enough hugs, say enough "I love you's," and send enough "I miss you's."
As I emphasize in my book and to my own crazy self each and every day: Livin' the good life is not fancy trips, and expensive jewels, and high brow country clubs. Rather, livin' the good life is livin' the moment!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Happiness Coaching!
Every time I hand out my name card, I get quizzical looks followed by an exclaimation, “Happiness Coach!” This is usually followed by, “Oh! I could do with some happiness.”
What really is happiness? And why does every one want it?
Webster's and Oxford dictionary describe the word happiness as a state of feeling great pleasure, and contentment. Someone who is happy is said to be favored by circumstances; is lucky; fortunate etc. Wikipedia defines Happiness as a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. A variety of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches have been taken to defining happiness and identifying its sources.
Philosophers and religious thinkers have often defined happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion The thesaurus uses words like pleasure; gratification; enjoyment; fruition, relish; zest; gusto; well being; joy; gladness; enchantment; rapture; ecstasy; heaven; honeymoon.
No wonder everyone wants to be happy.
I once sent out an email to my friends asking them to define happiness. I got some lovely responses, some rather simple and some extremely profound and insightful (too many to list here), but most said it was appreciating what we had, living in the present, showing gratitude and giving without expectation.
No one mentioned money, sex, good looks or food, but often during my chats on happiness I found that many equated happiness with extrinsic factors such as money, status, job, relationship, ideal body weight etc. Rather interesting isn't it? We all know or at least pretend to know what happiness is but when it comes down to really being happy we forget and run after all the things that only lead to momentary pleasure and not towards lasting happiness.
Let me attempt to define happiness as I see it. I have interviewed thousands on this subject and can say with some authority that “Happiness just IS”. It is not a byproduct of money, status, good looks, ideal partner or ideal body weight. All these surely help but do not necessarily ensure happiness. Happiness therefore is a way of being. According to Vedanta,( an Indian philosophy based on science and reason) our happiness depends upon peace of mind, peace of mind on self-control, and self-control on awareness of our true Self. So the search for happiness should be a search for the ‘true self’. I don’t mean to sound too profound and thereby make happiness such an esoteric term that we lose the simplicity of happiness.
Happiness is way of living. It is living a life of joy and meaning and it is entirely within us to find the path towards lasting happiness. Happiness is the ability to enjoy life unconditionally, along with the ups and downs of life. Seeing the beauty and joy in things is what makes for a happy life. Happiness is a choice and it is a skill. We are all born happy, but somewhere along the way we forget what happiness looks like and start relating happiness to want fulfillment.
So is it really possible to be happy most of the time? Yes it is, and we can start that today.
The simplest way to become happier is to find something to appreciate at this very moment. I would even encourage you to stop reading and find something right now that you can appreciate. It could be the beautiful day, uninterrupted time at the computer, a beautiful smile by your child or even a stranger, a hot cup of coffee, soft music or even smell from your kitchen. Anything that you can find to appreciate right at this moment. In the rare circumstance that you really cannot find anything to appreciate, appreciate the fact that you are breathing and pay attention to that breath. I guarantee you will feel better right away.
Next step towards instant happiness. Pick an alphabet and think of a positive word starting with that alphabet. Let’s say you picked D, now D could stand for Dream, Derive, Development, Declutter, Decide, Do etc. The next step would be to choose that word and try and think of using it in context all day. For example- if it is Dream, think of your most beautiful dream. Allow yourself to be carried away into dreamland, find ways of fulfilling that dream. Stay in that dream land for some time and then carry on with your daily activities. If the word you choose is Do, do everything with enthusiasm and hope. Give power and energy to the word Do and focus on doing things in a positive manner. You can make your own list of affirmative words and focus on that word for at least one whole day. Do this exercise for a minimum of 30 days. You can choose a different alphabet or the same alphabet for the 30 days.
The third thing to do is to move your body. If possible go in front of a mirror and look straight into your eyes and say to yourself you are beautiful and happy. Say it a few times till you actually believe it. It is not uncommon for people to find this exercise very difficult. It sounds easy, but years of repressed self love and appreciation leads to a self belief of inadequacy and self doubt that is so powerful that it almost impossible to look into your own eyes and say loving and kind words to yourself. How and why would you expect the world to love, and respect you if you can’t do it to yourself? I don’t mean to confuse self love with narcissism; self love is an expanding kind of all encompassing generosity towards self and others. According to Vedanta we are all one consciousness, therefore we can start with love and appreciation towards the self which is after all a part of the whole.
There are thousands of books and philosophies on happiness and each offers a route towards a fulfilling life. Find a path that gels with your thinking and adopt it. Do whatever it takes to develop the skill of happiness and as with any other skill the more you practice the better you get.
More to come, but as of now let’s start with the above three simple routes to happiness.
Love/luck/happiness
What really is happiness? And why does every one want it?
Webster's and Oxford dictionary describe the word happiness as a state of feeling great pleasure, and contentment. Someone who is happy is said to be favored by circumstances; is lucky; fortunate etc. Wikipedia defines Happiness as a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. A variety of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches have been taken to defining happiness and identifying its sources.
Philosophers and religious thinkers have often defined happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion The thesaurus uses words like pleasure; gratification; enjoyment; fruition, relish; zest; gusto; well being; joy; gladness; enchantment; rapture; ecstasy; heaven; honeymoon.
No wonder everyone wants to be happy.
I once sent out an email to my friends asking them to define happiness. I got some lovely responses, some rather simple and some extremely profound and insightful (too many to list here), but most said it was appreciating what we had, living in the present, showing gratitude and giving without expectation.
No one mentioned money, sex, good looks or food, but often during my chats on happiness I found that many equated happiness with extrinsic factors such as money, status, job, relationship, ideal body weight etc. Rather interesting isn't it? We all know or at least pretend to know what happiness is but when it comes down to really being happy we forget and run after all the things that only lead to momentary pleasure and not towards lasting happiness.
Let me attempt to define happiness as I see it. I have interviewed thousands on this subject and can say with some authority that “Happiness just IS”. It is not a byproduct of money, status, good looks, ideal partner or ideal body weight. All these surely help but do not necessarily ensure happiness. Happiness therefore is a way of being. According to Vedanta,( an Indian philosophy based on science and reason) our happiness depends upon peace of mind, peace of mind on self-control, and self-control on awareness of our true Self. So the search for happiness should be a search for the ‘true self’. I don’t mean to sound too profound and thereby make happiness such an esoteric term that we lose the simplicity of happiness.
Happiness is way of living. It is living a life of joy and meaning and it is entirely within us to find the path towards lasting happiness. Happiness is the ability to enjoy life unconditionally, along with the ups and downs of life. Seeing the beauty and joy in things is what makes for a happy life. Happiness is a choice and it is a skill. We are all born happy, but somewhere along the way we forget what happiness looks like and start relating happiness to want fulfillment.
So is it really possible to be happy most of the time? Yes it is, and we can start that today.
The simplest way to become happier is to find something to appreciate at this very moment. I would even encourage you to stop reading and find something right now that you can appreciate. It could be the beautiful day, uninterrupted time at the computer, a beautiful smile by your child or even a stranger, a hot cup of coffee, soft music or even smell from your kitchen. Anything that you can find to appreciate right at this moment. In the rare circumstance that you really cannot find anything to appreciate, appreciate the fact that you are breathing and pay attention to that breath. I guarantee you will feel better right away.
Next step towards instant happiness. Pick an alphabet and think of a positive word starting with that alphabet. Let’s say you picked D, now D could stand for Dream, Derive, Development, Declutter, Decide, Do etc. The next step would be to choose that word and try and think of using it in context all day. For example- if it is Dream, think of your most beautiful dream. Allow yourself to be carried away into dreamland, find ways of fulfilling that dream. Stay in that dream land for some time and then carry on with your daily activities. If the word you choose is Do, do everything with enthusiasm and hope. Give power and energy to the word Do and focus on doing things in a positive manner. You can make your own list of affirmative words and focus on that word for at least one whole day. Do this exercise for a minimum of 30 days. You can choose a different alphabet or the same alphabet for the 30 days.
The third thing to do is to move your body. If possible go in front of a mirror and look straight into your eyes and say to yourself you are beautiful and happy. Say it a few times till you actually believe it. It is not uncommon for people to find this exercise very difficult. It sounds easy, but years of repressed self love and appreciation leads to a self belief of inadequacy and self doubt that is so powerful that it almost impossible to look into your own eyes and say loving and kind words to yourself. How and why would you expect the world to love, and respect you if you can’t do it to yourself? I don’t mean to confuse self love with narcissism; self love is an expanding kind of all encompassing generosity towards self and others. According to Vedanta we are all one consciousness, therefore we can start with love and appreciation towards the self which is after all a part of the whole.
There are thousands of books and philosophies on happiness and each offers a route towards a fulfilling life. Find a path that gels with your thinking and adopt it. Do whatever it takes to develop the skill of happiness and as with any other skill the more you practice the better you get.
More to come, but as of now let’s start with the above three simple routes to happiness.
Love/luck/happiness
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Happiness 101
By D.T. MAX
Published: January 7, 2007
One Tuesday last fall I sat in on a positive-psychology class called the Science of Well-Being — essentially a class in how to make yourself happier — at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. George Mason is a challenge for positive psychologists because it is one of the 15 unhappiest campuses in America, at least per The Princeton Review. Many students are married and already working and commute to school. It’s a place where you go to move your career forward, not to find yourself.
The class was taught by Todd Kashdan, a 32-year-old psychology professor whose area of research is “curiosity and well-being.” Kashdan bobbed around the room or sat, legs dangling, on his desk beneath a big PowerPoint slide that said “The Scientific Pursuit of Happiness” as he took the students, a few older than he, through the various building blocks of positive psychology: optimism, gratitude, mindfulness, hope, spirituality. Though the syllabus promised to “approach every topic in this class as scientists” and the assigned readings were academic, the classroom discussion was Oprah-ish. The students seemed intrigued by the research Kashdan presented mostly in relation to their own lives.
The focus of Kashdan’s class that day was the distinction between feeling good, which according to positive psychologists only creates a hunger for more pleasure — they call this syndrome the hedonic treadmill — and doing good, which can lead to lasting happiness. The students had been asked first to do something that gave them pleasure and then to perform an act of selfless kindness. They approached the first part of the assignment eagerly. One student recounted having sex with her boyfriend 30 feet underwater while scuba diving. Another said he “went to Coastal Flats and got hammered.” A third attended a Nascar race in North Carolina, smoked, drank and had sex. Some also watched favorite TV shows; others chatted with friends.
When it came time to talk about the second part of the assignment, the students were excited, too. The Nascar attendee, who was afraid of needles, gave blood. Another collected clothes from family members and donated them to a shelter for battered women. The boy who had gotten hammered bought a homeless person a 12-pack of “Natty Ice” at a 7-Eleven, wondering if it was the right thing to do. A fourth gave her waiter at Denny’s a $50 tip. At times, Kashdan, who ran the class in the nonjudgmental manner of a ’70s rap-session leader — he used the word “cool” a lot — would compliment them on their behavior and pull out a moral. In this case, as one student wrote in a summary she submitted to Kashdan, comparing “a day at the spa covered in really expensive French” stuff and “a day of community improvement covered in horse” manure, the smile on the community organizer’s face “beat out the smile on the masseur’s face any day.” That is, she had learned that doing good is good for you.
Though Kashdan brought up published studies that optimistic people live longer and that certain regions of the brains of positive people show more activity (“Have a very active left prefrontal lobe day,” he joked at one point), in class they didn’t spend a lot of time on clinical research. Absent were the rats with electrodes, data charts, syndromes and neuroses. The main experimental corpus seemed to be the students themselves, with Kashdan assuming the role of therapist, asserting that pleasure isn’t enough. True happiness comes with meaning, he said, and the students agreed.
I sat in on the course a few more times during the semester, and when Kashdan was done with pleasure versus selfless giving, he took up gratitude and forgiveness, close relationships and love, then spirituality and well-being and finally “meaning and purpose in life.” “I never use the word morality,” Kashdan said. Rather his goal was to show that “there are ways of living that research shows lead to better outcomes.”
More than 200 colleges and graduate schools in the United States offer classes like the one at George Mason. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Barbara Fredrickson passes out notebooks with clouds on a powdery blue cover for each student. At the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, students pass out chocolates and handwritten notes to school custodians and secretaries. The introductory positive-psychology class at Harvard attracted 855 students last spring, making it the most popular class at the school. “I teach my class on two levels,” says Tal Ben-Shahar, the instructor. “It’s like a regular academic course. The second level is where they ask the question, How can I apply this to my life?” True, the course is known as a gut, but it is also significant that 23 percent of the students who commented on it in the undergraduate evaluation guide said that it had improved their lives. “It wasn’t until my senior year that I started thinking maybe law school wasn’t for me,” wrote one graduate, Elizabeth Peterson, in her biographical précis for the masters program in applied positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She had decided to take the class on a whim. “I was pretty much hooked from there. I realized that what I loved the most was talking to people about their problems.”
Positive psychology brings the same attention to positive emotions (happiness, pleasure, well-being) that clinical psychology has always paid to the negative ones (depression, anger, resentment). Psychoanalysis once promised to turn acute human misery into ordinary suffering; positive psychology promises to take mild human pleasure and turn it into a profound state of well-being. “Under certain circumstances, people — they’re not desperate or in misery — they start to wonder what’s the best thing life can offer,” says Martin Seligman, one of the field’s founders, who heads the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Thus positive psychology is not only about maximizing personal happiness but also about embracing civic engagement and spiritual connectedness, hope and charity. “Aristotle taught us virtue isn’t virtue unless you choose it,” Seligman says.
Sitting in Kashdan’s classroom, you might wonder whether psychology had abandoned its proper territory or found a new one, and if a new one, whether it owed more to science or to Sunday school. Perhaps that was because the class reflected the discipline’s own tension between simplicity and complexity, “good tough science,” as Seligman calls it, and airier talk of values. With its emphasis on the self in the world, positive psychology is already an ethics seminar. Which is fitting, given that it has its roots in a Socratic dialogue of sorts. Seligman likes to tell the story of how his daughter Nikki, when she was 5, accused him of being a grouch. She reminded him that he had criticized her for being whiny and that she had worked hard to stop whining. If she could stop being whiny, he could stop being grumpy. He realized, he says, that she was right, that he was “a pessimist and depressive and someone of high critical intelligence” and that he needed to change. Seligman, who at 54 had just been elected president of the American Psychological Association and was renowned for his hard science — most of his research had been in depression — decided to put his considerable talents into finding out “what made life worth living.”
Though positive psychology is only beginning to be used as an educational tool in classrooms and secondary schools, in the nine years since Seligman’s epiphany it has taken a firm hold in academia. The field’s steering committee includes a number of psychologists and psychiatrists who have done highly regarded clinical work: Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose specialty is “subjective well-being”; Christopher Peterson at the University of Michigan, who has made a study of admired character traits around the world; George Vaillant, who has long headed a Harvard project tracking success and failure among the college’s graduates; and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi of Claremont Graduate University, who has spent years studying “optimal functioning,” or the state of being intensely absorbed in a task, what he calls “flow.” Seligman’s book, “Authentic Happiness,” published in 2002, lays out the field’s fundamental principles and has been translated into nearly 20 languages. Last year’s annual positive-psychology summit in Washington attracted hundreds of academics working in the field or interested in doing so, as well as a children’s programming director, who was working to imbue her cartoons with positive psychology messages, and the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman, who studies the relationship between economics and perceptions of happiness. In addition there were a lot of “life coaches,” independent consultants who hire themselves out to help clients achieve their life goals.
Despite its seemingly American emphasis on self-reliance and self-expression, positive psychology is also proving popular in England and the British Commonwealth. Nick Baylis, a psychologist at Cambridge University, helped found the Well-being Institute there last year and is consulting with Wellington College, a private boarding and day school, on how to apply positive psychology to its curriculum. The Geelong Grammar School, a prestigious boarding and day school in Australia, is planning to shape its curriculum around the precepts of positive psychology in 2008, and the government of Scotland has also been in touch with Seligman to see whether the discipline might help its citizens. “Our old nation has been renewed through our new Parliament, and if we can embrace this new science of positive psychology, we have the opportunity to create a new Enlightenment,” one government official announced.
Positive psychology is popular with educators because if happiness is something that can be learned, it can be taught. And because being happier seems to have positive long-term effects not just on well-being but also on health and life span. In one often-cited study, researchers at the University of Kentucky analyzed the essays novices born before 1917 wrote on entering the School Sisters of Notre Dame and correlated them to the nuns’ life spans. They found that 9 out of 10 of the most positive 25 percent of the nuns were still alive at 85, while only one-third of the least positive 25 percent were. Overall, their study showed positive emotions correlated to a 10-year increase in life span, greater even than the differential between smokers and nonsmokers. Another study, by Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at U.C. Berkeley, correlated the smiles that the female graduates of Mills College in Oakland, Calif., displayed in two mid-20th-century yearbooks with life satisfaction and found that the bigger the smile, the more satisfying the marriage and the greater their well-being. Inspired by studies like these, positive psychologists have developed “interventions,” or practices, designed to maximize positive emotions and have tested them on thousands of people. One such intervention is to think every night about the good things that happened to you that day. Another is to make sure in any given day that you either work or play in a new area that draws on what positive psychologists call your “signature strengths” to create a sense of well-being. Gratitude visits — looking up someone who has taught or mentored you and thanking him or her — are important in positive psychology, too; this last intervention, studies show, gives the biggest increase in happiness of all.
In the first few weeks of the semester, Kashdan asked his students to keep a record of their thoughts and experiences. He then gave them “experiential assignments” to make them happier, working their emotions the way an athletic coach might work their muscles. One week they were to report on attempts to go into “flow.” “Sex, drugs and chocolate are all highly useful avenues for people to attain flow states,” Kashdan said. To enter flow, students were asked to do something that they were good at, be it writing, playing basketball or talking to their friends. According to positive psychology, your signature strengths play a special role in building your confidence and thus bringing you happiness. Seligman’s Web site, authentichappiness.org, has a 240-question test to help determine whether your gift is for creativity, bravery, love or something else. In class, one student recounted going into flow during a fistfight; another told of being at her father’s grave. A third talked about being with a friend watching TV and suddenly having a profound conversation. “We had so much love for each other,” the student remembered in class, “and suddenly we were crying.”
Several studies undertaken by positive psychologists have suggested that meditation enhances well-being, so another class assignment was to meditate for 15 minutes three days in a row, attend a free yoga class (Kashdan’s wife, a yoga instructor, arranged this with her studio), be mindful twice a day and report on the results. The mindfulness exercises — excercises in heightened awareness and openness to experience — are central to positive psychology and made a big impression, according to Kashdan: “Some said they just noticed for the first time how many types of trees there are on the way to campus.”
The following week, students were asked to watch “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset,” movies starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. In the former, the two fall in love through intense conversation during one long evening in Vienna and then part. The sequel catches up with them nine years later. The students had to write about the first time they fell in love. The next assignment was to pay a gratitude visit or write a gratitude letter. After that, the students were to exercise their curiosity by doing something “novel, complex, and uncertain . . . epistemic, sensory and social” — that is, they were to use their signature strengths to try something new. One student tasted a pomegranate for the first time; another went to a book reading by Carly Fiorina, the former C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard. Finally, the students were asked to select one memory they would be willing to spend an eternity with, an intervention inspired by the Japanese movie “After Life.”
Kashdan’s enthusiasm — he is a passionate teacher — ate up class time, and so the students never got to other parts of the syllabus, among them optimism exercises and exercises that would make them better teammates. On the last week, students handed in their final papers, describing how they had tried to enhance their lives toward, in Kashdan’s words, “a specific, personally meaningful positive outcome” during the semester. There was no final exam; the students’ grades were based in large part on the paper and class participation.
In an era when psychology is seeking to become a hard science of M.R.I.’s and evidence-based therapies, when, as Seligman says, “if it doesn’t plug into the wall, it’s not science,” positive psychology can seem like a retro endeavor with the appeal of a cure that fits on a recipe card. While this may make it particularly adaptable for use in the classroom, critics are often most disturbed by what they perceive as its prescriptive nature. “There is way too little evidence of stable, long-term benefits — and lack of harm — to justify large-scale incorporation of positive psychology programs into schools,” Julie Norem, chairwoman of the psychology department at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, said in an e-mail message. “It pays scant attention to individual differences.” For all that the open, 1960s-style classroom has fallen out of favor, it allowed a child to find his or her own way. In the words of the founder of the famous Summerhill school in England, a child should be free “to live his own life — not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the educator who thinks he knows best.” Children were treated as unique, which you might think would result in a more capable, independent adults. By comparison, positive psychology can seem as if it is laying out a road and asking the adherent to follow. “If I could wave my magic wand, there would be no positive psychology — there would be positive psychologists,” says Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, whose own work in the science of affective forecasting suggests that what we think will make us happy rarely does, or at least not for long. “I guess I just wish it didn’t look so much like a religion.”
Indeed, the sectlike feel of positive psychology can be hard to shake off when watching classes like Kashdan’s or even when reviewing the record of the field’s beginnings. When Seligman was first trying to establish the discipline, he and his colleagues invited 25 young psychologists to the Yucatán to discuss the positive side of life. They snorkeled and talked philosophy and then swam some more. They summarized their work and listened to others’ reactions. One evening, the group devoted itself to poetry and song. Seligman recited Ezra Pound’s “Immorality”; a colleague named Sonja Lyubomirsky read some of Prospero’s speeches from “The Tempest.” Seligman’s daughter Lara — Seligman educates his five younger children in part by traveling with them — recited a Delmore Schwartz poem, “I Am Cherry Alive.”
The talk under the palapas was not just about happiness but also about engagement. Participants contrasted the “hedonic treadmill” with “the meaningful life.” To find the qualities that gave life purpose, the team examined Western religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism and Bushido as well as the mores of 70 nations. Over time, positive psychologists, led by Christopher Peterson, settled on 24 virtues — or character strengths, as they prefer to call them — including courage, modesty, spirituality and leadership. “The agenda comes from the world,” Seligman told me. “These are universals we’re after.”
The search for what unites humans in virtue was an ambitious effort to integrate psychology with those fields that have long sat alongside it: ethics, religion, philosophy. Before the retreat in Mexico, Seligman met with one of his former professors, the Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick. His book “The Examined Life,” written late in his career, looked at how questions of value might be related to everyday experience. It was Nozick who suggested a “taxonomy of character,” by which he meant, as Seligman put it, a list of “those abiding moral traits that everyone values.” Lyubomirsky remembers that many of the young scientists were uncomfortable doing so. “There was a lot of debate about it,” she said. “We were trained as hard scientists.” Seligman wasn’t so sure himself that he wanted virtue to be part of positive psychology either: he was wary of science becoming prescriptive, but Csikszentmihalyi was enthusiastic, Seligman recalled, and in the end Seligman agreed.
Two criticisms as troubling as the problem of positive psychology’s religiosity are 1) that it is not new — psychology always cared about happiness and 2) that the publicity about the field has gotten ahead of the science, which may be no good anyway. True, there have been attempts to marry psychology to ethics, to enlist it in the service of decoding what it means to be fully human, throughout its history. In the 1950s and ’60s, for instance, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, among others, established humanistic psychology to focus on what gave meaning to life, looking at the very subjects positive psychologists now take as their own. But where Maslow and Rogers relied primarily on qualitative research for their theories, Seligman and his colleagues hope to establish positive psychology — and thus the nature of happiness itself — on firmer scientific ground. The idea that whatever science there is may not yet be first-class troubles Seligman, too. “I have the same worry they do. That’s what I do at 4 in the morning,” he says.
When Todd Kashdan asked his students at George Mason to tell him which they liked better, experiencing pleasure or doing good, he cautioned, “Don’t give me the Miss Universe answers.” But when I met the participants in the nation’s only master’s program in applied positive psychology, at the University of Pennsylvania, I felt the spirit of Gandhi was hovering over us. One woman wrote in her application essay, “My strange and energetic career has included activism for peace and justice; teaching safety and self-defense skills to 10,000 students.” She was also a founder of two nonprofit organizations and taught “Swedish massage and stress-reduction skills.” Another sold her Mercedes and was using her savings to pay for the course. A third left banking to find the meaning in life.
There were, in all, about 30 students in the master’s class at Penn on the Saturday in September I attended. MAPP, as the program is known, is organized around intensive days of class time, online work and conference calls. Seligman, who runs the program, says that he likes to invite others to lecture so he can learn what’s going on in the field, and so that day Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina was presenting her “broaden and build” theory, while Seligman sat at a little table nodding and taking notes. “It’s a neat design that allows humans and other organisms to grow and become more resourceful versions of themselves,” she told the class.
The first part of her theory stems from a series of experiments that she published in 2005 in which five groups of 20 people each watched short film clips. The clips were meant to elicit negative, positive or neutral emotions. The participants were given a sheet ruled with 20 blank lines and asked to write down what they were feeling. Those who had just had positive emotions induced were able to provide more ideas about what their responses would be than those with either negative or neutral ones.
For Fredrickson, this was evidence that positive emotions lead to broader thinking. The participants were also tested for what is called global-local-visual processing. When asked to look at a design on a computer of three squares arranged in a triangle, those who had watched happy-making film clips tended to see the broader pattern — i.e. the triangular pattern — while the angrier subjects saw only the squares. (The neutral ones saw some of each.)
This was only the first part of Fredrickson’s theory. But it could be that thinking broadly has no effect on happiness or well-being — it might even be a deficit. To show that broadening led to building, she then described an experiment she had undertaken on a group of employees at Compuware, a progressive information-technology firm in Detroit. With the company’s assistance, she followed two groups — one that was taught a loving-kindness meditation (a meditation in which the practitioner repeats phrases that cultivate a caring attitude toward all life) and one that was wait-listed for the meditation. After eight weeks, she compared the two groups’ responses to questions about well-being. Those who meditated reported higher mental resources than before; their mindfulness, freedom from illness and connectedness to others all increased. But interestingly, their sense of well-being hadn’t, at least not immediately. It dropped at first. “It’s like you started a gym membership and then you realize you have to go,” Fredrickson theorized. But once their sense of well-being increased, they retained their edge over those who only wanted to meditate even after the meditation program was over.
All this interested Seligman’s students, but what Fredrickson says always catches their attention most is a study Fredrickson did with a Brazilian workplace psychologist named Marcia Losada, who observed annual strategic-review meetings of employees through one-way mirrors. The data she collected showed that the most effective teams — the criteria were customer satisfaction, profitability and internal review — were the ones who had more positive meetings. There was even a number that corresponded to the minimum amount of positive to negative feedback necessary to encourage successful functioning. That number, Fredrickson told the class, was three positive comments to one negative comment. “The ratio lady,” one student called her.
With its emphasis on universals and practical applications, positive psychology fits these divided times: it preaches values without linking them to a particular value system and embraces spirituality without making you go to church. When positive psychology was introduced into the language-arts program at Strath Haven High School outside Philadelphia in 2003, the left-leaning parents welcomed it because the values were internationally accepted; all but the most conservative ones were reassured that there were values at all.
Seligman recently held a meeting with the leaders from the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, the Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pa., the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx and the KIPP program, a national network of public charter schools, at which the educational leaders discussed introducing positive psychology into their schools. They are all looking to restore “wholeness” to the teenage years, to replace the supposed sense of certainty that the ’60s removed and that returned in the ’80s as a national political objective but that teachers are now too bogged down in the fundamentals to teach and adults, working longer and longer hours, are simply too busy to shore up at home. A follow-up meeting is scheduled for June, this time with a dozen schools; one item on the agenda is to add personal strengths and virtues to admissions criteria. (Educational Testing Service is exploring a test that students wouldn’t be able to fake.) “What this is about is building character,” Seligman says.
Currently, the biggest project on positive psychology’s drawing board is at the Geelong School. “As a school, we would like to know how to make all students more resilient, how to turn depressing thoughts into positive ones,” Charles Scudamore, the head of the project at what Seligman calls “Australia’s Eton,” wrote in an e-mail message. That there is a need for a curriculum to promote engagement and happiness among teenagers is obvious, and Geelong is the first school to give positive psychologists a chance to show that they can really change teaching. According to Scudamore, “When we adopt a positive-psychology approach, it will be seen and practiced in all that we do.” The Australians “have had a lot of depression in kids, that’s half the reason they want it,” said Ed Diener, the professor of psychology at the University of Illinois.
What the psychologists have in mind for Geelong is very much the sort of intervention Kashdan was teaching at George Mason. The draft proposal by which they secured Geelong’s support included gratitude exercises, exercises in the “three pathways of happiness,” “the four ways to promote savoring” and “the five ways to overcome” adversity. To teach savoring, the teacher would explain mindfulness and show the students how to taste their food more thoroughly and then instruct them to try “savoring with a friend.” The students would have journals to record their emotions, their “grudges and gratitudes.” They would mentor a younger student too. Scudamore says he hopes that even the teachers will feel “their well-being” and their teaching skills enhanced. Seligman and his family are scheduled to make a six-month visit. An American-trained positive-psychology instructor will be in residence to provide training and real-time feedback.
This endeavor outstrips the ongoing Strath Haven experiment. The effort there, financed by a $2.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, is limited to the ninth-grade language-arts program. At the school last year, the positive psychologists interwove their teachings with the literature classes. The idea was to buffer the lessons from bleak books like “Lord of the Flies” and “Romeo and Juliet” with some reassuring thoughts — or at least a more positive framework for understanding human behavior than the classics offer. Thus, according to Mark Linkins, now coordinator of the Swarthmore school district’s curriculum, who helped teach the classes, the animalistic and murderous Jack in “Lord of the Flies” shows “what happens when someone is lacking in signature strengths.” And when reading “The Odyssey,” students were asked: “What are the signature strengths that Odysseus lived and breathed? What are the things he might have improved on to make things go better?” It is too soon to know the effect of these stratagems on the school’s students, since part of the protocol agreed to with the Department of Education requires that they be followed for four years. The results will be compared with a control group that received the standard curriculum. (For his part, Seligman home-schools the children he had with his second wife. He says he likes to balance the standard high-school fare he gives the older ones with “books in which notions of virtue and nobility do not end in humiliation and death,” like Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End.”)
Not all positive psychologists are sure educational interventions are a good idea. Lyubormisky, for instance, turned down a similar request from the Compton school system in California. “I did not think the science was ready to be applied in that big a way,” she told me. Linkins acknowledges that happiness may come at the cost of a full understanding of literature and human complexity. But, he said, “it’s preferable to be happy than not, even if that means the potential for creative output is diminished.”
The question is, Can positive psychology actually fulfill its promise of making people happier? If positive emotions widen the sphere of what it is to be human, as positive psychology asserts, then positive psychology, at least as it is taught in the classroom, can seem to narrow it. If you are not optimistic, fake it. If you do not have friends, make some. I wondered what sort of student positive psychology would create. Was he or she more likely to be a future Nobel Peace Prize winner or J. P. (Gus) Godsey, the Virginia Beach stockbroker, dad and Craftsmen-tool enthusiast whom USA Weekend Magazine declared in 2003 “the happiest person in America” (“You are a blessed, happy person, Gus,” Martin Seligman commented in the article. “You’ve created many of your blessings on your own.”)
When I e-mailed various graduates of Penn’s first master’s class, I found that they continued to take positive psychology’s emphasis on the engaged life very seriously. One woman was using positive psychology to teach first-year medical students better patient-communication skills, citing Fredrickson’s optimal flourishing ratio as a benchmark. John Yeager, who has a doctorate in education and runs the Center for Character Excellence at the Culver Academies, a boarding school in Indiana, wants to “help teachers ‘broaden and build’ character strengths and positive emotions in children, young adults and themselves.”
Of course the master’s students were a self-selected group, willing to pay almost $40,000 for a degree with no clear career track. The students at George Mason, though they, too, had chosen the course, were perhaps more relevant to the question of what positive psychology can really teach. There I found a mixed response. They seemed remarkably sure that they had undergone an important experience but less sure what the nature of that experience had been. Had they saved the world or themselves? I spoke to Brandon Rasmussen, an easygoing student who seemed to me like a surfer dude washed up on some New Age shore. The class had energized him, and he had been a vigorous participant — earning an A. His final paper was about learning to really be with his friends, going into flow with them, something he had long had difficulty doing. “My personal satisfaction is the personal measure for me, and my personal satisfaction is great,” he explained. “I hate to say this, but really in the scheme of things we’re not going to change the war in Iraq.” Then he paused and thought how that sounded. “We can only fix the world one person at a time.”
D.T. Max is a frequent contributor to the magazine. His most recent book is “The Family That Couldn’t Sleep,” a scientific and cultural history of fatal familial insomnia, mad cow and other prion diseases.
Published: January 7, 2007
One Tuesday last fall I sat in on a positive-psychology class called the Science of Well-Being — essentially a class in how to make yourself happier — at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. George Mason is a challenge for positive psychologists because it is one of the 15 unhappiest campuses in America, at least per The Princeton Review. Many students are married and already working and commute to school. It’s a place where you go to move your career forward, not to find yourself.
The class was taught by Todd Kashdan, a 32-year-old psychology professor whose area of research is “curiosity and well-being.” Kashdan bobbed around the room or sat, legs dangling, on his desk beneath a big PowerPoint slide that said “The Scientific Pursuit of Happiness” as he took the students, a few older than he, through the various building blocks of positive psychology: optimism, gratitude, mindfulness, hope, spirituality. Though the syllabus promised to “approach every topic in this class as scientists” and the assigned readings were academic, the classroom discussion was Oprah-ish. The students seemed intrigued by the research Kashdan presented mostly in relation to their own lives.
The focus of Kashdan’s class that day was the distinction between feeling good, which according to positive psychologists only creates a hunger for more pleasure — they call this syndrome the hedonic treadmill — and doing good, which can lead to lasting happiness. The students had been asked first to do something that gave them pleasure and then to perform an act of selfless kindness. They approached the first part of the assignment eagerly. One student recounted having sex with her boyfriend 30 feet underwater while scuba diving. Another said he “went to Coastal Flats and got hammered.” A third attended a Nascar race in North Carolina, smoked, drank and had sex. Some also watched favorite TV shows; others chatted with friends.
When it came time to talk about the second part of the assignment, the students were excited, too. The Nascar attendee, who was afraid of needles, gave blood. Another collected clothes from family members and donated them to a shelter for battered women. The boy who had gotten hammered bought a homeless person a 12-pack of “Natty Ice” at a 7-Eleven, wondering if it was the right thing to do. A fourth gave her waiter at Denny’s a $50 tip. At times, Kashdan, who ran the class in the nonjudgmental manner of a ’70s rap-session leader — he used the word “cool” a lot — would compliment them on their behavior and pull out a moral. In this case, as one student wrote in a summary she submitted to Kashdan, comparing “a day at the spa covered in really expensive French” stuff and “a day of community improvement covered in horse” manure, the smile on the community organizer’s face “beat out the smile on the masseur’s face any day.” That is, she had learned that doing good is good for you.
Though Kashdan brought up published studies that optimistic people live longer and that certain regions of the brains of positive people show more activity (“Have a very active left prefrontal lobe day,” he joked at one point), in class they didn’t spend a lot of time on clinical research. Absent were the rats with electrodes, data charts, syndromes and neuroses. The main experimental corpus seemed to be the students themselves, with Kashdan assuming the role of therapist, asserting that pleasure isn’t enough. True happiness comes with meaning, he said, and the students agreed.
I sat in on the course a few more times during the semester, and when Kashdan was done with pleasure versus selfless giving, he took up gratitude and forgiveness, close relationships and love, then spirituality and well-being and finally “meaning and purpose in life.” “I never use the word morality,” Kashdan said. Rather his goal was to show that “there are ways of living that research shows lead to better outcomes.”
More than 200 colleges and graduate schools in the United States offer classes like the one at George Mason. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Barbara Fredrickson passes out notebooks with clouds on a powdery blue cover for each student. At the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, students pass out chocolates and handwritten notes to school custodians and secretaries. The introductory positive-psychology class at Harvard attracted 855 students last spring, making it the most popular class at the school. “I teach my class on two levels,” says Tal Ben-Shahar, the instructor. “It’s like a regular academic course. The second level is where they ask the question, How can I apply this to my life?” True, the course is known as a gut, but it is also significant that 23 percent of the students who commented on it in the undergraduate evaluation guide said that it had improved their lives. “It wasn’t until my senior year that I started thinking maybe law school wasn’t for me,” wrote one graduate, Elizabeth Peterson, in her biographical précis for the masters program in applied positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She had decided to take the class on a whim. “I was pretty much hooked from there. I realized that what I loved the most was talking to people about their problems.”
Positive psychology brings the same attention to positive emotions (happiness, pleasure, well-being) that clinical psychology has always paid to the negative ones (depression, anger, resentment). Psychoanalysis once promised to turn acute human misery into ordinary suffering; positive psychology promises to take mild human pleasure and turn it into a profound state of well-being. “Under certain circumstances, people — they’re not desperate or in misery — they start to wonder what’s the best thing life can offer,” says Martin Seligman, one of the field’s founders, who heads the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Thus positive psychology is not only about maximizing personal happiness but also about embracing civic engagement and spiritual connectedness, hope and charity. “Aristotle taught us virtue isn’t virtue unless you choose it,” Seligman says.
Sitting in Kashdan’s classroom, you might wonder whether psychology had abandoned its proper territory or found a new one, and if a new one, whether it owed more to science or to Sunday school. Perhaps that was because the class reflected the discipline’s own tension between simplicity and complexity, “good tough science,” as Seligman calls it, and airier talk of values. With its emphasis on the self in the world, positive psychology is already an ethics seminar. Which is fitting, given that it has its roots in a Socratic dialogue of sorts. Seligman likes to tell the story of how his daughter Nikki, when she was 5, accused him of being a grouch. She reminded him that he had criticized her for being whiny and that she had worked hard to stop whining. If she could stop being whiny, he could stop being grumpy. He realized, he says, that she was right, that he was “a pessimist and depressive and someone of high critical intelligence” and that he needed to change. Seligman, who at 54 had just been elected president of the American Psychological Association and was renowned for his hard science — most of his research had been in depression — decided to put his considerable talents into finding out “what made life worth living.”
Though positive psychology is only beginning to be used as an educational tool in classrooms and secondary schools, in the nine years since Seligman’s epiphany it has taken a firm hold in academia. The field’s steering committee includes a number of psychologists and psychiatrists who have done highly regarded clinical work: Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose specialty is “subjective well-being”; Christopher Peterson at the University of Michigan, who has made a study of admired character traits around the world; George Vaillant, who has long headed a Harvard project tracking success and failure among the college’s graduates; and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi of Claremont Graduate University, who has spent years studying “optimal functioning,” or the state of being intensely absorbed in a task, what he calls “flow.” Seligman’s book, “Authentic Happiness,” published in 2002, lays out the field’s fundamental principles and has been translated into nearly 20 languages. Last year’s annual positive-psychology summit in Washington attracted hundreds of academics working in the field or interested in doing so, as well as a children’s programming director, who was working to imbue her cartoons with positive psychology messages, and the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman, who studies the relationship between economics and perceptions of happiness. In addition there were a lot of “life coaches,” independent consultants who hire themselves out to help clients achieve their life goals.
Despite its seemingly American emphasis on self-reliance and self-expression, positive psychology is also proving popular in England and the British Commonwealth. Nick Baylis, a psychologist at Cambridge University, helped found the Well-being Institute there last year and is consulting with Wellington College, a private boarding and day school, on how to apply positive psychology to its curriculum. The Geelong Grammar School, a prestigious boarding and day school in Australia, is planning to shape its curriculum around the precepts of positive psychology in 2008, and the government of Scotland has also been in touch with Seligman to see whether the discipline might help its citizens. “Our old nation has been renewed through our new Parliament, and if we can embrace this new science of positive psychology, we have the opportunity to create a new Enlightenment,” one government official announced.
Positive psychology is popular with educators because if happiness is something that can be learned, it can be taught. And because being happier seems to have positive long-term effects not just on well-being but also on health and life span. In one often-cited study, researchers at the University of Kentucky analyzed the essays novices born before 1917 wrote on entering the School Sisters of Notre Dame and correlated them to the nuns’ life spans. They found that 9 out of 10 of the most positive 25 percent of the nuns were still alive at 85, while only one-third of the least positive 25 percent were. Overall, their study showed positive emotions correlated to a 10-year increase in life span, greater even than the differential between smokers and nonsmokers. Another study, by Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at U.C. Berkeley, correlated the smiles that the female graduates of Mills College in Oakland, Calif., displayed in two mid-20th-century yearbooks with life satisfaction and found that the bigger the smile, the more satisfying the marriage and the greater their well-being. Inspired by studies like these, positive psychologists have developed “interventions,” or practices, designed to maximize positive emotions and have tested them on thousands of people. One such intervention is to think every night about the good things that happened to you that day. Another is to make sure in any given day that you either work or play in a new area that draws on what positive psychologists call your “signature strengths” to create a sense of well-being. Gratitude visits — looking up someone who has taught or mentored you and thanking him or her — are important in positive psychology, too; this last intervention, studies show, gives the biggest increase in happiness of all.
In the first few weeks of the semester, Kashdan asked his students to keep a record of their thoughts and experiences. He then gave them “experiential assignments” to make them happier, working their emotions the way an athletic coach might work their muscles. One week they were to report on attempts to go into “flow.” “Sex, drugs and chocolate are all highly useful avenues for people to attain flow states,” Kashdan said. To enter flow, students were asked to do something that they were good at, be it writing, playing basketball or talking to their friends. According to positive psychology, your signature strengths play a special role in building your confidence and thus bringing you happiness. Seligman’s Web site, authentichappiness.org, has a 240-question test to help determine whether your gift is for creativity, bravery, love or something else. In class, one student recounted going into flow during a fistfight; another told of being at her father’s grave. A third talked about being with a friend watching TV and suddenly having a profound conversation. “We had so much love for each other,” the student remembered in class, “and suddenly we were crying.”
Several studies undertaken by positive psychologists have suggested that meditation enhances well-being, so another class assignment was to meditate for 15 minutes three days in a row, attend a free yoga class (Kashdan’s wife, a yoga instructor, arranged this with her studio), be mindful twice a day and report on the results. The mindfulness exercises — excercises in heightened awareness and openness to experience — are central to positive psychology and made a big impression, according to Kashdan: “Some said they just noticed for the first time how many types of trees there are on the way to campus.”
The following week, students were asked to watch “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset,” movies starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. In the former, the two fall in love through intense conversation during one long evening in Vienna and then part. The sequel catches up with them nine years later. The students had to write about the first time they fell in love. The next assignment was to pay a gratitude visit or write a gratitude letter. After that, the students were to exercise their curiosity by doing something “novel, complex, and uncertain . . . epistemic, sensory and social” — that is, they were to use their signature strengths to try something new. One student tasted a pomegranate for the first time; another went to a book reading by Carly Fiorina, the former C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard. Finally, the students were asked to select one memory they would be willing to spend an eternity with, an intervention inspired by the Japanese movie “After Life.”
Kashdan’s enthusiasm — he is a passionate teacher — ate up class time, and so the students never got to other parts of the syllabus, among them optimism exercises and exercises that would make them better teammates. On the last week, students handed in their final papers, describing how they had tried to enhance their lives toward, in Kashdan’s words, “a specific, personally meaningful positive outcome” during the semester. There was no final exam; the students’ grades were based in large part on the paper and class participation.
In an era when psychology is seeking to become a hard science of M.R.I.’s and evidence-based therapies, when, as Seligman says, “if it doesn’t plug into the wall, it’s not science,” positive psychology can seem like a retro endeavor with the appeal of a cure that fits on a recipe card. While this may make it particularly adaptable for use in the classroom, critics are often most disturbed by what they perceive as its prescriptive nature. “There is way too little evidence of stable, long-term benefits — and lack of harm — to justify large-scale incorporation of positive psychology programs into schools,” Julie Norem, chairwoman of the psychology department at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, said in an e-mail message. “It pays scant attention to individual differences.” For all that the open, 1960s-style classroom has fallen out of favor, it allowed a child to find his or her own way. In the words of the founder of the famous Summerhill school in England, a child should be free “to live his own life — not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the educator who thinks he knows best.” Children were treated as unique, which you might think would result in a more capable, independent adults. By comparison, positive psychology can seem as if it is laying out a road and asking the adherent to follow. “If I could wave my magic wand, there would be no positive psychology — there would be positive psychologists,” says Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, whose own work in the science of affective forecasting suggests that what we think will make us happy rarely does, or at least not for long. “I guess I just wish it didn’t look so much like a religion.”
Indeed, the sectlike feel of positive psychology can be hard to shake off when watching classes like Kashdan’s or even when reviewing the record of the field’s beginnings. When Seligman was first trying to establish the discipline, he and his colleagues invited 25 young psychologists to the Yucatán to discuss the positive side of life. They snorkeled and talked philosophy and then swam some more. They summarized their work and listened to others’ reactions. One evening, the group devoted itself to poetry and song. Seligman recited Ezra Pound’s “Immorality”; a colleague named Sonja Lyubomirsky read some of Prospero’s speeches from “The Tempest.” Seligman’s daughter Lara — Seligman educates his five younger children in part by traveling with them — recited a Delmore Schwartz poem, “I Am Cherry Alive.”
The talk under the palapas was not just about happiness but also about engagement. Participants contrasted the “hedonic treadmill” with “the meaningful life.” To find the qualities that gave life purpose, the team examined Western religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism and Bushido as well as the mores of 70 nations. Over time, positive psychologists, led by Christopher Peterson, settled on 24 virtues — or character strengths, as they prefer to call them — including courage, modesty, spirituality and leadership. “The agenda comes from the world,” Seligman told me. “These are universals we’re after.”
The search for what unites humans in virtue was an ambitious effort to integrate psychology with those fields that have long sat alongside it: ethics, religion, philosophy. Before the retreat in Mexico, Seligman met with one of his former professors, the Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick. His book “The Examined Life,” written late in his career, looked at how questions of value might be related to everyday experience. It was Nozick who suggested a “taxonomy of character,” by which he meant, as Seligman put it, a list of “those abiding moral traits that everyone values.” Lyubomirsky remembers that many of the young scientists were uncomfortable doing so. “There was a lot of debate about it,” she said. “We were trained as hard scientists.” Seligman wasn’t so sure himself that he wanted virtue to be part of positive psychology either: he was wary of science becoming prescriptive, but Csikszentmihalyi was enthusiastic, Seligman recalled, and in the end Seligman agreed.
Two criticisms as troubling as the problem of positive psychology’s religiosity are 1) that it is not new — psychology always cared about happiness and 2) that the publicity about the field has gotten ahead of the science, which may be no good anyway. True, there have been attempts to marry psychology to ethics, to enlist it in the service of decoding what it means to be fully human, throughout its history. In the 1950s and ’60s, for instance, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, among others, established humanistic psychology to focus on what gave meaning to life, looking at the very subjects positive psychologists now take as their own. But where Maslow and Rogers relied primarily on qualitative research for their theories, Seligman and his colleagues hope to establish positive psychology — and thus the nature of happiness itself — on firmer scientific ground. The idea that whatever science there is may not yet be first-class troubles Seligman, too. “I have the same worry they do. That’s what I do at 4 in the morning,” he says.
When Todd Kashdan asked his students at George Mason to tell him which they liked better, experiencing pleasure or doing good, he cautioned, “Don’t give me the Miss Universe answers.” But when I met the participants in the nation’s only master’s program in applied positive psychology, at the University of Pennsylvania, I felt the spirit of Gandhi was hovering over us. One woman wrote in her application essay, “My strange and energetic career has included activism for peace and justice; teaching safety and self-defense skills to 10,000 students.” She was also a founder of two nonprofit organizations and taught “Swedish massage and stress-reduction skills.” Another sold her Mercedes and was using her savings to pay for the course. A third left banking to find the meaning in life.
There were, in all, about 30 students in the master’s class at Penn on the Saturday in September I attended. MAPP, as the program is known, is organized around intensive days of class time, online work and conference calls. Seligman, who runs the program, says that he likes to invite others to lecture so he can learn what’s going on in the field, and so that day Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina was presenting her “broaden and build” theory, while Seligman sat at a little table nodding and taking notes. “It’s a neat design that allows humans and other organisms to grow and become more resourceful versions of themselves,” she told the class.
The first part of her theory stems from a series of experiments that she published in 2005 in which five groups of 20 people each watched short film clips. The clips were meant to elicit negative, positive or neutral emotions. The participants were given a sheet ruled with 20 blank lines and asked to write down what they were feeling. Those who had just had positive emotions induced were able to provide more ideas about what their responses would be than those with either negative or neutral ones.
For Fredrickson, this was evidence that positive emotions lead to broader thinking. The participants were also tested for what is called global-local-visual processing. When asked to look at a design on a computer of three squares arranged in a triangle, those who had watched happy-making film clips tended to see the broader pattern — i.e. the triangular pattern — while the angrier subjects saw only the squares. (The neutral ones saw some of each.)
This was only the first part of Fredrickson’s theory. But it could be that thinking broadly has no effect on happiness or well-being — it might even be a deficit. To show that broadening led to building, she then described an experiment she had undertaken on a group of employees at Compuware, a progressive information-technology firm in Detroit. With the company’s assistance, she followed two groups — one that was taught a loving-kindness meditation (a meditation in which the practitioner repeats phrases that cultivate a caring attitude toward all life) and one that was wait-listed for the meditation. After eight weeks, she compared the two groups’ responses to questions about well-being. Those who meditated reported higher mental resources than before; their mindfulness, freedom from illness and connectedness to others all increased. But interestingly, their sense of well-being hadn’t, at least not immediately. It dropped at first. “It’s like you started a gym membership and then you realize you have to go,” Fredrickson theorized. But once their sense of well-being increased, they retained their edge over those who only wanted to meditate even after the meditation program was over.
All this interested Seligman’s students, but what Fredrickson says always catches their attention most is a study Fredrickson did with a Brazilian workplace psychologist named Marcia Losada, who observed annual strategic-review meetings of employees through one-way mirrors. The data she collected showed that the most effective teams — the criteria were customer satisfaction, profitability and internal review — were the ones who had more positive meetings. There was even a number that corresponded to the minimum amount of positive to negative feedback necessary to encourage successful functioning. That number, Fredrickson told the class, was three positive comments to one negative comment. “The ratio lady,” one student called her.
With its emphasis on universals and practical applications, positive psychology fits these divided times: it preaches values without linking them to a particular value system and embraces spirituality without making you go to church. When positive psychology was introduced into the language-arts program at Strath Haven High School outside Philadelphia in 2003, the left-leaning parents welcomed it because the values were internationally accepted; all but the most conservative ones were reassured that there were values at all.
Seligman recently held a meeting with the leaders from the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, the Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pa., the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx and the KIPP program, a national network of public charter schools, at which the educational leaders discussed introducing positive psychology into their schools. They are all looking to restore “wholeness” to the teenage years, to replace the supposed sense of certainty that the ’60s removed and that returned in the ’80s as a national political objective but that teachers are now too bogged down in the fundamentals to teach and adults, working longer and longer hours, are simply too busy to shore up at home. A follow-up meeting is scheduled for June, this time with a dozen schools; one item on the agenda is to add personal strengths and virtues to admissions criteria. (Educational Testing Service is exploring a test that students wouldn’t be able to fake.) “What this is about is building character,” Seligman says.
Currently, the biggest project on positive psychology’s drawing board is at the Geelong School. “As a school, we would like to know how to make all students more resilient, how to turn depressing thoughts into positive ones,” Charles Scudamore, the head of the project at what Seligman calls “Australia’s Eton,” wrote in an e-mail message. That there is a need for a curriculum to promote engagement and happiness among teenagers is obvious, and Geelong is the first school to give positive psychologists a chance to show that they can really change teaching. According to Scudamore, “When we adopt a positive-psychology approach, it will be seen and practiced in all that we do.” The Australians “have had a lot of depression in kids, that’s half the reason they want it,” said Ed Diener, the professor of psychology at the University of Illinois.
What the psychologists have in mind for Geelong is very much the sort of intervention Kashdan was teaching at George Mason. The draft proposal by which they secured Geelong’s support included gratitude exercises, exercises in the “three pathways of happiness,” “the four ways to promote savoring” and “the five ways to overcome” adversity. To teach savoring, the teacher would explain mindfulness and show the students how to taste their food more thoroughly and then instruct them to try “savoring with a friend.” The students would have journals to record their emotions, their “grudges and gratitudes.” They would mentor a younger student too. Scudamore says he hopes that even the teachers will feel “their well-being” and their teaching skills enhanced. Seligman and his family are scheduled to make a six-month visit. An American-trained positive-psychology instructor will be in residence to provide training and real-time feedback.
This endeavor outstrips the ongoing Strath Haven experiment. The effort there, financed by a $2.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, is limited to the ninth-grade language-arts program. At the school last year, the positive psychologists interwove their teachings with the literature classes. The idea was to buffer the lessons from bleak books like “Lord of the Flies” and “Romeo and Juliet” with some reassuring thoughts — or at least a more positive framework for understanding human behavior than the classics offer. Thus, according to Mark Linkins, now coordinator of the Swarthmore school district’s curriculum, who helped teach the classes, the animalistic and murderous Jack in “Lord of the Flies” shows “what happens when someone is lacking in signature strengths.” And when reading “The Odyssey,” students were asked: “What are the signature strengths that Odysseus lived and breathed? What are the things he might have improved on to make things go better?” It is too soon to know the effect of these stratagems on the school’s students, since part of the protocol agreed to with the Department of Education requires that they be followed for four years. The results will be compared with a control group that received the standard curriculum. (For his part, Seligman home-schools the children he had with his second wife. He says he likes to balance the standard high-school fare he gives the older ones with “books in which notions of virtue and nobility do not end in humiliation and death,” like Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End.”)
Not all positive psychologists are sure educational interventions are a good idea. Lyubormisky, for instance, turned down a similar request from the Compton school system in California. “I did not think the science was ready to be applied in that big a way,” she told me. Linkins acknowledges that happiness may come at the cost of a full understanding of literature and human complexity. But, he said, “it’s preferable to be happy than not, even if that means the potential for creative output is diminished.”
The question is, Can positive psychology actually fulfill its promise of making people happier? If positive emotions widen the sphere of what it is to be human, as positive psychology asserts, then positive psychology, at least as it is taught in the classroom, can seem to narrow it. If you are not optimistic, fake it. If you do not have friends, make some. I wondered what sort of student positive psychology would create. Was he or she more likely to be a future Nobel Peace Prize winner or J. P. (Gus) Godsey, the Virginia Beach stockbroker, dad and Craftsmen-tool enthusiast whom USA Weekend Magazine declared in 2003 “the happiest person in America” (“You are a blessed, happy person, Gus,” Martin Seligman commented in the article. “You’ve created many of your blessings on your own.”)
When I e-mailed various graduates of Penn’s first master’s class, I found that they continued to take positive psychology’s emphasis on the engaged life very seriously. One woman was using positive psychology to teach first-year medical students better patient-communication skills, citing Fredrickson’s optimal flourishing ratio as a benchmark. John Yeager, who has a doctorate in education and runs the Center for Character Excellence at the Culver Academies, a boarding school in Indiana, wants to “help teachers ‘broaden and build’ character strengths and positive emotions in children, young adults and themselves.”
Of course the master’s students were a self-selected group, willing to pay almost $40,000 for a degree with no clear career track. The students at George Mason, though they, too, had chosen the course, were perhaps more relevant to the question of what positive psychology can really teach. There I found a mixed response. They seemed remarkably sure that they had undergone an important experience but less sure what the nature of that experience had been. Had they saved the world or themselves? I spoke to Brandon Rasmussen, an easygoing student who seemed to me like a surfer dude washed up on some New Age shore. The class had energized him, and he had been a vigorous participant — earning an A. His final paper was about learning to really be with his friends, going into flow with them, something he had long had difficulty doing. “My personal satisfaction is the personal measure for me, and my personal satisfaction is great,” he explained. “I hate to say this, but really in the scheme of things we’re not going to change the war in Iraq.” Then he paused and thought how that sounded. “We can only fix the world one person at a time.”
D.T. Max is a frequent contributor to the magazine. His most recent book is “The Family That Couldn’t Sleep,” a scientific and cultural history of fatal familial insomnia, mad cow and other prion diseases.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Happy Like God By Simon Critchley
What is happiness? How does one get a grip on this most elusive, intractable and perhaps unanswerable of questions?
I teach philosophy for a living, so let me begin with a philosophical answer. For the philosophers of Antiquity, notably Aristotle, it was assumed that the goal of the philosophical life — the good life, moreover — was happiness and that the latter could be defined as the bios theoretikos, the solitary life of contemplation. Today, few people would seem to subscribe to this view. Our lives are filled with the endless distractions of cell phones, car alarms, commuter woes and the traffic in Bangalore. The rhythm of modern life is punctuated by beeps, bleeps and a generalized attention deficit disorder.
But is the idea of happiness as an experience of contemplation really so ridiculous? Might there not be something in it? I am reminded of the following extraordinary passage from Rousseau’s final book and his third (count them — he still beats Obama 3-to-2) autobiography, “Reveries of a Solitary Walker”:
If there is a state where the soul can find a resting-place secure enough to establish itself and concentrate its entire being there, with no need to remember the past or reach into the future, where time is nothing to it, where the present runs on indefinitely but this duration goes unnoticed, with no sign of the passing of time, and no other feeling of deprivation or enjoyment, pleasure or pain, desire or fear than the simple feeling of existence, a feeling that fills our soul entirely, as long as this state lasts, we can call ourselves happy, not with a poor, incomplete and relative happiness such as we find in the pleasures of life, but with a sufficient, complete and perfect happiness which leaves no emptiness to be filled in the soul. (emphases mine)
This is as close to a description of happiness as I can imagine. Rousseau is describing the experience of floating in a little rowing boat on the Lake of Bienne close to Neuchâtel in his native Switzerland. He particularly loved visiting the Île Saint Pierre, where he used to enjoy going for exploratory walks when the weather was fine and he could indulge in the great passion of his last years: botany. He would walk with a copy of Linneaus under his arm, happily identifying plants in areas of the deserted island that he had divided for this purpose into small squares.
On the way to the island, he would pull in the oars and just let the boat drift where it wished, for hours at a time. Rousseau would lie down in the boat and plunge into a deep reverie. How does one describe the experience of reverie: one is awake, but half asleep, thinking, but not in an instrumental, calculative or ordered way, simply letting the thoughts happen, as they will.
Happiness is not quantitative or measurable and it is not the object of any science, old or new. It cannot be gleaned from empirical surveys or programmed into individuals through a combination of behavioral therapy and anti-depressants. If it consists in anything, then I think that happiness is this feeling of existence, this sentiment of momentary self-sufficiency that is bound up with the experience of time
Look at what Rousseau writes above: floating in a boat in fine weather, lying down with one’s eyes open to the clouds and birds or closed in reverie, one feels neither the pull of the past nor does one reach into the future. Time is nothing, or rather time is nothing but the experience of the present through which one passes without hurry, but without regret. As Wittgenstein writes in what must be the most intriguing remark in the “Tractatus,” “the eternal life is given to those who live in the present.” Or ,as Whitman writes in “Leaves of Grass”: “Happiness is not in another place, but in this place…not for another hour…but this hour.”
Rousseau asks, “What is the source of our happiness in such a state?” He answers that it is nothing external to us and nothing apart from our own existence. However frenetic our environment, such a feeling of existence can be achieved. He then goes on, amazingly, to conclude, “as long as this state lasts we are self-sufficient like God.”
God-like, then. To which one might reply: Who? Me? Us? Like God? Dare we? But think about it: If anyone is happy, then one imagines that God is pretty happy, and to be happy is to be like God. But consider what this means, for it might not be as ludicrous, hybristic or heretical as one might imagine. To be like God is to be without time, or rather in time with no concern for time, free of the passions and troubles of the soul, experiencing something like calm in the face of things and of oneself.
Why should happiness be bound up with the presence and movement of water? This is the case for Rousseau and I must confess that if I think back over those experiences of blissful reverie that are close to what Rousseau is describing then it is often in proximity to water, although usually saltwater rather than fresh. For me, it is not so much the stillness of a lake (I tend to see lakes as decaffeinated seas), but rather the never-ending drone of the surf, sitting by the sea in fair weather or foul and feeling time disappear into tide, into the endless pendulum of the tidal range. At moments like this, one can sink into deep reverie, a motionlessness that is not sleep, but where one is somehow held by the sound of the surf, lulled by the tidal movement.
Is all happiness solitary? Of course not. But one can be happy alone and this might even be the key to being happy with others. Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud when walking with his sister. However, I think that one can also experience this feeling of existence in the experience of love, in being intimate with one’s lover, feeling the world close around one and time slips away in its passing. Rousseau’s rowing boat becomes the lovers’ bed and one bids the world farewell as one slides into the shared selfishness of intimacy.
…And then it is over. Time passes, the reverie ends and the feeling for existence fades. The cell phone rings, the e-mail beeps and one is sucked back into the world’s relentless hum and our accompanying anxiety.
Simon Critchley is chair of philosophy at the New School for Social Research and the author of several books, including his most recent, “The Book of Dead Philosophers
I teach philosophy for a living, so let me begin with a philosophical answer. For the philosophers of Antiquity, notably Aristotle, it was assumed that the goal of the philosophical life — the good life, moreover — was happiness and that the latter could be defined as the bios theoretikos, the solitary life of contemplation. Today, few people would seem to subscribe to this view. Our lives are filled with the endless distractions of cell phones, car alarms, commuter woes and the traffic in Bangalore. The rhythm of modern life is punctuated by beeps, bleeps and a generalized attention deficit disorder.
But is the idea of happiness as an experience of contemplation really so ridiculous? Might there not be something in it? I am reminded of the following extraordinary passage from Rousseau’s final book and his third (count them — he still beats Obama 3-to-2) autobiography, “Reveries of a Solitary Walker”:
If there is a state where the soul can find a resting-place secure enough to establish itself and concentrate its entire being there, with no need to remember the past or reach into the future, where time is nothing to it, where the present runs on indefinitely but this duration goes unnoticed, with no sign of the passing of time, and no other feeling of deprivation or enjoyment, pleasure or pain, desire or fear than the simple feeling of existence, a feeling that fills our soul entirely, as long as this state lasts, we can call ourselves happy, not with a poor, incomplete and relative happiness such as we find in the pleasures of life, but with a sufficient, complete and perfect happiness which leaves no emptiness to be filled in the soul. (emphases mine)
This is as close to a description of happiness as I can imagine. Rousseau is describing the experience of floating in a little rowing boat on the Lake of Bienne close to Neuchâtel in his native Switzerland. He particularly loved visiting the Île Saint Pierre, where he used to enjoy going for exploratory walks when the weather was fine and he could indulge in the great passion of his last years: botany. He would walk with a copy of Linneaus under his arm, happily identifying plants in areas of the deserted island that he had divided for this purpose into small squares.
On the way to the island, he would pull in the oars and just let the boat drift where it wished, for hours at a time. Rousseau would lie down in the boat and plunge into a deep reverie. How does one describe the experience of reverie: one is awake, but half asleep, thinking, but not in an instrumental, calculative or ordered way, simply letting the thoughts happen, as they will.
Happiness is not quantitative or measurable and it is not the object of any science, old or new. It cannot be gleaned from empirical surveys or programmed into individuals through a combination of behavioral therapy and anti-depressants. If it consists in anything, then I think that happiness is this feeling of existence, this sentiment of momentary self-sufficiency that is bound up with the experience of time
Look at what Rousseau writes above: floating in a boat in fine weather, lying down with one’s eyes open to the clouds and birds or closed in reverie, one feels neither the pull of the past nor does one reach into the future. Time is nothing, or rather time is nothing but the experience of the present through which one passes without hurry, but without regret. As Wittgenstein writes in what must be the most intriguing remark in the “Tractatus,” “the eternal life is given to those who live in the present.” Or ,as Whitman writes in “Leaves of Grass”: “Happiness is not in another place, but in this place…not for another hour…but this hour.”
Rousseau asks, “What is the source of our happiness in such a state?” He answers that it is nothing external to us and nothing apart from our own existence. However frenetic our environment, such a feeling of existence can be achieved. He then goes on, amazingly, to conclude, “as long as this state lasts we are self-sufficient like God.”
God-like, then. To which one might reply: Who? Me? Us? Like God? Dare we? But think about it: If anyone is happy, then one imagines that God is pretty happy, and to be happy is to be like God. But consider what this means, for it might not be as ludicrous, hybristic or heretical as one might imagine. To be like God is to be without time, or rather in time with no concern for time, free of the passions and troubles of the soul, experiencing something like calm in the face of things and of oneself.
Why should happiness be bound up with the presence and movement of water? This is the case for Rousseau and I must confess that if I think back over those experiences of blissful reverie that are close to what Rousseau is describing then it is often in proximity to water, although usually saltwater rather than fresh. For me, it is not so much the stillness of a lake (I tend to see lakes as decaffeinated seas), but rather the never-ending drone of the surf, sitting by the sea in fair weather or foul and feeling time disappear into tide, into the endless pendulum of the tidal range. At moments like this, one can sink into deep reverie, a motionlessness that is not sleep, but where one is somehow held by the sound of the surf, lulled by the tidal movement.
Is all happiness solitary? Of course not. But one can be happy alone and this might even be the key to being happy with others. Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud when walking with his sister. However, I think that one can also experience this feeling of existence in the experience of love, in being intimate with one’s lover, feeling the world close around one and time slips away in its passing. Rousseau’s rowing boat becomes the lovers’ bed and one bids the world farewell as one slides into the shared selfishness of intimacy.
…And then it is over. Time passes, the reverie ends and the feeling for existence fades. The cell phone rings, the e-mail beeps and one is sucked back into the world’s relentless hum and our accompanying anxiety.
Simon Critchley is chair of philosophy at the New School for Social Research and the author of several books, including his most recent, “The Book of Dead Philosophers
pm What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous By Daniel Gilbert
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Seventy-six years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took to the inaugural dais and reminded a nation that its recent troubles “concern, thank God, only material things.” In the midst of the Depression, he urged Americans to remember that “happiness lies not in the mere possession of money” and to recognize “the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success.”
“The only thing we have to fear,” he claimed, “is fear itself.”
As it turned out, Americans had a great deal more to fear than that, and their innocent belief that money buys happiness was entirely correct. Psychologists and economists now know that although the very rich are no happier than the merely rich, for the other 99 percent of us, happiness is greatly enhanced by a few quaint assets, like shelter, sustenance and security. Those who think the material is immaterial have probably never stood in a breadline.
Money matters and today most of us have less of it, so no one will be surprised by new survey results from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index showing that Americans are smiling less and worrying more than they were a year ago, that happiness is down and sadness is up, that we are getting less sleep and smoking more cigarettes, that depression is on the rise.
An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.
But light wallets are not the cause of our heavy hearts. After all, most of us still have more inflation-adjusted dollars than our grandparents had, and they didn’t live in an unremitting funk. Middle-class Americans still enjoy more luxury than upper-class Americans enjoyed a century earlier, and the fin de siècle was not an especially gloomy time. Clearly, people can be perfectly happy with less than we had last year and less than we have now.
So if a dearth of dollars isn’t making us miserable, then what is? No one knows. I don’t mean that no one knows the answer to this question. I mean that the answer to this question is that no one knows — and not knowing is making us sick.
Consider an experiment by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who gave subjects a series of 20 electric shocks. Some subjects knew they would receive an intense shock on every trial. Others knew they would receive 17 mild shocks and 3 intense shocks, but they didn’t know on which of the 20 trials the intense shocks would come. The results showed that subjects who thought there was a small chance of receiving an intense shock were more afraid — they sweated more profusely, their hearts beat faster — than subjects who knew for sure that they’d receive an intense shock.
That’s because people feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur. Most of us aren’t losing sleep and sucking down Marlboros because the Dow is going to fall another thousand points, but because we don’t know whether it will fall or not — and human beings find uncertainty more painful than the things they’re uncertain about.
But why?
A colostomy reroutes the colon so that waste products leave the body through a hole in the abdomen, and it isn’t anyone’s idea of a picnic. A University of Michigan-led research team studied patients whose colostomies were permanent and patients who had a chance of someday having their colostomies reversed. Six months after their operations, patients who knew they would be permanently disabled were happier than those who thought they might someday be returned to normal.
Similarly, researchers at the University of British Columbia studied people who had undergone genetic testing to determine their risk for developing the neurodegenerative disorder known as Huntington’s disease. Those who learned that they had a very high likelihood of developing the condition were happier a year after testing than those who did not learn what their risk was.
Why would we prefer to know the worst than to suspect it? Because when we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our attitudes. We raise our consciousness and lower our standards. We find our bootstraps and tug. But we can’t come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don’t yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.
Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty. Americans have been perfectly happy with far less wealth than most of us have now, and we could quickly become those Americans again — if only we knew we had to.
“The only thing we have to fear,” he claimed, “is fear itself.”
As it turned out, Americans had a great deal more to fear than that, and their innocent belief that money buys happiness was entirely correct. Psychologists and economists now know that although the very rich are no happier than the merely rich, for the other 99 percent of us, happiness is greatly enhanced by a few quaint assets, like shelter, sustenance and security. Those who think the material is immaterial have probably never stood in a breadline.
Money matters and today most of us have less of it, so no one will be surprised by new survey results from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index showing that Americans are smiling less and worrying more than they were a year ago, that happiness is down and sadness is up, that we are getting less sleep and smoking more cigarettes, that depression is on the rise.
An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.
But light wallets are not the cause of our heavy hearts. After all, most of us still have more inflation-adjusted dollars than our grandparents had, and they didn’t live in an unremitting funk. Middle-class Americans still enjoy more luxury than upper-class Americans enjoyed a century earlier, and the fin de siècle was not an especially gloomy time. Clearly, people can be perfectly happy with less than we had last year and less than we have now.
So if a dearth of dollars isn’t making us miserable, then what is? No one knows. I don’t mean that no one knows the answer to this question. I mean that the answer to this question is that no one knows — and not knowing is making us sick.
Consider an experiment by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who gave subjects a series of 20 electric shocks. Some subjects knew they would receive an intense shock on every trial. Others knew they would receive 17 mild shocks and 3 intense shocks, but they didn’t know on which of the 20 trials the intense shocks would come. The results showed that subjects who thought there was a small chance of receiving an intense shock were more afraid — they sweated more profusely, their hearts beat faster — than subjects who knew for sure that they’d receive an intense shock.
That’s because people feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur. Most of us aren’t losing sleep and sucking down Marlboros because the Dow is going to fall another thousand points, but because we don’t know whether it will fall or not — and human beings find uncertainty more painful than the things they’re uncertain about.
But why?
A colostomy reroutes the colon so that waste products leave the body through a hole in the abdomen, and it isn’t anyone’s idea of a picnic. A University of Michigan-led research team studied patients whose colostomies were permanent and patients who had a chance of someday having their colostomies reversed. Six months after their operations, patients who knew they would be permanently disabled were happier than those who thought they might someday be returned to normal.
Similarly, researchers at the University of British Columbia studied people who had undergone genetic testing to determine their risk for developing the neurodegenerative disorder known as Huntington’s disease. Those who learned that they had a very high likelihood of developing the condition were happier a year after testing than those who did not learn what their risk was.
Why would we prefer to know the worst than to suspect it? Because when we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our attitudes. We raise our consciousness and lower our standards. We find our bootstraps and tug. But we can’t come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don’t yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.
Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty. Americans have been perfectly happy with far less wealth than most of us have now, and we could quickly become those Americans again — if only we knew we had to.
The Limits of Control
By Leonard Mlodinow
My mother had always feared domestic animals, but now as a plump neighborhood cat ran up our driveway, she gazed at the feline, and revealed that 70 years ago she had had a pet cat. Her 87-year-old eyes teared up. Her cat was white, she said, and so thin you could see its ribs. Still, she loved to cuddle it. It wasn’t a house cat – it couldn’t have been, because she was imprisoned at the time, in a forced-labor camp the Nazis set up in Poland, the country where my mother was born and raised. Back then she was as emaciated as the cat, but still she shared her food with it. It gave her comfort she said, and it was a way of fighting back, to help this animal that, like her, the Germans planned to let die.
The need for control can inspire great achievements, such as dams, medicines and chocolate soufflés, but it can also lead to sub-optimal behavior
The psychologist Bruno Bettelheim concluded that survival in Nazi concentration camps depended on “one’s ability to arrange to preserve some areas of independent action, to keep control of some important aspects of one’s life despite an environment that seemed overwhelming.” Studies suggest that, even in normal conditions, to be happy, humans must feel in control. We are currently confronting economic hardship that, though a far cry from the horrors of World War II, has eroded the feeling of self-determination for many of us.
Eliminate control, and people experience depression, stress and the onset of disease. In a study of elderly nursing home patients[1] , one group was told they could decide how their room would be arranged, and could choose a plant to care for. Another group had their rooms set up for them and a plant chosen and tended to for them. Eighteen months later 15 percent of the patients in the group given control had died, compared with 30 percent in the passive group.
The need for control can inspire great achievements, such as dams that prevent flooding, medicines to ease our lives, and perfectly confected chocolate soufflés. But it can also lead to sub-optimal behavior. Though people generally view “control freaks” in a negative light, that need makes us all vulnerable to making bad decisions – especially when it comes to money. Studies show that people feel more confident they’ll win at dice if they toss the dice themselves than if others toss them [2], and that they are likely to bet more money if they make their wager before the dice are tossed than afterward (where the outcome has been concealed)[3]. They’ll value a lottery ticket more if they can choose it than if it is given to them at random[4]. And in a well-known 1975 study in which Yale University students were asked to predict the results of coin tosses, a significant number of presumably intelligent Yalies believed their performance could improve through practice, and would have been hampered if they’d been distracted.[5] In each of these situations, the subjects knew that the enterprises in which they were engaged were unpredictable and beyond their control. When questioned, for example, none of the lottery players said they believed that being allowed to choose their card influenced their probability of winning. Yet on a deep, subconscious level they must have felt it did, because they behaved as if it did.
That people are prone toward feeling in control even when they are not probably endowed our species with an advantage at some point in our evolution. Even today, a false sense of control can be beneficial in promoting a sense of well-being, or allowing us to maintain hope that a bad situation can improved.
My mother’s illusion came to an end when, one day, her labor camp cat stopped coming. She never learned exactly what happened to it. Unfortunately, that became a template for nameless outcomes by which her sister, her father, and most of her friends disappeared. Of her many illusions of youth that the Nazis snuffed out, the feeling that she could control her destiny was one of the most difficult to accept. But for my mother, and for all those who lived through similar experiences, surviving meant not only possessing a special toughness of body, but also of mind. She found a way to face the world without the illusion of control, of dealing with life as it comes, day to day, without expectation.
On a far different scale, we face losses today. To economists our plight is a “severe downturn,” but to me it feels like a roller coaster ride in which I discover, first, that I have no seat belt, and then, that the concession operator is Norman Bates. Given my jitters, it is a comfort to know that my mother survived a far worse experience and yet maintained the capacity to be happy when, for instance, her grandchildren hug her, or she discovers a tasty new sugar-free dessert. But more important is what I’ve learned from the fact that the current events don’t seem to bother her.
It’s not that my mother hasn’t lost money, or that she doesn’t need it. She isn’t bothered because her early experiences of utter powerlessness taught her to give herself up to what she calls fate. Understanding my own need for control – and exactly why I cannot have it – I now take comfort in letting go of the illusion, and accepting that despite all my efforts and planning some aspects of my future are beyond my sphere of influence. That realization has given me permission not to kick myself for the losses I have incurred. That can be a liberating thought in trying times like these, or any times at all.
For the curious reader, here are the studies referred to above:
[1] Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin (1977). Long-Term Effects of a Control-Relevant Intervention With the Instituitonalized Aged. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35, 12, 897-902)
[2] Dunn, D. S., & Wilson, T. D. (1990). When the stakes are high: A limit to the illusion of control effect. Social Cognition, 8, 305–323
[3] L.H. Strickland, R.J. Lewicki, and A.M. Katz (1966). Temporal orientation and perceived control as determinants of risk-taking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 143-151.
[4]Ellen J. Langer (1975),The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32, 2, 311-328.
[5] Langer, E. J. & Roth, J. (1975). Heads I win, tails it’s chance: The illusion of control as a function of the sequence of outcomes in a purely chance task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, 191-198
Leonard Mlodinow teaches randomness to future experimenters at Caltech. His books include “The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives” and “Euclid’s Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace.” More of his writing and information about his work can be found at his Web site.
My mother had always feared domestic animals, but now as a plump neighborhood cat ran up our driveway, she gazed at the feline, and revealed that 70 years ago she had had a pet cat. Her 87-year-old eyes teared up. Her cat was white, she said, and so thin you could see its ribs. Still, she loved to cuddle it. It wasn’t a house cat – it couldn’t have been, because she was imprisoned at the time, in a forced-labor camp the Nazis set up in Poland, the country where my mother was born and raised. Back then she was as emaciated as the cat, but still she shared her food with it. It gave her comfort she said, and it was a way of fighting back, to help this animal that, like her, the Germans planned to let die.
The need for control can inspire great achievements, such as dams, medicines and chocolate soufflés, but it can also lead to sub-optimal behavior
The psychologist Bruno Bettelheim concluded that survival in Nazi concentration camps depended on “one’s ability to arrange to preserve some areas of independent action, to keep control of some important aspects of one’s life despite an environment that seemed overwhelming.” Studies suggest that, even in normal conditions, to be happy, humans must feel in control. We are currently confronting economic hardship that, though a far cry from the horrors of World War II, has eroded the feeling of self-determination for many of us.
Eliminate control, and people experience depression, stress and the onset of disease. In a study of elderly nursing home patients[1] , one group was told they could decide how their room would be arranged, and could choose a plant to care for. Another group had their rooms set up for them and a plant chosen and tended to for them. Eighteen months later 15 percent of the patients in the group given control had died, compared with 30 percent in the passive group.
The need for control can inspire great achievements, such as dams that prevent flooding, medicines to ease our lives, and perfectly confected chocolate soufflés. But it can also lead to sub-optimal behavior. Though people generally view “control freaks” in a negative light, that need makes us all vulnerable to making bad decisions – especially when it comes to money. Studies show that people feel more confident they’ll win at dice if they toss the dice themselves than if others toss them [2], and that they are likely to bet more money if they make their wager before the dice are tossed than afterward (where the outcome has been concealed)[3]. They’ll value a lottery ticket more if they can choose it than if it is given to them at random[4]. And in a well-known 1975 study in which Yale University students were asked to predict the results of coin tosses, a significant number of presumably intelligent Yalies believed their performance could improve through practice, and would have been hampered if they’d been distracted.[5] In each of these situations, the subjects knew that the enterprises in which they were engaged were unpredictable and beyond their control. When questioned, for example, none of the lottery players said they believed that being allowed to choose their card influenced their probability of winning. Yet on a deep, subconscious level they must have felt it did, because they behaved as if it did.
That people are prone toward feeling in control even when they are not probably endowed our species with an advantage at some point in our evolution. Even today, a false sense of control can be beneficial in promoting a sense of well-being, or allowing us to maintain hope that a bad situation can improved.
My mother’s illusion came to an end when, one day, her labor camp cat stopped coming. She never learned exactly what happened to it. Unfortunately, that became a template for nameless outcomes by which her sister, her father, and most of her friends disappeared. Of her many illusions of youth that the Nazis snuffed out, the feeling that she could control her destiny was one of the most difficult to accept. But for my mother, and for all those who lived through similar experiences, surviving meant not only possessing a special toughness of body, but also of mind. She found a way to face the world without the illusion of control, of dealing with life as it comes, day to day, without expectation.
On a far different scale, we face losses today. To economists our plight is a “severe downturn,” but to me it feels like a roller coaster ride in which I discover, first, that I have no seat belt, and then, that the concession operator is Norman Bates. Given my jitters, it is a comfort to know that my mother survived a far worse experience and yet maintained the capacity to be happy when, for instance, her grandchildren hug her, or she discovers a tasty new sugar-free dessert. But more important is what I’ve learned from the fact that the current events don’t seem to bother her.
It’s not that my mother hasn’t lost money, or that she doesn’t need it. She isn’t bothered because her early experiences of utter powerlessness taught her to give herself up to what she calls fate. Understanding my own need for control – and exactly why I cannot have it – I now take comfort in letting go of the illusion, and accepting that despite all my efforts and planning some aspects of my future are beyond my sphere of influence. That realization has given me permission not to kick myself for the losses I have incurred. That can be a liberating thought in trying times like these, or any times at all.
For the curious reader, here are the studies referred to above:
[1] Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin (1977). Long-Term Effects of a Control-Relevant Intervention With the Instituitonalized Aged. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35, 12, 897-902)
[2] Dunn, D. S., & Wilson, T. D. (1990). When the stakes are high: A limit to the illusion of control effect. Social Cognition, 8, 305–323
[3] L.H. Strickland, R.J. Lewicki, and A.M. Katz (1966). Temporal orientation and perceived control as determinants of risk-taking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 143-151.
[4]Ellen J. Langer (1975),The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32, 2, 311-328.
[5] Langer, E. J. & Roth, J. (1975). Heads I win, tails it’s chance: The illusion of control as a function of the sequence of outcomes in a purely chance task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, 191-198
Leonard Mlodinow teaches randomness to future experimenters at Caltech. His books include “The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives” and “Euclid’s Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace.” More of his writing and information about his work can be found at his Web site.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Feeling Depressed.....go fly a kite!!
Did you know that it is physiologically impossible for depressed people to fly kites?
I just watched a video by a psychologist and therapist Dr. Lynn Ianni where she says that it is almost impossible for us to look up and feel depressed at the same time.
Kite flying gets you out doors and forces you to LOOK UP. Depressed people find it hard to look up and therefore find it hard to fly kites!
Could kite flying be used to alleviate sadness?
Ever notice how depressed people walk? Their eyes are cast down, shoulders slouched and movement slow and weak. Whereas when you fly kites you have to look up, run after the kite and pull and tug at the string with the right amount of pressure and awareness. The body language of a kite flyer is exactly the opposite of a depressed person.
Often we hear the term- “Mind over Matter” implying our minds control over our body and its actions. Could our bodies be used in such a way that it could control our mind?
Our brain does not know the difference between real or fake movement. When we fake a smile, the same hormones are released that would be released when we genuinely smile, similarly when we look up, the brain understands it to be a positive movement and all the feelings associated with positivity can be felt in our body. You cannot be sad and depressed and run around and fly kites at the same time.
So the next time you are feeling down and depressed, go buy yourself a kite, find a friend or bribe a neighbors child to go kite flying with you. Go alone if you have to.
If all fails…just imagine a beautiful bright kite flying in the air and going up, above the tallest trees, reaching for the stars. Close your eyes and visualize it in the finest detail. The colour, the shape , the material, the touch. Go into as much detail as you can and now let your kite fly soaring as high as it can. Now imagine yourself chasing it, saving it from other predatory kites and sharp surfaces.
Open your eyes and try and look for that imaginary kite. Look up in the sky and am sure you will find something to smile about.
Luv/luck/happiness
I just watched a video by a psychologist and therapist Dr. Lynn Ianni where she says that it is almost impossible for us to look up and feel depressed at the same time.
Kite flying gets you out doors and forces you to LOOK UP. Depressed people find it hard to look up and therefore find it hard to fly kites!
Could kite flying be used to alleviate sadness?
Ever notice how depressed people walk? Their eyes are cast down, shoulders slouched and movement slow and weak. Whereas when you fly kites you have to look up, run after the kite and pull and tug at the string with the right amount of pressure and awareness. The body language of a kite flyer is exactly the opposite of a depressed person.
Often we hear the term- “Mind over Matter” implying our minds control over our body and its actions. Could our bodies be used in such a way that it could control our mind?
Our brain does not know the difference between real or fake movement. When we fake a smile, the same hormones are released that would be released when we genuinely smile, similarly when we look up, the brain understands it to be a positive movement and all the feelings associated with positivity can be felt in our body. You cannot be sad and depressed and run around and fly kites at the same time.
So the next time you are feeling down and depressed, go buy yourself a kite, find a friend or bribe a neighbors child to go kite flying with you. Go alone if you have to.
If all fails…just imagine a beautiful bright kite flying in the air and going up, above the tallest trees, reaching for the stars. Close your eyes and visualize it in the finest detail. The colour, the shape , the material, the touch. Go into as much detail as you can and now let your kite fly soaring as high as it can. Now imagine yourself chasing it, saving it from other predatory kites and sharp surfaces.
Open your eyes and try and look for that imaginary kite. Look up in the sky and am sure you will find something to smile about.
Luv/luck/happiness
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Law of Attraction for Money: Five Simple Ways to Trick Your Mind Into Attracting Wealth By Andreas Ohrt
Learning how to use mind power, and learning specifically how to use mind power to attract wealth and abundance, has been a major focus for most of my life. Along the way, I've learned that using mind power works most effectively when it is done with ease and grace. You don't have to struggle to get exactly what you want in life. In fact, whenever you struggle, you push away that which you most desire.
Using mind power to change your life is more like a magic trick than anything else. You simply trick your mind into believing that you have what you want, and then your life miraculously changes to reflect your new belief. And just like a magic trick, it seems impossible until you learn the trick, and then you realize it is actually very simple.
Yes, I said very simple. The five steps which follow are designed for the complete beginner. You can start today, right now, to attract more prosperity in your life. Here are five ways to start immediately.
FIVE SIMPLE WAYS TO TRICK YOUR MIND INTO ATTRACTING WEALTH
1. Show gratitude for any money which enters your life . In order to attract money into your life, you must show gratitude for the money which is already in your life. Instead of bemoaning how little money you have, bask in gratitude at the many ways in which you are rich already. For example, if you earn more than $2,182 a year, you have more wealth than 85 per cent of the people on earth. And if you earn over $25,400 per year, you are in the top 10 per cent of wealthy people on this planet. When you focus on what you have rather than what you want, you realize that you ARE already rich. Give thanks often for all the riches in your life.
How to use this principle today: The next time money enters your life, from any source whatsoever, instead of barely noticing what has happened and mentally beginning to spend it, use a few moments of time to give thanks to the universe for bringing this money into your life. Every time you receive a paycheck, every time someone gives you money for any reason, every time you find money, or get a great deal, or save money in some way, stop and appreciate the fact that money is flowing into your life. Doing this every time money comes to you will attract more and more money into your life.
2. Act as if you are rich. This is the fundamental truth of all mind power work, that you must act as if what you want is already yours. So act as if you already have the money you wish to have. Ask yourself, if I was already rich, what would I do, how would I act, how would I feel, and then do, act, and feel in those ways.
Of course, you don't need to quit your job and move to the South Pacific like you would if you suddenly won the lottery, but you start small and with each success you build your way to greater and greater wealth. Eat a little bit better, dress a little bit nicer, go on slightly higher-end vacations, take a cab instead of the bus now and then, take that course you think you can't afford, or do anything at all that you wish to do but believe you can't because of a lack of money.
And when you do these things, bask in joy at your inner state of wealth, and know that this state will be reflected in your outer world. You'll be amazed at how life provides for the things which bring you joy.
How to use this principle today: The next time you are about to buy something, anything at all, purchase an item that is of slightly higher quality and price than you would usually buy. Even if something only costs a few dollars more than what is usual for you to spend, buy that item and thank the universe for providing for your new expanding lifestyle.
Even though it is a tiny step, you are beginning to teach your mind that you are expanding your limitations, and as you practice this you will begin to purchase more of the things you want in your life and the money will come to you to pay for them.
3. Find a penny, pick it up. In order to attract wealth into your life, your subsconscious mind must be open to the idea of wealth flowing to you. You must be open and receptive to money coming to you from any source whatsoever. This includes the pennies laying on the street. If you pass a penny on the sidewalk, and your usual reaction is simply to ignore it because stooping down to pick up a penny is not worth the effort, you are telling your subconscious mind that you are not willing to put out effort for money. The amount of money makes no difference whatsoever. The subconscious mind doesn't distinguish between one penny and one million dollars. All it knows is how you feel.
Of course this manifests in many other ways as well. Whenever you do not accept a gift graciously, whenever you do not charge someone for work that you have done for them, or charge them way less than you should because you feel guilty, and whenever you sell a product for less than it is worth because you do not want to charge too much, you are generating the same emotions. So begin to be open to money, in whatever form, and begin to accept it's flow into your life, even if it's only a penny on the street.
How to use this principle today: Simply go for a walk today and look for money. You are sure to find at least a penny somewhere. Pick it up and thank the universe for bringing money into your life. Let your subconscious mind know that you are open and willing to accept money from any source.
As well, apply this principle in your working life. If you have been undercharging for your services, raise your prices. If you are not earning what you feel you should, ask for a raise. And whenever anyone gives you anything, especially money, accept it graciously and give thanks.
4. Be open to money-making opportunities. One thing that all self-made millionaires agree on is that there are opportunities everywhere, if we are just open to seeing them. You can prove this for yourself by looking at your own life. There are probably many times in your past which you think back to and wonder what might have happened if you had taken an opportunity at just the right time. Whether it's obvious things like career opportunities you let slip by, investment opportunities you didn't belive in, or less obvious opportunities like an idea you once had that is now making someone else rich, or an industry you could have joined before it became saturated.
If you are like most people, when you think of your past opportunities, you believe that you once had a chance but that opportunity is now gone. The difference between rich and poor people is that rich people realize that new opportunities are always all around us, all the time. You simply need to keep a look out for the opportunities, keep and open mind, and be prepared to take advantage when the opportunity arrives.
I'm sure you've heard the old adage that luck occurs when opportunity meets preparation. Well, it couldn't be more true. If you expect to find money-making opportunities in your life, and you prepare to take advantage of them when they come, you will be blessed with more incredible luck than you have ever experienced.
How to use this principle today: Get out a little notebook and write down all the money-making ideas you can think of. It doesn't matter how stupid or outrageous the idea might seem, write it down anyway.
This does two things. First, you realize that there are plenty of money-making opportunities around you right now, as there always have been and always will be. Secondly, this exercise will stimulate your mind to see money-making opportunities where it might have ignored them in the past, and will help you practice to see opportunities in the future.
If you keep adding ideas to your notebook consistently, one day you will see an incredibly opportunity on your list which is perfect for you. Then go for it!
5. Do something that makes you feel good. This has got to be the easiest money-making advice I could ever give. Do something that makes you feel good. When you feel good, your energy rises, and when your energy rises, it attracts more of the things into your life which make you feel good.
Could life be any easier? Not really, but we are so caught up in the backwards thinking of everyone around us that we miss the obvious flow of energy. All you really need to attract more of the good things in your life, including more money, is to generate positive energy into the world. The states of happiness and joy literally rearrange the atoms of your world to bring you more happiness and joy. Of course, the reverse is true as well. So avoid fear, anger, depression, and spend your time feeling good about yourself and your life.
If this is difficult for you, just practice. Begin with some small thing which brings you happiness. It could be as simple as watching a sunset, renting your favorite movie of all time, taking someone you love out for dessert, or anything at all.
The secret is to do these things whole-heartedly, with all your attention focussed on the happiness vibrating from your soul out into the world. This simple act will bring you rich rewards.
How to use this principle today: Don't just read this article and think "that sounds good" and then go back to your life. Pick something to do which will bring you happiness and do it today. It doesn't matter what it is or how small it seems. In fact, you don't have to do anything at all. All that is important is feeling the positive emotions of happiness and joy emanating from your soul.
One simple way to generate positive emotion is to feel gratitude for something in your life. Just pick something in your life for which you are very grateful, and vibrate your gratitude towards it.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE IF YOU START NOW That should get you started. Five extremely simple actions you can take to begin to expand the prosperity you experience in your life. But don't stop there. Never let fear or doubt enter your mind. There is nothing you need in order to succeed except the power of your own mind.
If you worry that you are not smart enough, not connected enough, not talented enough, not young enough or not old enough, you are simply creating limiting beliefs which will manifest in the outside world. All you really need to know is that the outside world is a reflection of the state of your inner mind. Know that you can make every day from this day forward a little more joyful and a little more abundant and then watch your life begin to change.
It's an easy and gentle process, much like letting a plant grow. One day you will suddenly realize that all of your good thoughts have grown into the beautiful fruits of a happy and successful life.
Andreas Ohrt is the author of "Money Making Secrets of Mind Power Masters." Learn the secrets of the world's most spiritual multi-millionaires at http://www.SecretMindPower.com
Another great resource about Law of Attraction: www.law-of-attraction-info.com
.
.
Using mind power to change your life is more like a magic trick than anything else. You simply trick your mind into believing that you have what you want, and then your life miraculously changes to reflect your new belief. And just like a magic trick, it seems impossible until you learn the trick, and then you realize it is actually very simple.
Yes, I said very simple. The five steps which follow are designed for the complete beginner. You can start today, right now, to attract more prosperity in your life. Here are five ways to start immediately.
FIVE SIMPLE WAYS TO TRICK YOUR MIND INTO ATTRACTING WEALTH
1. Show gratitude for any money which enters your life . In order to attract money into your life, you must show gratitude for the money which is already in your life. Instead of bemoaning how little money you have, bask in gratitude at the many ways in which you are rich already. For example, if you earn more than $2,182 a year, you have more wealth than 85 per cent of the people on earth. And if you earn over $25,400 per year, you are in the top 10 per cent of wealthy people on this planet. When you focus on what you have rather than what you want, you realize that you ARE already rich. Give thanks often for all the riches in your life.
How to use this principle today: The next time money enters your life, from any source whatsoever, instead of barely noticing what has happened and mentally beginning to spend it, use a few moments of time to give thanks to the universe for bringing this money into your life. Every time you receive a paycheck, every time someone gives you money for any reason, every time you find money, or get a great deal, or save money in some way, stop and appreciate the fact that money is flowing into your life. Doing this every time money comes to you will attract more and more money into your life.
2. Act as if you are rich. This is the fundamental truth of all mind power work, that you must act as if what you want is already yours. So act as if you already have the money you wish to have. Ask yourself, if I was already rich, what would I do, how would I act, how would I feel, and then do, act, and feel in those ways.
Of course, you don't need to quit your job and move to the South Pacific like you would if you suddenly won the lottery, but you start small and with each success you build your way to greater and greater wealth. Eat a little bit better, dress a little bit nicer, go on slightly higher-end vacations, take a cab instead of the bus now and then, take that course you think you can't afford, or do anything at all that you wish to do but believe you can't because of a lack of money.
And when you do these things, bask in joy at your inner state of wealth, and know that this state will be reflected in your outer world. You'll be amazed at how life provides for the things which bring you joy.
How to use this principle today: The next time you are about to buy something, anything at all, purchase an item that is of slightly higher quality and price than you would usually buy. Even if something only costs a few dollars more than what is usual for you to spend, buy that item and thank the universe for providing for your new expanding lifestyle.
Even though it is a tiny step, you are beginning to teach your mind that you are expanding your limitations, and as you practice this you will begin to purchase more of the things you want in your life and the money will come to you to pay for them.
3. Find a penny, pick it up. In order to attract wealth into your life, your subsconscious mind must be open to the idea of wealth flowing to you. You must be open and receptive to money coming to you from any source whatsoever. This includes the pennies laying on the street. If you pass a penny on the sidewalk, and your usual reaction is simply to ignore it because stooping down to pick up a penny is not worth the effort, you are telling your subconscious mind that you are not willing to put out effort for money. The amount of money makes no difference whatsoever. The subconscious mind doesn't distinguish between one penny and one million dollars. All it knows is how you feel.
Of course this manifests in many other ways as well. Whenever you do not accept a gift graciously, whenever you do not charge someone for work that you have done for them, or charge them way less than you should because you feel guilty, and whenever you sell a product for less than it is worth because you do not want to charge too much, you are generating the same emotions. So begin to be open to money, in whatever form, and begin to accept it's flow into your life, even if it's only a penny on the street.
How to use this principle today: Simply go for a walk today and look for money. You are sure to find at least a penny somewhere. Pick it up and thank the universe for bringing money into your life. Let your subconscious mind know that you are open and willing to accept money from any source.
As well, apply this principle in your working life. If you have been undercharging for your services, raise your prices. If you are not earning what you feel you should, ask for a raise. And whenever anyone gives you anything, especially money, accept it graciously and give thanks.
4. Be open to money-making opportunities. One thing that all self-made millionaires agree on is that there are opportunities everywhere, if we are just open to seeing them. You can prove this for yourself by looking at your own life. There are probably many times in your past which you think back to and wonder what might have happened if you had taken an opportunity at just the right time. Whether it's obvious things like career opportunities you let slip by, investment opportunities you didn't belive in, or less obvious opportunities like an idea you once had that is now making someone else rich, or an industry you could have joined before it became saturated.
If you are like most people, when you think of your past opportunities, you believe that you once had a chance but that opportunity is now gone. The difference between rich and poor people is that rich people realize that new opportunities are always all around us, all the time. You simply need to keep a look out for the opportunities, keep and open mind, and be prepared to take advantage when the opportunity arrives.
I'm sure you've heard the old adage that luck occurs when opportunity meets preparation. Well, it couldn't be more true. If you expect to find money-making opportunities in your life, and you prepare to take advantage of them when they come, you will be blessed with more incredible luck than you have ever experienced.
How to use this principle today: Get out a little notebook and write down all the money-making ideas you can think of. It doesn't matter how stupid or outrageous the idea might seem, write it down anyway.
This does two things. First, you realize that there are plenty of money-making opportunities around you right now, as there always have been and always will be. Secondly, this exercise will stimulate your mind to see money-making opportunities where it might have ignored them in the past, and will help you practice to see opportunities in the future.
If you keep adding ideas to your notebook consistently, one day you will see an incredibly opportunity on your list which is perfect for you. Then go for it!
5. Do something that makes you feel good. This has got to be the easiest money-making advice I could ever give. Do something that makes you feel good. When you feel good, your energy rises, and when your energy rises, it attracts more of the things into your life which make you feel good.
Could life be any easier? Not really, but we are so caught up in the backwards thinking of everyone around us that we miss the obvious flow of energy. All you really need to attract more of the good things in your life, including more money, is to generate positive energy into the world. The states of happiness and joy literally rearrange the atoms of your world to bring you more happiness and joy. Of course, the reverse is true as well. So avoid fear, anger, depression, and spend your time feeling good about yourself and your life.
If this is difficult for you, just practice. Begin with some small thing which brings you happiness. It could be as simple as watching a sunset, renting your favorite movie of all time, taking someone you love out for dessert, or anything at all.
The secret is to do these things whole-heartedly, with all your attention focussed on the happiness vibrating from your soul out into the world. This simple act will bring you rich rewards.
How to use this principle today: Don't just read this article and think "that sounds good" and then go back to your life. Pick something to do which will bring you happiness and do it today. It doesn't matter what it is or how small it seems. In fact, you don't have to do anything at all. All that is important is feeling the positive emotions of happiness and joy emanating from your soul.
One simple way to generate positive emotion is to feel gratitude for something in your life. Just pick something in your life for which you are very grateful, and vibrate your gratitude towards it.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE IF YOU START NOW That should get you started. Five extremely simple actions you can take to begin to expand the prosperity you experience in your life. But don't stop there. Never let fear or doubt enter your mind. There is nothing you need in order to succeed except the power of your own mind.
If you worry that you are not smart enough, not connected enough, not talented enough, not young enough or not old enough, you are simply creating limiting beliefs which will manifest in the outside world. All you really need to know is that the outside world is a reflection of the state of your inner mind. Know that you can make every day from this day forward a little more joyful and a little more abundant and then watch your life begin to change.
It's an easy and gentle process, much like letting a plant grow. One day you will suddenly realize that all of your good thoughts have grown into the beautiful fruits of a happy and successful life.
Andreas Ohrt is the author of "Money Making Secrets of Mind Power Masters." Learn the secrets of the world's most spiritual multi-millionaires at http://www.SecretMindPower.com
Another great resource about Law of Attraction: www.law-of-attraction-info.com
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.
The Healing Power of the Mind is Your Best Medicine
By Joel Chue / Creator of Mind Power Special Report
When you have just recovered from an illness like heart attack or stroke your doctor will always give you advice on how to regain back your health.
This advice can included quiting smoking, eating a balanced diet and getting regular exercise. However the healing power of the mind is also an essential and powerful weapon and medicine to your road to recovery.
In 2002, the Mayo Clinic did research and reported that people who are pessimistic about life don’t live as long and happily as optimistic people. The finding confirms what health professionals have believed for a long time. People who expect the worst and think of negative thoughts have more trouble coping with significant illness.
Hopeful and optimistic people who are excited about their recovery recover more quickly and live more active lives. Bottom line: stay in touch with your mind, be in constant positive thought to activate the healing power of the mind.
How do constantly think of positive and healthy thoughts? First, begin with an easy task and take small and stable step to accomplishing it. Reward and take a break every time you achieve your target. Take note of your stress levels. If you become angry, feel hopeless or numb yourself through addictive behavior, actively adopt a brighter outlook.
Just remember that though you do not have the power to control what really happens in your life, you have the power to take a positive response to the matter. Make a list of the things you want to accomplish, the places you want to go and the people you want to see and do something fun to stimulate a positive perspective.
You can make your mind rapidly change your thoughts from negative to positive. If you find yourself thinking about the disabilities of your body, stop and start to appreciate all the things it can do and feel the excitement in you growing.
Seriously limit or even stop going out with negative people unless they change. Try this exercise: Every time you stop at a light while you are driving, listen to your self talk. If you are thinking about a fight with your spouse, replaying a stressful and painful thought at work, or beating yourself up for running late to your next appointment, replace those thoughts by thinking about something good that happened during your day. Feel the joy in you. The healing power of the mind begins with your positive thoughts. Your mind is the most effective medicine to illnesses and constantly stay in touch with it.
You may ask if there is any connections between negative thoughts and illnesses. Well, I personally believe there is. When there is mental unrest, it affects the body as well. A physical symptom is a signal which your body is communicating to you to tell you that something is wrong and has to be dealt with. It is bringing to your attention a problem in your emotions, thinking or environment that is non-beneficial or harmful to you, so you can face it and resolve it.
Illnesses arise because the result of being ignorant of the constant signals our bodies alert us. When they become more serious, most people will then take actions to consciously change their state of mind to recovering it. However, there are still stubborn people who refuse to take action to change their mental and physical state.
Be aware of what your body is trying to tell you. You also need to know that your body and mind works as one. Either one can lead and the other will follow. But the mind is the overall in charge. The power of your mind has the ability and capability to override the body. Simply put, when you are always indulge in negative thoughts, illness arise faster.
Having the mindset that all your thoughts and emotions control your physical well-being rather than the other way around is to represent things in a way that empowers you. Think of things that empowers you rather than the other way around. When your mind is filled with positive thoughts, you have the the healing power of the mind on your side. When your mind is being controlled by negative thoughts, you are being controlled by the negative thoughts.
The most effective way to real and quick healing is to be healed both mentally and emotionally rather than just working on curing the physical ailment. The system of psychoneuroimmunology (the way the mind affects the nervous system which in turn affects the immune system).
Remember the best and the least expensive medicine to recovery of any illness is the healing power of the mind. Harness your mind power today!
When you have just recovered from an illness like heart attack or stroke your doctor will always give you advice on how to regain back your health.
This advice can included quiting smoking, eating a balanced diet and getting regular exercise. However the healing power of the mind is also an essential and powerful weapon and medicine to your road to recovery.
In 2002, the Mayo Clinic did research and reported that people who are pessimistic about life don’t live as long and happily as optimistic people. The finding confirms what health professionals have believed for a long time. People who expect the worst and think of negative thoughts have more trouble coping with significant illness.
Hopeful and optimistic people who are excited about their recovery recover more quickly and live more active lives. Bottom line: stay in touch with your mind, be in constant positive thought to activate the healing power of the mind.
How do constantly think of positive and healthy thoughts? First, begin with an easy task and take small and stable step to accomplishing it. Reward and take a break every time you achieve your target. Take note of your stress levels. If you become angry, feel hopeless or numb yourself through addictive behavior, actively adopt a brighter outlook.
Just remember that though you do not have the power to control what really happens in your life, you have the power to take a positive response to the matter. Make a list of the things you want to accomplish, the places you want to go and the people you want to see and do something fun to stimulate a positive perspective.
You can make your mind rapidly change your thoughts from negative to positive. If you find yourself thinking about the disabilities of your body, stop and start to appreciate all the things it can do and feel the excitement in you growing.
Seriously limit or even stop going out with negative people unless they change. Try this exercise: Every time you stop at a light while you are driving, listen to your self talk. If you are thinking about a fight with your spouse, replaying a stressful and painful thought at work, or beating yourself up for running late to your next appointment, replace those thoughts by thinking about something good that happened during your day. Feel the joy in you. The healing power of the mind begins with your positive thoughts. Your mind is the most effective medicine to illnesses and constantly stay in touch with it.
You may ask if there is any connections between negative thoughts and illnesses. Well, I personally believe there is. When there is mental unrest, it affects the body as well. A physical symptom is a signal which your body is communicating to you to tell you that something is wrong and has to be dealt with. It is bringing to your attention a problem in your emotions, thinking or environment that is non-beneficial or harmful to you, so you can face it and resolve it.
Illnesses arise because the result of being ignorant of the constant signals our bodies alert us. When they become more serious, most people will then take actions to consciously change their state of mind to recovering it. However, there are still stubborn people who refuse to take action to change their mental and physical state.
Be aware of what your body is trying to tell you. You also need to know that your body and mind works as one. Either one can lead and the other will follow. But the mind is the overall in charge. The power of your mind has the ability and capability to override the body. Simply put, when you are always indulge in negative thoughts, illness arise faster.
Having the mindset that all your thoughts and emotions control your physical well-being rather than the other way around is to represent things in a way that empowers you. Think of things that empowers you rather than the other way around. When your mind is filled with positive thoughts, you have the the healing power of the mind on your side. When your mind is being controlled by negative thoughts, you are being controlled by the negative thoughts.
The most effective way to real and quick healing is to be healed both mentally and emotionally rather than just working on curing the physical ailment. The system of psychoneuroimmunology (the way the mind affects the nervous system which in turn affects the immune system).
Remember the best and the least expensive medicine to recovery of any illness is the healing power of the mind. Harness your mind power today!
Food guide
Apples
Protects your heart
prevents constipation
Blocks diarrhea
Improves lung capacity
Cushions joints
Apricots
Combats cancer
Controls blood pressure
Saves your eyesight
Shields against Alzheimer's
Slows aging process
Artichokes
Aids digestion
Lowers cholesterol
Protects your heart
Stabilizes blood sugar
Guards against liver disease
Avocados
Battles diabetes
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Bananas
Protects your heart
Quiets a cough
Strengthens bones
Controls blood pressure
Blocks diarrhea
Beans
Prevents constipation
Helps hemorrhoids
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Stabilizes blood sugar
Beets
Controls blood pressure
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Protects your heart
Aids weight loss
Blueberries
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Stabilizes blood sugar
Boosts memory
Prevents constipation
Broccoli
Strengthens bones
Saves eyesight
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Cabbage
Combats cancer
Prevents constipation
Promotes weight loss
Protects your heart
Helps hemorrhoids
Cantaloupe
Saves eyesight
Controls blood pressure
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Supports immune system
Carrots
Saves eyesight
Protects your heart
Prevents constipation
Combats cancer
Promotes weight loss
Cauliflower
Protects against Prostate Cancer
Combats Breast Cancer
Strengthens bones
Banishes bruises
Guards against heart disease
Cherries
Protects your heart
Combats Cancer
Ends insomnia
Slows aging process
Shields against Alzheimer's
Chestnuts
Promotes weight loss
Protects your heart
Lowers cholesterol
Combats Cancer
Controls blood pressure
Chili peppers
Aids digestion
Soothes sore throat
Clears sinuses
Combats Cancer
Boosts immune system
Figs
Promotes weight loss
Helps stops strokes
Lowers cholesterol
Combats Cancer
Controls blood pressure
Fish
Protects your heart
Boosts memory
Protects your heart
Combats Cancer
Supports immune system
Flax
Aids digestion
Battles diabetes
Protects your heart
Improves mental health
Boosts immune system
Garlic
Lowers cholesterol
Controls blood pressure
Combats cancer
kills bacteria
Fights fungus
Grapefruit
Protects against heart attacks
Promotes Weight loss
Helps stops strokes
Combats Prostate Cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Grapes
saves eyesight
Conquers kidney stones
Combats cancer
Enhances blood flow
Protects your heart
Green tea
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Helps stops strokes
Promotes Weight loss
Kills bacteria
Honey
Heals wounds
Aids digestion
Guards against ulcers
Increases energy
Fights allergies
Lemons
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Stops scurvy
Limes
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Stops scurvy
Mangoes
Combats cancer
Boosts memory
Regulates thyroid
aids digestion
Shields against Alzheimer's
Mushrooms
Controls blood pressure
Lowers cholesterol
Kills bacteria
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Oats
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Battles diabetes
prevents constipation
Smoothes skin
Olive oil
Protects your heart
Promotes Weight loss
Combats cancer
Battles diabetes
Smoothes skin
Onions
Reduce risk of heart attack
Combats cancer
Kills bacteria
Lowers cholesterol
Fights fungus
Oranges
Supports immune systems
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Straightens respiration
Peaches
prevents constipation
Combats cancer
Helps stops strokes
aids digestion
Helps hemorrhoids
Peanuts
Protects against heart disease
Promotes Weight loss
Combats Prostate Cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Aggravates
Diverticulitis
Pineapple
Strengthens bones
Relieves colds
Aids digestion
Dissolves warts
Blocks diarrhea
Prunes
Slows aging process
prevents constipation
boosts memory
Lowers cholesterol
Protects against heart disease
Rice
Protects your heart
Battles diabetes
Conquers kidney stones
Combats cancer
Helps stops strokes
Strawberries
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
boosts memory
Calms stress
Sweet potatoes
Saves your eyesight
Lifts mood
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Tomatoes
Protects prostate
Combats cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Protects your heart
Walnuts
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
boosts memory
Lifts mood
Protects against heart disease
Water
Promotes Weight loss
Combats cancer
Conquers kidney stones
Smoothes skin
Watermelon
Protects prostate
Promotes Weight loss
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
Controls blood pressure
Wheat germ
Combats Colon Cancer
prevents constipation
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
improves digestion
Wheat bran
Combats Colon Cancer
prevents constipation
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
improves digestion
Yogurt
Guards against ulcers
Strengthens bones
Lowers cholesterol
Supports immune systems
Aids digestion
7 don'ts after a meal
* Don't smoke-Experiment from experts proves that smoking a cigarette after meal is comparable to smoking 10 cigarettes (chances of cancer is higher).
* Don't eat fruits immediately - Immediately eating fruits after meals will cause stomach to be bloated with air. Therefore take fruit 1-2 hr after meal or 1 hr before meal.
* Don't drink tea - Because tea leaves contain a high content of acid. This substance will cause the Protein content in the food we consume to be hardened thus difficult to digest.
* Don't loosen your belt - Loosening the belt after a meal will easily cause the intestine to be twisted &blocked.
* Don't bathe - Bathing will cause the increase of blood flow to the hands, legs & body thus the amount of blood around the stomach will therefore decrease. This will weaken the digestive system in our stomach.
* Don't walk about - People always say that after a meal walk a hundred steps and you will live till 99. In actual fact this is not true. Walking will cause the digestive system to be unable to absorb the nutrition from the food we intake.
* Don't sleep immediately - The food we intake will not be able to digest properly. Thus will lead to gastric & infection in our intestine.
Protects your heart
prevents constipation
Blocks diarrhea
Improves lung capacity
Cushions joints
Apricots
Combats cancer
Controls blood pressure
Saves your eyesight
Shields against Alzheimer's
Slows aging process
Artichokes
Aids digestion
Lowers cholesterol
Protects your heart
Stabilizes blood sugar
Guards against liver disease
Avocados
Battles diabetes
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Bananas
Protects your heart
Quiets a cough
Strengthens bones
Controls blood pressure
Blocks diarrhea
Beans
Prevents constipation
Helps hemorrhoids
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Stabilizes blood sugar
Beets
Controls blood pressure
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Protects your heart
Aids weight loss
Blueberries
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Stabilizes blood sugar
Boosts memory
Prevents constipation
Broccoli
Strengthens bones
Saves eyesight
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Cabbage
Combats cancer
Prevents constipation
Promotes weight loss
Protects your heart
Helps hemorrhoids
Cantaloupe
Saves eyesight
Controls blood pressure
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Supports immune system
Carrots
Saves eyesight
Protects your heart
Prevents constipation
Combats cancer
Promotes weight loss
Cauliflower
Protects against Prostate Cancer
Combats Breast Cancer
Strengthens bones
Banishes bruises
Guards against heart disease
Cherries
Protects your heart
Combats Cancer
Ends insomnia
Slows aging process
Shields against Alzheimer's
Chestnuts
Promotes weight loss
Protects your heart
Lowers cholesterol
Combats Cancer
Controls blood pressure
Chili peppers
Aids digestion
Soothes sore throat
Clears sinuses
Combats Cancer
Boosts immune system
Figs
Promotes weight loss
Helps stops strokes
Lowers cholesterol
Combats Cancer
Controls blood pressure
Fish
Protects your heart
Boosts memory
Protects your heart
Combats Cancer
Supports immune system
Flax
Aids digestion
Battles diabetes
Protects your heart
Improves mental health
Boosts immune system
Garlic
Lowers cholesterol
Controls blood pressure
Combats cancer
kills bacteria
Fights fungus
Grapefruit
Protects against heart attacks
Promotes Weight loss
Helps stops strokes
Combats Prostate Cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Grapes
saves eyesight
Conquers kidney stones
Combats cancer
Enhances blood flow
Protects your heart
Green tea
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Helps stops strokes
Promotes Weight loss
Kills bacteria
Honey
Heals wounds
Aids digestion
Guards against ulcers
Increases energy
Fights allergies
Lemons
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Stops scurvy
Limes
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Stops scurvy
Mangoes
Combats cancer
Boosts memory
Regulates thyroid
aids digestion
Shields against Alzheimer's
Mushrooms
Controls blood pressure
Lowers cholesterol
Kills bacteria
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Oats
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Battles diabetes
prevents constipation
Smoothes skin
Olive oil
Protects your heart
Promotes Weight loss
Combats cancer
Battles diabetes
Smoothes skin
Onions
Reduce risk of heart attack
Combats cancer
Kills bacteria
Lowers cholesterol
Fights fungus
Oranges
Supports immune systems
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Straightens respiration
Peaches
prevents constipation
Combats cancer
Helps stops strokes
aids digestion
Helps hemorrhoids
Peanuts
Protects against heart disease
Promotes Weight loss
Combats Prostate Cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Aggravates
Diverticulitis
Pineapple
Strengthens bones
Relieves colds
Aids digestion
Dissolves warts
Blocks diarrhea
Prunes
Slows aging process
prevents constipation
boosts memory
Lowers cholesterol
Protects against heart disease
Rice
Protects your heart
Battles diabetes
Conquers kidney stones
Combats cancer
Helps stops strokes
Strawberries
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
boosts memory
Calms stress
Sweet potatoes
Saves your eyesight
Lifts mood
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Tomatoes
Protects prostate
Combats cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Protects your heart
Walnuts
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
boosts memory
Lifts mood
Protects against heart disease
Water
Promotes Weight loss
Combats cancer
Conquers kidney stones
Smoothes skin
Watermelon
Protects prostate
Promotes Weight loss
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
Controls blood pressure
Wheat germ
Combats Colon Cancer
prevents constipation
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
improves digestion
Wheat bran
Combats Colon Cancer
prevents constipation
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
improves digestion
Yogurt
Guards against ulcers
Strengthens bones
Lowers cholesterol
Supports immune systems
Aids digestion
7 don'ts after a meal
* Don't smoke-Experiment from experts proves that smoking a cigarette after meal is comparable to smoking 10 cigarettes (chances of cancer is higher).
* Don't eat fruits immediately - Immediately eating fruits after meals will cause stomach to be bloated with air. Therefore take fruit 1-2 hr after meal or 1 hr before meal.
* Don't drink tea - Because tea leaves contain a high content of acid. This substance will cause the Protein content in the food we consume to be hardened thus difficult to digest.
* Don't loosen your belt - Loosening the belt after a meal will easily cause the intestine to be twisted &blocked.
* Don't bathe - Bathing will cause the increase of blood flow to the hands, legs & body thus the amount of blood around the stomach will therefore decrease. This will weaken the digestive system in our stomach.
* Don't walk about - People always say that after a meal walk a hundred steps and you will live till 99. In actual fact this is not true. Walking will cause the digestive system to be unable to absorb the nutrition from the food we intake.
* Don't sleep immediately - The food we intake will not be able to digest properly. Thus will lead to gastric & infection in our intestine.
Daily hapiness checklist by Dr. Timothy Sharp – The Happiness Institute
□ I’ve reminded myself of my life purpose
□ I’m clear on my priorities for the day
□ I’ve engaged in exercise
□ I’ve planned to eat healthily
□ I intend to practice meditation/relaxation
□ I will not accept unhelpful, negative thoughts
□ I’m confident today will be a good day
□ I’m hopeful for the future
□ I’m grateful for the people in my life
□ I intend to praise at least one person today
□ I’m determined to find ways to use my strengths
□ I’m going to have fun
□ I will laugh and smile
□ I will endeavour to be in the moment as much as possible
□ I’ll savour all positive experiences
□ I’m clear on my priorities for the day
□ I’ve engaged in exercise
□ I’ve planned to eat healthily
□ I intend to practice meditation/relaxation
□ I will not accept unhelpful, negative thoughts
□ I’m confident today will be a good day
□ I’m hopeful for the future
□ I’m grateful for the people in my life
□ I intend to praise at least one person today
□ I’m determined to find ways to use my strengths
□ I’m going to have fun
□ I will laugh and smile
□ I will endeavour to be in the moment as much as possible
□ I’ll savour all positive experiences
10 Virtually Instant Ways to Improve Your Life by Adrian Savage
Many of our problems come from within our own minds. They aren’t caused by events, bad luck, or other people. We cause them through our own poor mental habits. Here are 10 habits you should set aside right away to free yourself from the many problems each one will be causing you.
1. Stop jumping to conclusions. There are two common ways this habit increases people’s difficulties. First, they assume that they know what is going to happen, so they stop paying attention and act on their assumption instead. Human beings are lousy fortune-tellers. Most of what they assume is wrong. That makes the action wrong too. The second aspect of this habit is playing the mind-reader and assuming you know why people do what they do or what they’re thinking. Wrong again, big time. More relationships are destroyed by this particular kind of stupidity than by any other.
2. Don’t dramatize. Lots of people inflate small setbacks into life-threatening catastrophes and react accordingly. This habit makes mountains out of molehills and gives people anxieties that either don’t exist or are so insignificant they aren’t worth worrying about anyway. Why do they do it? Who knows? Maybe to make themselves feel and seem more important. Whatever the reason, it’s silly as well as destructive.
3. Don’t invent rules. A huge proportion of those “oughts” and “shoulds” that you carry around are most likely needless. All that they do for you is make you feel nervous or guilty. What’s the point? When you use these imaginary rules on yourself, you clog your mind with petty restrictions and childish orders. And when you try to impose them on others, you make yourself into a bully, a boring nag, or a self-righteous bigot.
4. Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations. The words you use can trip you up. Negative and critical language produces the same flavor of thinking. Forcing things into pre-set categories hides their real meaning and limits your thinking to no purpose. See what’s there. Don’t label. You’ll be surprised at what you find.
5. Quit being a perfectionist. Life isn’t all or nothing, black or white. Many times, good enough means exactly what it says. Search for the perfect job and you’ll likely never find it. Meanwhile, all the others will look worse than they are. Try for the perfect relationship and you’ll probably spend your life alone. Perfectionism is a mental sickness that will destroy all your pleasure and send you in search of what can never be attained.
6. Don’t over-generalize. One or two setbacks are not a sign of permanent failure. The odd triumph doesn’t turn you into a genius. A single event—good or bad—or even two or three don’t always point to a lasting trend. Usually things are just what they are, nothing more.
7. Don’t take things so personally. Most people, even your friends and colleagues, aren’t talking about you, thinking about you, or concerned with you at all for 99% of the time. The majority of folk in your organization or neighborhood have probably never heard of you and don’t especially want to. The ups and downs of life, the warmth and coldness of others, aren’t personal at all. Pretending that they are will only make you more miserable than is needed.
8. Don’t assume your emotions are trustworthy. How you feel isn’t always a good indicator of how things are. Just because you feel it, that doesn’t make it true. Sometimes that emotion comes from nothing more profound than being tired, hungry, annoyed, or about to get a head-cold. The future won’t change because you feel bad—nor because you feel great. Feelings may be true, but they aren’t the truth.
9. Don’t let life get you down. Keep practicing being optimistic. If you expect bad things in your life and work, you’ll always find them. A negative mind-set is like looking at the world through distorting, grimy lenses. You spot every blemish and overlook or discount everything else. It’s amazing what isn’t there until you start to look for it. Of course, if you decide to look for signs of positive things, you’ll find those too.
10. Don’t hang on to the past. This is my most important suggestion of all: let go and move on. Most of the anger, frustration, misery, and despair in this world come from people clinging to past hurts and problems. The more you turn them over in your mind, the worse you’ll feel and the bigger they’ll look. Don’t try to fight misery. Let go and move on. Do that and you’ve removed just about all its power to hurt you
1. Stop jumping to conclusions. There are two common ways this habit increases people’s difficulties. First, they assume that they know what is going to happen, so they stop paying attention and act on their assumption instead. Human beings are lousy fortune-tellers. Most of what they assume is wrong. That makes the action wrong too. The second aspect of this habit is playing the mind-reader and assuming you know why people do what they do or what they’re thinking. Wrong again, big time. More relationships are destroyed by this particular kind of stupidity than by any other.
2. Don’t dramatize. Lots of people inflate small setbacks into life-threatening catastrophes and react accordingly. This habit makes mountains out of molehills and gives people anxieties that either don’t exist or are so insignificant they aren’t worth worrying about anyway. Why do they do it? Who knows? Maybe to make themselves feel and seem more important. Whatever the reason, it’s silly as well as destructive.
3. Don’t invent rules. A huge proportion of those “oughts” and “shoulds” that you carry around are most likely needless. All that they do for you is make you feel nervous or guilty. What’s the point? When you use these imaginary rules on yourself, you clog your mind with petty restrictions and childish orders. And when you try to impose them on others, you make yourself into a bully, a boring nag, or a self-righteous bigot.
4. Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations. The words you use can trip you up. Negative and critical language produces the same flavor of thinking. Forcing things into pre-set categories hides their real meaning and limits your thinking to no purpose. See what’s there. Don’t label. You’ll be surprised at what you find.
5. Quit being a perfectionist. Life isn’t all or nothing, black or white. Many times, good enough means exactly what it says. Search for the perfect job and you’ll likely never find it. Meanwhile, all the others will look worse than they are. Try for the perfect relationship and you’ll probably spend your life alone. Perfectionism is a mental sickness that will destroy all your pleasure and send you in search of what can never be attained.
6. Don’t over-generalize. One or two setbacks are not a sign of permanent failure. The odd triumph doesn’t turn you into a genius. A single event—good or bad—or even two or three don’t always point to a lasting trend. Usually things are just what they are, nothing more.
7. Don’t take things so personally. Most people, even your friends and colleagues, aren’t talking about you, thinking about you, or concerned with you at all for 99% of the time. The majority of folk in your organization or neighborhood have probably never heard of you and don’t especially want to. The ups and downs of life, the warmth and coldness of others, aren’t personal at all. Pretending that they are will only make you more miserable than is needed.
8. Don’t assume your emotions are trustworthy. How you feel isn’t always a good indicator of how things are. Just because you feel it, that doesn’t make it true. Sometimes that emotion comes from nothing more profound than being tired, hungry, annoyed, or about to get a head-cold. The future won’t change because you feel bad—nor because you feel great. Feelings may be true, but they aren’t the truth.
9. Don’t let life get you down. Keep practicing being optimistic. If you expect bad things in your life and work, you’ll always find them. A negative mind-set is like looking at the world through distorting, grimy lenses. You spot every blemish and overlook or discount everything else. It’s amazing what isn’t there until you start to look for it. Of course, if you decide to look for signs of positive things, you’ll find those too.
10. Don’t hang on to the past. This is my most important suggestion of all: let go and move on. Most of the anger, frustration, misery, and despair in this world come from people clinging to past hurts and problems. The more you turn them over in your mind, the worse you’ll feel and the bigger they’ll look. Don’t try to fight misery. Let go and move on. Do that and you’ve removed just about all its power to hurt you
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The power of words.
Most of us have heard sayings and quotations about words. Words are just labels and yet they have the power to change your life. Often as a young teen, I would say hurtful things to my mother and actually end up really hurting her. She did try her best, but her best was never good enough for me. She was never as good a cook as my friends mother, or as good a teacher as my teacher or as well dressed as my neighbor. I always had something to pick on her.
I never did realize the power of my hurtful words till I heard something on similar lines from my daughter.
Life has a way of giving back. Just yesterday she said something like “mummy everyone thinks you are pretty, but they never see you in the morning when you wake up !!” I thought it was rather funny and pretended to laugh it off but when I thought about it, it actually bothered me. I thought about how I used to say things to my mother with the intention of hurting her. I thought that my daughter was purposely trying to say something to hurt me. Maybe hurting me was not her intention, but I took it as such and I started a whole debate on how she was being disrespectful and hurtful. She is still very young, so I don’t think her intention was to hurt me, but I already started thinking about when she would become a teenager and say things that would hurt me to no end. All this is going on in my own little brain and I have no proof that it will happen, but here I am thinking about how my daughter would behave towards me after 4-5 years. Is that warped or what????
This might sound a bit smug, but I think I have done a bit more research on child behavior and child psychology than my mother did. So instead of telling my daughter about the power of words and how it affects people, we did a little experiment. I had read about Masaru Emoto’s water experiment and how the water reacts to words. ( Google Masaru Emoto…if you don’t know about it). I saw the video and was quite fascinated, but being the skeptic that I am, I had to see the results for myself. I think I must have read somewhere about the rice experiment and decided to check for myself if it was really true that what we say has an impact?
The experiment goes like this.
Take two or three jars/bottles/Tupperware. On one jar write, I LOVE YOU, on another write, I HATE YOU, and if you have a third, write IGNORE. ( I made my daughter do that)
Next take boiled/steamed rice and put equal amounts in each jar. Cover the jar and say out what you have written on the jar, so to the jar that says, I love you…say with love..I love you and to the one that says, I hate you …say with emotion..I hate you and the one that says ignore, just leave it somewhere where you may not see it and just ignore it.
Do this every day for about a week to 10 days . The results will blow your mind.
In our case the Jar which said ‘I love you was all white with very few green fungus bits, The jar which had I hate you written was all black and green and the ignored one was the worst, it was all fuzzy and mouldy. We could hardly see the rice.
Exactly same content, same environment, the only difference being the written word and the thought given to it. If words can do this to rice, imagine what they can do to us and to our life.
So now I had ammunition to show to my daughter. As she was the one who had done the writing, it was really her experiment. She immediately understood how what she said had an effect on people. No she has not become mother Teresa and neither have I, but we are now a bit more aware and conscious of the words we speak and the thoughts we think.
My mother used to always tell me… “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t bother saying it at all.” But did I listen?
Well, I guess it is never too late to start
I never did realize the power of my hurtful words till I heard something on similar lines from my daughter.
Life has a way of giving back. Just yesterday she said something like “mummy everyone thinks you are pretty, but they never see you in the morning when you wake up !!” I thought it was rather funny and pretended to laugh it off but when I thought about it, it actually bothered me. I thought about how I used to say things to my mother with the intention of hurting her. I thought that my daughter was purposely trying to say something to hurt me. Maybe hurting me was not her intention, but I took it as such and I started a whole debate on how she was being disrespectful and hurtful. She is still very young, so I don’t think her intention was to hurt me, but I already started thinking about when she would become a teenager and say things that would hurt me to no end. All this is going on in my own little brain and I have no proof that it will happen, but here I am thinking about how my daughter would behave towards me after 4-5 years. Is that warped or what????
This might sound a bit smug, but I think I have done a bit more research on child behavior and child psychology than my mother did. So instead of telling my daughter about the power of words and how it affects people, we did a little experiment. I had read about Masaru Emoto’s water experiment and how the water reacts to words. ( Google Masaru Emoto…if you don’t know about it). I saw the video and was quite fascinated, but being the skeptic that I am, I had to see the results for myself. I think I must have read somewhere about the rice experiment and decided to check for myself if it was really true that what we say has an impact?
The experiment goes like this.
Take two or three jars/bottles/Tupperware. On one jar write, I LOVE YOU, on another write, I HATE YOU, and if you have a third, write IGNORE. ( I made my daughter do that)
Next take boiled/steamed rice and put equal amounts in each jar. Cover the jar and say out what you have written on the jar, so to the jar that says, I love you…say with love..I love you and to the one that says, I hate you …say with emotion..I hate you and the one that says ignore, just leave it somewhere where you may not see it and just ignore it.
Do this every day for about a week to 10 days . The results will blow your mind.
In our case the Jar which said ‘I love you was all white with very few green fungus bits, The jar which had I hate you written was all black and green and the ignored one was the worst, it was all fuzzy and mouldy. We could hardly see the rice.
Exactly same content, same environment, the only difference being the written word and the thought given to it. If words can do this to rice, imagine what they can do to us and to our life.
So now I had ammunition to show to my daughter. As she was the one who had done the writing, it was really her experiment. She immediately understood how what she said had an effect on people. No she has not become mother Teresa and neither have I, but we are now a bit more aware and conscious of the words we speak and the thoughts we think.
My mother used to always tell me… “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t bother saying it at all.” But did I listen?
Well, I guess it is never too late to start
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