The Science of Happinness
Empathy and Happiness
"affective empathy" - refers to a feeling or an action - the way we absorb or imitate the feelings and expressions of others. We begin mimicking others as infants, and continue mirroring expressions and body language into adulthood. Affective empathy may be facilitated by mirror neurons. "cognitive empathy"- refers to a thought - the ability to understand how people feel and to see things from their perspective = ToM. Cognitive empathy involves broader parts of the brain. Empathic concern can make us happier, as long as it doesn't turn into empathic distress. empathy increases the sharing of positive emotions and brings people closer together.
Elevation
"Elevation," the warm and uplifting feeling of seeing someone do something good, kind, courageous, or compassionate. The most common cause of elevation is seeing someone help a person in need. We feel emotionally moved, surprised and stunned.
Wanting "Yes" and Getting "No"
Forgiveness is the ability to make peace with the word no. We feel resentment when reality doesn't meet our expectations, but again we have a choice: to accept the past or not. The healthy decision is to continue our lives without feeling like a victim. That might mean forgiving whoever caused us wrong, as well as forgiving ourselves for the way we responded.
Mindfulness & Physical Well-Being
Beyond affecting the mind, mindfulness and the MBSR program lead to real changes in our bodies, too. They have helped people reduce chronic pain, improve psoriasis, and increase their immune response to the flu shot.
Mindful awareness and happiness
Boyce prefers to think of mindfulness as something we already have, a basic human ability. We have the power within us to stop feeling reactive and overwhelmed, if only we cultivate it. That can be done through meditation, doing activities (like sports) meditatively, or just pausing from time to time in everyday life. Mindfulness does reduce stress and has other benefits, but it's best if we do it as an end in itself rather than for the perks.
Nature of Forgiveness
People say revenge is human nature, and they are only half right - because so is forgiveness. forgiveness is also near-universal across cultures because of the purpose it serves: bringing people together. It allows groups to stay cohesive and cooperative, which makes them more likely to survive. What determines which side of our nature shows its face? Mostly our environment. If our environment has stable judicial institutions and norms of reconciliation and cooperation, we're more likely to be forgiving.
אז מה הופך אדם להיות גיבור פוטנציאלי
§ 20% מהאוכלוסייה מסוגלים להיות גיבורים. § הזדמנות- יש חשיבות להזדמנות לעשות מעשה טוב, לרוב זה יהיה כרוך בחשיפה לדברים רעים שקורים. זה כנראה מה שעומד מאחורי הנתונים שהסיכוי של עירוניים להפוך לגיבורים גבוה יותר מאילו שחיים באזוריים כפריים. § חינוך- לאנשים שסיימו קולז יש יותר סיכוי להיות גיבורים. § התנדבות- שליש מהגיבורים במדגם התנדבו גם מעל ל59 שעות בשבוע. § מגדר- לגברים יש יותר סיכוי מנשים. § גזע- נמצאו פי 8 יותר שחורים גיבורים מאשר לבנים. § הישרדות של טראומה או אסון- לאנשים ששרדו טראומה או אסון יש פי 3 יותר סיכוי להיות גיבורים.
Marriage correlates with happiness
במחקרים מדעיים שונים ניסו לבחון אלו גורמים נמצאים במתאם עם נישואים מאושרים. הגורמים שחזרו על עצמם לאורך מחקרים שונים הם: 1. נישואים בגיל מאוחר- ככל שגיל הנישואים עולה כך הנישואים יותר מאושרים. 2. מעמד סוציו אקונומי- ככל שאדם במעמד נמוך יותר כך נישואיו יהיו פחות מאושרים. 3. חרדה ומתח תכונתי- אנשים ברמות חרדה ומתח גבוהות פחות מאושרים בנישואים שלהם.
How scientists define and measure happiness
Being "happy" could refer to many things: a sense that our life is going well, a momentary emotion, a trait we have, or even a sensation.
Evolutionary Roots of Kindness
Besides the fact that kindness propels us to care for offspring and is often reciprocated, evolution also selected for kindness because it makes us attractive to potential mates. One survey of 10,000 people from 37 countries found that good character/kindness was the most important trait that attracted people to long-term partners. instinctual reactions - When you force people to decide in 10 seconds or less how much to give, they give more than when they have extra time to think about it - suggesting that we have generous intuitions.
Subjective well-being
Combination of life satisfaction and positive affect.
Why Does Compassion Matter?
Compassion makes us happier by many pathways. It creates empathy, improving our social connections and making us feel more similar to others. It teaches us to manage distress: we learn to sit with others' pain and channel it in a positive direction toward caregiving. Compassionate people also see themselves as more capable and self-efficacious, characteristics that are associated with happiness and resilience.
What is happiness? Confucius
Confucius advocated a kind of dignity or reverence (jen/ren) as happiness, where you focus on enhancing the welfare of others
Focus, Flow, and Frazzle
Depending on the skills we have and the challenge we're confronted with, we may be in a state of boredom, flow, or "frazzle." In flow, we actually have moderate stress. Boredom is a state of low stress, where we try to focus but cannot. In frazzle, we're stressed but performing poorly because we're distracted by negative emotions.
Sources of happiness
Exercise, sleep, achievement, and social relationships
How Goals Foster Happiness
Goals give us a sense of hope, meaning, and purpose in life. But not all goals make us happy - we're happier if we pursue "intrinsic" goals that are inherently valuable. These goals involve basic psychological needs around autonomy, competence, and connection to others. In contrast, extrinsic goals (like fame) are instrumental, pursued in order to get something else (like approval from others). Beyond that, goals that also benefit the well-being of other people will give us a happiness boost. They're called "non-zero" goals (as opposed to "zero-sum").
happy marriages - the dynamic interaction style perspective
Influential research by John Gottman and Robert Levenson shows that happy marriage is predicted by the way couples interact: couples who exhibit contempt, criticism, stonewalling, and defensiveness have a 92% chance of divorce, while happy couples exhibit humor, appreciation, forgiveness, and emotional disclosure.
Happiness for a Lifetime
Kindness changes the way we see ourselves: we become pillars of generosity, interconnected to those around us. We start giving people the benefit of the doubt and feel less distressed when we see suffering, because we're doing our little part to help. Kindness also helps us make more friends and become the recipient of others' kindnesses. One study showed that doing a daily act of kindness gives us as much of a happiness boost as doing something new every day.
Relationships, Marriage, and Happiness
Much like humans, primates express desire through actions like pursing and licking their lips, and love through open arms and smiles. Love behaviors, but not desire behaviors, coincide with the release of oxytocin.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism, where we strive for perfection and almost always find ourselves lacking. Being praised in childhood for intrinsic traits (like intelligence) rather than changeable traits (like effort) can promote perfectionism.
Oxytocin and Happiness
Oxytocin is a neuropeptide, a sequence of amino acids that affects the brain and organs. When you give a whiff of oxytocin to people, we show more trust, generosity, empathy, and ability to read emotions. In fact, giving a father oxytocin will cause his baby to show increased oxytocin. Giving oxytocin to non-human species increases monogamy and caregiving. More oxytocin correlates with a reduced stress response in our hormones, cardiovascular system, and amygdala. On the positive side, it correlates with secure attachment and peaceful conflict resolution in romantic relationships
Physical Benefits of Gratitude
Physical: Grateful people have stronger immune systems and lower blood pressure. They're less bothered by aches and pains and take better care of their health, like exercising more. They also sleep longer and feel more refreshed in the morning.
Why cross-group relationships matter for happiness
Prejudiced people get stressed in the presence of people outside their group, but three deep interactions with "outsiders" is enough to lower stress levels. To become more egalitarian, we should deliberately expose ourselves to and cultivate friendships with people outside our in-group.
Gratitude and Happiness
Psychological: Grateful people have more positive emotion and pleasure, and are more optimistic, energetic, joyful, and happy. Gratitude helps reduce the frequency and duration of depression.
The Three Components of Self-Compassion
Self-kindness, the desire to comfort and soothe ourselves, and alleviate our suffering. Common humanity, the ability to see our problems as something that every human experiences. Mindfulness, the ability to notice and sit with our suffering.
Social comparison.
Social comparison. Comparing ourself to those who are better off than us leads to lower self-perception, while comparing ourself to those who are worse off than us makes us look down on them.
Mindful kids, peaceful schools
The goal of teaching mindfulness to students is to create a better learning environment. In particular, it should help reduce anxiety, social conflict, and attention disorder while making students more aware, curious, non-judgmental, and calm. A study of 4th-7th graders found that mindful awareness made students become less aggressive and less oppositional to teachers, and were sent to the principal less often, they had more positive emotions and became more attentive, optimistic, and introspective. Another study showed that teaching mindfulness to teens with ADHD reduces their anxiety and increases their focus.
The vagus nerve
The vagus nerve is a mammalian nerve that starts at the top of our spinal cord and runs downward through the neck muscles we use to nod, make eye contact, and speak. It has connections to many key physical functions, including our oxytocin networks, immune response, and inflammation response. It also coordinates the interaction between our breathing and heart rate and controls many digestive processes. Activity in the vagus nerve is related to feelings of connection and care, so it activates in response to emotions. People with lots of vagal activity show more positive emotion, stronger relationships and more social support, and more altruism.
The Cutting Edge: Awe, Wonder, and Beauty -introduction
We feel awe when we're faced with something greater than ourselves that we can't comprehend with our current knowledge. Our love of nature (or "biophilia") makes sense from an evolutionary perspective: being drawn toward lush surroundings helps us find a resource-rich place to live.
The Science of Heroism
Zimbardo has identified some of the demographic characteristics of heroes, which make up 20% of the population. They tend to be city dwellers, educated, male, and black. Surviving a disaster or trauma makes us three times more likely to be a hero, and one-third of all heroes are also volunteers. Zimbardo's Heroic Imagination Project is trying to figure out how to turn compassion into heroism. In his eyes, heroism is the antidote to indifference and evil.
Hedonic Adaptation (Hedonic Treadmill)
the process of becoming accustomed to a positive or negative stimulus such that the emotional effects of that stimulus are attenuated over time תופעה שמתארת את המצב בו אנשים מסתגלים מהר למצבים משמחים. למשל במחקר שנערך בגרמניה ועקב אחר 25000 אנשים מדדו את רמות האושר שלהם לפני ואחרי נישואים. מצאו שלקראת נישואים אנשים מדווחים על רמות אושר גבוהות אבל כעבור שנתיים בממוצע אנשים חוזרים לרמות האושר הרגילות שלהם כמו שהם היו לפני האירוסים.
Evolution of Empathy
Empathy is useful from an evolutionary perspective because it encourages us to care for our young and work cooperatively in groups. Empathy has a role to play in bringing people across the world closer together and reducing discrimination.
Biological Connections Between Kindness and Happiness
More studies of the brain show a connection between kindness and happiness. The reward systems in our brain show similar activity when we win money and when the same money goes to a charity of our choice.
New Friendships and Happiness
Social capital works best when we have a combination of strong and weak ties. That way, our support system doesn't collapse if we lose a single node. But each connection takes time and effort to maintain, so it's our job to prioritize and know when to say no.
Origins of Mindfulness
There are many different types of mindfulness techniques, including breathing, sitting, and walking meditations; loving-kindness meditation; the body scan; and yoga. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program - A 2011 meta-analysis of MBSR showed that it reduces symptoms of distress, anxiety, and depression. For people with physical conditions like chronic pain, it can enhance wellbeing.
Parenting and Happiness
Whether we'll be a happy parent or not may depend on whether we purposely chose to have kids, and what kind of attachment style we have. And the happiness of parenting may be more the "meaning" type of happiness and less the "positive emotion" kind. Parents who are older, male, and securely attached tend to be happier. Parents with trouble-free, easy-tempered, and older children are as well. And so are parents who have strong social networks, are married, and have custody of their kids.
What Makes a Hero?
Zimbardo defines heroism as altruism at a great personal risk. Heroes are ordinary people, yet most of us are "reluctant heroes": we stand by and do nothing. The same situations that bring out evil also tend to bring out heroism, like the Holocaust. Heroes have certain traits of character, like internal strength and self-assurance - they're willing to stand against the crowd. Often, they have a strong sense of morality that prevents them from doing nothing in the face of injustice (what the authors call a "moral tickle"). Franco and Zimbardo are trying to teach people that anyone can be a hero. אחד מהדברים שעושה מעשי גבורה למשמעותיים באמת הוא לא לפעול לבד אלא לייצר רשת של אנשים שיפעלו יחד אתך Ordinary people can become evil in the right (or wrong) circumstances; there is no clear division between good people and bad people.
What is compassion?
Compassion is the feeling of witnessing someone suffering and wanting to help them. That desire to help distinguishes compassion from empathy and from mimicry. Compassion is also different from pity, which includes the belief that the person suffering is inferior to us. Acting on compassion leads to altruism - helping others, even if it involves sacrifice - but compassion isn't always acted upon, and altruism can be motivated by other things.
Neuroscience of Cooperation
Cooperation activates our reward-processing and pleasure centers. When cooperation breaks down, we feel displeasure and our amygdala gets activated. Some brain areas, like the insula, activate when we cooperate or compete with others - suggesting they deal with our connection and attunement to other people. Other prefrontal areas activate only during competition, when we may need more brainpower for decision-making. The "dark side" of the neuroscience of cooperation is that people who perform "altruistic punishment" - against non-cooperators - have activation in the same reward-processing areas, the striatum and medial prefrontal cortex. In both of those cases (cooperation or punishing non-cooperators), the social order is being upheld.
What is happiness? Western traditions vs Eastern traditions
In general, the happiness of Western traditions tends to be more individualistic and high-spirited, while that of the Eastern traditions is more communal and calmer.
Kindness is Contagious
Seeing people be kind or generous makes us more kind or generous. Being in a group of people who give to charity - like a department at work - makes us more likely to donate.
Defining Mindfulness
The goal of meditation is simply to become awake. In fact, the Chinese character for mindfulness means "presence of heart."
Touch Therapy
Touch Therapy has been shown to increase weight gain in premature babies, reduce depression in Alzheimer's patients, make students more likely to speak up, and decrease mortality in patients with complex diseases.
gratitude, influence
Leads to optimism, life satisfaction, and happiness as well as less envy, possessiveness, anxiety, and depression. Gratitude is linked to more cooperation, generosity, compassion, and happier relationships. It makes leaders more pro-social and reduces post-traumatic stress in certain groups.
What is happiness? Buddhist
Buddhist: the Dalai Lama preaches equanimity, compassion, kindness, and detachment to alleviate suffering.
"Maximizing" rather than "satisficing."
"Maximizing" rather than "satisficing." Maximizers try to make the optimal choice (a form of perfectionism), while satisficers pick the first available choice that fits their criteria. Maximizers tend to feel more regret over decisions, and be less optimistic, more depressed, and less satisfied with life and with any success they do achieve. In contrast, cultivating an optimistic pattern of thinking - where we believe the future will be socially desirable, good, and pleasurable - is good for our health and happiness. Optimistic people have higher subjective well-being, positive emotions, and vagal tone. In one study, optimistic young men were found to be healthier 35 years later. This is true as long as we don't go to the extremes into wishful thinking or recklessness. Satisficing may seem to generate sub-optimal outcomes, but in fact it frees up our decision-making power for the more important choices. To become a satisficer, define your criteria for any given choice and stop looking when those criteria are met.
What's joy got to do with happiness?
- Positive emotions open our mind - think more broadly, seeing global differences and similarities. - Positive emotions transform us - positive emotions may even affect us on a biological level, the level of cell renewal
Happiness by Edd Diner
1) Overall well being 2) Amount of positive feelings in life
Causes and consequences of attachment styles
1) secure - loving, warm, and trusting; as a result, they tend to be happier, have more positive emotions, have more stable relationships, and be optimistic, forgiving, and supportive. 2) anxious - never feel close enough or loved enough. They've often experienced divorce, abuse, or a parent's death, and they are more prone to depression, drug abuse, anxiety, and eating disorders. 3) avoidant - People who are avoidantly attached avoid closeness, remaining aloof and distant. Anxious and avoidant attachment styles are considered "insecure," and we can combat them in term-13the short term by simply thinking about positive relationships we've had, or in the long term by cultivating a relationship with someone who has a secure style.
Why is tit-for-tat so successful?
1. הצעד הראשון שלו הוא שיתוף פעולה. 2. המעבר לחיקוי השחקן השני מייצר אמפטיה ומודעות לאדם האחר. 3. קל לקרוא את השחקן שנוהג באסטרטגיה זאת. מחקרים מראים שאנשים שקל יותר לקרוא את כוונותיהם מצליחים יותר במשא ומתן, בנישואים ועוד. 4. יש בה סלחנות- בבסיס חיקוי הפעולות של האדם האחר עומדת היכולת לסלוח ולוותר על נקמה. אם עד עכשיו השחקן האחר לא היה הוגן, גם אם חיקיתי את ההתנהגות שלו עשויה להצטבר בי מורת רוח כלפיו. אבל האסטרטגיה אומרת שברגע שהוא משתף פעולה אני גם יעבור ישר לשתף פעולה ולא אנטור לו על ההתנהגות שלו בצעדים הקודמים.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)
A stress reduction strategy based on developing a state of consciousness that attends to ongoing events in a receptive and non-judgmental way.
Pessimism about Pursuing Happiness
About 50% of our happiness is accounted for by genetics, 10% by life circumstances, and 40% by intentional activity. The 40% is what we should focus on changing, by cultivating relationships and philanthropy, optimism, savoring and mindfulness, physical activity, spirituality, and goal pursuit. ממצאים מתאמיים מראים שאנשים מאושרים יותר הם בעלי מערכות יחסים טובות יותר, יש להם מטרות חשובות בחיים שהם פועלים לממשם, הם עושים יותר פעילות גופנית וגם חיים יותר את הרגע. כמו כן נמצא מתאם מסוים בן אושר לדת ורוחניות.
Affective forecasting errors
Although hedonic adaptation is clearly real, we fail to predict how much and how quickly we'll adapt to positive and negative circumstances - this is called the "impact bias." As a result, we're very poor judges of what will make us happy or unhappy in the future; our "affective forecasting" is off. גילברט מדבר על כך שאנשים לא כל כך טובים בלשפוט מה יעשה להם טוב וכמה זמן האושר הזה יחזיק כמו גם כמה זמן ייקח להם להתאושש משברון לב. אנשים נוטים להערכת יתר של כמה זמן אירוע משמח ישאיר אותם שמחים וכמה זמן אירוע עצוב ישאיר אותם מרוסקים אנשים מסתגלים למצבים טובים ורעים הרבה יותר מהר ממה שהם מעריכים
An effective appology
An effective apology has four components: We express remorse, shame, or humility in recognizing how the victim suffered. We acknowledge the specific offense and accept responsibility - that includes elaborating on who was the offender, who was offended, and what the offense was. We show empathy and offer an explanation for why we did what we did. This kind of apology satisfies the victim's psychological needs for dignity, shared values, and an opportunity to express their feelings. It convinces the victim they weren't responsible and that it won't happen again. It also creates reparative justice by planning some punishment for the offender and some compensation for the victim.
What is happiness? Aristotle
Aristotle believed that happiness is about living a life of virtue, and it can only be judged when looking at your life as a whole
Introduction to Flow
Flow is an intrinsically rewarding state of mind that comes when we're intensely engaged in an activity. With our hyper-focus, we can lose track of time and forget completely about ourselves and the environment around us. In flow, we tend to be more creative and productive and (afterward) feel exhilarated and satisfied. For flow to occur, we need to have a clear goal and our skills need to match the challenge in front of us. We also need an environment where we can fully concentrate, and immediate feedback on whether we're moving in the right direction.
What Forgiveness Means
Forgiveness doesn't mean condoning or forgetting; rather, it involves accepting negative emotions like betrayal, anger, grief, or fear. It doesn't minimize the offense, and we may still resolve to never suffer the same way again. It's something we do for ourselves, so it may not even involve contact with the offender. And it's a very profound and challenging process that doesn't happen overnight.
The Science of Forgiveness
Forgiveness occurs when we are able to accept what happened, reduce our desire for revenge, avoid the offender less, and feel more compassion for them. It's not reconciliation for the sake of reconciliation or taking away responsibility from the offender; in fact, it can be something we do for our own well-being. Forgiveness is linked to more life satisfaction, more positive emotions, less negative emotions, less physical symptoms of illness, and less fight-or-flight response. Couples who forgive are happier as many as 9 weeks later. people who forgive have less stress and less hostility. Not forgiving may disrupt the way our bodies produce hormones or respond to bacteria, infections, and other health challenges. forgiveness can reduce stress, anger, depression, and hurt while increasing optimism, hope, compassion, and vitality.
Skeptical Views on Compassion and Kindness
Freud believed that humans only desire sex and destruction, while Machiavelli saw us as fickle, hypocritical, and greedy beings. Immanuel Kant thought sympathy was a sign of weakness, and Ayn Rand famously spoke out against altruism. The United States is the only one to punish prisoners with solitary confinement and has one of the harshest criminal justice systems. Studies show that empathy is declining among students.
Friendships and Happiness
Friendships, or alliances with non-kin, have many benefits to our lives. While chimpanzees (and some humans) use them to gain power, the more civilized among us find practical help, emotional support, and a sympathetic ear in our friends. Friendship and connection have health benefits, activating oxytocin, combatting stress, and even increasing lifespan. Friends provide us with deeper benefits, including a sense of belonging, visibility, and a chance to express empathy.
Psychological Benefits of Gratitude
Grateful people and people who train to be more grateful experience more happiness and pro-sociality and less negative emotions, stress, and anti-social feelings. On the positive side, gratitude helps us not only see more of the good in life but also get more benefit out of it as we savor the experience. And afterward, gratitude helps us remember and reminisce about positive experiences. In this way, it reduces habituation - we take things for granted less. On the negative side, gratitude helps us get past crises in life. Grateful people are more likely to see a crisis in a positive light and less likely to disengage and blame themselves.
The Power of Gratitude
Gratitude includes two components. It's a fundamentally positive mindset, where we recognize that there's some good in the world. Because it's always directed at something outside ourselves, it's also a recognition that we're dependent on others.
Misconceptions about happiness
Happiness is not a happy-go-lucky state without negative emotions, where all our needs are met and we experience constant satisfaction. In fact, extreme positive emotions expressed in the wrong context, or too much of some positive emotions like pride, can be detrimental. In addition, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for happiness.
Introduction to Apology
How else do we resolve conflicts other than looking embarrassed? We apologize. apologies increase psychological health and positive emotion in victims, while decreasing negative emotions. They also benefit the apologizer, who similarly sees an increase in psychological health, positive emotion, and (if they're a leader) authentic pride. An apology will always generate some negative emotion for the apologizer, but that's part of the journey to greater well-being.
Study of gratitude
In one study, people were asked to list five things they were grateful for once a week for 10 weeks. Compared to control groups, they felt more optimistic, better about life, and 25% happier. They also had fewer health complaints and symptoms of physical illness, and spent more time exercising. In another study, people were asked to keep a gratitude journal every day for two weeks. At the end of it, they came out more joyful, enthusiastic, interested, attentive, energetic, excited, determined, and strong. They were more likely to support or help others, and other people did in fact rate them as more helpful. For people with neuromuscular disorders, this exercise led to more optimism and connection to others, positive emotions, and life satisfaction; along term-81with fewer negative emotions. They were able to fall asleep faster, sleep longer, and feel more refreshed in the morning. Research on grateful people has found that friends rate them as more supportive, kind, and helpful. As one study showed, gratitude is even more effective than a good mood in getting people to help others.
The Evolution of Cooperation
It make sense that we evolved to be cooperative because of its benefits for groups and for individuals. Collective efficacy - neighborhoods with more social cohesion and cooperation, have better child health and life expectancies, greater high school graduation rates, and less social disorder. In contrast, non-cooperative or "Machiavellian" people feel more isolated, more stressed, and less happy. And when we look at our primate relatives, we see that they in fact are quite cooperative. Cooperation is not just part of human nature, but also animal nature and nature itself. When players make their decisions in under 10 seconds - whether they do it naturally or they're forced to - they give more money and thus act more cooperatively.
The Kindness-Happiness Loop
Many studies have linked kindness to happiness, health, and a decrease in negative emotions. Kindness makes us less lonely and less depressed. It strengthens our immune system, reduces aches and pains, improves our cardiovascular profile, and boosts energy and strength in elderly people. In one famous study, people who spent $5 or $20 on others were happier at the end of the day, while people who spent it on themselves got less happy - a finding that is being confirmed across cultures. If we enroll in a two-month program in loving-kindness meditation, we'll see an increase in our daily positive emotions.
Materialism
Materialism. In fact, research has shown that buying experiences gives us much more of a happiness boost than buying things.
Correlation between happiness and mind wandering.
Mind wandering leads to unhappiness, rather than the other way around. We mind-wander 47% of the time. You might think that mind wandering is a positive thing, since we can daydream of happy things or plan for a better future. But in fact, Killingsworth's data shows that people are less happy when their minds are wandering. This is true even if we're doing unsatisfying activities like commuting, and even if we're thinking of neutral or pleasant things.
Mindfulness at work
Mindfulness at work means noticing and examining the habits of behavior, thinking, and feeling that we've created. Sometimes, what appears to be a problem is only a problem because of the expectations or feelings we attach to it, not the reality itself. Healey encourages us to create some distance between ourselves and our emotions and simply observe. We can also keep an eye out for little assumptions or habits that are making us unhappy, like jumping for the phone when it rings. Finally, we can cultivate mindfulness by meditating as well as injecting it into everyday experience.
How Mindfulnes changes the brain
Mindfulness changes our brains, making some areas more responsive, interconnected, and dense. Areas related to empathy (the insula); memory, emotion, and emotion regulation; and reward circuitry. In response to distressing stimuli, meditators see more activation in their prefrontal structures (for awareness) and less in their fear-driven amygdala. Increasing gray matter in areas related to attention, learning, self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and compassion. increase in left-right ratio of prefrontal cortex activity - which is associated with more positive mental states. Result: we are more attentive and less distracted, more in touch with our emotions, more resilient and quicker to recover from stress, and more pro-social, optimistic, and kind - in a word, happier. Studies show changes in gene expression after 8 hours of meditating in the lab. In other words, practices like meditation can have an effect on which of our genes are activated, changing us mentally and physically. Another study of the eight-week MBSR program showed increases in gray matter in three brain regions: the hippocampus (for learning, memory, and emotion regulation); the temporoparietal junction and posterior cingulate cortex (empathy); and the cerebellum (emotion regulation).
Applications of mindfulness research
Mindfulness techniques are used across a variety of disciplines, from relationships and childbirth to education and health care to prisons. Besides the effects mentioned above, here are some of the results: More mindful partners report more sexual satisfaction. More mindful students participate more. More mindful teachers burnout less. More mindful health professionals burnout less and have more self-compassion. More mindful prisoners are less angry, hostile, and moody. More mindful people with post-traumatic stress disorder have less symptoms of trauma, intrusive thoughts, avoidance, and hyperarousal. In general, mindfulness improves our social interactions and makes us feel better about the world and our ability to deal with it.
Money and happiness
Money makes us happier - but only up to a certain point. People in poor countries become happier when they have more money, but we don't see much change in happiness as people start earning more than $75,000 a year. These days, wealth but not happiness is increasing in the United States, and 37% of the wealthiest Americans are less happy than the average American. ברמה התרבותית אנו רואים שאם מזרימים הרבה כסף לארצות עולם שלישי רמת האושר עולה משום שתנאיי המחיה והבריאות משתפרים. אולם בתוך ארצות מפותחות המתאם בין הכנסה לאושר הינו ממש נמוך ועומד על 0.12 בלבד. כאמור הכנסה שנתית של 75,000 דולר היא פחות או יותר נקודת המפנה והחל ממנה הכנסה גבוהה יותר כבר לא מעלה את רמת האושר.
Two Types of Challenges to Gratitude
On one hand, we may have trouble practicing gratitude because we run into tensions with our daily habits or personality. Gratitude goes against individualism, narcissism, materialism, and feelings of entitlement. Simply feeling too stressed and busy can also get in the way. But we might also have reservations about gratitude because we worry it will make us complacent or over-accommodating. Or, perhaps we think we're already grateful - we say thanks, of course - and gratitude during suffering isn't possible.
The Psychological Barriers to Gratitude
One barrier to gratitude is the "headwinds/tailwinds assymetry" - the way we tend to notice obstacles holding us back (headwinds) but not the things that push us forward. The solution is to take advantage of the headwinds - people prefer to hear about our experiences, and stories about obstacles are more interesting, so we can delight them with tales of our struggles. That way, we begin to see our struggles more positively (or at least get some social benefit out of them). Another barrier is adaptation, but it turns out we adapt more to things than experiences. Over time we become happier with experiences we've had, while we become less happy about things we've acquired. As Gilovich explains it, experiences become part of who we are and connect us to others. We're also more grateful for experiences than things, and thinking of an experiential purchase makes us more generous - while thinking of a material purchase makes us less generous.
Attachment, Happiness, and the Brain
Our attachment style, shaped by our early childhood experiences, affects how oxytocin is released and used in the brain. The mechanism is something called the "care-nurturance circuitry,"which controls the production of oxytocin In comparison to securely attached people, anxiously attached people have a greater amygdala response to negative feedback and avoidantly attached people have a lesser response to positive feedback. In other words, insecure attachments increase the sting of criticism and dampen the thrill of praise.
What Gets in the Way of Compassion and Kindness
Our environment can have a big effect on whether we decide to help others or not. If we're busy, we've been playing too many violent video games, or the sufferer is outside our group, we're less likely to help. We're also discouraged from lending a hand when it doesn't seem possible or our contribution doesn't seem to matter, such as when lots and lots of people are in need.
Conflict and Peacemaking
Our facial expression of embarrassment (discussed below) actually makes people like, forgive, trust, and give more resources to us (similar behavior among primates - instead of avoiding each other after a fight - make peacemaking gestures that lead to physical contact and grooming). Peaceful species of primates tend to have more abundant food supplies, less sex differentiation, monogamy, and shared parental responsibilities We've evolved to be cooperative but very wary of outsiders, but that doesn't mean we can't change. Our amygdala may naturally activate when we see people of other races, but we can stop that by regularly spending time with other races or striving to see people as individuals.
prioritizing positivity
Personality variable that captures the extent to which a person organizes their daily activities to purposefully create happiness
Why We "Wired to Connect"? Families become attached to each other thanks to three systems
Reproductive (sex), caregiving (between parents and babies), and attachment (love and commitment). Taken together, these three systems create "working models" in our brains: deeply held views about whether other people are trustworthy and how to relate to them.
The Benefits Linked to Self-compassion
Self-esteem and self-compassion might seem like opposites, but they actually go hand in hand. Self-compassionate people tend to have higher self-esteem, and both correlate with less anxiety and depression and more happiness, optimism, and positive emotion. the pursuit of self-esteem is the desire to be special or above average - and since half of us aren't, we tend to get inflated egos and look down on other people. We may refuse to see our weaknesses and be at risk for narcissism, self-absorption, self-righteous anger, prejudice, or discrimination. Self-compassion, on the other hand, starts with accepting ourselves despite our flaws. self-compassionate people are less likely to feel humiliated and incompetent when imagining a big mistake, and less anxious when admitting a weakness in a job interview. self-compassionate people actually take more responsibility for their actions. In one study, self-compassionate people who got neutral feedback about their speaking skills were more likely to attribute it to their personality (instead of, say, a mean observer) than people with high self-esteem. Mistakes and criticism don't threaten them as much as they do for people who have to perform well all the time. self-worth of self-compassionate people varies less over time. Self-compassionate people engage in less social comparison, and they also have less of a compulsion to be right or get petty revenge.
Overcoming Objections to Self-Compassion
Self-compassion might seem misguided: should we really just do whatever we want and then pardon ourselves, never holding ourselves to higher standards? Self-compassionate people actually take more responsibility and admit their faults. Self-compassion includes the desire for long-term well-being, so self-compassionate people won't spend all their lives relaxing because it takes too much effort to do anything. And self-compassionate people won't wallow in self-pity because mindfulness gives them some distance from their feelings and common humanity gives them some perspective. most challenging objection to self-compassion is the idea that we need an admonishing voice in our heads to spur us toward success. And we do - just not the self-critical voice that we're all so used to hearing. Self-criticism scares us into believing that failure is unacceptable, and self-critical people tend to be more depressed, less confident, and afraid of failure. In contrast, a self-compassionate voice would motivate us with the desire for health and well-being - and we'd be more likely to listen.
The What and Why of Self-Compassion
Self-compassion, a concept pioneered by Kristin Neff, means changing our inner dialogue from critical to supportive, understanding, and caring. Self-compassion goes against many countervailing trends in our history, culture, and religion. For example, ancient philosophies of virtue-based happiness and religious conceptions of martyrdom and sin preach the benefits of painful effort. Ideas like natural selection, behaviorism, and the primacy of competition lead us to think that only the best do (and should) survive, and the weak or the wrong should be punished. We have Freud on one side telling us we're selfish and destructive, and the self-esteem movement on the other telling us to see ourselves as better than average. In short, a kind and accepting view of the self - flaws and all - doesn't fit in here
Social Benefits of Gratitude
Social: Grateful people are more helpful, generous, compassionate, forgiving, and outgoing; and less lonely and isolated. By spotlighting something good, gratitude discourages us from taking things for granted, increases our pleasure, and bolsters our self-worth (because we can't be that bad if people are being kind to us, right?). The positive attitude of gratitude helps us move past stress and actually prevents us from experiencing negative emotions like envy, resentment, and regret.
Mindfulness & Psychological Well-Being
Studies on mindfulness are mixed but mostly promising. Various types of meditation and mindfulness practices have been shown to promote coping; increase positive emotions (like compassion) and life satisfaction; and reduce stress, anxiety, pain, depression, depression relapse, and negative emotions.
What is gratitude?
The a feeling of reverence for something given. It occurs when, thanks to other people, something good happens to us that we don't necessarily earn or deserve. Michael McCullough adds that gratitude involves benefitting from someone's costly, intentional, voluntary action. During the Enlightenment, gratitude was recognized as a major moral emotion that promoted cooperation. Robert Trivers, an evolutionary thinker, believed that reciprocal altruism was driven by gratitude.
Training the Mind for Happiness - Which kind of mindfulness meditation is right for you?
There are many different types of mindfulness meditation, and (as with happiness practices) everyone has to find the right fit. One study looked at three types: sitting (breath), the body scan, and mindful yoga. It found that all three types reduced rumination and improved self-compassion and well-being. But sitting and mindful yoga were most useful: yoga improved well-being the most, while sitting made people less judgmental about their feelings and experiences. Both sitting and yoga improved emotion regulation.
Two types of gratitude
There are two types of gratitude: - a momentary feeling we experience when someone benefits us, - a more long-term mindset, where we see everything in life as a gift. In contrast, ungrateful people see life as a burden. They focus on the negative and see everything they don't have, instead of what they do.
The Science of Trust
Trust is the sense that other people will act on behalf of our interests. Research has shown that more trusting cultures tend to be happier, but trust of institutions and individuals is declining in the US. Touch is a gateway to trust, with its ability to soothe and activate reward circuitry in the brain. The simple handshake when we meet someone is a gesture of trust. Research has shown that appropriate touch by teachers of students makes them volunteer to write on the board more. Language also helps cultivate trust. Our habits of using indirect or polite language build bonds between people, and negotiators who have a few minutes to communicate come up with better and more cooperative outcomes.
The importance of trust
Trustworthiness is the most desirable quality in a romantic partner, and it encompasses qualities like dependability and honesty. In a romantic relationship, it has many dimensions - we need to trust that our partner will be faithful, respect us, be there for us when we need them, choose us over their friends or family, etc.
Ultrasociality
Ultrasociality in humans refers to our caretaking behavior, egalitarian relations, tendency for forgiveness and reconciliation, coordinated and imitative actions, and monogamy.
"Can schools help students find flow"?
Unfortunately, today's schools aren't particularly conducive to engagement or flow. Students are obsessed with grades rather than learning, and everyone is forced to go at the same pace and change classes every hour. The low pay for teachers isn't enough to attract the best talent, who would be better at engaging student attention. And in fact, almost 50% of students are bored every day at school. While being motivated by grades puts students at risk for cheating, depression, and drug abuse, the internal motivation of flow would have extraordinary benefits. Several studies have found that flow in a course makes students more likely to sign up for another course in that field or even major in it, and flow is also correlated with good grades. To encourage more flow at school, we need to spark students' internal motivation. For example, students tend to be more engaged when taking tests or working individually or in groups - active activities - rather than passively listening to lectures or watching videos. Students are more motivated to learn when they feel in control and challenged to do something that's relevant to real life, with a supportive teacher standing by.
The Science of Touch
We are physically built for touch, with dexterous hands and skin that is full of information-processing neurons and manipulates our immune response. Touch can be used to communicate emotion: in one study, even a one-second touch on the arm could communicate emotions like gratitude, fear, and disgust with 50-60% accuracy. Yet our culture is becoming touch-deprived, particularly in the United States. Many babies died in orphanages before caretakers started holding and touching them. touch therapy is being used in health care and education.
Misconceptions about "Training the Mind"
We might be skeptical of these mind-training techniques because we believe they don't work, or because the outcome seems undesirable. Isn't the point of life to change and improve, rather than just accept things the way they are and naively believe the future will be better? In fact, mindfulness and the other techniques discussed help put us in better touch with reality so we can see things clearly and act from there. Thanks to neuroplasticity, science has shown that we are able to change.
The Voice: A Primal Way We Connect
We're able to make more vocal sounds than other primates - in fact, we can communicate many emotions like interest, disgust, and sadness without even saying a word (hmm!). Our ears are also specially built for hearing human speech.
"How to focus a wandering mind"
When our mind wanders during meditation, a group of brain areas called the "default mode network" activates. As we refocus our attention on the breath, the executive brain network takes over. Experienced meditators who repeat this process thousands of times start to show differences in the brain. They develop more connection between the self-focused part of the default mode network and brain regions for disengaging attention, which makes it easier to shut off that area of the brain when they realize their minds are wandering. Over time, meditation improves working memory, fluid intelligence, and standardized test scores.
The prisoner's dilemma game
Where two players choose to either defect or cooperate and get punished accordingly, is a microcosm of society. While an individual can get the best outcome by defecting when their partner cooperates, this strategy obviously wouldn't work if everyone used it. Ideally, everyone would cooperate and achieve the greatest collective good. On the individual level, the best strategy is called "tit for tat": we start cooperative then mirror our partner's actions. This strategy is forgiving and transparent, but it prevents us from becoming a sucker.
Toxic patterns of thought
While a happy mind has positive patterns of thought, negative patterns are implicated in conditions like depression and anxiety. Toxic patterns of thought include: 1) Perfectionism 2) Social comparison. 3) Materialism 4) "Maximizing" rather than "satisficing."
Happiness and social connection
קשרים חברתיים טובים הם תנאי הכרחי אך לא מספק לאושר. מחקרים אחרים מצאו מתאם חיובי בין מספר החברים למידת האושר של האדם Very happy people have rich relationships and spend little time alone, talking with friends is one of the happiest activities, and sex and socializing give us a lot of positive emotion. On the flipside, loneliness is correlated with health problems like hyperinflammation, decreased immune response, and trouble sleeping, and being excluded by others creates the same effect in our brains as pain. Social connections give us support during challenges in life, help us see our strengths, and provide meaning.
set point theory
תיאוריה על פיה לאנשים יש רמה בסיסית של אושר הנבדלת בין אדם לאדם ונקבעת בעיקר בשל גנטיקה ותכונות אישיות. על פי התיאוריה הזאת אירועים משמחים או עצובים ישנו את הרמה הבסיסית אך לאחריהם תהיה חזרה לרמה קבועה פחות או יותר.