Learning that you or a loved one has a chronic illness is news you never want to hear. The knowledge of such information is often accompanied by feelings of fear, anger, and depression, which can cause debilitating, unnecessary stress. By understanding more about your condition and adopting a positive outlook on life, you can set the course for a better future.
During my time at Harvard University, I focused on positive psychology, the scientific study of what makes people thrive. Research in the field has found a strong connection between an individual's mindset, social support system and well-being. Recently I have been able to leverage the research behind positive psychology to help people living with multiple sclerosis.
One of us attended a two-hour creativity workshop in 2011 where the workshop leader spoke about the various stages of creativity. He asked the audience to blurt out words related to their experience when working alone and generating new ideas. They yelled, "excitement," "intrigue," "joy," even "love." Basically, it is pleasurable to conjure up ideas. Next, the workshop leader asked the crowd to identify emotions associated with that next phase of creativity; the part where you share your ideas with the outside world. The crowd hushed and a few timid voices mumbled "fear" and "embarrassment." Thinking about a field of judges evaluating the sweat equity and inspiration that goes into our work feels wrong. What adult has the authority to claim that a kid's crayon drawn meatball-shaped house with watermelon-shaped, purple skinned parents is anything less than creative? If creativity is about originality and usefulness, how can anyone criticize never-before-used rhymes ("I don't like 'em figgity fat, I like 'em stiggity stacked/You wiggity wiggity wack if you ain't got biggity back")? As these MC Hammer lyrics suggest, actually, some ideas are terrible.
The experience in this workshop reflects a broader pattern in life regarding creativity: people tend to fall in love with their ideas. Research suggests that the easier an idea is to think of, the better and more correct it feels. This is why none of us can accurately judge the creative merits of our own ideas. It is for this reason that creativity requires more than one person. Gifted authors still need editors. The best film directors rely on script supervisors to catch mistakes. Nobel Prize-winning scientists still submit their work to the scrutiny of peer review. The problem emerges in families, schools and societies that promote appreciation, compassion, and kindness over candor.
Americans are more depressed now than they have been in decades, even if they don't know it, a new study finds.
Data from 6.9 million adults and adolescents from across the US found that Americans now report more psychosomatic symptoms of depression than similar studies in the 1980s (Twenge, 2014).
Dr. Jean Twenge, the study's author, said:
"Previous studies found that more people have been treated for depression in recent years, but that could be due to more awareness and less stigma.
This study shows an increase in symptoms most people don't even know are connected to depression, which suggests adolescents and adults really are suffering more."
Symptoms of depression that many reported, but which people appeared not to know were signs of depression included:
Where we feel happiness in the body, how it affects our genetic code, why it changes with age, unexpected pleasures and much more…
Here are 10 of my favourite recent psychology studies about happiness.
Hope you enjoy them!
Happiness activates the whole body
Unlike thoughts, the emotions don't live entirely in the mind, they are also associated with bodily sensations.
Thanks to a new study, for the first time we now have a map of the links between emotions and bodily sensations.
Finnish researchers induced different emotions in 701 participants and then got them to colour in a body map of where they felt increasing or decreasing activity.
While Einstein was not a neuroscientist, he sure knew what he was talking about in regards to the human capacity to achieve. He knew intuitively what we can now show with data—what it takes to function at your cognitive best. In essence: What doesn't kill you makes you smarter.
Not so many years ago, I was told by a professor of mine that you didn't have much control over your intelligence. It was genetic—determined at birth. He explained that efforts made to raise the intelligence of children (through programs like Head Start, for example) had limited success while they were in practice, and furthermore, once the "training" stopped, they went right back to their previously low cognitive levels. Indeed, the data did show that [pdf], and he (along with many other intelligence researchers) concluded that intelligence could not be improved—at least not to create a lasting change.
Most people would rather be doing something than sitting alone thinking, a new study finds, even if it involves self-administering a painful electric shock.
Across 11 studies, psychologists at the University of Virginia and Harvard University had people sitting on their own in a featureless room for between 6 and 15 minutes (Wilson et al., 2014).
Professor Timothy Wilson, who led the study, which is published in the journal Science, said:
At a family holiday dinner last week, it finally dawned on me that certain people I consider smart and beautiful consider themselves stupid and hideous.
Granted, I spent most of my life considering myself occasionally stupid and more or less hideous, but no one has ever considered me beautiful, so that's different. Well, almost no one. But those few who did were clearly out of their minds.
It wasn't my family's holiday event. The family in question was a loved one's family, with whom I have spent countless holidays over many years. Not that I always wanted to.
In my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn't big enough. I was 30 years old, had no children to raise, no debts to pay, no philanthropic goal in mind. I wanted more money for exactly the same reason an alcoholic needs another drink: I was addicted.
Polk, as they say, knew of what he spoke: he was "a daily drinker (hey!) and pot smoker and a regular user of cocaine, Ritalin and ecstasy," and had been suspended from Columbia for burglary and arrested twice. The only thing important to him was his girlfriend. "But even though I was in love with her, when I got drunk I'd sometimes end up with other women."
The therapist communicates to the client that her responses make sense and are understandable within her current life context or situation. The therapist actively accepts the client and communicates this acceptance to the client. The therapist takes the client's responses seriously and does not discount or trivialize them.
In fact, it's one of the most important things you can do for your child, according to authors Karyn D. Hall, Ph.D, and Melissa H. Cook, LPC, in their book The Power of Validation.
Do you ever surprise yourself? Wonder why you got crazy-angry about something that now seems so small? Wonder why you made that dumb decision? Wonder why you shied away from a great opportunity? Wonder why you fell in love with a person you now consider a complete bozo?
I hope you do surprise yourself from time to time. Why? Because that's a sign that you're attuned to the complexity of your own psyche. You acknowledge (and forgive yourself) for not being a single, unitary, consolidated person. Instead, you are a person who is diverse, divided, growing and learning. Good for you – even though it may not always feel so good.
