The Secrets of a Good Life- Part One

“An old Cherokee told his grandson, ‘My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, fear, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, resentment, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, inferiority, false pride, superiority, lies and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, interest, humility, inspiration, serenity, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, compassion and truth.’

The boy thought about it and asked, ‘Grandfather, which wolf wins?’

The old man replied, ‘The one you feed.’ “

                                                                                                                               Anonymous

The next two weeks are going to be about how to ‘feed our Good Wolf and starve the Evil one’, giving you a general, condensed overview over some of the most important aspects and strategies for practically enhancing your well-being. Many of these steps are aimed at regulating emotions, which is a skill that can be learnt.^3,7 Your well-being can be improved by decreasing and learning how to cope with negative emotions, increasing positive emotions or both.^1,7 However, because of the negativity bias, decreasing your negative emotions may be the fastest and most effective way of improving your quality of life.¹ As we have previously also discussed, we also need to consider eudamonic components, such as having a meaning/purpose in life, positive relationships, engagement, as well as making sure that our core needs are fulfilled.^1,2,4,7,9,10

Over the year, we will go through all these points (and many others) in more detail. As you know from previous posts, our personalities and individual preferences are an important factor, and you may pick and choose the suggestions, which are most appealing to you. Having said that, it can be sometimes surprisingly refreshing and helpful to explore new ways of thinking and living. I would therefore recommend keeping an open mind and trying out as many methods as possible, even if they do not appear to come naturally to you at first glance.

Practical steps to a better well-being

We perceive our life to be ‘good’ if we feel safe, satisfied and connected but we tend to suffer if these core needs are not met.⁷ It may be that our external conditions are truly depriving us from safety, satisfaction or connection, but for most of us it is probably more common that we subjectively feel that our needs are not sufficiently fulfilled. As discussed in previous posts, we may sometimes need to (wisely!) change our life circumstances, but the main key to a better well-being is to adopt helpful attitudes and intentional behaviours, which make us more independent from external conditions. More specifically, changing our attention, our interpretations and thinking patterns, and our behaviour has been widely demonstrated to be the most effective way of improving your long-term happiness.^1-6,7,10 It is about adjusting our mental and behavioural habits in a way that enables us to experience more positivity, meaning in life, connections with others, get a sense of engagement, direction and self-growth, while at the same time cultivating acceptance and self-acceptance. 

Changing your attention:

• Most of us encounter more positive than negative events in any given day, but because of the negativity bias it may be all too easy to focus on the negative events and overlook the things, which went well. We can increase our mood by paying increased and conscious attention to positive events, thoughts and feelings, and decreasing attention to negative experiences, particularly if these are not important/significant for us.^1,2,7 Paying attention to positive experiences can also help us to store them as good memories, which can be helpful for us in future, particularly if we have otherwise a tendency towards negatively biased memories.⁷
• Similarly, one of the easiest ways to increase our positive emotions is to practice gratitude, that is directing our attention to things we are grateful for.^1,2,4
• Another way to use attention in order to increase your happiness is to stay in the moment and focus on the activity, events, thoughts or emotions at hand, avoiding to worry about the past and future. Mindfulness exercises and meditations can be greatly helpful for this.^1,3,4,6,7 Even when we are experiencing negative emotions and thoughts, mindfulness can help us. With mindfulness, we can learn to acknowledge these emotions/thoughts without identifying with them, thereby making us less reactive. We will come back to this important topic in a few weeks.
•  Pay attention to your values, strengths, goals and preferences, and what gives you a sense of meaning and purpose in life. However, during this process it is very important to avoid excessive self-analysis/self-preoccupation and rumination (=repetitive, worrying thoughts) as this decreases our happiness.^2-4,8,10 So once you are clear about your core values, goals and meaning, attending to others and the outer world rather than yourself is the key to positivity.^2-4
• It is similarly important to pay attention to your physical and mental needs, and get a realistic understanding of your vulnerabilities, again avoiding unproductive rumination.⁷ There will be a separate post on how to achieve self-awareness while avoiding non-productive rumination in the next few weeks.

Changing your interpretation, beliefs, thinking patterns and being aware of common ‘happiness traps’:

• Interpretation of events: Most events are not per se good or bad. Many are ambiguous and it depends on your interpretation as to whether you regard them as positive or negative. For example, if your train is delayed by bad weather, you may get angry, because you get to work late (negative interpretation), or you may be glad to have a bit more time to day-dream or reading a book (positive interpretation).² Positive interpretation also includes finding meaning in a particular event, life situation or occupation.^1,2,4,7
• Making good use of our memories:

o   Our memories are often surprisingly incorrect. When consciously remembering an event, we tend to judge it by forming a combination of its best (or worst) moment, and the way it ended.^1,2 We have also previously discussed that our memories (particularly the ‘unconscious’ implicit memory) can be negatively biased and selectively remember negative events while ignoring positive experiences.⁷ Knowing that our memory may not be an accurate representation of the past can be helpful to re-assess its significance.^2,7

o  On the other hand, we can harness our positive memories by choosing to remember positive events whenever we want.^1,7 It is also possible to overcome the negative bias of our implicit memory with some practice.⁷

• Be aware of the effects of hedonic adaptation: As we get so easily used to different life circumstances, we quickly take things for granted, deriving less pleasure and satisfaction from money, objects, people or situations over time.^2,4 Equally, we may get used to negative life situations and may prefer them to the 'risky' process of changing them. There are some things we can do to reduce the effect of hedonic adaptation, which we will come to in a few weeks time.
• Do not make the mistake to believe in ‘happiness myths’, for example that you can only be happy if you could only change one aspect in your life, such as 'I would be happy if only I would have a (different) partner/child/house/job/better health...' or '...more money, friends, success.' Happiness is multifaceted and does not just depend on one thing or future event.¹⁰
• Be aware that there is also a dynamic relationship between thoughts, emotions and body sensations: Thoughts can trigger emotions, which can in turn cause changes in our body sensations, but the same is true in reverse where body sensations can cause certain emotions and thoughts (also called embodied cognition).⁷ For example, if your muscles are tense, there is a feed-back mechanism to the brain, which can activate the stress-response in absence of other stress-inducing factors.³
• Having unrealistic and rigid beliefs and expectations of yourself, other people and your life as a whole is a certain route to disappointment. Don’t expect perfection. Of course we all need to have some dreams, hopes, aims and ambitions, particularly in areas which are important us. But at the same time it is important to remain flexible. Practicing acceptance and self-acceptance when we fail to achieve our goals, and trying to replace our unrealistic, rigid expectations with a more flexible and balanced view is the key.^2,3,5,10 Remember that people who are happy to accept an adequate solution (satisficers) are generally happier than people who try to get the absolutely best out of every choice (maximisers). So in some situations it is wise to settle for ‘good enough’ rather than ‘perfect’.^2,6,10 Being a bit of a perfectionist myself I know that it can be really difficult to change your mindset in this respect, but for the high achievers and perfectionists among you it will be one of the most liberating life changes you can make. The secret is to adjust your views and increase flexibility in small steps. Again, there will be a separate post on this topic, because I think that it is  particularly important, especially in the veterinary world.
• Disputing overly negative, over-generalised and pessimistic thinking: Blaming yourself personally for setbacks, expecting negative situations to last forever or thinking that one negative event will have detrimental effects for all aspects of your life is just as unhelpful as having unrealistically optimistic expectations. The same goes for always expecting the worst outcome (catastrophizing). Again, replacing these types of mindsets with a more balanced, optimistic and realistic view helps to increase our positivity.^2-5,10 If you are a constant worrier and prone to rumination, it would also be helpful to break this habit- more tips on this in the next few weeks. 
• Try not to compare yourself to other people, which appear to be better off than you (e.g. which have more money, a bigger/nicer house, or appear (to you!) more clever or attractive). Making social comparisons is associated with a lower degree of happiness.^2,10 However, it can be very helpful to use other people as positive examples and role models.²
• An attitude of compassion towards yourself and others leads to a greater well-being, as being kind to yourself and other people directly reduces negative emotions and makes your interactions more effective.^6,7 As we are highly social creatures, connections to other people are absolutely essential to our well-being. It does not matter if you are introvert or extrovert- we all need to feel that we are connected to others and it is important that we open ourselves to this experience.^1,2,4,6-9 This is not always easy. Particularly being kind to ourselves can be very difficult for some of us (again I subjectively think that vets are often bad at this) but there are some things we can do to increase our capacity for (self)-compassion. More to follow in separate posts.
• Try to use an open and creative problem-solving approach when dealing with adverse life events.¹ This includes situations where you want to change your life circumstances as well as times when you decide that you would like to address your vulnerabilities or modify aspects of yourself. In this context, it is important to learn to differentiate between appropriate and useful negative emotions and those, which are gratuitous and not constructive.¹ This is because the situations in which these different groups of negative emotions arise are best dealt with in different ways- there will be several posts dedicated to this important topic in the next few weeks.
• Try to see the funny side of things and staying playful: humour is a great way of increasing positive emotions and a great help when trying to come to grips with the challenges of life.^3,6 

Preview: Next time we will look into specific behaviours, which we can use to improve our positivity.

References and further evidence-based reading:

1. Fredrickson B. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, England. 2010.

2. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Blackwell Publishing; Oxford, UK. 2008.

3. Pittman CM, Karle EM. Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to use the neuroscience of fear to end anxiety, panic & worry. New Harbinger Publications: Oakland. 2015.

4. Seligman MEP. Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being- and How to Achieve Them. Nicholas Brealey Publishing; London, UK. 2011.

5. Seligman MEP. What You Can Change and What You Can’t: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement. Nicholas Brealey Publishing; London, UK. 2010.

6. Seppälä E. The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success. Piatkus; London, UK. 2016.

7. Hanson R: Hardwiring Happiness: How to reshape your brain and your life. Rider Ebury Publishing, Random House, UK. 2013. 

8. Nettle D. Personality: What makes you the way you are. Oxford University Press; New York. 2007.

9. Eagleman D. The Brain: The story of you. Canongate Books Ltd; Edinburgh, UK. 2015.

10. Lyubomirsky S. The Myths of Happiness: What should make you happy but doesn’t, what shouldn’t make you happy but does. Penguin Books; New York. 2013.

If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad!

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Donations are in aid of the International Rescue Committee and the World Veterinary Service

Just a Quick Update

• I just wanted to send a quick mid-week update to thank for all the generous donations so far. The campaign is only a few weeks in but this week it has already reached 25% of the target! I am very happy to know that the blog is able to do some good for other people and animals in the world. 
• Thank you also for all the positive feedback by email, contact form, comment box and verbally. The blog is very much a learning curve for me as well so I appreciate any ideas and input. 
• The email subscription numbers keep growing but for some the final verification is still pending- if you are expecting to receive the posts by email but you are not getting them, please check your inbox and SPAM folder for the Feedburner email where you have to click on the enclosed link. Any problems/questions, let me know. 
• Finally, another quote: 

 'The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.'

                                                                                                                     James Oppenheim

It is true that too many of us expect our happiness to lie in the future, but on Friday we will start to explore the many practical steps we can take to learn and 'grow happiness under our feet'.

Have a good week until then, 

Petra 

Why things often seem so bad and what to do about it

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it.

                                                                                          William Feather (American author and publisher)

One thing we can all do to increase our level of well-being is to increase our positivity ratio, which means increasing our positive emotions and decreasing our negative emotions. This sounds easy but as we all know from our own experience, it is not that simple as it seems- and there are good reasons for this affecting all of us to some degree, including: 

1) The Negativity Bias:

• People have on average three times more positive than negative experiences, but it has been well documented that we humans generally tend to experience negative thoughts and emotions more intensely than positive ones, a phenomenon known as the negativity bias.^1-3 The negativity bias makes us notice potentially negative events or experiences more readily; it also means that we are more likely to interpret an event as negative, even if it is in fact neutral; finally, most of us are also likely to remember significant negative events more than the positive ones.³ However, the topic of memories is more complicated and therefore discussed separately below.
• So, although most people have more positive than negative experiences, we tend to focus on the negative ones and it is therefore very easy to overlook the many positive events in our lives.²
• If you are scoring high on the ‘neuroticism’ personality trait, you are likely to be more affected by the negative bias and have more negative thoughts and emotions.⁷ The negativity bias makes good evolutionary sense: In a dangerous world it is more likely that those individuals survive, who are able to detect the potential dangers and act accordingly to circumvent these situations. Importantly, failing to detect only one single potential threat may lead to a fatal situation, whereas missing a single or even several positive events is unlikely to endanger your life.³
• As adaptive as the negativity bias may be, it is less helpful if you live in a world where real and direct threats to your life and health are relatively infrequent.

2) Our memories and thinking habits:

• There are two types of learning and memory- explicit memory and implicit memory: ⁵

o  Our explicit memory stores all conscious memories of our personal life and factual knowledge (e.g. the things we have learnt in school or for work), so it is a kind of datastore. However, our datastore is not always fully correct. The reality that we experience as an individual is constructed by our brain⁴ and our brain is not always right. Just think of how optical illusions can give us a distorted impression of reality. It is therefore not surprising that our memories are also often distorted.⁵ Luckily our explicit memory is often positively biased,⁶ which means that we often tend to remember the good things. However, this seems to apply more to people who report themselves as ‘happy’, whereas less happy people have a tendency to remember their struggles and negative events more than the positive ones.⁵ This may be one of the reasons why two people can go through the same experience but remember it very differently.

o   Our implicit memory stores our assumptions, expectations, values and personal preferences, as well as our perceived personal strengths and vulnerabilities/emotional deficits. It also stores our ‘procedural knowledge’, e.g. how to drive the car. Our implicit memory is negatively biased.⁶ This means that any significant negative experience is likely to be stored as a negative memory, even if this is only at a subconscious level. Conversely, positive events usually do not even get registered in the implicit memory.⁶

• We can have different automatic thinking patterns (habitual thoughts) and emotions in response to our experiences and memories. Unfortunately, many of us have negative habitual thoughts, which -together with the negativity bias- can lead us into a negative downward spiral.¹ We also tend to identify with our thoughts and emotions, taking them as absolute truths (also called cognitive fusion). By taking all our thoughts and emotions as definite facts, we may overlook that they are sometimes exaggerated or unrealistic.⁸

3) The normal stress response:

I must admit that apart from developing an obsession with quotes, I have also become fascinated by the neuroscience of well-being. However, I am aware that not everybody has a medical or veterinary background, or finds this topic interesting, so I will stick to the basics. Several different structures in our bodies become activated when dealing with negative events, thoughts and emotions:

• The cortex- this is the rational ‘thinking’ part of our brain. The cortex has a remarkable intellectual capacity, and makes us able to think and communicate our thoughts to others, and is also able to imagine and anticipate future events. In evolutionary terms, our problem-solving abilities and the fact that we can take precautions to protect us from expected danger have made us very successful as a species. However, it can also make our lives more difficult. Due to the abilities of our brain we do not necessarily need a real, external event to become stressed: negative habitual thoughts, rumination (=repetitive worrying thoughts) and the ability of our brain to imagine and remember negative events can trigger this response.²
• The amygdala (more precisely amygdalae, as there are two of them) is a small structure in the brain responsible for creating ‘emotional memories’, by associating negative (but also positive) emotions with objects, people/animals or situations. The amygdala reacts very quickly and is connected to the sympathetic nervous system, which is probably better known as the flight-or-flight response. The amygdala can be either activated directly in situations, which are experienced as threats (e.g. when seeing a spider if you have arachnophobia), or it can be activated by negative thoughts of our cortex.⁸ The amygdala can also ‘learn’ to be directly activated by traumatic events- for example if you are bitten by a dog, you may automatically get anxious when seeing a similar dog on another occasion. The triggers for anxiety directly arising from the amygdala may not always be obvious to us and it can appear to come ‘out of the blue’.
• During the fight-or-flight response, the adrenal glands release adrenaline and cortisol into the blood stream, which have multiple effects including raising the heart rate and blood-pressure, and mobilizing energy for the fight (or flight).^6-8
• The important thing is that the stress response is not only triggered by anxiety but by any high-intensity emotion (generally negative but also some positive emotions).² Also, once the stress response is triggered by the amygdala (no matter whether the cortex or the amygdala elicited the original reaction), our cortex has no direct influence on the reaction. We may find it difficult to think straight and even if we rationally know that we are not in a really dangerous situation, our bodies are telling us something different, no matter how hard our cortex may try to calm us down.⁸ 
• Once the dangerous/stressful situation is over, the body normally returns into the normal (rest) state but unfortunately, cortisol has an activating effect on the amygdala, so that a vicious circle can occur: the stimulated amygdala initiates a stress-response, which in turn makes the amygdala even more responsive, resulting in chronic stress.⁶

The combination of the negativity bias, negative memories and thoughts, together with the stress response means that real or imagined/anticipated/perceived negative events can take up a large part of our lives and can lead to a spiral of stress response, negative thoughts and negative emotions.¹

So what can we do?

There are quite a few things we can do to combat our tendency towards negativity and today’s post is only a brief introduction of the principles:

• As mentioned above, most people have significantly more positive than negative events, but the positive experiences often go unnoticed or unappreciated, as suggested in the quote by William Feather. Just think about today: Did you have something good to eat? Did somebody make you smile (in a nice way!)? Did you get a lot done at work? Did you see a beautiful sunrise? Have you been intrigued about something? Consciously noticing and savoring positive experiences, which would otherwise go unnoticed/unappreciated is the key to more positivity.^1,5,6 Similarly, we can also create positive experiences through our own actions (for example by allowing ourselves a treat after completing a difficult task), and by drawing on positive memories we may have.^1,6
• At the same time, we can learn to pay less attention to negative events, thoughts and emotions. Remember that you are not trying to suppress or ignore negative emotions, which can backfire. However, all too often negative emotions are gratuitous and not constructive, and these are the type of emotions we should try to minimise.¹ There will be more information on how to train our mind to take unhelpful negative thoughts and emotions less seriously over the next few weeks.
• Also, we can learn to reduce the effect that the normal stress response has on us. Once the amygdala is activated, the cortex has no influence over it but there are several strategies from the right lifestyle choices over relaxation techniques to physical exercise which can help,^2,8 and we will also go through them in the next weeks. 

A truly amazing person- What can we learn from…:

There is not much space left today but I would really like to share the story of an amazing snowboarder called Amy Purdy who courageously overcame the negativity bias after losing both legs below her knees and several internal organs due to septic shock. You can listen to her story in her TED Lecture Living Beyond Limits. In her lecture, Amy Purdy describes how she took charge of her life again, saying to herself ‘If my life were a book and I were the author, how would I want the story to go?’. Despite going through an extremely traumatic experience, Amy Purdy managed to start noticing the good things in life again and by ‘stopping and enjoying’ these experiences, she found her way to happiness once more.

Further information on this topic:

The most recent book from neuropsychologist Rick Hanson called Hardwiring your Happiness gives a fascinating insight into the processes within our brain, which are relevant to well-being. What we experience changes and forms our brain, but we can also change our brain ourselves by changing what we think and feel (‘self-directed neuroplasticity’). 

More information is also available on http://www.rickhanson.net. Rick Hanson also contributes to the great website http://www.wisebrain.org, which provides a fascinating mixture of resources, ranging from summaries of helpful Buddhist Principles explained in simple terms to a large number of scientific publications on the neuroscience of well-being.

Preview: The next two weeks will provide an overview on specific strategies to increase positivity and decrease negativity. Some strategies work for all of us but, as previously mentioned, everybody is different so you can pick and choose the things, which you feel may bring you the biggest benefits.

References and further evidence-based reading:

1. Fredrickson B. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, England. 2010.

2. Seppälä E. The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success. Piatkus; London, UK. 2016.

3. Baumeister R, Bratslavsky E, Finkenauer C, Vohs KD: Bad is stronger than Good. Review of General Psychology. 2001;5(4):323-370.

4. Eagleman D. The Brain: The story of you. Canongate Books Ltd; Edinburgh, UK. 2015.

5. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Blackwell Publishing; Oxford, UK. 2008.

6. Hanson R: Hardwiring Happiness: How to reshape your brain and your life. Rider Ebury Publishing, Random House, UK. 2013. 

7. Nettle D. Personality: What makes you the way you are. Oxford University Press; New York. 2007.

8. Pittman CM, Karle EM. Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to use the neuroscience of fear to end anxiety, panic & worry. New Harbinger Publications; Oakland. 2015.

If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad! 

View and Save as PDF

Follow the Blog- https://followthegoodlifecampaign.blogspot.co.uk

Donations- https://www.justgiving.com/teams/thegoodlifecampaign

Donations are in aid of the International Rescue Committee and the World Veterinary Service