The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance

What is your definition of happiness?  What is your definition of success?  How do you believe you can reach happiness?

There is no perfect definition of happiness.  Happiness is relative to the person experiencing it, therefore scientist refer to it as subjective well-being because it is based upon how each ofus feels about our own lives (Thompson & Prottas, 2005).

A meta-analysis of happiness research was conducted bringing together over 200 scientific studies including nearly 275,000 people which found that happiness leads to success is nearly every domain of our lives – marriage, health, friendship, community involvement, creativity, our jobs, careers and businesses (Goleman, 1998).

                                                        

In today’s society the formula for success is if you work harder you will be more successful and if you are more successful you will be happier.  But in reality this line of thinking is backwards, and science shows us this.

For example, most people set a goal, and believe once they reach this goal they will be happy, but instead they then set an even higher goal, and never actually take the time to enjoy what they had just accomplished.  Therefore, they never truly reach a state of happiness.

Some examples include; Grades through school (got good grades, now I need to get better grades), Sports (scored 7 goals last season, score 10 goals next season), Business (reached my sales target, now I need to raise my sales target).

What we need to do is learn to live in the present, and be grateful for where we are.  Shawn Archor, conducted research on Harvard Students and found that most students two weeks after the acceptance into the program, instead of seeing it as a privilege to be able to study at Harvard, started focusing on the competition, work load, and complaints of their new experience.

“This essentially pushes happiness over the cognitive horizon.” – Shawn Archor

Our mind shapes how we see the world!  We need to create a better Positive to negative ratio for ourselves within our minds and thoughts. 90% of happiness is determined by how your brain processes the world!

We need to learn to enjoy the moment more, and develop a positive brain, which will in turn allow for better results.  When we create positivity in the present, it allows an individual to think more intelligently, have increased creativity, higher energy levels, and the list goes on and on.  Research shows, our brains are 31% more productive at positive compared to negative, neutral, or stressed (Shawn Archor).

When we are happy, Dopamine is released, turning on all learning centers in the brain.

The Happiness advantage creates:

- Better secure jobs

- Better keeping jobs

- Increased productivity

- More resiliency

- Less burnout

- Less turnover

- Greater sales

(Lyubominsky, 2005)

So how can you create and develop this positivity within your brain.  To do this we need to rewire our own brain and research has shown that these different techniques work!

- Write three gratitude down for 21 days, which then rewires our brain to search the world for positivity (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

- Journaling about something you did well during the day, which allows the brain to relive a positive experience (Slatcher and Pennebaker, 2006).

- Exercise (Babyak et al., 2000).

- Meditation allows us to get away from the constant business of society these days, cultural ADHD (Dweck, 2007).

- Random Acts of Kindness- write one positive email praising someone you know in your social network (Lyubuminsky, 2005).

These different techniques have proven and been shown to help rewire the brain.  Therefore, if you can work on these different activities, you will help create a more positive thinking brain.  Which will allow you to be happier, and Happiness is what really fuels success!

                                  

From a personal experience, I started applying these different techniques and the idea of the Happiness Advantage into my own daily life, and I saw amazing results.  When you take a step back and enjoy where you are in life, you become happier, and then become even more productive at what you are working on, becoming more successful.  I have seen great improvements with soccer and within my study when I applied these different ideas and mindset, to my own daily life, so I suggest you give it a shot!

If you would like to read up more on the topic, I would suggest reading The Happiness Advantage:  The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, by Shawn Archor.

References:

Babyak, M., Blumenthal, J.A., Herman, S., et al., 2000. Exercise treatment for major depression: maintenance of therapeutic benefit at 10 months. Psychosom. Med. 62, 633–638

Dweck, C. (2007).  Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House.

Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Countingblessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation ofgratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 84, 377–389.

Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: does happiness lead to success?. Psychological bulletin, 131(6), 803.

Goleman, D. (1998).  Working with Emotional Intelligence.  New York: Bantam, at 77.

Slatcher, R. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2006). How do I love thee? Let me count the words: The social effects of expressive writing. Psychological Science, 17, 660–664.

Thompson, C.A., & Prottas, D.J.  (2005). Relationships among organizational family support, job autonomy, perceived control, and employee well-being.  Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10(4), 100-118.

How to make any workout feel easier

How you feel during training is not always a reflection of how fit you are. If you know just how to manage it and use a variety of mental tricks you don’t just get to feel better than you would otherwise, you will be performing better, doing more and work out harder. Fitness is, mostly, inside your head. It’s first of all a mental battle you need to win in order to make yourself train, make yourself train on the level you need to, and then to continue doing it time and time again. Once you do get yourself to exercise, there are a few tricks you can use to make the whole process easier on yourself:

Don’t think about how hard it is.

We often concentrate too much on how difficult and challenging training is, magnifying it in our head, all the while struggling more and more with the load. The more you think about yourself not being able to cope, the harder it feels. Essentially this is the pre-game pep-talk technique, applied to your training routine: Keep telling yourself that what you are doing is no big deal, it’s a walk in the park and you’re breezing it, you’ll find that you are capable of handling just about anything – and what’s more after you blast through a few of these your future training routines will feel all that much easier.  

Take yourself elsewhere for a few seconds.

This is the classic SAS tip for getting through incarceration or interrogation. If where you are is less than comfortable, imagine where you would like to be right now and take yourself there in your head. Imagine something pleasurable, something you enjoy very much for just a few seconds. It will help you reset your brain and take its attention away from thinking about the tough training session. 

Lie.

Just tell yourself that you will never do this again or will take a long break…after this time. All you need is give yourself hope that what you are doing right now may be challenging but it’ll be over soon, possibly permanently. Then show up the next day or the day after that. The lie works because it reprograms your brain to to stop complaining and simply focus on the time training will end. Tomorrow is always another day when you have rested, recharged and are thinking more clearly. 

Work out with music.

According to a study done by the research team led by Thomas Hans Fritz of the University of Ghent and the Max Planck Institute,  music, due to its calming effect, can lead to reduced muscle tension and more efficient oxygenation. We are not just able to do more and feel less exhausted later on, but the exercise itself feels less taxing. 

Try gamification.

When you keep your mind on a short-term goal you are less likely to check up on how you are feeling. It’s just simple refocusing that helps you forget about fatigue or any other discomfort. If your goal is to just get it over with and you have nothing else to occupy your thoughts with you’ll end up analyzing yourself and how you feel every other minute. Work for points (every rep of each exercise is a point, for example) with friends and try to reach the maximum number possible or give yourself a number and try to get all the points you need to reach it every day. Ingress, for example, is one of the best examples of unintentional fitness, just by participating you can’t help it by exercise. In order to play you need to go from portal to portal on foot or by bike and, if you want to be good at it, you want to do it often or all the time throughout the day. You don’t think about it as exercise but it is and a good one, at that. 

3 Heart-Healthy Ways to Reduce Stress

Around 60 percent of Americans have made it a goal to reduce stress. Those are encouraging statistics. Not only is stress emotionally challenging, but high stress levels can have an impact on the heart by impacting blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

That’s why it’s important to be intentional about finding ways to reduce stress levels. But that’s easier said than done, right? We live in a fast-paced society—and even if you’re not in work-obsessed America, chances are you have other stressors: relationships, family responsibilities, finances or health concerns.

If you’re looking to reduce your stress levels, here are three ways to do so:

1. Breathe deeply

Stress causes breathing to naturally become shallower and quicker. Even if you can’t remove whatever is making you feel stressed, simply breathing deeply can benefit the heart and entire body. Research has shown that what’s known as “pranayamic breathing”—manipulating breath movement—can result in heart health benefits: decreased oxygen consumption, decreased heart rate and decreased blood pressure.

I recommend breathing in through the nose, taking in as much air as you can, and then breathing out through the mouth, expelling as much air as possible. Do this for 10 minutes a day, if you can, but even 10 breaths can help.

2. Get outside

Living in an urban environment like I do makes it difficult to spend time in nature. But research published in Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine (EHPM) shows why it’s so important. The study was conducted in 24 forests across Japan, and research participants spent time “forest bathing,” or taking in the atmosphere of the forest. The researchers found that forest bathing promoted lower cortisol levels (the hormone related to stress), pulse rates and blood pressure levels, among other positive health effects.

Any time outside is beneficial, even if you don’t have a forest nearby. I enjoy walking my dogs in the morning—getting fresh air, seeing the trees and greenery, and just getting moving. Cycling is another way I spend ample time outside, and I get to enjoy views of the ocean, palm trees and other beautiful scenery outside. Just being outside helps me feel less stressed, and any amount of stress reduction supports heart health.

3. Move your body

Exercise is so central to my life that it’s hard to remember how I felt before I worked movement into my schedule. But I do know that I just feel better—and a lot of that likely has to do with exercise helping reduce my stress levels.

Exercise increases “feel-good” hormones called endorphins and can boost mood and reduce anxiety. Being active also gets you away from the things that are stressing you out—and, for some people, provides time to mentally work through problems. Plus, exercise increases overall health and heart function, two things anyone can benefit from.

You can’t control what happens in life, but you can control how you deal with it. Reducing stress levels can help make difficult situations easier to handle. And by keeping your stress levels in check, you’ll benefit your heart and body—and feel better in the process.