Just a quick blog today about conferences coming up next year.

The first is the First Australian Positive Psychology Conference on the 5th and 6th April at the University of Sydney. This conference is being cosponsored by ten Australian universities and promises to be an exceptional event. The International Advisory Board reads like a Who’s Who of the Positive Psychology movement with names like Seligman, Diener, Fredrickson, Linley, Peterson, Shahar, Lopez, and Sheldon. Co-chairs are Sydney’s Anthony M Grant and Melbourne’s Dianne Vella-Brodrick.

The second is the Third Happiness and Its Causes Conference on the 8th and 9th May at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre in Darling Harbour. Last year’s conference was a sellout and very well received by attendees, with His Holiness the Dalai Lama as star attraction. A CD of recordings from the conference is available on the website.

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Pleasure can be defined as positive subjective emotional states. There are different kinds of pleasure and different intensities, so that the pleasure you feel when you are getting a foot rub is different from the pleasure when your football team wins the grand final, and different again when your girlfriend agrees to marry you. There are individual differences and preferences as well. To each his own, as they say.

Why do we feel pleasure? What is it for? The so-called negative emotions are likely to be an aid to survival. We get angry when we are attacked so that we are better able to defend ourselves. We feel fear when threatened with something much bigger or more dangerous than we are. So perhaps the positive emotions – pleasure – are useful to survival as well. We enjoy eating, sleeping and having sex so we try to perform these activities as often as comfortably possible, thus ensuring our own survival and that of our genes. Children like to play and so learn and practice valuable skills for later in life.

We also get pleasure from memories of activities or situations that have given us pleasure in the past, although we are more likely to remember the high (or low) points and what happened at the end – the peak-end effect (Kahneman, 1999). We also tend to forget how long the experience lasted – duration neglect. These effects may be worth remembering when planning a holiday – it can be short as long as it ends on a high note.

We like what we are used to and we consistently overestimate how long we will feel good (or bad) after a good (or bad) event. If your boyfriends leaves you you think you will never be happy again, but eventually this devastation subsides. You may think that if you win the lottery you will live happily ever after, but studies of lottery winners show that they very quickly revert to their previous levels of happiness. We adapt to the pleasure. The first bite of that rich, dark chocolate is sublime, the second less so, and by the third or fourth it could be any old choclate that you are eating. This effect has led to the hedonic treadmill, where it takes higher and higher levels of pleasure to reach the same effect (Brickman and Campbell, 1971). That payrise just ends up being spent on stuff you didn’t really need and soon you need more money to buy the better stuff that you now think you need.

Perhaps this is a good thing. If our pleasures were prolonged and so distracting that we didn’t notice threats to our survival we wouldn’t last long. Further, this adaptation to pleasures allows our interest to wane and then to enjoy them all over again. You would enjoy a single square of that chocolate per day over a few days far more, and for far longer, than if you ate the whole lot in one go.

What can we learn from all this? Enjoy your guilty pleasures in small doses more often, and hold off buying that bigger TV – it will seem too small soon enough. When bad things happen try to remember that they won’t last as long as you think they will.

Source:

Christopher Peterson. (2006). A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.

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This is one of the many excellent tests that are available at the Authentic Happiness website at http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu. Even if they can’t give you a definitive answer they at least get you thinking.

I last did the Authentic Happiness Inventory two years ago and my score was OK, I think. I was as happy as or happier than 60-odd percent of participants, and that surprised me at the time, I think, because I thought that my “issues” and lack of focus might be getting me down more than they obviously were.

This time around, though, my scores were a lot lower. Am I less happy than two years ago? Or is it a dodgy test?

Well, let’s think about this. If the test is dodgy then there’s no point in me doing it. But happiness is a subjective thing, and so it makes sense that my subjective feeling about myself and my life might change over time.

And in fact this is probably the answer. The test asks you to answer the questions according to how you felt in the last week. In the last week I have had a flu – a nasty, head-spinning, stomach-churning, back-aching, tired-making virus that nothing seems to help. I felt bad physically, I felt guilty for not getting anything constructive done, and I felt bad about myself for letting myself and everyone else down.

So of course my score on a happiness scale is going to be lower than when I am fit and not feeling so bad about myself. I tried to be honest in answering the questions, basing the answers on how I felt last week and not on how I feel now, which is much better.

Perhaps if I do the test again next week my score will be back up where it was two years ago, Iyt map even be higher, especially if I have achieved anything substantial in the last week!

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It is a sad fact that for many of us the prospect of getting old is quite scary. We look around and see old people hobbling slowly along the street and we look away. We think of retirement homes with distaste, if not with outright horror. Is that what will happen to us? Will we become old and sick and unable to function normally? We can hardly bear to think about it.

Of course, if we do think about it we can all identify old people who are mentally and physically active and lead satisfying lives. But it seems a matter of chance – some are lucky, some are not. Better not to dwell on it.

However, it is not a matter of chance – it’s not about genes or bad luck, or being born into the wrong family. Studies by George Vaillant (2004) of the same people over 60 years show that aging well can be attributed to certain controllable factors, and they are not the ones we might think that they are.

He defined positive aging as consisting of six dimensions:

1. absence of objective physical disability as rated by a doctor
2. subjective physical health as rated by the person themselves
3. length of undisabled life - whether the person had lost any years before age 80 to actual or perceived disability
4. objective mental health as rated by success in work, love, play, and avoiding psychiatric care
5. objective social supports – good connections with wife, children and grandchildren, siblings, playmates (eg golf, tennis, sailing) and social networks (clubs, etc) as rated by others
6. subjective life satisfaction as rated by the person themselves

He used these dimensions to classify over 500 subjects from different class backgrounds (college and inner-city) along a continuum that ranged from “happy-well” to “sad-sick” at age 70-80. The happy-well tended to have high ratings in most or all of these dimensions; those with low ratings were more likely to be sad-sick, or had died before age 70-80. Then he looked at factors that had been measured earlier in their lives to see what contributed to this rating.

First let’s look at what did not predict positive aging. The happy-well did not have longer-lived ancestors, higher cholesterol, higher social class, warmer childhoods, more stable childhood temperaments, or higher stress than the sad-sick. Contrary to what we would believe, better genes, low cholesterol, social class, upbringing, temperament and stress-free living do not contribute significantly to a healthy and happy old age.

So what did contribute to a happy and healthy old age? Each of the following variables were shown to lead to a positive old age, regardless of social class or other factors:

1. Not being a smoker or stopping smoking before age 45. Not smoking heavily before age 50 was the single best predictor of healthy aging, but if they quit smoking completely before age 45 the effect at 70-80 was much the same.
2. Using adaptive coping styles. Coping styles involve the use of defense mechanisms to deal with stressful situations. We all use them, but some, such as humour, altruism and stoicism are “more mature” than others such as denial and passive-aggression. It is more adaptive, and healthier, to laugh at misfortune than to deny it is happening.
3. Not abusing alcohol. Alcohol abuse was defined as “the evidence of multiple alcohol-related problems” with family, work, health, and the law.
4. Healthy weight. Weight was measured using the body mass index (BMI). Being overweight (BMI> 28) or underweight (BMI<22) class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">positive aging.
5. Stable marriage. Getting to age 50 without divorce, separation or serious problems contributed to positive aging.
6. Exercise. Regular exercise of more than 500 kilocalories per week was required.
7. Years of education. Those with higher education tended to stop smoking, eat sensibly and drink in moderation because they were higher in self-care, future orientation and perseverance.

This is great news for all of us. All of these factors are controllable – we can ensure that we remain healthy and happy into old age just by controlling our smoking, alcohol consumption, weight and exercise, and by working on ourselves and our marriages to cope better with stress and setbacks. The fact that a higher education makes us more likely to do these things should not stop us just because we didn’t go on to college or university.

Sources:

Christopher Peterson. (2006). A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Vaillant, George E. (2004). Positive Aging. In P. Alex Linley & Stephen Joseph (Eds.), Positive psychology in practice (pp.561-578). New York: Wiley.

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One thing you can say without fear of contradiction about the modern world is that we have more choice than ever before. Choice about careers; lifestyles; which city or suburb to live in; which house to buy; which car to buy; which school to send our kids to; which university to go to ourselves; which supermarket to shop in; which clothes to wear; which washing powder to buy; how to have our coffee; a never-ending list of choices assail us everywhere we go. How do we make these choices?

Research by psychologist Barry Schwartz from Swarthmore College in the States has shown that people consistently make choices in different ways. Some are maximizers – they keep looking until they have found the best possible choice among all of the alternatives. Others are satisficers – they search until they have found a choice that is good enough and then stop. People are all somewhere along this continuum, so some are more maximizers (more obsessive!) than others, and some satisficers are less selective than others. Where are you?

Comparing myself and my husband I have to say that I am a maximizer and he is a satisficer. When we are shopping for new spectacles, for example, I find a pair of spectacles I like and then I keep looking to see if there is anything better that I like more. He will find one that he likes, presumably that meets the criteria he had set, and buys them then and there. We constantly amaze (and annoy) each other to the point where it’s better if we don’t go shopping together.

Which decision style is better? Schwarz found that maximizers spent longer making a decision, as you would expect, but then they were less satisfied with their choices than the satisficers. Satisficers make a decision, are satisfied with the decision, and then move on. Maximizers, perhaps, are still looking around afterwards to see if they could have made a better choice even after it is too late. Satisficers are happier.

If you have identified yourself as a maximizer, how can you be more satisfied with the choices you make? Well, for a start, you might try to be more selective about which decisions you agonise over. If you are spending more than five minutes choosing a birthday card or a washing powder then perhaps you are not valuing your own time sufficiently. Keep the agonizing for the big decisions – the choice of schools, jobs, homes, partners, and set yourself goals for the small decisions to choose within a set time limit or within a restricted range.

Source:

Christopher Peterson, A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

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A discussion about happiness, wellbeing, mental health, or whatever you want to call it, must soon get around to values. What are your values? What is most important to you? What can you not do without in your relationships, your job, your social activities? What values do you want your kids to have? Your husband or wife? Your friends?

Any search on the internet on values will come up with a list to choose from. The list itself doesn’t really matter, what matters is whether you can find 3 or 4 or 5 values that mean something to you.

Here are some suggestions: Accomplishment, Admiration, Authenticity, Beauty, Belonging, Choice, Communication, Creativity, Excitement, Freedom, Friendship, Fun, Health, Helping, Honesty, Humour, Independence, Individuality, Influence, Intimacy, Joy, Knowledge, Love, Money, Peace, Power, Recognition, Respect, Security, Self-determination, Self-fulfilment, Sensuality, Solitude, Stability, Status, Success.

Pick five, and then consider each one separately. How are these values displayed in your life right now? In your work? In your home life? In your hobbies or other activities? With your family? Think, too, about where these values came from. From your upbringing? Were they important to your parents as well? Or are they the opposite of what your parents valued? Do they fall into line with the culture at work?

Perhaps the values you are living by came from somewhere else? Which values would you prefer to live by? Perhaps, too, the values you’ve chosen are your own, and yet you find that they are getting lost in everyday life. There isn’t the time, or the money, to help others, or to be as creative as you would like. Or perhaps you have all the power and money that you could want or expect, and it still isn’t enough…

Questions like these can start you on the road to being happier than you are now.

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There are many definitions of happiness. For some it is a great bottle of wine at the end of the day. For others it is the satisfaction of helping out at a soup kitchen. It is different things to different people at different times.

The question really should be, what does “happiness” mean to you?

If you can’t answer this question then how will you know if you are happy? Or whether you could be happier?

The trick is to find an answer that is meaningful to you and then to work out how to get there. And then to actually get there. It might take work, and it might mean changes from how you live right now. It will be worth it.

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Coaching is not a magic wand that will make you get out of bed in the morning knowing that your life is suddenly perfect.

Coaching is a process of exploration and discovery, of goal-setting and achieving. At the end of each coaching session you will have greater clarity abbout what you want from life and what you are going to do to make it happen.

Like a sports coach, I won’t take on clients who aren’t committed, and I won’t do the work for you. I will give you focus and clarity, enhance your motivation, and help you attain the knowledge and skills you need to get where you want to be.

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This title is a play on the word of the subtitle of a book on happiness called The Happiness Hypothesis, Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, by social psychologist Jonathon Haidt. I can’t recommend this book highly enough to anyone who is seriously interested in what happiness is and where it comes from. I’ve been reading it, and it seems to me that the best way to understand and process it is to write about it – after all, we learn by thinking about things afterwards; by reflection.

So here, for your enjoyment and edification, is my potted summary of Chapter 1. You really must read it for yourself to understand it properly, and then think about what it says. I’m just writing this to help me understand it, and it in no way represents an accurate summary of the book. Any errors are mine.

The human mind is split. We are divided in ourselves. Even though we intend to do something, like go to the gym, and we tell people we are going to go, we don’t. We are controlled by something other than our conscious will. One way to look at this is to imagine an elephant being controlled by a rider. The rider is smarter but the elephant is big and doesn’t always do what it is told by the rider.

This division can be seen in four different ways:

1. Mind and Body – our bodies behave independently of our minds. Our skin sweats, our stomachs rumble, our sexual organs seem to have “minds of their own”. No matter how determined we are that these things won’t happen to embarrass us, they do.

2. Left and Right Brain – the two hemispheres of our brains are responsible for different functions and can act independently of each other. This has been shown in studies of people with damages parts of the brain, and where the connection between the two hemispheres has been cut for medical reasons. The left hand may suppress, or work against, what the right hand is doing. People make up stories to explain what has happened, or what they have done, that do not reflect the facts. This is called “confabulating” and can be seen everywhere, not just in the brain-damaged.

3. New Brain and Old Brain – the “old brain” is the more primitive parts of the brain that we share with the “lower” animals, such as the hypothalamus, the hippocampus and the amygdala, which control basic drives, memory, and emotional learning and responding, respectively. The “new brain” is the neocortex – the grey matter that mammals, particularly primates, have that performs more complex thinking and decision-making. So the neocortex is perhaps what makes us rational and releases us from the mercy of our basic drives and emotions.

Part of the neocortex, however, the orbitofrontal cortex, is responsible for emotional reaction when we are making judgements or decisions. If it is removed then people are LESS able to make decisions, which shows that emotions do not get in the way of decision-making, but rather emotions make decision-making possible by letting us know how we feel about the options. We make the many everyday decisions without conscious thought, and this is not possible without our emotions. So emotion and reason are not as divided as we think.

4. Controlled and Automatic Mind – the older, more primitive parts of the brain have been functioning for millions of years in an automatic way to keep the animal, the primate, and then the human alive and reproducing. The newer, rational, thinking parts have not had as much time to evolve and perfect the way they function. Which part do you think, then, will take over when things get tough? When a lightning-fast decision is needed? When we are under stress? Which parts are working when we don’t do what we know, rationally, we should do?

The elephant. “Gut feelings, intuitions, and snap judgements happen constantly and automatically” (p.21-22). When we’re asked to explain our reasons our rational mind doesn’t always know so it will make something up – confabulation again. Just because the rational mind decides to do something doesn’t mean that, when the time comes, it will be in charge of making the decision to do it. We’ll turn off the alarm and go back to sleep because more sleep sounds better to the elephant than getting out of bed to go to the gym.

So we have “two minds”. Really, though, they are both us, so it helps us to know how they work and why they behave the way they do.

Source
Jonathon Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis, Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. New York: Basic Books, 2006.

By the way, the ancient wisdom came from quotes from Plato, Ovid and others about competing parts of the mind, which I haven’t quoted.

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I’ve been ill lately, and it was like my life had fallen apart. I couldn’t get things done, I felt bad about myself, I wasn’t getting anywhere in life. It wasn’t a serious illness, just one of those nasty infections in the head and the chest. Coughing, sleeplessness, blocked-up head…. I’m sure you’re familiar with the story. It seems like it has been going on for months, but I think the worst is over now, and I’m feeling like I can get on top of things again.

Have I been happy? I’d have to say no, I’ve been fairly unhappy. Health – 5-6 out of 10; Happiness – 3-4 out of 10. I’ve been rereading Harry Potter instead of writing blogs and being productive, and as much as I’ve enjoyed Harry Potter it’s not making me as happy as I am when I’m achieving goals and doing constructive stuff. No blog, no business-building, not much of anything really. And things that I really dislike doing are not being done, like housework; and looking at the carpet that needs vacuuming and the kitchen floor that needs scrubbing makes me less happy than I am when I look at it after it has been cleaned (no matter who does the actual cleaning!).

And I’ve been relying a bit on that old fallback stress-reducer – retail therapy! It’s a while since I’ve fallen for this, making myself feel better by acquiring stuff on eBay or in the local shopping mall, and I’m sure it’s related to being ill, since I didn’t have these cravings earlier in the year. I’ve been craving chocolate as well, another sure sign of unhappiness. The story of how I had previously managed to reduce my chocolate cravings are another story…

Now that I’m feeling better, I’ve been getting some work done, which makes me feel better about myself, and I’ve been getting out and about and seeing other people. No longer locked in my house seeing nobody but my husband, I am a social creature again, and I’m sure that this is making me happier as well.

So I’m convinced, as if I needed to be, that bad health means less happiness. Not only do I feel physically terrible but I can’t do the things that make me happy – working on something I enjoy; seeing other people; being useful and all that; and even the chocolate and the shopping doesn’t really help except in a short-term, superficial way. Today I did something I enjoy that I haven’t done for months – I repotted some neglected plants – and I feel so pleased with myself that I’ve come inside to write a blog about happiness, something I haven’t done for weeks. So as my health has improved my happiness has increased as I’ve been able to do things that make me happy.

Does it work the other way around? Can happiness make you healthier? Apparently, yes; if you are happy you will live up to 9 years longer, according to my current favourite TV program The Happiness Formula on BBC World. I’ll be looking into that one more thoroughly in a future blog.

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