The Simple Secret To Happiness Most People Get Wrong, Backed By Research
cus on increasing the amount of good stuff in your life vs. reducing the amount of bad stuff. Studies show that it really is the little things in life that make us happy. Researchers often tout the happiness-increasing powers of both religion and exercise. One of the lesser known reasons why they're so effective is because both provide regular, frequent boosts. You may be focused on a big goal, something that you're sure will make you super-happy for a long…
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To increase willpower should you focus on greater self-control or greater self-compassion?
lf-compassion. Via The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It: Study after study shows that self-criticism is consistently associated with less motivation and worse self-control. It is also one of the single biggest predictors of depression, which drains both “I will” power and “I want” power. In contrast, self-compassion— being supportive and kind to yourself, especially in the face of stress and failure— is associated with more motivation and…
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Does the guilt really make guilty pleasures taste better?
s. Via Kellogg: ...participants who had been primed for guilt both liked the candy more and said they would be willing to pay more for it than those primed with neutral words. Guilt also made the initial pleasurable reaction last longer—the guilt-primed participants remembered liking the candies more than neutral-primed participants. And: Neither Goldsmith nor her colleagues were surprised by the consistency of these results. “Guilt is linked with pleasure because often times when we experience guilt, we experience pleasure,”…
1 min read
You Become The Fictional Characters You Watch
a Science Daily: Researchers at Ohio State University examined what happened to people who, while reading a fictional story, found themselves feeling the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of one of the characters as if they were their own -- a phenomenon the researchers call "experience-taking." They found that, in the right situations, experience-taking may lead to real changes, if only temporary, in the lives of readers. In one experiment, for example, the researchers found that people who strongly…
1 min read
Research Shows These 5 Simple Things Can Help You Live To 100
ugh. Be happy. Be optimistic. Get enough sleep. Stay out of debt. Do not stay at a boring job that pays badly. Have a good relationship with your boss. Try and get promoted. Kissing ass is good for you. Job insecurity and unemployment are correlated with poor health. Connecting with others can be more important than exercise. Spend time with friends. Loneliness can kill you. Blaming others can make you ill. Forgive. It's essential to have a feeling of control…
1 min read
Can starving yourself for a while every day improve health, extend life and make you look good?
termittent fasting may have very powerful effects: Restricting caloric intake to 60-70% of normal adult weight maintenance requirement prolongs lifespan 30-50% and confers near perfect health across a broad range of species. Every other day feeding produces similar effects in rodents, and profound beneficial physiologic changes have been demonstrated in the absence of weight loss in ob/ob mice. Since May 2003 we have experimented with alternate day calorie restriction, one day consuming 20-50% of estimated daily caloric requirement and the…
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Watching TV Increases Empathy
s. Via an excellent piece by Jonathan Gottschall in the Boston Globe: As the psychologist Raymond Mar writes, “Researchers have repeatedly found that reader attitudes shift to become more congruent with the ideas expressed in a [fictional] narrative.” For example, studies reliably show that when we watch a TV show that treats gay families nonjudgmentally (say, “Modern Family”), our own views on homosexuality are likely to move in the same nonjudgmental direction. And it's not just TV. It's fiction, in…
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Can anything in life ever surpass winning 14 gold medals?
ybe not. Research shows that extremely positive events can skew perspective so much that everything that follows pales in comparison. Maybe this is why many athletes have trouble staying retired. Via Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness: As I was watching Michael Phelps receive his 14th gold medal – what a week! – this is what I was thinking: “How could anything in this 23-year old swimmer’s life ever top this?” And: “After he comes down from the…
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