Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness

good evening and welcome to the Museum

of Science I'm Lisa monrose the producer

of brainiacs here at the Museum tonight

is the second program in The Brainiac

series sound body sound mind during

which we are investigating the mysteries

of the Mind Body Spirit connection the

next program in the series features John

kabat Zin a pre-eminent figure in the

field of meditation who will will lead

us on an evening of Mind Body

exploration and adventuring that's on

Friday November 3rd and we hope you'll

join us for that tonight our focus is on

happiness the American poet James opheim

once said the foolish man seeks

happiness in the distance the wise grows

it under his feet who of us can't use

tools to grow it underfoot last year

twice a week some 1,400 students at

Harvard University learned how by

attending tal Ben shahar's class on what

he calls how to get happy that's more

students in one semester than any other

professor in Harvard's history it's

pretty

impressive it's thrilling for us to be

able to offer you a program on positive

psychology with a man who has happiness

down to a

science so here to offer us a precious

gift some insight into the secrets to

happiness is Dr tal Ben Shahar

I thank you

welcome you can tell them to come too

yeah um you know it's uh it's a little

bit uh of an irony that last semester

when I was teaching the class on uh on

happiness actually wasn't that

happy because um I've taught this class

before and the first time I taught it

was a as a seminar I had eight students

uh two dropped out so I was left with uh

with six and um but that I think is the

right number to teach happiness you know

especially when you talk about very

intimate topics we talk about

relationships talk about self-esteem you

talk about passions so it's much more

conducive to

um much more conducive to have a a small

class and then you know the following

year when I taught it

um I said uh well since only two dropped

out it means that possibly more people

want to take it so I thought it as

electure class um but I lost the the I

don't know the the connection to the

students that I had but that was last

semester um tonight this feels much more

comfortable and I'm glad we have this

intimate setting to to discuss the topic

of Happiness um and what we're going to

do today is actually this is going to be

to some extent an experience itial uh

Workshop uh not just uh me lecturing and

talking about the signs of Happiness

I'll start by introducing you to

positive psychology what it is um why it

came about and then the main part of

this lecture will be about six

lessons that positive psychology or the

area in Psychology that focuses on life

flourishing can offer I'm only going to

be touching literally the tip of the

iceberg of um the research that's

available uh in this area unfortunately

we don't have a lot of time Lisa told me

she wants you all out of here by

midnight so so I'll be

brief so let me begin with how positive

psychology came

about it came about in as as um an

independent by now it's already a

movement an independent uh um body of

research in 1998 with Marty Seligman

Marty Seligman was then the American

Psychological Association president

preeminent

psychologist and he said there is a need

for it and what he saw was the landscape

in the field of psychology David Meers

another preeminent psychologist looked

at psychological abstracts

research in the field of psychology as a

whole and created a an over rview of the

field and here is what he found between

1967 and the year 2000 these are the

number of

articles about

anger close to 6,000 these are the

number of articles about

anxiety makes you anxious just looking

at it

right but now if you really want to get

depressed in contrast to these

numbers you have the focus on fun things

like

Joy 415

articles happiness much better over

1,700 articles and life

satisfaction

2582 studies the ratio 21 to1 in favor

of the

negative so Seligman and other

psychologist looked at this and said we

want to ship the pendulum a little bit

we want to change that ratio the

question though is why after all we do

see that levels of depression are on the

rise levels of anxiety are on the rise

so maybe we should have that kind of

ratio but here is the justification for

having focused line of research on the

positive first why isn't not enough just

to focus on depression and anxiety

because happiness is not the negation of

unhappiness in other words if we get rid

of depression or anxiety that doesn't

make us automatically happy similarly

just like when we have indigestion

getting rid of indigestion doesn't mean

that we enjoy a gourmet

meal what psychology has

focused primarily on throughout the

years and that's over the last one over

100 years since William James is mostly

on the negative on getting people from

the negative

to the zero point to be okay not to be

sick then as Henry thorough once said

most men David Henry thorough said most

men live lives of quiet desperation so

quiet desperation is not necessarily

depressed it's not necessarily

anxious but it's not happy and we are

not fulfilling our potential if we don't

focus on things that go beyond the zero

so positive psychology came to rectify

that to take us from the zero to the

positive but there's another reason why

positive psychology is

important and that is that what

psychologists have found is that not

only does it get us from the zero to the

positive but it also strengthens our

immune system I.E makes us more

resilient when dealing with the negative

let me read you an excerpt from Marty

Seligman and here is what he writes

summarizing a lot of research that has

been done in this

field he says we have discovered that

there are human strength that act as

buffers against mental illness courage

future mindedness optimism interpersonal

skill Faith work ethic hope honesty

perseverance the capacity for flow and

insight to name several

we've shown that learning optimism

prevents prevents depression and anxiety

in children and adults roughly having

their incidence over the next two

years similarly I believe that if we

wish to prevent drug abuse in teenagers

who grow up your neighborhood that puts

them at risk that the effective

prevention is not remedial rather it

consists of identifying and amplifying

the strength that these teens already

have again focusing on the positive

focusing on what works as opposed to

what doesn't work in these teens and it

applies to everyone it strengthens our

immune system now a strong immune system

doesn't mean we don't get sick it simply

means we get sick less often and when we

do get sick we recover more

promptly this is what strengthening

optimism hope

relationships self-esteem does acts as a

buffer so not just getting us from the

zero to the positive but also more

promptly from the negative to the zero

and ultimately to enjoy a gourmet

meal the aim of positive psychology is

merely to ship the pendulum it is not

saying I'm certainly not saying let's

stop the extensive research on anxiety

and on

depression absolutely need to do that

it's important it's

critical the aim of positive of

psychology is to catalyze a change in

Psychology from a preoccupation only

with repairing the worst things in life

to also building the best qualities in

lives it focuses on strengths rather

than deficiencies on what works

accentuating it rather than on what

doesn't work and merely trying to

eliminate

it there's another thing that's unique

about positive psychology as a field of

study again started in 1998 you see

until very recently the realm of Life

flourishing of enhancing the quality of

Our Lives has been dominated by pop

psychology now you go to the bookstore

and the self-help section huge expanding

literally by the second thousands

hundreds of thousands of books on the

topic you open these books and what you

see very interesting Charisma

charismatic writers good

writers but often not always but often

very little

substance then you go to Academia you

enter a library you open the academic

journals what you see there lot of rigor

strong empirical Foundation

science but on the other

hand not

accessible most people don't read

academic journals in fact there is um

one of my colleagues

ran a study estimating

that the average Journal article is read

by seven

people and no there's more sorry there's

more I haven't gotten to the punch line

yet just be patient that includes the

author's mother

so and that's a shame it's a shame

because there's a lot of good stuff

there's a lot of good stuff out there

you an academic or a lot of good stuff

out there that needs to be read what

positive psychology does is create a

bridge between the Ivory Tower and Main

Street bringing the rigor the empirical

Foundation linking it to the

accessibility making it accessible to

students in college to the general

public Alfred North Whitehead the

careful shielding of a University from

the activities of the world around us is

the best way to chill interest and to

defeat progress celibacy does not suit a

university it must mate itself with

action and the same applies to the

outside world it must make itself with

the university bridging Ivory Tower in

Main Street bringing rigor as well as

accessibility

the question that positive psychology

asked the science of happiness is what I

see as the question of Happiness how can

we help ourselves and others individuals

communities and Society become happier

now note the question the question is

not how can we help them become

happy but rather how can we help them

become happier know many people ask me

have been asking me since I started

teaching this course so are you

happy and um I actually don't really

know how to answer that question well I

mean what does it mean is there a

certain point where before that you were

unhappy now suddenly you are happy is it

a binary thing I don't think so zero one

also how do I even measure it is it

compared to my friend my wife my kid I

mean compared to whom am I happy or

unhappy but one one thing which I can

answer is

I am happier today than I was 10 years

ago and I certainly hope to be happier

10 years from now than I am today so

rather than asking am I happy or unhappy

the binary 01 question it's better to

answer how can I become

happier and this is the question that

positive psychology attempts to answer

there are no quick fixes in positive

psychology there are no like many of the

self-help books offer five steps to

Happy

three steps

to uh abundance of self-esteem one step

to finding your perfect lover it just

doesn't work that way in reality at

least it hasn't worked that way for me

and research suggests that it doesn't

for most people but what positive

psychology does is provide a few lessons

and an expanding body of lessons because

there's a lot of research being done in

this

field that provides some lessons that

have been tested that actually work I'm

going to share with you six today all

back and I'm going to also discuss some

of the studies that were done that

hopefully you can apply to your lives

you may resonate to some more than

others see what you can get out the most

important thing is then to go out and

apply them and we're going to talk about

application later on so let me begin

with the first lesson you know when

I taught the class for the first time at

that time I was a tutor in one of the

undergraduate houses and one of my

students came to me and said oh you know

I heard he wasn't taking the class I

heard you're teaching a class on

happiness I said yeah and he said yeah

you know my my roommates are are taking

it you know implying that they need it

and he doesn't of course but um and then

he said to me so you need to watch out

though and I said why he said because

you know if I soon the dining hall Hall

unhappy I'm going to tell

them okay so you're going to be telling

them a lot I thought to

myself and I told my class about this

exchange at the day after and I said you

know the last thing I want you to think

is that you're going to come out of this

class and be happy or that I'm always

happy see there is a real misconception

about about what happiness means today

happiness is not a constant

High there are ups and downs the problem

today is that there

is lack of acceptance toward negative

emotions because people think that if we

experience a negative emotion such as

fear anxiety depression anger UPS being

upset or being sad that there must be

something wrong with us when in fact the

exact opposite is the case there are two

kinds of people who don't experience

sadness anxiety anger feeling down

depressed at times there are two kinds

of people who don't experience these

negative

emotions

Psychopaths and dead

people so you know what if you

experience these emotions it's a good

sign and I'm glad you're here

one of the main Concepts coming out of

psychology one of the things that I

repeat over and over again in my class

and to

myself the the idea of the permission to

be

human the permission to be human we all

experience these emotions the problem is

when we don't give ourselves the

permission to be human what we

experience is the strengthening of these

emotions what we experience is frust

ation imagine waking up every morning

you know we're in the science museum

let's talk science imagine waking up

every morning and saying to

yourself today I'm not I refuse to

absolutely refuse to accept the fact

that I cannot fly law of gravity ah

don't like

it I mean what kind of Life Would You

Lead it's exactly the same thing with

these emotions they're as natural as

real as the law of gravity is giving

ourselves the permission to be

human

now that was a

teaser it it was

planned you know as as kids we know that

we accept the fact that we have the ups

and downs we accept our emotions and

therefore we develop cognitive and

emotional flexibility we lose that

flexibility

later on when we suppress the emotions

because we say I shouldn't be feeling

this we don't give ourselves the

permission to be human and we pay a

price let's look at an excerpt of a of a

baby and I want you to

notice the cognitive and emotional uh

flexibility fortunately the baby doesn't

make it too subtle so I think uh we can

we can all get

it you know so so as kids as babies it

it comes natural to us we have an

emotion we experience it as adults we

suppress it and we pay a price a very

high price for it what we need when it

comes to our emotions and I want to

elaborate on this a little bit based on

Research what we need is unconditional

acceptance or or unconditional

self-regard when it comes to our

emotion the best advice that I got

regarding child rearing from the

psycholog iCal perspective was from Dr

Todd Shapiro who was our our doctor here

in Beth

Israel and um he came to see us he

didn't actually deliver he came to see

us the morning after the delivery to

make sure that everything was okay and

as he was leaving the house after

checking the baby checking

us he um he looked back and he said

talking to to both of us well maybe to

the three of us he said over the next

few months you're going to be

experiencing every single kind of

emotion to the

extreme and it's okay it's

natural that was the best advice that I

got and he said because you're going to

be experiencing envy and anger and joy

and ecstasy and he was right

on because for example suddenly I wasn't

the only one in my wife's life there

was someone else and at times I

experienced

Envy but then how would I felt if 5

minutes later and it very often happened

5 minutes later I would have experienced

this incredible joy happiness and love

toward my baby I would have felt like a

hypocrite had I not not giving myself

the permission to be

human it's natural it's normal we all

have these ups and downs part of being

human and in fact when we allow

ourselves to experience these emotions

the Paradox is that we experience less

of it so this study was done by Daniel

Wagner showing that when we try to

suppress things they actually simply

strengthen and we all know this

intuitively so let's do a quick quick

experiment for the next 10

seconds for the next 10

seconds this is an easy one so but I

still need you to focus for the next 10

seconds I don't want you to think don't

think of a pink elephant for the next 10

second you know the one Dumbo with the

big ears flapping and do not think of a

pink elephant you only have 5 Seconds

not to think of that pink ele

elephant

good now what if you say to yourself

don't be anxious don't be anxious don't

be anxious or why you angry why you

angry you get anxious you get angry

ironic processing the exact opposite

when we allow these emotions to be

present when we experience them that's

when we are better able to get over

them the problem as I mentioned earlier

in our culture today is that there is a

negative stereotype assigned to negative

emotions so when people ask us so how

are you doing say oh fine just great

when more appropriate would be a tear or

well actually not

good and we learn to suppress them and

you know what the problem is the problem

is that everyone does it and when people

ask us so how are you how are we we

don't say oh terrible we don't want to

be the party pooper everyone's doing

great well I'm going to be the only one

who's depressed

here so we say great and then we

contribute to the great deception and

this great

deception is one of the most significant

contributors to our Great Depression to

the rising levels of depression in our

culture and they're

Rising now I'm not saying wearing our

heart on our sleeves oh how am I you

know thank you for asking well it all

started 35 years

ago no but what I am saying is you know

be honest be open and at very least with

you know one or two intimate

friends or when it's not fine say it's

not fine when you feel like crying cry

when you feel like laughing laugh

permission to be

human which is not the same as resigning

to negative emotion

there is a distinct difference here the

difference is that what I'm talking when

I when I talk about acceptance when the

literature talks about acceptance is an

active kind of acceptance distinguishing

between emotion and behavior so for

instance I can feel anxiety or

nervousness when I stand in front of an

audience which I very often

do but then I have a choice of whether

to act in accordance to this emotion or

not to speak in front of of an audience

or not I can experience Envy toward my

best friend who has just

succeeded and that's natural that's

human we all experience this emotion but

then I can choose whether to put my

friend down or to end the relationship

or on the other hand to continue to act

generously and

benevolently toward him or

her act itive acceptance I accept the

emotion Envy anxiety

fear they're all

natural and then I

choose how to behave how to act active

acceptance summarized best by Pastor

nebor God grant me the serenity to

accept the things I cannot change the

courage to change the things I can

change and the wisdom to know the

difference again we've heard it again

it's became the mantra for the AA

movement and a very effective very

powerful

message first lesson permission to be

human again what I'm doing just giving

the tip of the iceberg some of the

studies on each topic second one a very

important

one

simplifying in our R race culture we try

and do more and more things in less and

less time

and we pay a high price for it we pay a

very high price for

it so I want to take some time

now aside away from this red race and do

an

exercise feel free to participate in

this exercise or not if you want to

close your eyes while doing it you can

as I said I want to make this

experiential this is the first thing

that I recommend in introducing to your

lives after you have simplified

slightly this is an exercise that

combines the first two lessons together

so we're going to do a guided meditation

and I'm going to talk about meditation

later you have a whole talk about uh

meditation on November 3rd with

preeminent scholar in the field John

kabad Zin whose research I'm going to be

talking about briefly but let's do an

experiential exercise so if we can just

have the light dimmed a little

bit feel free to do it or

not so sit comfortably in your

chair and what I want to do now is for

you to experience the

space of

unconditional

acceptance the space of giving yourself

the

permission to be human

so with your eyes closed take a deep

breath

into your stomach a deep breath all the

way down to your stomach and breathe out

slowly gently

calmly take another breath feel the

space in your

stomach your

belly and then breathe out slowly

calmly continue a few

breaths deep breaths slow

breaths slow quiet calm exhalation

now look inside yourself with your eyes

closed and ask

yourself how you're

feeling are you feeling

calm or

anxious

confused

happy and whatever you're feeling just

allow that emotion to be inside you just

observe it give yourself the permission

to experience whatever it is that you're

experiencing it's okay it's fine it's

human continue breathing deeply into

that emotion

now imagine

yourself in your mind's eye leaving this

room later going

outside and

maintaining this unconditional

acceptance this permission to be human

see yourself going out to the world

going home and remaining with this full

acceptance whatever the emotion is fear

anxiety

sadness

happiness joy well-being and whatever it

is it's okay it's

fine experience what it feels like to

accept your emotions

unconditionally not having to put on a

facade not having to put on a show

just

being simply being a human

being and stay with that

emotion for a few deep breaths giving

yourself the permission to be human

now

slowly as you

exhale open your

eyes especially if you're asleep

this was

about I don't know 3 minutes four

minutes

long meditating regularly and we'll talk

about the research later can literally

transform your life bring yourself to

this space in this case it was

unconditional

acceptance you can focus on gratitude

which we'll also talk about

later takes you elsewhere makes you

recognize appreciate the good things in

your

life but in order in order to bring this

exercise the first important thing we

need to do is exercise why because we're

living in a red race

World we're running at for

flying at 600 miles an hour we have no

time and we need to simplify we need

to take time out if we are concerned

about our

well-being one of the main reasons for

the increase in the levels of depression

around the world today is

stress Richard cadison who's the head of

mental health services at Harvard

University has done a lot of research on

anxiety

depression researched 13,000 or surveyed

13,000 college students throughout the

country so not just at Harvard where he

is is but all over the country

Nationwide this was his

finding in a recent National servy of

over 13,000 college students nearly

45% reported being so depressed that

they had difficulty functioning and 94%

reported feeling overwhelmed by

everything they had to do 45% and he's

not just talking about you know the ups

and downs you know the ones that we have

10 off a day he's talking about deep

depression to the point of not

functioning

45% and these are the best four years of

our life

right levels of depression are 10 times

higher today than they were in

1960 mean age for depression in 1960 was

just over 29 today it's under

15 now granted today the measurements

are better there is higher levels of um

there's more focus on it but still

depression objectively is is on the rise

one of the main reasons because of

stress because the way it works is we

have too much to do and I bet you at

least 94% of us in this room feel that

we have too much to

do as a result we feel overwhelmed we're

stressed

and that is highly Associated and

predictive

of

depression so if you want to reverse

this or end reverse the trend of

depression we need to end feeling

stressed and overwhelmed and we need to

do

less one of my favorite psychologists is

the woman whom you'll see in a minute

and here she's talking or describing

what is going on today in our

culture her name is some of you may have

heard of her Ellen

degenerous TBD that really should be a

new disorder in the DSM

4 we need to simplify we have to

simplify we need to do less rather than

more so even though today I'm going to

be talking talking about some

practices if there's one thing that you

do is actually do less and then if you

have some time introduce these practices

arguably the number one cause of stress

and as a result of the rising levels of

depression because quantity does affect

quality so even if we look at our lives

and we say yeah I like doing what I'm

doing here and here and here and I

really want to do that too there is such

a thing as too much much of a good thing

know it's like chocolate chocolate is

great but you don't want to have too

much of

it so we need to reduce we need to very

often say no to things because often

when we say no to certain things to

certain people we're saying yes to

ourselves researchers the hris love and

sex are affected NE negatively by Str

stress if we can help people to simplify

their lives th reducing the stress level

it is very likely that people's

relationships would be enriched greatly

moreover the positive aspects of their

lives would be enriched accordingly they

have done research for years the

handrick on their psychologists on love

and relationships and this is what they

found simplifying Our Lives doing less

rather than more has a positive effect

on

relationships the physical and the

spiritual element of a relationship and

also on life in general not just on

relationships simplify doing less saying

no at

times now the thing about simplifying

and doing less is that it doesn't just

make us happier it also once again

paradoxically makes us more successful

if I was telling my students you know do

less you know go to a mountain in Tibet

and and meditate

at the expense of being successful very

few of them would listen to it probably

no one would listen to it but it's not

just about being happier it's also about

being more successful taking time off

has a positive effect JP Morgan founder

of the Morgan Empire said I can do the

work a year work in nine months but not

in

12 he recognized the importance of

taking time off there's a lot of

research on it both in organizational

behavior in the study of

leadership that you actually enhance

your bottom line levels of productivity

and levels of

creativity when you take time off work

it's not a coincidence that we come up

with our best ideas in the bath or or in

the car or actually the car it used to

be right now we're on the cell phone

right so we don't even have time to

reflect while driving no coincidence

that the best idea is come in places

where we're doing

nothing where we're simply doing nothing

again a lot of research in organizations

individuals you actually uh learn more

you grow more you become happier and

more

successful I want to show you an

interview a brief interview or an

excerpt from an

interview um when Nelson Mandela visited

Oprah

if you want great lessons about

leadership this is probably the most uh

dense one hour on leadership you would

ever find this specific interview but I

want to focus on one part what Nelson

Mandela or how he perceives the the

importance of reflection of taking time

aside of

simplifying but what Mandela is

recognizing there is the importance of

time aside for reflection

for growth back in 1840 thorough

Simplicity Simplicity Simplicity I say

let your Affairs be as two or three and

not a 100 or a thousand instead of a

million count half a dozen in the midst

of this chopping sea of civilized life

such are the clouds and storms and quick

Sands and the Thousand and One items to

be allowed for that a man has to live if

he would not found her and go to the

bottom and not make his PO At All by

dead reckoning and he must be a great

calculator indeed who succeeds

simplify

simplify things haven't been getting

less busy since

1840 it's even more replicable today do

less rather than

more let me move on to lesson number

three the importance of finding meaning

and pleasure in our lives ideally in the

same

activity I define

happiness as the experience of both

meaning and pleasure at the intersection

between the two there are experiences

that are meaningful there are

experiences that are pleasurable ones

that have both that's where happiness

resides for

example from from my life politics

extremely meaningful to me I think it's

important

very high sense of purpose but I don't

enjoy it it's not pleasurable to

me lying on the beach the Mediterranean

Sea beautiful very pleasurable to me but

not that meaningful know certainly not

after 3 years of doing it daily you

cannot sustain happiness only with

pleasure nor can you sustain it only

with meaning what we want to find is the

combination the same applies to a

workplace how do we identify a workplace

that provides us both meaning and

pleasure and in relationships how do I

find a relationship where I enjoy

spending time with my partner and it's a

meaningful deep relationship and we'll

talk more about relationships a little

bit later

on the psychological term for goals that

are both meaningful and pleasurable is

self-concordant goals again a lot of

research on this topic what's

self-concordant goals are are goals that

are aligned with personal interest and

values goals that we want to achieve as

opposed to have

to do the want to versus the have

to quickly scan your life and think

about it how many things in your day

today do you do because you want or

because you feel that you want you know

there are certain things in life that we

have to do you know I have have to Fe

feed my kid but it's also something that

inside I really want to do so what

things do you feel inside that you want

to versus have

to because that makes a lot of

difference to sustain long-term

happiness whether it's in

relationships whether it's at work we

have to shift Our Lives more and more

toward the want

to to find both meaning and pleasure

Freud talks talks about the Pleasure

Principle the will to

pleasure FR Victor Franco men search for

meaning highly recommended book talks

about the will to meaning happiness is

at the intersection taking these two

theories and combining them just

pleasure is not enough for sustained

happiness just meaning is not enough for

sustained

happiness personally for me happiness

comes when

teaching very pleasurable to me I enjoy

it and it's very meaningful to

me provides me a sense of purpose that's

where happiness

resides there are many benefits to

having self-concordant

goals people who have self-concordant

goals who do things that they want to do

with their lives in the long term are

more

successful obviously they're happier and

physically healthier so there are actual

physiological changes when we do things

that we enjoy when we're

engaged in an

activity when we think about it it's

important to think about both on the

macro level our life as a whole how can

I identify goals in my life a profession

a career a relationship that is both

meaningful and pleasurable and also on

the micro level the little things why

the because it's not always possible to

make macro changes and even when we have

macro

changes there are Parts in everyone's

lives that are not both meaningful and

pleasurable you know I enjoy teaching

but I Eno I don't enjoy the

grading especially in a seminar with so

many

students but overall the question is how

can we lead the most meaningful and

pleasur pleasurable life that we can

many people don't have the

luxury to to do something that is both

meaningful and

pleasurable I started teaching this job

know two and a half years ago until then

I was doing I was getting my PhD which

wasn't always was meaningful but it

wasn't always pleasurable to me but I

knew that I wanted to teach and I and I

have to go through it also think about

what about a single

mom who doesn't have the luxury of

choosing a profession what does she do

does she say well I simply can't be

happy or what about a kid just coming

out of college wants to go into business

but thinks that the best experience is

through Investment Banking which is very

often the case should that kid not go to

investment banking for two years or

three

years or how about you know a

50-year-old woman who is very successful

at

work making a lot of money and she

doesn't want to give up the lifestyle

that she has even though her work is not

entirely pleasurable and painting would

be more pleasurable as well as

meaningful does that mean that we're on

the unhappiness

side not necessarily because what we can

have in our lives are on the micro level

happiness boosters these are activities

anywhere from 30 minutes to 5 Hour

activities that are both meaningful and

pleasurable it could be spending time

even though working very hard during the

week and not really liking my job

spending two hours over the weekend with

the

kids or working very hard as an

investment banker and spending time with

our friends twice a week or engaging in

a hobby or joining a not for-profit

organization the board of a not

for-profit

organization and really finding that

meaningful and pleasurable even though

my life as a whole doesn't change

drastically these little changes these

happiness

boosters have a tricker effect again

it's been shown by research by Sheldon

and others how these activities that we

introduce can have an impact on

everything that we do in one of their

studies they

say those people who can identify sets

of goals that well represent their

implicit interests and values are indeed

able to function more efficiently

flexibly and integratively across all

areas of Their

Lives why because because that activity

the twoh hour over the weekend the two

evenings whatever it is has a

push pushing people after it because

they enjoy it and a pool it motivates

them to get through the days more

pleasantly with more fun it actually has

an impact Beyond just the activity

itself so it's not either or it's not

all or nothing either I leave everything

behind and transform my life completely

or do nothing at all introducing 30

minutes an hour two hours four hours a

week can make a significant difference

to our entire

experience lesson number four the number

one generator of

Happiness relationships and here I'm not

just talking about romantic

relationships though I'm going to focus

primarily on that that includes intimate

relationships in general soulmates close

friends

family

members the number one predictor of

well-being some of you may have uh come

across a book that recently came out

stumbling on happiness by Daniel Gilbert

he talks there explicitly about

relationships if you were asked for one

thing that would make us happier focus

on your relationships so let me talk a

little bit

about about relationships again just the

tip again the tip of the

iceberg only and I'm going to talk

about long-term romantic relationships

but many of these things apply to other

real other relationships as well first

of all if we look at the picture

today the State of Affairs things don't

look great when it comes to long-term

relationships

divorce 40% level

that doesn't mean that the other 60% who

stay together are necessarily

happy many people stay together out of a

sense of Duty or out of a sense of just

well we've been together for so long

habit so the State of Affairs is not

great and one of the reasons why it's

not great is because part of

us whether the god-given or Evolution

given

part is not always conducive to

long-term relationships

what do I mean by that a lot of research

and we don't need research for that you

know we all know that is that novelty

produces height anded level of arousal

and you see it with kids as well you

know something new immediately they

would look to it something natural

something that's

innate and that also applies to

relationships so for example know I did

this study in my eight person and then

six person

seminar where I asked them

to pick the

most beautiful man and woman in the

world and they did and the man was you

want to venture a guess Brad P Brad

Pit yeah and um yeah these are you know

deep thinking

uh the

um and the woman

was not not not his wife or girlfriend I

are they married no

was hel

Berry so most beautiful man most

beautiful women in the world again

scientific study you can't argue with

that so an N of eight or of six I don't

know now imagine if you were with your

Brad Pit or your Hal Berry whoever that

may be for you and not only were they

Dro that gorgeous but they were also

extremely intelligent intelligent

sensitive nice unconditionally

accepting helping you to simplify your

life so imagine that partner ideal

partner and that person came to you one

day actually just walked in through the

door here or back when before you were

you were married

and said I love you and only you

forever and you get married and you live

lustily Ever

After right not exactly

because

initially you know the lust is there you

can't you can't wait for you know bread

pit to come back from Troy or from H

Berry to get out of her cats suit

and it's amazing

Ecstasy but then what happens after say

five

years now H walks in through the door or

Brad walks in through the door and you

have all these electrodes through your

through your body and they measure your

level of

arousal and then a stranger walks in

through the door and that stranger

is semi-attractive you know not halib

Berry or Bradford but okay

how would you react to these two sides

in terms of pure physical level of

arousal you would react much more to the

new

person why because over time we adapt we

get used to things and sometimes it's

good for example overcoming difficulties

and hardships or losses we've all either

experience or or will experience

loss we adapt and it's a good thing but

we also

adapt when it comes to

relationships bad news right so what

does what does that mean does that mean

we shouldn't have long-term

relationships does does that mean we

should be serial monogamists or serial

uh polygamists is that in our nature

not necessarily because what we do see

what we do see is that for some

people sex does improve over

time love does grow over

time and it happens it's documented we

know people maybe we experience it

ourselves and the fact that it does

happen means that the question is no

longer is it possible to sustain

long-term successful growing happy

relationship it's not is it possible but

rather how is it possible and that's

when POS where positive psychology or

psychology as a whole comes in it's not

whether it's possible it's how it's

possible David Shar who has done a lot

of research on the topic in fact shows

ill illustrates through research through

his work and other people's

work

that the best

sex love making that people have is

usually later on in life and here is

what he says cellulite and sexual

potential are highly

correlated now note what he's saying

he's talking about

potential most people most relationships

don't realize the potential that lies in

a relationship so how do we realize that

potential I want to draw on again just

very little bit on two researchers in

the topic the first is John Gman highly

recommended book on relationships he's

uh he's at Washington St

Louis

um and here are some of the things that

he talks about first he says that the

main thing when he looks at successful

relationships long-term relationships

these are not relationships where

everything is just smooth and great

they're ups and downs and in fact he

found a ratio between positivity and

negativity that for every five positive

experiences there is one negative

experience so for example for every five

you know hugs or compliments or

wonderful things that we do together

there is perhaps an argument a

disagreement

not everything is smooth in highly

successful relationship don't eliminate

the negative now that doesn't mean that

there has to be

screams people disagree in different

ways in different relationships and he

actually goes through these different

ways in his book so it can be acquire

disagreement but some negativity why

because disagreement provides a growth

opportunity a learning opportunity to

learn about the other person and about

ourselves there is no partner who is is

perfect we can all learn and improve

we're all human and it's an

opportunity the second thing is that

conflict immunizes think about it just

like in the phys on the physical level

when we get ill or about to get ill our

immune system actually strengthens as a

result if we overcome this and we

overcome the negative experience if we

have at the very least five times as

many positive experiences now this is a

an aggregate a generalization doesn't

mean if you have you know 10 it's bad or

if you have 3 to one it's bad this is an

aggregate a 5:1 ratio and the key is to

accentuate the positive how do we do

that one show interest create what John

Gman calls love map of your partner

there was research during the Great

Depression 19 late 20s early 30s on

relationships and what they found was

that

relationships where if the partners knew

one another where they had the love maps

of one another actually came out

stronger from the depression Partners

who didn't know each other well didn't

study each

other came out weaker as a

couple another way of accentuating the

positive pay compliments Mark Twain says

I can live with a good good compliment

for two

weeks pay compl don't take it for

granted especially once you're in a

relationship for a long time

and my my

father-in-law and and mother-in-law have

been married for you know many

years and

um one day they they went to a to a

party to a official function together

and uh my mother-in-law was wearing a a

beautiful um a beautiful evening gown

really looked stunning and she was

walking around and um was getting

compliments throughout the evening and

then came back home after the lovely

function and

um she said to to Amy her husband Amy um

you know throughout the evening I

received many compliments you know

everyone was telling me how how

beautiful I looked uh except for

you now just to give you a bit of very

important background on my father-in-law

he's a a lawyer

he thinks on his feet so um he said to

her Rael

Rachel do you remember that a month ago

uh I told you how how beautiful you are

so she said yes I do said well until

further notice you're

beautiful

now wait wait wait

wait now a little bit of important

background about Rachel

my

mother-in-law uh she's also a

lawyer so the dog wasn't sleeping alone

that

night

yeah

um don't take these things for

granted say it again and again and again

we need nurturing we need emotion

nurturing more than anything from the

people we're most close to

put aside time for love for a

date especially in today's world you

know ideally it would all be spontaneous

we see each other and say okay let's go

to a movie okay let's make love but in

today's world with the red race when we

were so busy if we don't put time aside

to it in most situations if we don't

make it a ritual and we'll talk about

rituals later on if we don't make it a

ritual it's not going to happen

we're not going to spend time together

other things are going to you know it's

like the law of gases a gas will always

fill up the room no matter how little of

it there is same with time if we don't

put time aside especially in today's

world it will fill up all of our

time and we won't have time to spend so

have a date um day in a week where you

have a date with your

partner two dates with you time with the

family put these times aside explicitly

and love is in the details yeah it's

important to have you know the 25th

anniversary ring and the cruise around

the world the 50th Anniversary very

important things but ultimately it's the

little things whether it's the flowers

the little touch it's the smile these

are the positive things that make

relationships work in the long

run that make passion grow in the long

run the most important work done in this

area of passionate relationship was done

by David

schark his book passion no that's not

him on the on the left that's that's his

book on the

right what he talks about is the

importance within a relationship of

being known rather than being

validated of differentiating oneself of

being fully oneself in a relationship

ship and when both Partners become

themselves over time they become more

and more intimate which is why we can

have better relationships better love

making after 20 years than after a

year because we get to know one another

now this also has implications for many

other areas think about going through

life wanting to be known rather than

being validated

how much pressure would it take of

us how much pressure would it take of

the relationship that I'm not there to

always get the nod from the other

partner but I really want to be known by

the other partner and in the long run

these are the most successful

relationships where we open up where we

share where we reveal

ourselves and that's not always easy

because it's not just about putting a

facade and looking great all the time

it's about also exposing our

fears our

insecurities it's about saying what we

want it's about being

assertive in a respectful and and

positive

way it's not always easy in the short

term in the long term this is what will

lead to sustained and

growing

passion it's about expressing being

ourselves rather than constantly trying

trying to impress now it's natural to

try to impress on the first date or even

the first year but over time to create

and sustain a passionate meaningful

relationship we need to be known we need

to open up even though it is sometimes

difficult second last lesson lesson

number five about the Mind Body

Connection I'm going to focus Focus here

just on two things I'm going to focus on

EX physical exercise and meditation

other things that are important here of

sleep highly correlated with

well-being very much connected to the

idea of simplifying of having less

rather than more to

do it's also the importance of touch we

we're in the words of Tiffany Fields who

does research on touch we're a touch

deprived culture we have lost touch with

touch

and we pay a price for

it but I want to focus on two things on

exercise and

meditation research done by professors

at Duke Medical School has been

replicated many times since on the

importance of exercise what the

researchers did was take

156 major depressives the these are

people some of them suicidal lack of

desire to to go on no motivation to try

anything major depressives and they

divided them into three

groups an exercise group a medicine and

exercise group psychiatric medicine and

only

medicine three groups three

intervention the medication was all of

the second most popular anti-depressant

after

proac the exercise intervention was 30

minutes of aerobic exercise three times

a week either brisk walking jogging

cycling swimming whatever whatever does

it for

them they did

this

and they followed them for four

months and here is what they found

in these four months major depressives

the first

group medicine

only

67% got over at the second group 66% the

third group also 67% all three groups

improved significantly not everyone but

most people in all three groups one

difference the group

that did exercise only took

longer to overcome the depression

instead of two weeks it took them it

took them four weeks but once they got

over it they sustained it all three

groups

improved

equally

now the interesting thing about this

study I mean this is interesting in and

of itself that it had the same impact as

an anti- powerful anti-depressant the

interesting thing is was after six

months so 10 months after the beginning

of the study what they were interested

in was relapse rates this is always the

interesting thing or one of the

interesting components of the

studies those who were medication on

medication only 38%

relapse 38% 10 months later had major

depression again out of the 67% that got

over

it relapse times exercise 31%

relapse exercise

only

9% now this study is not saying let's

give up medication just exercise no

because if you look at the know full

population of major depressives or not

just major depressives and let's say 60%

of the people are helped by medication

you have a subgroup and 60% are helped

by exercise it's not the same group so

there are people who will not be helped

just by the

exercise but who will be helped by the

medication there is an overlap and there

are people who could be helped by both

for

sure by definition given that it's more

than 50% in each group but there are

many people who will only benefit from

it so I'm not saying saying not to take

medication if that is what the doctor

prescribed then they found that this is

what works but in many cases exercise

can do the job and in many cases

where medication cannot do the work

effectively exercise

can also for M for Less severe

depression

emia exercise helps it works

exercise also helps in terms of

cognitive functioning self-esteem

physical health of course strengthening

of the immune

system many ways it's the wonder drug

when I thought about this study and

various other studies in this area I

thought wow so exercising is like taking

an

anti-depressant effective it's

powerful and after reflecting on it I

said to myself no it's not exercising is

not not like taking an

anti-depressant it's the other way

around not exercising is like taking a

depressant there is a distinct

difference here because if you think

about it we weren't made to be sedentary

we weren't made to sit down in front of

our computer and write or or um read

books all day

or talk to people all day what we were

born to do you know and by God or

Evolution work out in the fields you

know to chase the antelope to run away

from the lion to collect berries for

dessert you know this is what we were

made to do our body has a need for

physical exercise and if we frustrate in

need whether it's a vitamin or water or

oxygen we pay a price physical as well

as a psychological price the same with

exercise if we don't exercise we pay a

psychological emotional

physical price so if our base level of

happiness is

here if we don't exercise we go below

our base level of happiness and with

exercise we simply go back up to our

Natural State then we can do things to

increase that natural to increase on

that Natural State such as cultivating

deeper relationships being known rather

than being validated such as simplifying

Our Lives

but to get to that base level if we

don't

exercise we're below it not exercising

is like taking a

depressant again let's look at the

interpretation of the

psychologist Dr

degenerous on our state of affairs

today when it comes to

exercising the unsung hero

Harvard Medical

School psychiatrist in a way exercise

can be thought of as a psychiatrist

dream treatment it works on anxiety on

panic disorder and on stress in general

which has a lot to do with depression

and it generates the release of

neurotransmitters neopine serotonin and

dopamine that are very similar to our

most important psychiatric medicines

having a b of exercise is like taking a

little bit of Prozac and a little bit of

rellin right where it is supposed to go

and I will add without the side effects

or rather with positive side effects

because there are so many other things

um that exercise

benefits I'm going to briefly talk about

mindful meditation about the research of

um John kabad Zin this is just a teaser

to encourage you to come to his uh to

his Workshop November 3rd

he's done a lot of fascinating work

showing how meditation is not just

something that one does and you have 30

years to spend an amountain in Tibet but

that it can actually

impact the person who is very busy in

our stressful modern world and by

putting time aside just very slight just

a little bit of time what he showed was

that 8 week of a meditation program on

average meditating 45 minutes a day 8we

of a program leads to a significant

decrease in

anxiety mood change much more positive

emotions as a result of this Workshop

compared to a control group which was on

a waiting list waiting for a meditation

course so same profile population one

group has gone through the course the

other hasn't many of these things were

criticized in the past a lot of this

these results because they are

subjective

so mood is evaluated through

questionnaires but kabad Zin alongside

with Richie Davidson went a step

further and they took

physiological

measures such as for instance fmri and

what they

found was that the left side of the

prefrontal cortex after an 8we

meditation

program actually changed and became more

active relative to the right side now

this is significant because we know

through research that the left side of

the prefrontal cortex is associated with

positive moods with higher levels of

resilience so enhancing that actually

make people more susceptible to positive

emotions and more resilient in the face

of negative emotions after an 8 we medit

and it's not even an 8-week Retreat

where you're full-time meditating people

are working during the day meditating in

the evening or early

mornings it actually changes the way our

brain

functions until 1998 people believed

that our brain was basically static that

we were born with a certain brain maybe

some early experiences till the age of

three were still changing it but after

that the brain didn't change since 1998

we know that it's different we know that

the brain changes until the day we die

and one of the ways to change it in a

positive direction is mindfulness

meditation personally I do yoga I'm a

little bit add so it's difficult for me

to just sit down in a place and and

meditate but it's a form of

meditation and that has literally

transformed my

life physically healthy but also changes

the way we think and the way we

look at the world

also our immune system strengthens so

what kabad Zin did was inject people

with cold bacteria people who have been

through the meditation Workshop

responded to it better more effectively

they generated more

antibodies based on a

meditation

experience doesn't take a long time

Herbert Benson Harvard Medical School

talks about 10 to 15 minutes a day of

meditation what he calls the relaxation

response is making a significant

difference in our lives a little bit

time aside you know when I was

um when I was um studying meditation for

the first time I I started and you know

was all gung-ho about it and did it and

then you know after the honeymoon phase

went uh went back and didn't do it and I

went back to my meditation teacher and

he asked me so how is it going I said

it's going overall fine I haven't been

meditating as much and he said why and I

said well you know I'm I'm so busy I was

working at the

time um and he said um did you brush

your teeth this

morning and I said I said why why

why and I and I said yes yeah of course

and uh did you did you shower this

morning I said yeah I

did and he said

um why I said well because um you know

for hygienic reasons I want I want to be

clean he said well

meditation is about mental

hygiene and it really is about mental

hygiene and this is the way I think

about it now every day even when I don't

feel like meditating and just and I'm so

busy I sit down just like I would brush

my teeth and shower I do

that

finally one of the important important

findings in the area of positive

psychology psychology in general is that

happiness is largely contingent on our

state of mind rather than on our status

or the state of our bank

account it depends largely on our state

of mind I'm not talking about extreme

circumstances of dire poverty yes of

course extra money will help but once we

have the basics additional money

additional Prestige doesn't really make

a difference in the long run there may

be a spike in our well-being after a

raise but very quickly we go back to our

base level the things that make a

difference to the base level to the

normal vicissitudes the ups and

downs is the experience of for example

intimate relationships and also learning

to focus on the positive so for

example do we see failure which is

inevitable as a stumbling block as a

catastrophe or as a stepping stone as a

learning opportunity one of the

sentences I repeat over and over again

in my class I repeat it over and over

again so people remember it is learn to

fail or fail to learn there is no other

way to grow looking at failures as an

opportunity for growth as a stepping

stone we wouldn't have learned how to

walk had we not Fallen many times we

wouldn't have learned how to draw a

circle if we hadn't failed many times as

kids same with relationships that's why

one of the reasons why some failure

within relationship is important

remember the ratio the 5

to1 it's about learning to focus on the

positive and we talked earlier about

adapting and right and we adapt to

negative things such as loss which is

good but we also adapt to positive

things which is not so good we begin to

take the good things in our lives for

granted so often we need something to go

wrong in order to appreciate the

wonderful things that we have in our

lives Irvin yalom professor at Stanford

researchers people who have uh who have

terminal diseases who have less than six

months to live and he reports that many

of these people say

independently this is the first time in

my life when I'm

alive because they begin to focus on the

things that they can

appreciate whether

it's the sun shining they're in

California whether

it's family

friends focusing on the little things

which are really the big things the

details so the question that

psychologists ask is how do we overcome

this

inclination to adapt to positive things

how do we not take our lives for

granted and there is a long line of

research on

gratitude because because when we say

thank you for something we no longer

take it for granted now in religion it's

implicit it's in it we

pray but in our modern secular to some

extent World many people no longer do it

and many people who do pray already take

the prayer for granted and don't really

focus on the

words so here is the research they did

on gratitude what they did em and

MV from

California they divided students into

four groups one group gratitude group

every night before going to bed writing

at least four things for which they're

grateful second group every night before

going to bed writing five hassles in

their

lives things that don't go well third

group five things which they're better

than others

at and fourth group control group

anything that happened to you during the

day the Gratitude group big things or

little things it could be a meal that

you had it could be family it could

be

God little things and the biggest of

things they can repeat themselves the

key is to do it mindfully to focus on it

and to re-experience the emotion that

goes along with the thing for which

you're grateful

they followed them for six months and up

to a

year and what they

found along a few Dimensions first

physical health how often did they visit

the doctor during that period that was

their uh dependent measure second

measure how optimistic they were third

how happy they were fourth how generous

and benevolent

they were toward other people and

finally How likely were they to achieve

their goals these were the five

dependent measures that they looked at

and what they found the group that

performed the worse you want to guess

the Hassel

group then there were two groups in the

middle equal for second and third place

the group that performed the best

happiest most optimistic most likely to

achieve the goals IE most

successful most generous most benevolent

toward other people and physically

healthier than the other three groups is

the Gratitude group with a simple

intervention what it takes three minutes

to write and think about the things for

which you're grateful every night but

that made all the

difference both

psychological as well as health benefits

by expressing gratitude by not taking

the good things in our lives for granted

because that 3 minutes at night what it

does what it does is it creates a new

schema in the minds that we don't ignore

good things during the day and and

something happens like tasty meal and

you say oh that's something I'm going to

write about tonight or playing with my

kid oh I'm definitely writing about

that and learning to focus more on the

positive rather than take things for

granted and it's an antidote it's an

antidote to what's going on today in our

culture where the focus is so much on

the negative it's not just a 21:1 ratio

when it comes to psychological abstracts

to the research there is at least a 21:1

ratio between good news and bad news on

TV in the

media there's a real media bias today

and I'm not talking about bias of you

know CNN on the left and um you know Fox

on the right

I'm talking about media bias toward the

negative we're focusing on things that

don't work and it's important to

highlight these things so that we change

it but at the same time it creates a

schema in our mind and we begin to focus

on the negative and we begin to

believe that most life is negative is

bad so we all know about what happened

in Worldcom or what happened in Enron or

Martha Stewart we know about the

business

frauds but do the newspapers report on

their millions and billions of honest

transactions taking place every single

day you know we hear we read about wars

and terrorism but do we read about all

the

volunteering and the acts of goodness

that are taking place every single

minute and because of that media bias

toward the next negative that is

reflected in our internal bias we absorb

that schema from the

outside and we whether we like it or not

we're impacted by

It television influences not just our

kids us as

well and with this exercise this is an

antidote to the negativity that's out

there Mak making us more

realistic Shifting the pendulum in our

perception of the world

the physiological

benefits there's a very good book out

called transforming anxiety that talks

about how the experience of gratitude

transforming anxiety is the name of the

book by m mccr is one of the authors how

focusing on things for which we're

grateful actually leads to what what he

calls heart coherence a much healthier

state of existence and if we do it

regularly it becomes more the norm as

opposed to the fight or flight which

which is the norm today the chaos the

anxiety and the key here as I said

earlier is to be mindful about it so

when we do the the the Gratitude if we

do it after a month not to take for

granted even if we're writing about our

family for the 30th time I do this

exercise every

day I write it in my

notebook every day things I'm grateful

and then I have a file that I put it

into the file I have gratitude journal

every single day since the 19th of

September

1999 I've been doing it religiously

since actually long before um this study

came out and I even knew about it I I

first learned about or thought about it

on o on Oprah she yeah yeah so now now

you see where I get my sources from

right

yeah um but it was good to see that the

Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology which the pre leading journal

in our field published this uh this

study but we know it works the key is to

do it regularly as a ritual so for

instance you know last 3D of October

that was last night I think uh God

visiting Harvard I I'm living in Israel

now and I came to visit it was great to

see um the place again Sean Jessica and

Jeff uh my friends I had dinner with

them uh my family

tamos my wife H David my

son uh crealo experience I went and did

some yoga in

Calo um Grafton Street I had dinner

there and uh salmon I had salmon for

dinner there if if you must

know um again little things and big

things I have three things sorry four

things that I write every day that's God

family that's my extended family tamos

and and David my son and then in

addition I write things that are

different every day the key to remain

Mindful and to do it

regularly why don't we do it

now just for a couple of minutes think

about things again you don't need to do

it obviously you know I I'm not grading

you so you don't have to do it um think

about things for which you're grateful

if you have a place to write it down

write it down if not just think about it

in your mind's eye big things little

things take 30 seconds to do it to

appreciate the wonderful things in your

life okay

okay

now if you feel like it you don't have

to turn to the person next to you or to

the two people next to you and share

with them some of the things that you

feel comfortable sharing things for

which you're

grateful little or big things

Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology uh Journal of psychomatic uh

psychosomatic

studies Duke Duke University the second

group that um first group that was

taking medication did they stop taking

it after yes they did they stopped after

four months after months months what

mons

random all

num no I miss all all five things

they did five

things

okay okay we don't want to shift the

pendulum too far so I'm going to stop

you

here now there hasn't been a study about

this but I bet you that you'll find very

sign ific results when it comes to kids

because I've seen this and my my kid is

a bit too young to do this but I've seen

it with families where before going to

bed the kids and the parents together do

this exercise and they tell each other I

do it with my wife it makes a

difference why because we shift the

pendulum we overcome the negativity bias

and we be simply become more

realistic it's not becoming detached

polanish Optimist it's becoming more

realistic to reflect our day to reflect

our

life I want to

end with a

story about Helen Keller a

woman who can remind us who can teach us

to appreciate and not

take the good things in our lives for

granted

in her biography she talks about a

friend who visited her and the friend

went out for a walk in the

woods and when she came back Helen

Keller asked

her so how was it what did You

observe to which her friend

responded nothing in

particular and here is what Helen Keller

writes about that

experience I wondered how it was

possible to walk for an hour through the

woods and see nothing of note I who

cannot see find hundreds of things the

delicate symmetry of a leaf the smooth

skin of a silver birch the rough Shaggy

Bark of a spine I who am blind can give

one hint to those who see use your eyes

as if tomorrow you will have been

stricken by blind here are the music of

voices the songs of a bird the mighty

strains of an orchestra as if you would

be stricken death tomorrow touch each

object as if tomorrow your tactile sense

would fail smell the perfume of flowers

taste with relish each morsel as if

tomorrow you could never taste or smell

again make the most of every sense glory

in all the facets and pleasures and

Beauty which the world reveals to

you yes there are difficulties in the

world yes there are negative emotions

there is fear there is anger there is

stress especially in our modern world

there are all those things yes there are

difficult experiences in relationships

in every single

relationship but there are also

wonderful things in every relationship

there are also wonderful things in every

person and in every life and the

key is to learn to appreciate it because

when we appreciate something we don't

just Express gratitude for it we also

appreciate it in the other sense just

like money appreciates we make it

grow and when we focus on the positive

and we Express gratitude and ex

appreciate the good things in our life

we bring more good things to our

lives and what Helen Keller is reminding

us is to on a regular basis say thank

you thank you for our given world thank

you for the gifts that we get for from

others so thank you

thank you thank you thank you um we'd

like to open this up for a short while

for questions um and give you all a

chance to um say what's on your mind

questions or

comments

yeah I want to share a comment a thought

I had earli in your talk when you were

talking about defining happiness um I

lived for 11 years in Prague in the

Czech Republic and they use a word there

I don't know if there's anybody check

here uh spoko which when it's translated

they don't use the word happy as nearly

as much as we do what spokena or spokena

means is um contentment

satisfaction um and it it seems to fit

in much more with you know kind of what

you're talking about and they say h

happy for things like happy birthday or

happy New Year or or something you know

very

finite yeah um this cultural use of the

word happiness is is is interesting so

if you the word in in English happiness

comes from the same Roots is the word ha

happen stance same Latin root which

basically means luck so if you're lucky

you'll have good things happen if you're

unlucky bad things happen I didn't know

about the Czech word but in Hebrew the

word for Happ happiness is oo oo means

it's a comes from the same root

eological

uh root as the word for approval or

authenticity so if I live a life that I

approve of an authentic life that's when

I'll be happy and it's interesting to

look at different languages to um and

and and and learn about what What

happiness means and again ultimately we

all define happiness for ourselves the

definition that I chose was a me ful

pleasurable life as opposed to a lucky

life yeah uh this question appears

unserious at first but it's I think it's

a useful question um and the question

basically is is happiness important uh

the uh there's a book I thought this

opinion was dead but there was a book

appeared about 10 years ago about

educating gifted kids and they looked at

them years later and they'd become

fairly content adult but they weren't

Geniuses and striving and they said well

maybe they were too happy as kids you

know maybe the education didn't

frustrate them enough and we always have

this picture of the frustrated genius

the artist and so forth who had to

suffer so that's the question good yeah

it's and it's a very important question

that that people are asking and for good

reasons so do we pay a price for being

happy and the price being in terms of

progress for instance or as John Stewart

Mill said said you know I would rather

be um a miserable Socrates than a happy

pig yeah he he had away with

words

um and and it's it's a real question so

it is a serious question and the answer

is there's a lot of research being done

a lot of it being done by um Barbara

Frederickson she was at Michigan now

she's at in North Carolina on positive

emotions and what these do and what she

found was that positive emotions lead to

what she has come to call broaden and

build that when we experience negative

emotions we narrow and constrict so if

we are you know anxious or depressed all

we're thinking about is our current

experience what we're going through now

whereas when we're happy and and it

makes sense because you know if there is

a line in front of us we don't want to

start thinking about you know the

celebration you know the birth our son's

birthday or uh about what we're going to

have for dinner because we're going to

be dinner if uh if we don't think about

so it's good that we narrow and

constrict in our modern world because we

experience the fight or flight response

so often we very often n un constrict on

the other hand positive emotions do the

opposite they broaden and build which

means they help us see expansively they

help us become more

creative so not only are we happier

we're also thinking more broadly and are

able to make better connections now what

is genius genius in many ways is the

ability to connect between things that

haven't been connected before you know

Einstein's theory of relativity the you

know the simplest one taking ideas from

geometry and connecting them to physics

or uh not that simple right but that's

part of of Genius of creativity

um in other words positive emotions can

actually contribute and if you look at a

lot of the genius of them were some of

them some famous ones were manic

depressives it was often in their manic

state that they were most creative

because when they were depressed they

didn't want to write they didn't want to

compose they you know they just wanted

to be left alone or very often just

wanted to

die so the positive emotions are what

leads to to broaden and build now that

doesn't mean that we need to be um manic

in order to be to be highly creative but

controlling for other factors positive

emotions actually

contribute to growth now it seems almost

unreal it's like eating the cake and

leaving it whole why because we live

with the um basic premise that no pain

no

gain right that's something that's

repeated over and over again but it

turns out not to be so that doesn't mean

that depressives cannot be creative and

cannot be a genius but it's not

necessary and more than that controlling

for other factors positive emot tions or

happiness actually

contributes um to um to creativity and

and productivity in organizations for

example uh very much enjoyed uh the

lecture as I listen though I began to

think

about how we as Americans have to deal

with this new World is Flat construct

right and I'm I'm asking myself you know

are people in China and India viewing

this not of Happiness as you've just

described it so I'm just curious as to

how your framework of Happiness fits for

us in a in a world that is very

different yeah and if it if it still

applies yeah so let me answer this on

two levels the first level is there is a

lot of research that

shows um that there isn't that much of a

difference among cultures in terms of

levels of happiness

once basic needs are covered are met

there is no difference a person who is

living in dire poverty whether it's in

the United States or in

India certainly doesn't experience as

much well-being as a person who has

their basic needs met however once the

basic needs are met we experience equal

levels of well-being except for under

cultures where there is political

oppression so places for example where

women are oppressed they obviously are

not going to experience the same levels

of well-being or potential for the same

levels of well-being as in a free

country um in terms of the um the kind

of happiness that people experience

there is a difference here so there are

certain cultures where family is more of

a central issue we being part of the of

the clan of the tribe so to speak is

more is a more important part of of

happiness however they're also more

universals than differences the Dal Lama

spoke at um in another wonderful book to

read is by Daniel Gman called

destructive emotions and it's about a

meeting that the Dal Lama had and and

some of his uh group had with leading

scientists from around the world and the

Dal Lama came out with um claim that

really um took the participants back

because he said happiness is UN

unversal studying cultural difference is

important but it's more important to

study the universal now coming from the

Dal Lama who is certainly sensitive to

different cultures that was very

surprising to people but scientists have

been thinking about this concept and

what they realize is there is we're much

more

alike than than than we are different

much much more alike you know it's not

even

close um Abraham maslo

psychologists uh in many ways can be

seen as the grand father of the positive

psychology movement said looking down

into the depth of our own mind we look

into the depth of all

Minds basically getting to the point of

the

universality of uh of human nature and

as part of human nature of Happiness as

well um I hoping you will mention a

little bit about gross national

happiness and what the chances are of

that actually happening either the

United States or any of the world

Nations so gross national happiness I

see some people are leaving so let me

just say one thing before I respond to

this the important thing about all these

ideas and increasing one's P levels of

happiness is

implementation change cannot happen in a

vacuum change cannot happen as a result

of a workshop you cannot increase your

personal uh gross level of

Happiness by just hearing someone

talking about it it's about

implementation it's about creating a

ritual a new habit whether it's

exercising whether it's taking time

aside to spend with your family whether

it's um simplifying one's life whether

it's meditating whether it's doing the

Gratitude exercise regularly the key is

action um so I just wanted to say that

before more of you leave but back to

your question the gross national

happiness gross national happiness was a

a phrase coined by the country or the

the king and of Bhutan which is a small

country between China and India in the

Mount High up in the

mountains and um what they decided was

that they weren't going to measure the

well-being of their country with using

gross national product how much money

they make but rather gross national

happiness how happy their citizens are

it's been implemented with some success

actually some of my students did

research their travel to Bhutan to to

research the culture it's a very unique

culture know Buddhist culture um with

very

um dominant values very different from

our

culture and the question that many

people have asked and actually they very

interestingly they are asking this in um

in England more than any other country

in the world today so there's a lot of

work being done and politicians talking

about we need another measure not just

gross national product but also gross

national happiness uh Ed dinner who's a

psychologist in Illinois is is pursuing

it and he's measuring levels of

happiness and getting a me and through

the Gallup organization also they're

getting measures of Happiness of

countries and they want to make it an

important

indicator so to measure levels of

happiness was the politician successful

or not well let's see what people were

like at the beginning and then at the

end after four years after eight years

and that he wants people to look at it

as a as an important indicator to be

honest I don't see it happening anytime

soon in um in in the West in general not

just in this country um

but I think eventually people are going

to start look at it more seriously when

levels of it has to get worse before it

gets better and people are realizing now

that even though we're making much more

money that we're much wealthier as a

society we're getting more

depressed and the more they realize the

more they're going to understand that

it's important to also measure the non

the less

quantifiable things such as happiness

but I think it's going to take a while

positive psychology is certainly

attempting to be a trigger and uh and

bring that

about uh I have a question about

implementation um in the beginning you

talked about the separation between

psychology and Science and self-help but

you yourself mentioned that you did the

journal years before the research was

done would you have told other people to

do that the journal after you started

doing it um Not only would I tell I did

tell people to do it but I wouldn't tell

them that there is scientific evidence

and I certainly wouldn't teach it in my

class so while I do it and it worked for

me you know I I I've I've done

meditation or yoga for a long time even

before I knew about this before I became

a psychologist and it helped me and I

recommended my friends you know just

like you know you you eat in a good

restaurant you don't eat scientific

evidence to recommend it to friends but

at the same time I

wouldn't uh I wouldn't teach it in a

class so I only bring up Ellen

degenerous or or Oprah when I can back

it up then with um with scientific

evidence recomendation by all means

teach it in a scientific class I I no

absolutely not thank

you one last

question

yeah I'm going to hang out here till

really till midnight so you can you can

come up and ask after this too I Echo

the sentiments of the man back there uh

thank you for Mar talk um I was

interested in your comments on stress uh

in physiology I'm a physiologist so uh

you need stress for your body parts to

work properly but if you go beyond a

certain threshold it now becomes

detrimental to function now I can see

all kinds of parallels between the

physiology and the psychology so can you

define for us how we can

recognize the borderline between you

stress and distress yeah no that that's

a very good question so how do you

distinguish between uh positive stress

which is necessary some level of tension

because without any tension there'd be

boredom there'd be no action so we need

some tension but how do we have this

tension as for example

excitement rather than

anxiety um unfortunately unlike in on

the physiological level when you

actually measure where you can get

precise measurements and say Okay so

this this is good for us and you know

beyond this level of stress it's not

good for us a lot of it here is

introspection so asking yourself how am

I

feeling and the distinction that I make

when I talk about the three three levels

first level is being Comfort level where

you know I've done this a lot of time

it's even boring you know sitting in

front of the TV and vegetating that's

comfortable no pressure no stress beyond

that there is the stretch

level where I'm getting out of my

comfort zone I'm growing I'm learning

I'm doing new things I'm developing I'm

coping with issues but then which is a

good play this is the healthy stress the

stretch Zone you have the comfort zone

the stretch Zone above the stretch Zone

you have the Panic

Zone that's

unhealthy so for

example public

speaking you know by r by USA Today you

know hardly an academic Journal but this

was a study that USA Today ran as the

second greatest

fear after

uh I can't remember if if one was

spiders or

death was one of the two but anyway I

know that uh public speaking was

second

um so public speaking there is a state

where no we just can't speak we're so

nervous and we we were

tight there is a stage also though where

um we're nervous just at the right

amount there is a stage where we were

bored I was giving uh one day before my

I started teaching which was to um my

own class Richard Hackman who's uh um my

teacher at Harvard and grade teacher

came to my office and said so how are

you

feeling um and um I said I'm extremely

nervous and he said oh yeah so am I and

I looked at him you know he's uh he's

been teaching for 35 years phenomenal

teacher and I said you still get nervous

today and he said yeah all good teachers

do and this was an important you know

talk about permission to be human um

this is healthy level because we're not

bored we're not um the level of uh being

too comfortable

but we're at a level of of just the

rights race but you're the only one who

can say this is too much this is panic I

want to say one more thing about this

stretch

Zone there's been a lot of talk recently

because of the book that came out

stumbling on happiness and other

research that basically we have our base

level of happiness and the base level of

happiness is what we were born with our

genetic

predisposition in fact um there was

research done in 1996 that on twins rear

depart identical twins rear depart

monozygotic twins same genetic makeup

but they were a split at Birth and what

they found was very high correlation in

personality even if one was raised in IA

and the other was raised in New York

City and different entirely different

families of course still high

correlation and what the psychologist

the the

the they talked about what called the

stochastic um

happiness is a stochastic phenomenon and

what they said trying to change your

happiness level is like trying to change

your

height this this was the the final

sentence of their published article now

this was very disturbing obviously for

many

people and you know later they retracted

and they said you know we did it more

for effect but it had and it did have an

effect so it

worked the thing is what they showed is

that it accounts the genetics accounts

for some of the variance in terms of our

levels of

well-being and it and what that means is

that yes some people are born

predisposed to ecstasy some some are pre

are born predisposed

to being

grumpy now a grump person born grumpy

perhaps cannot be polyana but what our

genetics Define is a range and this is

the key thing it defines a range rather

than a set point where you are along

this

range depends on you you know I always

say to my class I'm the right person to

teach positive

psychology why because I wasn't born

happy gol lucky I wasn't born polanish I

was born you know usually looking on the

uh Dark Side of Life I was usually

making lemon out of lemonade no I was

that was my natural

predisposition and I've been working on

it I'm still working on it as I said 10

years from now I hope to be happier than

I am today and positive psychology has

the

tools that we can use to work on it now

getting back to your uh question so the

question is how do you get the base

level of Happiness up and we talked

about a few of these things we talked

about exper or Express gratitude

regularly

simplify exercise and exercise actually

it's to get to your base

level um

meditation spend more time with family

and friends and Dan Gilbert talks about

this in in his book cultivate intimate

relationship be known rather than be

validated

and deal

with

activities or challenges that take you

to your stretch Zone because it's when

we are at that right level of stress the

healthy stress or the excitement that's

when we grow it's like muscles

now if we lift air nothing we hardly

develop the muscles if we lift too much

weights we tear the muscle the key is to

identify the right amount of stress for

the muscle because the muscle

breaks when it works hard and then it

builds up again when it

rests and the key is to find the optimum

level of simplification in our life so

that we do have challenges that we do

put our elves on the line we do try new

things we do

explore but just the right amount