How to create positive emotions

To be happy, you need to experience three times as many positive emotions as negative emotions (or more).  What amazes me is how simple it can be to create a positive emotion.  These include things like joy, awe, compassion, amusement, hope and love.  (Negative emotions are what you’d expect – anger, sadness, hate and anxiety, among others.)

I was reading an experiment by happiness researcher Barbara Fredrickson recently while working on my book on transforming depression into happiness.  She made people feel positive emotions simply by showing them short film clips of a puppy or waves.  I was surprised that this works, because these seem like such bland images.

Obviously, to get to the magic ratio, it makes sense to do as many things as possible to create positive emotions.  Here are a few of the things I’ve found that work:

• ·         Writing down the good things that happen each day or week – reliving them gives me a lift
• ·         Watching youtube clips or TV programmes that amuse or inspire me, like America’s Funniest Home Videos or Saturday Night Live.  As I write this I’m smiling over a heart-warming story on Luke Gamble’s Vet Adventures about a young street kid caught illegally selling puppies who was caught and given a job at an animal shelter which helped him get his life together
• ·        Getting out in nature and savouring the beauty
• ·         Playing ball with my dog (the non-lazy one who actually likes to chase balls!)
• ·         Meeting friends for a walk or coffee
• ·         Exercise
• ·         Doing something I get lost in, like writing, and
• ·         Cooking – not fun for everyone I know, but I love trying out new recipes, whether they work or not!

If you keep a note of the things that lift your emotions, you’ll quite soon have a good idea of what to build into your life to increase your good feelings.  The other part of getting the magic ratio is decreasing negative emotions – more on that in another post!

What lifts your spirits?  I’d love to hear.

Using creative procrastination to get things done

I know the conventional wisdom is to identify the top priority on your to do list and do it first. But if you're like me you may have sat, paralysed, staring at that top priority and feeling unable to get started on it. Well, I have two tried and true techniques for getting past that paralysis. Here's one of them.

It's pretty simple - if you can't do the top priority, do something else from your to do list. This is a situation where the best really is the enemy of the good. The great thing about this approach is that instead of reaching the end of the day filled with guilt and self-recrimination about not getting anything done, you at least feel good about what you did achieve. As getting active is a proven way of feeling better, this should mean you end the day feeling happier (or at worst, less depressed) than if you'd sat staring at the list all day.

If you find you end up feeling bad because you didn't do the 'right' thing, then I've found talking back to those voices is helpful, with comments like:

• at least I did something
• I made progress today
• I can do that other task when I'm feeling fresher, and
• the best is the enemy of the good.

I had an experience like this last week. My top priority was editing an article I'd just got feedback on. But I felt totally demotivated about doing that, especially as I had to make it shorter and editing is not my strong suite! So instead, I changed gears and worked on drafting a new article. I promised myself I'd go back to editing next week, when I feel fresh and have some perspective. At the end of the day, I felt good about what I'd achieved - much better than if I'd done nothing. That really would have resulted in self-recrimination!

My other tip? It's 'just aim to do five minutes on it' - and that's one I'll be using this coming week to get the editing done! I'll do a post on this in future, but if you want to read more about it now look at my other blog, under 'older posts - 'my best anti procrastination technique' (note to self - must learn how to add links to other websites!)

Using positive psychology to lessen the pain of cognitive therapy for depression

Sometimes using cognitive techniques can make you feel worse to start with, until you find good answers to talk back to your painful thoughts.  Here’s a simple technique I happened on that takes some or all of the pain out of challenging depressing thoughts.  I know some people avoid looking at their thoughts because it hurts, so I thought this might help.

I came up with this when I was doing background research for the book I’m writing on transforming depression into happiness.  Positive psychology researcher Barbara Fredrickson’s found that one of the good things that happiness brings is increased creativity.  ‘D’oh’ I thought.  ‘What if you did something that made you feel good before you wrote down your thoughts?  It could provide a buffer zone of good feelings against the potential down when you look at thoughts like ‘I’m a failure,’ or ‘I can’t get on with people’.  Feeling better could also make it easier to come up with new ways of thinking because your mind is more open to new ideas.’  I tried it out and it seemed to work.

So here are the simple steps:

• ·         Pick an activity that routinely lifts your spirits – going for a walk, meeting up with friends, watching an uplifting movie, driving round and listening to music, surfing, cooking a great meal – whatever floats your boat!  Set a time and do whatever organising you need to
• ·         Just before you do the activity, write down some of the thoughts that have been flitting round your head like annoying little grey clouds (or huge overwhelming tornadoes!)  It may be a bit painful to focus on these thoughts, but that pain is about to be eased!
• ·         Go off and have fun
• ·         When you feel better after the activity, pick up the page and look at your thoughts again.  You may find it easier to see the gaps in logic and evidence, and come up with some good answers, in a relatively painless way.

The other good thing about this technique is that there seems to be some evidence that we are more able to remember things that fit with our current mood.  So when you’re feeling sunnier, you may be more able to access sunny memories that give the lie to your gloomy prognostications.

'Why bother with using cognitive techniques when you’re already feeling better?' I hear you ask  That’s a good question.  If you no longer feel depressed, then it may well not be worth the effort.  There is research that shows that activity can be just as effective in changing depressing thoughts as cognitive techniques.  I do it either when the activity wasn’t enough on its own to make me feel good, or as a way of buffering myself against future depression by coming up with some snappy answers I can use in the future.  Totally up to you!