Science | Live Happy

Become More Resilient in 9 Simple Steps

We may take time to think about how to be healthier, but we don’t often spend a lot of time thinking about how to become more resilient. Resilience is mental toughness. With it, you can bounce back from setbacks more quickly and find the positive in challenging circumstances. In his book, The Resiliency Advantage, the late Al Siebert, Ph.D., contends that highly resilient people are more flexible, adapt to new circumstances more quickly and "thrive in constant change.” If you want to begin to build up your resilience muscle, here are nine things you can do: 1. Change your self-talk Pay attention to the thoughts that pop up into your head. If they are critical or negative, replace them with a positive thought or two. According to positive psychology pioneer Martin Seligman, Ph.D., you can give yourself a cognitive intervention and counter negative thinking with an optimistic attitude. Treating yourself with self-compassion sometimes takes work, but when you are kind to yourself it increases your resilience because you have your own back. Treat yourself like you would a best friend. 2. Celebrate your wins If you don’t think you can do something, or your self-confidence is flagging, think of a time when you succeeded. List your wins—those times when you achieved something you didn’t think you could do. Recalling your wins restores your belief in yourself. Psychologist and author Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., says we need a three-to-one ratio of positive to negative experiences to build our resilience and flourish in life. 3. Be solid in how you see yourself One of the easiest ways to boost your self-image is to make decisions that make you feel good about who you are, according to psychologist and Ohio University professor Gary Sarver, Ph.D. With a positive self-perception, you won’t let the moods and opinions of others knock you off course. You will realize that the opinion that matters most is your own opinion of yourself. 4. Give yourself a pep talk If you repeatedly tell yourself you are strong, not only will you begin to believe it, but you also will look for ways to prove that it’s true. Most of us are a lot stronger than we think; we just have to believe it first in order to see it in our own lives. 5. Push outside your comfort zone It’s hard to believe in our fortitude if we hide within a comfort zone. Do the things that scare you a bit and watch your resilience build up. Afraid of public speaking? Try talking to a small group first. Nervous to change jobs? Just start interviewing. Afraid to have a difficult conversation? Write out what you want to say first. Fear dissipates with action. Make up your own mantra. Try … Let’s do this. Be bold. Keep moving forward. Or, forget fear. Power up big with a tiny sentence. 6. Cultivate your relationships Resilient people tend to have strong support systems with family, or they cultivate strong, supportive relationships with friends and mentors. Knowing you have people you can turn to when times get tough makes you a little tougher. 7. Boost your energy Running on empty is a quick way to deplete the positive way you feel about yourself and leave you feeling like you’ve run out of resources. What activities recharge you? Is it exercise? A day on the golf course? A coffee shop and a good book? Seeing a good movie? A hike in the woods? When you feel your best, your mental resilience stays strong. 8. Brood less If you find yourself ruminating over problems or having anxious moments, try to take a 20,000-feet perspective and realize that a lot of what we dwell on never happens or won’t matter a week from now. Try letting go of more things so you can spend your brain power thinking empowering thoughts and taking positive action steps. In Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, Daniel Goleman writes that self-awareness is "the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood.” 9. Sleep more Sleep makes everything better, including our resilience. When you are sleep-deprived, it’s easier to get stressed out, be more reactive, make poor decisions and feel mentally drained. Sufficient sleep (that’s about eight hours a night) boosts your mental brain power, restores mental clarity and is more likely to contribute to a positive outlook. Read more about the importance of sleep for well-being. When you feel mentally tough, you can relax into your life and pursue the life you want without limitations. You aren’t afraid of adversity or change because you know you will adapt. Resilient people are more likely to look for the positive and share the love with others.

News & Trends

Norman the Therapy Pig Hams It Up

Bleary-eyed college students are hunched over their laptops in the library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, cramming for final exams. Several lift their heads when they hear a loudspeaker announcement: “Norman the therapy pig is in the lobby for a study break." Laptops snap shut as students crowd the lobby to stroke the pig, snap selfies and grin at the first therapy pig in North Texas. Norman entertained the crowd by honking a horn, riding a skateboard, tossing a ball in a miniature basketball hoop, completing a three-piece shape puzzle and giving his handler, Misty Carter, a sloppy pig kiss. But mostly he good-naturedly accepted the students’ attention until they returned to their studies. Animal attraction “Animals are a really good source of de-stressing, especially a pig,” said SMU freshman music therapy and psychology major Caitlyn Etter. “Bringing a therapy pig to campus is a really good idea.” When Norman joined Shane and Misty Carter’s household last year, he fulfilled Misty’s longtime dream for a pet pig. He joined a growing menagerie of dogs and chickens at the couple’s comfortable log home in rural East Texas. The Carters soon realized, however, that Norman was no ordinary pig. He quickly learned to respond to commands and took his place as an inside pet with the family’s four dogs. On a leash at local festivals, the 70-pound Juliana pig charmed neighbors wagging his tail and wearing a custom-made ball cap. “He just makes people happy,” Misty said. A good and humble pig Last January, Misty discoveredPet Partners, a national pet therapy organization that accepts rabbits, donkeys, horses and pigs. She trained to become a therapy pet handler, then trained Norman to remain nonplussed around wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, unexpected noises and large groups of people. “He already knew the typical dog commands of ‘come,’ ‘stay’ and ‘leave it,’” Misty said. Norman passed the pet therapy certification test on his first attempt. Since then Misty has taken him to visit nursing homes, assisted living centers, children’s hospitals and schools, particularly when Charlotte's Web is on the reading list. Her work with Norman is voluntary and often takes place on her vacation days. The importance of animals The importance of viewing nature, especially animals, appears to be deeply imbedded in the human psyche, says Alan M. Beck, director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Purdue University. Companion animals can help people feel less lonely, find comfort with touch and find reasons to laugh, he said. Alan doesn’t expect pigs to replace the most popular therapy pet–dogs. But he sees a role for unusual therapy animals like pigs and even llamas. “They can play an important role in schools and other places where they are a novelty and pull upon children’s natural interest in animals.” For Shane Carter, who compares life with Norman to living with a celebrity, Norman’s popularity is simple, “It’s just a feel-good thing.” Nancy Lowell George is a freelance writer living in North Texas.

News & Trends

Cat Videos Help Us Lick the Blues

And you thought your coworkers were just being silly and wasting time. Turns out they were instilling positive emotions throughout the office! Yes, an Indiana University researcher has discovered that watching cat videos is actually good for us. (Sigh, make joke about academia here.)Cat video viewing is more than a procrastinator's tool, says assistant professor Jessica Gall Myrick, Ph.D. Theyboost our energy and positive emotions and decrease negative feelings, she said after surveying the moods of almost 7,000 cat video viewers. Her study results were published in Computers in Human Behavior.One internet feline phenomenon, Lil Bub, even helped with the research. Bub's owner, this is, Mike Bridavsky, who lives in Bloomington, home of Indiana University, helped distributed the survey via social media."Some people may think watching online cat videos isn't a serious enough topic for academic research, but the fact is that it's one of the most popular uses of the Internet today," Jessica told IU's news agency about why she chose the topic.More than 2 million cat videos were posted on YouTube in 2014, she says. With almost 26 billion views, cat videos had more views per video than any other YouTube content category.Among study highlights of cat video viewers:They were more energetic and felt more positive after watching cat-related online media than before.They had fewer negative emotions, such as anxiety, annoyance and sadness, after watching cat-related online media than before.They often view Internet cats at work or during studyingThe pleasure they got from watching cat videos outweighed any guilt they felt about procrastinating."Even if they are watching cat videos on YouTube to procrastinate or while they should be working, the emotional pay-off may actually help people take on tough tasks afterward," says Jessica, who owns a pug but no cats.So, if you've got something important to do now, wait and watch a cat video first. You may feel better for it afterward. Your work will still be there.Important research, or, um, an epic waste of time. You can be the judge.Jim Gold is a veteran journalist who splits his time between Seattle and the Bay Area.

B Corps are changing the way we do business

News & Trends

B the Change

Do you know the saying “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”? Well, a growing number of businesses are doing just that.Business as a force for goodBusinesses have a tremendous impact on our lives, as owners, employees, consumers and community members, and now B Corps are using that power to solve social and environmental problems.The B Corp designation is to business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee or USDA Organic certification is to milk. Today, 1,281 Certified B Corps from 41 countries and over 121 industries are working together toward a single unifying goal: to redefine success in business.Getting the B grade to redefine successA business interested in becoming a B Corp goes through an assessment process that measures the social and environmental performance of everything it does, including accountability and transparency. If the company scores well, then it’s eligible to obtain the B Corp certification from B Lab, the supporting nonprofit organization.All shapes and sizesB corps come in all shapes in sizes, from small firms with sole proprietors to global brands like Ben & Jerry’s. Rob Michalak, Ben & Jerry’s global director of social mission, led the company’s effort to obtain its B Corp certification. “At first, the whole idea of assessment can be intimidating, but then people realize the benefit of the tool,” he says.The certification process has helped the company affirm what it’s doing well and provided insight into opportunities for improvement. So far, Ben & Jerry’s management has benefited the most from the guidance provided by the assessment process. With its deep social mission, the company is committed to supporting the B Corp movement. “There is true power in movements—much stronger than any individual company,” Rob says.Aligned ValuesMany companies join because there is strong alignment between a company’s established values and that of the B Corp movement. That was the case for Founding B Corp member King Arthur Flour, an employee-owned business. King Arthur Flour Chief of Staff Carey Underwood says the existing employee engagement, management transparency and employee-owned culture all contributed to the company’s high social scores during the assessment.Sustainable, Inside and outFor Patagonia, taking care of the planet has always been a driving value, so the B Corp designation was a natural fit, says Elissa Loughman, the company’s manager of corporate responsibility.The company knows that examining its own business practices and the way it uses resources are essential to being a responsible company. The outdoor clothing company uses organic cotton, makes fleece jackets from recycled plastic bottles and traces all the down used in their products back to the geese farms to ensure humane animal practices. Patagonia also uses wool from sheep raised sustainably in the Patagonia region of South America.Patagonia is also a founding member of 1% for the Planet, through which companies donate 1 percent of sales to environmental nonprofits.What Members AppreciateBeing part of a community and movement with shared goals has its benefits. Because B Corp certification is so rigorous, it validates and values the good work member companies do and helps them identify opportunities to improve. Members benefit from a culture of collaboration and exchange that even includes the signing of a “Declaration of Interdependence.”Additionally, for companies like Cabot Creamery, the first dairy farmer cooperative to become a B Corp, building brand awareness has been very helpful. Cabot Creamery Director of Marketing Amy Levine says “being a member has helped educate and communicate to consumers how a co-op is a beneficial business model” for the broader community and their high-quality products. The company appreciates that the assessment recognizes its acts of gratitude and volunteerism.Just Getting StartedThough it’s growing quickly, the B Corp movement is just getting started. B Corps range across all types of businesses and industries, from food to finance, from clothes to consulting and from consumer products to waste management.“All these companies are united by one common goal: to be best for the world,” says Katie Kerr, B Lab’s director of communications. Certification helps companies differentiate themselves and improve, helps consumers align their purchases with their values and helps people find good places to work. Building the brand and movement go hand in hand—both increase well-being for all.Are you ready (consumers and businesses) to “B the change”? If so, check out bcorporation.net, watch the “We Have a Dream” short video, begin an assessment and find a B Corp to do business with.Contributor Brian Kaminer is the founder of Talgra, a certified B Corp and consulting firm, and the creator of Invest With Values, an education website for people looking to align their money and values.

Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology Fans Gather for Conference

Positive psychology scholars, students and practitioners will review the field's latest research and science-based applications at the Fourth World Congress of the International Positive Psychology Association on June 25-28, in Florida. Biggest names in the field Martin Seligman, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania professor known as the father of positive psychology, and Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D., Harvard University happiness professor, will open the conference at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, Lake Buena Vista, with talks about the cutting edge in research and teaching. Other featured presenters among dozens invited include Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., research director at the HeartMath Institute in Boulder Creek, California, on heart-brain dynamics, and Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., University of North Carolina professor and author of Love 2.0, on "Positivity Resonates." A range of discussions Conference session topics range from eudaimonic well‐being to the effects and global reach of positive psychology. "You will be able to tap into the intellectual energy of a thriving global community," says congress chair Kim Cameron, Ph.D., a University of Michigan professor. The conference offers networking events such as special-interest group lunches and receptions, he says. You can click here to peruse the programor register online. The conference fee is $800 for professionals, $325 for students. Discounts are available for International Positive Psychology Association members. Live Happy in action If you come, look for Live Happy COO Deborah Heisz and Science Editor Paula Felps; they will be speaking on two separate panels. We will also have a Happiness Wall and a Live Happy Booth. See you there! Jim Gold is a veteran journalist who splits his time between Seattle and the Bay Area.

News & Trends

The Happiness Booth

Step into a booth these days and you may either confess to a machine how happy you are, or it may tell you.Therapy in a boothIn a University of Southern California therapist's office, a computer named Elliediagnoses post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Patients sit in a private booth facing Ellie, and the computer makes its (her?) judgments based not on what you say but on your tone, and every detail of your facial expressions, which she captures with her camera eye."Contrary to popular belief, depressed people smile as many times as non-depressed people," psychologist Albert "Skip" Rizzo told NPR. "But their smiles are less robust and of less duration. It's almost like polite smiles rather than real, robust, coming from your inner-soul type of a smile."He developed Ellie with computer scientist Louis-Philippe Morency for the military as soldiers sometimes find it hard to talk to human therapists.Meanwhile in Dubai ...Halfway around the world, officials in Dubai, United Arab Emirates' largest city, are installing "Happiness Kiosks" at popular malls where shoppers are encouraged to air their happiness, satisfaction, complaints and suggestions about civic services, the Khaleej Times reports. It's all part of an initiative to make Dubai the happiest city on Earth, officials say.Each kiosk will be staffed with two government workers to help visitors record suggestions and complaints and forward them to a municipality call center for follow up, the newspaper reported.Making people happyIn October, "Happiness Meters" were activated at 14 Dubai Municipality offices so customers could rate services and record their happiness and satisfaction on websites, apps or in person, the official Emirates News Agency said."Today the world is transforming very fast and people's expectations too are changing rapidly," says Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE prime minister and Dubai ruler. "The ultimate goal of all our initiatives is to make people happy and make their lives simpler."Jim Gold is a veteran journalist who splits his time between Seattle and the Bay Area.

News & Trends

Happier Students Make the Grade

If you want your kids to get good grades in school, a Harvard researcher says, make sure they're happy.It helps, too, if you keep teachers happy, British researchers say.Happy students tend to get better grades, says Christina Hinton, Ed.D., a Harvard Graduate School of Education neuroscientist and lecturer. She says her study also found what makes students happy: school culture and relationships that students form with their teachers and peers.Happiness doesn't cause students to earn higher grades, Christina told the Deseret News. "Some students could be unhappy and still do well," she says. On average, "if you're happy you're more likely to do well."Christina collaborated with the K-12 St. Andrew's Episcopal School, near Washington, D.C., where students took surveys about happiness and motivation. She compared result with data on students' grade point averages.Among key findings:Happiness is positively associated with intrinsic motivation (a personal drive to learn) for all students, and also with extrinsic motivation (outside sources like rewards, praise, or avoiding punishment) for students in grades K–3.Happiness and standardized test scores did not seem to be related.Happiness is positively associated with GPA for students in grades 4–12.Teacher well-being also has a positive effect, helping send exam grades up 8 percent, according to a 2014 study from the Work Foundation at Lancaster University in England."Unlike other factors, such as the social class of students, the rate of pupil absence and the number of children with special educational needs, teacher health and well-being may be more amenable to intervention and change," researchers said."If schools want to support student well-being and achievement, they should take seriously nurturing positive relationships among teachers and students."Jim Gold is a veteran journalist who splits his time between Seattle and the Bay Area.

News & Trends

Is Facebook Making Us Depressed?

Facebook and other social media have done a lot to bring the world closer together. We know when friends and even far-off acquaintances have life milestones, like a birth or a marriage. We also know more mundane things like what they had for breakfast and what their daughter wore to her first dance recital. Stay on the sunny side The problem comes when we see only the sunny, positive images and moments and none of the bad, depressing, the boring. We see the vacations, not cubicles. We see anniversary dinners, not mundane arguments. We are human, so of course we compare. And then, according to a study, we suffer for it. The study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology reveals a connection between depressive symptoms and time spent looking at Facebook for both genders. To many of us, this may not come as a huge surprise. The "highlight reel" “It doesn’t mean Facebook causes depression, but that depressed feelings and lots of time on Facebook and comparing oneself to others tend to go hand in hand,” said Mai-Ly Steers, the University of Houston researcher who led the study. As Mai-Ly states in a University of Houston press release, it’s important, if you are going to spend time on Facebook, to remember that what your friends are posting are essentially “highlight reels.” “Most of our Facebook friends tend to post about the good things that occur in their lives, while leaving out the bad … this may lead us to think their lives are better than they actually are and, conversely, make us feel worse about our own lives.” Dance like nobody's watching So keep things in perspective. No one’s daily life is filled with camera-ready smiles and impromptu dinner parties; Facebook just makes it feel that way sometimes. One solution? Turn off the computer, get out there and have some fun. Emily Wise Miller is the web editor at Live Happy.

Positive Psychology

Does Reading Fiction Make Us Nicer?

For lovers of fiction, reading is often an escape. It’s a chance to get outside of our own heads and move into someone else’s personal experience. We don’t just follow Scarlett O’Hara as she takes down her drapes to create a new dress and the façade of wealth, we identify with her pride and feel her determination in the pits of our stomachs. We empathize with her character.The empathetic leapThat heightened emotional connection moves beyond the page and into our real lives, according to social scientists at the New School in New York City. People who read literary fiction before a test to identify emotions in other people’s faces did better than subjects who read non-fiction or popular fiction, the researchers stated in a study published in the scientific journal Science.David Comer Kidd, who did the research, said this was likely because people reading literary fiction had to fill in gaps about the emotional content of characters in the stories.Theory of MindFiction is an exercise in what psychologists call Theory of Mind. This is our ability to understand other people’s emotions and reasoning and realize that they are different from our own. When we read fiction we understand what the characters know, how they are feeling at various points in the story, and what about their experiences are causing them to feel that way.“When you tell people to pay attention to other people’s subjective experiences, they do better at identifying emotions in other people,” Kidd said. Fiction is a shortcut to getting people to pay attention.Putting yourself in someone else’s shoesEmpathy is another way to think about Theory of Mind, but instead of just identifying emotions in others, we also feel a little bit of that emotion or a related one.Although one might think we use Theory of Mind constantly in our daily interactions, Kidd said that many of our social experiences are basically scripted by manners and social norms. We don’t need to recruit our knowledge of other people’s emotions to buy a jug of milk at the store, for example, or respond to most professional email.But in some circumstances it’s very important to consider what other people are thinking and feeling, especially when making decisions about morality and our deep personal relationships.“Theory of Mind plays a big role when we’re trying to decide if an action is going to hurt someone else’s feelings or if we’re trying to figure out why someone has hurt our feelings,” Kidd said. “Was that person trying to be a jerk, or was something else going on with them?”Fiction increases emotional intelligenceLiterary fiction probably increases people’s capacity for understanding what other people are thinking because there are gaps both in the story’s narrative and in the characters' emotional lives compared to non-fiction or some popular fiction, which is more explicit in laying out characters emotional life. You have to work harder to fill in those gaps yourself.Story lines force us to be active in our empathyKidd and his colleagues are working to home in on the specific qualities of a story, play or film that forces us to use our Theory of Mind and boosts our empathetic capabilities.“It seems like what really matters is an active versus passive approach,” Kidd said.Other research has shown that people who read fiction feel more socially connected and have larger social support systems than those who don’t, challenging the idea of the lonely bookworm. Increased empathy may be a cognitive and emotional link between fiction and social interactions.Read more about the social importance of book clubs.But, Kidd cautions, this does not mean that people who don’t read literary fiction have little empathy or are interpersonally deficient. Rather, that reading fiction can nudge one’s empathetic capability to be more active.So the next time you find yourself in a tricky interpersonal situation, it might be worth thinking through the point of view of others as if they were characters in your favorite novel before deciding on a course of action.What would Elizabeth Bennet do?Meredith Knight is a freelance science writer based in Austin, Texas.

Positive Psychology

Character and Well-Being

Sir Anthony Seldon is often described as Britain’s best-known schoolmaster. He’s a pioneer in education, biographer to three prime ministers, an author or editor of more than two dozen books and a knight of the realm. He’s also witty in a disarmingly quirky way. Answering the phone he asks, “Is this Michelle Obama?” “Sir Seldon, I’m calling with Live Happy magazine,” I say. “Oh. Mrs. Obama is the only American I know. But please do call me Anthony,” he responds. His light-hearted tone quickly turns more serious when the topic turns to his hopes for the newly organized International Positive Education Network (IPEN), which he leads as president. A new way of looking at education “I think the world over, we are seeing schools and colleges which are squandering the potential for the development of young people—of their characters, their personalities, their humanness—because they are saying the only thing that matters is the passing of exams and tests, and this is at best a shame and at worst a disaster and travesty,” Anthony says from his office at Wellington College in Berkshire, where he serves as headmaster. “It’s also based on a complete failure to understand that it isn’t a case of either teaching for tests or teaching for personal growth and happiness; if you teach for happiness and growth and character, you’ll get better exam results because you’ll be developing their intrinsic motivations rather than extrinsic motivations. They’ll want to learn and flourish because of their own inner wishes rather than the fear of the teacher or of punishment. The development of character “So it couldn’t be more important that IPEN is active across the world because we have to fight this cruel ideology, which is subverting lives of young people, allegedly in their interest, but actually in the interest of governments, which are petrified of their countries doing badly [in terms of student test scores],” he says. “Aristotle made it very clear: Education is about the development of character and character strengths, as well as scholastic education.” IPEN’s goals are to support collaboration to promote positive education, change education practice and reform government policy. Check out IPEN's list of favorite books about character and positive education. An illustrious career Anthony, who holds a doctorate as well as the titles of fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Royal Historical Society, has written biographies of prime ministers John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. His latest book, Beyond Happiness: The Trap of Happiness and How to Find Deeper Meaning and Joy, published in March by Yellow Kite, aims to help readers achieve “inner transformation,” he says. “Many people get by, but they don’t live life that is nearly as profound, meaningful, engaged, satisfying, human or indeed spiritual as it could be. And the book is trying to show people how to do that, based on my own experience.” Anthony, who plans to leave Wellington next year after a decade as headmaster, remembers a parent asking him early in his tenure what he most wanted for students. “I want them to be happy,” he responded. He introduced happiness and well-being courses the same year. Since then, Wellington has become the most improved school in Britain. Its ranking among the roughly 3,000 schools in the nation has improved from 256th to 21st, based on scores on exams students take when they leave school at age 18. Getting with the program The program encompasses physical health, positive relationships, perspective (or building a “psychological immune system”), engagement in the things one does, living sustainably in the world, and finding meaning and purpose. Wellington also offers very popular courses for parents, with topics that have included managing anxiety, active and constructive responding, and “the magical state of engagement,” Anthony says. An education in happiness Instruction in happiness and well-being can benefit children of all ages, as well as adults, agrees James O’Shaughnessy, who heads the IPEN steering committee and is the founder of the not-for-profit Floreat Education, which aims to help children flourish through character development and academic achievement. James says positive education isn’t new, and it is being offered in various forms and places around the world. There’s no single best approach, but it is important to bring together and present the different voices and perspectives, which is where IPEN comes in. What will success look like for IPEN? “We joke that we won’t settle for anything less than world domination,” James says. Anthony’s hopes are no less lofty, and this time, he’s not joking. “If people at every school, college and home start living lives which are more holistic, harmonious and happy, then I think at that point, IPEN can close down because we’ve done our job.”

Become More Resilient in 9 Simple Steps

Norman the Therapy Pig Hams It Up

Cat Videos Help Us Lick the Blues

B the Change

Positive Psychology Fans Gather for Conference

The Happiness Booth

Happier Students Make the Grade

Does Reading Fiction Make Us Nicer?

Character and Well-Being

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