Our northermost neighbors, the Danes, frequently take the number one spot when researchers try to find the happiest country on earth. While this finding has to be treated with some caution (please see What people around the world mean when they say they’re happy) they probably one or two things about the good life.
Here’s what former corporate executive and nowadays writer Malene Rydahl has to say on the topic.
This is the second artwork (well…) in my self-imposed learning journey on the way to producing decent infographics. This time, I chose Martin Seligman´s PERMA framework, which, by many people, is considered to be the most comprehensive framework of “the good life”, the foundation of Positive Psychology in science and practice.
Since PERMA is not exactly hot from the presses, I added a little twist: For a couple of years now, Marty challenges his students in the Penn Master of Positive Psychology program to propose meaningful additions to the original PERMA outline (Positive Emotions | Engagement | Relationships | Meaning | Achievement). Over time, it became clear that the original framework may be somewhat “neck-up”, thereby omitting aspects such as sports, sex, sustenance, and sleep.
Therefore, students kept asking for the letter “S” to be added – which ultimately would result in the acronym PERMAS (doesn´t sound too funky…) or SPERMA (uh-uh, not a proper name for a scientific term…). Meanwhile, there seems to be a growing mutual consent to choose the letter “V” for Vitality – and to put it at the end with a hyphen. To my knowledge, this was first proposed by a fellow Mapp graduate, Emiliya Zhivotovskaya.
What do you think?
Share and enjoy!
This is yet another fantastic piece covering Positive Psychology by information designer Anna Vital (the other ones I published on Mappalicious can be found here and here). Share and enjoy!
A couple of days a go, I stumbled upon two TEDx talks by clinical neuroscientist Stephen Ilardi (University of Kansas). He shares how we can “naturally” (without taking antidepressants) fight depression. The talks are instructive and entertaining, yet pretty similar to each other – so if you´re short on time, it´s probably sufficient to watch only one of them. Here´s the summary:
We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, sleep-deprived, socially-isolated, fast-food-laden, frenetic pace of modern life.
Accordingly, among the most potent remedies for depression are:
And while I´m happy and impressed that these recommendations are now being backed by “hard science”, I guess we should have known all along. Here are some quotes by Greek physician and “father of Western medicine” Hippocrates (460 – 370 BC).
If you are in a bad mood go for a walk.
To do nothing is also a good remedy.
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
One of the central tenets of Positive Psychology is Other People Matter, coined by the late Prof. Christopher Peterson. If you want to learn just how much they matter to your happiness and your health, you might want to watch this TED talk by Prof. John Cacioppo from University of Chicago.
Now, I perfectly know from my own life what Prof. Cacioppo is talking about. When I was 16, I went to the USA for a year to attend high school and improve my English skills. I left my family and friends behind – platforms such as Skype and Facebook weren’t available (in fact, Mark Zuckerberg probably was entering middle school at that time). I agreed to have a phone call with my parents only every other Sunday – in order not to abet homesickness. Bad idea, most likely…
For reasons which are to complex and difficult to explain (if it can be explained at all – because every person will have a very different vantage point…), this was by far the loneliest year of my life. I found it hard to connect to my guest families and the larger part of my schoolmates.* For most of the time, m closest social connections consisted of other exchange students (during school hours) and the folks I encountered during basketball pick-up games (in the afternoon). Other than that, for most of the year, I felt utterly alone and devoid of warm social connections, let alone love.
I am now perfectly aware what a situation like this does to your body and your soul. When I came to the U.S., I was a healthy and (ordinarily) happy teenager. By the time I went home, I had developed allergy-based asthma, suffered from recurring panic attacks, and was – according to what I´ve learned during my psychology studies later in life – more than mildly depressed (including, at times, suicidal thoughts). It took me several years to shake all of this off – but I did.
To end this post on a high note (or rather: two high notes), I have to add that even though this was probably the worst year of my life, that doesn´t mean it hasn’t been a valuable experience. On the one hand, it´s a classic case of “What doesn´t kill me makes me stronger“. On the other hand – and that may be a strangely wonderful twist of fate – this year gave my life a whole new direction. The high school I attended offered psychology as an elective course. These two hours or so every week always were among the regular lights at the end of my tunnel. And I think my psychology teacher is the reason why I chose to pursue that profession later on in my life.
And then, there´s this other – equally beautiful and strange – twist of fate. Mappalicious exists as a blog because I was part of the ninth cohort of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania – it started as a kind of diary. So, 19 years after what I´ve described above, I spent another year in the U.S. (more precisely, several days per months as travelled back and forth between Germany and Philly). Actually, it all happened only about a hundred miles from where I went to school.
And boy, what a difference it has been. It´s been a year full of human bonding, a time of joy, and caring, and yes: love. And, in the light of my past, it´s been a year of healing. Full circle.
* I´m not blaming anybody, because it´s actually nobody´s fault. Let´s just say that U.S. high schools can be a pretty tough environment when you´re not exactly part of the in-crowd…
Well, at first I wanted to write: Don’t fall for click-baiting headlines, but that’s not the whole secret (though it’s certainly a small fraction of it). What I´d like to say is:
Don´t believe in easy solutions, or, to quote Lt. Aldo Raine from Inglorious Basterds:
Long story short, we hear a story too good to be true – it ain’t.
Most things in life – at least those that are worthwhile pursuing – require a lot of guts, smarts, and plain hard work. That certainly goes for:
but also for more mundane issues such as:
Yes, there are things that just work faster or better. But these “life hacks” are, without exception, just tiny pieces of a very large puzzle. Those people who sell easy solutions try to tell you that, by putting together two or three puzzle pieces, you´ve solved the whole thing.
Sorry folks, not true – unless your life equals the complexity of a puzzle made for a two-year-old.
In this TED talk, Nicholas Christakis (nowadays professor at Yale) shares his fascinating research on the influence of the people surround us (and the influence of those that surround those that surround us…and so on).
In short: the question of how happy you are, or how much you weigh, if you start or stop smoking, get married or have children, depends to a large degree on those people that you socialize with, and the people those folks interact with – at least statistically speaking.
It’s a whole new perspective on the adage “You are who you know.”
Robert Waldinger is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the current Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development (part of that is the so-called Harvard Grant Study; see this post for prior coverage on Mappalicious). It is a 75-year longitudinal study of 268 physically- and mentally-healthy Harvard college sophomores from the classes of 1939–1944. It has run in tandem with second study called The Glueck Study, which included another cohort of 456 disadvantaged inner-city youths from Boston.
In his TEDx talk, Waldinger shares his most important takeaways from that study on what keeps people happy and healthy – and it shouldn´t surprise you all that much:
P.S.
This presentation will also be posted as No. 46 on my topical list of Positive Psychology-infused TED talks.
Dear cherished reader!
I wish a wonderful holiday season with your loved ones, and good friends. May you have the warmest feelings in your heart, and find peace within your soul!
Nico
Over the last years, I´ve collected countless quotes, sayings, short poems and similar inspirational stuff that (to my mind) is related to Positive Psychology. Here are my top-10 for the time being. Enjoy!
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
(Frederick Douglass)
Be yourself. No one can say you´re doing it wrong.
(Charles M. Schulz)
Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
(Abraham Lincoln, among others)
Your brain is not designed to make you happy. That´s your job.
(Tony Robbins)
People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.
(Unknown)
Be you! The world will adjust.
(Unknown)
We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
(Carlos Castaneda)
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
(Herm Albright)
To laugh often and much: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
(Dawna Markova)
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