How to make stress work for you

Question 1

Make a list of things that make you worry or keep you up in the nights:

• True trauma: loss of loved ones, divorces, being fired from job, diagnosed of untreatable diseases
• Stressors of daily living: poor grades, deadlines, minor illness – can be contained and manageable
• Activities of daily living: laundry, dishes, dinners
• Irritants: bad traffic, bad coffee

Answer 1

Happiness
When we deliberately chase happiness, happiness itself becomes more elusive. The self-questioning “am I happy?” actually cuts the link of our flow of happiness.

Question 2

Negativity bias: we, as human, naturally seek for negativity and things that can potentially go wrong.

Answer 2

List 5 good things end of a day

Question 3

Our actions, instead of circumstances (i.e. lost 10 pound in weight), will make us happier.

Answer 3

We should focus on what we have now to be happy instead of having happiness as the contingency and the next thing we will have.

Question 4

Dr. Daniel Gilbert: expert of happiness

Answer 4

Natural happiness: the happiness when we get what we wanted

Synthetic happiness: the made happiness even when we didn’t get what we wanted.

Question 5

Dr. Martin Seligman: pursuit of happiness:

• pleasant life: made of moments of happiness and pleasure
• good life: internal strengths and abilities used to enhance our lives
• meaningful life: fulfillment by serving others (but it’s not the easiest one)

Answer 5

hedonic happiness 享乐

eudemonic happiness 幸福

Question 6

Anger:
venting and ruminating after events actually adds to our anger and aggressiveness, which increase the chance of heart diseases.
Doing nothing can actually dissipate anger faster.

Answer 6

type A people has a high propensity of hostility.