WEEK 7 Flashcards
What is savouring?
- What is the findings in relation to + affect?
- Attributing Internal causes for + ve and - ve events?
- Implications?
Savouring: act of stepping outside of an experience to review and appreciate it
- Savouring strategies that amplify positive emotions associated with greater frequency of +ve affect
- Strategies people use to savour +ve experiences related to increased levels of daily mood and subjective wellbeing
Assigning positive events to internal, global, stable causes = decreased depression
Assigning negative events to internal, global, stable causes = increased depression
- Implications: encourage enhancing amplifying savouring and diminishing dampening savouring
Savouring study: Savouring chocolate
- What was found when participants were asked to eat chocolate with vs without savouring it?
- One was instructed to savour chocolate by focusing on its taste, texture, and smell
- Other group asked to eat it without any specific instructions
RESULTS: group who savoured chocolate reported higher levels of positive emotions and a more enjoyable experience compared to control group
What is HEDONIC ADAPTATION?
- What does savouring and other techniques attempt to do in regards to this?
Getting used to / Adapting to the feelings of positive or negative emotions and returning to baseline
Savouring attempts to stop this adaptation so you feel good for longer
What is flow?
- Define (characteristics)
- Requirement to reach flow?
- Mental state in which you’re performing an activity where you are fully immersed, involved, where you feel energized, have a sense of control, strong sense of self, focused, and you’re enjoying it as you go
=> It’s like being in the zone.
Characteristics:
* Complete concentration on task
* A sense of ecstasy: of being outside everyday reality
* Great inner clarity: knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing it
* Knowing activity is doable
* A sense of serenity: no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond boundaries of ego
* Timelessness: thoroughly focused on present, hours seem to pass by in minutes
* Intrinsic motivation: whatever produces flow becomes its own reward
Requirement = A match between the CHALLENGE and YOUR SKILL LEVEL
The research on flow
- What does it say?
- Flow described in remarkably similar terms regardless of SES, age, culture and ethnicity
- Teenagers identified as “high-flow” kids more likely to make it to University, have deeper social ties, and experience more success in life relative to “low-flow” teenagers
- Suggests flow is a state that builds PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL that can be drawn on for years to come
- Better to choose activities that induce flow (read a book) over activity that only induce temporary pleasure (watching TV, shopping)
=> In long run, better to pursue gratification over pleasure
=> Cannot shortcut our way to happiness
The vagus nerve and meditation
- What is it?
- Why is it important?
- Vagus means wandering
- Vagus nerve main component of parasympathetic nervous system – responsible for rest and relaxation
=> so activating it can help us relax and reduce anxiety - Its activity can be influenced by breathing practices (slow breathing)
- Singing can also activate vagus nerve
- Just taking a deep breath is a hack to reverse sympathetic nervous system activation
Research on Meditation & Mindfulness
- Multiple studies show benefits of meditation on positive emotions, stress, cognitive abilities, physical health, pain, sleep
- Helps regulate stress response, lowers cortisol output, lowers blood pressure, reduces chronic inflammation and maintains a healthy microbiome
- Increases grey matter concentration over 8 wks
- Meditators inspire efforts to solve complex problems like climate change
- 8 weeks training increased activity in left-prefrontal cortex, relative to right side
- This pattern associated with happy individuals
- Also showed stronger immune response to influenza vaccine
- Mindfulness introduced into schools showed those who engaged in mindfulness 3X/day became more optimistic and had better emotional and social competencies
Meta analysis of Meditation:
- Small effects but generally equivalent to other treatments (not better than active controls)
- Insufficient evidence in some areas but hampered by small sample sizes
Meditation: RAIN Method
- What is it?
The RAIN method to help deal with negative emotions
- Recognize what is happening
- Allow feeling to be just as it is – just let negative emotions be
- Investigate emotions with interest and care
- Nurture with self-compassion
- Research shows this acceptance significantly reduces anxiety and depression
Mind wandering
- What is it?
- Is it good or bad?
- effects on well-being?
- We do it a lot – in fact, about 50% of time! (BAD)
- Sadly associated with lower ratings of happiness
=> Suggests need to tighten that mind focus through meditation - Deactivates default network and strengthens synapses through paying attention as it increases state of autonomic arousal, increasing firing
=> cells that fire together, wire together - Meditation shown to increase positive emotions over time
Study: Relaxation training’s effect on healthcare resource utilization
- Compared people who had taken Relaxation Response Resiliency Program (3RP; n=4452) and controls (n=13149) over 1 year
- findings?
- Intervention group’s Emergency department (ED) visits decreased from 3.6 to 1.7/year and Hospital and Urgent care visits converged with controls (controls were healthy)
- Subgroup analysis showed intervention group significantly reduced utilization relative to controls
BASICALLY IT REDUCES HOSPITAL VISITS IN SICK PEOPLE AND CAN HELP SAVE MONEY
How might meditation work?
- Amps up brain’s BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic factor)
- Meditation leads to less activation of default mode network (responsible for mind wandering)
- By reinforcing areas associated with staying focused and present, helps reprogram brains for wellbeing, empathy and gratitude
- Changes in functional connectivity can be seen after only 3 days of mindfulness practice
- Growth of new brain cells in hippocampi
- Can also increase sense of social connectedness
- Better regulation of parasympathetic nervous system
- Improvements in immune function
- Increased telomerase activity (bits on the end of chromosomes)
Yoga
- Combination of muscular activity & internally directed mindful focus on awareness of self, breath, & energy
- Word “yoga” comes from a Sanskrit root “yuj” which means union, or yoke, to join, and to direct and concentrate one’s attention
- Regular practice of yoga promotes strength, improved cognition, better sleep, quality of life, endurance, flexibility and facilitates characteristics of friendliness, compassion, and greater self-control, while cultivating a sense of calmness and wellbeing
- Sustained practice also leads to changes in life perspective, self-awareness and an improved sense of energy to live life fully and with genuine enjoyment
- Practice of yoga produces a physiological state opposite to that of flight-or-fight stress response
- Yoga encourages one to relax, slow breath and focus on present, shifting
What is the trend for religious people in NZ?
Number of christian going down
Number of atheists going up
Faith, Spirituality, Religion
- Research suggests religious people are happier, healthier and recover better after traumas than nonreligious people although some inconsistencies in literature with opposite findings being reported
- Religious people having serious cardiac surgery are 3X more likely to be alive 6 months later
- Other research shows religious parents who experienced a still born better able to cope 18 months after event than non-religious parents
- Why? (not really know but suggested to be because:)
- Increased social support?
- Better able to find meaning?
- Generally more likely to practice healthy behaviours?
Definitions of wellbeing:
- scientific definition and WHO definition
What is wellbeing?
Combination of feeling good and functioning well; experience of positive emotions like
happiness and contentment, development of one’s potential, some control over one’s life, sense of purpose, experiencing positive relationships.
World Health Organization
defines positive mental health “A state of wellbeing in which the individual realizes their own abilities, can cope with normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, is able to make a contribution to their community”
