《PP》第9课摘抄
really think about what these people, the important people in your life are doing for you and express it. don’t take that for granted.
one of the most effective interventions out there today is expressing gratitude to others especially this one: writing a letter of gratitude and then visiting the person to whom you are writing and reading them the letter. and it creates a win-win
about the negative experiences:
group 1 write about the ABC, the affect, the emotion, the behavior, what you did then, and the cognition, what you thought then. three times on three consecutive days for 15 minutes
group 2 talk about it to a tape recorder about the same best experiences and another group worst experiences.
group 3 just think about it, ruminate for 15 minutes also on three consecutive days.
group 4 control group
wrote feel good, talk feel better, ruminate worse
when we analyze an experience, when we make sense of it, it helps. it actually helps. painful experiences and negative experiences, which is why therapy helps, and what helps in therapy more than anything is less of technique, less the years of study that the therapists had, less the experience that the therapists had. these things matter. but not that much. what matters most is are they empathic? in other words, are they good listeners? so when we fell like we can talk and analyze about painful emotion, we feel better. we are physically healthier. when we simply sit down and ruminate about painful emotions without making sense of it, we get very often into a downward spiral. we narrow and constrict, we feel more sad. we narrow and constrict even more.
when we analyze a positive experience, really analyze it and try to understand why it happened and so on. so we do it consecutive three days, it actually doesn’t help. we don’t know why. but maybe it’s because it takes all the fun spontaneity from the experience. however when we just ruminate about the positive experience, just think about it, then it contributes to our well-being. the gratitude exercise is about replaying the experience.
why is that when we write and talk about negative experiences, it makes us feel better and healthier? strengthen our immune system? whereas when we just think about it, ruminate it, what’s going on here? whereas the exact opposite is the case with positive emotions.
感谢老妈晚上做的酸菜馅饺子
感谢跑步路上一片光滑
感谢跑步的时候，喜鹊窝里，咕咕的鸟叫
感谢二姨中午做的饭包
感谢二姨夫提供车辆，拉家里的花生
感谢剪发师给我理发
感谢tal的讲授
final project
20-30 minutes presentation that you will hand in as or about any topic within positive psychology. by the way, that could also be positive psychological intervention for depression or anxiety. it could be about gratitude. it could be the mind body connection. it could be about spirituality and religion. it could be about self-esteem. what i would urge you to do is find the most personally meaningful topic that you want to research. remember what is the most personal is also most general.
about change
change is hard. it’s very difficult to get an upward trajectory. it’s possible through coping for example, but it’s difficult.
however, it’s possible
how?
the brain, it turns out, in many ways is like muscle: use it and you don’t lose it. use it and you generate, you build the muscle up. neural pathways grow with use and they shrink when there is no use.
the experience is much likely to gravitate to already established neural pathways and strengthen it further as opposed to create new neural pathways, which is why if we want to remember something, it’s very good to make connections to other things, to existing neural pathways, to existing memories.
and this is what babies are, when something is reinforced over and over again, it becomes a habit.
左前额皮质——积极
右前额皮质——消极
瑜伽的练习可以让左侧比右侧更活跃
two types of change
gradual change approach, it’s the healthy change. there is no quick fix. it takes time. however, the change process can be as enjoyable as the outcome.
there is also the acute approach to change.
Martin Seligman: “the believe that we can rely on shortcuts to gratification and bypass the exercise of personal strengths and virtues is folly. it leads to legions of humanity who are depressed in the middle of great wealth and are starving to death spiritually.”
高效能人士的七个习惯what he found was that there was a real cut-off point in 1930. until 1930, 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, self-help was about character change. it was about changing who you are from inside. it was about struggling in hard work and failing and getting up again. going through hardships, and changing step by step, slowly, gradually. 1930, radical change. from character change it, it became quick fix. thinking grow rich, how to win friends in influent people. do it now, the secret quick change, immediate change, easy change. and from the 1930s, what we see is a decline in people’s level of well being. much more depression, much more anxiety. and one of the reasons is that.
there is no quick fix. it takes time, it takes time to change. however, the change process can be as enjoyable, as fun, as exciting as ultimately achieving the change.