Becoming aware of our own mental habits or attempting to revise them for the better often hinges on the basic skill of mindfulness.
Cultivating mental habits of happiness can help us overcome some of the traps that we're prone to falling prey to, such as perfectionism, harsh self-judgments, and striving to "maximize" pleasure. This week we'll learn about some practices that can, over time, form habits that can renew our experience in the world.
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_trick_your_brain_for_happiness
"We do not know what a thought is, yet we're thinking them all the time."
"Neurons that fire together, wire together."
More activation in the left prefrontal cortex is associated with more positive emotions. So as there is greater activation in the left, front portion of your brain relative to the right, there is also greater well-being. That's probably in large part because the left prefrontal cortex is a major part of the brain for controlling negative emotion. So if you put the breaks on the negative, you get more of the positive.
Stress releases substances that literally corrode the brain. Some adults with a history of stress have lost up to 25 percent of the memory forming hippocampus. This is a good reason to relax.
These changes happen in temporary and in lasting ways. In terms of temporary changes, the flow of different neurochemicals in the brain will vary at different times. Research suggests that when people practice gratitude, they experience a general alerting and brightening of the mind, and that's probably correlated with more of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine.
Now the mind also can change the brain in lasting ways. In other words, what flows through the mind sculpts the brain. The mind can be defined as the flow of immaterial information through the nervous system—all the signals being sent, most of which are happening forever outside of consciousness. As the mind flows through the brain, as neurons fire together in particularly patterned ways based on the information they are representing, those patterns of neural activity change neural structure, connecting more strongly.
People who maintain some kind of regular meditative practice actually have measurably thicker brains in certain key regions. One of those regions is the insula, which is involved in what's called "interoception"—tuning into the state of your body, as well as your deep feelings. Another region is the frontal regions of the prefrontal cortex—areas involved in controlling attention.
Research has also shown that it's possible to slow the loss of our brain cells. Normally, we lose about 10,000 brain cells a day. That may sound horrible, but we were born with 1.1 trillion. We also have several thousand born each day, mainly in the hippocampus, in what's called neurogenesis. So losing 10,000 a day isn't that big a deal, but the net bottom line is that a typical 80 year old will have lost about 4 percent of his or her brain mass.
However, those who routinely meditate do not experience cortical thinning in certain regions.
Use it or lose it, applies to the brain as well as to other aspects of life.
Experience really matters. It doesn't matter only in our moment-to-moment well-being—how it feels to be me—but it really matters in the lasting residues that it leaves behind, woven into our very being.
This is known as "self-directed neuroplasticity." Neuroplasticity refers to the malleable nature of the brain, and it's constant, ongoing. Self-directed neuroplasticity means doing it with clarity and skillfulness and intention.
The key to it is a controlled use of attention. Attention is like a spotlight, to be sure, shining on things within our awareness.
Neural substrates are built reflecting that upon which the focus of our awareness rests.
"The education of attention would be an education par excellence."
So gaining more control over attention one way or another is really crucial, whether it's through the practice of mindfulness, for instance, or through gratitude practices, where we count our blessings. Those are great ways to gain control over your attention because there you are, for 30 seconds or 30 minutes, coming back to focus on an object of awareness.
Maximizers try to squeeze the greatest amount of benefit and pleasure out of every choice or opportunity, while satisficers find contentment with choices as long as they pass a basic threshold of acceptability.
Maximizing Versus Satisficing: Happiness Is a Matter of Choice.
Schwartz and his colleagues have found that maximizers score lower on scales of happiness, optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, and score higher on measures of depression, perfectionism, and regret.
The gist of what Schwartz's research famously shows is that having a lot of choices is a curse on our happiness.
Schwartz divides the world into two categories of people: those who, in the face of their many choices, try to "maximize," and those who "satisfice," or accept the first available option that meets their criteria.
Happy people tend to satisfice. Maximizing is very tempting for perfectionists, and it is associated with unhappiness and discontent.
Maximizers actually tend to be less happy with the decisions they make (when they finally make them). Why?
We all have a limited capacity for decision-making in any given day. The less choices we expend time on the more energy and clarity is left when big decision-making moments come along.
How to satisfice instead of maximize:
In a study on a campus: The students who had to make their choice without the possibility of change tended to be far happier with the what they chose when asked about it later. The other students, however, who were allowed to waffle about their decision, and even change their mind if they wanted to, ended up being far less happy with the choice they made.
The lesson here is that the brain naturally justifies its choices and actually creates positive sentiment about them—but only when it perceives that a choice is complete and can't be reversed. So make your decisions and be done with them.
Kristin Neff defines "self-compassion" as quieting one's inner critic and replacing it with a voice of support, understanding, and care--in other words, treating yourself with the same kindness and support that you show to other people.
Three components of self-compassion: https://youtu.be/11U0h0DPu7k
Motivations for practicing self-compassion: https://youtu.be/YFhcNPjIMjc
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/try_selfcompassion
To inflate your own ego and put others down to try and feel good in comparison is stupid and detrimental.
We might temporarily feel better about ourselves by ignoring our flaws, or by believing our issues and difficulties are somebody else's fault, but in the long run we only harm ourselves by getting stuck in endless cycles of stagnation and conflict.
Continually feeding our need for positive self-evaluation is a bit like stuffing ourselves with candy. We get a brief sugar high, then a crash. We can't always feel special and above average.
So what's the answer? To stop judging and evaluating ourselves altogether. To stop trying to label ourselves as "good" or "bad" and simply accept ourselves with an open heart. To treat ourselves with the same kindness, caring, and compassion we would show to a good friend.
From the Buddhist point of view, you have to care about yourself before you can really care about other people.
A sense of high self-esteem can lead to narcissism, self-absorption, self-righteous anger, prejudice and discrimination.
Self-compassion was the perfect alternative to the relentless pursuit of self-esteem. Why? Because it offers the same protection against harsh self-criticism as self-esteem, but without the need to see ourselves as perfect or as better than others. In other words, self-compassion provides the same benefits as high self-esteem without its drawbacks.
The nurturing quality of self-compassion allows us to flourish, to appreciate the beauty and richness of life, even in hard times. When we soothe our agitated minds with self-compassion, we're better able to notice what's right as well as what's wrong, so that we can orient ourselves toward that which gives us joy.
Self-compassion is to be kind to oneself, to feel connected with other conscious beings and to be mindful.
Good feelings of self-compassion do not depend on being special and above average, or on meeting ideal goals. Instead, they come from caring about ourselves. The good feelings of self-compassion don't go away when we mess up or things go wrong. In fact, self-compassion steps in precisely where self-esteem lets us down—whenever we fail or feel inadequate.
According to the science, self-compassion does in fact appear to offer the same advantages as high self-esteem, with no discernable downsides.
Self-compassion provides an island of calm, a refuge from the stormy seas of endless positive and negative self-judgment, so that we can finally stop asking, "Am I as good as they are? Am I good enough?" By tapping into our inner wellsprings of kindness, acknowledging the shared nature of our imperfect condition, we can start to feel more secure, accepted, and alive.
Relax, allow life to be as it is, and open your heart.
First take a moment to reflect on the practices of mindfulness introduced previous week.
Identify something about yourself that makes you feel ashamed, insecure, or inadequate. It could be something related to your personality, behavior, abilities, relationships, or any other part of your life.
Write it down and describe how it makes you feel.
The next step is to write a letter to yourself expressing compassion, understanding, and acceptance for the part of yourself that you dislike.
Guidelines:
Reread the letter when you are feeling down.
Your self-critical voice becomes more benevolent which fosters personal growth.
In flow, we experience the opposite of distracted mind-wandering.
Research by Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues suggests that people are most likely to achieve flow--and the positive states that accompany it--when engaged in a task that is challenging but for which they also have adequate skills.
Video about when flow gets clogged.
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_schools_help_students_find_flow
Real learning, says Shernoff, requires student engagement—of which flow is the deepest form possible—and that involves a combination of motivation, concentration, interest, and enjoyment derived from the process of learning itself.
"If we want kids to get excited about learning and commit to deeper study, they need to be motivated to learn and enjoy the process."
The researchers conclude that teachers can encourage more flow in their classrooms through lessons that offer choice, are connected to students' goals, and provide both challenges and opportunities for success that are appropriate to students' level of skill. For more tips see: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/eight_tips_for_fostering_flow_in_the_classroom
Engagement was high when students were appropriately challenged by complex goals and high teacher expectations but also supported through positive interactions with their teacher.
Seeing the practical usefulness of a subject fosters flow.
Montessori schools are designed to produce more flow by mixing up age groups, giving students autonomy to choose their own learning tasks, and allowing students to master skills at their own pace.
Montessori teachers give students the freedom to choose among many different activities when learning new material and rarely interrupt a student's concentration, since concentration is a sign of total immersion in learning—another important element of flow.
Montessori students reported more flow—along with more positive emotion, higher energy levels, stronger internal motivation to do their work, and less distraction.
"Students need to feel they are part of a community where they are valued."
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_mel_brooks_can_teach_us_about_group_flow
Famed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly coined the term "flow" to describe a particular state of heightened consciousness—what some people refer to as being "in the zone."
sikszentmihaly discovered that extremely creative people are at their peak when they experience "a unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which we feel in control of our actions, and in which there is little distinction between self and environment; between stimulus and response; or between past, present, and future." When they enter the flow state, people from a wide range of professions describe feeling a sense of competence and control, a loss of self-consciousness, and they get so absorbed in the task that they lose track of time.
When a group is in flow, it's more likely to resolve problems with surprising and creative solutions.
Keys to flow:
Group flow happens when many tensions are in perfect balance: between convention and novelty, between structure and improvisation, between the critical, analytic mind and the freewheeling, outside-the-box mind, between listening to the rest of the group and speaking out with your own individual voice.
The most effective business teams balance these tensions in the same way: They listen closely, they are concentrated on the task, they communicate openly so that everyone gets immediate feedback, and they trust that genius will emerge from the group, not from any one member. When that happens, groups find flow—and with it, studies show, comes more effective team performance, greater innovation, and higher workplace satisfaction. It's good for the organization, and it's good for its workers, too.
Updated on 2020-07-22.