Positivity Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strengths of Positive Emotions
Overcome Negativity and Thrive by Barbara L Fredrickson the people who experience more
positivity in their lives grow psychologically they become more resilient open to new things
and more driven by purpose and scientists have confirmed that people who are more positive
can live up to 10 years longer than those who are more negative see positivity is very good for you
it's in essence of reset button that you can use to rein in those inevitable reactions in life
as you'll get stress for sure but if you can use that hidden reset button it can help you and it
can lower your blood pressure feel less pain and in fact even get fewer colds and better sleep
so it's worth thinking here why not deliberately change to get on that upward spiral of positivity
rather than the downward spiral of negativity because positive emotions both help our hearts
and our minds making us more receptive and more creative it's important to know positive
and negative emotions are based on different time scales the narrowed mindsets of negativity
are more valued for immediate survival and if you think of however a positive mindset broad
which is more looking at what can happen what you can do what we collectively can do together
to build a nice resource and to pool assets for example or develop useful traits
an important ratio is three to one that means that for every heart wrenching negative emotion you
experience and sadly you will enjoy these you need to have three heart lifting emotional experiences
and the beauty of this three to one ratio is it's large enough to encompass
all emotions so you don't have to try to suppress things interestingly as well it mentions a ship
three to one one is below water three is above water in terms of the sale as well the book
also mentions an interest in study about ischemic heart disease looking at how emotion plays a role
and it's not surprising that anger did increase ischemia when looking at myocardial uptake with
a perfusion scan however the interesting thing is that it notice that insincere smiles also reduce
the perfusion of the heart meaning ischemic heart disease would be worse and this suggests
rightly or wrongly that bacon happiness is actually harmful so what is happiness well
it's a broad concept and this book breaks it down into ten different unique things
one joy the feeling of being good in the moment to gratitude being thankful for things
and about your own health for example or other people three serenity this is when current
things are just nice and you feel a good comfort for interest five hope particularly
if circumstances aren't going well for you hope is important six pride and this is specific when it's
encompassing appropriate humility because pride is actually a positive emotion
and it blooms in the wake of an achievement that you can take credit for
amusement not serious light-hearted eight inspiration and this is considered one of
the self-transcendent emotions it's a form of positivity that pulls us out of our shell of
self-absorption nine or which is closely related here but more is when you come across something
which is just an act of goodness on a grand scale and you can literally feel overwhelmed
10 love which is a combination of the above and like gratitude inspiration also has its
evil twin whether you call it resentment or envy it arises when you see a human excellence
and respond with negativity you could grumble mock take the person down or equally beat ourselves up
for not doing as well and when we compare ourselves with someone who does better than we do
sometimes it can actually discourage us instead of inspire us so Ali Abdaal if you're watching this
I'm certainly inspired by you but whenever you respond to human excellence with if if you choose
to respond to to it with positivity or negativity it's completely your choice and it's a choice
about whether your heart is open with the positive mindset or if it's closed feeling negative and
being in a positive frame of mind brings that broader thinking and with this choice you can
step onto that upward spiral positivity can be found everywhere yet in all cases positivity is
fragile whether it's that moment of joy serenity or inspiration it can be squashed in the flash
of an eye or in the firing of a few neurons so ask yourself what's going right in the world
this will help you keep that positive mindset positivity makes you see connections and feel
more related to others there was an interesting study mentioned in which it showed people who
felt more positive could identify themselves with other people faster and even they were able to
identify correctly people from different ethnicities if they were feeling more positive
focusing on similarities rather than closing their uh abilities to identify different people with a
negative mindset and positivity is also about being resilient and these resilient positivity
styles can help you feel open see the big picture appreciate the now and find the good within the
bad openness is what dissolves negativity and enables people to make a strong comeback there's
three basic ways to deal with the question how do i deal with a negative person in my life
not just omitting them from your life completely one modify the social situation two attend to
it differently and three change the meaning and that would actually give you quite a lot of power
in how to help overcome negativity that you're exposed to with other people see your thinking
actually it reveals how you interpret your current circumstances meaning what you find within them
and a key way to increase your positivity and move that positivity ratio higher is to find positive
meaning within your day-to-day life circumstances so open your eyes to the kindness and gratitude
save you the goodness when you see it visualize the best possible future
be social go outside these are small changes that can elevate your positivity anytime you want
together these approaches will unlock more of the six most common positive emotions within you
that's love joy gratitude serenity interest and hope and they do so
and they will open your mindset and put you on a course for resilience and growth