| | Lessons in resilience from Northwestern University 🌸 Positive events: Noticing what brings us joyEach week, we’re bringing you a taste of the skills taught in Moskowitz's resilience course.
The first skill to tackle is to pay more attention to the good stuff in your daily life. Moskowitz says this may require you to fight against nature: Humans have evolved to notice negative stuff to help us stay safe.
So make an effort to do the opposite: “Broaden your focus and notice the good things that are going on,” she says. Here's how to get started:
🛠 Build this skill: Create your own moments of delight
You probably didn’t win the lottery, but did you luck out in another way? Maybe you snagged a good deal on a concert ticket or a new piece of clothing, or a favorite song played on the radio.
For me, a recent moment started with a knock on my door. My neighbor brought me apples she’d picked at a farm, which gave me that lovely taste of fall I’d been waiting for.
Take note of these moments, Moskowitz says. These small — but satisfying — highlights can boost your reservoir of well-being.
And if you struggle to come up with a moment, create your own positive event, Moskowitz says. She's built one into her daily commute, which takes her by a favorite restaurant with tasty breakfast burritos. “I never know which one I’m going to get,” she says, which adds to her anticipation. |
Stress Science 101: How happiness can rewire our brains What if you could create a new habit of mind — less fretful, more serene? That’s what a lot of the skills presented here are intended to do.
And Jyoti Mishra, a neuroscientist at UC San Diego, says we have the power to rewire our brains.
She points to studies that show parts of the brain become activated when people are engaged in acts of kindness or compassion. And this can start to build new connections. “The more this happens, the more efficient these connections become,” she explains.
Just as someone can get good at playing a sport by repeating the same motor movement over and over again, the same is true of positive emotional practices, Mishra says. "And it can become a self-fulfilling positive cycle,” she says.
This works for emotions like awe and gratitude too, psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett told NPR. She says you can “practice” swapping negative feelings for positive ones — for example, instead of being annoyed at an imperfect video-chat connection, let yourself be amazed we have the technology to see a friend halfway around the world.
For more ideas to turn happiness into a habit, check out NPR’s Joy Generator. |
🌟 Try this: Take an awe walk
Strolling in nature is a great way to practice noticing positive things. Tons of research shows the benefit of time in nature, especially when you do it mindfully, which is the idea behind awe walks, says University of Maryland's Naomi Sachs, who researches therapeutic landscapes.
“That shrub you’ve walked by a hundred times, really stop to look at it. Look for ladybugs, butterflies, a cool beetle,” she says. And her biggest piece of advice: “Put down the damn phone.” |
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| Final words ...Please note: These strategies have been shown to be beneficial for people dealing with stress from tough situations, but are not a replacement for mental health treatments such as counseling or medication.
All artwork by Maria Fabrizio. Art direction by Katie Hayes Luke. Editing and additional reporting by Vicky Hallett and Carmel Wroth, with Emily Barocas, Malaka Gharib, Jane Greenhalgh, Joy Yoo, Arielle Retting and Anandita Bhalerao. |
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