How To Transform Pessimism to Realistic Optimism - Positive Psychology

13. March 2010 by John Schinnerer.

I received an email today from a highly qualified lady who asked how I changed my own temperament from pessimistic to optimistic.  

Here is her email… 

Hi John -

I hope I am not a nuisance. I would like to follow up to the email I sent last night with some thoughts I had overnight. Since you don’t know me at all(!) and you may be uncomfortable responding, I thought I would share just to let you know I do have some credentials for doing what I do - I have a Masters in Counseling/Sport Psych, certifications in hypnotherapy/neuro-linguistic psych/life coach, and a Gallup University Strengths Performance certification. I have been a NCAA Tennis coach as well. I’ve been working with young adults and professionals on tour for fifteen years. 

More importantly - I am wondering how you transformed your outlook from black to white…I read that it was a conscious decision, attitude is a choice, however many individuals (mainly kids) are not strong enough to do this movement from bleak to bright (of course so they say… however are very resilient so the corollary should apply! may be excuse too as it takes hard work). What did you do daily to see and feel the glass half full? 

Thanks for your attention and consideration of responding. Think positive as you never know when something like this could lead to a speaking engagement across country! 

Best 

Jeanne 

And here is my response… 

Dear Jeanne: 

No nuisance at all. It’s a pleasure.  

The primary ways that I have altered my own temperament overlaps with the exercises that I share with others …Forgiveness a la Fred Luskin, Gratitude a la Robert Emmons, Mindfulness a la Jon Kabat-Zinn, Curiosity a la Todd Kashdan, Resiliency via Bonnie Bernard at WestEd, self-compassion via Duke University,  identifying strengths, values, purpose and meaning (Chris Peterson, Martin Seligman, William Damon), and then a large amount of time spent on awareness of and tools to manage emotions – both mitigating ‘negative’ emotions and fostering ‘positive’ emotions.

The biggest help, I believe, came from the notion of radical acceptance of emotions and thoughts that comes with the practice of mindfulness.  This combined approach has been immensely helpful to numerous clients, in particular adolescent males. 

Most of the men I see come in with complaints of depression, anger, irritability, anxiety and/or lack of purpose. I’m continually amazed at the results that clients achieve after learning and applying these tools.   

To keep younger folks engaged in the process, I often insert rewarding breaks such as short clips of stand up comics (laughter open us up to new learning), BMX trick riding videos (facilitates awe), and so on. I also reveal a lot of my past to clients to a) normalize their current situation and b) make the dynamic more of a two-way relationship. I believe it is difficult and unnatural to ask an adolescent male to come into an office and spill their stories to a stranger.  To improve (at least in my mind!) upon the traditional therapeutic model, I often tell young men that they don’t even need to speak in the first session if they so choose. The simple act of giving them the choice and the power over how much to divulge and how quickly empowers them and makes them feel comfortable.  And we know that  roughly ½ of positive emotions have a prerequisite of feeling safe and comfortable before one has a chance of experiencing them.  

I think Positive Psychology is necessary but insufficient to get many to a happier, more meaningful place in the sense that negative emotions are ‘stronger’ than positive ones. So the best bang for the buck in terms of increasing life satisfaction comes from teaching others to turn down the volume on the major negative emotions (anger, fear, sadness). This idea was well laid out in a recent paper by Todd Kashdan.  

However, it’s also useful and necessary to teach people to identify and foster positive emotions as we are oftentimes unaware of many of them and they pass us by quickly. We know the positive emotions are fragile and fleeting so we need to train ourselves to be mindful of opportunities for the cultivation of positive emotions.  And of course, there are the more common sense interventions as well – proper diet, adequate exercise, hanging out with supportive, nonjudgmental people and appropriate assertiveness (to nip festering irritation before it escalates to anger or rage).

I hope that is helpful.  

Feel free to email back! 

All the best, 

John  

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Positive Psychology Coach

Author of the award-winning book Guide To Self:The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion & Thought

Guide To Self, Inc.

913 San Ramon Valley Blvd. #280

Danville CA 94526

GuideToSelf.com - Web site

DrJohnBlog.GuideToSelf.com - Award-winning Blog

@johnschin - Twitter

Posted in Emotion & learning, Gratitude, Awareness, Danville CA, Emotion & productivity, Alamo CA, Emotion & Athletics, Brain plasticity, Hope, Managing Sadness, Dr. John Schinnerer, Managing stress, Forgiveness, Life coach, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Managing Anxiety, Emotional mind, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

How to Transform Your Outlook from Pessimistic to Realistically Optimistic - Positive Psychology

12. March 2010 by John Schinnerer.

I received an email today from a highly qualified individual who works with adolescents. She asked how I changed my own temperament from pessimistic to optimistic.

 

Here is her email…

 

Hi John - Hope I am not a nuisance. I would like to follow up to the email I sent last night with some thoughts I had overnight. Since you don’t know me at all(!) and you may be uncomfortable responding, I thought I would share just to let you know I do have some credentials for doing what I do - I have a Masters in Counseling/Sport Psych, certifications in hypnotherapy/neuro-linguistic psych/life coach, and a Gallup University Strengths Performance certification. I have been a NCAA Tennis coach as well. I’ve been working with young adults and professionals on tour for fifteen years.

 

More importantly - I am wondering how you transformed your outlook from black to white…I read that it was a conscious decision, attitude is a choice, however many individuals (mainly kids) are not strong enough to do this movement from bleak to bright (of course so they say… however are very resilient so the corollary should apply! may be excuse too as it takes hard work). What did you do daily to see and feel the glass half full?

 

Thanks for your attention and consideration of responding. Think positive as you never know when something like this could lead to a speaking engagement across country!

 

Best

 

Jeanne

 

And here is my response…

 

Dear Jeanne:

 

No nuisance at all. A pleasure.

 

The primary ways that I have altered my own temperament overlaps with the exercises that I share with others …Forgiveness a la Fred Luskin, Gratitude a la Robert Emmons, Mindfulness a la Jon Kabat-Zinn, Curiosity a la Todd Kashdan, Resiliency via Bonnie Bernard at WestEd, self-compassion via Duke University,  identifying strengths, values, purpose and meaning (Chris Peterson, Martin Seligman, William Damon), and then a large amount of time spent on awareness of and tools to manage emotions – both mitigating ‘negative’ emotions and fostering ‘positive’ emotions. The biggest help, I believe, came from the notion of radical acceptance of emotions and thoughts that comes with the practice of mindfulness.

 

This combined approach has been immensely helpful to numerous clients, in particular adolescent males.  Most of the men I see come in with complaints of depression, anger, irritability, anxiety and/or lack of purpose. I’m continually amazed at the results that clients achieve after learning and applying these tools. 

 

To keep younger folks engaged in the process, I often insert rewarding breaks such as short clips of stand up comics (laughter open us up to new learning), BMX trick riding videos (facilitates awe), and so on. I also reveal a lot of my past to clients to a) normalize their current situation and b) make the dynamic more of a two-way relationship. I believe it is difficult and unnatural to ask an adolescent male to come into an office and spill their stories to a stranger.  To improve upon the traditional therapeutic model, I often tell young men that they don’t even need to speak in the first session if they so choose. The simple act of giving them the choice and the power over how much to divulge and how quickly empowers them and makes them feel comfortable.  And we know that  roughly ½ of positive emotions have a prerequisite of feeling safe and comfortable before one has a chance of experiencing them.

 

I think Positive Psychology is necessary but insufficient to get many to a happier, more meaningful place in the sense that negative emotions are ‘stronger’ than positive ones. So the best bang for the buck in terms of increasing life satisfaction comes from teaching others to turn down the volume on the major negative emotions (anger, fear, sadness). This idea was well laid out in a recent paper by Todd Kashdan.

 

However, it’s also useful and necessary to teach people to identify and foster positive emotions as we are oftentimes unaware of many of them and they pass us by quickly. We know the positive emotions are fragile and fleeting so we need to train ourselves to be mindful of opportunities for the cultivation of positive emotions.

 

And of course, there are the more common sense interventions as well – proper diet, adequate exercise, hanging out with supportive, nonjudgmental people and appropriate assertiveness (to nip festering irritation before it escalates to anger or rage).

 

I hope that is helpful.

 

Feel free to email back!

 

All the best,

 

John

 

 

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Positive Psychology Coach

Author of the award-winning book Guide To Self:

The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion & Thought

Guide To Self, Inc.

913 San Ramon Valley Blvd. #280

Danville CA 94526

(925) 575-0258

GuideToSelf.com - Web site

DrJohnBlog.GuideToSelf.com - Award-winning Blog

@johnschin - Twitter

 

 

 

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What’s Coming Next With Well-Being Per Daniel Kahneman

9. March 2010 by John Schinnerer.

The Well-Being Explosion and What’s Next

Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman states that increasing interest in life satisfaction and well-being is reaching critical mass throughout the world now that economists are involved with measuring Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH) and other key metrics. In a clip from Gallup’s series, “Next Steps: Transforming Americans’ Health and Well-Being,” Kahneman looks at why the study of emotions is likely to be the future of well-being research.

 

 http://www.gallup.com/video/123914/Well-Being-Explosion-Whats-Next.aspx

 

It’s a fantastic, uplifting feeling to know that the rest of the world might be beginning to realize the importance of the work on which I’ve been spending the past 15 years of my life. Ever since 1995, I’ve been studying, practicing and teaching the best scientifically-proven methods to alleviate destructive emotions (e.g., fear, anger, sadness) and cultivate more constructive emotions (e.g., awe, pride, love, contentment, curiosity, and more). I’ve written award winning book (Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought), spoken to tens of thousands of people and done a daily prime time radio show. It is so rewarding to think that some folks might be understanding the power, importance and ubiquity of emotions.

 

I’ll check in with you soon!

 

All the best,

John

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Positive Psychology Coach

Guide To Self, Inc.

http://www.guidetoself.com 

Posted in Danville CA, Emotion & productivity, International Wellbeing Study, Emotion & learning, National speakers, Science of love, Emotion and technology, Corporate Culture, San Ramon CA, Alamo CA, San Francisco Bay Area, Well-being, Self-compassion, Emotion & Athletics, Executive coach, Optimal Human Functioning, Curiosity, Gratitude, Dr. John Schinnerer, Life coach, Happiness, Measuring emotions, Managing stress, Forgiveness, Business & psych, Morals and values, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Men's emotions, The human brain, Organizational psychology, Managing Sadness, Managing Anxiety, Emotional mind, Emotional management, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

Happiness, Greater Well-being Related to Less Chit Chat & More Deeper Conversations

6. March 2010 by John Schinnerer.

Press release from Association of Psychological Science…

Talking Your Way to Happiness: Well-being Is Related to Having Less Small Talk and More Substantive Conversations

Is a happy life filled with trivial chatter or reflective and profound conversations? Psychological scientists Matthias R. Mehl, Shannon E. Holleran, and C. Shelby Clark from the University of Arizona, along with Simine Vazire of Washington University in St. Louis investigated whether happy and unhappy people differ in the types of conversations they tend to engage in. Volunteers wore an unobtrusive recording device called the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) over four days. This device periodically records snippets of sounds as participants go about their lives. For this experiment, the EAR sampled 30 seconds of sounds every 12.5 minutes yielding a total of more than 20,000 recordings. Researchers then listened to the recordings and identified the conversations as trivial small talk or substantive discussions. In addition, the volunteers completed personality and well-being assessments.

As reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, analysis of the recordings revealed some very interesting findings. Greater well-being was related to spending less time alone and more time talking to others: The happiest participants spent 25% less time alone and 70% more time talking than the unhappiest participants. In addition to the difference in the amount of social interactions happy and unhappy people had, there was also a difference in the types of conversations they took part in: The happiest participants had twice as many substantive conversations and one third as much small talk as the unhappiest participants.

These findings suggest that the happy life is social and conversationally deep rather than solitary and superficial. The researchers surmise that — though the current findings cannot identify the causal direction — deep conversations may have the potential to make people happier. They note, “Just as self-disclosure can instill a sense of intimacy in a relationship, deep conversations may instill a sense of meaning in the interaction partners.”

News Release

March 4, 2010
For Immediate Release

This past weekend, I presented at a Parenting Conference on Strengths-Based Approaches to parenting. At the conference, a new film, The Race to Nowhere, was screened.The movie brought up a number of pertinent issues regarding the educational system in the United States…

 

 

The creation of high degrees of chronic stress in all ages of students (but not all students) due to excessive homework demands.

 

The excessive homework load seems to be largely due to curriculum which has been pushed down to lower and lower grade, often to the point where the academic requirements are mismatched with the developmental stage of the student.

 

The well being and happiness of students are not considered relevant in the current educational system.

 

The current system puts students into a constant forward-looking race to get to the next stage of education. For instance, sixth graders are looking at which foreign language classes to take to get into college; 7th & 8th graders are focused on what to do now to get into the advanced track classes in high school; many high school students are continually focused on what they can do in terms of extracurriculars and AP grades to get into the ‘right’ colleges.

 

Once in college, students are finding they never learned how to think critically on their own. Rather they were taught to regurgitate facts to do well on standardized tests which assess only a fraction of the whole child’s abilities and skills. 

 

At some point, many of these students are running headlong into a period of purposelessness and some are even dropping out of college due to depression, anxiety and hopelessness. If you are interested in finding out more about the movie, check out their site at RaceToNowhere.com.

 

 

Today, I came across a new study out of Penn State which shows a link between adolescent stress, depression and obesity. Below is a review on the study borrowed from a fantastic psychology site PsychCentral.com.

 

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 25, 2010

 

Obesity is a disturbing worldwide trend. In fact, researchers say the effects are so pervasive that unless the issue is controlled, children born today will not live longer than their parents.

A new research finding provides insight on how a mental health issue may trigger obesity among adolescents. In the study, researchers discovered depression raises stress hormone levels in adolescent boys and girls. And, among girls, the stress hormones may lead to obesity.

Accordingly, early treatment of depression could help reduce stress and control obesity.

[snip]

Cortisol, a hormone, regulates various metabolic functions in the body and is released as a reaction to stress. Researchers have long known that depression and cortisol are related to obesity, but they had not figured out the exact biological mechanism.

Although it is not clear why high cortisol reactions translate into obesity only for girls, scientists believe it may be due to physiological and behavioral differences (in girls, estrogen release and stress eating) in the way the two genders cope with anxiety.

“The implications are to start treating depression early because we know that depression, cortisol and obesity are related in adults,” said Susman.

If depression were to be treated earlier, she noted, it could help reduce the level of cortisol, and thereby help reduce obesity.

“We know stress is a critical factor in many mental and physical health problems,” said Susman.

“We are putting together the biology of stress, emotions and a clinical disorder to better understand a major public health problem.”

Susman and her colleagues Lorah D. Dorn, professor of pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and Samantha Dockray, postdoctoral fellow, University College London, used a child behavior checklist to assess 111 boys and girls ages 8 to 13 for symptoms of depression.

Next they measured the children’s obesity and the level of cortisol in their saliva before and after various stress tests.

[snip]

Statistical analyses of the data suggest that depression is associated with spikes in cortisol levels for boys and girls after the stress tests, but higher cortisol reactions to stress are associated with obesity only in girls. The team reported its findings in a recent issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.

“In these children, it was mainly the peak in cortisol that was related to obesity,” Susman explained. “It was how they reacted to an immediate stress.”

Source: Penn State University

For full article, click here.

Have a wonderful and stress-free week!

All the best,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Positive Psychology Coach

Author of the award-winning book Guide To Self:

The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion & Thought Guide To Self, Inc.

913 San Ramon Valley Blvd. #280

Danville CA 94526

(925) 575-0258

GuideToSelf.com - Web site

DrJohnBlog.GuideToSelf.com - Award-winning Blog

@johnschin - Twitter

 

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New Study Shows Positive Emotions Protect Against Heart Disease

23. February 2010 by John Schinnerer.

A first of kind study was released this past week by The European Society of Cardiology showing that individuals who experience positive emotions more frequently are less likely to succumb to heart disease (as compared to those who feel positive emotions less frequently or less intensely).

 

They sent out the following news release regarding the study which appears in European Heart Journal.

 

Don’t worry, be happy!  Positive emotions protect against heart disease

 

People who are usually happy, enthusiastic and content are less likely to develop heart disease than those who tend not to be happy, according to a major new study published today (Thursday 18 February).

 

The authors believe that the study, published in the Europe’s leading cardiology journal, the European Heart Journal [1], is the first to show such an independent relationship between positive emotions and coronary heart disease.

 

Dr Karina Davidson, who led the research, said that although this was an observational study, her study did suggest that it might be possible to help prevent heart disease by enhancing people’s positive emotions.

However, she cautioned that it would be premature to make clinical recommendations without clinical trials to investigate the findings further.

 

‘We desperately need rigorous clinical trials in this area. If the trials support our findings, then these results will be incredibly important in describing specifically what clinicians and/or patients could do to improve health,’ said Dr Davidson, who is the Herbert Irving Associate Professor of Medicine & Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Medical Center (New York, USA).

 

Over a period of ten years, Dr Davidson and her colleagues followed 1,739 healthy adults (862 men and 877 women) who were participating in the 1995 Nova Scotia Health Survey. At the start of the study, trained nurses assessed the participants’ risk of heart disease and, with both self-reporting and clinical assessment, they measured symptoms of depression, hostility, anxiety and the degree of expression of positive emotions, which is known as ‘positive affect.’

 

Positive affect is defined as the experience of pleasurable emotions such as joy, happiness, excitement, enthusiasm and contentment. These feelings can be transient, but they are usually stable and trait-like, particularly in adulthood. Positive affect is largely independent of negative affect, so that someone who is generally a happy, contented person can also be occasionally anxious, angry or depressed.

 

After taking account of age, sex, cardiovascular risk factors and negative emotions, the researchers found that, over the ten-year period, increased positive affect predicted less risk of heart disease by 22% per point on a five-point scale measuring levels of positive affect expression (ranging from “none” to “extreme”).

 

Dr Davidson said: ‘Participants with no positive affect were at a 22% higher risk of ischaemic heart disease (heart attack or angina) than those with a little positive affect, who were themselves at 22% higher risk than those with moderate positive affect.’

 

‘We also found that if someone, who was usually positive, had some depressive symptoms at the time of the survey, this did not affect their overall lower risk of heart disease.’

 

‘As far as we know, this is the first prospective study to examine the relationship between clinically-assessed positive affect and heart disease.’

 

The researchers speculate about what could be the possible mechanisms by which positive emotions might be responsible for conferring long-term protection from heart disease. These include influence on heart rates, sleeping patterns and smoking cessation.

 

“We have several possible explanations,” said Dr Davidson. “First, those with positive affect may have longer periods of rest or relaxation physiologically. Baroreflex and parasympathetic regulation may, therefore, by superior in these persons, compared to those with little positive affect. Second, those with positive affect may recover more quickly from stressors, and may not spend as much time ‘re-living’ them, which in turn seems to cause physiological damage. This is speculative, as we are just beginning to explore why positive emotions and happiness have positive health benefits.”

 

She said that most successful interventions for depression include increasing positive affect as well as decreasing negative affect. If clinical trials supported the findings of this study, then it would be relatively easy to assess positive affect in patients and suggest interventions to improve it to help prevent heart disease. In the meantime, people reading about this research could take some simple steps to increase their positive affect.

 

‘Like the observational finding that moderate wine consumption is healthy (and enjoyable), at this point ordinary people can ensure they have some pleasurable activities in their daily lives,’ she said. ‘Some people wait for their two weeks of vacation to have fun, and that would be analogous to binge drinking (moderation and consistency, not deprivation and binging, is what is needed). If you enjoy reading novels, but never get around to it, commit to getting 15 minutes or so of reading in. If walking or listening to music improves your mood, get those activities in your schedule. Essentially, spending some few minutes each day truly relaxed and enjoying yourself is certainly good for your mental health, and may improve your physical health as well (although this is, as yet, not confirmed).’

 

In an accompanying editorial by Bertram Pitt, Professor of Internal Medicine, and Patricia Deldin, Associate Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, both at the University of Michigan School of Medicine (Michigan, USA), the authors pointed out that, currently, no one knew whether positive affect had a direct or indirect causal role in heart disease, or whether there was a third, underlying factor at work, common to both conditions. Nor was it known for certain whether it was possible to modify and improve positive affect, and to what extent.

 

‘Randomised controlled trials of interventions to increase positive affect in patients with cardiovascular disease are now underway and will help determine the effectiveness of increasing positive affect on cardiovascular outcome and will provide insight into the nature of the relationship between positive affect and cardiovascular disease,’ they wrote.

 

‘The ‘vicious cycle’ linking cardiovascular disease to major depression and depression to cardiovascular disease deserves greater attention from both the cardiovascular and psychiatric investigators……..These new treatments [to increase positive affect] could open an exciting potential new approach for treating patients with known cardiovascular disease who develop depression. If Davidson et al.’s observations and hypotheses stimulate further investigation regarding the effect of increased positive affect on physiological abnormalities associated with cardiovascular risk, perhaps it will be time for all of us to smile.’

 

Notes:

[1] ‘Don’t worry, be happy: positive affect and reduced 10-year incident coronary heart disease: The Canadian Nova Scotia Health Survey.’  European Heart Journal. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehp603.

[2] ‘Depression and cardiovascular disease: have a happy day - just smile!’. European Heart Journal. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehq031

 

We may as well add this to the growing mountain of research documenting the tremendous potential of positive emotions (currently there are more than 65,000 studies documenting the positive impact on optimal human functioning of happiness, life satisfaction, subjective well-being, and positive emotions). Think of it as a matter of degree and frequency that we’re trying to increase. It’s not a black or white issue in which positive psychology is saying you have to be happy all the time. That would be absurd. Rather, the idea is to increase the amount of time (as well as the intensity and duration) you spend in positive emotional states such as contentment, relaxation, curiosity, awe, pride, love, joy, laughter, hope, amusement and so on. And positive emotions is just one of the areas covered by positive psychology.

 

Have a tremendous day!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Positive Psychology Coach

Author of the award winning ‘Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought’

Follow John on Twitter at @johnschin

 < -->

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MANAGING YOUR PERSISTENT FEARS AND ANXIETIES

3. February 2010 by John Schinnerer.

Today I have the privilege of running an article by Stanley Popovich on overcoming fear and anxiety. Stanley is a published author and more info can be gleaned on Stanley from his website at www.managingfear.com.

 

By: Stanley Popovich

 

Everybody deals with anxiety and depression, however some people have a hard time in managing it. As a result, here is a brief list of techniques that a person can use to help manage their most persistent fears and every day anxieties.

 

When facing a current or upcoming task that overwhelms you with a lot of anxiety, the first thing you can do is to divide the task into a series of smaller steps. Completing these smaller tasks one at a time will make the stress more manageable and increases your chances of success.

 

Sometimes we get stressed out when everything happens all at once. When this happens, a person should take a deep breath and try to find something to do for a few minutes to get their mind off of the problem.  A person could get some fresh air, listen to some music, or do an activity that will give them a fresh perspective on things.

 

A person should visualize a red stop sign in their mind when they encounter a fear provoking thought. When the negative thought comes, a person should think of a red stop sign that serves as a reminder to stop focusing on that thought and to think of something else. A person can then try to think of something positive to replace the negative thought.

 

Another technique that is very helpful is to have a small notebook of positive statements that makes you feel good. Whenever you come across an affirmation that makes you feel good, write it down in a small notebook that you can carry around with you in your pocket.  Whenever you feel depressed or frustrated, open up your small notebook and read those statements.   This will help to manage your negative thinking.

 

Learn to take it one day at a time. Instead of worrying about how you will get through the rest of the week, try to focus on today. Each day can provide us with different opportunities to learn new things and that includes learning how to deal with your problems. You never know when the answers you are looking for will come to your doorstep. We may be ninety-nine percent correct in predicting the future, but all it takes is for that one percent to make a world of difference.

 

Take advantage of the help that is available around you. If possible, talk to a professional who can help you manage your depression and anxieties. They will be able to provide you with additional advice and insights on how to deal with your current problem.  By talking to a professional, a person will be helping themselves in the long run because they will become better able to deal with their problems in the future.  Remember that it never hurts to ask for help.

 

Dealing with our persistent fears is not easy.  Remember that all you can do is to do your best each day, hope for the best, and take things in stride. Patience, persistence, education, and being committed in trying to solve your problem will go along way in fixing your problems.

 

 

BIOGRAPHY:

 

Stan Popovich is the author of “A Layman’s Guide to Managing Fear Using Psychology, Christianity and Non Resistant Methods” - an easy to read book that presents a general overview of techniques that are effective in managing persistent fears and anxieties. For additional information go to: http://www.managingfear.com/  < -->

Posted in Men's emotions, Emotion & learning, Optimal Human Functioning, Alexithymia, Managing Anxiety, Anxiety, Tips to help anxiety, Emotional management, Managing stress | Print | No Comments »

How a Psychologist Breaks Out of a Funk - Top Ways to Leave Sadness Behind in 2009

20. January 2010 by John Schinnerer.

A reprint of a useful and classic column written in 2006…

Guide To Self – Latest Methods for Dealing with Sadness
Dr. John Schinnerer
Guide To Self Life Coaching

A great day to you and welcome to Guide To Self where you learn the latest ways to deal with sadness!

As many of you know, my wife and I recently had our fourth child, a girl named Molly Marie. She is now six weeks old which means we’ve gone six weeks without much sleep. My wife and I are exhausted. The other three children are jealous to one degree or another. And my mood recently took a nosedive.

So today, I’m going to share with you steps you can take to defeat depression, sadness, a funk or whatever you want to call it.

Sadness is Different for Men than for Women

Be aware that sadness takes different shapes. Typically, sadness appears as anger and irritability in men and comes out as sorrow and melancholy in women. So it looks different when I get down from when my wife gets down. I tend to get more irritable and less patient. I feel overwhelmed more easily. I have a harder time staying in the present moment. My thoughts take me to the past or the future more quickly. My energy level is low. My body aches more. And I get less joy out of my daily routines.

So I want to share with you what exactly is going on in my life. I want to make you aware of what it takes to cause a road bump in my emotional path. I told you about not sleeping well for six weeks due to the baby. That’s a big one. Sleep disturbance is enough to mess up anyone’s mood. In my case, lack of sleep led to a cold and sore throat.

On top of that, I’m not a wealthy man. In fact, nearly the opposite, I’m in debt. I have not made money doing this radio show. So I pay for the privilege of sharing my knowledge with listeners. Roughly 2 hours per day are spent preparing for the show. I book my own guests. I write my own scripts. I respond to emails and letters.

Also, I’m currently in charge of two companies. I’m working on corporate taxes which I don’t particularly enjoy.

I see several clients daily for coaching where I deal with other people’s problems most of the day.

I’m trying to find the time to finish two books.

At night, once the children are in bed, I add radio shows to the website and do the programming.

My wife is now back to work 3 days per week as a hairdresser. This means that two mornings a week, with the help of a nanny, I juggle a newborn and a 5-year-old.

My house is partially torn up due to a contractor who left the job half-finished. So we’re now in the process of drawing up new plans and finding a new contractor.

Right now, it feels as if every relationship in my life is consuming my energy. And I’m running on empty. So I’ve been exhausted and bummed out the last couple of days.

So what do I do?

How does a psychologist break out of a funk?

I’ll tell you how. Dealing with sadness that stays with you for a few days or weeks may require a lifestyle change for you – it’s about dealing with your whole person – diet, exercise, faith, mind and relationships.

Top Ways to Deal with Sadness

First, I never stop exercising. Even when my mind is trying to find a way out of it, I will at least walk for 20 minutes. It’s critical that you exercise twenty minutes a day for mood and longer than that if you want to lose weight. This can be as simple as climbing the stairs at work twice a day, or walking for 20 minutes. When I’m working out, I will think about getting rid of all my fear and anger. Exercise is one of the best ways to work negative emotions out of your body.

Second, I remind myself of what is truly important by determining what is really important and what is not. How do I do this? I ask myself the question, “Will this matter a year from now?” Most of the time, the answer is “No, it won’t matter.” It’s one of the ways we can learn to be less emotionally reactive and more thoughtfully proactive. If you’re like me, you have to train yourself to behave in healthy ways because most people did not learn these tricks growing up. So you need to retrain your brain. As you learn to respond more effectively to minor inconveniences, it leaves you more positive energy to respond to actual crises. This is known to many as wisdom - the ability to deal well with your own suffering as well as help others with theirs.

Third, I focus on everything for which I am grateful – my wife, my children, my dog, my friends, my coworkers, my God, my health and so on. It is critical that you learn how to appreciate life. Life is a gift that has been granted to us. The more we appreciate and cherish the gift, the more we understand what a magical journey life is. Your thoughts matter tremendously in this equation of emotion.

A study done at NIMH focused on the power of thought and emotion. The brain activity of ten normal women was monitored under 3 different conditions.

The researcher recorded each person’s brain activity when they were thinking neutral thoughts, happy thoughts, and sad thoughts.

During the neutral thoughts, nothing changed in the brain.

During the happy thoughts, the limbic system, or the emotional brain, cooled down, and became less active resulting in a more relaxed and energized state.

During the sad thoughts, the limbic system, the emotional brain, became aroused and active which has negative effects on your body – tense muscles, quickened heart rate, perspiration and so on.

Think about the last time you felt happy. How did your body feel? Your muscles relax, your hands become dry, your heart rate slows, and you breathe more deeply. Your body reacts to EVERY FEELING YOU HAVE! This is proof that your emotions matter!

Fourth, welcome the feeling of sadness. It is there for a reason. There is a message or lesson involved in the emotion. Your job is to figure the message out. Once you’ve accepted the feeling, let it go, breathe it out. Emotions are meant to be temporary.

One of my main difficulties growing up was that I could sense or pick up the emotions of other people. I was intuitive even as a little child. The problem is that no one teaches you what to do with that emotional energy. And it’s very draining.

I used to think of myself as a container for negative emotions such as anger, sadness and fear. What I found is that thinking of yourself as a container for emotions is not a healthy way to picture it. It’s much more helpful to think of yourself as a net which catches positive emotions and allows negative emotions to pass through. Keep in mind that these are just emotions. Emotions are not permanent. They are not intended to remain with us. They are just passing through.

Fifth, as the human brain is easily altered, I change the music I listen to. Once I have made up my mind to change my mood, I purposefully listen to upbeat lively music. I watch only comedies. Realize that your brain is incredibly open to suggestion. Not only can music and television alter your brain, as I mentioned, your very thoughts and feelings have the ability to change the physical make-up of your brain.

You have to be cautious what you expose yourself too. Your senses take in over 4 billion bits of information per second. You are only consciously aware of 2,000 of those bits per second. This means that your mind is constantly taking in seeds and you are not even aware of it – overhearing conversations, televisions playing in the background, commercials you try to ignore, music lyrics and so on. So your emotional state, your thoughts, your judgments all have a tremendous effect on what information you are consciously aware of.

When you are touched, you have a physical sensation. When you feel an emotion, you also have a physical sensation in your body. Every physical sensation, every thought, every feeling is written into your brain. The more times you have it, the more deeply it is written into your brain. So the longer you spend immersed in sad feelings and morose thoughts, the more your body becomes accustomed to that state of being. The more your body becomes accustomed to it, the more it wants to remain there. The harder it is to break out. While you want to welcome the feeling and embrace it, you also want to breathe it out as soon as possible. Don’t spend too long wallowing in self-pity.

Sixth, work in sprints – go two hours and then break for ten minutes. Give yourself a break every two hours at least. Our brain works best that way. It’s difficult and less effective to work eight hours straight.

Seventh, stay in the present moment. Train your thoughts to stay focused on the present moment. When you find Gremlin thoughts coming to take you to the past or the future, redirect yourself to the right now and right here.

Eighth, stop using toxic elements. This includes alcohol, caffeine, marijuana, cocaine, nicotine and sugars. Caffeine and nicotine have been shown in brain studies to decrease overall blood flow to the brain, making most symptoms worsen over time. They also decrease the effectiveness of many medications and increase the number and severity of side effects. Most of the substances we reach for when sad act as central nervous system depressants anyway. When you’re already depressed, you don’t want to add fuel to the fire with alcohol or marijuana.

Ninth, add Omega-3 to your daily diet. Omega-3 stabilizes mood & improves overall brain functioning. Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fatty acids crucial for growth and development. My favorite, and one of the most studied nutrients, is the Omega-3 fatty acids. About 60% of the brain is made up of fats (lipids) that make up the lining of every brain cell. Omega-3s are required by the brain to an extraordinary degree. They cannot be produced by our bodies but must be ingested via diet or pills. They are found in large, fatty, cold water fish, olive oil, and canola oil. Omega-3s help turn down the ‘volume’ of communications between brain cells (similar to the action of a mood stabilizer). Documented benefits of Omega-3 oils include improved mood, clearer thinking, more serenity, better concentration and focus, and better vision.

Tenth, add B Vitamins and folate in particular to your supplement regimen. Published studies have shown a relationship between B vitamins and depression. Increasing levels of B vitamins are highly likely to improve your mood.

Eleventh, add ginseng. Ginseng is popularly touted as a way to beat stress, improve vigor and simply feel better. The main idea with ginseng is that it helps when your body is stressed. Stress occurs anytime you are challenged above and beyond what your body is used to. An Olympic skier won’t ski faster by taking ginseng. He’s used to that stress of exercise. A working mother of two kids won’t notice a difference. She’s accustomed to her daily routine. However, throw in a new baby, or an ill parent, and you’ve just spilled over into exhaustion. That’s when ginseng does make a difference - when you have to push beyond your limits to the point of exhaustion. Ginseng helps increase your resistance and prevent exhaustion.

Twelfth, breathe – I have covered deep breathing in previous shows. This is the deep diaphragmatic breathing where you breathe into your abdomen, not your chest. Focus on pushing out all of the air in your lungs. The goal is to fill your lungs 100% with fresh air on each breath.

Just as with your thoughts and feelings, you want to be constantly aware of your breathing every second of every day. Remember, we’ve already shown it is possible to split your conscious mind in two parts. One part you can use to tend to the daily demands of your life. The other part must be used to monitor your breathing, your thoughts and your feelings. With practice, it can be done.

Thirteenth, don’t isolate yourself. As much as you can, surround yourself with family and friends.

Fourteenth, go easier on yourself. Learn self-compassion. Speak to yourself as you would a young child.

Forgive yourself for your mistakes and shortcomings. Picture yourself as a small child. Now picture yourself parenting yourself. Forgive yourself as you would like to have been forgiven as a child. Mistakes are merely learning opportunities. And learn to forgive others.

Let go of anger and disappointment by writing a letter forgiving the individual who has hurt you. Holding on to the anger only harms you. Forgiving enables you to move on and get past the hurt.

Fifteenth, return to nature. This is a great way to reconnect with your soul. Just take a few minutes, go outside, breathe in deeply, and look at the birds, the trees and the grass.

Sixteenth, get your sleep. Research has shown that adults need between 7 and 8 hours of sleep. Adolescents need 9 to 9 1/2 hours per night. No more, no less. If you are too far on either side, you are playing with fire. Sleep too little you risk exhaustion. Sleep too much, you risk lethargy and depression.

Seventeenth, do something for someone else. Altruism is perhaps the most powerful way to snap your mind out of a funk. Focus on someone besides yourself.

To sum up, there are at least fifteen things you can do immediately to pull yourself up and out of a funk. These include taking supplements such as Omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, and ginseng, getting your 8 hours of sleep, daily exercise, staying in the present moment, and more. Remember to welcome the feelings that you have. Don’t repress them. That leads to physical troubles such as high blood pressure and heart disease. Rather, be aware of them, listen to them, and let them go. Think of yourself as a net through which emotions pass and not as a container for feelings.

More information on sadness and depression and ways to overcome them may be found at the Guide To Self website at http://www.guidetoself.com.

Guide To Self(C) 2005-10.

Posted in Physician burnout, Hope, Altruism, Resiliency, Men's emotions, Relationships, Gratitude, Overcoming failure, Executive coach, Optimal Human Functioning, Sleep research, San Ramon CA, National speakers, Danville CA, Alexithymia, Managing Sadness, Emotional IQ, Anxiety, Guide to Self, Life coach, Managing stress, Dr. John Schinnerer, Happiness, Depression, Anger Management, Dealing with loss, Managing Anxiety, Emotional management, Emotional mind, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

The Social Contagion of Happiness

16. January 2010 by John Schinnerer.

By John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Happiness is catching. Happiness spreads through friends, spouses, siblings and neighbors. There is a ripple effect whereby happiness extends widely through social networks, even between people who may not know one another. One’s happiness depends on the degree of happiness of those surrounding her.

Happiness at Harvard?

A study performed at Harvard University, by Nicholas Christakis, is the first of its kind to demonstrate the existence of clusters of happy and sad individuals. Happiness depends upon the happiness of those around them. What’s more, individuals who surround themselves with happy people are more likely to be happy in the future. One’s future happiness can actually be predicted by the number of happy people surrounding them and the degree to which the social network as a whole experiences constructive emotions, such as happiness.  These findings come from an analysis of the Framingham Heart Study social network, a longitudinal study that has followed nearly 5,000 people for over 20 years.

Happiness Spreads Through Social Networks

Study findings suggest that happiness results from the spread of happiness throughout social networks and not merely from individuals choosing to surround themselves with like-minded individuals. For example, if your next door neighbor becomes happier due to a job promotion, your likelihood of becoming happier increases by 34%. And this happiness effect can linger for up to one year.

Happiness Ripples Out to Friends of Your Friends

This relationship between individual’s happiness holds true for the first three degrees of separation. For example, when John becomes happier, it buoys the happiness of John’s friends as well as the friends of John’s friends. So there is a ripple effect of happiness within social circles where happiness is contagious and spreads similar to the waves of a wireless network. And we are consciously aware of little, if any, of it.

In the past five to ten years, more and more studies have looked at happiness and what determines it (e.g., genetics, money, elections, marital status and emotional management). However, no study has looked at human happiness as it relates to the happiness of others. While the study is the first of its kind and needs to be replicated to ensure the accuracy of these findings, the findings are remarkable and exhilarating.

Positive Emotional Contagion

Emotional contagion, the process by which one person picks up the feelings of another, has been scientifically documented since 1994. Emotions may be ‘caught’ from others for a length of time ranging from seconds to weeks.  This is particularly true of destructive emotions - anger, fear and sadness. In fact, the hard part is not ‘catching’ the emotions but in protecting oneself from them, keeping them at bay. Until this study, emotional contagion had not been documented for any of the positive, constructive emotions such as joy, contentment, peacefulness or happiness. 

The difficulty is that most people primarily feel destructive emotions. Most people experience more destructive emotions than constructive emotions. 

Cutoff Point for a Happy, Thriving Life

On the other hand, roughly 10% of adults in the United States feel three times as much positive emotion as negative. This 3:1 ratio is the measuring stick for a thriving happy life as set by Barbara Fredrickson at UNC Chapel Hill. It appears that this top 10% is raising the level of happiness of many others. Imagine if it were possible to raise this thriving, happy portion of the population to 15% or 20%.

Benefits of Increasing Societal Happiness

Assuming the percentage of the populace experiencing happiness could be improved, here are just a few of the possible societal benefits:

The economy would improve (e.g., higher ratios of positive, open-ended inquiries are present in executive teams in highly successful firms)

Creativity would increase (e.g., happiness is necessary for greater innovation and open-mindedness)

Productivity would soar (e.g., a happy employee is a productive employee; optimistic salespeople outsell pessimistic ones by approximately 38%; happy employees engage more effectively with customers)

The burden on the health care system would be eased (e.g., happiness improves immune system functioning; teaching the skills of happiness and optimism reduces depression and anxiety).

People would live longer (e.g., happy, optimistic people live 7 – 10 years longer than those who are pessimistic and unhappy)

The educational system would show significant academic gains (e.g., students taught to be more happy and optimistic showed significant gains on achievement testing and received better grades)

Happiness is Learnable

The exciting part is that happiness can be taught. It can be learned. People can learn to feel positive emotions more frequently and more intensely. Emotional management is a learnable skill. Just as one practices a sport and improves over time so it is with emotions.   As individuals learn to string together more and more happy moments, the ripple effect spills over and one person’s happiness positively influences others.  It even influences the happiness of other people they don’t know.

The goal is emotional management. The goal is happiness. The goal is to learn to mitigate destructive emotions and encourage positive emotions. Happiness is social phenomena. The more individuals experience positive emotions, the more society as a whole is happier, healthier, and more productive and that is no small feat.

About the Author

Dr. John Schinnerer is in private practice helping individuals learn happiness by mitigating destructive emotions and fostering constructive emotions. His practice is located in the Danville San Ramon Medical Center at 913 San Ramon Valley Blvd., #280, Danville, California 94526. He graduated summa cum laude from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in psychology. Dr. Schinnerer has been an executive and psychologist for over 10 years. Dr. John Schinnerer is President and Founder of Guide To Self, a company that coaches clients to their potential using the latest in positive psychology, mindfulness and attentional control. Dr. John Schinnerer hosted over 200 episodes of Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show, in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Dr. Schinnerer is President of Infinet Assessment, a psychological testing company to help firms select the best applicants. Dr. Schinnerer’s areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to moral development, to sports psychology. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the award-winning, “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought,” which is available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and AuthorHouse.com.  

Posted in Assertiveness, Mindfulness, Men's emotions, Alexithymia, Hope, Awareness, Executive coach, Employee engagement, National speakers, Managing Sadness, Anger Management, Anxiety, Guide to Self, Dr. John Schinnerer, Managing stress, Customer Engagement, Happiness, Managing Anxiety, Emotional management, Emotional mind, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

A Fantastic Way to Start 2010!

8. January 2010 by John Schinnerer.

Check out this 40 minute Quicktime presentation on positive psychology from a humorous perspective. It will provide you with a much needed boost - laughter, motivation, insight and challenge.

John Schinnerer, Ph.D. speaking on positive psychology, resiliency and emotional management.

http://www.jobconnections.org/speaker4.shtml

Keep up the courage. Stay the course. Look for little steps of improvement. Make your resolutions habitual. You can do it!

Happy New Year!

John Schinnerer, PhD

Posted in Emotion & productivity, Employee engagement, Danville CA, National speakers, Awareness, Overcoming failure, San Ramon CA, Positive emotions and job search, Brain plasticity, Optimal Human Functioning, Visual Attention, Executive coach, Psychological Humor - Jokes, Hope, Mindfulness, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Emotional mind, Anxiety, Guide to Self, Managing stress, Dr. John Schinnerer, Emotional management, Managing Anxiety, The human brain, Resiliency, Consciousness, Managing Sadness, Anger Management, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

Staying Calm During Penalty Kicks in Soccer Is Critical To Kicker’s Success, New Study States

14. December 2009 by John Schinnerer.

‘ScienceDaily (Dec. 11, 2009) — A new study may explain why the England soccer team keeps losing in penalty shootouts — and could help the team address the problem in time for the World Cup 2010. Research by the University of Exeter shows for the first time the effect of anxiety on a footballer’s eye movements while taking a penalty.

The study shows that when penalty takers are anxious they are more likely to look at and focus on the centrally positioned goalkeeper. Due to the tight coordination between gaze control and motor control, shots also tend to centralize, making them easier to save. The research is now published in the December 2009 edition of the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.

The researchers attribute this change in eye movements and focus to anxiety. Author Greg Wood of the University of Exeter’s School of Sport and Health Sciences said: ‘During a highly stressful situation, we are more likely to be distracted by any threatening stimuli and focus on them, rather than the task in hand. Therefore, in a stressful penalty shootout, a footballer’s attention is likely to be directed towards the goalkeeper as opposed to the optimal scoring zones (just inside the post). This disrupts the aiming of the shot and increases the likelihood of subsequently hitting the shot towards the goalkeeper, making it easier to save.’

Remind your players to breathe deeply in order to relax and dial down the pressure after the referee has blown the whistle to proceed with their shot from the mark.

Have an enjoyable Saturday night!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Positive Psychology Coaching

www.GuideToSelf.com

Author of ‘Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought’<–>

Posted in Positive expectations, Emotion & productivity, Body posture & the mind, Danville CA, Emotion & learning, Mindfulness, Awareness, San Ramon CA, Visual Attention, Penalty Kick Success, Emotion & Athletics, Soccer psychology, Optimal Human Functioning, Brain plasticity, Visual perception, Men's emotions, Managing Anxiety, Anxiety, Staying calm, Dr. John Schinnerer, Managing stress, Sports Psychology, Positive Psychology, Social anxiety disorder, Nervousness, Emotional mind, Emotional management, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Psychology & soccer, Social phobia, Tips to help anxiety, Mean coaches | Print | No Comments »

Positive Psychology – The Science of Optimal Human Functioning with Dr. John Schinnerer - One hour teleclass 12/8/09

9. December 2009 by John Schinnerer.

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Partial script for 1-hour teleclass on 12/8/09

Welcome to what I hope will be a wonderful talk on positive psychology. I will be your host tonight. My name is John Schinnerer. I hold a Ph.D. in educational psychology from U.C. Berkeley. In 2007, I wrote a positive psychology book called ‘Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide to Managing Emotion & Thought’ which was awarded Best Self-Help Book of the year. In 2006, I hosted a daily primetime radio show here in the SF Bay Area. Currently, I do keynote speaking, teach and see private clients.  I also collaborate with the University of New Zealand on the International Wellbeing Study which you can participate in at www.wellbeingstudy.com. 

Just a bit of housekeeping…If you have questions during the talk, please email me at john@guidetoself.com and I will do my best at the end to answer them. Your end of the phone has been muted as there are over 500 people on this call.

     I like to start off my talks with a joke to put you in a positive frame of mind. So here it goes…

A psychologist is holding a group therapy session in which there are four young mothers, each of whom has a small child with her. The psychologist gazes at the four women and blurts out “You’re all obsessed. And your obsessions show up in the names of your kids.”

He points to the first mother and calmly states “You are obsessed with spending money & shopping…you named your daughter Penny.”

The shrink points to the second mother and dryly adds “And you are stuck on the issue of eating. You went so far as to name your daughter Candy!”

As the remaining two mothers shift uncomfortably in their seats, the psychologist continues, pointing to the 3^rd mother, “While you have a drinking problem which shows itself in your daughter’s name – Brandy.”

     ……

At that point, the fourth mother, who can’t contain herself any longer, stands up, grabs her son by the hand and says …

“Come on Dick, we’re getting out of here!”

 

     I told this joke on the radio to thousands of listeners and got a landslide of positive feedback ….initially. One lady, who was driving when she heard it, said she had to pull over to the side of the freeway because she was laughing so hard. However, the show was rerun and then we started to get a few complaints. So the station owner called me in to tell me we couldn’t run the show anymore. I asked why not. He said because the joke was dirty. I knowingly asked what was dirty about it. He said it was the reference to sex. I told him that there was no mention in the joke as to whether or not the sex was taking place in a marriage. You see, the dirtiness of this joke is truly in the mind of the listener. If one assumes the sex is taking place within a marriage, there really is nothing dirty about the joke (unless you think sex in general is aversive).  The reason I tell this story is to point out that there are many different way of seeing the world, different ways of viewing the actions of others and even various ways of relating to your own mind, your thoughts, and your feelings.  And I’ll discuss a few of these points today.

Now that you are prepped to learn something new, let’s talk about positive psychology because it holds great promise. Just to be clear, positive psych is not a self-help movement. It is not as simple as positive thinking. It has no relation to books such as The Secret. It is not a passing trend.

Positive psychology is the scientific study of optimal functioning, the applied approach to human flourishing. The lessons of positive psychology are beneficial for everyone – teenagers, executives, managers and the elderly. Even the Army is currently training thousands of sergeants in positive psychology to boost the resiliency of troops and to decrease the possibility of post-traumatic stress disorder. While our Army troops have always been physically fit, we are now seeing a momentous shift in thinking which will enable them to become psychologically fit as well.

So this class and positive psychology in general definitely has something to offer you and it is as valuable in your personal life as in your professional life. At the heart of positive psychology are a number of research based findings into how and when people function at their very best.

Most of us spend a great deal of our time worrying over what might go wrong, or beating ourselves up over what we think did go wrong, or feeling disappointed over the inherent unfairness of life. Recent research shows that we are hard-wired to pay closer attention to this that go wrong than things that go right. And from an evolutionary standpoint, this makes sense. Being overly vigilant for threats and problems helped keep us alive from predators back when sabre-toothed tigers roamed the earth.

However, this hard wiring focused on the negative does not serve us well in modern day life.  Events such as childrens’ skinned knees, missed deadlines, speaking in public or bumper-to-bumper traffic may feel frustrating, scary or stressful but they are not matters of life and death.

So take a quick moment to ask yourself,

‘How much is my focus on what might go wrong helping me?’

‘How much are my negative emotions, such as fear and anger, assisting me in reaching my goals?’

To these questions, positive psychology provides a somewhat unusual answer:

spend more time focusing on what is going right with your life,

focus more on what may go well in the future,

and see how much that approach helps you reach your goals.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that you only have a positive perspective. I am not suggesting that you be foolishly optimistic. There is a great deal of merit to accurately foreseeing and planning for potential problems. It’s a matter of balance. How much of your mental time is spent focusing on problems as compared to looking at the positives. Positive psychology has found that there are tremendous benefits to learning to focus more on what is right with us and what may go well in the future.

One of the basic assumptions of Positive psychology is that all people are ‘Born to be Good’ to quote the title of Dacher Keltner’s book and that we can become better, happier and more productive.  Let me repeat that, we can learn to be happier. Your happiness is not written in stone. You can learn techniques to increase your satisfaction with life.

What makes the crucial difference between positive psychology and traditional self-help books is the mountain of research upon which positive psychology is built. At this point, there are over 50,000 studies having to do with happiness, realistic optimism, human strengths, life satisfaction and more. Empirical researchers across the world are looking for testable theories and explanations supported by hard data. It is, in simplest terms, a powerful movement from faith to facts. So everything I write about, everything about which I speak, is based on scientific studies and replicable data.

The biggest shift towards a positive psychology took place in the late 1990s when Martin Seligman, as president of the American Psychological Association, began asking the question “what is right with people?” For over 100 years, medicine and psychology had both focused on what was wrong with people and how problems could be fixed. Seligman used his influence to create a new branch of science termed positive psychology focusing on what is right with us, how we can lead more thriving, fulfilling, and meaningful lives.

Seligman and Mike Csikszentmihalyi brought together some of the top young researchers in psychology to study topics such as hope, happiness, gratitude, wisdom, creativity and optimal human functioning. From there it spread to include researchers in humanistic psychology, philosophy, executive coaches, sports psychology, developmental psychologists and many more areas. It continues to spread to business, education and counseling.

The best part is that positive psychology works and works well. Positive psychology exercises have been shown in numerous studies to promote strengths, improve optimal functioning, to increase realistic optimism and to increase the frequency of positive emotions.

Some of you may be skeptical. I completely understand this. I was skeptical at first too.  I was brought up to focus on the negative.  Most of us were. And most clients that I see focus first and foremost on problems, such as how to help under-performing workers, or how to shore up the weaknesses of people they manage.

One of the greatest contributions of Positive psychology is the finding that by focusing energy and attention on strengths and by tapping into positive emotions, all of us will enjoy more success than if we focus on weaknesses and problems.

In terms of using positive psychology in the workplace, the Gallup Organization has shown that disengaged workers cost firms billions of dollars per year in accidents, sabotage, turnover costs, lost customers and healthcare. Engaged or happy workers have a higher probability of making more money, innovating, being on time to work, being healthier physically, receive higher ratings from supervisors and customers, and help out coworkers more frequently. Happiness doesn’t just feel good, it is good for the bottom line and good for employees.

To give you an example, last year, I did some consulting with the executive board of a large insurance company. They were having trouble with several vice presidents who were holding grudges over an incident that happened over many years ago. Two of the vice presidents were actively sabotaging one another’s projects resulting in increased costs to the company. As part of my time there, I gave a two hour talk to the executive board on positive psychology, and I specifically focused on what the research has to say about forgiveness  based on research from Stanford University – what it is, what it is NOT, how to do it and why you want to do it. To me, forgiveness is the best single way to wash out all that stale anger you’ve been hiding for years. At the end of my talk, I suggested to the 11 executives that they try forgiving each other for past transgressions. After a long pause, I watched as all of the executives stood up, and began forgiving every other person in the room.  They hugged; they apologized to each other; and they forgave one another. It was powerful. And it changed the way in which they interacted from that day forward. The vice presidents were more supportive of one another, more cooperative, and they stopped their internal sabotage.

 Positive psychology is filtering into education as well. I do a monthly speaking series at a continuation high school where the students are sent if they are behind on credits, if they have behavior problems, emotional difficulties, or are coming out of juvenile hall. So it’s a pretty hard crowd.  One of the more difficult cases was an African-American female student who challenged me during a presentation “You aren’t black. You aren’t female. And you don’t live in a group home. Why should I listen to anything you say?!” It was a valid question. My response? “You’re absolutely right. I’m a totally bald, white, 42 year old man who lives with his wife and four children. And on a physical level you are correct. We share little in common. Here is what I can tell you…that on an emotional level, everything you have ever felt in your life – fear, anger, despair, happiness, pride, love – everything you have felt, I have felt also. So, on an emotional level we are nearly identical. I have been studying emotions for the past 12 years and I’ve found some tools that really work to help manage negative emotions and cultivate more positive emotions. So it’s your choice – you can listen and try some of the tools for yourself, see if they work, or you can ignore me. Either way, it’s up to you.” From that moment on, she was a fan - engaged, interested and willing to learn. She went on to work at a hospital this summer and now is looking at attending community college when she graduates at the end of this school year.

The Power of Positive Emotions

One of the areas I have researched over the past dozen years with great curiosity and passion is emotions. I have found that there is tremendous power in our emotions. Emotions are the social glue that binds our relationships.  The effective use of emotions, or leveraging emotions to your benefit, is what draws people to leaders. Emotional leverage is what separates truly great leaders from average executives. Emotions may initially be a bit frightening. Many people spend a great deal of energy trying to suppress or contain emotion. Yet, emotions have been with the human race for millions of years. Each emotion serves a purpose. Anger, for instance, helps move past obstacles or challenges. It helps us stand up to social injustices. Sadness keeps us close to home after suffering a loss. Fear keeps us safe from perceived danger.

Take a moment to think back to the last time you experienced an intense emotion. It may have been surprise, fear, rage, disappointment, sorrow, joy, awe or pride. It may have been pride due to your child’s outstanding grades, or joy watching your team win a close game, or frustration at yourself for making a mistake at work, or the feeling of contentment while working in your yard. What we’re finding is that emotions transcend our physical bodies. They are contagious. You can catch feelings from others around you. Studies have shown that happiness is contagious just like anger. Emotions are also closely and powerfully linked to what and how you remember the past. Look through an old photo album and you will clearly see the sway emotions have over your memories. What’s more, emotions play a large role in learning, communication, and even in our morality.

So it is critical to understand and learn to leverage emotions. In particular, you must understand the purpose and strength of positive emotions, because you can put them to great use in your daily life. Expertly leveraging emotions will help you be more successful.  As Robert Biswas-Diener puts it, ‘positive emotion is one of the greatest resources you and your clients, colleagues or students are currently overlooking.’

Emotions may be best thought of as a guidance system for your life. When you experience guilt, for example, it’s a sign that your actions are not in keeping with your values. And the unpleasant feeling motivates you to bring your actions back in line with your values. When things are going smoothly, your guidance system lets you know with an all clear signal – positive emotions such as peacefulness or contentment.  Of course, this guidance system is not perfect. We occasionally misinterpret our emotions, and sometimes our emotions are just plain wrong like when we feel highly fearful before speaking in public. However, our emotions give us important and valuable feedback the majority of the time. And there is power in learning how to be aware of emotions, in learning how to correctly read emotions, and greater success lies in the ability to cultivate more positive emotions.

 

 

So what can positive emotions do for you?

One of the biggest breakthroughs for positive psychology comes from Barbara Fredrickson at UNC Chapel Hill who came up with an evolutionary explanation for the existence of positive emotions. Barbara’s hypothesis is that the primary function of positive emotion is to broaden and build.  That is, they broaden our thought processes and they build lasting internal resources. Positive emotions, such as awe, peacefulness and love, allow your mind to blossom, creating more options, more possibilities, in terms of thoughts and actions.  Positive emotions help us be more creative, imaginative, and innovative. If you need to brainstorm for a new marketing slogan, you’ll do a better job if you are happy when you do it.

In addition, positive emotions have long-term beneficial effects because they build internal resources which may be used to help assist others in need or to manage future threats. In other words, positive emotions fill up your gas tank.  This means that positive emotions fill your emotional reservoir with positive emotional energy to increase your sense of well-being and physical health and which you can share with others when they need support and love.

What’s more, positive emotions have been shown to undo the lingering physiological effects of negative emotions. Positive emotions act as the hidden RESET button to the bodily changes caused by negative emotions, changes such as elevated blood pressure and increased cortisol levels in the blood stream.

      In the workplace, positive emotions are related to higher salaries, less sick days, better relationships with coworkers, better supervisor ratings, better customer ratings, and reduced employee turnover.

      In terms of physical health, positive folks are less likely to get ill, live longer, experience less pain, have fewer hospital visits, and when in a good mood, have faster cardiovascular recovery times. On the other hand, those with depression are more likely to engage in smoking, drug abuse, suicidal attempts, and have more emergency room visits.

In psychology, it is generally understood that bad is stronger than good, or the negative is stronger than the positive.  Bad events have a greater power over us, our emotions, thoughts and behaviors, than do good ones. You are more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. You are quicker to form bad judgments of other people than good ones. It takes approximately 5 compliments to undo the negative effects from one insult. Your brain processes negative information more thoroughly than it does positive information. So it’s great news that the harmful effects of negative feelings can be undone by positive emotions.

While we could come up with a list of hundreds of emotion words, there are ten positive emotions that have been verified in studies. From the most frequently occurring to the least frequent, they are… love, joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration and awe. And we know from research that positive emotions are fleeting and fragile. They are easily done away with and they are generally less powerful than negative emotions. So you have to increase your awareness of and be on the lookout for positive emotions throughout your day.

A Few Positive psychology Exercises:

Okay, let’s turn to some of the interventions that have been proven to boost your happiness.

The Blessings Exercise

One study done by Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania sought to help 50 severely depressed people. These were folks that stayed in bed most of the day, crawled out occasionally to check their email, and then returned to bed. They were asked to do one thing every day for two weeks.

            Write down three things that went well today and why they went well.

This daily gratitude journal is a powerful yet simple way to redirect the mind to the positive instead of dwelling on the negative. After two weeks of doing this exercise, the majority saw a significant improvement in their depressive symptoms.  People frequently report feeling happier and more positive after this assignment.

Mental Scrapbook of Positive Memories

Another exercise that has been shown to increase positive emotions is reliving positive memories. This exercise is as simple as focusing your attention on a positive event in your past. It might be a big athletic event, a wedding, the birth of a child, finishing school or a promotion. This activity may be combined with actual physical reminders of the past, such as photos, ticket stubs, trophies, college degrees, and printed testimonials.  You can also create your own positive scrapbook using most cell phones these days. Simply create a folder in which you keep photos of positive events. Start your own collection today. The main idea here is to savor the experience, to pay close attention to sensory details, to squeeze every last ounce of positive emotion out of the experience.

The extent to which you experience positive emotions is largely based on your thinking. Overthinking kills positive emotions. Worry, doubt, and stress drown out positive emotions. Emotions are highly individualized. They vary from person to person and what evokes one emotion in one person may not do the same in another. What makes one person recoil in disgust may make another person laugh. Emotions depend on how you interpret events. You have to take a moment (in the moment) and look for the good in the situation. Once you find the good, you must intentionally magnify it, and let it grow.  You have the power to turn positive emotions off and on.

Look at the room you’re in right now.

Ask yourself:

What’s going right for me right now?

How am I fortunate/blessed to be here?

How does being here benefit me?

What meaning can I take away from this situation?

When you take time to think this way, it builds gratitude in you.

By the way, it is normal if positivity feels unusual or weird at first.

Capitalizing on Love

One of the foremost researchers in the area of love and marriage is Shelly Gable, an assistant professor of psychology at UCLA. Most researchers looking at marriage work on conflict management, how to create more harmony between partners, and how individuals in a couple cope with traumatic events.  Gable is one of a handful of researcher who looks at what makes a thriving marriage. Her work provides some valuable insights if you are interested in transforming your good relationship (e.g., friendship, marriage, parent or child) into a great one.

Gable looks to see how you respond when your spouse tells you that he’s just been promoted, or your child tells you that she won Class President, or when your mother tells you she won a tennis tournament, or when your friend tells you she just won a huge lawsuit. Gable puts your responses into four different categories which break down as follows:

1.      An enthusiastic reaction such as “Wow! That’s tremendous. That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week. I’m sure there are more great things to come for you. You’ve definitely earned it. Congratulations!” This reaction is called the active-constructive response by Gable.

2.      A more subdued reaction where you share your happiness but say little. For example, “That’s nice dear.” This is the passive-constructive response.

3.      Or perhaps you point out some of the potential pitfalls or negatives within the good event. For instance, “Wow, I sure hope you can handle all that extra responsibility. Does this mean you will have to work extra hours?” Gable refers to this as the active-destructive response.

4.      Or, you might respond with disinterest and not respond to the good news at all. Most folks do this by merely changing the subject, “Yes, but what do you think about the weather outside?” This is known as the passive-destructive response.

The first type of response, the active-constructive one, is called “capitalizing” by Gable and here’s the fascinating part…capitalizing amplifies the pleasure of the good event and creates an upward spiral of good feelings.

Gable has shown that capitalizing is one of the keys to strong, supportive, thriving relationships. 

So how do you respond to good news from other people?

Are you a “capitalizer” who creates upward spirals of positive emotions?

Or do you turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the good news of others?

The consequences of learning how to be more of a “capitalizer” are impressive and robust. Couples who describe themselves as having a spouse who is active and constructive in response to their good news are more committed to the relationship, more in love, and happier in their marriage.  Think about that the next time your mate comes in the door with exciting news.

Closing Remarks

            I’ve found a large number of people are passionate and excited about positive psychology. It offers an energizing approach to your personal and professional life. Hopefully, by sharing some information about positive psychology, you’ve become excited about the possibilities also.

Again my name is John Schinnerer. I’m happy to speak to those interested in future keynote presentations or seeing clients privately. My book is entitled ‘Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide to Managing Emotion & Thought’ and may be purchased at Amazon.com, or Target.com. My email address is John@GuideToSelf.com.  My website is www.GuideToSelf.com. Please feel free to go and sign up for my newsletter by clicking on Email Sign Up on the left of the screen.

Now to your questions…

 

Hope you enjoyed it!

Have a wonderful evening,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

913 San Ramon Valley Blvd.

Danville, CA 94526

 http://www.guidetoself.com

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Positive Psychology - The Science of Optimal Human Functioning

17. November 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Free teleclass
Positive Psychology – The Science of Optimal Human Functioning
11/18/09 (Wednesday)
6 pm PST/9 pm EST
with John Schinnerer, Ph.D.,
Author, positive psychology coach, speaker, amusing guy
Simply call 212-461-5903 and enter Pin 3474#

 

Positive psychology is the scientific study of optimal functioning, the applied approach to human flourishing. The lessons of positive psych are appropriate for everyone – teenagers, executives, managers and the elderly. Even the Army is currently training thousands of sergeants in positive psychology to boost the resiliency of troops and to decrease the possibility of post-traumatic stress disorder. While our Army troops have always been physically fit, we are now seeing a momentous shift in thinking to enable them to become psychologically fit as well.

So this class and PP in general definitely has something to offer you and it is as valuable in your personal life as in your professional life. At the heart of positive psychology are a number of research based findings into how and when people function at their very best.

 

 

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Depression Gene More Likely To Express Itself In Western Culture Than In the East

28. October 2009 by John Schinnerer.

NonWestern communal cultures keep biology from having its way with depression

From EurekaAlert.org…

EVANSTON, Ill. — A genetic tendency to depression is much less likely to be realized in a culture centered on collectivistic rather than individualistic values, according to a new Northwestern University study.

In other words, a genetic vulnerability to depression is much more likely to be realized in a Western culture than an East Asian culture that is more about we than me-me-me.

The study coming out of the growing field of cultural neuroscience takes a global look at mental health across social groups and nations.

Depression, research overwhelmingly shows, results from genes, environment and the interplay between the two. One of the most profound ways that people across cultural groups differ markedly, cultural psychology demonstrates, is in how they think of themselves.

“People from highly individualistic cultures like the United States and Western Europe are more likely to value uniqueness over harmony, expression over agreement, and to define themselves as unique or different from the group,” said Joan Chiao, the lead author of the study and assistant professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern.

In contrast, people from collectivist cultures are more likely to value social harmony over individuality. “Relative to people in an individualistic culture, they are more likely to endorse behaviors that increase group cohesion and interdependence,” Chiao said.

Collectivist cultures may give individuals who are genetically susceptible to depression a tacit or explicit expectation of social support. “Such support seems to buffer vulnerable individuals from the environmental risks or stressors that serve as triggers to depressive episodes,” Chiao said.

The study by Chiao and Northwestern graduate student Katherine Blizinsky, “Culture-gene coevolution of individualism-collectivism and the serotonin transporter gene,” will be published online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

For full release, please click here.

It’s interesting to note that many of the third wave of mental health therapies originate in Eastern cultures, such as mindfulness, nonattachment, nonjudgment, and accepting reality as it is. All of these skills originated in the East via Zen Buddhism or in Buddhism proper. And all of these skills are essential elements of Dialetic Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).  All of these therapies have been shown to be effective in dealing with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, OCD,  eating disorders, and several personality disorders such as the most difficult one to treat (in my opinion) - borderline personality disorder.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Posted in Awareness, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Mindfulness, The human brain, Men's emotions, National speakers, Danville CA, Borderline Personality, Brain plasticity, Therapist, Emotion & productivity, Alexithymia, Managing Sadness, Guide to Self, Life coach, Dr. John Schinnerer, Measuring emotions, Staying calm, Tips to help anxiety, Managing Anxiety, Emotional management, Emotional mind, Depression, Managing stress | Print | No Comments »

Women Better Than Men At Identifying & Expressing Emotion

22. October 2009 by John Schinnerer.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2009) — Women are better than men at distinguishing between emotions, especially fear and disgust, according to a new study published in the online version of the journal Neuropsychologia. As part of the investigation, Olivier Collignon and a team from the Université de Montréal Centre de recherche en neuropsychologie et cognition (CERNEC) demonstrated that women are better than men at processing auditory, visual and audiovisual emotions.

 

While women have long been thought to outperform men in neuropsychological tests, until now, these findings were inconsistent. To obtain more conclusive evidence, the Université de Montréal researchers did not use photographs to analyze the reaction of subjects. Instead, the scientists hired actors and actresses to simulate fear and disgust. “Facial movements have been shown to play an important role in the perception of an emotion’s intensity as well as stimulate different parts of the brain used in the treatment of such information,” says Collignon, who also works as a researcher at the Université catholique de Louvain’s Institute of Neuroscience in Belgium.

[snip]

The study found that women were superior in completing assessments and responded quicker when emotions were portrayed by a female rather than a male actor. Compared to men, women were faster at processing facial and multisensory expressions.

[snip]

Autism and emotions

In 2002, researchers Baron and Cohen put forth a controversial theory stipulating that autism and Asperger’s syndrome are an extreme in male interpersonal behavior that’s characterized by impaired empathy and enhanced systematizing. “Seeing as our results show that men identify and express emotions less efficiently than women, it supports this theory to a certain extent,” says Collignon.

Differences between men and women

Are women natured or nurtured to be different? Biology may play a role, since there are few opportunities for socialization to shape such gender differences. Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that females, because of their role as primary caretakers, are wired to quickly and accurately decode or detect distress in preverbal infants or threatening signals from other adults to enhance their chances at survival.

 

For full article, please click here.

 

At some level, this feels like ‘Well, duh, of course women identify and express emotions more quickly and accurately.’ However, this is not something that has been scientifically proven beyond doubt. This study helps to swing the pendulum in the direction of females being more tuned in to the emotions of fear and disgust.

Cheers,

 

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Posted in Alexithymia, Managing Anxiety, Men's emotions, Emotion & learning, Danville CA, Emotional management, Emotional mind, Dr. John Schinnerer, Measuring emotions, Life coach, Anxiety, Nature vs. nurture, Managing stress | Print | No Comments »

The Four Best Predictors of Positive Emotions and Why You Should Care

19. October 2009 by John Schinnerer.

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Positive emotions, such as awe, curiosity, love, contentment and pride, act as a hidden reset button for the physiological effects of destructive emotions (e.g., chronic stress, long-term anger, or enduring sadness). Positive emotion undoes the harmful physical effects of negative emotions.

Positive emotions…

·         lower blood pressure

·         increase immune system functioning

·         improve clarity of thought and creativity and

·         decrease cortisol levels (i.e., the stress hormone).

Research has recently uncovered the four best predictors of future positive emotions. They are…

• The feeling that you can count on others
• The perception that you have autonomy and are in control of your own life
• Whether you learned something new yesterday
• Whether you did what you do best yesterday

(E. Diener, University of Illinois, author of Happiness)

If you have loved ones and friends you can count on, if you feel autonomous, if you learn something new daily, and if you use your strengths on a daily basis, you will create more moments of happiness in your life. As you learn to string together fleeting moments of happiness, you will create a contented mood.

According to Barbara Fredrickson (UNC Chapel Hill), author of Positivity, as we learn to unpack happiness, we discover that it is positive emotions that lay at the heart of a number of things such as resiliency, happiness, life satisfaction and subjective well-being.

In other words, when you increase the frequency with which you experience positive emotions, you improve your psychological resources (e.g., resiliency) and subsequently, you become more satisfied with life and physically healthier.

 

About the Author

Dr. John Schinnerer is in private practice helping individuals learn happiness by mitigating destructive emotions and fostering constructive emotions. His practice is located in the Danville San Ramon Medical Center at 913 San Ramon Valley Blvd., #280, Danville, California 94526. He graduated summa cum laude from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in psychology. Dr. Schinnerer has been an executive and psychologist for over 10 years. Dr. John Schinnerer is President and Founder of Guide To Self, a company that coaches clients to their potential using the latest in positive psychology, mindfulness and attentional control. Dr. John Schinnerer hosted over 200 episodes of Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show, in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Dr. Schinnerer is President of Infinet Assessment, a psychological testing company to help firms select the best applicants. Dr. Schinnerer’s areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to moral development, to sports psychology. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the award-winning, “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought,” which is available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and AuthorHouse.com.  

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Less Than Half of Those Who Are Depressed Seek Treament

1. October 2009 by John Schinnerer.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2009) — ‘Fewer than half of men and women who may be suffering from depression see a doctor to treat their potentially debilitating condition, according to a new women’s health study by researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).

Key findings of the POWER study include:

• Less than 50% of men and women with depression visited a doctor for care for their condition
• 33% of men and women discharged from hospital for severe depression did not see a doctor for a follow-up visit within 30 days
• 17% visited a hospital emergency room within 30 days of discharge from hospital while about 8% were readmitted to hospital
• Many older adults started on antidepressant medication did not receive the recommended number of follow-up visits to manage their condition.
• The lack of co-ordinated care for patients suggests the need for a collaborative care-model involving a team of health-care professionals, including mental health professionals and primary care providers.’

Depression is a treatable illness.

There are a number of different treatments - therapy, medication, exercise, meditation, mindfulness, and more.

Symptoms of depression may include:

irritability, short temper

fatigue and energy loss

weight loss or weight gain (5% of body weight)

overwhelming sadness

difficulty thinking clearly, making decisions and remembering details

overfocusing on dark, negative thoughts

sleep problems (either too much or too little)

loss of appetite or overeating

feelings of guilt, helplessness or loss of worth

increased feelings of pain, aches, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems that do not ease with medical treatment

suicidal thoughts or taking actions towards suicide

persistent sad, ‘empty’ or nervous feelings

loss of interest in once pleasurable activities such as shopping, sex or hobbies.

pessimistic outlook

There are a number of activities one can engage in to alleviate depressive symptoms. Some are simple, easy and inexpensive. Some come from new branches of medicine such as positive psychology. Some are ancient, stemming from Buddhist practices which date back roughly 3000 years.

If you or someone you love is experiencing signs of depression, please seek help. At least 1 out of 4 people in the U.S. suffer from a depressive episode in their lifetime. It’s common and treatable.

My thoughts and feelings are with you!

All the best,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Posted in Managing Sadness, Anger Management, Managing Anxiety, Alexithymia, Men's emotions, Emotion & productivity, Emotion & learning, Mindfulness, Emotional management, Emotional mind, Guide to Self, Dr. John Schinnerer, Managing stress, Emotional IQ, Anxiety, Depression, Happiness, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

Put-downs in High School Make It Harder For Students To Learn, U. of Illinois Study Says

3. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.