UnLtd Blogs - positive emotion

Can You Have Choice Agoraphobia?

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 08:13:01 +0000

I was caught up in yet another discussion about choice recently. We were exchanging views on whether choice adds to our sense of freedom and happiness or whether being immersed in choice actually distracts our energy from more significant matters. The discussion ranged from the "we've never had it so good" school to Schwartz's recent account of the freedom to choose and Harbaugh's "falling behind the Joneses".

I was trying to express my experience that I meet many carers in Happystance workshops who relish some choices but are bewildered by others (e.g., to do with complex benefit/allowance applications; or indecision about what care package meets the needs of everybody involved). In the press of conversation I managed to mangle a cross between a spoonerism and a malaproprism. The spoonerism was between choice and consumer; the malapropism was substituting agoraphobia for a word that I no longer recall.

After my initial surprise, I thought about it and have decided that the phrases are apposite. Agoraphobia is literally fear of the marketplace. I think that 'consumer agoraphobia' can describe a condition where consumers are overwhelmed by choice. Some people are so overwhelmed by choice that they no longer want to take even small decisions because they trigger so much anxiety.

Rely On The Kindness Of Strangers

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 17:52:05 +0000

According to Wired, researcher David Baker is relying on the kindness of strangers to generate the key to an AIDS vaccine or a cure for cancer by creating a virtual super-computer. Sometimes, in addition to techno-stars, we need basic services and kindnesses. An individual contribution to Baker's search for scientific solutions might be

that old PC sitting under a layer of dust in your closet or the one on your desk doing little else but running a screen saver.

Baker's Rosetta@home project is putting together the spare computing power of tens of thousands of PCs throughout the world to work away at scientific problems over the internet. Owners install free software on the PCs and

when the machine is idle, it figures out how an individual protein � a building block of life � might fold or contort, displaying the possibilities in a screen saver. When the PC is done crunching, it sends the results back to Baker's team and grabs more work.

More than 60,000 people currently donate computer time and Baker is looking to increase that number ten-fold.

Rosetta@home is a tremendously exciting project and is creating virtual communities of people who feel actively involved in the research effort and the potential medical impact of the work. What would happen if we could harness people's goodwill to produce a virtual community of people willing to improve their own well-being and that of others? In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell promotes the idea that small actions can spark “social epidemics”, that are good for our well-being. What small actions could we do and what would we be willing to do? Is the greatest apprehension the fear of the open-ended commitment and of exploitation? Does the Rosetta@home project work because there is a clearly defined limit to the contributions (e.g., spare computing power, when the computer is turned on?).

Laughter Really Is Good For Us

Fri, 05 May 2006 15:03:02 +0000

It's World Laughter Day on Sunday and I'm running an event in my local park. A study by Cambridge University recently reported on behavioural changes that add to our longevity:

giving up smoking means an extra five years
moderate exercise adds three years
eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day adds three years.

The study neglected to mention that there are studies that suggest that happiness (including the sense that life offers meaning and engagement as well as pleasure) adds up to nine extra years of life. This finding was reported by the study that researched Alzheimer's disease among 678 nuns: the findings of many papers indicate that positive emotions are correlated with survivor rates. The study began in 1986: researchers traced the nun population to the early 1900s. Of the least cheerful nuns, starting from age 30, only 34 percent lived to be 85, and 11 percent lived to age 94. Of the most cheerful, 90 percent lived to age 85, and 54 percent lived to 94, starting at age 30. In a paper examining Positive Emotions In Early Life And Longevity the researchers concluded that:

Positive emotions experienced early in life predicted longevity more than 60 years later.

At 9 years, the benefits of positive emotion outweigh the negative effects of obesity, smoking or alcoholism.

Laughter Is the Best Medicine

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 15:06:34 +0000

The Guardian carries a piece on Laughter really is the best medicine.

scientists have proved what everyone else takes for granted - that laughter really is good for you. It turns out that even the anticipation of watching a funny video can raise the levels of immune-boosting hormones in the blood and the benefits can last up to a day.

There are well established health benefits for laughter and for positive emotions associated with it. More technically, in this study, the researcher established that:

the anticipation of a laughter eustress [positive stress] event initiates changes in neuroendocrine response prior to the onset of the event itself...From our prior studies, this modulation appears to be concomitant with mood state changes, and taken together, these would appear to carry important, positive implications for wellness, disease-prevention and most certainly stress-reduction.

All of which is as maybe. Doesn't scheduling time with laughter to improve the workings of our immune systems and overall well-being sound more enjoyable than most other interventions? I would hope that regular laughter sessions might be a lifestyle modification that most people were willing to adopt and practise regularly. We have nothing to give up but a sense of our seriousness and some perspectives that might stop us from enjoying our lives as much as we can, or enjoying the well-being that is open to us.

Can You Have Choice Agoraphobia?

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 18:39:59 +0000

I was caught up in yet another discussion about choice today. We were exchanging views on whether choice adds to our sense of freedom and happiness or whether being immersed in choice actually distracts our energy from more significant matters. The discussion ranged from the "we've never had it so good" school to Schwartz's recent account of the freedom to choose and Harbaugh's "falling behind the Joneses".

One example is that consumer experts constantly tell us that most of us have not got the best deal that we could on credit cards, bank accounts, utility providers etc. They emphasise how easy it is to change our providers and research the best deal and yet apparently more than 80% of us never do such research despite the fact that not doing so may cost us considerable sums of money.

Happiness As Flexibility Of Mind and Openness?

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 16:56:17 +0000

There are several classic experiments that are summarised and commented on in Prof. Seligman’s Authentic Happiness. The consistent result is that positive emotion allows us to be more flexible, creative and open to new ideas.

I was thinking about this today when I read the explosion of comments on the topic of ME on the excellent NHS Blog Doc. The original article discusses the dilemma that faces Dr. Crippen when asked to provide a sick note for a patient with ME, a condition that he does not “believe in”. Take a look at the comments and the references that are provided in them. They are truly fascinating, and they seem genuinely to be contributing to a desire to learn by the GP in question. Dr. Crippen seems to be taking a real-time journey of listening and discovery that leads to him discussing a new assessment of his patients who currently have the label, ME.

I was recently lamenting that depression and anxiety statistics should not be used to comment on the prevalence of happiness. And I was exposing my thinking on various matters (such as the diagnosis or treatment of depression). I’m actually quite comfortable with holding “on the one hand this, on the other hand...” opinions. I just find it difficult when talking with people who want a definitive viewpoint.