[HN Gopher] A simple way to feel happier, according to the new s...
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A simple way to feel happier, according to the new science of
emotion
Author : ca98am79
Score : 47 points
Date : 2021-07-01 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| ggm wrote:
| Is this just another take on "mindfullness" ?
| loopz wrote:
| Practitioners of meditation and breathing exercises may find
| recognition in some of it. But, meditation/mindfulness is more
| about observing thought and feelings come and go, as you
| breathe.
|
| With practice you may gain some mind control, and trying to
| channel fear and feelings into constructiveness is part of
| knowledge (jnana). However, many people will confuse also this,
| and mastering it, depending on so much or so little. Nothing to
| accomplish.
| ajmadesc wrote:
| TLDR:
|
| * Write three things your greatfull for daily. Bonus points share
| task with friends
|
| * Take walks and pay attention to what's happening
|
| * Listen to soft nature sounds
| jhgb wrote:
| > Write three things your greatfull for
|
| But preferably write them better than this?
| okareaman wrote:
| See also: Epicurus and the letter to Menoeceus
|
| https://churchofepicurus.wordpress.com/the-letter-to-menoece...
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| I was surprised to see nostalgia in the list of positive
| emotions. I guess I don't disagree but I've never thought of it
| that way, and I've certainly never sought it out.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| In my experience some people experience a very strong and
| qualitatively impressive sentimental connection to elements of
| their subjective past. It's amazing to watch in some cases.
|
| The details of the connection, its frequency, amplitude /
| subjective potency, and accuracy seem quite different from
| person to person.
|
| There have been attempts in some spaces of research to group
| people by the various characteristics of their subjective
| experience with their past, and how they metabolize (so to
| speak) nostalgia.
|
| I was kind of in the same boat as you in the sense that it was
| new to me (whether one is aware of it as a practice available
| to them is another differentiator) and I had to cultivate it. I
| started by making a timeline of my life in bullet points, and
| then found myself naturally expanding on my favorite parts much
| later in the experience. This was really pleasant.
|
| Also some chemicals seem to help. Personally caffeine brings
| this nostalgia-awareness to me quite easily after the initial
| spur of executive activity has worn off.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| honestly I'm getting very weary of this trend of people being
| into their emotions or making their emotional life the center-
| stage of their being. It seems like a very narcissistic hedonism.
|
| I've always felt that there's a simple answer to being 'unhappy'.
| Just do something that helps others, take some responsibility in
| the real world, even if it's small but at least you're doing
| something real, and worst case you're still miserable but at
| least you've done something meaningful.
|
| I've started to appreciate the religious outlook more that has a
| mature attitude to suffering rather than this honestly pretty
| childish avoidance of negative emotions.
| acuozzo wrote:
| > Just do something that helps others
|
| The primary reason for my unhappiness is that the majority of
| my time (excluding sleep) is spent in the service of others and
| very little time is left to do things for myself.
|
| I'd love to have enough time to read more than 3-5 pages of a
| book per night.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| It isn't though, the primary reason for your unhappiness is
| not "I can only read 5 pages a night", if you were so busy
| with other things you love _and_ you _also_ managed to read 5
| pages per night as well, you could be very happy. It isn 't
| the page count, it's the mental story.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I believe there's some truth to this. The most successful forms
| of therapy teach you to stop having negative thoughts about
| your situation by interrogating the reality of those thoughts,
| and detaching from them . If you stop caring that you're
| feeling unhappy, are you unhappy?
| lethologica wrote:
| I've gone through a similar journey myself almost exactly.
| However, I had to wade through a lot of crap to get to this
| point and this whole "trend" was one of those areas I had to go
| through to get to where I am now.
|
| I agree it's a simplified version of what the religions offer.
| Similar to how Stoicism and Minimalism have both gone through a
| resurgence in popularity and sales recently, but the stuff
| released recently on those topics only scratches the surface of
| what they actually are.
|
| I view this "emotion trend" as something similar to those two
| modernised versions of the previously mentioned philosophies: a
| good spring board into the real thing. But without it existing
| I'd have never gotten to the real thing so I see it as having
| some value.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Well, my emotional life is at the very centre of my experience
| of the world, so it is kind of hard to ignore. Maybe it is
| self-centred to care about my emotions, but I have also learned
| that I'm a much better husband, father, and coworker when I'm
| happy than when I feel like shit.
| iammisc wrote:
| > I've started to appreciate the religious outlook more that
| has a mature attitude to suffering rather than this honestly
| pretty childish avoidance of negative emotions.
|
| People look at me like I'm nuts when I tell them (honestly) "I
| don't believe in happiness".
|
| I mean that honestly. I believe in emotions like contentedness,
| elation, joy, jubilation, etc. Things that many consider
| 'happy'. But this notion of happiness as a permanent state of
| being. I've never experienced it or seen it. It does not exist.
| Those pursuing it have some religious attachment to it.
|
| Moreover, even if I did believe in it, I am unconvinced of its
| utility or whether it's a worthy goal to pursue. Seems
| completely wasteful to me.
| mypalmike wrote:
| As others have said, you'll find it hard to find a serious
| definition of happiness that involves permanence.
|
| That said, different people do tend to have different general
| attitudes toward life, positive or negative. I spent quite a
| few years in the negative camp, and there is far less utility
| in that than there is having a positive outlook. Much easier
| said than done, of course.
| fragmede wrote:
| If your definition of _happy_ includes it being a permanent
| state of being, no wonder you can 't find it. That's not part
| of the definition for happiness. If I said I don't believe in
| computers, but my definition of computers is "sentient beings
| from another planet living on Earth", people would look at me
| like I'm nuts, for multiple reasons.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Ah, the definition was wrong. You failed to correct us,
| though.
| loves_mangoes wrote:
| I just feel like I'm morally obligated to chime in -- you
| can't be told you don't exist and not feel a little weird
| about it =)
|
| >this notion of happiness as a permanent state of being. I've
| never experienced it or seen it
|
| Alright, so maybe your idea of what others mean by happiness
| is not what I'd expect. I don't think most people would
| define happiness as a permanent state of being.
|
| There's a risk we'd be talking past each other a bit, so I'm
| going to try to define what I mean by happiness, and why I'm,
| so far, pretty sure that I exist!
|
| As far as I'm concerned, "being happy" is about how your
| baseline level of emotion is. When nothing in particular is
| happening, let's say if you lied down for a minute, are you
| stressed, depressed, worried, miserable, feeling like you are
| wasting time idling and really should be doing something
| else?
|
| Unless most of your day is an emotional rollercoaster, to me
| a large part of the time is "baseline" like this. If nothing
| is acting on you, then your emotions come from within.
|
| And I'd like to hope most people in a stable situation don't
| experience any of the above negative emotions for no reason,
| they're not actively suffering when nothing is being done to
| them.
|
| But that's not what happiness is, it's just neutrality. And
| happiness isn't the only emotion you're allowed to feel
| either (that would be pretty unhealthy!). It's not a
| constant, or a permanent state. It doesn't mean you can't
| have a bad day, or that you take bad things with a smile. It
| means you take neutral things with a smile!
|
| It means that when things are at baseline, you don't need to
| look for a reason to feel good, and redeem the fact that
| everything is going great and you have nothing to worry
| about! You don't need a reason to smile.
|
| If what's puzzling you is the 'religious attachment' to
| pursing happiness, well, I don't get it either. But those
| articles that sell happiness methods and simple steps and
| lifestyle changes are clearly not meant for me. I don't feel
| like happiness is something you chase, or some out of reach
| goal that requires years of devoted training.
|
| Somehow this seems controversial enough that I'm not
| comfortable admitting to happiness on my main account's post
| history! But I hope you can believe that I'm being sincere,
| and that I wish you the best.
|
| Much love <3
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Wasn't stoicism the last big trend in recent years? People
| cargo culting Marcus Aurelius's _Meditations_ and so forth.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| For a lot of people to whom this kind of attention to emotion
| is helpful, it's a promotion from "zero space for emotion" to
| space given "anywhere on the stage," quite far from making it
| center stage. It's a big step for them.
|
| If they overshoot at first and look like emotional-obsessives,
| that sort of thing also happens all the time with people who
| are learning the ropes with just about any new thing.
|
| BTW nothing personal, but I've noticed that advice that starts
| with the word "just" never seems as effective or rewarding in
| the long run as the thoughtful, deep, measured-out kind which
| starts with, say, a question...
| loopz wrote:
| Maybe people have different needs?
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _Just do something that helps others, take some
| responsibility in the real world, even if it 's small but at
| least you're doing something real, and worst case you're still
| miserable but at least you've done something meaningful._"
|
| These things don't exist either, except as stories that you
| tell yourself. Why isn't it just as narcissistic to be obsessed
| with doing "meaningful" things and thinking you are so great
| for doing that?
|
| And then your answer is "just" do these things and you _still_
| might be miserable? This is all around a terrible fix for
| anything. It 's like the story of the therapist who said people
| should stay in relationships even if they're unhappy, for the
| sake of love. "So now you've got two unhappy people, but long
| live 'love', what use is that to anyone?"
|
| If the article is correct (I think it is) then how you feel is
| based on the thoughts you have, and what you do is based on how
| you think and feel. That means "just" overcome your negative
| thoughts by magic, and do meaningful things, is a nonsense fix
| - it's like saying "stop navel gazing about refuelling your car
| and just drive somewhere". Well, how? If you don't think people
| will want your help because you feel worthless, how do you
| "just" help people? "just" fix what you think so you don't feel
| worthless, then that frees you up to go help people.
|
| Like the airplane warning "put on your own facemask first".
| pessimizer wrote:
| > It seems like a very narcissistic hedonism.
|
| Maybe, but I think it's more a treadmill of marketing and
| consuming to create the emotions that marketing promises.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| > mature attitude to suffering rather than this honestly pretty
| childish avoidance of negative emotions.
|
| There's an insidious attitude that seems to be pervading modern
| culture where everything is about being happy and any negative
| feeling is wrong. You should always feel good! If you don't you
| have a mental health issue that needs immediate treatment.
|
| It's stupid and unrealistic. Life sucks and then you die. Often
| the sucky parts create character and give you the most
| meaning/satisfaction. Until very recently people didn't even
| have the time to consider whether they felt happy, they just
| existed and did what was needed to continue living and moving
| forward with their lives.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| "The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy
| isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy
| with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead."
|
| -- Mr.Peanutbutter (Bojack Horseman)
| iancmceachern wrote:
| From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
|
| "Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of
| finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote
| that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it,"
| and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right
| any day."
| polishdude20 wrote:
| It's as if there's a separate higher state of being one can be
| in that's not happiness, sadness or anger. It's something akin
| to being content. But more like, a thing inside you saying "I
| am ok with being happy when it happens, I am ok with being sad
| when it happens and I am ok with getting a grey sometimes."
| It's the acknowledgment that you will feel different emotions
| throughout your life and you are ready to take them on and grow
| from them. Sadness or anger aren't bad. They serve a purpose.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Well said. I've heard this called "equanimity" in some
| mindfulness meditation books, and is one of the primary
| traits practicioners seek to cultivate. It's good to hear it
| as an original thought in original terms though.
| MarkLowenstein wrote:
| After reading as much of the article as I could, I concluded
| that the best way to avoid malaise is to quit being so
| introspective; quit acting like my gratification is so dang
| important; and just go _do_ something.
| svcrunch wrote:
| I'll just add some supporting material from one of my favorite
| authors, Leo Tolstoy.
|
| > Just do something that helps others, take some responsibility
| in the real world, even if it's small but at least you're doing
| something real
|
| This reminds me of a line in one of his stories (paraphrasing)
| : "The surest path to happiness is service of others."
|
| It's also the final lesson of his autobiographical short story,
| Father Sergius, and comes up in the story Two Old Men where
| it's juxtaposed with a ritualistic view of religion lacking an
| ethos of service.
|
| > worst case you're still miserable but at least you've done
| something meaningful.
|
| You won't be miserable, although you will likely appear that
| way to the eyes of worldly people. That's the central theme of
| Tolstoy's exquisite and (very) short story, Alyosha the Pot.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| This reminds me of work a design masters student is doing to
| explore how breathwork practices support spiritual wellbeing
| among engineering college students. After 10 good minutes of
| breathwork, most participants seem to have a mild spiritual
| experience characterized by feelings of awe and connectedness.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| > "it can feel better to be on the giving end rather than the
| receiving end"
|
| I find that, disappointingly, in-person charity is a lot more
| satisfying than more efficient forms, because the people I have a
| chance to help in person are in much less need.
| magneticnorth wrote:
| To summarize, because the introduction ends clickbait-style with
| "'I had to expand my consciousness,' she says. And she did it by
| intentionally cultivating a particular emotion." followed by 3
| long sections of exposition before they elaborate on the
| "particular emotion":
|
| Cultivate awe - meaning "reconnect[ing] with the vast natural
| world, with the universe beyond my professional and personal
| responsibilities, and beyond this moment in time". In particular,
| they recommend an "awe walk" where you focus on things around you
| and small details and look for things that are unexpected and
| delightful.
|
| Kind of sounds to me like "get out of your own head", which I
| think is advice I could use more often.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Awe is an interesting one to me. I think it could possibly be
| broken down into types of awe for more leverage. Similar to the
| way others have attempted to enumerate additional human sense
| capabilities.
|
| It'd be cool to generate some "awe practices" which would be
| more like frameworks with which to generate awe. I imagine the
| more subjectively-open, the better. One person's Carl Sagan
| Cosmos-style Awe, for example, is probably another person's
| nightmare (I can share from personal experience in relating my
| own awe to others).
| Forbo wrote:
| Awe is probably one of the biggest sensations one gets from
| psychedelics. I wonder if this may help to explain some of
| the antidepressant effects that are currently being explored.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| A similar concept in some cultures is Mindfullness.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness
| wincy wrote:
| Huh I just think about how incredibly complex and amazing human
| infrastructure is and get this feeling. I think about the
| complexity of the professor in my phone and how many millions
| of human hours were involved in the creation of it.
|
| One thing that really gets me is thinking that every two years,
| humankind experiences the equivalent collective time that a
| being who had lived since the beginning of the universe would
| have experienced.
|
| It's all kinda weird stuff but I think it makes me feel a sense
| of awe similar to what is being talked about here.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| >> One thing that really gets me is thinking that every two
| years, humankind experiences the equivalent collective time
| that a being who had lived since the beginning of the
| universe would have experienced.
|
| When I got my head round that, it exploded. I love it.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| The 'new' science they refer to is in this paragraph:
|
| > But according to the latest research, the human body probably
| works the other way around, Seth says. "The brain registers a
| grizzly bear, and that perception sets in train all the
| physiological responses." You get an adrenaline rush. Your
| heart rate goes up. You start breathing faster. Blood rushes to
| your muscles. And then the emotion comes.
|
| However the idea is not so new:
|
| > The James-Lange theory is a hypothesis on the origin and
| nature of emotions and is one of the earliest theories of
| emotion within modern psychology. [..] The basic premise of the
| theory is that physiological arousal instigates the experience
| of emotion.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%E2%80%93Lange_theory
| byecomputer wrote:
| Gratitude and awe were just the two examples they used to
| demonstrate the underlying point, which was (paraphrasing) "if
| you practice being happy on a regular basis [by doing things
| that elicit positive feelings], even if just for a short period
| of time everyday, your brain will be more accustomed to
| associating 'happy' as a feeling that's 'in the rotation', so
| to speak, making it easier to feel happy in other situations
| and in general." Probably the most accessible metaphor in the
| article was that of learning a piano chord: do it a little
| every day and eventually it becomes second-nature.
|
| So, in other words, if you want to be happier, try being happy
| more often.
| mrosett wrote:
| On one hand, this article seems fine as far as it goes. Sure, I
| can imagine there's some benefit to cultivating a positive
| emotion for 5 minutes per day.
|
| On the other hand, any article that uses the phrase "the new
| science of <anything>" is highly suspect, especially when it
| claims to have a secret that will let you "rewire" your brain.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Everybody wants the respect that science gets today. Therefore
| everybody describes what they're doing as "science". It's just
| debasing the word "science" to make their ideas seem more
| respectable.
|
| But this isn't new. Marx called his thinking "scientific
| socialism" back in 1845, as if socialism - or any political
| theory - would ever actually be scientific in any real sense.
| tus89 wrote:
| Why seek happiness? What's wrong with being content and
| fulfilled?
| sammalloy wrote:
| One thing I've run into, over and over again, is the palliative
| effects of laughter. I realize that sounds odd, on the face of
| it, but it's something I keep coming back to in my life.
|
| To illustrate, about a year or so ago, I accidentally smashed my
| fingers in my car door as I was closing it. To distract myself
| from the pain, my brain focused on how funny this was, and I
| started giggling like a madman. It worked! I could barely feel
| any discomfort as my mind switched over from pain and anger to
| finding the comedy in my predicament.
|
| Perhaps the answer is simply in switching our awareness of what
| is happening from negative to positive emotions over time, and
| building good memories to support our newfound freedom. We can
| control our emotions, we don't need to be controlled by them.
| alexktz wrote:
| I will remember this if ever my leg gets chopped off by a
| chainsaw!
| CGamesPlay wrote:
| Just remember that the laughing only helps your mental state.
| You'll probably still want to laugh your way into a
| tourniquet.
| amriksohata wrote:
| I'll stick to the Hindu sages meditation rather than this
| mindfulness rebrand thank you very much
|
| Oh and yoga and equanimity
| crazygringo wrote:
| As someone who's done a ton of academic research in emotions, I
| just want to point out:
|
| Lisa Feldman Barrett's theory of emotions (which this article
| uses) is widely considered implausible by emotions researchers,
| but she's gotten a surprising amount of media coverage that
| presents her theories as consensus or fact.
|
| In a nutshell: traditional "appraisal theory" says for example,
| we appraise something as dangerous (a bear), and have an emotion
| that consists of bodily and mental feelings (fear), and that
| emotions are inbuilt much like colors are. (You can't choose to
| see red as blue).
|
| What Barrett argues is that seeing a bear produces adrenaline --
| a feeling which _precedes_ emotion -- and then we can interpret
| that adrenaline feeling however we like, that emotions are
| essentially cultural constructions or labels we 've invented that
| we're free to uninvent.
|
| However, this view, besides defying common sense, simply isn't
| consistent with data. Emotions follow regular patterns in what
| generates them (e.g. a dangerous situation creates fear) and what
| relieves them (e.g. escaping a dangerous situation allows fear to
| subside). There's zero evidence we can reinterpret or redefine
| our emotions by will, as she suggests. (Nor can she account for
| why infants all share the same emotional patterns, before they
| could have learned them culturally.)
|
| If you _really_ want to get into current academic theories of
| emotion (and Ctrl+F for "Barrett" to see where she sits), you
| can basically start here:
|
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I thought the Joy Generator they shared in the article was really
| neat.
|
| https://apps.npr.org/joy-generator/#story=intro&page=0
|
| I have developed some of my own tools to create similar effects,
| as part of my text editor journaling process[0]. I think the JG
| is the exact sort of thing that could really help people make
| small yet substantial life changes toward a better experience..
|
| (After using the Joy Generator, I spent a bit of time developing
| an anticipation-generator doc for myself as well, focused on
| creating happy experiences that lay waiting in the future. Pretty
| neat ideas they shared. Thanks NPR.)
|
| 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XehGA1fYulo
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