The Happiness Hypothesis - Changing your Mind summary by Richi

       

Changing Your Mind:

In evolution, many variables decide whether we pass on our genes to our offspring. Usually, it’s easier to have a behavior called negativity bias, where it’s smarter to respond to threats than it is to opportunities. This is intentionally used in evolution, where if you forget about food, then you won’t immediately starve, but if you put yourself vulnerable to predators, then you’re most likely to be eaten. Similar behavior can be seen in our minds, for example, losing a certain amount of money is more painful than the pleasure of earning the opposite amount. We like to see the criticism side of everything, besides the positive feedback. Our reaction to bad usually is faster and stronger than our reaction to good. There are two motivational systems that our behavior is controlled with. One is called the approach system. It makes you motivated to move towards certain things and to have a positive mindset. The other system is called the withdrawal system. This is where you decide to stop accepting new things, and instead, just to quit your current goals. This system triggers a negative mindset. It’s easier to withdraw from things than to approach them. Your body can react to fear before you even know what just happened. This response helps to make you extra vigilant for when an actual emergency occurs. We see a world filled with possible dangers and threats rather than opportunities. It’s our negative emotions that make things worse.

              Genetics plays a part in giving a person personality. Happiness is commonly inherited through genetics. Identical twins who share the same genetics will have almost all the same personalities and preferences, even if they were separated at birth. These studies also reveal that 50 to 80 percent of all differences in people with average happiness are mostly the result of genes rather than life experiences. The answer on how to balance happiness in your life is to equalize the motivative and withdrawal system. Brain wave studies have seen results of asymmetric frontal cortex. This has been shown to influence our positive and negative emotions. When a brainwave comes from the left side of our frontal cortex, it has been proven that people are more positive, and have less fear, anxiety, and shame than people on the right side. It is also shown that people on the left have an easier time recovering from negativity, and depression. People who have their cortex on the right side are more fearful about social life and activities. Its harder for them to control their withdrawal system. So how do we overcome an overactive withdrawal system?

              Three ways can help change your mind to being more positive and approaching: meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac. Meditation has been used in many different religions and was first invented in India. It requires you to sit down and focus on your breathing or one thing or image. This is difficult at first, but after a while, you will slowly learn how to concentrate more. This requires patients to master, but it’s the best form of changing your mind. Cognitive therapy is another method. People with depression get trapped thinking of bad situations that give negative feelings. This doesn’t help since it makes them start thinking of distortions. Cognitive therapy works by making them write their thoughts down, pointing out the distortions, and make the person write down a more accurate way of thinking. This helps to change their views to be more realistic. Prozac is a drug that goes into the synapses between a neuron for only neurons that releases serotonin. This makes the neurons fire more often because the serotonin gets blocked out. This produces benefits such as stopping depression, anxiety, panic attacks, social phobia, some eating disorders, and hoarding. If you struggle with an overactive withdrawal system, you might want to consider doing these methods. Some of these methods are more effective to some than to others. You can't always find the right answer by sticking to one method, this can apply to many other things in your life. Find what’s best for you.