Beyond Happy: Post #3--Feeling Good

Feeling Good. When we feel happy and positive, our lives get better. We get healthier and the people around us benefit from our positive emotions—especially if you’re a leader. Positive people have
lower levels of anxiety and depression, are more resilient and creative, and are healthier and more secure. Indeed the brain structure changes—morphs—based on what we think about. It’s called neuroplasticity. There’s been abundant research on positive emotions and how people get them. In particular, three conditions foster feeling good: Being mindful, grateful and hopeful.  1) According to the founder of the highly respected program Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is “…paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.“ Mindfulness reduces stress, increases the space between stimulus and response, and helps us enjoy where we are right now. 2) Gratitude has been the subject of significant research showing that when we reflect daily on what we’re grateful for, it’s very difficult to be depressed. 3) Finally, hope in the future is critical to happiness; however, being hopeful is not just wishful thinking. Cabrera suggests the following: Visualize your ideal future, identify strategies to get there, keep a victory log of your success, and realize how much work it took your role models to get to where they are.