“The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality,” so explains Andrew Solomon in this Ted Talk. He chronicled his how experiences in The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression.
Strengths Mined: Zest, Positivity, Optimism
There is a growing body of research that suggests connections to using your strengths regularly and higher levels of wellbeing. Here are some specific examples regarding Depression:
Using one’s signature strengths in a new and unique way is an effective intervention: it increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Seligman, Steen, Park, Peterson, 2005).
Using one’s signature strengths in a new way and three good things increased happiness for 6 months and decreased depression for 3 and 6 months, respectively. The early positive memory group and not the early memory group had similar benefits increasing happiness and decreasing depression for 3 months each (Mongrain & Anselmo, 2009).
The use of one’s top strengths leads to a decreased likelihood of depression and stress and an increase in satisfaction in law students (Peterson & Peterson, 2008).
Three good things (writing down three positive things that happened during the day) is an effective intervention: it increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Seligman, Steen, Park, Peterson, 2005).
Using one’s signature strengths in a new way increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Gander, Proyer, Ruch, & Wyss, 2012).
The use of one’s top strengths leads to a decreased likelihood of depression and stress and an increase in satisfaction in law students (Peterson & Peterson, 2008).
…if you are buying something for someone else. “Spending on other people has a bigger return for you than spending on yourself.” So says Harvard Business School professor Michael I. Norton.
How generous are you? You can take an online survey at Give and Take (registration required, but free) that will analyze your responses and give you a rating in three domains: Giving, Taking and Matching.
How do people give?
It is still not too late to give this season; join the crowd:
Curiosity, Dillon proposes, is a way of knowing that looks askance. It draws attention to the unexplained or overlooked fragment, to invite us, if possible, to look sideways and look closely at the same time. As such, its promise of knowledge is ambiguous. Does curiosity seek to unmask the strangeness that absorbs its attention, or is it an invitation to luxuriate in that strangeness? Does it carry an inherent Baconian injunction to go further and illuminate, or does it recommend the alternative pleasures of not knowing? “Enigma lies at the core of the curious experience,” Marina Warner comments in a short essay included in Curiosity, “epiphany should not reveal all.” So is curiosity a wake-up call or a waking dream?
“I share therefor I am” Shimi Cohen is a graphic artist who has struck a cord exploring loniness in the age of connection. Nearing a million views on You Tube, the Video addresses the connection between Social Networks and Being Lonely? Quoting the words of Sherry Turkle from her TED talk – Connected, But Alone and drawing inspiration from Dr. Yair Amichai-Hamburgers hebrew article -The Invention of Loneliness, Cohen’s senior project at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. Cohen explores the paradoxical nature of becoming connected with technology which can isolate our natural social instincts. He spent 3 weeks sketching and translating the script into visuals, using Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D to create the 2-D animation.
What does positive psychology teach us about loneliness?
Leverage your strengths:
VIA has been researching the role using strengths in your life and how they impact your mental well being:
Using one’s signature strengths in a new way increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Gander, Proyer, Ruch, & Wyss, 2012).
Using one’s signature strengths in a new way increased happiness for 6 months and decreased depression for 3 months (Mongrain & Anselmo-Matthews, 2012).
The use of one’s top strengths leads to a decreased likelihood of depression and stress and an increase in satisfaction in law students (Peterson & Peterson, 2008).
Using one’s signature strengths in a new and unique way is an effective intervention: it increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Seligman, Steen, Park, Peterson, 2005).
Among high school students, other-oriented strengths (e.g., kindness, teamwork) predicted fewer depression symptoms while transcendence strengths (e.g., spirituality) predicted greater life satisfaction (Gillham et al., 2011).
Grateful individuals report higher positive mood, optimism, life satisfaction, vitality, religiousness and spirituality, and less depression and envy than less grateful individuals (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).
While the above are not specific to loneliness, you can see the connection between depression and loneliness.
Make meaning in your life
Sam Mullins struggled with finding meaning. A few years ago, he moved to Vancouver to pursue his dream of being a big city writer and actor. So he poured his heart and soul into it. And failed. But one night at work he was challenged to make a tinfoil dinosaur and his life changed…because he shared something authentic with a stranger. It was not always that way:
I have a social anxiety disorder, and an increasingly large hunch-back. I write stories for CBC’s DNTO sometimes. I perform one-man shows sometimes. I have suicidal thoughts sometimes. And then I write one-man shows about said suicidal thoughts.
The backdrop to the story is fascinating as he reflects on it and where it has all led:
I felt like I was the poster boy for everything wrong with my generation. I felt foolish.
My sense of entitlement, my solipsism and my delusional belief that I was a unique and talented person led me to acting school. I had graduated four years later, at great expense to my parents, and then naively stepped out into the big wide world without having the slightest inkling of how to survive. And by the end of that year, I wasn’t against the ropes. I was on life-support.
So, just like that, I was back in my childhood bedroom. I was working a labour job. And I was eating a casserole prepared by my Mother every night. I didn’t know what to do next. I felt like I was lost in the universe.
Sam is doing what Victor Frankl calls making meaning:
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
For you see, you are always free to choose; perhaps not your experience, but the meaning you give that experience:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Frankl goes on to explain the significance of love in our lives:
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”
By the way, NPR picked up Sam’s story for the Moth
There has been a quiet transformation happening in some schools around the world as they focus on the conditions under which students, parents and faculty flourish? How do we improve student engagement? How can we better address our communities well-being? What is positive education and how does it impact student learning? Deep questions, but with some very compelling and surprisingly simple ideas to address them. In this workshop, we will look into the current research from positive psychology and its implications for teachers, counselors and administrators. The day will have lots of interactive activities and demonstration giving participants tools that they can use in their own communities.
Dr. Helen Fisher has been researching and writing about love for years. Such is her wisdom and understanding, she is the Chief Scientific Advisor for Match.com, one of the internet’s leading online dating service. She gives a fascinating and fun interview with The Greater Good contrasting poetry and song lyrics with the scientific lyrics.
You can take the test here to see which are your dominant types. I hypothesize the strengths that possibly exist in each personality type:
Explorers (creative and dominated by dopamine). Known for being Highly curious, creative, energetic, spontaneous. ‘Adventure’ is the word most often used by Explorers as they describe themselves and what they are looking for in a mate. The other nine of their top ten most-used words (in descending order) are: venture, spontaneity/ spontaneous, energy, new, fun, travelling, outgoing, passion and active.
Builder (sensible and soaked in serotonin). Known for Calm, social, popular, and good at managing people, networking, and building family and community. ‘Family’ is the most-used word by Builders. Following this: honesty, caring, moral/morals, respect, loyal, trust, values, loving and trustworthy.
Director (reasoning and ruled by testosterone). Known for Analytical and logical, straightforward, decisive, tough minded, and focused. Intelligent and intelligence together top the list of words used by Directors. Also intellectual, debate, geek, nerd/nerdy, ambition/ ambitious, driven, politics, challenge/challenging and real.
Negotiator (intuitive, idealistic, and all about the estrogen and oxytocin). Known for Imaginative, intuitive, empathetic, and emotionally expressive, and have good verbal and social skills. ‘Passion’ and ‘passionate’, also real, heart, kind/kindness, sensitive, read/reader, sweet, learning.
Dr. Helen Fisher
