Ann Bradley, M.A.

What Is The Science of Happiness?

What is Positive Psychology?


Psychology has moved away from an emphasis on pathology to an emphasis on what is right with people, what are their strengths, and how can they best use them. Recent research has proved the benefits of optimism.


BENEFITS of OPTIMISM that You Can Have in Your Life

1. Achieve more in any task or goal

2. Higher level of Contentment and Life Satisfaction

3. Better Health

4. More Friends

5. Continued Optimistic Outlook

6. "Life is Good"

7. Feeling of Control over Life

8. Handle Life's Big and Small Problems Better

9. Easier to make decisions without anxiety


Here's an example from the world of sports:

Optimistic pitchers pitch better games than their pessimistic peers. Optimistic hitters have higher batting averages. Optimistic Olympic swimmers swim faster AFTER defeat and go on to win.

You don't need to be an athlete to see the benefits of an optimistic outlook.


HARVARD LONGITUDINAL STUDY: An Interesting Way of Finding Out How Optimism Impacts Lives

Impact on Health

In the first main study on optimism, health and mortality, men coming back from World War II were asked to write essays. Years passed and in the 90's Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania did a content analysis of the writing. He found that up to age 65, pessimism was a predictor of mortality. The more pessimistic phrases and words used in the essays correctly predicted those who would get sick and die by age 65. However, past 65, the major predictor of longevity and health was genetics, not pessimism. So - stay optimistic until 65, then you can become a grouch if you want!


And it has been found that the immune system of optimistic women is healthier than that of pessimists.


IS OPTIMISM LEARNABLE?

Absolutely. If you are a dyed in the wool pessimist, always looking at the bad, seeing doom everywhere and feeling helpless against the problems large and small in your world, it is abosulutely possible to learn what the optimistic person knows and does. Students who learned optimism had less illness. Happy people live 8 to 10 years longer.

How One Door Closed and Another Opened.

Events will take their course, it is no good
Our being angry at them; he is happiest
Who wisely turns them to the best account.
Euripides


My Own Life Events and The Power of Positive Psychology

Several years ago I was in the middle of a lengthy divorce with a narcissist. It was always reinventing itself through endless litigation keeping me prisoner in the legal system. Financial, emotional and legal abuse kept me busy, overwhelmed.

An optimist by nature, a long time mentor of many of optimism's tricks, I was surprised that I became depressed. I realized the depression was coming from the fact that nothing I was doing made any difference. I was feeling helpless and this is the definition of depression. Depression arises from feeling that you are helpless to change a situation.

In truth, there were many things I couldn't control. I was correctly perceiving reality. But I looked around for those areas in which I could make a difference. I decided to do some "disputing" of my negative thougts and that was the beginning of change. All the way through the Court of Appeals my husband took this case with an attorney assisting him in his fraud - whew! it was a lot of work, drama, and I would get angry because I had a 17 year old to take care of.

But I was determined to let other information in, to turn up the volume of my successes and look at this situation through the proper lens.

Your "explanatory style" impacts your life. Being resilient is being flexible is being optimistic. Looking at every event through a pessimistic lens keeps joy at bay, and hope seems impossible. Change the explanatory style and suddenly life changes.


LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

If you think nothing you do makes a difference, suppose you thought that what you did would effect change? Suppose you were able to be optimistic even when life events were not good?

It's easy to be optimistic when nothing goes wrong. But learning optimism to take you through the troubling times is a tool for a happier life.


RESILIENCY FACTORS

Resiliency, the ability to bounce back, is on a continuum. There are seven components of resiliency:


1. Ability to identify and control emotions

2. Impulse Control

3. Optimism is critical ingredient: use it to stay focused, task oriented. This is not "the more the merrier" myth of what optimism is. It does not deny truth and reality.

4. Empathy is a key ingredient in social relationships.

5. Self-efficacy: Confidence in your ability to know and solve problems

6. Reaching Out: Taking appropriate risks.

6. Learning to Lose. Sometimes we lose - everything we had or wanted or expected. Finding a mentor who has been there and bounced back will show you that sometimes hitting bottom, means you bounce back up highh. Learning to lose is very important - are you going to get back up or stay down there?


HOW TO BE HAPPY
People ask me how to be happier. Thanks to Dr. Seligman and other pioneers in Positive Psychology, there are ways to increase happiness. From gratitude stories to counting your blessings, from reaching out to others and finding and using your signature strengths, Dr. Seligman has many ways that have been scientifically proven to increase and sustain happiness. From pessimism to optimism, the journey to happiness is achievable, within reach and you don't have to go through trauma to get there!

Change your self image, learn reinvention techniques, how to set goals that really can be achieved, and BUST out of the EXCUSES BOX.


ABUSE and OPTIMISM

If you are dealing with a narcissist or other emotional abuser you must learn the techniques of resiliency and optimism to get through what s/he will do to you. It is possible to construct your powerful defenses against them. They cannot tolerate happiness, an attitude of "I don't need you" and "I will NOT be your doormat."

Time to Be Happy Is NOW. There are no do-overs in this lifetime. Life is moving along. How do you want to spend the rest of it?


Join me on this adventure to coaching you to success and happiness with proven techniques. Learned helplessness. Depression. Pessimism. Change your explanatory style and you change your life. Power, control and optimism.


YOU ARE IN CONTROL....and if you aren't I can help you get there. If you are divorcing a narcissist find out that you are not a "malignant optimist", you can be a functional optimist. And happy.

Coaching and Consulting

annbradley@gmail.com