Plus aucune décence, je deviens multicarte du bonheur. On pourrait penser que j’ai la tête dans les étoiles, plus aucune notion des réalités de ce monde, et pourtant mes plantes de pied sont parfaitement arrimées. Je crois, voir je constate, que l’optimisme appelle l’action et que nous avons tous besoin de ce carburant pour accomplir de belles choses.
Sans nier l’état du monde, la douleur de mon voisin ou la mienne, je me concentre sur le bon, le beau, le fort et je l’encourage, le nourrit pour toujours le faire grandir plus.
Alors j’ose. J’ose rejoindre la Ligue des Optimistes et continuer mon chemin sur des routes qui peuvent parfois sembler irréelles.
Je passe la journée avec Luc Simonet, fondateur et président de la Ligue des Optimistes du Royaume de Belgique. 7h30 Luc passe me prendre à la gare et commence une journée à explorer la genèse, les actions, les membres de la ligue. Ils ont même créé un pays : l’Optimistan !
Luc Simonet souhaite « remettre de la joie dans les liens plutôt que dans les biens »
Une tribu qui croit aux bienfaits de l’optimisme !
When I was younger, I studied Economics at the University. I had to use esoteric terms, complicated theories, hypothesis “all things being equal”, going from micro to macro… I felt I had to understand a monster created by us but not for us.
We have to feed the giant to maybe have a chance to see him do what we want him to do. The pulse of the beast: the GDP. But didn’t we develop all those tools to have a better life? Is it working? What’s the point of all that if human wellbeing is not in the center of our economics?
A small but famous country, Bhutan, is showing us a new way. Bhutan is Famous for it’s measurement of gross national happiness instead of GDP. But measuring happiness is a first step and doesn’t mean that the country is the country of happiness. A wave of suicide has been reported as a consequence of modernization and weaker family links.
Let me introduce you to my friend Gilles who is passionate about emotions and founded an emotion based city guide: Sencities. He is working with specialists in the field of emotions and introduced me to Florent from the Lab LUTIN (Imp in French). They pluged me on a machine that took several data like my heartbeat, my eyes movements and my breathing. The lab is studying and measuring our emotions for industrial purpose, in this lab it’s specifically for the videogame industry but we can easely imagine that it could be used to measure happiness eventhough for the moment they can’t make the difference between anger and happiness for example.
I tried an other machine/gadget/tool that claims it can raise your happiness level: hearthmath. It helps you monitor your emotions and through exercices coordinate your brain and your heart. It’s called coherence.
Technology is trying to measure happiness but on a world level it seems that happiness became a hot subject. Even the very famous social network Facebook launched an analysis of our happiness level using keywords in users status. Learn more about it with this article or this video.
But in the end do we need so many criterias to measure happiness?
In Hypertension and Happiness across Nations , David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald measured blood-pressure of 15,000 randomly sampled individuals from 16 countries. They compared well-being with high blood pressure and found evidence that suggests that happier nations report fewer blood-pressure problems. It matched happiness measurements that were made with a simple scale of subjective happiness.
This other study “examined the accuracy of measuring happiness by a single item (Do you feel happy in general?) answered on an 11-point scale (0-10). Its temporal stability was 0.86. The correlations between the single item and both the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI; Argyle, Martin, & Lu, 1995; Hills & Argyle, 1998) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985; Pavot & Diener, 1993) were highly significant and positive, denoting good concurrent validity. Moreover, the single item had a good convergent validity because it was highly and positively correlated with optimism, hope, self-esteem, positive affect, extraversion, and self-ratings of both physical and mental health. Furthermore, the divergent validity of the single item has been adequately demonstrated through its significant and negative correlations with anxiety, pessimism, negative affect, and insomnia. It was concluded that measuring happiness by a single item is reliable, valid, and viable in community surveys as well as in cross-cultural comparisons.”
We can continue measuring cold data like money but I believe that there is space to use happiness as a legitimate indicator and driver for our society. Who’s in?
<Little souvenir from my stay in Brittany where I enjoyed my peace of mind >
Our body is a machine, a fined tuned machine, an unbelievable partner. I don’t know how you see your body but its mechanics are amazing. I ask “pull tongue to little boy” (bad bad girl), “shake but on dance floor”, “take fork, bring food” and you know what, my body does it for me! But that’s only one part! Once I have enjoyed that meal, he digests it and does all the work without me asking for it or even understanding how he is doing it. I may sound foolish but it is a miraculous thing to have a body. When I think about all what my body is doing for me, I often wonder why I am so cruel to him at times.
Anyway, that’s not the subject. My point today is to explore the chemicals of the body that induce happiness.
In the synapse, the space between two neurons, two neurotransmitters have been identified to be major players in affecting our moods: serotonin and dopamine.
Dopamine acts as a pacemaker: if we have too much, we are restless; too little, we are slow.
Serotonin acts as an antidepressant. If you produce a lot of it, you have a tendency to have a positive representation of the world. However, the production of serotonin obeys to a genetic determinant. Certain genes produce long proteins, which enables them to carry more serotonin.
But if those neurotransmitters are the key to happiness why is there a gap between the day a patient swallows his pill and the effect? Why do antidepressants reduce negative emotions, such as anxiety and fear, but do not seem to boost optimism or extroversion? (1998 study - Brian Knutson)
In addition to the neurotransmitters, hormones would also have their say in the mechanics of happiness. Among them, endorphin is a molecule secreted into the brain, blocking the transmission of painful stimuli. That’s why sport is key to happiness since 30 minutes of exercise will increase your endorphin secretion five times.
Other hormones might have a role to play such as estrogen or testosterone. Even if they have clues , scientists are still investigating the chemistry of happiness.
If tomorrow, the pharmaceutical industry launched a pill that would trigger all the right hormones and neurotransmitters for happiness, would you take it? Isn’t happiness also the joy of overcoming difficult times? Isn’t sadness necessary?
Imagine that one day such a pill could be used to make everything OK. A dictator, a guru, any abusive person could drive users because you are happy, happy, stupid! I really doubt that the chemistry is our way to happiness just like the Dollhouse guy said, happiness is nothing without awareness or even will.
Dr Vaillant used a longitudinal method of research to conduct a great study. He followed 268 students from Harvard to understand how to live well.
I am so grateful for all the people who worked on that study for more than 60 years because it is as good as a good soap opera, only it’s not fantasy and you get to really learn from it.
The analysis is punctuated by a few biographies that make it very lively.
After reading the article I have this feeling of walking on a thread. Before, it was misty and I couldn’t see it. Now that I am experiencing a happy flow, I can feel the power it gives me but also its fragility. Visualizing all those life was like looking at boat captains. Enigmatic, grandiose, free to wreck it boat captains.
o A little anecdote that really made me laugh and says much about happiness:
“Yet, even as he takes pleasure in poking holes in an innocent idealism, Vaillant says his hopeful temperament is best summed up by the story of a father who on Christmas Eve puts into one son’s stocking a fine gold watch, and into another son’s, a pile of horse manure. The next morning, the first boy comes to his father and says glumly, “Dad, I just don’t know what I’ll do with this watch. It’s so fragile. It could break.” The other boy runs to him and says, “Daddy! Daddy! Santa left me a pony, if only I can just find it!”
o And that’s what they have identified as being healthy characteristics:
“The healthiest, or “mature,” adaptations include altruism, humor, anticipation (looking ahead and planning for future discomfort), suppression (a conscious decision to postpone attention to an impulse or conflict, to be addressed in good time), and sublimation (finding outlets for feelings, like putting aggression into sport, or lust into courtship).”
“Employing mature adaptations was one. The others were education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight.”
o About positive and negative emotions:
“In fact, Vaillant went on, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.”
But the beauty of it is that it is based on empirical research.
It spoke to my left brain giving it loads of experiments and numbers to crunch. And it talked to my right brain because it’s all that has been great with my life lately and it was written black on white. I loved that book.
I immediately did a search on the net and I am now following Sonja’s blog and have enjoyed her work overview video at google. And if you have less than 5 minutes here is a casual TV interview:
Sonja is also the cocreator of an Iphone application to be released by signal patterns: Live Happy
I highly recommend this book to those of you who want an entrance door to positive psychology.
