【哈佛积极心理学笔记】第17课 运动与冥想

第17课 运动与冥想

aerobic exercise has similar effect to some of our most powerful psychiatric(精神病) drugs.

other form of training that works:
interval training:
30 min of aerobic exercise, at least twice a week.

3. don’t have time
   We have a limited amount of self-displine. Create rituals of exercise.

4. subconscious barrier
   Nathaniel Branden, self-esteem:
   the notion that we are worthy of happiness:
   when you ask people, “are you worthy of happiness?” Most people would say, “yes” But if we ask the subconscious. Very often, for many people, it’s no.
   But very often we have this voice, the subconscious level that “we are not really worthy of happiness”. And that is a barrier, that stop us from becoming happier.
   I know that exercise makes me happier, it makes me feel good. But if my subconscious thinks that I’m unworthy of these feelings, unworthy of being happy, it may in fact stop me from exercising.

Bill Swann:
self-confirmation theory, which is a very powerful force within us. There is a self-enhancement that we want to appear good in other people’s eyes, in our eyes, but there is a counter-force, which is self-conformation, where we want to confirm whatever we think about ourselves. And if we think we are not worthy of happiness, we very often not do things that actually make us happy.
In relationship: If I think I’m unworthy of a wonderful partner of being happy in relationships, very often I’ll often inadvertently subconscious working here, jeopardize the relationship, and look for things that are not working, actively, subconsciously look for ways of hurting the relationship.
So we need to be aware of the subconscious level. And very much it applies to whether or not we exercise.

Just to do it (the five minute to take off). Ritualize it. Not Analyze it too much. Just go ahead and exercise.

Exercise is the unsung hero of psychological interventions.

We are much less likely to be violent, it calm us, it brings us to our natual state of being, which is much calmer as opposed to being angry and upset. And people need to let out that steam. Unfortunately very often that steam is let out in fights with aggression.

Exercise Revolution

• Obesity ↓
• School performance ↑
• Violence ↓
• Ultimate currency ↑

Endorphins 内咖肽

The heppiness revolution is based on exercise revolution. Because if we don’t exercise, we are fighting against nature.

Meditation

second mind body intervention

forms of mindful meditation:

• yoga
• sitting meditation
• Taichi、Qi Kong
• just focus on the breath
• focus on compassion

Meditation is about being present, being in the here and now, struggling with being in the here and now. And when we lose our thought, when we lose our focus on the breath, simply bring it back.

meditators, very high levels of well being and happiness, being susceptible to postive emotions and resilient in the face of painful emotions.

Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions, “Given that larger someone’s startle, the more intensely that preson tends to experience upsetting emotions. Oser’s performance had tantaliizing implications, suggesting a remarkable level of emotional equanimity”

1. 效果
2. 因果关系

Regular people doing 45 minutes of meditation today, are changing the way their brain functions, making them more susceptible to positive emotions, more resilent in the face of painful emotions.

With as little as 15-20 minutes a day of meditation, you see a significant change over time in levels of well being. Emotional well being as well as physical well being (e.g immune system).

Mindfulness has been used in numerous areas, numerous places as therapy. Both as in, together with cognitive behavioral therapy, together with medicine, medication as well as on its own. And it was shown to be extremely effective.

The Mindful Way Through Depression

It tell us about how mindfulness can help us overcome major depression, mild depression as well as things like anxiety and how it can also help other psychological disorders.

longitudinal 纵向的

8 week program which is fantastic:
first level: awareness and acceptance of the body signal
whenever we enter experiencing emotion, there is always a physical manifestation to do it.

Another way of dealing with it is cognitively reconstructing it, saying instead of stress, what a privilege.

This is different from avoiding. This is different from repressing. There is a time to simple accept and to give ourselves the permission to be human. However, it’s useless to just constantly ruminate about it and simply strengthen the neural pathways.

Mindful meditation…

What we are doing and what mindful therapy does is change our focus from doing to being.

When things happen. How can I fix it. Very often it’s counter-productive. If we try playing with it, open it, look at it, help it, we’ll only hurt it.
So we are moving, we are shifting our focus from trying to fix to simply be with that emotion, with that experience, with the manifestation of the pain.

William, “Trying to get rid of depression in the usual problem-solving way, tring to fix what’s wrong with us, just digs us in deeper. Rumination is part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

“With the shift trying to ignore or eliminate physical discomfort to paying attention with friendly curiosity, we can transform, quite literally transform our experience”

last tip: breathing.

Calm and well being leads to deep breathing, and deep breathing in turn leads to calm and well being.

Introduce deep breathing to your life. Just a few times a day. That can have far-reaching consequences.