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    Real Simple the Power of Positivity
    Real Simple the Power of Positivity
    Real Simple the Power of Positivity
    Ebook198 pages1 hour

    Real Simple the Power of Positivity

    By Meredith Corporation

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    About this ebook

    An optimistic outlook can make you healthier, wealthier, and happier too. In this special edition, you'll find: tricks to tap your inner optimist, decorating tips for a happy space, real-life stories of kindness and community, and raising upbeat kids, building self-compassion.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMeredith Corporation
    Release dateApr 2, 2021
    ISBN9781547855186
    Real Simple the Power of Positivity

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      Book preview

      Real Simple the Power of Positivity - Meredith Corporation

      motivated.

      INTRODUCTION

      A Healthier Happy

      Healthy positivity doesn’t mean you should never be sad or have a bad day. It means you approach everyday challenges in a more productive way.

      BY GINNY GRAVES

      WHEN IT COMES TO EMOTIONS, happiness rocks. It makes you feel like bursting into song or helping a neighbor with their heavy grocery bags. Happiness is good for you too. It reduces stress, strengthens your ability to fight off germs, boosts your heart health, and might even help you live longer. Other positive emotions, like awe, love, and gratitude, suffuse your body with an uplifting sensation that can make you feel more at peace with yourself and at one with the world. (Close your eyes and think of a room full of puppies or the vastness of the Grand Canyon. See what I mean?)

      Positive thinking, or optimism, goes hand in hand with those uplifting emotions, and it has a slew of benefits too. Optimists tend to have better health habits, more financial stability, and closer relationships. They’re more adept at coping with stress and less likely to burn out at work. And they have lower rates of heart disease. Also encouraging, there’s evidence that everyone—even those who are more pessimistic—can nudge their brains in a more positive direction. One example: People taught mindfulness techniques in a study felt less anxious and had increased activity in the left side of their brains, the side associated with positive moods and optimism. In other words, mindfulness might help you train your brain to be less worried and more buoyant.

      Because positive emotions have such an upside, you might assume that you should try to look on the bright side all the time—or that having down days and negative emotions is a sign you’re failing. But healthy positivity doesn’t mean you should never be sad or have a bad day. It means you approach everyday challenges in a more productive way, says Stephanie Preston, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. Grief, anxiety, anger, fear, and sadness are appropriate responses to events that happen in our lives, she adds. Like a physical pain in the body, they’re a signal that something isn’t right. They are intended to make us stop and examine what’s going on.

      Still, acknowledging negative emotions can be surprisingly hard in our pro-happiness culture—especially now, when more and more people are encouraging everyone to stay positive. Experts call this toxic positivity. It crops up in Instagram and Facebook comments, with phrases like Look on the bright side! and Everything happens for a reason. This overly rose-colored approach can be summed up in three words: good vibes only.

      Focusing on the positive is a sensible instinct, because positive emotions keep us healthy, says Preston. But it’s not truly optimal, or even possible, to be positive all the time. When researchers analyzed daily emotion reports collected from 11,572 people over the course of 35 days, they found that positive emotions were 2.5 times as frequent as negative ones, but there was always a quirky mix—a strong helping of joy, for instance, with a generous side of anxiety, a splash of guilt or gratitude, a dollop of anger. That’s normal, says Preston. That’s what healthy looks like.

      What’s more, insisting on positivity at all costs can cost you. When people ignore challenging emotions, they often drink, eat, or shop too much, says Margaret Seide, MD, a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City. If you adopt the attitude that positive emotions are the only ones that are acceptable, it can make friends and loved ones who are grappling with challenging issues—whether they’re worried about money, grieving the loss of a loved one, or struggling with the ongoing stress of systemic racism—feel like there is something wrong with them, says Preston.

      The healthiest way to approach tough emotions, experts say, is to accept them. Instead of distracting yourself when you’re feeling sad, angry, guilty, or anxious, try this: Take a few breaths and name the emotion. Labeling emotions has been shown to decrease their intensity, because it gives you some distance from them, says Claudia Trudel-Fitzgerald, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. You can even close your eyes and think about where you feel it in your body or imagine what shape or color the sensation would be if it were in physical form—coping techniques that allow you to acknowledge how you’re feeling without being swept away by it. That said, it’s also perfectly acceptable—even healthy—to sob your heart out or pummel a pillow on occasion. That physical response can help you face, and release, powerful emotions.

      The accept-your-feelings approach is equally beneficial when it comes to positive emotions. Whether you’re happy or grateful, try to get the most out of the experience by bringing your full attention to it. Notice the thoughts, emotions, scents, and visuals that accompany the joyful feeling. By milking the good moments, you actually strengthen the networks in your brain that are linked to positivity.

      Accepting your emotions without judging them has real benefits, according to a series of studies by researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley. In the first trial, they assessed participants’ ability to accept their negative emotions and found that those who had high levels of acceptance also had higher levels of well-being and life satisfaction and lower symptoms of depression and anxiety. In other words, they were more emotionally healthy than those who were less able to accept their emotions.

      In the next two studies, they discovered that people who had higher levels of emotional acceptance were also more skillful at dealing with stressors—they were less freaked out after giving an impromptu speech in a lab study, and they felt less sadness, distress, anger, anxiety, and hostility when they faced stressors in real life.

      The takeaway: People with a healthy level of positivity acknowledge hard times and accept negative emotions—and that helps them cope with challenges and maintain, overall, a positive outlook on life. What’s more, they’re able to acknowledge a range of emotions in their friends and loved ones—and that can be beneficial too. Supporting people you care about when they’re going through a rough time is good for your relationships, because it can solidify your bonds and build trust, says Seide. And robust relationships are a hallmark sign of emotional health.

      We may never welcome sadness or anxiety the way we do happiness. But just for a moment try to imagine life without difficult emotions. How would you know you were happy if you’d never felt sad? Or proud if you’d never been embarrassed? Who would you be if you didn’t grieve when you lost a loved one, feel worried when your child has a fever, or get angry about social injustice? We don’t usually think of negative emotions as an integral part of healthy positivity. But it’s time to start. People who are emotionally healthy acknowledge and accept that they and everyone around them will have ups and downs and feel a range of emotions, says Seide. They’re not afraid of negative emotions and they’re able to cope with them, even if they prefer positive ones. They’re realistic enough to know that one doesn’t exist without the other.

      How would you know you were happy, if you’d never felt sad? Or proud if you’d never felt embarrassed?

      CHAPTER 1

      TAP YOUR OPTIMISM

      BRIGHT-SIDE BENEFITS / SIMPLE STRATEGIES / A FEEL-GOOD MINDSET

      Why Positivity Matters

      Optimists are healthier, wealthier, and happier. And it’s a mindset anyone can cultivate.

      BY GINNY GRAVES

      I HAVE LONG thought of myself as a happy pessimist. I’m not dour, gloomy, or depressive. In fact, a friend once accused me of being too smiley. But when faced with uncertain circumstances—if my husband wakes up with a cough, say, or my elderly mom doesn’t answer her phone—my mind ignores the benign possibilities and sprints toward worst-case-scenarios, which it fixates on, like a dog intent on a squirrel, until proven wrong. Given the choice between believing that good things will happen—the definition of optimism—and worrying that bad things might, you can reliably find me doomscrolling.

      But a while back, new research with hard-to-ignore headlines, like Optimism Is Associated with Exceptional Longevity and Life Is Better with a Half-Full Glass, began landing on my desk, forcing me to question my fatalistic perspective. So I decided to find out: What, aside from rose-colored glasses, do positive thinkers get to enjoy that I don’t? And if a more hopeful mindset really is beneficial, can a doubter like me transform herself into someone who expects things to turn out for the best?

      The perks of being an optimist

      Researchers

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