March 28, 2017
Natural Wealth, Natural Health
The content from today’s newsletter comes from Dr. Joseph Mercola.
His newsletter is well worth subscribing to, and you can do so at www.mercola.com
His article touches on the need to have a predominance of positive emotions over negative emotions.
Here’s an excerpt:
Most Americans have two positive experiences for every negative one, according to Barbara Fredrickson, a psychologist and positive-emotions researcher.
This sounds like it would set you up for positive emotional health, but this 2:1 positivity ratio is only enough for you to barely get by.
In order to flourish emotionally, Fredrickson’s research shows you need a 3:1 ratio.1 That is, you need to have three positive emotions for every one negative emotion.
Flourishing mentally is described as being beyond happiness “in that it encompasses both feeling good and doing good”.
Only 20 percent of Americans achieve this critical ratio, which means 80 percent do not.
Positive emotions obviously make you feel good, but their benefits extend far beyond this. In the video above, Fredrickson explains that positive emotions open your mind, broadening your awareness of the world and allowing you to become more in tune with the needs of others.
Experiencing positive emotions also increases intuition and creativity while broadening your mindset. A broadened mindset, in turn, helps you build important personal resources like social connections, coping strategies, and environmental knowledge that will help you thrive.
Okay, Doug again…the articles over (I’ll paraphrase from here).
It goes on to list the physical and mental benefits of maintaining a 3:1 ratio of positive emotions over negative emotions go far beyond happiness and include…
– A heightened resilience to adversity
– A lower level of the stress hormone cortisol
– Increased resistance to rhinoviruses
– A reduction of an inflammatory response to stress
– Reduced risk of stroke
– Increased immune function
– An extension of lifespan
And while I can’t easily explain it, I know for a fact that it’s possible to experience an apparent negative event and not react with negative emotions. I’ll have more to say on this at some point, but the key to achieving that is to witness the event (so to speak) from a neutral angle.
Anyway, that’s it for today.
So don’t worry, be happy….
Doug Fogel
Co-author of the “Gentle Hands” Headache DVD
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