Science shows that kindness is its own reward

By Due Quach, Founder of Calm Clarity
September 2, 2015

The City of Philadelphia is declaring Oct 27, 2015 (the 333rd anniversary of the founding of Philadelphia by William Penn) as A Day Of Kindness to honor the visits of Pope Francis on September 26-27 and the Dalai Lama on October 26-27. The 30-day period between these visits will be filled with programs and activities to spread kindness throughout the city. The organizers have asked me to explain the science of kindness. The following is an initial draft. 

Ever wonder if the popular saying, “It is better to give than to receive,” is actually true? Recent studies across many fields show that the answer is yes.

1. Givers are star performers

The impact of altruism on career achievement has been the focus of research by Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, who observed that most people at work operate as takers, matchers, or givers. “Whereas takers strive to get as much as possible from others and matchers aim to trade evenly, givers are the rare breed of people who contribute to others without expecting anything in return.”  Grant’s research revealed that many of the most successful people across many industries are givers. By probing deeper, Grant found that givers who have learned how to protect themselves from being exploited tend to accumulate an enormous amount of social capital over the long-term and even inspire the many people they help to pay it forward and give.  Matchers, who make up the vast majority of people, have a natural tendency to reward givers with new opportunities and punish takers.  In the book “Give and Take,” Grant builds a strong case that giving is actually a solid strategy for success.

In a separate study, Donald Moynihan at University of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrated a positive relationship between altruism in the workplace and happiness by following up with participants in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study of more than 10,000 Wisconsin high school graduates in 1957. He found that individuals in their mid-30s who rated helping others in their work as important said they were happier with their life when surveyed again almost 30 years later. The data showed that altruists in the workplace are happier than their fellow employees. Moynihan shared: “Our findings make a simple but profound point about altruism: helping others makes us happier. Altruism is not a form of martyrdom, but operates for many as part of a healthy psychological reward system.”

2. Doing good is good for your health

Over the last several decades an explosion of research on the science of well-being has shown that altruism actually benefits the giver.  Stephen Post, a professor at Stony Brook University, who summarized this body of research in 2005, concluded that “altruistic (other-regarding) emotions and behaviors are associated with greater well-being, health, and longevity.”

Post cited a longitudinal research study led by Stephanie L. Brown at the University of Michigan titled, “Providing Social Support May Be More Beneficial Than Receiving It.” The study examined the relative contributions of giving versus receiving support to longevity in a sample of 423 older married adults over a period of 5 years. Post explains, “Each couple was asked what type of practical support they provided for friends or relatives, if they could count on help from others when needed, and what type of emotional support they gave each other.” The analysis showed that the risk of mortality for people who provided no instrumental or emotional support to others was twice as high as for people who helped spouses, friends, relatives, and neighbors. Helping and supporting others had cut the risk of dying by half.

Post also referred to a study conducted by Kathleen Hunter & Margaret Linn at the University of Miami School of Medicine in the early 1980s. The study looked at retirees above 65 years of age, comparing those who volunteered with those who did not.  The results showed that retirees who volunteered had “significantly higher degree of life satisfaction, stronger will to live, and fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety, and somatization.” Post explained that these findings have been consistently confirmed in a number of subsequent studies on altruistic activities among older adults. According to Post, “Giving help was more significantly associated with better mental health than was receiving help.”

3. How altruism benefits us physiologically  

The benefits of altruism are connected to its role in mitigating the stress response and shifting people out of negative emotional states. One explanation for the underlying physiological mechanisms at work is that altruistic behavior is associated with increased levels of oxytocin and improved functioning of the vagus nerve. Oxytocin, also known as the “cuddle hormone” is released by social bonding and is believed to reduce levels of cortisol, known as the “stress hormone.”  The release of oxytocin is regulated by the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve connects the brain to internal organs such as the heart, lungs, stomach, and intestines, and is also involved in speech, eye contact, facial expressions and the ability to tune into people’s voices.  The vagus nerves plays a key role in the parasympathetic nervous system, which brings the body back into homeostasis after it goes into ‘fight-or-flight’ mode.  The function of the vagus nerve is measured by a concept called “vagal tone” which is determined by using an electrocardiogram to measure heart rate variability. People with higher vagal tone can relax and recover faster after a stressful event.  Prolonged stress decreases vagal tone, thus, increasing a person’s susceptibility to chronic disease.

Dacher Keltner, director of the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley, explains in his book,  “Born to Be Good,” that people who have very high vagal tone, whom he calls “vagal superstars,” tend to display high levels of prosocial behaviors such as caring for others and have strong social support networks.  Keltner’s research showed that vagal superstars are healthier, more resilient and better able to concentrate and remember things.

In 2013, Barbara Fredrickson and Bethany Kok at the University of North Carolina demonstrated that vagal tone can be increased through the practice of loving-kindness meditation. Loving-kindness is a specific form of meditation where people self-generate positive emotions by making altruistic wishes for themselves and other people.  In a randomized controlled study, half of the 65 participants were taught this meditation and practiced it over a period of nine weeks.  The analysis showed that participants in the experimental group who reported greater increases in positive emotions “also exhibited greater increases in social connections, which were in turn associated with larger increases in vagal tone.” In contrast, there were no significant changes in positive emotions, social connections or vagal tone for the control group.  This study was the first to show that vagal tone “can be improved through sustained enhancements in an individual’s emotions and social perceptions.”

More and more research is underway to better understand how kindness has a positive physiological impact on people. For example, Shelley Taylor and Laura Klein at UCLA are now investigating how the “tend-and-befriend” response offers a much more effective approach to overcome stress and adversity compared to the “fight-or-flight” response.

Now that you know that being kind can help you thrive, how will you apply this in your life?

Sources and additional reading:

Grant, A. M. (2014). Give and take: Why helping others drives our success. New York: Penguin Books.

“Virtue rewarded: Helping others at work makes people happier” by University of Wisconsin-Madison News.

Moynihan, D. P. (2013). A Life Worth Living: Evidence on the Relationship between Prosocial Values and Happiness. Working Paper Series, La Follette School Working Paper No. 2013-008.

Post, S. G. (2005). Altruism, Happiness, and Health: It’s Good to Be Good. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Vol. 12, No. 2, 66–77.

Brown, S., Nesse, R. M., Vonokur, A. D., & Smith, D. M. (2003). Providing social support may be more beneficial than receiving it: Results from a prospective study of mortality. Psychological Science, 14, 320–327.

Hunter, K. I., & Linn, M.W. (1980–1981). Psychosocial differences between elderly volunteers and non-volunteers. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 12, 205–213.

Keltner, D. (2009). Born to be good: The science of a meaningful life. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Vince, G. (2015). Hacking The Nervous System. The Huffington Post.

Kok, B., et al. (2013). How Positive Emotions Build Physical Health: Perceived Positive Social Connections Account for the Upward Spiral Between Positive Emotions and Vagal Tone. Psychological Science, 24(7) 1123–1132. 

McGonigal, K. (2015). How to Transform Stress into Courage and Connection. Greater Good Science Center.

Positive emotions broaden our minds

According to Dr. Barbara Frederickson’s research, positive emotions open our minds and enable us to see the bigger picture.  When we feel positive emotions, it’s like a water lily opening at sunrise, nourishing our minds to expand our perspective and enabling us to see interconnections. Positive emotions enhance our ability to collaborate and develop creative solutions to pressing problems.

Dr. Frederickson also discovered positive emotions transform us at the cellular level.  On average, at the cellular level 1% of our cells are renewed each day, so the human body is regenerated every 100 days or the length of a season. One of the most effective ways to increase our “daily diet” of positive emotions is to practice the loving-kindness meditation, which Dr. Frederickson has studied.  When loving-kindness meditation is practiced for 3 months, it leads to profound transformations in our mindset and well-being, which also come through at the cellular level.  The degree to which people experience positive emotions determine whether they languish or flourish!

Another recent study found that people who practice loving-kindness meditation over a long-term period have chromosomes with longer telomeres, a marker associated with longevity and lower risk for cancer.

The importance of discernment

In 2012, when I was in the midst of traveling through India to study meditative and contemplative traditions, I was struck by the diversity of opinions and perspectives within one school of thought and between traditions.  Even within Buddhism, there were three major branches, Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, and each consisted of myriad sects and approaches.  Then as I came to look more broadly at yoga traditions, there were even more schools and approaches. The various teachers I encountered inevitably contradicted each other and themselves from day-to-day.

When I learned of the Kalama Sutra, I realized 2500 years ago, a tribe of people called the Kalamas were perplexed by similar observations.  There were many gurus (contemplatives) that visit them with teachings but each seemed to disparage other teachers and traditions. When the Buddha Siddartha Gautama came to visit their town, they asked him for advice how to distinguish for truthfulness and reliability among the gurus. This is an extract of how he responded:

“‘Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, “This contemplative is our teacher.” When you know for yourselves that, “These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering” — then you should abandon them.'”
“‘Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.”

Thanks to scientific knowledge, it is much easier today than ever before to follow his advice. Over the last 50 years, researchers have collected substantial evidence on the qualities and practices (such as gratitude, compassion, altruism) that when adopted and carried out, lead to well-being and happiness and on which qualities and practices lead to ill-health and suffering (such as worry, anger, unforgiveness).

The aim of the Calm Clarity program is to provide a synthesis of scientific discoveries in order to support people to cultivate habits and qualities that lead to well-being and happiness.

Mindfulness and the Super Bowl

Seattle Seahawks just made NFL history. More than showing the power of a strong defense, they demonstrated to the NFL the power of a kinder, more compassionate and well-being-centered approach to cultivating a team and how building a positive mindset for success can give a team the winning edge. Despite the tremendous pressure and stress of SuperBowl night, the team played like it was easy to do what comes naturally to them.

Calm Clarity incorporates many of the techniques mentioned here to help students visualize success and cultivate a positive mindset.  So far, the pilots show, it is making a positive impact.

Please see the original article from ESPN cited below on our blog for your convenience.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Updated: August 23, 9:57 AM ET

Lotus pose on two

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By Alyssa Roenigk
ESPN The Magazine

This story appears in ESPN The Magazine’s Sept. 2 NFL Preview. 

“IT’S DIFFERENT HERE,” Pete Carroll says. “Have you noticed?” It’s hard not to. At 9 a.m. on the first Sunday of training camp in Renton, Wash., high-performance sports psychologist Mike Gervais, dressed in a navy Seahawks hoodie and white baseball cap and flashing more enthusiasm than is rational at this hour, welcomes players into a meeting room at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center. This place used to be the site of a coal tar refinery; now it’s the happiest, greenest campsite in the history of the NFL. Gervais is about to lead a meditation session and, as he always does, instructs the players to hit record on their phone voice-recorder apps and to close their eyes. Then he starts guiding them: “Quiet your minds,” “Focus your attention inwardly” and “Visualize success.”

To read more, please go to the original article: Lotus pose on two

Studies on the benefits of Loving-Kindness Meditation on health, longevity, and trauma recovery

How positive emotions build physical health: perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone.

Psychol Sci. 2013 Jul 1;24(7):1123-32. doi: 10.1177/0956797612470827. Epub 2013 May 6. Kok, Beth E & Frederickson, Barbara L.

The mechanisms underlying the association between positive emotions and physical health remain a mystery. We hypothesize that an upward-spiral dynamic continually reinforces the tie between positive emotions and physical health and that this spiral is mediated by people’s perceptions of their positive social connections. We tested this overarching hypothesis in a longitudinal field experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to an intervention group that self-generated positive emotions via loving-kindness meditation or to a waiting-list control group. Participants in the intervention group increased in positive emotions relative to those in the control group, an effect moderated by baseline vagal tone, a proxy index of physical health. Increased positive emotions, in turn, produced increases in vagal tone, an effect mediated by increased perceptions of social connections. This experimental evidence identifies one mechanism-perceptions of social connections-through which positive emotions build physical health, indexed as vagal tone. Results suggest that positive emotions, positive social connections, and physical health influence one another in a self-sustaining upward-spiral dynamic.

The Biology of Kindness: How It Makes Us Happier and Healthier

Loving-Kindness Meditation practice associated with longer telomeres in women.

Brain Behav Immun. 2013 Aug;32:159-63. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2013.04.005. Epub 2013 Apr 19.  Hoge, Elizabeth A.

Relatively short telomere length may serve as a marker of accelerated aging, and shorter telomeres have been linked to chronic stress. Specific lifestyle behaviors that can mitigate the effects of stress might be associated with longer telomere lengths. Previous research suggests a link between behaviors that focus on the well-being of others, such as volunteering and caregiving, and overall health and longevity. We examined relative telomere length in a group of individuals experienced in Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM), a practice derived from the Buddhist tradition which utilizes a focus on unselfish kindness and warmth towards all people, and control participants who had done no meditation. Blood was collected by venipuncture, and Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes. Quantitative real time PCR was used to measure relative telomere length (RTL) (Cawthon, 2002) in fifteen LKM practitioners and 22 control participants. There were no significant differences in age, gender, race, education, or exposure to trauma, but the control group had a higher mean body mass index (BMI) and lower rates of past depression. The LKM practitioners had longer RTL than controls at the trend level (p=.083); among women, the LKM practitioners had significantly longer RTL than controls, (p=.007), which remained significant even after controlling for BMI and past depression. Although limited by small sample size, these results offer the intriguing possibility that LKM practice, especially in women, might alter RTL, a biomarker associated with longevity.

Loving-kindness meditation for posttraumatic stress disorder: a pilot study.

J Trauma Stress. 2013 Aug;26(4):426-34. doi: 10.1002/jts.21832. Epub 2013 Jul 25. Kearney, David J.

Loving-kindness meditation is a practice designed to enhance feelings of kindness and compassion for self and others. Loving-kindness meditation involves repetition of phrases of positive intention for self and others. We undertook an open pilot trial of loving-kindness meditation for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Measures of PTSD, depression, self-compassion, and mindfulness were obtained at baseline, after a 12-weekloving-kindness meditation course, and 3 months later. Effect sizes were calculated from baseline to each follow-up point, and self-compassion was assessed as a mediator. Attendance was high; 74% attended 9-12 classes. Self-compassion increased with large effect sizes and mindfulness increased with medium to large effect sizes. A large effect size was found for PTSD symptoms at 3-month follow-up (d = -0.89), and a medium effect size was found for depression at 3-month follow-up (d = -0.49). There was evidence of mediation of reductions in PTSD symptoms and depression by enhanced self-compassion. Overall, loving-kindness meditation appeared safe and acceptable and was associated with reduced symptoms of PTSD and depression. Additional study of loving-kindness meditation for PTSD is warranted to determine whether the changes seen are due to the loving-kindness meditation intervention versus other influences, including concurrent receipt of other treatments.

Hardwiring Happiness

Hardwiring Happiness

A dear friend just told me about Rick Hanson, a neuropsychologist and author whose work is highly convergent with the Calm Clarity Program.  Through his books and lectures, he has been expounding on how to drive self-directed neuroplasticity to “hard-wire happiness”.

It’s beautiful to keep discovering validation from scientific experts that what I am putting together in Calm Clarity is on the right track.

I found his Google Talk lecture fascinatingly similar to the lessons in the Calm Clarity Program.

For anyone who wants to learn more, his website is here:  http://www.wisebrain.org/

How meditation practices change the brain

There is now a sizable body of scientific research capturing how spirituality, especially meditation practices, propel neuroplasticity in the remodeling of the brain.  A lot of this work is being done at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Spirituality and Mind and the Center for the Integrated Study of Spirituality and the Neurosciences, under Dr. Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman.  I was introduced to the above video lecture by Waldman at a meditation workshop and decided to read their book, “How God Changes Your Brain”.  It turns out to be less about God and more about how thinking of God and spiritual practices activates the brain and molds brain structure (and vice versa).

I have excerpted some of the most interesting paragraphs on the mechanisms:

“The cultural evolution of God follows the neurological evolution of the brain. The circuits that generates images of a wrathful God are closely tied to the oldest structures in the brain, and the circuits that allow us to envision a compassionte and mystical God are in the newest part of our brain. We can’t get rid of our old limbic God, which means that anger and fear will always be part of our neural and spiritual personality. However, we can train the new structures in our brain to suppress our biological tendency to react with anger and fear. (p. 123)

“The emotional circuits of our limbic brains have less plasticity than the frontal lobe. For example, we all get angry or frightened in the same way, but everyone experiences love in surprisingly different ways. Still, it’s not fair to call our reptilian brain primitive, for it too has co-evolved with the frontal lobe and now as the ability to adapt and respond with increased appropriateness to new situations and stress…(p. 123-124)

“To bridge the gap between our “old” and “new” brains, a special structure appears to have recently evolved–the anterior cingulate…it connects our emotions with our cognitive skills, playing a crucial role in emotional self-control, focused problem-solving, and error recognition. Most important, it integrates the activity of different parts of the brain in a way that allows self-consciousness to emerge, especially as it applies to how we see ourselves in relation to the world.” (p. 124)

“Based on our research and that of others, it seems the more you activate your anterior cingulate, the less you’ll perceive God as an authoritarian or critical force.” (p.126)

“Since meditation stimulates this circuit, we believe there is also a coevolution of spirituality and consciousness, engaging specific neural circuits that allow us to envision a benevolent, interconnecting relationship between the universe, God, and ourselves. The circuit that extends from the frontal lobe to the limbic system has a rich interconnection of neurons centered in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is activated whenever we see someone who is suffering, and this allows us to feel empathy and compassion…” (p. 124)

“The anterior cingulate also contains a class of spindle-shaped cells called von Economo neurons, which are found only in humans, great apes, and whales. These neurons have an extensive array of connections with other parts of the brain and are believed to be intimately involved with the development of social awareness skills by integrating our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. They guide us toward positive emotions and away from negative ones.  But they are also disrupted by stress. If you expose yourself to ongoing stress, their functioning is reduced,  but if you place yourself in an enriched environment–with a lot of love, communication, and sensory and intellectual stimulation–you strengthen the effectiveness of the von Economo neurons and the anterior cingulate. Since meditation simultaneously reduces stress while stimulating activity in the anterior cingulate, this supports our premise that spiritual practices enhance social awareness and compassion.” (p. 124-125)

“For example, in one recent study, advanced meditators were shown to have superior skills at discerning subtle changes in the environment… The majority of studies also have found that even brief periods of meditation significantly improve your ability to cope with a wide variety of psychological problems and physical disease. Perhaps this may explain why the practice of meditation has increased in popularity in recent years. in 1993, five million people said they meditated. By 2003, the numbers soared to ten million, and in 2007, fifteen million. Church involvement in America is declining, but spiritual practices are on the rise.” (p. 128-129)

“Today, for many people, God has become a metaphor for our search for ultimate truths and our ability to imagine a better future for all. And as a recent UCLA study found, this search for meaning is usually viewed as a spiritual pursuit, not a religious one.” (p.123)

“The funny thing is that the philosophy behind New Thought religion and materialism comes very close to several fundamental neurological truths:

• Your thoughts clearly affect the neurological functioning of your body.
• Optimism is essential for maintaining a healthy brain.
• Positive thoughts neurologically suppress negative thoughts.
• When you change the way you think, you begin to change your outward circumstances.
• Consciousness, reality, your mind, and your spiritual beliefs are profoundly interconnected and inseparable from the functioning of your brain.”  (p. 123)

“Our neurological findings have shown that different types of meditation and prayer affect different parts of the brain in different ways, and each one appears to have a beneficial effect on our neurological functioning and physical and emotional health. Some techniques increase blood flow to the frontal, parietal, temporal and limbic areas of the brain, while others decrease metabolic activity in these areas. Intensive meditation may also trigger an unusual form of neural activity–deafferentation–in which one part of the brain ignores the information being sent to it by other parts.  When this happens, we radically alter our everyday perception of the world.” (p. 63)

“By manipulating our breath, body, awareness, feelings, and thoughts, we can decrease tension and stress. We can evoke or suppress specific emotions and focus our thoughts in ways that biologically influence other parts of the brain. From a neuroscientific perspective, this is astonishing because it upsets the traditional view that we cannot voluntarily influence non-conscious areas in the brain. Only human being can think themselves into happiness or despair, without any influence from the outside world. Thus, the more we engage in spiritual practices, the more control we gain over our body, mind, and fate.” (p. 63)

The embodiment of thinking, flourishing, and the 8-fold noble path

Dr. Seligman and my favorite book of his.

This post is dedicated to a personal hero, Dr. Martin Seligman, whose contribution to the field of positive psychology and books have been a pivotal inspiration in the development of the Calm Clarity Program.  I would also like to personally thank him for graciously making time to meet me yesterday, signing my copy of Flourishing, and giving me his blessing to share his research and techniques in the Calm Clarity program.

In 2012, I took a personal sabbatical year to understand meditation and how it works, and how to harness the benefits that were being covered in the mainstream press.  I decided to go straight to the heart of the teachings, Dharamsala, India, the home of the Tibetan Buddhist community-in-exile. I spent about a month in three different retreat centers: Tushita, Thosamling, and the Vipassana center. Although up until that point, I was agnostic about religion and had a skeptical attitude towards all dogma and blind faith, I tried to be as open and curious as possible to figure out this phenomena. I was attracted by the Dalai Lama’s portrayal of Buddhism as reasoned faith rather than blind faith and his open dialogue with scientists.

My Tushita Class in April 2012

Yet when I was going through the introduction to Buddhism course at Tushita, I found the Buddhist concept of logic and reasoning to be quite circular. The most perplexing was the Four Noble Truths, the cornerstone of Buddhist theology / philosophy.

1. The truth of suffering (Dukkha)

2. The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya): The root of all suffering being unsatisfiable craving (Tanha) and delusion.

3. The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha): extinguishing craving and delusion by understanding impermanence and emptiness and cultivating compassion.

4. The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga):  The 8-fold noble path: Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

At the 4th truth, I was completely lost with the word “Right,” because the history of civilization is the story of human beings arguing, fighting, and warring over who is right and who is wrong.  Is there even a way to objectively prove or demonstrate (without force) that anyone’s understanding is more right than that of another person?

During the 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat, I had a long opportunity to ponder on these so-called 4 Noble Truths. I wondered how the practice of meditation has been a keystone in Buddhist practice and education, yet is not explicitly mentioned in the Four Noble Truths. As I sat there quietly focusing on my breath for 3 days and then scanning my body for 7 days, I had a visceral direct experience of impermanence, how thoughts, feelings and sensations arise and pass away. I began to cultivate equanimity by observing without attachment and by adopting a sense of curiosity to the subtle sensations I started to become aware of: the pulsing of blood vessels, the vibration of breathing through my wind pipe, the temperature of air going in and out of my nostrils, how I carried tension in various parts of my back and shoulders. It was fascinating. Then I started to observe how thoughts and sensations triggered an associative cascade of memories and emotions.  By observing my own associative cascade and ideomotor reflexes, I understood how my thinking was embodied.  Then I started to see what I had considered my “identity,” the story I told myself about who I am, unravel and untangle, until I experienced a sense of being pure consciousness without baggage.

I understood then that somehow my mind-brain-body intuitively and viscerally knew what was “right understanding” and “right thought.” I also realized in terms of terminology, it would provide more clarity to differentiate thoughts as “positive and negative”, rather than “good and evil” or “right and wrong”.  A positive thought evokes positive feelings like happiness and bliss and boosted physical health. A negative thought sets off a cascade of stress and negative emotions like anxiety, fear, worry, and anger, which can weaken health.  A person who is in tune with herself can literally feel this bio-feedback mechanism happening within. This is the underlying premise of lie detection machines, that people cannot fool their own bodies. After 10 days of Vipassana, I finally became mindful of this intrinsic bio-feedback mechanism.  That was the first clue to the mystery of the 8-Fold Noble Path.  Later, when I opened the Dhammapada, I found this insight captured in the opening verses of the first chapter:

“1. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.

2. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

3. “He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,”—in those who harbour such thoughts hatred will never cease.

4. “He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,”—in those who do not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease.

5. For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.”

Now the question was, how does one find validation for this insight?

As I started to read Dr. Seligman’s books, I realized scientists had already done the heavy lifting and packaging.  Dr. Seligman’s research provided clear evidence on the benefits of optimism, hope, engagement, meaning, and social connections with achievement, well-being, life satisfaction, and longevity.  The research by Dr. Emmons and Dr. Seligman proved that gratitude provided cognitive, emotional and physical benefits and strengthened relationships. The research by Dr. Frederickson, Dr. Losada and Dr. Gottman showed that sharing positive verbal and non-verbal communication resulted in healthier, warmer, and more robust relationships at home and at work, and that healthy relationships increased productivity, performance, and achievement.  Research on forgiveness led by Dr. Worthington demonstrated that people who practice forgiveness lead healthier, happier lives.  Research on altruism demonstrated that the “helper’s high” manifests as improved mental, emotional, physical health and longevity. And as captured in my earlier post, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy developed by Dr. Ellis demonstrated that when people become upset in response to an adverse event, their negative emotions are not caused by the event but by their perception of the event, framed within their personal belief system.

Further, the research in psychoneuroimmunology, epigenetics, neurogenesis and neuroplasticity are unveiling the potential mechanisms for how “Right Understanding” and “Right Thought” cascades into mindfulness, well-being, and flourishing.  The truth of the cessation of suffering is under our noses.

It is a beautiful time to be alive and thinking positive thoughts.  I am so grateful for the contribution of all these scientists and researchers.  I am also grateful to be able to integrate these insights and share them with the world to enable people everywhere to achieve a state of Calm Clarity.

Dr. Seligman, thank you for your research, your books and your blessings.

Master or slave of habit? With mindfulness you have a choice

In the Calm Clarity program, I explain the neuroscience behind how habits are formed and changed.  The key to successfully achieving self-chosen goals is to align mental, emotional and behavioral habits and patterns to support the goals. Therefore, I teach the participants different meditations to enhance the parts of the brain associated with willpower and mindfulness and which support them to build habits and patterns that move them forward.   So far, the realizations have been very powerful.

I just finished reading Jeremy Dean’s book: Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don’t, and How to Make Any Change Stick.  Interestingly, what he writes overall aligns with the Calm Clarity program, though he doesn’t go into much detail on brain function.

The key ideas are captured in these excerpted paragraphs (given out of sequence):

“The strange thing about habits is that because we perform them unconsciously, we aren’t always aware exactly what they are. We might well be aware of the results of bad habits, such as being overweight, or continually missing deadlines, but how we got into the situation isn’t so clear.  The very first step in breaking a habit is to get a handle on when, how, and where we are performing it.  Some of our own habits are obvious to us, but many are not.  It’s hard to change something until you know what it is in the first place. Other people may be able to provide clues (if you can bear asking), but one self-contained method to use is mindfulness.” (P. 152-153)

“Developing a good habit will be most successful when we do it for its own sake, when it’s done automatically, and when we take satisfaction in what we’ve achieved–even when it’s something as simple as a clean kitchen.” (P. 148)

“In theory, making habits should be easy. We do it automatically all the time. Think back to all the examples of everyday habits we seen earlier: traveling, eating, socializing, working, and shopping. These habits were established because we found ourselves in the same situations trying to satisfy our various needs and desires, and on returning to the same situation, we made the same choice again, and so on, repetition layered on top of repetition until the habit was built. Sooner or later, the behavior became unconscious and, whether useful or not, over time these habits took hold of sections of our lives. When making habits, we are trying to do something similar but with conscious planning. We start with a goal in mind to associate behaviors with situations, and what we are aiming for is their unconscious and automatic execution. Each repetition takes us one small step further up the curve of that graph.” (P. 149)

“The beauty of habits is that, as they develop, they become more effortless. Even when you’re tired, upset, or distracted, strong habits are likely to be performed because they’re so ingrained. Habits that you constructed yourself, for your own purposes, can seem like magic when they work. Like other behaviors that we carry out on a regular basis, the fruits of good habits may build up slowly, but they can repay the effort made to establish them many times over.” (P. 149)

How we become angry, and how to choose a different response

Dr. Albert Ellis

I write this post for the holidays, a time when families and loved ones come together but don’t always get along.

This post is dedicated to Dr. Albert Ellis, who developed Rational Emotive Therapy (REBT), a powerful form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, as an alternative to standard psychoanalysis when he realized many patients weren’t getting better after years of therapy.  REBT was inspired by Dr. Ellis’s exposure to Stoicism and Buddhism.  In fact, to explain REBT, Dr. Ellis often quotes Epictetus, an ancient Greek Stoic philosopher: “Men are disturbed not by events, but by the views which they take of them.”

Dr. Ellis explains:

1.When we become upset, it often a sign that we hold inflexible, unrealistic beliefs that color how we perceive events.

2.No matter when and how we start upsetting ourselves, we continue to feel upset because we cling to our irrational beliefs.

3.The way to feel better is to work hard at changing our beliefs. It takes practice, practice, practice.

Thus, he created the ABC model that Dr. Martin Seligman cited in his books Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness.

A= Adversity: an event that we perceive as negative

B= Belief: the thoughts or self-talk that arise in our mind in response to this event

C= Consequence: the emotions and feelings we experience arise as a result of our thoughts

Recognizing that B causes C, not A, he created a technique called Disputation, which involves identifying B and responding to and altering the habitual mental patterns that lead to C.  Often, we experience anger as a result of someone (including ourselves) violating our implicit expectations of shoulds, musts, oughts, demands and needs. We blame the perpetrator rather than acknowledge it is those expectations that are the culprit.

In his book, “The Myth of Self-Esteem: How Rational Emotive Therapy Can Change Your Life Forever,” Dr. Ellis provides a list of suggestions for disputing anger-generating beliefs (p. 232-233):

• Don’t blame others for making you angry. You greatly add to their contributions
• You’re not annoying me– . I’m choosing to take you too seriously.
• You’re depriving me is not awful–only inconvenient.
• You can easily frustrate me–but only I can whine about your doing so.
• Like but don’t expect others to return your favors.
• Accept other’s enormous fallibility.
• People who frustrate me act badly but [that doesn’t make them bad people]
• No one can guarantee to love you [the way you demand to be loved.]
• You can stand rejection and refusal.
• I never need you to fulfill myself–though that would be nice!
• My demand that you treat me nicely is not exactly a preference!
• I really wish you would act better but my wish is hardly your command.
• Where did I get the idea that people must absolutely be on time?
• Is this really going to matter that much tomorrow, next week, or years from now?
• Anger towards others will frequently stop me from getting what I want.
• Anger makes me obsess about the behavior of other people I find distasteful. Thoroughly wasteful!
• What are the advantages of holding on to my anger? What are the advantages of letting go?

According to Dr. Ellis, the key to achieving a life of well-being and social harmony is to adopt the belief system that all people have intrinsic self-worth, and that life is intrinsically worthwhile, and even if events happen that could be considered negative, for the most part, we can stand it, learn from it and move on.

He explains we can save ourselves a lot of self-created stress, anger, anxiety, and frustration if we shift our life paradigm from seeking self-esteem through achievement, comparative status, and external validation to a life paradigm of unconditional self-acceptance, unconditional other acceptance, and unconditional life acceptance. If we don’t tie our self-worth to our thoughts, behaviors, successes, performances, social status, and wealth, we would be less compelled by ego-aggrandizing habits and patterns.  That would free us to understand what really inspires us and to pursue true self-fulfillment and self-realization.

The key is to acknowledge that a person is not their thoughts, feelings and emotions, responses, speech, actions, habits, behaviors, and performances. So no person, including yourself, can ever be rated or evaluated as a self, totality, essence, or being. A person can only be described by points in time, and is constantly evolving and changing.  We are only capable of rating and evaluating a person’s thoughts, feelings and emotions, responses, speech, actions, habits, behaviors, and performances at certain points in time.  They are not necessarily tied to or predictive of the future, nor can they be used as measures of a person’s intrinsic worth.  As stated in the Bible, we can judge and condemn the sin, but not the sinner. All people have the potential for change.

I hope the holidays for all are blessed with harmony, love and peace.  But if there is a bit of exasperation thrown in, I hope the REBT tools will help.