Happy for No Reason

Recently I was reading 'Happy for No Reason' by Marc Shimoff. Great book, great ideas. Sharing some with you all. Also I am a fan of Dr Daniel Amen and really enjoyed reading his book 'Change your brain, Change your life' (I hope I remember the title correctly, if not, do forgive me, it is something along these lines). I have added my comments in parentheses (Karuna's comments).

o   Our minds-made up of our thoughts, beliefs and self-talk. Our mind is  always ‘on’. According to scientists, we  have about 60,000 thoughts a day. That’s one thought per second during every waking hour. No wonder we’re so tired at the end of the day! (Talk about overload. Now be nice to yourself when you are tired :)

o   And what’s even more startling is that of those 60,000 thoughts, 95% are the same thoughts you had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Your mind is like a record player playing the same record over and over again…Talk about being stuck in a rut… (Yeah, and you expect your life to change. Can the music change if the record is the same?)

o   Still that wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the next statistic; for the average person, 80% of those habitual thoughts are negative. That means that every day most people have more than 45,000 negative thoughts… Dr Daniel Amen, a world-renowned psychiatrist and brain imaging specialist, calls them automatic negative thoughts, or ANTs.”

      

      (Great analogy in his book. If you are at a picnic and 1 or 2 ants crawl up your arm, you will just brush them off. If 5 to 6 ants crawl up, you will be irritated as you brush them off. But if 10 to 15 ants crawled up, you will get up and find another picnic spot. Get the point?  Become aware of the ANTS (Automatic Negative Thoughts) happening in your mind and stop them before they multiply. Find something that helps you to stop these ANTS !)

o   Time to get some (organic, of course) ANT spray and clear out our minds, eh?!? (Sounds easy but repetition is the key to Mastery)

Now off ANTs and to another new idea.

VELCRO VS. TEFLON 

o   We’re still hard-wired the same way: we pay more attention to the negative than to the positive. As the psychologist and brain researcher Dr Rick Hanson explained, our brains are ‘Velcro for negativity and Teflon for positivity’. Our negative experiences stick to us like Velcro, while our positive experiences slide right off us like Teflon. In fact, researchers have found that it takes numerous positive experiences to overcome a single negative one! Unfortunately, this wiring turns out to be disastrous for our happiness.”  (Learn to focus on the positives in your life and have them stick like Velcro. Slide off the negatives like Teflon. Learn from the negatives and then let them free).

I came to know of so many great self development books from Philosopher Notes.  Great job by Brian Johnson and his friends. Share and grow.

That's my titbit for today. Keep having fun and spreading the smile.