Can Mindfulness and a Psychology Class Make You Happier?
By studying the effects of mindfulness on psychiatric patients, and the pursuit of happiness, can we teach ourselves how to be happier?
The term mindfulness has entered popular culture in recent years, but this ancient Buddhist practice actually began gaining acceptance in western medicine in the 1970s.
The three main tenets of mindfulness are:
- Intention to cultivate awareness
- Attention to what is occurring in the present moment
- An attitude that is non-judgmental
In a recent article for psychiatric times, researchers looked at how mindfulness-based treatments work for psychiatric patients, and how these therapies can enhance and even replace pharmaceutical interventions. They found a wealth of evidence that mindfulness-based therapies have overwhelmingly positive effects on patients.
With mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reducing the rate of relapse rates for patients with major depression similar to that of pharmaceuticals, they also showed reduced anxiety, depression, and increased cognition.
The researchers point out, however, that, “Despite this evidence, pharmacotherapy remains the main treatment option for many patients with mental disorders, although about 75 percent of patients with mental disorders prefer psychotherapy. Researchers recommend implementing mindfulness-based therapies in place of, or in concert with, pharmacotherapy especially as the population grows older and cognitive issues become more common.
What makes us truly happy? Fame? Fortune? True happiness may be closer than you think, and a recent study shows we can learn to be happier.
Perhaps the most famous study of happiness, the “Harvard Study of Adult Development,” began in 1938 and studied students at Harvard University. It was coupled with another study of kids from Boston’s poorest neighborhoods, throughout their lives, and remains the longest-running longitudinal study of happiness and life satisfaction.
The main takeaway: happiness and satisfaction were not based on wealth, fame, or power, but on strong friendships and relationships.
But nowadays we are often more secluded. Social media friends are not always real friends and can take us away from human contact. And comparing our lives to the curated lifestyles we see on the internet often makes us depressed. But there is a way to help cure that.
Just ask Laurie Santos, professor of Psychology at Yale University, who teaches the free online course, “The Science of Well Being” a class on increasing happiness, and ways to deal with habits that can make us unhappy as she told new scientists “for many of us, our happiness is much more under our control than we think.”
These controls include:
- Practicing mindfulness,
- The use of gratitude journals to help us avoid “hedonic adaptation”, our tendency to become accustomed to a new positive life situation.
- Talking to strangers can increase social connection.
- Recognizing when we are comparing ourselves to others… and shifting our focus to something positive.
These tactics can be significant and long-lasting. A recent study conducted by Santos showed people who took the 10-week “Science of Well-Being” class compared to people who took a general psychology course were significantly happier, and for a longer period of time.
Santos concludes that courses like hers are, “A public health tool that could be used to improve mental health in the population.”
And as George Vaillant, director of the Harvard Study for three decades once wrote, “Happiness is love. Full stop.”
Push Away Nothing: The Art of Receptivity
I received the weekly newsletter from UPAYA Zen Centre via email. It opened with a quote from Frank Ostaseski:
“The First Precept: Welcome everything. Push away nothing… At the deepest level, we are being asked to cultivate a kind of fearless receptivity.”
There is more to the quote and I encourage you to source the rest of it. “Push away nothing.” There was something freeing about that statement. It felt almost paradoxical. We tend to protect ourselves from the experiences and situations we deem bad, harmful, stressful, discouraging. There was a sense of liberation in his statement. I felt as though it contained a secret key. I have found over my years of spiritual seeking, that when I stumble across a paradox or a deeply contrary belief, I am usually stumbling onto something great.
“Welcome everything.” It wasn’t to say that I welcomed awful things. It was when I found myself fighting against what was happening, that I stopped and repeated the words, “Welcome everything.”
Fear keeps us from welcoming everything. There was a time I lived by the phrase, “The garbage you know is better than the garbage you don’t.” (Well, maybe I didn’t use the word garbage). What do we think is going to happen? And why do we assume it is less than what we have now? Perhaps it will be greater than we can imagine.
“Push away nothing.” I was starting a new venture with a dear friend and the timing of this new mantra was perfect. I took it into every challenge and situation that arose in the early stages of creating our vision and bringing our project to life. When conflict came, I welcomed it. When the workload grew, even though it was summer holidays and I had planned to be loafing around doing yoga in the garden and playing with the kids, I welcomed it. When I had to wait for others in order to move forward, I welcomed it. I pushed away nothing but something fell away all on its own. As I welcomed each and every circumstance, feeling and thought, struggle fell away. As I welcomed everything, everything became easier.
The new venture emerged with much work and little struggle. Finally, I made the time to enjoy an end of summer yoga class. The summer work and activity schedule had gotten the best of my back. I altered the poses. Rather than flow from up dog to down, I took an extra plank, reducing the movement in my spine. I lay on my back in a tense version of setu bhandasana, or bridge pose, mitigating back pain by squeezing my glutes tighter. I wondered why my back was in such a state after a long period pain-free. I wished the pain would go away so I could enjoy my practice.
“Push away nothing.” The mantra found me on my mat. I released my glutes and my tension. “Welcome everything.” I breathed deeply into my back and the discomfort. I moved through the remaining practice with breath and mantra, welcoming the state of my body and the opportunity to gently back off from the full expression of the poses. I took seated twist and simply allowed myself to back off. In backing off, I discovered deeper release and the ability to move further into the pose with greater ease. In welcoming the condition of my body and allowing it to guide my practice, I found more freedom and flexibility.
I woke the next morning with more mobility in my spine and my mind. Seemingly counter-intuitive, there is great freedom in Frank Ostaseski’s words. I am grateful he shared them and I adopt them with fearless receptivity.
