Positive Psychology Practices

Positive Psychology Practices

Our brains are wired towards the negative. It’s called the negativity bias – negative and unpleasant situations, emotions and thoughts have a greater impact on us than positive ones. It does not matter if the intensity is the same or even if the positives are enormous. 

Image: Sourced from Shutterstock

Being a negative nancy makes evolutionary sense. Negative outcomes help us learn about things that are best avoided, become attuned to unpleasant situations and survive. It has its benefits definitively, but then there’s the flipside. Wallowing in negative emotions and letting them take reign over your life is associated with almost all the letters in a doctor’s dictionary. Higher blood pressure, increased cortisol levels, obesity, headaches and so on. 

So how do we continue with our evolutionary impulses but not get bogged down with its downsides? Positive psychology practices are something that can be helpful. But before diving into the nitty-gritties of it, let us understand what exactly is positive psychology.

Image: Sourced from Wikimedia Commons

At one point, the dominant interest of psychologists veered towards the negatives: pathologies, weaknesses, diseases. There were psychologists who focused on the positive aspects of the human condition much earlier, like Maslow, who used the term in his works. The humanistic psychology movement of the 20^th century aimed at enhancing human potential, positive emotions and overall well-being.

However, it was Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi who introduced the term ‘Positive Psychology’. They conceptualized it as a science for the new century, a science that focuses on the positive experiences, individual traits and qualities and institutions that increase wellbeing of individuals and the society and that which make life meaningful and worthwhile. They envisioned positive psychology as an empirical science that focuses on those conditions like happiness, authenticity, trust, love, etc. that are necessary to go on living. By trying to enhance the positives in one’s life, people, communities and societies could flourish.

Keeping mind one of the aims – enhancing the positives and helping people flourish, let’s take a look at certain practices that help in achieving this goal.

Gratitude Journaling

This is an easy way to increase feelings of satisfaction, well-being, improve interpersonal relationships, and gain higher self-esteem and resilience. All we require is something to jot down our thoughts and dedication.

Image: Sourced from Iconscout

Gratitude journaling entails writing down instances where we felt grateful in the past day or the past week whether at work or at home. There can be as many instances as we want maybe about a particularly helpful co-worker, about the sweet thing that your mom did for you or about your pet. However, researchers on gratitude advise writing about a few instances that deeply impacted us instead of writing down an entire list. Gratitude journaling is more beneficial when we take it seriously and try to be genuinely grateful while writing and when we focus more on the people than on material things. It is not necessary to journal frequently, even once in a week or twice in a week is fine. Online journals like Thnx4.org can also be used if you are highly dedicated to going paperless.

Daily Strength Awareness

This is based on Seligman and Peterson’s research on character strengths. Character strengths are a family of tendencies, behaviours, thoughts and feelings that are encouraged across cultures because of the value they bring to society. Some of them are appreciation for beauty and excellence, zest, humility, etc. There are 24 character strengths in all and all of them are present in an individual though their degree may vary. Character strengths fall under 6 broad themes which are wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence. One can find out their character strengths here.

Image: Sourced from Fotosearch

Daily strength journaling is an exercise that can make us more self-aware of the strengths we display in day to day events, reflect on them and further improve them. We can make templates for ourselves depending on our convenience. For e.g. a simple one would just include the event and the strengths that we can identify followed by a reflection on how we can possibly improve these. This can be particularly helpful at work because it helps us understand our strengths and the way we contribute to the organization and can help us in interviews if an interviewer still insists on asking, “Tell me about your strengths.”

Mindful Walk

This combines the benefits of mindfulness and physical activity in the middle of a busy day. Mindfulness is about being fully present and being aware of what is happening and experiencing it without judgement.

Image: Mindfulness word cloud. Depositphotos.com

This can be practised in any place where one can walk without multiple hindrances. The duration depends on our convenience. While walking, try to walk in a way that is comfortable to you and focus on the motions of your body and feel the steps that you’re taking. You can focus on your breathing or count as you walk. See, hear, touch and smell the things in your surrounding without getting distracted by them. Simply notice them, become aware of them and then move on. When you’re ready to finish your mindful walk, pause for a minute and then gently get back into the flow of your work life. Taking a mindful walk for ten minutes during your lunchbreak can help beat the post-lunch haze and leave you feeling refreshed.

Deepika Gangadharan

thoughts@kaleidoscope.org.in