This weekend I went to a class given by Sandi Smith of BrainWays Training and Development. It was a lot of fun. I liked it because it covered a lot of topics briefly, but there were handouts with lists of references where I can look up more detailed information. The class was small and refreshingly unafraid to participate, so the atmosphere was very friendly.
The class covered the topic of happiness from a psychological and neurological standpoint. It went over results from studies showing effects of sustained happiness on lifespan, coping ability, cardiovascular resilience, and more. We discussed brain plasticity, and the brain’s natural reluctance to build new habits. I noticed that the information about habits fit nicely with the layers of consciousness I learned about at my recent hypnosis experience (the brain is wired to reinforce what it thinks it knows and tries to ignore things that don’t fit the model… until there is too much evidence to ignore). We discussed various sources of happiness, and the degree to which they are demographic vs. genetic vs. environmental.
One early topic that got my attention was about how the emotional center of the brain activates abut 400 milliseconds before the logical center of the brain when confronted with new information. From this you can infer that, no matter how adept you become and recognizing and dealing with irrational fears, it would be practically impossible to fully eliminate them. I thought that was fascinating, since honing an ability to see through the mind’s distortions of reality is an important buddhist practice.
From there, the focus of this particular seminar was about our relationships with other people. The topic was approached from three directions: the types and qualities of our connections, interpreting social situations, and deepening relationships. The ideas presented ranged from common sense to intriguing. I was particularly interested in the positivity/negativity ratio which was apparently an extremely accurate predictor of divorce in at least one study. It also applies to other relationships like working groups.
I’ll be going to a second seminar Sandi’s giving in a couple weeks, and am looking forward to another great experience.
Some Related Material
Here’s a talk by Matthieu Ricard (a Buddhist monk) about the nature of authentic happiness. Before becoming a monk, he was a scientist, and he currently studies the effects of meditation on the brain. Towards the end of this talk, he describes a study on beginning meditators. It showed some impressive results from just 3 months of meditation, 30 minutes a day. The beginners showed reduced anxiety and increased immune response and left prefrontal cortex activity compared to the non-meditating control group.
One topic touched on in the class was the work of Paul Ekman. I looked briefly and found a video where Ekman discusses the science of reading faces. This video does not appear to be embeddable, so I’m just giving a link.
During lunch, I was talking about the way people aren’t wired to reason properly about the financial markets. Sandi thought I might find this book interesting: Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. I will check it out!
Dunbar’s number, around 150, is the maximum number of stable social relationships people can juggle at one time. Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve still got a few vacancies.
