The Recipe of Well-being = PERMA
1. Positive emotions
2. Engagement (with your strengths)
3. Relationships (vulnerable + real)
4. Meaning
5. Accomplishments (and reminding yourself of them often)
None of these categories can stand alone for wellbeing but each of them contribute to it.
“Is there someone in your life whom you would feel comfortable phoning at four in the morning to tell your troubles to? If your answer is yes, you will likely live longer than someone whose answer is no.”
– Martin Seligman
***
The most Reliable Strategy for instant increase of Well-being
—> Acts of Kindness
“We scientists have found that doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested… Here is the exercise: find one wholly unexpected kind thing to do tomorrow and just do it. Notice what happens to your mood.”
– Martin Seligman
***
A great Evening Journal Exercise
Ask: What went well today?
Find 3 things.
Ask why did this go well?
reflect.
***
“Look, the truth is that many days—no matter how successful we are in therapy—you will wake up feeling blue and thinking life is hopeless. Your job is not only to fight these feelings but also to live heroically: functioning well even when you are very sad.”
– Martin Seligman
***
Some quotes:
“Self-discipline outpredicts IQ for academic success by a factor of 2.”
– Martin Seligman
(wow!)
“We estimate that being in the upper quartile of optimism seems to have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk roughly equivalent to not smoking two packs of cigarettes daily.”
– Martin Seligman
(double wow!!)
***
“Depression rates have increased tenfold over the last fifty years in the United States. This is true of every wealthy nation, and, importantly, it is not of poor nations.”
– Martin Seligman
(hmm…)
DANIEL GALOVAN 