3 Things I’ve Learned:

Happiness is heritable.

50-80% of the difference in our average levels of happiness can be explained by our genes rather than our life experiences.

Some of our brains are preconfigured to see more good in the world and others are preconfigured to see more bad.

This is known as our "affective style," or our default balance between positivity and negativity.

Our affective style can be measured beginning when we're 10 months old and the results for most people remain stable throughout their lives.

People who show higher activity of a certain kind of brainwave coming from the left side of their brain feel more happiness in their daily lives and less fear, anxiety and shame than those who show higher activity of that brainwave coming from the right side.

Again, whether we see more of that activity in the left side of our brain or the right side is determined by what genes we inherit.

However, similar to what I talk about here, we have the power to change our affective style if we're willing to work for it.

The best way to do so is through meditation and/or cognitive therapy.

More on the science of these techniques soon.

Credit: The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

2. Your mindset impacts how you react to treatment.

A group of researchers at Stanford conducted a study to test the effectiveness of oral immunotherapy (ingesting small doses of a substance that causes an allergic reaction to improve the body's immune response) in a group of kids with peanut allergies.

They broke the kids into two groups. One group was told that symptoms were an unfortunate side effect of the treatment. The other group was told that symptoms were a positive sign that the treatment was working.

The latter was less likely to report symptoms, drop doses or contact the staff about concerns. They also saw in increased effect in the treatment compared to the former.

This is yet another example of something called the Expectation Effect, which is becoming more popular as of late and states that our expectations can directly impact the way our body functions.

It even works with sleep! More on that another day.

Credit: https://www.kucb.org/2019-03-01/could-your-mindset-affect-how-well-a-treatment-works; https://open.spotify.com/episode/1lZ9ldbYgzOpmJ1YIsKXNr?si=003f4b5581e24e22

3. Your gut is your second brain.

Our intestines are lined by a network of over 100 million neurons.

This "gut brain" operates pretty much independently of our "head brain" and continues to function even when our vagus nerve (which connects the two) is severed.

Our gut brain triggers anxiety in our head brain when we're sick which leads us to act in ways that are more conducive to recovery and it's incredibly sensitive to any changes in its main neurotransmitters, such as acetylcholine (voluntary and involuntary muscle contraction) and serotonin (happiness and sleep).

This is why common side effects of Prozac—which directly impacts the way our body processes serotonin—are nausea and diarrhea. That's our gut brain at work.

There's way more information on this topic than I can fit in such a short section—the main takeaway is that our gut has a mind of its own and it impacts our physiological and our cognitive function.

So eat well... and follow your gut (brain).

Credit: The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

2 Questions for You:

What is your biggest strength? Your biggest weakness?
What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?

1 Quote:

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."—Carl Jung

This edition is long so I'll keep it brief here.

I wrote this thought about confidence in my notes app last weekend—I'm just going to copy and paste it for you below:

It’s easy to get caught up in everything we’re NOT and everything we DON’T have … but what if we focused on everything we ARE and everything we DO have? … we all have plenty of reasons to be confident ... we just have to get out of our own way.

Live your life to the fullest,

Chris

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