Happy Free Thoughts Thursday, people.

Beginning in May, I'll be taking on five clients for 1-on-1 life & mindset coaching.

You can apply here or respond to this email for more information.

Let's get into it!

3 Things I’ve Learned:

1. Journaling alleviates stress and reduces anxiety.

There's a lot of research on the benefits that journaling has on both our physical and mental health.

Studies have found that writing your thoughts down can reduce blood pressure, decrease visits to the doctor and improve immune system function, mood, memory and more.

The authors of the studies offer a number of scientific reasons why journaling may be so powerful.

Those reasons can be summarized in three words: journaling provides perspective.

When we write down our thoughts we take our negative feelings, which are inherently abstract, and we make them concrete.

We're insecure about X. We're uncertain about Y. We're worried about Z.

Once we understand the thoughts that are driving our feelings we can begin to process them more objectively, and the way we understand those thoughts is by getting them out of our head (abstract) and onto paper (concrete).

Credit: https://evidencebasedliving.human.cornell.edu/2020/04/21/reduce-stress-and-anxiety-levels-with-journaling/

2. Negative feelings are stronger than positive ones.

We're wired to respond more quickly and strongly to threats and unpleasant feelings than to opportunities and pleasures.

This is known as our "negativity bias" and it's the reason we can get 99 compliments and one insult and still end up feeling like crap.

This bias serves an evolutionary purpose—it pays to respond more strongly to a threat (like a rattlesnake) than an opportunity (like a blueberry).

We might always be able to find more blueberries, but if we don't act quickly it might be the last time we ever see a rattlesnake.

This idea is important because the truth is we can't just will ourselves to see everything as good since our brains are wired to search for threats and other negative cues.

But if you're anything like me, knowing that your brain is simply doing its job when it focuses on the one insult will allow you to move past the negativity and enjoy the 99 compliments instead.

Credit: The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

3. Living with your partner before you're engaged might be a bad idea.

Couples who live together before getting engaged report significantly lower marital satisfaction and greater likelihood of divorce than couples who wait until they're engaged or married to move in together.

This is known as the "cohabitation effect."

The most likely reason for this is that living together increases a couple's chances of getting married because of constraints to stay together like finances, pregnancy and social pressure, even if it's not the right decision.

In other words, living with your partner before you commit to marriage makes it more likely that you'll stay together for the wrong reasons.

Nothing from me here. Just thought it was eye-opening.

Credit: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5956907/

2 Questions for You:

1. What's something you love about your family but have never told them?
2. Are you taking anything for granted today?

1 Quote:

“Until you give up the idea that happiness is somewhere else, it'll never be where you are." —Robert Holden

When I started journaling I had a section at the end where I would rate my day on a scale of 1 (terrible) to 10 (amazing).

Then I would ask myself why I gave the rating I did.

Almost every day, without fail, after I explained why my day was a 6 (for example) I'd go back and change my rating to something better.

I'd change it because at first my default was to say “ah my day was fine, nothing special. 6."

But then when I thought about what really happened throughout the day I realized how great it actually was—the little conversations, great weather, lessons learned, people met, workouts done, food eaten … the list goes on.

It all came down to awareness.

Taking ourselves off of autopilot allows us to recognize all the truly amazing things—no matter how small—that we have to be grateful for each day.

And that's what it's all about.

Live your life to the fullest,

Chris

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