Section 1 (People Matching) - Exercise 13

Reference

• Psychiatrist Tony Fernando was walking down the street when he saw a group of young homeless men sitting on the footpath. As Fernando handed out gifts of food, he tried to video the men’s reactions in his mind, recording how their gratitude lifted him in return. ‘I felt warm, content, meaningful,’ he says. Fernando believes the brain can be trained to make us happy and that his ‘video’ method is one way to achieve this. In fact, a growing body of scientific research internationally is showing how we can learn happiness in the same way we can learn to play the piano.
• Hanson employs exactly the same imaginary ‘video’ method as psychiatrist Tony Fernando. ‘The brain takes its shape from what the mind rests upon,’ says Hanson. If you keep resting your mind on self-criticism and worries, he argues, your brain will be shaped by that. Hanson explains that resting it on pleasant feelings and the things you have accomplished means that over time your brain will take on a different shape, with strength and optimism hard-wired into it.
• In a study, Grimm recorded the activities and corresponding happiness scores of 173 people. What he found was that people who used several pathways to happiness achieved the best results, suggesting it’s better to have a balance than concentrate on the single pathway you most identify with.
• However, Associate Professor of Psychological Medicine Nathan Consedine greets our relentless search for the secrets to happiness with a tired sigh. ‘The more you chase it, the less you get it,’ he says, quoting studies showing those who value contentment and well-being are, in fact, less happy. The big question, he says, is whether there’s any benefit in actively seeking happiness. He cites a study, for example, which showed that people who were happier were less inclined to show sympathy.

Questions