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| Dr Michael Mosley: teaching 'well-being’ can be the key to success Photo: BBC |
The Telegraph
Researchers believe it is possible to teach yourself to have a more positive outlook and improve sleeping patterns by practising simple exercises such as meditation and clicking on images of people smiling.
7:31AM BST 11 Jul 2013
Researchers believe it is possible to teach yourself to have a more positive outlook and improve sleeping patterns by practising simple exercises such as meditation and clicking on images of people smiling.
Studies of the brain show that in people who are more negative and anxious
the right side of the brain is more active. But it is thought by simple
exercises it is possible to change the way the brain works and have a brighter
attitude to life.
The findings were aired in a BBC documentary that followed presenter and
father of four Michael Mosley who has suffered from insomnia for the past 20
years and wanted to become a happier person. Over the course of seven weeks he
followed two exercises aimed to make him more positive.
He said: “I feel quite frankly astonished that you can notice that much
change in just seven weeks.
“I set out to see if it was possible to change my mind and I think I might
have done it. I am absolutely thrilled.”
Mr Mosley had his brain analysed by experts at Essex University, who found he
had more activity in parts of the brain associated with negativity and pessimism
– the right side of the brain which was three times more active.
He was given two exercises to follow, which involved meditating and looking at a screen showing 15 blank or angry faces and one smiling one. Mr Mosley had to click on the happy face to train his brain to seek out positive images more readily.
After seven weeks Mr Mosley told the BBC 2 programme Horison: The Truth about Personality, he felt happier and was sleeping better and scientists said the activity in both sides of his brain had become more equal, a sign of optimism. He also reacted more quickly to positive images.
He was given two exercises to follow, which involved meditating and looking at a screen showing 15 blank or angry faces and one smiling one. Mr Mosley had to click on the happy face to train his brain to seek out positive images more readily.
After seven weeks Mr Mosley told the BBC 2 programme Horison: The Truth about Personality, he felt happier and was sleeping better and scientists said the activity in both sides of his brain had become more equal, a sign of optimism. He also reacted more quickly to positive images.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/10172932/Look-at-smiley-faces-and-become-an-optimist-scientists-claim.html
Look on the bright side, banish the blues and think yourself happy
A Horizon programme shows how you can recalibrate your brain and train yourself to have a more sunny disposition
7:59PM BST 05 Jul 2013
Are you happy? Did you open the curtains this morning, see the sunshine and
bounce out of bed? Or did you just worry about your lawn drying out?
For years, many scientists believed that your personality was predetermined;
that your genes decided whether you were an optimist or a pessimist.
But a Horizon programme, presented by Dr Michael Mosley and broadcast next
week, suggests that genes play only a very small part and that you can, in fact,
train yourself to have a more sunny disposition. A few simple mind exercises
might be enough to switch negative people into positive ones.
If the show touches a nerve in the same way as Mosley’s documentary about
fasting – which kick-started the phenomenally popular 5:2 diet – many of us
could soon be undertaking mental workouts in our lunch hour.
The programme is timely, because the happiness of individuals is something
that policymakers have started to take very seriously indeed.
Yesterday, a new charity called MindFull suggested that a third of under-16s
had experienced suicidal thoughts, and called for mental health to be taught in
schools. And later this month, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will
publish its National Well-being report.
A growing number of studies suggest that our positivity has a measurable impact on our health and our educational achievements. The most stark example comes from Oxford, Ohio, which in the 1970s conducted a study of its inhabitants, then aged over 50. So who has survived in good health? Those who had a positive outlook on their life and impending old age have lived, on average, 7.6 years longer than those with negative views.
In crude terms, being happy could add years to your life. It doesn’t just benefit your health, either. Educational attainment, too, seems to be linked to attitude. Nick Baylis, a consultant psychologist, works with the pupils at Hendon School, a former comprehensive (now an Academy) in London that was in special measures. Now, 87 per cent of pupils get A-C at GCSE. He believes that teaching both the staff and pupils “well-being” and coping strategies was key to this success. Other schools have started to teach mindfulness, an increasingly popular form of meditation, too.
For the Horizon programme, Mosley had his brain scanned by Prof Elaine Fox, a neuroscientist at Oxford and author of Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain. She says brain asymmetry is very closely linked to our personalities. “Through monkeys, humans and lots of animals, the amount of activity in the front cortex does seem to be a good marker for positivity and negativity.” Positive people have a more active left frontal cortex; Mosley had a substantially more active right frontal cortex – proving his assertion that he is one of life’s Eeyores.
“When I look into the future, I see all the things that are going to go wrong, rather than the things that will probably go right,” he says. He also suffers from insomnia.
Prof Fox is among a growing number of psychologists, however, who believe that you can change this brain asymmetry and thus your personality through a series of exercises.
The most basic one is called Cognitive Bias Modification. To do it, you look at a screen for 10 minutes every day over several weeks. During those minutes, a series of 15 faces are flashed up. All – except one – are either angry, upset or unhappy. You have to spot, and click on, the one happy face.
It seems simple. Surely, trying to spot a happy face isn’t going to make me more optimistic?
Prof Fox tells me: “I was very sceptical when I got into this initially. But the task we used in the show has been used with kids with self-esteem issues. And it does seem to have very powerful effects. It’s early days, but the signs are that it is definitely effective.”
It worked for Mosley, who over a couple of months of exercising was able to recalibrate his brain. He says that he is sleeping better “though I am not exactly Rip Van Winkle”, and that he is more optimistic. So should we all be doing the exercises? “I think anyone could do them, but I suspect a fair number who start then let it slide,” he says.
Of course, many psychologists argue that relentless happiness is neither normal nor healthy. Prof Fox says: “There are situations when things go wrong, and having a healthy dose of pessimism can be good. But the evidence shows that, broadly, having a positive attitude really does boost your well-being.”
'Horizon: The Truth About Personality’, Wednesday, BBC TWO, 9pm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/wellbeing/10162322/Look-on-the-bright-side-banish-the-blues-and-think-yourself-happy.html
A growing number of studies suggest that our positivity has a measurable impact on our health and our educational achievements. The most stark example comes from Oxford, Ohio, which in the 1970s conducted a study of its inhabitants, then aged over 50. So who has survived in good health? Those who had a positive outlook on their life and impending old age have lived, on average, 7.6 years longer than those with negative views.
In crude terms, being happy could add years to your life. It doesn’t just benefit your health, either. Educational attainment, too, seems to be linked to attitude. Nick Baylis, a consultant psychologist, works with the pupils at Hendon School, a former comprehensive (now an Academy) in London that was in special measures. Now, 87 per cent of pupils get A-C at GCSE. He believes that teaching both the staff and pupils “well-being” and coping strategies was key to this success. Other schools have started to teach mindfulness, an increasingly popular form of meditation, too.
For the Horizon programme, Mosley had his brain scanned by Prof Elaine Fox, a neuroscientist at Oxford and author of Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain. She says brain asymmetry is very closely linked to our personalities. “Through monkeys, humans and lots of animals, the amount of activity in the front cortex does seem to be a good marker for positivity and negativity.” Positive people have a more active left frontal cortex; Mosley had a substantially more active right frontal cortex – proving his assertion that he is one of life’s Eeyores.
“When I look into the future, I see all the things that are going to go wrong, rather than the things that will probably go right,” he says. He also suffers from insomnia.
Prof Fox is among a growing number of psychologists, however, who believe that you can change this brain asymmetry and thus your personality through a series of exercises.
The most basic one is called Cognitive Bias Modification. To do it, you look at a screen for 10 minutes every day over several weeks. During those minutes, a series of 15 faces are flashed up. All – except one – are either angry, upset or unhappy. You have to spot, and click on, the one happy face.
It seems simple. Surely, trying to spot a happy face isn’t going to make me more optimistic?
Prof Fox tells me: “I was very sceptical when I got into this initially. But the task we used in the show has been used with kids with self-esteem issues. And it does seem to have very powerful effects. It’s early days, but the signs are that it is definitely effective.”
It worked for Mosley, who over a couple of months of exercising was able to recalibrate his brain. He says that he is sleeping better “though I am not exactly Rip Van Winkle”, and that he is more optimistic. So should we all be doing the exercises? “I think anyone could do them, but I suspect a fair number who start then let it slide,” he says.
Of course, many psychologists argue that relentless happiness is neither normal nor healthy. Prof Fox says: “There are situations when things go wrong, and having a healthy dose of pessimism can be good. But the evidence shows that, broadly, having a positive attitude really does boost your well-being.”
'Horizon: The Truth About Personality’, Wednesday, BBC TWO, 9pm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/wellbeing/10162322/Look-on-the-bright-side-banish-the-blues-and-think-yourself-happy.html
