Recent research: 2 mindfulness studies, 2 on goal setting, 1 on wellbeing & reduction in risk of mental illness, 1 on compassion
Last updated on 5th January 2011
See the two earlier blog posts - "Therapeutic writing & speaking: inspiration from values (background information)" and "Therapeutic writing & speaking: inspiration from values (how-to-do-it)" for fuller details of these self-affirmation, self-transcendence approaches.
This "instructions" post is downloadable as a Word doc.
I wrote yesterday about "Therapeutic writing & speaking: inspiration from values (background information)". Today's post looks more at how-to-do-it details. Self-affirmation research describes a number of effective ways to reduce stress, clarify thinking, and boost effectiveness. If the affirmation exercise is being done in response to a particular stress or threat, it's sensible to choose a subject to write (or speak) about that is of real personal importance but that is different from the area that's being threatened. Happily several other writing research studies suggest additional ways of making this type of exercise even more helpful. So a standard set of self-affirmation instructions might well involve asking participants to choose a particularly important personal value (for example, kindness,
Writing (or speaking) about our values or areas of our lives that are of particular personal importance can help us feel less threatened by stresses and more able to see situations clearly. There are many research studies demonstrating this. For example writing about personal values has been shown to reduce both subjectively experienced psychological stress and the body's adrenaline response to taking an academic exam (Sherman, Bunyan et al. 2009). This easing in sense of threat tends to boost the exam results people achieve, especially for those who tend to get more stressed (Cohen, Garcia et al.
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. - Franklin Jones
The "real world" is a construct, and some peculiarities of scientific thought become more intelligible when this fact is recognized ... Einstein himself in 1926 told Heisenberg it was nonsense to found a theory on observable facts alone, saying "In reality the very opposite happens. It is theory which decides what we can observe." - D. O. Hebb
If you want others to be happy, practise compassion. If you want to be happy, practise compassion. Dalai Lama
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. - Gandhi
Yesterday was the ninth evening of this "Life skills" training. I wrote about the eighth session last week. The sequence of regular weekly classes now moves on to increasing gaps between sessions - so it's three weeks until the tenth, a further five weeks until the eleventh, and then an additional eleven weeks until the final twelfth session. My hope is that we will be able to arrange occasional follow-up meetings even after that.
Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it
- Daniel Kahneman
I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 15,300 abstracts.
"If you want others to be happy, practise compassion. If you want to be happy, practise compassion" Dalai Lama