It's More Than Just Fight or Flight - Mellissa Withers, Ph.D., M.H.S
Most people are familiar with the term “fight or flight,” which describes two of the most common forms of stress responses—either retreating or sticking around to fight. Another stress response is the “freeze” response, which is the inability to move or act against the threat.
However, there is another stress response that people may not be familiar with called “fawn,” which can best be explained as appeasing or complying with an abuser as a way to survive.
If you want to live a longer, healthier life, never go to sleep on an argument - Robert Stawski
Everyone experiences stress in their daily lives. You aren’t going to stop stressful things from happening. But the extent to which you can tie them off, bring them to an end and resolve them is definitely going to pay dividends in terms of your well-being
How to Know If You or a Loved One Is Suffering From Trauma - Jason N. Linder, PsyD
Basic questions you can ask yourself or a loved one are, in the last month have you, from a past stressful event:
Lost interest in activities you used to enjoy after (a) stressful event(s)?
Avoided activities or situations because they remind you of what happened?
Had disturbing repetitive dreams or nightmares about what happened?
Had difficulty concentrating or sleeping or changes in your diet since what happened?
Felt very upset when something reminds you of what happened?
Had physical reactions when something reminds you of what happened (i.e., shortness of breath, racing heart, sweating, or muscle tension)?
Had repeated disturbing thoughts, images, or memories of what happened?
Avoided thinking or talking about what happened?
Felt emotionally distant from others since what happened?
Found yourself acting as of what happened just happened?
Don’t Wish for Happiness. Work for It. - Arthur C. Brooks
In his 1851 work American Notebooks, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, “Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained.” This is basically a restatement of the Stoic philosophers’ “paradox of happiness”: To attain happiness, we must not try to attain it.
How to Be Happy: A Surprising Lesson on Happiness From an African Tribe - James Clear
“Africans have a thing called ubuntu. We believe that a person is a person through other persons. That my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours. When I dehumanize you, I dehumanize myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms. Therefore you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in community, in belonging.”
The Happiness Quiz: How Happy are You?
HAPPINESS IS UNDERSTANDABLE, OBTAINABLE, AND TEACHABLE
This Happiness Quiz measures your “happiness skills” or habits.
How Do You Talk to Yourself? - John D. Rich, Jr., Ph.D.
All of us have had experiences that have disappointed us, challenged us, made us feel like failures. As a result, we either figured out a way to "get back up on that horse and try again," or we decided that it was too painful to take risks and avoided challenges in the future.
The Happiness Ruse - Cody Delistraty
This imperative to avoid being – even appearing – unhappy has led to a culture that rewards a performative happiness, in which people curate public-facing lives, via Instagram and its kin, composed of a string of ‘peak experiences’ – and nothing else. Sadness and disappointment are rejected, even neutral or mundane life experiences get airbrushed out of the frame. It’s as though appearing unhappy implies some kind of Protestant moral fault: as if you didn’t work hard enough or believe sufficiently in yourself.
Healing Your Shame and Guilt Through Self-Forgiveness - Beverly Engel L.M.F.T.
Shame is responsible for a myriad of problems, including but not limited to:
Self-criticism and self-blame
Self-neglect
Self-destructive behaviors (abusing your body with food, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, self-mutilation, being accident-prone)
Self-sabotaging behavior (starting fights with loved ones, sabotaging jobs)
Perfectionism
The belief that you do not deserve good things
Intense rage (frequent physical fights, road rage)
Acting out against society (breaking the rules, breaking the law)
Continuing to repeat the cycle of abuse through either victim behavior or abusive behavior
Forgive Yourself - Rick Hanson Ph.D.
More broadly, there is a kind of inner critic and inner protector inside each of us. For most people, that inner critic is continually yammering away, looking for something, anything, to find fault with. It magnifies small failings into big ones, punishes you over and over for things long past, ignores the larger context, and doesn't credit you for your efforts to make amends.
Therefore, you really need your inner protector to stick up for you: to put your weaknesses and misdeeds in perspective, to highlight your many good qualities surrounding your lapses, to encourage you to keep getting back on the high road even if you've gone down the low one, and — frankly — to tell that inner critic to Shut Up.
Focusing on this will make you miserable according to psychologists - Sarah Dillon
What happens to our psyche when we fall short? Everybody wants to be happy, of course, it is in our nature but when we put so much pressure on the means to achieve that goal the ends are often met with disappointment. If we are expected to be happy every single moment of every single day those unrealistic expectations can significantly bum you out.
False Self-True Self: The Perils of Living a Lie to Fit In - Rob Whitley, Ph.D.
Some scholars have linked the development of a true (or authentic) self to better mental health.
Barriers to the development of a true self include peer pressure, family preferences, social norms, and cultural expectations.
This can lead to a discrepancy between internal desires and lived reality, contributing to the development of a "false self."
A "false self"—and the dysfunctional choices that may arise as a result—have been linked in research to poorer mental health.
Excelling at the School of Happiness - Robert Puff Ph.D.
Each individual is responsible for determining whether their own life is going well.
A happy life looks different depending on the person, often involving a combination of self-improvement, helping others, and seeking happiness.
People tend to be happier when they let go of unrealistic expectations about how life should be and focus on the things they can control.
Choosing Happiness - Kristen Fuller, M.D.
How many times have you told yourself, “I just want to be happy?”
There is a plethora of research about the science of happiness, and results conclude that each one of us can work towards the goal of happiness. But what does it exactly mean to “be happy?”
Is happiness a fleeting emotion or a state of mind?
Can’t Risk Rejection for Connection? 5 Risk-Reducing Steps - Suzanne B. Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP
A fear of rejection can stop people from seeking out new connections and relationships.
Challenging and reframing expectations can help overcome the fear of rejection.
Being curious and leading with authenticity can help as well.
Can You Think Your Way to Well-Being? - Michelle McQuaid
How you view a situation affects how you feel. It’s not the situation itself that directly leads to your reaction—emotional, behavioral, or physiological; it’s your perception of the situation and, more specifically, it’s the thoughts you have when you’re in that situation or when you’re thinking about it.
Can Online Psychology Classes Increase Well-Being? - Marianna Pogosyan Ph.D.
Online classes have been increasingly popular during the pandemic.
A study found that participants in online psychology courses saw increases in well-being from their baseline measures.
If these classes have long-term benefits, they could become reliable public health interventions.
All Unnecessary Suffering Comes From Outdated Defenses - Leon F Seltzer Ph.D.
So initially, when you’re younger and not yet cognitively or emotionally mature, your defenses warrant praise. After all, they “saved the day” for you. The problem with most defenses, however, is that they don’t self-adjust to adapt to stressful conditions you’re likely to face later on. Because they’re essentially involuntary (in a sense, with a mind of their own), they continue to function as they did originally, conflating the present with the past.
That is, anything reminding them of an earlier time when they came forth to alleviate your anxiety will function to reactivate them. For they’re still singularly devoted to helping you deal with worrisome situations, but as though you’re still much younger than you are today.