Barbara Fredrickson has shown that experiencing positive emotions has profound impact on one’s happiness.
Positive emotions are triggered by our interpretations of our current circumstances, whereas pleasure is what we get when we give the body what it needs right now. If you’re thirsty, water tastes really good; if you’re cold, it feels good to wrap your coat around you. Pleasures tell us what the body needs. Positive emotions tell us not just what the body needs but what we need mentally and emotionally and what our future selves might need. They help us broaden our minds and our outlook and build our resources down the road. I call it the “broaden-and-build” effect.
As She explains in her book, Positivity,
“[Positive emotions] broaden people’s ideas about possible actions, opening our awareness to a wider range of thoughts and actions than is typical. Joy, for instance, sparks the urge to play and be creative. Interest sparks the urge to explore and learn, whereas serenity sparks the urge to savor our current circumstances and integrate them into a new view of ourselves and the world around us. . . By opening our hearts and minds, positive emotions allow us to discover and build new skills, new ties, new knowledge, and new ways of being.”
She specifically identifies 10 postive emotions we should be cultivating:
She uses various techniques to grow positive emotions from Loving-Kindness Meditiation to watching funny clips to keeping a positivity portfolio.
Imagine that you have a folder or a box you can open, peek inside and see all the good things that happened to you recently; be it a picture your child drew for you or a complimentary email your client sent you or a little note you discovered your beloved left in the sugar bowl for you or goofy pictures of your loved ones. Sitting down and enjoying the memories will inevitably make you feel great in no time.
Each day focus on one emotion and find physical manifestations that remind you of that emotion–think pictures, video clips, mementos, cards, poems, your own writings etc.
Another technique is to track your ratio of positive emotions to negative ones. She provides a tool on her website to help you track your own positivity ratio.
In the next 10 segements I will identify some strategies for EACH specific postive emotions and how to cultivate in the classroom. In the meantime, listen to Barbara explain it here:
Further Reading:
– Cultivating Positive Emotions to Optimize Health and Well-Being (pdf) by Barbara L. Fredrickson.
– What Good Are Positive Emotions? (pdf) by Barbara L. Fredrickson.
Find the 200 most popular arctiles on positive emotions here.