Habits Of A Happy Brain Quotes

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

The brain has this amazing ability to find happiness even when the memories of it are gone.

When a monkey loses a banana to a rival, he feels bad, but he doesn't expand the problem by thinking about it over and over. He looks for another banana. He ends up feeling rewarded rather than harmed. Humans use their extra neurons to construct theories about bananas and end up constructing pain.

Do you want to be right or happy?

Good habits are important, but it’s often our bad habits that prevent us from reaching our full potential. You can have all the good habits in the world, but if you keep doing the bad habits alongside the good ones, you’ll struggle to reach your goals. Think of it this way: you’re only as good as your worst habits.

FOUR HAPPY CHEMICALS Dopamine: the joy of finding what you seek Endorphin: the oblivion that masks pain Oxytocin: the comfort of social alliances Serotonin: the security of social importance

You don’t notice your neural guidance system because you built it without conscious intent. That’s why it’s hard to build new trails: You don’t know how you built the old ones.

A mouse who fails to get the cheese tries again without kicking herself for being an idiot.

Think of it this way: you’re only as good as your worst habits.

The feeling we call “happiness” comes from four special brain chemicals: dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin, and serotonin.

more rewards (dopamine), more physical security (endorphin), more social support (oxytocin), more respect (serotonin).

In his book In This Very Life, the Burmese meditation teacher Sayadaw U Pandita, wrote, "In their quest for happiness, people mistake excitement of the mind for real happiness." We get excited when we hear good news, start a new relationship, or ride a roller coaster. Somewhere in human history, we were conditioned to think that the feeling we get when dopamine fires in our brain equals happiness. Don't forget, this was probably set up so that we would remember where food could be found, not to give us the feeling "you are now fulfilled." To be sure, defining happiness is a tricky business, and very subjective. Scientific definitions of happiness continue to be controversial and hotly debated. The emotion doesn't seem to be something that fits into a survival-of-the-fittest learning algorithm. But we can be reasonably sure that the anticipation of a reward isn't happiness.

All my life I was fascinated by memory,” Squire told me. “Then I met E.P., and saw how rich life can be even if you can’t remember it. The brain has this amazing ability to find happiness even when the memories of it are gone.

A lizard never thinks something is wrong with the world, even as it watches its young get eaten alive. It doesn't tell itself "something is wrong with the world," because it doesn't have enough neurons to imagine the world being other than what it is. It doesn't expect a world in which there is no predators, so it doesn't condemn the world for falling short of expectations. it doesn't condemn itself for failing to keep its offspring alive. Humans expect more, and we do something about it. That's why we end up focused on our disappointments instead of saluting our accomplishments.

As regards structure, comedy has come a long way since Shakespeare, who in his festive conclusions could pair off any old shit and any old fudge-brained slag (see Claudio and Hero in Much Ado) and get away with it. But the final kiss no longer symbolizes anything and well-oiled nuptials have ceased to be a plausible image of desire. That kiss is now the beginning of the comic action, not the end that promises another beginning from which the audience is prepared to exclude itself. All right? We have got into the habit of going further and further beyond the happy-ever-more promise: relationships in decay, aftermaths, but with everyone being told a thing or two about themselves, busy learning from their mistakes. So, in the following phase, with the obstructive elements out of the way (DeForest, Gloria) and the consummation in sight, the comic action would have been due to end, happily. But who is going to believe that any more?

Music gives pleasure because your mind keeps predicting what comes next. Each correct prediction triggers dopamine. You can't make good predictions for unfamiliar music, so you don't get the dopamine. But when music is too familiar, something strange happens. You don't get the dopamine either because your brain predicts it effortlessly. To make you happy, music must be at the sweet spot of novelty and familiarity.

God never said that you will live an average or unfulfilled life. You and the people who programmed your mind ‘assumed’ your worth, ability and deservingness. You have the same brains and ability like the most successful ones have. Only the circumstances are different and I can assure you that your circumstances are not the worst.

Blaming others for your unhappiness is a habit that’s hard to give up because it triggers some happy chemicals. You feel important when you battle perceived injustice (serotonin), and you bond with others who feel similarly deprived (oxytocin). You get excited when you seek and find evidence that you have been denied your fair share of happiness (dopamine). You may even trigger endorphins by welcoming physical pain into your life as evidence of your deprivation. You keep building a circuit for seeking happiness by feeling wronged.

Good habits are important, but it’s often our bad habits that prevent us from reaching our full potential. You

HAPPY SURVIVAL MOTIVES Dopamine: seek rewards Endorphin: ignore physical pain Oxytocin: build social alliances Serotonin: get respect from others

When the Parent Dragons are triggered, you feel like you’ve done something wrong, you are not good enough or supported, and you are motivated to work harder.

you’re only as good as your worst habits.

Self-esteem is the difference between where you believe you are and where you think you should be compared to others. If they match, you tend to feel good about yourself. If they don’t match, you feel inferior.

Identifying a potential threat feels curiously good. You’re like a gazelle that smells a lion and can’t relax until it sees where the lion is. Seeing a lion feels good when the alternative is worse. We seek evidence of threats to feel safe, and we get a dopamine boost when we find what we seek. You can also get a serotonin boost from the feeling of being right, and an oxytocin boost from bonding with those who sense the same threat. This is why people seem oddly pleased to find evidence of doom and gloom. But the pleasure doesn’t last because the “do something” feeling commands your attention again. You can end up feeling bad a lot even if you’re successful in your survival efforts.

Bad habits are like heavy weights that you drag around as you go about your day. They’ll slow you down, tire you out, and frustrate you. Despite your hard work and talent, you’ll struggle to reach your full potential when you’ve got certain thoughts, behaviors, and feelings holding you back.

Humans are curious creatures, and most people find it almost impossible to ignore their email and social media notifications until the end of their work sessions. If you’re being interrupted every few minutes by a ping or flashing browser tab, it will greatly reduce your productivity and concentration. Additionally, these social activities are pleasurable—they give our brains a little hit of dopamine, otherwise known as the happy hormone. In other words, social media can be addictive. A quick five minutes on Facebook can easily turn into an hour, as many of us can attest to. Rather than struggling against your brain’s natural inclination to procrastinate, save yourself a lot of time and hassle by simply closing your email tab and banning social media during work time.

On the road to change, whenever you fall prey to bad habits, you can expect the brain to default to voices of inadequacy and unworthiness. The best strategy is to forgive yourself for going astray—it’s expected. In this space of awareness, investigate and learn from the distraction and then invite yourself to make the choice to start again. Make Forgive and Invite a practice and keep beginning again and again.

Before I got serious about being healthy, I gave in to my urge for bread, especially freshly made bread dripping in butter. Yet when I fell in love with my brain, I realized I love being healthy, having energy and cognitive clarity, and being able to get into the same size jeans I wore in high school much more than the momentary pleasure of unhealthy food. The new benefits were so much better than the old ones. I now see free bread as a “weapon of mass destruction,” and I feel badly when I give in to a behavior that does not serve my health.

One of the best things about owning a brain is how you often seem to phase out of normalcy and briefly see your culture with a weirdly objective frame of mind. At some point every child realizes money is made up of slips of paper with no intrinsic value, and wonders why aloud. So, too, will children ask adults what’s up with shaking hands, or putting your fork on one side of the plate, or saying “Bless you” after a sneeze. Parents apply the glue that holds a culture together when explaining to a child that his socks must match, or that punctuality is paramount, or that picking his nose in public is a terrible habit. When a parent tells a boy he shouldn’t play with dolls, or a girl to wait for a boy to ask her to the prom, they are enforcing norms. When a kid asks, “But, why?” she is rightfully bringing to the attention of the adult world that all this stuff is just made up and mostly arbitrary nonsense often clung to for some long-forgotten reason. That feeling you sometimes get when you snap out of your culture for a moment, when the operating system crashes and slowly reboots, has been the subject of literature and drama for thousands of years.

Social: Alizé grew up in an environment that was contributing to lower blood flow in the brain. When she came to live with me and my wife, however, we surrounded her with people who live brain-healthy lives. It has inspired her to start adopting healthier habits that are boosting blood flow to her brain. Spiritual: For many people, like my grandfather, taking care of others takes precedence over taking care of themselves. Making your own health a priority may feel selfish, but making sure you are happy, healthy, and energetic is the key to being there for your family and friends.

We are stuck in habits and attitudes that seem impossible to break. We are stuck thinking food is love. We are stuck with guilt about food because we are female; or stuck not liking vegetables because we are male. We are stuck feeding hungers that often exist more in our brain than our stomach. We are stuck in our happy childhood memories of unhealthy foods. But the biggest way we are stuck is in our belief that our eating habits are something we can do very little about. In fact, we can do plenty. The first step is seeing that eating is a skill that each of us learns and that we retain the capacity for learning it, no matter how old we are.

Calvin had nodded excitedly, explaining in detail Elizabeth’s work and habits and laugh and everything else he loved about her. But in a more somber tone, he also explained that although he and Elizabeth spent all of their free time together—they lived together, they ate together, they drove back and forth to work together—it didn’t feel like enough. It wasn’t that he couldn’t function without her, he told Four Seat, but rather that he didn’t see the point of functioning without her. “I don’t know what to call it,” he’d confided following a full examination. “Am I addicted to her? Am I dependent in some sick sort of way? Could I have a brain tumor?” “Jesus, Six, it’s called happiness,” Four Seat explained. “When’s the wedding?

You have a what?" Four Seat had said, surprised. "A girlfriend? Well, good for you, Six!" he said, slapping him on the back. "About bloody time!" Calvin hade nodded excitedly, explaining in detail Elizabeth's work and habits and laugh and everything else he loved about her. But in a more somber tone, he also explained that although he and Elizabeth spent all of their free time together - they lived together, they ate together, they drove back and forth to work together - it didn't feel like enough. It wasnt that he couldn't function without her, he told Four Seat, but rather that he didn't see the point of functioning without her. "I don't know what to call it," he confided following a full examination. "Am I addicted to her? Am I dependent in some sick sort of way? Could I have a brain tumor?" "Jesus, Six, it's called happiness," Four Seat explained. "When's the wedding?

76. Two men, one heart – one widow?! It was over the news around the end of 2010s – a man called Sonny Graham, 57 at the time, had received a heart transplantation which saved his life. The heart had belonged to Terry Cottle, an adopted father of two, and a husband of a woman named Cheryl, who had taken his life at the age of 33. Here is where things got creepy. Mr. Graham suddenly changed some of his life habits, including his food and drink preferences, which now strangely matched Mr. Cottle's. On top of that – he fell in love with Cheryl, Mr. Cottle's widow. Soon after, they married. However, there was no happy ending to this story. 13 years later, Sonny Graham, who had previously never displayed any signs of mental or emotional instability, took his life as well – in much the same way as late mr. Cottle did. So who says our brain is our only thing responsible for our thoughts and emotions?

All of us have Dragons from the Past influencing our present feelings and actions.”[1] Unless you recognize and tame them, and consciously calm and protect your amygdala from overfiring, these dragons will haunt your unconscious mind and drive emotional pain for the rest of your life. What blows from an ember, or a small action of another, can turn into a destructive fire of anxiety and rage. After learning from Dr. May, I started using this concept with my patients, including Jimmy. Over time I identified 13 Dragons from the Past, including their origins, triggers that make them overpowering, and how they cause us to react. All of us have more than one Dragon from the Past driving our behavior, and they are always interacting with the Dragons from the Past of others, causing both internal and external battles—a modern-day Game of Thrones. All of us have primary and secondary dragons driving our behavior. Primary ones are present most of the time, while secondary ones come out during times of stress, such as the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. You’ll learn which ones apply to you. (You can also take the Hidden Dragons quiz at KnowYourDragons.com.)

I blinked at her. She was as composed as a mediaeval saint, wearing an expression of Eastern inscrutability. “Yes, child. The less you and I discuss about that particular episode, the better. Ask me again when you’re about to be married, and then we shall have a frank discussion.” “I shan’t marry,” she informed me coolly. “Never?” “Never. I mean to find some purposeful work. A husband would get in my way.” She was serious as the grave, but I knew better than to smile. “Perhaps you will. But life has a habit of changing your mind for you. Still, better you put that remarkable brain of yours to good use than feed it nothing more demanding than flower-arranging and playing the piano. Unless those are particular passions of yours,” I added hastily. She rolled her eyes. “I loathe music, and flowers make me sneeze.” “There you go. I was never very good at the feminine accomplishments, either.” “Perhaps it’s a family failing,” she suggested kindly. ----- "That is a perfectly exceptional child,” Brisbane said when she was gone. “I think she must be what you were like as a little girl.” “I was never so—” I began. But then I thought about Perdita. A little odd, mistress of her own interests, curious, with a penchant for speaking her mind. “Yes, I suppose rather.” He smiled and put down his cup. He slapped his thighs, and I went to him, sliding onto his lap, my head fitting comfortably into the hollow of his neck. “I am very happy you are mine,” I told him. Brisbane produced his customary phrase for such occasions. “Show me.” And so I did.

When you notice something good in your experience, gently encourage it to last without trying to hold on to it. Your brain tends to keep looking for something new to want. By repeatedly taking in experiences that you like without tipping into wanting them, you could gradually undo the habit of wanting itself.

Over the past year, as I have been working with the global tax-accounting firm KPMG to help their tax auditors and managers become happier, I began to realize that many of the employees were suffering from an unfortunate problem. Many of them had to spend 8 to 14 hours a day scanning tax forms for errors, and as they did, their brains were becoming wired to look for mistakes. This made them very good at their jobs, but they were getting so expert at seeing errors and potential pitfalls that this habit started to spill over into other areas of their lives. Like the Tetris players who suddenly saw those blocks everywhere, these accountants experienced each day as a tax audit, always scanning the world for the worst. As you can imagine, this was no picnic, and what’s more, it was undermining their relationships at work and at home. In performance reviews, they noticed only the faults of their team members, never the strengths. When they went home to their families, they noticed only the C’s on their kids’ report cards, never the A’s. When they ate at restaurants, they could only notice that the potatoes were underdone—never that the steak was cooked perfectly. One tax auditor confided that he had been very depressed over the past quarter. As we discussed why, he mentioned in passing that one day during a break at work he had made an Excel spreadsheet listing all the mistakes his wife had made over the past six weeks. Imagine the reaction of his wife (or soon to be ex wife) when he brought that list of faults home in an attempt to make things better. Tax auditors are far from the only ones who get stuck in this

Get into the habit of rewarding the intellectual exertion your child puts into a given task rather than his or her native intellectual resources.

productive kid and a juvenile delinquent. Parents with the happiest kids started this habit early in their parenting careers and then continued it over the years. They kept track of their children’s emotions the way some people keep track of their stock portfolios or favorite baseball team. They did not pay attention in a controlling, insecure style but in a loving, unobtrusive way, like a caring family physician. They knew when their kids were happy, sad, fearful, or joyful, often without asking. They could read and interpret with astonishing accuracy their child’s verbal and nonverbal cues.

Shawn teaches a set of five simple things you can do every day that, if you do them consistently over time, will make you significantly, noticeably, measurably happier. They are slight edge actions for happiness: happy habits.   Each morning, write down three things you’re grateful for. Not the same three every day; find three new things to write about. That trains your brain to search your circumstances and hunt for the positive. Journal for two minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past twenty-four hours. Write down every detail you can remember; this causes your brain to literally reexperience the experience, which doubles its positive impact. Meditate daily. Nothing fancy; just stop all activity, relax, and watch your breath go in and out for two minutes. This trains your brain to focus where you want it to, and not get distracted by negativity in your environment. Do a random act of kindness over the course of each day. To make this simple, Shawn often recommends a specific act of kindness: at the start of each day, take two minutes to write an email to someone you know praising them or thanking them for something they did. Exercise for fifteen minutes daily. Simple cardio, even a brisk walk, has a powerful antidepressant impact, in many cases stronger (and more long-lasting) than an actual antidepressant! According to Shawn, if you do any one of these things faithfully for just three weeks, twenty-one days in a row, it will start to become a habit—a happy habit. You will have literally begun to rewire your brain to see the world in a different way, and as a result, to be happier on an everyday basis.

Attitude creates actions create results create destiny. Dan Buettner, author of Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, has traveled the world studying the everyday living habits of people who are healthiest and live the longest of anyone on the planet. Of all the factors possibly influencing health, vitality, and longevity, Buettner and his team compiled a list of nine. These people (1) live an active life, (2) cultivate purpose and a reason to wake up every morning, (3) take time to de-stress (appreciation, prayer, etc.), (4) stop eating when they are 80 percent full, (5) eat a diet emphasizing vegetables, especially beans, (6) have moderate alcohol intake (especially dark red wine), (7) play an active role in a faith-based community, (8) place a strong emphasis on family, and (9) are part of like-minded social circles with similar habits. As Buettner points out, physiological factors like exercise and diet play a role—but not as big a role as you’d expect. A big part of it is factors that have to do with attitude, habits of behavior, and who they associate with. And while we’re talking about positivity, let me clear up a common misconception about positive outlook, right here and now. Cultivating positive outlook does not mean you are always happy. It does not mean life never gets you down. It does not mean you walk around with an idiotic grin on your face even when you’re hurting, and it doesn’t mean living in denial, ignoring the realities of pain and struggle, or checking your brain at the door. People who cultivate a genuinely positive outlook go through tough times, too; when we’re cut, we bleed red blood just like everyone else.

None of this seems particularly groundbreaking to us today. But what William James concluded was indeed crucial to our understanding of behavioral change. Given our natural tendency to act out of habit, James surmised, couldn’t the key to sustaining positive change be to turn each desired action into a habit, so that it would come automatically, without much effort, thought, or choice? As the Father of Modern Psychology so shrewdly advised, if we want to create lasting change, we should “make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.

DAILY STROKES OF EFFORT Of course, this is where the phrase “easier said than done” has particular relevance. Good habits may be the answer, but how do we create them in the first place? William James had a prescription for that, too. He called it “daily strokes of effort.” This is hardly revelatory, basically a reworking of the old dictum “practice makes perfect.” Still, he was on to something far more sophisticated than he could possibly have known at the time. “A tendency to act,” he wrote, “only becomes effectively ingrained in us in proportion to the uninterrupted frequency with which the actions actually occur, and the brain ‘grows’ to their use.”5 In other words, habits form because our brain actually changes in response to frequent practice.

Good habits are important, but it’s often our bad habits that prevent us from reaching our full potential

The key to creating these habits is ritual, repeated practice, until the actions become ingrained in your brain’s neural chemistry.

While feeling sorry for yourself is about thinking I deserve better, gratitude is about thinking I have more than I deserve. Experiencing gratitude requires some extra effort, but it isn’t hard. Anyone can learn to become more grateful by developing new habits.

A study of the brain using new technology showed that the thinking areas practically shut down when people were made to listen to information that contradicted their political beliefs. Conversely, when they heard information that tended to confirm their beliefs, the happiness centers of the brain lit up.

The hedonic treadmill says that no matter how much you have right now, you will want more, and when you get more, you will want more still—unless you’re wise enough to save your money for some of the things that do lead to happiness.

Our thoughts, actions and habits are critical in creating a healthy, happy and fulfilling life. What we eat and what we do shapes not only our metabolic health, but also our emotions, and how our brain processes information and creates thoughts and ideas.

writing it down does have a lot of benefits because your brain takes it very seriously.

Our brains are not the best memory tools, and they only trust systems they believe work like to-do lists.

Writing itself accesses the left brain region, which is rational and analytical. While the left brain region is engaged, the right brain is free to build, feel and intuit. Writing generally removes the mental blocks and lets you use all your brain power to understand yourself better, as well as other people and the world around you.

Get in the habit of deliberately calling up a sense of strength—not to dominate anybody or anything, but to fuel your intentions (see the exercise, “Many Ways to Feel Strong”).

The truth is, most of us don’t really invest much time calculating which risks to take and which risks to avoid. Instead, we base our decisions on emotions or habit. If it sounds too scary, we avoid the risk. If we’re excited about the possible benefits, we’re more likely to overlook the risk.

Mindfulness brings many benefits: scientists point out that it calms the mind and elevates brain function, it gives clarity and vividness to present experience, it may help people break unhealthy habits, and it can soothe troubled spirits and lift people’s moods. It reduces stress and chronic pain. It makes people

The level of our happiness is said to decrease when we have more than seven free hours in a day. Serotonin is inert in the brains of people who suffer from depression. A person with strong willpower isn't tempted in the first place. Your willpower will be lost if you give in to negative emotions like uncertainty or doubt. When that happens, the brain takes instinctive action and tells you to try to grab the reward in front of you. As a result you may eat or drink too much or lose the motivation to do anything. Then, later, you regret those actions and feel more stress. 45% of our actions are habits rather than decisions made on the spot. To dye a dirty cloth, you must first wash it. ( a teaching of Ayurveda ) There is value to anything if you take it seriously. You often become susceptible to addictions if the rewards come quickly. People who are unable to clean up or part with their things will sometimes feel anger towards minimalists and I believe it's because some part of them is anxious about their own actions. Our present identities shouldn't constrain our future actions. The time after you get up is the time when you can concentrate the best. As the day goes by, unexpected things and distractions will happen and build up so it's best to do what you want to do in the morning. Waking up early is a must and if you lose that first battle, you will lose in all the battles. Realize that enthusiasm won't occur before you do something. You won't feel motivated unless you start acting. Amazon rules over the buying habits of so many people because its hurdles are extremely low. People's motivation will easily go away when faced with a simple hurdle. When you quit something, it's easier to quit it completely. With acquiring a habit, it's the opposite, easier to do it every day. A plan relieves you of the torment of choice. Success is a consequence and must not be a goal. The result will be burnout if you only have a target. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence and then success is sure. Mark Twain To have a sense of self-efficacy is to believe "I can do this!". It's the belief that you can change, grow, learn and overcome new challenges. Talking about someone's talent can wait until you've exceeded the effort that that person has made. If we changed houses periodically, we would have the joy of exploring our new environment each time and there would also be the joy of gaining control over each new environment, This instinct is probably what drives curiosity and the desire for self-development. If we don't cultivate our own opportunities for development, we'll only be able to find joy in modern society's "ready-made" fun. Activities structured so that we have to "Enjoy this in this way", where the way to have fun is already decided, will eventually bore us. And then, someday, we'll be bored with ourselves. Making it a habit to seek unique opportunities for development and gaining the sense that we're always doing something new: these are things that satisfy human instinct. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. The Dhammapada, The Sayings of the Buddha Something that you thought was your personality can change with a simple habit. People are instinctively inclined to get bored of what they have now and pursue new things. So no matter how successful they become, they will worry and find reasons to feel uncertain. They will get used to any environment and they will get bored with it. Training in Buddhism: when cleaning is part of the training, you're taught to thoroughly eliminate rationalizations such as " this is already clean, so it doesn't have to be cleaned.

You can have all the good habits in the world, but if you keep doing the bad habits alongside the good ones, you’ll struggle to reach your goals. Think of it this way: you’re only as good as your worst habits.

While the healthcare industry often talks in terms of mental health versus mental illness, mental strength is different. Just like people can still be physically strong even if they have a physical health ailment like diabetes, you can still be mentally strong even if you have depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems. Having a mental illness doesn’t mean you’re destined to have bad habits. Instead, you can still choose to develop healthy habits.

Focus on daily, consistent, positive habits. These inevitably lead to growth and development.

You are always looking for a way to feel good, deciding whether to act on it, and then looking for the next best way of feeling good.

Good habits are important, but it’s often our bad habits that prevent us from reaching our full potential.

Dr. May said, “All of us have Dragons from the Past influencing our present feelings and actions.”[1] Unless you recognize and tame them, and consciously calm and protect your amygdala from overfiring, these dragons will haunt your unconscious mind and drive emotional pain for the rest of your life.

All these great biz leaders know one thing — nothing interesting can come out of your brain that you don’t put in first. Having a natural curiosity and thirst for learning separates the good from the great in our experience. Happy reading!

ANT Types 1. All-or-Nothing ANTs: Thinking that things are either all good or all bad 2. Less-Than ANTs: Where you compare and see yourself as less than others 3. Just-the-Bad ANTs: Seeing only the bad in a situation 4. Guilt-Beating ANTs: Thinking in words like should, must, ought, or have to 5. Labeling ANTs: Attaching a negative label to yourself or someone else 6. Fortune-Telling ANTs: Predicting the worst possible outcome for a situation with little or no evidence for it 7. Mind-Reading ANTs: Believing you know what other people are thinking even though they haven’t told you 8. If-Only and I’ll-Be-Happy-When ANTs: Where you argue with the past and long for the future 9.

In Western cultures we also tend to see joy as a choice and we can beat ourselves up for not being better at choosing this happy emotion.

As Christians, Chris and I are convinced it helps to have a relationship with a God who is happy to see us and happy to go through suffering with us because it means we are never alone.

The most important finding, however, was that close relationships are the strongest predictor of happiness, more than anything else.

a happy childhood gives us a foundation we will build on throughout our lives.

happiness is about 40 percent genetic (you inherit it from your ancestors), 10 percent your situation in life or what happens to you, and 50 percent habits and mindset.

First comes the Emotion Regulation Network. I consider this primary, because I believe that unless we have the ability to regulate our emotions, we cannot enjoy a happy life. We can’t sustain Bliss Brain for long enough to spark neural plasticity if our consciousness is easily hijacked by negative emotions like anger, resentment, guilt, fear, and shame. The Emotion Regulation Network controls our reactivity to disturbing events. Regulating emotions is the meditator’s top priority. Emotion will distract us from our path every time. Love and fear are fabulous for survival because of their evolutionary role in keeping us safe. Love kept us bonded to others of our species, which gave us strength in numbers. Fear made us wary of potential threats. But to the meditator seeking inner peace, emotion = distraction. In the stories of Buddha and Jesus in Chapter 2, we saw how they were tempted by both the love of gain and the fear of loss. Only when they held their emotions steady, refusing either type of bait, were they able to break through to enlightenment. THE HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF CONSCIOUSNESS BY EMOTION Remember a time when you swore you’d act rationally but didn’t? Perhaps you were annoyed by a relationship partner’s habit. Or a team member’s attitude. Or a child’s behavior? You screamed and yelled in response. Or perhaps you didn’t but wanted to. So you decided that next time you would stay calm and have a rational discussion. But as the emotional temperature of the conversation increased, you found yourself screaming and yelling again. Despite your best intentions, emotion overwhelmed you. Without training, when negative emotions arise, our capacity for rational thought is eclipsed. Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux calls this “the hostile takeover of consciousness by emotion.” Consciousness is hijacked by the emotions generated by fearful unwanted experiences or attractive desired ones. We need to regulate our emotions over and over again to gradually establish positive state stability. In positive state stability, when someone around us—whether a colleague, spouse, child, parent, politician, blogger, newscaster, or corporate spokesperson—says or does something that triggers negative emotions, we remain neutral. The same applies to negative thoughts arising from within our own consciousness. Positive state stability allows us to feel happy despite the chatter of our own minds. Getting triggered happens quickly. LeDoux found that it takes less than 1 second from hearing an emotionally triggering word to a reaction in the brain’s limbic system, the part that processes emotion. When we’re overwhelmed by emotion, rational thinking, sound judgment, memory, and objective evaluation disappear. But once we’re stable in that positive state, we’ve inoculated ourselves against negative influences, both from our own consciousness and from the outside world. We maintain that positive state over time, and state becomes trait.

According to experts in the Mayo Clinic, positive thinking will enhance your life, minimize depression and stress levels, give you more immunity to the common cold, improve your overall psychological and physical well-being, boost your cardiovascular health and protect you from cardiovascular disease.

Brain opioids are so powerful that if you exercise, you can lower your “mental health burden” by nearly 25 percent and enjoy a much higher ratio of positive mental health days – a whopping 43 percent – than non-exercisers experience. Let that sink in for a second: just by goofing around a little on your bike, you can nearly double your happiness. For free. If you put results like that in a pill, it would outsell ice cream. Pg 178

How can you be happy while the world is falling apart? The people who are resilient versus those who are not have a TLC mindset. They see what is happening as temporary, local, and with some sense of control. People who crumble in hard times tend to see the situation as permanent (things will never change) and global (it’s everywhere), and they feel as though they have no control over the situation (they feel like a victim). Here’s how I used TLC to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

For managing the control aspect of TLC, I often say the Serenity Prayer. It is the essence of mental health: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. This is the happy person’s way of life. Practicing TLC will strengthen your resilience to get through any significant issue in your life.

For years I found it annoying to walk my dog. All she ever wanted to do was sniff the grass and trees upon which other dogs had left their scent. Neither of us got much exercise. It was like tug-of-war to get Snickers to move at all. One day, I saw an Instagram video in which a self-designated dog expert explained that dogs might need the sniffing more than the walking. Their brains light up when they sniff, and it can tire them out when they engage in vigorous sniffing. I had noticed how happy Snickers looked when sniffing, but my brain couldn’t connect the dots because sniffing dog urine sounds inherently unpleasant to my human brain. But to the dog, it was the equivalent of checking her social media. I started naming the trees and shrubs in the park accordingly: Muta (formerly known as Facebark), Twigger, LeafedIn, Instabush, and Treemail. Obviously, the garbage receptacle into which people flung their dog poop bags was TikTok.  Once I understood the importance of sniffing, I reframed my experience this way. Usual Frame: Taking the dog for a walk and failing. Reframe: Taking the dog for a sniff and succeeding. That reframe completely changed my subjective experience. Instead of failing at walking, I was succeeding at being a sniff-assistant. Snickers loved the new arrangement, and sure enough, twenty minutes of outdoor sniffing set her attitude right for the rest of the day.  But then I had a new problem. Standing around holding a leash is boring compared to walking. It’s boring compared to most things. But then I reframed my boredom this way. Usual Frame: I have nothing to do. I am just standing here. Reframe: Perfect time to practice proper breathing and posture. Now I spend twenty minutes a day enjoying the outdoors while breathing properly and practicing my posture. It feels good, which is enough to lock in the new habit. Now I am delighted to take my dog to the park. The only thing that changed was how I thought about the point of it all. If you’re like most people, you spend a lot of time standing in line or waiting for one thing or another. It feels like a gigantic waste of time. Maybe you check your phone, but that probably isn’t as useful as it is anxiety-making. As you can tell from the Snickers story, I found a way to turn all mindless waiting time into one of the most productive parts of my day using the good-time-to-breathe reframe.

focusing on what not to do has made all the difference. Good habits are important, but it’s often our bad habits that prevent us from reaching our full potential. You can have all the good habits in the world, but if you keep doing the bad habits alongside the good ones, you’ll struggle to reach your goals. Think of it this way: you’re only as good as your worst habits. Bad

One of the hardest behaviors to quench in anyone is a habit that is only occasionally rewarded. Want to keep a gambler at a slot machine longer? Make sure the payout schedule is random. Studies show that people who experience random rewards in response to a behavior cling to that behavior much more solidly than those who don’t. This

It has been proven that happier brains are more productive brains. So if you are happy you will perform another 20 to 30 percent better with the same tools, than a person in a neutral or pessimistic state.

on a strictly cellular level, repeated experience can change the way the brain works. This is the why behind the how of the Buddhist teachings that deal with eliminating mental habits conducive to unhappiness. ... because experience changes the neuronal structure of the brain, when we observe the mind this way, we can change the cellular gossip that perpetuates our experience of our “self.

But as soon as you heard of a bigger world with bigger fish, your serotonin would droop. A “do something” feeling would nag you until you found a way to advance your position.

None of us was born to stand still or to be content with the bare minimum of personal growth and happiness. There's more in you that you haven't unpacked yet. You don't want to die with any of it still boxed up in storage. Habit

If you have not what you like, like what you have until you can change your environment. "Do not waste your vitality in hating your life; find something in it which is worth liking and enjoying, while you keep steadily at work to make it what you desire. Be happy over something, every day, for the brain is a thing of habit, and you cannot teach it to be happy in a moment, if you allow it to be miserable for years.

Your brain isn’t here to show you an honest picture of the world, or to make you happy. It’s not here to make rational decisions, or to help you advance up the corporate ladder. Your body spent the energy it takes to build something as powerful as your brain for one reason and one reason only: Your brain helps you survive on a planet that is often hostile to life.

offered me new perspectives: the works of Ken Blanchard, of Tom Friedman and of Seth Godin, The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham, Good to Great by Jim Collins, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, E-Myth by Michael Gerber, The Tipping Point and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Chaos by James Gleick, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, M.D., The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, FISH! By Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, John Christensen and Ken Blanchard, The Naked Brain by Richard Restack, Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, The Black Swan by Nicholas Taleb, American Mania by Peter Whybrow, M.D., and the single most important book everyone should read, the book that teaches us that we cannot control the circumstances around us, all we can control is our attitude—Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I

This isn’t just about getting yourself to exercise. Think of the positive changes you want to make at your job, and figure out what it would mean to “just get your shoes on” at work. The less energy it takes to kick-start a positive habit, the more likely that habit will stick.

Mental strength isn’t synonymous with mental health. While the healthcare industry often talks in terms of mental health versus mental illness, mental strength is different. Just like people can still be physically strong even if they have a physical health ailment like diabetes, you can still be mentally strong even if you have depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems. Having a mental illness doesn’t mean you’re destined to have bad habits. Instead, you can still choose to develop healthy habits. It may require more work, more focus, and more effort, but it’s very possible.

Each morning, write down three things you’re grateful for. Not the same three every day; find three new things to write about. That trains your brain to search your circumstances and hunt for the positive. Journal for two minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past twenty-four hours. Write down every detail you can remember; this causes your brain to literally reexperience the experience, which doubles its positive impact. Meditate daily. Nothing fancy; just stop all activity, relax, and watch your breath go in and out for two minutes. This trains your brain to focus where you want it to, and not get distracted by negativity in your environment. Do a random act of kindness over the course of each day. To make this simple, Shawn often recommends a specific act of kindness: at the start of each day, take two minutes to write an email to someone you know praising them or thanking them for something they did. Exercise for fifteen minutes daily. Simple cardio, even a brisk walk, has a powerful antidepressant impact, in many cases stronger (and more long-lasting) than an actual antidepressant! According to Shawn, if you do any one of these things faithfully for just three weeks, twenty-one days in a row, it will start to become a habit—a happy habit. You will have literally begun to rewire your brain to see the world in a different way, and as a result, to be happier on an everyday basis. An interesting thing is that you don’t have to do all five at once—in fact, Shawn actually recommends that you don’t even try to do that, but instead start with just one and keep repeating it until it becomes a habit, then add another, and so on.

Happiness Habits I have a series of tricks I use to try and be happier in the moment. At first, they were silly and difficult and required a lot of attention, but now some of them have become second nature. By doing them religiously, I’ve managed to increase my happiness level quite a bit. The obvious one is meditation—insight meditation. Working toward a specific purpose on it, which is to try and understand how my mind works. [7] Just being very aware in every moment. If I catch myself judging somebody, I can stop myself and say, “What’s the positive interpretation of this?” I used to get annoyed about things. Now I always look for the positive side of it. It used to take a rational effort. It used to take a few seconds for me to come up with a positive. Now I can do it sub-second. [7] I try to get more sunlight on my skin. I look up and smile. [7] Every time you catch yourself desiring something, say, “Is it so important to me I’ll be unhappy unless this goes my way?” You’re going to find with the vast majority of things it’s just not true. [7] I think dropping caffeine made me happier. It makes me more of a stable person. [7] I think working out every day made me happier. If you have peace of body, it’s easier to have peace of mind. [7] The more you judge, the more you separate yourself. You’ll feel good for an instant, because you feel good about yourself, thinking you’re better than someone. Later, you’re going to feel lonely. Then, you see negativity everywhere. The world just reflects your own feelings back at you. [77] Tell your friends you’re a happy person. Then, you’ll be forced to conform to it. You’ll have a consistency bias. You have to live up to it. Your friends will expect you to be a happy person. [5] Recover time and happiness by minimizing your use of these three smartphone apps: phone, calendar, and alarm clock. [11] The more secrets you have, the less happy you’re going to be. [11] Caught in a funk? Use meditation, music, and exercise to reset your mood. Then choose a new path to commit emotional energy for rest of day. [11] Hedonic adaptation is more powerful for man-made things (cars, houses, clothes, money) than for natural things (food, sex, exercise). [11] No exceptions—all screen activities linked to less happiness, all non-screen activities linked to more happiness. [11] A personal metric: how much of the day is spent doing things out of obligation rather than out of interest? [11] It’s the news’ job to make you anxious and angry. But its underlying scientific, economic, education, and conflict trends are positive. Stay optimistic. [11] Politics, academia, and social status are all zero-sum games. Positive-sum games create positive people. [11] Increase serotonin in the brain without drugs: Sunlight, exercise, positive thinking, and tryptophan.

Research shows that this labeling habit is a dominant behavior for all parents who raise happy children.

Good habits are important, but it’s often our bad habits that prevent us from reaching our full potential. You can have all the good habits in the world, but if you keep doing the bad habits alongside the good ones, you’ll struggle to reach your goals.

happy habits.   Each morning, write down three things you’re grateful for. Not the same three every day; find three new things to write about. That trains your brain to search your circumstances and hunt for the positive. Journal for two minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past twenty-four hours. Write down every detail you can remember; this causes your brain to literally reexperience the experience, which doubles its positive impact. Meditate daily. Nothing fancy; just stop all activity, relax, and watch your breath go in and out for two minutes. This trains your brain to focus where you want it to, and not get distracted by negativity in your environment. Do a random act of kindness over the course of each day. To make this simple, Shawn often recommends a specific act of kindness: at the start of each day, take two minutes to write an email to someone you know praising them or thanking them for something they did. Exercise for fifteen minutes daily. Simple cardio, even a brisk walk, has a powerful antidepressant impact, in many cases stronger (and more long-lasting) than an actual antidepressant! According

Как бы не строились нейронные связи в мозге, вы не ощущаете их как многочисленные отростки, похожие на щупальца осьминога. Вы ощущаете эти связи, как истину.

CONSIDER THIS When things do go wrong, ask yourself whether you could have prevented it by being unhappy.

Every time you hop down to a new curve, you have the opportunity to recalibrate the metrics by which you gauge yourself. Just as a business moves from the messiness of start-up life to codifying process in order to scale, as you start to identify the metrics that measure what matters to you deeply, you'll be able to lock and load, then barrel up the y-axis of success. I don't know how you'll define success. Mine is best described by paraphrasing Samuel Johnson: the ultimate result of all ambition is to be happy at home. As you look to tip the odds of success in your favor, beware the undertow of the status quo—current stakeholders in your life and career, including family members, may encourage you to just keep doing what you are doing. The metrics you've always used to measure yourself are comfortable, and so are your established habits; performing well on your current path is practically automatic. You can almost convince yourself that staying put is the right thing. But there really is no such thing as "standing still."14 The "use it or lose it" principle applies to our brain cells just as it does to the muscles in our bodies. Neuroplasticity has a reverse function. Connections recede through lack of activation, while continual stimulation of neural pathways keeps them healthy and active, including—and especially—when you step back, down, or sideways.

These books, which cover many of the topics discussed in this book, may be helpful further reading. GENERAL REFERENCE American Academy of Pediatrics. Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age Five. New York: Bantam, 2004. Druckerman, P. Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. New York: Penguin, 2014. Eliot, L. What’s Going On in There?: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life. New York: Bantam, 2000. Nathanson, L. The Portable Pediatrician for Parents: A Month-by-Month Guide to Your Child’s Physical and Behavioral Development from Birth to Age Five. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. DISCIPLINE Phelan, T. W. 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2–12. Naperville, IL: ParentMagic, Inc., 2010. Webster-Stratton, C. The Incredible Years: A Trouble-Shooting Guide for Parents of Children Aged 2–8. Toronto: Umbrella Press, 1992. SLEEP Ferber, R. Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Karp, H. The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer. Rev. ed. New York: Bantam, 2015. Weissbluth, M. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night’s Sleep. 4th ed. New York: Ballantine Books, 2015. POTTY TRAINING Glowacki, J. Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right. New York: Touchstone, 2015.

. . . reading is a friend with Fountain of Youth benefits. A consistent habit of it lengthens life." Medina, John J. (2017) Brain Rules for Aging Well: 10 Principles for Staying Vital, Happy, and Sharp. Seattle, WA. Pear Press. p. 238.

A much more likely candidate for influencing a baby’s sleeping patterns is the hormone melatonin, which is produced by the baby’s brain beginning at about 3 to 4 months of age. This hormone surges at night and has the capability to both induce drowsiness and relax the smooth muscles encircling the gut. So around 3 or 4 months of age, so-called day/night confusion and apparent abdominal cramps (colic) begin to disappear.

All my life I was fascinated by memory,” Squire told me. “Then I met E.P., and saw how rich life can be even if you can’t remember it. The brain has this amazing ability to find happiness even when the memories of it are gone.

Always expecting someone else to come to our rescue can be a hard habit to break, even into adulthood, making it less likely that we’ll be willing to try again if we fail.