Elisabet Sahtouris – Interview With Mutual Responsibility

Elisabet Sahtouris – Interview With Mutual Responsibility

Happy to share with you this profound conversation we had with one of our favorite sages, Elisabet Sahtouris, during the Thanksgiving holidays. Hear her comment on the “ecstasy of unity and connection.”  An incredible person, scholar, scientist, and a woman, from whom we draw so much insight and wisdom.  An interview worth your...
Facts and Statistics on How Happiness Is Contagious

Facts and Statistics on How Happiness Is Contagious

We found that happiness can spread like a virus through social networks. In fact, if your friends’ friends’ friend becomes happy, it significantly increases the chance that you’ll be happy. –Dr. James Fowler, in “Happiness Is… – MSNBC.” 4 Facts & Stats on How Happiness Is Contagious A study by two professors from Harvard and UCSD, Dr. Nicholas Christakis and Dr. James Fowler, found that when a person becomes happy: Next door neighbors have a 34% increased chance of becoming happy. A friend living within one mile has a 25% increased chance of becoming happy. Siblings have a 14% increased chance of becoming happy. A spouse has an 8% change of becoming happy.   More on the Happiness Contagion Study… Happiness isn’t a solitary experience; it’s dependent on others. Harvard researchers followed 4,739 people for 20 years, measuring how social networks, siblings, friends and neighbors are affected by the happiness of others. The study controlled factors of age, gender, education and occupation. Researchers found that close physical proximity is essential for happiness to spread. A happy friend who lives within a half-mile makes you 42% more likely to be happy yourself. If that same friend lives two miles away, the impact drops to 22%. Happy siblings make you 14% more likely to be happy, but only if they live within a mile. Happy spouses provide an 8% boost, if they live under the same roof. Previous research has shown that people who are happy have healthier hearts, they have lower levels of stress hormones, and they live longer. –Dr. James Fowler, in “Happiness Is… – MSNBC.” Text in this...
7 Quotes on Well-Being and Happiness to Inspire Positivity, Altruism and Kindness in Social Interactions

7 Quotes on Well-Being and Happiness to Inspire Positivity, Altruism and Kindness in Social Interactions

The quotes in this post are all by Martin Seligman, from the lecture “Ideas at the House: Martin Seligman – Well-Being and Happiness,” which can be viewed at the bottom of this post.   1) Traditional Psychotherapy Doesn’t Deal with Achieving Happiness, but with Reducing Suffering Freud and Schopenhauer told us the best we could ever do in life was not to be miserable; that the object of human progress, the object of psychotherapy was to reduce suffering to zero. I’m going to argue today that that’s empirically false, it’s morally insidious, and it’s politically a dead end; that there’s much more to life than zero.   2) 30 Years Ago There Was No Way to Measure Happiness. Today There Is 30 years ago, the word “happiness” was a tremendously vague word. It meant very many different things to different people, and it could not be measured. But now, we have good measures of the elements of well-being.   3) There Is Higher Chance of Making Less Happy People Happier, then Already Happy People Even Happier Technically, we call these states “positive affectivity” and they are bell shaped. That means, right now, 50% of the people in the world are not cheerful and merry. They are not smiling. It is highly genetic. It is about 50% heritable and most importantly, the best we can to with smiling, being merry, being cheerful, is to raise it by about 5-15%. In fact, I spent most of my life working on misery and people would ask me: why didn’t I work on happiness? The reason I didn’t, there was a very influential...
Research into a Healthier Way to Cope with Social Rejection: ‘Tend and Befriend’ Vs. ‘Fight or Flight’

Research into a Healthier Way to Cope with Social Rejection: ‘Tend and Befriend’ Vs. ‘Fight or Flight’

Mark Ellenbogen and Christopher Cardoso, researchers in Concordia’s Centre for Research in Human Development are taking a closer look at oxytocin, a hormone traditionally studied for its role in childbirth and breastfeeding, and more recently for its effect on social behaviour. Their latest study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, shows that oxytocin can increase a person’s trust in others following social rejection. Explains Ellenbogen, “that means that instead of the traditional ‘fight or flight’ response to social conflict where people get revved up to respond to a challenge or run away from it, oxytocin may promote the ‘tend and befriend’ response where people reach out to others for support after a stressful event. That can, in turn, strengthen social bonds and may be a healthier way to cope.” In a double-blind experiment, 100 students were administered either oxytocin or a placebo via a nasal spray, then subjected to social rejection. In a conversation that was staged to simulate real life, researchers posing as students disagreed with, interrupted and ignored the unsuspecting participants. Using mood and personality questionnaires, the data showed that participants who were particularly distressed after being snubbed by the researchers reported greater trust in other people if they sniffed oxytocin prior to the event, but not if they sniffed the placebo. In contrast, oxytocin had no effect on trust in those who were not emotionally affected by social rejection. –Taken from the article “Feeling stressed? Oxytocin could help you reach out to others for support” by Concordia University, in Science Daily. Image: "Hello, Is This Shaniqua?" by...
Social Science Investigates Evolution to a Compassionate and Collaborative Human Society

Social Science Investigates Evolution to a Compassionate and Collaborative Human Society

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.   In contrast to “every man for himself” interpretations of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.   They call it “survival of the kindest.”   “Because of our very vulnerable offspring, the fundamental task for human survival and gene replication is to take care of others,” said Keltner, co-director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. “Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate. As Darwin long ago surmised, sympathy is our strongest instinct.” –Taken from the article, “Social scientists build case for ‘survival of the kindest’,” based on materials provided by University of California, Berkeley. The original article was written by Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations. Image: "His Compassions are Unfailing - Lamentations 3:22 HD Desktop" by...