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Ask for the big, unreasonable thing.

@case.kenny calls it audacity — asking instead of hoping, texting first without overthinking it, pivoting your whole life at 30 or 40 or 50 because you know you deserve better. And two quiet lines of research back him up.

The first is self-perception theory: we work out who we are largely by watching what we do. Every audacious act is evidence your brain files away — do bold things, and it starts deciding you are a bold person. No permission slip required.

The second is about the ask itself. Stanford’s Frank Flynn and Vanessa Bohns had people make thousands of direct requests of strangers, and found we underestimate how often others say yes — by about half. Translation: people are roughly twice as likely to help as you fear. The “no” you’re bracing for is mostly in your head.

So swing. You can miss and still be the person others remember and root for, because boldness is rare — and rare is magnetic.

Your life expands in direct proportion to what you’re willing to ask for. Ask bigger.

Well-being begins with Optimism. by @optimism

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a month ago

I’m SO EXCITED to announce my new role as Chief Optimist at @optimism

I’ve spent years teaching the language of optimism to millions. Now I get to bring it to millions more.

As Chief Optimist, I’ll advise across Optimism newsletters, helping shape how science-backed well-being is communicated through the lens of optimism, while also writing The Optimist, a new flagship newsletter. So many exciting announcements are coming soon. Be sure to follow @optimism so you’re the first to know.

@optimism is a platform for well-being, making vetted, relevant expertise accessible for your journey from health to wellness to longevity. From the web to real life, Optimism develops and curates trusted expertise, shares it through flagship inbox brands — All Healthy, Health Brief, Better Plates and soon to be The Optimist) — and creates community through Optimism experiences. by @optimism

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2 months ago

Speak to yourself in 3rd person.

We know it might sound absurd, but it’s one of the most robust findings in modern emotion research.

In a 2017 study, Ethan Kross’s lab at the University of Michigan and colleagues at Michigan State put people in brain scanners and asked them to reflect on distressing images and painful memories — some using “I,” some using their own name. The shift in language reduced a neural marker of emotional reactivity within the first second.

But the finding underneath it is the good one: it happened without engaging the brain’s cognitive control systems. Most emotion regulation is effortful — you have to work at it. This one isn’t. Referring to yourself by name quietly moves you from participant to observer, from inside the overwhelm to advising someone you care about.

So don’t say “I’m freaking out.” Say your name, and tell that person they’ve got this.

@case.kenny.

Source:
Kross et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2014)
Moser, Kross et al., Scientific Reports (2017). by @optimism

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4 days ago

Language changes how feelings show up. But it does two different things depending on what you give words to.

When something’s wrong, name the feeling to yourself. Finish the sentence “what I’m feeling right now is ___.” Researchers call this affect labeling, and the effect is curiously physical — in brain-imaging work, putting a feeling into words was associated with a quieter response in the amygdala, the region that is our internal alarm system. In later studies, people facing a fear who named it out loud showed less physiological arousal than those using other methods. The word you choose to name your feeling doesn’t have to be elegant; it just has to be accurate.

When something’s good, tell someone. This is a different mechanism entirely. Researchers call it capitalization, and the finding is that sharing a good thing raises your positive mood and well-being beyond the effect of the good thing itself — because retelling it makes you live the feeling twice.

One thing worth noting: labeling a feeling turns the volume down on the feeling, including the good ones. So don’t keep your happy feelings inside. Share them.

A difficult feeling wants a word. A good one wants a friend!

Comment what your positive feelings are.

Sources:
- Torre & Lieberman, “Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling as Implicit Emotion Regulation,” Emotion Review, 2018
- Gable et al., “What do you do when things go right?”, JPSP, 2004, and Reis et al., JPSP, 2010 by @optimism

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5 days ago

What we practice grows stronger.

I’ve spent much of my career studying mindfulness, self-compassion, and neuroplasticity, and one of the most hopeful things science teaches us is that our brains can change throughout our lives.

What we think, feel, and do again and again shapes our brain.

In a classic study, researchers taught people who had never played piano a simple five-finger exercise. After just five days of practice, they could already measure changes in the area of the brain involved in those finger movements.

This is neuroplasticity in action.

But neuroplasticity is neutral.

Which means we have to be intentional about what we practice.

We can practice worry, or we can practice optimism.

We can practice self-judgment, or self-compassion.

We can practice rushing, or patience.

Practice, not perfect.

So perhaps the most important question is: What do you want to grow?

@drshaunashapiro by @optimism

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6 days ago

There’s a quiet idea in Maathai’s words: that caring for the world and caring for yourself are not separate initiatives vying for your attention.

Maathai spent her life showing us how this is true. Her movement paid rural Kenyan women to plant trees, and in doing so restored soil, provided income, rebuilt community, and gave thousands of people a reason to believe their own actions counted. The land healed. And people thrived.

She shared this sentiment this while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, turning a warning into an emphasis on beauty and wonder.

Go outside to feel different inside. by @optimism

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7 days ago

We have two beliefs about ability, and they only diverge the moment something gets hard.

If you believe ability is fixed, struggle means you’ve hit the limit to our ability. So you back off.

If ability is something that grows, struggle means you’re learning. So you stay in it.

Researchers tested this across 65 US high schools. Students spent 50 minutes online reading about how the brain gets stronger with difficulty. The result was lower-achieving students went on to earn better grades, and more students signed up for advanced math.

Fifty minutes didn’t make anyone smarter. It changed how they approached struggle. A growth mindset leads to a fitter mind.

Source: Yeager et al., “A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement,” Nature, 2019. by @optimism

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7 days ago

Begin your week on purpose. Centered, unhurried, and ready for whatever it holds.

Breathwork Live! is Optimism’s free weekly breathwork session guided by @darrenobong , who has led our team through a regular breathwork practice for years. Twenty minutes to slow down, set down what you’ve been carrying, and begin the week centered enough to meet whatever it asks of you.

You don’t need any experience, and there’s nothing to prepare. Find somewhere quiet, sit or lie down, and arrive exactly as you are.

And you don’t have to come every week. Show up when it works for you, or make it a standing part of your Mondays.

Monday, 8:00 am PT. Free and open to everyone.

Comment BREATHE, and we’ll send you the link to join. by @optimism

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11 days ago

A small, freeing sentence from one of the great American writers.

Morrison is saying that you are more than just the thing you make. Which is an optimistic account of being human.

Morrison encourages us to find our worth across everything that defines us. The more you care about any one thing, the more a setback therein becomes a verdict on who you are as a person. Celebrate every bit of what makes you, you.

Share this with someone who needs to let their colors shine. by @optimism

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12 days ago

We’re delighted to welcome Dr. Shauna Shapiro as Optimism’s new Scientific Advisor.

Shauna found her calling at seventeen, after spinal fusion surgery shattered her dream of playing college volleyball and left her with a metal rod in her spine.

Mindfulness became her doorway back.

That experience began a path that would take her to monasteries in Thailand and Nepal, a PhD in clinical psychology, and more than 25 years as a professor and scientist.

Today, Shauna has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and written four books translated into 19 languages. Her TEDx talk has been watched nearly 4 million times, and she has shared her work with Google, LinkedIn, Morgan Stanley, Stanford Medical School, Harvard Law, the WNBA, and Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Summit.

Through it all, one idea has shaped her life’s work:
What you practice grows stronger.

Just like we can train our physical body, we can train our mind. 
Shauna calls this Mental Fitness: strengthening our capacity to become more present, more compassionate, and more optimistic. 
At Optimism, Shauna will help ensure that what we share across health, wellness, and longevity reflects where the science actually stands, not where the hype wishes it stood. 
She’ll also bring her own research and practices directly to this community, translating the science into tools we can actually use in daily life.
Because well-being needs both hope and evidence. 
We’re honored to welcome Dr. Shauna Shapiro as Optimism’s Scientific Advisor. 
Have a question about mindfulness, neuroplasticity, compassion, or optimism? Leave it below for @drshaunashapiro by @optimism

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13 days ago

They say money can’t buy happiness, but it might just work if you’re buying it for someone else.

Across survey data from 136 countries, spending on other people was linked to greater happiness in 120 of them — in wealthy countries and poor ones alike. In further experiments run in Canada and South Africa, people randomly assigned to buy something for charity reported more positive feelings afterward than people assigned to buy the identical item for themselves.

Researchers called the results a candidate for a psychological universal—a core mental process, trait, or behavior that is shared by human beings across all cultures and locations—which is about as strong a claim research can make about human behavior.

The amounts involved were small, which is the best news in the whole study. This isn’t a big philanthropic gesture. It’s the coffee you pay for, the book you surprise someone with, the round you pick up at the bar.

Source: Aknin et al., “Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013. Original: Dunn, Aknin & Norton, Science, 2008. by @optimism

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15 days ago

Your words come first. Your life follows.

Two findings shape what @case.kenny is sharing here.

The first is that optimism is genuinely trainable — not a temperament you’re issued. Researchers pooled 29 studies covering 3,319 people and found that psychological interventions reliably increased optimism, with the strongest results from exercises that had people describe, in detail, a future in which things had gone well.

The second is that the words are a real lever. Ethan Kross and Ozlem Ayduk’s work on self-distancing finds that shifting how you refer to yourself — using your own name instead of “I” — reduces rumination and measurably lowers cardiovascular reactivity, helping your body return to baseline faster after something hard.

Your brain goes looking for evidence to match the language you hand it. Say “I’m stuck” and it finds walls. Say “I’m in transition” and it finds doors.

Source:
Malouff & Schutte, The Journal of Positive Psychology (2017)
Kross & Ayduk, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (2017). by @optimism

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17 days ago