Since ‘all truth belongs to the gospel of Jesus Christ’ [*], man’s discoveries in the realm of truth, belong to that gospel. Hence the following may be of interest. . .
Shawn Achor wrote in his book ‘The Happiness Advantage’:
“. . . When our brains constantly scan for and focus on the positive, we profit from three of the most important tools available to us: happiness, gratitude and optimism—the role happiness plays should be obvious—the more you pick up on the positive around you, the better you feel—and we’ve already seen the advantage to performance that brings. The second mechanism at work here is gratitude, because the more opportunities for positivity we see, the more grateful we become. Psychologist Robert Emmons, who has spent nearly his entire career studying gratitude, has found that few things in life are as integral to our well-being.11 Countless other studies have shown that consistently grateful people are more energetic, emotionally intelligent, forgiving, and less likely to be depressed, anxious, or lonely. And it’s not that people are only grateful because they are happier, either; gratitude has proven to be a significant cause of positive outcomes. When researchers pick random volunteers and train them to be more grateful over a period of a few weeks, they become happier and more optimistic, feel more socially connected, enjoy better quality sleep, and even experience fewer headaches than control groups.
The third driver of the Positive Tetris Effect is optimism. This instinctively makes sense; the more your brain picks up on the positive, the more you’ll expect this trend to continue, and so the more optimistic you’ll be. The optimism, it turns out, is a tremendously powerful predictor of work performance. Studies have shown that optimists set more goals (and more difficult goals) than pessimists, and put more effort into attaining those goals, stay more engaged in the face of difficulty, and rise above obstacles more easily.12 Optimists also cope better in high stress situations and are better able to maintain high levels of well-being during times of hardship—all skills that are crucial to high performance in a demanding work environment. ~ Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage, p,97-8, 2010, Random House Inc. New York.
11. Emmons R.A. (2007) ‘Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier, New York: Houghton Mifflin.
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
