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发表于 2016-7-27 02:54:03
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Be an “Optimalist”
Most people would define optimism as being eternally hopeful, endlessly
happy, with a glass that’s perpetually half full. But that’s exactly the kind of
false cheerfulness that positive psychologists wouldn’t recommend. “Healthy
optimism means being in touch with reality,” says Tal Ben-Shahar, a Harvard
professor who taught the university’s most popular course, Positive Psychology,
from 2002 to 2008. “It certainly doesn’t mean thinking everything is great and
wonderful.”
Ben-Shahar, who is the author of Happier and The Pursuit of Perfect,
describes realistic optimists an “optimalists”—not those who believe everything
happens for the best, but those who make the best of things that happen.
In his own life, Ben-Shahar uses three optimalist exercises, which he calls
PRP. When he feels down—say, after giving a bad lecture—he grants himself
permission (P) to be human. He reminds himself that not every lecture can be a
Nobel winner; some will be less effective than others. Next is reconstruction
(R). He analyzes the weak lecture, learning lessons for the future about what
works and what doesn’t. Finally, there’s perspective (P), which involves
acknowledging that in the grand scheme of life, one lecture really doesn’t
matter.
Studies suggest thatpeople who are able to focus on the positive aspects of
a negative event—basically, cope with failure—can protect themselves from the
physical toll of stress and anxiety. In a recent study at the University of
California, San Francisco (UCSF), scientists asked a group of women to give a
speech in front of a stone-faced audience of strangers. On the first day, all
the participants said they felt threatened, and they showed fear hormones. On
subsequent days, however, those women who had reported rebounding from a major
life crisis in the past no longer felt the same subjective threat over speaking
in public. They had learned that this negative event, too, would pass and they
would survive. “It’s a back door to the same positive state because people are
able to tolerate and accept the negative,” says Elissa Epel, one of the
psychologists involved in the study.
Accept Pain and Sadness
Being optimistic doesn’t mean shouting out sad or painful emotions. As a
clinical psychologist, Martin Seligman, who runs the Positive Psychology Center
at the University of Pennsylvania, says he used to feel proud whenever he helped
depressed patients rid themselves of sadness, anxiety or anger. “I thought I
would get a happy person,” he says. “But I never did. What I got was an empty
person.” That’s what prompted him to launch the field of positive psychology,
with a groundbreaking address to the American Psychological Association in 1998.
Instead of focusing only on righting wrongs and lifting misery, he argued,
psychologists need to help patients foster good mental health through
constructive skills, like Ben-Shahar’s PRP. The idea is to teach patients to
strengthen their strengths rather than simply improve their weaknesses. “It’s
not enough to clear away the weeds,” Seligman says. “If you want roses, you have
to plant a rose.”
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