Research provides tools for achieving the 'how' of well-being in daily life

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-12/uow-rpt120420.php

 

News Release 7-Dec-2020
University of Wisconsin-Madison

 

A growing mental health crisis is the "second wave" of health issues that experts anticipate due to the prolonged stress of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation Tracking poll from July, 53 percent of U.S. adults reported that their mental health had been negatively affected by worry and stress over the pandemic - up from 32 percent reported in March.


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The framework is based on scientific evidence that suggests well-being can be cultivated through practice in daily life.

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The framework focuses on four pillars that have been studied in the lab and have been shown to improve with training: awareness, or attentiveness to one's environment and internal cues such as bodily sensations, thoughts and feelings; connection, or appreciation, kindness and compassion; insight, which refers to fostering curiosity and self-knowledge; and purpose, understanding your values and motivations.

For instance, awareness -- and in particular meta-awareness (being aware that you're aware) -- appears to decrease stress, increase positive emotions, and can be strengthened through mental training practices like meditation. Awareness helps curb some of the harmful effects of distraction, which is shown to impair cognitive function and increase stress-related responses in the body related to inflammation and aging.

Another example is a trait like purpose in life, which is a personally meaningful aim that people can apply to daily life. Purpose is associated with positive biological and physical health outcomes.

"There are qualities of a healthy mind that many people don't know are even trainable," says Cortland Dahl, a research scientist at the center, who is lead author on the paper. "We don't think of them as skills. Many of us have thought we are hardwired to be like this or that, but the reality is these qualities are much more trainable and malleable than we think. It's a very empowering view of the human mind -- we can learn to be in the driver's seat of our own mind."

The new framework provides evidence that people can weather life's ups and downs with resilience, and that the brain and body can change and adapt. Rather than replacing other views of well-being, researchers say the framework complements other models by focusing specifically on scientific evidence for dimensions of well-being that are trainable and can be learned so that people flourish.

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