Who knows what’s beyond the sixtieth parallel north. Who knows what the inhabitants of a land that half is beyond the Arctic Circle have to be happy with, and where the six months of perennial light are followed by the remaining six months of shadow and darkness.
Yet something must really be there, given that for the third consecutive year the Finland is the country where you consider yourself i happiest in the world, and the capital Helsinki the city where you live best, as certified by the World Happiness Report, the analysis that the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network draws up each year based on data from the Gallup World Poll.
The reasons? Lots of space available (there are five million Finns on a larger territory than Italy), services that work, safety. But above all, underline the authors of the report, the key to happiness it is in the trust in the community of reference.
Mindfulness online against Covid stress
by Paola Emilia Cicerone
Italy
This is probably why the position of theItaly, which from the bottom of his 25th place it is not a land of unhappy people but not even of unbridled joy. A mediocrity that has not even been scratched by the pandemic, if it is true that we have been floating in the middle of the table for several years.
But what does it mean, after all, to be happy? And above all, how can we – individually – take a few steps towards the summit? In other words, can happiness be taught?
A group of researchers led by Nicola de Pisapia, professor of the Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences of the University of Trento and which includes psychologists from Sapienza University of Rome, tried to answer this question by setting up a study on healthy volunteers to understand if and how we can learn to be happy .
Kiss me again, desire for tenderness after a year of Covid
by Irma D’Aria
Over 50
To participate in the survey, the results of which have been published in recent weeks on Frontiers in Psychology, there were about thirty men and women (mostly women, to tell the truth) with an average age above 50, and with a medium-high socio-cultural level. “Volunteers were asked to participate in a 9-month course, divided into modules: seven weekends from Friday to Sunday afternoon, and two meditation seminars of five days each”, says de Pisapia, all held at the Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa of Pomaia, in Tuscany, dedicated to Tibetan culture. A secular and non-religious course, underlines de Pisapia, whose goal was to place itself at the crossroads between Western scientific research, the roots of ancient Greek and Latin culture, and Eastern philosophies, to refine the tools that can lead to happiness.
But what exactly are we talking about, when we name this state of mind that all humanity in one way or another aspires to? What are the specific factors that characterize this rare condition?
Meditation is good (even for our dog)
by Priscilla Di Thiene
Pleasure and wisdom
“Happiness is not just the pursuit of positive emotions,” continues the researcher. It is not being happy, laughing, thinking positive. It is something more complex, which goes beyond the search for momentary pleasure and is instead placed more in the realm of wisdom. A eudaimonic happiness, in short, rather than hedonic: that which is an expression of the self, and not the immediate one that is obtained from the satisfaction of a need. “The direction had already been indicated by ancient thinkers such as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle or the Stoics, who tried to provide practical tools to live well in difficult times. But even Eastern philosophy has a lot to say about it: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, have worked a lot on the subject. Starting from this synergy, we tried to understand what it meant to feel good mentally in a complex world “, he adds. de Pisapia.
Panic attacks? Take a deep breath
by Angela Nanni
Daily life
The basic idea of the course was therefore to make volunteers discover how the union of ancient wisdom and spiritual practices with the scientific discoveries of neuropsychological research can be applied in a beneficial way to everyday life. A program, he acknowledges de Pisapia, inspired by a book by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso and the American psychiatrist Howard C. Cutler (The art of happiness, Mondadori) based on the principle that happiness is linked to the development of inner balance, with a key role played by meditation practices, but also to the understanding of the human mind and brain, of their limits and potential, in the light of recent scientific discoveries.
For the theoretical part, therefore, the participants attended a series of neuroscience presentations (on neuroplasticity and the cerebral circuits of attention, stress and anxiety, pain and pleasure, positive and negative emotions, desire and addiction), addressing themes of psychology , history of Western thought and Buddhist philosophy of life. The practical part included a series of exercises drawn from different contemplative, Buddhist and Western traditions, such as breathing meditation and analytical meditation, and the request to keep a daily journal, an important practice of self-observation for understanding analytically. what happens to the self.
Are athletes’ bodies going strong? All thanks to the mitochondria
by Sandro Iannaccone
A lesson in happiness
The results of the study, the researchers say, show that learning how to use these tools works. Of course, it is not easy to measure the happiness of an individual: de Pisapia and his colleagues tried it using psychological questionnaires capable of measuring various variables, such as stress, anger, positive and negative emotions, awareness, observation, judgment, sense of life satisfaction.
“The questionnaires were administered to the volunteers before and after the weekends, and close to the two five-day laboratories, to evaluate their specific effect. Well – says the scholar – we noticed a great change on all measures. The degree of stress , for example, it decreased immediately, while other variables, such as the ability to manage anger, decreased more slowly, but they also decreased “.
Are athletes’ bodies going strong? All thanks to the mitochondria
by Sandro Iannaccone
Stress subsides
The participants in the study, therefore, found themselves less stressed, more satisfied with their lives, more aware, more serene with respect to the judgment of others, more able to manage negative emotions. Does this mean that they also found themselves happier? “Our measurements were only qualitative, not quantitative, in the sense that we did not assess the levels of cortisol (the so-called stress hormone) or what was happening in the brains of people with MRI, which we would like to do in one phase. next, “he adds de Pisapia. And yet, asking people how they feel is probably the only way to tell if they are happy or not.
To say that happiness can be taught there is also the experience of Laurie Santos, professor of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences at the American University of Yale and promoter of the course of Science of WellBeing. In the first semester, the science of happiness lessons attracted 1,200 students, an absolute record in the history of the university. Then, due to lockdown, the course moved online to the Coursera.org platform, almost four million people attended the lessons. A popularity that has intrigued two research groups, who have tried to answer the question: but really a free online course on happiness and some homework – for example cultivating social relationships, compiling a list of gratitude and applying to meditation – helps. to improve the sense of well-being?
Happiness, a word to remember: even in the time of Covid
by Fiammetta Cupellaro
Mental health goal
The answer is yes, according to two new studies that measured the psychological impact on individuals who took the Santos course or a similar course. In the first analysis, published on PLOS ONE, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Yale found that people who took the Science of Well Being online course reported a greater sense of well-being and greater benefits for health. mental health compared to those enrolled in a similar course, with a simple introduction to psychology. The reason is to be found precisely in the practical part, of which the second course was lacking.
Do you want to run? Consult your doctor first
by Laura Taccani
Maturity
“The theory is important, but it is not enough. We also need the application”, comments the author of the study David Yaden, researcher in the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. A similar study, published in Health Psychology Open and led by researchers from Yale and the University of Bristol, interviewed students who had taken Santos’s course face-to-face and those who had taken it online, finding similar psychological benefits.
However, a doubt remains: is it not that this awareness, this acceptance of oneself, this inner serenity with respect to emotions, can only be reached with maturity? In other words, won’t it be that happiness is just a deal for over 60s? “It is necessary to provide these tools also to the new generations, so that children become happy adults. The ability to relate, the management of emotions, contemplation, attention, are important tools to achieve happiness. And silence, above all: the Pythagoreans were silent for even two or three years to train listening, and this is a faculty little taught to young people. But our study – he concludes de Pisapia – shows that it is also important to return to the culture in which wisdom plays a central role, and where the elderly are a point of reference “.
.