Brain: The Inside Story

I can say this to you because you're, well...you're reading a blog called The Neuropsychology of Happiness. But some of my friends think my excitement about the brain exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History is overexuberant. I cannot wait to see this.

In NYC through August 15, and the perfect excuse to plan a trip there.

Deep Happiness by Design - at Kripalu Center

One of my great pleasures is facilitating a workshop called "Deep Happiness by Design."

The core experience of the workshop is identifying our preferred states - what we need to feel in our body to be motivated and engaged. Each of us has a brain/body blueprint that is our unique recipe for feeling on-task.

And my approach to time management flows from that. In the workshop, we journal to recall great moments and memories. We then identify the "Kodak moment" in these memories and then drill down to the feeling: how it felt in our body to be in the middle of all that. With that self-knowledge we take an honest look at our schedule. Our commitments, obligations, and relationships need to flow directly from our unique motivational blueprint.

During the holidays there are more opportunities than there is time. And we say yes to the right experiences based on this self knowledge of what our bodies most want to feel.

I'll be offering the workshop in 2011 at Infinity Foundation in Chicago, and through the Alternatives program at St James Church in London.

And in just a week or so the program will be offered at Kripalu Center in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. There's still time to sign up right here!

Also,the journaling exercises that we use in the workshop are available (and 25% off right now) right here.

What Kind of Holiday Experience Do You Want this Year?

Think about your overall holiday experience last year. Give it a rating on a 10-point scale, with 1 being miserable and 10 being the best possible holiday experience. Got a number in mind? Now, a challenge for you: What would it take to make this year's holiday experience just one point better?

There may be a part of this that's actually within your control. You might be able to make some changes this year. The commitments and relationships and obligations you pursue over the next several weeks will in part determine whether the holidays will a better experience for you this time around.

Here's a journaling exercise to help you take control of Holidays 2010:
Find a quiet place before you're already in the "thick" of holiday activities. In the morning is good, while the house is still quiet and before the day has started. Take out a journal or other blank paper and make a list of great holiday memories. These could be from last year or 20 years ago. We're talking here about the big memories as well as the tiny little things that made the holidays great for you. See how many memories you can come up with in 15 minutes or so.

Now, identify the one single moment that captures that holiday memory for you. The "click," the sound of a camera shutter catching what was the best about that experience. Try to drill down to the one moment in each of your holiday memories on that list.

Next, identify what you were feeling in that single moment - really try to identify where you were feeling that in your body. If you try to recreate that feeling now, can you "find it" in your belly or chest or around your eyes? What exactly does it feel like?

If you've done this with a list of 15-20 holiday memories then you've identified a number of really great feelings that you have associated with the holidays over the years. And you want more of those feelings, and less of the stress or obligation or whatever might be the negatives that have become attached to the holidays for you. As you consider activities and invitations and commitments over the next month or so you might ask yourself "with which of my core preferred feelings does this connect?"

You might need to be firm and decisive to manage the universe of holiday possibilities and carve out just those experiences that make the holidays great for you.

Hope you feel great this holiday season!

The Best Thing I Had Not Noticed Until Now

Running through the various elements of Positive Psychology is the theme of non-pathologizing. Of looking for the health-promoting quality of behavior. In some older models of human behavior there is a persistent looking-for-the-hidden-negative. A craving for ice cream could be understood as trying to fill some emotional void, or as sabotaging weight loss goals, or as a subconscious response to inadequate breast feeding.

Another way of looking at the same behavior - craving ice cream - avoids pathological understandings and, instead, looks for the health-promoting core of the behavior. I seek out ice cream because it's a treat and serves to remind me that I'm not poor anymore. Or I'm an adult now and can make my own decisions about snacks. Or because eating ice cream feels soothing and good and when I want to celebrate something or if I need to comfort myself or if I need to calm down or if I need to perk myself up, I eat ice cream. I am an agent of change in my own life.

Now at this point someone will likely point out the (painfully obvious) concerns about over-doing it with the ice cream. Identifying the problems of too much ice cream is easy enough. But identifying the positive, health-promoting core of many problem behaviors takes work.

Our brains are specifically wired for quickly taking note of problems and finding dangers. That is a remarkable feature of human neurology and helps protect us. So the work of finding the positive is, in some ways, going a bit against the grain of our brains' typical way of functioning. And it's the modus operandi of Positive Psychology. Thinking like a "positive psychologist" allows that even unhelpful and difficult behaviors may have, at their core, an essentially okay function. Let's try it:

In an adolescent residential program, counselors observe that Vicky is "splitting" the staff. And this behavior makes her less popular among peers and treatment team. But can you find the best thing about this that we haven't noticed yet? To "split" the staff Vicky needs to have been observing and taking notes and figuring out who's the weak link. Noticing what "buttons" she can push to get her counselors all worked up. That takes remarkable emotional intelligence and memory and observational skills! Rather than sitting around a table at treatment team and telling stories of pathology about Vicky wouldn't we rather help her use these skills in a pro-social way that helps Vicky earn friends and income and self-esteem? That will not be easy. It will be easier to simply write her off as a problem resident. But asking questions about "the best thing we had not noticed yet" might actually create its own energy for the work we need to do with Vicky.

Another illustration: Your colleague Steve provides good administrative support and his coworkers like him. He shows up for work and doesn't complain, and is usually available for a bit extra effort during big projects. It's fairly common knowledge that he drinks heavily. He tends to leave work and spend several hours at a bar near his house before driving himself home and going to bed. This pattern is a problem in several different and obvious ways. Is he alcoholic? Is this pattern suggestive of alcohol abuse, or even dependence? Yes, or probably. And he almost certainly needs treatment. But what's the core positive about Steve's behavior here? What has he learned about his own body that might lead to problem drinking? You and I might have 5-10 quick "state change" tricks that are healthy and risk-free. We take a hot shower. Or a cold one. Or you pop in that Bon Jovi CD in you car after a stressful day and play the music really really loud. Or you ask your partner for an extra long hug. We want the same thing for Steve - we want him to have a big bag of self-soothing and state-changing tricks. So if he's feeling bored or lonely or itchy or scared, Steve has a number of behavioral strategies at the ready.

Now try it yourself. Start with a client or a student. Or someone you love. What is their biggest problem behavior? Things would go so much more smoothly if they'd just do more of what? And less of what?

And what's the best thing you'd not noticed until right now? When I ask about the "best thing," I mean just that: the best thing. So let yourself generate 4-5 good things about this problem behavior and then select the one best thing. And then say "good for her/him." And then ask how you might be a part of facilitating their movement towards health and independence and success.

Now let's do this with ourselves. Scan your private experience and identify the one really big problem behavior. The one which, if corrected, could make the biggest difference for you right now. Got it? You can probably generate several pathological labels for it, and you probably would be able to generate a few explanations for why this problem showed up in your life. But sidestep all that for just a minute and notice what's positive about this behavior that bugs you so much. See whether you can keep drilling down until you find a core purpose of the behavior that is praiseworthy, even if misdirected.

This approach starts with a commitment. To the central assumptions that 1)everybody is doing the best that she can, and 2) every behavior serves a function. Are these assumptions that we believe?

Ask Two Questions

I'm enjoying emails from folks who attended the Lend Me Your Brain workshop yesterday. Many thanks to UMass Med School Disability Evaluation Service for setting that up!

One of the topics we address in the workshop is the business of Asking Two Questions. And that kind of ongoing personal inquiry is possible to the extent that our executive functions are well-developed and trained.

The prefrontal cortex is that part of the brain we believe supports the "executive" functions. The capacities to choose, inhibit, weigh consequences, and delay gratification are executive skills that improve with neurological maturity and are fully on-line in our early to mid-20s.

The executive functions distinguish an 18-year old from a 10-year old. Good executive functioning may also distinguish excellent college freshmen from more average students, and high-functioning middle management staff from their more average coworkers.

Less than 10% of a dog's brain consists of prefrontal cortex. Over a quarter of the human brain, on the other hand, is dedicated to managing these cognitive skills. Essentially, the "older" part of the brain - the part we have in common with most other animals - is responsible for determining "what is." The room is cool, that guy's wearing a red sweater, the cup of coffee is steaming, etc. Mice and turkeys and cats can do the "what is" part pretty well. But humans are uniquely skilled at determining "what might be." And that's the purview of the prefrontal cortex.

That's 25% of your brain dedicated to imagining (creating a mental picture) or self-talk, or otherwise thinking of a reality that has not yet happened. Essentially, the prefrontal cortex works magic. Creates experiences out of pure idea!

So we're walking around with, basically, these two brains. The "what is" part and the "what could be" part. And at our best we're asking ourselves Two Questions.

Those Two Questions are "Am I having fun right now?" and "Is this what I've set out to do"? I'm convinced that each of us is here to do and be and have something pretty specific. And if I'm doing what I'm here to do, experiencing what is mine to experience, I'll be motivated and focused and engaged. And everybody around me will benefit from that, too, just like I benefit from being the people I've known who are truly living On Purpose.

I love it when I'm able to say yes to both those questions. I'm engaged, happy, and aware that I'm doing the very best thing right now.

Often I'm doing something fun or interesting but it's that second question, "Is this what I'm here to do and be and have?" that gets me. There's an episode of "The Office" followed by another episode. And another episode after that. And it's fun to watch that. But at a deeper level I'm fairly sure that watching a lot of TV is not what I'm on the planet to do.

But the toughest answer to the Two Questions is when I'm honestly not having fun (filling out tax forms, waiting in line at the cleaners) but I'd have to say "yes" to the second question ("Is this what I've set out to do?). Because it's important to me to wear clean clothes, and to avoid tax penalties (and avoid jail, and generally be a good citizen!).

If you know anyone with executive deficits (maybe someone with ADD/ADHD or a survivor of brain injury), you might have noticed that this is someone who's much more likely to just ask the first question. "Am I having fun?" is only half the conversation we need to be conducting with ourselves, on an ongoing basis.

Hope you're having fun right now. And hope you're living the life - right now - you're here to live!

Cutural Competency and Lifelong Learning

After every workshop I teach, I leave with something. A book title, a website, a human story that really illustrates an important point.

And sometimes I leave with a correction, or a dressing down. Or an entirely new way of seeing something that I thought I had nailed down.

A few weeks ago, a workshop participant spoke with me during the morning break. She spoke positively of the way I was addressing some material that was particularly important for her clients, and she affirmed that she was glad she'd decided to attend the training. And then she shared a perspective with me that she thought would complement my own perspective. Something I might be missing. During the workshop I had said something I've frequently pointed out, something along the lines of "we tend to forget how toxic racism is, and the impact that prejudice has on our clients' mental health, because it's so ever-present and constant that we stop noticing it and considering it as a factor in clinical evaluation and treatment." Something like that.

And what this participant shared with me was that as I was making this comment, she was looking around and making contact with a few other attendees. And thinking to herself that she, and other people of color, do not in fact "forget" about the impact of bias and racism. Thinking in fact that "forgetting" this is a privilege that some of us cannot lay claim to. Wondering - to whom might the "we" in my comment refer?

I've shared this story with a few friends and colleagues and hope that this "ongoing cultural competency education" - this gift from a workshop participant to me - makes me an even better clinician and educator with people who are different from me in all the 57 ways that people can differ from each other.

What am I going to learn next?

5 Tips for Adults with ADD/ADHD

1. Marry well - pair up with someone who has great "executive skills." And find someone who "gets you" - someone who understands what a partner with ADHD brings to the table. To remind yourself, you might google "positive qualities of people with ADHD" and watch it blow up. You are probably creative, energetic, spontaneous, and fun to be around. If your partner loves that about you, and is better able to do some of the planning ahead, catching details, and goal-oriented targeted worrying, you guys might make a great pair.

2. Get a crackerjack assistant - or see what you can outsource, or see how web-based personal assistant services might work for you, or talk with your supervisor about moving some administrative support your way. What could you do (Carry the pager one extra weekend per month? Clean the break room fridge?) in exchange for two hours per week of clerical services by someone already in the organization?

3. Find a great personal planner or smartphone app, and use it for every commitment, every relationship, and every obligation. A calendar is not a scolding reminder of doctors' appointments. It's your number one tool for making sure that you are living the life you are here to live. With any luck you've got 85 years or so here on the planet. Minus your current age. Multiplied times 365. That's how many days you've got to play with (or work with). Now how do you want to use them, what do you want to do most? Write it down, break it down, and then schedule it.

4. Use a "single in-box." See David Allen's "Getting Things Done" for a great discussion of this. In your work or home office, the single in-box is an actual physical "box." In your planner or calendar app, this "in box" is your To Do list. Yep, the To Do list is a virtual "in box." It's the one place where you write down all the things you need to do, want to do, hope to you. All the phone calls you need to make, websites you want to check out, songs you want to download. One list. In fact, let's go ahead and do it; you know those 4 or 5 things that are banging around inside your head right now? The thing with the snow tires, the email from your sister, the umbrella insurance policy you wanted to check out? Write it down now. And then tomorrow when you're doing your regularly scheduled deep-checking-in with yourself (see #5), you'll review that list and move the most important ones to your calendar.

5. Set your alarm a few minutes earlier every day. Get up. Pull out your planner or your calendar app (both you and your phone are fully recharged at this point), and look at your schedule with an eye towards "what do I want to do with the time I've got today." If you're working two jobs or raising children by yourself you probably don't have too much unstructured time. And so you, of all people, have got to take this question seriously. What am I going to do with the one or two unstructured hours I have on my calendar today? What about that to-do list of everything you need to do, want to do, or dream of doing? (See #4 regarding the To Do list as an "in box"). Which one of those pops out at you right now as the most important? Alternatively, answer this question: What's the one thing that I've been putting off that would make the biggest positive difference in my life right now? So in the morning, before the day has quite started to come at you, sitting there quietly with your cup of coffee, you'll ask yourself: "What am I here to do? To Be? To have?" And you'll determine how your calendar reflects that right now.

Good luck!