Prioritizing these three
things will improve your life — and maybe even save it
Among
the dozens of big ideas shared this week at the international TED conference —
from a robot that could outperform students on college exams to an ultraviolet
light that could kill superbugs — were some simpler, almost obvious, life
improvements we should all prioritize to live better lives. While the
ideas themselves might not be all that surprising, the explanations for
how and why they better your life served as powerful reminders that we
might be prioritizing the wrong things, and undervaluing that which makes life
worth living.
Face-to-face
social interaction leads to a longer life
Smoking,
drinking, exercise and even heart problems are not predictors of a person’s
longevity — a person’s close relationships and social integration were. That’s
what psychologist Susan Pinker has discovered in researching the impact that
our human connections have on all aspects of our well-being, including our
physical health. Those with intimacy in their lives, those with support systems
and frequent face-to-face interactions were not only physically and emotionally
healthier, but they also lived longer.
It’s
why women, who tend to prioritize spending time with their friends more
than men, live an average of six years longer, Pinker said. And it’s not
enough to text or email. The actual health benefits of socializing are only
achieved through in-person contact, she said.
“Face-to-face
contact releases a whole cascade of neurotransmitters and, like a vaccine, they
protect you now in the present and well into the future,” she said.
And it
doesn’t even have to be long, close interactions to have an immediate effect.
Making eye contact, shaking someone’s hand, giving someone a high-five lowers
your cortisone levels and releases dopamine, making you less stressed and
giving you a little high, she said. Pinker showed two images of the brain, one
of someone conversing in person and another of someone watching a
video of someone discussing the same subject. In the brain of the person
interacting, parts of the brain associated with social intelligence and
emotional reward lit up.
“This
face-to-face contact provides stunning benefits, but a quarter of the
population says they have no one to talk to,” Pinker said. “We can do something
about this. It’s a biological imperative to know we belong. … Building
in-person interactions into our cities, into our workplaces, into our agendas,
bolsters our immune system, sends positive hormones surging through our
bloodstream and brain and helps us live longer. I call this building your
village, and building it is a matter of life or death.”
Knowing
when to turn off your smartphone enriches your life
Adam
Alter, professor of marketing and psychology, told a room full of some of the
most successful entrepreneurs, scientists and tech innovators in the world
about a German company that gives employees the option to set their
out-of-office response when they’re on vacation to tell the sender that their
email will never be seen because it’s automatically deleted. The sender can
email when the person is back from vacation, or, if it’s a work emergency,
contact someone else at the office. The TED audience burst into applause.
Alter
has studied the impact all that screen time is having on our lives. People who
spend time on social networks, dating apps and even online news sites reported
being less happy. But the technology has taken away what Alter calls our
“stopping cues.” Most things we do for pleasure, like reading a book or
watching a movie, have an end. But scrolling on the phone is endless and we
don’t know when to break away.
Using a
bar graph to illustrate this, Alter showed that in 2007, technology took up a
sliver of our precious personal time in a day. In 2017, it took up almost all
of it.
Alter
found that those who did set finite rules for their technology use — like never
using it at the dinner table or putting it on airplane mode when you’re out on
the weekends (so you can access the camera but not the Internet) —
were able to enjoy life more.
“Life
becomes more colorful, richer, you have better conversations, you connect with
the person who is there with you,” he said.
Chasing
meaning, not happiness, is what really matters
The
quest for happiness doesn’t make us happy. In fact, Emily Esfahani Smith
realized, constantly evaluating our own happiness is actually contributing to
feelings of hopelessness and depression. Happiness is a fickle emotion,
fleeting, based on a moment or an experience. What’s really making us feel sad
is not a lack of happiness, it’s lack of meaning, she said.
Smith, author of the new book “The Power of Meaning,” said
that after five years of interviewing hundreds of people, she discovered that
meaning can be derived in four forms: belonging, purpose, transcendence and
storytelling.
The
first is exactly what it sounds like — having people in your life
who truly love and care about you. The second is having purpose. Most
people find purpose through work because it’s how we feel like we’re adding
value or contributing. But, she said, “that also means disengagement at work,
unemployment, low labor force participation, these aren’t just economic
problems, they are existential ones too. Without something worthwhile to do,
people flounder.” So finding something to drive you forward, whether it’s work
or something else, is a crucial slice of having meaning.
Transcendence
is about finding something that can take you outside of yourself, that can make
you feel like you’re part of something bigger. For some that’s art or church,
she said. It could be walking in nature or doing yoga.
With
storytelling, that’s all about our personal narratives. What is the story we
tell ourselves about ourselves?
“We’re
the author of our stories,” she said, “and we can change how we’re telling
them. Your life isn’t just a list of events.”
By Colby Itkowitz
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/04/28/prioritizing-these-three-things-will-improve-your-life-and-maybe-even-save-it/?utm_term=.48c259444200&wpisrc=nl_inspired&wpmm=1
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