I’m sitting at my desk at 11pm on a Friday night drilling problem after problem out of my textbook, like I did last night…and the night before.  This is hardly an unusual situation in my life now; it has become my normal.  As a woman in her 20s, this might not seem like the ideal place to be, yet somehow I’m content, even happy, to be exactly where I am.  Here’s my strategy: when I start missing my old, fun life and let negativity and doubt creep into my thoughts, I watch the video below.

Positive psychology sounds pretty hokey, like science-cum-The-Secret self help mumbojumbo.  Nevertheless, after seven-ish months of casually testing it out in my own life, I can earnestly say it has a noticeable effect.  What makes sense about the positive psychology approach is studying what is RIGHT with people who thrive, rather than studying what is WRONG with those who do not.  Applying this on an individual basis is simple.  As Achor suggests, taking a few moments out of each day to focus on what you are grateful for retrains your brain to see what you have in the world already, not what you could have in the future, be it material things or ideas or friends or hearing Geechee Dan serenade you at a subway stop. And exercise, to quote Elle Woods,

Exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy.  Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands.

See? Positive psychology saves lives! Ok, maybe not every day, but you should exercise. Duh.  Meditation…I’ve tried for years to meditate and usually wind up sleeping.  Achor’s final suggestion, as modified by yours truly, is random or premeditated acts of kindness that are direct and active, as opposed to the impersonal goodness of donating online to your cause of choice.  These acts give you a sense that you can have an effect on people, nevermind how big or small.

Can these tenets be applied in a broader medical scope? On the clinical side, it could skirt the borders of paternalism, but it should not be dismissed. On the research side, well, healthy, happy people don’t buy expensive drugs or treatments.  Sick (happy or unhappy) people do.  Yet as Harvard School of Public Health professor Dr. Laura Kubzansky notes in this article about happiness and reduction of coronary artery disease,

Negative emotions are only one-half of the equation…It looks like there is a benefit of positive mental health that goes beyond the fact that you’re not depressed. What that is is still a mystery. But when we understand the set of processes involved, we will have much more insight into how health works.

According to my smartypants psychology Ph.D. candidate sister, positive psychology is a “major upcoming area in the field.” Its ideas are starting to take hold in medical fields traditionally confined to studying why sick people are sick, not why healthy people are healthy.  As I navigate the landscape of medical education, I know I’ll take the principles of positive psychology I’ve tested on myself with me wherever I go.  Why? Because they work.