Good Morning!
Welcome to the wabi-sabi letter, the digital newsletter that promotes healthy living, wellness, mental health awareness, fitness, positive habits, and all around happiness. Clear your head and cleanse your inbox with a tiny space for wellness as you set your intentions for the day. Badabing badaboom.
Your Brain on ‘Guilty’ Pleasures
It may be time for us to drop the ‘guilty’ in ‘guilty’ pleasures. According to Well + Good, “While we all believe that we should spend our leisure time doing things that improve our minds and enhance our knowledge, in fact, like all other organs, your brain needs to rest,” says Aniko Dunn, Psy.D, a psychologist at EZCare Clinic in San Francisco, adding that people have “increased positive emotions and reduced negative ones after indulging in the pleasures of guilt.”
Neuroscience supports the hypothesis that indulging in harmless pleasurable habits may be healthy. The area of the brain dubbed the reward pathway releases dopamine, which is the feel-good chemical responsible for our good mood and feelings of health and wellbeing.
Dr. Cohan says that neural pathways in the brain light up when we expose ourselves to things we enjoy. “This is why so many of us feel inspired through travel or seeing musicians and dancers perform live or when we go to the very top of a tall building and see a panoramic view of a whole city,” she says.
Action Item: Embrace the activities that bring you joy and be ok with settling into leisure time. It’s ok to not be productive all the time.
Turning Up Attunement Levels
What exactly is attunement? Some experts believe attunement involves activating the brain's mirror neurons, which are thought to be networks in the brain that respond to other people's emotions and actions as if they were our own, helping people bond with one another. That said, the research on mirror neurons is still ongoing and the concept debated.
Self-attunement is just as important as attuning to others. After all, if we're out of touch with our own emotions, how can we possibly connect to someone else's?
Licensed psychologist Megan Fleming, Ph.D. recommends practicing body scans, because "part of attunement is to be embodied," she says, adding, "A lot of us are just living in our heads."
Practice bringing awareness to your body and where you're feeling certain sensations, such as happiness in your chest, fear in your stomach, or a lump in your throat, for example.
Loss Aversion and Habits
Nir Eyal recently penned an engaging piece for Psychology Today on habit breaking (and positive habit forming) tactics. He shares that loss aversion, rather than gains has a greater impact on changing habits (ie. a 4 cent tax on plastic bags vs. a 4 cent gain).
According to Eyal, a website called stickK.com uses commitment contracts to help users accomplish their goals. People sign legally binding agreements where they have to pay a third party if they don’t meet their obligations to stop smoking, exercise, or finish their novel, for example. The site, founded by two Yale professors, has proven effective for those brave enough to take the bet.
Another study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that people who were prompted to use the words “I don’t” versus “I can’t” were nearly twice as likely to resist the temptation of choosing unhealthy foods. The researchers believe using “I don’t” rather than “I can’t” gave people greater “psychological empowerment” by removing the need to make a decision. “I don’t” is outside our control while “I can’t” is self-imposed.
Action Item: Try implementing these tactics in your own day-to-day and check out the full piece by Eyal here in Psychology Today.
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You're amazing. Enjoy the world today.
Love,
wabi-sabi team