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.
The Healthiest Personality Traits
According new research published in the journal Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10 healthy personality traits that are key for your mental well-being. In the first of three studies, researchers asked 137 experts in trait psychology to describe their idea of a psychologically healthy person using the NEO Psychological Inventory, Revised, which groups 240 items into 30 narrower personality traits. This inventory is also a longer version of the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory that examines a person's Big Five personality traits.
According to the report, "healthy personality functioning can be best characterized by high levels of openness to feelings, positive emotions, and straightforwardness, and low levels on all facets of neuroticism." On a more granular level, psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, names 10 specific personality traits in Scientific American(to see where you fall on the scale, you can take an online test created by Dr. Kaufman).
Openness to feelings
Straightforwardness (and being "frank, sincere, and ingenuous")
Competence
Warmth (being affectionate and friendly)
Positive emotions (experiencing "joy, happiness, love, and excitement")
Low levels of angry hostility
Low anxiety (not being "shy, fearful, nervous, tensed, and restless")
Low depression
Low vulnerability to stress
Low impulsivity (being able to control cravings and urges)
Action Item: Lean into your healthy traits! See how you can cultivate the above in your daily life and actions.
More Evidence for Plant-Based Choices
Eating more nutritious, plant-based foods is heart-healthy at any age, according to two research studies published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access journal of the American Heart Association.
The American Heart Association Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations suggest an overall healthy dietary pattern that emphasizes a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, skinless poultry and fish, nuts and legumes and non-tropical vegetable oils. It also advises limited consumption of saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, red meat, sweets and sugary drinks.
One study, titled "A Plant-Centered Diet and Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease during Young to Middle Adulthood," evaluated whether long-term consumption of a plant-centered diet and a shift toward a plant-centered diet starting in young adulthood are associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease in midlife.
TLDR; Plants are good, processed is not-so-good. WebMD has a good resource on embracing whole foods in your diet.
Some Notes on Embracing Change
We’ve lived through 1.5 years of changing societal norms, which can often be painful in shifting the way we interact with our relationships and environment. We fall into comfortable autopilot habits, often controlled by the anxiety of new situations.
According to Psychology Today, to embrace change (rather than avoid it) is to interrupt the automatic patterns of avoidance and overt control, replaced by speaking truth in the moment about the vulnerable feelings of fear and pain, that makes all the difference.
A Duke University researcher in 2006 found that “more than 40% of the actions people perform each day aren’t actual decisions, but habits.” Change requires determination. People who have poor relationships are frequently acting out their fears and anxieties.
The key to victory is creating the right routines. Each small win brings with it a feeling of accomplishment that encourages reaching for another small win. The small wins convince us that larger achievements are within reach. These wins accumulate over time to a Big Win, a relationship worth protecting and treasuring.
Action Item: Read more about embracing change in this reflection How I Stopped Resisting Change and Embraced the Road Ahead of Me for Tiny Buddha.
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You're amazing. Enjoy the world today.
Love,
wabi-sabi team