MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors

• While the placebo effect in medicine has been proven to be a falsity, the strategic use of placebos in life might be an indispensable tool for your own wellbeing. You can apply “placebo” to happiness as well.
• You can use the power of suggestion to implement a placebo effect on your own mental attitudes when confronted with a negative situation. Here are three simple tips to doing so.
  1. Invent your own unhappiness remedy – you can break a negative cycle of thought or feeling with a trusted source of comfort. A familiar poem, song, walking route, or a favorite piece of gum can remind us that we are not controlled by destructive emotions.
  2. Avoid human “nocebos” – a “nocebo” would be someone or something that reinforces negative mental results. Don’t expose yourself to overly harsh or critical people – many of whom can be found on social media or cable television. If you notice that certain things make you feel worse, avoid them.
  3. Dispense the placebo to others – give that placebo effect to everyone around you, through encouragement, laughter, and other forms of kindness. Doing so will in turn make you happier.
• Negative events are always going to take place, and negative emotions are an appropriate response. However, excessive negativity makes situations worse. Self-managing emotions aids in navigating life’s challenges effectively. A homespun placebo now and again can help.

• Psychologists have shown in experiments that having a clear sense of your “true self” or “essence” strongly predicts a feeling of meaning in life than it does a positive emotion and/or high self-esteem.
• Acquiring that sense of one’s true self can take different forms. Some prescribe to the “discovery theory” of life– that our essence exists permanently, and that life is about discovering it – or the “creation theory“, which is the belief that our essence is something we cultivate and build throughout the course of our life.
• The stances can be distilled to three views:
  1. Essence precedes existence: Your essence is ordained before you are born. This is a view shared by many religions, including Christianity, as well as evolutionary psychology, which posits that our essential mission is to survive and reproduce. Thus, it becomes your life’s work to discern and embrace that preordained essence.
  2. Existence precedes essence: This is a view held by more existentialist philosophers, and states that we must create our essence to lead a fulfilling and responsible life.
  3. There is no essence: There is no meaning or purpose in life. This view defies human experience, and the view of life as an enterprise of self-creation.
• If your essence already exists and precedes your existence, you must discover it. You read books, take classes, and learn throughout your life. If you believe that there is no true essence, you are liberated from the duty of building a self but may lack purpose in life as a result.
• If you believe that existence precedes essence, you must choose a set of desired qualities and embody them. You must grow into the person you wish to become.
• Both the “discovery theory” and “creation theory” boil down to a clear message: choose a life of conscious action. Search for and find your essence through action and learning.

• Gratitude has been shown in study after study to have positive effects on one’s happiness in both the immediate and the long term.
• However, humans naturally have a “negativity bias,” an evolved tendency to focus more on adverse events than on positive ones. So, to practice and reinforce gratitude means working against our natural impulses—much like getting off the couch and lifting weights.
• Four ways one can increase their own sense of gratitude are:
  1. Make thankfulness an interior discipline: Writing down the good things in your life and then making a habit of checking the list has been identified as a tool that may reduce depressive symptoms.
  2. Make it an outward expression: Research has shown that expressing gratitude to others, whether in person or in a thank you note, has an even greater positive effect than privately listing the things you are thankful for.
  3. Make it a sacred duty: George Washington noted that “Human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected,” in 1789. To look at gratitude as a moral duty gives it a sense of purpose in your life. This can enhance gratitude’s effects.
  4. Make it into words of worship: Even if you are not traditionally spiritual, committing to a practice of mantra or meditation that centers gratitude will help incorporate it into the way you relate to the world around you.

Bertrand Russell broke down the root causes of unhappiness into eight categories of common errors humans make. They are:

1. Fashionable pessimism: Presenting an outwardly negative or pessimistic attitude, often to seem more enlightened or sensitive.
2. Social comparison: Evaluating one’s worth based on what others possess, enjoy, or achieve. This leads directly to envy and discontent.
3. Envy: Feeling unhappy because others have more, leading to resentment and dissatisfaction. Envy can be channeled positively into healthy admiration.
4. Evading boredom: Fear of boredom drives an unhealthy embrace of distractions, preventing contentment in the present moment. We need to stop fearing boredom and be comfortable with what is going on around us.
5. Coping with fear: Refusing to face and rationalize one’s fears, leading to anxiety and avoidance behaviors. Russell said, “We must think about our fears rationally and calmly, but with great concentration, until it has been completely familiar.”
6. Senseless guilt: Feeling guilty without reason or due to undue privilege, hindering happiness. Guilt can be channeled positively to gratitude.
7. Virtuous victimhood: Identifying too strongly as a victim of circumstances, which can perpetuate feelings of injustice and unhappiness. Self-pity can stimulate anger and depression.
8. Fear of public opinion: Allowing the opinions of others, especially strangers, to dictate self-worth and decisions, causing distress and anxiety.

Brooks notes that Russell is not saying that misery is a moral failing – he is saying that by correcting errors in our thinking, we can avoid unnecessary suffering.