Near and Far Future

In her book The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky describes the experimentally proven benefits of regular writing in a "Best Possible Selves" journal.  This is a journal in which you "imagine yourself in the future, after everything has gone as well as it possibly could".  In several studies, those who wrote in these journals saw a "significant lift in mood compared with a control group that wrote simply about the details of their daily lives".

When I've tried to write in this kind of journal before, I've found it hard to focus.  The future is too big.  I've jumped back and forth from the near future to the far future.  Next week, next month, 5 years from now, and so on. And I've also jumped from one aspect of my life to another.  Work.  Family.  Spiritual growth.  Finances.  Possessions.  Fun.  It's overwhelming to me to just sit down and imagine an ideal future.

This is why I've started, as described in my last blog post, to use different journals on different days.  Some journals focus on the near term:  the next 7 days.  Others focus on longer term visions:  5 months or longer.  And the subject matter alternates between health, home life, and work.  Ever since I've set these kinds of boundaries on each day's journal, it's been easier and more rewarding to imagine the future and capture it on paper.

7 Days, 7 Journals

To get the most out of keeping a journal, I've started to keep SEVEN journals.  One for each day of the week.

Why?  I write in journals to make myself happier and more successful.  There is overwhelming evidence that positive emotions increase when we write/think about our dreams for the future and when we write about the things we are grateful for now.  But there is also evidence that this type of journaling is most effective when we mix it up. In her book, The How of Happiness, psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky describes her research into behaviors that gave college students sustained, measurable improvements in their reported satisfaction with their lives compared to control groups.  She found that writing in a gratitude journal  increases happiness.  So does imagining the best possible future outcomes in one or more areas of your life.

None of this is surprising, but I was shocked to learn that gratitude journals were MORE effective when the students wrote just once per week versus when they wrote every day!!!  Lyubomirsky concluded that subjects just weren't as engaged in the activity when they wrote in their gratitude journals every day.  It was much more effective to write just once per week AND REALLY MEAN IT!

Similarly, the author's research showed that a few weeks of writing about the best possible, realistic outcomes in your life in the next few months measurably increased how satisfied students reported feeling about their lives.  But, again, the effect was more pronounced if this visioning happened weekly rather than daily.

To start creating these weekly habits, I'm now writing in seven journals.  I'm using "Google Docs" files so that I can log into these journals from any computer or iPad.  My "Journals" folder includes "Thanksgiving Thursday" for Gratitude Journaling.  When it comes to imagining the "Best Possible Outcomes"  in the next few months and beyond, I've broken this up into journaling about work on Tuesdays, my healthy lifestyle vision on Wednesdays, and my personal/family/spiritual life on Saturdays.

That leaves 3 more days.  I use one for brainstorming things I need to do at home, another for things to do at work, and the last is a completely open ended traditional journal in which I write about whatever comes to mind.

Brain on a Treadmill

I've been reading Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, by Daniel Amen.  Amen gives you a different perspective on taking care of yourself.  Instead of thinking about doing things that are good for your body, think about lifestyle changes that are good for your brain.

Why focus on brain health?  What's good for the body is often also good for the brain:  exercise, fruits and veggies, stress reduction.  But Amen says you might put a higher priority on some actions when your goal is brain health instead of overall body health.

A good example is exercise.  Amen writes that aerobic exercise has been shown to encourage the growth of new brain cells by pumping more blood to the brain.  Hence, my "brain on a treadmill" image.

Amen also cites research that resistance training may prevent cognitive decline in older adults.

You don't need to be graceful to walk or run on a treadmill.  But you do need to be coordinated to dance.  Dr. Amen claims that brain scans show that exercises requiring coordination activate the cerebellum which "enhances thinking, cognitive flexibility, and processing speed".  This may make these aerobic exercises even better for the brain that running on a treadmill because more of the brain gets a "work out".

Dr. Amen's favorite brain exercise of all is Ping-Pong.  Table tennis is an aerobic exercise.  Like dancing, it also requires coordination.  But, more than dancing, due to the need for strategy, it engages the prefontal cortex--the area of the brain most responsible for logic.  It may be one of the best available whole brain workouts.