In the newest episode, Dr. Phil and Dr. Charles Sophy draw a clear connection between optimism and living a longer, healthier life. Learn how to build positivity through neuroplasticity, good habits, getting and giving social support, and attitude monitoring. The doctors also debunk a dangerous myth and offer powerful tools to help you stay calm, present, balanced and productive throughout the year.
Dr. Charles Sophy is a board-certified psychiatrist in three clinical specialties, Adult Psychiatry, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, and Family Practice. Before he retired he was medical director of the Department of Child and Family Services for Los Angeles, which is the largest agency in the country.
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S.W.E.E.P. - Dr. Sophy's Key Areas
S: SLEEP - Are you getting enough quantity and quality of sleep? When you wake up do you feel good?
W: WORK - Are you fulfilled enough at work, even if staying home is your work, to be happy at the end of the day?
E: EATING - Are you using food to stay healthy and energetic? Is meal time a time for relaxation and communication?
E: EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION - Do you let the important people in your life know how you are feeling? Do you allow yourself physical and emotional intimacy?
P: PLAY- Are you letting yourself enjoy life? Do you have a way to let go of worry and direct your energy to a positive place?
Resources:
The Cost of Multitasking: How Much Productivity Is Lost Through Task Switching?
By Ian Haynes, October 9, 2020 Read the full article:
When we jump from task to task, we aren't really getting more done. In actuality, we're forcing our brains to constantly switch gears, working harder to do things at a lower level of quality and exhausting our mental reserves.
There are three types of multitasking:
Performing two tasks simultaneously. This includes talking on the phone while driving or answering emails during a webinar.
Switching from one task to another without completing the first task. We've all been right in the middle of focused work when an urgent task demands our attention; this is one of the most frustrating kinds of multitasking, and often the hardest to avoid.
Performing two or more tasks in rapid succession. It almost doesn't seem like multitasking at all, but our minds need time to change gears to work efficiently.
The 4 most common multitasking personalities
To be fair, some of us have a harder time avoiding the multitasking menace than others. The University of Utah study referenced earlier identifies four types of people with a greater tendency to multitask:
You're approach-oriented or reward-focused. You consider the possible benefits to multitasking and are attracted to the higher potential rewards it represents.
You're a high-sensation seeker. You need constant stimulation and enjoy the novelty of switching to new tasks.
You're convinced you’re part of the 2%. Those who think they're good at multitasking are more likely to engage in the behavior more often than those who believe they are just average at it. But our perceptions of our own abilities are usually inaccurate.
You have trouble focusing. If you're prone to distraction or have difficulty blocking out external stimuli, multitasking may be harder for you to shake.
Want To Be More Productive? Stop Multi-Tasking
By Lisa Quast, Feb 6, 2017,
Read the full article:
It turns out that 98% of the population doesn’t multi-task very well. Only about 2% are good at multi-tasking and these “supertaskers are true outliers.”
For most of us, we’re not really multi-tasking – we’re actually shifting back and forth from one task to another, such as typing an email and then listening to that conference call conversation, then back to our email and so on.
Shawn Achor CEO of Good Think Inc., where he researches and teaches about positive psychology.
Positive Intelligence
by Shawn Achor
From the Magazine (January–February 2012) Read the full article
Most of us assume that success will lead to happiness. Shawn Achor, founder of the corporate strategy firm Good Think, argues that we’ve got it backward; in work he’s done with KPMG and Pfizer, and studies he’s conducted in concert with Yale’s psychology department, he has seen how happiness actually precedes success.
Happy employees are more productive, more creative, and better at problem solving than their unhappy peers. In this article,
Achor lays out three strategies for improving your own mental well-being at work. In tough economic times, they’re essential for keeping yourself—and your team—at peak performance.
Develop New Habits
Training your brain to be positive is not so different from training your muscles at the gym. Recent research on neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change even in adulthood—reveals that as you develop new habits, you rewire the brain. Engaging in one brief positive exercise every day for as little as three weeks can have a lasting impact, my research suggests. For instance, in December 2008, just before the worst tax season in decades, I worked with tax managers at KPMG in New York and New Jersey to see if I could help them become happier. (I am an optimistic person, clearly.) I asked them to choose one of five activities that correlate with positive change:
Jot down three things they were grateful for.
Write a positive message to someone in their social support network.
Meditate at their desk for two minutes.
Exercise for 10 minutes.
Take two minutes to describe in a journal the most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours.
How Multitasking Erodes Productivity And Dings Your IQ
By Curt Steinhorst, Feb 20, 2020
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If you’ve heard of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), you probably know that its symptoms include impulsivity, difficulty focusing, poor time management, problems prioritizing, and short attention span.
And it's taxing for those who struggle to overcome it. In the workplace, something quite similar and widespread plagues companies, and it wears the innocent label of multitasking.
Although it purports to increase efficiency, in most cases, multitasking merely increases busyness while eroding productivity. (A better name might be "multitaxing.")
It is the business equivalent of leaving a runner on second at the end of an inning — every inning. Baseball teams aren’t productive because they engage in feverish activity; they’re productive because they focus on bringing the runner home. Leaders need to make sure their companies do the same.
How Multitasking Affects Productivity and Brain Health
By Kendra Cherry Updated on July 30, 2021
Read the full article Are you a multitasker? Does multitasking make you more productive? Learn why multitasking can impair efficiency and even hurt brain health.
5 Reasons Why Clutter Disrupts Mental Health
New research shows why it’s better to live a cleaner and less cluttered life.
Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D. May 13, 2017
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Do you look around your home and wonder how it got so full of knickknacks, or scan your office and ask yourself how it got to be so buried in neglected piles of paper? What about your calendar: Is it filled with appointments stretching indefinitely into the future? Is your email box so overflowing that you don’t even feel like wading in to try to address any but the biggest emergencies?
What does clutter do to your brain and body?
An expert in organisational behaviour examines the effects disorganisation. Libby Sander, 25 Jan 2019
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Many of us have started the year determined to be more organised: no more drawers full of plastic containers with missing lids, or lone socks.
Research
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Professor, UC Riverside | Speaker | Author, The How of Happiness and The Myths of Happiness
Article: "The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?," Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., University of California, Riverside;
Laura King, Ph.D., University of Missouri, Columbia and Ed Diener, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and The Gallup Organization; Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 131, No. 6.
The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success.
Furthermore, the evidence suggests that positive affect--the hallmark of well-being--may be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness.
Limitations, empirical issues, and important future research questions are discussed.
“A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.” —William Shakespeare
“The joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days.” —Sirach 30:22
“The days that make us happy make us wise.” —John Masefield
Review Of Research Challenges Assumption That Success Makes People Happy
Date: December 19, 2005
Source: American Psychological Association Read full story here.
Summary:
Personal and professional success may lead to happiness but may also engender success.
Happy individuals are predisposed to seek out and undertake new goals in life and this reinforces positive emotions, say researchers who examined the connections between desirable characteristics, life successes and well-being of over 275,000 people.
Physical Order Produces Healthy Choices, Generosity, and Conventionality, Whereas Disorder Produces Creativity
Kathleen D. Vohs, Joseph P. Redden, Ryan Rahinel First Published August 1, 2013
Read full research here.
There exists a large and growing industry centered on instilling environmental orderliness.
Proponents claim that people see measurable life improvements from becoming neat and tidy, and the industry can point to multiple billions of dollars in annual revenue as evidence of success.
In contrast, many creative individuals with Nobel prizes and other ultra-prestigious awards prefer—and in fact cultivate—messy environments as an aid to their work (Abrahamson & Freedman, 2007).
One such person was Einstein, who is widely reported to have observed, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” (e.g., www.goodreads.com).
Who multi-tasks and why? Multi-tasking ability, perceived multi-tasking ability, impulsivity, and sensation seeking
David M Sanbonmatsu 1, David L Strayer, Nathan Medeiros-Ward, Jason M Watson Published: 2013 Jan 23
Read the full research here
Abstract
The present study examined the relationship between personality and individual differences in multi-tasking ability. Participants enrolled at the University of Utah completed measures of multi-tasking activity, perceived multi-tasking ability, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. In addition, they performed the Operation Span in order to assess their executive control and actual multi-tasking ability.
The findings indicate that the persons who are most capable of multi-tasking effectively are not the persons who are most likely to engage in multiple tasks simultaneously.
To the contrary, multi-tasking activity as measured by the Media Multitasking Inventory and self-reported cell phone usage while driving were negatively correlated with actual multi-tasking ability.
Multi-tasking was positively correlated with participants' perceived ability to multi-task ability which was found to be significantly inflated.
Participants with a strong approach orientation and a weak avoidance orientation--high levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking--reported greater multi-tasking behavior. Finally, the findings suggest that people often engage in multi-tasking because they are less able to block out distractions and focus on a singular task. Participants with less executive control--low scorers on the Operation Span task and persons high in impulsivity--tended to report higher levels of multi-tasking activity.