oṃ sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ (Let all be happy)

The dawn of the new year is perhaps an ideal time to take stock of what we truly need for contentment. This may call for a pause, maybe, even a deep breath.  Spending a few moments, if not hours, reflecting on it is a fantastic way to unearth the right path.

Psychological research suggests that at the end of the day, sitting quietly and writing down a list of good things that happened can help improve one’s mood and foster a sense of contentment. This exercise involves spending a few moments every evening reflecting on your day and then writing down three things that went well or that you enjoyed most. It could be anything that felt positive to you. And these positive things don’t have to be life-changing— they can be as simple as spending the evening with good friends.  

You may now ask, “How does this work?” The answer is simple: It reverses our naturally hard-wired tendency to remember and dwell on the negative, rather than the positive.  Of course, there is a strong evolutionary reason for our remembering and thinking about negative events: It is vital for our survival. For instance, we don’t care if a stray dog comes across our path, but if it is a snake, we would. Our brain is primed for danger to keep us safe. But this negativity bias can overwhelm us.

Given this reality, if we undertake this writing- down-of-three-good-things exercise daily, it would help us focus on the positive concretely.  Over a period of its practice as an end-of-the-day exercise, no wonder if its impact starts working on you throughout the day— it may force you to search for good things to add to the list. You would thus train not only to look out for threats but also for good things.

It is, of course, true that when one is passing through very tough times, one may find it hard to trace good things.  This may not transform your life, but research shows that it could be effective even when one is passing through a period of depression.  It however does not mean that it works for everybody.     

The scope of using this method in everyday life to improve one’s well-being was first researched by Martin Seligman and Chris Peterson and the results were published in 2005. They reported that within a month, people who carried out the three-good-things exercise began to show improvements in their happiness and a decrease in depression symptoms.

It may be worth trying these kinds of interventions, which cost nothing and consume very little time to check if they work for you. And, remember, as a protagonist in a film says, “Next time is next time” and so start now because “Now is Now”.

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