Creating Blue Zones
Have you heard of Blue Zones? They are places in the world where people live significantly longer lives. Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; Vilcabamba, Ecuador; and a community in Loma Linda, California are all Blue Zones.
Dan Buettner coined the term after teaming up with National Geographic to investigate the regions of the world that have the highest concentration of people over 100. Buettner described what he discovered in his book, The Blue Zones, and concluded that the following 9 things contribute to longevity:
- Keep moving – find ways to move naturally throughout your day
- Find purpose – and pursue it
- Slow down – take breaks and vacations
- Stop eating – eat until you are 80% full
- Dine on plants – eat more veggies and less meat and processed food
- Drink red wine – consistently, but in moderation
- Join a group – create a healthy social network
- Feed your soul – engage in spiritual activities
- Love your tribe – make family a high priority
Buettner is now working to create Blue Zones across the United States. These are cities where a certain percentage of people and businesses follow his healthy-living plan. Albert Lea, Minnesota was the first Blue Zone community and Hermosa, Redondo, and Manhattan beaches in California have more recently joined the movement. These cities have all seen significant drops in smoking and obesity rates, increases in exercise and healthy eating habits, reduced healthcare costs, and increased average life expectancy. Iowa is following suite with the goal of becoming the healthiest state by 2016. Workplaces are also using the 9 principles to create Blue Zone worksites.
The Center for the Advancement of Well-Being is working to create a model well-being university at George Mason and several of our initiatives align with Buettner’s principles. What about you? Is there something you could do to initiate a Blue Zones project in your community, workplace or school? How could you encourage people around you to move more, eat better, and become more social?
Increase Happiness by Savoring the Past
I have written a number of blogs about how mindfulness or paying attention to the present moment can increase happiness. Becoming more mindful has been especially helpful to me because I have a tendency to worry about the future. I am happier now because I have learned to notice when I am worrying about something and to make an intentional effort to bring my focus back to the present.
That said, I think this point needs some clarification. Trying to be more mindful doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also spend time thinking about the future and the past. Making plans for the future and savoring happy memories from the past can both be great sources of happiness.
Recently I was reminded of the joy of reminiscing. A few weeks ago I joined my best friends from college for a weekend at the beach. It was great to see everyone and share stories about our jobs and families. But the truth is we spent much of our time together talking about the past. We danced to our favorite college songs and retold many of the same stories that we tell every time we get together. And we laughed at them all over again. It is always such fun to relive those happy times.
What matters is how you think about the past and the future. Ruminating about bad things that happened in the past or worrying about things that will likely never happen in the future will not make you happy. On the other hand, dreaming about a better future gives you hope and a sense of purpose. And, as positive psychologist Robert Biswas-Diener explains in his latest Ted Talk, you have the power to increase your happiness whenever you want simply by reminiscing about the good ole’ days. If you want to boost your happiness even more, share your memories with others.
At a dinner I attended this week, Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough spoke about the building of the Panama Canal, the topic of his book, The Path Between the Seas. I thought it was interesting that McCullough mentioned a number of things that positive psychologists believe enhance our happiness and well-being.
The French first attempted to construct the canal in 1881, planning to dig the same kind of sea-level canal as the Suez. But they were unprepared for the challenges of building in the rain-soaked tropics and the tens of thousands of lives they would lose to yellow-fever and malaria. McCullough emphasized how negative the situation became, finally ending in bankruptcy.
In 1904 America took control of the canal property and commenced construction. The Americans were starting fresh with a positive outlook. The first thing they did was to invest in infrastructure so that workers could live and work in a safe, comfortable environment. They built homes, restaurants, stores, and schools. And discovered ways to reduce the spread of disease.
McCullough commented that the people working on the canal project were very happy. Two important factors likely contributed to their happiness: community and purpose.
Building the infrastructure helped create a community. This allowed for the development of social relationships that are extremely important for our happiness. Well-being is further increased when we have a sense of purpose, believing that we are engaged in a meaningful activity that will make a difference to others. The workers knew that the canal would significantly impact trade, which would improve the lives of people around the world for years to come.
The positive emotions created by community and purpose may have contributed to the ultimate success of the project. Negative emotions cause us to focus narrowly on a problem. Positive emotions work in the opposite way, broadening our attention and helping us come up with novel solutions to problems. The French were facing such a negative situation that it may have prevented them from seeing alternative ways of building the canal. The Americans were successful because they abandoned the idea of building a sea-level canal and decided to build a large lake instead, with a system of locks to raise and lower ships from the sea to the lake. Positivity may well have influenced their openness to this alternative strategy.
McCullough finished his speech by talking about the value of studying history. History increases our positivity by giving us hope for the future. When we look at what is happening right now things look bad. But if you look across history, things have often looked bad in the moment, yet time and again we come through. History helps us to realize that we have made it through hard times before, so there is no reason to think we won’t make it through again.
A Plea For Meaningful Part-Time Work
According to the Gallup World Poll, people who voluntarily work part-time are happier, less stressed, and have higher job satisfaction than other employees. Obviously, not everyone can afford to work part-time. But for many people, especially working mothers, the opportunity for meaningful part-time work can be the difference between staying in the workforce and quitting.
Sixty percent of all working mothers would prefer to work part-time, but only twenty-four percent have part-time jobs. Thirty-three percent of mothers who do not work outside the home would like to be working part-time, but can’t find suitable positions.
The problem is that there aren’t enough good part-time positions available. I have surveyed and interviewed over 1,000 women and many of them told me that when they moved into part-time positions the work they were doing was no longer important or interesting. They also said that their opportunities for advancement were significantly reduced, if not eliminated.
The consulting firm Deloitte has created what they call mass career customization, which allows their employees to adjust their workload as they progress through their careers and face changing life circumstances. Employees may advance more slowly when they reduce their workload, but they are still performing meaningful work and they remain on track with their careers.
Other companies are also working to figure out how to divide traditional jobs into chunks of high-impact work that can be done by employees on a part-time basis. It takes creativity to think about how tasks can be rearranged into meaningful part-time work. But smart companies realize it is a worthwhile exercise. Too much talent is being lost due to inflexible structures and outdated work norms. Organizations must find ways to give women the opportunity to adjust their workloads so that they can continue their careers while also meeting personal demands.
20 Years and Counting
My husband and I were married 20 years ago today. Happy Anniversary, honey! In honor of our anniversary I thought I’d write a post about love. Looking for inspiration, I reread the passage that my sister read in English and Angel’s brother read in Spanish at our wedding. It’s better than anything I could write, so I’ll just share it with you.
From Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving:
“Love is an activity, not a passive affect. Love is primarily giving, not receiving. The most important sphere of giving, however, is not that of material things, but lies in the specifically human realm. The person who loves gives of himself, of the most precious he has, he gives of his life. In thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person. Love is a power which produces love.
Beyond the element of giving, the art of loving always implies four basic elements. These are care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.
Love is care, the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love. Care implies another aspect of love: that of responsibility. Responsibility is one person’s response to the needs, expressed or unexpressed, of another person. But responsibility could easily deteriorate into domination and possessiveness, were it not for a third component of love, respect. Respect is not fear and awe, but wanting the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving oneself. Finally, to respect a person would not be possible without knowing that person; care and responsibility would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge.”
It’s easy to tell someone you love them. It takes a lot more work to show someone you love them. Love is hard, but the joy it can bring makes it worth the effort. It is the best investment I have ever made!
What Working Women Need to Know
Despite significant advances, women still face discrimination in the workplace. Joan Williams has studied women and work for over 25 years and through her research she has identified four types of gender bias that women encounter. She and her daughter, Rachel Dempsey, describe these biases and give women advice on how to handle them in their book, What Works for Women at Work.
The first pattern of gender bias at work is Prove-it-Again!, meaning that women have to prove their competence over and over again. They are judged on their performance, while men are judged on their potential. So men, and not women, are given the benefit of the doubt when they make a mistake. We can address this bias by carefully documenting our achievements. It also helps to have a posse, a group of men and women, who call attention to each other’s successes.
The second pattern is the Tightrope. This describes the double standard to which women are held. They are expected to behave in traditionally feminine ways, yet masculine behaviors are required to be successful at work. Women who are “too feminine” are judged to be low on competence, while women who are “too masculine” are penalized for not being nice. This means we have to work to maintain a precarious balance in order not to be perceived as a doormat nor as a bitch. We need to learn to mix the masculine with the feminine; to combine competence with likability.
The third pattern of bias is the Maternal Wall. There are strong negative assumptions that associate motherhood with a lack of competence and commitment. This means the pressure to prove ourselves over again becomes even greater when we become mothers. We need to let people know that we remain committed to our career. Balancing work and life requires careful planning and an acceptance that there will be trade-offs. It is impossible to be the ideal worker and the perfect mother, but good enough is just fine.
The final gender bias pattern is the Tug of War that occurs when gender bias in the workplace leads to conflict among women. We all have to make difficult decisions about how to handle the challenges facing us at work and at home. Often we worry whether or not we made the right choice. Tensions arise when women judge each other based on what each one personally believes is the best strategy. Women need to realize that we all have our own battles and we should be more supportive and less judgmental of each other.
Sochi Olympics, All About the “Spoice”
When Sage Kotsenburg won a gold medal in slopestyle, his message was to “keep it spoice!” According to the urban dictionary, “spoice is an exclamation of gratitude towards life. It’s the proper word to use when you find yourself in a situation involving a multitude of positive things at once. You may only utter it with pure joy behind it.” After winning her gold for slopestyle, Jamie Anderson shared the “spoice” saying, “Gratification for life. We’re all so blessed to be able to travel the world together and snowboard. It’s our passion. We love it.”
Gratitude isn’t the only example of the power of positivity in Sochi. Jamie also recognizes the value of living in the moment. She meditates, practices yoga, and has been rereading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now to remind herself to be mindful. I’m sure Jamie’s gold medal is due in part to her ability to stay present and focused throughout years of training.
Sage says he relieves stress by “hanging out with friends”. I bet it would be hard to find an Olympic athlete who wouldn’t point to the essential role that family and friends have played in his or her success. Alex Bilodeau, who won a gold medal for Canada in freestyle skiing, is a great example. The first thing he did after his win was to embrace his brother, Frederic, who has cerebral palsy. When asked what his brother said, he responded, “What he always says, I love you, Alex!” On days when he doesn’t feel like training, Alex thinks of his brother and how he would give anything to be able to get out there and ski. “Out of respect for my brother I have to go after these dreams and to do all within my power to try to make it happen.”
The mothers of ice dancing partners Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who won a gold medal yesterday, have traveled the world with their children for the last 17 years, supporting them as they compete. In just about any interview with Meryl and Charlie you will hear them repeat, “We could not have done this without the support of our parents.”
Gratitude, mindfulness, and supportive relationships can help us all to achieve our life goals. Here’s to the “spoice”!
2 Dimensions of Well-Being
According to researchers in positive psychology, our well-being depends on more than just being happy. In Flourish, Martin Seligman explains that positive emotions are one element of well-being, but well-being is about more than just feeling good. It also comes from using your strengths in the pursuit of meaningful activities that fully engage you.
In a similar vein, Jennifer Hecht makes a distinction between good-day happiness and good-life happiness in her book, The Happiness Myth. Good-day happiness is associated with positive emotions that can fluctuate on a daily basis, while good-life happiness comes from engaging in tasks that give your life meaning. She concludes that positive emotions contribute to our well-being, but that we also need obstacles and challenges for our lives to have meaning.
So our well-being appears to be determined by two key dimensions. The first one relates to the experience of positive emotions or “feeling good”. The second dimension represents engagement in meaningful goals that make a positive impact or “doing good”.
People who are high on the feeling good dimension are happy. People who are high on the doing well dimension have a sense of meaning in life because they feel they are making progress toward valued goals and are making a difference in the lives of others. People who are low on both dimensions are languishing.
In order to thrive, you need to be high on both dimensions. Being more mindful, grateful, and hopeful can move you higher on the feeling good dimension toward happiness, but in order to maximize your well-being you also need to commit to a purpose aligned with your values that engages your strengths and lets you make a meaningful contribution. Nurturing your relationships will move you higher on both dimensions to arrive at the sweet spot where you will thrive!
Dimensions of Well-Being
Feeling Good
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Happy Life |
Thriving |
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Languishing |
Meaningful Life |
Doing Good
Move it! Move it! (And Measure it!)
The research showing the health risks of inactivity has me a bit worried, especially since I spend most of my days writing at my computer. I thought I was fine as long as I got to the gym every morning, but it turns out that exercising once a day does nothing to counteract the dangers of sitting for hours. People who sit for more than 6 hours a day have a 40 percent greater risk of dying, even if they exercise regularly! So one of my resolutions for 2014 is to “move it, move it” like King Julien in Madagascar.
In his book, Eat, Move, Sleep, Tom Rath suggests measuring your movement if you want to improve it. I’ve been teaching for years that in business “what gets measured gets done.” So my husband and I gave each other Fitbits for Christmas. A Fitbit is a device you can wear on your wrist that measures your daily activity.
It has been amazing to see the effect measuring our activity has had on our behavior. There is no question that our dog has benefited the most. Whenever one of us thinks we may not meet our goal of 10,000 daily steps we take the dog for another walk. If I haven’t achieved my goal after dinner, instead of sitting on the couch to watch TV, I pace back and forth behind it while laughing at Phil’s goofy antics on Modern Family. The kids think we are nuts! Having to park far away from a store is now a good thing, more steps! Yesterday I ran upstairs to grab a few things. Of course, I forgot one of them until I was back downstairs. But instead of moaning about having to go upstairs again, I thought, “awesome, that’ll give me more steps!”
There is no question that tracking your progress, be it number of steps, pounds lost, miles run, hours of practice, or pages written, is a great motivator. Seeing progress encourages you to keep at it. So what’s one of your goals? How can you start measuring your progress?
