Positive emotions - what makes some people more resilient than others?

I have long held the belief that how we think and feel has a huge effect on our health and wellness. In fact in my first book I wrote about the significant effect I beleive emotions have on people with dementia.

When dementia strikes, as they progress through the disease process where the mind is not longer in control, they are finally free to express what they are feeling, who they want to be with and what they want to say. They shoot straight from the hip which creates a lot of problems with carers who take what they say literally rather than seeing how it is for the person. I found it easy to work with people with dementia because I understood them and I didnt take offence at anything they said.

Understanding your emotions is hugely important and it is estimated that 80% of people have difficulties in this area. The 20% of people who freely express who they are as a person are those who are more successful in all areas of their life and have much less sickness and disease.

Now this can be learnt.

I was listening to Radio New Zealand interview with Barbara Fredrickson, a researher into understanding happiness who has developed a test for you to see where you fit on the happiness scale. This gives you guide to the areas you can change in your life.

She suggestes you do this test everyday in the evening for a period of 2 weeks to see how your day went and ratio of happiness you have in your life. To do this test go to http://www.positivityratio.com/single.php .

Also note that this test will probably not return the same results each day so do it honestly and it will give you a guide on how or what to change in your life. Most people in the US who take this test have a ratio of 2-1, depressed people have ratio of 1-1 but the successful people consistently have a ratio of 3-1.

Her website http://www.positivityratio.com/index.php is a very intersting read and also see where you fit on the happiness ratio scale.