all right good morning everyone
I’m very happy to be here today with you
talking about happy I’m lately really
interested because whenever I ride the
tube I have this habit I don’t know if
you do it if anyone reads a book next to
me I have to read it too so I realized a
trend and the books that I see often now
are about happiness so especially when
the books are about happiness people go
like don’t breathe it I’m not interested
in that so like okay what is it about
happiness that people are so interested
in and I go and check on Amazon books so
I put happiness there as a search and I
get 50,000 results it’s like wow seems a
lot let me look at something else to see
kind of how much other things get and I
was like okay what is about pregnancy
people want to know about pregnancy
right so I find oh 50,000 as well what
about depression 50,000 as well and I
found only one that had more that was
career with 60,000 it’s okay seems that
happiness is something we really obsess
about we really want to know about it
when we talk about happiness is my
happiness your happiness and what do we
understand of it so I would like to have
a little pollen here with you I give you
two options and we’re going to see what
option you prefer so let’s have option
one I’m satisfied with my life and I
feel good and option two I live a
meaningful life and I develop my
potential
so who prefers version one just be
spontaneous all right and who prefers
version two
okay so I see about 1/3 goes for the
option one and about 2/3 for the option
to this already shows that we do not
talk about the same type of happiness
when we talk about happiness so I would
like to go back in time and I saw that
since the start of humanity people are
really worried about happiness and to
define it and find the way to get it so
this is our is to piss in the fourth
century before Christ and his idea was
that our ultimate goal is to maximize
pleasure and this is called the hedonic
hedonic happiness which is very common
today what does it mean unfortunately
the you cannot really see it so well but
it means that psychologists have found a
formula to describe this kind of
happiness where we say we calculate our
life satisfaction we put into that when
our positive effect so when we feel good
and we have minus negative effect so we
don’t feel so good so what does it mean
let’s see in our society today I go for
the dream job I’m going to have that
amazing job that will give me a lot of
money and then I’m going to buy that car
and everybody’s going to look at me
driving in this car me like oh my god
this woman is amazing she must be so
happy
and then I’m going to get that house it
has a pool in the backyard you can’t see
it but amazing house and then maybe I
also get a horse because I really like
horse riding makes me happy and I go
partying with my friends I get some
booze we go dancing we go really really
crazy it’s so much fun and then because
I’m so busy and kind of all the time in
the road I get that holiday in the
Maldives and I’m going to relax there so
this is our happiness today just what
happens is this this is called the
hedonic treadmill so the hedonic
treadmill or adaptation means that we
all have a level of happiness to which
we always rebounds so we go we get a
positive event whoo we get happy and go
down to our initial levels of whoo we
got happy again we go down so we need to
get going with those positive events so
that we feel happy because that’s what
we want we want to feel good pleasure
okay so we come back to that initial
level of happiness but okay is there
another way of increasing our happiness
anyone else had ideas about that yes we
have another one it’s a demonic
happiness thought off by Aristotle he
says actually what makes us happy and is
our ultimate goal as human beings is a
meaningful life it means that we want to
realize our true nature we want to
develop our talents develop virtue and
put it in the service of society and
once we achieve that we realize our
so purpose easy no I go after my purpose
do you know your purpose you go after
your purpose no it’s not easy what is
our purpose that is something that we
really think a lot about maybe until to
refined it so I think an helpful thing
to think about purpose might be
motivation so what psychologists have
found is that we have a motivation along
a continuum and it goes from intrinsic
motivation that is the motivation we are
born with imagine children playing they
just play for the sake of it they just
enjoy it there’s no competition there’s
no anything from outside we really get
into the flow of doing it and we go for
things that are in according to our
values we are authentic doing it and we
feel fulfilled this is what is intrinsic
motivation now on the other hand this is
something more familiar to us sitting
here because the more we have become
adults we move towards a more
extrinsically conditioned motivation
what does it mean it means that we need
external reward like money or grades we
get good reputation we want to do it for
looking good towards the others and in
many cases we receive control and
punishment if we don’t do what we are
meant to do so looking at this way of
seeing motivation i define purpose as
the set of goals that I set myself for
which I’m intrinsically motivated and
funnily enough the people who are
intrinsically motivated in their life
this guy is Charles Darwin he’s thinking
a lot about evolution of species so
let’s say our purpose is our evolution
what does he have to say about human
beings evolution so survival of the
fittest we all heard about it
what does he say about human beings
though he says communities which
included the greatest number of the most
sympathetic members would flourish best
and rare the greatest number of
offspring this means that in reality now
you can’t see it but the kindest people
are going to be the ones that perform
best the people who cooperate who work
together so this was a very long time
ago
sympathy today is called empathy and
social neuroscientists have done a lot
of research around it
we haven’t found out everything but we
have found out a lot so let’s have a
little test of empathy
how does it feel please keep looking at
so I see some people going like whoo
exactly
it feels quite bad when we see that
isn’t it and what do you think about
this one I hear some laughter but little
bit of a rule after the little cat so we
apparently can also feel empathy towards
animals and I want to test one last one
with you what about this one I actually
feel quite sorry for that tree – so
empathy means we share emotion with
another person or being and how does it
look in the brain it looks like that so
this is a woman and in green so this is
the brain the resolution is not that
good here on the screen but I hope you
can kind of see the green parts is where
she is stimulated with pain so it’s the
centers in the brain that relate to pain
sensation the red bits are her partner
being stimulated with pain and she’s
watching him so we see that actually
even without feeling it ourselves
sensing the pain it our like brain
lights up in the same areas and empathy
is the basis for all pro-social behavior
anything we do towards our community and
other people is based on empathy and
when we combine it with something else
for example the motivation to act we
come to compassion and then it is not
only a reaction in the brain when we are
compassionate for example we start to
calm down our nervous system we lengthen
our breath our heart rate slows down we
become ready to approach a person and
soothe the person that is the motivation
my motivation is to hug to stroh and
what happens then is by detaching by the
bonding with a person I start releasing
oxytocin which is a very important
hormone that happens in childbirth in
breast feeding and kissing social
intercourse all those acts that are very
important to us as human beings and it
is the antidote to depression so in my
research I’m especially interested in
this part can we change people to become
more social can we train ourselves to be
more compassionate more empathetic and
ever researchers in Germany who have
done exactly that so we have here three
types of exercises the first one is
exercising attention using mindfulness
based exercises the second type of
exercise were training peoples effect so
emotional exercises and the third one
were cognitive exercises of perspective
exchange can I really understand what
someone else means and so on and so they
have done it for nine months the people
have done it weekly daily and what have
is this they have looked at people’s
brains after nine months and have
realized that people have increased
brain matter in the areas related to
those tasks and related to social
interaction and social intelligence so
can we now say that this causes behavior
change we cannot say that it causes it
but those researchers have correlated it
with performance tests on behavior and
the correlation was significant so I
have used another buzzword happiness of
them comes with mindfulness who here in
the room knows about mindfulness lift
your hand good it’s about hot and who
practices mindfulness regularly please
lift your hand okay about ten great so I
would like to offer a little mindfulness
exercise to everyone here what does
mindfulness mean though it means
basically to pay attention with a
specific intention to be present I do
not think about the past and I do not
think about the future and present
that’s my intention and I put a certain
attitude towards it I’m going to be
non-judgmental I’m not going to say what
I think or feel is good or bad I just
look at it okay so very easy thing if
you’re uncomfortable doing it just sit
on your chair and kind of have a snooze
for a minute
the other ones just come away from the
back of your chair sit upright and put
both of your feeds ground it on the
so you are now feeling your feet on the
ground and your sitting bones on the
chair and you feel your head rising
towards the sky and then let’s take a
deep inhale together taking our arms
over our head inhale holding your breath
there for a moment and exhale bringing
the hands softly down in front of our
face into all our holding breath out
together taking an inhale hands coming
over your head taking a deep inhale
filling the lungs holding the air and
slowly through your mouth exhaling
pressing the air out holding it out
feeling the empty lungs and one more
time inhale closing your eyes holding
the air and exhale bringing the arms
down with your eyes closed and bring
your hands into your lap keeping your
eyes closed just allow your breath to
flow naturally through your body now
coming back to feel your feet and on the
floor and your head rising towards the
let’s take another deep inhale and
exhale softly opening your eyes coming
back towards to the room so for some of
you this might have been quite a usual
thing to do you might feel quite normal
for others of you this might have felt a
bit weird because when do we stop today
to just take a deep breath and feel into
ourselves and how we are feeling very
rarely but in order to connect to other
people we need to slow down we need to
be mindful of ourselves and of others
and that will bring us a connection to
others and the connection to others the
belonging the feeling of belonging to
other people is a psychological need we
need to be connected to be happy
and we also need to be connected to
nature they go together connectedness to
nature
is a psychological need to so after all
of this I would like to reflect with you
about how we define happiness in our
society are we going for the right type
of happiness or are we actually
destroying what is most important for us
and so my message today is that we want
to be taking care taking care of
ourselves not be afraid of taking care
of others of animals of nature of any
purpose that is meaningful to you and
when you have that meaningfulness in
your life the ups and downs don’t matter
because you know why you are having them
it is part of your journey towards your
purpose and so my little encouragement
for this weekend is just leave your
phones on silent a little bit and take
very special mindful care of a person of
yourself of an animal of a planned on
your way home
whatever you want to take care of and
feel what it does to you thank you very much
I’m very happy to be here today with you
talking about happy I’m lately really
interested because whenever I ride the
tube I have this habit I don’t know if
you do it if anyone reads a book next to
me I have to read it too so I realized a
trend and the books that I see often now
are about happiness so especially when
the books are about happiness people go
like don’t breathe it I’m not interested
in that so like okay what is it about
happiness that people are so interested
in and I go and check on Amazon books so
I put happiness there as a search and I
get 50,000 results it’s like wow seems a
lot let me look at something else to see
kind of how much other things get and I
was like okay what is about pregnancy
people want to know about pregnancy
right so I find oh 50,000 as well what
about depression 50,000 as well and I
found only one that had more that was
career with 60,000 it’s okay seems that
happiness is something we really obsess
about we really want to know about it
when we talk about happiness is my
happiness your happiness and what do we
understand of it so I would like to have
a little pollen here with you I give you
two options and we’re going to see what
option you prefer so let’s have option
one I’m satisfied with my life and I
feel good and option two I live a
meaningful life and I develop my
potential
so who prefers version one just be
spontaneous all right and who prefers
version two
okay so I see about 1/3 goes for the
option one and about 2/3 for the option
to this already shows that we do not
talk about the same type of happiness
when we talk about happiness so I would
like to go back in time and I saw that
since the start of humanity people are
really worried about happiness and to
define it and find the way to get it so
this is our is to piss in the fourth
century before Christ and his idea was
that our ultimate goal is to maximize
pleasure and this is called the hedonic
hedonic happiness which is very common
today what does it mean unfortunately
the you cannot really see it so well but
it means that psychologists have found a
formula to describe this kind of
happiness where we say we calculate our
life satisfaction we put into that when
our positive effect so when we feel good
and we have minus negative effect so we
don’t feel so good so what does it mean
let’s see in our society today I go for
the dream job I’m going to have that
amazing job that will give me a lot of
money and then I’m going to buy that car
and everybody’s going to look at me
driving in this car me like oh my god
this woman is amazing she must be so
happy
and then I’m going to get that house it
has a pool in the backyard you can’t see
it but amazing house and then maybe I
also get a horse because I really like
horse riding makes me happy and I go
partying with my friends I get some
booze we go dancing we go really really
crazy it’s so much fun and then because
I’m so busy and kind of all the time in
the road I get that holiday in the
Maldives and I’m going to relax there so
this is our happiness today just what
happens is this this is called the
hedonic treadmill so the hedonic
treadmill or adaptation means that we
all have a level of happiness to which
we always rebounds so we go we get a
positive event whoo we get happy and go
down to our initial levels of whoo we
got happy again we go down so we need to
get going with those positive events so
that we feel happy because that’s what
we want we want to feel good pleasure
okay so we come back to that initial
level of happiness but okay is there
another way of increasing our happiness
anyone else had ideas about that yes we
have another one it’s a demonic
happiness thought off by Aristotle he
says actually what makes us happy and is
our ultimate goal as human beings is a
meaningful life it means that we want to
realize our true nature we want to
develop our talents develop virtue and
put it in the service of society and
once we achieve that we realize our
so purpose easy no I go after my purpose
do you know your purpose you go after
your purpose no it’s not easy what is
our purpose that is something that we
really think a lot about maybe until to
refined it so I think an helpful thing
to think about purpose might be
motivation so what psychologists have
found is that we have a motivation along
a continuum and it goes from intrinsic
motivation that is the motivation we are
born with imagine children playing they
just play for the sake of it they just
enjoy it there’s no competition there’s
no anything from outside we really get
into the flow of doing it and we go for
things that are in according to our
values we are authentic doing it and we
feel fulfilled this is what is intrinsic
motivation now on the other hand this is
something more familiar to us sitting
here because the more we have become
adults we move towards a more
extrinsically conditioned motivation
what does it mean it means that we need
external reward like money or grades we
get good reputation we want to do it for
looking good towards the others and in
many cases we receive control and
punishment if we don’t do what we are
meant to do so looking at this way of
seeing motivation i define purpose as
the set of goals that I set myself for
which I’m intrinsically motivated and
funnily enough the people who are
intrinsically motivated in their life
this guy is Charles Darwin he’s thinking
a lot about evolution of species so
let’s say our purpose is our evolution
what does he have to say about human
beings evolution so survival of the
fittest we all heard about it
what does he say about human beings
though he says communities which
included the greatest number of the most
sympathetic members would flourish best
and rare the greatest number of
offspring this means that in reality now
you can’t see it but the kindest people
are going to be the ones that perform
best the people who cooperate who work
together so this was a very long time
ago
sympathy today is called empathy and
social neuroscientists have done a lot
of research around it
we haven’t found out everything but we
have found out a lot so let’s have a
little test of empathy
how does it feel please keep looking at
so I see some people going like whoo
exactly
it feels quite bad when we see that
isn’t it and what do you think about
this one I hear some laughter but little
bit of a rule after the little cat so we
apparently can also feel empathy towards
animals and I want to test one last one
with you what about this one I actually
feel quite sorry for that tree – so
empathy means we share emotion with
another person or being and how does it
look in the brain it looks like that so
this is a woman and in green so this is
the brain the resolution is not that
good here on the screen but I hope you
can kind of see the green parts is where
she is stimulated with pain so it’s the
centers in the brain that relate to pain
sensation the red bits are her partner
being stimulated with pain and she’s
watching him so we see that actually
even without feeling it ourselves
sensing the pain it our like brain
lights up in the same areas and empathy
is the basis for all pro-social behavior
anything we do towards our community and
other people is based on empathy and
when we combine it with something else
for example the motivation to act we
come to compassion and then it is not
only a reaction in the brain when we are
compassionate for example we start to
calm down our nervous system we lengthen
our breath our heart rate slows down we
become ready to approach a person and
soothe the person that is the motivation
my motivation is to hug to stroh and
what happens then is by detaching by the
bonding with a person I start releasing
oxytocin which is a very important
hormone that happens in childbirth in
breast feeding and kissing social
intercourse all those acts that are very
important to us as human beings and it
is the antidote to depression so in my
research I’m especially interested in
this part can we change people to become
more social can we train ourselves to be
more compassionate more empathetic and
ever researchers in Germany who have
done exactly that so we have here three
types of exercises the first one is
exercising attention using mindfulness
based exercises the second type of
exercise were training peoples effect so
emotional exercises and the third one
were cognitive exercises of perspective
exchange can I really understand what
someone else means and so on and so they
have done it for nine months the people
have done it weekly daily and what have
is this they have looked at people’s
brains after nine months and have
realized that people have increased
brain matter in the areas related to
those tasks and related to social
interaction and social intelligence so
can we now say that this causes behavior
change we cannot say that it causes it
but those researchers have correlated it
with performance tests on behavior and
the correlation was significant so I
have used another buzzword happiness of
them comes with mindfulness who here in
the room knows about mindfulness lift
your hand good it’s about hot and who
practices mindfulness regularly please
lift your hand okay about ten great so I
would like to offer a little mindfulness
exercise to everyone here what does
mindfulness mean though it means
basically to pay attention with a
specific intention to be present I do
not think about the past and I do not
think about the future and present
that’s my intention and I put a certain
attitude towards it I’m going to be
non-judgmental I’m not going to say what
I think or feel is good or bad I just
look at it okay so very easy thing if
you’re uncomfortable doing it just sit
on your chair and kind of have a snooze
for a minute
the other ones just come away from the
back of your chair sit upright and put
both of your feeds ground it on the
so you are now feeling your feet on the
ground and your sitting bones on the
chair and you feel your head rising
towards the sky and then let’s take a
deep inhale together taking our arms
over our head inhale holding your breath
there for a moment and exhale bringing
the hands softly down in front of our
face into all our holding breath out
together taking an inhale hands coming
over your head taking a deep inhale
filling the lungs holding the air and
slowly through your mouth exhaling
pressing the air out holding it out
feeling the empty lungs and one more
time inhale closing your eyes holding
the air and exhale bringing the arms
down with your eyes closed and bring
your hands into your lap keeping your
eyes closed just allow your breath to
flow naturally through your body now
coming back to feel your feet and on the
floor and your head rising towards the
let’s take another deep inhale and
exhale softly opening your eyes coming
back towards to the room so for some of
you this might have been quite a usual
thing to do you might feel quite normal
for others of you this might have felt a
bit weird because when do we stop today
to just take a deep breath and feel into
ourselves and how we are feeling very
rarely but in order to connect to other
people we need to slow down we need to
be mindful of ourselves and of others
and that will bring us a connection to
others and the connection to others the
belonging the feeling of belonging to
other people is a psychological need we
need to be connected to be happy
and we also need to be connected to
nature they go together connectedness to
nature
is a psychological need to so after all
of this I would like to reflect with you
about how we define happiness in our
society are we going for the right type
of happiness or are we actually
destroying what is most important for us
and so my message today is that we want
to be taking care taking care of
ourselves not be afraid of taking care
of others of animals of nature of any
purpose that is meaningful to you and
when you have that meaningfulness in
your life the ups and downs don’t matter
because you know why you are having them
it is part of your journey towards your
purpose and so my little encouragement
for this weekend is just leave your
phones on silent a little bit and take
very special mindful care of a person of
yourself of an animal of a planned on
your way home
whatever you want to take care of and
feel what it does to you thank you very much
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