According to Richard J. Davidson, the secrets of well-being mostly coincide with the goals of meditation. This neuroscientist, whose research is heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism, ensures that it is possible to learn to be happy.
Last update: June 22, 2020
Before we talk about the secrets of wellness, we want to remember who Richard J. Davidson is. Specialist in psychophysiology and psychopathology, as well as an expert on the personality that he practices at Harvard University. For many years he has been involved in the study of emotions, especially from the neuronal point of view. One thing that sets him apart is that he has been following cases all his life and does not extrapolate them from surveys or experiments.
Based on his research studies and insights, Richard J. Davidson hypothesized that thanks to brain neuroplasticity it is possible to learn to be happy, just as we learn a language or another knowledge. Based on this, he proposed four elements that define well-being.
Richard J. Davidson is also one of the Dalai Lama's greatest friends and a great student of meditation. He meditates every day and studies meditation as a discipline that nourishes neuroplasticity. In the next lines we present a brief summary of what Davidson calls the secrets of human well-being.
I have seen that the basis of a healthy brain is goodness.
-Richard J. Davidson-
The 4 secrets of wellbeing
1. Resilience
In general, resilience is the ability to recover from an obstacle and to emerge stronger from the lived experience. According to Davidson, the aforementioned ability is closely associated with the Buddhist concept of "non-attachment". Thus, what very often represents the real difficulty is resistance to change.
Resilience is one of the components of well-being: any person is exposed to difficulties. If a person is able to accept difficult moments and let them flow, experiencing them as a sort of growth phase, they will run less risk of being overwhelmed by malaise.
2. Optimistic outlook
A positive point of view has nothing to do with self-deception. In this case, we are not talking about blind optimism, which implies the denial of the existence of the negative side, but of the conscious choice to emphasize the positive side of each situation, however adverse it may be.
According to Richard J. Davidson, those who practice the art of meditation experience a change in their brain circuits that transform their way of seeing reality. In a study carried out by Davidson himself, he found some differences between the brains of those who meditated and those who did not, concluding that his hypothesis was founded on him.
According to this hypothesis, half an hour a day would be enough, for a couple of weeks, to notice the benefits of the new perspective. In general, a superficial attempt to develop a positive point of view tends to have short-term effects, and this would be the reason why it would not be able to influence our mood sufficiently. In those who meditate, however, the effects are more lasting, with a long-term burden on our emotional condition.
3. Maximum concentration
Another study by Richard J. Davidson showed that, on average, an individual doesn't pay too much attention to 47% of the things they do every day.
One of the triggers of this distraction is the so-called multitasking work or divided attention: carrying out several activities at the same time, without particularly dedicating oneself to any of these. In these cases, the mind begins to wander, moving from one idea to another without an orderly pattern.
Davidson found that those with a mind that works in this way will be more likely to feel dissatisfied and unhappy. To this end, he points out that one of the secrets of well-being is maximum attention, which could be defined as the ability of the mind and body to live exclusively in the present.
The ability to concentrate with the mind only on the present can also be acquired through meditation. In general, thinking hard about the future easily leads to anxiety, while thinking about the past leads to depression. Living in the present is emotionally less onerous.
4. Generosity: one of the secrets of well-being
Among the secrets of well-being presented by Richard J. Davidson is compassion (or generosity). According to this scholar, 'giving' would activate different areas of the brain associated with happiness and cheerfulness. Let's face it: generous people almost always seem to be more at peace with themselves and tend to be more serene and worry-free.
According to Davidson, generosity, like selfishness, has a boomerang effect. This does not mean that the giver will receive equal understanding in return, but that the mere fact of giving affects physical and mental well-being. In other words, the one who benefits most is the one who gives.
These secrets of well-being hypothesized by Richard J. Davidson coincide with many psychological theories and also with Buddhism. If so many trends have come to similar conclusions, it is certainly not pure conjecture, on the contrary: these are the very foundations on which to build what we generally call happiness.
