Friday, May 11, 2012

Three Good Things Exercise

On page 132 of Dr. Weil's latest book on mental health, in a chapter entitled "Optimizing Well-Being By Retraining The Mind," he mentions an exercise called "Three Good Things." It's from the field of Positive Psychology and has been tested and promoted extensively by Dr. Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania.
  1. Each night before you go to sleep, write down three things that went well that day.
  2. Beside each item, write down the reasons why you think it went well.
Seligman:
"It works because it changes your focus from the things that go wrong in life to things that you might take for granted, that go well."
Here's Dr. Seligman describing it:



The reflection part, thinking about the reasons why something went well, if you really immerse yourself in it, can be revealing.
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2 comments:

Angela and Melinda said...

Interesting Bix. I could certainly use this.

Bix said...

I have yet to get to three. I get stuck on the whys and it wears me out and I fall asleep.

During the day I have something good happen and I say "this will be one of my threes tonight," but I forget! Why is it so easy to recall the things that bug and worry me instead of the good things?