Well-being

The Happiness—and Holiness—of a Life Lived Joyfully

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ Leave a comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: cmophoto.net (freely available via Unsplash)

“Don’t try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years.”

Blaise Pascal

With no disrespect to Pascal and his genius, while I agree with the latter part of his above assertion, I don’t agree with the first part. Yes, it is far more important to fill our years with life than it is to fill our life with years, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to add years. There are lots of things we can do to promote longevity, and, by all means, let’s do those things; let’s do what we can to live longer. But we must beware of confusing quantity with quality. We mustn’t focus so much on lengthening life that we forget to enjoy life for however long we have it.

After all, joylessness might just be the most innocuously damaging sin we didn’t know we were committing.

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A Potentially Unpopular Perspective on Body Positivity

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ Leave a comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: De’Andre Bush (freely available via Unsplash)

Okay, here comes the unpopular perspective: the body positivity movement might be doing more harm than good.

There I said it.

Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, hear me out.

Let me begin by saying that I have no intention or desire to shame anybody or any body type. I do not want to promote a one-size-fits-all approach that suggests that beauty is limited to a certain few kinds of appearances. Quite the opposite. I believe that everybody—and every body—is a beautiful creation and worthy of being honored, regardless of size, shape, color, ability, or any other characteristic.

But, here’s my concern: when we focus too much on body positivity, we risk normalizing and turning a blind eye to unhealthy habits—habits that will destroy the bodies we profess to honor.

That doesn’t sound like love. And it doesn’t sound very positive.

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From the Heart No. 2: Heart-Healthy Eating (or, Freedom from Food)

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ Leave a comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Julian Hanslmaier (freely available via Unsplash)

There’s so much information available on the Internet about what healthy eating looks like; so, being no nutritionist, I’m not going to presume that I have much to add to that discussion (though I might relay some of that discussion some day). But, having a background in psychology and a nearly lifelong, unhealthy relationship with food, I do have something to add to the discussion of what a healthy approach to eating looks like—at least for me.

In line with that, this post is about having a heart-healthy diet not in the literal, cardiovascular sense of “heart-healthy”, but in the metaphorical, emotional sense of the term—which, I would argue, is the more important of the two. After all, having an emotionally healthier attitude towards food can make it easier to have a nutritionally healthier diet, whereas changing what you eat may not as potently affect how you feel about what you eat. At least that’s been my experience.

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Mindfulness for Mind Fullness

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 6 Comments

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Keegan Houser (freely available via Unsplash)

Mindfulness. It’s a word that’s been thrown out a lot in recent years. But what exactly is it? What does it entail? What does it do? Why is it so popular? Is it just another fad, popular now, only to fall off when we realize there’s actually nothing to it. If you just want quick, to-the-point answers, here you go, in order: a practice that can be trained; potentially many different things; great things for mental and physical health; likely due to the fact that it works; and no. If you want more detailed answers, read on.

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Physical Fitness for Psychical Fitness: The Mental Benefits of Exercise

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 2 Comments

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: me

Age-related cognitive decline is pretty much inevitable, especially now that people are generally living longer. While this decline in fluid intelligence (reasoning abilities) is complemented by an increase in crystallized intelligence (factual knowledge; see figure below), fluid intelligence helps us deal with many aspects of our daily lives (such as processing new information and solving problems), so it’s worth preventing its decline as much as possible. Thankfully, there are ways to do this. Continual learning and mental engagement (i.e., effortful mental engagement, not simple passive learning) are excellent ways to keep one’s mind sharp. But, perhaps one of the best ways is by doing something that also benefits us in other ways: exercise.

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Tiny yet Titanic: The Butterfly Effect in Psychological Well-Being

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 7 Comments

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Lesley Juarez (freely available via Unsplash)

You’ve likely heard of the Butterfly Effect. It’s the notion that, because of how everything in the natural world is interconnected and deterministic (as some would like to argue), a butterfly’s flapping its wings in, say, Sydney, could ultimately result in a hurricane in, say, the Gulf of Mexico. Sure, that flap of its wings is an infinitesimally miniscule act on the grand scheme of the global climate; but, because of how those few atoms are shifted by the flap of a pair of wings, those atoms then shift other atoms, which shift other atoms, and so on and so forth, until just enough of the right atoms have been shifted in order to tip the meteorological conditions over then edge into producing a hurricane. Small act; big consequences. And rather negative ones at that.

But who’s to say that the consequences couldn’t have been positive instead (e.g., preventing a hurricane)? And who says that such grand effects from small actions must be limited to the deterministic, natural world? In other words, can we get similarly great outcomes from small initial acts in the realms of the intangible and indeterministic (or at least less well understood so we don’t know how it’s deterministic), such as psychology, relationships, and spirituality?

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What Giving Thanks Gives You

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 7 Comments

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: me

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words; watch your words, for they become actions; watch your actions, for they become habits; watch your habits, for they become your character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Various/Unknown

Apparently, versions of this quote have been attributed to various people, from Lao Tzu to Buddha to Emerson, but that’s beside the point; I share it not to start a debate over who said it first, but to highlight the power of thought. As psychological research (particularly the field of positive psychology) shows us, our thoughts can exert a noticeable—even a substantial or powerful—effect on our lives, for better or worse, depending on the nature of the thought pattern: more negative thoughts are associated with more negative effects; more positive thoughts are associated with more positive effects. So, in the spirit of positivity, let’s focus on the positive and how to improve overall feelings and well-being. And since we just had Thanksgiving, I want to focus on a specific kind of positive thought, one that Cicero once called the parent of all virtues: gratitude. Let’s explore what makes it so virtuous—and powerful.

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