Moving on From the Nature v Nurture Debate

A really interesting development in the nature v nurture debate - our environment determines which genes get switched on.

Changing Emotions by Changing Behaviour

In 1996 Neil Jacobson found that, in the treatment of depression, 'adding cognitive techniques to behavioural activation does nothing to improve outcomes at the end of acute treatment and at two-year follow-up' (Gortner, Gollan,Dobson & Jacobson, 1998) quoted in Kanter et al (2010).

What that means is, during periods of depression, just getting help to get moving again, re-engaging with the world step by step, is a highly effective approach and it isn't actually necessary to change your thinking.  That the feelings can follow the behaviour. 


'The shortest, most reliable way to change how you're feeling is to change what you're doing. When you feel bad, don't wait to feel good to do what you love. Start doing what you love. Good feelings will likely follow.'
If I had known this a few years ago it would have saved me a lot of time and effort trying to get my thoughts 'right'.

If you want to be happy, become more extroverted

People who score highly for extroversion are more likely to have increases in life satisfaction over time.  People who score highly for neuroticism are more likely to have decreases in life satisfaction over time (Headey,2009).

People who are extroverted have a tendency towards: warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, enthusiasm and feeling energised in company. Whereas people with high Neuroticism scores have a tendency to experience more feelings of anxiety, anger, depression and guilt than those low in neuroticism. People high in neuroticism tend to feel overwhelmed in stressful circumstances; interpret ordinary situations as threatening and have difficulty not acting on urges.

Headey suggests that these differences in life satisfaction as life progresses are because extroverted personality traits are associated with experiencing more positive life events and neurotic personality traits with more adverse life events. Extroverted people tend to build relationships.  Being part of a supportive network of people is strongly associated with happiness, so extroverted behaviour makes life better. Whereas, neurotic people tend to get overwhelmed by their painful emotions and often start to avoid challenging situations. Their lives becomes progressively more narrow.

Our personality may not be as fixed as we thought, on average we tend to become less neurotic and less extroverted with age.

So, assuming we want to be happy with our lives, what might this suggest we should do?  Here are my suggestions:

1. Take the free IPIP Neo test to see how you currently score
2. If you are low in extroversion - accept that you do need time alone to recharge but don't hide away from the world.  Introverts who push themselves to become more social become happier. Work out what your values are around relationships with others. Then try to say 'yes' more often to experiences with others that align with those values. 
3. If you are high in neuroticism - practice mindfulness, get good at noticing what is really happening in the world rather than what your mind is telling you is happening.  Get good at noticing urges to act in 'neurotic' ways and see if you can sit with the urge and instead act in line with your values.  
4. Show yourself compassion - this stuff is harder for you than for happy-go-lucky, bubbly extroverts. 

My personal experience with this?  I have been practising ACT (the approach that much of this blog rests on) for several years now and my neuroticism scores have fallen. This is anecdotal - but I am pretty pleased!

Encouraging results from the largest clinical study ever conducted on treating depression with Omega-3

Encouraging results from the largest clinical study ever conducted on treating depression with Omega-3: "Initial analyses failed to clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of Omega-3 for all patients taking part in the study. Other analyses, however, revealed that Omega-3 improved depression symptoms in patients diagnosed with depression unaccompanied by an anxiety disorder. Efficacy for these patients was comparable to that generally observed with conventional antidepressant treatment."