Positive psychologists share tips at Student Well-Being Summit
Tips for Anteaters experiencing stress, sadness or loneliness were shared by an expert panel of psychologists from UC Irvine and UC Riverside at the Newkirk Alumni Center during the Student Well-Being Summit on Feb. 4.
The “Auctioning Hope in Turbulent Times” panel, which like the summit was organized by the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Wellness, Health & Counseling Services with funding from the Office of the President, featured psychologists and renowned happiness experts Professor Sarah Pressman of UC Irvine and Distinguished Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky of UC Riverside. Pressman’s Department of Psychology colleague Professor Stephen Schueller served as moderator.
Pressman told the crowd she entered her field because she wanted to know why her own stress led to physical illness. She discovered the cure around the same time positive psychology was becoming a thing: happiness.
Be happy
“It seems like a weird thing to say, like when you’re really stressed out, be happy,” she confided. “That’s terrible advice, right? But it’s not because it actually helps. … Positive relationships, feeling hopeful, feeling optimistic: These things can help prevent stress from making us sick, especially during turbulent times.”
Lyubomirsky revealed that “by far, my highest cited paper is about how positive emotions and feeling happy make people basically more successful in their relationships, careers and health.” Experiencing one positive emotion during a day — such as tranquility, serenity, enthusiasm, pride, joy, etc. — can reap emotional benefits, she maintained.
“People who are happier or experiencing positive emotions, when they go to a job interview, they’re more likely to get a call back,” Lyubomirsky said. “They’re more creative, their immune system is stronger. They have less pain. They recover faster from surgery. They actually live longer.”
She confided that it’s a challenge to convince businesses, organizations and policymakers that they need to care about happiness because it is good for their bottom lines. “If your employees are happier, they’ll be more productive,” Lyubomirsky said. “They’ll be healthier, they’ll have less burnout. They’re not going to get sick and stay home.”
How to gain friends
Pressman said having people in your life you can rely on makes it easier to handle anxiety. But what if you have no friends to speak of? She pointed out that one of the things that makes her most sad are comments on the UC Irvine subreddit by students who say they do not know how to make friends. Acknowledging how difficult that can be, she advised volunteering on campus.
“One of the other big predictors of living longer is helping others,” Pressman said. “Even if you feel hopeless, volunteering will give you social connection. That’s such a simple step to take when we’re surrounded by opportunities at UCI to interact with people. It’s not about skill. It’s about spending the time getting out of wherever you are.”
Shortly after Lyubomirsky revealed that Schueller had been one of her research assistants when he was pursuing his bachelor’s degree in psychology at UC Riverside, he seized the opportunity to forewarn students in his winter quarter “Science and Practice of Wellness and Resilience” course that they will soon be tasked with a gratitude exercise he learned from the Distinguished Professor.
For the exercise, students choose someone in their life to thank and write that person two letters: one to send to the subject and the other to share with the class. It may not be pleasant, it may be humbling, but studies back up that the experience is emotionally beneficial, Lyubomirsky said.
“It combines two powerful things: expressing gratitude and actually sharing it with someone else,” she said. “Gratitude is so important ... but it only works when it comes from within, and you decide to be grateful.”
During a question-and-answer session with the audience, a student asked how one should respond to an accusation of being too negative when you give an honest opinion about some ugliness in the world.
“One thing to think about is emotions are adaptive,” Pressman answered. “Having a fear response if a bus is about to hit you is adaptive. You jump out of the way. But it’s not adaptive to keep being scared 20 hours after the bus almost hit you. So, thinking about emotions as things that have evolved over time to help us survive is, I think, very helpful. It’s just that you have to say, ‘OK, is this emotion useful to me anymore? And what can I do to help myself so that I’m not putting a strain on my body.’”
While wallowing in negativity is not the answer, Lyubomirsky did mention it is important to feel that you are heard when you express an honest emotion.
Other wellbeing and happiness tips the panel shared included advice to join campus clubs, take advantage of professors’ office hours, make a friend at work to confide in/complain to and combat the onset of the blues by engaging in a 15-minute conversation with … anyone. Lyubomirsky advocated avoiding small talk and expressing genuine interest in the other person you are interacting with.
— Matt Coker
Banner image by Ethan Tung. Inset photo of Pressman and Schueller by Matt Coker