Cultivating positivity makes you immune against crises and setbacks. The difference of people who flourish (less than 20%) compared to others is the frequency and quantity of positive emotions they experience in their everyday life. Check out your positivity ratio!
According to research by Barbara Fredrickson, to cultivate positive emotions allows us to live an upward spiral of thoughts and actions. This personal development is reflected in an improvement in our ability to solve problems, better cardiovascular health, by the quantity and quality of our friendships and relationships and ultimately by increasing our resilience and greater optimism.
Emotions matter
Since reading the international bestseller Emotional Intelligence in the 90’s, the question of the influence of emotions on our lives and our well-being is one of my favorite subjects.
Its author, psychologist Daniel Goleman, has also edited some books of the Mind and Life Conferences, for example Healing Emotions which summarizes the scientific-spiritual dialogues on the ability of the mind to heal the body.
Check out your positivity ratio
Barbara Fredrickson, another founder of positive psychology, is one of the leading researchers about positive emotions and the effect they have on our minds and our bodies. She has developed a tool that allows you to monitor your ‘positivitiy ratio’.
As the tool only measures peaks and not the duration of such emotions, once again it’s not ‘the truth’. It’s a way of becoming aware what you do on autopilot and where you can start to spark a change.
As I always test out what I suggest to others, I monitored my positivity ratio during 6 months this year. Here are the results:
What you can see is a relative stability in high scores on positive emotions and bigger fluctuations in negative emotions.
The ratio calculates Positive emotions score / Negative emotions score, therefore a ratio can be positive or negative. The empirical evidence shows that if your ratio is roughly around 3, you are flourishing.
YOUR TURN NOW
Check out your positivity ratio: positivityratio.com
I suggest you to do this during two weeks, it takes only 5 minutes a day.
You’ll gain clarity about where you stand regarding your positive and negative emotions.
Remember: it’s the frequency of positive emotions that matters most, not that much the intensity.
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PS: this post is part of a 30 day blogging challenge.
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