[MUSIC] You know, it's a common misconception to

be thinking about positive psychology, as something, you know,

only for good times. Or that's, that's the, it's something for,
you know, a privilege for people whose lives
are only in a good state. And you know,
it's really obviously not the case, it's. Positive emotions aren't
even fair weather friends. We can experience positive emotions
even when we're dealing with great difficulties. So I want to focus in this
segment on resilience. What does,
what does it mean to be resilient? What's your, what's your take. Take a moment
to think about what's
your take on what resilience is. >> So, when I think about resilience,
I kind of think of that ability to bounce back after something,
something bad happens. And your ability to kind of take
something that is, you know, negative. And then either change the way you
feel about it or find someone to help you get through that, or in some
way kind of take that and bounce back. And use that kind of negative energy, in
a way that you can kind of create
some sort of positive aspect out of it. >> Uh-huh. >> Is how I, I think of it so
metimes. >> Yeah, great example. So how important is that,
when we're facing tough times at work grieving, or
upset about other things. The, I mean, obviously, it's a, it's
a really vital capacity for all humans. And, and sometimes it can seem that
while some people are resilient, and others aren't [LAUGH], you know. When, in f
act, resilience is one
of these resources that can grow. Or it's, it's kind of like
a muscle that you can and build. And what we've found studies in our lab, the pe
p lab at UNC,
is that a positive emotions are a big piece of what enables resilience,
but also what builds resilience. So positive emotions are a capacity for
all humans and so resilience is at capacity for
all humans. So, suppose you're in that
really tough situation and everything looks really bleak. What, you know,
what's an appropriate or a viable way to introduce some positivity, either for
yourself or for somebody else? You know, it's not like you're
to come in and tell a joke. You know, so you have to kind of
fit the right situation. But what are the positive emotions
that would fit into difficult times. >> For me,
it it makes me think of myself and working with other people with
chronic illness is that someone can be having a really difficult time,
maybe even be in intense pain, and still stop and
think about what's right or what's good. So, gratitude is one that comes in a lo
t. So instead of having
the focus be on the pain, and thinking I shouldn't be hurting this much. You can
shift your mindset, and kind of
start thinking about the blessings in your life or just good things
that are happening in your life. >> Yeah, yeah, so a lot of times it's
those quieter positive emotions that can fit in, and, you know, one of the thing
s that I think
is true of any difficult situation. is, things that are always true,
even in difficult situations, is that, you know, this too shall pass. You know,
that this exact way
I'm experiencing my pain, isn't going to be the same,
you know, later, although, you know, it could be chronic pain, but it's,
everything's changing all the time. Another one is like,
I'm not in this alone, you know. We, we tend to think that our
negative experiences are, you know, you know, ours,
you know, our burden alone. But if you back up, and think well,
you know, others have grieved. You know, I can learn from how, or
recognize that, connection that I have with others that whatever difficulty, we

face, we're not the first ones to face it. So I mean, even just kind of remindin
g
that those are kind of like, in our back pocket ways to,
like, recognize, you know, the, the companionship we have,
or the connection that we have. That you can kind of use those in
a lot of different circumstances. Now work in my lab, we,
one of our early studies on resilience was after the terrorist
attacks of 9/11 in the United States. Where we found that the more
positive emotions people felt, in the days right after 9/11
predicted whether they bounced back in terms of avoiding excessive
depressive symptoms, you know, everybody's feeling angry and
sad and uncertain and afraid. But, you know, what resilient people do
is in that mix of the negative emotions, they're also feeling inspired and
hopeful and engaged and connected, drawing other people closer. Other labs have
found similar things
with experiences of bereavement that, the positive emotions that people feel
when they think back to the spouse that they've lost kind of predict
their mental health a year later. So, that's a way in which, you know,
again those little warmths and uplifts that we have really do
help us get that bounce back. In our laboratory one
of the things that we have looked at too is recovery
on a really fast scale. Like when, when somebody is stressed out,
like in our studies in the laboratory to get people to feel
negative emotions in a controlled fashion. [LAUGH] We tell people, you know, you
're
going to have to give a speech on why you are a good friend, and
speak into the camera, and you're going to be judged by your peers,
these kind of things make people nervous. And then, in some studies we've
just measured people's kind of, trait levels of resilience
before that speech task. And then giving them that speech stressor
task, and see how fast, and what one thing that speech task does, is it increase
s
people's heart rate and blood pressure. And then what we do is we just let peopl
e,
move on from that and say oh, you don't have to give that speech
after all, but then see, you know, how long does it take for people to return
to baseline, or kind of regain calm? And what we find is that resilient people
show that cardiovascular recovery quicker, but the, the quickness of it
is predicted by how much of a challenge they thought
that speech would be. They kind of converted the stress into
something that was kind of positive. And if they did that,
they showed this quicker recovery. We've also done studies where we
take that same speech task, and then we say, okay, you don't have
to give your speech after all. Just watch whatever comes on the video
monitor, and for some people we make it something neutral, kind of like
that screen saver I showed you. Or other people get two different
kinds of positive emotions. Either something more upbeat and, and amusing or som
ething more low key and
calm and soothing. And in another group we actually
switched their attention to another negative emotion, like sadness. So, in this
study when we,
you know, by the flip of a coin, we had some people move, on from a stressful
circumstance to something positive. Either something upbeat or, or more low
key they showed faster cardiovascular recovery, people kind of returned to their
own you know, baseline state, kind of. Positive emotions there are working
a little bit like a reset button, kind of get me back to, to the,
you know, baseline calm. Whereas if you turn your attention just
to something else that's not positive, or something that's even negative that
prolongs that initial anxiety. So it's in a,
we describe this as positive emotions, undoing negativity, like they're, they're

a quick way to kind of clear the system of any lingering negativity that's kind
of
no longer useful for you at that moment. In some brain imaging work done by
one of my former doctoral students we discovered some really interesting
things about resilient people. In the brain imaging scanner, he created
these scenarios where people were. They didn't know whether they were
going to see something negative or not. They got a queue, and it could either me
an
oh, I'm for certain going to see something negative, or it could mean well maybe
it
will be negative maybe it wouldn't be. So it's kind of like this modeling
the situation of certain negative and uncertain negative. And what we found ther
e is
that resilient people had a totally different way of responding
to the uncertain negative. They just chill. [LAUGH] You know? It's like hey it m
ight be negative,
if it is I'll mobilize and if it isn't then no harm done, but
people who are less resilient embracing. They're like, if it might be negative,
oh i'll be ready for it. [LAUGH] You know, and it's, it's in a way
what we learn is less resilient people, seem to have like three times
the negativity, because they are, you know even if it's not negative,
they're acting as though it is. So then they kind of if it actually
turns out not to be negative, they don't even recognize that, you know, it's lik
e they don't even
experience the relief of it. So we,
what we see is that resilient people are, are worrying less, bracing less,
rebounding quicker, and mentally it kind of fits all of
the descriptions of mindfulness, of being kind of in the moment, you know,
just taking the moment as it is. The cue in that study wasn't a threat,
and, and resilient people didn't see it as
a threat,whereas the cue which was like a little triangle or square for low
resilient people was itself threatening. So, I mean there was a way, in which th
e, the blood flow in the areas
of the brain that have to do with negative affectivity kind of revealed
where this bracing was occurring. So one of the things that goes along
with resilience is this really good discernment about what the positive
and negatives are in the situation. And not projecting negativity,
into a neutral situation. So like having that attunement to
be able to separate out what's you know, what's truly neutral or
what's truly positive. >> It sounds like expectation. >> Mm-hm. >> Is that simil
ar? >> Yeah, yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So right. Less resilient people kind of
have a negative le, filter. >> Right.
>> That they're seeing things through. But one of the things I,
I want to emphasize is that, you know, we do some studies where we
compare people who are higher, score higher on resilience to those
who scored lower we find that resilience is a resource that
positive emotions serve to build. So, that you know, if you think you're
not particularly resilient now, you actually can become more
resilient next season by the diet of positive emotions that
you experience today. because there's definitely
this upward spiral dynamic between positive emotions and resilience,
the more resilient you are the better, able you are to find positive emotions. O
r, or, or you know cultivate them and
then the more that you cultivate them the more you build your
resilience so that it builds from there. One of the nice I think, kind of
closing images about resilience, like, I like to keep in mind,
is that it's like holding the negative and the positive side by side. You know,
it's not, resilience is
not about sweeping away the negative it's just kind of meeting the negative
with, some positive, you know, things. Again, this is no spectator sport. Each o

f us faces adversity, or the tug

of a downward spiral every so often. And I'd like to invite you to
begin to experiment with ways to inject more positive emotions
into such difficult moments. This week your experiential
assignment is to put to good use the positivity
portfolio that you created last week. I want this portfolio to
become a resource to you, one that makes a difference
in tough times. When given the same assignment one
of my former students here at UNC, deployed her portfolio when
she felt frustrated and angry, because her best friend, who lived in
a different city, had been ignoring her. She admitted that she was tempted
to just let the friendship die, like she'd done with others in the past. Yet, ha
ving learned about
positive psychology, she took out her positivity portfolio, and
when she engaged with it, her anger faded. She felt better, and more open. So in
stead of turning away from
her friend, she turned toward her, she wrote her an honest compassionate
letter and sent her a small gift. And then her friend called her in tears,
happy tears, and they had the best bonding moment ever, and they've remained
close friends for years since then. So, I want you to keep on the lookout for wa
ys that you might be able to rev
up a well timed positive emotion, to help you find greater openness and
to avert a downward spiral. [MUSIC] [MUSIC].