What if I told you that a simple change to your evening routine for 14 nights could lower burnout, reduce depression as much as taking Prozac, improve your work life balance, and help you sleep? How do you improve your sleep, and keep your children you ask?
Drumroll please… and welcome the Three Good Things concept.
Here is how it works: a minimum of two hours before you go to bed, state three good things that happened to you today and recognize your role in them. That’s it. Easy right? You can do this concept at the dinner table or at bedtime. But, the closer you are to sleep the more effective it may be. This works for kids and adults.
How does this actually work? We are evolutionarily wired to remember the negative because avoiding something negative can protect us and hanging on to a positive event won’t save us. This natural inclination will help you survive but, it won’t help you thrive. We naturally hold on to negative experiences and those happy things just kinda float away. Sleep deprived people remember even more negative events and with more vivid details and remember even less positive events.
Making three positive statements first helps you remember the positive event for a longer length of time. And, knowing your role in the good event reminds you of the control you have over your own life and that you can influence your life and those around you for good.
You build the connection that you have power and that your life isn’t based solely on outside circumstances. According to Martin Seligman, the former President of the American Psychology Association, “People who believe they cause good things tend to like themselves better than people who believe good things come from other people or circumstances”.
Recalling it closer to sleeping makes the event stick to your brain and is with you as you enter REM sleep (the rapid eye movement stage of sleep is when you’re most likely to dream). All night long your brain can ruminate on the good instead of the bad. People who do this go back to sleep easier after being awakened in the night by a bad dream, spouse, child or to use the restroom. The participants’ increase in happiness levels were comparable to taking Prozac. Even those people who already ranked high on the happiness scale still saw improvements and felt even happier. The present moment rarely requires a lot from us.
We usually are living our lives and nothing horrible or major is happening so our little minds are led to worry or anxiety. Giving our mind something positive to work with before sleep with has been shown to provide all these benefits.
We’ve covered the science of how deeply this impacts all humans. Let’s go a little deeper to understand how it could be affecting us even more. According to J. Bryan Sexton, Ph.D., Director of Patient Safety Center, Duke University Health System, severe emotional exhaustion affects 33%-60% of all health care workers depending on their medical discipline. The taxing work of taking care of others and the sleep deprivation from long shifts reduces their ability to form a new memory by 40% and a 50% reduction in the ability to form a positive memory. I would say that we can apply this information to parents and it is even more applicable to sleep deprived parents. Perhaps this contributes to postpartum depression and tension in marriages and relationships.
Can you imagine what it would feel like to remember even more negative and not being able to remember the positive in that difficult stage?
Really take that all in. We are already wired to remember more negative. And now sleep deprivation increases additional negative memories and diminishes our ability to remember the positive. Imagine that, it is already a difficult time for a mom or caregiver or a new baby so the ability to not remember the good is so powerful. This could be really significant to a postpartum mother. And think of those parents whose younger children have not mastered sleeping through the night. They have been suffering for years on end.
This is such a powerful study. It could change the world if we all did it. Commit to it for 14 days. Leave a note on your bedside table as a reminder or set the bedtime alarm on your phone and commit for 14 days. By day five you’ll be noticing more positive things throughout your day. Do it by yourself or with your partner before bed. Share your good things with a friend and have them share back. As Barbara L. Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill says “The negative screams at you, but positive only whispers”
“The negative screams at you, but positive only whispers”
Let’s listen harder. Please share this with others. Starting tonight, you can improve your happiness and you have the power to help others.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Dr. Seuss
Three Good Things was introduced as a concept in 2004 by Sheldon and Lyubomirsky. In 2005 Martin Seligman, then the President of the American Psychology Association, began working with this concept.
References
1. Based on February 10, 2014, presentation at MidMichigan Health by J. Bryan Sexton, Ph.D., Director of Patient Safety Center, Duke University Health System. Research data based on clinical trials conducted at Duke University with three cohorts: neonatal ICU, internal medicine residents, and patient safety leadership.2. Seligman, Steen, Park & Petersen (July-August 2005). Positive Psychology Progress; Empirical Validation of Intervention. American Psychologist.
3. Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. New York, NY: Free Press. 4. “Three Good Things” is also referred to as “The Three Blessings” in some literature.
