Here's To A Happy You

The headlines can make you feel all is lost. But it’s possible to rewire your brain with the new science of positivity and light it up with the mystic power of the ancients to ward off gloom and cynicism

- Damayanti Datta

Year 2018 was sad, bad and mad enough to play tug-of-war with our collective heartstrings. Planes crashed fatally around the globe, companies gave away our personal information, cryptocurrency broke hearts, selfdriving cars killed pedestrians raising uneasy questions, while floods, landslides and tsunamis wreaked havoc. At home, bad loans, farmer suicides, gang rapes, sexual harassment, hate crimes cast dark shadows, air pollution turned our lungs sootier and the state of our national discourse reached its darkest hour.

Yet, in a time of ups, downs and uncertainty, somewhere in the US, an obscure citizen hit the headlines for scattering thousands of brightly coloured Post-it notes with inspiring messages—just to lift people’s spirits. An Indian man’s experience of receiving unexpected love and hospitality in Pakistan started trending on social media. A group of Mumbai netizens welcomed the first day of 2019 with a laughter party at dawn, to laugh away their blues with the rising sun. In the UK, millions took up the Dry January challenge and reported a “new me” version of themselves.

If the news makes you feel angry and hopeless, you need to consciously seek out the good. New scientific research is starting to explore how positive attitude works to improve our mental health. Stanford University researchers have recently linked positive mindset to performance: better function of the hippocampus, an important memory centre in the brain, and more efficient engagement of the brain’s problem-solving capacities (Psychological Science, January 2018).