During REM Sleep Stress Chemicals Shut Down And The Brain Processes Emotional Experiences (via MNT)

They say time heals all wounds, and new research from the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that time spent in dream sleep can help.

UC Berkeley researchers have found that during the dream phase of sleep, also known as REM sleep, our stress chemistry shuts down and the brain processes emotional experiences and takes the painful edge off difficult memories.

The findings offer a compelling explanation for why people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as war veterans, have a hard time recovering from painful experiences and suffer reoccurring nightmares.They also offer clues into why we dream.

if you have 5 minutes, you can check everything here: DreamSleep&Stress

Emotions, not facts, drive investors to sell (via Futurity)

UC DAVIS (US) — Regret and pride guide stock investors more than economic facts — often to their financial detriment—a new study shows.

Researchers looked at each day an investor made a stock purchase and whether the investor had sold those same stocks for a gain or loss during the previous 252 trading days. The team found that investors not only prefer to re-buy a stock that was profitable in the past, but they are also more likely to buy such a stock if it lost value after they sold it. (Credit: iStockphoto)

“Having sold a stock, investors are disappointed if it continues to rise, and regret having sold it in the first place,” says Brad Barber, a professor in the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis. “They anticipate that their disappointment and regret will be more intense if they repurchase such a stock rather than not repurchasing it; thus investors are most likely to repurchase a stock previously sold for a gain that is trading below the price at which they sold it.”

If you have 2 minutes, you can check everything here and have a link to the paper: EmotionsDriveInvestors

Willpower: It's in Your Head (via NYT)

IS willpower an illusion? Is the traditional notion of a deep mental reservoir of strength a fiction?

In recent years, the popular answer has been yes. Our abilities, according to this argument, are constrained by the narrow limits of our biology. In her 2008 book, “Health at Every Size,” the nutritionist Linda Bacon argues that, because of how the brain’s hypothalamus works, it is a “myth” that anyone can will himself to lose weight by maintaining a diet. “It’s not your fault!” she writes. “Biology is so powerful it can ‘make’ you break that diet.”

This year, in their book “Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength,” the social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and the New York Times science writer John Tierney survey a large body of scientific research to conclude that willpower is limited and depends on a continuous supply of the simple sugar glucose. When glucose is depleted, you fall prey to impulse shopping, affairs and cookies. The solution? “Try to get some glucose in you,” Mr. Tierney told NPR.

Such theories have an obvious appeal: attributing failures of willpower to our fixed biological limits justifies our procrastination as well as our growing waistlines. Not only that, we also get to consume more sugar. But are these theories correct?

You can check everything here, if you have 5 minutes- Willpower: It's in Your Head

Kahneman Fast&SlowThinking BookPresentation@LSE (via BehEconGroup@Linkedin)

To celebrate the 100.000th visit to the There are Free Lunches blog and to thank all my readers for their attention and support, I would like to share with all of them an extensive interview - almost 1:30hr - with Daniel Kahneman, the founder of Behavioral Economics, Nobel Prize of Economics, and the most influent psychologist alive.

If you are willing to take the chance, I am sure you will hear interesting things about the way economic actors make decisions, what is the future of an economy of well-being, and many other interesting stuff. This interview was provided by Alain Samson: KahnemanFastSlowBookPresentation@LSE

Happiness should have greater role in development policy – UN Member States (via UN)

This happen on the 19th of July 2011. Only came to my eyes yesterday, and represents such good news that I decided to share it with you:

"The General Assembly today called on United Nations Member States to undertake steps that give more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development.

In a resolution adopted without a vote, the Assembly invited countries “to pursue the elaboration of additional measures that better capture the importance of the pursuit of happiness and well-being in development with a view to guiding their public policies.”

The resolution said “the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal” and embodies the spirit of the globally agreed targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Member States also welcomed the offer of Bhutan, which for many years has used gross national happiness rather than gross domestic product (GDP) as a marker of success, to convene a panel discussion on the theme of happiness and well-being during the Assembly’s next session, which begins in September.

The resolution notes that the GDP indicator “was not designed to and does not adequately reflect the happiness and well-being of people in a country,” and “unsustainable patterns of production and consumption can impede sustainable development.”

Meanwhile, the Assembly today also adopted a resolution stressing the importance of equality among the six official UN languages – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

Equity and Social Capital can Overcome Everything..Even a Fire

Today I would like to share with my readers the story of a company from my country, Portugal, and how equity and social capital allowed the company to surpass a very difficult obstacle: a fire that destroyed the entire production zone, corresponding to 20% of the total area.

The story is simple, but the outcome is not. Sicasal is a company from the processing of meat industry and after a fire which destroyed a significant part of the factory, and in times of economic crisis, everyone was expecting a massive lay-off. Surprisingly, the management and the employees of the company showed us that “when ties are strong, the boat goes the boat beyond the vague”. Not only the administration announce since the beginning that there would not be lay-off, but also the employees engaged themselves personally in reconstructing the factory that was destroyed by the fire.

What was the result? After one week, the factory was working at 80% of his full capacity, and this was achieved with almost no help from outside resources. The employees themselves, almost alone, rebuilt the factory that was destroyed by the fire.

Also, the country was impressed by the emotional way employees talked about their factory and its leaders.

If you understand Portuguese, you can check a small piece from Portuguese television here:
http://tv1.rtp.pt/noticias/?article=500288&&headline=20&visual=9&tm=8&

Is there a proven system for making yourself happier? (via SimoleanSense)

Yes. We see a lot about increasing happiness these days, including excellent books by Daniel Gilbert, Gretchen Rubin and Martin Seligman.

I was curious about what what led to all this and came upon studies done by Michael Fordyce in 1977 and 1983.

He developed a system of 14 points that showed solid gains in happiness among his students: The collected findings from all studies indicate that the program has a noticeable and perhaps long-lasting effect on happiness for the great majority of individuals exposed to it and that this effect is due to the content of the information, not merely the artifact of sensitization or expectations about happiness to which it was compared.

Source: "A Program to Increase Happiness: Further Studies." from Journal of Counseling Psychology, 30(4), 483-498

So what was the system? Here are the 14 points, along with links to relevant info:

Briefly described, the 14 fundamentals are as follows:

(a) keep busy and be more active;

(b) spend more time socializing;

(c) be productive at meaningful work;

(d) get better organized and plan things out;

(e) stop worrying;

(f) lower your expectations and aspirations;

(g) develop positive, optimistic thinking;

(h) become present oriented;

(i) work on a healthy personality;

(j) develop an outgoing, social personality;

(k) be yourself;

(l) eliminate negative feelings and problems;

(m) close relationships are the number one source of happiness;

(n) put happiness as your most important priority.

Yes, some may seem obvious or easier said than done, but we probably aren't working as hard at many of these at we could.