
The Happiest People Don't Let Their Minds Wander, According to a Harvard Study - BerislavLopac
http://www.inc.com/quora/the-happiest-people-dont-let-their-minds-wander-according-to-a-harvard-study.html
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samsolomon
Is is odd that this is just an answer copied from Quora?

I wonder if Quora actively tries to syndicate answers for backlinks? Maybe
Mellissa O'Brian sent this to the Editors at Inc to see if they would run it?

In either case I'm curious how this article came to be published.

EDIT: I see now that Quora has an author profile of syndicated content, which
answers my question.
[http://www.inc.com/author/quora](http://www.inc.com/author/quora)

~~~
emsy
Also, the article was written by a "mindfulness teacher" which should raise
the question of the article's objectivity. How was this upvoted?

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thesagan
I think there may be growing pressure to game Hacker News. I've been seeing
(anecdotally) increasing odd activity in early morning hours (EST) linked with
some funny account activity, etc.

Seems most potential spam gets caught and flagged pretty quick, though. It's
interesting browsing HN with the "showdead" option activated every now and
then.

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etblg
I've been more confused about the recent trend in just posting wikipedia
articles on random subjects. No one in the comments seems to ever have a
problem with it either.

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johnchristopher
I sometimes can spot why: it happens that there is a 'big' thread going on on
HN and sometimes a Wikipedia article about one of the aspect of the thread or
an argument in it is posted. I have also seen two articles on the front page
that seemed to be part of the same discussion.

Eg: an article about Tokyo gentrification would trigger a discussion about
waste management in big cities and then Wikipedia articles about Japanese
sewers and some aspects of Japanese culture would be posted.

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msamwald
"[...] the keys to happiness lie in mastering the mind, and not in changing
external factors in our lives."

I have been interested in mindfulness for years, but I found it very unhelpful
to follow strong statements like this one. In many cases I found pro-actively
dealing with problems and trying to improve my situation is eventually easier
than trying to keep my mind from them.

There is a balance between being mindful and content in the present on the one
hand, and being analytical/critical/discontent on the other. Of course, most
people in industrialized societies could certainly profit immensely from
shifting more towards the mindful state.

~~~
redmaverick
If you are mindful you are way more proactive and productive. Mindfulness
meditation (done properly) creates a bias towards action by changing the
neurochemistry in the brain.

~~~
hammock
Well put! I would add that in mastering your internal frame of mind, a
spotlight emerges on the "right" external factors to focus your action on.

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erik_landerholm
Maybe you are able to focus because you are happier, more into the work or
task, smarter so it's easier...etc.

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untilHellbanned
How to make it to top of HN: Tack on harvard/Mit/Stanford/in crowd
institution's name to something that contrasts with a pop culture norm. Wait
for lemmings to duke out the implications. It's as predictable as Trump
getting elected.

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k8si
Wait but haven't there been posts on this very site where studies showed that
daydreams & wandering minds help creativity as well? e.g. Something in this
article must have been linked and upvoted here at some point:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/03/mind-
wandering_n_40...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/03/mind-
wandering_n_4024852.html)

~~~
1457389
Sadness is also linked to creativity:
[http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2015/08/27/happy-
sadne...](http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2015/08/27/happy-sadness-how-
mixed-emotions-fuel-creativity/)

Bunch of stuff out there to support it, anecdotally I would agree. If you're
too happy why bother doing/thinking differently?

~~~
threatofrain
When you're frustrated you also behave more variably, and behavioral
variability is important to the discovery of novelty.

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JoeAltmaier
I'm from the Midwest, and we learn to bottle it all up from a very young age!
We must be the happiest people on earth.

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therealjohn
I find it easy enough to be mindful in general, assuming we're talking about
the same concept, but lately it's relationships that have troubled my flow,
and more particularly the repeated occurrence of getting attached to and then
losing someone. I'm learning to deal with it, though.

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messutied
So simple yet so hard to get there, I've been trying to be mindful for more
than a year now, but my mind is always full of worries and trying to find
solutions, even though my life is no particularly complicated :/ anybody that
achieved this has advice?

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sdfin
Maybe your worries are about important matters, and focusing in finding
solutions to them has been useful for you. If doing that was useful then it's
difficult to let go of that because nobody likes to cease doing what's useful.

If you want to worry less I think about two things that may help:

A - Set a time of the day for worries, and procrastinate worrying until that
time. For example, set the worrying time from 18:45 to 19hs. This may sound
strange, but it's recommended by some CBT therapists.
[http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/docs/Info-
Postpone%20your%20...](http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/docs/Info-
Postpone%20your%20Worry.pdf)
[http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/worryzones.htm](http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/worryzones.htm)

B - Train! Not following worry thoughts is a skill that requires practice,
like building muscle. If you train you become better at it. You may train your
attention by noticing your breath and when your attention gets caught by worry
thougts, you notice that and go back to your breath. When it happens again,
you notice it and go back to your breath. With practice, letting go of worry
becomes much easier. You may practice that 15 minutes a day.

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tsaoutourpants
The way this article casually treats depression, anxiety, and unhappiness as
basically the same root issue is mistaken. While shifting one's focus may
allow one to be more happy, it will not cure a mental illness.

~~~
psyc
Due to involvement in communities seeking alternatives to the illness model of
depression, I've come to the conclusion that that model is unhelpful to about
as many people as it is helpful.

For myself (lifelong struggles with melancholy and several Major Depression
diagnoses) this has been the rough effectiveness of approaches:

Medication: nil

Therapy: very slight, highly dependent on circumstances

Changing circumstances: Extremely effective when things go my way, but
ultimately not effective because life is chaotic, and gatekeepers always have
either more or much more control over your circumstances than you do, unless
_you 're_ a gatekeeper. Or, you can be winning at life in every way, but you
and your loved ones are still eligible for sudden misfortune.

Mindfulness: Very effective. Takes practice, but totally worth it, and
ultimately becomes something you can control more than most other things.

~~~
d23
Interesting. I have the exact same feeling on your first three, and have only
ever given mindfulness a slight attempt. Maybe I should try it more. I'm
surprised you came to the same conclusion on circumstances while still
concluding that they may not matter if your mind is under control.

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pessimizer
I can't see a mechanism for this, whereas the opposite causation - that worry
causes you to be distracted and you mind to wander - seems trivially obvious.

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d--b
I wish I had known that the key to happiness was just a google search away...

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eevilspock
Corollary: Happiness and Creativity have an inverse correlation.

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marcus_holmes
Maybe happiness isn't the thing we should be prioritising?

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cognivore
Makes me want to go code...

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djfm
Can I code a girlfriend?

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BerislavLopac
Do you think a girlfriend would make you happy?

~~~
djfm
that's truely a good question

