— Susan Salisbury-Richards

Three Nice Things
An Experiment to Keep the Blues at Bay

    A while ago, I was researching positive psychology, also known as "the science of happiness," and I ran across an article by Paul J. Hershberger, Ph.D. (Family Medicine:October 2005, pp. 630-634).

    Clearly differentiated from "pop psychology" or New Age "positive thinking," positive psychology is an evidence-based scientific discipline dedicated to promoting optimal mental health.  It focuses on specific areas of human life such as character strengths, learned optimism, immune-enhancing emotions, and meaning or purpose.
 
    For instance, you may have heard of the famous "nun study," which showed that, among the participating nuns, those who were happiest in early adulthood lived an average of nearly seven years longer than the unhappiest nuns. 
 
    Another study, which followed male Harvard students for 35 years, reported statistically significant differences in morbidity at midlife for optimistic versus pessimistic men.  Still other studies have demonstrated that positive emotion may be associated with mental health benefits such as better cognitive flexibility and increased creativity.  
 
    What caught my attention in Hershberger's article was  information about a study by Martin Seligman and others that employed a simple exercise called "Three Good Things."  For this study, participants took a few minutes each night for one week to write down three positive things about that day. 

    For each item listed, participants also wrote why they thought it happened. This resulted in an increase in happiness and a decrease in depression, lasting months after the participants stopped doing the exercise. 
           
    When I first read about the "Three Good Things" experiment, I thought it sounded like a great idea, depressed or not.  However, I didn't want the pressure of having to analyze my day, and it felt like too much work to have to write anything down before bed.  So I came up with my own version, which I call "Three Nice Things."
           
    Every night before sleep, I think about three nice things I experienced that day. Most days I remember more than three things, but three is my "minimum daily requirement." 
 
    Next I think about three (or more) nice things I can do the next day.  When I wake up the following morning, I don't get out of bed until I repeat this exercise.  That is, I review the previous day and remember three nice things that happened. 

    These three things can be the same ones I remembered the night before, or they can be entirely different memories.  Then I think about three nice things I can do that day (again, these can be the same things or different ones compared to what I thought about the night before).  
 
    After doing this a few days, I was hooked.  It feels like such a sweet thing to do before bed and again before rising!  As a bonus, I noticed that it seems to help me relax and go to sleep -- and I enjoy drifting off to sleep while thinking about nice things.  I like to imagine that this helps my sleep-regenerating brain develop more "ruts" in its health-enhancing circuitry, as opposed to building more ruts in the "worry centers" of my brain.
           
    Over time, I've noticed that this simple technique feels as if it has also changed my waking thought patterns without further effort on my part.  In particular, my overall sense of gratitude and my focus on what's working well in my life -- as opposed to what's not working -- have both increased significantly. 

    I mean, I'm generally a grateful person by nature, but I'm always looking for ways to be even more appreciative of everyone and everything. After all, I can't even take a breath without the entire universe participating to make it possible! 

    For more information about Liz Taylor and her work, or to subscribe to her newsletter, please visit Aging Deliberately.