Attitude shift

One of the things I enjoy most about driving to work is the chance to listen to the radio. Usually there are some pretty interesting programs on AM talk radio. This morning I heard an interview with the president of the American Psychologists Association. He was talking about teaching people to be more optimistic and happy. He said that until now psychologists have focused on depression, anxiety, and disorders, and still in America today more people than ever are depressed, and at a younger age too.
He reckons we should shift the focus to the study of happiness, contentment, and optimism.
I thought this was very interesting since I'm a rather stressed-out person generally, and lately I've been quite stressed and this of course has an impact on everything in my life. I had suffered from depression once in my life, when I was in my early teens, and I was starting to feel that I was getting awfully close to falling into that trap again.
The radio speaker said that our mind was analogous to our tongue, in that it moves around and around in the mouth looking for a cavity or a sore, and when it finds it it stays there and dwells on it so that we can't think of anything else.
He suggested a simple strategy to help people become happier. Every night, write down a short list of three things that went well for you today, and what you did to make them happen. He said it didn't have to be long, but it was important to get 3 things.
According to a big study he just finished, most people respond really well to this technique and show significant improvement in their outlook on life within 6 months.
He also said that this turned out to be a rather addicting activity, which I was happy to hear since my biggest problem with these types of things is sticking to it for longer than 2 days.
Apparently by using this simple technique, people learn to change the way their minds think about life and our place in the world, and learn to focus on the positive contributions they make instead of on what's wrong.
So, I have resolved to try this starting tonight. Let's see if I can keep it up...