Brainy

Katharine Snyder, a colleague in the Psychology Department at Methodist University, recently made an interesting comment on the “About the Blog” page.  Here, in part, is what she said:

As the instructor of the Physiological Psychology course, I am impressed with the studies of the biological basis of happiness. Something as simplistic as forcing ourselves to smile can literally activate regions of the left frontal cortex, in conjunction with subcortical areas (e.g. the anterior cingulate), and make us feel better. Higher levels of left frontal / anterior cingulate activity are found in infants who express a happier temperament. This occurs long before the environment has had chance to change the brain.

I haven’t posted on the role of brain activity in happiness, so it’s good to have a comment that focuses on those mechanisms.   If I remember correctly, electrical stimulation of the anterior cingulate cortex has also been found to alleviate depression, which would be additional evidence to suggest that it has a role in happiness.

I came across an interesting interview in the November/December AARP: The Magazine suggesting another link between the brain and happiness.  The person interviewed was Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher who experienced a stroke that shut down her brain’s left hemisphere.  “For months she was unable to walk, talk, read, write, or recall the events of her life.”  It sounds dreadful.  However, the stroke “left her in a state of bliss.”  Ms. Taylor eventually regained left brain functioning, but retained the capacity to silence that hemisphere whenever she wanted peace and contentment.  She claims we can all exercise this sort of control:

The left hemisphere is preoccupied with past and future, projecting fears, contemplating ideas that aren’t relevant to the here and now.  Once you realize you have these two different brains, you can learn to choose. . . .  As I recovered my skills, I consciously chose not to let that left-brain circuitry dominate again.  Stress is a frame of mind.  If I’m in traffic and there’s no solution in sight, I relax and enjoy the few moments I have. 

Taylor wrote a memoir about her experience titled My Stroke of Insight. I wonder, though, whether someone else sustaining a similar stroke would have had a similar outcome.  In particular, I wonder whether the effect of turning off the linguistic/analytical left half of the brain would be different for different individuals.  Much of the benefit Taylor describes came from stopping what cognitive therapists refer to as automatic thoughts—the thoughts that constantly come into the mind unbidden.  Certainly, someone with lots of pessimistic or self-critical thoughts (“This is never going to work out.” “I really screwed that up.” “The minute I walk in the door I’m going to be raked over the coals.”) would be happy to no longer have such ideas buzzing around.  But what about the Dale Carnegies and Robert Schullers of the world?  Isn’t their optimistic thinking the generator that lights their perpetual good cheer?  Wouldn’t the sanguine among us be lost without  unrelenting upbeat thoughts?   It seems that at least some of us would be best off following the advice given by the title of a book by James Thurber: “Let Your Mind Alone!”