Mental health, how to achieve it, how to talk about it in a friendly and drama-free way, is one of my goals with this blog. I live with chronicle depression (according to one of the doctors I’ve seen) So, from time to time, I get trapped in a hole of darkness that blinds me to all good things in life. It feels like being brainwashed by a voice that tells me “Nothing will ever be good again.”
Over time I’ve found ways to hold on to the idea that the voice was lying, and I managed to get out of the hole. However, on 2014, I was buried so deep, that I didn’t have the strength to fight back. Until one afternoon, hidden in my bed under the covers, I searched in the TED App for something inspiring, and this video showed up among the first results.
After having watched it (laughed and cried) I still couldn’t believe that Amy’s brain hack, something so simple to do, could help me. But “since it’s science”, I thought, I gave it a try. And to my surprise, it worked. One or two months later, I was getting dressed up and signing up for a Photography course, coming back to life.
Am I saying this cures depression? No. But it did help me. This brain hack is simply a tool to help us configure our brain so that we can feel good, empowered; and to fake it, until we make it.
Check it out!
About Amy Cuddy’s “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are”
Amy Cuddy offers us a free no-tech life hack, which requires of us only one thing: to change our posture for two minutes.
Body language, or nonverbal behavior as social scientists call it, allowe us to communicate with others almost as much as words do. The way we sit or stand tall, what we do with our hands, etc. Our posture tells things to people, even to our brain.
One of the questions is, how does it impact on judgment, on how people see us? Amy says: “Those judgments can predict meaningful life outcomes”, and shares a few examples. For instance: “judgments of political candidate’s faces in just one second predict 70% of U.S. Senate and gubernatorial race outcomes”.
On the other hand, our body language can have an impact on ourselves as well, and this is what Amy Cuddy teaches us to do, as she shares not only science facts but also a personal life-changing experience.
