Can you change your mind?

Would you like to become a more positive thinker, feel calmer and less anxious? Did you see the recent Horizon documentary presented by Michael Mosley on The Truth about Personality – and whether it could be changed?  It’s well worth a watch. It’s now off BBC iPlayer, so try this link instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs046iOPlqM

I have always believed that while we can change some behaviours and even our thoughts (with effort and practice) it isn’t possible to change our basic personality once set.  Well… Mosley set out to see if he could quite literally ‘change his mind’. He wanted to worry less and feel happier, and become a ‘warmer more open person’.

After seven weeks of working with two techniques, Mosley found that he had reduced his bias towards negative thinking and anxiety to a significant degree. He had actually become a more positive thinker. One of the exercises he did was to pick out smiley faces from a group of other faces with angry/scared/puzzled/straight facial expressions. He did this repetitively, every day over several weeks. This is called Cognitive Bias Modification or CBM, and the idea is that you train yourself to seek out the positive rather than the negative. There are apps for programmes like this, but I reckon you could achieve similar results by going through a newspaper/magazine every day with a highlighter pen and mark all the happy faces (and ignore the rest).

The other technique Michael practised was relaxation and meditation – he did just 10 minutes or so each day and started to feel positive results immediately. To see if you would benefit from something like this, you could try the the  free guided relaxation/meditation download here:
http://www.therapyonthames.co.uk/news

If you would like to become more positive and less anxious, I reckon Mosley’s system is worth a try. Interested?  If so, do watch the documentary, and if like me you feel inspired to retrain your brain, you could put yourself on a similar programme to Mosley with a few adaptations. I would love to hear how you get on, so do email me about your experiences if you try it.
PS
Incidentally, you can make yourself feel happier instantly, by moving your mouth into a big smile shape. Try it now. See it works?  Now hold a big smile for at least 30 seconds and see how much better you feel. The effect will wear off after a while, but then you can just give yourself another boost with another forced smile.