Breathing happiness | Emma Seppälä | TEDxSacramento

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

You already possess the tool you need to control your own happiness. Emma Seppälä explores the science behind harnessing your state of mind and how it can ultimately lead to success.

"Thank you for giving me my life back," shared one veteran who was helped by Emma Seppälä, Ph.D., to overcome trauma during a study that used non-traditional ways to help veterans successfully cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. In her new book, The Happiness Track, Dr. Seppälä shares how to apply the science of happiness in one’s life in order to accelerate success (www.emmaseppala.com/book/). As it turns out, happiness is not as elusive as it once seemed. Using findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, Dr. Seppälä simplifies happiness so that anyone can enjoy it. As the Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Dr. Seppälä is a “leading expert on health psychology, well-being, and resilience.” She’s a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today and Scientific American Mind. She’s the founder and editor-in-chief of Fulfillment Daily, a news site dedicated to the science of happiness.

Hello everyone.

As a graduate student
at Stanford University,

and also now a psychologist
and research scientist,

I've been continuously amazed
by the beauty of the campus,

the sun that bathes the campus every day,

and the amazing scholars that surround us.

However, I've also been dismayed
by another fact:

I often see that the students
are miserable, they're anxious;

there's so much stress.

My first year as a graduate student there,
there were three suicides on the campus.

So in response to this,
my colleague, Carole Pertofsky,

Head of Health Promotion, and I
started a Science of Happiness class

with the hopes of increasing
well-being in some way.

One day, one of the students
came up after class to Carole and said,

"I have to drop out.

This class goes against
everything I've ever learned."

Carole asked, "What do you mean?"

The student said, "My parents told me
I needed to be very successful.

And when I asked them,
'How do I become very successful?'

they said, 'You must work
very, very hard.'"

When the student
went back to them and said,

"How do I know
when I'm working hard enough?"

her parents said, "When you're suffering."

(Laughter)

It can seem very shocking,

and yet we've all bought into
this misconception to a certain degree.

There's a misconception out there
that in order to be successful

we have to sacrifice
or at least postpone our happiness.

In particular, there's this idea

that you cannot have success
without stress,

and I think you'd probably agree with me
that that idea is out there.

My field of research is the science

of happiness, of well-being,
of fulfillment, and also of resilience.

The more I dove into the literature,
the more I saw that we have it all wrong.

While we certainly cannot control

the amount of stress
that's coming our way,

we can't control the pressure
that's coming our way,

whether it's professional
or whether it's personal,

we will all face life stressors.

We all have, and we will
continue to do so.

There's not much we can do about that.

However, there's one thing we can control,
and that is the state of our mind.

I've worked with arguably the most
stressed individuals in our society -

veterans coming back from Iraq
and Afghanistan with trauma.

These young men and women,
as you most probably have heard about,

live in a constant state
of fight-or-flight.

It's as if that stress response
hasn't been turned off.

As a consequence, they cannot sleep.

They have nightmares
if they actually do manage to get a wink.

During the day they have flashbacks.

They could be in their car
driving on the highway

and have a flashback
of being back in combat.

They have difficulties
in their relationships with other people,

and they have a hard time
holding onto a job,

let alone going to school.

One thing that we're seeing
in the literature is

that therapy and the pharmaceutical
interventions being offered to them

in many cases do not work,

and in many cases
are not acceptable to the veterans

who don't like the side effects
or who don't like the treatments.

So what we wanted to do
was do something completely new,

and that's how we fit into
this TEDx theme of "What's New,"

yet it's also very ancient.

In fact, it's something you're doing
right now: breathing.

Breathing is the only autonomic function
that you actually have a say over.

It's harder to control
- for example, your heart rate -

but your breathing
is something you can control

at your own volition, if you like.

When you inhale,
your heart rate increases,

and when you exhale, it decreases.

When you inhale, you feel energized,
and when you exhale, you relax.

If you deepen your breath,
if you slow your breath,

and in particular,
if you lengthen your exhales,

your heart rate decreases,
your blood pressure decreases,

and you're tapping into
your parasympathetic nervous system,

the opposite of fight-or-flight:
the rest-and-digest nervous system,

calming your whole system.

Another really interesting fact
about the breath

is how closely linked it is
with our emotions.

You've probably noticed
on days you feel very anxious,

your breath might be
very short and shallow;

the same happens when you're very angry.

If you look at someone who's very happy,

like little kids running in the sprinkler,

you can just see
how deeply they're breathing,

you can practically see
their abdomen moving.

Other examples are sobbing and laughing.

Those are some very obvious ways

in which our breath
is linked in to our emotions.

A psychologist named Pierfilippo
ran a very interesting study.

To look at this phenomenon,
he invited participants into the lab,

and he asked them to evoke
certain emotions within themselves;

emotions like happiness,
sadness, and so forth.

He looked at how deeply they breathed,

he looked at the length of their breath

to determine whether there was
a certain pattern of breathing

that corresponded to the emotion.

Lo and behold, he found
that there was a very unique footprint

to each one of the emotions
in terms of breathing pattern.

The more interesting part of the study,
however, was the second part,

in which he invited completely
different people into the lab,

and he only gave them the instruction
to do the breathing

that corresponded to the emotion.

The breathing patterns he had noticed
in the first part of the study,

he instructed the participants to do,

and after that, he asked them,
"How do you feel?"

You can probably imagine what he found.

He found that they started
to feel the emotions

that corresponded
to the breathing pattern.

This is actually revolutionary.

We've all had intense emotions,

and we all know how very challenging it is
to talk ourselves out of those emotions.

You can say, "Relax, relax,"
or "Don't be so mad; calm down."

It's very challenging
when the emotion is intense.

It's even worse when someone else
comes up to you

and they think they're being helpful
by telling you to calm down.

(Laughter)

We invited veterans into the lab,

and half of them participated
in a week-long breathing program

called Sudarshan Kriya,
or SKY Meditation for short.

This week-long program -
they came in a couple of hours a day,

and they learned a series
of breathing techniques,

and by the end of that week,

their anxiety levels had dropped
to subclinical levels.

They were able to sleep again.

After the week was over we wanted to see,
"How long does this effect last?"

so we, again, tested them a month later.

We found that the benefits had lasted,
they were still sleeping.

They were still feeling better.

Again, we tested them one year later,

and the benefits also had lasted,
suggesting permanent improvement.

In fact, there's a documentary film
that was made about the study

called "Free the Mind"

where you can follow the lives
of two of the veterans,

and the transformations
that happen in their lives.

One of them said,
"Thank you for giving me my life back."

He's now gone on to become an instructor
and is teaching other veterans.

The fact that we can use the breath
to impact the state of our mind

means we have a tool at all times,
no matter what we're facing;

to calm ourselves down,
we just need to tap into it.

Some of you may have stressful commutes.

You may not like being in the car,

it raises that anxiety
or sometimes anger for people.

Jake was on probably
one of the most stressful commutes

that you can ever imagine.

He was the Marine Corps officer
in charge of the last vehicle

on a convoy in Afghanistan.

All the other cars
had passed safely ahead of him.

Yet his vehicle, unfortunately,
drove over an IED -

an Improvised Explosive Device.

There was a very large bang.

When the dust had settled,
he looked down,

and he saw that his legs
were fractured below the knee.

In that moment, he remembered
a breathing technique

that he had learned in a book called
"On Combat" by Lieutenant Colonel Grossman

for young officers.

It shared a breathing technique

whereby you breathe in
for a count of four,

hold for a count of four,
out for a count of four,

hold for a count of four,
like a square breath.

In that moment, he remembered it,
and he started to breathe in this way.

Thanks to that,
he had the presence of mind

to check in on his men,
make sure they were all OK.

He had the presence of mind
to give orders to call for help.

He had the presence of mind

to tourniquet his own legs,
to prop them up,

and only then,
when he had done his duty,

when he had taken care
of everything, he lay back,

and that's when he passed out.

Later, he found out that had he not had
that presence of mind,

he would have fallen into a coma,
or he would have bled to death.

Jake attended my wedding, he's a friend.

He's wearing prosthetics,
and it hurts him a lot to stand.

Yet, at my wedding I saw him dance.

If Jake can have the presence of mind,
thanks to the breath,

so can we.

It's one of the greatest
secrets out there,

and I really hope
you take it home with you,

because I really think
it's an idea worth sharing.

Thank you.

(Applause)