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Most people would probably say no, but what if we tried… according to a recent research publication titled Motives Matter: The Emotional Consequences of Recalled Self and Focused Pro-social Acts, selfless actions and thoughts are not only possible, but give a real sense of satisfaction and long lasting happiness. According to a journal published in The Social and Personality Psychological Compass, to feel truly understood is to feel validated and in turn results in the feeling of happiness. To build lasting happiness in your life, even during the times when the bad outweighs the good, remind yourself daily of all that you have to be grateful for…”Fake it till you make it”While incredibly simple, when was the last time you really stopped to be grateful for the things in your life? According to research found in a recent study called Momentary Happiness: The Role of Psychological Need Satisfaction, by regularly engaging in activities that you can succeed in, regardless of how small or large, you will find more daily satisfaction, and therefore feel happier with your life.

In an effort to “live your best life”, it is important to find ways to help reduce your stress and anxiety and while everyone is different here are a few simple ways that have been proven to help. According to research found in the Journal of Motivation and Emotion one study showed that those that experienced higher levels of laughter while dealing with negative life events experienced lower levels of stress than those experiencing negative life events without higher levels of laughter. In a recent study found in the Journal of Self and Identity research showed that those with higher levels of self-compassion had lower levels of stress and anxiety. According to a recent study published in a paper titled Psychophysiological Effects of Breathing Instructions for Stress Management deep controlled breathing can lower the heart rate and reduce stress and anxiety.

The most generic definition of an introvert is a person who thrives and gains energy from solidarity and loses energy in stimulating environments, like large social events. There are certainly plenty of introverts which embrace the stereotypical behaviors of an introvert and prefer to stay home and watch Netflix rather than go to a large social event, but there are also plenty of introverts who transcended the norm and enjoy socializing and interacting with people. In the Book, The Development of Shyness and Social Withdrawal, authors Schmidt and Buss write that shyness indicates a fear of people or social situations, Introverts on the other hand simply do not like to spend lots of time with other people. Although many introverts have exceptional social skills and can even be the life of a party at times, the true introvert will be completely drained of energy after a social engagement in which they were forced to do a large amount of socializing.

The reason for repression in childhood trauma was debatable, but one thought was that it was the defense mechanism of the brain, as the memory of the event would be too significant and harmful to recall so it was pushed down into the subconscious (Rofe, 2008).According to Eysenck and Keane (2015), Freud did propose the idea that repression does in fact involve an intentional and active process, but also proposed that repression sometime happens automatically. Due to this fact, conscious recall of those memories are impaired, but those memories actually continue to dwell in the memory cortex, causing an unconscious effect which dramatically negatively influences the individual’s life, i.e. panic attacks, dissociative flashbacks, or psychosomatic symptoms (Axmacher et al., 2010). According to Hyman, Husband, and Billings (1995), the recall of false memories is highly prevalent with individuals that suffered a childhood trauma and have engaged repression (motivated forgetting) as a coping mechanism for that trauma. The concern of false memories is that the individual that endured an actual childhood trauma could be recalling events that never actually happened, which could not only reinforce the trauma, but could actually increase the negative symptoms procured by that trauma as the recalled (false) memory could be worse than the actual event (Hyman et al., 1995).