Can you recall an experience where you were so in the zone doing something that time was flying by? That is a flow experience, which is the topic of today's episode. We discuss what a flow experience is, how to achieve it, and how it can help your life.

References:

Jackson, S. (1995). Factors influencing the occurrence of flow state in elite athletes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 7, 138–166.

Payne, B. R., Jackson, J. J., Noh, S. R., & Stine-Morrow, E. A. L. (2011). In the zone: Flow state and cognition in older adults. Psychology and Aging, 26(3), 738–743. Nakamura, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). The concept of flow. In Flow and the foundations of positive psychology (pp. 239-263). Springer, Dordrecht.

How are you feeling right now? Today we discuss the benefits of naming the emotions we are currently experiencing. Spoiler alert: We talk about "Inside Out".

References:

Kircanski, K., Lieberman, M. D., & Craske, M. G. (2012). Feelings into words: Contributions of language to exposure therapy. Psychological science, 23(10), 1086-1091.

Vlasenko, V. V., Rogers, E. G., & Waugh, C. E. (2021). Affect labelling increases the intensity of positive emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 35(7), 1350-1364.

Family curses? Paris is the capital of France? Naps? Today we discuss how sleep affects declarative and motor memory.

References:

Walker, M. P., Brakefield, T., Morgan, A., Hobson, J. A., & Stickgold, R. (2002). Practice with sleep makes perfect: sleep-dependent motor skill learning. Neuron, 35(1), 205-211. Tucker, M. A., Hirota, Y., Wamsley, E. J., Lau, H., Chaklader, A., & Fishbein, W. (2006). A daytime nap containing solely non-REM sleep enhances declarative but not procedural memory. Neurobiology of learning and memory, 86(2), 241-247. Nishida, M., & Walker, M. P. (2007). Daytime naps, motor memory consolidation and regionally specific sleep spindles. PloS one, 2(4), e341.

Do you ever feel like you're living your life on autopilot? Today we discuss savoring and how to enjoy life in a more mindful way.

References:

Jose, P. E., Lim, B. T., & Bryant, F. B. (2012). Does savoring increase happiness? A daily diary study. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 7(3), 176-187.

Quoidbach, J., Berry, E. V., Hansenne, M., & Mikolajczak, M. (2010). Positive emotion regulation and well-being: Comparing the impact of eight savoring and dampening strategies. Personality and individual differences, 49(5), 368-373.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1933/01/three-days-to-see/371679/

Mybestself101.org

The news often talks about how social media is destroying our lives, relationships, and mental health. But is that really the case? In today's episode, we talk about research that attempts to answer this question.

References:

Coyne, S. M., Rogers, A. A., Zurcher, J. D., Stockdale, L., & Booth, M. (2020). Does time spent using social media impact mental health?: An eight year longitudinal study. Computers in Human Behavior, 104, 106160.

Orben, A., & Przybylski, A. K. (2019). The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use. Nature human behaviour, 3(2), 173-182.

Huang, C. (2017). Time spent on social network sites and psychological well-being: A meta-analysis. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 20(6), 346-354.

Barasch, A., Diehl, K., & Zauberman, G. (2014). When happiness shared is happiness halved: how taking photos to share with others affects experiences and memories. ACR North American Advances.

Diehl, K., Zauberman, G., & Barasch, A. (2016). How taking photos increases enjoyment of experiences. Journal of personality and social psychology, 111(2), 119.

Welcome to Season 2 of Noggin - The Simple Psychology Podcast! McKay and Ben have been hard at work (and also relaxing hard over break) creating new episodes to share with you all and we are finally back! Today we discuss research looking at what goes on inside your brain when you feel pain, when you see someone you love in pain, and what that means for you and your relationships.

References:

Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain. Science, 303(5661), 1157-1162.

Goldstein, P., Weissman-Fogel, I., Dumas, G., & Shamay-Tsoory, S. G. (2018). Brain-to-brain coupling during handholding is associated with pain reduction. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 115(11), E2528-E2537.

Have you ever been really excited to buy something, only to feel extremely underwhelmed by the satisfaction this thing gives you shortly after purchasing it? Have you ever experienced a negative change in your life that you thought would impact you more negatively than it did? Our body's natural tendency to "get used" to things involves something called hedonic adaptation. We've discussed this on the show before, but we thought it deserved its own episode. So, today we discuss what the research says about how to maximize our well-being by not "getting used" to the good things in our life.

Note: We recorded this episode the day before the World Cup match between the US and The Netherlands. Spoiler alert: The US lost.

References:

Wu, S. (2001). Adapting to heart conditions: A test of the hedonic treadmill. Journal of Health Economics, 20(4), 495-507.

Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2012). The challenge of staying happier: Testing the hedonic adaptation prevention model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(5), 670-680.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy this breathing meditation.