Are You Flourishing? (There’s a Scale)

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What does it mean, to flourish? And how can you do it more?

In 2009, psychologists Diener et al developed the “Flourishing Scale”, or as it was more prosaically called originally, “Subjective Wellness Scale”. The name was changed later, as it was noted that it went beyond what was typically considered mere “wellness”.

This scale was so useful, that colleagues scrambled to see if they could improve on it, such as with PERMA (2012), which looked at:

  • Positive emotion
  • Engagement
  • positive Relationships
  • Meaning
  • Accomplishment/Achievement

While popular (despite the tenuous acronym, it is a very good list of things to foster in your life), this was studied and measured scientifically and found to not be an improvement on the Flourishing Scale / SWS, so we’re going to stick to the original version for now.

We couldn’t find an interactive online quiz for the scale though (apart from this NY Times one, which is paywalled for NYT subscribers, so enjoy if you’re a NYT subscriber!), so here’s the source material, still hosted on the website of the (now deceased, as of a couple of years ago) author:

Flourishing Scale (FS) ← it’s an eight-question, ranked choice scale

How did you score? And…

What are the keys to flourishing more?

According to Jeffrey Davis M.A., of Tracking Wonder, there are five key attributes that we must develop and/or maintain:

The ability to direct and re-direct your attention

This isn’t just a task-related thing.This is about your mind itself. For example, the ability to recognize what your emotions are telling you, thank them for the message, and then set them aside. Or the ability to cut through negative thought spirals! How often have you worried about future events that didn’t transpire, or twisted yourself in knots over a past event that you can’t change?

Action: check out our previous article “The Off-Button For Your Brain← this is a technique for switching off racing thoughts, and it’s really good

Want more? We also did this:

Healthy Mind In A Healthy Body: A Whole Scientific Toolbox Of Tips And Tricks For Psychological Wellbeing

The tendency to shape your time with intention and for impact

Time is an incredibly precious asset. How you use it is a very personal choice. You don’t have to maximize productivity (though you can if you want), but for example there’s a difference between:

  • Deciding to spend an hour watching a TV show you really enjoy
  • Wondering what’s on TV, browsing aimlessly, watching listlessly, just a distraction

In the former case, you are enjoying your time. Literally: you are experiencing joy during your time.

In the latter case, to borrow from Jim Steinman, “you were only killing time and it’ll kill you right back”!

Action: do a time audit for a week, and see where your time really goes, rather than where you expect or hope for it to go. Use this information to plan your next week more intentionally. Repeat as and when it seems like it might be useful!

The practice of constant improvement

Fun fact: you are good enough already. And you can also improve. You don’t have to, but improving in the areas that are meaningful to you can really add up over time. This could be becoming excellent at something for which already have a passion… It could also be brushing up something that you feel might be holding you back.

Action: do a quick SWOT* self-assessment. Then plan your next step from there!

*Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. What are yours?

The ability to communicate and listen to others

A lot of this is about feedback. Giving and receiving feedback are often amongst the hardest things we do in the category of communication… Especially if the feedback is negative. How to decide what to disregard as baseless criticism, and what to take on board (and try not to take it personally), or the other way around, how to present negative feedback in a way that won’t trigger defensiveness.

Action: check out our previous article “Save Time With Better Communication” for some tips that really make relationships (of any kind) so much easier.

The commitment to positive experiences

Many things in life are not fun. Often, we know in advance that they will not be fun. The key here is the ability to make the most of a bad situation, and seek out better situations by your actions. Not like a lost person in a desert seeks water, but like a chess player who employs a general strategy to make tactical advantages more likely to appear.

Action: think about something you have to do but don’t want to. How could it be made more fun? Or failing that, how could it be made at least more comfortable?

See also: Working Smarter < Working Brighter!

Want to read more?

Check out: What Is Flourishing in Positive Psychology? (+8 Tips & PDF)

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Recommended

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    Victoria launches groundbreaking inquiry into women’s pain, addressing the gender pain gap and medical misogyny. Women’s experiences must be heard and improvements made.

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  • What’s behind rising heart attack rates in younger adults

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    Deaths from heart attacks have been in decline for decades, thanks to improved diagnosis and treatments. But, among younger adults under 50 and those from communities that have been marginalized, the trend has reversed. 

    More young people have suffered heart attacks each year since the 2000s—and the reasons why aren’t always clear. 

    Here’s what you need to know about heart attack trends in younger adults.

    Heart attack deaths began declining in the 1980s

    Heart disease has been a leading cause of death in the United States for more than a century, but rates have declined for decades as diagnosis and treatments improved. In the 1950s, half of all Americans who had heart attacks died, compared to one in eight today. 

    A 2023 study found that heart attack deaths declined 4 percent a year between 1999 and 2020. 

    The downward trend plateaued in the 2000s as heart attacks in young adults rose

    In 2012, the decline in heart disease deaths in the U.S. began to slow. A 2018 study revealed that a growing number of younger adults were suffering heart attacks, with women more affected than men. Additionally, younger adults made up one-third of heart attack hospitalizations, with one in five heart attack patients being under 40.

    The following year, data showed that heart attack rates among adults under 40 had increased steadily since 2006. Even more troubling, young patients were just as likely to die from heart attacks as patients more than a decade older. 

    Why are more younger adults having heart attacks?

    Heart attacks have historically been viewed as a condition that primarily affects older adults. So, what has changed in recent decades that puts younger adults at higher risk? 

    Higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure

    Several leading risk factors for heart attacks are rising among younger adults.
    Between 2009 and 2020, diabetes and obesity rates increased in Americans ages 20 to 44. 

    During the same period, hypertension, or high blood pressure, rates did not improve in younger adults overall and worsened in young Hispanic people. Notably, young Black adults had hypertension rates nearly twice as high as the general population. 

    Hypertension significantly increases the risk of heart attack and cardiovascular death in young adults.

    Increased substance use

    Substance use of all kinds increases the risk of cardiovascular issues, including heart attacks. A recent study found that cardiovascular deaths associated with substance use increased by 4 percent annually between 1999 and 2019. 

    The rise in substance use-related deaths has accelerated since 2012 and was particularly pronounced among women, younger adults (25-39), American Indians and Alaska Natives, and those in rural areas.

    Alcohol was linked to 65 percent of the deaths, but stimulants (like methamphetamine) and cannabis were the substances associated with the greatest increase in cardiovascular deaths during the study period. 

    Poor mental health

    Depression and poor mental health have been linked to cardiovascular issues in young adults. A 2023 study of nearly 600,000 adults under 50 found that depression and self-reported poor mental health are a risk factor for heart disease, regardless of socioeconomic or other cardiovascular risk factors. 

    Adults under 50 years consistently report mental health conditions at around twice the rate of older adults. Additionally, U.S. depression rates have trended up and reached an all-time high in 2023, when 17.8 percent of adults reported having depression. 

    Depression rates are rising fastest among women, adults under 44, and Black and Hispanic populations. 

    COVID-19

    COVID-19 can cause real, lasting damage to the heart, increasing the risk of certain cardiovascular diseases for up to a year after infection. Vaccination reduces the risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular events caused by COVID-19 infection.

    The first year of the pandemic marked the largest single-year spike in heart-related deaths in five years, including a 14 percent increase in heart attacks. In the second year of the pandemic, heart attacks in young adults increased by 30 percent. 

    Heart attack prevention 

    Not every heart attack is preventable, but everyone can take steps to reduce their risks. The American Heart Association recommends managing health conditions that increase heart disease risk, including diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure. 

    Lifestyle changes like improving diet, reducing substance use, and increasing physical activity can also help reduce heart attack risk. 

    For more information, talk to your health care provider.

    This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • Stop Cancer 20 Years Ago

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    Get Abreast And Keep Abreast

    This is Dr. Jenn Simmons. Her specialization is integrative oncology, as she—then a breast cancer surgeon—got breast cancer, decided the system wasn’t nearly as good from the patients’ side of things as from the doctors’ side, and took to educate herself, and now others, on how things can be better.

    What does she want us to know?

    Start now

    If you have breast cancer, the best time to start adjusting your lifestyle might be 20 years ago, but the second-best time is now. We realize our readers with breast cancer (or a history thereof) probably have indeed started already—all strength to you.

    What this means for those of us without breast cancer (or a history therof) is: start now

    Even if you don’t have a genetic risk factor, even if there’s no history of it in your family, there’s just no reason not to start now.

    Start what, you ask? Taking away its roots. And how?

    Inflammation as the root of cancer

    To oversimplify: cancer occurs because an accidentally immortal cell replicates and replicates and replicates and takes any nearby resources to keep on going. While science doesn’t know all the details of how this happens, it is a factor of genetic mutation (itself a normal process, without which evolution would be impossible), something which in turn is accelerated by damage to the DNA. The damage to the DNA? That occurs (often as not) as a result of cellular oxidation. Cellular oxidation is far from the only genotoxic thing out there, and a lot of non-food “this thing causes cancer” warnings are usually about other kinds of genotoxicity. But cellular oxidation is a big one, and it’s one that we can fight vigorously with our lifestyle.

    Because cellular oxidation and inflammation go hand-in-hand, reducing one tends to reduce the other. That’s why so often you’ll see in our Research Review Monday features, a line that goes something like:

    “and now for those things that usually come together: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and anti-aging”

    So, fight inflammation now, and have a reduced risk of a lot of other woes later.

    See: How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation

    Don’t settle for “normal”

    People are told, correctly but not always helpfully, such things as:

    • It’s normal to have less energy at your age
    • It’s normal to have a weaker immune system at your age
    • It’s normal to be at a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, etc

    …and many more. And these things are true! But that doesn’t mean we have to settle for them.

    We can be all the way over on the healthy end of the distribution curve. We can do that!

    (so can everyone else, given sufficient opportunity and resources, because health is not a zero-sum game)

    If we’re going to get a cancer diagnosis, then our 60s are the decade where we’re most likely to get it. Earlier than that and the risk is extant but lower; later than that and technically the risk increases, but we probably got it already in our 60s.

    So, if we be younger than 60, then now’s a good time to prepare to hit the ground running when we get there. And if we missed that chance, then again, the second-best time is now:

    See: Focusing On Health In Our Sixties

    Fast to live

    Of course, anything can happen to anyone at any age (alas), but this is about the benefits of living a fasting lifestyle—that is to say, not just fasting for a 4-week health kick or something, but making it one’s “new normal” and just continuing it for life.

    This doesn’t mean “never eat”, of course, but it does mean “practice intermittent fasting, if you can”—something that Dr. Simmons strongly advocates.

    See: Intermittent Fasting: We Sort The Science From The Hype

    While this calls back to the previous “fight inflammation”, it deserves its own mention here as a very specific way of fighting it.

    It’s never too late

    All of the advices that go before a cancer diagnosis, continue to stand afterwards too. There is no point of “well, I already have cancer, so what’s the harm in…?”

    The harm in it after a diagnosis will be the same as the harm before. When it comes to lifestyle, preventing a cancer and preventing it from spreading are very much the same thing, which is also the same as shrinking it. Basically, if it’s anticancer, it’s anticancer, no matter whether it’s before, during, or after.

    Dr. Simmons has seen too many patients get a diagnosis, and place their lives squarely in the hands of doctors, when doctors can only do so much.

    Instead, Dr. Simmons recommends taking charge of your health as best you are able, today and onwards, no matter what. And that means two things:

    1. Knowing stuff
    2. Doing stuff

    So it becomes our responsibility (and our lifeline) to educate ourselves, and take action accordingly.

    Want to know more?

    We recently reviewed her book, and heartily recommend it:

    The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons

    Enjoy!

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  • Taurine: An Anti-Aging Powerhouse? Exploring Its Unexpected Benefits

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Dr. Mark Rosenberg explains:

    Not a stimulant, but…

    • Its presence in energy drinks often causes people to assume it’s a stimulant, but it’s not. In fact, it’s a GABA-agonist, thus having a calming effect.
    • The real reason it’s in energy drinks is because it helps increase mitochondrial ATP production (ATP = adenosine triphosphate = how cells store energy that’s ready to use; mitochondria take glucose and make ATP)
    • Taurine is also anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anticancer.
    • In the category of aging, human studies are slow to give results for obvious reasons, but mouse studies show that supplementing taurine in middle-aged mice increased their lifespan by 10–12%, as well as improving various physiological markers of aging.
    • Taking a closer look at aging—literally; looking at cellular aging—taurine reduces cellular senescence and protects telomeres, thus decreasing DNA mutations.

    For more on the science of these, plus Dr. Rosenberg’s personal experience, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Take care!

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Related Posts

  • The Keys to Good Mental Wellbeing
  • Mimosa For Healing Your Body & Mind

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Today we’re looking at mimosa (no relation to the cocktail!), which is a name given to several related plant species that belong to the same genus or general clade, look similar, and have similar properties and behavior.

    As a point of interest that’s not useful: mimosa is one of those plants whereby if you touch it, it’ll retract its leaves and shrink away from you. The leaves also droop at nighttime (perfectly healthily; they’re not wilting or anything; this too is just plant movement), and spring back up in the daytime.

    So that’s what we mean when we say “and behavior” 😉

    Antidepressant & anxiolytic

    Mimosa bark and leaves have long been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as (albeit different species) in the North-East of Brazil, and (again, sometimes different species) in Mexico.

    Animal studies, in vivo studies, and clinical practice in humans, have found this to be effective, for example:

    ❝[Mimosa pudica extract] has anti-anxiety, anti-depressant and memory enhancing activities that are mediated through multiple mechanisms❞

    Source: Effects of Mimosa pudica L. leaves extract on anxiety, depression and memory

    Research is ongoing with regard to how, exactly, mimosa does what it does. Here’s a paper about another species mimosa:

    Molecular basis and mechanism of action of Albizia julibrissin in depression treatment and clinical application of its formulae

    (notwithstanding the genus name, it’s still part of the mimosa clade)

    Anti-inflammatory & analgesic

    In this case, mimosa has traditionally been used as a topical tincture (for skin damage of many kinds, ranging from cuts and abrasions to burns to autoimmune conditions and more), so what does the science say about that?

    ❝In summary, the present study provided evidence that the [mimosa extract], its fractions and the isolated compound sakuranetin showed significant anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activities❞

    Read in full: Antinoceptive and Anti-inflammatory Activities of the Ethanolic Extract, Fractions and Flavones Isolated from Mimosa tenuiflora (Willd.) Poir (Leguminosae)

    Wound healing

    About those various skin damages, here’s another application, and a study showing that it doesn’t just make it feel better, it actually helps it to heal, too:

    ❝Therapeutic effectiveness occurred in all patients of the extract group; after the 8th treatment week, ulcer size was reduced by 92% as mean value in this group, whereas therapeutic effectiveness was observed only in one patient of the control group (chi(2), p=0.0001). No side effects were observed in any patient in either group.❞

    Very compelling stats!

    Read more: Therapeutic effectiveness of a Mimosa tenuiflora cortex extract in venous leg ulceration treatment

    Is it safe?

    Yes, for most people, with some caveats:

    1. this one comes with a clear “don’t take if pregnant or breastfeeding” warning, as for unknown reasons it has caused a high incidence of fetal abnormalities or fetal death in animal studies.
    2. while the stem bark (the kind used in most mimosa supplements and most readily found online) has negligible psychoactivity, as do many species of mimosa in general, the root of M. tenuiflora has psychedelic effects similar to ayahuasca if taken orally, for example as a decoction, if in the presence of a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), as otherwise MAO would metabolize the psychoactive component in the gut before it can enter the bloodstream.

    That’s several “ifs”, meaning that the chances of unwanted psychedelic effects are slim if you’re paying attention, but as ever, do check with your doctor/pharmacist to be sure.

    Want to try some?

    We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎

    Enjoy!

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  • Women Living Deliciously – by Florence Given

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    “Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” as the line goes, and this book answers that, and how.

    While roundly aimed at women, as per the title, this book will be of benefit to anyone who finds that society has wanted to keep you small and contained, and that perhaps you were meant for better.

    The book is divided into three sections:

    1. Excavating
    2. Planting
    3. Blooming

    …which broadly describes the process the author takes us through, of:

    1. Digging up what is wrong
    2. Putting better things in place
    3. Enjoying life

    This is important, because otherwise a lot of people will understandably exhort us to step 3 (enjoying life), without really thinking about steps 1 and 2.

    Her wording of it is important too, it wasn’t just being flowery for floweriness’ sake—rather, it highlights the nature of the process: while “enjoy life” seems like a thing-in-itself (as Kant might say), in reality, there’s another necessary thing (or series of things) behind it. In contrast, the gardening metaphor renders it clear: how will your flowers bloom if you do not plant them? And what good will planting them do if the soil is not right for them?

    So, she gives us a “ground upwards” therapeutic approach.

    The style throughout is casual but sincere and heartfelt, and while this is a book of personal change rather than social change, it does reference feminism throughout so if that’s not for you, then neither is this book.

    Bottom line: this is a lot more than just a pep talk or a book of platitudes; it’s a lot of concrete, applicable stuff to markedly live life better.

    Click here to check out Women Living Deliciously, and live deliciously!

    PS: we notice a one-star review on Amazon expressed disappointment upon discovering that this is not a recipe book. So please be aware, the only recipe in this book is the recipe for a fulfilling and vibrant life 😎

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  • Securely Attached – 

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    A lot of books on attachment theory are quite difficult to read. They’re often either too clinical with too much jargon that can feel like incomprehensible psychobabble, or else too wishy-washy and it starts to sound like a horoscope for psychology enthusiasts.

    This one does it better.

    The author gives us a clear overview and outline of attachment theory, with minimal jargon and/but clearly defined terms, and—which is a boon for anyone struggling to remember which general attachment pattern is which—color-codes everything consistently along the way. This is one reason that we recommend getting a print copy of the book, not the e-book.

    The other reason to invest in the print copy rather than the e-book is the option to use parts of it as a workbook directly—though if preferred, one can simply take the prompts and use them, without writing in the book, of course.

    It’s hard to say what the greatest value of this book is because there are two very strong candidates:

    • Super-clear and easy explanation of Attachment Theory, in a way that actually makes sense and will stick
    • Excellent actually helpful advice on improving how we use the knowledge that we now have of our own attachment patterns and those of others

    Bottom line: if you’d like to better understand Attachment Theory and apply it to your life, but have been put off by other presentations of it, this is the most user-friendly, no-BS version that this reviewer has seen.

    Click here to check out Securely Attached, and upgrade your relationship(s)!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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