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Three Blessings
Submitted by Lauren on Fri, 02/15/2008 - 5:11pm.
I was looking forward to doing the “Three Blessings” activity because, through my study of positive psychology, I have come to realize that I am prone to fixating on negative events and minimizing positive ones. I figured that this exercise could help even out the balance.
At first, it was somewhat difficult to come up with really good things that had happened, but once I got started it was easy. On evenings that I was cranky or in a bad mood, the exercise helped to lift my mood and made it easier for me to relax and fall asleep.
On two of the nights I tried the dreaming option. I don’t think it worked the way it was supposed to. On both nights I had strange dreams, like black-and-white movies. George Clooney was in one of them. I’m not sure what that’s all about.
Most of the mornings during the week I did the activity, I woke up feeling fine and maybe a little less tired than usual, but this could be evidence of a confirmation bias. I only had to work two mornings during this week, which was unfortunate because I was most interested to see if the activity would have any impact on my work performance. On both days I did seem to perform better. My thoughts were more organized, and minor hassles were less bothersome and discouraging. I can’t be certain that this was due to the “Three Blessings” activity, but it certainly seemed to help.
At first, it was somewhat difficult to come up with really good things that had happened, but once I got started it was easy. On evenings that I was cranky or in a bad mood, the exercise helped to lift my mood and made it easier for me to relax and fall asleep.
On two of the nights I tried the dreaming option. I don’t think it worked the way it was supposed to. On both nights I had strange dreams, like black-and-white movies. George Clooney was in one of them. I’m not sure what that’s all about.
Most of the mornings during the week I did the activity, I woke up feeling fine and maybe a little less tired than usual, but this could be evidence of a confirmation bias. I only had to work two mornings during this week, which was unfortunate because I was most interested to see if the activity would have any impact on my work performance. On both days I did seem to perform better. My thoughts were more organized, and minor hassles were less bothersome and discouraging. I can’t be certain that this was due to the “Three Blessings” activity, but it certainly seemed to help.
George Clooney...he's so dreamy
I was also wondering if this activity had any impact on the following days. Other than making me feel better about my circumstances for that night and influencing some strange dreams, I didn't notice any change in the next day. Hey but if anything else, it made you pay more attention to the positive things in your life.
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Lauren, I think we had a similar approach for this assignment because I too was excited and looking forward to the mood lift I had envisioned. I think that even if you hadn’t been looking for the positive results, you would have had a high probability of experiencing some, if not all, of the positives.
I find it comforting and intriguing, in an odd way, that other people had the same results when they concentrated on dreaming. I had vivid dreams and thought I was doing something because my results were the opposite of what the activity seemed to intend. I plan on addressing this anomaly in class.