Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all of the darkness ~ Desmond Tutu

Hope and Happiness

I heard about a really interesting study while listening to NPR this morning, the study was about the impact of watching inspirational videos on stress and anxiety. The study was pretty straight forward, take five groups of people, have one look at standard social media, a group watching inspirational videos, a group doing no media, and a group meditating, all for five minutes at the beginning of their day. They did pre and post surveys on the level of anxiety people were feeling. It turned out that the group that watched the inspirational videos had considerably less stress. They described the videos as inspirational and underdog type of videos where people beat the odds or overcame obstacles. The group that did this had the same level of stress reduction as the meditation group. So I took two things out of this, one, it’s probably a good idea for all of us to focus at least some of of our social media time, and preferably at the start of your day on inspiring and hopeful content. Also, by starting your day searching for this type of content, you start to train the algorithm to give you more of that type of content on your feed.

Here’s a link to some inspirational stories to get you started:

Top 25 Inspiring Videos, Overcoming Adversity

Secondly, the benefits of meditation continue to stack up and be proven to be highly beneficial. I’ve written several previous posts on meditation including one on the benefits of meditation with resources. So starting a meditation program can really be beneficial and I really need to get back to mine.

Put a little hope and inspiration in your lives and you’ll have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane