At the recent Global Wellness Summit, Mo Gawdat, Chief Business Officer at the super-elite Google [X] engineering team, explained how he “solved for happy.” Despite having achieved amazing success (and spurred later by the terrible death of his son), Mo decided to attack his profound unhappiness like the scientist he is: creating a research-based algorithm for happiness.
Find out what the secrets are.
Ours are paradoxical times: on average globally, we’ve never had it so good (life expectancy, income per capita, etc.) and yet addiction, depression, anxiety and suicide rates are all up. The
scientific explanation: we produce too much dopamine (the instant “reward” neurotransmitter, whether delivered through sugar or social media) and not enough serotonin (the “contentment” neurotransmitter). We confuse pleasure and happiness.
Read more about how this leads to a prediction that people’s desire to reconnect with nature (at wellness retreats, etc.) and to exercise outside will grow powerfully.
First Offices, Then Apartments, Now Gyms? WeWork Launches New Wellness Concept – Forbes, October 17, 2017
WeWork, the co-working giant, is turning up the heat on competitors with a new wellness and fitness concept, the just-launched Rise by We, which provides a mix of wellness classes and spa offerings including yoga and meditation, functional training, kickboxing and other fat-burning classes.
VIEW ALL BRIEF POSTS The Great Nutrient Collapse – Politico, September 13, 2017 The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat – for the worse. And almost no one is paying attention. Should We Embrace an Enhanced (Wellness) Future? – BBC, September 9, 2017 Do we have the right to enhance our bodies as technology and pharmaceuticals will soon allow or is that immoral?…
Eliminating Human Interaction – MIT Technology Review, August 15, 2017
Being immersed in apps and devices is reducing the amount of meaningful interactions we have with each other. These technologies bring many benefits in terms of efficiency and convenience, but run counter to who we are as human beings.
Cognitive-load theory posits that brains have only so much bandwidth, so to best take in information, we must also limit it. As “infobesity” is becoming an ever-growing problem, apply a simple solution: don’t multitask and focus instead on the task at hand. If this doesn’t work, apply an extreme solution and go silent. Stop talking or take a break from technology… or both.
