*1マーフィーの法則（マーフィーのほうそく、Murphy's
law）とは、「失敗する可能性のあるものは、失敗する」をはじめとする、先達の経験から生じた数々のユーモラスでしかもペーソスに富む経験則をまとめたものである。
参照サイト
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%95%E3%82%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%81%AE%E6%B3%95%E5%89%87）
*2
組織名。URLはhttp://www.mayoclinic.org/
*3 Mayo
Clinic news release, April 21, 2005
*4Archives
of General Psychiatry, 2004;61:1126-1135
*5副腎皮質糖質ホルモンのひとつ。蛋白質からの糖新生を促進するほか抗炎症、抗アレルギー作用を呈し、リウマチ・膠原病などの治療に用いる。過剰に分泌または投与するとクッシング症候群をおこす。
*6“Happiness
helps people stay happy”, NewScientist.com, April 18, 2005.
*7Briefing
Paper, WHO European Ministerial Conference on Mental Health: Facing
the Challenges, Building Solutions, 13 December 2004
(EUR/04/5047810)
*8
Engagement
の訳語。この言葉には、関与のほかに、契約、約束などの意味がある。
*9精神医学の理論の一つ。子どもの発達には親あるいは世話をする人への親密な愛着が重要だとする。
*10
Institute for American Values, www.americanvalues.org
*11 American
Academy of Neurology news release, April 2005
*12John
M Salsman et al, “The Link Between Religion and Spirituality and
Psychological Adjustment…”, Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2005
According to Murphy's Law, if anything can wrong, it will. Now
science is telling us that, for the habitual worrier, a lot really
can go wrong.
In the early 1960s the Mayo Clinic ran a research project in which
50,000 representative people did a personality inventory test. Last
year a team led by Mayo neuropsychiatrist Yonas Geda revisited a
sample of those individuals -- or a relative -- to find out who among
them had developed dementia or other cognitive impairment. (1)
Those who had showed up as pessimistic, anxious or depressed in the
earlier test were 30 to 40 per cent more likely to be suffering from
dementia. Pessimists and chronic worriers with the highest anxiety
scores also had a moderately increased risk of developing Parkinson's
disease during the same time-frame.
Other reports accentuate the positive. A study of people aged 65 to
85 in the Netherlands showed that, during a nine-year period, highly
optimistic people had half the risk of dying from all causes, and a
23 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular death compared to highly
pessimistic people. In short, optimists are likely to live longer,
even if they have something like heart disease. (2)
Furthermore, researchers at University College London studying a
sample of middle-aged public servants have found that a happy
disposition reduces the risk of getting heart disease, because the
happy person has lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and thus
a lower risk of hypertension. “Perhaps laughter is the best
medicine,” says Jane Wardle, one of the team. (3)
A rising tide of depression
It is a timely reminder. The World Health Organization warns that a
rising tide of depression is encircling the world -- particularly the
more developed part of it. In Europe alone depression is close to
being the second greatest burden of disease (after cardiovascular),
afflicting around 30 million people. (4)
Many depressed people end up taking their own lives. Suicides have
reached the level of 150,000 a year in Europe, and almost one million
globally. The highest rates are found in Eastern Europe and the
lowest in Latin America, Muslim countries and a few Asian
nations.
Positive psychology
In January, Time magazine announced “The New Science of Happiness”
-- a movement among some leading psychologists to use their
profession to increase the happiness of the human race rather than
simply relieve its misery. One of them, Martin Seligman, puts it this
way: “It wasn't enough for us to nullify disabling conditions and
get [from minus five] to zero. We needed to ask, What are the
enabling conditions that make human beings flourish? How do we get
from zero to plus five?”
Positive psychology, as the new trend is called, has two main points
of reference: immediate experience and remembered experience. The
first is emphasized by Nobel-prizewinner Daniel Kahneman of Princeton
University, who says that, since time is a scarce resource, we should
get the most out of it by paying more attention to our immediate
experiences, choosing those which engage the mind and give us most
pleasure. In other words, if life is journey, let's make it as
enjoyable as possible.
Seligman, on the other hand, is more concerned with where the journey
is leading. The author of several books on optimism and catalyst of
the positive psychology movement, he believes memory is a truer guide
to happiness, subordinating pleasure to the more important tests of
meaning (Did that game of golf serve my ultimate purpose in life?)
and engagement (Did it deepen my involvement with my friends and
hobby?)
While it may be true that some of us should be more selective about
our “experiences” and live them more intensely, Kahneman's focus on
pleasure seems to leave us on the same utilitarian, consumerist
treadmill that has fed our angst for so many decades. The lesson of
recent times, surely, is that the pursuit of pleasure actually
diverts us from the main sources of happiness.
The hardwiring of happiness
Seligman's emphasis on larger meanings and deeper forms of engagement
is consistent with research in the fields of attachment theory and
meaning. In 2003 a major report on the mental health of American
children and adolescents appeared.
Hardwired to Connect: The
New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities represents
the combined effort of 33 experts to get behind the worsening
statistics, the drugs and other therapies, and come up with a new
model for improving the mental and emotional lives of children.
(5)
What they found at the bottom of childhood malaise was a lack of
connectedness -- close connections to other people and deep
connections to moral and spiritual meaning. And this was not,
primarily, a philosophical position but a scientific one: biology,
psychology and the social sciences increasingly reveal that the human
brain is “hardwired” for these connections, and that mental health
-- including the development of the brain itself -- depends on
them.
The essential link between attachment and meaning is captured in the
report's idea of an “authoritative community” -- in the first place
the family, and after that all other groups or institutions that are
able to nurture children, transmit to them a shared understanding of
what it means to be a good person, and encourage them in religious
seeking and love of neighbour. “Authoritative” in this context
refers to “that particular combination of warmth and structure in
which children in a democratic society appear most likely to
thrive,” says the report.
Religion -- but on the 'inside'
One of the most interesting things about this fascinating report is
the evidence it uncovered for religion or spirituality as a “wired”
need and task -- especially for the adolescent. This is reflected in
the fact that 96 per cent of American teenagers say they believe in
God and 40 per cent say they pray frequently. Despite such facts,
little study has been done on the influence of religion on young
people. What has been done, together with what is known from adult
studies, suggests that religious belief and practice is strongly
correlated with optimism, self-esteem, service, gratitude and other
positive attitudes.
As one might expect, some psychologists and social scientists remain
wary of research showing links between religion and mental health.
They either find fault with the research itself, or attribute the
psychological benefits of religion to intermediary factors such as
the social support of belonging to a church. (6)
But the evidence keeps surfacing. At the annual meeting of the
American Academy of Neurology last month a small study was presented
showing that among patients with a probable diagnosis of Alzheimer's
disease, those with higher levels of religiosity experienced slower
cognitive decline.
Another recent study found that religious people were more satisfied
with life than others because their religious practice gave them
greater optimism and social support. But this was true only if their
religiousness was “intrinsic”, or internalized. Merely external
religious practice did not make people happier. (7)
This reinforces something noted in the Hardwired report: religion did
its best work, so to speak, for those adolescents who reported
personal devotion, or a “direct personal relationship with the
Divine”. The protective effects of personal devotion -- reduced
risk-taking and feelings of loneliness, greater regard for the self
and others -- are twice as great for adolescents as for adults.
Finally, there is that interesting fact referred to earlier: suicide
rates, which are one measure of the problem of depression, are lowest
in Latin America, Muslim countries and some Asian nations. Without
knowing exactly which Asian nations, two out of three items in this
list suggest a connection between religion and mental health -- as
well as, probably, family strength.
It makes sense. Throughout history the family and religion have given
individuals security and meaning. If these institutions are now in
meltdown, as they are in many societies, is it any wonder that a tide
of depression is lapping at our doorsteps? Public agencies, whether
governments or the WHO, that want to stave off a full-scale mental
health tsunami could start by putting the family -- the original
authoritative community -- at the center of their plans.
Carolyn Moynihan is the deputy editor of MercatorNet
Notes
(1) Mayo Clinic news release, April 21, 2005
(2) Archives of General Psychiatry, 2004;61:1126-1135
(3) “Happiness helps people stay happy”, NewScientist.com, April
18, 2005.
(4) Briefing Paper, WHO European Ministerial Conference on Mental
Health: Facing the Challenges, Building Solutions, 13 December 2004
(EUR/04/5047810)
(5) Institute for American Values, www.americanvalues.org
(6) American Academy of Neurology news release, April 2005
(7) John M Salsman et al, “The Link Between Religion and
Spirituality and Psychological Adjustment…”, Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2005