232: How to Thrive in Life | The Power of Positive Psychology with Dr. Liana Lianov

[00:00:00] Dr. Liana Lianov: As health providers, we are letting them know that we're taking this just as seriously as all the other healthy habits because it does actually have direct physiologic benefits. If we can add positive emotions, do good social connections, et cetera. It's just as powerful. So we just need to let our patients know that we think this is just as serious and just as important.

[00:00:23] Maya Acosta: You have more power over your health than what you've been told. This is the Healthy Lifestyle Solutions podcast. I'm Maya Acosta, and I'm passionate about finding healthy lifestyle solutions to support optimal human health. If you're willing to go with me together, we can discover how simple lifestyle choices can help improve our quality of life.

[00:00:44] Maya Acosta: And increase longevity in a big way. Let's get started. Can positive psychology make you happy today, you will learn how to create a positive reinforcing loop between health habits and positive emotions. Dr. Liana Lianov is a board-certified Preventive Medicine Physician and Founder of the Global Positive Health Institute.

[00:01:09] Maya Acosta: She is also a Positive Psychology Speaker and Author. She is a proponent of positive psychology and believes that everyone can benefit from practicing positive habits in their life. As always, you can find the full bio and links for each of my guests on my website, healthylifestylesolutions.org. Okay.

[00:01:30] Maya Acosta: Welcome back to another episode of the Healthy Lifestyle Solutions podcast. I'm your host, Maya Acosta. Today. We're gonna talk about Positive Psychology and so much more. As you know, on the podcast, we talk about the pillars of Lifestyle Medicine, and I always bring on experts to talk about one of those pillars.

[00:01:47] Maya Acosta: And so today we have Dr. Liana Lianov. She is an Innovative Global Leader in Lifestyle Medicine. She's also an MD, has some Masters in Public Health. She's a fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and also a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, and a diplomat of the American Board.

[00:02:10] Maya Acosta: She has advanced the movement for integrating positive psychology into healthcare. She led the development of the original lifestyle medicine, core competencies for physicians and health professionals, which have recently been expanded to include positive psychology, yay, based knowledge, and skills. And she serves as a President of the Global Positive Health Institute, Chair of the Happiness Science and Positive Health Committee of the American College of LA.

[00:02:37] Maya Acosta: And she's a lead faculty for the American College, or we also say ACLM Physician and health professionals, wellbeing program, and vice chair of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. Welcome, Dr. Lianov.

[00:02:56] Dr. Liana Lianov: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

[00:02:58] Maya Acosta: So I was just mentioning before we recorded that I had Dr. Michelle Tollefson on the podcast and she was speaking about the Blue Zones. And then towards the end, she sort of encouraged my listeners to read Dan Buttner's book on the Happiness. So, Blue Zones of the Happiness, I think it's title of blue song.

[00:03:17] Maya Acosta: Happiness. Do you remember? Do you know that book? Yes,

[00:03:20] Dr. Liana Lianov:Yes, I do. I have it, but I forget the exact title, but yes, it's something like happiness, blue zones.

[00:03:25] Maya Acosta: Yeah. Or something like that. So she basically recommended not only to go out and find the blue zones book to read and learn about the five blue zones in the area but also to check out the book on happiness.

[00:03:37] Maya Acosta: And one of 'em was Costa Rica. So I think she said it. Denmark, Singapore, and Costa Rica rate the highest in levels of happiness. And so I'm hoping that we can talk a little bit about that. You have so many credentials, and I also want our listeners to know that you have a podcast and so if they're interested in tuning in it's by the same name, right?

[00:03:59] Maya Acosta: The global, The Global Positive Health Institute. 

[00:04:01] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yes. We now have a podcast. It started a couple of years ago during pandemic and then it evolved. We started this organization and it seemed to be a good fit to continue it under the umbrella, The Global Positive Health Institute, all things related to happiness and health.

[00:04:20] Maya Acosta: Yes. And we need it now more than ever. It seems like a lot of us have dealt with a lot of stress. And so, yeah, let's begin by kind of defining what is Positive Psychology. And actually, let me back up a little. Let's learn about you, Dr. Lianov. How did you come to learning about lifestyle medicine and making these healthy lifestyle changes for yourself?

[00:04:43] Dr. Liana Lianov: Well, I've always been very interested in healthy lifestyles and I'm boarded in preventive medicine in a big area of preventive medicine is a healthy lifestyle to prevent disease. And under that career track, if you will, I was fortunate to be able to, for a couple of years, work with the American Medical Association and, being their First Division Director of their very first division of healthy lifestyles. And this introduced me to all kinds of experts around the country and even around the world who were thinking about healthy lifestyles. Well, not only for preventing disease, but starting to think about how it can actually treat and sometimes even reverse disease.

[00:05:31] Dr. Liana Lianov: And that's how it was actually introduced to the American College of Lifestyle Medicine in that very early. I think the American College of Lifestyle Medicine was started in 2004 and it was just two or three years later that I stumbled upon them. And I'm like, what a great fit I would like to be more involved.

[00:05:48] Dr. Liana Lianov: And I got more involved as I was promoting this work at the AMA and I was also really interested in the behavior change piece. So I'm really interested in what makes people tick, what motivates people. And that actually gradually sort of shifted me to really being interested in the positive psychology piece, the positive emotions, which are kind of the big driver that really propel us forward to make these positive changes for ourselves.

[00:06:16] Maya Acosta: So you've always been interested. This is the feel that has drawn you even before learning about the college of lifestyle medicine. That's interesting. Pretty cool. Last year we had a happiness expert on the show, and then I also had another two guests that are a married couple. They go by love bugs. And they basically use laughter right?

[00:06:38] Maya Acosta: Getting people to laugh, to sort of relax and do a little bit of a mindset or change how we're feeling at the moment. And so they gave me a taste of their laughter and we had a really good time, but I wanna talk about what that looks like. That's why I was saying if we can define what positive psychology is because is it just trying to be more happy or does that entail actually having some tools in place to develop a positive outlook on life?

[00:07:05] Dr. Liana Lianov: So that's a great question and what we found is that people who are. Sort of saying, I'm gonna be happy. I'm gonna make myself happy. It doesn't work that way. what really works are basic health habits. So actually, you know, the things that we usually think of as more for our physical health. Such as being physically active, having a predominantly plant-based diet, getting enough high-quality sleep, all of that also actually contributes to our happiness, but then there are a whole cadre of other activities we could include in what I call a comprehensive, healthy lifestyle that boost those positive emotions and those positive emotions that makes it even easier to engage in health habits.

[00:07:53] Dr. Liana Lianov: Those health habits in turn. Increase our mood again, and it's a beautiful what the scientists call an upward spiral of behavior change. And there's such a long list of the kinds of things that is now showing up in the science that can boost our mood. And so positive psychology is really just the study of this kind of what we call optimal functioning.

[00:08:17] Dr. Liana Lianov: Well, beyond what we can. Through the, what I would consider the more traditional risk factors, again, like what we eat and sleep and physical activities.

[00:08:25] Maya Acosta: All right. I'm so excited to dive into this where you're talking about the study of optimal functioning. What stands out is I recently had a conversation with a sobriety coach and I decided to bring this individual on the podcast because as we know, one of the pillars of lifestyle medicine is sort of to minimize those risky behaviors.

[00:08:49] Maya Acosta: And so what I'm learning, she also has a podcast, but the more that I learn in terms. The approach that her tribe takes towards sobriety is a little different than what say, for example, AA groups do. And I don't know, cause I've never been to one, but from what I gather, there's a lot of education of what happens.

[00:09:07] Maya Acosta: For example, when we drink and that the body over time begins to produce less dopamine, for example, because of the alcohol. And so I'm thinking, as you're saying that the optimal life. In general, when we work towards optimizing the pillars of lifestyle medicine, we facilitate the ability for happiness to flourish.

[00:09:29] Maya Acosta: I guess that's how I'm thinking. If we're eating the right foods and even the idea of walking the blues away. And how exercise plays a role I'd love for you to talk more about that.

[00:09:40] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yeah. So there is a growing literature that shows that there is this what I call a reinforcing reciprocal link between these healthy habits and positive emotions.

[00:09:55] Dr. Liana Lianov: And for a long, long time, now the science. Built around exercise and physical activity. That was one of the early ones where we noticed as scientists that Hey, people who are doing exercise for their physical health, they're also reporting better moods. And in fact, some of the science now is showing that exercise can actually be a treatment for depression.

[00:10:17] Dr. Liana Lianov: And in fact, it can be a better treatment for depression than taking some of the medications without side effects. And so that's very, very exciting, but then it's a reciprocal link because the reverse is also true people who in general tend to be happier for many reasons. And maybe they just naturally have a positive outlook on life or they have good situations or they practice some of these, what I call positive activities or positive habits naturally like practicing gratitude, acts of kindness.

[00:10:48] Dr. Liana Lianov: They tend to be happier and it's just so much easier for them. To then do the physical activities and the other health habits, same is true for food, particularly a predominantly plant-based diet. So a plant-based diet has now been shown that it also can treat depression and people who tend to be happier.

[00:11:10] Dr. Liana Lianov: It's just easier for them to reach for that apple and eat the healthier foods. And of course, all of us probably can relate to the experience of sleep. If we get a good night's sleep, we wake up, whatever was bothering us the night before may not seem as bad but then if we're cranky and tired, everything seems really bad.

[00:11:29] Dr. Liana Lianov: And also on the other side of it is that if we're anxious or stressed or depressed, we're not gonna get a good night's sleep. So it's that reinforcing link and we can make it a positive reinforcing link by making sure that we do get a good night's sleep or, find ways to manage our stress ways to manage our mood so we can get a good night's sleep.

[00:11:52] Maya Acosta: Yes. And I start to see it in my own life. I'm starting to notice too, that when I wake up in the morning, I feel very optimistic and excited about possibilities. That's just like, I'm awake. What's gonna happen today? Like I'm starting to feel that a lot more and it could just be that I too started implementing a lot of these pillars of lifestyle medicine in 2020 during the pandemic, when things were shut down, my husband Riz and.

[00:12:18] Maya Acosta: Started an exercise program and he's always been more of that athletic individual. And he got me into P90X along with his daughter. And I remember we would do this in the evening and then followed by a smoothie or something to kind of refresh us. And I remember saying I never knew that I could feel so.

[00:12:37] Maya Acosta: Good by exercising because it's never been part of my life. Like I'm an active person, get me outdoors. I'll hike, I'll swim. I'll do everything outdoors. But being in the gym was not my thing, but I did notice that positive feeling and just really feeling alive through exercise.

[00:12:55] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yeah. Being out in nature and being active is the way I like to exercise too.

[00:12:59] Dr. Liana Lianov: I'm not a gym rat as well, so I understand.

[00:13:03] Maya Acosta: Good. I'm not the only one. I do say that mental health is very important to me here on the podcast for us to continue to have that conversation. In my early thirties, I suffered with depression. So I clearly know what it's like to be in that depressed state, which is very different than feeling sad, for example.

[00:13:23] Maya Acosta: And so I'd like for us to talk about what the differences are in the way that we manage all of these emotions. So if you could tell us, like, what is the difference between coping. Emotional resiliency, which I'd love to have more tools on that and thriving or flourishing. Can you explain to us what that all means?

[00:13:44]  Dr. Liana Lianov: Yeah, it's very interesting. Even before we get to that question, which is a great question to kind of tease out the different levels of if you will. Happiness is that in general what we have found is that traditionally psychiatry and psychology has focused on people who have been struggling with mood disorder or could be other mental disorder and trying to get them back up to quote-unquote, normal, or baseline.

[00:14:13] Dr. Liana Lianov: And it was Martin Seligman, who's considered sort of the Founder or Father of Positive Psychology. When he was the President of the American Psychological Association in the 80’s, he said, wow, but psychology can do so much more. It can actually elevate people beyond their baseline and get them functioning even better.

[00:14:32] Dr. Liana Lianov: And what we've also found from a neuro psychological perspective that depression. For example, is on a different spectrum. It works in a different part of our brain than happiness. And so what's fascinating is that we may be, I've been asking some of the wrong questions. And so now the field is exploding to kind of say, okay, well, no matter what your baseline state is.

[00:14:57] Dr. Liana Lianov: And even if you have major depressive disorder, you can still, your brain, a different part of your brain has the capacity to experience moments of joy. Those are not mutually exclusive. And so I just find that very exciting and fascinating that what we're offering through positive psychology is really relevant to everyone.

[00:15:18] Dr. Liana Lianov: Even people who may be struggling with mental illness, it can give them hope that they can, again, experience moments of joy, even tiny things. And that can be through these. Gratitude practices through physical activity, some of the things that we've mentioned, but then now to go back to, to your question, and then as I've been digging into this field, what I've found is that there is a real difference between coping resilience and then.

[00:15:43] Dr. Liana Lianov: Thriving or flourishing these terms get thrown out a lot. And actually, just in the field of positive psychology, we don't have a standard terminology yet. That's part of the, the problem with our research is what to call all this emotional well-being, happiness, etc. But setting that aside, I'll tell you kind of how I least think of particular terms coping in my mind is doing whatever we can to get by. It's kind of like that stress management, which is one of the pillars and a healthy lifestyle and is very important. So we certainly want to address our stress, our anxiety, but it's really just getting by. Sort of getting as close to our quote, normal as we can normal state.

[00:16:25] Dr. Liana Lianov: And it takes a lot of effort. And then the next step stage or higher stage, if you will, is resilience. And this term is used as like, okay, healthy lifestyles, positive psychology that builds resilience. And what that means is that as we face difficulties in. And life throws us curve balls, bad things happen to everybody at some time that we then have the capacity to get back on our own through these kinds of activities, through a healthy lifestyles, to come back to our normal and possibly really even beyond become better.

[00:17:02] Dr. Liana Lianov: But if you think of a branch on a tree, for example, and you put pressure on that branch over and over again, it pops back up, but eventually it could break. And so when I think of resilience, it's great, but it's almost not good enough because we have to do the work of coming back every single time. And this is, what's so exciting about positive psychology and positive health, which is the higher level that I think of thriving and flourishing, where we are consistently building habits in our lives, physical habits, psychological habits that keep us at a very high state.

[00:17:39] Dr. Liana Lianov: So. If life throws us curve balls, it doesn't mean we're happy all the time. And sometimes that's a misnomer about positive psychology. I don't have to be happy. You don't have to be happy all the time. You can cry. You can be sad. You can be anxious, whatever is happening to you. You have self-compassion for that, but because you've already built in these wonderful habits, it's easier to stay even-keeled through that.

[00:18:02] Dr. Liana Lianov: Self-compassion you're gonna. Continue to push through your daily workout routine, eating healthy, doing these gratitude practices, because it's so natural to you. It's built into your life that even when something goes wrong, you are able to continue it. And so that is flourishing and thriving. And not only that I can also say there's even a step above that, which is what we call post-traumatic growth.

[00:18:28] Dr. Liana Lianov: So when some trauma. Like losing a loved one happens in our lives that we use all of these tools in our toolkit to actually become a better person to become an even better self because we've learned through that experience. So all these levels are, there are nuances there, but there are important nuances.

[00:18:49] Maya Acosta: This is great as you're sharing all of this, I'm thinking about my own life. Now that I have started to incorporate more tools, the getting by, I feel like the [00:19:00] majority of us are just getting by juggling. Although I understand that from an emotional, in terms of the tools that we have the getting by is very limited.

[00:19:09] Maya Acosta: So I notice in my own self when I overschedule or overdue, or I'm just managing my time in a certain way as that I'm getting by, I'm not really. Adding, because I'm not doing the habits, the habits that you just spoke of. Well, you haven't gone into detail about it, but one of 'em was just like, for example, I think you said journaling.

[00:19:29] Maya Acosta: Did you say journaling? cause I'm thinking I didn't, but gratitude.

[00:19:32] Dr. Liana Lianov: Journaling is one of them. It's a good one. Yes. Gratitude journaling.

[00:19:36] Maya Acosta: That's right. Yes. So in one of 'em we're just getting by and what you're saying is moving to a level where we're now also putting into practice habits. You know, taking in these tools that help us to stay more, even, even-keeled is I think I mispronounced that right? But even-keeled. 

[00:19:52] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yeah, even-keeled and even killed at a higher than what we would normally be if we were not practicing these kinds of habits. So imagine there's nothing going on wrong in your life, but you're not practicing these habits. You're in an even keel, but you're very vulnerable. Something goes wrong and poof, you can spin out of control.

[00:20:13] Dr. Liana Lianov: But whereas if you build these habits, they're naturally gonna lift you up. I mean, like I was saying earlier, Eating a plant-based diet, being physically active, practicing positive activities, acts of kindness, social connections. We can talk about all the variety of things we can do that are under this umbrella of positive psychology that lifts us up naturally.

[00:20:32] Dr. Liana Lianov: And it just, it does make us more resilient. We can bounce back, but maybe even. It makes us another term. Sometimes that then used is antifragile where we don't even really bend. We have enough self-compassion again, it doesn't mean being happy all the time. We absolutely need to be self-compassionate with the full range of human emotions, but yet it doesn't mean that we're gonna bend in terms of our physical health and our mental health.

[00:21:01] Maya Acosta: Yes. Oh, I definitely understand the more work that I've done. The more wealth, I guess you could say the more grounded I am, the more resilient I am in the sense that some things do not affect me as much as they used to. So maybe I'm not as fragile. like you're saying, but it doesn't entail doing work and changing our perspective of how we view certain things.

[00:21:25] Maya Acosta: This is great. I'm really liking this conversation. Now, the other question I had was how do the experts in positive psychology define positive?

[00:21:35] Dr. Liana Lianov: My favorite term, I've started a whole organization around that term The Global Positive Health Institute. So global because we are around the world and positive health is a very specific term.

[00:21:47] Dr. Liana Lianov: That was actually originally coined also by Dr. Martin Seligman, the Father of Positive Psychology. And it is the state of health and wellbeing over and above what can be achieved by addressing these traditional risk factors. So we're. Other activities and mindsets into our lives that oftentimes are not thought of as, uh, part of health, but they should be.

[00:22:12] Dr. Liana Lianov: And that's why I started the school The Global Positive Health Institute to help health professionals and physicians and others start to incorporate this into their practices. And we have an Institute because it's about the science. We. Definitely want to look at the science and be honest, where there are gaps in the science.

[00:22:29] Dr. Liana Lianov: And so oftentimes a lot of the science right now is coming out of what I call sort of behavioral health settings with regular psychologists. And my dream is now to translate that research into other healthcare settings, like primary care doctors, other medical specialists, and have that be a routine part of what they offer patients.

[00:22:53] Dr. Liana Lianov: And. As we're working on helping the whole healthcare system really focus on these traditional risk factors, the healthy lifestyles we can add under that umbrella, this broader set of positive activities. And I should just say very quickly, an easy way to remember what are these positive activities. Cuz I'm throwing that around is also something, a framework that was framed by Dr. Seligman and it's called PERMA. And in fact, it's so commonly now used, we almost use it as a verb. Are you PERMA-ing today and P stands for positive emotions. So doing activities that really help us achieve positive emotions and savor them an example might be positive reminiscence. Like if you had a great experience, Somewhere on the beach or somewhere at a vacation sometime.

[00:23:43] Dr. Liana Lianov: And you are having tough times during the day to sit and just relive that even for a moment, actually, physically your body starts to feel like it's already in your mental state and emotional state. It's like, oh, I'm back on the beach. Anyway. So P is for positive emotions. E is for engagement or in positive psychology.

[00:24:04] Dr. Liana Lianov: We call it float. It's doing activities that fully one with that might be gardening. It might be playing a musical instrument, making some beautiful art, being physically active. And through those activities, we lose track of time and space and our surroundings. And we are just one with that activity. And then our newer endocrine system.

[00:24:30] Dr. Liana Lianov: Fully aligned to, uh, support us in a beneficial, healthy way. So that's E in PERMA and then our in PERMA is for relationships and that's probably the most robust, so social connections are absolutely the most important part of our health and wellbeing. In fact, they're now large, long studies that show that over and above everything that we're talking about for a healthy lifestyle, what we're really talking about.

[00:24:58] Dr. Liana Lianov: And when we tease it out over many years, what we call Cohort studies, long-term studies, where we collect a lot of data and we're able to get rid of what's called confounding variables. Like, what is it? Actually, that's helping people be healthy, be happy, live long. And through those studies, what comes out is social connections and relationships.

[00:25:19] Dr. Liana Lianov: So that. Positive interactions and positive relationships is the R in PERMA. Then M is also very robust in the science and that is meaning. So being able to be aware and cognizant every day of what it is that we're doing in our lives, that aligns with our values, with our passions, and feels very meaningful and really purposeful to us.

[00:25:43] Dr. Liana Lianov: And that adds to lower disability and older people adds to longevity. All kinds of things opens up our. Et cetera. And then the a in PERMA is accomplishment as human beings. We strive, we naturally set goals and we wanna achieve those goals, whatever they are, we can set small steps towards those goals to make sure we're successful.

[00:26:02] Dr. Liana Lianov: And then when we achieve those goals, we need to celebrate those achievement accomplishment. And that also adds to our sense of wellbeing. So PERMA is an easy way to remember at least a few of the kinds of what I call positive activities that we can build into our lives naturally. And there's so much more, but that's an easy way for our listeners to start. If they're brand new to this

[00:26:23] Maya Acosta: Yeah, this is great. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna make sure that I have it written somewhere where I can remember because in the past I've done my list of things that help me relax and help me feel good. But these are seem to be even more specific and more deliberate. Like for example, the first one on just that positive emotion, I think of when I've done guided meditations and they take you back to a place that you enjoy, or you visualize a place where you feel.

[00:26:50] Maya Acosta: And calm. It's amazing how my state of mind just changes from being anxious at that moment to feeling completely relaxed and open. And I don't know if guided meditations would be under that list, but that's exactly how I feel when even a coach works with me and takes me back to a moment that brings up good feelings. So what do you think about that one?

[00:27:13] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yes. Well, actually I think that there's quite a large. Positive psychology umbrella. And in that broader umbrella, that goes even beyond the PERMA I've been talking about, there are a number of other things and mindfulness practice or meditation practice. It's not for everybody, but for some people it really works and has absolutely in the toolkit of things to consider.

[00:27:37] Dr. Liana Lianov: Another example is that I was talking about positivity. Reminiscence. Yes. You know, remembering positive things in the back in the background or through a guided meditation, we can imagine something that's hasn't even happened. Right. But in the moment when we're experiencing something positive, yay. It's something, that's some piece of good news or we just connected with a friend and then we move on with life, and wouldn't it be nice if we slowed that down a little bit and really harnessed it and that's called savoring and it's another technique in positive psychology where.

[00:28:10] Dr. Liana Lianov: Oh, let's just savor the moment. Let's just take this in. Yes. Let's not immediately move on to the next thing. And it might just be an extra minute or two. It doesn't have to take a lot of time, but to kind of cement it in our brain, this positive experience, and then it's easier to bring it back from our memory later when we need a little boost.

[00:28:28] Maya Acosta: Yes, absolutely. And so this is also important to me because again, sometimes we're labeled either being people that see life as the glasses. Half full or half empty. And so sometimes I don't really like that comparison. I think it's sort of a little bit unfair. I think that probably it's the old programming that we have of having suffered either trauma or fear.

[00:28:52] Maya Acosta: And we're just always kind of functioning on this survival mode that we forget to put in all these other practices in place. I don't think it's fair to say that some people are just negative or not optimistic. I think it's just maybe. Habits that we building every day, that show up for our lives. I like this other one that you said the engagement flow.

[00:29:14] Maya Acosta: I think of Iki guy. doing that thing that you really love. You mentioned like gardening and I have had experiences of flow because I am that person that likes my quiet time doing what I enjoy doing whatever hobby it may be and when I'm filled and fulfilled with that sense of flow, then I'm just better.

[00:29:34] Maya Acosta: Around like I come out and now I'm ready to play with everyone else. And then along the lines of healthy relationships, I've also noticed now that we're starting to socialize a little more, that when I am around people who I admire, who I really feel connected to just good people, the wonderful, positive feeling of that interaction lingers for days and I just feel calmer and whole. So it's good stuff.

[00:30:02] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yeah. Especially the positive interactions. We definitely want to savor those and we want to have a greater percentage in our lives of those positive interactions than negative interactions because negative interactions or anything negative is sticky.

[00:30:18] Dr. Liana Lianov: It, it's just, our brains are wired that way. It's survival mechanism to kind of pay attention to, and that can linger, but we. Help overcome that through an intentional focus on what has gone well and what is positive to kind of counteract that stickiness of the negative experiences. 

[00:30:37] Maya Acosta: That's right. So I had a question in terms of your vision and your goal for other health professionals.

[00:30:44] Maya Acosta: So kind of. Help patients put some of these things into practice. What would that look like if they have sort of limited time interaction with their patients?

[00:30:54] Dr. Liana Lianov: So thank you for that question, because this is something they're gonna breathe a lot. because I really want to make a big difference. In everyone's lives, but particularly help my colleagues help their patients make a big difference in their own lives, in their patients' lives.

[00:31:09] Dr. Liana Lianov: And of course, the first questions that often come up are, you know, it's busy, it's a busy practice. We've got so much going on. Patients walk in with a pain here, maybe diabetes, maybe they're dealing with the. Just lots to talk about. And I say that there are little things that can be done as a place to start for any health professional.

[00:31:31] Dr. Liana Lianov: Who's interested in integrating elements of positive psychology into their clinical practice? One very simple thing is to actually role model this a little bit role model positivity, and the VA health administration has a whole health program that models. A lot of elements of positive psychology, integrative medicine, lifestyle medicine, and the big take-home message from them doing the ripple effects for other health professionals is to reframe our thinking in approaching the patients.

[00:32:03] Dr. Liana Lianov: Because oftentimes we're thinking when we write our note, Medical notes. It's chief complaint. What is the patient complaining about? So we're asking. Okay. So what's the matter with you today? And instead, we should be flipping that around and first and foremost, saying what matters most to you today and asking them what's good.

[00:32:22] Dr. Liana Lianov: That's happened to you recently and start the whole conversation on a positive note already. Biology has changed. It's more harmonious. It's good for the provider. It's good for the patient. Then you ask the other questions. Of course, there's lots of work to be done during the visit, but then you can also end the visit with, well, what's one thing that went well during our visit today.

[00:32:44] Dr. Liana Lianov: Even if that's all you do, which just takes an extra minute, makes a huge difference, but there's so much more you can do as well.

[00:32:52] Maya Acosta: That is such a good point. Excellent. I think of an individual who I went to see once about my skin. This was a few years ago and, but you know, it is a little bit of positive psychology, but I walked into her office and the first thing she said to me was, wow, your skin looks great.

[00:33:09] Maya Acosta: I got thrown off a little bit because I didn't expect that it had been a while since I'd seen her. So I didn't expect her to remember that I was dealing with acne, for example, but it put me in a good place. Let's just say that. So if my physician were to welcome me, by just even saying, Hey, you look great, or I love that smile on your face.

[00:33:26] Maya Acosta: Just something different outside of there's something wrong with me as a patient. And that's why I'm here. Because as patients, we already feel less than, right, we feel a little bit intimidated by the white coat as it. So having that positive interaction from the get-go would be awesome.

[00:33:41] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yes, absolutely. So that's a place to start, but withThe Global Positive Health Institute, we are digging deeper into redesigning some things and practices where they're interested in doing the full on what I call comprehensive, healthy lifestyles interventions. And for example, all medical providers are. Required to check in on patients, stress levels, they do a depression screening and anxiety screening.

[00:34:08] Dr. Liana Lianov: They have to address that have to. We do, of course, we care. We care about those negative conditions and we wanna help our patients, but right alongside with that, every opportunity to also. Check into the positive emotions, which often get ignored. And there are quick surveys that can be put into even like a pre-visit screener.

[00:34:30] Dr. Liana Lianov: One of them that I recommend was developed by one of the most published positive psychologists who unfortunately last year passed away Dr. Ed Deaner, and it is called the satisfaction with life scale. And they're just five questions. And actually, if it's too busy that you can even just ask three questions and you'll get.

[00:34:48] Dr. Liana Lianov: Sense of a person's satisfaction with life that how close is it to their ideal? How are they meeting their goals and then starting conversations from there when we're looking at the responses from patients having a dialogue about, okay, well, positive emotions are just as important as negative emotions and they actually contribute in a different way.

[00:35:08] Dr. Liana Lianov: So yeah, we wanna get rid of the negative emotions to the extent possible, but that's not where it. We need to proactively do things in our lives or proactively change our mindsets a little bit, or where we pay attention to boost positive emotions, have that dialogue, even brief dialogue. And then again, in a busy practice, we might then recommend or quote, prescribe that they go off and do some research.

[00:35:32] Dr. Liana Lianov: There are lots of. Beautiful websites, digital apps, other ways that our patients can explore this, but at least as health providers, we are letting them know that we're taking this just as seriously as all the other healthy habits, because it does actually have direct physiologic. Benefits just like, stopping smoking.

[00:35:54] Dr. Liana Lianov: If we can add positive emotions, do good social connections, et cetera. It's just as powerful. So we just need to let our patients know that we think this is just as serious and just as important, even if we don't quite have the time to go into details, but it's a beginning. And then patients that go, okay.

[00:36:11] Dr. Liana Lianov: Wow. My doctors think this is important. I'm gonna go read about it. I'm gonna try some things that work for me. What interests me. The field is still young and we need to learn so much more about what we call Positive Psychology Interventions, like what works with which groups and which patients, which cultures, their cultural differences, etcetera.

[00:36:32] Dr. Liana Lianov: So there's so much more research to be done, but at least in the meantime, we can start dabbling and exploring for ourselves and. Professionals and recommend our patients do the same.

[00:36:43] Maya Acosta: Exactly. Yes. And these healthy habits also are available at no cost. In a sense, if what you're doing is just looking at what works for you and then implementing them in your own life.

[00:36:56] Maya Acosta: We often talk about how there are significant amount of people who don't have access. So for example, Health Insurance Physicians. And so if they don't hear it from their physician, where do they hear it? Well, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine puts in you. This is how they learn about it. So I like that it's available to everyone to journal if they want to, whether it's on a piece of paper on their computer or a program, an app or something like that.

[00:37:23] Maya Acosta: But this is an exciting field. So now tell us a little bit, since we're on the topic of this happiness, about your podcast, so that our listeners can know how to reach you. And how to listen. That is,

[00:37:35] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yeah. So we are building our podcast, but if you look online for The Global Positive Health Institute's podcast, you can find it there.

[00:37:44] Dr. Liana Lianov: Also, we have our website, our website is geared towards health professionals, but it has all the links. So anyone who's interested in accessing our Facebook, Instagram podcast, the links are there and that is just Positive Health World is our website. And I should also mention that last year I put out a book called Strengths in the Mirror, and that is a general book.

[00:38:10] Dr. Liana Lianov: It's not necessarily for health professionals that sort of pulls all of this together. And so sometimes in our podcast, we actually focus on lessons from strengths in the mirror. And so I highly recommend that because that's. Absolutely for a general audience. I know some of the listeners, maybe not health professionals might say that's not for me, but there's plenty there.

[00:38:31] Dr. Liana Lianov: I think for anyone who's interested in this topic.

[00:38:35] Maya Acosta: Oh, and I already have the audible version. Perfect. So I'm listening to your book and I love to listen when I'm walking my dog. So that's like when I'm really focused because he takes his little time everywhere. So I have time to listen. So there was a question here that I wanted to go back to and is how can we customize our well-being approach according to our personality?

[00:38:57] Maya Acosta: Strengths to make our health and happiness habits easier to achieve and sustain.

[00:39:03] Dr. Liana Lianov: Wonderful. Thank you for that question, cuz this is sort of the leading edge thinking that I'm still working on, but it's very, very exciting to me is that I. See that we are all individuals. Clearly, we all have different personalities, different preferences, interests, the field of positive psychology.

[00:39:25] Dr. Liana Lianov: And what we can do for ourselves is so broad that it may feel like where do I start? It may feel a little disorienting or overwhelming. And so I am very. Passionate about figuring out ways that we can customize our approach and one of those ways, and we haven't talked about it, but it's a big part of positive psychology is character strengths.

[00:39:46] Dr. Liana Lianov: And for people who are not familiar with character strengths, this is a validated questionnaire that you can take online@viacharacter.org. And this comes outta the University of Pennsylvania. They spent years validating this questionnaire where you can find out what are your character strengths. And actually, there are 24 of them.

[00:40:07] Dr. Liana Lianov: We all use all of those character strengths, but some just come easier than others. And what we're finding is that we can customize our approach to our own well-being by intentionally, make sure we use those character strengths on a day-to-day basis and use them in promoting how we build our health habits, how we live our lives.

[00:40:28] Dr. Liana Lianov: It might be forgiveness is an example. Kindness is another example. Love of. So one might say, Hey, my strength is love of learning. And now there's this new habit that I wanna learn about. So what the heck, this is using my strength and just really pulling together and making it relevant for who we are as a person.

[00:40:51] Dr. Liana Lianov: And the other way that we can customize our approach is something that I'm adding to the field that very professionals are doing, and we still need more research, which is based on the work of Dr. Carl Jung who's a famous psychiatrist from Vienna and most people maybe they've heard of him, but they probably have heard of the personality tests that kind of is attributed to his work, which is the Myers-Briggs type indicator.

[00:41:20] Dr. Liana Lianov: And so those are 16 personality types. Not that I'm promoting. 16 personality types so much. So as that, the work of Carl Jung said that we each use what he called eight cognitive processes. So eight ways that we take in information from the world and make decisions and couple of those are, are strengths.

[00:41:42] Dr. Liana Lianov: They just come naturally to each of us, depending on our personality. And, we can be, I think, more successful at our health habit goals. If we, again, intentionally use those. To build that into our everyday approach. And I'll give an example in a minute, but I also wanna say that as we use those cognitive functions and I call them brain strengths, it's just easier to remember.

[00:42:09] Dr. Liana Lianov: If we use our brain strengths, we're more successful. That also makes us happier boosts our well-being. An example, two easy examples are that if you do look at, if anyone is familiar with the MBTI, and you end up, you can take an online questionnaire and you get the four letters. The first letter is around extroversion introversion.

[00:42:29] Dr. Liana Lianov: And as the term suggest. Extroverted people tend to be happier when they're socially engaged. Right. And so we talked about the importance of relationships. Well, it might be that for people who are extroverted, they need a lot more of those connections to build their happiness. And then that contributes to their health.

[00:42:48] Dr. Liana Lianov: Whereas others are more on the introversion side. They still absolutely need relationships, but they also need that downtime and learning that about themselves and seeing that as a strength and really building their plans and their days around, I'm gonna need some downtime away from people I need related.

[00:43:08] Dr. Liana Lianov: But I need downtime as an example. Another example is that with the last letter, the P versus J perceiving versus judging, it has to do with some of us like to be more spontaneous. That's the perceiving like me and others judging. It's not what the term seems to imply. It's not being judgemental, nothing like that, but it's just liking closure and liking to have a more step-by-step process in life and having a schedule.

[00:43:36] Dr. Liana Lianov: And so if we're building our health habits and we know that we're the kind of person that needs a schedule, we can say, okay, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I'm gonna go to garden or visit my friends or do my gratitude practice. But if, you know, you're a perceiving kind of person that has to go out the window, because if we set that on our schedule and then we kind of don't do it because that's just who we are.

[00:43:58] Dr. Liana Lianov: And then we feel guilty and bad that doesn't help our sense of wellbeing instead saying, okay, I'm a perceiving person. I'm spontaneous. In the next week, I'm gonna do these few things, but I'm gonna be flexible and open and spontaneous as to when I do them. As long as I get them in this week.

[00:44:14] Maya Acosta: I love this whole customizing because I had never thought about it that way at all.

[00:44:21] Maya Acosta: It all makes sense. I'm definitely an introvert. So I plan how I socialize and if I'm visiting family and I know I'll be around family 5, 7, 10 days, whatever may be. I usually have to plan every third day to just kind of disappear and be on my own. But my family's used to that style that I have, that I just need to go somewhere else to fill my cup and it's usually just being by myself to just enjoy my own self, my presence. And then I feel like I can come back and be better to my family. Yeah. but the other one. All of these tools are so exciting that when you talk about perceiving, as opposed to judging, I also see it clearly in my own life that I am while I like being spontaneous.

[00:45:03] Maya Acosta: I am more of the judging, which someone who suffered from anxiety and used it as a tool for stress management. The whole planning works for me, but once things are planned out and things are done, then I can be spontaneous. But it's allowing me to work and plan things out so that I can hopefully enjoy myself be my best version.

[00:45:23] Maya Acosta: So this is great stuff. Absolutely. I've never heard it. I heard about this before. So

[00:45:29] Dr. Liana Lianov: I'm kind of a leader in this of very few people. Love it. Thinking in this way of, in fact, I've developed a whole program, which I'm reviving, it's a website slash app that is called my Happy Avatar. So if anyone's interested in my happyavatar.com, it's at no cost.

[00:45:46] Dr. Liana Lianov: Because it was still building it out, but it actually has a 12-week program for each of the personality types using some of the tips that I've just shared. And I do talk about it a little bit in my book strengths in the mirror, and I'm actually gonna be giving a little workshop just to test things out and help people use the app as well as go.

[00:46:08] Dr. Liana Lianov: Key lessons from the book this fall. So anyone who is interested in that yet contact me through The Global Positive Health Institute and I'm happy to involve you. And by the way, the book and everything else that I'm doing, all those proceeds all go to The Global Positive Health Institute, which is a nonprofit organization to help clinicians and health professionals do more of these wonderful things for themselves and their patients.

[00:46:32] Maya Acosta: This is excellent. I love the idea of the avatar. Are you building a group around this, like on Facebook or for people who are interested in the happiness avatar? Like if they're gonna do the 12-week program, is there a way that people can connect and share tips? Or anything like that? Yes.

[00:46:50] Dr. Liana Lianov: So we've had an email distribution list.

[00:46:53] Dr. Liana Lianov: Usually it's been the folks who got interested in it through strengths in the mirror. Mm-hmm. And so thank you for that nudge. We will set up a Facebook. We're gonna get a group going around this. Absolutely. That's broader and more accessible. Absolutely.

[00:47:07] Maya Acosta: Yeah. I'm part of another group and theirs. They do have a presence on Facebook, but they also have.

[00:47:13] Maya Acosta: A WhatsApp because it's very international and people are constantly, yeah. People are constantly posting positive approaches or messages and suggested books and things like that. And for me, I just love being part of communities as well and joining other groups. But if you're working specifically in an area, like, for example, this happiness, I definitely wanna be part of that group.

[00:47:36] Dr. Liana Lianov: Definitely. We'll bring you in, Maya. Okay. And then just one other thing is if there. Coaches out there or any health professionals that are coaching or counseling patients around these ideas, then also contact us because there actually is a companion app. That's the coach app. And so it helps coaches help their patients using these same principles.

[00:47:57] Dr. Liana Lianov: wow. So there's a lot to it. And I have a book. Mostly ready to go. It needs to be dusted off a little bit. That's gonna help coaches do some of this, uh, work that I've been talking about, but actually anybody can apply it for themselves as well. I mean, it's yeah. Yeah. I think it's fairly user-friendly. I try this whole area can't get quite complex from a psychological perspective. And so I try to really make it practical and concrete to the extent possible. And so stay tuned. I'd love to involve any and all of our listeners. And you may in this cuz this is my passion.

[00:48:33] Maya Acosta: Yes. It's what, for me, it's my passion in the sense that that's another, yet another tool as I'm working towards just living my best life.

[00:48:43] Maya Acosta: I mean, we did talk about thriving and I don't know if we covered that. And when we were talking about coping and then resiliency and then to ultimately just thrive, that's our whole plan. Isn't it? More flourish.

[00:48:55] Dr. Liana Lianov: Flourish. Absolutely. Yeah, that's doing all of this on a regular basis. Allows you to thrive and flourish no matter what curve balls.

[00:49:03] Dr. Liana Lianov: Life throws at you, or I say, well, no matter what bumps in the road you encounter, because we all are gonna encounter those bumps in the road. Yeah. But if we are just steady and true to their, our total well-being plan and doing these, we're gonna do all right, we'll be.

[00:49:18] Maya Acosta: Right. Yes. Absolutely and better than all right.

[00:49:21] Maya Acosta: We'll be our best selves. That's right. And there are when I spoke with a, a happy expert last year, he talked about how some individuals may need therapy. So while there are some tools that we can use. So I don't know if you'd wanna talk about that, but I will say that I myself have gone. Through a lot of therapists in my life.

[00:49:40] Maya Acosta: And I've really dealt with so much that has freed me up to then continue to do the work. But now I'm very comfortable with coaches like you just spoke about. So I've had transformational health coaches that work with me on still some of the trauma, but we quickly get to where I wanna be within one session.

[00:49:58] Maya Acosta: Like within an hour, I can go from something that was really bothering me to feeling like I'm in a Zen mode. In many ways, maybe some of these things are being put in practice, but no one has ever put it the way you do so I can see how this would be great for them as well for the coaches to know about.

[00:50:15] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And yes, just to touch on what you were saying, Maya, is that for anyone who is struggling, they're hearing this, but they're saying I'm still struggling things. Aren't just working out for me right now. Yeah, absolutely. To seek out. And put in the right direction with some professional help is always worth considering mm-hmm.

[00:50:38] Dr. Liana Lianov: And then we can build this on our own going forward, and it's a lifelong commitment and lifelong process, but sometimes we need that professional help early on. Or sometimes when those bumps in the road are, it's just so huge. something really massive happens to us. Then again, looking outsiders who know how to deal with these kinds of issues is important to keep in mind.

[00:51:01] Maya Acosta: Yes. Thank you for saying that. I don't wanna forget Dr. Lianov, the American College of Lifestyle Medicines Conferences coming. You will be having a lecture there as well.

[00:51:12] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yeah. So the American College of Lifestyle Medicine Conference has been growing for years. I'm a past president about a decade ago.

[00:51:21] Dr. Liana Lianov: So I've seen the lovely transformation that this organization has made. And they're just involved in so many projects and the caliber of the presentations. Speakers every year, it just is expanded and enhanced. The number of people involved is just amazing. We used to, you know, a decade ago we had like a hundred people.

[00:51:43] Dr. Liana Lianov: Now we've got many thousands of people involved. That's very exciting. And so in my case, actually this year, we're doing a post-conference workshop. That's focusing on Mental Positive psychology. And some of the work that The Global Positive Health Institute is doing, but yeah, for anyone who's wants to learn more about any of these topics, particularly if we're looking at healthy lifestyles as a form of treatment.

[00:52:11] Dr. Liana Lianov: For most of the diseases that we're faced with in our country and globally today, then certainly this conference. And what ACLM has to offer is the place to go.

[00:52:20] Maya Acosta: Yes. Yes. Very excited. I will be there in Orlando, in November. So yeah. See you in November 1st. Yeah, I'm too excited. And thank you so much for sharing all these tips.

[00:52:31] Maya Acosta: Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners and any other website, anything else in terms of, if people wanna follow up with you? I know you've been giving us resources, but just the best way to connect if people are interested in reaching out to you.

[00:52:46] Dr. Liana Lianov: Yes. So I've mentioned the two websites, the, my happyavatar.com and the positive.world that then connects us to all the social media, but I'm also happy to give out. We have a general connection email, which is GPHIconnect gmail.com for anyone who wants to reach out directly. And I'd love to hear from you. We're building our community. Love to have you involved in our workshop or through the book or anything else that we're doing in our community.

[00:53:17] Dr. Liana Lianov: And just the last little piece of advice is that, like you said, Maya, this work is available to anyone. And oftentimes I get this question. What happens to groups that are disadvantaged? You know, you're talking about stuff that's kind of maybe for the well-to-do, or it's kind of not relevant for people who are struggling day to day for many reasons.

[00:53:38] Dr. Liana Lianov: And I say, yeah, but there are little shifts in mindsets. Little habits that everyone can do, even if the whole world is crumbling around them. Some of the roots of positive psychology, which is those character strengths I talked about, you can look inward and say, but I'm still a good person. I'm a good, because I offer this and I offer that.

[00:53:59] Dr. Liana Lianov: And these are my strengths, just to be able to turn to ourselves and know. That. Yeah, that's a place to start and to start to rebuild, even if we're at rock bottom. And then also when we were talking about relationships, which is sort of the most important component of all of this, question that often comes up is, oh, what if people don't have family, don't have friends for whatever reason, they're isolated, et cetera, then you can actually derive some of the same physiologic benefits by connecting the, what we call micro-moments of connection throughout the day.

[00:54:33] Dr. Liana Lianov: Even strangers, just a genuine, hello, the grocery store checker or at the post office or crossing the street. If you have hundreds of those moments and they're genuine and they're sort of a genuine, hello. Hello. How are you? That is good for your health that's relationship. So really, again, all of this is available to all of us, no matter our place in life.

[00:54:53] Dr. Liana Lianov: And yeah, I just wanna make sure everyone in the. Hears

[00:54:56] Maya Acosta: that. Yes. Thank you for saying that. Absolutely true. [00:55:00] That many of us are not living near our families anymore. So many changes have happened in our lives, but you also mentioned early on random acts of kindness and that I've seen in my own life that.

[00:55:11] Maya Acosta: Doing something for a stranger, something simple, even just given a compliment does so much for me but helping to live somebody and just having a positive conversation with them does a lot for me as well. So I really appreciate that. Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for providing us all these tools.

[00:55:29] Maya Acosta: Yes. Thank you again, and I can't wait to meet you. I

[00:55:33] Dr. Liana Lianov:  It's a pleasure. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. I can't wait to see you. Alrighty. Take care. Maya, take care everyone till next time. 

[00:55:38] Maya Acosta: So another time. Okay. Thank you Dr. Liana Lianov is a board-certified physician and expert in lifestyle medicine. She has dedicated her career to helping people live.

[00:55:48] Maya Acosta: Their happiest and healthiest lives. She has a passion for positive psychology and has studied the science of happiness extensively. Dr. Lianov is the founder and the host of The Global Positive Health Institute podcast, where she shares her knowledge and expertise on all things related to happiness and health-positive psychology studies, optimal functions, or how we can elevate ourselves beyond our baseline state.

[00:56:15] Maya Acosta: I asked Dr. Lianov to define coping resiliency, thriving, and flourishing in life. Coping is doing whatever we can to get by resiliency is the next stage or higher stage where we can get back on our feet and possibly even become better after facing difficulties in life. Dr. Lianov shares that the goal of positive psychology is to elevate people beyond their baseline state of happiness and help thrive. People who have built positive habits are more likely to succeed. Even when faced with difficulties. A growing literature shows that reinforcing reciprocal link between healthy habits and positive emotions, people who are typically happier, tend to find it easier to do physical activities and other health habits.

[00:57:05] Maya Acosta: Today, we know that the whole food plant-based diet has been shown to improve depression, thus, leading to healthier. PERMA is a framework used in positive psychology activities, such as mindfulness, meditation, reminiscence flow, and savoring. Bring us to a positive state. Dr. Liana founded The Global Positive Health Institute to help health professionals incorporate positive psychology strategies into their practices.

[00:57:36] Maya Acosta: When I asked her to describe a clinical setting where her colleagues would practice positive psychology, she recommended medical professionals begin a conversation with the patient by asking them what matters most. The goal is to engage patients in a positive light. Dr. Lianov will speak at the November American College of Lifestyle Medicine's Conference in Orlando, Florida.

[00:58:00] Maya Acosta: She will offer a post-conference workshop focusing on mental health and positive psychology. So there you have it, The Power of Positive Psychology and How It Can Help You Thrive in Life. Remember, it all starts with making healthy lifestyle choices and engaging in positive emotions. If you'd like to learn more about Dr. Liana Lianov, my Happy Avatar app, her book Strengths in the Mirror, or any of her current projects visit positivehealth.world. Please email me if you have any questions or comments about today's episode at plant-based maya@gmail.com. My friends, I hope that you share this episode with one person who needs to hear this message and as always thank you for being a listener.

[00:58:47] Maya Acosta: You've been listening to the Healthy Lifestyle Solutions podcast with your host Maya Acosta, if you've enjoyed this podcast, do us a favor and share with one friend who can benefit from this episode, feel free to leave us an honest review on apple podcast that helps us to spread our message. Thanks for listening.