Boosting Your Brain's "Positive", 3

As you may already know, studies have shown that the left cerebral hemisphere appears linked with positive emotions, while the right cerebral hemisphere appears appears to be associated with the protective emotions: anger, fear, and sadness. Both PET scans and electroencephalography have revealed that the brains of generally happy people tended to show greater activity in the left prefrontal cortex; whereas the right prefrontal cortex tended to show greater activity in the brains of those who experienced more negative emotions, anxiety, or depression. And what is happiness? It can be defined in many different ways. Proponents of positive psychology tend to use the term 'happiness' to describe a subjective sense of well-being including the sense that your life is worthwhile (along with a relative lack of negative feelings, so-called, such as sadness, fear, and anger). Since your have a whole brain and, unimpaired, can access all parts of your brain, this is an emerging belief that you can choose to control your thoughts--at least at some level. When you become aware of a negative thought, be mindful of it and take action as appropriate and needed. Then choose to replace that negative thought with a positive one. Bottom line? You're not responsible for every thought that crosses your brain. You are likely responsible for the thoughts you choose to hang onto, ruminate over, and take action around.