Iris Mauss

And in turn, that emotional response explained why six months later, those same people had better mental health.

So these sort of daily emotions in response to daily adversity seem to be a really important active ingredient in that link.

Yes, absolutely.

So many of those ideas have precursors in world religions and philosophies.

And one of the biggest representation of that idea is Buddhism, of course.

And Buddhism is the precursor to mindfulness and acceptance is a really big part

part of the larger philosophy of mindfulness.

And so there's a huge intellectual debt owed to Buddhist scholars as well as Buddhist practitioners and researchers on mindfulness.

That's a great question that we are really concerned about because we wouldn't want people to accept bad, unjust situations, even if it helps them feel better.

And so in the research, we also asked participants about their tendency to accept bad situations in addition to their tendency to accept their own emotions and their own negative thoughts.

And this is really important because these beneficial effects of accepting your own emotions and thoughts were connected with better mental health while accepting bad situations was not.

So it's a separate thing and accepting how you feel does not mean accepting and resigning yourself to bad situations.

Yes, exactly.

And I think actually it might help people in a way.

to address bad things in their lives.

Because if you look your negative feelings in the eye and don't get overwhelmed by them, that might help you more effectively deal with addressing bad, unjust, stressful situations.

I think it's a really common worry and it explains something that's a little bit of a mystery, which is acceptance sounds really easy, right?

You literally don't do anything.

You have your emotions.

They're there.