Teach yourself everyday happiness with imagery training
Healthy people are also emotionally effected by what we see and the images we remember. Velikova explains, "if we visually remember an image from an unpleasant interaction with our boss, this can cause an increased level of anxiety about our work and demotivation." There is great interest in ways to combat such everyday negative emotional responses through imagery training. But she warns, "this is a challenging task and requires a flexible approach. Each day we face different problems and a therapist teaches us how to identify topics and strategies for imagery exercises." To find out if we can train ourselves to use imagery techniques and optimize our emotional state, Velikova and co-workers turned to 30 healthy volunteers. During a two-day workshop the volunteers learnt a series of imagery techniques. They learnt how to cope with negative emotions from past events through imagery transformation, how to use positive imagery for future events or goals, and techni...