Happiness: Science, Practice and Ancient Indian Wisdom

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad via Coursera

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Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Free Online Course (Audit)
Languages

English
Certificate

Paid Certificate Available
Duration & workload

1 day 13 hours 35 minutes
Sessions

On-Demand
Subtitles

English

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Overview

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In a recent study of about 0.4 million individuals across 71 countries, it was found that close to 27 percent of people globally face mental health problems, and stress is said to be a major contributor to such problems. In India, the percentage is close to 30 percent. Surprisingly, more people in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and Brazil face mental distress than in India. This course is intended as a guide for individuals to manage themselves better, be emotionally stable, in touch with their inner selves, and be happy. Building on evidence from psychology and neuroscience, the course directly ties in with the immense need to help individuals build the capacity for harmony, emotional stability, and a sense of meaning in their lives. The course uses mindfulness as the fundamental building block of self-discovery and self-awareness. One of the unique aspects of this course is that it integrates ideas presented in research as well as the famous Indian wisdom storehouses such as the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga sutras, and the Dhammapada. The course aims to help participants learn lessons in the realms of values, self-management, health, emotional control, and authentic living – crucial elements of a happy and meaningful life.

Syllabus

The Reality (Crises) of Our Times

In this module, you will learn about the reality of our times: The Happiness Paradox. This module highlights the importance of understanding the truth of our existence: Unsatisfactoriness and Stress. It presents before us some startling facts about the mental health pandemic that is raging in the modern human world and how stress and mental health issues are not just limited to adults but also impact young children. You will be introduced to some of the key challenges faced when living and interacting with others in the present-day world and some of the root causes for these challenges.

Recognising and Managing Automaticity

This module will focus on the idea of automaticity – doing things in autopilot mode, and without careful thinking. By building on ideas borrowed from evolutionary psychology and neuroscience, the module will introduce you to the impact evolution has had on our development – especially of brains. Next, we will discuss the 'Default Mode Network’ – an aspect of our brains that has been identified as the central contributor to automaticity and unhappiness. Finally, the module will conclude and provide us with the first principle of HEAL that should be remembered as well as practiced in our lives.

Building a Calm Mind

This module focuses on providing you with insights about our brain and our physiology. The module exposes you to the mind-body connection, and you will get to know how the mind impacts your body. The module then introduces you to the ideas of mindfulness and meditation. Providing evidence from biology, genetics, psychology, and neuroscience, the module will provide you an understanding of the impact of mindfulness and meditation on gene expression, aging, and stress-coping response. The module will provide you with step-by-step guidance for doing meditation at your home.

The Oneness Mindset

In this module, you will learn about the idea of the ‘oneness’ mindset. The module will introduce you to the idea of our two ways of thinking and also the two selves: the ego-self and the natural-self. Building evidence from neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, you will learn about the interconnection of the ego-self with the survival tendency that is ingrained in humans. On the other hand, the natural self is connected to the lofty ideal of practicing ‘oneness’ thinking in daily life. Last, the module showcases how oneness has been conceptualized and presented in the Indian wisdom traditions.

Harmony: Source of Positive Mental Health

In this module, you will learn about the characteristics of the first element of HEAL – harmony. The module introduces you to the characteristics of compassion and loving-kindness, their relationships with oneness mindset and the ways in which both of these qualities can be developed. By providing evidence from neuroscience as well as psychology research about the impact of consciously developing harmonious thoughts on mental health, stress-coping and happiness. Overall, the module presents the third HEAL principle of practicing oneness thinking and building harmony.

Equanimity: Building Emotional Stability

This module will focus on providing you with a deep understanding of emotions, the brain parts and your physiology that gets involved/activated due to emotions. The module will provide you an understanding of how emotions are a consequence of the default mode network that we learnt in module two. Next, by building on insights from cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness based cognitive therapy, neuroscience as well as psychology research, the module provides insight into emotion regulation techniques such as open monitoring, decentering, reappraisal, checking rumination and cognitive reactivity.

Authentic Living: Understanding Core Moral Values

This module introduces you to the core values that are in alignment with the oneness mindset discussed in module four of the course. The module provides insights into different aspects of authentic living and showcases evidence from research that links authentic living to happiness, better mental health and reduced stress. The module then introduces you to the idea of character strengths and through the VIA survey provides you a detailed understanding of your strengths. The module then provides you tips into how you can plan/recreate your life in order to be more aligned with your character strengths.

Authentic Living in Action: Give Voice to Values

This module introduces you to the second aspect of authentic living – giving voice to your values. The module focuses on the aspect of modern-day living: meaningfulness at work and developing sustainable relationships. The module first provides inputs on meaningfulness of work and presents the idea of loving what you do and of loving what you do. Next, the module discusses the aspect of building sustainable relationships through ‘making time’. The module then provides examples of moral living from the lives of famous Indian heroes, Patanjali, Krishna and Buddha. Last, the module summarizes the HEAL principles presented in the course.