The Velten Mood induction procedure consists of reading a series of statements which start neutral and get progressively more and more positive, or more and more negative. So you end up with things like "Things look good. Things look great!" for the positive velten, and "I want to go to sleep and never wake up." for the negative. When I was writing Mind Hacks I wanted to get hold of the full list of Velten statements, but couldn't find them. Now, for your education and delight (or despair) I've got them and put them here: positive Velten negative Velten The great things about the Velten is that it really works. I think the correct analogy is to watching a play - you know it is a fiction, the characters can even point out that it is a fiction, yet you are still emotionally involved in the story. (I think this a fact of fundamental importance to understanding the nature of consciousness).

As it happens, according to this quiz I am a dp. Maybe I should read the book. Via Dr Shellie.

Prozac treatment specifically stimulates the generation of "amplifying neural progenitors" -- the second step in the neurogenesis pathway from stem cells to mature neurons.

"The simple cure? Do everything opposite. Tell yourself: this isn't so hard, it won't take long, and I am sure that I know how to do it, or that I can learn while I'm doing it. And no one else really cares because they are all so busy with their own problems." Via rebecca blood.

Seems odd but recommended by 37signals.

Touching and useful (see also: Seligman's gratitude exercise).

Central to Seligman's positive psychology is "eudaemonia, the good life, which is what Thomas Jefferson and Aristotle meant by the pursuit of happiness. They did not mean smiling a lot and giggling. Aristotle talks about the pleasures of contemplation and the pleasures of good conversation. Aristotle is not talking about raw feeling, about thrills, about orgasms. Aristotle is talking about what Mike Csikszentmihalyi works on, and that is, when one has a good conversation, when one contemplates well. When one is in eudaemonia, time stops. You feel completely at home. Self-consciousness is blocked. You're one with the music."

fMRI study: better recovery in response to CBT is predicted by decreased activity in the subgenual cingulate cortex and increased activity in the amygdala, in response to negative stimuli (emotion laden words).

Last year, Helen Mayberg, a neurologist at Emory University's school of medicine in Atlanta, published the results of a decade of research which pinpointed a 2.5cm-wide part of the brain called the subgenual cingulate region (SCR) as playing a major role in dealing with affective information.