The challenge – It’s hard work to maintain a state of good physical health.
 
The science – Health and wellbeing are interrelated, so there are many wellbeing benefits from being healthy.  
 
The solution – Increase your health as a path to increasing your wellbeing (or vice versa).   
 
 
So far in this series we have covered aspects such as connectedness, communication, optimism, meaning, strengths, positive emotions, hope, gratitude and resilience. Now you might be wondering, if these aspects are good for my wellbeing, how do they impact my health? This is a good question to be asking because the science indicates that the relationship between health and wellbeing is largely reciprocal – increase you wellbeing and your health improves, increase your physical health and your wellbeing improves. Thus the mechanisms discussed previously (strengths use, hopefulness, etc.) are equally import for your health as for your wellbeing. So let’s get geeky in order to see how that actually unfolds...
 
Psychologists (and some other disciplines) have defined an area of study called ‘positive health’ where they specifically study ‘health assets’: factors that produce longer life, lower morbidity, lower health care expenditure, better prognosis when illness strikes, and/or higher quality of physical health - over and above the usual suspect risk factors like hypertension, obesity, and a sedentary lifestyle. Whereas medicine has traditionally focused on the absence of symptoms and eradicating illness, and psychologists on the absence of distress and disorder, a more contemporary way of thinking is questioning if these foci are the same as (or equate to) health, happiness, fulfilment and vigour. Although psychology and medicine have done well with curing illness, disease and disorder, ameliorating these has not lead to optimal functioning – either health wise or wellbeing wise. Quite simply the absence of disease is not equivalent to good health. The ambitions of the field of positive health are more in line with the World Health Organisations definition of ‘health’, who back in 1946 defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
 
So take time out to invest in and consider your physical health as an asset to enable your wellbeing. Although this will require time, self-reflection and exploration, and effort, even very small improvements in health status can boost wellbeing. Ask yourself: What activities can you do to improve an aspect of your physical health? To improve your nutrition? To improve your sleep? To improve your exercise regime? What activities do you love to do that could positively impact your health, and thereby increase your wellbeing indirectly?
 
 
For more information:
 
Seligman, M. E. P. (2008). Positive health. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 57, 3-18.

The challenge – It’s hard to bounce back when things get tough or go wrong.
 
The science – It’s possible to become more resilient and greater resilience is related to greater wellbeing.
 
The solution – Focus on increasing your daily dose of positive emotions, reframing experiences positively, getting physically active, obtaining and utilising social support, use your strengths, and being optimistic – all of these lead to becoming more resilient to stressors.  
 
 
Confucius mentioned that “our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall”. So let’s face it, everybody falls and life has it downs to go with the ups. It’s unrealistic to suggest or expect otherwise – at some point we will all have to deal with adverse events or experiences, and major ones at that.
 
Although everyone has downs, how and why do some people survive and grow stronger as a result of misfortune, and even thrive on the challenge, whereas others crumble at the slightest setback? Well their level of psychological resilience may be part of the answer. Resilience is a multidimensional construct that is defined as “the flexibility in response to changing situational demands, and the ability to bounce back from negative emotional experiences”. Thus by resilience I mean our ability to keep going in the face of difficulty, to bounce back from adversity, and to manage our negative emotions more effectively - rather than letting them drag us into a downward spiral of doom and despair.
 
Now some people think of resilience as being a personality trait or characteristic that you are born with or not. However the scientific evidence suggests otherwise - resilience is a skill which can be learned and increased. In fact perhaps the biggest psychology program and study in the world – the US Army’s ‘Comprehensive Solider and Family Fitness’ program –trained all 1.2 million soldiers in the skills of resilience, at a whopping cost of $125 million dollars. The rationale here is that greater resilience will prevent major psychological problems downstream, like Acute Stress Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which are both individually debilitating and socially costly.
 
However the benefits of becoming more resilience are applicable to everyone; not just soldiers and not just in remediating negative experiences. Resilient people are more likely to perceive challenges and setbacks as manageable, have greater emotional stability, greater energy and curiosity, and demonstrate greater ability to cope with both major stressors and daily hassles.
 
In short, greater resilience is related to greater flourishing, and more specifically related to greater life satisfaction, happiness, physical activity, optimism, strength use, social relationships, and less depressed mood to name just a few. Therefore it is unsurprising that validated ways to increase resilience include increasing your daily dose of positive emotions, reframing experiences positively (an optimistic explanatory style), getting physically active, obtaining and utilising social support, use your strengths, and being optimistic.
 
So in times of psychological plenty, now might be a good time to inoculate and increase your resilience.
 
 
For more information:
 
Reivich, K., & Shatté, A. (2002). The resilience factor: 7 keys to finding your inner strength and overcoming life's hurdles. New York: Broadway Books. 

The challenge – It’s hard to be regularly grateful.
 
The science – Being grateful builds strong social relationships and is related to our wellbeing.
 
The solution – Focus on, nurture, and invest in personal relationships by being more thankful.
 
 
When was the last time you said ‘thank you’ to someone and really meant it? Today? Earlier this week perhaps? Last month? When was the last time you said ‘thank you’ out of habit, and then reflected silently that that ‘thank you’ seemed fake? How did that make you feel? Two very different experiences no doubt…
 
Being thankful and grateful is not about being forced to write that thank you card to aunt Mildred for those lovely keen-length brown woollen socks for you birthday in the heat of summer. However, as we become adults we get out of the habit of thanking people formally or regularly. This is a shame as the research evidence suggest that more grateful people are more energetic, determined, helpful, attentive, joyful and optimistic, and report higher life satisfaction than people less grateful. More grateful people are also less anxious, depressed, envious, lonely and materialistic.
 
Gratitude is both a character strength and an emotion, and one of the ways that gratitude works is by helping you reframe your experience in a more positive way, and also to focus on the way in which other people assist you. You can become more grateful, or develop an attitude of gratitude, in a myriad of ways, for example:

• Write a thank you letter as a way of acknowledging and appreciating what other people have done for you.
• Keep a general gratitude journal and write down the things that you are grateful for.
• Write down “three good things” that went well for you each day. These can be significant things or small things, but focus on your or others role in making these good things happen.
• What went well? At the end of the day, write down ‘what went well’. This is a great way to start the process of putting positive things first. It works by simply focusing you on the things that worked, what you can learn from them, and what you can do again next time.

 
So why is this important to know? Well, gratitude builds social relationships which are critical for promoting wellbeing. People’s wellbeing improves when they have richer social networks and connect with others including friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbours. So it may pay to focus on others as “other people matter”, not just in themselves, but in relation to your wellbeing and your ambitions and goals. Invest in building and acknowledging (i.e., being thankful for) good relationships.
 
 
For more information:
 
Emmons, R. A. (2007). THANKS! How the new science of gratitude can make you happier. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin.

The challenge – In order to increase wellbeing, individuals need to know the powerful ingredients to put into the mix – they need to know the key drivers of wellbeing.
 
The science – Cutting-edge science shows that being hopeful is a key ingredient to both achievement and high wellbeing.   
 
The solution – Becoming more hopeful is possible, and hope provides many performance and wellbeing advantages.
 
 
A chocolate cake without coca is probably a crap chocolate cake. Likewise, there are many key ingredients to high wellbeing - perseverance, conscientiousness, self-efficacy, optimism, frequent positive emotions, passion, good social connections, inspiration, the list goes on. It is unlikely that a person will have high wellbeing if they do not have a bunch of these ingredients – i.e., they are not optimistic, passionate, they don’t experience frequent positive emotions, or have good social connections etc. In particular it is unlikely they will have high wellbeing if hope is not part of this wellbeing mix – try imagining a person who has good social connections, is passionate, and has high self- efficacy, yet is not at all a hopeful person. Quite hard isn’t it! Although many ingredients are important in the wellbeing mix, hopefulness is particularly undervalued and underappreciated in the wellbeing stakes – in my humble opinion...
 
More recently researchers have been studying hope – what it is, how to build it, and the impact it can have. ‘Hope Theory’ is a theory articulating that the concept of hope consists of both agency and pathways to outcomes. The individual who has hope has 1) the will and determination that their goals will be achieved, and 2) a set of different strategies, skills and strengths at their disposal to reach their goals. Put simply, hope involves both the will to get to their goals (agency) and different ways and strategies necessary to get to their goals (pathways), and hopeful people have a good stack of both of these.
 
Now for the good news. Being more hopeful is related to a range of beneficial outcomes. For example:
 

• Hope is related to goal obtainment. This is because it allows people to approach problems with a mindset suitable to success, thereby increasing the chances they will actually accomplish their goals. Another way of saying this is that life is full of obstacles and being hopeful (i.e., pathways) helps negotiate those obstacles and inevitable twists and turns of life.
• Hope is related to personal growth goals. People who are more hopeful tend to have learning goals – they are actively engaged in their learning, constantly planning strategies to meet their goals, and monitoring their progress to stay on track. For example in education, students with higher hope stay in school longer and get better grades, and in fact hope is a better predictor of academic achievement than IQ. 
• Hope improves creativity. This link between hope and creativity makes sense because hope involves coming up with a number of different strategies (pathways) for obtaining a goal.

 
So the challenge is to foster hopefulness in yourself and in others that you’re frequently in contact with. Doing so will likely lead to multiple wellbeing and performance payoffs.
 
 
For more information:
 
Lopez, S. (2013). Making hope happen: Create the future you want for yourself and others. New York, NY: Atria Books

The challenge – We are evolutionarily built to be adaptive by focusing on the negative and danger, however this is not always good for our lives, relationships, work or health.
 
The science – People who cultivate and experience a high daily dose of positive emotions are more resilient to stress, perform better in life and work, are healthier, and live longer.  
 
The solution – Cultivate and savour more positive emotions.  
 

Emotions. Crikey! For males that word is a bit radioactive, yet for females it’s the North Star. Regardless of gender, we all know people who appear stone cold emotionally, and those who are super sensitive. So is there a meaningful difference here, and what are emotions exactly? Well first there are the negative emotions - depression, anxiety, fear and so on – and scientists have spent a long time studying these and know a lot about them. Negative emotions are actually necessary for us to flourish, so it’s not all about getting rid of them. For example, fear can sometimes be useful or productive, but people don’t want to “feel” fearful. On the flip side are positive emotions – awe, joy, amusement, inspiration, gratitude, hope and so on – which are more of an uncharted territory. These are subtle and fleeting reactions to your current circumstances – they are feelings that come and go. Positive emotions also serve as markers of flourishing, or optimal wellbeing, so they are part of the wellbeing picture. Now let’s go one step further and clarify the distinction between positive emotions and pleasure as these sometimes get mixed up. Positive emotions are triggered by our interpretations of our current circumstances, whereas pleasure is what we get when we give the body what it needs.
 
So why is all this important? What impact do emotions have on us? Well negative emotions, like fear or sadness, can close down our ability to function, while positive emotions, like awe and hope, open us up to possibility, and an increased ability to move forward. To be more specific about this, positive emotions broaden people's “momentary thought-action repertoires” (scary phrase, but basically means their perspective), which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources.
 
We also know that emotions are important markers of wellbeing and health. In some of my research when we crunch the numbers and divide people into those experiencing high positive emotions and low negative emotions, vs those experiencing low positive emotions and high negative emotions, we can see a link to health behaviours. For example, when comparing the top 25% of people with high positive emotions verse the bottom 25%, people with low positive emotions, people with more positive emotions drink less sugary beverages and alcohol, eat breakfast more regularly, eat more servings of fruit and vegetables, are more physically active and spend less time sitting. The top 25% also on average rate their general health as “good” compared to the bottom 25% who on average rate their health as “fair”. Similar inverse findings to these are also apparent when we look at the top 25% with more negative emotions (sadness, anxiety) compared to those with less negative emotions.
 
So the take-home message is that positive emotions are worth cultivating, not just as end states in themselves, but also as a means to achieving psychological growth and improved health and wellbeing over time. Rearrange your day and life to get more positive emotions. They aid in making you more resilient to stress, perform better in life and work, be healthier, and live longer. If a drug could do that regularly you would probably pay quite a lot for it, but this one is on the house – so to speak…  
 
 
For more information:
 
Fredrickson, B. L. (2009). Positivity: Top-notch research reveals the 3-to-1 ratio that will change your life. New York: Three Rivers Press.

The challenge – Although people are good at knowing and naming their weaknesses (e.g., procrastination or spelling), in general people don’t know their psychological strengths or indeed capitalise on them (e.g., curiosity, kindness, or bravery).
 
The science – People who use their strengths regularly perform better in life and work, and have greater wellbeing and relationships.  
 
The solution – Identify you strengths and consciously invest in cultivating and employing them.
 
 
Some people just nail it – that presentation, that project, that key goal, that sporting task. You look at them and wonder gobsmacked at how they are so good at what they are doing. Others are the opposite and like fish out of water, pushing that water up hill and looking for the nearest fish bowl. The difference is usually that the ‘nailers’ are using their psychological strengths – both the things they are good at, and the things that energise them.
 
So what are psychological strengths? Personal strengths (also called character strengths) are defined as a “natural capacity for behaving, thinking, or feeling in a way that allows optimal functioning and performance in the pursuit of valued outcomes”. Examples of strengths include being curious, socially intelligent, kind, fair, open minded, great leadership, humorous, hopeful, and showing gratitude just to name a few. So why are strengths important? Well, the academic literature on strengths is really stacking up! In brief, empirical studies suggest that the benefits of increased strengths use include greater wellbeing, higher levels of energy and vitality, greater achievement and goal obtainment, greater sense of authenticity, greater resilience when things go wrong, better relationships, and more frequent positive emotions. In addition, people who use their strengths more are also less depressed and less stressed. We also know, and this is the exciting part, that strengths use can be taught, and there is a strong link between strengths use and wellbeing.
 
The message here is take time out to uncover your (potentially) hidden psychological assets. This will require time, self-reflection and exploration. Ask yourself: What activities give you a buzz? (energy). What activities come naturally to you? (ease). What activities do you simply love to do? (motivation). When do you feel most yourself? (authenticity). Once you are gaining insight into your strengths, then wield them like a laser… Also do a free strengths assessment here: https://www.viacharacter.org/
 
 
For more information:
 
Linley, A., Willars, J., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). The strengths book: Be confident, be successful, and enjoy better relationships by realising the best of you. Coventry, UK: CAPP Press.

The challenge – A lot of people don’t find their work satisfying.
 
The science – One of the strongest aspects of satisfying work is the amount of personal meaning it provides. 
 
The solution – Craft your work so that it has meaning for you, or find work that has.
 
 
What’s the point of turning up to work? Because you want income, job security, good working hours? Maybe, but nope, not really. Research tells us that people really want purpose in what they are doing, they want to make a difference, and make a difference to others. This holds true regardless of job role, level, or industry.
 
So what saps the meaning out of work? Well we know that answer to that one too. Take away employees autonomy, limit their variety and challenges available, withhold performance feedback, and limit their potential impact, and you are likely to end up with disengaged employees who ask themselves daily “What’s the point of turning up to work?”.
 
Now it gets a bit more complicated. It also depends on how much you job impacts on others. There is a difference between being a bean counter and a firefighter, so to speak. The single biggest impact on meaningfulness is the belief that your job can and does have a positive impact on others. As previously mentioned in my first blog on connections and relationships, “other people matter”. People want what they do on a daily basis to benefit others and society.
 
So now for the good news. You can make your job more meaningful. Think about the value chain. If you’re a long way from the end users of your company’s products and services, you need to connect directly with them in some way so you can see your impact. Here is an example, in one study when radiologists saw a patient’s x-rays but also a photo of the patient, they wrote 29% longer reports and made 46 percent more accurate diagnoses. Seeing how their work made an impact on others made the difference in outcome. Get to the cold face and see what’s happening, and by seeing the consequences of your work for others, you can find meaning.
 
Now it’s also true that some jobs have less opportunity than other to do this. In these cases you need to craft your job. This involves mapping out ways to make your job and interactions with others more meaningful and contribute more to others. Over and above job crafting, the bigger picture is that you can draw meaning from multiple sources, including family and love, work, religion, and various personal projects – work is but one aspect.
 
So take time out in your busy day to contemplate your impact. You may find thinking about your meaning and purpose, and how it applies in your work, pays dividends in the wellbeing stakes.
 
 
For more information:
 
Dik, B. J., Byrne, Z. S., & Steger, M. F. (2013). Purpose and meaning in the workplace (Eds.). Washington: APA Books. 

The challenge – It’s hard to always look at the world from an optimistic view point.
 
The science – An optimistic explanatory style (way of thinking) is strongly related to wellbeing and performance.
 
The solution – Learning to be more optimistic in your thinking will likely increase your wellbeing and performance.
 
 
Some people are ‘glass half empty’ people, and chances are you know a couple. On the other hand, some are ‘glass half full’ and chances are you know a couple these people as well. Most people sit somewhere in between, and their views of things are impacted by a range of situational and personal dispositional factors.
 
Optimistic individuals are positive about events in daily life. In the research carried out regarding this perspective, positive associations have been found between optimism and physical and mental wellbeing. Optimistic people tend to be more resilient to stress, and are inclined to use more appropriate coping strategies. Here is just a brief snapshot of some of these research findings:

• Optimists have better immune functioning and fewer illnesses, and recover from illness and injury faster.
• A pessimistic explanatory style is significantly associated with mortality – 19% greater mortality over 30 years.
• Optimists are more rational and realistic than pessimists.
• Pessimists are less resilient in difficult circumstances that optimists.
• Optimists use more problem-focused strategies, information seeking, and positive reframing.

 
Let’s look past these more general findings and look at one particular area: sales. To quote Peter Schulman:
 
Studies conducted with two insurance companies, for example, found that sales people with optimistic explanations went on to sell significantly more insurance and were less likely to quit than those with pessimistic explanations. The optimistic salespeople sold 35 percent more insurance than the pessimists. Also, the pessimists were twice as likely as the optimists to quit by the end of their first year.
 
Other academics (e.g., Weiner, 1985; Badovick,1990) have also found a relationship between optimistic attributions and sales performance. Why do optimists sell more than pessimists? One important clue to the answer is how the individual handles adversity. As mentioned above, optimists use more problem-focused strategies. Another reason is that people want to do business with people they like. And that means happy, upbeat salespeople are more successful than their sour colleagues. Optimism is helpful not only because it leads to projecting a happy attitude, but also because it results in confidence – one of the most crucial selling skills. Expectations of success or failure are often self-fulfilling prophecies.
 
The moral of this story is that ability and motivation are not always enough in the absence of optimistic expectations, particularly in situations that require persistence to overcome adversity, such as in jobs like sales. The links go from optimism increasing wellbeing, to increased wellbeing positively impacting performance (such as sales or productivity). Luckily, there are plenty of books and courses available to teach how become more optimistic – it’s a skill that can be learned.
 
For more information:
 
Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life (2nd ed). New York: Vintage Press.
 
Schulman, P. (1999). Applying learned optimism to increase sales productivity. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 19, 31-37.

The challenge – we know relationships are import for our wellbeing (see last week’s blog), but we also know great communication builds great relationships, yet communication skills can always be sharpened and improved.
 
The science – positive communication builds strong social relationships, as it is not just about good communication when things are going wrong, it is also about good communication when things are going right!
 
The solution – Focus on other people’s positive news and when you hear it, focus on it and help them savour it. This will help build strong social connections.
 
 
“Mate, that really sucks you got that parking ticket! Thanks man, appreciate that.” Such dialogue between people builds strong relationships. “Mate, that’s bloody awesome you closed that deal. Tell me more! What was the best part about it? What did you do exactly?”. Such dialogue between people builds even stronger relationships and the following explains exactly why.
 
This is because the latter is an Active Constructive Response. An active constructive response is essentially responding to other’s good news with enthusiasm, energy, and engagement. This type of response acknowledge the persons good news so they fell understood, lets then remember and enjoy it more, and thus strengthens the relationship connection.
 
There are essentially four ways of responding, and active constructive responding has been shown to build solid, strong and lasting relationships the best:

• An Active Constructive Response involves expressing enthusiastic positive support.
• An Active Destructive Response involves expressing a derogatory or critical response.
• A Passive Constructive Response involves showing benign disinterest.
• A Passive Destructive Response involves distancing or failing to respond.

 
Suppose that a colleague gets a promotion at work. These four types of responses could be something like:

• Active Constructive Response = “That’s really great. Your wife/husband will be pretty proud of you. I know how important that promotion was to you. We should go out and celebrate”. During such communication the person is maintaining eye contact and displaying positive emotion, such as laughing or smiling.
• Active Destructive Response = “That sounds like a lot of responsibility to take on. There will probably be more stress involved in the new position and potentially longer hours at the office”. The person is displaying negative emotions, such as frowning or anxiety.
• Passive Constructive Response = “That’s good news”. The person is displaying little nonverbal communication.
• Passive Destructive Response = “What are we doing Friday afternoon?” The person does not acknowledge the good news, is not in eye contact, and may be turning away or leaving the room.

 
Empirical studies suggest that using ‘active constructive responding’ is a good way to convey understanding, validation and caring, and to increase the wellbeing of your existing friends, as well as to make new friends and to encourage closer, more trusting relationships with them.
 
So if you want strong lasting relationships, you should listen carefully to people you care about, and when they report good events to you, respond actively and constructively to their good events. What this technique highlights is that giving enthusiastic and attentive feedback is very important in building positive on-going relationships. Don’t take people and key relationships for granted, instead consciously work to improve them. Small actions, such as positive communication at the right time, can drastically improve your relationships over time. It is these kinds of behaviours that do the most to strengthen the relationships in our lives, and we know good strong relationships build personal and group wellbeing. As mentioned in the last blog post, other people matter, so foster a sense of genuine interest and curiosity in others.
 
For more information:
 
Gable, S. L., Reis, H. T., Impett, E., & Asher, E. R. (2004). What do you do when things go right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 228-245. 

​The challenge – most people like being connected, but very few people are satisfied with their social connections and relationships, and most in western countries we are not well connected.
 
The science – social networks have a huge influence on all aspects of our daily lives, and our relationships have a huge impact on wellbeing.
 
The solution – other people matter. Focus on, nurture, and invest in personal relationships.
 
 
Some people are loners. Some have more friends than Richard Branson. An individual’s friendship circles are dictated to a large degree by their personality style – for example, extroverts usually have more friends than introverts. However, it’s not only about the number of friends, but of the quality of those relationships. For instance, would you rather have 500 friends that you spend 3 minutes with once a year, or 60 friends you connect with for 30 minutes every few weeks? Answers vary according to personality preference.
 
Surprisingly, looking back though human history a common figure of 150 seems to be apparent – for example army units (divisions, legions, etc) were on average 150 in size up to the central command. Today the median number of Facebook friends is 200. Speaking of which, social networking websites such as Facebook are good examples of social networks.
 
One reason we form these networks is because they help us manage our complex social world. Our social networks have an extraordinary influence because we are not only affected by the people to whom we are directly connected, but also by the other people to whom our connections are connected. The science indicates that social networks follow some pretty simple rules:

Rule 1: We shape our network.
Rule 2: Our network shapes us.
Rule 3: Our friends affect us.
Rule 4: Our friends’ friends’ friends affect us.
Rule 5: The network has a life of its own.

So what do we know about social networks, connectedness, and wellbeing? Well first, emotions are contagious! Rule number four, otherwise known as the “Three Degrees of Influence Rule” is an interesting example of this. In short it means that the behaviours and emotions of people three degrees of separation away in a network (i.e. your friends’ friends’ friends) have an affect on you. Being connected to a happy friend makes you 15 percent more likely to be happy yourself, to a friend’s friend 10 percent, and being connected at three degrees of separation (the happiness of a friend of a friend of a friend) makes you 6 percent more likely.
 
This network flow through also applies to (or has similar findings) for things like obesity or smoking or charitable giving or depression. The point here is, hey, be careful who your friends are as your colleague's husband's sister can make you unhappy, even if you don't know her!
 
So why is this important to know? Well, social relationships are critical for promoting wellbeing. People’s wellbeing improves when they have richer social networks and connect with others including friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbours. 
 
So what should you do? Well it may pay to focus on others as other people matter, not just in themselves, but in relation to your wellbeing and to those who you work with and care about. Invest in building relationships, and enabling those around you. Cultivate meaningful bonds and loyalty at work rather than selfish alternatives. Foster emotional stampedes.
 
For more information:
 
Christakis, N. A. & Fowler, J. H. (2009). Connected: The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives. New York: Little Brown and Company.