Think good luck is reserved
for leprechauns and lottery
winners? Not so! Expertsreveal the easy habits proven
to spark more serendipityY
ou climb into your car, ready to
tackle a busy day of must-do’s,
but instead, your engine makes
an ominous sound and decides not
to start. By the time you realize that
your battery is dead, you’re already
late for your first appointment. Oh no,
you think. Today of all days, this has
to happen. I must just be unlucky.
“In this moment, when we throw
up our hands and chalk up a chal-
lenging situation to bad luck, we
start blaming external factors,
which makes us feel helpless,” says
researcher Karla Starr, aut hor of
Can You Learn to Be Lucky? And
this feeling of losing control quickly
ratchets up our stress levels.
“When we feel like matters
are out of our hands, stress
chemicals called catechol-
amines are released in our brain’s
prefrontal cortex, causing the neu-
rons that control thought, action
and emotion to disconnect
from one other,” explains Amy
Arnsten, Ph.D., a professor of
neuroscience and psychology at
Yale. “When I experience this, it feels
like my mind is going blank, and I
become distracted, disorganized and
overwhelmed. But it is possible to
break this vicious cycle.”
Indeed, studies show that many
outcomes we attribute to being
unlucky actually have predictable
causes, and by recognizing them, we
can tip the “serendipity scales” in our
favor. Read on for exper t tips to help
you discover more luck in your life.stress sos