Unapologetically Marie

Writer, podcaster, mental health advocate

Happiness Blog

Happy International Day of Friendship (E28)

by

Happiness for Cynics

Celebrate International Day of Friendship with besties Marie and Pete, who hide under a blanket fort on a bed to discuss the value of friendship – from combatting the loneliness epidemic to how it can help you perceive the world differently.

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast Happiness for Cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and speaker focused on change and resilience.

P: And I’m Peter Furness a flexibility fan, adaptive, creative and gold focused obsessive. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: So if you’re feeling low.

P: Or if you’re only satisfied with life but not truly happy with it.

M: Maybe just want more.

P: Then this is the place to be.

M: And this week, we are talking about friendships.

P: Awe

[Happy Music]

M: So, Pete, we’re trialing a new model for recording podcasts this week.

P: Yes, we’re talking about friendships. And I’m being a really good friend because you put me under a blanket.

[Laughter]

M: Literally.

P: Literally, really. And I’m sitting here and I’m hot [Laugh].

M: So I was listening to our own podcast this week, and I decided that we echo too much because we don’t have the sound studio. We’re now in my bedroom. My husband is very forgiving.

P: I’m schmitzing like a schmagetthi.

[Laughter]

M: We’re hiding under a blanket. We’ll see whether the sound quality is any better for all of you out there.

P: This isn’t gonna last in summer you can tell.

M: We have air con it’s OK. So this is what good friends do, we make forts on the bed.

[Laughter]

M: And speaking of good friends were talking about friendship today.

P: Very big topic.

M: And really, I’m going to call out to a new friend that we’ve both made recently, David. David, no last name, we’ll protect the privacy of our new friends and we were talking just last weekend about the concept of your chosen family.

P: Yes.

M: And I think for a lot of us today who move away from our hometowns you choose your new family when you move to new areas.

P: I think it’s vital to find your chosen family because you need to replace those close bonds with someone else and if you don’t have your family around you. Then you need to find, you need to find your tribe.

M: Find your tribe. And you know what? When you could choose your family..

P: [Laughter] there is a little bit of that.

M: Times can be much happier.

P: Well they can be. Although there are, there are lessons to be learned by sticking with the one person for 20/30 years.

M: Yeah, True, true. So let’s get to why this is important. Why friendship is important. I think that the macro story here is that there is a loneliness epidemic right now.

P: Is there? Is there actually a loneliness epidemic at the moment?

M: Absolutely. So, there’s a lot of research right now. We’re living older and unfortunately, even when we do couple up, we don’t always die at the same age. So there’s a lot more people who are living a lot longer by themselves we’re also divorcing at higher rates, not so much in the last 10/ 20 years, but divorce rates have gone up in the last few hundred years. So there are more people in general who just are single going into their older years as well. And also we’re marrying later. So again there are a lot more single people out there who are living by themselves and particularly with Corona virus. This has been a huge problem with people just being alone, not only lonely but alone for so long.

P: Yeah, that’s true.

M: So it is definitely. They’re calling it the loneliness epidemic. So estimates as high as 30% of people are lonely.

P: Wow.

M: And feel lonely regularly in their lives.

P: OK.

M: Yes. So this is why friendship is so important. Such a big topic. And also because all the research shows that having strong relationships and finding your tribe and sense of belonging and connectedness is critical to happiness.

P: Yeah that message comes through in every single time we talk about something. It’s like, it’s really the social connections are the big ones. Friendships is another one of those social conventions. And I guess with friendship as well that comes down to a social paradigm; Because since the change of the last 100 years of social conventions and the ideas of marriage and so forth where a lot of people are choosing not to be married at all and that whole concept of staying single and being content, staying single. It’s no longer a thing of like ‘Oh, you’re going to die an old maid.’ Now it’s like ‘you’re going to die and old maid and it’s going to be great!’

M: [Laugh]

P: There is, There is. There is no..

M: Shame.

P: Predilection to being, yeah or shame being single and being, you know, cast into a life of looking after your parents in the county cottage aka Jane Austen anymore. You know, you can be single, be happy and this is where friendships do come in because you can replace those marriage ties or family ties that come with marriage with friendships. And that’s where David’s thing about the chosen family becomes really important.

M: Absolutely and even your.. I’m married and happily married. Mostly.

P: [Laugh]

M: I mean, no marriage is perfect. Let’s be really honest and vulnerable here. He leaves his socks everywhere. It’s a thing. It drives me batty. But we’re happy, so happy, so, so happy.

P: [Laugh]

M: Anyway. But my friends are such a big part of my life. And..

P: I was going to take you to task over this Marie because those of you who do know us, we’ve been friends for a while now. I would say you’re a very driving force in terms of keeping our social connections going. In our social group. You are the one that actually gets in there and organises regular catchup’s and says, no, no, no, let’s do this, let’s keep this going on. I was going to pose a question to you. It could be part of your personality because you are the organisation princess, that we know and love. But is that, was it a conscious decision for you? Or is it a conscious decision for you to to, make sure and plan those catch ups and commit because I find you are very committed to those catch ups.

M: I can. Umm, that’s a really good question, and now you’ve thrown me.

P: Ah ha! He he.

M: I think part of its personality. Let’s be really honest.

P: Yep!

M: I like control.

[Laughter]

P: I get that. But there is, you’re the person that really does, like, push.  Like ‘No, no, we’re not letting this go, guys. We’re going to catch up this week, and it’s going to be this week and it’s going to be tomorrow.’

M: ‘And you will enjoy it and it will be fun and everyone will laugh!’

P: And that’s your personality coming out.

[Laughter]

P: Whereas I think for some of us and I’m guilty of this, definitely some of my long term friends will be nodding in agreement that it’s too easy to let those catch ups to go.

M: Yeah.

P: It’s too easy to just go ‘Oh no, let’s just do it next week. I’m feeling tired.’ And that’s actually it’s important not to do that all the time.

M: Yeah, look, I think it depends on the person you’re going to get me in trouble here. I find it easier, proximity helps to drive a lot of what I choose to do with my friends. So if it’s just going down to the local pub, so much easier than driving across the bridge.

P: Oh, yes, absolutely.

M: To go see someone.

P: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

M: And if it’s an activity I like.

P: Volleyball.

M: Food.

P: Food, volleyball. Got it. [Laugh]

M: Yeah, pretty much so look as long as those two things align, then I’ll push for things happening. But it’s, it’s weird that you say that because I feel like I’ve been really quite introverted and isolated during Covid.

P: Which, this surprises me about you because that’s not the impression that I’ve had to you for the last eight years or so.

M: Yep, yep. I don’t know.

P: Maybe, maybe the pandemic has changed you.

M: No I’ve always, I’ve always fought against too much social time, a love my social time, and I love people and I love hanging out with people, and I get a lot from those interactions, and I think it’s critical. And as a journalist and then a communications expert, I completely understand the benefit and value of face to face communication in particular. And I understand how that’s challenging people right now during Covid, however, it’s exhausting to me.

P: Yeah, alright.

M: So I need my time to re-centre, and I think that’s where the writing and reading comes in, and researching.

P: That’s the introvert/ extrovert balance there isn’t it?

M: Yeah, and I’m constantly fighting that pull.

P: I think it’s a fine line. I think I do the same thing. I really value my solo time. And for me, I’ve had more people living in my house lately and it’s interesting how that changes your solo time. And every now and then you’re like ‘Oh, can everyone just leave.’ I just need an hour. [Laugh]

M: Yep, So that’s been my reality. And I feel like I’m always fighting that every day, like I just want everyone to go away.

P: Yeah.

M: So that’s why I say I’m an introvert. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hang out with people and love people.

P: But friendships are vitally important to making sure that we keep those social connections and instances alive. So let’s talk a bit more about the research behind that.

M: You’ve done a whole lot. So, I looked very much into why this is important and looked at the loneliness epidemic and another one, sleeplessness breeds loneliness.

P: Sleeplessness breeds loneliness. Okay, let’s go into that one.

M: Again, I don’t actually, we won’t spend too much time on this one. I don’t know whether lonely people don’t get as much sleep, and therefore, when they’re not sleeping there feeling more lonely, I don’t know the cause and effect there, right? They’re not going out, and I don’t know how that works, but absolutely there’s so much that’s tied to insomnia and sleeplessness when it comes to depression and just not feeling good. So, sleeplessness or insomnia or poor sleep could be a cause or an effect.

P: I think it makes you less likely to reach out to people because being in proximity to people and having to take part in a conversation becomes a bit more exhausting if you’ve had sleeplessness.

M: Mmm Hhm. Yep, Absolutely. Now you had some great studies here?

P: Yeah. I have.

M: I want to hear about your University of Virginia one. Can we go to that one?

P: [Laugh] Yeah okay. So the perception of friendship and how it makes us perceive things, friendships make us perceive our life better. One of the great benefits of friendships is that we get to sound things off people and that can change our perception of how well off or how beneficial we are or how healthy we are and all those sorts of things.

The University of Virginia did a wonderful study with backpacks and a hill. So, they took 34 students. Put them all at the bottom of a hill and for some of the students, they couple them up with friends, and for some of them they were left alone and the question was how steep is the hill? And they had a high degree of the people with couples, friendships perceived the hill to be a lot less steep because they were standing there with a backpack on their shoulders and they had their buddy.

M: Oh, I love it.

P: Mmm. So it changes the way that you look at the world when you’ve got someone standing next to you or by you or with you.

M: So it’s just a perception thing.

P: Completely.

M: I have a great little story that I want to share, which has nothing to do with anything  but I want to share it.

P: [Laugh] That’s what you do on this podcast.

M: But you made me think of [it]. Just about.. ‘Oh, I’m just going to share it anyway. So, a teacher blew up balloons, hundreds of balloons and put them into the corridor with each of the students names on it. And all the students came out of their classrooms at the end of the day and she said, ‘Okay, kids, you’ve got a minute to find your balloon.’ And there were hundreds of kids and hundreds of balloons.

P: That sounds like so much fun! [Laugh]

M: They went into the balloons and they were looking and after a minute she said ‘Ok everyone stop, who’s found their balloon?’ and no one had ofcourse because there were too many and no one could find their balloon. She said to them, ‘If you had stopped for a second and not thought about you and your balloon, but thought about everyone else in the room and found one balloon with a person’s name that you know and handed them their balloon. Everyone would have had their balloon within a minute.

P: Mmm. That’s beautiful. That’s wonderful.

M: Absolutely. And so the moral is, happiness is the same. If you’re constantly looking just at yourself, you’ll never find happiness.

P: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn’t come through.

M: But if you do it with your friends, if you find your friends and you worry about their happiness. Happiness will come back to you.

P: That’s because happiness isn’t a destination, it’s a benefit.

M: But it’s also social and it’s about, it’s about looking after others and being kind to others and we’ve talked about volunteering before as an example as well, spending your time being kind to others comes back to you tenfold.

P: Tenfold, definitely. I’ve got a story that supports that actually.

M: This is actual research not just story.

P: Well, no, this one’s a book and it was written by Jeffrey Zaslow and it’s the story of The Girls from Ames. I think I said that right. It’s a story of women in a 40 year old friendship and this author talks about a group of 11 childhood friends who shared crises and support and lives, and they’ve been in this relationship for 40 years to the point where they all moved to different parts of the country and they were separated by a great geographical boundaries and at some point, as these ladies aged, there were different things that came up and one woman was diagnosed with breast cancer and when she spoke to her doctor, her doctor said, ‘Surround yourself with the people who love you’ and, of course she immediately thought of her, … her family. But then the first people that she reached out to was this circle of friends, this circle of 11 people and she talked differently with them than she did with her doctor and even with her family.

And one of the things was when she was going through the chemotherapy treatment, she said, ‘Oh, my throat is always really dry.’ So one friend sent her a smoothie maker and recipes for smoothies and it was that kind of thoughtfulness that came through, and it’s because she felt much more comfortable talking about the intricacies and the details of her, her symptoms and how she was feeling because she knew she could trust these women with everything, and it’s that honesty and openness. You know, it comes down to, you know I’ll be really blank and frank here. Being able to talk about lovers and so forth with friends and going this was happening the other night, and I didn’t know what was going on. We’ve all had those conversations. You can’t talk to your husband about that.

M: Yeah.

P: Vault conversations. I remembered you talked about that once. No this doesn’t leave the…

M: There are some vault conversations, yeah.

P: But it is. It’s that freedom to be able to talk completely and honestly and openly, and that’s where friendships are really special and in this way, it’s supported by some of the other research that I’ve seen with Rebecca G. Adams, a Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and she cites .. that ‘friendship has more psychological impact than family.’

M: It’s your chosen family.

P: It’s.. See the research supports that perhaps our friendships are really more important than our family relationships at certain points in our life.

M: Well, obviously not as a baby, but..

P: No but maybe as we get older, it’s possibly more important that we surround ourselves with close friendships.

M: Yeah.

P: And I can say this. Honestly, I believe that I have a really close friendship with my sister, and that’s gotten even more closer as we’ve gone on together. We were never that close as kids, but now I could trust her with anything. And yet I probably wouldn’t ring her up and talk about my lover’s and things like that. [Laugh]

M: I don’t think she’d want to hear it Pete.

P: Well she might [laugh]. You never know.

M: I think that it starts in teen years when you’re trying to break away from your parents. I think that’s when, when the shift happens, definitely you’re learning to be independent and friendships at that age can have a huge impact on who you end up being as an adult.

P: Absolutely and that, they are very formative, some of the research I came across was really supportive about how we seek friendships in our teen years and what that does for our development.

M: Mmm Hmm. Definitely, always looking for the cool kids.

P: [Laugh] The rebels. I think that says something about us.

M: [Laugh] So I know both of us have moved a lot and have had a variety of different friendships, and I’ve definitely been blessed with the different cultures that have had to..

P: Get to know?

M: Get to know.

P: And understand? [Laugh]

M: Yeah, definitely and I think, I think it’s just such a blessing when you move overseas and can make friends with people who are not like you.

P: Yeah, Ahh yes.

M: And you find things that bond you together and learn so much more about yourself. You know, I think it’s really valuable to.. And then I went and married an American.

P: He he

M: So I think that’s just such a good growth opportunity as well. But making friends is not easy.

P: It kinda.. for some people it’s really difficult, definitely. I wasn’t I wasn’t able to make friends very easily at all until I moved away from home.

M: Same, actually. And I went to a preschool that fed into a primary school, that fed into the high school friends, and then my college and then most of my friends, all went to the two universities in my town, right?

P: Right, He he.

M: So it wasn’t ‘til I went overseas that I had to.. And I’d made different friends along the way, but more because they’d come into my life and joined my friendship circles, not because I’d gone looking for them. It was until I moved overseas that I was like, well, this is awkward.

P: Yeah.

M: Hi, I’m Marie..

P: How do I do this? [Laugh]

M: And I like long walks on the beach, oh no that’s dating, shit.

P: [Laugh]

M: You did the same thing you moved to London.

P: Yeah, that was one of my big moments for me. I was actually on my way to the continent, I was going to Paris that was my goal. I wanted to work in Paris, but I landed in London. And my beautiful, lovely, wonderful friend Adam was living in London at the time and he was already established in a house and long story short, my trip to Paris never happened because I got to London. I got into the house and they were like ‘dude there’s a room here, you could possibly stay here’ and all of a sudden I had work. I was like, Oh, looks like I’m staying in London then. And those guys were my chosen family overseas and we had a Skippy house. We had one Scottish girl on one English girl, but we were predominantly Australians and it was kooky, crazy blend of people but it worked and it gave me a support network so that I felt like I had that instant crew and friendship around me. In a city like London, really important.

M: I think it’s interesting that as we’ve gotten more money, we tend to move to single living. Living by ourselves like that’s an achievement to have a place of your own and the implications of that are that we can be really lonely.

P: [Laughter]

M: It’s actually really bad, so I don’t know whether we’ve put value on the wrong thing. We’ve spoken before about success and the..

P: Markers that we achieve or aspire to.

M: You know, having a house by yourself shows that you’ve really made it. I just think maybe communal living is actually the way to go. I think that sometimes, I think ‘My God I’m a 47 year old man and I’m still in a share house. But at the end of it, it works and I enjoy it, and it is nice sometimes to come home on your own as I said, and my housemate’s are going to be killing me here. [Laugh] But it is also really lovely sometimes to come home and go ‘Hi, and sit down and all of a sudden there’s a bottle of wine open and there’s pizza in the oven and you chill out and all of a sudden it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and you go ‘oh we’ve just talked the night away.

M: Which is lovely. Alright, well, that’s all we have time for today, unfortunately.

P: Awe.. sad.

M: So thank you for joining us today. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember, you can find us at marieskelton.com, a site about how to find balance, happiness and resilience in your life, including some really practical tips and resource is to get you started on your happiness journey.

P: Yay.

M: Until next time.

P: Choose happiness!

[Happy exit music]

Related content: Read Moving On article How To Make Friends As An Adult, listen to our Podcast: The Benefits of Volunteering (E22)

How to Support a Friend When They’re Having a Tough Time

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What to Say When You Don’t Know What to Say

Sometimes it can be hard to know how to support a friend when they’re having a tough time. Everyone has bad days. That’s life, right? Those are the times we rally around our friends or family and let them have a vent over a bowl of ice-cream or a bottle of wine.

But sometimes it’s more than a bad day. Has your heart ever broken for what someone you love has just told you? Maybe they’ve just lost a love one, or they’ve been given a terminal medical diagnosis, and you just don’t know what to say or how to support. Or maybe you’ve noticed a change in someone’s behaviour, and you’re worried about them, but you don’t know what’s wrong or whether they even want to talk.

Sometimes what someone says is so horrible and outside our own personal experience that it leaves us speechless. Sometimes it’s so bad that what they really need is professional support to deal with the horrors and trials of life.

So how should you support a friend when they’re having a tough time? How you can be a good friend to someone who is grieving or struggling with life if you’re not a trained counsellor or psychologist?

How to Support a Friend When They’re Having a Tough Time

When it’s an Emergency

To start with, let’s be clear, if someone is in immediate danger, call 000 (in Australia).

How to Start the Conversation

If your friend hasn’t opened the door to the conversation, but you can tell something is up, you need to be sure they want to talk about with you. You could start by asking “I notice you’re not yourself lately, if you think it would be helpful, I’m always around to talk about whatever is going on.” Then leave them with that, and if they want to, they can choose to talk to you, you’re not forcing them.

But do remember, if someone opens up to you once, you shouldn’t continue to follow up with them about it every time you see them from then on. Your friend might need to talk it through only once, and might be ready to move on now that you’ve supported them. In fact, constantly hashing it out might be stopping them from moving on. So, let them come back to you to talk again if they want to, or not if that’s what they choose – but leave it up to them.

Listen and Leave Your Judgement at the Door

Once your friend decides to open up to you, the first thing to remember is to leave all judgement behind. For instance, a crisis for one person is not a crisis for another. It might not be anything near a crisis for you, but you should remember that if it’s a crisis for that person, then it’s a crisis. Your job is to listen respectfully.

Secondly, remember that if someone thinks they’re in a crisis, it can take a huge amount of trust and courage to open up to someone. If that person is you, then your friend is putting a lot of trust in you. The best way to repay that trust is to let your friend talk. You can and should ask questions, but stop yourself from drawing parallels with your story, because it might not align to their values or view and that misalignment can quickly break that trust and stop your friend from being truly honest with you. Again, your job is to listen, leave any judgement or personal stories at the door and simply be there for your friend.

Don’t try to Solve Things

You might mean well, but remember you’re not a medical professional, counsellor or therapist. As a friend, your role is not to solve anything. Your role is to listen. A quick tip is to remember to listen with the intent to listen, not with the intent to reply. Your first job is to make your friend feel heard.

Ask Questions to Empower. Don’t Give Advice or try to Solve the Problem.

Sometimes when someone is in an emotional state, they can’t see the answers or way forward. Their thoughts and ability to think logically are often overwhelmed by the chaos of their thoughts. This can be really frustrating because looking from the outside in, you might feel like the answers or ways forward are just so obvious.

Remember, you don’t want to solve your friend’s problems, you want to listen and make them feel heard. If you try to solve someone else’s problem, you are making them completely depending on you. When what they need more than anything is to be empowered to make their own decisions. Don’t make someone dependent on you.

If you can see a path forward that your friend can’t see, you can gently ask questions that can help steer them to finding an answer themselves. Ask, and what do you think? What would you like?

Beware of Re-traumatising

Be careful of a friend who wants to retell you the story again and again and again. This can potentially re-traumatise them each time they tell the story, and rather than helping it can make it worse for your friend and potentially deepen the level of trauma. Try to contain conversations to avoid causing more harm. We know that talking can help, but if your friend is stuck, they may need to talk to a professional.

Also, be aware that these conversations can take their toll on your mental health and resilience too. They can start to traumatise you too! Keep an eye on your mental health and if you need to, make sure you look after yourself too by debriefing with a friend whom you trust.

Offer Additional Services That Might be Helpful

As we mentioned earlier in the article, you are not a professional, and it’s important to know when to hand over to a professional. If you’re worried about your friend’s mental health, you can get online and look up resources that could be useful. There is a range of free and confidential services you can find online – see below for some options.

Here’s the catch, remember, you don’t want to solve someone’s problems for them, so when it comes to sharing the website or phone numbers for support services, you want to offer it as an option.

You can say something like: “I can hear that you really are struggling financially. Lots of people in your situation find financial counsellors helpful, please let me know if you want me to find a number for you or we can go online and look together.”

Lastly, as frustrating as it might be, you can only provide resources for people, you can’t force them to get professional help. It has to be their decision to get help. You can, however, ask what it is about getting help that they’re against and dispel any myths.

Getting Help

If you or a loved one needs help or support, you can call the below free and confidential services 27/4 in Australia.

For crisis support and suicide prevention, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or visit their website at www.lifeline.org.au.

For anxiety, depression any other mental health challenges, call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 or visit their website at www.beyondblue.org.au

Related reading: Where are you on the Coronavirus Change Curve?

The Importance of Having Fun In Your Life with Dr Mike Rucker (E27)

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Happiness for Cynics

In this week’s episode, we talk to Dr Mike Rucker about the importance of having fun in your life and how it improves your overall wellbeing.

One of the narratives that I like to talk about is productivity porn or hustle porn. We get caught up in this notion that we have to devote our lives to work and that should be our purpose. And we’re just not wired for that.

Mike Rucker

About Dr Mike Rucker

Mike Rucker is a thought leader in the field of health and wellness, specifically regarding tactics to attract and motivate people towards healthier behaviours. He has worked with Universal Studios, Sony, Red Bull, and Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, among others.

In 2016, he was named one of the top 50 influencers in digital health by Onalytica. He has a Ph.D., is a charter member of the International Positive Psychology Association, and a member of the American Psychological Association.

Find Mike at:

Keep an eye out in 2021 for Mike’s new book!

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the Podcast Happiness for Cynics. Each week we will bring you the latest news and research in the world of Positive Psychology otherwise known as happiness. I’m Marie Skelton a writer and speaker focused on change and resilience my co-host Pete is a bundle of joy but he’s off doing something fabulous I’m sure because today’s episode is all about bringing fun into your life and to discuss that we went straight to the source with an interview with Dr. Mike Rucker who has the coolest title ever, he is a fun expert. So, let’s get to this.

[Intro Music]

M: Mike Rucker is a thought leader in the field of health and wellness, specifically regarding tactics to attract and motivate people towards healthier behaviours. In 2016 he was named one of the Top 50 influencers in Digital Health by Onalytica. He has a PhD, is a Charter member of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and a member of the American Psychological Association. He’s worked with Universal Studios, Sony, Red Bull and Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, among others. And although he’s passionate about many more things than I can fit into this short bio; today he joins us to talk about having fun and improving people’s overall well-being. Thanks, Mike, for joining us on happiness for cynics. I’m so excited to have you on the show.

Mike: Thanks so much for having me.

M: So, I’m keen to start by asking you how you got involved in studying the science of fun.

Mike: So… so as you mentioned in the bio at the onset of the positive psych movement, I mean, I guess, Csikszentmihalyi and flow and all of that kind of thing predated the IPPA. But when Marty Seligman’s book Authentic Happiness came out, that was really the onset of, you know, popular psychology, becoming popular, Sorry excuse me positive psychology, becoming popular.

Mike: And I was caught up in that movement. So I became a Charter member of the IPPA and study diligently Seligman, Csikszentmihalyi and others and a lot of the things that you discuss on your podcast, things like gratitude and kindness and so you know, I have been practising those tools for quite some time, but in 2016 kind of a trifecta of bad news came my way. I’ve been a lifelong runner and found out that I was going to need a hip replacement. My little brother unexpectedly passed away from a pulmonary embolism and then my wife got a job offer that was going to take us out of state. So that kind of uprooted us from family and friends. And so a lot of what I had learned, you know, taking gratitude and things of that nature just weren’t working, you know, I was really trying to use mindset and the other things too and I found that there were a few things right, so I had used them for so long that it kind of, you know, they weren’t effective.

And then two, especially with the passing of my brother. I didn’t necessarily want to be happy. I didn’t feel like, you know, happiness was the right thing for me. It wasn’t part of my identity in that moment, but and I was also in the throws of finishing my dissertation. So, like any good academic went to the literature and started seeing if there was anything that I had missed and what I did find was a big research gap in this idea of fun and the fact that we have agency in any given moment to, you know, add positive valance, positive emotion to an experience, even if we’re not necessarily feeling like we want to be happy in that moment, so those two can co-exist or can exist separately.

Obviously you add enough indexing of fun experiences, and it tends to pull you out of despair, which is great. But I think the reason that I like looking at it as a separate construct from happiness is that it points to the fact that we have agency in any given moment to enjoy ourselves and find enjoyment. Even if you’re dealing with a loss or divorce or, you know, stress somewhere you don’t necessarily need to identify as happy to go and have fun. And then another thing I like about it in the context of positive psychology is that it’s action oriented.

I think happiness, you know, we’ve quantified it to some degree in psychology and so therefore we kind of use it as a measure, right? And we know from things like the Hedonic treadmill and Perceptual adaptation that a lot of our happiness is kind of based on circumstance, where we are in life and our comparison to our… socioeconomic class. Where fun really transcends a lot of that, but certainly people can use resource is to have fun if they have a lot of money. But often times, especially with children, we’ll see that completely transcend socioeconomic classes. Two puppies don’t really need to know each other to start playing. Two children, you know on the playground, don’t need to know each other’s background in the context, you know, to enjoy kicking the ball around. And as we grow older, we lose sight of that because we’re such victims to the judgement habit.

One of the things. One of the interventions that I like to talk about. I can’t take credit for it. It’s from IDL[?]. But it’s this idea where you take a bunch of people in a room and you have them pair up with strangers and you have them do caricatures of each other, which is a really fun assignment, right? Like everyone in the video, you can see is smiling and enjoying themselves, and then you’re asked to share that with your partner. And then you see this anxiety and fear almost instantly, right and no one cares, like there was no assumption that you are an artist, right? But this idea that now you’re going to be judged by someone that you don’t know. Even though the assignment was completely fun and whimsical sucks it out. And so if you practise having fun you can start to get some of that back. You can realise that you’re not being judged as much as you think you are. And so I have just really taken a liking to it. Not as making it overtly important, but something that we don’t think about enough.

M: Absolutely. I’d say that as an adult where, I don’t know, from childhood where we’re trained that growing up involves taking fun out of our lives and becoming serious. And so I find this idea fascinating. So happy to be talking to you about it.  

So what does the science say about what fun can do in our lives?

Mike: So, I think there’s a whole host of things, right? So we know that in fact, there’s a recent study that shows the more spontaneous we are, the more that we kind of look for the spices of life can lead to happiness. Another thing about having a deliberate fun is I think you are able to circumvent the Hedonic treadmill if you do it mindfully, right. A lot of things that we pursue are based on keeping up with the Joneses and things that we think are fun or we’re kidding ourselves. But when we take a more mindful approach to it, fun, pure elation and really enjoying something that is true to your soul is [it] ads gains to our life like episodically we have these indexes that we can relish were sort of chasing happiness.

I think we’re starting to see more of that it can lead to negative outcomes because what happens is especially if you’re doing it in the context of a clinical setting. You take these assessments like the PERMA or whatever it is and it says ‘Oh, you know, you’re not where you want to be’, and so that then becomes part of your identity, right? As soon as you get the results, you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m not happy’ where fun is so immersive that, you know, almost anybody can do it. And so in that context, that’s why I believe it’s important.

M: So can I can paraphrase and correct me if I’m wrong here.

Mike: Yes.

M: You can’t chase happiness, but you can chase fun and fun will bring you happiness, at least in the short term.

Mike: Yeah, and I would be careful because chasing happiness can lead to escapism. And there’s good escapism and there’s bad, right? And so you know, bad is coping and certainly, you know, we all need to cope and so having a bit of fun, It’s not necessarily chasing it, but there are people. I have interviewed a gentleman by the name of Chip Conly and he’s, are you familiar?

M: No, not with Chip. I’ll have to look him up.

Mike: He might be more U.S. centric, but he, he’s an entrepreneur by trade, he started a hotel chain called Joie de Vivre. But he’s also he either is or was on the governing body of Burning Man. And so we talked about this idea, folks that chase festivals. I’m sure you have the same phenomenon in Australia. And so that really is chasing fun, right? And that can lead to, you know some really bad things. And so the idea is that that fun is all encompassing like a lot of times when I have these discussions, especially because some of my earlier work, you know, I have blogged things like optimise fun, things of that nature, which when I find the time, I’ll rewrite because the idea there wasn’t necessarily to say that we should have a life full of fun. It was that we’re facing, you know, burnout at rates that we’ve never seen before, right? The World Health Organisation has now categorised it as a global epidemic. And after Covid, who even knows, right? Because that was in 2019. So, like, you know, we know people are losing their asses right now.

[Laughter]

Mike:  So, idea is you know, to add it [fun] back into your lives to loop back to something that you said a lot of us as adults have moved away from it because social norms or especially one of the narratives that I like to talk about is productivity, porn or hustle porn. You know, we get caught up in this notion that, you know, we have to devote our lives to work and that should be our purpose. And we’re just not wired for that. We need downtime and leisure.

It’s extremely important, I think in oceana you guys take it a little bit better than us. I remember I did a stint at Christ Church at Lincoln University and you could actually major in leisure which I thought was awesome.

M: Ha ha.

Mike: But, you know, I think everywhere, certainly here in the U.S. But I think everywhere we’re just finding that people aren’t using their paid time off. They have a sense of duty. So they think, especially folks in my age range that are caught in what it was called the sandwich generation. Or you have kids and you have to look, look after your parents that, you know people will feel guilty even if they are engaging in a night out, which is just not right.

So you know you have 168 hours in a week, and I think if you can’t find one or two where you’re actually finding pleasure out of that, that’s meaningful to you, that isn’t [good], You know at the sake of, you know like playing with your children and then kind of, you know, even though that could be fun, I think a lot of people are doing it out of a sense of duty and are on their phone really the whole time. So they think they’re playing with their kids, but if they look at it critically, they’re not really having fun there. Half of their brain is at work and the other half is treating that hour as obligation yet they’ll kind of log it in their brain as play.

M: Yep. Or it, it’s another list item that you’ve got to check off in the week, you know. It becomes a stress to have fun.

Mike: Yeah

M: So what are some tips then for listeners for how to introduce more fun into their lives? How do you do it? So it’s not just another thing that you’ve got to add into your week and another expert telling us ‘here’s something else you need to do to make your life more full and meaningful.’

Mike: Yeah, I’m glad you asked that question because… I’m writing a book right now called The Fun Habit. It’s coming out next year, and I think in the original manuscript you were exactly right. Like we realised, I’m working with a development editor, and it was, this is just, a lot of these tactics are giving people just another thing to do and that certainly was implied. And so we’re reworking it because you’re right. If it’s a burden than it’s the scenario with childcare. It’s the same thing.

So what I suggest is you know 168 hours isn’t a lot right to really be mindful on any given week. And so I suggest taking a look, doing a really general time audit, you don’t have to be completely thorough but investigating in one week’s time, what you’re doing and kind of logging it within four different categories.

I call it the PLAY model, so it’s:

  • Pleasing;
  • Living;
  • Agonising; Or
  • Yielding.

And without going too deep into it, you can often find those opportunities where you think that you’re having fun but changing things up just a little bit. You can actually enjoy yourself. So in the scenario with the child you commit to that hour and that you might do something using self-determination theory, where you both have some autonomy on what it is, right. So both the child and the adult will agree because, it’s funny I talk about it in the book, but sometimes if you don’t do that extra step and you  do it, something that the adult thinks the child will have fun that could backfire. I did that one time. I took my daughter to a lantern festival. It was kind of a father daughter date, and I really wanted to sort of be this reflective spiritual experience. And she really just wanted to light as many lanterns off as possible, right?

M: [Laugh]

Mike: So that’s where I failed at my own advice, because I was looking to have fun. But I didn’t. It wasn’t really inclusionary. It was more prescriptive, right? So, but you can also do that. I don’t want this to all be parent centric. I think, you know, let’s say you’re a single individual. If it could be making sure that you sit down at lunch and use that opportunity to reconnect with a friend or whatever it is.

But often times what people think you know is leisure, like binge watching a show that they don’t really care about can be replaced with something more meaningful. And so I want to be careful there, too, because it certainly is meaningful if you’re watching it with, you know, it’s something that you really enjoy on. You can think back on it, but a good litmus test for that is, you know, any sort of activity that if you went back to savour or relish it, would you remember what it was about? You know, a lot of times if people are being honest with themselves. You know, social media viewing or TV doesn’t fit in that category. A lot of times it does. I always like to preface it because I’ll get emails that say ‘Why are you demonising media?’ And I don’t think that’s the case. I think a lot of people do have fun, you know, engaging with content and things of that nature. But a lot of us do it to kind of placate to you know, to distract us from other things.

M: And I think again it comes back to mindful viewing and being mindful about what you choose to spend your time on.

Mike: Or if you’re in the company of a good partner, you know, enjoying that time you might not remember the show but you’ll remember that you guys laughed and drank wine and whatever it is, you know.

M: Yeah, definitely. So your acronym there and again I don’t want to give away the book. We want our readers to actually go and buy the book. The acronym you used was PLAY to take that a little bit further and move away from the acronym. How are play and fun interlinked? Or are they? Have you done any research into how they’re tied?

Mike: Yes, they’re definitely different. And so, but obviously they come up right, because you’re going to have fun doing a whole gambit of different things and not necessarily playing, but play therapy, engaging in various types of play. [Dr] Stuart Brown is kind of a godfather of that I’m not sure if you’re familiar with his work.

But because even that, you know, since it’s not really my expertise but reading his book, you know the amount of ways that you can slice and dice play. I found fascinating, right?

There’s child play.

There’s, you know, improv[ization] play.

There’s sport play;

So, you know play, you could fill up a few of these podcasts with just what play is because we often just think about it as being childlike with either other adults or with kids. But play as sort of a, you know, construct. Wellbeing is multifaceted, but fun can be, you can enjoy things outside of place, so that’s where the two are delineated.

M: Okay, great. So you mentioned your book. Is there anything else that you can give our listeners a sneak peek about, about what the book is about or the dust cover overview?

Mike: Sure. Well, it’s really just a comprehensive look at fun the way we described it, I think reintroducing folks to the fact that they do have some agency. And then one of the things that we didn’t really talk about, but I think is important is this idea of time affluence, right? You know, we talked about affluence and, you know, personal brand and money, especially in you know, the context of the Internet, right?

Everyone is always trying to sell you the next hustle, but time affluence is something that’s really important and people take for granted right, because often times, especially if you go back and do that time audit, you’ll realise that you’re giving away a lot of your time that you don’t really need to, you know, one of things that we talked about in the book certainly is things like email where just a couple of strategies there, you know, and I don’t go too deep into productivity, but there are a lot of things that you think are yielding some sort of output and it ends up just really making yourself believe that you’re busy and it’s not really contributing, so those are opportunities that you could put on pause or potentially take away from your day to day and implement better uses of time.

M: Great. I’m looking forward to seeing it come out. Now you have such an impressive bio and such a broad sweep of experience, and I know that you’re also heavily involved in the health and tech or health-tech and product design areas. Do you know of any apps that you could recommend to help adults bring more fun or play into their lives?

Mike: So there are a couple, I don’t have any that I’m affiliated with. I play with them all the time as you alluded to, right. So the one that my kids are having just a great time with right now is called Marco Polo, are you familiar with it?

M: No and look I’m really personally interested in the answer to this question as well. So Marco Polo?

Mike: Yeah, it’s a way where you can kind of, it’s similar to TikTok, but more personal, where you do something silly and then you kind of send it over to your friend and they can respond. So it’s a great way, especially during Covid for family members that are whimsical or silly to sort of, you know, just like the Marco Polo game kind of bounce stuff back and forth. So that’s a great one for having fun. And then the one that I’ve been enjoying right now is out of Duke [Behavioural Economics Lab] called Fabulous and it’s a habit changing app. So it’s a little outside the bounds of fun, per se, but it has a bunch of really cool sort of interventions and one of the you know, it’s got to slick UI [User Interface], I’m having a lot of fun with it [laugh].

M: Thank you so much. So thank you for all of your time. We’re almost at the 20 minute mark. But before we go, how can people find out a bit more about you? And where should we look out for your book?

Mike: Thank you for this Opportunity.

So my website’s michaelrucker.com

And then I’m also on all the social channels on Instagram under the wonder of fun. And on Twitter under perform better.

It’s kind of an old handle, but I didn’t decide not to switch it up yet, He he.

M: Sure, no worries. And where will you be launching your book?

Mike: Yes. So it got picked up by Simon and Schuster and they’re looking for a cue for 2021 pub date. So in about a year and a half it should come out.

M: No worries. Okay, we’ll keep an eye out for it then. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you talking to us.

Mike: This was great. Thank you for having me.

[Exit Music]

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Turns Out Money Does Buy You Happiness, Study Finds

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A new study has thrown the age-old adage “Money can’t buy you happiness” on its head. And it’s not good news for the growing lower class who are being left behind due to the ever-increasing wealth gap.

The study, by researchers Jean M. Twenge and A. Bell Cooper, was published this month by the American Psychological Association. It shows that there is a growing class divide in happiness in the U.S.

By looking at findings in the General Social Survey (N = 44,198), Twenge and Cooper found a positive correlation between socioeconomic status (including income, education, and occupational prestige) and happiness, which grew steadily stronger between the 1970s and 2010s.

Previous studies have shown that after a certain income level, there is no measurable rise in happiness. However, contrary to earlier research, this study showed no tapering off of happiness levels at higher levels of income.

Over 40 years, the happiness levels of high wealth individuals have been consistent, whereas the happiness levels of poorer individuals have slowly declined, according to the research.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Twenge said the link between income and happiness is stronger now than in previous decades. Also, the decrease in happiness among lower-income people may be a result of rising inequality, increasing real estate values and decreased ability to pay for education.

Related reading:

The Danish Art of Hygge (E26)

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Happiness for Cynics Podcast

Denmark is the happiest country in the world, so this week we look at the Danish practice of Hygge (pronounced hoo-geh) to see what all the fuss is about.

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and speaker focused on change and resilience.

P: And I’m Peter Furness, a lover, maker and happiness creator. Has a nice ring to it, Doesn’t it?

M: It does.

P: Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: So, if you’re feeling low.

P: Or if you’re only satisfied with life but not truly happy with it.

M: Or maybe you just want more.

P: [Whispers] Greedy.

Then this is the place to be.

M: And today’s episode is all about Hygge.

[Happy intro music]

M: So today we are talking about Hygge. And we have listened to [the pronunciation of] it on Google multiple times.

P: And it took multiple chances to get it right.

M: And we’ve probably still got it wrong. So I apologise if you are Danish.

P: [Laugh]

M: So Hygge. How’s that spelled, Pete?

P: H Y G G E.

M: Yes. I think that’s how they teach kids to spell now. Isn’t it?

P: Phonetically?

M: Yeah

P: Oh wow.

M: Maybe, maybe I read that, I read a lot of things. I make a lot of things up to I’m sure of it.

P: Like Moses and the 15 tablets. [Laugh]

M: That was you. All you! [Laugh]

M: So Hygge, what is it?

P: Interesting.

M: Do you want to get started?

P: Oh no, this is all you.

M: Okay, so I came across this, this week, and I’m so intrigued by this on and I’m going to start by quoting a guy called Meik Wiking, we would say, taking in English. But I’m sure it’s pronounced Viking because he is a Dane, right? So that’s where the Vikings came from. Up there, right? So he’s the author of ‘The Little Book of Hygge Danish Secrets to Happy Living.’

He’s also the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. And even more impressive from a background point of view is that Denmark is the world’s happiest country, according to – [the 2016 World Happiness Report]

P: – Followed very closely by Sweden and Norway, who sometimes tip them over the balance, I was reading.

M: These guys are all happy so we’re going to actually turn and listen, so this is about saying what’s going on in the happiest country in the world, right?

P: There’s a reason why they’re so happy.

M: So he says that Hygge has been called everything from the art of creating intimacy to cosiness of the soul and even cocoa by candlelight.

P: Awe

M: And in his book, he explains that you know Hygge when you feel it, but that some of the key ingredients are:

  • Togetherness;
  • Relaxation;
  • Indulgence;
  • Presence; and
  • Comfort.

P: It just sounds like a night in front of the Telly [Television].

M: It sounds like an indulgent in front of the Telly.

P: Ooh! Tim Tams, coffee and champagne.

M: Yes a deliberate night in front of the Telly not just a.. I’m exhausted from work, and I happen to be in front of the Telly, it’s like I’m choosing it.

P: Yeah.

M: Which makes it all the more better. You’re choosing laziness and getting happiness out of it.

P: Yeah very true.

M: And what I’m so excited about this is it gives you permission to cuddle in the blanket and sweatpants all day.

P: [Laugh]

M: Bliss.

P: And if our listeners could see, Marie is still in her sweat pants and her little slippers, and it’s four o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday.

M: It pretty much excuses my entire behaviour for Covid, three months of my life was just dedicated to Hygge, not just laziness.

P: It’s just giving yourself permission.

M: I mean they don’t talk about not shaving or showering but I think you could go there if you wanted to.

P: Haha sure, ok it’s indulgent.

M: So pretty much. What we’re talking about is that actually the Danes spend a lot more time indoors over winter than we do. We are very lucky with the weather and this is a way of coming together and creating a cosy environment and blissing out.

P: Well, it’s interesting. I was reading one of the articles in The New Yorker actually about Hygge.

M: In the New Yorker?

P: The New Yorker, yes. Just to throw that out there. And what I found interesting was that they talk about it in terms of you can’t necessarily transfer the Hygge concept to Americanism because of the culture differences between Denmark and America.

M: Mmm

P: It becomes a little bit more of a[n] egalitarian concept. When you transfer it straight into American [society], they talk about the fact that-

M: What?

P: Well, they’re talking about it in terms of their culture that if you just say to people, you know you want the Danish experience, you want to have antlers on your wall and cosy fur rugs and the Scandinavian wood and all this sort of stuff.

M: And a roaring fire.

P: [Laugh]

M: I’m there, I’m there. Keep going.

P: I’m probably not explaining it very well, but they say that if you transfer that across to an American experience, it becomes different, becomes it a social. How do they talk about it, it becomes.. I’m trying to be really polite. I’m just going to come out and say it, it becomes egotistic. ‘Oh, I’m celebrating my fabulousness because I have access to all these Scandinavian design and so forth and the evolution of a roaring fire in my house.’

M: The irony is that Scandinavian design is minimalist, they’re known for their minimalism and not for their comfort and cosiness.

[Laughter]

M: But, I love this concept, which maybe layers on top of the minimalist.

P: I’m going to quote the article here.

‘When transferred to the United States. The kind of understated luxury that Danes consider a shared national trait starts to seem like little more than a symbol of economic status, the very thing that Scandinavian countries have sought to jettison.’

M: [Laugh] This is so New Yorker.

[Laughter]

M: This is more a reflection on the New Yorker than on America.

P: [Laugh] Ok, we’re not going to go there. We might delete this.

M: No, no, not at all. I think it’s a really valid perspective.

P: Well, they go on to say that there are lessons from the Hygge that Americans might heed.

M: And I think is we’re going into winter now in Australia, and because this is a new thing, it is the new Marie Kondo, you know, sparking joy; Hygge is the latest thing that everyone’s talking about right now, and in particular because of this ‘Little Book of Hygge’ that’s come out. So go look it up if you’re looking for something to read over winter, and I think it’s perfect in its timing because of what’s happened with Covid, we’ve just been given permission to spend all this time at home. Winter is coming Pete, and we need Hygge.

P: Let’s make it relative though the Australian winter is coming, which, let’s face it in Sydney means that it’s going to be 14 degrees, which is not exactly the same as a Scandinavian winter.

M: We may have listeners in the high country.

P: Ok yeah.. I’m coming down, once the borders are open. It’s interesting you talk about winter because I’ve got a great quote here that ‘The hard learned lesson of frigid Scandinavian winters, is that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.’

M: I love it.

P: [Laughter] That all you really need to get through difficult times is shelter and sustenance, kith and kin.

M: Kin, so again doesn’t have to be family. It can be a chosen family, and I think when the weather is crap, whether it’s raining here or it’s just cold and everything’s relative if you have you grown up in Sydney, then winters are cold. If you’ve been anywhere else in the world, you’ll know that Sydney winters are nothing to complain about. But it is all relative.

P: It is all relative. Yes [Laugh]

M: And then it’s about going ‘ooh it’s cold let’s get everyone together to have some port or sherry and –

P: And snuggle up together.

M: Yeah, snuggle.

P: That’s where I actually do love our volleyball friends we’re a very affectionate bunch.

M: [Laugh]

P: Maybe it’s because we sweat together, but get us together on the couch and we will literally fall all over each other, and it’s kind of like, you know, everybody’s body is our body in a way, it’s like yeah I’m just going to nuzzle in here.

M: There’s no boundaries. It’s true. [Laugh]

P: Well, pretty much.

[Laughter]

P: It’s lovely because there is an, I will talk about the importance of touch here, a subject upon which I am very passionate. It is important for hugs and touch and affection to be expressed.

M: It is particularly important for some people if that is their love language, as we’ve discussed we need to do an episode on love languages by the way.

P: Done

M: But yeah, but some people in particular, touch is such a vital part of how they feel connected and express love and care for other people.

P: But it does things to a scientifically it sets off chemical reactions. It sets off sensor in neurons that are beneficial to us. So we can’t live without touch.

M: Hhmm

P: If you challenge me on that one, I’m going to come back at you with science.

M: You can’t live well without touch. It’s not like air.

P: Alright, I’ll give you that.

M: Food, water.

P: We’ll come back to that one.

Hygge. Actually Hyggebukser.

M: So, Hyggebukser. And okay, what is Hyggebukser?

P: Hyggebukser: Otherwise known is that slubby pair of pants you would never wear in public, but secretly treasure. We all have one.

M: I’ve got multiple. Is that bad?

P: No. I’ve got t-shirts that this really should have gone in the bin three years ago. But they’re just so comfy.

M: Yep. I’ve Yep. Is particularly like if you bought them somewhere meaningful, Yep. And then the other Danish word that goes with this Hygge movement is Hyggelig, which is Hygge – like. So Pete, tell me about your last Hyggelig moment.

P: Hyggelig moment, hhmm. It didn’t happen in winter, but it was a moment of being, we’d had a debauched evening of wonderful celebration and so forth and I was in my underwear.

M: Ha ha. That is so not unusual for you. And I think somebody who we won’t name dared me to take off my pants at one point and then I just left him off for the evening because it was just convenient and lying on the couch and –

M: – Because it was just convenient [laugh].

P: Well, it is. I’m comfortable in my undies. But we were on the couch and it was the end of the evening and we’d all imbibed and taken part of something. And it was this really quiet Segway into the quiet, quiet sort of hours of the morning. And we’re all lying on the couch together. I think we were watching or listening to some music and everyone was just kind of, it was like a twister board if we just kind of wrapped up with each other.

M: Falling asleep. [Laugh]

P: Pretty much. At one point one of my friends lifted his head up and he looked around at the various people that were all inter linked by hands and legs and arms and so forth and went, yeah this is a pretty cool collection of people.

[Laughter]

P: But it was utter contentment. And I think the reason that we were all falling asleep is also because we felt very chill and it was it was encouraged. It was like I’m so comfortable and I am so comforted in this moment.

M: I think that’s what comes from having a really good close group of friends because I haven’t done that since university days. And we would have all been blind drunk and someone would mean throwing up in the corner. Had we been back in those days.

P: True.

M: Whereas I think I know the night that you’re referring to [Laugh].

P: You were there Marie. [Laugh]

M: And everyone going I’m just going to sleep right here.

P: And it worked. [Laugh]

M: Very weird, but anyway. That is a lovely, lovely moment. Thank you for sharing, Peter.

So Hygge? How do we practise Hygge?

P: I like it. I like that you’ve got this one in there, Marie. No money.

M: Yes!

P: Hygge is not about money. It’s not about spending money on indulgences, not about buying a car.

M: Absolutely. And it’s, yeah, it’s not about buying happiness and back to your point with The New Yorker article it is not about spending money to make something happen, right?

P: No.

M: It is about putting on your daggiest sweat pants and your ugg boots that you love but don’t tell anyone your own and that favourite T-shirt of yours that is so soft you feel like it’s going to fall apart soon because you washed it that many times. So it’s not expensive or fancy, and it’s about getting together people that matter to you or, or not. You don’t actually need the people. You could just get a good book and sit outside in the sun, right? It could be the exact opposite of the, the image that we’re painting with the room with the fire and the cold outside. It is finding a cosy space.

P: Does it have to be shared?

M: No.

P: Hygge doesn’t need to [have] another person.

M: No.

P: I’m gonna challenge you on that one, Muz.

M: I don’t think it does.

P: I thought it’s sort of, it’s about connecting with your intimate crew. And the thing that I was reading was that it’s about not connecting with a large group of people, but a close knit group of one or two people. And this is something that the Danes do. They don’t necessarily have large gatherings. They have cosy gatherings of one or two, which goes towards them almost seeming … standoffish because you can’t break into their little cliques and so forth. Now it’s something that could be a cultural perspective, but it isn’t about big groups of people, but it is about people and being connected with one or two others.

M: I think you’ve gotta have those moments of one or two in order to have these deeper connection moments, because when you’re at a big table of people having dinner, or a big party, you don’t get as intimate with people just by the nature experience.

P: Yeah, no. And you’ve got background noise and so forth.

M: As far as Hygge and whether or not it requires people, my understanding is that it doesn’t that you can jump under a blanket and watch a romcom with a steaming mug of..

P: Jarrah?

M: Cider or whatever, whatever floats your boat. It’s about the comfort as well.

So, firstly, it shouldn’t cost you much or anything. Secondly, it’s all about the simple pleasures in life and stopping and being mindful of those things.

So we are in our busy, hectic, crazy lives often sit down in front of TV and chill.

This is about choosing to do it on a Friday night with a movie that you’ve been wanting to watch and your tub of Ben and Jerry’s and ordering pizza and choosing that as a way to spoil yourself and indulging yourself, but with the simple pleasures in life or having a board game night with two friends and your partner, preferably non digital options, I would say. And it can be about spending time with people you love, or it could be about reading a book.

P: OK. I’ll give you that, the concept of indulgence and so forth does come from reading a book. Yes.

M: Hhmm. It’s taking the time to.. Yeah, and this is why again, I gave three different examples of what Hygge has been called up the beginning of the episode here. There’s no riel, solid definition of it. It is a thing that the Danes all get and know. And the rest of the world is now trying to cotton on.

[Laughter]

M: So excuse us listeners, while we kind of..

P: Catch-up?

M: muddle through it and work it out, yeah.

P: It’s not only a Danish thing, though. There’s a Swedish concept as well, which is very similar. It’s called Lagom. Now literally, apparently, that refers to a kind of moderation.

M: [Derisive noise] Moderation.

[Laughter]

M: It’s not part of my language.

P: [Laugh]

M: My vocabulary.

P: It comes back to a Viking phrase, so it’s still, it’s still part of the culture reference on Lagom. I’m probably saying that very badly, interprets as around the team, meaning it’s about sharing with people and it also refers to taking mead, so it means that you should take only a sip of the mead that’s being passed around so that no one is left without and Lagom interprets also as being adequate or just right or in balance.

M: I found this really fascinating that is so part of the Scandinavian mindset. They have very community –

P: Very socialist.

M: – focus, not even socialist. Not socialist in the way that Americans bandied the term around. They see it as, when Americans say socialist they think communist very often.

P: Yep, which are two very different words.

M: Very different things. So, yes, socialist its community and family first rather than self-first, and you look at who the happiest populations are and it’s the Swedish.

P: It’s the Scandinavians.

M: And yeah, it does come at a cost. I mean, they have a higher tax bracket. They have a much more community driven expense module. It’s about investing in the town and the nation. It’s not just about investing in self.

M: But it all comes back to them, it makes them happy.

P: It does come back and they value that and it’s I think that’s a cultural influence. It’s bandied about with them when they’re children. They’re taught to understand that this is how it works.

M: And here’s the irony of that. Even though you’re paying more in taxes, they’re getting more back so they’re happier and their wage gap, the wealth gap is actually smaller. So unlike in countries like America, where they say it’s all about the dream –

P: Hhmm..

M: and right? And they’re very much based in the self and capitalism and the promise off being able to work hard and do well in life, which means succeed and money, right? For that for many, many Americans, they’re living below the poverty line, many, many more than in Scandinavian countries. So the irony is that this system that was set up to enable people to prosper is not actually enabling most, the majority to prosper, nor is it making them happy. Sorry, I’ve gotten on my soapbox here.

P: [Laugh] I’m letting you go.

M: This has gotten very political. Anyway, so.

P: We’ve gone away from the mead and the cider and the fire. [Laugh]

M: And we’re about to head over time. So let’s get back to Hygge, how do you practise it?

P: How do you practise it?

M: So,

1. One it shouldn’t be expensive or fancy. We covered that off.

2. Two it’s about the simple pleasures in life.

3. Three, you’ve got to set the scene, get your warm blankets out, light your roaring fire, get your cup of tea and get your comfy clothes on with your elastic waistband.

P: [Laugh] So this is appropriate that, you know, I could take my clothes off at this moment.

M: And Leah if you’re listening, absolutely take off your bra.

P: [Laugh] First thing that happens when she walks in the room.

M: [Laugh]

P: I just shared that with the world! She’s gonna love me for that.

M: And then lastly;

4. You’ve got to add this on. And this is where I was like, it’s not about moderation. It’s about a little bit of indulgence, but within reason, get some comfort foods in there.

P: Tim Tams, lamington’s.

M: Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, cheese. I can’t eat cheese anymore cause I’m allergic but yeah…

P: I’m loving this topic more. It kind of links back into one of our other episodes about Ikigai, the Japanese art of fruitful living.

M: Meaning, finding meaning. So Ikigai I think, is how Japanese find meaning and purpose in life. This is how the Scandinavian or Danish in particular do self-care.

P: Yeah, right.

M: I think that’s the difference between the two.

P: Yeah, very true.

M: And I think you can do both.

P: Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, but I like this, I like this example.

M: Absolutely.

P: We could all be a little bit more like the Danes.

M: Cheers to that. So we are sitting on my bed under blankets.

P: Doing Hygge with Martinis.

M: We thought we could not talk about this without doing it for you.

[Drinks click]

P: Well, that was very nice. [Laugh]

M: On that note.

P: [Sings a note] Aaaahhhh… what was that a D?

M: [Laugh] so, thank you for joining us today if you want hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast. And remember, you can find us at www.marieskelton.com. A site about how to find balance, happiness and resilience in your life, including some really practical tips and resources is to get you started on your happiness journey. Please do check out the site and right to ask to let us know if you would like us to cover any specific topics or if you’d like to give us feedback, would love to hear from you.

P: Definitely.

M: Until next time.

P: Choose happiness.

[Happy exit music]

Related content: Podcast: Finding Purpose with the Japanese Secret of Ikigai (E18), Podcast: Designing Happy Cities (E19)

Please note: I get a small commission on any products bought from this site through the amazon link. This is at no extra cost to you and proceeds help fund this website.

Words That Can Change Your Mindset

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How to Find Determination by Simply Changing Your Vocabulary

Words can change your mindset because words have power. We’ve known this for centuries, and we’ve all seen the stories and heard the advice which pretty much boils down to: “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Or “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” (Robin Williams)

We also all know we should eat well, exercise, get 8 hours of sleep, look after our mental health, call our mums…. We know that we should, but sometimes life happens, right?!

On the other hand, sometimes a Netflix binge happens, all weekend. Sometimes we spend an entire evening scrolling mindlessly through social media, or playing game after game on the computer, or X-box or PlayStation.

And again, it’s important sometimes to do that in order to unwind and recentre. At the end of a long and stressful day, sometimes doing nothing is what your body and mind needs.

The problem is when that becomes your normal. When every evening and most weekends are spent on activities that take you away from the activities and people who can enrich your life and bring you joy and happiness.

And like the frog in a pot of water, we might not realise it’s slowly killing us. At worst, we see the typical 21st century mental and physical impacts: diabetes, obesity, heart conditions, depression, anxiety. At best, we live a ho-hum life, maybe we’re successful but we’re never truly happy.

Cultivating the Right Mindset for Success

The field of psychology has long known that your mindset can have huge impacts on your actions and your success.

Stanford psychologist and Professor Carol Dweck has spent 30-years studying how mindset impacts our success. In her own words, “My work bridges developmental psychology, social psychology, and personality psychology, and examines the self-conceptions (or mindsets) people use to structure the self and guide their behaviour.”

Carol has found that mindset is critical, and most reassuringly, you can change your mindset – it is not fixed. In fact, people who cultivate a “growth mindset” are the ones who view failure as a motivator to try harder. As a result, they’re more resilient and more successful.

Mindset is how you stop yourself from feeling like a failure or feeling guilty next time you don’t go to the gym or choose a salad at lunchtime. It’s how you forgive yourself, move forward and start again with more determination tomorrow.

And what impacts mindset the most? Our emotions and the words we choose to use.

“The way we deal with our emotions shapes everything that matters: our actions, careers, relationships, health, happiness and organizations. Getting hooked by our thoughts, emotions and stories inhibits us from thriving,” says Susan David, Harvard psychologist and author of Emotional Agility.

Thankfully, learning to have a positive mindset can be as simple as being more deliberate about the words you choose to use in your day to day life. In short, words can change your mindset. In fact, researchers Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman have shown that words can literally change your brain.

As if the title of their book wasn’t enough, in their book, Words Can Change Your Brain, they show that words like “peace” and “love” can alter the expression of genes, propelling our motivational centres into action and building resilience.

So, if you’re struggling to do the things you know will bring you more happiness, then this is the article for you. Here are some words that can change your mindset…

[Check out these books – mindset, Carol Dweck & Emotional Agility Susan David, & Words Can Change Your Brain]

Words That can Change Your Mindset

“Get to” and Your Worldview

Many people seek happiness, yet their day to day view of the world is as a chore to be bourne, not a wonder to be explored and experienced.

How often do we say we “get to” go on a holiday, but we “have to” go to the gym? Or maybe you “get to” visit a friend but “have to” go visit the in-laws. Or maybe you “get to” go out to dinner but “have to” eat healthily.

At what point did doing the right thing for us and our family become something we just have to grit our teeth and bare? Why does being good to ourselves – by doing exercise, getting enough sleep, eating healthy meals, visiting family etc… — get relegated to the “have to” pile along with the laundry and dishes?

No wonder so many people struggle to get fit or bother to even leave the house! No wonder as a global population, we’re more unhealthy and more lonely than ever before.

So, if you’re seeking happiness and satisfaction in life, and you know (because of the resources on this site) that means developing a strong community and connection; looking after your health and wellbeing and finding meaning and purpose, then why should any of those activities be chores?

Next time you start to apologise to someone for “having to go to the gym,” stop and think about the words you’re using. Instead, put a smile on your face and say, “I get to go to the gym this afternoon, maybe we can meet afterwards?”

“Not yet” and Growth Mindset

In her Ted Talk, which has been viewed more than 10 million times, Carol talks about the power of two small words to change the way we think about failure.

Not yet.

That’s it. Two little words. Yet these words have the power to completely change how we view ourselves and our achievements, or lack of them. To make her point, Carol talks about a classroom of kids and the grading system that used “not yet” rather than the typical “F” for when a kid didn’t pass a course.

Through the power of these two little words, the kids in this class were taught to know they’re on a journey of learning, and that everyone learns at different rates. They know that if they get “not yet” on their report card, they shouldn’t give up or stop trying. Instead, they have more work to do, and that’s OK.

Those two little words entirely change the kids’ mindsets, from wanting to quit and give up for “failing” to wanting to try harder next time because they don’t have it yet.

In short, ‘not yet’ is about acknowledging that life and learning are a journey, and it’s not only about achievement. So, focus on the journey of learning, rather than the outcome. When praising kids, trying hard should be rewarded over achieving an “A.”  

Listen to Carol Dweck’s Ted Talk “The Power of Believing You Can Improve”

Lots of Words… Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations have been popular for the last couple of decades. Supposedly, a few magic words will help you lose weight, get fit, get promoted, find a loving partner… and the list goes on. But if you’re a cynic (like me), then maybe you’ve been thinking ‘this is all a load of BS.’

It turns out we were all wrong. Words can change your mindset. The reason this has become a ‘thing’ is that the science is solid. About 65,000 thoughts go through our minds each day. For a lot of people, the majority of them are negative, or at least not positive.

Now, negative thoughts are the cornerstone of improvement. If you’re happy with your performance you won’t try to make it better. But too much negativity can stop you from even trying.

So, including some positive affirmations into your day is about balancing the scales. It’s about being more attuned to the negative things you say to yourself and the limiting beliefs you hold. Instead adding in some words that instil hope and belief into your mindset. To get started, check out this article by 7 Mindsets.

We know that the wrong mindset can get in your way of success, but how much are you paying attention to the words you say or use in your mental dialogue? Maybe it is time to do some self-reflection.

And on that note, I’ll leave you with another famous quote: “Choose your words wisely.”

Related reading:

When it’s OK to not be OK (E25)

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Happiness for Cynics

In this week’s episode, Marie and Pete talk about when it’s OK to not be OK, and the importance of taking the time to process negative emotions. They discuss the Kubler-Ross grief curve and how people move through the stages of grief and change.

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and speaker focused on change and resilience.

P: And I’m Peter Furness a purveyor of fun sizes, a posh motor head and budgie smuggler. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: So if you’re feeling low.

P: Or if you’re only satisfied with life but not truly happy with it.

M: Or maybe you just want more.

P: Then this is the place to be.

M: Have you been through the corona virus emotional rollercoaster? Or maybe you’re worried about finances or feeling lonely, or you’ve recently lost someone who’s dear to you.

P: If so, you’re in the right place because today’s episode is all about when it’s OK to not be okay.

[Happy Intro Music]

M: So, Pete, today we’re talking about when it’s OK to not be okay, and I love that you sent me a message saying, we need to do something that’s not all about happiness and talk about this topic because it is so important.

P: Really important. It’s interesting when I sent the message was like ‘Happiness isn’t everything!’

[Laughter]

M: Were you not ok when you sent it?

P: No, I was fine. It’s funny because this came about through doing one of our very first episodes when we were looking into what happiness actually was and I came across these quotes, which I seem to have mislaid now so I can’t quote the source.

M: I’ve got a quote, you keep going with this one in the meantime.

P: [Laugh] It’s in a book hanging on the rack in my..

M: We’ll do another episode.

[Laughter]

P: This whole concept that sometimes happiness doesn’t serve you. It’s not great to be happy 100% of the time. And there are certain situations in life where you don’t need to tap into your happy self because it doesn’t serve you well.

M: Absolutely, I could not agree more.

P: Well you’re the natural cynic. So you know, you spent how many years of your life..

M: Sometimes you just want to shit on other people.

P: [Laugh!] I know let’s, of course we’re going to throw poo at him.

M: Look I’m 100% with you here, we’re all human as well, and sometimes you don’t want to be happy. You want to sit and wallow in your pain or your trauma or your sadness or anger or whatever it is. And as long as there’s an end to it and as long as you’re not pulling everyone around with you down you into that spiral, I think go for it. Go punch a punching bag or watch rom coms [romantic comedies] or cry all Sunday.

P: I got told to kick a dog.

M: Oh! No!

P: I was having a bad and a friend came over and goes, ‘go and kick a dog you’ll feel so much better’

M: No!

P: I would never do that.

M: We are 100% against that on this podcast. Just remember listeners that if we have opinions that vary from yours that’s a moment for learning and growth. You don’t have to hate us.

P: [Laugh] Believe me, we have a lot of learning to do right here.

M: [Laugh] We’re learning too. So I have a great quote from the probably most famous cynicist? Pessimist of all time Friedrich Nietzsche which is “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” So what I do want to say is that I agree with you. It’s okay to not be okay. I do also want to say that there’s a whole lot of research out there about the positive benefits off going through tough times.

P: Oh completely, you learn lessons that garner you and take you into your next issue 10 years down the track and you can go ‘I’ve have been here before and know what this is’ And you recognise stuff as it comes up and you go ‘Right, I know where this is heading let’s go’ and you’re ready for it.

M: So it’s not about minimising or eliminating bad or sad moments in our lives. It’s about acknowledging them, experiencing the pain, but knowing that you’re not alone and that it won’t last. And eventually when the time is right starting to move forward.

P: Definitely.

M: And if you’ve had a very significant trauma or moment in your life, when you do move forward, often times that could be a truly transformative moment.

P: You can talk about that, can’t you Marie?

M: I think so.

[Laughter]

P: Just a little.

M: Just a little, yeah and look that’s always the whole premise for this podcast and my blog and a lot of the work and research that I’ve done. The book that I’m writing right now, and I’m researching and interviewing people from all over the world to hear their trauma stories, sometimes their stories of grief and the commonality across most of these stories. A huge percentage is that once you get through it, they would mostly not ever take it back. And they feel like it shaped who they are.

P: It does yeah, it gives you tools. It gives you tools to cope because life isn’t always handed to you in the best packaging.

M: Yeah, it makes you grateful for the life you have.

P: Exactly.

M: And there’s a whole body of research on this as well. But for me personally, nearly dying in my thirties has really made me question what’s important in life. And I had been raised in a school of thought, which kind of goes like this. Here’s the script:

Do well in school, go to university do well there. Get a good job with a good company. Reputable job. Get a partner, have some kid’s. Have a house.

P: White picket fence?

M: All of that, yep.

P: Dog?

M: Move up in your career and eventually retire with enough money saved in the bank that you can fund a decent level of living.

P: Right.

M: Now that was success to a lot of our parents, a lot of our parent’s generation, right?

P: Yep

M: And that’s what they taught us and nowhere in there do they talk about happiness.

P: Yeah

M: For me having, again, nearly died and nearly losing my leg and spending a lot of time in a lot of pain, like months, months of surgeries and years of rehab. I’m questioning that model, I really am. As are a lot of other people who came to it on their own, I feel like it was the biggest secret no one ever told me that. And that’s why I have invited you to be here because you cottoned on pretty early in your life.

P: God knows why.

M: [Laugh]

P: [Laugh] I don’t know why. I just decided to go the non-logical route, I think, and I went into the alternative spaces very early. So maybe that was why. And I think that’s the thing I got exposed to alternative ideals, alternative lines of thought. My mother thought I was an absolute lunatic. [Laugh]

M: Yeah, definitely, definitely.

There is a lot of research and there’s nothing special about my story. In that sense, I had a major trauma and I’ve come out happier and more grateful for what I have than I went in.

P: But it’s going through that process of trauma, and I think that’s the space that we’re talking about today is that it’s okay to be in trauma and to be experiencing a really crap time as long as you can keep perspective on that. And I think the big key is not dwelling in that trauma and letting it re-inform you and re-inform you and staying stuck in that empty part of the cycle, there’s got to be an upswing.

M: I think that you can be in a really bad place as long as there is always some momentum to move you through the fazes. So we’ve spoken about the Kubler Ross Grief cycle –

P: Have we? I don’t think we’ve spoken about that yet? [Laugh]

M: Anyway, It is now a widely used resource for grief counsellors, but it’s also been repurposed by the change community and change management community and corporate to go through the emotions that people feel when they experience major change.

P: Yes.

M: So you going through denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance.

P: I like the bargaining faze.

M: It doesn’t get you anywhere generally but the point is that grief isn’t linear so you can go through it and come back at any one point. But also as long as you’re moving through it, then it is really beneficial to process your emotions. That’s the time you need to grieve and to be sad and to be angry and to feel hard done by.

P: I’m going to pull you up there just a second Marie. Let’s talk about the non-linear aspect of grief.

M: Sure, so if you look at the grief cycle, denial, anger and depression are the first three. So if you were experiencing grief, your first and most immediate gut reaction might be, ‘I don’t believe you.’

P: Yep

M: If you heard horrible news about a loved one. You might move pretty quickly into

Anger, ‘This isn’t fair. Why, them? Why me? Life sucks. And then you might slide into depression quite easily, which is just a feeling of grief and sadness.

P: Desperation?

M: Absolutely any of those normal and to be expected when you’re dealing with these horrible life events –

P: And do those three aspects.. sorry.

M: – But you might then go back to anger.

P: I was just about to ask, you keep circling around.

M: But now the point is, though, to keep moving not to get stuck and of the 50 or so people I’ve interviewed. One is stuck, still stuck, and is still in that. Why me? And these are people that you would never wish this stuff on your enemy.

P: Of course.

M: The person I’m referring to had a stroke. He was healthy, non-smoker, didn’t really drink, a whole life ahead of him. [Had a] stroke that impacted his ability to perform his job and really it’s been 10 years with a lot of rehab. His loved ones left him. All of the things that could go wrong, have gone wrong. And you can’t pursue the job of his dreams that he was actually pursuing. And has really had to reset his life, and you can understand, with all of these people how it could be so easy to get stuck in that anger or that sadness or bargaining or any of these, denial, could get stuck in that wanting for something that never will be moment. And that’s where unfortunately, time keeps moving on, and you’re doing yourself a disservice if you can’t find a way to move forward.

P: Is that where we come to the point of acceptance? Is that where acceptance comes in?

M: That’s what we want to get to.

P: So acceptance is the first stage that we want to get to.

M: It’s the last stage before you move on.

P: Right, so we’ve gone through the grief cycle after we’ve done the bargaining. Let’s talk a bit more about the bargaining. I’m interested in this.

M: This is if you were religious, where you might bargain with God, ‘bring them back and I will be a better Christian or why couldn’t you take me rather than my child or like this is really difficult again we’re not counsellors.

P: No.

M: So this is potentially triggering content that we’re talking about here. Or if you were made redundant, you might go to your boss and say ‘I really need this. I don’t want have any savings, what can I do?’

P: ‘Take me back.’

M: Yeah, ‘what can I do to make you keep me? So it’s the begging part off this process that generally doesn’t get you anywhere.

P: No.

M: Many people don’t get the benefit they want out of the bargaining.

P: Definitely. And on that, does that naturally lead into acceptance because that gets to… is that the lowest of the low points? When you start bargaining?

M: Depression is.

P: Depression is the lowest.

M: And the good thing about bargaining is that you try and solve [things].

P: That shift, you’re coming on the upswing.

M: Exactly.

P: So if you’re bargaining, you’re doing well.

M: You’re taking action.

P: Ah yes.

M: It’s a bit misguided often.

P: But you’re looking for solutions and I think I’m gonna jump in here. That’s a really important perspective to jump into because we’re going to talk more about tips later but it’s about finding another way and it’s not about focusing on the end goal. It’s about focusing on where I’m at now, and how can I make that one step on improvement?

M: Yep and as you mentioned we’re going to talk about tips in a little bit, but it’s really important to note that you need to sit in anger, sadness or depression and all of these fazes for long as you need to sit there.

P: And that’s acknowledgment?

M: Yep, absolutely.

P: It’s interesting. I went through that with my father when he died. It was very quick, thankfully and then all of a sudden I was in charge of the funeral and I was like ‘Oh okay, I’ve got to do this you know, choosing the coffin, choosing what he would wear in the coffin’ and things like that. It was amazingly freeing because I didn’t have to focus on my grief and my anger and all that different stuff and that came later.

M: Did you just defer it?

P: Yes, definitely. I chose the time when I was going to do that and I ran into the mountains and spent some time on my own and went through those little stages. But there was definitely sadness and so forth. It was very interesting, that came after everything was done.

M: I’ve seen a good friend of mine do that as well when her Dad passed she went to organizing mode and it wasn’t till after the funeral that she actually had time to grieve, fully grieve and let herself go.

P: Exactly, but it is those, those moments of going, ‘I’m going to feel the grief and I’m going to feel the anger and I’m going to feel the depression and do that.’ I chose to do that in a very private space. And then it’s being okay in those moments going, this is, this is, excuse my language, this is shit.

M: Yep

P: And I’m going to sit here. I’m going to cry, and I’m gonna let it out.

M: And it’s okay.

P: Because you need-

M: It’s ok to not be ok.

P: – to experience those emotions because that’s I think that’s part of the acknowledgement curve is if you haven’t been there and felt it, then you haven’t acknowledged that ‘Yes, I’ve done grief and anger, and I’ve done the depression. Now I’m going to choose to start moving forward. Let’s, let’s do some bargaining.’

M: It is so important to process.

P: Yes.

M: And this model shows the healthy way that most people process and everyone processes differently as we said you might skip a phase. You might never go through anger. But these are the general –

P: indicators.

M: Yep. So you’ve got to do the grieving, you’ve got to do the hard yards to get through it otherwise you hold it.

P: I think also, if you know the stages that are coming and if someone has said to you you’re going to feel angry, you’re going to feel anxious. So when it happens, you like. OK, I’m in the anger phase. I’m here. I’m ready.

M: Or you might, you might feel these.

P: Oh yeah, true. But I think when those when those emotions come up, then you say to yourself, ‘Oh I’m here now. Okay, I’ve got this, all right, this is going to happen. I’m going, I’m going to enjoy it.

M: [Laughter]

P: It’s kind of like you invest in it.

M: Alright. We are starting to run out of time. Let’s move to hints and tips for our listeners.

P: Ah, yes. Okay, done.

M: So the Lighthouse Treatment Centre in California has a list of eight things for dealing with grief and loss in recovery, and a lot of this applies. We’re not just talking about grief and loss, necessarily. But we are talking about any reason that you could say, I’m not ok. One and two are about:

1. Acknowledging your emotions; and

2. Talking about your pain.

P: Very, very important. Acknowledging that you’re having negative thoughts is one of the most important first steps in any process. If you’re going to have that cup of tea and go, I’m not sad. Then you’re never going to get past that first hurdle. You’ve got to acknowledge that. Yes, I’m feeling really low, and I feel like I could cry at the drop of a hat.

M: And that’s ok.

P: It’s important. It’s so important.

M: Ok, so moving on number three;

3. If needed, talk about your cravings.

P: Hhmm Interesting.

M: So what do you go to when you’re in a bad place?

P: What’s your reach?

M: Is it alcohol, is it sex, drugs?

P: Yep. And we’ve seen a lot of that with the Corona virus issues, so many people have turned to their cravings to try to satiate their needs.

M: Chocolate.

P: Yeah, all that stuff. But knowing why you do it is important.

M: Martinis.

P: Yeah, Martinis are in a class of their own.

M: Acknowledge them and give them a name and again it’s just about self-awareness.

P: It is.

M: Number four;

4. Use your time creatively.

So part of healing and moving forward is about starting to try.

P: Hhmm. That’s that upswing on the bell curve isn’t it? You’re starting to take control again.

M: Yeah and something that really can help with moving forward is using your time creatively in things like dance or painting or sculpting anything that gets, writing, that gets your creative juices flowing, that you can get lost in an activity is shown to be a little bit helpful in moving forward.

P: Again, it’s an externalisation as well, if you’re doing sculpture or painting that wonderful idea of being Jackson Pollock and just throwing a shitload of paint at the canvas and getting it all out, its externalising, your emotions, it’s putting them out rather than having them in.

M: All right next one, number five;

5. Do something for your loved one.

Now this is more specifically for people who are going through grief. And this involves things like helping to plan for the funeral or writing a poem or putting flowers on a grave, helping the family, clearing out wardrobes can be really tough.

P: Which can be amazingly cathartic at the same time.

M: Yeah.

Okay, so number six;

6. Understand that grief is not linear.

And we’ve spoken about this before. Number seven;

7. Take care of your physical health.

It is so important and we’ve said this a million times on this podcast. That you have a habit of physical activity, and so when things go wrong, you keep that habit going.

P: You cling to it.

M: You can’t actually, when things go wrong, decide to institute that new habit of exercising. That’s just not the time to get the benefits from it.

P: Hhmm, no.

M: So taking care of your physical health and last one, number eight;

8. Taking care of your mental health.

P: That involves doing some of the hard work that we’ve talked about on the podcast. Those exercises and crazy things that the cynic just goes ‘why am I writing about my feelings?!’

[Laughter]

P: It’s so important.

M: But also just a little bit of self-love and forgiveness and care-

P: And reflection

M: – can go a long way. Forgive yourself for not making it to the gym, five times this week or three. Forgive yourself not eating healthy all the time. But look for opportunities to maybe pamper or spoil yourself as well if you’re not in a great emotional state.

P: And it’s also about acknowledging what you have done. The woman that I was reading about Melody Wilding, who is a professor off psychotherapy in Michigan. She talks about focusing on the progress, not on the perfection, so focusing on how much you’ve done to contribute to your own progress and what you’re actually getting to. It’s not about getting to the end point. It’s not like I’m not at having one thousand dollars in my bank account, but I’m making good decisions about my money this week, and I’m not choosing not to go and spend two thousand dollars on something else, which is going to impede my progress to that thousand dollars of savings. It’s a different perspective, and she also talks about recognising that you’re on the path.

So giving yourself a little pat on the back because you’ve taken that first positive step back towards whatever this point is that you need to find and I think that’s a really important aspect when you’re at the bottom of the bell curve is when you take that first step, give yourself a pat, give yourself a high five and go ‘I’m looking after myself.’

M: Absolutely, and taking that step is so important. This is about getting yourself out.

P: You can talk about that one Marie.

M: Yep, and thanks to you.

P: No, no, no, no, it was you all you.

M: Sometimes it takes someone else to give you a bit of a push.

P: [Laugh] Thrust!

M: Alright, well I think that’s all we have time for today.

P: Thanks for joining us today. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like the podcast. And remember, you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, which is a site about how to find balance, happiness and resilience in your life, including some really practical tips and resources to get you started on your happiness journey, until next time.

P: Stay happy. Bye.

M: Bye.

[Happy Exit Music]

9 Small Ways To Add Exercise Into Your Day Without Exercising

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The health benefits of regular exercise are numerous, from boosting your immune system, improving sleep and boosting your mood, to reducing cardio-vascular diseases and even reducing the effects of ageing!

Yet, in today’s busy world, it can be hard to find the time to exercise. Sometimes we have good intentions, but with competing priorities, exercise just keeps getting cut, week after week.

Going to the gym or playing sports means finding time in a busy schedule to get changed, get there and back, take another shower and change again. Who has all that extra time in a day?!

Plus, for many people, it’s all just a bit daunting and not easy to get started. To be honest, a lot of people just don’t really like exercising in the first place.

“Don’t worry. Burpees don’t like you either.”

So, how can you reap the benefits of exercise without adding more stress to your week? In short, how can you exercise without exercising?

Here are 9 ways to add more exercise into your day without exercising

  1. Get off one stop before your train/bus stop and walk a little bit further.
  2. Park at the back of the car park when you go shopping.
  3. Take the stairs at work, or in your apartment (or friend’s apartment).
  4. If you sit at a desk for most of the day, try standing for all your meetings.
  5. Walk to your local shops instead of driving and carry the groceries back.
  6. Help others. Why not volunteer somewhere that you might have to stand a lot, such as a local pound or Salvation Army retail store.
  7. Offer to walk and play with your friends’ dogs for them. Take them to the park, throw a ball and have some fun.
  8. Go out for lunch. Walk to your favourite café or food court. Even better if you put on comfy shoes and power walk!
  9. Make it a point to vacuum, sweep or mop more often.

Remember that every minute of intentional movement adds up!

Related content: Read Moving On article The ‘No Excuses’ Beginners Exercise Plan

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going, at no additional cost to you. Thanks!

Why You Need to Stop Skipping Your Lunch Break (E24)

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Happiness for Cynics Podcast

Many studies have shown that prolonged sitting is the new smoking. Yet despite it being really bad for our health, so many of us don’t take lunch breaks! Join us as we discuss the importance of taking a lunch break, and how to give your brain a rest, get some sun and exercise and eat more mindfully.

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and speaker focused on change and resilience.

P: And I’m Peter Furness, a poster hanger, towel folder and furniture re-arranger each week will bring to you the latest news and research in the field of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: You can find us at marieskelton.com, which is a site about how to find balance, happiness and resilience in your life. We talk about a lot of same research we cover here on the podcast, including some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life.

P: So on today’s episode, which is all about:

M: Taking a lunch break.

[Happy Intro Music]

M: So Pete. We need to take a lunch break.

P: Oh, I’m bad at this.

M: I’m really bad at it too. Well, no, I swing, I swing. I have no what’s the word I’m looking for? Discipline.

P: I don’t believe that for a second. [Laugh]

M: No, I really have no discipline. I could be really good at this I’m a lunch break taker.

P: Hi, my name’s Marie Skelton lunch break taker.

M: I haven’t had a lunch break for seven years.

P: [Laugh] Yay Marie! Can I get a t-shirt?

M: [Laugh]

So, according to NPR [National Public Radio], the majority of Americans don’t take their lunch breaks.

And you’ve got an Australian stat too, don’t you?

P: Yes, I do.

A lot of Australians don’t take them, either.

Almost one in three [Australians], 28% of people habitually eating at their desk and 33% of people are skipping lunch entirely more than once a week.

M: I’ve definitely been there and actually since I’ve started working from home. So since Covid and self-isolation, I’ve become really bad, really, really bad at it.

P: See, I find that interesting because at home I naturally want to hang out in the kitchen. It’s my happy place, so I I’m very good at getting my..

M: I’m the exact opposite, I’m like I have to go to the kitchen, if I don’t cook my husband’s going to divorce me. It’s been too long.

[Laughter]

P: I’m strange, I use cooking to relax me. So the kitchen’s a happy place for me. But yeah, I often will if I am staying home, I’ll often get up go for a cup of tea, get up have lunch, make some lunch or microwave something.

M: Yeah so I’ll look at the clock and it’ll be two o’clock and I’ll be like crap and I’ll go grab something. I’ve been a lot better, actually diet wise lately, so I’m having salads and doing a good job eating well, but I will bring it back to my desk and eat it while I juggle phone calls and everything.

P: I’m guilty of that as well, being a small business owner and working on a client based schedule, so I’m terrible at keeping my clients to a count and I always go overtime with them. I found that I actually for many years didn’t have a lunch break at all. Then I started allocating a lunch break that was 15 minutes.

M: [Laugh]

P: Woah, go Petie! [Laugh]

I’ve recently increased that to 45[minutes], which is much better because there’s 10 minutes at the beginning of that and there’s five minutes at the end where you’re kind of preparing for the next client or the next client turns up early. So you know, you do get chipped away a little bit, so it probably ends up being about 20/25 minutes. But it is really, really important to schedule it in and what we’re probably going to come to in terms of diet and so forth is making sure that you’re prepared so that you can make maximize that time. So I always bring my lunch in from home, that I’ve cooked and it’s in the microwave on the way before I’ve even said goodbye to the last client.

M: Yeah, I found that I ate a lot more healthily when I brought my own food in definitely, but it encouraged me in the office to then eat it at my desk. Yeah, so going out for lunch made me have to leave the office, and while I was out, I might pop past a shop and have a look or pick something up or just go sit in the park to eat it. And I have to say the times where I have felt the happiest and the most satisfied with life are the times where I’ve had a really good balance at work between motivating, challenging work but enough time to take a lunch break.

P: And it’s really important for your work productivity as well.

M: Yep, absolutely. So there’s three things that not taking a lunch break impacts on:

  • Firstly, your physical health. For a number of years now, people have been saying prolonged sitting is the new smoking.

P: I’m doing this every day.

M: It’s really bad for your physical health.

  • Secondly, your brain needs rest.

P: Absolutely.

M: Particularly for white collar type work. If you’re writing and thinking for a lot of what you do, 9 to 5, you need to give it a little bit of time to rest.

  • And then the third thing is you’ll eat more mindfully if you get away from that activity that you’re doing and sit and enjoy your lunch.

P: Yes.

M: And so if you’re struggling with weight or weight loss. Eating mindfully is one of the biggest new trends in weight loss. It’s not about what you eat. It’s about more mindful about how you eat is the latest thing there. So definitely taking a lunch break can have a huge impact on your weight loss journey.

P: I want to pick you up on that second point as well Marie, in terms of the productivity and having the break. There is a lot of science that supports the fact that we need to stimulate our brains in different ways to allow different pathways to be accessed and allow different synapses to open up. So frontal lobe, parietal lobe, accessing the different lobes makes for a healthy brain. And if you are obsessed over a problem or an issue and you’re focused and you’re inside that issue for over an hour, I can’t quote the study because I didn’t have time to look this up. I know this is true, so you’ve just got to blind faith here.

[Laughing]

P: Walking away from the problem and then coming back, allows you to reset.

M: Yep.

P: It allows new ideas to drop in and allows you to come back and perhaps look at the issue in a different way, which results in a better, it brings about a better result.

M: Also what we were all told, when we’re studying for exams at school, come back to it. Yes, because the more you focus on something the less likely you are to solve it. But the other thing is, we have natural body rhythms and –

P: – Circadian rhythms.

M: Yes, that’s day and night time sleep. We’ve also got a 90 minute blocks of time that your body goes through during the day. Right? So again, there’s so many different studies and different research about whether your body clock or your brain in their own different times at times can function. Some people say, for only as much as 20 minutes at a time. If you’re fully focused. So again it depends who you look at, whose study.

P: Yep

M: And again the other side is, they say take a break. Now what does that mean? So some studies have definitely shown that just a few minutes is enough to help you reset and go again. But taking as little as 20 minutes in one study has been shown to increase your productivity for the entire day. So if you can’t do anything else, take a 20 minute lunch break.

P: Yep. And the idea of having 20 minutes is, it’s long enough to actually allow yourself to be distracted and to re-energise and to be distracted by something else. And getting up and physically getting away from the desk is really important there, because walking around is going to stimulate a whole heap of body things that go on that create chemical reactions and allow your brain to focus. But it’s allowing your physicality to override what’s going on in the brain. And it wakes everything up gets things stimulated and moving.

M: I think it also resets you. So as someone who’s been through burnout at work through a particularly busy period in Corporate Australia. So I was working for a large corporate we we’re going through a royal commission I was working in public affairs.

P: He he.. [Laugh]

M: Things were shit.

[Laughter]

M: Right? And I just felt like I didn’t want to go take lunch because I didn’t want to be there for another 30 minutes at the end of the day. It just meant, I wouldn’t get through everything, and I’d be there until eight o’clock, not seven thirty or whatever it was. So the logic made sense and I was still just slugging through stuff that I needed to get through. But what that lunch break does is it stops that day to day build of stress, the cortisol levels that build over time. It’s a circuit breaker, and it takes you back to zero again. So the irony of that burnout period is that I knew I needed to exercise, but I stopped exercising. I knew I needed to eat well because it was going to be a very stressful year… or three.

[Laughter]

M: And I started taking getting take out. I didn’t have time to prep my meals. I knew I needed to just get out and get some sun even.

P: Yes.

M: Get outside and to take that mental break. And I just felt that I couldn’t and lo and behold, burnout.

P: Funny that.

[Laughter]

M: We know it and I think that’s the trick, really is actually finding a way to dig yourself out of that hole when you know you’re in it.

P: And that’s where the physical thing can come out, getting yourself…

M: But even 20 minutes, and you can combine them all. Get outside, eat a salad or some protein and vegetables. Eat something healthy-ish.

P: Eat something you’ve cooked yourself. It’s as simple as that.

M: If you’ve got time or find time. Or buy it, I mean there’s plenty of options in most big cities or food courts. You can find healthy food and then walk for the rest of the lunchtime. Get out in the sun or through the mall if it’s raining and walk.

P: I’ve actually found that I do that myself. If now that I have my prolonged lunch break [laugh], I actually go. Oh, I’ve had my lunch, I’ve not done anything, I’ll go around the block and it is just a simple walk around the block, and it’s just to get out, get a different stimulus, get outside even though it’s in CBD and it might be a bit smoggy and so forth. It’s still, it’s still better than staying in those four walls because you feel like you’ve had a change and then you can come back for the afternoon session and go hard again.

M: And just getting your muscles moving.

P: Mmm really important.

M: Absolutely so they say sitting is the new smoking. So it is definitely proven to not be as bad a smoking. But just like everyone jumped on the idea that smoking was bad and we saw all those horrible ads come out. Australia’s really bad for shock ads. I’m surprised we haven’t seen sitting shock ads. What do you make of that?

P: I don’t know. It’s probably not dramatic enough.

M: [Laugh] A whole bunch of people just sitting around, “oh the horror!”

P: “Oh the humanity!”

M: The diseases and illnesses that are tied to long term sitting include cancer, heart disease and type two diabetes. And the research shows that the effects of long term sitting are not reversible through exercise or other good habits.

P: That’s a very interesting one.

M: Can’t take these [away].

P: You can’t get it back.

M: And It’s also going to take time off the end of your life. So morbidity rates with not being able to move, comes back to that lovely little test you can do about getting sitting cross legged on the floor.

M: Yes, this is a good one.

P: And getting up without using your hands.

M: Yes, so if anyone hasn’t seen this, they give this test to people in their sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, and they ask you to sit down on the floor with your legs crossed. And then if you can kind of rock forward onto your feet and get your body up into a standing position without putting your hands down, then you’ve got the core strength and flexibility that you should be able to live far longer into the future.

P: And have a better quality of life in your senior years and because it’s the ability to be able to get yourself up that has complete links with morbidity, with heart disease with diabetes and it also [is good] in terms of range of motion and being able to look after yourself in case you fall.

M: Well it actually shows that you are less likely to fall because you’ve got the body strength.

P: Exactly.

M: And once someone who’s elderly falls and starts losing their balance, then it’s a very quick decline from that point forward. Generally.

P: Yes

M: The other thing that adds onto that is the injuries that come with the fall. The broken hips or legs etc. Also not good.

P: Yeah

M: Anyway this is a complete sidebar.

So taking lunch breaks.

P: [Laugh]

M: Maybe we can all sit down and practise standing up…

[Laughter]

P: with your lunch!

[Laughter]

M: So what are some good things to do, even if you only have 20 minutes, we’ve talked about a few of them already. So if you’re going to take a lunch break, you’re busy, you’re stressed. How do you maximise that 20 minutes that you make time for, if you can only make time for 10 minutes. What do you do?

P: Prepare. You’ve got to be prepared.

M: That takes more time Pete.

P: No, what I’m saying is that if you know you’ve got 20 minutes for a lunch break. Then you need to pre-prepare your meals. You need to have that installed so that you don’t waste 15 minutes wandering around the food court going, ‘Oh do I have curry? Or do I have sushi? Do I have curry? Do I have sushi?

M: Well, see my mind would say prepare before I leave the office to go get sushi.

P: Well that works. That’s still preparing.

M: Straight downstairs, get something that’s not deep fried.

P: You know what you’re going to have. You know what you’re going to have and you’re setting up and you have a goal in place. So you’re not going to be distracted by the deep fried southern chicken burger which may have come to $10.50 from Betty’s burgers today.

[Laughter]

M: Oh I love Betty’s Burgers.

Which is still okay, in moderation.

P: Absolutely.

M: Alright. So you’re saying prepare. I’m saying get outside and mindfulness. So once you’re outside, if you are struggling to find 20 minutes a day to go and have a lunch break and you need to maximize the time that you spend then:

  1. Make sure that you refuel, obviously, and the healthier the better, as we all know. But refueling is refueling.
  2. Secondly, get some sun if you can.
  3. Thirdly, while you’re out, take a moment to look at nature. So wherever you are it’s about stopping and smelling the roses or at least noticing them.

P: Yes

M: And that is a really good reset for your brain. So this is that mental reset. If you go out and you rush from shop to shop and you have to pick up milk for breakfast tomorrow and you get your food and you make it back. And oof, you’re out of breath and it’s been 20 minutes. There’s some definite positive benefits from a physical and recharge perspective, but not necessarily from a mental health perspective.

P: Okay.

M: So if you’ve just rushed through your lunch break and it’s just another tick box activity for you that you had to get done and that you had to make sure happened in your day. You’re not resting your brain. If it’s a stress to get it done. So just taking those moments to enjoy the sun on your face or to stop and smell or notice the roses or even the grass.

P: It’s funny when I’m like working in the CBD. I often find myself searching for green space because there’s, where I am, which is down towards King Street Warf, it’s actually a bit of a walk to get to Hyde Park and that’s really the only green space in that corner of the CBD. There’s blue space, which is down by Cockle bay, which is fine, but to be actually able to sit and have your lunch in a green area. It’s actually not that easy in the CBD of Sydney.

M: And to get sun at the same time, you’re in shade most of the time.

P: Yeah.

M: Absolutely, if you’re in the middle, it’s a decent hike.

P: It’s where roof gardens would be really advantageous.

M: Yeah, we don’t do roof gardens in Australia.

P: We don’t make enough. I don’t think we do to take enough advantage of our rooves in Sydney. I think that we’re falling short on that one a little bit. Maybe another episode, [Laugh].

But I do want to clock one thing about exercising in your lunch break.

M: Yes

P: Now I was shocked by this one. According to my stats, only 7% of us use the lunch break to exercise, which I really didn’t think I thought would be a lot higher in Australia.

M: Hold on look, it takes women, and men, but mainly women 30 minutes to get ready in the morning, at least often an hour, depending on what your hair rituals are. If you’ve showered and washed your hair, which you have to do after you sweat. Okay before you go, especially corporate. Before you go back into an office, it’s let me just say it’s rude if you don’t. Let me just put that out there. If you do now shower after you exercise and you come back in the office. Don’t come near me. It is not something that everyone wants to smell in their two o’clock meeting.

P: [Laugh], no definitely not.

M: So I fully understand why people wouldn’t exercise at lunch because you just don’t have time to turn it around. You’ve got to get there and back. You’ve got to do the exercise, whatever it is and you’ve got, if you’re doing something that makes you sweaty; if you’re going to go do a nice stretching class.

P: You can still sweat.

M: A nice, light stretching class. Then maybe you could make that work without the shower and all the prep to get back into your corporate attire that goes afterwards.

P: I still, I was a lunchtime exerciser. I would duck down in between 11 and 12:30-

M: -That’s an hour and a half.

P: So 90 minutes and it didn’t always happen, but yeah again it was about planning that in. So that was a Tuesday and Thursday thing, and I knew that Tuesdays and Thursdays I took 90 minutes, again scheduling and preparing and that was my days exercise. Where I did go down and do some exercise in that time and then come back so that I was ready and prepped to go again in the afternoon.

M: I think that’s lunch break Nirvana to be able to do that.

P: [Laugh]

M: But then you’ve also got to find time to eat as well, and that’s the potential downside to putting exercise in.

P: And that’s what I wasn’t doing as well. In that I was grabbing food on the fly and shoving it in and half eating lunch and then waiting for the next client and half eating it after that. Yeah, maybe I wasn’t quite clocking that in the right way, but it felt like I was.

M: Well look I think it never hurts to get some exercise in at lunchtime. To get some exercise in, in general.

P: Well, again, it helps your mental energy as well.

M: Yes. Oh, so good for your happiness levels in general. All right, well, I think that’s about it for today.

P: Done.

M: Thank you for joining us. If you do want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast.

P: Stay happy, people.

Related content: Listen to our Podcast: Wellbeing and Your Environment (E21)

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Resiliency Is About Recharging And Self-Care, But Are You Doing It Wrong?

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Are You Doing Self-Care Wrong?

Are you stressed, overwhelmed or burned out? You’re not alone.

We’re all living in a Change Storm – experiencing more change, more often than ever before. So, we feel busy, all the time. It can feel like there’s never enough time. Between all the things we must do and all the things we should do, life can just be overwhelming.

The to-do list just keeps getting longer and longer, and with it, the stress just keeps piling up. There’s work (or looking for work), commute times, laundry, cooking, cleaning, car servicing, hairdresser appointments, doctor and dentist appointments, paying the bills, keeping up with family and friends, answering emails and texts and messages and pings, and posting, and for those who have them, let’s not forget all the responsibility that comes with kids and pets.

And that’s just the basics! For many people, there are so many more pressures and ‘must-dos’ in their daily lives, from looking after sick kids or elderly parents, to being a single parent or running a small business… let’s just say that first list was a starting point only.

But we’re not done yet. Then there are the things we feel we should do, and every time we don’t do them, we add another failure to the scorecard or more guilt into our lives. From cleaning the house better or more often, calling mum more often, cooking healthier meals, doing more (or any) exercise, or finding time to do your hair or make-up better or at all…  it all adds up to a crushing weight of inadequacy, adding more and more stress to our already stressful lives.

Life is so busy and so hectic that it’s no wonder the World Health Organisation labelled burnout an official medical diagnosis last year.

So what to do about it?

The Dangers of Doing Too Little

All too often a typical response to doing too much is to try to do too little. With all this stress, it’s no wonder that we’re spending more time just vegging. Binge watching is a thing now, as is ‘mindless scrolling’ on social media. But these responses to stress are also not helpful.

Social media can have very positive effects, as we’ve seen with the social distancing that COVID-19 brought us. It can help to maintain connectedness and relationships. However, mindless scrolling has been shown to be addictive, trigger sadness, make us compare our lives to others more (which is also unhealthy), and it can lead to jealousy.

Similarly, watching TV or playing video games might seem like a great way to unwind from a stressful day. But if you do it for hours on end, for days on end, it becomes something else altogether. Repeated binge-watching has a number of negative health effects, from not getting enough sleep and not getting any exercise to things that will kill you like deep vein thrombosis.

Just like Goldilocks taught us, it’s about finding a balance that’s just right.

Related reading: Why You Need A Social Media Detox Now

The Self-Care Revolution

The science is clear that we need to do a better job of balancing looking after ourselves with all the stressors of the modern world.

Cue the self-care revolution! From mindfulness retreats to yoga and meditation classes, and CrossFit, veggie smoothies and #RandomActsOfKindness we’ve seen an explosion of new fads (mostly science backed).

There are experts from all walks of life, all around the world, telling us to make sure we:

  • Invest in family and friendships to stave off loneliness (another new 21st-century disease). Meet new people and cultivate supportive relationships to build your sense of belonging and connectedness.
  • Exercise more, but make sure it’s intense, but only sometimes, other times it needs to be gentle, but not too gentle or it’s no longer exercise
  • Sleep at least 8 hours every night, but sometimes 9 is better, but not too much sleep or you might be depressed.
  • Eat well, this means no sugar, no fat, no salt, no meat, no processed foods, no gluten, no alcohol. But make sure you get the right kind of fat, and protein is important, and some sugars are ok, and make sure your diet is balanced, and take vitamins to supplement your diet, but if you’re eating well you shouldn’t need vitamins.
  • Look after your mind because stress kills. So practice breathing and meditating, and take your vacations, and use your commute time to refocus your brain, but also to listen to podcasts because learning and having a growth mindset is just as critical. Never stop learning! And journal every night about things you’re grateful for, and practice kindness towards others.

You get my point here, right? Even self-care can feel like more things to add to that never-ending to-do list. So, this begs the question, are you doing self-care wrong?

Are You Doing Self-Care Wrong?

So, what is the goldilocks amount of self-care? And are you doing self-care wrong?

As Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan write in the Harvard Business Review: “resilience is about how you recharge.”

It’s about giving yourself time to do nothing, or time to do something, with no pressure and a lot of self-forgiveness and kindness about what you do, or don’t end up doing. It’s about doing something that you enjoy, something fun, not something that you feel you should do because some over-hyped expert told you to do it on a podcast.

“The key to resilience is trying really hard, then stopping, recovering, and then trying again. This conclusion is based on biology.”

Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan, Harvard Business Review.

To be resilient, we do need to have some basic body, mind and soul habits in place and that we maintain when times get particularly tough. The great news here is that there are so many options here, that we can pick what we want to do. And the minute it starts to feel like a chore, or we don’t enjoy it, we can move on to something else.

But we also have to stop overscheduling ourselves and make time to spoil and pamper ourselves.

So, for your own personal health and longevity, go ahead and book that massage, or pour that glass of wine and get in the bath, or grab that book you’ve been meaning to read for months and go lay outside in the sun and read it… whatever floats your boat. Do whatever you want to do to help you unwind, with no guilt and no pressure.

Or don’t.

It’s completely up to you.

Related content: Read Moving On article 11 Ideas For Your Next Mental Health Day, listen to our Podcast: Self-Care is Church for Non-Believers (E17)

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Comment below! Tell us what do you think! Are you doing self-care wrong? What’s your go-to stress buster for when things get too busy or you feel yourself approaching burn-out?