Unapologetically Marie

Writer, podcaster, mental health advocate

Happiness Blog

The Importance of Authenticity (E23)

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Happiness for Cynics Podcast

Authenticity is about being able to stand loud and proud and say “this is who I am” and not conform to the majority’s ideals. But authenticity has tended to be a struggle for marginalized peoples throughout history.

Today’s topic is timely and topical in light of next week’s World Pride celebrations because around the world so many LGBTIQ+ people still do not feel that they can be their authentic self. Listen to this week’s episode to find out why it’s important to be your authentic self and the steps you can take to be more authentic in your life.

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 man doing what I can, shaking my shablam, …

Okay, that should be on Sesame Street.

M: I don’t know what you said in that bit there.

P: OH! Rude. Each week we will bring to you the latest science and research in the field of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: Yes, you can find us at marieskelton.com, which is a site about how to find balance, happiness and resilience in your life.

P: I think you should introduce today’s episode. I’ve always done it.

M: Today’s episode is about authenticity.

[Happy Intro Music]

M: We’re unofficially brought to you by Hendrix today.

P: Cheers, [laugh]. I feel like Jane Fonda.

M: Sweet Martinis.

Okay, so Pete, next week is Global Pride.

P: Yay!

M: Woohoo! So, for those of you may that not be familiar with global pride. It provides an opportunity for the LGBTQI++ community around the world, come together on June 27th and celebrate diversity and equality. If you hear clinks through the episode, we maybe should not have poured Martinis before we started.

[Laughter]

P: It’s World Pride who cares? [Laugh] Everything is fabulous.

M: It is, it is Fabulous. So the tagline this year is Exist, Persist, Resist. And I think today’s topic is really timely and topical in light of Pride next week. So we’re talking about authenticity and authenticity has tended to be a struggle for a lot of marginalised societies and the LGBTQI++ group as a whole. Is still going through many rights fights and even though we’ve had some great wins, we last year got marriage equality in Australia.

P: Yes, Australia.

M: Finally

P: Yes, well done. It seems like such a long time ago now doesn’t it.

M: Yep, definitely.

P: Such a celebrated day.

M: So much has happened. They promptly got the right to marry and then were told they couldn’t marry because of COVID.

[Laughter]

P: You can get married; you just can’t have a ceremony.

M: [Laugh] So authenticity has been a struggle for a lot of marginalised peoples throughout history. And it’s about being able to stand loud and proud and say ‘this is who I am’ and not conform to the majority’s ideals. And I guess the way that that has translated throughout history is for aboriginal peoples in our country we’d ask them to be more white; And for women we’ve asked them to be more like men, particularly in the workplace.

P: I like this take on it Marie. That idea.

M: And being in a corporate, very male dominated industry for a lot of my career. I’ve definitely heard things not necessarily targeted at me, but towards women such as “you’re too emotional or your waffle.” Who would say that to a man, right?

P: Oh, I get that all the time.

[Laughter]

M: And the LGBTQI++ community, you would get a lot of the people in that same corporate environment being told to tone down behaviour and how they dress what they wear. Different cultures also get told the same thing. So being authentic is about bucking the trend in a way. But you’ve got to feel safe to do that as well.

P: You do, yeah. Being authentic requires a lot of work. I’m actually going to go back to our first episode where we said that happiness is not a destination. It’s a result of doing the things that we do. I feel that authenticity is the same. Authenticity is not a destination. You’ve still got to do the constant work. It’s not that you go “Oh I’m authentic now, yay happy me.” It’s actually something you have to revisit and realign because it comes down to values and beliefs.

M: And it comes into understanding your values and beliefs. It’s so easy to get caught up in what the majority thinks is right and just go along with it. And then there is a disconnect that happens at a subconscious level that can leave you feeling depressed, sad, not connected with those around you and not really understanding why.

P: Exactly, it’s making those conscious decisions as opposed to going along with the trend as you say.

M: The other group, I think, right now that is struggling with authenticity are millennials and the reason, the reason is that there’s so much more pressure on our younger generations now because they’re living every second of their lives on social media for everyone to see and what they’re, they’re being watched by others and they’re watching others and comparing themselves to others. And the images that we present on our social media profiles are just representations of who we think we should be.

P: Or the representations of our best parts. We’re putting out in the public sphere the best bits, only the best bits.

M: But again, the best bits because of who we think we should be.

P: Yep, OK.

M: Who we think others –

P: – want us to be.

M: Yes, yes. So there’s this whole new aspect that we’re still grappling with, how to manage and millennials have grown up in that. So the pressure to conform is even bigger, I think for these newer generations and for I’d say gen x and y as well, although they haven’t grown up with this to fit in. And I guess the question is; How do we take off the mask that we’re wearing and learn to live a life of authenticity?

P: Yes. I want to throw something at you there Marie, because there is a certain aspect of the millennial existence where some people might say “no, no they’ve got so much more freedom. They’ve got so much more capability to actually buck the trend and be who they are.” And we’re seeing that with a lot of the fluidity between identities and things like that.

M: I guess where I’m maybe not agreeing with you is that I still think the pressure to conform during your teen years is a far more powerful motivator for the majority than the ability to be an individual.

P: That comes down to approval, doesn’t it?

M: I definitely think so. And I think that comes all the way back to our evolution and genes, which is that those who are ostracised from the group generally don’t live very long, and there is a biological need to be part of the group and be accepted, and we’ve looked at making friends and being social in the past, and there’s so much research that shows that so while we may have an ability to, be different and to express that and our limits for what difference will accept today are a lot broader than they used to be 30 years ago.

P: Yes, Definitely. That’s my point.

M: We can be a lot more fringe than we ever used to be able to be, but it still takes a very strong person in their teens to stand up on those edges and proudly say, “this is who I am” and it’s not the norm.

P: Yep, yep. I agree.

M: So for those people, give me a call I want to know what your secret is?

P: [Laughter]

M: All right, so what are we talking about when it comes to authenticity?

P: What does it mean to be authentic?

M: All right, well I have an answer to that. Do you have an answer?

P: You go. You go girl.

M: All right. It’s a concept in psychology. So this is a social sciences discussion that we’re having at the moment, and it’s also a philosophical discussion. So authenticity is discussed quite a bit in existentialist philosophy. So in existentialism, authenticity is the degree to which an individual’s actions are congruent with their beliefs and desires despite external pressures.

P: Yes.

M: So that’s the ‘what is normal?’ What is the majority doing piece. And it’s how much do your actions match –

P: – your beliefs and desires? They are the really important words there; beliefs and desires, values and beliefs. This is the crux of being authentic.

M: Absolutely. So an individual who is considered authentic is someone who’s striving to always act in the way that they believe. And I do want to say that just because we fail that that doesn’t mean you’re inauthentic.

P: No, no.

M: So it is the word strive implies that you’ve always got to be trying as I mentioned before.

P: Doing the work.

M: And this is something that has become really popular lately, being authentic, thanks to Brené Brown and we talk about Authentic Leadership. And really, what we’re saying in big corporations when we’re looking for authentic leadership is a bit of vulnerability is what people are looking for. So having a view into your beliefs, values, your imperfections and you as a person could help me bond with you a little bit more as well. So not just always having that perfect facade up that we see in social media.

P: And there’s a lot of points to come on that later on.

M: But it also means that the people who are not part of the majority can perhaps see some of themselves in you.

P: Definitely, which leads to bonding and community.

M: Diversity and inclusion. You said there were a range of things you wanted to jump on there.

P: [Laugh]

M: Give it to me!

P: We all have a bullshit detector. And this is authentic behaviour. If your bullshit detector is going off it means that you’re seeing someone being not authentic. So I just, I didn’t slap my thigh.

M: After slapping the table. I’m going to seriously put you in a straightjacket when we have these conversations and bring a straw for your Martini.

P: [Laughter] so being authentic, what do you have to do to be authentic?

M: I don’t think it’s about sharing all of yourself.

P: Definitely not, no.

M: But it’s about sharing enough of yourself that people feel that they can get to know you.

P: Yes. So getting to know you, you have to be clear within yourself. What you’re presenting, I guess, to the world; and that’s where the beliefs and values comes into it being able to do the work that involves you going down and clarifying what you believe in, clarifying what your values are. That’s the work side of it.

If you haven’t done that amount of self-reflection and done the delving into your deepest, darkest centre, which is tough work, it’s hard to sit there and go through exercises from psycho analysis and these self-help ideas. It’s not easy. It doesn’t just happen. You have to actually do the work. Then the next step is making decisions and changing your behaviours to reflect those values.

M: Hold on. I’d say there’s a step between that.  

P: Go for it.

M: Acceptance.

P: Yes

M: There is self-acceptance and self-love, and particularly if I can speak on behalf of the LGBTQI++ community. There is a lot of hateful rhetoric out there. That means that a lot of people, once they come to the realisation and they’ve done their self-awareness work, that they are who they are –

P: – in the face of public pressure.

M: Despite what their parents might think, what the church might think, … why the society might think they are who they are. Then there is definitely a piece of self-acceptance and love that needs to heal.

P: Yeah.

M: A little bit there as well. And then it’s about aligning your behaviour’s.

P: Yep, very much agree. I’ll hook in here with a quote. “It’s about unhooking from the past, doing the work to silence the self-talk or the voices of others. What is your truth?”

M: The voices of others? That’s that piece. These are steps that are tightly interlinked. Definitely, it’s really hard to do that though if you feel alone.

P: Completely, yeah. It’s difficult.

M: Yeah, and I think in particular there’s a lot of people in the LGTBQI++ community who struggle with depression. So coming back to Pride next week and being authentic. There are much higher numbers for a lot of marginalised groups. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups have higher levels of depression as well. And there’s a range of groups throughout society who have dealt with the mental health implications of not feeling part of society.

P: And that comes back to what we were talking about in earlier podcasts about that willingness to bond, that sense of community and –

M: – belonging

P: Yep, finding your tribe.

M: Find your tribe, definitely. Now I do just want to be really careful here and say that this podcast is global because we’re on the World Wide Web and in some communities it may not be safe to be who you are.

P: Mmn, yeah. That’s an interesting one.

M: I’m just going to park that there and say we’re not advocating for you to be authentic and come out and be who you are if it may endanger your life for your safety.

P: Very True.

M: So we’re in a pretty lucky society here, but we still do see a lot of homophobia and hatred in general.

P: And there are repercussions for that if you choose to be that self, that authentic person you’re putting yourself very much in harm’s way.

M: Yeah, definitely, and that is a horrible and heartbreaking reality that a lot of people are living with.

P: And it’s the reminder. I think a lot of people say, “You know we’ve had this argument for so many years. Isn’t it done yet?” No, it’s not done yet. You know, we’ll never be done. And that comes down to a lot of the other genres that you’ve mentioned the race genre, the female genre.

M: We’re seeing that play out in the States right now. And being Australian, we’ve definitely got the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander element, and we are still grappling with how we’ve treated that population in the past, but it is 3% of our population and it is widely unreported and under reported in general. And when I lived in America, I got over there and I remember saying to a friend, I just don’t understand why this is still an issue. It was so long ago. Why are we still talking about race and why isn’t everyone –

P: – on board?

M: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t get it and she said. My grandma was stoned in the streets. Sorry, her Mum, her Mum in the seventies. That’s 10 years before I was born, not even [that] depending on when in the seventies. So it was fresh for her and her mother had raised her never to walk the streets alone. I’ve never had to deal with that, right. So it is very fresh in American society. And I think we’re seeing that play out right now. Yeah, unfortunately.

Alright, so, I guess. Let’s finish with how to be authentic.

P: Ooh, the skills of authenticity. There’s so many.

M: So if it is safe to be authentic in your community and you feel that there is a disconnect and it is impacting your mental health. You’re not living out and proud or being your true self. What are the next steps Pete?

P: There’s many actually did a list and it went 20 long, so it’s really difficult. I had to go back and go ‘ok what are the important ones’, the important ones are the values and beliefs.

1. Identify your values, identify your beliefs and act on them.

So when you’re faced with a decision, don’t go for the shiny. It’s like buying a car. Don’t get for the shiny new one that’s got the pretty seats. It’s like; let’s go back to the question. What are my values and beliefs? What’s going to be best for me in this decision? Make those decisions according to what is true for you. So identifying your values and beliefs [is] really, really important. A good phrase for that is [your] contentment over [others] approval. As we’re talking about, don’t do what society expects of you, do what is right for you and your inner contentment and inner peace.

2. Sincerity.

Being sincere. This is another quality that can come into decisions. If you’re being sincere with yourself and with others, that’s bringing your values to light. And it’s not giving false compliments “Oh Marie, you look fabulous in that dress.” … I’m sorry Green is not your colour. I do it with my sister all the time. She’s like “should I take this photo shoot for my new book?” I’m like no you look middle aged and frumpy.

M: Oh! Pete.

P: Lift your chin in a photo girl,

M: Pete!

P: because I love her. It’s my sincerity. It’s my thing. It’s like “no you can take a better photo.” Let’s be sincere about that. You asked for my opinion.

M: And I’m going to tie that into vulnerability. Sincere and vulnerable are really interlinked. And for anyone who is new to all of this and wants a really quick short sharp education in this area, go look up Brené Brown’s Ted talks, really good intro to all of this and go buy her book. She is just fabulous.

P: So there are other quick, quick ones. I’ll run through and these are more skills for looking at what you can do in the moment.

3. Accepting your reality

Don’t wish that it wasn’t what it is. It is what it is, and you’ve got to accept some of that. So come back to your values and beliefs and go what can I do to change this?

4. Owning your side of the street

I like this one. You feel the way you do because of your reactions, not because of someone else’s actions. So if I’m feeling hurt by something that you’ve done, there’s a bit of responsibility in there for me. It’s not just about the actions that someone else has done to me. It’s like, how have I contributed to that emotion?

M: Or what is my world view that’s making me react with anger or pain or jump down someone’s throat?

P: Definitely.

M: When they may not have even meant it that way.

P: Exactly.

5. Respect your body

Making sure that you respect who you are and what you have. Clink for that?

[Glasses clink, laughter]

M: Respect your body. Alcohol’s a poison, did you know that?

P: But it’s so fabulous. It makes me chirpy.

M: It does and that’s respecting my mind. There is mind and body.

P: And it’s respecting your happiness. I’m a happy drinker so, as long as it doesn’t take me to the other side. Oh, I’ll start with this last one. Last one,

6. Emotions are temporary

M: Oh! That’s so hard in the moment though.

P: It’s so hard. But if you can.. these are little skills, these are little phrases that you can use if you’re feeling vulnerable, upset, angry, even know that emotions a temporary and that they will pass on that you should never take decisions when you’re in heightened states of emotion, try and let the emotions drop down a little bit before you respond before you take action.

M: Particularly if that anger or emotion might lead to violence.

P: Definitely. Yeah, it’s always best to sit on it, sleep on it, think about it the next day.

M: And if you’re in the workplace, go find a trusted person, particularly if they’re outside of the workplace, drink, have a vent, whatever works for you and then with a fresh head the next day.

D: And venting is good, someone apologised to me this morning because they had to vent. Dude, no vent away, a problem shared is a problem halved. I’m so wise when I have a Martini. Look at me go!

[Laughter]

M: On that note we’re going to finish up today.

P: Just let me give one more piece of wisdom?

M: I am definitely a proud LGBTQI++ ally.

P: You so are.

M: And I want to wish everyone happy Pride this month. There’s a lot of pride activities happening virtually, and I hope that things continue to move in the positive direction that they have been.

P: Definitely, yeah.

M: I think the gay rights movement has definitely taken leaps and bounds.

P: And everyone can benefit from that. Be your own fabulous self.

M: Be fabulous!

P: Yes, be fabulous! You are fabulous, all of you!

M: Until next time.

P: Stay happy people.

[Exit Happy Music]

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Want To Raise Successful Kids? Here’s What You Have To Know.

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Why We Need To Teach Kids About Happiness, Not Achievement

Everyone wants their kids to grow up and be successful in life. If you grew up in my generation, that meant our parents valued academic achievement at any cost.

The story goes that good grades will get you into a good university, which will get you into a good job at a good company, where you will meet other good people and marry one of them, eventually having a good house, good car and good kids. Then you will be happy. The moral of the story is ‘work hard and you will be rewarded.’

Many mid-life crises have proven that this model is broken. Yet it hasn’t been until recently that we’ve had another model to replace it with. It turns out that kids need happiness to succeed in life, and our focus on academic success has actually been taking us away from success in life!

Thanks to the field of positive psychology, we now know that the key to success in life is happiness. Research shows that people who are often in positive moods and have happy emotions do better in life. They get better grades at school; they get better jobs; they are more resilient; they are more successful and they are even richer.

Why? As cognitive scientist Dr. Art Markman says, “Overall, when people are happy, they put in more effort to create a better future for themselves than when they are not happy.”

So, if you want your kids to be successful in life, first you have to teach your kids to be happy. Just like with adults, this means teaching kids to enjoy the process, to be curious, hopeful and optimistic. Here are some great activities you can do with your kids to help build these life skills.

6 Ideas To Teach Your Kids How To Be Happy

1. Go outside

The research on this one is really clear, spending time outside makes people happier, so teach your kids to be happy by loving the outdoors. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive, you can make family walks a habit during the week, take your kids to the park, walk the dog or go on a picnic, visit a lake or beach or a national park. Create a list of places and activities you can do as a family and let each member of the family choose an outing.  

2. Teach your kids a skill

This is especially good if it’s something that you are passionate about too. Teach them how to cook, garden, draw, sculpt or even change a tyre. Make sure you listen as much as you talk, ask questions about your kid’s thinking, ask them how they would do things. This is about learning to enjoy learning, about teaching your kids to have a growth mindset, which research shows impacts how you see the world and makes you more likely to thrive in life. So remember it’s not about actually mastering the skill (the end goal), instead focus on the process (the journey).

3. Create a photo album.

Together with the whole family, get out and about to take some photos together. Create an album of your favourite people, things and places. Make sure each family member has plenty of pages to contribute their photos. Place one photo per page and write under the photo why this photo is important to the family member who picked it. Watch this Greater Good Science Center video to see how this activity can create meaning and happiness in your kid’s lives.

4. Plan a family holiday together

Research shows that planning a holiday can bring just as much joy as going on holidays. Get a map. Lay out the ground rules (budget, time away etc…) and pick a place that you can all visit together. Once the location is sorted, each family member should go away and identify one activity they’d like to do while away, and has to present back to the family in one-weeks’ time their activity, what it is and why they think it is a good idea. Bonus points for creativity and resourcefulness!

5. Find or create moments of awe in your life

Studies show that experiencing moments of awe makes us more generous and patient, and helps you deal with stress better. According to the Collins dictionary, “Awe is the feeling of respect and amazement that you have when you are faced with something wonderful and often rather frightening.” It’s a thrill or a moment of wonder. It’s rare and special, and because of that, it is imprinted in your memory forever. Some people find awe and wonder regularly, in the small and big things around them, while others only experience awe occasionally. It is different for every person. Here are some ideas for activities to bring awe into your life.

6. Volunteer together

Research has shown that volunteering is rewarding in and of itself, and helping others is a way to higher individual wellbeing. Giving to others activates an area of the brain linked with contentment and the reward cycle. So, performing selfless acts makes you happier. You could volunteer at a soup kitchen or teach your kids how to fundraise for a worthy cause, whether that’s making something to sell to the neighbours (bracelets or lemonade) or doing a charity fundraising walk together.

Related content: Read Moving On article 5 ways to teach kids resiliency and happiness

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The Benefits of Volunteering (E22)

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Happiness for Cynics Podcast

This week’s episode is all about the benefits of volunteering. From living a longer and healthier life to having deeper friendships, there really is nothing volunteering can’t do to make your life better and happier!

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 am Peter Furness, a recycler, a composter and a reactionary environmentalist. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: Thanks, Pete. 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 the same research recover here on the podcast, including some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life.

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

Happy intro Music] 

M: Okay, so we’re talking about volunteering today. A big one, a really good one. Why should we volunteer Pete? 

P: So much good things come from volunteering, things that you might not think about it initially. But essentially, we know that volunteering works well for bringing about meaningful, purposeful lives and also for bringing out feel good things like oxytocin and progesterone.  

M: Isn’t progesterone one of the female chemicals?  

P: No that’s Oestrogen.  

M: Ok, alright… 

P: It’s in there though, I’m not exactly sure of the ratio but hey we could all do with some female stuff. 

M: Volunteering doesn’t make you more feminine? 

P: [Laugh] It makes you wussy. 

[Laughter] 

M: We take that back. [More laughter] 

P: No, no, no. The good benefits of volunteering are numerous and magnanimous.  

M: Sure and it’s also, so we are definitely going to focus in on volunteering today, but it does cross over into so many of the other areas, like so many things we talk about that we’ve discussed in the past. So it helps you to find purpose in your life. It often can help you be more social, depending on the activity you pick. It also helps you to be more generous and practise kindness and all of those things in their own right without the volunteering component are proven to have positive benefits for your life.  

P: I think that volunteering as well deserves its own episode because it’s a practical thing that we can do. It’s one of the techniques that we can actually do that leads to happiness. So whilst you’re not consciously going ‘I’m going to have a meaningful purpose in my life.’ You are just going down and helping out at the cake store, so it’s something that we could just do again. Like the self-care is church from non-believers episode. That was a great example of something really practical that we can do that gives us the benefits and leads to happiness without us really even trying. 

M: For me I think the real benefit out of this one is in helping to combat the loneliness epidemic.  

P: Yes. Very good. 

M: This is a topic that’s been around the last couple of years, and there’s been a lot of discussion over many years about the loneliness levels of our elderly populations. But more recently, we’ve been discussing how lonely our millennials are. 

P: Yes, we have talked about that. 

M: Yeah, yeah, and I think that this gives you something to do, especially if you’re an introvert and not so comfortable with rocking up to networking events to meet people, it gives you something to do, and you meet people secondarily and conform really close bonds. While the focus isn’t in that awkward trying to meet someone. 

P: It’s not speed dating people, that’s not volunteering.  

[Laughter] 

M: No [laugh]. So you can go in and volunteer, and that’s why you’re there, and it gives you a reason for being and in the meantime, you forge strong relationships depending on the activity, and I think that’s another benefit that we don’t necessarily need to deep dive into, but another reason why you might choose volunteering over some other self-care or positive psychology activities.  

P: It’s funny because I think when you approach people for that; I’ve been on that side of the equation where I’m trying to get people to volunteer and often the responses that come back are ‘oh no, I haven’t got time. I’ve got such a hectic lifestyle. I couldn’t possibly commit to that sort of stuff.’ 

M: Mm-hmm 

P: This is going to be the episode for you because it’s going to show you exactly the huge amounts of benefits that will come out of this that might surprise you and actually have some selfish, selfish additions in there as well. You can be selfish and volunteer. Sure, so I was having a look and on Psychology Today, which is a really accessible site, and I encourage you to have a look at some of their articles as well. It’s not psych babble. It is, as I said, really accessible. So Dr. Dawn Carr published an article on ‘Five Reasons Why You Should Volunteer’.  

1. Volunteers live longer and healthier.

2. They establish strong relationships, as we said before

3. It’s good for your career.

P: Ah, there’s that selfish reason.

[Laughter]

M: Well so far, they’re all pretty selfish. He’s the nice one, the warm and fuzzy one.

4. It’s good for society.

P: It benefits everyone.

M: Yeah, and then the last one, number 5 is:

5. It gives you a sense of purpose.

And again, we’ve shown how that can also directly lead to increased happiness levels.

P: Yeah, definitely. 

M: So there are studies, so many studies that show all of all of this stuff and you’ve been looking at a few studies as well haven’t you Pete?  

P: I have yeah. A couple, Professor Stijn Baert, I think I pronounced that correctly, talks a lot about how research shows that volunteering can increase employment. It can increase your employment opportunities and increase your skill base, which is one of those lovely selfish reasons. The idea of paying it forward, which has actually come about in the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation in 1995.  

M: And they’ve got a website. Just look up Random Acts of Kindness, they’ve got so many great tools there but we’re going to cover that another time actually.  

P: Definitely. There was also a study in 2018 on a Spanish company where they had a control group that was a generosity group. They were giving out acts of kindness within the workplace, and what they found was that people were even happier and more content than those who actually received the acts of kindness. So by people giving out those acts of kindness by being generous and volunteering their time and so forth they get, they got more benefits than just receiving it.  

M: I wonder if that also translates to giving gifts. Because I know at times I look really closely at the person’s face when I give a gift.  

P: [Laugh]  

M: Because I’m a horrible gift giver and I can’t help it. I’m so bad.  

P: [Laugh] Do you really like it? Do you really like it? Do you really? 

M: Oh, and I’ve just got this complex now, I can’t get over it. 

P: Do you keep every receipt and like hold onto it for a year?   

M: Yeah and I shove receipts in people’s hands and go, please, please exchange if you don’t like it? Please don’t, don’t feel bad. I want you to. Go exchange it, I know you hate it.  

P: [Laugh] 

M: You know, I’ll talk myself into a frenzy. But I wonder. Gift giving comes with so much anxiety for me.  

P: There’s your introverted nature.  

M: I just want them to like it.  

P: Yeah, I know. But the benefit does come about and even if it doesn’t work for them, they can always pass it on to somebody else. 

M: All right. And then there’s a few other studies that I was looking at as well that are quite interesting I thought. There’s one in the Journal of Happiness Studies that says that acts of charity or volunteer work can make you feel better and happier, which we just have mentioned. But this study goes even further, and it shows that even simply wishing someone well can have a positive effect on your mood. And in fact, even witnessing someone else performing an act of kindness produces oxytocin so it aids in lowering your blood pressure, improves self-esteem, optimism and overall heart health. So even if you just surround yourself with people who are doing good.  

P: You don’t even have to do it yourself. You can just be a quiet observer. ‘I’m just here for the tea and bickies.’ 

[Laughter] 

M: I love it. So there’s another one that I really love. There are two more and I’m going to share them because these are just great little studies. So there’s one from Harvard. I know the one that you’re wanting to talk about Pete. We’ll get to that one in a second. There’s one from Harvard that says that volunteering at least once a week yields improvements to wellbeing equivalent to doubling your annual salary.  

P: And who doesn’t want a double salary? 

M: I think I’ll take the money thanks.  

P: [Laugh] Pay off that mortgage.  

M: Yep, they say money can’t buy happiness, but I’m sure I’d make a go of it.  

P: [Laugh] It’s a good relative indicator, isn’t it? Would you like to go and volunteer? Or would you like double your salary?  

M: Yep, no one’s giving you double your salary, so you may as well go volunteer. 

P: There you go.  

[Laughter] 

M: And then the last study that, Pete is jumping at the bit – 

P: volunteering gives you more sex!  

[Laughter] 

M: I think you’re leaping. 

P: Yes, is this where we share our personal stories? 

M: Yeah, um I edit the podcast Pete so… 

P: Damnit.  

M: It is a very big leap to say that volunteering makes you get more sex – 

P: But come on the science says so. 

M: Well, kind of, kind of. For those who are the cynics and you actually care about the detail of the studies. So being altruistic makes you sexier to the opposite sex.  

P: [sexy cat purr] 

M: And in a study that was published by the British Journal of Psychology, they gave people $100 in cash and asked them what they would do with the money and those who are willing to donate the money. So those who would naturally or genuinely more altruistic also reported having more lifetime and or casual sex partners over the previous years. 

P: Bada bing bada boom! 

[Laughter]  

M: So, I am going to say that it doesn’t talk about cause and effect here, but 

P: we’re running with it [laugh]. 

M: What they’re saying here is altruists get more sex.  

P: There we go, I can see why it’s an attractive quality it makes, it makes someone be attracted to you because they can see a noble quality that makes you go ‘oh they’re going to be generous. They’re gonna be generous in the relationship, they’re going to be generous in their life.’ 

M: Well, particularly from a female point of view, it is something that you would want your husband particularly if you have very limited choice about who you’re marrying. It’s a trait you would be looking for, depending on the country you’re from or the century you’re in. I would imagine that altruism and generosity would be positive traits that you’d be very grateful for having and then, secondly, it also would reflect well on the type of person you want to raise your Children.  

P: This is an interesting point because this is one of the points that I came up with is that volunteering as a family is a thing.  

M: Yes  

P: It sets good examples. It shows Children, you involved in acts of generosity, which they then emulate, especially if they’re involved in volunteering at a young age. So if you’re going along to the weekly cake store, take your three year old with you because they’ll go along. They’ll see you having a fun time. And I’ll make that Connection without even really thinking about it in their conscious thought of ‘Oh yeah if I give this then that’s going to create a good connection with these other people.’  

M: Yep, I think one of the easy ones to do is soup kitchens with kids. 

P: Hhmm well you told, there’s a point that you talked about in terms of one of the greatest acts of volunteering is food. 

M: Aarghh, That’s my quick fact.  

P: Oh sorry, I – 

M: – jumped ahead. So just a quick fact for all of you out there who didn’t hear what Pete just said. Most volunteer activity involves the collection and distribution of food. 

P: I like it. I mean, I give cakes to my personal trainer.  

M: My, what’s the word I’m looking for? a person who helps with my rehab at the hospital.  

P: Physio. 

M: Physio [Laugh]. They’ve got the physio that’s attached to the hospital, so there’s a bunch of them that all work in the same clinic, and unfortunately they get a lot of people out of the Osteo[porosis] ward. So, Grandmas and grandpas who have torn ligaments in their shoulders or you know as you get older things wear and tear a bit more, and they’re always being given cakes and baked goods. Always the poor things.  

[Laughter] 

M: They’re like ‘We are going to be so fat by the time we’ve finished this career.’  

P: [Laugh] that’s the whole point making my PT just a little bit chubbier, you know so I can feel good about myself. [Laughter] If you’re watching [listening] that’s not really the reason.  

M: It’s selfish that one.  

P: I like this. I like the idea of being volunteering as selfish. I mean, I’m going to throw some more at you.  It lessens the symptoms of chronic pain.  

M: Yes, so much of this stuff does it’s the oxytocin. 

P: It’s the neurotransmitters. It’s all those happy drugs that go into, you flood your body with when you’re involved in acts of kindness and volunteering. So that’s another good one. The Increase in your job skills, which leads to a higher income. Now, I really liked this one. This again comes back to the study that was done by a number of American psychologists in the American Psychological Association Journal, and they said that having volunteering on your CV is attractive to people who might employ you.

And also it is associated with being in a position to be able to be a volunteer because you are on a higher income. But they actually did a study that negated those influences and found that people who do volunteer end up being offered higher incomes within their organisation.  

M: Maybe I should, um, mention ‘Hey, boss if you’re listening?’  

P: [Laugh] well I think that’s essentially, it is attractive to people and they will see that sense of altruism is being a characteristic they want to promote within their business.  

M: You can also get such different and varied experience. So I was on the board of New South Wales volleyball, and that was a very different level of conversation. Well I was in my early thirties then. I worked for a really large corporate, so it wasn’t in that same board level type of discussion at the corporate. But it has definitely rounded out my experience and understanding and helped me in my career.  

P: Hugely, I had the same reference of volunteering on a sports committee and learning skills of how to do Excel spreadsheets. Now, you don’t think that that’s going to be something you pick up but I became a spreadsheet demon!  

M: Yep, I have too. 

P: And that’s all through volunteering and learning how to run a meeting, learning how to show leadership when it’s necessary, all those sorts of interactions and also learning how to interact with people. We had a very interesting ethnic mix and it took me a while to be able to deal with each individual ethnicity and approach it in a certain way that was beneficial for everybody. So it does, it really does give you tangible skills that you can use and that was my big platform when I was trying to get people to volunteer for that board, I was like guys you have no idea, this is going to be good for your job. 

M: Even just running an event, having ownership of running an event. 

P: Event management. It is not easy people. [Laugh] 

M: No. A place in heaven for people who run events and call centres, I have to say those poor, poor people. All right, so let’s maybe move on to some ideas or things that we can do to bring volunteering into our lives. Do you have any Pete?  

P: …  

M: Alright I’ll go. So the easiest one is that there are always organisations, mostly charities who are looking for volunteers.  

With the organisations that look for soft skills that can complement your career, you do generally need to be willing to invest a bit more time. It’s really a huge tax on a lot of these small, low funded organisations to constantly be training new people who only want to pop in three hours. So they are looking for a longer term commitment a lot of the time. But if you’re not willing to put a time in every week or every month, you can do things like donating blood.  

P: I like that one. 

M: Which is something could only do every few months. It’s a really easy thing to do, if you can, and mentoring someone so you don’t necessarily have to meet with your mentee more than once every three months. And there’s so many great benefits that come back to you. And it goes both ways, really, the mentor mentee relationship. As we’ve established.  

P: Yeah  

M: Yep and then the last one is just get involved in a Charity Day at your work. If you’ve got an organisation or a big enough workplace, there’s things like Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea, which we did yesterday in my office and that was for Cancer raising money for Cancer research, and then you could join in a fundraising walk or cycle or grow a mo for Movember. 

P: He he 

M: So there’s lots of these days, and particularly in larger corporations there’s a way to just jump in and join one of these things. But the benefits are not only to these charities or organisations that you’re supporting. They come back to you. 

P: Yeah, hugely. On a more individual level to look at what you’re doing. Look at the activities that you’re involved with and look at if those organisations need a hand. So for both of us, volleyball was a big one. I jumped into the volleyball committee with eyes completely shut and not knowing what I was getting into and 10 years later they had to force me out because I had been there for too long.   

M: You were ready to go. 

P: That was, when I first did it, I was like ‘Oh I should give something back to the club that has given me so much’ and that was the initial idea behind it. It was so beneficial in so many different ways. And I, it really did open up so much opportunity for me and it became a 10 year commitment. So it turned into something that was quite a lot.  

M: So you hated it the whole time, didn’t you? 

P: Well yeah, I got a nickname out of it, so that was good.  

M: What was the nickname? 

P: Madam President.  

M: Ah. 

P: [Laugh], there has only ever been one. Now it’s Mr President.  

M: Yeah OK, fair enough.  

[Laughter] 

M: All right, well, I think we’re done talking about volunteering for this week.  

P: We are. Get out there, people. It’s so much better for you, and it really does come back to you tenfold. They do say that volunteers look five years younger.  

M: I like that. The other thing to mention, to circle all the way back to the beginning is you mentioned that a lot of people say ‘I just don’t have time to volunteer’.

Now I would really be challenging that and asking, what do you prioritise over your own life and health and bonds with your family potentially or friends?  

P: It can be such a social thing.  

M: That means you don’t have time for those things that I just mentioned, because that’s ultimately what we’re talking about here.  

P: True, we’re preaching to the converted on each other here so. 

M: Yep 

P: Find something people, get out there and have a look and connect with something that connects with you, no matter how small you’ll get the benefits.  

M: All right, see you next week.  

P: Stay happy. 

[Happy Exit Music] 

Related content: read Moving On article What You Didn’t Know About Practicing Kindness

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10 Best Personal Development Podcasts To Motivate And Inspire You

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We’ve done the work to find the best personal development podcasts to help you bring more happiness and inspiration into your life.

Have you ever wondered why some people are happier than others? Or why some people seem to succeed at everything they try? Or how some people find the motivation to be constantly achieving their dreams?

It turns out you’re not alone, as the millions of listeners to the below podcasts can attest. If you need a bit of motivation, inspiration or happiness in your life, subscribe to the below 10 best personal development podcasts to motivate and inspire you.

10 Best Personal Development Podcasts to Motivate and Inspire You

#1 Happier

Happier is hosted by happiness and habits expert Gretchen Rubin and her sister Elizabeth Craft. With more than 95 million downloads, they’re definitely doing something right. In each episode, they share happiness hacks and advice that can easily be incorporated in your life. Gretchen shares a lot of the tips she’s learned over the years. She has also written about them in her bestselling books The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, and The Four Tendencies.

#2 Good Life Project

Good Life Project, hosted by Jonathan Fields, is about helping you to live a better life (as the name suggests). Every week, he shares inspirational, intimate and unfiltered conversations aimed at helping you on your quest to live a more meaningful, connected and vital life.

#3 Happiness for Cynics

Happiness for Cynics, hosted by best friends Marie and Pete, who have a lot of laughs as they present the latest research and case studies on happiness, with a heavy dose of cynicism. Marie (the cynic) and the always happy Pete are a lot of fun to listen to and really make you think about practical and research-backed ways you can lead a happier life.

#4 Design Your Dream Life

Design Your Dream Life, hosted by personal development blogger and life coach, Natalie Bacon. The podcast is for women who want to reignite their lives, who want more fulfilment, more money, and more freedom. Natalie shares lessons on how to master your mindset, emotions, self-love, relationships, problems, overwhelm. She also focuses on productivity, time management, goal setting and habits.

#5 The Life Coach School Podcast

The Life Coach School Podcast, hosted by Brooke Castillo, owner of the Life Coach School, where she trains and certifies life coaches. Her podcast focuses on learning to manage your brain and solve any problem in your life. It’s about helping you use your mind to make your dreams come true.

#6 Ten Percent Happier

10% Happier, hosted by ABC News Anchor Dan Harris, who famously has a panic attack on live TV while hosting Good Morning America. On 10% Happier, Dan interviews celebrities and academics on meditation and life. He looks for an answer to the question: Can you be an ambitious person and still strive for enlightenment?

#7 Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins is without a doubt one of the biggest names in personal development. His motivational podcast is a hub where he shares all of that amazing knowledge. In his podcast, Tony shares proven strategies and tactics for achieving massive results in your business, relationships, health, and finances. Tony has reached more than 50 million people from over 100 countries to create meaningful change in their lives.

#8 The School of Greatness

The School of Greatness is a wonderful podcast from the best-selling author and entrepreneur Lewis Howes. Since its launch in 2013, the podcast has grown to be one of the top-ranked business and self-development podcasts in iTunes. It regularly appears in the Top 50 and with more than 4 million downloads a month. Episodes range from interviews with incredible world-class game changers in entrepreneurship, health, athletics, mindset, and relationships, to solo rounds with the host, Lewis Howes and the 5 Minute Friday format.

#9 The Science of Happiness

The Science of Happiness, hosted by award-winning psychologist Dacher Keltner and co-produced by PRX and UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. They look at what it takes to live a happier life and give listeners research-tested strategies that you can put into practice today.

#10 The Tim Ferris Show

The Tim Ferriss Show is often the #1 business podcast on all of Apple Podcasts. It has ranked #1 out of 500,000+ podcasts on many occasions and has now surpassed 400M downloads. In each episode, Tim deconstructs world-class performers from eclectic areas (investing, sports, business, art, etc.) to extract the tactics, tools, and routines you can use. This includes favourite books, morning routines, exercise habits, time-management tricks, and more.

Got a favourite podcast we didn’t include? Tell us about it in the comments!

Don’t forget to subscribe for our monthly newsletter for more tips, freebies and subscriber-only content!

Wellbeing and Your Environment with Lee Chambers (E21)

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Happiness for Cynics Podcast

This week, we interview Environmental Psychologist and Wellbeing Consultant, Lee Chambers. He helps companies increase productivity, motivation and innovation by applying the latest research from psychology, neuroscience and physiology to the workplace. His philosophy comes from his own challenges and business journey, having had mental health struggles, being made redundant, losing the ability to walk, and yet despite all the challenges he has gained more clarity and managed to harness elements of the resilience bounce. 

About Lee Chambers

Lee Chambers – Environmental Psychologist, Wellbeing Consultant and Founder of Essentialise Workplace Wellbeing

Lee Chambers is a Wellbeing Consultant, Workshop Facilitator and Sleep Specialist. Having spent the last 10 years focusing on wellbeing and performance in the local government, corporate organisations, and in elite sports, he has now brought his experience and qualifications with the aim to impact the wellbeing of thousands of individuals and businesses.

Lee has qualifications in Performance Nutrition, Strength and Conditioning Coaching, and Advanced Sleep Consultancy, and he delivers multi-discplinary workshops focused on improving performance and productivity through increasing employee wellbeing. This is an issue very close to his heart, as after losing the ability to walk in 2014 due to autoimmune arthritis, he has battled back to achieve a positive health outcome, and is now on the pathway to become medication free. He holds an MSc in Environmental Psychology, with a focus on human interaction with workplaces and natural environments.

He also presents the Health and Wellbeing show on Ribble FM Radio, and speaks in Educational establishments about his varied career path, health challenges and having a resilient mindset.

Based in Preston in the North of the UK, Lee is currently working with business owners and employee teams to create culture change, wellbeing strategies and champions. He is a father of 2, coaches a disability football team, and enjoys eating good food with good friends. He is currently writing his first book, “How To Conquer Anything”, which will be released in 2020.

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and change and transformation specialist, and my co-host is Peter Furness. Peter?

P: Hi there. I’m Peter Furness, and I’m a remedial therapist, ex professional dancer and happiness aficionado. Each week we will bring to you the latest news of research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: This week we have a special guest who’s here to talk to us about well-being and your environment.

[Happy Music]

M: Lee Chambers is an environmental psychologist and wellbeing consultant. He helps corporations increase productivity, motivation and innovation by applying the latest research from psychology, neuroscience and physiology. His philosophy comes from his own challenges and business journey, having had mental health struggles, being made redundant, losing the ability to walk. And yet, despite all the challenges, he’s gained more clarity and managed to harness elements of the resilience bounce.

M: Hi Lee, thanks for joining us today on happiness for cynics. I’m so excited to have you on the show.

Lee: It’s a pleasure to be on today, Marie.

M: What a story! We touched a little bit on it in the intro, but can you start by delving a little deeper into your background and journey and explain to us what you do.

Lee: Oh, yeah, I’ll try and condense it into a nice, digestible form. So, yeah, I grew up as one of three brothers. We were always fed, watered and had a roof over our heads. We didn’t have a typically fancy life. But what we had, what you could say was all our basic needs. I was the first one in my family to go to university and that again was seen is quite achievement by my parents, and they really pushed me in that direction. I then went into corporate finance and I, very quickly after six months, found myself in the middle of the credit crunch, so people above me started to be made redundant. But only a week later I was pulled in and made redundant myself.

So that really did change my direction and that led me on a path which took me through numerous jobs and brought in a video game business. So I went to the local government and then worked helping unemployed people to find direction, sharpen their interview skills, get more inner confidence and then go on and get themselves a new job on. Then I worked in elite sports which again showed me the cutting edge of performance. How much money and experimental elements I used at that level, both physiologically and psychologically also made me think, if this money and effort and time was spent on the ordinary person, how many millions of people it could help. And at that point in my life, I lost the ability to walk [due to] illness over the course of a week. Completely changed my world view.

M: So within a week you went from being completely healthy and normal to not being able to walk.

Lee: Yeah, So it was my 29th birthday. I was fully independent, fully mobile, playing team spots and doing pretty much whatever I wanted. My son was 18 months old, wife for six months pregnant, and all of a sudden I went from fully independent to not able to drive myself not able to feed myself properly and it was a, it was a major challenge. And I look back now and realise if it wasn’t for the people around me and the position I was in and I was lucky enough to, while I lost my job. I still was able to run the business, because a lot of it was digital.

What kind of happened is at first I was like, Why me? This seems really unfortunate. Chronic disease? I’m not even 30. I’ve looked after myself, that very quickly catalysed into well, you’ve been incredibly ungrateful for your mobility all these years. In fact, you’ve been incredibly ungrateful for all the people that are now caring for you. You’ve been incredibly, you’ve been so ungrateful for the simple fact that you grew up in the first world had a pleasant childhood on all these opportunities. This free education, all these different, all these different jobs that you’ve had all these different careers, you’ve had that, you’ve had the ability and the freedom to start up a business, which is now financing you through these difficult times and just really change my world view everything.

I need to be more grateful. But I also need to be resilient have a mind set and be proactive. Attack this disease as much as it’s attacking my body and that has lead me through to where I am today; helping people, so increase the health outcomes, increase the happiness in the workplace and really just to build a world where we’re all a bit happier and spread that happiness between each other and we go into work happy on we leave work happy.

M: That’s a huge ask, though, isn’t it? [Laugh]

Lee: No, well I see it’s a massive goal that I’ve smashed into so many little pieces. And I can do lots of those little pieces over the course of my lifetime and see if I can get.

M: It is such an inspirational story. I don’t think many people can even imagine what you must have gone through and the struggles that you faced since then. And to see you so proactively and positively attacking the next stage in your life. And what’s next is truly an inspirational storey. So thank you for sharing that with us. What I’m also came to understand now is you’ve taken a whole different direction career wise and started a business called Essentialise. And it says here that you’re an environmental psychologist and you work in regenerative environments. Can you help to explain what it is that that means and what you do with your day?

Lee: Yes, to really kind of explain Environmental Psychology. It’s a relatively new field and you can split it into three, so I have a lot of contemporaries across a lot of different disciplines. But if you split it into three and make it simple and digestible.

There are Environmental Psychologists who deal with urban environments, so buildings, transport, city planning, schools, hospitals.

Then a lot of my contemporary work in our interaction with nature. So how humans interact in natural environments;

And the third subsection of Environmental Psychologists look at environmental behaviours. So, why we see the world the way that we do, why we take sustainability measures, how some people believe climate change is gonna devastate us or some people believe it doesn’t even exist.

I’m looking at how their behaviours and people’s values and really how that then translates into the world and how environmental behaviour could be influenced. So my section is around regenerative environments in sleep and in the workplace. So the principle of regenerative environments is that when you’re in an environment, you have a lot of stresses, a lot of them are sensory, so if you can imagine you’re in an office, it’s noisy, it’s not well lit, there’s pollution coming in from the road. You’re in an environment also where you’ve got mental stresses, so you might not get on with the person sitting next to you, you might struggle with your boss. He’s not very good at communicating, so that kind of builds an atmosphere in the work place. Both physically and psychologically. It’s about looking how we can make the atmosphere more positive. So you leave work as energised as when you went in, as happy as you went in.

M: Mm hmm, and it’s really circular, isn’t it? The more you look after employees, the better they perform for you.

Lee: Definitely. And in some ways, it’s really a hidden performance advantage that isn’t often utilised, but the way the culture’s gradually moving, people are starting to see how important is.

M: Yeah, I heard someone talking a little while ago and they said for too long corporates have broken the employer/employee contract. They’re meant to borrow an employee for 40 hours and then give them back in the same state that they borrowed them in. And for too long they’ve been borrowing them for 50 or 60 hours and giving them back to their families broken. And I thought that’s a really different way of looking at it. And it really shows how we’re evolving our understanding of the role that a corporate can play in looking after employees.

Lee: Yeah, it’s quite interesting though. Because again I’ve got quite a similar analogy within business. So, if you lease a car, you’re expected to return the car in the same condition, minus wear and tear, and wear and tear, we all get physiologically as we live. Obviously, that wear and tear ends up in one day with us passing to the next realm. But if you take your car back and it’s dented it’s scratched, it’s not been looked after inside, you get charged and also the way that companies, especially production companies, building machinery, to be depreciated all the time.

Well, sometimes companies treat employees like a piece of machinery that’s going to depreciate and gradually become obsolete and then they chuck it out. For that same piece of machinery they spend thousands of pounds for thousands of dollars to lubricate that machine over its life. And yet they’re shy to invest in the development of the staff, to even ensure that the wellbeing is kept to a level where they’re able to perform and do the role because they’re the face of the company, they’re the people that quite often would drive in the company themselves and yet you wouldn’t want the person driving your company to not be psychologically or physically well. It doesn’t add up yet it’s so underutilised and finally it’s starting to make that move from humans being a resource to humans being the people.

M: I couldn’t agree more. As someone who’s been through burnout myself in a corporate. I’m a hundred percent aligned with you. What I am still really curious about is the concept of environmental psychology. So for those of us who are new to the field and you mentioned, it is a relatively new field, can you share any surprising or unexpected maybe research your information about your field in general? What does some things that people don’t normally know?

Lee: Yes, I mean, there’s lots of interesting things, and at the moment with Covid[19], strangely, suddenly but interestingly from a scientific perspective, this is like a big experiment that you can’t carry out. You can’t get millions of people across the world to have to isolate in a certain environment and then be able to get that qualitative and quantitative data about how that affects them. So Covid literally is an environment of psychologists dream, because it gives a massive case study and a massive amount of data.

But in many ways, the things that people are not so aware of is just how vital nature is in our regeneration. And as things like Ecotherapy and Attention Restoration Therapy [ART] start to gain traction. They are both cases where we’re given a significant amount of nature exposure, and it actually helps with mild to moderate depression, and it helps with attention deficit disorders. And it’s incredibly powerful to get that at a young age, which is why sometimes you imagine, you know, the outdoor activity centres that take disadvantaged children and go and give them a really powerful dose of nature. Because so many children now live in urban settings, not aware of where the farm animals that they might eat come from, they don’t really link to the understanding of a forest of trees or a field or even sometimes the sea and those [are the] environments where we’re fully ignited from a sensory perspective.

So if you imagine you’re in the forest, you can hear the birds you can smell the flowers, your feet are touching the ground, and you feel that mossy ground and you stood next to a massive oak. And that’s the feel, like a small part of something much, much bigger and the sunlight shines through your eyes and boosting your serotonin production, and it’s just so vital to get outside. And yet, in so many ways, our coming generations spend more time inside than they ever have before. And that is out in the western world people are more concerned about safety, about the increasing vehicles and children not being helped to be dependent and search, go and explore, go on an adventure in the same way that even my generation was 30 years ago and that, in its own way, is a challenge.

But it’s helping people link back and I kind of feel that what Covid has done, especially in the countries where you’ve got you know, your one period of exercise. These people have been walking and finding green spaces only a few minutes away from the house, but they had never taken the time from their busy life to go and explore and finding those foot paths and then going, really enjoying themselves and get themselves out, and we’re only really grateful for the environments we have access to when they’re taken away. In the same way that I was so ungrateful for my ability to walk until I lost it. We are not very good at preventing but we are very, very agile in a crisis.

M: It’s human nature I think. I have a similar story, I had an accident 2017 and couldn’t walk for a long time. And it truly, and there is a whole body of psychological research into the, what happens after you’ve been through a major trauma as well.

So, there is definitely what you mentioned there about going out into nature, is there any research about bringing nature indoors? Is there any benefit to having more plants in your indoor space as well? Or water features? Does that help at all? Or do you really have to get out and make an activity of it.

Lee: Yeah, so by incorporating natural elements into the design of offices and houses, it does increase your well-being, and it does bolster your ability to, you know, recover from anxiety and stress. It doesn’t confer the whole benefit that being outside in nature does because it’s not a full sensory experience. However, if you have a good number of house plants they don’t offer you that natural landscape.

We can see more shades of green than any other colour and that’s due not only to our evolutionary biology but where green lies on the spectrum and how our pupils and eyes work. But we have that affinity for natural environment. So if you have a room where you have house plants, you have items made out of natural materials that have a feel on a texture, a grounding. If you say have a landscape picture on the wall, even those really small elements all the time because you’re continually exposed to them you become slightly regenerative to your health.

And then you look at house plants and how much they clean certain pollutants out of the air it’s the natural purifiers and also the fact that you have to mindfully look after them, water them, make sure and in many ways what we do is we represent and we anchor into the fact that they grow as we grow. It’s something that’s only kind of starting to be in research now. But it’s our understanding that actually, as the world revolves around you and moves, if you could make a bit of progress and the things around you are making a bit of progress it actually compounds in your mind to feel like you’re actually generating that forward momentum. It makes you have more energy to wake up in the morning, and it really does propel people when everything around them is just growing. And that’s something that you won’t see if you have an urban environment, which doesn’t really have any natural features.

M: Yeah, so I was gonna ask you if you had any tips for our listeners about how to make practical changes in their homes or office environments to improve their well being. We just talked about plants, definitely. Is there anything else that you can share the secrets of that will help with well being?

Lee: Yes, I mean probably the most important thing is just to step back and have an awareness about how much your environment plays a role in your well-being and starting to just understand the basics that the stress of our environment, it does affect us.

So when you’re kind of working out actual tips and starting to think ‘Ok, so I’ve got my office, or I’ve got my home office and home offices are great, because you have more design flexibility. You just have to incorporate the elements that you work in, in an environment that was originally designed for something else. But you can start to work on that if you treat it mindfully.

So yeah, it’s kind of looking at, you’re working for roughly eight hours a day and sleeping for eight hours a day. So your workplace environment, your sleep environment, 100 hours over a week, two thirds of your life spent in those environments. So it’s important to look to optimise them. So you’re kind of looking at ways to, because of how we work and we have ultradian rhythms so 98% of ourselves have this smaller clock inside. Obviously we have the circadian rhythm that runs 24 hours a day ultradian rhythms run about 60 to 90 minutes and that allows us to really work deeply for that period. But then we need to have ten to fifteen minutes off, disconnected. So we can reconnect to work effectively again. When we continue to push that, that’s when we get burnt out.

So, what I do in terms of suggesting for offices were actually looking at what the environmental stress is.

First of all Noise.

Are you in the seat that’s next to the main road? Are people buzzing, are cars coming past all day? What we do is while we tune out, it gradually stresses you on a low level, and that builds up over time. Other things to consider are:

Density.

So we need personal space in an office we’re too crammed and that can be an environmental stressor. Yeah, we also need to be close enough to build, to socially connect with people so being sat in an office and being completely bereft of anyone else to speak to, is just as dangerous as being crammed in. So it’s about finding that, find that sweet spot. Some people’s personal space needs are larger than others, and that’s about where you become understanding of what your environmental needs are. Other things to consider are:

Temperature.

You can actually find out where people are comfortable and set them in the in the zone that’s best for them and that in itself is regenerative when they understand; Actually, I want to sit here in 16 degrees. He wants to sit there and 19. He feels comfortable. I feel comfortable. We switch places. We wouldn’t be comfortable. And it’s just about kind of understanding that we can use our thermostats in our houses to also create our workspace that is comfortable for us. And then finally, it’s really looking at things like

Lighting.

So thing is that everyone has their individual lighting need as we get older, our lighting need needs change, but you don’t want to be in that grey room yet you don’t want so much light to come through that it’s blinding you, blinding your screen and natural light is always gonna be better than artificial light. But artificial light can be and is increasingly becoming a little bit less invasive than it used to be in the old fluorescent strips, so you can get creative with that. They get that Connection and suddenly they’re more likely to stay, their less likely to go off sick, become more productive, more creative and just happier at work and it spreads.

M: I think that’s, that’s a great place to end with happiness spreading. I’m so upset that we’ve only gone through half the questions that I really wanted to ask you. So we might even invite you back on this show in a little bit to cover some more things if you, If you’re up for it. Before we go, how can people find out a bit more about you?

Lee: So you can visit my website at: leechambers.org, I’m on Instagram @essentialisecoach and Twitter @essentialise

M: Thank you. I appreciate your time and have a good evening. Have a good day, actually all the way from England.

Lee: Thanks, it’s been a pleasure Marie.

[Happy Exit Music]

Related content: Listen to our Podcast: Designing Happy Cities (E19) and Podcast: Enabling Happy Cities (E20)

What You Didn’t Know About Practicing Kindness

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What Is Practicing Kindness and Why Does It Matter?

Be kind… it’s something many of us have been told since we were little.

But did you know that being kind to others can have positive impacts on your life too? Not only that, there’s solid research behind the act of being kind. Here’s what you need to know.

What is Practicing Kindness?

Practicing kindness is about deliberately or intentionally finding moments or opportunities to be kind to others in your life.

“A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.”

Amelia Earhart

But to be clear, being kind isn’t about always thinking of others over yourself, and it’s not about striving to be always kind. We’re all human, which means we all have bad days, and we all have negative emotions at times – being unkind will also happen. So, practising kindness isn’t about striving to be kind all the time, but it is about finding times to be kind to others.

The best part is that practising kindness actually improves your psychological health too, so you might even reduce your bad days or moments by doing it, and it’s as easy as scheduling it into your week.

The Science of Kindness

The research on kindness is quite definitive. The benefits that you get from being kind others are many and varied.

Performing acts of kindness releases the feel-good chemicals (oxytocin and serotonin), leading to increases happiness, energy, pleasure and creativity. Studies have even shown that being kind increases your lifespan.

At Oxford, researchers performed three studies and found that performing acts of kindness boosted wellbeing and positive social emotions. In fact, in the first study, people got benefits after only seven days of performing acts of kindness.

Not only do you get the “helper high” from being kind, but these neurochemicals have also been found in many studies to help reduce depression, pain, anxiety and stress.

Feeling lazy? The great news is that it can be really easy, quick and cheap to get the benefits of kindness. You don’t need to go looking for over-the-top ways to show people how kind you are.

It’s true that research shows helping others through acts of charity or volunteer work can make you feel better and happier, but recent research also finds that simply wishing someone well can have a similarly positive effect on our moods. In fact, even witnessing acts of kindness produces oxytocin, which aids in lowering blood pressure, and improves self-esteem, optimism and our overall heart-health.

Ideas For Practising Kindness

So, what are some ideas for how to bring kindness into your week?

Praise Someone

Publicly acknowledge and praise someone for doing a good job or simply for being who they are. If you pick someone from your workplace, make sure you include their boss, and why not follow up with a handwritten card?

Can I help? Cards

Print off some cards with “Can I help” on them and a list of things you can help with around the house – from cooking and cleaning to gardening and handy-man repairs or grocery shopping or pet walking. Make sure to introduce yourself, including telling people why you’re doing this for free, and include your name and contact details. Then print of all the cards and drop them in mailboxes around your neighbourhood.

Mentor Someone

Mentoring is about more than giving someone advice and sharing knowledge. Mentors often develop close, reciprocal relationships with their mentees, who can bring a new or different perspective or ideas that can bring about self-reflection and growth for the mentor too. Aside from that, helping others can be really rewarding. On top of that, giving targeted support to an individual (rather than to a charity) has a better effect on your brain.

Donate Money

Consider a one-off donation or set aside some money each pay-check to donate to a reputable charity. There is something for everyone, from organisations that saves animals or protect the planet to research for diseases and social support. Make sure you do some research first to make sure your money is going where you think it is.

Give Your Coins

A few spare coins can make someone’s day, and be there difference between eating that day or getting a bed to sleep in. When you can, find someone on the street and give them your coins. When you do, make eye contact and smile. This small act can go a long way to helping a homeless person feel seen.

Stuck for kindness ideas? You can always download a Kindness Calendar from the Random Acts of Kindness website for some inspiration. For extra self-care points, why not complete the activities with a buddy or family member?

Related content: Read Moving On article 50 science-backed ways to be happier

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!

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Enabling Happy Cities (E20)

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Happiness for Cynics podcast

In the second of this two-part series on happy cities, this week we explore the enablers of happy cities. We look at the research from the Global Happiness Council’s annual Global Happiness and Wellbeing Policy Report and discuss some great examples from around the world of cities which are getting it right.

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and speaker, focused on change and resilience [background laughter most of the way through] and we’ve already lost Pete today. 

P: [Laughing] My tummy was rumbling, on cue. [Still laughing.] We should have had pancakes first. 

M: [Laugh] It’s our treat for after we’ve recorded. 

P: So sorry. Hi, I’m Peter Furness, a mover and shaker, Covid[19] time baker, opportunity seeker and maker. Each week we will bring you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology 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 the same research we cover here on the podcast, including some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life. 

P: Bubbles for everyone.  

[Laughter] 

P: So on to today’s episode, which is part two of our series on Happy Cities.  

[Happy Intro Music] 

M: Okay, so welcome to today’s episode, which is part two on our series of Happy Cities. But before we get into that, Pete you had a really lovely interaction with one of our listeners.  

P: I did. It was really, really lovely, so we’ll call him James.  

M: Sure. 

P: So James and I had a very brief interaction and basically, I’ll just read that. I’ll just read what he said:  

We mentioned podcasts and he mentioned that he was podcast listener. And I said ‘oh I do a podcast called Happiness for Cynics.’  

James: ‘Cool. I listened to the 1st 2 episodes of your podcast today. I think it was just what I needed to hear. Thank you for putting me on to it.’  

P: ‘Oh, that’s bloody lovely.’  

James: ‘No, thank you.’  

P: And he goes on to say.  

James: ‘Thanks, Pete. I’m naturally cynical, but also believe that it’s up to me to be happy and only I can choose my reactions to things. I still have bad days, and I have to remind myself that that’s okay. But overall, I think I’m mostly optimistic. I’m going to try get to more episodes of your podcast today.  

M: That’s so lovely to hear, it really is.  

P: It was really reassuring that what we do actually is reaching [people].  

M: Yes, and I think that’s the whole premise of the podcast. It took a major trauma for me to reassess my life. I don’t want everyone have to have a major trauma in their life in order to discover that this stuff actually works. 

P: Well I just knew.  

M: of course… 

P: I just bought in from the beginning. 

M: Uh, huh.  

P: Does that make me better than you?  

M: What evs… Happy Cities, Pete.  

[Laughter] 

P: So let’s just recap what we went through on the last episode, Part one was all about the design. Just to recap. We had six major points: 

  1. Urban design in place making so a city plan and design …of connected space;  
  2. The next was access to Nature;  
  3. Third was Mobility, how we move around, how we get around a city and having access to the parts of the city;  
  4. Sustainability and Partnership. Sustainable change and putting things in place that make a city more changeable for the next few generations;  
  5. Culture, Arts and what a city’s culture is; and
  6. The Quality of Services that are accessible to all the population of that city.  

M: You flew through those Pete. 

P: Yes cause I hogged the podcast last week so I’m trying to be really, really good this week. 

M: [Laugh] so, they were all the design elements of Happy Cities.  

This week we’re going to talk more about Enablers of Happy Cities. And enablers are the intangible policy outcomes. So there’s two types of policy outcomes those requiring active engagement from citizens and those that are sensed passively, so they just kind of happen or don’t. As we mentioned in the last episode Australia really is a lucky country when you look at it –  

P: Is it still? 

M: It still is, we are not dealing with slums with huge poverty or famine, war; The infrastructure that we have here, the opportunity that we have here is still, it’s not perfect. I can see you’re looking me! 

P: No, no, no, I’m asking the question. 

M: It’s not perfect. It is not perfect. But we are so much further advanced than so many other countries. We are one of the lucky countries. 

P: And sometimes we may forget that. 

M: Oh, absolutely. 

P: Because I think there’s a lot of things that are different about Australian lifestyle… when you put it in a global context, we’re doing all right. 

M: And back when, even we’ve come in leaps and bounds. The quality of life that we have compared to our parents or our grandparents is it’s so much better. It is not simpler and it comes with its own challenges, but yes, but I’d argue better. Anyway, again, we’ve gone off track, so Australia is lucky. Well, just not perfect, not the best. But we are lucky and so what I want to do is quickly go through the first 4 areas that just aren’t as relevant for our society and then we can spend a bit more time deep diving into the other. 

So first one is Safety and Security.  

And you mentioned American psychologist Abraham Maslow. We mentioned it a few episodes ago, but also he’s famous for coming up with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And it’s a way of showing that some needs more important to humans than others. And he displays this by using a pyramid with things like air, food and water at the bottom. I think we can all agree air, food and water are absolutely critical.  

P: Absolutely. It’s a necessity. 

M: The second layer is about Safety and Security, and that comes before things like love and belonging, friends and family and esteem, respect and definitely before self- actualisation. 

P: [laugh] before we get into the fluffy stuff. 

M: Yeah, but in short, people don’t care so much about a vibrant nightlife when it’s not safe to walk the streets. 

P: Yep 

M: So I think that we’re pretty lucky and as a female in this country. I feel very safe to walk nearly any streets in this country. I can’t think of any that I don’t feel safe walking at night, right? So we’re going to move on, safety and security really important for a happy city. We’ll go tick in Australia. 

The next one is Affordability.  

Shelter is another item on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but it’s in the first tier. Alright, you can’t feel safe if you don’t have a home. And you can’t feel secure if you’re constantly worried about losing that home.  

P: True.  

M: So if you’re sleeping in the streets, it’s a very vulnerable position to be in.  

P: Yeah, definitely. 

M: That’s for the small percentage of our population that are homeless but also going back to what we mentioned before. For the 20, 30, 40% of Australians who are low income earners, there is a true week to week struggle to pay your bills and not be evicted from your home, whether it’s a mortgage that you’re paying or just rent, right. And so I would argue that affordability, traditionally 20 years ago, wasn’t so much of an issue. But it’s starting to creep into, well it has crept into our concerns in our country of late.  

P: Oh, for sure, especially in cities like Sydney. Absolutely. The affordability of rent is huge.  

M: All right, we will move on  

Tolerance and Inclusivity.  

So this is about equity, tolerance and justice for all, and some of you might have started noticing that we’re using the word equity rather than equality lately and I really love that we’re evolving our understanding of equality and now focusing instead of equality on equity. And so equality is all about everyone having the same opportunity. And that’s really noble and a great first step. And I will say that a lot of countries and various groups are still fighting for that equal right.

We’re still not there as a society, but the next evolution of that argument or thinking is equity. And that acknowledges that everyone’s different has different needs, and therefore you shouldn’t provide one product or service to everyone. You should aim to provide a tailored product or service to people so that they end up in the same place. And there’s a great video online where they’re talking about white privilege and they get everyone to start at the beginning of a race. 

P: Yeah, I’ve seen this. 

M: Yeah, there’s a great video there, but another way of looking at it is if you have a really tall kid and a really short kid, and they both want to peek over the fence to watch the baseball game and you give them both a box to stand and the tall kid will see over the fence and will watch the game and be really happy. The short kid is still staring smack bang at the fence posts and can’t see a thing, so it’s about giving each of them a box to stand on. But the box for the short kid needs to be taller so they can both see the baseball game.  

P: Right, that’s a great analogy. That’s what equity is about, right? It’s about different solutions based on your needs rather than one solution for all. And I love that that’s the next evolution and that’s what people are starting to talk about here with tolerance and inclusivity. And then the last one is 

Trust.  

Last one I’m going to talk about then I’ll hand to you Pete. [Laugh] It’s definitely not the last one. So, the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] defines trust as a person’s belief that another person or institution will act consistently with their expectations of positive behaviour. And corporates have failed dismally at this in recent years. There is such a lack of trust now between people and large organisations, to the point that organisations are now just as bad as politicians in our minds. 

P: Oh! Yeah. I’ll give you that. 

M: And we used to trust banks with our money, we used to trust big corporations to give us jobs and security. That is no longer the case. And the really interesting part off that quote is that it’s about our expectations of positive behaviour and expectations change over time. And I think what we’ve seen with corporate is that they haven’t kept up with our changing expectations, right? 

P: [Tentative] OK. 

M: And the second thing there is as far as Happy Cities goes, trust is about government’s doing what we think they should do and not being caught out. So no corruption is the big one. But the second thing is opening up your doors, and this is a change management 101 principle co-create and we’re going to come to a few examples that you’ll talk about soon Pete, where governments have opened their doors up and worked with their citizens to co-create solutions and get such better results in the end. But you also get trust and that’s a big one. 

P: Yep, it’s transparency to see what people are doing, what the processes are which gives you empowerment as an individual.  

M: Absolutely. All right, so I’m going to hand to you for the next one. I think you’re going to start with  

Health and Life Balance.  

P: Health and Life, this is right up my alley. A holistic view of city life and activities promoting balance, physical and mental health. We need both for making sure that Happy Cities occur and I want to use a couple of examples here. One is in Bogota, in South America. Ciclovia it’s called, [Chi-clo-veea] I’m not sure about the accent there. Reclaiming the streets and opening them up to millions of cyclists of all walks and abilities, much like running festivals in Sydney. It’s about people custodians of the city, creating the capacity for the population to engage within the streets. 

So what something like Ciclovia does is it lets families, it lets children, it lets senior citizens come out and enjoy car free areas. Now this movement is actually this event actually sparked a movement in other countries around the world where regularly closing down city streets just for cyclists became a huge way for the communities to come out and interact, so that created a sense of meaning and belonging and sociality. It ticks all these lovely little boxes for us. Also looking at things in terms of work hours.

Now, very topical at the moment is the 4 to 5 working week, four weeks in five weeks or the four day working week on. We’ll come back to that at another time, but it has a huge involvement on being allowed people to manage their own time. This creates more balance because you can choose when you’re going to go and pick the kids up from day care or when you’re going to fit in your three mile walk that you might have to do just to get your own exercise and that creates huge health benefits along with your productivity, which we know since the year 2000 in Scandinavian countries, it goes up, 20%, 30% increase in productivity, downgrading of health services, less sick leave all these benefits from allowing people to manage their time better. It’s a huge marker for happy cities.  

M: Yep 

P: Okay, moving along. So 

Sociality

…is that how you say this word?  

M: Yep 

P: Sociality? Sociality? People need people. Battling loneliness. We need other people, we know that having those social interactions really helps with their levels of happiness. There’s a city in Western Denmark that actually initiated counselling services for parents and parents of teenagers if they were having trouble and also for divorced couples. Now this was a free service that they offered and what they found was not only did divorces drop by 17% but they were clocking issues of teenage angst and issue from becoming problems later on and by providing those, those services free of charge, people were less engaged in conflict. They, they were able to manage their lifestyles a little bit better, which makes a huge difference to happiness.  

M: I think this also goes back to what we’ve mentioned multiple times. It’s about understanding yourself. And I think it’s giving teenagers and parents an opportunity to know themselves better and to talk through their emotions in a far more proactive and positive way and therefore it’s created stronger social ties within the family unit. 

P: Which makes the happiness.  

M: Such a great, great initiative. 

P: That and the adopt a grandma. 

M: Oh, I love this one! 

P: [Laugh] So the Dragør, is that how you would say it? in east of Copenhagen in Denmark has the ‘bonus grandma’ or ‘adopt a grandma scheme’. So there’s these ladies who are sitting around in their nursing homes and so forth. They may not have families around them, and people who need a little bit of help can adopt a grandma. Who doesn’t want an extra grandma? I mean, my grandma’s gone. She’s been gone for 10 years, actually. So, it’s great to have that sort of person around if you’ve got kids and you need a bit of help or you need that that maternal figure. 

M: Yep, in particular in today’s day and age, when you have two people out earning an income and people are more likely to move away from their parents. And it’s, it’s really tough to balance full time work and raising kids nowadays, yes, and maintain your sanity and happiness. 

P: [Laughter] Definitely, so we’ll move on to  

Economy and Skills  

A primary reason for people to move to a city is the economic opportunity that this allows. There’s a wonderful example in Vancouver in Canada, of the Vancouver Binners.  

M: I’m going to jump into that, maybe so what was happening was that people were taking their recyclables to the recycling centre to get their five cents or 10 cents per bottle. But these were generally homeless people or people that had been looked down upon by others in society as being a nuisance. And so they called them binners and they weren’t great to have around your neighbourhood. They looked bad. They might have smelled. You know, that’s the general consensus that society had of these people. 

But some great organisation had a look at the good they were doing, saving all of that plastic from going into landfill and said, ‘How do we change people’s perception of these people as a pest to instead show the good that they’re doing for our society and also help them to do it more efficiently and better so that we can again have less plastics going into a landfill.’ Such a great little initiative. 

P: Yeah, utilising the labour force.  

M: Absolutely. So these people were seen as a pest were doing such a service. So really cute little story there. 

P: It reminds me of a story actually, when you came back from Thailand after your accident, Marie and you made the comment to me about you were in hospital and you had like a team of ladies washing you. 

M: Oh, they were fabulous. 

P: [Laugh] You made the point that it was utilising the labour force. So these women who may not have had training and skills and all that sort of stuff. It was washing patients in the hospital and they were utilising that cheap labour force, giving them an occupation, giving them purpose, giving the meaning tick, tick, tick for the happiness counter. 

M: Yep, yep absolutely. 

P: Roman Deguchi is the director off the ‘Inner West Neighbour Aid’ garden in Concord, west of Sydney. And I came across this on an episode of Gardening Australia. 

M: Of course you did. 

P: Because that’s what you do when you’re in isolation. You watch Gardening Australia. It was about utilising the talent within the community and bringing the local community together in a garden setting. Now, one of the first things they did was they had paths that go through the garden and these were all wide enough for wheelchairs. Now, I know this is something that’s close to your experience Marie, as well. 

M: Uh, huh. Yeah  

P: You don’t realise how inaccessible the city is until you’re in a wheelchair and you’ve got to get around. So that was one of the first things that they did. And they also found that there was a disconnection between the elder community and the youth community and this garden brought it together. They brought school kids in to start doing the planting and stuff, and they were bringing elderly people in to direct them and say, look we can’t get down on our knees but you can, plant that over here and do that and there was contact between the generations. 

M: All right, last one;  

Meaning and Belonging. 

P: Ooh, this is a big one, a shared meaning and belonging and a sense of purpose that involves a community.  

M: I think a lot of the things you talked about have covered meaning and purpose. So I think it’s enough on this one to almost say it is really important to create spaces and activities that give people meaning and belonging. But the great thing about the items on this list they’re not mutually exclusive. And you can create a lot of places and activities that give not only meaning and belong belonging, but also economy and skills and sociality and health and life balance. 

P: Yeah definitely, they tick many boxes. 

M: Yeah, All right, well, we should probably wrap that up so. 

P: [Laugh] Way too much information.  

M: So, in conclusion, Happy Cities. Firstly, it’s a choice. It’s about opting in, definitely. And then the other part of this is about the effectiveness of empowering people to take responsibility and get involved in their cities. 

P: The processes. 

M: Exactly. 

P: How do you get people involved?  

M: Yeah, and it’s not just because you want to see the outcome be good or right for your society. It’s because the process of going through it is beneficial to you and your happiness. So getting involved in that garden isn’t just about there being a nice garden in your neighbourhood. It’s about planting herbs with the local kids and the benefits that you get from that.  

P: Exactly.  

M: All right. Okay, well, thank you for joining us. And, as always, you can find us at marieskelton.com, where you can ask us a question, recommended topic or suggest someone to interview, and we hope you’ll join us again next week and over the coming weeks, we’ve got a couple of really great interviews lined up, which will revisit the topic of Happy Cities. And we’ve got some experts who are going to cover various elements.  

P: Very exciting. 

M: What makes space and the places that we move in happy for us? What makes us happy when you’re in them? So I hope you’ll join us for that.  

P: No worries folks, buy into happiness. 

[Happy exit Music] 

Related content: Read Moving On article Podcast: Wellbeing and Your Environment (E21), listen to our Podcast: Designing Happy Cities (E19)

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Your 6 Step Social Media Detox (and why you Need one NOW)

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Spending too much time in self-isolation and feeling the negative effects? You need a social media detox!

Do the things you like instead of liking things others are doing!

Have you found yourself turning to social media to while away the long hours of Covid lockdown? Are you noticing some negative effects? If so, you may need a social media detox.

Even before Covid, social media was well ingrained in most societies around the world. In Australia, as of January 2019 there were 18 million active users of social media websites (69% of the population). Facebook is the most popular social media platform, with ~16 million monthly users of the website. In the U. S., about 70 percent of adults say they use Facebook and YouTube, while Instagram and Snapchat are growing in popularity among 18-24 year-olds.

Social media can be an important part of modern life, but unfortunately, the research also tells us that it can also be destructive to our mental wellbeing. Many studies have linked excessive social media use to increased depression, anxiety, loneliness, sleeplessness, and many other mental health issues.

So, what should you do if you feel that your social media use is not good for your mental health? What if you’re spending too much time on social media?

Start With Self-Reflection

To begin with, take the time for some self-reflection. Grab a notepad and each day for a week, reflect on your social media habits.

Evaluate how social media makes you feel and how it impacts your life.

Write down your thoughts for a week. After some reflection, if you identify any negative effects that your social media use has had on your life, then you might want to consider a social media break. Here are your next steps…

6 Steps For a Successful Social Media Detox

1. Find a social media detox buddy: You’re more likely to complete the detox (or any new habit for that matter) if you have a friend to do the detox with. Agree on how long you’ll detox for – maybe try a week to start with and set the start date. Set a date with your friend, and touch base with each other regularly to check in during your detox.

2. Stop using your phone as an alarm: Get a real alarm clock and leave your phone away from your bed. This should stop you reaching for it first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

3. Be OK with being bored: The goal here is to take back your time and mindfulness. This means replacing hours of endless scrolling with more fun, but mindful, activities. It also means being present and being ok with being bored in-between tasks, like ad breaks or while waiting for things to happen.

4. Delete your social media apps: If this makes you feel anxious remember that this is only temporary, you can always download them again at any time. If you just can’t delete them, try moving them to a different screen on your phone. If you want to take it one step further, also limit your news intake to no more than 30 minutes a day!

5. Change your lock–screen: The simple act of having to put in a new and long password will make you think every time you open your phone screen. That can be enough to stop you from mindlessly using social media apps.

6. Start a new project: It’s easier to not miss something if you have something else to grab your attention. So why not start a new project or course.

After Your Social Media Cleanse: How to Bring Social Media Back Into Your Life

At some point, you might wish to bring social media back into your life, which is fair enough, and it’s important to note that there’s nothing inherently wrong with spending time on social media. It’s only when it starts having negative impacts on your life that you should be worried.

When you do bring it back into your life, bring it back slowly and the most important thing is to use it with purpose and intention. This means deliberately setting aside specific timeboxed times in the day to look at your social media. Perhaps it’s on the bus to work or school, for 10-minutes at lunchtime, and for 30 minutes after dinner.

Also, it helps to remove all notifications from your apps. This will help you to not be tempted throughout the day as the phone pings at you.

Remember it’s about you having control over you phone, not your phone having control over you. If you can be mindful, it will help you to ensure you don’t slip back into mindless scrolling.

Good luck!

Related content: Listen to our Podcast: Social Media Detoxing (E15)

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Designing Happy Cities (E19)

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Happiness for Cynics podcast

In the first of this two-part series on happy cities, this week we explore how to design happy cities. We look at the research from the Global Happiness Council’s annual Global Happiness and Wellbeing Policy Report, and discuss some great examples from around the world of cities which are getting it right.

Episode notes

In this week’s episode, Pete talked about how bicycle lanes are great for city living. This is the book he mentioned.

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 am Peter Furness, a banana bread maker, wall art hanger and occasional wedgie applicator. Each week we will bring you the latest news and research in the world 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 the same research we cover here on the podcast, including some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life. 

P: So on to today’s episode, which is all about Happy Cities.  

[Happy intro Music] 

P: So Marie, Happy Cities. What are we talking about?  

M: This is such a hot topic right now. I’m so happy that we’re doing this. So there’s two things that are converging to macro level.  

P: Convergence, we like convergence were converging. 

M: And macro, that’s important. So firstly, we’re seeing huge advancements in technologies in particular the Internet of things, and that’s allowing us to know so much more data and know so much more about what our people are doing and how they’re moving in, how they’re living than we’ve ever had before. 

P: So “big brother” is a good thing.  

M: It can be. I’m not 100% sold, but I think- 

P: There’s a practical application of the “big brother” [concept]. It’s actually working for us.  

M: Yes, exactly. And then the second thing that’s happening is there’s an increasing understanding that human well-being matters, and we’ve mentioned it before. But people are saying to come to the realisation that economic prosperity without well-being is a bit hollow.  

So this really started picking up steam in 2015 when the UN announced its 2030 agenda for sustainable development and that was adopted by all UN member states. And in it, there’s 17 sustainable development goals which aim to bring peace and prosperity to all the world and its people. Now amongst those 17 goals, there’s two that in particular apply to happy cities.  

The first is goal number three, which is good health and well-being. And then there’s also number 11 which is sustainable cities and communities. And when it comes to cities and communities, a lot of the UN plan focuses on getting the basics right, like proper waste management, eradicating slums and providing clean air. But it does also touch on some of the topics we’re going to cover today, like access to green spaces and good public transport, which are key to happy cities. 

So for today’s episode, rather than focusing on the UN sustainable development goals, we have taken a different document, which is a bit more relevant for us in Australia because we have done some really good work to get those basics right. And now we’re talking about what’s next. So the report we’re looking at is the Global Happiness Council’s annual global happiness and well-being policy report.  

So Pete, maybe you can start with why we should be focusing on Happy Cities, not just happy people?  

P: I love that we’re focusing on Happy Cities. I think this is a really interesting segway in global awareness, really, that we’re no longer just talking about economic development and GDP and stuff this whole movement around ‘let’s create good things for people and for all people’, which I think is really important. That’s a point we will come back to later.  

If we’re looking at Happy Cities, what makes a happy city just a bit of background; we’re using cities more. So the human population on a global scale is now becoming more urbanised. Since 2007 we actually have more urbanised population globally than we do rural. So we’ve hit 55% of global population in 2007, live in cities.  

M: I think that’s a really, really good stat to show how, as a society or society’s globally, we’re evolving from an agrarian, hunter/gatherer/farmer to industrial, which did bring a lot more people into the cities and made the need for cities greater. To a service economy now, where definitely everyone is in the city for right now because we haven’t quite gotten there yet, But it’ll be really interesting to see if gig economy and, you know, especially post Covid[19], where we know now that we can work from home and a lot of industries whether we will still need cities as much in the future. 

P: It’s interesting because the predictions are that in 2050 we’re going to have 2/3 of the world’s population in cities, seven billion people as opposed to right now, which is just 4.1 billion people. These are the predictions we’re using cities more and that, the attraction of living in the city is greater. So, interestingly enough, and I found this this odd that as we grow older and as we grow wealthier, we tend to gravitate towards cities. I would have thought the opposite, but it’s not the case. We like being in cities. Cities provide opportunity. They provide better health systems support and all that sort of stuff. So we’re more drawn towards them. 

M: And also more leisure activities. You can always go to the beach or go somewhere quiet for a weekend. I think that on a day to day basis, having access to more people and cultural activities when you’re retired becomes more important. 

P: It comes into the, into the factoring of what makes a happy city actually. When we- 

M: Tell us! Do tell us. 

P: Well actually, there are lots of different things. There’s, there’s the infrastructure. There’s things like parks, cycle paths, piazzas, green and blue spaces, culture. So the art culture, HUGE, massive, so big!  

M: For you the art culture is huge. But for others it can make a break a city, the culture, and it’s not necessarily art, but it is the culture of a city.  

P: Definitely but art plays a big part in that. I’ll come back to that later. So these are all in addition to services such as waste management, sewerage and public transport, which is another big one. 

M: Public transport’s important. 

P: Yeah, it’s a huge one. In terms of the global happiness report, there’s two aspects of this report that come out really, really strongly.  One is that there is a design element of city, so things that we put in place to create happy cities. And then there’s the enablers of city happiness. So I think for this podcaster we are actually going to separate into two different podcasts. 

M: Yes, you’re listening to part one today.  

P: Today we’re gonna talk about the design. So what goes into the designing of a good city and how to create that. And in the report they come up with six different areas of [what a] city needs to create a happy city.  

M: All right, well, how about you start us off with the 1st 3 Pete?  

P: All right. So we’ll talk about: 

1. Urban design and place making 

This is city planning, connected spaces and places that create a good city. Creating and using functional space as well. Now I’m going to launch right into this one with an example. Bike lanes, bike lanes, they’re the new black. It’s the thing that everybody is being measured by in terms of their city ability is, do you have a bike lane concept and our bikes able to operate within your city? And it’s a big one because bicycle riding connects communities, so it makes people able to get around. Now, in terms of a city that doesn’t have good public transport, doesn’t have good access. If you can ride somewhere, to get to the grocery shop, to go and see friends, to hang out in the park, it makes a big difference to how you use a city.  

M: Let me add, if you can safely ride somewhere, no one would let their kid’s ride around Sydney, even though we have a bike lane or two every now and then, the bike lanes through the city are like, if you want death, go ride through Sydney CBD. 

P: [Laugh] that’s such a good point Marie, because there’s some gurus out there and there’s this couple Melissa and Chris Bruntlett, who come from Vancouver and they actually wrote a book on ‘Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality’ and they actually talk about the safety of bike riding and how safe it is for a city to be bike riding in and of course, we all know Amsterdam has the best record. 

M: And Nordic, it’s the Nordic countries again.  

P: That do it well, yep. And it really makes a community come together. It provides accessibility, and, as you say, it brings people together because it’s safe and you could take families. 

M: So that was an example of, what was it? 

P: Design and place making. Designing a city. Examples of how to design a city to create good community interaction.  

The next one we look at.

2. Nature 

Huge, connecting with nature, contact with nature, easily accessible green and blue spaces. And when we talk about green and blue spaces, we’re talking about green spaces, which are obviously the parks, your centennial parks, your Hyde Park’s, you’re access to green spaces at the end of your street. 

M: And your natural bush land and forest areas depending on what country you’re in. 

P: Yep, all that sort of stuff. When we talk about blue spaces, I had to look this one up.  

M: Water.  

P: I know I didn’t think. I was just like what’s a blue space?  

M: [Laugh] It’s not a blue zone! 

P: That’s what I thought.  

M: It’s a bunch of old people… 

P: all hanging out in their bikinis.  

[Laughter] 

M: That would be Florida. 

P: Or Hampstead Heath in London.  

But blue space is access to water, which is hugely important and I actually did a lot of research into this in terms of water being included in a city scape. So water is really beneficial for inspiring awe, inspiration. It has a calming effect, has a white noise effect, and it actually brings down traffic noise.  

M: Yes  

P: I thought that was a really interesting point. So in a city scape water is hugely important for creating not only a visual area of interaction, but also auditory, so you can actually dull down the sounds of the city. And the other thing is it cools, and this is something that comes back to medieval times, in the 13th century in Spain, they used water to cool the streets of the city and having water features and there’s beautiful Andalusian fountains in the middle of the piazza or something. They weren’t just pretty, they were there for a function. But I thought that was an interesting aspect, that it has a function that’s not just pretty.  

M: Yeah, yeah.  

P: Really benefits us.  

Okay, moving on to number three. Let’s look at this one:  

3. Mobility 

And that is the ability to get around. So again, bike lanes as being bike lanes are the new black but we’re also looking in here, we’re looking at public transport, diversity of transport and this is a huge one in terms of the development of electronic vehicles and also automated vehicles, which- 

M: I can’t wait for flying cars!  

P: [Laugh] It’s all back to the future, and the future is here people [laugh]. 

M: It is! They exist! They’re being tested right now. 

P: They’re getting better and this is the funny thing, we had this conversation about a year ago. I Remember Marie, you were all pro automated vehicles. No way it’s going to cause accidents. People, I was wrong. 

M: Yes! 

P: The science says that the ability for automated vehicles to prevent accidents is much greater than human error. 

M: Uh huh, computers win again.  

P: Unfortunately… So in 2011 to 2015 electronic vehicle rates soared by 800 percent. Huge increases, and this is only going to get bigger. Technology is improving in the expansion of public transit networks, along with autonomous vehicles and electronic vehicles, is going. It’s going to be a thing of the future. Infrastructure is going to support that so shared public transport, variable transport, in terms of lane ways and arterial roads, which we’re seeing in Sydney at the moment with this whole West connects drama that we’ve all been going through. It’s the way of the future, unfortunately, and the future of mobility is going to be a massive indicator of smart cities and how a city can increase its happiness.  

M: And I think that newer cities are definitely much better placed because they’ve got wider roads and wider lane ways. So it is really tough in cities like Paris. We were there last year. They can’t put lifts in for people with disabilities into their subway systems because they’re underground is like Swiss cheese, right? And the whole thing is going to come falling down if they keep drilling too many holes in there. 

P: Sydney’s suffers from that a little bit as well. 

M: A little bit but we’ve definitely got accessibility down pat compared to a lot of other countries, but you’re really stuck with the age of the infrastructure that you’ve inherited. It’s like older companies right now that have a tech debt with stuff that they’ve been building on top of and on top of and on top of since the seventies compared to new entrants to the market, who come with fresh, clean technology that is only six months old, right? So for, for cities that are really old, this mobility piece becomes so much more costly and difficult to implement. 

P: But it’s going to make a difference to how people can use the city. That’s the whole point.  

M: Yeah, absolutely.  

P: Getting around a city and arterial roads are a really simple introduction to that. You can bypass the busy area of the city so that you can get across town.  

M: Absolutely. All right, we’re going to keep moving on and we’ll power through these last three in our last three minutes.  

So number four on the list of design elements that lead to Happy Cities is: 

4. Sustainability and partnerships.  

So this is one of the things I really liked about the UN sustainability goals is that Number 17 the last one on their list, talks about the need for partnership, and it’s a concept that’s definitely picked up steam over the last five years or so. The government can’t do it all, and there’s been some great examples of where government, academia, corporations and citizens are all coming together now to change our cities and to plan for the future and its, I think the only way that you get true innovation is in coming out of your bubble and your sector and what you know and partnering with other organisations that bring their worldview and they’re different perspectives to drive towards one common goal. So partnership is so key and there’s a great example in Halifax in Canada of some city councillors there and they get $94,000 a year to spend on city infrastructure projects and instead of just deciding that they’re gonna spend it on fountain’s because they’ve got water. 

P: [Laugh] they’re pretty. 

M: I mean, they’d freeze up in Halifax, or whatever it is, instead of sitting in a room with a bunch of councillors and deciding where to spend their money; each year, they have community organisations come in and set up a booth and the residents come in and they walk around and get a little pitch from each of the organisations and then they vote on their top five and so the community is then invested in whatever is developed. The community organisations get to meet the residents and government get to put money into things that the residents want. And it’s just a great little simple example of how you can bring three different communities together to achieve a common goal. 

P: And it’s also giving an empowerment to the people who occupy the city. They’re in charge of their future. And they’re making conscious decisions on it.  

M: Yes, and they’re more likely to use the end outcome.  

All right, so moving on: 

5. Culture. 

We mentioned culture. 

P: The artists have it.  

M: So this is about a city having a sense of uniqueness and having a soul. It is the soul of the city-  

P: and identity that is unique to that city.  

M: Yeah, definitely. So what we’re talking about here is everything from visuals, lights, arts, sounds, climate and people’s behaviour and attitude as well as their physical structures. So all of those things can contribute to a city’s culture. And you’ve been over, you’ve been to Vancouver, haven’t you?  

P: Not yet! I was supposed to go this year.  

M: OH! You were meant to go. 

P: Bloody Covid[19] My Canadian holiday has been cancelled. 

M: All right, I’m going to tell you about a great place called Granville Island from Vancouver. So in the seventies, it was, a dilapidated, industrial area, and the Vancouver government has taken it back and since then, invested a lot of money and I love their mission statement. So it’s “The most inspiring public place in the world.” Is their mission statement, and today it’s a fabulous, artistic and cultural hub. And it’s got public markets about 50 independent restaurants and also got about 300 businesses employing about 3000 people. And arguably many of Canada’s best artists and designers have their works displayed there or they’re selling there, and we went there a couple of years ago. It’s such a great place, such a great place. Now that is a great example of people coming together to create a space that Vancouver’s now so well known for. All tourists go there now and locals love it. Yes, so culture definitely matters. 

P: And I’m going to throw some stats in there. This is where I find a lot of information from the UK coming through. They’re very good at actually evaluating statistics for arts inclusion and there is an arts on prescription project, which comes from Cambridge in the UK. [Arts on Prescription program is based on a model developed in the UK whereby health professionals, including GPs, write prescriptions for their patients to participate in the arts.]  

They found that for an arts community that was actively involved out there in a cityscape:  

  • 71% decrease in feelings of anxiety,  
  • 73% falling depression and  
  • 76% of participants said their wellbeing was increased and they felt more socially included in a city. 

M: Alright, I’m sold. 

P: That’s 3/4 of the city population going ‘yeah, we like artistic spaces.’ You’ve only got to look at the Instagram accounts of people going around taking photos of the graffiti wings that are on all these buildings around. People interact with art on a street level. It isn’t something to be helping museums. I’m getting on my soapbox here [laugh].  

M: All right, we are going to move on. Oh, we are over time already. So we’ll get to the last one and then we’re going to have to wrap up. So last one is: 

6. Quality of service. 

Okay, So it’s making genuinely citizen centred services easier and accessible. And this one is so important. If you’ve ever been to the DMV in the States or if you’ve ever tried to complete a simple tax return in America, you will know the pain that comes with poorly designed, customer centric or non-customer centric services. And we like to complain here in Australia. But our government has digitised most services, and it does lead to a far easier way of doing those day to day things like renewing your licence or paying your fines.  

P: Okay. I’ll concede to you, they’re on their way Marie.  

M: And not that I’m paying fines on a day to day basis. But what I will also say that is in here is accessibility. And when I had my accident after I got out of hospitals in a wheelchair for 6 to 9 months while I was getting on to my feet consistently and it’s lonely, it really is lonely. And it’s not lonely because I had less friends. It’s lonely because I couldn’t do many of the activities that they were doing. I couldn’t get to a bar and feel safe doing that. I couldn’t get to public transport. It just isolates you. And there are so many people in our community who have disabilities or who are elderly and aren’t stable on their feet and they’re ah… 

P: They don’t do things because they’re too scared.  

M: Exactly, exactly. And that’s what I mean by accessibility. So having accessible public transport in accessible spaces is so critical to a large portion of our population.  

P: It’s interesting the Australian environmental Grant Makers Network chimes in here, saying that Australian cities are failing with social inequalities.  

M: Yep. 

P: Do you agree? 

M: Look, I think we’re better than a lot of other countries. I wouldn’t say, I don’t think we’re there yet. Still a long way to go. But we’re doing a lot better than a lot of other countries.  

P: So if we’re going to wrap this up because we’ve gone over time as we always tend to do, this was such a big topic to try and condense into 20 minutes. I mean, we could go on and on.  

M: Maybe, all right. Well, on that note. Thank you for joining us today If you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast. 

P: Stay happy people. 

[Happy exit Music] 

Related content: Listen to our Podcast: Enabling Happy Cities (E20)

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11 Ideas For Your Next Mental Health Day

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Mental Health day ideas

How To Ask For A Mental Health Day And What To Do When You Get One

Are you feeling stressed or burnout? Do you need to reset and unwind, but are you just too exhausted to think about mental health day ideas? Do you need some inspiration?

The month of May is Mental Health Awareness Month – an annual reminder that 1 in 5 people will face a mental health issue at some point in their lives. It shines a light on mental health and mental illness and raises awareness of the fact that many people struggle day to day with mental health issues. More than that, talking about it helps to normalise it, lessening the stigma and letting people know there is no shame and there is support.

This year, talking about mental health is even more poignant with many people currently experiencing heightened stress, anxiety and fears due to Coronavirus. Not only that but the impacts of the Coronavirus, such as losing your job or being isolated, can compound the issue by adding financial stress and/or deepening feelings of loneliness and guilt, among many others.

Then there are the essential workers and remote workers, the people we are depending on and who are working longer more stressful hours. Not having a job comes with its own stresses, but in today’s environment having a job can be just as stressful. And essential workers have been working at a heightened stress level for weeks now, just to get the job done. And many are starting to feel the effects of burnout. Even before the pandemic hit, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that one in four adults will experience burnout in their lives.

Signs You May Need a Mental Health Day

Burnout is a slow progressing state that you get to over time. It’s about working at an unsustainable pace for too long. It can leave you feeling physically and emotionally exhausted, as well as cynical and detached.

Symptoms of burnout include:

  • excessive stress,
  • insomnia,
  • fatigue,
  • sadness, anger or irritability,
  • defensiveness, cynicism or a negative outlook
  • alcohol or substance misuse,
  • high blood pressure, and
  • decreased immune function leading to an increase in illnesses, among others.

If you’ve noticed any of the above symptoms, you could be experiencing burnout. It may be time to ask your boss for a mental health day. If so, read on for some mental health day ideas.

How To Ask For Time Off

Even though conversations about mental health are slowly becoming normalised, it can still be hard to ask for time off to recharge. As much as we know that mental health is just as important as physical health, it is that much harder to ask for a day off when we’re stressed or overwhelmed compared to when we have the flu.

Before you have a conversation with your boss, therapist Julieann Ipsan says: “It is vital to assess if your company and work culture is open to the idea of mental health days. If asking and explaining details will ultimately create more stress, it’s better to take a sick day with no explanation of the mental health needs.”

If your company is OK with mental health days, but you’re still not ready to share your reasons with your boss, you can always say something like, “I’m not feeling well so I have to take a day off, but I’ll be back tomorrow.” This is completely acceptable, after all, you don’t want to create more stress by asking for a mental health day. When pressed for more information, you can simply say “Don’t worry, I am OK, but I really don’t feel up to sharing the details at the moment.”

Once you know that your boss and workplace are open to mental health days, and you are OK with opening up that dialogue, then a little bit of planning can help to smooth the way. If possible, try to take a day off when you will have a limited impact on others or where you can reschedule your meetings.

When you talk to your boss, explain the symptoms you’ve been experiencing, and the benefits of taking some time off to recharge. It could go something like this: “As you know, I’ve been under the pump and the stress is getting to be too much. I’ve not been sleeping well for a while now and I know I have been short-tempered lately. I’m also not doing my best work. I need to be better at looking after myself and I would like to take a mental health day on Thursday to recharge. I hope this helps me to improve my mood and productivity.”

The more people talk about this, and chart a course for others, the more we’ll all benefit from this open, supportive environment in the future. Remember, if you need additional help, reach out to a professional.

11 Mental Health Day Ideas

Once you get your day off, it can be easy to sleep in and just curl up on the couch with the remote. That would be a mistake. It’s time to give yourself what you’ve been missing over the past few weeks or months. This means a mix of quiet, mindful activities, a little bit of pampering, and a lot of rest.

Here are 11 mental health day ideas:

  1. Don’t set an alarm. Let your body tell you when it has had enough sleep.
  2. Put your phone on silent. You don’t want to get sucked into mindless news and social media scrolling, or even worse: work issues! If you absolutely have to be contactable, set aside a small amount of time in the morning and again in the evening to check your messages. Stick to those timeframes!
  3. Put on some music. Set the tone for the day by choosing a playlist or artist who makes you happy or relaxed.
  4. Make your favourite breakfast and eat it outside. The benefits of being outside are well documented. Mindfully enjoy your meal, sit quietly and feel the sun on your face.
  5. Do some light exercise. Go for a 30-min walk around a new part of your neighbourhood. See what you can find that you never knew existed. Be mindful and take notice of nature. Don’t do extreme exercise as it can add further stress to your body – today is about recharging not further depleting your body.
  6. Eat a healthy lunch. It’s time to reset any bad eating habits you’ve developed while stressed. Try a big bowl of salad with chicken or fish. If this feels like a punishment, try to think of it instead as caring for yourself, and then add some nuts and cheese!
  7. Fit in a pampering activity. Go get your nails done or get a massage. Whatever makes you feel like a million dollars.
  8. Make some commitments to change. If you’re in an unsustainable position at work, think about to talking to your boss to let them know explicitly that your situation is not sustainable and ask them to work with you on solutions, or propose some solution. It might take some time for things to change, so in the meantime, you should also commit to changing your own self-care behaviour to help you get through. Pick one thing you can do starting tomorrow. This could be committing to getting 8 hours of sleep, drinking enough water, packing healthy lunches, drinking less alcohol, or walking more each day (try getting off the train/bus one stop earlier).
  9. Set yourself up for the next day. Particularly if you’re going back to your stressful work the next day, you want to do what you can to ease the anxiety that will be building as you get closer to going back. Put your clothes out in the evening and pack a healthy lunch so it’s easy to grab and go.
  10. Wind down. If you’re an evening TV watcher, try changing your routine to read a paper book for a couple of hours before bed. Either way, before you go to sleep, take 20 minutes to do some light stretching, then sit calmly and think about 3 things you’re grateful for. Write them down in a book.
  11. Go to bed early. You don’t want to mess up your sleeping patterns, so don’t go to bed too early, but make sure you’re in bed with enough time to get 8 hours of sleep.

Related content: Read Moving On article Resiliency Is About Recharging And Self-Care, But Are You Doing It Wrong?

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Comment below! Tell me, what activities do you do on your mental health or self-care days?

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