Podcast

The Benefits of Psychological Safety with Nicki Bowman (E16)

04/05/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Psychological safety is being able to be your true self around others without being afraid of negative consequences. It has been a hot topic in the corporate world for a number of years, with many HR departments rolling out programs with slogans like “Diversity Matters – You Can be You!”

Slogans aside, psychological safety is critical to mental wellbeing. It’s about employees feeling included and safe to learn, contribute and speak up without fear, and as today’s guest, Nicki Bowman, points out, it can also impact a company’s bottom line. Nicki is a leadership consultant, speaker and author. She joins us today to talk about the importance of psychological safety and how limitless psychological safety can allow teams to thrive.

https://pod.co/happiness-for-cynics/e16-the-benefits-of-psychological-safety

About Nicki Bowman

Nicki is a leadership consultant, speaker and author. The focus of her work is teaching and inspiring leaders to provide the limitless psychological safety which allows teams to thrive, even as we all face a volatile and uncertain future. This provides the platform for an enviable, adaptable and resilient culture, and a workforce capable of exceptional performance.

Nicki’s leadership career has spanned over 21 years across industries as diverse as mining, finance, sport and manufacturing. It has seen her transition from lawyer to senior executive to professional director, culminating in the establishment of her own leadership practice.

In addition to her corporate career, Nicki has been active for many years in the philanthropic sector. Nicki was a founding director of Football South Coast Limited, is a director of Dress for Success Sydney Inc. and is the founder and Chair of its Illawarra Branch. Nicki has been recognised locally and at State level for her not-for-profit activities, including as the 2019 Australia Day Ambassador for Wollongong.

Find her at www.nickibowman.com.

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast Happiness for Cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer, speaker and change and resilience expert, and my co-host is Pete.

P: Hi there. I’m Peter Furness. I’m a remedial massage therapist, dance and movement practitioner, yoga loving global adventurer. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: You can find our podcast at happinessforcynics.com or visit marieskelton.com for articles and resources on change and resiliency as well as happiness and finding balance in today’s busy world. The site talks about a lot of the same research we talk about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life.

P: So let’s get into it. Cynics the world over. It’s time to suck it up and get happy.

[Happy intro music]

M: So we’re here with Nicki Bowman and we’re talking about psychological safety. Nicki is a leadership consultant, speaker and author. The focus of her work is teaching and inspiring leaders to provide the limitless psychological safety which allows teams to thrive even as we all face a volatile and uncertain future. This provides the platform for an enviable, adaptable and resilient culture and a work force capable of exceptional performance. Nicki’s leadership career has spanned over 21 years across industries as diverse is mining, finance, sport and manufacturing. It has seen her transition from lawyer to senior executive to professional director, culminating in the establishment of her own leadership practise. In addition to her corporate career, Nicki has been active for many years in the philanthropic sector. Nicki was a founding director of Football, South Coast LTD. Is a director of Dress for Success, Sydney and is the founder and chair of its Illawarra branch. Nicki has been recognised locally and at state level for her not for profit activities, including as the 2019 Australia Day Ambassador for Wollongong.

[Nicki,] Welcome to the show. Can I start by asking you, what is psychological safety?

NB: Thanks, Marie. Well, that’s a big question to launch with psychological safety in the context that I work with it, is the ability for you to be in a place where you are able to access the full limit of your capability. If we’re not in that place, then we can’t be as effective as we would like to be. It’s about feeling like your leader has your back. It’s about knowing with clarity what your role is, what the context in which you are operating is and where you all are trying to go together. So it’s, it’s a big, that’s why I say it’s a big question to start with because it has a lot of the elements.

M: Yeah, and why, why are all those things important for people?

NB: Interestingly, my leadership career has spanned over two decades and instinctively when I started to look at this work in more detail instinctively the word safe kept coming up to me. I kept thinking to myself, what my goal is as a leader and now as a leadership consultant is to figure out how leaders create the conditions for people to do their best work. And the word that kept coming up over and over again was that can only happen when people are safe, and now we have a lot more understanding of why that is. And the reason is this. The way that we’re wired our lizard brain, so to speak, is that when we are in a state of psychological safety there are things happening neuro scientifically and chemically in our brains that are enabling us to access the tools, the creativity, collaboration and innovation.

When we are thrust into a position where we do not feel safe and that can run the gamut from working for say an actively toxic organisation where people are yelling and screaming and harassing and bullying. That’s one extreme. But it can also occur in an environment where leaders are just not sure about how to lead us with certainty. They just don’t have the tools to put us in that place. What we now know is our bodies can’t tell the difference between essentially being chased by a sabre toothed tiger and being in a workplace where our psychological safety is compromised. So what happens is our fight, flight or freeze response kicks in, and when that kicks in, it automatically stops us being able to access so much of what our brains would otherwise have to offer.

So in other words, the cortisol rushes in, and it dampens down the good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin and all the things that make us want to succeed and collaborate and praise others and be praised, and instead we go back into survival mode. And when we’re in survival mode, we’re just thinking about what’s happening in the next five minutes and making sure that we’re not getting our heads bitten off metaphorically or actually on. We’re not actually thinking creatively unable to access all of those amazing capabilities that we have.

M: There’s so much in there that I would love to unpack.

NB: Yes

M: [Laugh] So I guess, is this something that for humans is a bit newer because of the shift in how we traditionally have worked in an industrial era to now the skill sets that we’re encouraging in the workplace and you mentioned quite a few of them: creativity, collaboration, all of those things, is this indicative of how the world is changing? This new foc[us] –is it a new focus? Or has it always been there?

NB: Look, my belief is that it is. It is very much a new focus for the broader community at large. I agree with you 100%. I think in the days when things were… look the whole environment has changed. Not only has the nature of work that humans do changed we’re increasingly [changing], robotics, automation and AI are taking over what we used to think of as the mundane tasks right, the task that didn’t require you to apply a lot of intellectual horsepower, the tasks that didn’t require you to have to collaborate directly with people that didn’t require a lot of creativity, those tasks are increasingly being automated. So that’s one thing.

M: uh huh

NB: So now where people are in the workplace, we actually are looking to them to be at their most human. I think that’s a reason why leaders are now looking for new tools, because back in the day when command control was the preferred style of leadership. The other reason that it remained relatively effective as a modality in those days was that people obtained a lot of certainty and security elsewhere in their life. So, for example, jobs used to be almost for life maybe if not for life. But people entered the workforce with an expectation that if they went into a good job, say at a bank or it somewhere like BHP or one of the big industrial companies that they would enter and they would stay in that job for decades. Yeah?

M: Yeah

NB: The outside world also moved along relatively slowly. There weren’t great disruptive changes to technology and if there were, they were coming at a pace that was slow enough for people to absorb. So now that we live in a world where things are changing so rapidly, it’s almost exhausting to keep up where we are constantly bombarded day in, day out, with so many sources of information about so many different things, we don’t even know where to look. And the economy is shifting towards a far less stable model of employment. It’s become much more critical that leaders create a safe, stable place in the workplace even if that, they can’t fix the problem that the economy has shifted or that the world is much faster and that the rate of change is picking up. They can’t change that, but what they now need to do to enable people to perform effectively is we need to work a lot harder as leaders to create that safety for our people because once again to go back to my original point, if you’re not in that place of psychological safety, you cannot access the tools that you need to succeed in the next economy and in fact, the next economy is already here so that’s why it’s become much more critical that leaders learn to provide that sense of security because in previous times first the jobs were different, but also the surrounding world was different. So we were able to access that security in a number of different places where now it just simply doesn’t exist.

M: OK, all right, I’m going to come to how to do that in a little bit. But can you share some example? So you’ve been working as a leadership consultant and talking to companies about how to do this. Can you share some examples of changes you’ve seen in work cultures and how this is positively impacted people and teams?

NB: Yes, I can. So one of the more extreme examples that I saw and I saw this when I was still working in a leadership role was a particular, it was a factory an industrial site, and I met with the person who had been the leader of that site. Now, when he came into that site, the relationship between union and unions and management was so bad that literally the union leaders had taken to the manager’s cars with baseball bats.

M: Oh, wow.

NB: Management required security to even enter the workplace. So this, people jump to that and they jumped to ‘Oh, Unions [versus] Management, you’re not talking about psychological safety’, but in fact what happened was a complete transformation in that relationship occurred, and it occurred because this particular leader was able to implement a number of changes in the way that the plant was run, which effectively provided the psychological safety that these people needed. So if you think about what they were acting out against, they were acting out against the fact that they were being kept in the dark by management. They were acting out against the fact that they were not being given a clear direction and clear instructions. They were acting out against the fact that the lines of communication between Union and Management, well, employees and management, I should say, almost didn’t exist outside of the adversarial union environment. So when people were entering that workplace, they entered it immediately feeling that they were in a hostile environment. So when that happens, what immediately happens, of course, is our cortisol is surging, and once again, our brains are not behaving in the way that they should behave and they’re not looking for collaboration. They’re not looking for ways to work together. They’re not looking for accessing creativity and problem solving.

So this particular leader, started to work with the existing people. So it’s really important to note this. This was a plant in quite a remote part off the country. Where it was not an option to change out the work force, okay. So, so often the solution that people see is ‘Oh well, obviously those people are all horrible and they’ve got baseball bats, and they just need to be gotten rid of.’ No, that wasn’t an option. So this, this leader had to work with who was there. And so what he did was he started with some very simple things. He started with understanding, how is the plant structured? Is it structured in the right way? Do we have the right people doing the right work at the right levels, in the company? Are there people who are perhaps in roles that aren’t quite the right fit for them and therefore they’re, they’re completely stressed in their roles, not because they’re not good people, but just because they’re in the wrong job. Then, once we’ve looked at that, let’s look at the lines of communication, obviously setting up a two way street of communication which is, which is a direct employer employee conversation, not an adversarial thing that’s in with the baggage of decades of antiquity. Let’s talk about how we are very clear about people’s roles and giving them the maximum possible discretion in their roles. Yes, so not trying to shut them down, but actually going what are their capabilities and let’s let the work to those capabilities. So that’s just an example of some of the things that he did overtime, and I visited that plant with him, and it was extraordinary to see the relationship that he had with the workers and how freely they spoke about the absolutely dramatic transformation that occurred under his leadership and the results of that plant. The proof was in the pudding in terms of the improvements that they had had in safety as in physical safety. So there was a direct relationship in terms of their physical safety outcomes, in terms of their productivity, in terms of their ability to ride out some very, very significant economic disturbances and industrial, industry-wide downturns. Their ability to navigate that successfully and continue to operate as a profitable entity was quite remarkable.

M: What I’m hearing and this might be because of my background in communications. [Laugh]

NB: Yep

M: But what I’m hearing is in a time of huge change, people are looking for certainty and you might not be able to give them complete certainty. But if you communicate really well and open up those lines of communication, it goes a long way. Am I paraphrasing and oversimplifying too much?

NB: No, you’re taking part of it, though. Maybe part of it. A big part of it is being really improving the lines of communication, but also the way that you communicate. So, for example, a really important piece of helping people feel tethered is purpose and purpose operates at sort of two levels.

One, it operates at a higher level in terms of what is the purpose of our whole organisation, right? Why are we here? Why do we come to work? Because if we can give people a tether to purpose that they believe in, then they will be less likely to get attached to the way they do things. If they don’t feel like they’re attached to the way they do things and believe, and remember people needing to feel safe. So they’re trying to attach themselves to something right? So if they can’t attach themselves to a job for life because that’s gone, then they’ll attach themselves to the way they do things in the job unless there’s something higher that they can attach themselves to.

So this is where we get into trouble, for example, with a lot of change initiatives where people [are] like all we have to change. But if people are buying into the purpose of the organisation in the first place and therefore buying into the fact that the change is being driven to enhance that purpose, then what are they going to cling to? The thing that gives them security and the thing that gives them security is the way they do stuff. So that’s purpose at one level, it’s, it’s about allowing people to buy into a higher order of purpose around what they do.

And the second way that purpose comes into it in terms of communication, as a leader, is to give people context. So when you are assigning tasks when you are talking about events that are occurring within the firm or the organisation. When you are developing new projects, if you’re just lobbing them into these people out of thin air, it’s much harder to get their engagement. And it’s much harder to therefore get them to feel safe and secure in what they’re doing. If you can centre it by giving them the bigger picture and saying, OK, here’s the context in which I’m asking you to do this task. And here’s how it plugs into the business plan, the strategic plan, the overall purpose of the organisation. Once again, that’s giving people a sense of security that is going to enable them to perform a lot better when they are discharging that task.

M: Okay, so it seems to make sense. [Laughter] You take it one step further, though, and you talk about your limitless safety.

NB: Yep, I do.

M: What’s that about?

NB: The reason I like to call it limitless safety is that sometimes the word safety implies to people that there is a restraint, if you know what I mean. The word safe tends to make people think of cocoons, and it sometimes makes them think of the rules and regulations that stop you doing things and in fact the opposite is true. It’s only when you’ve got limitless safety that you can start to move towards limitless creativity, limitless results, limitless performance. So it’s the convergence of a world where everything is changing faster than we can make out where the nature of all the workplaces are changing. In order to allow people to navigate that successfully and to unleash their creativity we actually have to give them limitless safety. It sounds very counterintuitive, but it’s a way of showing people that, in fact, safety is the starting point from which you can launch your full capability. If you cannot step into safety first, then you will never be able to reach the limits of your capability.

NB: I love it. Okay, so we’re running up to the 20 minutes that we set aside for the show. Can we, maybe finish with some tips, obviously we’ll put a link to your site so people can contact you if they’re interested in reaching out to you. But can you leave them with just a little bit of what it is you do? And maybe some tips on how they can develop a limitless safety culture in their organisation or teams?

M: Sure. Thank you. Yes, so what I do now? As I said, I spent more than two decades in leadership and what I’ve done now is set up a leadership consultant, consultancy and I work with predominantly organisations, occasionally individuals around the principles that found that sense of limitless safety. So the framework I’ve developed her seven elements, two of them are organisational. And that is something that’s often missed from discussions around psychological safety and culture in the workplace. It’s about getting the structure of the organisation right and the fit of the rolls right before you then turn to the individual behaviours. And so there are five individual behaviours around conveying purpose, enforcing standards, setting boundaries, maintaining awareness and making decisions that are critical for leaders to be able to understand and adequately exercise so that they can give their people the absolute best chance of achieving limitless performance.

M: Okay, and they’re going to have to go to your website to find out more I think. [Laugh]

NB: I run coaching, I run workshops and I run much more immersive programmes for organisations across the number of months for people that really want to get it to the next level.

M: Absolutely, and I think again coming back to Happiness for cynics. The podcast that we’re on right now. If you’re not safe, feeling safe at work, you’re not going to be happy and living your best life. So really important topic. And thank you so much for talking to us.

NB: You’re very welcome. Thanks for having me on. And yes, I think ah, lot of people are extremely cynical about the workplace and about what’s happening in the workplace. But I’m all about the fact that limitless safety is what’s going to drive them away from their cynicism and into the happiness space.

M: I love it. Okay. Well, thank you so much.

NB: Thanks, Marie. I appreciate the chance to talk too.

Social Media Detoxing (E15)

27/04/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

We discuss the reasons why you should do a social media detox, offer some tips to get you started and discuss the benefits of cutting social media out of your life (well, sometimes).

https://pod.co/happiness-for-cynics/e15-social-media-detoxing

Transcript

M: Hi world. You’re listening to the podcast. Happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a change and resiliency expert, and my co-host is Pete.

P: Hi there. I’m Peter Furness. I’m an isolation domestic goddess, a manager of mischief, and distraction project manager. Each week we’re bringing you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

You can find our podcast and a bunch of resources and articles on change, resiliency, happiness and living your best life all at marieskelton.com.

So for today’s episode we’re talking about social media and particularly, in particular, how to do a social media detox.

So time for the happy music.

[Happy intro music]

M: All right, so welcome to today’s show. Today we’re talking about social media detoxes Pete.

P: Hmm… the detox, a word that I never use and I am very against.

M: Hehe as a principle, so am I.

[Laughter]

P: [Whispers] They don’t work.

[More laughter]

P: In social media maybe they do, we are yet to see.

M: Hmm and I think the irony here is that you’ve kind of done a social media detox at some point in your life haven’t you?

P: I was looking at some of this stuff. Yes, definitely have definitely gone the ah ‘I refuse to be dictated to’, She Ra, Princess of Power says no.

[Laughter]

P: So, I think the reason this is, is so relevant right now, again social isolation is changing our behaviours and our emotions and our lives. It’s changing everything. Covert 19 has had such a big impact on us and one of the things that it has impacted is the amount of social media and media that people are consuming on a day to day basis. So they’re definitely pockets of people who are doing more with their lives. They’re working. Maybe they’re working harder. Particularly the wonderful, wonderful people in the healthcare industry, bless their cotton socks for everything that they’re doing.

Thank you. So there are a lot of people who don’t have more time on their hands. But on the flip side, there are so many people who do have more time on their hands. I’m actually seeing a lot of that in my workplace. I’m getting very polarised experiences of the covert response from movement, to screen time, to balance of life to cooking. There are people who would do really well with this. But there are some people who aren’t. There are certain aspects that some people are going ‘Oh wow, I get time to look after my meal plan a lot more, I can cook at home, I could be eating better. I’m not grabbing whatever crap is [available] as I run out the door to beat the nine AM train rush.’ So it’s a very polar experience for some people.

M: Absolutely, so this won’t relate to everyone. But we’re here to talk about the impacts of social media and over use of social media.

P: What is overuse Marie? What defines over use of social media?

M: So I think it comes down to whether or not it has a negative impact on your life, so I’ll pawn some stats here from Australia.

So there’s 18 million active social media users in Australia, so that 69% of the population and that’s a stat[itistic] from 2019.

Facebook’s the most popular social media platform, with about 16 million monthly users on the website.

So in and of itself, social media isn’t a bad thing, and social media use can actually be a really positive thing. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with spending time on social media. The thing to be aware of is how it makes you feel, and also there’s a distinction that will get to in a little bit about using it with purpose and intention versus mindlessly using it.

P: I like it. I like that angle of mindlessly because I think too often people reach for the phone, they’re, they’re, scrolling without realising that they’re scrolling. And I think that’s, that’s a real sign that there might be a little bit too much obsession on there. And I’ve had a bit of experience with that myself actually.

M: I wouldn’t even necessarily call it obsession, Pete. Sometimes it’s just laziness. It’s just not being aware to be mindful. And I do it when you’re waiting for the bus or you’re waiting for your coffee to come. You just look at your phone, like that’s just the way that people work nowadays, right?

P: I’ve done a bit of reading around this and come across that it’s the habit, it’s the habit of picking up the phone and one of the things that we, I guess you use the word mindfulness and I’ll go with you on that one. It’s a, It’s a habitual physical action. We pick up the phone. The first thing you do mean a lot of people wake up is to reach for their phone. Is that something that we just need to change and will that then influence the way that we interact with our phones and with social media? Are we just mindlessly going there because there is nothing else to distract us and in doing that, are we being dictated to by the social media platforms?

M: I think the answer is yes, but I don’t think that it’s because there’s nothing else to distract us. I think as human beings, do you remember being a kid and being bored? ‘I’m bored’, right? And mom would be like, ‘go play outside’ like that was the solution when we were kids. Now it’s ‘ugh stop annoying me, go get the iPad or turn on the TV or go to your computer’ or whatever tool it is to fill that time. So we’re training our kids in a way to never be bored, and I’ve mentioned this Ted talk before, but there’s a great Ted talk about the power of being bored and how, when we’re bored, our brain actually has the time to make random connections, which is why all of the great ideas come when you’re washing your hair in the shower or doing the dishes, or you know, those moments where you’re not using your brain for anything like scrolling social media, watching TV, having a conversation, etcetera. So your mind is on autopilot and it has a chance to rest and relax and make those connections. And so having a phone constantly around and picking it up to fill in those moments of boredom has become a habit. You’re right, but it’s also depriving our brain from some really valuable moments that we should be actually trying to encourage a bit more of.

P: Definitely. I think it comes down to a personal awareness initially, even when you were talking about kids and so forth. But I remember making the choice myself to actually stop looking at my phone on the bus and to actually go across the bridge and look out at the sun shining on the harbour, which is a pretty bloody beautiful sight and to actually train myself to not be constantly looking at a screen for the entire bus trip. Okay, I’ll check my phone before I get on, but then when I’m sitting down, I’m actually gonna put my phone in my bag. I’m going to look out at the world. I’m going to see what the morning is doing. I’m going to notice the people who are sitting with me on the bus or who are riding next to me on the bicycle, passing on the street, making that choice to be engaged with what is around.

M: Ah nice.

P: In England I was doing that and everyone was watching a parade. I think it was the Olympics and there’s this wonderful photo of all these people with their phone, capturing the moment on the phone. And then there’s this old lady with her arms crossed, just hanging out and smiling and going ‘Yeah, I’m just watching.’ I want to be that person. I want be the one person who doesn’t have the technology and who is just experiencing, being present, being mindful.

M: I think that’s a really good point, because if you have ever filmed an event that you were so excited to be at and turn around later and gone ‘I really just didn’t enjoy it because I was so focused on making sure I captured it.’

P: I’ve never done it, but I’ve been very conscious of it, and I, when I go to live events, theatres. Yeah, I don’t film. I try not to. I might capture a single moment, especially if it’s a big concert or something.

M: I’m calling you, I know you have. When we went to see Elton John you did it! I saw you.

P: I waited until you and Jeffrey both pulled your phones out.

[Laughter]

P: I had permission, he he. There was a purpose in that one, that was to share with my sister. This is a point. So this comes back to how to use social media. So the information that I’ve gained is that there is a positive way to do this. There is a positive, and those few that are actually contributing to their Facebook feeds and sharing information have a better relationship with social media than those who are unnecessarily using it as a comparative method of comparing their post.

M: Yeah, and I think a lot of the research for a number of years has shown that FOMO is real and, unfortunately –

P: – FOMO?

M: Fear of missing out. Unfortunately, the view that you get from other people social feeds is that their lives are full of amazing meals with fun and friends and great activities, because you’re only seeing the best moments of someone’s life.

P: Yeah.

M: Yeah, it can be really tough to see everyone living there best lives on social media, and you don’t realise that there’s a lot of time in between those moments for people where things might not be good, so it is really important to share your moments with friends on social media but to also have that understanding that you’re only seeing highlights of people’s lives and you need to engage with people off social media to bring that balance, and that balanced view.

P: It’s the sharing that I’m interested in. That, that prospect of actually going on and sharing. Now I took my Facebook feed off about three years ago. I stopped posting and I stopped advertising events and so forth. That was a conscious decision. Every now and then I’m tempted to go back on and pop something up there when something really lovely happens, but I’ve stayed off it.

Social media for me was a negative experience because I think I fell into that group of being constantly up comparing my life to other peoples. So people were always going away on holidays. They were having an easy time with their friends on boats and things like that. I’m like oh, I don’t do any of that, which is absolute bollocks, because I do. But my consciousness was I’m not involved in that at this present moment and big celebrations when there have been social events on and I choose not to be a part of that. For example, Mardigras. I chose not to go to Mardigras one year and everyone was having a fantastic time and I got FOMO. It was that thing of ‘I’m going to turn this off because it’s just making me feel like I’m not good enough for my, I’m not involved so therefore, I don’t feel good about it and I think that’s a dangerous spot to be in. Whereas if I was involved in posting and actually putting up fabulous times like when I was on a boat a couple of months ago for my besties 40th birthday and we were jumping off the boat in Shark Bay [Laughter] you know it’s, that’s a positive spin because it is connecting with people and it’s allowing you to share those experiences. When I was reading an article by Catherine Price, author of How to Break up with your Phone and she did talk about how social media makes you feel when you do share stuff and that it is positive because sometimes you’re keeping a relationship going that may have fallen by the wayside because matters like geography, time spent, they have children, you don’t, you’re on different time schedules. The social media actually contributes to keeping those relationships going so it is very much how you use the experience.

M: I definitely agree. So, both of us have lived overseas. And for me, it’s how I keep an eye on what’s going on. And you know, we do catch up every now and then, but it’s a good in between.

P: Yeah, so the take up I’m getting from that is passive versus active users.

M: Yes

P: Don’t be a passive user be an active user. Use it to check up on your friends. Use it to find things that you’re interested in. But don’t endlessly scroll at 11 30 at night when you’re in bed alone and feeling down. It’s a no brainer, don’t.

M: That’s a really good point. Before we move on I do just want to say there the studies show that poor social media use and excessive social media use. So when I say poor, it’s that mindless or passive social media use leads to depression, increased anxiety, increased loneliness, sleeplessness and a raft of other mental health issues. So this, this is a thing. It is serious, and social media sites are designed in a way to activate our pleasure centres. This is the thing, if you’ve ever worked with UX and behavioural economists. A lot of large corporations now, know exactly where to place a button to make you more or less likely to click on it. And they’ve actually gotten so good at knowing how people respond to colours, shapes, design, layout, etcetera and driving the behaviour they want that there’s now a whole field of research into the ethics of that, right. So that all that, like it’s crazy how much this stuff is actually a field and exists. So what they do with social media sites is that they design them to keep you here, to keep you coming back. So they’re activating those pleasure centres so they offer positive reinforcement like Pavlov’s dog. Keep giving you treats and those treats are ‘likes’ they’re the ‘thumbs up’ and people come back, right.

P: Yes. The self-esteem behind Social media is its positive affirmation.

M: Absolutely.

P: And that’s what we’re all after, we’re all after those ‘thumbs up’ and ‘likes’, and I remember when I used to post checking in to see who liked my post did the person that I really, really wrote it for over in Kazakhstan or something see it and like it, and you keep checking it.

M: Yep

[Laughter]

M: And now that we’re putting a lot more ethical and moral pressure on companies like Facebook. We’re seeing changes happen in the industry actually, we’re seeing that you can’t see who’s liked posts necessarily on some platforms, so they are changing slowly to meet the changing consumer expectations. So this is definitely an evolving area. But let’s talk about how people can do social media detox.

M: So firstly it’s, it’s important to ask whether you need to do one. And as we said before, I think it’s about starting with some self-reflection and evaluating your habits. So maybe spend a week just jotting down, you can do it on your phone if you want, just jotting down all the times that you pick up your phone so it starts by being aware. And while you do that, put a rating. So maybe a one to five rating of how you’re feeling when you do it. So is it impacting your mental wellness, your productivity, your creativity? How are you feeling after you’ve been using your phone? And if you come away not having a good feeling from the social media you used or from your amount of social media use? There’s five quick things that you can do. So I’m going to fly through these because I think we’re running low on time here Pete.

So first, find a detox, buddy.

All the research shows that you’re more likely to complete any kind of new habit, so weight loss, new exercise regimes all the rest of it if you’ve got a buddy.

The second thing is get used to the idea of being okay with being bored.

The goal here is to take back your time and mindfulness and that means replacing hours of endless scrolling with more fun but mindful activities. So it means being present and being okay with maybe being bored.

So number three and this is the big one.

Delete your Social Media Apps.

P: [Deep breath in!]

M: You know, if that makes you feel anxious, remember this is only temporary.

P: I can see people clutching their pearls right now. [Laugh]

M: People are like ‘delete, stupid podcast –

[Laughter]

M: – never coming back to that.’ But if, it’s worth remembering that deleting your apps off your phone is only temporary, you can load them back up again tomorrow. Whenever you need to. So, so before you feel that anxiety, know that it is temporary. And if you really can’t delete them, or can’t bring yourself to delete them, move them into a folder on one of the back screens. If you want to take it one step further during Corona virus, you might also want to limit your news intake to 30 minutes a day.

Finally change your lock screen.

So this simple act will make you think every time you have to answer your phone. So if you change your password you’ve got to stop and think ‘What was the new password?’ And that could be enough to stop you from mindlessly getting on to phone and opening an app.

P: Yes, I’ve got one more to add there Marie, I really like this one. Put a rubber band around your phone.

M: Yeah, I saw that one. Yeah, that’s the same, same premise. The physical barrier.

P: Yeah, you’ve got to take it off before you decide am I going to scroll? Okay, I’m going to take that off it’s going clock into my time, so triggers, triggers a memory in your brain.

M: Yep, yep. So and look, there’s a couple other things here. I’m going to quickly throw them in there if you can go buy yourself an alarm so that you stop using your phone last thing at night, and first thing in the morning. And it’s not the last and first thing you’re picking up and you can leave it in another room.

And then lastly, start a new project the week that you’re starting a social media detox. So book in some time with friends or get started on a course or something? Yeah and that’ll help you to shift your time to something productive.

P: Yeah, Active distraction.

M: So before we go, Pete, you said that you at one point stopped using a social media. You noticed that it was leading to bad mental space. What was the impact after you made this? Did the detox, made the stop?

P: Hit the delete?

M: Yep

P: [Singing] freedom!

[Laughter]

M: There you go. That’s all you needed to say, right?

P: Ha ha, for me it was the way the mindfulness crept back in. I was solely focused on my tasks. I wasn’t very easily distracted, and I found I had more time. I think that’s the biggest takeaway from me from this, from that experience, well it’s something that I’ve continued to do much to my friends disgust when they can’t contact me during the day. Marie Skelton.

[Laughter]

P: I had to put a special ring tone on my phone. So I knew it was you.

M: [Laugh] I don’t see your point. Is that a bad thing?

P: It’s that thing of being really focused on a task. No, I’m in one hour slots during the day and not having that distraction made me really focuse on what I was doing.

M: All right. Well, that’s all we have time for this week. But we will see you again next week. And thank you for joining us.

P: Stay happy folks

[Happy exit music]

The Importance of Being Social (E14)

20/04/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 14

Human beings are social animals, which is why forced isolation is driving so many of us up the walls. We discuss the science behind why we need to be social, and how best to be social, and offer some tips to keep your sanity in today’s locked down world.

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and speaker, focused on change and resiliency. My co-host is Peter.

P: Hi I’m Peter Furness and I’m a roof gardening, garage exercising, sometimes carpenter of strange door frames. Each week we will bring to you the latest news of research in the world of positive psychology. Otherwise, known as happiness.

M: You can visit us at www.marieskelton.com and on that site you can send us ideas for people to interview or topics to cover or just tell us we’re wrong! [laughs] So today’s podcast… what are we talking about today, Pete?

P: We’re talking about socialising and isolation.

M: Sounds like a plan. Cue music.

[Happy music]

P: Happy music, it just it still makes us laugh. You said it wouldn’t, but it does.

M: It does. I hate and love it at the same time. Okay. All right. Well, Pete, today we’re talking about being social and particularly in light of coronavirus and being socially isolated for a lot of us. I think this is going to be a great conversation because of our personalities the introvert and extrovert, we’re on almost polar opposite ends.

P: Almost. There’s a bit of each of each of us in the other.

M: Definitely. And they say about introverts and extraverts that you’re never 100% one or 0% the other. There’s a mix in there. It’s a good mixed drink.

P: Yeah, but you’re loving the isolation. You’re getting in there, you’re in a happy space.

M: I’m thriving. Yeah, definitely. I am finding my passion in delving into creative pursuits and not being bothered by pesky people.

P: Haha, Pesky people almost sounds like a tongue twister. It’s actually my first quote for today is “solitude is not negative for everyone.”

M: Absolutely love it.

P: It is a balancing act though it’s, even for introverts, there’s the whole thing about how much social isolation is too much and people in the research that I’ve done, and the people have read, they have talked about even introverts can have too much isolation and too much alone time. And that’s kind of the space that I think I’m going to dive into a little bit today, is how to find the right balance with social isolation.

M: I absolutely agree. I think the other distinction here is being alone is very different from being lonely, and that for me is the line that you cross. You can thrive while being alone, but at some point if you’re alone too much, you may become lonely, and that’s a really dangerous place to be. And I think we mentioned that we did talk about the benefits of being alone in one of our previous episodes.

So just to give us the same the same grounding. In order for our species to survive, we needed to be social. And it’s a uniquely human trait. To have the ability to be compassionate and to care.

P: Yes, definitely. It’s one of our really important mechanisms that our species has used to survive because we inherently care about the other person and we’ve got that pack mentality.

M: Yeah

P: Shultz, Opie and Atkinson from Oxford University and we’ve got the University of St Andrews in Fyfe in the UK that have all done studies that prove this, and they talk about the way that communication was needed for our primates to survive, and also that communication was invented to go beyond the geographical. So we started using language. We started using symbols and hieroglyphics and all that sort of stuff to communicate, even though we couldn’t be next to somebody. So that’s been one of the chief aspects that has allowed us as a species to evolve.

M: Yeah, absolutely. And along the way, as we’ve evolved, we’ve become craftier and craftier at designing tools to enable us to communicate. And one of the, I think the ironies of all of this is that face to face communication, time and time again has been proven to be the deepest and most beneficial form of communication. And all these tools that we’ve designed lately are actually taking us away from what is essentially the best way to communicate. So, writing on people’s Facebook, Twitter feeds, etcetera… all these other social media channels, email, even telephone. All of that is not ever as good as face to face communication.

P: And there’s a reason scientifically for it Marie.

M: [Laugh]

P: I’ve got some information here that talks about face to face interaction by Susan Pinker, she talks about stimulating neurotransmitters primarily it’s oxytocin, which is the big one that’s concerned with the reward and pleasure and then we’ve also got dopamine and serotonin, which are also secreted during that face on face interaction. [Laugh] Now you could say that face time and zooming –

M: [Laughing] Hold on, hold on –

P: What, what, what, what?

M: You just said face on face.

P: Face on face interaction. It means you’re looking at someone.

M: No, face on face is like ‘I got to second base’.

P: [Laugh] it’s, okay… I’ve lost my train of thought now.

M: I’ll pick up, then I’ll keep going with that. So, apart from all the feel-good chemicals in there, there are a raft of benefits, so face to face communication is the best. The other ways that we communicate and bond with other people are still valid in the absence of face to face. So before you all run screaming for your… bedroom – like you can’t go far right now with COVID-19 wherever it is that you run to, to hide in your house – because you’re there alone and we’ve just told you face to face is the best way to communicate. There are still other ways that you can communicate and still get the benefits, but they just won’t be as strong. And that’s probably a lot of what people are missing right now, particularly the extroverts who thrive off those positive chemicals

P: I’ve got some statistics here that from Professor Matthew Lieberman at the University of California in Los Angeles. He talks about the fact that that social motivation, social contact helps to improve memory formation and memory recall in your brain. So it’s keeps your neuro plasticity going, which is a huge aspect which we’ll talk about later in terms of the Super Ages, the people who are over eighty and all that cognitive, behavioural stuff that goes on. So being social and having a social conscience actually really triggers all that sort of stuff. And the other big one that he, he talks about is the neurodegenerative diseases. So it protects the brain from falling into that space where you’re not using certain pathways, you’re not using your links and they can die. If we’re not using all that, as we age as well, it becomes more important and I’ll talk about that more when we get down to that section.

M: What section? Let’s talk about it now.

P: Oh, okay. So super ageists, people over 80, they have, the ones who do really well have a really good quality of life. There’s one thing that they have identified with the research that they all have and that’s close friendships, and it’s funny that they liken this to teenagers. When we’re teenagers we have lots of really good friends and we’re hanging out, we’re going to the mall. We’re doing all this sort of stuff and they say that the Super Ages, who have those kinds of friendships into that later years actually have the behavioural cognition of teenagers.

M: Yep

P: So their brains are like teenagers. The contact with fellow ages provides a support for when times are tough. So when you are going through a bad time, or you are having issues with financial issues or personal relationships or just not feeling great, if you’re with a closely bonded group, people pick up on that. It only takes one person to go. Do you need a cup of tea Beryl? Maybe an iced vovo?

M: [Laugh] I love that you switch into 80 year old country Australian lady.

P: [Laugh] everybody had 90 year old Beryl or Aunty Esme.

M: [Laugh] Esme, we all watched ‘A Country Practice’.

P: [Laugh] Yeah, exactly.

M: What I love about the Super Ages and for those of you who may not be familiar with the term of super agers, Pete mentioned is over 80 and they are living a good life, free of major health concerns. So the main ones, the big ones, are any of the degenerative neuro[logical] or brain diseases.

P: Dementia and Alzheimer’s.

M: And Diabetes is another disease that can severely impact your wellbeing later in life. And I think it’s great, there’s a community and a concept that came out of this community in Japan called Ikigai, and if you haven’t looked up Ikigai it is a great way to do a bit of self-reflection about what’s important to you in life in general, and to help find your purpose and passions so Ikigai all about finding a purpose and passion. And they’ve got this group of super ages in Japan who were not only over 80 they’re all over 100.

[Laughter]

M: Right?! And they’re all great, like they’re just killing it, right. And they’ve got these great cultural norms in that town that mean that their society is so tight knit and they all look after each other. And it’s all about the social aspect. And when you look at super ages in, they call them blue zones around the world. So where are the pockets of the people that are living good lives later in life? There are definitely things to be said for not smoking, not consuming too much alcohol. Having good diets, doing exercise but all of those things vary except –

P: The one constant.

M: The one constant is your social connections and the depth of social connections. It’s really fascinating.

P: There’s another doctor who studied at an island in Greece, Dr. Archelle Georgiou and she studied Super Ages in Greece, who had a very strong family ties and spent the majority of their time with family, so um, and I think this is something that there’s also very indicative in Asian cultures is that grandma lives with the kids. So there’s Mom and Dad, there’s kids but Grandma and Grandpa are there as well and there’s a real family unit and you see it as well in other cultures, like the Italian culture and the Greek culture. Nonna and Nonno, they’re always around and there’s a really sense of commitment to that generational gap and being a part of each other’s lives. And I think that ultimately that helps, that helps create that sense of community and that sense of support. So again, reaching out to those people who are who are older is really vital because everybody benefits.

M: Yeah, I think the sad thing about what you’ve said there is that a lot of Western countries started off that way, too. But as our social safety systems have evolved, it has enabled our older people to remain independent for longer, and I don’t think that, that’s necessarily helping them. So when you have the pension and you can stay in your home, even though your significant other may have passed away. You can stay there by yourself because you could afford to. Then it really can lead to isolation. Being lonely is such an epidemic right now around the world, and they’re saying a lot of the reasons people are lonely is because we’ve actually progressed so much in society that we can be. We’re choosing it without realising the negative impact.

P: Definitely.

M: And it’s really something that people have grown up learning to covet and cherish, [it] is the ability to have your own space.

P: Yeah.

M: But just like you were saying before Pete, if you’re an introvert, you need to be careful. Well, if you live alone, you also need to be really careful.

P: Yeah, I’m going to cut in there, Marie, because there’s a there’s a couple of tips in there for people that can actually monitor their alone time. And this comes from psychology today in the States and its basically checking in and asking yourself a couple of couple of really easy questions. And the first one is how does alone time make you feel on a scale of 1 to 10. Do you feel great when you’re alone or do you feel slightly depressed, or not even depressed that just a little bit sad when you’re alone? If you’re checking that in on daily basis, if you’ve got two weeks of social isolation. If you’ve just come off a ship or something and you’re on your own that first week, you like, ‘yeah, I’m good. I’m watching … series, you know, having a great time, I’m ordering pizza, it’s really good.’ And then, towards the end of that second week your rating might be down to the down to the twos and the threes because you’re starting to crave a little bit of contact. And I think that’s a really good, easy way of checking in with yourself and just going. ‘How does being alone make me feel today?’

P: The other one that they talk about is having a weekly quota of social time. So this is a really interesting one for introverts, because for some introverts, it’s really difficult to clock up two hours of community social time for the extroverts they’re in there at [Click, click, click] six or seven.

M: Pete’s clicking his fingers if you’re wondering what that sound is. Remember it’s a podcast Pete [laugh].

P: Oh, I thought we were recording.

M: But I think a really good point there, though, is that for introverts. A lot of them thrive in one to one conversation, and that is their comfort zone. And that’s where they get their really solid social interaction.

P: And that’s still social time. It’s still valid.

M: And we’re not… We’re not having wild parties right now because we’ve tried it on Zoom and we just end up talking over each other and it doesn’t work. But I think, I think it’s, it’s important to point out that introverts won’t shy away from one on one conversations that often. They actually quite enjoy them and are drawn to those so that could actually suit the way that introverts enjoy communicating.

P: Okay, yeah, I’ll definitely give you that. I still think that the idea of having a quota of hours that you’ve got to clock, I think it’s a good recognition, like if you’re easily clocking [click, click, click] three or four hours a week, there’s me clicking again.

[Laughter]

P: It’s the inner dance teacher in me, ‘5,6,7,8.’

[More laughter]

P: Sorry, if you’re clocking that quota time easily, then obviously it is working for you. But if you’re not, if you’re only managing 30 minutes of social time a week, that’s an indication that you might need to look at other ways to try and make yourself a little more social you’re in that danger area of possibly falling in too much alone time.

M: So I love what you said about clocking it. I’ll just snap my fingers. [click, click]

P: [Laugh]

M: Clocking the time that you feel you need, but how much you need? I wouldn’t quantify that because I think everyone differs.

P: OK

M: And I think you could go an entire week loving your life and being left alone by the world and not need to see anyone. And the next week you might need to talk to someone every day.

P: OK, I’ll give you that. I’ll agree with that one.

M: Woohoo. Yeah, that’s a win that’s the first time in season.

[Laughter]

P: Oh, come on. You’ve had a few wins. I’ve let you have a few ones.

M: We do tend to not agree a lot though, don’t we?

P: We agree surprisingly well on a lot of this stuff actually.

M: Yeah, we do.

P: It’s a little bit concerning [laugh].

M: So what I do love as far as tips so obviously face to face is better. So the next best thing while in self-isolation is to do video chatting. And obviously we’re doing too much because you, you know, working from home in an office type of role where you’re having meetings, then you might want to scale that back in your after-hours time. But for everyone else, we should be trying to make eye contact with people and see facial expressions and bond Pete, just like what we’re doing now.

P: [Laugh] I’ve read something recently about, talk to your neighbours, that sense of doing that whole thing and talking to your neighbour, which I think in a city like Sydney, we’ve kind of, especially in the city, we’ve lost that. We don’t talk to our neighbours much anymore.

M: No, because they could be crazy! That’s what happens when you move to the big city Pete. Only the crazies actually talk to you, which is why everyone else doesn’t talk.

P: Oh, no, I’m not going to give you that one. I’m not going to give you that one. It takes for one person to actually say something, and it could be that you’re putting your head over your neighbour’s back fence to tell them to turn the bloody workout music down. That’s fine.

M: I’m trying to find my neighbour, I’m in apartment block and I was trying to find my neighbour the other day who was playing music, that I wanted them to turn up and I was like ‘this is awesome, where are you?’

[Laughter]

P: And that’s what I’m saying, I love some things that I’ve seen. There was a wonderful Facebook video of Joyce Mayne, who’s a very butch drag queen here in Sydney. And she was on the rooftop of her apartment building in Potts Point and she had a stereo system blasting, and she had someone filming and she got into full drag. And she did a full Robin take off of dancing on my own on her rooftop, and everybody stuck their heads out the windows and watched and clapped and that’s, and that’s face on face.

[Laugh]

P: It’s face to face time.

M: It went from drag show to…

[Laughter]

P: But that’s what I mean, those sorts of interactions are every bit as vital, and it is about that thing of recognising the person that you actually do see so it can be your neighbour going ‘Yeah, I saw the cat the other day, how’s she doing?

M: So I have heard of some really good things that people can do while they’re on video chats. So if you’re getting bored with just calling friends, I’ve got some tips and ideas. Virtual coffees, so we’ve been doing those with colleagues at work, so you’re going to grab a coffee anyway. You’ll just cheque in, have a bit of a chat. No work conversations allowed.

P: It’s the old fashion, smoko.

M: Yeah it is or water cooler conversations because they’ve stopped, right? Yes. So the gossip mill has just died in all these corporate [environments].

P: [Laugh] Oh, dear. Beryl’s not going to be happy about that.

M: No. And then the one I love is quarantinis.

P: Oh, that sounds fun.

M: We should schedule one of those for later in the week Pete.

P: Oh dear, that could be dangerous.

M: And then the last one is fitness classes or fitness with friends. Or just seeing what your local gyms doing a lot of gyms and personal trainers and now during classes online. And there is still some social interaction with that. If you do it with someone else, you know, you’re more likely to do it. It keeps you more motivated and the benefits of the exercise are improved or increased.

P: Definitely, yeah. Science says so and it’s all about the science Marie.

M: Science says!

[Laughter]

M: And before we go, the one thing that we didn’t say being social is critical for your happiness. We didn’t come..

P: Oh.

M: Why are we here Pete? What’s the name of our podcast?

P: [Laugh] Well, it’s sort of inherent, really. I mean, we could talk for hours about that. We probably have over several different episodes to be honest.

M: Yep and I think we might call it an episode. Thank you for joining us and visit us.

P: Done! Done and dusted.

M: Please join us @marieskelton.com to find all of our podcast episodes and accompanying research. Until next time.

P: Stay happy people.

[Happy exit music]

Exercise Makes You Happy (E13)

13/04/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 13

In episode 13, Pete and Marie discuss the science behind why exercise makes you happy and some recent studies about the benefits of exercise. They also offer a range of tips to help with motivation and to get some exercise into your life if you’re on lock-down.

Things we Talked About on This Episode

In case you also wanted to mental image of Aerobics Oz Style 🙂

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast Happiness for Cynics. I’m Marie Skelton. I’m a writer and speaker focused on change and resilience. My co-host is Peter.

P: Hi there. I’m Peter I’m an isolated touch person. I’m an organiser of delayed jobs and a watcher of morning television… right now. Each week, we bring you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: And you can send us ideas for people to interview or topics to cover. Or just tell us we’re wrong by going to marieskelton.com/podcast. Also on that…

P: If you’re going to tell Marie she’s wrong, get ready! Get ready for an argument.

M: We welcome being corrected when we’ve made mistakes, Peter! So, so on that site are a whole lot of articles, resources and research and some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness to your life. So onto today episode, which is all about exercise.

[happy music]

P: I don’t know why, but now I have Aerobics Oz Style running through my head.

M: Haha, Love it.

P: All those women in tight leotards and the strength from the 1980s.

M: We’ll have to put that up on the site so people can look on. And have a laugh actually, which is why we’re here, isn’t it? Alright. So today we’re talking about exercise and its impact on health and happiness. When I say health I mean mental health. There’s a whole lot of research into the physiological and physical health benefits of exercise, but we’re going to focus on how it can make us happier.

P: We all know exercising is great for our mood and everything, but what about our wellbeing in our mental state? According to science, that is, I was actually quite impressed with some of the research that was going on here and some of my ideas that I always held to be true were kind of challenged, which is kind of a nice point about going in and looking at science, because it’s all about the science, isn’t it Marie? We don’t just go believing

M: Of course, and we are here to break down mental barriers and limiting beliefs and all those things that our parents and grandparents instilled in us, and society instilled in us. And there’s one in particular that I’m really excited to talk about today, and it is this assumption that exercise is a burden to bear, and I think unless you were in the 15 or 10% of people who were naturally athletic and were picked on the school teams first and all the rest of it. It really has been a challenge to enjoy exercise for a lot of people. So, I want to go…

P: True I deal with this a lot with my client base.

M: So I really want to go through a lot of science. I’m excited to talk through that, but also, I really want to challenge us to start thinking about exercise in a very different way. And hopefully the science will help people to reframe it in their minds. So another reason that I’m very excited to be talking about exercise at the moment, apart from being one of those people that has just naturally being a bit of an athlete, in my life, is that it’s so relevant for us being stuck at home at the moment.

There is also a huge danger right now with a lot of people, firstly all of a sudden losing all incidental exercise. So, we’re no longer walking to the bus stop and then walking to the office, and going downstairs for a coffee, and running up the road to pick up some groceries and getting lunch at the cafe, all of that incidental walking and movement is now pretty much gone. I know I walk about six steps to get from my desk to the bathroom and about 10 steps to get to the kitchen nowadays. So just the little movement that all adds up is absent from a lot of people’s days now and then. Secondly, the bigger exercise routines just completely destroyed. Gyms are closed, sports teams aren’t playing at the moment, so I think, focusing on exercises topical at the moment. So, let’s look at the science Pete, I’m going to throw to you. Tell me the science!

P: Oh, wow, look at me getting all scientific! I’m going to start off from the Latin “Mens sana in corpore sano”, a sound mind is a sound body. So, there’s always been the link between mental health and exercise and movement right through the ages. exercise has a link to a mental wellbeing. Primarily through neurotransmitters. The big street dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine. They’re the happy drugs. They’re the things that make us feel joyful. They are present when we exercise, and they increase in their production when we move our bodies and we do exercise. So, the other thing that these neurotransmitters do is that they block pain. The neurotransmitters when they’re present in the synapse, which is the gap between the different nerve endings that forms the connection’s back to the brain. When those three big neurotransmitters are in a lot of amount, in that synapse, it blocks the pain signal from reaching the brain. So, we effectively don’t feel pain…

M: while we’re doing exercise?

P: whilst and for a certain period of time afterwards. Because those neurotransmitters are present in the nerve synapse for a period after we finish exercise as well. So that joy of actually moving in exercising does las after you finished the actual activity, you get that lovely flush of going. I feel great, which usually means that you move a little bit more, which then creates more neurotransmitters, so it’s a self-sustaining cycle.

M: Nice. So, apart from it, making you feel good. It also stops you from feeling bad, which I think is really interesting. There is a study that I did want to talk about on the topic of depression and really interesting, because it came from our very own Black Dog Institute here in Australia when they collaborated with universities and health institutes from the UK, Australia and Norway. They did a study on about 34,000 Norwegian adults who will followed over a period of 11 years.

M: Now, as far as studies go, that is huge, right? 11 years, 34,000 people. And the great news out of that study was that they found that as little as one hour of exercise each week, regardless of intensity, helps to prevent depression. You only need a very little amount of exercise, and it can have really positive benefits. So, not only are you getting all of the wonderful natural chemicals flowing through your body, but also if you’re prone to depression or in situations that might lead you to depression, a little bit of exercise can help you to avoid falling down that path.

P: Well, it’s interesting because I’ve always intrinsically known this. I’ve always known that moving around getting out into the sunshine or doing an activity helps with your feelings of anxiety and stress. It was very interesting for me going into the research of it and seeing exactly why, in the study that Samuel Harvey talks about with the Black Dog Institute is that people who have not exercised at all – so sedentary individuals – if they do that 1 to 2 hours, they have a huge exponential increase in wellbeing. What we know is if you move, if you’re active, it helps.

M: Absolutely. And there’s more intricacies when it comes to intensity, isn’t there Pete?

P: Definitely. And this is something that I want to mention. University of Connecticut talks about the research that they took on with the benefits of moderate exercise versus intensity of exercise. Again, taking athletes as opposed to sedentary people. If you’re a huge exercise, vigorous activity person and you’re going out there and your go-to mechanism of dealing with issues off stress or anxiety is to go and hit it hard in the gym, you may actually be doing yourself a disservice. So, you’ve gotta watch that in terms of what sort of personality that you are. If you’re a person that site on the couch all day, get up and go for a walk. That moderate level of exercise has huge benefits for you. If you’re high level athlete and you want to go out and smash yourself on the track, you’re actually better off taking the pedal off and going for a walk in the forest, because it’s that moderate exercise that has more the benefit for your wellbeing in that activation of those happy neurotransmitters rather than introducing other elements such as cortisol into your system, which only creates more adrenal response, and that can create even more the high levels of anxiety.

M: So I think it is worth pointing out. You mentioned depression and anxiety. But there is a bit of contention about anxiety

P: There is, and there is a lot of talk about whether these findings relate to pre and post depression, as opposed to anxiety and what I have gained from the research is that the anxiety levels are unnecessarily affected by this moderate exercise.

M: Yes, it’s also worth pointing out that it was one of the big things when I was reading through all the research that I was keen to understand. Looking at causation and cause and effect, the studies looked at that cause and effect to make sure that happy people don’t just exercise more rather than exercise being the cause of people becoming happier.

P: Absolutely. Yeah, for those of further, it is actually the Hunt Cohort study of October 2017. Samuel B. Harvey in the American Journal of Psychiatry. One of their conclusions that they give and I’m going to read this out quoted it, is that “Given that the intensity of exercise does not appear to be important, it may be that the most effective public health measures are those that encourage and facilitate increased levels of everyday activities, such as walking or cycling. The results presented in this study provide a strong argument in favour of further exploration of exercise as a strategy for the prevention of depression.”

So again, it’s just reinforcing that gentle exercise, walking, cycling, going forest bathing — which is a thing – these are good things that can really help in terms of accessing that wellbeing aspect, and that feel good experience.

M: Yeah, absolutely. It doesn’t necessarily track with the physical sciences, which say that high intensity is better for you from a cardio point of view. But if we’re talking mental health, then absolutely the science is showing to be pretty clear on this. All right, so, back to what we’re talking about at the beginning here. So exercise, definitely a law research shows that it has positive mental outcomes, and our listeners and ourselves at the moment are all in this high risk situation of not only not doing enough exercise but actually doing far less exercise and potentially not really knowing how to fix that. So I know for me when I am into week four of self-isolating and my first week was a shocker. So, for me, I normally, my routine in the mornings, I sit down and do some writing. Then I get myself ready for work, and I’ve got a good 30-minute walk through the city to get to my office. And then in the evenings, I’ve got volleyball, or I’ve got a regular gym routine as well, and all of that stopped. And so the first week, I got up and did my writing. And then I just switched laptops. I moved my personal laptop over and brought work laptop in front of me on. I worked on. I got up to pee, and I went to the kitchen at lunch. Apart from that, I turned around and I’d done 12 hours of sitting and again it’s at a laptop, not in front of a screen, so my neck and my shoulders were tight and tense, and I did that for five days straight. But I have become far more aware of that really bad behaviour. They say that sitting for prolonged periods of times is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes. That’s how bad it is for you.

P: I feel like I’m on rote here. Because this is a conversation I have very often with so many of my clients and trying to get some office workers to do the most basic movement patterns outside of sitting at the desk top from getting on the bus and going in the car. It’s like pulling teeth sometimes. So my clients, you know who you are. I’m talking to you. Points coming out… right… Schedule it, make a schedule, make a plan, get in your diary and put down an hour. Put it aside where you’re going to do some movement doesn’t have to be big movement. It doesn’t have to be going to the gym. It could be playing with the dog and the kids, getting on the jungle gym and going for a couple of swings on the trapeze. That’s movement. It’s exercise, so it’s really important to schedule that in and keep to it. Make sure that nothing interrupts that time. If Grandma calls, tell her to hang up and call you back later. That’s your time. It’s your time to move. The other thing is making it accessible. Have it near you? If you’re going to do something, it’s no good if it’s 30 minutes away, because it’s too easy for you to go “Oh, it’s too hard to get there.” Make sure you have it close to you. And if that means it’s close to work or it’s close to home where you spend most of your day, it’s got to be accessible on. That’s a really important tip for making sure that you keep to your schedule. Prepare pack your God damn gym bag. Take it with you. Put a talent, put a put a snack and put a chocolate bar in that you’re going to give to yourself that the end of your 20 minute run. If that’s what you need to motivate yourself. If it’s a cherry ripe, have a few cares as long as you’re preparing yourself because that’s setting up process and it’s setting up routine on you’ll be thinking of that chocolate bar all the way throughout the day gone, I’m going to have a Cherry Ripe at the end of my 20-minute run. It’s going to motivate you

M: I love Cheery Ripes!

P: There you go. You can see that reaction is what we’re after.

M: It’s… by the way, it’s an Australian treat that no one else around the world actually even likes, like musk sticks… very Australian. We grew up on them as kids. And Americans if you feed them musk sticks, they think we’re weird. They taste like chalk to them

P: Bahahaa

M: Complete side bar, by the way. So, let’s get back away from treats and back to exercise.

P: Oh, now I feel like Iced Vovos and a cup of tea. [laughs] Make it social! Which is really hard at the moment because we’re not allowed to make its social, and I think this is one of the big impacts that we’re experiencing.

M: No, I call … not B-S… but I have a solution. I have a colleague of mine who is zooming their exercise, so she does exercise with a group of friends at the gym normally, and now they’re zooming. So they’re doing zoom exercise sessions, and it’s actually making them a bit more connected, and it’s holding them to account to actually do it.

P: That’s my whole point is if you can use what you can to make it social, so even if we’re not in the same location. Setting each other goals is another good one. So I’m going to say to Marie, right, we’re going to 100 push ups. I’m going to post my 100 push ups on Facebook Messenger with you on, that’s going to pressure you to match me for those 100 push ups. So that’s another way of sharing the load or making a social, make it again competition.

M: Peeeete! That was my tip. That’s in my column.

P: Oh, did I steal from you? My bad oh dear.

M: Yeah yeah yeah, like you care.

P; So sad. Hahaha

M: OK OK. What else have you got? Then it’s my turn.

P: No, no, no I’ll throw to you here, Marie, I’ll let you take over from there. I did want to say that you know, self help gurus, motivational coaches all support that when we’re mentally exhausted, were stressed or fatigue, one of the best things that you could do is change your physical state. And if that means getting up, putting on a sarong and a hula hoop and dancing around to Kylie Minogue in your underwear, I say, go for it.

M: Haha, of course, you do. So, moving onto my tips. I did want to mention make it a goal, so it is really hard at times to motivate yourself to get up and do what you know you should do. But if you’ve got a holiday that you want to go on, if you want to go climb the Leaning Tower of Pisa or you will not go hike Machu Picchu, you picture there’s a great types of goals or, you know, why not Everest? You know, shoot for the moon, right? But it takes discipline and dedication to being fit and building your strength and resilience to get to that point. And they’re great goals to have. So they’re even better than just a bit of competitiveness between friends. If that’s what motivates you, that that’s what motivates you. Secondly, I think going back to what was saying at the beginning of the episode, I really would love people to change their mindset about exercise from it being a chore to being a form of self-care a year.

If you take the time to put on makeup before you go to work, or to get your hair coloured and cut, or just cut, or to iron your shirt or have a bath every now and then, or you spoil yourself with a glass of wine, you should be spoiling yourself with exercise. Yeah, and if we can start to shift mindsets, we might start to make a dent in this obesity epidemic that we’re seeing sweep the world as well. The great thing

P: I support your viewpoint, making it, making it fun. Finding something that you enjoy is one of the big things that my clients about it. So, I’m not going to make you run five KMs if you hate running. Let’s find something you enjoy doing. I remember for one of my clients it was salsa dancing. That’s perfect, I said let’s send you to ballroom classes. Let’s find something local that’s got salsa and off she went, and she’s been doing it for a year and loves it right.

M: There is something out there for everyone. And that’s where I think a lot of us, were just burned by PE and by gyms, gyms are not for everyone. If you want to up your incidental exercise, you can try doing with a gardening if you’ve got a backyard, maybe starting your days with a bit of yoga. If you can put YouTube on your phone or on your TV in the morning and do a little bit of stretching and core work. That’s a great way to start your day and something that I’ve been doing it at lunch times is a short, sharp, 20-minute high intensity interval training. So “hiit” work out. So you can get a really good hard work out in before you your lunch. And then the last thing, I want to leave you with is that one of the things to remember is that going for walk counts as exercise. It’s also free doesn’t require special equipment. You can do it with a friend. And also, there’s additional research out there about the positive psychological benefits of being outdoors. So, you can kill three positive psychological birds with one stone. You get the social element, the exercise element and the outdoors element.

So that’s all I wanted to leave you with today. Thank you for joining us, and if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast, or even better, share it with your friends.

Self-Compassion and Being Kind to Yourself (E12)

06/04/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 12

Self-compassion is about being aware of your self-talk and learning to be kinder to yourself. You may be surprised at the sorts of thing you say to yourself when you’re not paying attention!

Transcript

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

P: Hi there, I’m Peter Furness and I’m a manipulator of sore points, pusher of positivity and ‘movement prescriptor.’ Each week we bring you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology otherwise known as happiness. Marie has a blog.

M: Sure do, so you can find all of these episodes as well as a lot of other resources and information at @marieskelton.com. So on to today’s episode, which is all about self-compassion.

[Happy music]

M: So today we’re going to talk about the importance of self-compassion. So Pete, can you help our listeners understand what we’re talking about here?

P: Self-compassion is the relationship of the self, let’s turn inward for a moment shall we.

M: This is going to be a fun episode [laugh].

P: It’s about self-talk, it’s about the friendship that you have with yourself. And it’s more than just being positive. It’s about understanding the relationship between negative and positive self-talk, and how we reinforce negative behaviours within ourselves. Being kind to yourself and having the ability to not judge yourself is really a prime issue around self-compassion.

M: Now, I think that from a cynics point of view, this is gonna be gold, [Laugh] because there are a lot of people out there who just want to say to millennials in particular suck it up, buttercup, right and get on with your life. And we never had this self-care, positive movement thing going on.

P: It was something for the hippies in the 60’s.

M: Not even that, they just took drugs and got on with life, right?

[Laughter]

M: So we are smack bang in the middle of what this podcast is all about. It’s breaking down the preconceived ideas about some of these positive psychology ideas. So really keen to understand the research behind this one. Definitely.

P: I think a big thing about it is that it’s not to be dismissive. Self-talk can be damaging. We can’t just dismiss this as little thoughts that we don’t listen to, because that’s really not dealing with the problem. Self-talk is there. It is something to be aware of. Those voices in your head, you should be listening to them and more importantly, we should be understanding why they’re there. Giving them some space and diving into that space and looking at it objectively, not judgmentally.

M: Yeah, and I think it’s also really important to say that we’re talking about people who are still in a healthy frame of mind and ,lot of people who’ve been on the flip side of mental health and who have suffered depression or who have ongoing chronic levels of depression, it can be really harmful to say to say to someone who’s struggling, you know, just think positively.

P: Yeah, just be cheery.

M: So we’re talking about how people who are in a healthy enough state of mind motivate themselves and how they get the best out of themselves in their life. And it’s worth saying that these practises can be helpful for people who perhaps are on the far deeper end of the spectrum. But they’re not, they’re not going to solve deep rooted issues.

P: No, that’s for others.

M: So, looking back in your life, have you had any moments where you had a lot of negative self-talk?

P: [Laughter] where do I begin… OK opening the Pandora’s Box. Self-criticism, it comes from many different places, and I think for myself, bless my lovely Mother. She was the eldest of 12 children in the outback of Australia. So Mom was the home care taker, she was in charge, looking after these kids when they were still having rations from the Second World War. They didn’t have a fridge, all that sort of stuff. So Mums upbringing and her introduction to ‘suck it up buttercup’, that was pretty strong in those days. Now she passed that onto us, me and my sister in different ways, and that’s self-criticism comes out from those childhood experiences sometimes. So what I picked up on that judgmental, suck it up, just get on with it, be tough, kind of mentality and that was really from my mom, bless her. Being aware of that, coming to that in a separate point in my life, I had to reflect on some of that and it’s interesting that that didn’t happen with me until much later it wasn’t until I got out of University that I really started looking at what those thoughts and processes were and how they came up. And being a… involved in a competitive field like dance, I came to dance late. All these kids had done ballet for 20 years before I even did my first class. So there was a lot of ways, one the coping mechanisms of getting through that was to convince myself you’re not good enough. You’ve got to work harder now That works to a certain point because it motivates you, use you a little bit of a kick up the arse and makes you drive hard. When you’re feeling a bit sorry for yourself. It’s like No, suck it up, get in there and keep going. Now that can be really positive but the damaging thing is when you learn those behaviours and you apply it to every situation. And I think that’s where it turns negative.

M: Yep, I think for me I had very similar thoughts going through my head when I went to the A.I.S., which is Australian Institute of Sport for overseas listeners. So I, like you, came to volleyball late, I first touched a volleyball when I was 14 and very quickly went from there to making the school team and making our state team and then being selected for a national junior team and then being offered the chance to train with the senior national team at A.I.S. and I had only been playing for less than a year.

P: wow

M: So coaches obviously saw raw talent and brought me in and the second I got there, I was so out of my league, [Laughter] I was so bad, so rather than a fight to be better mentality. I just constantly felt like I was letting the team down. I just didn’t cope. So I had this huge impostor syndrome and I look back now and I think I had the skill, but with a different mindset I could have taken that as a learning opportunity. I had grace and acceptance from the coaches, not necessarily from my teammates, but definitely I look back at the wasted opportunity that that was for me because of my negative self-talk and the fact that I did everything possible just not to get in everyone’s way and didn’t take that with two hands and run with it. So let’s talk about the research.

P: Of course, It’s all about research on this podcast. Everything has to be backed up scientifically.

M: [Laughter] Also self-compassion, It’s a bit wishy washy. We are talking about things that people just will flat out say they don’t believe in.

P: Absolutely. The word compassion immediately brings to mind images of Monks in robes and the Dalai Lama and all this negative stuff and it’s easy to just go, yeah not for me thanks.

M: Yeah

P: It’s an immediate block and I think that’s the big issue sometimes in turning it on, turning that term self-compassion on yourself. You’ve got to look back on you and be willing to go into that space all right, let’s look at this. Let’s really spend time self-analysing and really go internal for a while and for a lot of people that’s way to confronting.

M: Yeah, but I think the important thing is, do you want to be happy? That’s really what we’re talking about here and for some people who are used to self-analysing and who are very open with sharing their emotions and analysing their blockers and understanding their issues for someone who is completely shut off to that, they can want to be happy but have never have delved into that other side of the emotions.

So this could be a really hard things to, to start to do. But really, it comes down to just being more self-aware.

P: Yes, that’s part of it. Definitely.

M: Yeah, so let’s, let’s have a look at some of the research. Maybe we can sway some of the cynics out there.

[Laughter]

P: So it’s interesting that you bring up a sports reference Marie because the first piece of research I’ve got is actually from Dr. Christopher M. Carr, “Sport Psychology: Psychologic Issues and Applications (Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Clinics of North America, 2006). Who’s a psychologist for sports such as the NBA and the NFL in America-

M: – oh, is that all…

[Laughter]

P: He wrote an article in 2006 Psychologic Issues and Applications, and he talks about athletes engaging in negative self-talk. So you see a player who’s frustrated, angry, anxious on court on the field they can’t get it right. They go into that negative space where they’re berating themselves. I’m thinking of tennis players here, like it’s the Nick Curious’s, even the Andre Agassi, when he was in his younger bouffant hair days, he went into those potholes of anger and frustration and yelling and stuff.

M: Mmm Hmm

P: What Carr talks about is that these emotional states that we get into challenge our breathing, they increase our muscular tension and they create a loss of concentration and focus. All of these factors results in a lowering of performance.

M: So I guess what we’re saying here is the emotional impact of that negative self- talk has a physiological impact that for athletes is really critical.

P: Yeah, if you can’t breathe, you can’t perform, you need that.

M: Yep

P: So Carr goes on to talk about the flip side of that talking about an athletes self-talk, being positive and relevant and he says that the resulting emotional experience at this stage is one of relaxation calmness, feeling centred. As a result, this turns good performance into a positive and increases your performing ability.

M: I guess for me, as an athlete, if you’re not feeling confident. How do you pretend to be confident?

P: Fake it ‘til you make it [laugh].

M: Is that what the research is showing here I guess.

P: Exactly, it’s about accessing that mindset, how do I calm myself down, bring myself back to my focus so I can control my breathing and then from there, from there come at the point, the game from a different perspective.

M: I’ll move on to some more research here, and I’m interested in how it applies to a work scenario as well [be]cause not all of us are athletes. There’s a book called ‘How We Work’, written by researcher and author Leah Weiss, and she talks about how again negative self-talk doesn’t help us and can actually make things worse. The research shows that self-criticism is linked to depression, loss of self-esteem, negative perfectionism, procrastination and rumination. And some might say that it helps them to be better and keep striving for excellence. But the research actually shows that it’s likely to compromise your goals and undermine your efforts in all aspects of life, from academic or health related efforts to personal or professional.

So again, it’s important to be able to reflect on what it is that you’re not confident or comfortable about

P: Yeah

M: and then be able to take the resulting negative self-talk and actively try and combat that.

P: I think the interesting part of that is undermining your efforts I think that for me really resonates because it’s subtle little changes that goes with that negative self-talk that is ultimately, it doesn’t create massive cheats in terms of your work performance but it undermines you and that’s not great for when you’re trying to deal with negotiations and trying to deal with, with different people in high tense situations where you’re making calculated decisions, you need to feel confident and in that way I think it does relate to the sport experience. You need to be in control and feel secure.

M: Yep, and there’s a whole body of research right now and a shift in thinking in corporate world’s about psychological safety and the importance of psychological safety. It’s a hot topic of the moment, and really, what we’re saying is it’s about everyone feeling that they have a role to play in the team and that they’re valued for their role and what they do in the team and it’s really tough if you don’t feel valued to then go out and perform your job and stop yourself from getting into that negative self-talk.

P: Absolutely

M: You know, [that] situation that means that you have to then focus on the positive self-talk. Now some of it can be grounded in real life. You might have some horrible colleagues.

[Laughter]

M: and they might not like you, right.

[Laughter]

M: And then it’s about fighting with yourself to be comfortable with your own self value and self-worth. And then other times it’s purely in your own head and that’s the other thing that you need to reflect on I think.

P: Being positive with that that state is again coming back to what we were talking about earlier. Have you done the investment? Having spent some time doing some self-reflection, and I think that those cynics out there who just dismiss it, and that was my Mum, emotions didn’t matter. One of her great quotes is ‘stress wasn’t around when I was young.’

M: [Laugh] See these are the people that we’re doing this podcast for.

P: Absolutely, yeah. ‘Don’t believe in stress doesn’t exist’ and she’s probably the most stressed out person I know.

[Laughter]

P: Poor Mum, I’m giving her a bit of a bashing here. [Laugh]

M: Your Mum I think is more indicative of an entire older generation who were taught that way.

P: Absolutely yes.

So practising self-compassion. Let’s bring it back.

M: So what, what are we talking about? What is practising self-compassion?

P: I think it’s different for every individual, but I think there’s some broad terms we can bring to the conversation and those are a combination of mindful awareness, self-kindness and a recognition about common humanity.

M: What, we’re all human and make mistakes. Is that what we’re talking about?

P: Essentially yes, not being too judgemental, understanding when someone has made a mistake and also taking responsibility for that. Putting your hand up and going ‘oh whoops, I did wrong.’

M: But then letting it go.

P: Exactly, yes and that’s the judgmental part coming into it. Trying not to be too judgemental. When you’re doing that self-reflection, it’s really important about not being too hard on yourself. Give yourself a break, give yourself some love. Be that understanding person that pat’s you on the shoulder and says “it’s OK”.

[Laughter]

M: So if you find yourself in a negative frame of mind and you want to work on some self-compassion. We’ve got three tips that you can try to put into practise.

Firstly, start journaling. So the first step to better understanding yourself and your negative self-talk is to fully grasp what’s going on. Take a couple of weeks and every evening, reflect on the day, and write down your negative and positive self-talk throughout the day.

Secondly, have a look at that over time. So once you’ve done your two weeks, have a look at all the things that you’ve been saying to yourself, find some patterns in there if you can and find what it is in your past that has led to this moment. Why are you saying these negative things to yourself?

Thirdly, once you’ve identified what it is you’re saying, why it is you’re saying it. Your job is to then give yourself some positive affirmations that you can use to combat the negative self-talk.

So once you’re aware of the problem, you’ve then got to shift your behaviour. So write down 2 to 3 things that will combat the negative things you’ve been saying. And every morning before you leave the house or if you’re walking in to work I want you to say these things out loud to yourself and keep up the journaling if you can, so that you can see whether you’re making any changes over time. So they’re the three things you can do to help get started on being more compassionate to yourself.

P: Another tip that I love and this is a bit of a creative one. I call it using the Dragon.

M: OK… I’m intrigued.

P: We’re going to go a bit linear on this one. Externalising the self. So have a conversation with yourself. But externalise it. So for me it came when my father passed away. I was having anxious moments after the funeral and so forth, getting through the grieving process and I invented a dragon and my little dragon sat in the top left corner of my room. And whenever I started to feel emotional or upset, I would reference the top left corner of my room and see my purple dragon and I’d have a little conversation with him. Now not everybody is going to be buying into this, this is all very creative, but for me –

M: – This is why you’re on this podcast with me. It balances us out.

P: [Laugh]!

M: Not to take anything away from any coping mechanism that helps someone deal with grief. I’m not making light of that at all, but I probably wouldn’t invent a dragon that’s all.

[Laughter]

P: It really helped me, it really helped me calm my breathing, bring myself back to centre and come at the situation at hand from a different perspective, because I felt like I had that buddy, that little guardian angel, that little totem, whatever it is a spirit guide some people might use all those sorts of things are valid because they’re helping it to externalise issue, and sometimes we can’t deal with it all by ourselves. And sometimes you need that little spirit guide or that somebody else that is going to go ‘You know what, it’s OK, let’s try this one’.

M: Yep. So essentially, what we’re saying is it’s about treating yourself like you treat your friends. You never say to your friends ‘you’re really not that intelligent are you Pete.’

P: [Laughter]

M: ‘How have you gotten through life so far?’

P: [Still Laughing]

M: So why do we think it’s okay to say it to ourselves? It really is crazy. If you were to write town and say aloud what we say to ourselves and say it to another person you never would absolutely would never say to someone’s face.

P: Sometimes it’s good to write those negative things down when you’re in that space because when you come back to it and go ‘Oh my god, did I really say that about myself, do I really hate myself that much.

M: Yep and I think that is the beauty of all this. Is that, you’re getting more of an understanding of yourself as a person and be kind, be kind to others, be kind to yourself. OK

We’re done for today. So thank you for joining us. If you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast.

P: Until next time be kind to yourself. Bye

M: I think Ellen’s already got that one.

P: [Laugh] Oh, d’oh.

M: Yeah, you can’t take that. So… don’t be kind to yourself…?

P: [Laugh] No that doesn’t work…

[Laughter]

M: Bye

P: See ya

COVID-19 Check-in (E11)

30/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – Episode 11

Welcome back to Season 2! What crazy times we’re living in! Pete and Marie have a COVID-19 check-in and a chat about their own happiness levels, share how they’re staying happy and what they’re seeing around them.

Things we Referenced in This Episode

Need a laugh? Watch the Poor Jennifer video (below).

Or call up a friend on Messenger and have a good laugh at each other as you try the filters!

Pete and Marie having a good ol’ chat on Facebook Messenger

For purpose and something meaningful to fill empty hours: take a look at the free online courses at Udemy and EdX.

To connect , make sure you do a COVID-19 check-in with your friends and family regularly via video (if you can). You can use Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger.

To stay fit and healthy, here’s a 20-minute beginners workout that killed me the other day. It’s not for beginners, I swear! But if you are after a true beginners work-out try this one.

Save a business: We also do a call out to Glebe Point Diner, in Sydney, who are doing take-away food at the moment. Support them if you can, their food is awesome and service is amazing!

Transcript

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

P: Hi there, I’m Peter Furness. I’m a wanna-be lunchtime guru, fantasy dragon lover and all around thrill seeker with insular tendencies. Each week we will bring you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: Yes, you can find us both at MarieSkelton.com. The site uses a lot of the same research we talk about here on the podcast. So if you want to follow up with anything was spoken about head on over there. So, on to today’s episode.

[Happy music]

M: So can we get the audio right this time?

P: We just did a whole take without any audio from Marie. [laughing]

M: Haha, these are the crazy Covid times we’re living in. So, this episode is a bit of a check in, it’s a Covid-19 sucks party. Yay!

P: Yay! Happy hands, jazz hands!

M: Which is how supposedly we’re all going to greet each other in the future. There will be no more touching.

P: Well, I love…. the musical theatre people have been doing this for decades. We’ve been greeting each other with jazz hands. We can’t kiss So we’ve got to do jazz hands.

M: I love it, I’m all down with jazz hands as the new way to great people moving forward. So Covid-19. So today we’re going to do things a little bit differently, something a little bit different and do a bit of a check in. And well, let’s just start with the check in the rest can be a secret.

P: Absolutely. How are you?

M: You beat me, you got in there. OK, well I’m doing really well. I’m into the end of week two of working from home. I’ve got a great employer who got us quick smart, all set up and locked and loaded to work from home. And my leaders have been checking in with us. We’ve had great communication from my employer.

Good reassurance that our jobs are safe for now. You know, as much as you can reassure anyone in these crazy times and I am a bit of an introvert, so I’m loving being at home, and I am going straight from working to… working on my podcast and then working on my blog, and I’m just like a pig in mud. Really. Yeah.

P: Happy space.

M: Yeah, and look for me, I know that many people are not happy. I’m definitely keeping an eye on my colleagues and family and friends.

P: I think that’s the thing is making sure that you do check in. I’ve actually gone back to thinking about social media, and it’s funny for me because I’m not working at the moment. I’m on the other side of the scale. I’m having to find things and find routines and all that sort of stuff. Part of that for me has been a bit of ah, maybe a bit of a dedication to going, right, let’s check in with people. Let’s reach out using social media and just go, Hey, you’re living on your own, You okay?

And I’ve been trying to do that with individuals each day and possibly people that I haven’t spoken into for a while. And I’m like, No, I’ve got to reach out and just check. I know a lot of people who are working from home, but they also live alone on. That’s a dangerous spot to be in at this point in time, when we are cut off from people we’re cut off from affection, we’re cut off from… even if we are introverts, being in a gym where you’re around people, being at the shops where you’re around people, going to the park where you’re around people, that isn’t happening.

So connectedness and social connectedness, as we’ve talked about in season one, is really important for our happiness. We are social creatures, and social beings, and we need that to be able to generate a lot of stuff that we need to be content and joyful and wellbeing

M: …and happy. Absolutely. And more than that, what keeps people happy is the deep relationships. And that’s why, as you said, it’s so important to pick up the phone, particularly if you’ve got video conferencing or a video chat functionality. WhatsApp have it now, Messenger has it, most phones you can call video to video.

P: We had a hilarious time yesterday. Peter finally figured out how to put the little effects on his face when he’s doing video chats! I think a conversation that could have taken two minutes went for 20!! Because who doesn’t need a laugh right now?

M: Absolutely, we do. We all need a little laughter, but we do need that… going back to that social connection… we do need that social connection and you need to maintain relationships, and it’s harder to do it over distance.

P: It’s different. It’s not necessarily harder.

M: We’ll agree to disagree on this one.

P: I think it’s a different interaction, but you can still maintain the connection in the relationship it’s just a different way of doing it.

M: Absolutely.

P: And we are lucky in this day and age that we do have videoconferencing because that visual reference is actually really important. You can’t tell context by someone’s delivery over text. Over the phone it’s still pretty good, but we’ve all been on that period where a text message in misinterpreted. It’s so easy to misinterpret just plain text. So videoconferencing, seeing someone space, and when you ask someone, how are you? And they’re like, “Oh, I’m fine.” It’s like damn it, I can’t actually tell that because I can’t say see you. So, we are fortunate in this stone age that we’ve got that facility because that was a really important part of maintaining those connections, and having that visual stimuli and being able to see someone and say yeah they’re fine, I saw them yesterday.

M: Absolutely, and you mentioned social media and I think the trick there is not to confuse being on social media with connecting with people. There’s a mindfulness to this, so using social media as a tool to connect with other people — for instance, the messenger functionality on Facebook – and using that to make a phone call with video is a very different thing from mindlessly scrolling for five hours on end because you’ve got nothing better to do. So, the mindless scrolling, the research is really clear on this, it is so bad for your mental health. And so I think the next thing that you need to be aware of apart from maintaining those social bonds, is what you do with your time.

P; This is where I’m struggling a little bit.

M: We’ve spoken about purpose before, and again, and I don’t know many of you may or may not have seen some of the videos on my site. And I talk about the change storm and how to deal with this constantly changing world that we live in. And there’s three things: one is that social connection, and the second is you’ve got to have purpose and meaning, and that just means something that you do that gives your day some structure and that you can enjoy the journey of doing it. You know? And setting goals.

P: yep, finding that routine. It’s waking up and going right, I’ve got to get a schedule in place, and I have no idea what I’m going to achieve that there’s going to be four things I’m going to write down. So, I’ve taken to writing things down on my pantry in chalk yeah, as they pop into my head as I’m having that morning cup of tea, it’s like, right, I’m going to do the crawl space today. I’m going to clean up the backyard. I’m going to write a blog. So, it’s having that little bit of routine that anchors us, and that gives us amazing clarity of mind, and it actually improves our mental health. There’s a lot of research out there that actually supports this. Look at me quoting research and getting scientific, you’ve changed me Marie.

M: I do want to caution, though that doing your to do list is going… is not going to help you in the long run. So as important as it is to catch up on all those chores that you’ve been wanting to do umm, and they are filling time in your day… You are on the squeakiest chair today.

P: It’s leather. It’s very pretty [laugh]

M: We’re just out of our element right now!

P: Yeah, everything is changing.

M: But some really good things, so firstly, set some goals and then work to achieve them, so anything you can do in a day is probably not going to give you the fulfilment that you need in the longer term and at the moment, the world.. we don’t know whether this is going to be a few weeks, just not very likely it looks like or a few months or a lot of months. So you mentioned Pete that you found in your crawl out cleaning activity you’re learning French, and I see here it’s actually a VHS video

P: Oh dear, I thought it was a CD. No it’s CD.

M: Of no, it’s just a VHS size.

P: I did. I don’t know where it has been for all these years, but there it is. And so there’s my next six weeks. Is getting my French up to speed?

M; Yeah, and that is a perfect goal to dive into, to have flow when you’re learning, and to feel accomplishment along the way. Then there’s some great resource is online for anyone, Udemy, or EdX, ed e-d-x. They’ve all got free online courses run by some of the top universities in the world, so you can study and a great one I’m going to go back to is University of Berkeley, sorry University of California, Berkeley. Their psychology department run a happiness course, and also, if you Google it, Yale’s most attended course is a course on happiness as well. I don’t know which platform that’s on, but you could probably Google that too. And take a course on happiness, for free.

P: This’s the time to be doing those sorts of things, and I like what you’re talking about there Marie in terms of the to do list, along with long term goals. So it’s okay, to go “well, I’m going to clean the backyard.” That’s a short-term goal, and that’s still good to occupy your time because you’re writing it down and it is an item that you can put in. But with those longer-term goals, it’s almost like you need to mix your day up a little bit with short stuff on. Then there’s got to be some long-term goals in there that are plugging away at something that is a bit more long-term that’s going to sustain you.

M; And let’s be honest. If you can’t get to painting the bathroom like your wife’s been nagging you to do for us 10 years now, you never will. She’s gonna have to give up on

P; Let it go [singing frozen]

M: Weeding the garden. Whatever your thing is that you know you should do, but you just never get around to it. If you’re not going to do it during Covid-19 it is never happening. And you should look at how to outsource that.

P: Know when you are beaten.

M: There are many people who will do that stuff for you. [laughing] Yeah, I think, I think it’s a really good call out, having purpose and also having those deep social bonds. And the third thing that — if you can’t tell, I’m writing a book and researching this right now — but the third thing is self care. And one of the things that a lot of people who are working from home have been doing is realising that they can spend from morning to night sitting at their computer. Yep, they’re not getting up for lunch a lot of the time, or they get their lunch and come straight back to their desks and they’re spending huge amounts… like 10 hours at a time sitting at their computer.

And we need to be just a bit more mindful about looking after ourselves right now. Look, emotionally. It is top of mind, but physically, are you getting enough sleep? Are you doing a bit of exercise? There’s some great YouTube videos that you can put on your TV, You can do your yoga downward dog stuff like Pete does, whatever. Or a full cardio workout and a lot of the gyms are streaming.

P: So many of the personal trainers and gyms are streaming their content and it’s valuable information. I got to Wednesday this week after spending pretty much this week in isolation. I’ve been going into work occasionally for necessary purposes, but really I’m in kind of isolation mode and realise that it was so easy to not do my normal exercise. To not go and play some volleyball, which I adore. To not be swinging off the rings or the chin up bar because I couldn’t get into my training studio. However, on Wednesday I made the conscious choice and said, No, I’m going to do it, and I found myself procrastinating. I could just clean that knob on that door one more time with the Diggers vanilla methylated spirits. Or maybe I should just cook… and I was like, “no, go on, get changed.”

M: Diggers, what?

P: It’s really pretty. It’s really nice and smelling.

M: Whatevs [laughs]

P: So I went an got changed on. That was, that was the lever. I had to get out of my casual clothes and into my work out gear. That change made me go down and do my little routine that I’m normally used to doing for my warm up downstairs on my little rug. Great, awesome did it. And I bought a pair of gymnastic rings about six months ago with the full intention of setting them up somewhere. That’s where they were. And it was that right? I got them out of the packet.

M: See!? One of those things that you probably would have never done if it hadn’t been for Covid-19.

P: Possibly it was the lever, though. It actually because I committed to doing something and even though I didn’t have any hand weights or kettlebells, I found two LPG gas bottles on it worked a treat.

M: See, I am, as I said at the end of week two, and every morning I get up, I put my gym gear on. Then I sit at my computer for 14 hours. [laughter] Until today I finally went and put that YouTube video on it, and I found this great video. It was number one on YouTube, 20 minute work out. I thought I’d just do 20 minutes now and then I might do it again at lunchtime because really, it is so, so unhealthy to spend that much time sitting, and I’m so aware of it. And today I did do quite a few more meetings standing up and standing up and stretching. So I turned the video off and had a bit of a cheeky move on the spot and get everything moving again.

And I really need to be a lot better at doing that. Anyway, I turned on this 20 minutes YouTube video this morning and made it to 10 minutes, and I was like Jesus Christ! This is not for beginners! [laughter] It’s crazy, two weeks and I just lost all my fitness.

P: Well, it’s not hard to do and this is the thing we have to move. We are meant to move and people who are spending 10 and 14 hours of your computer, you’re not helping yourselves. We need to move, you know, because your productivity goes through the floor. If we’re not taking breaks for lunch, if we’re not having that 11 o’clock morning coffee where you walk away from the computer and you sit down in the backyard and look at the birds and look at the clouds and all that sort of stuff, it stops your brain from going into a wire tracking it gives you fresh stimulus. It accesses different parts of your brain. Which means the brain is more turned on, it’s more receptive to other stuff. You’re walking away from an issue, you’re coming back and looking at it with fresh eyes. New thoughts are going to pop up because your brain waves are firing in different lobes of your brain. Exercise and movement is another part of that. Making sure that you keep the neuro plasticity by using your physical self.

M: [whispers “I think Pete’s on a bit of a rant”] Keep going hun.

P: [Laughs] I’ve been doing this for years!

[laughter]

P: Should I stop now?

M; Mmmm, maybe. Pete says do exercise everyone.

P: Move people. People get up and move even if it is being like Chinese Revolutionary Army and standing up on doing star jumps and being silly and swinging your arms in the air, just do it makes a world of difference.

M; Oh, we should all have a dance party.

P: Hey I’m all for the dance parties. Yep.

M: So I did read that in the UK there was some DJs that we’re doing some dance parties from their lounge rooms, and everyone was going to dial in. Love it. So, we’ve only got a few minutes left. What are your thoughts for how this might change humanity? I think this is such a defining time in our generation, and it’s the implications just like World War One, World War two. And I’m not saying that war is on the same level as a pandemic. But…

P: it’s a serious of change, though. That’s the thing that changes the way the view things because you have a relative experience speaking with my mom today. My mom’s a war baby and good old mom. She’s like, You know, it’s just like the end of the Second World War and I’m like, Well, yeah, but remember Mum we haven’t had that experience. And she was like, you kids have had it too good and was like, “no, we’ve just had it. And we’ve gotten used to this comfort level of of having access. Now we have a relative point of reference, and I think that will be the thing that changes a lot of people. People are going to realise what’s important. I think your priority will change

M: we might be grateful!

P: There’s a lot of positive change that could come from this.

M: I am such a firm believer…. Look, I’ve always said I’m a cynic, but I’m also very positive, if you can’t tell. So you know, I like to have a joke, and it’s probably my sense of humour that I like to throw a bit of shade at people. But I think this is going to help us to refocus on what’s important in life.

P: Definitely.

M: And I think that we were getting to such a point where we were letting the stressed of life run our lives, we were being reactive and responsive.

P: Yes I agree with you.

M: with work pressures, family pressures, keeping up with the Joneses, keeping up with the latest technolog, FOMO, , et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And now I had a great conversation with a colleague today who was saying, You know, I went to this, um, baking with my kids and then we went and did some gardening, and it was such good bonding time. And normally she was saying she would have spent all that time running around and taking them swimming and getting to and from work and all the rest of it. And I think it’s coming back to basics, and it’s all the stuff that we’ve been talking about Pete! It’s calling your mom. It is finding something that you can take pleasure in and that you contribute to…

P: it’s mindfulness

M: It’s self care. Mindfulness, kindness to others looking after your body physically, so drinking water, getting sleep, doing exercise, eating right. Like all of those wonderful things that we’ve been talking about. We’re finally returning to that. So if you take Covid out, we’re all going to be super happy. And there’ll be no need for a podcast.

[laughter]

P: A little reminder, maybe, a little reminder to look at the things. You missed one thing in there was which for me is really important from this result is a sense of community. And that we are realising that the community in which we live is actually important to us.

M: I said social.

P: You did. I want to throw community out there because it’s a little bit more specific in terms of the people you have around you. When you have that happiness point, you need to reach out. And who’s that community? So it might not be the community you’re living, it might not be your neighbours, but it’s the person who lives down there down the hill and up the other stairs…

M: Oh that’s me!

P: That’s you [laughter].

M; I live down the hill and up the stairs. [laughter].

P: That’s the person that you reach out to you when you’re going. Oh, I feel like a coffee with someone.

M: I’ll make a coffee in my kitchen. You make a coffee in yours, and we’ll put funny face filters on ourselves.

P: Haha, yeah, so that sense of community, I think, is what one thing, is the one thing that will come out of this for a lot of people, and holding that community close, which is really important and vital. And as we know from the research, it helps with happiness.

M; Oh, absolutely. I’ve decided to make it my mission. If anyone’s in Glebe in Sydney, there’s a great restaurant called Glebe Point Diner, and I’ve made it my mission to make sure that they don’t go out of business during these tough times. So they’re doing take away now. call them up.

P: I think everyone’s get their favourite coffee shop for their favourite restaurant. Support them, they need it. A lot of people need that support, and it’s really important, even if you’re not going in. And I went past my coffee boys the other day. I didn’t need a coffee. I was already dialled up from my own coffee at home, but I spent five minutes talking to them, they’re my community, and they’ve been my community for 12 years.

M; Yeah. So I’m going to look after the other thing. I just wrote a post on this this week. There are a lot of animals being returned to shelters right now. So if you’re in a position to foster, you don’t even have to adopt. But if you happen to fall in love and keep him forever, then you know, every pet deserves a forever home…

P: even if, even if your husband makes you promise that you’re never going to pick up another stray cat?

[laughter]

M: It was in my vows, part of my vows to my husband, and I don’t think he would have taken me otherwise. No more strays. But if you can help out, the benefits as far as higher oxytocin levels, just benefits are through the roof. Also, having dogs is good for excise because you walk them.

P: Absolutely

M: So from a mental health point of view, cats and dogs are all fabulous and then exercise. So if you’re struggling with those things right now, particularly if you do live alone

P: Foster a pet for six weeks!

M: Consider helping out. A lot of people are in financial stress, and you know. Unfortunately, that means they’ve got to ask for help from a shelter because those pets right now have nowhere to go. All right. Well, that was a really depressing way to finish. Do you have a joke? Something we can laugh at?

P: I’m terrible with jokes. I can’t do jokes, I come up with bad ones and dad ones. I’m horrible. I say go Disney, get some Disney. Do something childlike, go and dance around. I think we were talking before about the YouTube video featuring Jennifer.

M: Yes! Jennifer, go watch the Jennifer video. I’m sorry, Jennifer. I’m sure you’re lovely.

P: I think Jennifer’s gonna benefit from this.

M: For those of you who would like to know, there are a good 8 to 10 people on a video conference call and someone’s talking. And Jennifer is one of the participants, and she stands up and obviously thinks her video isn’t on and takes a laptop into the bathroom with her and pulls her pants down. You can’t see anything for you pervs out there, pulls her pants down and everyone you see their eyes they’re just in shock

P: [laughter] No one would say anything.

M: And the person who’s talking stops talking, and it’s at that point that Jennifer looks over and realises she’s on video.

P: Hey, I’m all for nudity. I think what’s wrong with a little bit of ass every now and then?

[silence]

P: It’s how I say hello to people. You’re in my inner circle if I strip off in front of you.

M: It’s true.

P: Marie know it. Most of my volleyball team a knows it as well.

M: It’s a bit of a problem.

P: Really?

M: No, I’m ok with it though.

P: On that happy note….

M: Yes, we will let you go. Stay safe, everyone, and we will see you next week.

P: Stay happy folks.

Exercise & how to Prioritise it in a Busy Work Week with Dade Bailey (E10)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

There have been hundreds, probably thousands, of studies into the positive effects of regular exercise, so there’s no way we could do a podcast on happiness and not cover exercise. This week, our guest, Dade Bailey, talks about the importance of exercise to your happiness and resiliency and offers some tips for how to speak to your boss about having balance.

Transcription

You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton. I’m a change and resilience writer and speaker. You can find me at www.marieskelton.com. My co host is Peter Furness, and today he has the day off because we have a fabulous guest with us. So on to today’s episode, which is all about exercise.

[intro music]

M: Today we’re going to talk about exercise. There have been hundreds, probably thousands, of studies into the positive effects of regular exercise. It leads to better moods, decreased stress, more mental resilience, more confidence, more energy and I could keep going on. But in short, there is no way we could do a podcast on happiness and not cover exercise. So this week I’m excited to welcome our guest today, Dade Bailey, who has had a very successful career in the corporate world but who also recently retrained as a personal trainer.

So you’ve had a very successful career with some big Australian brands?

DB: Absolutely.

M: But there’s more to you than your professional career. So let’s cut to the chase. You’re buff. [Hehe]

DB: Right, thanks.

[Laughter]

DB: Yes. Okay. So, yes, it took a long time for me to get there.

M: So can you just start with telling me and listeners, how much time do you spend working out or doing exercise each week? And what do you do?

DB: Well, look, I think for me, just given a bit of reflection is that I always wanted to get to this point of being able to look in the mirror and go ‘Yeah I look good, I feel great, I’ve got a healthy balance and it took a very big mind shift to get there. I thought by throwing myself into the gym left, right and centre without kind of understanding how my body works was massive [and] I’d achieve those results. And it wasn’t, never got the results that I thought I was going to get. For me, I did the gym I’ve been with 14 years called Hiscoes in Surrey Hills. Such a great gym. But I did like a challenge with them. They really gave me the understanding of how muscle groups were, how nutrition needs to work, how building good longevity strength really would help. And that would kind of help me set my mindset to where I got to. So I didn’t need to train stupidly, all the time. I had to really think around, well how do I make sure my body is recovering? How am I making sure I’m doing the right kind of exercises to get maximum strength, not kicking it out for, like, two hours in a gym. [Doing] 45 minutes each times that it really was researching that kind of structure and really diving into that helped me then continue to get better and improve my form, improve my physique in a very healthy way.

M: So tell me, weekly, what do you do now?

DB: Weekly now, because I now work at a gym as well as a personal trainer I’m there a lot, which I did not realize how much more exercise you do what because you’re working with clients all the time, which is always good. But from my own personal point of view, I’m there about four or five times a week for my own personal training. But that’s a variety of different things that could be any kind of conditional strength training, that could be some high intensity training, but also it could be just something like some stress relief of like going to kick the crap out of boxing bag, or just going to do some yoga for active recovery. I really love Pilates – reformer Pilates – so that’s really good. So four to five times a week because rest is so important as well. You’ve got to be able to allow your body just to be able to relax and also from a mental health point of view it helps really clarify, like you’ve done your exercise, take a break. And that really brings it home for me is like you do need to rest take that time.

M: I think there’s a few things you said in there. Firstly, right off the bat, you mentioned balance and how you use this to balance your corporate life.

DB: Absolutely.

M: Secondly, you mentioned food, and what you’re eating and putting in your body. And then thirdly, you mentioned mental health there. How do you find those different elements work together for you? Or are they important that you’re considering, you know, the food you put in your body, the exercise you doing your mental health and balancing all of that?

DB: I think being in the corporate world for such a long time, exercise is always my outlet from a personal point of view, and going to the gym either in the morning set me up for the day to really start my day off well, so from a mental health point of view, it was like, ‘I’m up, I’m ready, I’m walking in the office ready to take on the day. I’m feeling good. I’ve got all these endorphins happening. It’s great. Fantastic. But then also if I was then going to eat an egg and bacon sandwich every day, and not really balancing out the food, I wasn’t really complimenting my training as well. So what really started to interest me which everyone needs to find entertaining in the gym when I was doing my diets and those kind of things was that it was actually bringing a really nice balance. But I could see in others as well around, “Are you exercising?” “No, I don’t exercise.” It’s like, well how, how do you bring your best self to work every day if you’re not really looking after internal? And that’s a lot of nutrition. Are you eating right? Are you sleeping, right? So for me all three really compliment looking after a team. And when I worked with the teams with that I was able and honoured to be able to lead within the organization, it was also instead of just having a meeting, let’s go and have a walk and talk. Let’s do some exercise at the same time. Hey, let’s go and have a nice healthy lunch and have our one-on-one or let’s and it’s really bringing that experience I’ve been able to do which is now fortunate I’ve become a personal trainer and I know a lot more about the sciences behind it. I think me going back into the corporate world is really going to help me as a leader to help my team thrive, get the best out of their work, and also make sure that they are… because if they’re outside eating crap, and they’re not exercising, are they bring their best selves? Probably not because of the balances that they have.

M: Sure. Okay, can you help us understand how you first got involved or how you found that passion? A lot of people join gyms and never go back or go to one or two classes and never go back. And we hear all the stories and a lot of us, me included, have signed up for gyms and really wasted our money. How did you find that spark or that passion to begin with?

DB: Part of me, it’s the stubbornness within. I think for me, though, I’ve always expected for me somebody to ring my doorbell and go, “Hey, here’s the abs that you wanted.”

[Laughter]

M: Wouldn’t that be great?! Sign me up.

DB: Wouldn’t that be great. Order them online, they just arrive. And I’m like, do you know what, there was a challenge at the gym it was an eight week strength challenge and I’m like, you know what, for eight weeks, I will commit. And it was just like this is a short amount of time and really commit and for me it was the go, really just see what you can do and what it will help and do that. And even by week four of the eight week, I was seeing so many different changes in my body, how I was sleeping, how I was motivating myself. I changed myself from not being a morning person to being a morning person, which was just…

M: That’s huge.

DB: It’s huge. Like, I never used to be out of bed. I used to wake up and just go to work, but now I wake up at like 5:30 in the morning, quite happily.

M: What?! Okay, I need your secret. [Laughter] We’ll get to that in a second.

DB: But I think for me, it was the, you’ve got to be able to help yourself and that was the mindset thing. It’s like you’re the only one who’s going to be accountable here. Nobody’s gonna, like you can, you’ve got personal trainers that will help you, but it’s also “Where’s your commitment in this?” And I had to owe that to myself. If I think longevity, I need to do more for me now than I ever needed to do. And I’ve got to think of my life in the future and understanding the body so much more has really helped me kind of think, okay, I’m sore today, I’ve done some workout, how, how do I recover from that? So it’s really helped me think around that because the physicality of it also affects your mental health as well. So if you’re not feeling fine all the time, it really affects how your day progresses.

M: Yeah. So a lot of us are spending long, long hours in the corporate world, right. And last year, in particular, the world’s started to take notice of burnout. So World Health Organization called it a global epidemic, and it’s becoming harder and harder to say, no, in the corporate world. How do you… What advice would you give to people to make sure they can find the balance in their life? To fit in exercise

DB: Yeah, I think just from a personal point of view, after 14 years of working in an organization that the scale and the complexity that I did, I was really, I was burnt out. And I’ve taken the time out, to do some of the things I wanted to do, like become a personal trainer, which is amazing. But the corporate world is relentless, and it’s nonstop. And you have to find those moments to find that balance. For me, as a leader in an organization, it was making sure that people came to work and they had a balanced life outside of work was my priority, because if they were wandering in and they didn’t have that balance, they weren’t able to perform at work. So for me, them, making sure that they could do work flexibly if they wanted or being able to prioritize going to the gym classes that they wanted, or Hey, there’s a yoga class at four. Go to it. You can. I know you’ll work to make up the hours, not putting restrictions on the old way of working of, “I need to see you at your desk from nine to five, and you need to produce X amount of widgets.” It’s like: here are the outcomes that you need to achieve. I expect that you’re an adult and you’re able to achieve them. I will give you like, accountability to do that. And yeah, of course, we’ll talk about how’s the kids “Oh, well I need to do this and this, “you work how you want.” And by giving people that freedom enabled them to be able to bring more of themselves to work and they were honest with me going, “I’m going through a tough time with this happening at home.” Okay, cool, at least I’m aware. But at least that kind of relationship really helped people bring everything they can to the office, and I, I created teams that thrived. And that’s where I’m always very proud of those moments. Because for me, if I’m running a team and they’re not living their best life outside of work, they’re not going to enjoy coming to work every day.

M: Absolutely. So obviously we all wish we had a boss like you. Were there any points in your life where you had bosses that didn’t subscribe to this idea? And how did you deal with explaining that you need to take time for yourself in order to be better for the organization or for your boss?

DB: There’s a few, there’s an example that comes up straight away where I had a boss who was very micromanagement. And it really pushed my buttons. And in the end, I was like to manage the micro manager I had to manage back. Okay, you want to know everything I’m doing? Here is a task list. Here’s everything I’m doing. You want to see that I’ve done all these tasks? Awesome. So for me, it was taking back because instead of them controlling me, I had to take control of them. But also give them honest feedback. And I’m like, can I just ask why you need to know this level of detail? And sometimes people are just a bit afraid of the boss. And ask. Well, why don’t you just ask the question, what’s this to achieve? What’s the outcome? Because for me, that kind of open and honest communication doesn’t happen enough in the corporate world. We’re living in a world where, oh no I’ve been told to do this so I’ve got to do it. And people need to ask the question “why” a lot more.

M: Yep

DB: Why? Why are we doing this? I need to ask the silly question, because I need to believe in anything that I’m doing. And working with bosses in that way, it’s like, you tell me a vision and how this is going to happen. I’ll believe you, I will follow you as a leader. If you don’t sell me as to the why we’re doing something, I’m not going to be giving it 100%. And I think for me, in some of the areas I was in, I had to really ask, why are we doing this? Why do you want me to be passionate about it? And I know you sometimes you get told you have to do it. But that for me, doesn’t give me motivation to do my job. Yeah. And I’m very much around I need a purpose.

M: Yeah. And I think the research shows most of us do. Okay, so, have there been any times since you first started including exercise in your life on a regular basis that you haven’t been able to exercise, and have there been any ties to – or have you noticed any ties to – your mental health and your resiliency?

DB: Absolutely. When in high delivery times, if I don’t get sleep and I don’t get to the gym in the morning and I go straight to work. I can sense my productivity levels. I’m wandering in, I don’t feel energized wandering in, it takes me about two hours to get going. And people are bombarding me with questions over there. And it is peaks and troughs, especially when you’re in delivery mode. But it’s being able to make sure you find that time and make sure that you are saying no, this is important. And the reason for that is that I won’t have two hours of wasted time as I wander in. And making sure you have the conversation as to why it’s important with your leaders to go, this is me, this is why I need to do this. This is going to be better for you. But also making sure my team had exactly the same kind of opportunities to go not it’s a priority for you. If this is what makes you happy if it’s making sure you’re dropping the kids off or going to swim class with the kids. I make sure that that time is available because for me, that is how you make effective teams,

M: mm hhmm.

DB: because you’re balancing that out. But for me, I could tell from a mental health point of view that when I was at one of the biggest complex change programs I was leading to deliver IT experiences to the whole organization, it was consuming so much of my time. I then started to see my drinking habits go up, that then made me sleep more, and made me not get up in the morning, that made me not get to the gym. So I will have to go to a checkpoint on myself and go “hang on what’s happening here? How you’re going to get control?” And it was that… I actually did a kind of put me at the centre and what actually makes me happy overall, like bringing things back to me. Me is flexible working, … gym work, making sure I’ve got nutrition, making sure I’ve got balanced kind of time for with my friends, and how what’s disappeared from that. How do I get it back? And most of it was like, well, I’m allowing work to take over my personal gym time, I can’t have that happen. I’m not getting an hour to do my nutrition like I cook on a Sunday night, Sunday for the food for the week, why are you not doing that? Like that sets you up for the week. But instead, you’re actually going to work, you’re eating crap food, because it’s not what actually you want, but it’s convenient. So I really had to look at and put myself under the microscope and go, what makes you happy on a day to day basis from the outside of work. And what is work affecting of those pillars?

M: I think it’s such an irony that when we’re needed most at work, we let down all the other areas of our life that keep us healthy for work.

DB: But it’s also the ability for a leader to see that in their people. And for me now coming into a personal training side is I think I’m rounding out my skills in a very different way. Because it will be a very much well what makes you, you outside of work? Is it exercise? Is it nutrition? How are you balancing yourself out? And how as a leader, can I help that outside work operate well? What blockers do I need to remove to help free that up so you come into this office skipping?

M: Yeah, absolutely. So can I ask you since you have been training and doing your certifications, what are some tips that you can leave for listeners who are just starting out on their exercise journey?

DB: Ask questions of anyone in that gym. There are such… there’s so much knowledge… even though I’ve been going to this gym…. I’ve had the same personal trainer since day dot and he’s just so full of knowledge over how bodies work, how you sleep, how there’s so much knowledge that they have. Learn from them and really ask questions. They want to be asked and if you have a question over I don’t know how to find some motivation or I don’t know what I should be doing, ask them because if they don’t know, they’ll know somebody who can help you.

M: Yep

DB: Don’t be afraid to ask in any kind of exercises moment say, I don’t know how to do this, please help me. A lot of people don’t do stuff because they have a fear that they may look silly or in front of other people they may go “oh no, they look really fit.” Everybody’s there to help you. And yes, there are some people in gyms that are all there posing in front of mirrors or at the other end of the spectrum where they’re like, “Oh, my God, you had an alcoholic beverage, the world is ending.” But it’s more, use the facilities and everyone’s there to better themselves. You’re all there for the same reasons, you’re there for health reasons, or want to look better for your wedding that’s coming up, or something like that. And there are people in that gym, with so many skills to bear to help you achieve that. Don’t be afraid.

M: Yeah. For someone who’s new to a gym. I know when I was I think I first went to a gym when I was 13 or 14 and those machines look bloody scary. Right, when you first walk in… I don’t know if you remember going, “Oh my gosh, how do these work?” and we’ve all seen the YouTube videos of people not using them well. So would you recommend maybe taking a class to get started versus going straight for the weights equipment?

DB: So a couple of things that I’d recommend: most gyms overall should have some kind of, as you join a gym, some kind of introductory, they should do a fitness assessment with you as soon as you walk in. Like how are you setting off as a baseline? Let’s do some measurements. Let’s do some weights and height [measurements]. Let’s make sure you can know what your goals are, what do you want to achieve, and then any good gym will sit down and help you design a program and not only help you design a program to help you start to achieve that, but also show you how to use that equipment. And the other point is, is that there are the free weights where a lot of experienced people use the free weights and the dumbbells and things like that. But there’s the ones where the machines that what we call the pin machines, they are built to help you ensure you’re doing your form correctly, they always have a little illustration on them as how to do it properly. If you’re not.. don’t have the confidence to talk to someone, so just have a read of that it will tell you exactly what to do. And it will really make sure your form is correct. And if you don’t know how to, if you look at a machine and go “I have no idea,” just go and ask reception or asked one of the trainers because they honestly want you to use the gym to its maximum ability and they want their product to be used and for you to get the best results.

M: Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you want to add before we go?

DB: I think in summary it’s finding balance overall. I think you can go to an extreme, like you can go right I’m going to just like throw everything at exercise, but you’ve got to also remember, your body needs fuel for that exercise. And if you’re not complementing it with the great nutrition and you’re not complementing it with great sleep, and you’re not coping it with a mental of going outside and enjoying life, you need to look at where your factors of your life you really are important to you, and then see how you get balanced across them. Because sometimes people put too much on one thing, “I’m going to go on a massive restrictive diet, which will make me unhappy.” And it’s like, well, those diets that fad diets when actually just if you’ve really focused on true nutrition, and good exercise, it brings balance in itself.

Marie: Okay, thank you for your time.

DB: Awesome. Thank you.

M: Thanks for joining us today. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and if you’re in Sydney you can find Dade at Hiscoes gym in Surrey Hills. Just go to his hiscoes.com.au that’s h-i-s-c-o-e-s-dot-com-dot-a-u. Until next time, bye

[Happy exit music]

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Marie Skelton is an Australian writer, speaker, and change and resiliency expert. She started her career in journalism before working in public affairs and then specialising in organisational and culture change for some of the world’s largest tech and financial services companies, both in Australia and the U.S. She also played volleyball for Australia and on scholarship at a D1 university in the U.S. and she captained the NSW Women’s Volleyball team in the Australian Volleyball League.

Following a motorbike accident that nearly took her life, and leg, she began researching change and resiliency to find out how people cope with major life changes and why some people are really good at dealing with whatever life throws at them, while others struggle. She is passionate about mental health and writes about how to cope with today’s Change Storm and maintain mental wellness.

Peter Furness is just plain awesome. He loves unicorns and champagne. Pete is the owner of Max Remedial, and a qualified remedial therapist and has worked all over the world with professional athletes, dancers, sporting organisations and medical professionals. Peter’s practice is influenced by his interest in Eastern philosophy and he works closely with Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners, approaching the body from the principles of ancient medicine.

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK.

The Power of Meditation (E9)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, we look at the ancient practice of meditation and its ties to happiness. Pete shares his knowledge and some research, while Marie cracks jokes and pretty much contributes nothing to the conversation.

Transcription

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton. I’m a writer and speaker focused on change and resilience. My co-host is Peter.

P: Hey there, I’m Peter Furness. I’m a believer in crystals, purveyor of energetic connections and saviour of chubby unicorns.

M: Nice [laugh]

P: Each week we bring you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology otherwise known as happiness. Marie has a blog.

M: I do, you can find me at marieskelton.com and there’s a whole lot of resources there for you on how to be happy.

P: Awe… Such a nice concept.

M: Yeah, [laugh] it is. It is, anyway. So today, today’s all about you, Peter, because today’s episode is about meditation.

P: Where’s my gong and my singing bowl?

M: So this –

P: – I really should have brought my gong and my singing bowl.

M: [Laugh]

P: That would have been a great intro!

M: I’m sure we can work that out, you know post production.

[Laughter]

P: Can we add that in later that would be so cool. I have three.

M: Done

[Gong – singing bowl – happy music]

M: Okay. And we’re back. And they were talking about meditation, so we’re going to have a little bit of a different format today. Meditation is so far out of my comfort zone.

P: [Laugh]

M: My understanding on meditation is that it’s on a spectrum. On one end, you’ve got mindfulness, which is putting your phone down at the dinner table, and then you move in to beginners learning how to sit on the cold, hard floor with their legs crossed. To, what normal people can do when they practise after years and years of meditating? And then you’ve got that weird, shave my head and take a vow of silence and sit on a mountaintop and meditate for days and days on end. That’s the other end of the spectrum.

P: It’s like the elite sports level of meditation.

M: Yeah. So that’s my very naive understanding off the mindfulness to meditation spectrum.

P: Right.

[Laughter]

M: Which is why today and in today’s episode we’re going to do more of a Q and A with Pete, because this is definitely more your domain of expertise.

P: Have you ever meditated Marie? Have you ever sat down and actually consciously meditated?

M: No one would want to sit quietly with my mind Peter.

P: [Laugh]

M: The answer is no.

P: So this is the interesting thing about people’s perceptions of meditation on what it is versus actually what it can be. I find quite interesting, it is a bit of a Pandora’s Box once you open up the concept of meditation you go ‘Oh my god! I’m going [through] the looking glass.’ It’s a really broad subject, everybody has their own interpretation of it and even the scholars all differ on their interpretations and understanding and meanings of meditation.

M: So we’ll park. As I said, I’ve got a very broad and basic understanding. We’re going to park mindfulness for another episode and focus purely on meditation today.

P: That’s good because the two are not necessarily the same.

M: Again for another time, I’m keen to just start us off so that we’re all on the same page on your understanding, your definition for meditation.

P: Right, so there are a couple of definitions that I do like. The most simplistic one that I like is meditation is a method for acquainting our mind with virtue.

M: That’s why it’s not for me… virtue?

P: [Laugh] So again virtue has many different connotations in and of itself, but when we talk about virtue in the context, we’re talking about that moral compass. We’re talking about the good things, the responsible things, the acolytes that we aim to aspire to. So we’re trying to get in touch with that in terms of where acquainting our minds with when we try to meditate. That’s the end goal I guess in a way, it’s the reason behind it.

There are other people that talk about different kinds of meditation and what it is. It’s a tool for happiness. Now, we, the concept of meditation, making you happy. Yes, it does. There is a little bit of science around this. Happiness is hard wired. It’s genetic in our brains, people who are happy have more frontal lobe activity. So meditation is a way of quieting the mind so that you can actually access some more of that frontal lobe activity. Because meditation stimulates the same cortex’s in the brain. And scientists have talked about this briefly.

Psychology today actually talks about it as a stronger mental practise that has the power to reset your happiness set point. And that happiness set point is that frontal lobe activity of the brain so meditation can access that it can start to train your brain to access that area a little bit more, thus leading to more happiness or the ability to experience more happiness.

M: OK fine…

P: [Laugh] Did I just get you with a scientific quote there?

M: Yes, yes!

P: Ha ha! See it’s not all gong’s and whistles. [Laugh]

M: Maybe, maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, let’s, let’s, let’s maybe start with how you got into this. So how did you begin practising meditation and why did you get into it?

P: I guess I got involved with Eastern Philosophy when I started University. I was very dissatisfied with the Christian experience and so I was still understanding of the need for some spiritually exploration for myself and managed to access a little bit of Tao-ism and a little bit of Buddhism through some very basic books that I found when I was in that second year at university. It’s also the time when I started spending some time alone, which we talked about in another episode and having quiet time at the end of the day and for me it came about from my practise of needing to be a little bit more… actually it came through yoga in a way. I was discovering the need for stretching and downtime and the physicality of yoga but then through that I also got access to the philosophy of yoga which is Indian, a classic Indian … principal. So those practises of being still with the mind and quieting became part of my daily routine. So I go home at the end of the day, I put a little candle in the window in my … flat and watch the sunset and do an hour of yoga.

M: I was in the pubs.

P: [Laugh]

M: My University days were very different from yours.

P: [Still laughing]

M: There was beer o’clock on Wednesdays and then Thursday night was Uni night and then there’s the usual Friday, Saturday, so very different.

P: I was ohm-ing and chanting and playing meditative gong music… [Laugh]

M: Whatever works for you.

P: [Laugh]

M: So you came from a country upbringing, Christian, came to university in the big city looking for something a bit different.

P: uh huh.

M: If I’m going to paraphrase your story here, and discovered yoga and then from there meditation. So what benefits has it given you?

P: Well that’s a big question. I think the big thing about meditation is quieting the mind so when you meditate it’s not about stilling the mind, you know people say ‘think of nothing, empty your mind.’ Emptying your mind is bad. It is not good. And I really like Gelong Thubten’s interpretation of meditation, in terms of thinking of your brain like a highway. So you’ve got lots of traffic, got lots of cars going to and forth. If you stop the flow of thought. If you stop your mind being active, traffic’s gonna jam. There’s going to be a backup of traffic. There’s going to be problems. There’s not going to be a transfer of thought processes going through and you’re going to miss a whole heap of stuff because the traffic’s backed up.

It’s more about bringing your attention to each individual car on that highway and allowing it to pass through. So you’re not necessarily stilling your mind. You’re allowing each thought to come up. You’re recognising it and then letting it go. In terms of being aware of that you’re trying to be bringing in mindfulness, so bringing in that mindful state of going ‘I see that car, I see that thought and I will let it go. And then you’re trying to make me focus on the awareness of thoughts that you need, the awareness of thoughts that you want to retain and the awareness of thoughts that you want to let through and just let them keep going.

M: So in a way are you practising reinforcing positive thoughts and dismissing negative thoughts is that part of meditation?

P: I believe it is. It definitely was from my experience, because it’s initially it was all about the negative thoughts and focusing on those negative thoughts and going ‘Oh, I’ve really got to address that!’ and that’s a lot of anxiety and stress around that, whereas the more reading I did about meditation, the more I understood about allowing that balance and flow to come through. But allowing my mind for a little while to focus on the nice thinks the positive things, the things that brought me quiet smiles, gentle thoughts the things that would make me unwind from my anxiety. [Whispering] Which were pretty great when I was only 21 years old.

[Laughter]

P: Just saying [laugh]

M: In all fairness millennials are struggling there’s an epidemic of anxiety. Our younger generations, we’re putting so many pressures on them nowadays that, you know, you and I didn’t have and out parents definitely didn’t have growing up and they’re anxious. So maybe meditation is something we should be talking about more.

P: Again we’re coming back to the Scandinavian example of instilling meditation into schools. Even at the ripe, young age of infancy school, there are certain schools and business, uh, organisations out there that are instilling meditation. There’s a wonderful example of one in China I think [actually Baltimore] it was where instead of having detention they introduce meditation.

M: Oh, I think I’ve seen that one.

P: Yes, it’s about changing the story, changing the process. You’re being punished because you did something wrong. Whereas they’re going, no let’s investigate the reasons behind why you’re acting in this way. It’s a game changer, it changes our awareness. And I think in this case, the millennials, I think this is something we really need to explore. We’re more conscious, we’re sifting through information now than we’ve ever done. It’s important to maybe be more aware of how we interpret that information, why we’re interpreting certain bits of it than others.

M: And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a closer look at your own feelings. I know that there’s a lot of work right now in the men’s mental health space, particularly older generations who have traditionally been told, buck up and suck it up and don’t express emotions. And they keep sucking it up until they explode. And they either explode in anger or violence or both. And it’s not healthy, we know that now.

P: And I think anger and violence is very often turned on themselves. The suicide rate for rural men has been alarmingly high. I think, in America and in Australia, that example of clocking that and … the governments are investing money into mental health of people who are in isolated areas making sure that they have support, that they’ve got access to phone lines, medical support and the mate-ship factor. It was the pubs, in the country pubs it’s where you, upended you’re feelings, it was a safe place for blokes to go ‘Geez mate the crops are bad, the wife’s giving me hell.’ You talk things out.

M: I love you being a country man.

[Laughter]

M: A country bloke!

P: [Laugh] I spent my childhood years with my father driving around the western/ sub-western areas of NSW and Dad always pulled into the pub. That’s his way of dealing with the monotony of things and maybe getting some thought processes out, he didn’t have a counsellor or anything he could talk to. It was over a beer at the pub.

M: And that sounds like meditation might be another tool that people could use to become more aware of their internal monologue and their feelings and their emotions and maybe short circuit the traditional way they’ve dealt with that.

P: Yep.

M: Just to bottle it until they can’t.

P: Yep, absolutely.

M: [Chipper voice] So Pete,

P: [Laugh]

M: There are various types of meditation, right? Can you tell us about that?

P: [Laugh] Oh my god, you sound like an infomercial. Yes there are. So I’m gonna try and make it really simple.

M: Please do. This is all over my head.

P: Yeah, I’m going to make it really simple about the two different types. There’s Analytical and Placement meditation.

So Analytical meditation is where we’re contemplating the meaning of the text. So we’re looking at a spiritual text such as the Bible or something, the Koran [Quran], something that a Taoist monk has said so we’re looking at a sentence and going we’re going to focus on the meaning behind that sentence. That’s analytical meditation, taking a text and interpreting it, so meditation upon that and all the different areas on that.

M: So it’s like Bible study by yourself?

P: Yep, you could put it that way.

M: Yep, alright with you… next?

P: [Laugh] which then leads to Placement meditation. Now Placement meditation is possibly where most people think meditation is it’s the cause of a specific virtuous state of mind to arise. It’s a very complex sentence. We’re allowing a state of mind to come forth. So we’re not thinking of a text, we’re not thinking of don’t do wrong by your neighbour. We’re allowing that analytical faze to give way to a much more subtle faze where we’re allowing thoughts and certain things to drop in, so it might be ‘I really shouldn’t pinch the roses out of my neighbours garden.’

M: [Snort] Is that a habit of yours?

P: Well… no, no.

M: For me, I know I would sit down and it would be ‘Oh! that’s what I should have said yesterday when I was fighting with my colleague.’ Darn it! Right?

P: [Laugh]

M: Or when my boss told me to do that, have a perfect come back now.

P: Yeah.

M: Those are the things I ruminate on in the shower, generally.

[Laughter]

M: Next time, next time!

P: I think if we take that case and point that could be your analytical meditation. So ‘I should have said this. I should have done this.’ If you can sit with that for a little while, quietly allowing your thoughts and those vehicles to pass through. You actually might find yourself thinking about the reasons behind why that conversation happened in the first place. ‘Could I have actioned something earlier than that to avoid this situation?’ And that’s more that placement meditation I’m talking about where you’re allowing the thoughts to come and go, and you’re picking out the ones that are relevant, all the ones that are going to lead to a better action, a more heightened state, more frontal lobe activity, more happiness.

M: So we’re coming to the end of the podcast. For our listeners. How would you advise getting started on practising some basics of meditation?

P: Meditate badly…

M: Ok, I like it.

P: He, he. It’s really hard to do meditation. It’s like running a marathon you don’t just get up one morning and decide you’re going to run 42kms, you can’t, it’s not possible, you are going to hurt yourself. So Meditation’s exactly the same, it’s about starting small and making the smallest little step towards that 42kms mark.

So that means one minute.

M: So, go sit on the floor, cross your legs for a minute and close your eyes.

P: Turn off the tv, silence the radio, sit down for one minute with your thoughts and don’t let anything interrupt you. That means locking the cat in the bathroom.

[Laughter]

P: Not allowing your kids to run in. It’s got to be one minute and you’ll find that it’s actually quite difficult to then go to 2, then 3, 4 and 5 that becomes that’s a forward goal.

M: Do you set an egg timer?

P: Absolutely.

M: I would spend that minute counting seconds [Laugh].

P: I guess that’s the thing. It takes you, it takes you more than a minute to quiet the mind, and quiet in the mind is a pathway to the meditative state that we are seeking. So before we even get to that state, before we even get to running, we’ve got to walk out the door and put our training shoes on. It’s exactly the same with meditation we’ve got to feel comfortable in our sitting on the floor, cross legged. It could be sitting on the couch. It could be sitting in your favourite chair, but it’s about bringing that mindful state and then accessing that state where you slow the traffic and that can take a good four weeks of attempts to try and get there. And once you can achieve that, then you can start going ‘right that was two minutes of quality meditative time there, let’s see if I can expanded that to five over the next two weeks.

M: OK. I’m going to ask a few beginners questions. There’s no such thing as a dumb question. Just remember that?

P: No [meaning yes]

M: Okay, what’s with the crossing the legs. Do you have to do that?

P: No

M: Do you have to close your eyes?

P: No

M: Do you have to sit on the floor?

P: No

M: Do you have to sit?

P: Being still, is helpful to bring awareness to your brain and to your mind so you can’t necessarily meditate when you’re on the treadmill. Although my initial experience of meditation was through the yoga, through doing physical activity and being in downward dog and noticing my breath now that was a pathway to able to access the stillness and then I used that when it came to actually sitting down. When you’re doing yoga practise, you finish with shavasana which is dead man’s corpse pose where you’re lying on the ground, on your back with your palms up, close your eyes and you’re just concentrating on your breath. You’ve done 45 minutes, you’ve done five minutes, you’ve done an hour and a half of a yoga class, that last pose is where the magic is because you quiet everything and you bring your awareness to that really calm, still point and that’s the meditative state where you can really focus on thoughts without being physical.

M: So last question for you before we sign off. For people who are just overwhelmed with life, we’ve got so much going on, we’ve all got busy lives at work and at home.

What is one tip for quieting the mind?

P: Don’t be judgmental. Do not be judgmental on yourself on your thought processes. There is another quote here that I’ll read out.

‘Meditation is about turning inwards and being able to observe all of your thoughts and bodily sensations without judgement.’

M: I think that’s a perfect place to end.

P: It is.

M: All right. Thanks for joining us today. If you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast.

P: And go out and buy a singing bowl and have a little gong for me.

M: [Laugh] until next time. Bye

P: Bye

[Gong and singing bowl]

[Happy exit music]

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK.

Happiness is Contagious (E8)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Did you know that happiness and laughter are both contagious? We present the research to back up that ludicrous statement and some tips on how to get you some happiness and laughter in your life. Plus we present a secret crazy study about happy sweat.

In this episode, Marie mentions that smiling at people has different meanings in different cultures, here are a few articles about that:

Transcription

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

P: Hi there I’m Peter Furness and I’m a health practitioner, unicorn lover and wanna-be handstand achiever. Each week we will bring you the latest news and research in the field of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness. Marie, you’ve got a blog.

M: Yes, I do. It’s at marieskelton.com, which is a site about major life changes and how to cope with them. And the site uses a lot of the research that we talk about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing happiness and joy into your life. And when I say practical, I’m talking about science backed tips.

P: Always science with Marie Skelton.

M: [Laugh]

P: Never the fluff.

M: Yep, never the fluff. You can also find me on Twitter. My handle is @marieskelton.

And on to today’s episode, which is about the contagion off laughter…

P: [Laughter]

M: Wait, what are we talking about today?

P: The contagion of happiness. There’s a great example there. [Laugh]

M: Well there’s a bit more to it. It’s about contagion in general.

P: In general, yes, yes, as much as you can sneeze it on someone and give them influenza, you can sneeze on someone or laugh on them and give them happiness.

[Laughter]

M: We’ll get into that…

Welcome to today’s show.

P: [Laugh]

M: What are we calling this one?

[Happy music]

M: So welcome to today’s show. I’m here with Peter and, as we mentioned before the little interlude, we’re here to talk about contagious-ness and contagion just missed.

P: Contagious-ness, that’s a good one [laugh].

M: Yep, yep, yep. You’ve really thrown me through a loop and I’m not sure what to call this episode.

[Laughter]

M: But we are going to talk about how happiness is contagious and then there’s some other great studies that I’m fascinated with that we want to share with our listeners today, so maybe we can start with the evolution of smiling and laughter. So the smile can be traced back over 30 million years of evolution to a fear grin, which stem from monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth, to portray to predators that they were harmless. So humans over time have turned this into a form of greeting, and there’s a lot of contention as to the exact origins of smiling and laughter. And there isn’t really one true theory that everyone agrees on. But there is a little bit of research indicates that the smile has evolved over time into a way of attracting mates in early humans.

P: So basically showing a demeanour of joy or happiness makes other people trust you more it makes people be more receptive to you and know that you aren’t threatening. So, get the sunglasses off people.

[Laughter]

M: More than that, you know if everyone’s got their face in their phone we’re not smiling at each other.

P: Absolutely.

M: So one of the things that my mom used to lament when we moved to a big city, Canberra, which is not a city but she came from Newcastle, which was slightly smaller at the time was that people didn’t smile and say hello when they passed each other on the sidewalk.

P: Yes, it’s the country NSW’s thing as well and then think well, it’s the recognition of someone as your walking past the tip of the hat, a finger in the air, just that twinkle in the eye. It’s the recognition of, yep I see you.

M: But when you move to a bigger city, the people who have that twinkle in their eye and say hi, are normally creepy and will follow you.

P: [Laugh]

M: So, there’s maybe a little bit of a defence mechanism going on there.

P: True, true.

M: It’s like when you’re the only person on the bus and that person comes and sits right next to you.

P: Oh, yes…

[Laughter]

M: Anyway so maybe that’s what happens when you get to bigger cities. Also, you don’t know far more people. But the other thing that I found out was that smiling when you pass people is also cultural, and I’d have to look this up, I’ve just come to this in my mind and haven’t done any research into this before right now.

I remember reading an article with people asking ‘What is it with everyone smiling at me?’

P: [Laugh]

M: ‘You’re all creepy.’

So, I think there’s a cultural element to that.

P: I’m going to put myself out here, I do smile at people on the street a lot actually and I find it interesting to play with because some people really don’t like it. [Laugh] and I’m terrible if someone’s got a dog I’m instantly like, I’m smiling at the dog because I like dogs but then I always make a point of making sure I look at the owner because too often the owners of dogs are ignored. You know you should at least say isn’t he or she beautiful.

M: Yeah, don’t start patting the owner, though.

P: Oh, that could be fun.

[Laughter]

M: I think that’s harassment.

P: I think that’s the definition of the creepy person on the bus.

[Laughter]

M: So you had a study that you want to talk about just about happiness in general. Right?

P: Yes. The study was published in the British Medical Journal and this is all around happiness contagion.

This study took 4700 people stayed on them for over 20 years from 1983 to 2003 and it promotes that happiness, like a cold in winter, spreads. So it is passed on to people that are around you. It assed people’s emotional well-being and they took questionnaires of participants feelings of well-being and general demeanour. They also gave these studies to the participants spouse’s, friends, relatives, people they knew in their daily life, creating a network of more than 50,000 subjects, which is a pretty decent sized research project to be honest.

M: Absolutely.

P: It kind of came out some interesting findings. The really interesting one is that, yes happiness does spread and they even get percentages. So when one person is happy, they raised the odds of their spouse being happy by 8% their sibling by 14% and their neighbour by 34%.

And I found this really interesting because it talks about the close proximity of people in their daily interactions. So one big happy person, if you meet that person once the effect of that happiness being passed on to you might be short term, whereas when you’re involved in a daily contact with people, when you’re involved in intimate contact over the fence, as you are with neighbours, and I’m thinking, particularly of my mother in this instance, happiness flow on effect is more than a third. That’s pretty high.

M: I’m still thinking about you having intimate moments with your neighbour. How many people that you meet do you have-

[Laughter]

P: Well, I’m the hands on person so… no I’m very respectful honestly.

M: And I think, I think deep down humans know this. We gravitate to the positive, energetic people in our classes at school and to the exuberant and dynamic personalities. And I think that’s a natural subconscious thing in general.

So something in that research that I thought was really interesting as well, though, was that work spaces were a happiness free zone.

[Laughter]

So to explain what I mean by that, so that the researches don’t call me up and go ‘what have you said?’ So, happiness didn’t appear to spread amongst co-workers. So the researchers attributed that to the sometimes competitive nature of our work relationships. But if you think about it, a happy person will increase their spouse’s odds of being happy by 8%, their siblings odds of being happy by 14%, their neighbours odds of being happy by 34% and their co-workers odds of being happy zero.

P: Zero [laugh]

M: Nothing, nada. So having happy or not happy people around your work? Maybe not, not happy, but having happy people around you makes no impact at all.

P: Possibly more focused on other things… Or all that other stuff that we have to focus on when we’re working.

M: Yeah, a bit depressing really.

And then the other thing, just to point out on that study was that the proximity thing that you’re talking about. So this is why I think you can have a big impact on your neighbours but family siblings they’ve got to be close by. So anyone that’s more than a mile away, really didn’t get much of the impact.

P: Yes, however, just to go further into that as well, the research also says that there are three degrees of separation for this network effect, so it might not even be the person that’s directly associated with you that you are affecting. But, the researchers found, is that the people who know that person and the people that know that person’s person are also directly affected by someone’s happiness. And I think that’s an interesting point as well is that your happiness can spread.

Just in support of that research as well a Harvard research professor [Medical Sociology and Medicine], Nicholas Christakis researched the contagion of emotions in terms of the larger context of social networks.

M: I told you we were talking about contagion.

P: [Laugh] He found that, in support of what Marie said in that having a happy friend within a mile of you increased the probability that you will be happy and that that close social network is the most prevalent factor in terms of buying into someone else’s happiness and having that affect you.

M: The best example of the laughter contagion is, and if you haven’t seen it, I encourage you get onto Google or YouTube and look up the Skype laughter chain, and it currently has 32 million views on YouTube and the premise behind this laughter chain was, we watch someone laughing and someone else watches that person laughing and you filmed them, and that person starts laughing at the first person. And then you film a third person watching the second person laughing at the first person and then a fourth and fifth and a sixth. And so you end up with series of people laughing, one after the other, and I dare you not to laugh at this, at this chain of people laughing. It is contagious.

P: Yep

M: Now they have magically found people with unique laughs and it is truly, it’s hilarious. So we’re going to play you a short, clip. So without infringing on anyone’s copyright, here it is the Skype laughter chain. And here is a short listen.

[Sound clip of Skype laughter chain]

P: It’s quite funny when we were watching that we were walking down the street at Brighton Le-Sands. As I was effusively laughing, as I tend to do, people that were walking past us started to crack a smile.

[Laughter]

P: So it just shows that, that expression of happiness is actually a key as well in that you can affect someone’s small little day, and I find that myself if I’m walking past people that are having a great old time and being stupid. I’ll walk past a have a little smile.

M: I think I’m getting old. Sometimes I judge now.

P: Oh well, you’re the cynic here. [Laugh] See I’m the fluffy one and you’re the cynic.

M: I think it depends [on] what they’re doing. And also I find if kids are laughing. That’s just far more innocent and cute.

P: Oh, see I’m probably on the other foot on that one. I’m like ‘go away’. Small children aagghh. [Laugh]

Now coming back to the chimpanzee research it’s the mimicry it’s the decree that researchers found that harkens back to our ape like ancestors is that we mimic people’s laughter and they did a study on this, with the American Psychological Association publishing a study by the University of Portsmouth, where they watched a group of 57 chimpanzees. And these chimpanzees were mimicking the laughs that were coming out and the laughs that were coming out second were slightly different, but it had that flow on effect.

M: So we’ve seen that feelings of happiness can be transferred through vision and hearing. But did you know that happiness is also contagious via our sense of smell?

P: You’re going to love this one. This is Marie’s favourite bit. [Laugh]

M: I had to find a way to get this into one of the episodes. [Laugh] So I’m referring to a study which suggests that happy people give off an odour that makes other people smile.

P: In essence sweaty people are happy people?

M: No, sweat makes you happy.

P: OOhh!

M: But only some types of sweat.

[Laughter]

M: So it gets better, let me explain how researchers did this study. So they collected samples from male participants as they watched videos like bare necessities and funny clips and pranks. Guys watch these funny and or fun light-hearted clips. They also had another group that watched movies that were made to make them feel afraid or no emotional response at all. And they collected sweat off all of these people. The sweat samples were then presented to female participants-

P: [Laugh]

M: Which I find kind of a bit strange. And then the female participants were recorded while they were smelling the sweat samples for their facial expressions and when sniffing sweat from someone who felt happy that we’re more likely to smile.

P: Is it wrong that I just had an image of a room full of men with their armpits in the air and these women walking along having a good long draw. That’s kind of how I think they should have done the experiment.

[Laughter]

M: I don’t know but this experiment just, it’s hilarious to me, absolutely hilarious. They get a whole bunch of men, they take their sweat then they get a bunch of woman in and they film their reactions to them smelling the sweat.

P: [Laugh]

M: But what it does do is that supports the idea that surrounding ourselves with happier people, and their scents –

P: and their scent.

M: – can bring more positive emotion into our lives.

P: It’s all about sniffing each other when it comes down to it. Look at dogs they’ve got it right. They say hello by sniffing someone’s butt.

M: I knew you would take it there.

P: [Laugh]

M: I told you, you couldn’t pat people on the street, now you want to go sniff them.

[Laughter]

P: Alright, I’ll behave. Anyway, so putting this into practise. How do we make ourselves open to the contagion of happiness? Essentially, find happy people. Find the people in your life or around you that are happy that are that effusive celebratory kind of personality, be around them, put yourself in their vicinity even when you’re feeling low or quiet. Sometimes the best thing is to, is to shake yourself off and go ‘No, I’m going to go to that party because I know that such and such is going to be there and I know I’ll key into what they’re actually offering and their vibe and they’re always a fabulous person so I’m going to go along and be a part of that. The other that I love is laugh out loud people. Sometimes people are, they don’t want to laugh, they don’t want to express their happiness. I’m all for being in a movie theatre and having a good old giggle. Performance friends of mine used to love me in the audience because I actually react, sometimes in the middle of this very serious drama theatrical performance they would hear this big guffaw from the audience because I thought it was funny.

M: [Laugh] Great, right in the middle of the serious part.

P: Case and point. Uncle Vanya, Sydney Theatre Company production about five years ago, Richard Roxburgh and Hugo Weaving on stage, it’s meant to be this dark serious Russian play. Ugh, ugh. Not with those two. It was hilarious.

[Laughter]

P: So don’t, don’t stifle your laughter allow yourself to express it because it’s not just you, it’s someone else is going to feel the permission to laugh. And I think that’s a really important one allow yourselves the permission the laugh. The other thing is hosting, host a party, host a barbeque, host a film night. Host a laughter circle where you all lie on the floor with your heads on each other’s stomachs. Do you remember doing that at camps in high school?

M: We did, I actually hosted a laughter workshop at my old work and people loved it we just don’t laugh enough at work.

P: The science proves it, we don’t because of our competitive nature.

[Laughter]

M: The other thing I’ll add to this as far as things you can do, something that I found I had to grow up in order to do it. It was cut negative people out of my life and I don’t want people to jump to cutting people out of their lives just because they having about time. I do believe in loyalty to friends and sticking with them through hard times. There are some people, however, who take far more than they give and will not change. And at some point in my late twenties, I realised who those people were on and felt OK with not calling them to go have coffee or lunch or whatever it was and not making the effort to maintain a relationship. Some of them are were a little bit more abrupt, and others just trailed off. And I let them deliberately trail off, those relationships. And I think that’s really important. On the flip side, you surround yourself with happy people. But you also need to at times protect yourself.

P: I think protection is very vital. If a person is that negative there is a certain amount of loyalty and concern, no one wants to be shutting anyone off. But, ah, you have to look after number one. You have to look after the self-first. And if, if you’re feeling it, then sometimes it’s best to limit that exposure.

M: Yep. OK. Is that it for this week?

P: I think so.

M: I think it is. All right, well there you go. Go sneeze happiness all over people.

P: Go sniff people!

[Laughter]

M: They are the two take outs for this episode.

Thank you for joining us. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe. And like this podcast.

P: We will see you next week.

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK.

Being Alone Can Make you Happier (E7)

15/03/2020 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 7

Research shows that being alone is good for you. Who knew that introverts’ constant search for ‘me time’ could be making them happier and more creative. Here’s your 3-steps guide to being alone.

Transcription

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

P: Hi there, I’m Peter Furness a wanna be lunch time guru, fantasy dragon lover and all around thrill seeker with insular tendencies. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology otherwise known as happiness.

M: Yes, you can find us both at marieskelton.com. And the site uses a lot of the same research we talk about here on the podcast. So if you want to follow up with anything we’ve spoken about head on over there, you can also follow my musings and shared research on Twitter at Murray Stilton. So on today’s episode, which is all about being alone.

[Happy music]

M: So today we’re talking about the importance of being alone.

P: Solo time, don’t we all crave it at one point in the day.

M: Well I think you and I do because we’re introverts.

P: This is what we’re going to talk about introvert, extravert and somewhere on that sliding scale in between.

M: Yep, yep. So I think we crave it but I don’t know I’m not an extravert. So do they crave alone time? Anyway, that’s for later.

P: [Laugh] Let’s not get a head of ourselves, Marie. OK, before we go there, let’s dive into what it actually means, what the doing is. It’s well documented that social connection is important to happiness, Humans are community people, we need people around us. We’ve evolved from family groups, hunter/gatherer groups and that’s gone through to modern times that we’ve talked about the importance of having your close relationships, having people around you that make you a better person all that it takes to raise a child stuff. But being lonely and having alone time is just as important.

M: Well, no, there’s a difference between being alone [and lonely], I think is what you want to say. So what we’re talking about here –

P: – Is that what I meant to say? …That’s what I meant to say.

M: Yes, that’s what we discussed earlier.

P: So, I did get that wrong.

M: Ssshh, don’t tell anyone.

[Laughter]

M: So, to, expand on that statement. What we’re talking about here is the fact that human beings are social by nature, by design and by evolution. But that today we want to talk about the opposite of that which is deliberately choosing to be alone. And what we’re not talking about or addressing in today’s episode is being lonely. Which is not a choice.

P: Yeah, being lonely is different from having alone time.

M: Yep, definitely. So back to, what you’re saying about human evolution and me being an introvert. What I see is a world that’s designed by extroverts for extroverts. It’s designed for people to be social from classrooms with 20 or 30 Children in them to group work at university and open office environments. It feels like an extrovert’s playground out there. Everything is designed, whether or not we’re succeeding at that is another matter, is designed for being social.

P: OK

M: And that stands to reason, because there’s positive benefits to that. So in sports and at work the happy and outgoing and positive and popular people, the ones that get promoted or put into leadership positions, while the quiet achievers can often get overlooked. And there’s a whole lot of research out there that supports that particularly in western societies, where individualistic tendencies are much higher.

P: It’s funny because when I read that quote I instantly went ‘Oh is that true? Do the introverts always get looked over?’ and we briefly brought this up earlier in the episode where I said I’m not sure that stands to reason in certain echelons or groups or circles. I mean, when you get to the upper tier of their some sporting organisations and things like that it comes down to more than introvert/extravert. But we also talked about cultural influences and whether certain cultures that are extravert, now you and I are both know what it was like to play volleyball with Asians and Brazilians.

[Laughter]

M: That was a culture clash.

P: And in the middle were the little Australians going I don’t understand!

M: Yep

P: I think that’s interesting at the line at which, it can be very general in that the world is built for extraverts. There is some areas in there were introverts can succeed and if you are naturally an introvert, it’s not a barrier. That’s what I’m going to throw at you. It’s there’s a way through it.

M: Name them?

P: Aaagghh, [laugh] don’t ask me for science Marie.

M: I’m calling you out

[Laughter]

M: I think there are certain career paths in particular where you can succeed as an introvert but you won’t make it into the leadership echelons.

P: And this is where you probably have more of a background than I do.

M: Yeah, look we could spend a whole episode talking about that, but let’s, let’s firstly clear up what we mean by introvert and extravert.

P: Yes, definitely.

M: So what I’m talking about and there are millions of different definitions out there and ways of looking at it. But when I think of an introvert, I talk about introverts, being energised from being alone and extroverts, being energised from being with people. Now I’m an introvert, and it’s not to say that I’m not social or I don’t have a lot of friends. It just means that I do everything in my power to find me time –

[Laughter]

M: – And I love people, and I really, honestly, genuinely care about people. But too much people drives me crazy, and I just need to come home and hide, and I get wound up. So after a day of work, I just need to come home and have some quiet time and some me time. Unwind.

P: I think everybody needs it when they walk in the door. I think it’s that, having that space. When I first moved in with a flat mate in Townsville, poor Alice she was so lovely, so I would come home and I made it very clear when we moved in together that when I come home from work, I need half an hour of quiet time. And she was like ‘Oh, OK.’ It was me on the floor with my Buddha’s and candles, and the soft music, doing my yoga and Alice was amazing, she would just shut up and she’d just sit there and watch and be very quiet and respectful of my me time. Who does that in a shared household? [Laugh]

M: Yeah, so when I first got married.

P: OOOHHH

M: [Laugh] We’re sharing.

P: [Raucous Laughter]

M: I had to have that conversation, my husband, because I’d get home and he would be all over me, which is lovely and sweet.

P: Aawww, how sweet.

But how do you tell someone, F off, I need my time, you know.

[Laughter]

M: The problem is between the pinging of my phone, the expectations of friends and family, the realities of work and life. It feels like a constant tug a constant struggle, and it can often feel like the world just isn’t built for introverts, and I feel the pressure to be present and available.

P: Your story’s not uncommon Marie. It’s estimated that anywhere from 20 to 50% of the population are introverts or have introverted tendencies, characteristics as we talked about that sliding scale, you’ve got to try and find that balance between being social and being out there and also finding the opportunities to get away, to recharge to spend time with the self. And that’s probably really what we’re going to be talking about in this episode of being important is finding the ways and the ways to achieve being alone.

M: So, what we’re saying is that it’s not that introverts don’t want or need to be around people; It’s just that we need more balance between the time with and without other people.

P: and that’s a very individual thing.

M: So what we’re saying really is that extroverts and introverts are all social beings, it’s just the degree of contact that varies, right?

P: Yeah

M: And the science backs that up. It says, be social. The key to happiness is being social and having tight connections and good community bonds. It helps to fight loneliness, which is becoming more and more of an issue with the elderly-

P: – and not just the elderly the youth population as well.

M: Yep, true. Absolutely. So being social is super important. But here’s my question to you Pete.

Does it hold true then that all our time should be spent on social pursuits and that we should not be, we should never be unsocial?

P: Absolutely not. [Laugh] Investing in alone time is vital. We all need to do it. We may have been overlooking the benefits to being alone, sometimes when we think we have to be social we have to be out there and doing things. Research shows that introverts constant search for me time could actually make them happier and make them more creative. There’s a wonderful book by Julia Cameron called ‘The Artist’s Way’, where she talks about not being only alone in terms of a creative pursuit, but by locking yourself away you can actually step fully into yourself and step fully, immerse yourself, in your solo world and that could be incredibly rewarding. And it’s not just about sitting there and meditating. It’s about painting, about writing that flow that we talked about before accessing the flow space can be a real investment in the self. And if you can celebrate that. In her book she talks about a lot of the stuff that ways to access that, it’s a really good read for someone who may not even be creative, but how to tap into that creative space because it does celebrate and reward the alone time.

There’s another concept out there. The art of dating yourself. I really like this one. It’s honouring the self and investing as much time into a date with you as you would with a date with someone else. Taking yourself to the movies, taking yourself to a restaurant and having dinner on your own and really celebrating it, having a nice glass of wine with a candle on your own, it’s not a bad thing.

M: I really like the idea of taking yourself to the movies alone, because there’s always those guilty pleasures that you don’t want to own up to.

[Laughter]

M: I mean, I don’t know each to their own. You might be a secret Trekkie fan or Harry Potter fan, maybe like Twilight and you’re a 50 year old man. I’m not judging.

[Laughter]

M: This is a great way to get away and treat yourself.

P: [Laugh] I have it with Disney.

M: and not have to share it. [Laugh]

P: I’ve always been a Disney fan… I’m there lining up with kids and I’m on my own and all the parents are looking at me like I’m crazy. And I’m like no, no, no, I’m just a Disney aficionado, I like it. And I’ll happily sit there on my own and all the little kiddies are ranting and raving and I’m like “Ssshhh!! Be quiet, it’s Mickey.”

M: And I’m going to eat the whole bucket of popcorn be myself. [Laugh]

P: Oh Yeah [Laugh]

Moving along there’s a really wonderful quote by someone who I really admire, good old Nigella Lawson, god bless her. She’s a bit of an icon in terms of the celebrity chef world. She was in Australia recently with The School of Life. She was talking about cooking for yourself and one of her concepts. One of her quotes actually is: ‘I always think it’s a pity when people say they don’t cook anymore, because it’s just me.’ Nigella talks about thoroughly believing in the importance to cook for yourself, cooking for yourself for a long time. It could just be bread and cheese, but it could also be a three course meal. It’s a symbolic gesture to yourself that it’s important to say I will take care of me. It’s investing time, and I’ve done it when I’ve come home from work or a volleyball match or something at 11:30 and I’ve gone yeah I’m going to cook a roast and I’m going to have a glass of wine and I’m going to put it on the table. Like sitting down at the table on your own and people are like ‘wow, why are you doing it, you’re on your own?’

M: Because it’s about shifting your mind set from it being a chore. To, looking after yourself, being an act of self-care. So to get to the research because that’s my job [Laugh],

P: [Laugh] Back to the science Marie.

M: I’ve got a couple of studies here about the importance of being alone. So firstly, Russian researchers Martin Lynch, Sergey Ishanov and Dmitri Leontiev have investigated the phenomenon of positive solitude where people choose to spend time alone for contemplation, reflection or, as you mentioned, creativity. Then they found that being alone leads to more positive emotions like relaxation and calm. But they also get a greater sense of pleasure and meaning, meaning and satisfaction, purpose, happiness there all so interlinked. So this is definitely a great topic for us to be covering, given that we talk about happiness because the ties to meaning and happiness are so clear according to the research.

And then there’s another study, which was discussed in medical news today, which confirms that individuals who have balance between social interactions and periods of chosen isolation are highly creative.

P: Win for the Artists!

M: [Laugh] Again, going back to that introvert/ extravert scale and, you can definitely have too much of a good thing and too much of a bad thing, right. So there is a line where people become too shy and they avoid others, and that’s crossing the line. But simply choosing –

P: That’s not balance.

M: Yeah, and that’s when you’re at risk of being lonely when you’re shyness stops your ability to interact with others.

P: Locks you away yeah, it becomes a barrier.

M: But they did find that simply choosing to spend time alone wasn’t a bad thing. In fact the opposite. The lead researcher, University Buffalo’s Julie Bowker, said ‘Some individuals spend more time alone than others but also regularly spend time socialising.’ And that’s the group of individuals that may get just enough peer interaction so that when they’re alone they’re able to enjoy the solitude. ‘They’re able to think creatively and develop new ideas, like an artist in a studio or an academic in his or her office.’

So it’s, again that old chestnut balance.

[Laughter]

P: The Yin and the Yang.

M: Social beings out there who have a world that is their playground. What we’re saying to you is, try being alone with yourself. It’s healthy, and it also helps you to process and find that creativity.

P: It allows thoughts to drop in and out as well. Sometimes you need that quiet time where things will drop in to your thought consciousness. One of the interesting things is, I’m just thinking here, with that research here would be looking at serotonin and dopamine levels and neuro-transmitter measurements, I wonder if there’s any research out there, we might have to come back to that one in another article. But I’d be really interested to see if there has been studies on those neurotransmitter releases during periods of solo time and contemplation. I’m going to put that there for myself to actually follow up with that one.

M: I think that the, so if you go do what we were talking about a couple of episodes ago with flow, you go right or there’s definite links to what happens in the brain when you meditate. I definitely think that when they’re talking about solo time, they’re talking about the exact activities that are leading to those changes in your brain that are giving you positive effect.

P: And it’s not just in the brain but in your whole Central Nervous System, that all follows through.

Three steps to being alone as opposed to being lonely. Marie?

M: Sure. So we’ve got three steps here to help you if you’re wondering how to go about this so firstly schedule it, schedule alone time. If you feel every waking hour with family, friends and activities, being alone might feel a bit weird to start with, so first thing to do is schedule me time. Another big trend that we’re seeing a lot right now is the self-care trend, and this, this ties in very nicely with that. So plan a date with yourself block out your calendar and tell your family you’re taking some time for you.

Secondly, find an activity that works for you. So once you’ve got that time blocked out and you’ve prioritised it. There are many things you can choose to do, and the only limitation is that you do it alone and without interruptions so you could plan a self-care or pamper date with yourself. Go to the spa, get a massage, have a long bath. Or you could go to a coffee shop or a space you enjoy and read a book for a few hours. You could maybe sign up to learn something like meditation or yoga or go for a walk in nature or plan to do something awe inspiring, which we’ve also spoken about and which can definitely give you all of those positive. Yeah serotonin. And do you want to do the third one, Pete?

P: Yeah, Being mindful. Once you’ve scheduled that me time put that in your diary and so forth, definitely sure you can get the benefits. That means turning off the phone, making sure that you don’t get interrupted. Making sure that outside influences don’t impact on that alone time, and that can be difficult at first, it’s like doing meditation. There are Monks out there who talk about meditation being so difficult it’s really hard to sit with. It is, Monks spend their lives dedicated to perfecting that that craft. But just because you’re starting with meditation doesn’t mean you need to be good at it. You could be a bad meditator. You can sit there, and go that’s five minutes and I’m done, I’m checking out and that’s fine [be]cause it’s five minutes and it’s a start. So making sure that you set that time aside and be disciplined with yourself, so turning off the TV and Radio, the phone the computer and all that stuff. Setting expectations that you won’t be contacted, understanding that you need to be focused on this five minutes. So if It’s only five minutes, make it a good five minutes. Really invest in it. Appreciate the moments and take the time to allow those thoughts and that, spontaneous things to drop in.

M: Okay, so three steps again, schedule your alone time, find an activity that works for you and be mindful with your alone time. All right, that’s all we have time for today. So thanks for joining us. If you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast.

P: And remember you called Abby…

M: until next time.

P & M: Bye

Meet besties Marie and Pete

Peter has practiced Asstanga Yoga for 20 years and combines these principles with his approach to health.

Peter was also an award-winning contemporary dancer in Australia and in the UK.

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