Unapologetically Marie

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Toxic Positivity (E56)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week Marie and Pete discuss Toxic Positivity, what the latest research shows, and how you can retrain your brain for happiness. 

Show notes

During the Podcast, Marie mentions research conducted in regard to toxic happiness expectations in the workplace: The Research We’ve Ignored About Happiness at Work by André Spicer and Carl Cederström. Published in Harvard Business Review.

Towards the end of the podcast Pete talks about two different ballet terms: Penché is a classical ballet term meaning “leaning.” Pirouette is a classical ballet term meaning “spin.”

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

M: So today we’re talking about [sweet voice] toxic positivity.

P: Laugh. I love it that you say it that way.

M: Laugh.

P: This is actually for all of the cynics, you know, in our listeners. It’s for the people that are like ‘Oh my God, it’s so hard to be happy!’

M: Or the people who don’t love Clueless.

P: I missed that reference. It’s another movie I haven’t seen.

M: Oh my goodness!

P: I know, I know.

M: Or Legally blonde?

P: Oh, laugh. Bend and snap, hello?

M: Uh huh! Exactly.

P: Laugh!

M: I’m going to channel my inner Legally blonde and not be cynical for once I think on this one.

P: You should be on this one because this is a cynical perspective.

M: Laugh.

P: So do you feel the pressure to be positive?

M: Oh, absolutely. No one wants to hear your shit.

P: Laugh.

M: They don’t, people are so busy and dealing with so much of their own stuff that I feel that you have, If you’re lucky, one or two people that you can actually honestly really say ‘no, I’m not doing well today’ to.

P: Mmm.

M: And not feel the need to just say ‘yeah, I’m fine’ or ‘yeah, I’m good’, that kind of thing in general.

P: The other flip side of that, is that there’s a pressure on people [exuberant voice] ‘to be bouncy, and to be open, and to be fabulous!’ and that’s just really hard work. So for some people who are out there, that approach of being the positive person, doing the cue cards, doing the positive affirmations in the mirror every morning and Jigging yourself up and going ‘Yeah, bam, bam, bam, I’m ready to go.’ Some people just don’t do that and it doesn’t work.

M: Well it does. If you do it right.

P: Mmm.

M: And it is not. It is not the be all and end all.

P: No.

M: And there was so much work that goes on behind it. So, I think where a lot of people are going wrong with positive affirmations and positivity is that they think that’s all you need to do to be happy, –

P: Definitely not.

M: – and it’s definitely.

P: [Singing voice] The science says no, laugh. So if we’re going to talk science, we’re going to talk about a study done in 2010, by Senay, Albarracín & Noguchi from the University of Illinois and South Misspissisi.

M: Misspissisi? Mississippi, [spelling] Miss-iss-ipp-i.

P: Laugh, Mississippi sorry. This talks about what needs to go on behind that positive psychology.

M: Yes.

P: And the cue cards and the positive affirmations, that is what they call a blanket approach. And for some of us that works, for some of us who are in reasonably good mental health, that approach works because you’re jigging yourself up and you’re reinforcing to yourself ‘I’m a good person; I am going to be this person today; I’m going to be a good money saver today.’

But for some of us, that doesn’t work because it isn’t coming from an authentic place and if positive affirmations are just reinforced by externalisation; So cue cards, doing, chanting or doing the mirror exercise. It’s not coming from a place of dedicated and deep-seated security, and therefore that actually creates more mental health issues than it solves.

M: So, I absolutely agree, because I’m playing the positive card here.

P & M: Laugh.

M: But I do, however, think that there is a whole school of thought proven scientifically researched about scanning your environment for positive things. And while I agree that you can’t lie to yourself.

P: Mmm.

M: You can’t say I’m a supermodel, I’m a supermodel, I’m a supermodel in the mirror every morning and deep down, know that you’re not and expect for you to live in this happy rose coloured glasses world.

P: Yep, no.

M: You can’t do that. However, we are programmed to look for the negative and to make sure that we notice the lion who might eat us over the pretty rainbow.

P: Yep.

M: And so, by focusing on looking out for the good things, we can recondition our minds to notice good things more. So gratitude journals, positive affirmations, all of those other things that help you to balance out what is a negative bias in our brains anyway can make you happier because you notice what you have. You become more grateful for what you do have. But again, I 100% agree with what you and then this res[earch], these researchers are saying, you can’t lie to yourself.

P: No, and I think that’s the essential argument. I agree with you wholeheartedly about what you’re saying in terms of the use of positive psychology tools and they do work. We know that they do work. We’ve talked about that at length.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I guess what they’re talking about here is more specifically about using the concept of toxic positivity is the positivity peer pressure.

M: Yep.

P: You need to be doing this stuff to make yourself happy. But if you’re one of those people that were those positive affirmations doesn’t come from a true place. You’re actually going to do the reverse. You’re going to send yourself into a downward spiral, and it’s not gonna work.

M: Well, we had an episode a few months back on authenticity and it’s the disconnect that causes the problem right?

P: Yeah, exactly.

M: We’re seeing a lot of people in the LGBTIQ community have that disconnect, particularly as teenagers before they’ve come out.

P: Mmm.

M: And that is what causes so much pain and heartbreak and mental health issues as well, along with it.

P: Yep.

M: So absolutely, I agree with you there. The other thing that I find to be a cause of a lot of this not working is that the positive psychology movement, it’s a movement, and over the last 30 years, people have really embraced a lot of these concepts without having done masters and PhDs and full study into it and so –

P: I’m putting my hand up.

M: Laugh!

P: I’m a total embracer, I jumped in.

M: Yeah, And so what that means is for people who haven’t looked into it deeply; It’s a slogan on a T shirt or a banner on a website or a catchphrase from a celebrity and without understanding what’s behind it, it leads to the wrong behaviours.

P: Absolutely, you have to do the work.

M: And I think that is to blame.

P: You have to do the work people, we keep saying this, laugh.

M: But you’ve got to understand what the work is behind it. And so, I think we’ve got a whole lot of people who are putting a smile on their face without understanding why and who are trying to be bubbly because they want to be happy, but without putting in all the work behind that.

P: And they’re the people that we’re speaking to here, I mean, these are people that are risk of that positive peer pressure.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s like ‘I have to be happy, I have to be happy, I have to put a smile on my face and just get on with life when really inside I’m dying.’

M: Yep.

P: And for those people it needs, you need to do a little bit more work. You need to do more investigation and what these researchers have come up with is that you need to be not in an inner war with your subconscious. If you’re doing the positivity and doing the exercises without understanding the real meaning behind it, what you’re training your mind to do, which is exactly what you’ve just clocked Marie, is your searching for the examples of all the times that you haven’t been bubbly.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: You haven’t been the supermodel, you haven’t been the athletics sports star.

M: You didn’t get the promotion.

P: You start training that negativity coming in.

M: You didn’t get a seat on the bus, all that stuff.

P: So how to get past that is to acknowledge and identify which thoughts are limiting and which ones are empowering and how to actually do that work to go back and find the reasons behind what is the incongruent factor, if you’re saying ‘I want to be a good money saver’ and you just keep spending money all the time, it’s understanding the reasons behind that.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So with that idea in mind, it’s about going back and seeing what is the reason behind [the behaviour]. And what the researchers say here is ‘ask a better question.’

M: It all comes down to self-awareness, you’ve got to do the work to begin with.

P: It does.

M: Don’t you?

P: Yeah.

M: That’s again why journaling is so powerful. Because sometimes you just haven’t thought to think about stuff.

P: Mmm. You haven’t stopped, quieted the mind. And you’re not allowing those thoughts to drop in and go ‘hang on, what are you? You little red devil on my shoulder? Where’s the little white one? I want the white one.’

M: Mmm hmm. ‘Why do I always say yes to my boss when he asks me to work late? But other people go home on time, why do I do that?’ And then why do I end up burned out? You know, there’s plenty and plenty of examples for people for behaviour that they may not have reflected on.

P: Yeah, and a lot of it comes under self-limiting beliefs.

M: Yes.

P: So that’s where you come back to doing some belief, work and journaling and coordinating. That is a really good way of doing that work that we keep talking about. For those who haven’t done that, it is about self-beliefs being true for yourself.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And finding the ability to achieve or to look at the thoughts that air perhaps blocks to you, achieving that goal or that desire, or that positive affirmation that you want to achieve.

M: Yep and I think once you’ve done the work to understand yourself …, and just because you understand something doesn’t mean it’s easy to fix.

P: Yeah.

M: Or going to, laugh.

P: Laugh.

M: But once you’ve done that, it all boils down to habits. And there’s a great book out at the moment called Atomic Habits, which really helps to break down how you can make these positive psychology interventions or happiness habits stick in your life because it is something that humans are really bad at doing.

P: Oh, interesting.

M: We’re really bad at starting exercise programs, diets, everything that you might want to do. If you don’t make it a habit and you don’t know how to make it a habit in your life, you’re likely to fail at it.

P: Absolutely, yeah. And the first, is it seven days or seven tries of it you have to get through to make it a habit?

M: A lot of the time, yes, but also just make it really easy. So you’re almost tripping yourself over it. Yeah, make it part of a routine and reward yourself at the end so you can’t have breakfast until you’ve done 10 sit ups. Super simple.

P: Yep.

M: Wake up in the morning you can’t have your coffee until you’ve done 10 sit ups. And a year later, you’re going to find that you’re doing 30 sit ups every morning and you’ve got abs, you know, like whatever it is.

P: That was my approach with yoga, actually, because I had a period where I didn’t do yoga. When I first came back to Sydney after London and I was finished dancing so I was like ‘Ha ha! I don’t need to do yoga anymore, I’m going to sleep in.

M: Laugh.

P: And then I was like I’m gonna jump back on the bandwagon and you know, this is tough, six am yoga, oof. And so I decided not to do a full practise. I was like I’ll just to 10 minutes.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And sure enough, after about two weeks of doing 10 minutes that turned into 20 which turned into 30 and then you’re back on the horse.

M: Yep. And if you can trick your mind into getting the reward of your morning coffee or your breakfast or whatever it is that you can look forward to, just going to the gym isn’t motivation enough for most of us. It’s something you know you should do for a lot of us. Actually, I’m going to say most, there’s definitely gym junkies, and there’s people who love their exercise. But there’s a large proportion of the population who do exercise because they should.

P: Yeah true.

M: Or who just don’t exercise.

P: Yeah, I’ll give you that.

M: Right? And so finding ways to integrate it into your life in ways that aren’t going to scare you off.

P: Mmm.

M: That a quick and easy and that you get something at the end, which you enjoy. For instance, walking on the treadmill for 20 minutes and listen to your favourite podcast.

P & M: Laughter!

P: I’ve got this image of all these people on treadmills listening to the Happiness for Cynics podcast all laughing at precisely the same time.

M: Laugh.

P: That would be fun.

M: I love it. You know reward yourself with a TV show after you’ve done whatever it is you’re trying to do.

P: Oh yeah, I agree. One thing I do want to clock, or circle back to is that ability of the question asking. So, when we have these thoughts that pop into our heads of like ‘Oh, am I eating the cookie, don’t eat the cookie!’ That’s not the best way to approach. So, if you’re trying to not eat the cookie, it’s not the statement of the self-limiting belief of ‘don’t eat the cookie. Do not, do not, do not!’ Ask the question better. Why do you want the cookie?

M: Just eat the cookie!

P: Laugh!

M: And wash it down with a martini.

P: Laugh, yeah, yeah.

M: Laugh.

P: I’m bringing it back, laugh.

M: Darn it, we’re meant to be encouraging self-control aren’t we?

P: So going back to the question, why are we eating the cookie?

M: Because it tastes so good.

P: Yeah, well that’s part of it but why does it taste so good?

M: Sugar!

P: And why do you want sugar?

M: Because sugar tastes so good.

P: Aahh.

M: This is a very circular argument.

P: But there’s a better answer there. This is the exercise. Keep asking the question until you come up with the right answer.

M: Why, why, why?

P: That’s a path to actually doing the work that we keep talking about, which can highlight some of those self-limiting beliefs and then expose you to being able to look in the mirror and go, ‘today, I’m not going to eat the cookie’, and you believe it because you know what’s behind the… You know what the reasoning behind it is.

M: Okay…

P: Laugh.

M: I like cookies though.

P: Well, you’re allowed to have cookies, it’s okay. Laugh.

M: So, toxic positivity. I think the other part of this that we touched on briefly at the beginning is our fear that others just don’t want to hear about our problems.

P: Mmm.

M: And so we have to be positive, and I think that’s a real shame. And it’s something that society is slowly opening up to and changing. So, Brené Brown does a lot of talking about vulnerability and the power of vulnerability. And there’s been a big, shift in corporate leadership communications about being honest and authentic and being a bit vulnerable, and how that bonds people and the value of that, because we all see through corporate BS.

P: Yep.

M: Right, we know when the leader hasn’t written their email, the coms team wrote it for them.

P: He he.

M: We know when the speech writer wrote this speech for the prime minister or president or whoever, and they haven’t even looked at the notes, they’re just reading it off [the screen]. We know when it’s not them right, and so that creates a barrier between people, when there is that in-authenticity.

P: Definitely.

M: And by not ever sharing that we’re feeling down or low or just not great today, that’s creating that distance between people. By never being vulnerable with your co-workers and just saying ‘I had a shit night, like I didn’t sleep well, the kids were up all night.’

P: Yep.

M: Or, you know, ‘I get migraines and I had a migraine yesterday, and I just feel like crap today.’

P: Yep.

M: Without sharing those things or you know, bigger things that can be really hard without sharing those things, we’re creating weak teams at work and loose bonds with the people that we see day in, day out, and that’s a real shame.

P: It’s that ability to not feel the pressure to be 100% happy 100% of the time.

M: Absolutely.

P: And that isn’t sustainable. As much as being 100% negative all the time is not sustainable. Neither is being 100% happy. You’ve gotta have those ebbs and flows. You’ve gotta have those ups and downs. Some of us express those a little bit more emotionally than others.

M: Laugh. A little bit more openly than others.

P: Laugh. But that’s okay. And as you said, you can choose your people. You can choose you one or two people to go, ‘you know what? The cat died last night and I’m feeling crap.’

M: Yep.

P: So just leave me in my corner for today, I’ll bounce back tomorrow.

M: Or ‘I need a day.’

P: Yep.

M: ‘I need to cancel my meetings – or my clients or whatever it is – I just can’t cope with today.’

P: Yep.

M: And I think we need to be able to say that openly and have trust that we’ll get support if we say that to our colleagues and bosses.

P: That’s very true, yeah. And that comes from the leadership as well.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And having permission.

M: And it comes from leaders who say to their teams ‘I’m taking the day and role modelling that as well.

P: Yeah. So the other thing that I think we need to talk about is the inner saboteur.

M: Ooh.

P: Your inner voice, laugh.

M: Oh, I hate my inner saboteur!

P: Laugh!

M: Fred.

P: Fred? You have a name? Ooh I like it.

M: Did you ever watch Drop Dead Fred.

P: No.

M: Oh…

P: Laugh.

M: You should.

P: Ok, laugh. Am I going to understand you better?

M: Fred was the invisible friend, laugh.

P: Oh, righto. So you’re “Fred” can be your worst enemy in terms of that toxic positivity, because he could be the one that’s actually pressuring you, to be happy all the time.

M: Mmm.

P: Put it out there, just take it off and come out and be Taylor Swift, laugh.

M: And I think there is always pressure to move on, to get through it, to suck it up.

P: Yep.

M: You know. Put your big girl panties on as well.

P: And that’s the inner voice coming out as well. That’s our self-judgement coming out and sometimes we need to let go of that and recognise when it’s… when we’re creating our own drama, when we’re creating, if you’re that creative mind or that imaginative state that could be a really negative space because you create issues and you create scenarios that have never occurred, and you start believing them. Your body starts registering them and your brain, starts making cases for them, and that could be really dangerous space to be.

So if you find yourself getting a little bit too self-judgmental, you need to shake yourself out of that habit on often that come down to physicality or going and just being distracted. We’ve talked about awe before, going for a bush walk and things like that or being in front the ocean. Take yourself out of the space where that inner saboteur has the power and try to enjoy the moment as it were, or enjoy a moment.

M: We also talked about being kind to others, but I don’t think we talk enough in our society without being kind to yourself. And compassionate with yourself.

P: And that is what the positive psychology movement is all about, isn’t it?

M: Yep.

P: There’s a lot of that research out there that says that that’s a good and beneficial thing to do.

M: And if you need to cry or you need to be in a shitty mood for an hour, a day, or a week or a year, because something that bad has happened, then you need to take the time and forgive yourself for needing the time.

P: Yep.

M: You don’t actually even need to forgive yourself. You just need to know that it’s okay to take however much time you need to move through the stages of grief or sadness or anger, or whatever it is that you need to do.

P: Definitely.

M: There’s one last study that I did want to mention, and it’s only just popped into my mind, so I’ll have to dig it out and pop it in the show notes later.

P & M: Laugh.

M: But there’s been some research done recently and, particularly in America, the push for service people to always provide service with a smile and the impact that that has on their lives outside of work.

P: Oh, yes! Oh, I like this one.

M: And pretty much if you expect your employees, for the eight hours a day that they come in and work at Walmart or Kmart or Target or wherever it is, to put a smile on their face for every single customer that work walks in the door and when they’re interacting with other workers in the store, then you are draining their emotional capital.

P: Absolutely.

M: Draining it.

P: Oh yeah.

M: And those people struggle to enjoy their lives outside of work. It actually makes them sadder.

P: Yep.

M: It impacts their mental health.

P: Oh I so believe in that that.

M: Yep.

P: And it comes out across as fake. I mean, you just come out of that experience going, ‘What was that? That was weird.’

M: Mmm hmm.

P: This poor person is probably having a terrible day. And yet they’ve got to go ‘thanks for shopping at Wal Mart’. I think that’s where it might be a little bit different culturally, Marie. You might have a better perspective on this Marie of Australia versus America. Do we have more permission to be less cheerful in Australia?

M: I think we have permission to be a bit more authentic. So we open with a smile. But it’s not over the top happy.

P: Yeah, right.

M: Yeah, either way, forcing employees for eight hours a day to be happy rather than neutral, in some instances, which is what most people tend to be. A lot of the time has negative impacts, so there’s definitely, I’m absolutely sure that there will be more research into that and looking at whether or not it’s even cruel and unusual punishment to expect people to do it, you know.

P: Definitely, oh gosh yeah. But there are ways around that. There are creative ways around that. It’s up to, again, team leaders and people in those responsible positions to shake it up and make the workplace little bit fun. I mean, one of my, one of my things I love to do at my workplace is I like pulling out a pirouette of a penché as you walk past someone in the corridor and Elisa, if you’re listening, we’ve done it before. We’ll be walking past each other in the clinic, and I’ll just grab her and twirl her and it just adds that little buoyancy hit for the day, and she’s probably going in and working with someone who’s really going through an emotional thing.

M: Mmm.

P: There’s a lot of stuff going on, every now and then everybody needs a lift.

M: Yep.

P: And if you can be that person, I encourage you. Do something crazy. Do something unexpected. Make everybody smile.

M: Have a little bit of fun or playfulness.

P: Oh, it’s so important. And if that makes you feel stupid in front of someone else, I say do it!

M: All right. On that note, we’ll wrap it up.

P: Do your penché’s people.

M & P: Laugh.

P: If you don’t know what that is, I’ll put it in the show notes. Laugh.

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

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Optimism Lessons From Helen Keller (E55)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week Marie surprises Pete with a discussion about optimism and lessons about happiness that we could all learn from Helen Keller. 

Transcript

Show notes:

The Centre for Optimism – https://www.centreforoptimism.com/

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things, I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

M: All right, Pete. So today, I’m springing a topic on you.

P: Oh, I love when you do this.

M: Laugh.

P: Totally not prepared. I am an open slate for your musings.

M: Laugh. So we’re gonna have a chat. So I have a blog and we have this podcast and we write about happiness and we write specifically for cynics like I was.

P: Laugh.

M: And one of the things that there is a lot of research on, but the cynic tends to find the hardest wrap their head around, is this idea of positive thinking and how that can actually turn around your levels of happiness and your engagement with life.

P: Yes. Mmm, right.

M: It’s a real tough one for a lot of people to wrap their heads around.

P: It wasn’t for me, again straight in there.

M: Yeah.

P: Yeah.

M: You were not our primary audience.

P: No.

M: So.

P: No, no, definitely. So it will be interesting to see.

M: Laugh. So, I have also recently been reading Optimism by Helen Keller, and it blows my mind that someone who had so much stacked against her could be have such a positive outlook on life. And it makes me think about a lot of people who have less stacked against them and who have more of a negative outlook on life, more pessimism in their life.

P: Yep

M: And they look at what they’re achieving or what they’re not one of the point and what Helen Keller was able to achieve in her life. And I know it’s not all about success for people, it’s not all about achieving.

P: Yeah.

M: But I would argue, based on the way that Helen Keller writes in this, that she, she loved her life. She was happy.

P: She chose to love it.

M: Absolutely.

P: Chose to create joy.

M: So if you don’t know who Helen Keller is; Helen Keller became blind when she was 19 months old, and at that time kids were pretty much given up on. So she was blind and deaf. So she really was living in her own world. And for quite a long time she was not taught, sign language or how to form thoughts.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And she was living in a really, very dark place. And it wasn’t until Helen’s mother read that a deaf-blind person had been educated, that her mom decided to explore that for her. And Helen Keller was the first blind and deaf person to earn a bachelor of arts degree, and she went on to become one of us celebrated women of the 20th century. And she’s written this book called Optimism, and it is just such an inspiration.

P: Oh, wow. I didn’t know that she’d written.

M: Yeah, absolutely. And I think if someone can be shut off from hearing and seeing both and find joy in life, what are the rest of us doing?

P: Laugh! Well, it’s about creating off the opportunity you have. So if you’ve been denied certain aspects, and for me, this kicks into the Buddhist principle of not coveting what you don’t have.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s like you’ve been given this and so that is what you have. These are the tools with us you have to work with. So that is how you will create. So, you get a different tool box to me and this whole concept of, ‘but I want what she’s got’ that doesn’t factor into it. It’s like ‘no, look to your toolbox, to your strengths.’ And you look at what you have in your makeup that can create goodness or opportunity or happiness, success, whatever it is that you’re measuring.

M: Yeah, and there’s two things in there that we’ve talked about before, which is comparisons.

P: Mmm.

M: Which we know is so detrimental to our happiness, comparing what you have to others.

P: Yeah, definitely.

M: They’ve chosen different paths, they’ve had their own struggles and so comparing to others is never, ever a path to happiness.

P: Yep, definitely not.

M: And then the second one is being grateful for what you do have, when you start to flip your thinking, from ‘what don’t I have?’ to ‘what do I have?’

P: Mmm.

M: It’s so powerful.

P: And that’s the power of people like Helen, who are optimists. They see the advantage in every opportunity, like ‘I don’t have that, but I’ve got this!’

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I can bring this to the table, laugh.

M: Yep, and these are my strengths. Even though I’ve got a buttload of weaknesses over there, I’m going to use my strengths, to find happiness in life and to find things that bring me joy and pleasure. And for Helen, a lot of that was learning and writing.

P: Mmm.

M: She did a lot of writing in her life.

P: And it was her mother that was really the initiator of the education. She was home schooled?

M: She was taught one on one. So, her mother went out and I think found someone to teach her sign language. And they did things like grab her hand and let it run under water and then put her hand into the symbol for water so that she could then use that symbol when she wanted to drink water.

P: Gotcha, yeah.

M: So, it was before that even understanding the concept of water would have been difficult when you can’t see it or hear it, right? So she was just in a complete lightless room with no sound for years of her life.

P: Mmm.

M: And still was actually, after that, it’s just that she could form thoughts.

P: Mmm mm.

M: And that’s really what opened her mind to so much more. But she would have along the way, as she was educated, become very aware that she was different from others, I’m sure.

P: Yeah, and you know at a detriment as well, ‘I don’t have these basic abilities that so many other people have.

M: Yep.

P: It’s always the way when you read these great stories of people that have overcome adversity and great adversity to come out the other side.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And it’s not that we don’t begrudge them their success or anything, but it is inspiring to see someone conquer their ahh, not their foibles, their… The things that they don’t have, laugh.

M: Their weaknesses.

P: Yeah

M: I’m not even going to call them anything more than a weakness because everyone has things that they’re good at and bad at. But definitely, I think there’s also something in there about overcoming trauma and real… bad, bad things that hurt people.

P: Laugh! So how does one maintain optimism in the face of adversity?

M: Well, I think that to start, to start with, it’s gratitude, definitely. You know, we’ve mentioned quite a few times just getting into the practise off being grateful. It is best if you can write it down in a journal. So spend just five minutes, less than five minutes every evening writing down what went well and retraining your brain for the positives.

P: Training your brain to identify that. Yes. It’s a winner.

M: Yeah, absolutely. And if you’re a sceptic out there and don’t believe that’s going to make any difference, then I challenge you to do it for a month and write to me.

P: Laugh! You’re going to get these ugly emails.

M: Laugh.

P: People with folded arms, ‘I don’t feel any different!’

M & P: Laughter!

M: I challenge you, I really do, write to me. I don’t know what I’m going to do once you write to me…

P: Laugh!

M: But it has been proven again and again and again. And person-  I can speak from experience personally, it’s made such a difference to me and my relationship with my husband as well, because we do it together.

P: Yeah, interesting.

M: Yep.

P: I think the other thing with optimism is that – People talk about luck people talk about are they are so lucky they get these opportunities and so forth? I don’t think I actually believe in luck. I think that part of optimism is looking for opportunity but being prepared for it when it comes along.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So, you work on hard on things that you try to do and one of those is training your brain to be grateful and gracious and be mindful so that when an opportunity just pokes its little head up from around the corner, it doesn’t come screaming at you like a freight train just goes [whispers] ‘Hello, I’m over here in the corner. Look at me.’ Laugh.

M: Your luck is kind of creepy.

P: Laugh! But it’s being able to go ‘Ah, there’s opportunity, come over here you and let’s have a look at what you’ve got.’

M: Or I’m not so cynical to that opportunity that I’m unwilling to take a look.

P: Yes, exactly. It’s someone willing to open that door and go in.

M: And there’s a great book called The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor and he talks about how happy people are more successful. And the irony is that people who want success and get on that hedonic treadmill and chase the straight A’s and the career progression and the money etcetera.

P: Laugh.

M: If they’re putting that success first above their happiness, then they’re actually gonna be less successful because the happier you are, the more people want to be around you. The more extroverted and friendly and likeable you are the more those moments of luck or opportunity open up to you in your career and in picking a life partner and in social circles and friends, all of those things open up to you, the happier you are.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And it’s a bit of a shame that it’s a bit of a catch 22 as well, because a lot of people are not happy because they’re lonely or because they don’t have the success.

P: Yeah.

M: And, you know, it’s hard to then tell people to think positive thoughts and be optimistic if they don’t have the things.

P: […] ‘Slap, snap out of it!’ Literally, it’s so good! It’s like come on, wake up!

M: So, if you find that you’re just rolling your eyes going ‘I work really hard at work, I’ve tried to make friends in this new city, I’ve tried to find a husband or a wife or a boyfriend or girlfriend and it’s just not working for me and all this is BS.

P: Mmm.

M: If that’s sort of where you are in life, then I’d say some really great things.

Gratefulness. Firstly, start retraining your mind to stop looking at everything is bad and a failure and negative.

P: Yes.

M: Two, to go do some volunteering.

P: Yep. Great idea.

M: Yep. Firstly, it starts to build social bonds. You don’t necessarily find your significant other by doing this or your best buddy, but you will form strong friendships. It gets you out and out of the house as well and often get you a little bit of exercise, depending on what you’re doing because you have to go somewhere. It’s just such a tick. So many boxes and his just a really good way to start getting you thinking about happiness as a by product rather than success as the only thing that matters.

P: True, yep.

It’s saying yes! Challenge yourself to say yes for a week.

M: Mmm.

P: I like that one. And I think that that is kind of where you’ve gotten with Helen, and her work is ‘Yes, I could do this, yes, I can do that.’

M: Yeah.

P: Yes, I have the opportunity. If you say yes more often, then all of a sudden, more yes’s start to come.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s probably because then you might find your social calendar a little bit full because you keep saying yes to everything.

M: Laugh.

P: But it’s a roundabout way because in that saying yes, you might meet someone else that invites you somewhere else. And that can be how you meet your lifelong partner or so forth. So it has a funny way of shifting the rule book if you like.

M: Yep.

P: By just that one change of word, stop saying no, say yes and commit.

M: So I am going to read a small thing from a small excerpt from Optimism by Helen Keller and tell me you’re not inspired, okay:

It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the exploration of their own minds, or in the search for knowledge.

Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they would be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, —if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.  As sinners stand up in meeting and testify to the goodness of God, so one who is called afflicted may rise up in gladness of conviction and testify to the goodness of life.

Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free.

M: I’ll stop there, I could keep going.

P: Laugh.

M Because she writes so beautifully as well, but for someone who has been through things that you and I just couldn’t even imagine.

P: No, of course not.

M: It almost makes you feel guilty for feeling so well -laugh.

P: Well, yeah. It’s a good emotional level. It reminds me, there was… I can’t remember it, a philosopher, but it’s basically ‘a miserable being, must find a more miserable being then he is happy.’

M: Mmm. Actually, in having been through mental health issues, I think I definitely when I was depressed, gravitated towards other depressed people because it’s hard to be around people who are happy when you don’t feel happy.

P: Yeah, definitely. Because then you do feel like you’re losing and you’re not, not winning.

M: Well, no, it’s just that you’re faking it the whole time. It’s exhausting. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, look, I think optimism is something you’ve got to learn and excise like going to the gym.

P & M: Laugh.

P: It’s a training exercise.

M: Absolutely.

P: Keep at it daily, consistency is key.

M: It is. It is. And without it, you’re really doing yourself a bit of a disservice. If succeeding in life is something that motivates you, this’s that extra study or that extra work that you have to put in to do that.

So what makes you optimistic, Pete?

P: Oohh! Small pleasures. I think if I was to be challenged, if I’ve had a challenging week and I’ve had some difficult things going on, I think investing in small pleasures is my way out of it. So when things were going south there for a while, with work and with business, I went into the kitchen. And I just went right for the next 30 minutes. I’m not going to think about any of that. I’m just going to focus on cooking myself a meal. Domesticity is for me, clean something, laugh! Pick a room, do it over shifting the furniture.

M: Hmm.

P: That’s a really good one. For me. It’s distraction, but its creative distraction on it taps into that nothingness and that idleness, which is ah well, spring for creative thought and sometimes creative solutions. Problem solving.

M: I also like that, if you’re not feeling optimistic, what you’re doing actually is controlling what you can control.

P: Yes.

M: So you can control the layout of your lounge room or what you cook, mostly.

P: Yes.

M: Depending on your cooking skills.

P & M: Laughter.

M: You can mostly control what you’re doing in the kitchen. So that gives you a sense of control around that.

P: Yes, mmm.

M: Yep, definitely. For me I have to say what makes me most optimistic is a challenge.

P: Ohh.

M: lt gets me fighting.

P: Yeah, righto. Yep.

M: So, I’m generally quite optimistic. I’m more of a glass half full person, but throw challenge my way and I see it as a challenge that I will overcome and I’ll fight tooth and nail to overcome.

P: Yeah, alright.

M: If needed. So, once I’ve set my mind to it.

P: Once you’ve taken, accepted the challenge.

M: Exactly then I’m all in, all in!

P: Laugh!

M: And Francis, my husband, who will attest it’s the most infuriating thing, we could be lost in the middle of nowhere, I’m like, ‘Nope, this is it. We are going to make it home by dinner, you better believe it.

P: Laugh!

M: We don’t need a map. I don’t care that we have no reception.

P: Laugh.

M: We are going! So, the more of a challenge that is presented, the more I dig my heels in and the more I probably have poorly placed ideas off success. But so far, they’ve all lead me to the right place. Mostly I think.

P: Yeah, I think you’re in the right place.

M: Definitely.

P & M: Laughter!

M: All righty. Well, this is a pretty short one today, but I did just love that exert and the reading from Helen Keller. So I just want to talk about optimism today. And there is a great organisation [The Centre for Optimism] that I think is headquartered out of WA. That focuses on optimism, and I’ll pop it in the show notes as well. But there is so much again research and study on the topic of optimism and what a big difference it can make your life.

P: Mmm. Maybe our listeners could do that for a five-day trial. Try being try being optimistic, and l mean in all aspects.

M: I like your ‘yes’ challenge.

P: When you catch yourself being the negative nelly. Good old negative nelly.

M & P: Laugh!

P: Get some reading, pick up this book and try one action that challenges that negativity and turns it into an optimistic situation.

M: Yep. All right, on that note.

P: Good-luck.

M: Good bye.

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

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

Are You Getting Enough Sleep? (E54)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete talk about how sleep affects your health and happiness. So, are you getting enough sleep?

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

P: Oh… We’re on? [Silly voice] Are we good to go? He he. Am I on? Hello?

M & P: Laughter.

M: You are on.

P: I shouldn’t be on, we should be sleeping. We need more sleep.

M: We do need more sleep.

P: Apparently we’re not sleeping enough.

M: Actually, I’m really good at sleep.

P: Laugh.

M: Ask anybody.

P: Me too. I don’t sleep [the same as] with everyone’s sleep patterns, but I like my sleep.

M: I love my sleep.

P: Laugh.

M: And I protect it and guard it. Obviously this is the one thing I’m not failing at in my life.

P: Laugh. Exhibit.

M: Absolutely. So why do we need more sleep, Pete?

P: Our sleep is so good for us. There’s so much that sleep does for us. It’s basically influences our physical and mental capacity and every aspect of our life. So if you’re not getting sleep, things don’t happen! Laugh.

M: Absolutely. And we’re increasingly not getting enough sleep.

P: We are, in the 1940’s, eight hours of sleep was the normal arrangement of sleep, and we were pretty good at getting that amount of sleep. That was the average amount that most Americans and Australians were getting. But in the contemporary 21st century, we’re getting less and less.

In 2016, 30% of U.S. citizens were not getting seven hours of sleep. And in Australia, according to a health line survey conducted in March 2019 32% of Australians are also not getting seven hours of sleep. So we’re losing, at least one hour there.

M: And there’s been over the last 10/20 years a whole lot of books by quacks, complete quacks that say you can operate on four hours or five hours a night.

P: No. It’s bullshit.

M: It is.

P: Do not believe it people. Laugh.

M: Just like the dieting fads, these sleep fads are really harmful for you.

P: Yep, they are.

M: And not only that, yet again, you will die!

P: Yeah, laugh. Pretty much and it won’t be pretty. There’s a, there’s a direct link between cardiovascular health and sleep, diabetes, pretension, asthma, flues and colds, cancers, heart attacks.

M: Heart attacks in women in particular and more weight issues, which then leads to diabetes.

P: That’s a pre morbidity indicator.

M: Yeah, absolutely. You get more cravings of sugars and fats because your energy levels drop if you’re not getting enough sleep. So what does your body do when it’s low on energy?

P: Go get more fuel.

M: Exactly, it craves all those bad foods.

M: Yes.

P: The sugars.

M: So if you are obese. One of the first things you should be looking at if you’re hoping to lose weight is your sleep.

P: Mmm. Make sure you get enough sleep.

M: Yep.

P: And that means eight hours, not seven.

M: For adults.

P: Yes.

M: And it is more for teenagers and more for children and even more for babies. And here’s the really scary thing, we’re not even letting our infants get the recommended amount of sleep a lot of the time.

P: Oh really?

M: Yes.

P: Oh, Ok.

M: So you would never, never, if you were told how much sleep your baby should get, want to deprive that child of sleep.

P: Very true.

M: Why do you do it to yourself? This is yet another example of where we’re so much harder on ourselves than we are on other people.

P: Yes.

M: You’d never deny someone else they’re asleep that they say they need.

P: No.

M: Then we do it to ourselves all the time.

P: And another myth about sleeping is, it’s not a bank.

M: Yeah.

P If you miss out on sleep. You can’t make it up by having a big sleep. That doesn’t work that way.

M: No, not at all.

P: So that myth debunked, laugh!

M: It’s a debunking episode today isn’t it?

P: Laugh.

M: The other thing is, it makes you look old. It’s like smoking or getting out in the sun. So, you know, you get the bags under your eyes it’s really bad for your skin.

P: Your cells don’t regenerate as much.

M: Yep.

P: Not getting enough sleep has a huge effect on our cellular damage and our organs. The ability for our organs to regenerate.

Dr. Pam Taub of the UC San Diego School of Medicine talks a lot about this. She’s been doing a lot of work with firefighters and people on shift work and working around why they are so prone to cardiovascular disease and cancer due to the disruption of their circadian rhythms and the interruption of natural sleeping patterns.

M: So moving toward 24/7 world is going to kill us.

P: And that’s one of things that has killed us, and that’s one of the big shifting factors is in the post industrialised era we have more ready access to food, and we are eating much longer during the day. Our ancestors used to eat when the sun was up. We’re now eating well into the evening and we’re eating first thing when we get up, we get up at six, we get a coffee, we grab some breakfast and then we go to the gym and then we’ll go to the work and we’ll have something at 11 o’clock so we’re eating for longer.

We’re not getting that downtime of 10 hours where we’re not putting food in our stomachs. That’s upsetting our circadian rhythms. And that, in turn, upsets our sleep patterns.

M: Mmm.

P: It’s one of the big indicators that I found in some of the reading that I’ve done and the other, the other issue that comes around with that is our access to light.

M: Yes.

P: And the fact that there’s light pollution. Professor Ian Hickey of the University of Sydney is a big critic of light pollution and its links to bipolar and mood disorders.

M: Interesting.

P: And he talks [about] cognitive disorders being much larger amongst the teenage population because of our addiction to devices. Kids are going to their rooms and they have their iPad and they have their phone and they’re staying up until two o’clock in the morning on Facebook, watching YouTube and things like that. That’s having a major issue and damaging effect to our brain retention and mood cognition. And he says that’s a big one for getting rid of the issues that make us not get enough sleep.

M: I have to say it is one of our ongoing marital arguments.

P: Aaahh.

M: That Francis and I have.

P: Laugh! I’m going to go out on a limb here, are you the one on the devices or is Francis?

M: No, no, no. Not devices, light. In the bedroom.

P: Oh, yes. Right.

M: So he wants absolute pitch black or he says he can’t sleep, whereas I want to wake naturally with light rather than in a pitch black room and I can’t tell whether it’s eight AM or two AM and wake to a blaring alarm in a pitch black room.

P: Yes.

M: That to me just gets me up and in the wrong frame of mind and, and often times waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle rather than coming out of a sleep cycle and waking naturally.

P: Yeah.

M: So there’s no, there’s no solution, for the two of us, right?

P: I’m on your bank there Marie, because the fact that sunlight coming in stimulates our body into melanin production and all those, those responses that need to happen it’s a, I’m a big one for waking up with the sunshine.

M: Yes. So I think for the rest of my life that I live with Francis, for better or worse, we will be arguing over how much light is in our room when we go to sleep in the evenings.

P: Laugh. Well, how much does light affect us? You’ve referenced a study in Germany here.

M: Oh, I love this study. I love all studies that I come across!

P: Laugh!

M: There’s something fascinating to me about studies in psychology. Most of them, some of them are just dry as anything and so boring.

P: Yeah, laugh.

M: But so many of them are just super cool.

P: Where do these people come up with these ideas?

M: I know, they’re great!

P: Laugh.

M: And another area that you have to look into if you find this stuff as fascinating as me is behavioural economics because that is some really trippy stuff.

P: Wow, Okay.

M: Where you think that people would do… So It’s stuff like you put a marshmallow in front of a kid and you say, “if you wait five minutes and don’t eat it I’ll give you another one.”

P: Laugh.

M: And then walk away. And a lot of kids will just go ‘meh’ and eat the marshmallow when if they’d only waited five minutes they could have had two.

P: Two!

M: But that’s not how human behaviour works, right?

P: Laugh!

M: That’s the really simple behavioural economics, kind of.

P: In a nut shell.

M: Yep.

P: It’s a marshmallow.

M & P: Laughter.

M: But we do some really whack things, humans, that just go against our self-interest –

P: Laugh!

M: – all the time! Anyway.

P: Like not getting enough sleep, laugh.

M: Yep. Yes, laugh, back to what we were talking about.

P: Laugh. Reverse! Come on, reel it in!

M & P: Laughter!

M: So this study in the late sixties and early seventies in Germany, where they put a bunch of people into a bunker and they had no idea of the time. So, there was no natural light, no radios, no TVs, no clocks, nothing for weeks.

P: For weeks!?

M: For weeks!

P: Oh my god, those poor people.

M: And they watched. I think they just found a bunch of students, to be honest. They were happy to do some quiet study, laugh.

P: And get paid for you it.

M: And get paid, yeah. Which is, you know, pretty much every study is just students.

P & M: Laughter!

P: We know one of those, laugh.

M: Poor students.

P: Laugh, that’s why she can come to dinner every now and then.

M & P: Laughter.

M: So they then watched all of these people and saw how their bodies realigned to some kind of rhythm. And they did.

P: Mmm.

M: They reverted to their natural rhythm, so free from any external indicators of what they should be doing, their bodies went back to a natural rhythm of wakefulness and sleep.

P: Mmm.

M: Now there were, just as a side note, a few crazies out there who went to a 48 hour rhythm with their awake hours.

P: Oh, wow.

M: So this isn’t when we talk about “normal” I’ve got a quotes going for people at home.

P: Laugh.

M: And when we talk about “normal”, there are always exceptions. And there were in this study, some exceptions of people who went to a 48 hour body clock, and that was normal for them.

P: So did that mean that they were sleeping for longer periods and staying awake for longer periods?

M: Yes.

P: But their average amount of sleep across seven days would be the same as someone on a 24 hour cycle?

M: I didn’t look that closely, laugh.

P: Maybe you should see?

M: Ah, look at our show notes, I’ll see if I can find that, laugh. [Please see full study on sleep cycles here.]

P: All the reading of the research that I have done says that that would be the case, even though sleeping is not a bank. Like you can’t have one big, long sleep and make up your sleep. But you do need regular intervals of sleep/ wakefulness to keep those circadian rhythms happening.

M: And to do things like commit things to memory, long term memory.

P: Yes.

M: It’s so critical for making those connections and banking all of your data the end of the day.

P: Yeah.

M: I don’t think that, again I’ll have to look into it, but I highly doubt people are awake for 24 hours and then sleeping for a full 24 hours.

P: Yeah.

M: I’d say they’re probably at 36 of awake and then a good 12 hours sleep or something.

P: That would be interesting.

M: Or they may have been having naps throughout that time.

P: Ah, so does napping work?

M: Well, according to science, it does.

P: Okay.

M: Yep, but anyway, most people in the bunker study, the bunker sleep study, reverted to a 25 hour body clock.

P: Interesting.

M: So we’re an hour out from the day.

P: Mmm.

M: And I find that a little bit interesting. So when we’re out not in bunkers, laugh.

P: Laugh!

M: And have access to daylight to guide our activities. We, we go and follow and force our bodies to follow a 24 hour clock, generally with some small exceptions when we party too much at university and things like that.

P: Laugh.

M: But we force up what is into a 24 hour cycle. And that might actually be, not great for anyone, either.

P: I’m wondering if whether the weather, seasons, make a difference as well?

M: Mmm.

P: We tend sleep more during winter because it is darker.

M: Earlier, yep.

P: Whereas in summer, we’re out and we can’t sleep because it’s hot sometimes and the sun is up a lot longer, so again, that might be the 25 hour rhythm.

M: Well, remember when we were in Sweden?

P: Yeah, that was weird way absolutely.

M: And we came out of the restaurant and it was 11 o’clock at night and it was still light.

P & M: Laugh.

M: Yeah, and that really messed with us for a while. We were all so jet lagged, I would say.

P: Laugh. Well, it’s interesting you touched on the types of sleep because Dr Laura Jacobson, who’s the head of the Sleep and Cognition Laboratory of the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, that’s a mouthful, –

M: Laugh.

P: – in Melbourne in Australia, she says that getting quality of sleep is important. Everyone talks about REM sleep and that REM sleep is so important for what we need.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It is important for our invention and our problem-solving capability. I think it was Isaac Newton who said that his theories came to him in a dream. Composers talk about it all the time, ‘oh the melody came to me in a vision when I was asleep.’ And that’s because REM sleep accesses those inventive areas of our brain.

M: It makes, it allows you to make the connections between the different parts of your brain, and that is where you get true creativity. So, it’s when the math part of your brain talks to the psychology part of your brain, and you’d never put those two together. And that’s why some of the greatest inventions were from people who had broad education and understood a little bit about everything.

P: Yeah, ‘cause they could link things together.

M: They could make those links, and they guaranteed, would not have made those links without the freedom, free of devices and free of people to let their minds wander and make connections, but also without some really good sleep.

P: Yep, who was the apple on the head dude?

M: Newton.

P: Newton, him, Yeah!

M: Laugh.

P: Sitting under a tree, apple hits him on the head. ‘Ah, I’ve come up with the theory of…

M: Relativity.

P: I was thinking that.

M: No, gravity.

P: Right, relativity was Einstein. Oh, we’re going all over the place here, I need more sleep! Laugh!

M: Gravity.

P & M: Laugh!

P: But, getting back to Dr Jacobson, she also talks about the importance of non-REM sleep and that we equally need that because that’s good for our learning and our memory retention and organising our memories into long term memory and short term memory. So, which would explain why, if you’re not getting quality sleep, it’s constantly being broken, and you’re not getting that natural swing between REM and non-REM sleep. You’re befuddled the next day, you can’t recall things, you can’t remember what the article said that you were reading 5 minutes ago.

M: What the thing was?

P: The theory of relativity versus gravity?

M & P: Laugh!

M: You know that thing, dooby whacker.

P: Laugh. So students who are pulling all-nighters before exams. You’re doing yourself a disservice?

M: Well, it is important, you know, to say that you can sustain it for short amounts of time. So if you are pulling an all-nighter before an exam – Oh, sorry. If you’re pulling an all-nighter to get a paper in.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: Then you can do that and not see the decline straight away. But the next day, after you’ve handed your paper in, you know, you’re going to feel it, right?

P: Yeah, you will feel it.

M: You’ll feel it.

P: This is what I’m finding with a lot of the research they’re saying, don’t fool yourself if you’re denying yourself sleep, it will hit you.

M: Absolutely.

P: There’s a there’s a compensation that has to happen. Same as if you’re going to not eat for 24 hours, you can’t go and exercise when you’re not eating.

M: Yep.

P: But you can, not eat for 24 hours and you won’t die. It’s actually good for you.

M: Ooohhh! In some situations.

P: Well, that another episode right there. We’re going to get side-tracked in a minute.

M: Uh, huh. You’ve got to be –

P: Laugh, I’m pro-fasting.

M: – really, you’ve got to be really careful. Fasting is not for everyone.

P: Yep, another episode.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Laugh.

M: So, back to napping though,

P: Yes.

M: There are definitely revitalising effects that come with napping.

P: Ok. ‘Cause I’m not a napper.

M: And – no me neither, I get really groggy.

P: I find it really frustrating.

M: Oh I can, I can, I just want a nap for three to four or five hours, laugh.

P: Which they say isn’t good for you.

M: Which means I can’t sleep at night.

P: Yeah.

M: So the ideal amount of time is about 90 minutes.

P: Oh, really?

M: But as short as 20.

P: Oh, Okay.

M: And here’s why a lot of people don’t do it because they can wake up in the middle of a sleep cycle and feel groggy and therefore not feel like they got any benefit from it there feeling worse than when they had when they went for the nap.

P: Right.

M: So the trick here is splashing water on your face and take a few steps to get your heart rate up again.

P: Ok.

M: And your brain will actually have had the benefits from that nap.

P: Oh.

M: So, it is worthwhile if you can get a nap in because you feel you need it.

P: Yep the power nap idea.

M: Always worthwhile to do it, even if you do wake yourself up in the middle of a sleep cycle, you’ve still let your brain have some downtime to recover, to put all those things into long term memory, etcetera, etcetera.

P: Yes, mmm.

M: So 20 to 90 minutes. And also, if you can’t do it during the day, which there’s no way I could fit a nap into my corporate life.

P: Laugh!

M: It’s just not happening.

P: Yep.

M: If you can’t do that, then a nap on the weekend is better than no nap. So if you only do a nap on Sundays.

P: A lot of people do that.

M: Yep. Do it.

P: Understood?

M: Absolutely.

P: So before we wrap up, how do we get better sleep if we’re not getting enough sleep?

M: There’s so many things that go into this.

P: Mmm. There are.

M: And, so many different things you should talk to your doctor about. And I’m gonna bring it back to me again.

P: Laugh.

M: Because it’s all about me, laugh. I suffered with bad sleep for a number of years because of my diet.

P: Ah, yes.

M: And it wasn’t because I was eating late. It was purely because I’ve had food allergies and intolerances for so many years, and it impacts my ability to sleep and stay asleep.

P: Understandable.

M: And everyone would tell me ‘you need more sleep’. And I was getting plenty of sleep. It wasn’t light, it wasn’t devices, it wasn’t all the usual things. So absolutely talk to your doctor of you having troubles with sleep because there are so many different things that can impact your sleep. But I think you’ve got three here, Pete, that we might end on that are the usual culprits, right?

P: Yes. So eating late, we’ve talked about it.

Don’t eat late.

Try to give yourself 10 hours without food, so don’t eat [late], especially don’t do what I do, which is a big meal before going to bed, it just keeps you up.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I’m really bad at it because I finish work late. So don’t eat late.

Put down the devices, no light pollution.

Now that can also come down to keeping lights on in the bedroom, reading just before you go to bed. Which again I’m guilty of, having lots of light around you upsets your circadian rhythms and won’t allow you to rest.

M: Or having poor curtains or outside light.

P: Yep.

M: We have an apartment once that had a big spotlight.

P: Urrgghh.

M: And it used just come in out bedroom window.

P: That’s rough.

M: Most annoying thing in the world.

P: Yep, you want to get a BB-gun and take that thing out.

M & P: Laughter!

P: Last one.

Establish a routine that naturally brings you down.

P: So for me, one of the best things that I can do is to turn all my lights to really low and do some yoga. 20 minutes of yoga, not the big arches and the standing series, nice gentle on the floor, a couple of stretches with some soft music, if you need it, or no music at all. Decrease all the sensitivity of the sympathetic nervous system and naturally you’ll drift off to sleep really well.

M: I personally try to read for 10 minutes every night before bed, at least.

P: Which is fine because you’re resting and it’s fine to do that as long as you.

M: So no device and no white light

P: Yeah, no white light.

M: Definitely, come in here, turn the main lights off. Put the reading light on. Get into bed. 10 minutes often becomes 30 minutes or an hour but I’ll read and it’s –

P: – It’s your way to come down. It’s a good way to do it.

M: Yep.

P: Then you’re not like my mother with the woman’s weekly on your chest at 4am in the morning with glasses on.

M: Laugh!

P: Such a funny sight. You walk past and you’re like ‘Yeah, that’s good.’

And on that happy image, get more sleep people, it’s important!

M: Good night.

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

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Why we Need to Bring Back Touch (E53)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Are you lonely, sad, or anxious? If so, you might need more touch in your life. This week, Marie and Pete talk about why we need to bring back touch. 

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

P: Touch. It’s my episode. It’s all about what I do. Also it’s my love language, apparently. I didn’t know that until we started doing the podcast.

M: Yes.

P: You knew, apparently.

M: I picked you, I called it.

P: Certainly.

M: Either that or we have to talk about your sexuality.

P: Laughter!

M: Okay, we’re going with touch is your love language, got it.

P: Touch is important people, very important.

M: It’s so important for your happiness and so many other things. It’s just so interconnected, everything we talk about.

P: Yes, and apparently, we’re touching less. This surprises me.

M: Covid!

P: Not only Covid.

M: Well…

P: Yeah, there’s other eelements [elements] in there as well, eelements? That sounded l New Zealand, Laugh.

M: Eelements?

P: Eelements, laugh. Apparently we have been touching less for sometime, since before covered for various reasons.

M: Well, for centuries, actually. So religion-

P: Mmm.

M: – is the first thing that we always love to blame.

P & M: Laugh!

M: But along with religion, came a shame in extra-marital touching.

P: Yes.

M: Whether it was platonic or not.

P: It became the taboo.

M: Absolutely. So it was seen as cheap, dirty, tarty.

P: Yes. Leading one on –

M: All the things that were called [inappropriate].

P: – How dare you?

M: Absolutely. So it started way back then.

P: It did.

M: And then there’s also a whole lot of different cultural differences around the world in terms of what’s acceptable.

P: Yes, and where you can touch in terms of culture.

M: Yes, absolutely.

P: Also weather. Climate apparently makes a big difference. So people who live in warmer climates are more inclined to be physically affectionate than people who live in colder climates.

M: I would have thought that would be the other way around.

P: No.

M: Cause if you’re warm and hot, you’re like sticky and gross.

P: No, well apparently not, it invites touching because of loose clothing and skin being shown and that sort of stuff. So culturally I think they’re talking.

M: Aaahh.

P: I thought that was an interesting one.

M: I like it. So there are definitely differences culturally and also just we are touching less and a lot of it more recently, back to your original point is due to technology.

P: Mmm yep.

M: We are spending less time with people we care about in face to face situations and more time with people we don’t care as much about online.

P & M: Laughter!

P: There’s a classic example of everyone sitting around on the couch with their phones on and not engaging.

M: Mmm hmm, yep. And then now we’ve had Covid in the last year.

P: Yes, we have. Yes, there’s also been some social issues as well that have actually created the fear of touch, one of them being the decades of sexual misconduct, which is starting to come to light in more recent times. So all those misconduct cases of people who were in trusted positions and that’s all coming to the floor now, with various movements and people being more comfortable coming out about it, this has created a fear of, of touch on that has become a non-desirable factor of life.

M: I think also what would have contributed to that, not only with things coming out coming to light more recently, the training that’s been happening since eighty’s and ninety’s, I’d say teachers, coaches, I know that when I’ve done all my coaching courses, they’re very clear on what is appropriate touch what’s not appropriate.

P: Yeah, I fell into that because I never did those courses and I was teaching community dance classes. And then they told me I couldn’t touch people. How am I supposed to teach them how to move without not touching them? That was very strange.

M: Mmm hmm. You are actually allowed to touch them, that’s probably bit over the top. But there’s very clear rules about how you can touch people.

P: Definitely.

M: Yes, so there’s a lot of really good touch that was happening that no longer happens. You know, and it’s caring touch.

P: Well, what do we lose if we don’t touch Marie?

M: Well, how we talk about we talk about the benefits?

P: Well, that was a direct question way.

M: What do we lose?

P: Laugh!

M: What do we gain?!  Glass half full.

P: I’m usually the half full guy, I don’t know why…

M: Not a problem. Well, firstly, have you ever noticed the first thing that a kid does when they fall and scrape their knee?

P: Mum!

M: They go running to mum for a hug and mum always, sorry dad’s out there, mum’s always give the best hugs.

P: Miranda did that one when I let her off the swing.

M: Snort, Chloe?

P: Chloe, I don’t know a child dropped off the swing and I was in trouble, laugh.

M: A child let go of the swing, put her arms out for you to catch.

P: At the back end of the swing! It wasn’t my fault, I was waiting at the other end!

M & P: Laughter!

P: This way Chloe, this way!

M: So anyway, when Chloe fell off the swing, she went running to mum for cuddle for a hug.

P: She did, yeah.

M: And that is because from an early age, there is definitely a mother child bond don’t get me wrong, but touch alleviates pain. It also relaxes us and calms us. So I know there’s a lot of support dogs out there who are trained to put their bodies on people who are about to seize or about to fit.

P: Yes.

M: And that touch is calming.

P: Soothing.

M: Yes, it also is really good for the immune system. So accelerates your body’s self-healing and helps kids with healthy development as well.

P: That’s a big one, yeah. Societal development and our behavioural development is so –

M: Cognitive [development].

P: – is so dependent on touch. Yeah, cognitive as well.

M: We’ll come back to that one.

P: That’s a big one, yeah.

M: And the big thing for the last year, if we’re talking about psychological health, is that touch helps to alleviate anxiety, depression and many psychological issues, including things like eating disorders.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: So you wouldn’t necessarily make that connection. But touch is so beneficial from a physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, you know, every perspective; There are studies, and there is research on the benefits of touch.

P: Yep, definitely.

M: Oh, and there’s one more, touch makes your sex life better.

P: Ooh, well I can’t imagine not touching in that instance.

M: Well, I think the problem is we don’t touch for long enough in the right ways.

P: Aahh.

M: So we’ll get to some studies in a second. I know we’re both itching to get to the research!

P & M: Laugh.

P: Now I’m getting images of the wedding sheet with embroidery around a little hole.

M & P: Laughter!

P: You can have sex but not allowed to touch.

M & P: Laugh.

M: I think more to the point, we, we’re a society now where everything’s hard and fast and sex has become that as well, for a lot of people in a lot of situations.

P: Mmm. Hug your lover people! Hold them.

M: Before and after.

P: After is really important.

M: Yeah, absolutely.

P: I could have offered a personal anecdote there, but I will refrain.

M & P: Laughter!

P: Moving right along. Let’s look at the research. So the first research that came about in the 1960’s was by a doctor called Harry Harlow, and he did a lot of research on monkeys and primates with touch.

M: So, this is a horrible study before we put a lot of ethics and morals into how we organise our studies. But essentially, monkeys were separated from their mothers early on after they were born and then tracked over time, and those monkeys compared to the control group that had the touch of their mother’s fared poorly in nearly every possible measure, so they often were found you know, like you see with animals that are stuck in zoos. They were found curled up in corners, rocking back and forth.

P: Yep.

M: Their physical development was stifled and also their cognitive development, so they were just not developing in all of the measures that you want a baby [to develop].

P: What I found interesting about this research was that the monkeys that weren’t in the controlled [i.e., Touch deprived] group were more adventurous. So my readings said that the monkeys that were given the touch were more willing to go out and explore and then would run back to the maternal figure. They were more adventurous because there are more adventurous, they did develop physically. There was even talk that the brain development was different in the control group. That the size of the brain was larger in the group that were actually exposed to touch.

M: Absolutely, and I think they found something very similar with the children in Romania.

P: This is a huge one. This is something that we both came across independently during the communist regime in the 19… I’m going a seventies and eighties in Romania a lot of horrible things happened and there was a real increase in children in orphanages. And in the overthrow of the communist regime in 1989 researchers, went back into Romania and met with these victims of the orphanages who suffered unbelievable hardship and rejection and really sort of being like being in a cell, basically.

M: Well, kind of. A lot of them were left in cribs, but so let’s paint the picture. They were given all their basic needs, they had air, water, food, friendship, others around them, they were just too numerous. So there were 150,000 of these kids across the country whose parents had passed for horrible unspeakable reasons.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And these kids just didn’t get enough hugs and cuddles from their carers because there were too many of them. So I think it’s really interesting, when you look at these poor kids, that they had all their basic needs met and you don’t see on any pyramid; You know, Maslow’s pyramid wasn’t talking about touch as a basic need, but this really shows that if you want to be a functioning adult and grow into a functioning person who can look after themselves and contribute in society. Touch should be on that list.

P: Absolutely, yeah.

M: Because that was really the only thing they were missing in their basic needs.

P: I might have come across some different interpretations of that. I think I maybe come across more of the institutionalised information that came out through that. So from my perspective.

P: The reading that I did, Mary Carlson and Felton Earls were two people that I referenced that went over and spoke to these Children and these sufferers and at the ripe old age of thirty, these people were socially withdrawn, they were mute, inept, and the biggest thing was displaying bizarre, atypical movement patterns and violent behaviour.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: You were talking before about the movement patterns of the monkeys and so forth, and this was a shocking wake up as to the what happens when we don’t touch that people develop physical characteristics –

M: Yep.

P: – Such as ticks and shaking and all those restrictive movements that can render someone incapacitated just from not being touched.

M: Yep and again I think we’re saying the same thing.

P: Oh, yeah, yeah.

M: It’s touch right, and they were shown to develop autistic characteristics.

P: Mmm, very much so.

M: And again, a lot of people with autism can have those ticks.

P: Yep.

M: Anyway, trying to make sure that I’m not being offensive in any way.

P & M: Laughter.

M: And using the right language here.

Other studies that I find justice fascinating. So the one that really kicked off a lot of this and that I love is this story about a NICU, so the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, at a hospital. There were two different NICU’s in this hospital and they found that in one of them the premature babies were putting on more weight and growing faster. And for a premature baby, that’s a difference between life and death, right? And so one doctor decided to go spy on the NICU that was doing well.

P: This is hilarious.

M: Laugh.

P: So does the Doctor go ‘Something’s up there, I’m going to sit in here and wait.

M & P: Laughter.

P: What did he except to see? Alien beings coming in? Laugh!

M: Well, that was the problem. They couldn’t work it out. So these babies were being fed the same formula.

P: So, everything was the same between the two of them.

M: They were being cared for the same, exactly the same and they couldn’t work out why there was such a big difference. And it wasn’t a small insignificant difference, it was It was notable.

P: So what did he find?

M: Anyway, so he was there one night. You know, I picture him sort of squatting in the corner.

P: Laugh!

M: I’ve got this mental image.

P: [Whispers] Shh. You can’t see me, I’m not here.

M: Exactly, laugh. And a nurse came in and kind of had a look around and saw the coast was clear and picked up one of the babies and started just gently stroking the baby and kind of cuddling with the baby. And then she put that one down. She went to the next one.

P: I love it.

M: And so this was a nurse that I was allowed to be there, right?

P: Mmm hmm.

M: But the thinking before that period was that you had to keep them in sterile environments in order for them to survive. Right? And what they found was that the babies who were held and stroked gently were found to put on about 47% more weight than those who weren’t.

P: Wow, that’s amazing.

M: And more than that, months later they were found to be significantly more cognitively progressed.

P: Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing that keeps coming back with a lot of studies. Is our brains develop and our curiousness and our intellect develops because of the stimulation of touch.

M: Yes, Absolutely. And coming back to why we do this study, this podcast.

P: Mmm.

M: It makes you happier.

P: Yep.

M: Touch, regular touch throughout your day makes you happier. So there’s a psychologist, Jane Clipman, who asked her students to hug five times a day.

P: Ha! This is really confronting. People don’t like hugging, laugh.

M: A lot of people don’t, even pre Covid.

P: Yeah.

M: Some people, I know a person who says to me, I’m just not a hugger.

P: Mmm.

M: They cringe at being hugged by people.

P: Mmm, very much.

M: So, the hug had to be non-sexual,

P: Yep.

M: frontal,

P: Yep.

M: all face to face and with two hands. So you couldn’t do like the bro…

P: The pat on the back, the chest bump, laugh.

M: And so, she had one group of students go hug five times a day and another control group, and they found that the huggers were significantly happier a month later.

P: It works. Hugs are memorable.

M: Definitely.

P: Tammy Hunyadi, if you’re listening, I still remember that.

M & P: Laughter.

P: Well, it was our first lesson we learnt in massage class. Our very first lesson. We all stood up in a circle and we had to hug the person who was in front of us and behind us and apparently Tammy was standing behind me, and she said ‘all I saw was this bald head.’ And then this man turned around and all of a sudden I was enveloped by these arms and my face was against his chest. I didn’t even see his face.

M: Laugh.

P: And that was me apparently. She always tells that story and she says it was one of the fondest memories of our friendship.

M: Awwweee.

P: It was just this massive, enveloping of care.

M: Lovely, love it. Actually, there’s a thing that I read about a few weeks ago. I really in preparing for this episode should look this up, a few weeks ago? I mean, a few years ago. There’s places that you can go to hug.

P: Hug therapy, yes.

M: Yeah, you go hug complete strangers.

P: Yep, yep. It’s a thing and I think it’s in the Nordic countries. Dare I say it again? Good old Norwegians.

M: Yeah, Okay.

P: There’s a very famous book that was brought out it was called the Midas Touch in 1984 and that goes on touching a more basic level. It says that diners who were patted on the arm by their server were more inclined to tip more generously and that people in care homes will eat more after physical contact.

M: Mmm.

P: So that’s on a lesser level of what touch can do. But it doesn’t have to be an all-enveloping hug. It could be a slight interaction. Students who were given a friendly pat by their teachers, with three times more likely to speak up in class.

M: I think there’s a safety to a pat.

P: Mmm. There’s a reassurance, I think.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: But it does stimulate neurochemicals and get things going in the brain. And so that comes back to that behavioural development that is so important. And this all comes back from that work that Harry Harlow did in the 1960’s. It’s still informing us today.

M: Yep.

P: So how do we touch in Covid?

M: Well…

P: This is a hard one. How do you, how do you engage with touch in a Covid world.

M: I think for anyone who’s within a household, it’s a no brainer.

P: Hmm.

M: What we’re really talking about is people who have roommates that aren’t in the habit of touching.

P: Mmm.

M: Not immediate family that they live with or people who live by themselves. And before Covid even, there was the World Health Organisation was talking about loneliness as the new epidemic, right?

P: Mmm.

M: And a lot more people now can afford to live by themselves. Before, it was really cost prohibitive.

P: Yep.

M: Which is a lot of the time where people married, laugh.

P: Ha, interesting.

M: We’re going to unpack that [later].

P: Laugh.

M: But for the first time in human society. We expect to be able to buy a house and not necessarily as part of a couple. A lot of people are buying houses and living in them by themselves.

P: Yep.

M: And also on the flip side, older ages, they’re living by themselves a lot longer, and as a result, a lot of people, particularly in Covid, It’s now even worse. A lot of people are lonely.

P: Yeah, they’re not getting any touch.

M: And a big part of that, is there not hugging, touching anyone. Because if you are lonely you might see your postman and your garbageman from your window. You might wave, maybe.

P: Hmm.

M: You’re not going to hug the person behind the counter at Coles.

P: Nope.

M: Laugh.

P: Not through that Perspex glass.

M & P: Laughter!”

M: Not anymore!

P: You can’t get near ‘em Damnit! Laugh, ‘I love you, you just gave me 30% off!’

M & P: Laughter!”

P: [Funny voice] ‘I know that guy, he sold us our furniture.’ That’s a musical quote.

M: Laugh, yep. So hugging may not be the right answer, especially during Covid.

P: But it doesn’t have to be a hug this is the thing. It needs to be some sort of physical interaction.

M: So my recommendation is massage.

P: Oh, Glad you said that, not me.

M & P: Laughter!”

P: It is interesting, though, that I’ve found this generally, not only during Covid, during times of crisis; So during the GFC that happened a few years back and in times of things like the bushfires and stuff like that, people seek out comfort and they seek out health. So, I would get people turning up to my clinic going ‘I don’t know why I’m here, I just want a treatment, I just want to feel nice for an hour.’ I’m like [internal monologue] ‘why are you seeing me, you shouldn’t be seeing me?’

M: Laugh. You fix people!

P: Laugh. They want that interaction, they want that touch. It’s very important for people because of all the sensory information that comes through. It does make you feel, for want of a better word, more loved, more secure. And that comes back to our maternal connections.

M: Uh huh.

P: When we first start out, we need to be touched by our parents. When we first come out of the out of the channels and screaming and yelling, there needs to be a nurturing there otherwise we don’t develop as well, and we don’t have all those physical attributes that we should.

M: Yep, so to be really clear, any consensual touch can make a difference.

P: Very much.

M: Consensual is important, and Covid safe touch is what we’re advocating for. If you can if you’ve got people in your household that you can try the five hugs a day exercise with.

P: I like that idea.

M: I really recommend.

P: People will struggle with that, yeah.

P: Five hugs with the person you love. It’s not that hard to do, but you’ve got to put some time and effort into it. And if you are living by yourself and can get out to someone who can… even get your nails done, or someone who, you know that’s holding hands for an hour while they do your nails a lot of the time; There’s that, there’s massage.

P: Yep.

M: Find ways to get some more touch into your day. It might help to alleviate a lot of the stress and anxiety that’s going on.

P: It will help, it will help.

M: And with the loneliness due to Covid. Hmm. All right, well, and also it is really important to ask for consent before you go do that.

P: Laugh! Don’t ask! Just launch in there!

M: Laugh.

P: I just go for it and people go ‘oh, ok we’re doing that.’ Laugh

M: Because I do want to say that some cultures and religions or just people might need more gentle touch.

P: Yes.

M: Or are afraid of touch, possibly due to trauma.

P: Very wise words. Ooh Yes. Big one.

M: Yes.

P: Yeah.

M: So consent is good.

P: I know, I just keep forgetting.

M: Laugh. Well, it’s okay with people you already know.

P: Yeah… I still want… I’m just bad like that. I’m sorry to all the people that I’ve hugged without permission, laugh.

M: I just don’t want our listeners going out and hugging people randomly.

P: Laugh!

M: Then get slapped down, laugh!

P: Please don’t slap anyone.

M: Laugh.

P: All right, on that note, we’ll finish up.

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

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

Happy Words from around the World (E52)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete talk about happy words and concepts from countries all around the world and why they are so important for us all. 

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

P: So Marie, this week we’re talking about non English happiness, laugh.

M: [Incredulous voice] Non-English happiness? No, non -Western.

P: Non-Western.

M: Well, no, no, there is Western in there. We are talking about words from other cultures and other countries that have connotations of happiness that we don’t have in our language in the English language.

P: Yes. So it just goes to show that happiness is not all science and laboratories and people in white lab coats doing fabulous experiments. It is also cultural, and there’s lots of cultural references for happiness and the best thing about this stuff, is that a lot of these words can’t be translated.

M: Yes.

P: They are what they are, and they stand in their own entity and we should hearken to them, hearken to them. Well, that’s a good one, Hearken to thy Happiness.

M: …Okay.

P: You love it when I get creative.

M: I love it when you make up words.

P: Hearken is a word.

M: Not in that context it’s not, laugh.

P: Hearken to thy happiness, I like it. I’m going with.

M: All right, we’ll go with it.

P & M: Laughter

M: Alright. So what I do love about these words that we’re going to talk about today is that they are just so closely tied to a lot of stereotypes for how we see these countries and their cultures.

P: That is true, laugh.

M: So they really are a great way to better understand other people from around the world and what makes them happy.

P: What happiness is to a Danish person might not be the same to a Chinese person nor a Japanese person.

M: Mm hmm.

P: There are lots of little ways that you can celebrate it.

M: Absolutely. So shall we get started?

P: Yes.

M: We’ll get started with one that we’ve already covered, which we know and love.

P: Laugh, Hoo-geh [Hygge].

M: Laugh.

P: Which I think is wrong [pronunciation].

M: Which is actually Hee-geh [Hygge] from Denmark. And this is all about cosiness and comfort. It’s a warm fire and a good book.

P: Hot chocolate.

M: Mmm hot cocoa, wearing a comfortable new jumper for the first time and just snuggling under a blanket fires.

P: Soft blankets and fires.

M: Yes, absolutely. And it’s part of Danish and Norwegian culture and has been for centuries. And it’s just a great way to reframe those long, cold winters that they have over there.

P: Oh, yeah. It’s a great idea. You’re going to be locked in for hours anyway, so why not enjoy it?

M: Exactly. And you could look at the winters and think, you know, the sun sets really early and it’s really freezing. And I can’t do all this stuff. Or you could look at it in a great, positive way and find ways to be cosy and enjoy that cosiness, either by yourself or with friends. So it is very subjective from what I’m reading and understanding. But really it’s cosiness and comfort, Hygge.

P: I like that. Yes I’m in.

M: Yes.

P: Next one is from Finland, so same area, but slightly different country. See-soo [Sisu], is that right?

M: Sure.

P: Okay.

M: S-i-s-u.  

P: So, the Finnish, they also have huge winters. And that’s why they need Sisu. It’s a resilience and stoic determination in the face of adversity.

M: Yes, its strength, its grit and it’s about overcoming challenges and taking action against all the odds. So, it’s something to have pride in and again it’s part of the Finish national character. So just like in Australia, we take great pride in people like Bob Hawke, who can scull a yard glass, laugh.

P: Laugh! What an achievement.

M: In Finland it’s all about this grit, Sisu and having this ability to overcome adversity.

P: Mmm, stick it out and get through the tough area and come out the other side, conquer it.

M: My Grandma would love this. She lived through the Great Depression, and then she definitely, that generation, have Sisu.

P: Yes, yes, definitely.  

M: Yep.

P: Ooh the next one… laugh.

M: Free-luft-sliv [Friluftsliv]

P: Free-luths-live? Laugh.

M: From Norway.

P: Don’t say that one when you’ve had a few drinks.

P & M: Laughter.

P: You might say a bad word.

M: Laugh. So this one literally translates to ‘free air life’. But it means so much more and a lot of the Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, all of those countries that have winters that we just can’t fathom. I almost think they’re crazy for doing it, but they love their outdoor sports. Even in winter.

P: It’s funny isn’t it? It’s 42 degrees below Celsius, let’s go out and play hockey. Laugh!

M: Exactly, laugh. And so Friluftsliv in Norway is a freer life, but it means more about being active and outdoorsy. So it’s about mindfully spending time in nature and being one with the natural world.

P: Not letting the winter or the weather disparage you from being active outside.

M: That, too. Definitely. I think the weather doesn’t necessarily factor in. It’s a year round thing, and it’s about understanding the importance. And we’ve spoken about this before. The importance of connecting with nature and the outdoors.

P: Yeah, okay.

M: Yeah, so it’s all about that spiritually uplifting that nature provides whether or not your freezing your butt off or sweating your balls off.

P & M: Laughter

M: It’s about being outdoors.

P: Finding a way to enjoy it and interacting.

M: Yeah, and living the free air life.

P: Ohhh…

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Right, off to the Netherlands, Niksen.

M: Niksen!

P: Niksen.

M: Oh, we’ve just had five days of this, haven’t we Pete?

P: Laugh. Yeah pretty much.

M: Five days of Niksen, the art of doing nothing. Laugh.

P: Ahh… It’s brilliant. But doing nothing with people that do your kind of nothing that’s also really important.

M: Doing nothing with friends is better.

P: But your friends have to do your kind of nothing.

M: Yeah, absolutely.

P: Kinda has to match, because my kind of nothing may not necessarily be your kind of nothing and then we’d just be butting of heads.

M: Yeah, that would be lame. So, in the Netherlands Niksen is the art of doing nothing, and it’s about taking a break. It’s about knowing when your body needs to recover and this is so important in today’s day and age.

P: Mmm, so important. Talk about this a lot with my work. It is okay to take a day off.

M: Mm hmm.

P: A day off work, a day off cooking, a day off training, a day of being a mum. Like kids “Get your own meals, I’m taking a day off.”

M: Absolutely. And there’s a great Ted X talk by Manoush Zomorodi, and she talks about how boredom can lead to the most brilliant ideas.

P: I love that concept.

M: Yep, absolutely. And look, that’s kind of along the same idea here in that you need to give your body and your mind time to do nothing. And that’s no screen time, no places that you’ve got to be, rushing and let your stress levels come down and in today’s day and world, with all the things that we’re trying to fit into our days, don’t let this be yet another tick box thing that you have to do right.

P: Mmm.

M: But you need to make sure you recover from all of that stress and stress can be a good thing as long as you’re not always in it.

P: There’s also a lot of research that talks about the value of this in accessing your creativity on your sub consciousness. Allowing your subconscious to come to the floor allows the creative responses and sometimes a problem that you’ve been trying to solve for ages and ages pops into being because you’re doing nothing. Isaac Newton, apple on the head.

M: Mm hmm.

P & M: Laughter.

M: Or it hits you on the head.

P: Laugh. Okay, we’re staying up north.

M: Sweden.

P: Sweden, Lagom.

M: This is something… I’m not quite sure I’m down with.

P: Laugh. A measured response.

M: It’s a mindset of everything in moderation. Look, I would say that this is really good advice, but I tend to do the opposite, laugh.

P: Well… I guess that’s the thing is that if you’re someone that does do the opposite that maybe this is a concept that you can bring into being three months out of the year?

M: …Maybe, maybe. Maybe one.

P: Laugh. We’ll talk about it later. Re-finding that moderation, perhaps, and riding that crest on the wave for a little bit and then going off on your merry way and doing the crazy things like walking up Machu Pichu on having rocks hurled at you.

M: Well, yes, that was a whole different thing, but I’m definitely more of a go hard, go fast, rest. Go hard, go fast, rest.

P: Yeah, I can see how that would work. Alright Japan.

M: Yes.

P: Ohanami.

Gathering to enjoy and appreciate cherry blossom, sakura, so amazing. It’s just the most blissful experience. I did this in Tokyo when I was on tour, and what struck me was the silent, reverent nature of it.

So it’s in downtown Tokyo. And yet everyone is just quietly walking under this canopy of white cherry blossoms that was incredibly visually stunning. But the moment wasn’t lost on anyone, it created that whole idea that we talk about a lot of mindfulness, being in the moment, like it was so easy because the softest little sound of the petal was what you could hear.

M: The sound of a petal?

P: Yes.

M: That’s very quiet.

P: But it has a noise. So it’s not like you’re It’s not like you’re all being in a church and stuff, but there is this sort of dulling of everything, and everyone goes in with it, and it’s quite mesmeric. If you haven’t done it, I say do it once in your life if you can.

M: Ok, nice. We definitely had a very different cherry blossom experience in D.C. But equally as beautiful.

P: Yeah, right.

M: Just not as beautiful or as quiet. Tourist area.

P: Oh, laugh. I was struck be the quietness and how everyone was… yes, reverential.

M: I think, actually, back to what we were saying before it’s again indicative of the different cultures.

P: Mmm. Ah yes, very true.

M: Yes, so Japan actually have a word for this. Where as that word doesn’t exist in the English language. So maybe that’s why the experience is different when you see the cherry blossoms in Washington.

P: Maybe.

M: Mmm hmm. Alright what’s next?

P: Staying in Japan, Wabi-sabi!

M: Wabi-sabi. I like this one.

P: Scream it out, Wabi-sabi! Laugh. See what people do.

M: Love it and I love this idea.

P: I love this too.

M: The Japanese just… It’s a beautiful concept, I think so it’s about imperfection and impermanence and incompleteness. And being a traditionally Buddhist country, accepting the transience of life and embracing things in their most natural state leads to contentment.

P: Mmm.

M: So this could be about appreciating the beauty in chipped pottery or an ageing face or fleeting cherry blossoms.

P: Laugh. Well, there’s another reference in there for the Japanese, for the cracked pottery. It is the art of Kintsugi, which is where they actually fill the cracks with gold and that is again, it’s a very Buddhist concept in that even the imperfections of life should be celebrated.

M: Mm hmm.

P: I love that concept. I think that’s very Japanese as well.

M: I think we’ve spoken about this before, but I love that idea of smile lines in someone’s face, and I’ve always been drawn to those beautiful photos of real close ups of elderly people, you know, with huge grins that take up their faces and crinkly eyes.

P: Yep.

M: And that’s always just been something that draws me in. But I love it so Wabi-sabi is that.

P: Staying in Japan. I read about this one.

M: Mm hmm.

P: Shinrin-yoku, forest bathing!

M: Yes.

P: It’s scientific! Laugh. It’s been around for ages, but in since the 1980’s, Japan’s actually been spending money on investing in this and actually governments are giving forest people… Forest people, what do you call them?

M: City people –

P: Laugh.

M: – prescriptions to go walk in the forest.

P: Yes.

M: It’s actually a clinically proven or scientifically proven way to decrease stress and anxiety, and so it’s being prescribed. So it’s a wonder drug.

P: Yep. It is, and what it actually does is there’s an oil that is given off by forests and nature and when we spend time in forests. And they say, apparently the time is two hours minimum. It’s a good two hours, it’s not like a quick walk in the park, it’s a two hour soaking and that allows us to actually breathe in some of these oils that are exerted, and it actually boosts our immune system.

M: Definitely. I’m not saying two hours isn’t a good way to do that, and I’m not sure about the oils, but there’s definitely science at 15 minutes walking in a forest is enough to decrease your blood pressure, stress levels and anxiety levels.

P: Yep.

M: Just 15 minutes of walking in the forest is enough and back to what we’re saying earlier just being outside in the outdoors can have such benefits for your happiness levels.

P: It does, yep.

M: Free air life of Norway or the Shinrin-yoku of Japan. Definitely.

P: I mean, there’s a hole heap of scientific research, if more people are more interested in this at Oxford University they’re also investigating into this with the research there about forest bathing and its being prescribed in the UK as well. It’s also taken off in Canada and in the US, and I think Australia as well.

M: Hmm, there you go. All right, next. Back to Ireland.

P: I can’t do an Irish accent.

M: Laugh.

P: We’re talking about crack! Laugh.

M: Craic. So this one’s C-r-a-i-c and this is so Irish to me.

P & M: Laughter.

M: So it is about fun and good times, and it’s having a laugh and sharing stories, sometimes at the pub with your mates. What is more Irish than that?

P: Very true.

M: I love that one, and then next one is in Entrückt, which is German.

And that is about being enraptured and absent. Being in your own mind. It’s about being lost in your own thoughts.

P: Ok.

M: So I guess it could go to that meditative empty or it could be full. But it’s about being lost in your own mind.

P: Ok, all right.

M: Which is a lovely way to be, I think, and it’s lovely that they have a word for that. So it could be when you’re writing or reading or just daydreaming.

P: Is it flow?

M: It can be flow, absolutely. Could be when you’re doing the dishes or when you’re writing as well. And it’s more about being less hurried and just allowing that to be.

P: Mmm.

M: And also can lead to a bit more creativity and calm, less anxiety, less stress. So I really do like that idea as well. Being a writer, as well.

P: Laugh.

M: All right, what’s next?

P: Spanish, Estrenar. I hope I said that right? Laugh.

M: Sounds about right.

P: To use or wear something for the first time.

M: Oh I love that feeling.

P: Now we have a friend who does this. Anyone who’s got any Venezuelan friends out there, apparently, this is a thing to wear new items of clothing on… is it New year’s day or New Year’s Eve?

M: I think they do it New year’s eve to ring in the new year though.

P: Yeah, so it’s a tradition that you have, along with jumping seven waves and eating 12 grapes or something.

M: What?

P: Yeah, yeah. It’s our South American friends who have to go to the ocean and jump over seven waves on the first day of the year.

M: Oh. As you do. Each to there own.

P: Laugh. Anyway, this is about Estrenar, wearing new things. And I remember this when I played tennis. Whenever I had new tennis socks or new shoes or something. I always played better. Gives you confidence.

M: Oh, see once you win in a pair of undies, that’s your lucky undies.

P: Ewww.

M: You wear them all over.

P: Laugh!

M: But there is something for me just so nice about putting on new pair of sweats with the warm, fleecy fuzziness.

P: Yep, ok.

M: Love it.

P: Yeah, yeah, I get that.

M: So for me that’s Estrenar, wearing something for the first time. That’s just fluffy and comfy.

P: Yeah, they also talk about you can apply it to something like a new cherished possession. We’ve talked about this in terms of cars.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Every time I jump in my little car, I have a little smile on my face. “Good morning, darling.”

M: Aww.

P & M: Laughter.

P: That’s Estrenar, the allowing it to imbue you with a sense of happiness or a sense of contentious and confidence.

M: All right, we might tip to Greece and go with Meraki, and I love this one too.

P: Ooh, food!

M: Anyone who has had Greek neighbours or friends or family or Italian as well, this is all about the joy that you put into [cooking], it’s a labour of love and for Italians and Greeks, what better way to show your love than to cook for your family?

P: Yeah, definitely. Always wanted to be in the kitchen with someone’s Nona and say “Just cook with me and I’ll learn”. Laugh.

M: Mm hmm, yeah, so it’s about giving yourself to your task and deriving happiness for yourself, but also creating something that could bring happiness for others.

P: Yep.

M: So, Meraki, like that one.

P: Off to Russia Azart, the Russian word Azart is all about finding joy or excitement from making yourself uncomfortable.

Crazy Russians, laugh! It’s about jumping in the snow after a sauna.

M: Absolutely, and again, I keep seeing these words, and they’re just so typical of these countries.

P: Laugh!

M: Crazy Russians going from sauna right into the snow.

P: No, no, it’s the birch twigging?

M: Birch twigs.

P: That’s a crazy one, beaten to death with birch twigs after being in a sauna.

M: Laugh.

P: [Whispers] Very Catholic.

M: Really, this is about making yourself uncomfortable. So, you know, it could be about knowing that scary movies scare the bejesus out of you and watching it anyway or going skydiving or, you know, the birch twigs, laugh.

P: Challenging yourself.

M: Making yourself front up.

P: Yeah, putting yourself in a potential situation, I guess. Which brings up your adrenaline, that sort of stuff. Wakes you spirit up.

M: Yeah, exactly. And that’s the happiness or the good part about it. It’s not just being uncomfortable, [it’s] actually doing it and finding excitement and joy out of that.

P: Alright off to Turkey, Keyif.

M: Yes!

P: Taking time every day to savour the simple moments of life.

M: Yes. So it’s the pursuit of a moment of idle pleasure.

P: Oh, I love idle pleasures. Simple pleasures.

M: Mmm hmm. Yep, Absolutely. And then in Brazil, we’ve got…

P: Why do I have to do this one?

M: Laugh.

P: All of our Brazilian volleyballers are going to scream at me here, Saudade.

M: Yep. Well, sau-da-je.

P: Oh, it’s got the G thing, that’s right. Yes, you’re right. Sorry, Anderson.

M: And this one is happy but sad. I think we’ve all been here, so it’s a feeling of melancholy or longing or nostalgia for a happiness that once was and can never be again. So if anyone has lost a loved one or can look back with fondness on moments in their life, that can’t happen again.

P: Yep.

M: For me that that might be my university days. I just loved being university. I’ll never be there again.

P: Laugh.

M: But, boy, were they great. Oh, and this next one’s great, too.

P: Jayus from Indonesia. Ha, Dad joke.

M: Dad joke.

P: It’s a joke that’s unfunny, literally.

M: Laugh! Or told so badly –

P: – that you have to laugh. We’ve all had one of those experiences.

M: Laugh, Hey.

P: What?

M: It’s what horses eat.

P: [Pity laugh] Oh dear, that wasn’t told well.

M: Because you were meant to say “Hey”. That’s why. But that was one of my dad’s favourites.

P: Laugh. And the last one from South Africa, Ubuntu.

M: Yes, so this is about a common humanity and oneness. It’s, I am because you are. It’s about understanding that we live as part of a society. So as much as you can be an individual with individual rights and individual wants none of that matters if you don’t have the society to help you to achieve those things.

P: Mmm.

M: And it acknowledges that we are all part of the whole.

P: I take this a little bit more individually. It very much resonates with me with a yoga practise that I have, in I see the light in you that is also in me. It’s that recognition of common humanity.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And how that if I could do that with every single person that I see then that brings about that humanitarian aspect. I think it’s wonderful, it was mentioned in a Barack Obama speech.

M: Yes.

P: For the funeral service for Nelson Mandela?

M: Yes, at the memorial service. So he said that Nelson Mandela’s greatest gift was that there is a oneness to humanity that we achieve ourselves by caring for those around us.

P: And that is a lovely way to wrap up this episode.

M: Sure is.

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

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

Can Swearing Make You Happier? (E51)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete discuss the myths behind swear words and how swearing can make you happier. No, really, it can!

Please be advised this podcast contains explicit language which may be offensive to some listeners. It is recommended for mature audiences only.

Transcript

M: Listeners should be advised that the following audio content contains explicit language which may be offensive to some people and is inappropriate for Children. The content within this podcast is intended for mature audiences only.

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

P: Twat Pirate!

M: Nob Jockey!

P: Piss Wizard!

M: Wanker!

P: Tit Mate.

M: I’m out. Twat what?

P: Laugh. Nob Head, Nob Head!

P & M: Laughter!

M: Ass Monkey!

P: Laugh.

M: Fuck-Nugget!

P: Douchebag.

P & M: Laughter.

M: Oh there’s so many good ones.

P & M: Laughter.

M: Only if you say them while laughing, I normally I think… What is the swear word Pete that you use the most?

P: The swear word of choice? Laugh. Actually, it’s a combination. It’s what my mother used to say.

P & M: Laughter.

P: I can’t say it without laughing. Bitch and Bastard Buggery!

M: Ooh.

P: Laugh, Oh yeah.

M: Look, Australians really do a good job.

P: Yeah, we do.

M: Wanker is very English and Australian both, but I think just stock standard Shit or Fuck for me.

P: Laugh. Shit!

M: Laugh.

P: I do use Bitch quite a bit. Especially used a term of endearment for me.

P & M: Laughter.

P: Oi Bitch! Laugh.

M: Ok, that’s fair too. It makes you feel better.

P: Oh I’m tingling, I’m literally tingling.

M: To get it out. Laugh.

P: There’s, there’s something to be said for the value of cursing.

M: Definitely and I think the curse words Shit and Fuck that I tend to say are indicative of the fact that I’m not using them at people. I’m using them because of the situation generally.

P: Laugh.

M: So I will throw that out there because I do not agree with any kind of verbal or physical abuse.

P & M: Laughter.

P: Well, usually my abuse is taken out on inanimate objects. My classic one is when I used to be able to change bike tyres. I can’t change by tyres… so screwdrivers would end up in the neighbour’s yard.

M: Laugh.

P: You know the wheel would be tossed casually at the back of the garage, which is about 20 metres away. And that’s usually when the expletives would fly because I just couldn’t get the bloody tube off! Laugh, let alone get the new one in, laugh.

M: So we’re here today to talk about the benefits of that horrible behaviour!

P: There is so much science and research supporting SWEARING. You have free licence to swear people, laugh.

M: And for those of you who don’t believe us, there is currently just released a Netflix show called The History of Swearing With Nicolas Cage.

P: The trailer will have you laughing.

M: Absolutely, just google the trailer, it’s hilarious. So today we’re going to talk about… We’ve got six different areas of research that proves beyond a doubt –

P: Laugh.

M: – that you should let fly and swear more often in your life.

P: I know, where do we start?

M: I need to get over it. I did actually put my layer of judgement on at some point, I caught myself.

P: Ooh, oh!

M: In this little encounter that we’ve already had there is an element of allowing yourself to do this, and being ok with it too.

P: Permission?

M: Yeah.

P: Giving yourself permission to express your emotions.

M: Definitely.

P: Now that’s a big one for a lot of people. A lot of different ways. But we won’t side track it.

M: Yeah well, to express your emotions using swear words, because I don’t know about you, but Mom used to say SHI-vers when she stubbed her toe or something.

P: Laugh.

M: So we grew up in a household where swearing was not allowed, and I got a walloping the one time I did swear. One time… One.

P: Laugh.

M: You learn your lesson pretty fast.

P: True.

M: And it was something that uneducated people did because they didn’t have the proper –

P: Vocabulary to express themselves in other ways. I’ll actually go along with that.

M: It’s total Bullshit.

P: Well?

M: Bullshit! I’m calling it.

P: Colloquialisms and language development because swear words are now included in the Oxford Dictionary and they’re constantly being added, and languages do develop as we know, and I think swearing has become a language norm to be honest.

M: I love the idea, and again go back and look at that Netflix show, but I love the idea that this judgement of using swear words, comes from a rich elite who want to keep the poor down. So again, who determines what a swear word is?

P: Yeah, definitely.

M: And if the rich own the dictionaries and the newspapers, then they can say what words that evolve are good and bad. And generally, it’s the words that the poorer classes use that have been deemed bad or crass.

P: Unworthy.

M: Yeah, exactly.

P: To be included in academic circles.

M: Yeah.

P: That no longer is the case. Thank goodness, because we’re all the richer for it.

M: Ahh. No. I’d say it’s still the case.

P: I’d challenge that, I think that, I think that especially the Oxford and the Webster dictionaries are very good at clocking colloquialisms and words that are developing and the cultural uses and actually including them in academic text.

M: I would never walk into my corporate career and say Tit bag, dick weasel, ass hat, douchebag.

P: Yeah, ok. I get what you’re saying.

M: Never use those words.

P: True, true.

M: Laugh.

P: My poor clients I swear at them all the time.

P & M: Laughter.

M: That’s alright, they’re swearing at you too.

P: Laugh, well we’ll come to that, pain tolerance.

M: Laugh.

P: Alright. Swearing is an effective way of communicating.

M: I love this idea. So we just talked about the judgement in a societal context that all of this is happening within. But the research shows that it is an effective way of communicating, and it can increase the effectiveness and persuasiveness of an argument.

P: Mmm.

M: So particularly if you’re in a corporate environment within the appropriate settings of course, adding a swear word in can show that you have feeling about a certain topic as well, rather than just a[n] unbiased argument that you’re putting forward to people that you actually care and that can be more persuasive.

P: Interesting, that it’s a care factor. I care about this so much that I’m going to swear in the use of it. It shows, it shows passion, it shows engagement, which is interesting because you couldn’t do that in a news conference. Could you imagine the Prime Minister saying ‘Yeah, piss off!’

P & M: Laughter.

P: You know that’s exactly what he wants to say to some people who are asking him questions.

M: Well, I think that was some of the draw of Trump.

P: Yeah.

M: As well as the horror of Trump is that a leader for the first time was using these words that had been taboo, had been again, not what a cultured person does.

P: Yes.

M: And I think this might actually be one of the good things that comes out of Trump’s presidency. Is that language wise we can be a bit more inclusive.

P: Yeah, that’d be good.

M: Oh, my goodness. I never thought I’d [say that!]

P: Laugh!

M: I’m showing my political stripes. I try not to be political on this show.

P&M: Laughter.

M: [Sigh] Anyway…

P: What I will pull up about the communication, though, is that by using swearing, sometimes we prevent resorting to a physical altercation.

M: Which is always what you want.

P: Yeah, exactly. And you can imagine this in certain circumstances of, say, two alpha males having an argument. And, you know, basically butting their chests and beating, beating their chest in a very primitive way by using swear words, you can actually have an engaging conversation without resorting to ‘I’m going to thump the living daylights out of you.’

M: Again, never appropriate. All right, so:

1. It’s an effective way of communicating.

2. Number two, it might mean you’re more honest.

P: Ooh, this is conjecture?

M: It is not conjecture; it is science.

P: Oh, sorry. Where’s the study? Where’s the research?

M: Laugh. The research is that a recent study found that people who swear often lie less and have higher levels of integrity.

P: Oh, do explain?

M: So it all comes down to being comfortable expressing the truth and, you know, ties into a person’s truthfulness. So the study found a positive relationship between those who curse and their honesty levels.

P: Wow.

M: And again, I think that if you’re comfortable swearing, you’re not putting on a mask. You are standing up in a society that often looks at swearing as a bad thing and saying, I don’t care about that judgement, perhaps know that it’s not appropriate, some might not know, and yet I’m going to say it because it’s my truth.

P: Ok, yeah.

M: And those people are more truthful. So this just kind of make sense to me. It’s logical.

P: Yeah, righto. I’ll go with that. I wouldn’t have made that jump, but definitely.

M: Look, it is a jump. That’s not what was written in this study, but that’s my assumption. So, there’s definitely a positive relationship, but we’ve taken it a little bit further.

P: Laugh. Alright, let’s move on to the next one:

3. Improving your pain tolerance.

M: Well this is a no brainer!

P: Laugh! Does it make… Does your pain tolerance increase when you swear? Science says yes, almost 50%.

M: So let loose!

P: Laugh.

M: So next time you stub your toe, or you have to go get a massage from Pete.

P: Laugh!

M: Let rip!

P: I love it when my clients say, ‘oh d$^& f%$#!’ and I say you can make all the noises that you want, and they come out with the swear words and I’m like ‘there you go.’

P & M: Laughter.

P: So, Dr Richard Stephens at Keele University in the UK showed that swearing can help you become more persuasive and increase your pain tolerance. They do the ice water test of putting your hand in a bucket of ice water and seeing how long you can hold your hand in there. One control group weren’t allowed to swear one control group were allowed to swear and they saw results of up to 50% more time being able to be endured in the ice bath if you were allowed to swear.

M: I think we need to pass this on to Lamaze classes.

P: Laugh.

M: Breath and swear.

P: Laugh.

M: Big, deep breath in and swear.

P: Laugh. They say that it’s a very similar effect to drugs like morphine. It helps to calm your system down and has that effect of decreasing the stimulation in the nervous system.

M: I wonder if you can over swear so that your body becomes… you know just like with morphine.

P: Laugh.

M: If you take too much, you’ve got to have more.

P: Laugh.

M: So the science behind that is that it triggers the flight or fight stress response. So it is a trigger to your mind, to release all of those chemicals that help you deal with pain.

P: Yep, neurotransmitters and so forth.

M: Yeah, yeah, but I do wonder whether, if you do it all the time it kind of dampens the effect or something.

P: Well, that that would stand to reason because too much of the fight or flight response and too much of those neurochemicals does desensitise the nerve synapses so good point there.

M: So do swear, but selectively when it comes to pain.

P: Well, I think it’s like anything. If you use something too much, it loses its potency. So if you’re using Shit in every sentence, then when you’re really when you’re really emotional Shit just doesn’t cut it anymore, you’ve got to go to another level or you get a different word.

M: Such as?

P: Fuck!

P & M: Laughter.

P: Pussy!

M: I love that that’s the word you go for.

P: Mole! Laugh, that’s one of my favourites actually.

M: Laugh, which reminds me for all those Australians out there of the comedy company and Kylie Mole.

P: Yeah, Kylie Mole.

M: She goes, she goes, she just goes.

P & M: Laughter.

P: Alright, moving on.

4. Does it make you perform better during exercise?

M: This is really topical because so many of our sports stars in Australia have been receiving fines for swearing.

P: Yep.

M: Because everything’s miked up and you can see every angle of everything.

P: Yeah.

M: We’re asking them to, again, apply standards that swearing is not appropriate and to not swear.

P: But that’s shown to be ineffective. Research in 2017 suggests that swearing could affect the outcome of your workout. So if you’re in a long tennis match and you see those people, you know, those tennis stars, think of the Nick Kyrgios’s and the explosions. We’ve always had that John McEnroe, Andre Agassi before he did his mindfulness work was a huge lout on the tennis court, but it was effective.

M: It was effective, or ineffective?

P: Yeah, it was. It can sustain, sustain their workouts and sustain their levels of intensity.

M: And look, let’s be honest when it comes to elite athletes, you’re not there to play in a mindful, meditative state. You’re there to compete, and that takes a whole different compeTitive mindset. That is not about being nice.

P: No.

M: And curbing your language. It is –

P: It is bringing your passion.

M: – just short of kill or be killed, right? You are there to win.

P: Yeah.

M: And I think swearing is a natural extension of that if you’re really in that frame of mind.

P: Yeah, I agree. Taking on a slightly different stance, I really like this. A Yoga instructor and movement facilitator, Lindsey Istace who’s 24 in Canada invented Rage Yoga.

M: Yes!

P: Laugh. I love this!

M: I love the juxtaposition of  that.

P: Laugh, and it’s this whole idea of being in the yoga class and being all meditative and quiet and finding your breath inside the [angry voice] ‘downward dogs three-legged extension!’ Laugh, and its hard yakka (work).

So Lindsay found that she was in a really bad break up and she went in to do a work out and she started swearing and she had an awesome response and her whole body was tingling. Said it really helped her overcome the issues that she was facing and get her emotions out.

So she started introducing a class encouraging people post work to come into a yoga class, do the yoga workout, but within that to swear and to swear loudly to curse and it took on a real momentum and that even has become now a thing of come in, do some swear yoga and then have a beer afterwards.

M: Oh, I love it.

P: So it’s that whole social connection in bonding and it’s allowing you to, if you’ve had a Shit day at work, come in yell and scream and get it out and then talk about it afterwards because your emotions are out for everyone to see and you’re exposed and you’re vulnerable, which the perfect time to be open and honest about how you’re feeling.

M: And also what I love about this is that you’re doing it with others. So you’re never alone.

P: Exactly, you’re supported.

M: Yep.

P: And if you’ve got a class situation, then usually you’ve got people [you know] within that class. Who doesn’t go to the same gym class because the people there make it fun.

M: I love it.

P: Yep, brilliant stuff.

M: So the moral of that is, we need to find some new words maybe that people don’t think of as swear words?

P: Laugh!

M: Because words are just words because humans say their words, so you can let that level of energy come out of your mouth and be vocalised without getting fined thousands of dollars.

P: True.

M: Laugh.

P: Yes, that’s one technique. I’ll agree with that. Fire truck works well for me, laugh.

M: Yeah okay, I like it.

P: Firetruck!

M: I have to say frustration is part of volleyball, that we both play.

P: Oh yeah.

M: It’s a game that’s built on errors, right?

P: Laugh.

M: And you know how good it can be. And even after 20 years of playing the sport, it’s like woah.

P: Laugh.

M: Even after years and years of playing sport. Things still just don’t happen the way they’re meant to.

P: Laugh. We’ve all had those moments play with Laurent or Claire swearing in French all the time.

M: Laugh.

P: That wasn’t just one word, that was a whole sentence of profanities in French, laugh!

M: So I played at George Mason University and we had a no swearing policy on our team. Except for Zuma, I’ll call her out, she was from Puerto Rico and she used to swear like a sailor!

P: Laugh.

M: But because it was all in Portuguese. No one said anything. No one said anything. And it was like ‘that is so unfair’!

P: Laugh.

M: Why does she get to swear and I don’t?

P: Laugh. Oh dear… Alright-  

M: Alright.

P: – moving on to the next one.

5. Swearing may give you a sense of calm.

Don’t meditate, swear.

M: I’m down with that.

P: Laugh.

M: Meditation does nothing for me.

P: Ahh, you haven’t given it a good shot.

M: Yeah, okay. I don’t want to.

P: Laugh.

M: That’s the cynic in me. We all know this. I’d prefer to go swear.

P: Okay, so what does swearing do for us?

M: What does swearing do for us?

P: Laugh! Increases our circulation. It elevates our endorphins and via this creates an overall sense of calm and control.

M: And well-being.

P: So it’s that post swearing state that you’re getting to, really.

M: And if you want to look into the benefits of swearing on your sense of calm so if you have stress, anxiety, etcetera. And let’s be honest in today’s world, who doesn’t? There is a writer and psychiatrist based in Oxford, England, called Neel Burton, who wrote Heaven and Hell: The Psychology the of Emotions.

P: Hmm.

M: So check out that book as well, if you don’t want to take our word for it.

P: Laugh. There’s another one that I came across Jason Headley, who’s a writer and director who lives in San Francisco and he’s created, Fuck that: An Honest Meditation.

M: I love that we’re getting more and more into just saying Fuck and Shit and damn and everything else.

P: Laugh.

M: As we go along in this podcast.

P & M: Laugh.

M: We’ve opened the doors Pete.

P: [Singing] Let it go, let it go.

M: Laugh, and we’re back with Disney.

P: I always go back to Disney.

M: Laugh, always. Alright in the last couple of minutes, we’re going to talk about my favourite research.

P: Laugh!

M: Which says that:

6. Swearing is a sign of intelligence.

P: Which totally is against everything that has been perceived about swearing since Victorian England.

M: Absolutely, absolutely so. Studies have suggested that fluency in swear words is associated with possessing a larger vocabulary in general, not a smaller vocabulary.

P: That’s really interesting.

M: So researchers who’ve studied swearing also say that the habit may be linked with a higher IQ.

P: Well, we should have an Olympics of swearing.

M: I struggle, the second I go outside my comfort zone of Shit and Fuck I’m out of words.

P: Laugh!

M: And for those of you who listened, well obviously, if you’re here with us right now and you listen to the beginning of this podcast, those words were all written on paper.

P: Laugh!

M: They weren’t coming, freely flowing out of  my brain.

P & M: Laughter!

P: Which I think comes back to that ability to be able to use different words and have power behind them on them or tools you have in your toolbox that the more fun you can have with it and the more effective it becomes.

M: Mmm.

P: So again if Mole just isn’t cutting it and you need to go to Tit Bag or Cheese Nozzle.

M: Laugh.

P: You’re assigning power to those words and having that vocabulary. You might not pull out Cheese Nozzle quite as much as you pull out Mole. But when you do, you know that it’s an elevated sense of expression, so you’re giving it more power, which allows you to tap into that. All those neurochemicals and all those effects that we’ve just mentioned because you have a selection of different levels of swear that you can employ.

M: And you’ll be smarter for it.

P & M: Laughter!

P: Fair enough, so if nothing else, you’ve got the IQ. All right, we’ll wrap up on that one. So aah…

M: What are we going to leave you with?

P: Laugh!

M: Have a Fucking great day.

P: Laugh! Piss off! Laugh!

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

The Happiness Paradox (E50)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

In this week’s episode Marie and Pete discuss the Happiness Paradox and why so many of us struggle in the pursuit of happiness. 

Transcript

Show notes: At ~ 10 minutes Pete references a 2010 study, Motivating Goal-Directed Behavior Through Introspective Self-Talk: The Role of the Interrogative Form of Simple Future Tense, conducted at the University of Illinois, the authors of this study are: Senay, Albarracin and Noguchi.

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

M: And we’re back.

P: Hi… Laugh.

M: Hey, I love that we start every episode by laughing at each other, pretty much.

P&M: Laughter.

P: Well we found out very early in the episodes really, because we did the first one and it was… so bad.

M: I know, we need to go back and rerecord the first one.

P: I knew we would…

M: Laugh.

P: And then you were like ‘we need to make each other laugh somehow.’

M: We need to be less robotic, eeuggh. Live and learn. So today we’re talking about:

P: The Happiness Paradox.

M: [Singing] Ta da.

P: [Singing] Ta da. Explain what that is Marie.

M: Okay, so.

P: Strap yourselves in people.

P & M: Laughter.

P: Get comfy.

M: So, research suggests-

P: Oh! Research, laugh.

M: – research suggests a surprising, paradoxical effect.

P: Ooh.

M: A happiness paradox.

P: Mmm.

M: And it is that the more people pursue positive emotions, the less likely they are to experience positive outcomes.

P: [Singing] So true.

M: So the more you chase happiness, the less likely you are to get it.

P: The further away you are.

M: Yes, so the happiness paradox is something that a lot of people in positive psychology would know about and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

P: Ok.

M: So let’s dig into maybe what that is and how it presents a little bit more.

P: Yeah, sure.

M: So it is saying or thinking things like, I’ll be happier when.

P: Mmm.

M: I’ll be happier when I have a red sports car.

P: Laugh …Well.

Laughter

P: I was very happy when I got my red sports car.

P & M: Laughter.

M: Or I’ll be happier when I have a better place to live in when I can get a place of my own or have a newer a car or a promotion or a better job, or more money. Or insert something you want, normally a consumerist driven, capitalist society-

P: Laugh, wow, just wow.

M: -inspired thing, rather than state of being or anything like that.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: So insert that here and the problem is that what we’re really saying when we say ‘I’ll be happier when’ what we’re really saying is that I’m not going to be happy now, but when that happens, I will be happy.

P: Mmm.

M: And so, we’re delaying our opportunities for happiness in the moment and it doesn’t give us permission to be happy now. It’s always you want to do that and then you’ll be happy.

P: Yes.

M: And lo and behold, you get a promotion or a fancy house, and you might be happy for a short amount of time, because that’s cool, right?

P: Yep.

M: But often. Well always you won’t be happy forever. Because it’s just a thing, right? So and then you set another goal and you work towards that because surely you’ll be happy then?

P: Laugh.

M: Right?

P: [Pretend yelling voice] ‘But when I get there, I’m not happy!’

M: Pretty much. So you might have a small spike [in happiness] I’m not saying that getting a promotion won’t make you happy.

P: No, no, no.

M: If you wanted it.

P: It makes you feel glad, excited, positive.

M: Yeah, definitely. But it’s not a sustained happiness.

P: It’s not a key to a long term happiness.

M: Absolutely.

P: It’s a peak and a trough.

M: Yep, absolutely.

P: I love the graphic example of this is where you’ve got peaks and troughs and then you’ve got a hyperbolic curve. So the investment in exercises of long term happiness, so doing some daily meditation on doing is an act of kindness or gratitude and so forth that creates that hyperbolic curve, which is constant. So the peaks and the troughs can come within that, but that curvature of doing those long term happiness exercises helps to balance that out. So you don’t have the emotional swings, and you’ve got this underlying current that drives through at a more median level.

M: You have no idea how I’m representing that in my head right now.

P: Laugh. It’s a visual representation.

M: I think I just drew a picture of a cat.

P: [Laugh]

M: With spikey ears.

P: Ok. Laugh. I’ll try that again sometime. Moving on…

[Laughter]

M: But, I think I know where you’re going.

P: Yes.

M: Laugh.

P: So if you’re going up and down all the time, it’s hard work. If you’re constantly going up a mountain, down a mountain, up the mountain, down the mountain, it’s hard work.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Now, if you’ve got a bridge that goes between those mountain peaks, the climb is more sustained and it creates a longer, more balance effect. A measurement of happiness or exertion.

M: Nah..

P: Still not there? Ok. Alright I give up, laugh!

M: No, I see what you’re saying.

P: Laugh.

M: I guess where I’m at is I believe that sustained long term happiness keeps you above neutral.

P: Yeah.

M: You know, above… If you have happiness is on a scale of 0 to 10. You’re going to have shit, things that happen in you’re life.

P: Oh, yeah.

M: And you’re going to have good things. And they’re your spikes.

P: Yes.

M: And some of them you can avoid through your own behaviour and some of them just happen, good and bad.

P: And you’ve got to deal with them.

M: Yep. But you want to be. You want your engine revving above neutral and that’s your long term sustained.

P: I should have done the engine rev example.

M: Yes!

P: Laugh.

M: You want, you want your… So you don’t want to be sitting at zero and having peaks up to 10 and troughs down to zero, every now and then, you want to be sitting at two or three, which is a really good quality high level of… Sorry I said up to 10 didn’t I?

P: Yes.

M: So I’ve stuffed that up already.

P: Laugh!

M: If 0 is neutral then 5 is excellent and minus 5 is bad. You want to be sitting at two or three on a regular constant basis.

P: Yes, there we go.

M: And that’s your starting point for peaks that go up to five and troughs that at times might go to minus 5. But if you’re in a good mental state, are more likely to only go to zero.

P: It also makes you a bit more resilient.

M: Oh, absolutely.

P: So when those troughs do happen, you bounce back a little bit more because you’ve got the tools.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And I’m stopping clicking, sorry. I get it looked at when I click, laugh.

M: And the weird this is you probably hear this every second episode.

P: Laugh!

M: Yet I’ve listened back to our podcasts and half the time you can’t even hear the clicks.

P: See!

M: So it’s an imaginary thing that we are talking about.

P: Laugh! Anyway, getting back to the podcast.

Laughter.

P: It’s that resiliency that comes from having that base level of happiness and that base level, which you’ve  got to work hard to get.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Don’t get me wrong people. You’ve got to do the work people all the time. That allows you to bounce back from those troughs, really well and possibly or maybe a little bit quicker than someone who isn’t on that 2,3 level.

M: Yep, definitely. And that’s really the definition of resiliency it’s how quickly you bounce back. So this lays the foundation and the groundwork for bouncing back quickly when things so to shit.

P: Yes, I like it.

M: Which is my word of the day, obviously. Shit, shit, shit.

P: Laugh.

M: So what is the problem with this happiness paradox and chasing happiness? There’s kind of three things that we’re talking about here.

1. So the problem, the first one is that we’re often not good at predicting what will make us happy.

P: Yes, laugh.

M: So the car, the house, the bigger house.

P: Mmm.

M: You might get the bigger house and then spend all you Saturday mornings cleaning it.

P: [Exasperated voice] Oh Yes…

P & M: Laughter.

M: Right? Or that car just very quickly becomes yet another car.

P: Or you have to tune it up, send it to the mechanic every six months because you want it to be maintained.

M: Absolutely. Or the big house comes with a really long commute.

P: Mmm, yes.

M: So we are really bad at predicting the things that will make us happy. So that’s the first thing.

2. Secondly, we are really good at setting super high standards that we just can’t achieve.

P: Hmm.

M: And so we say ‘I want to be a general manager of my company by the time I’m 30.’ A lot of millennials –

P: Yep, yep.

M: – are saying this and realising the harsh reality that we’re looking at and going ‘no, it takes 30 years to get there. Anyway I’m not going to dis millennials…

P: Laugh. [Whispers] They’ll come for you.

M: Laugh. [Panicked voice] Ok, I take it back, I take it back.

P & M: Laughter

P: They’re all around us, laugh.

M: But we set goals like I wanna be GM by 30. And then when it doesn’t happen instead of actually being something that you can be happy about. Proud of [what you have achieved], it actually becomes a source of negative emotion.

P: Discontent, yeah.

M: Yeah.

3. And then the third thing is that when we’re focused on getting to a goal, we can often forget to enjoy the journey.

P: Absolutely, oh sooo normal.

M: Absolutely. So that’s why the happiness paradox exists and sort of what it’s made up of. And we’re all so guilty of doing this.

P: Laugh! Very much, laugh.

M: So, I’ll throw to you now Pete. What can people do to get off that… treadmill? I’ll call it a treadmill.

P: I’ll bring in some research here.

M: Ooh!

P: A 2010 study conducted by Senay, Alvarez [Albarracin] and Noguchi from the University of Illinois.

M: Are you sure you said that right?

P: No, but I went with it, and I was confident!

M: Laugh!

P: So therefore, in my brain I’m telling myself I said it right and I’m just blasting on through. Laugh!

M: We will make sure the spelling is right in our show notes.

P & M: Laughter.

P: They talk about interrogative self-talk and how we can put ourselves into a hole by the sorts of thoughts that are going through our head. And when that comes down to being goal oriented, when you don’t get the promotion or you don’t achieve that goal, it’s this negative internalisation that just goes [whispers] ‘I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough’ and it eats away at you. And that doesn’t allow you to celebrate the small victories that you might have had along the way.

M: Yes.

P: So you didn’t get the GM role. But you developed a whole heap of skills which are going to make you much more employable to another industry. And you might change industries in five years time and find that you’ve already skilled up. But you forget to celebrate those small moments.

M: Yep.

P: And having that ability to recognise things that contribute to our change and advance us further along the path and those micro celebrations are really important.

M: Mmm.

P: That’s that base level of happiness.

M: It’s what we’re saying about enjoying the journey, not waiting to be happy at the end, but enjoying the process of learning on your path to may or may not be a GM by 30.

P: Yeah. One of my favourite monks Gelong Thubten from the UK talks about a saying ‘happiness is not a destination, it is a journey.’

M: Yeah, I’ve seen that on a T-Shirt somewhere, I’m sure.

P: It’s so true. A lot of people go, ‘oh it’s all new age crap.’

M: [Laugh]

P: It’s not new age crap. It’s, it’s a fundamental truth. When you start looking into this stuff, it becomes so prevalent and just believable.

M: Yep.

P: I think we mentioned him in our first episode when we first with our whole paradigm around what is happiness?

M: Mmm hmm, yep.

P: All these sorts of thoughts came out.

M: Well talking about this, again it’s like going back to that first episode when we first started looking into all of this research and before my blog and before the accident, I had followed life’s script. I was doing what society expected of me, which was to succeed at life.

P: Yep.

M: And I look back now and I feel like I’ve come out of a fog for 30… 20 something years –

P: Laugh.

M: – of my life.

P & M: Laughter.

M: I was following the script and I was succeeding and I wasn’t happy. And I did get happiness from the successes along the way from the promotions and the good grades at school and the extracurricular activities and the marriage and all of that stuff that your meant to do.

P: Yep.

M: But they were tick boxes and there were very superficial levels of happiness that were gained from that.

P: We are tick box oriented, especially in western society.

M: Absolutely.

P: It’s reinforced on us. We’re taught to be goal oriented, which is positive.

M: Right from the first day you went to school.

P: Yeah, yeah absolutely. And that’s fine but It’s not the be all and end all.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So sometimes it’s about the process of learning and understanding of what you experience along the way, and I think that that’s the change that’s going in the world at the moment. I feel with positive psychology we’re much more aware of enjoying the journey, taking part in the fun things as well as not just being ‘I’m gonna sit in my room and study for 20 years so that I get this accolade.’

M: Or be that single focused and as we’ve discussed many times before, the way to get your engine revving at a 2 or a 3 is cultivating those strong social relationships.

P: Definitely.

M: And that’s really undervalued in our society, spending time with family and friends.

P: Yep, older generations.

M: It’s the first things you cut when things get busy and to make sure you’re looking after your mental and physical well-being. And again those are the things that get cut when things get busy and three, finding meaning and purpose in your life. And a lot of people are really disillusioned with their jobs because they assume that would give them meaning and purpose.

P: Yes. Goal oriented.

M: And they don’t. Yeah exactly.

P: I’ve got the job that I have my dreams. Why am I not happy?

M: Yep.

P: You’ve got to have some fundamental beliefs in there too people.

M: Yep.

P: You’ve got to have some other things running through the river. Oh, that was a good one!

P & M: Laughter!

M: Are you peeing in the river?

P: No, I was thinking of the fishies!

P & M: Laughter!

P: Oh, I was on a good one there!

P & M: Laughter!

P: Shut down again.

M: Love it. So, really what we’re saying is you’ve got to get off the treadmill by making a decision. I have decided to become happier now.

P: This happened to me in London. I think I’ve mentioned it before, it’s the journal moment where I was journaling all my worries and my ‘I’m frustrated with this blah, blah, blah.’ And then I read it back one year and I went ‘Oh my God, I’m depressed!’

M: Laugh.

P: This is horrible! I started using journaling-  

M: Stressed or melodramatic?

P: I! …yeah.

M: Laugh.

P: Clutch my pearls ‘How dare you!’

P & M: Laughter!

P: So I made a conscious choice to start writing down positive stuff. What happened today that was good.

M: Yeah.

P: And that was the switch that flipped, and then all of a sudden, my brain was starting to notice things that were good, and I started looking for them. It’s the red car principle. You’re going to buy a red car. Then all of a sudden, all you see are red cars. It’s the same thing.

M: Absolutely. For me, as you know, it was nearly dying.

P: Yeah.

M: Nearly dying made me go ‘surely there’s more to this life.’

P: Yeah, Laugh.

M: And I stumbled across all of this research and was just baffled that no one had taught me any of this before. I’d been missing all these life lessons and by blogging and podcasting. It has become such an integral part of my life, and I’m happy.

P: Yeah, it’s good.

M: It makes such a big difference.

P: I agree, I agree.

M: So these podcasts, and I know that we’ve had people write to me and mention these podcasts are a great way for them to keep in mind weekly all of the positive psychology activities and thinking that can positively impact their weeks and their lives as well.

P: Yeah. Keeps you honest.

M: Definitely. So you’ve got to take the jump.

P: Ha ha, buy in!

M: Take the happiness jump!

P: Laugh.

M: So by being in that old paradigm that so many western societies, still! It’s western capitalist societies still push, you’re delaying your happiness.

P: Yeah.

M: And the last thing you want to do is be on your death bed and think ‘I succeeded, ticked all the boxes.’

P: ‘Is that the entire journey?’ Yeah.

M: ‘But really is that it?’

P: And it can be as simple as celebrating dinner with your family.

M: Yep.

P: It’s ‘Oh the family’s home, let’s have a dinner together. Let’s sit down and be next to each other.’ And those small activities that you do do, catching up with your mates once a week on a Sunday for a pub lunch. They’re important connections to keep going.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So, when you do get busy or you are pushing for a goal-oriented task, don’t forget the small stuff.

M: Yeah, give yourself permission to prioritise that stuff, and as we mentioned before it’s stuff that you cancel first, but it’s the stuff you need the most when you are under the pump at work, you need to make sure you make time for the gym and that you still see your friends; Because that will make you stronger and more resilient to make it through that tough time at work.

P: It takes your focus away from the thing that’s causing you grief.

M: Yep.

P: It separates your… We know the saying. ‘volleyball is its own bubble.’

M: Oh, absolutely.

P: Laugh. Have a crap day? Go and play some sport.

M: Yeah.

P: Go and do something that’s motor skill oriented. It will take your mind off your concern at the moment.

M: Particularly if you can hit things hard.

P: Laugh! Preferably not the other players.

M: We do not condone violence, laugh.

P: Hey, a good 6 pack is a good 6 pack.

M: Laugh. Ok we only condone sport endorsed violence.

P: Laugh!

M: So, another couple of things that are really good for getting off that treadmill and that ‘I’ll be happier when’ way of thinking is gratitude. So as we’ve mentioned on other shows, gratitude is about retraining your brain to notice the positive.

P: Mmm.

M: And a really simple, simple way is, to particularly if you’ve got a partner or significant other or a housemate every night just swap stories of what went well today.

P: Hmm. It’s huge, I understand as well with my husband, we do that. How was your day? Grunt. What was good about it?

M: Exactly and I love the way you say ‘what was good?’ Because if you say what are you grateful for? We run out of ideas.

P: Laugh.

M: [sarcastic tone] I’m grateful for the clean air.

P: Laugh.

M: And like it becomes really a tick box exercise, right?

P: Yeah, yes.

M: But if you say what went well? It’s easy to always find something that went well.

P: Absolutely.

M: And that’s, that’s practising gratitude. And the other one is mindfulness.

P: [Softly singing] Aaaahhhh.

M: Stopping to turn your phone off or to enjoy the moment you’re in, whether you’re standing at a bus stop, having dinner with your family or catching up with a friend or just taking some time before your workday to enjoy the sun on your face.A

P: Watering the herb garden.

M: Yep.

P: Standing in the garden, watering in the sunshine and go ‘Oh, it’s going to be a nice day.’

M: But actively, actively committing to being there in the moment.

P: Yep.

M: Definitely. All right, well, that was the happiness paradox.

P: Hope that was interesting for everyone, Laugh.

M: I’m still picturing the cat with the spikey ears.

P: Laugh! It was an image! I still like my river reference, I thought that was more, more pertinent anyway, I’ll come up with better analogies next time I promise.

M: I’m seeing people upstream peeing into the river.

P: Laugh.

M: And merging and melding into one…

P: And on that note!

P & M: Laughter.

M: Thanks for joining us.

P: Laugh!

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

How The Mind Affects The Body (E49)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete discuss the how the mind affects the body and look at a study by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer.

Transcript & Show Notes

In this episode, Marie mentions a book by Dr. Helena Popovic, called NeuroSlimming: Let your brain change your body. Also, Pete mentioned someone and accidentally mis-identified him, his name is Ian Hickey.

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

M: So Pete, today we’re talking about how the mind affects the body.

P: Ooohh [Twilight Zone noises]

M: And maybe how the body affects the mind?

P: Oh, yes, It’s a very intrinsic relationship,.

M: Definitely, it’s so linked, and I think throughout western culture in particular we’re really coming late to the party on this one.

P: [Laugh] We may be, but we’re definitely there. There’s so much more research out there now that tells us why physical and mental work is good and how the two are very..  have a very symbolic relationship. And I think that’s where the positive psychology movement has made a lot of advances for people. People have definitely felt that in my workplace, people are much more aware of their mental health and how being physical and moving has power over that, and also how much your mental state has power over your physicality.

M: For me, I’m fascinated with the Gut Mind research.

P: Microbiomes!

M: Yes!

P: [Laugh] See how excited we get over science, oh my god I feel like I’m on ‘The Bing Bang Theory’.

M: [Laugh]

P: I Am Not Sheldon!

M: You are so far from Sheldon.

P: [Laugh] Please don’t let me be Wolowitz. I’m not Jewish! Oy vey..

M: [Laugh] Who’s ahhh..

P: Rajesh?

M: Penny.

[Laughter]

P: We have a Penny in our group, I’m not going to say his name. [Laugh]

M: All good. So anyway, for those of you who haven’t seen the latest research and books and shows and everything that’s exploding around this topic of gut-brain-health; The long and the short of it is the latest research is showing that the health of your gut, so your belly, where you’re food goes –

P: Mmm hmm.

M: – is directly linked to the health of your brain. And having imbalances in your belly or poor diet can lead to things like depression.

P: Definitely and a million other issues as well, such as Parkinson’s disease, degenerative diseases, inflammatory diseases, crone’s disease, celiac disease that sort of stuff all can be linked back to the Microbiome. It’s a really interesting… There’s a great show called ‘Searching for Super Human’ on the ABC channel in Australia, you can download all of that stuff still on ABC ivew, a little plug for ABC there. It’s a really good introduction to the concept of Microbiomes and also how much power our brain has over us. And I think we’re going to probably ref – I’ll probably reference that today as we talk this through. [Laugh]

M: We’ve also got some leading world leading researchers in particular over at UNSW and I saw a talk last year on this, and I will put in the show notes because it’s escaping me right now. The book that I got [‘NeuroSlimming: Let your brain change your body’] and leave the author [Dr. Helena Popovic], the researchers name in the show notes as well.

P: There’s a lot of stuff down at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Ian Richie… [Ian Hickey] I think that’s the right professor?

M: We’ll make sure it’s right in the show notes as well.

[Laughter]

P: Really exciting stuff.

M: A big call out to our show producer, Lea.

[Laughter]

P: Who does a marvellous job of-  

M: Of cleaning up our mistakes.

[Laughter]

P: [Singsong voice] Thanks Lea.

M: So what started us on discussing how the mind affects the body was, of course, a research study.

P: [Sarcastic tone] Of course, gotta love research studies..

M: [Laugh] Called the Hotel Maid study.

P: [Laugh]

M: Well, that’s what I named it.

P: [Laugh]

M: I’m sure it’s got some really…

P: Artistic licence there Muz?

M: Yeah. There is a really long, boring, hard to understand research appropriate title but I’m calling it the Hotel Maid study.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And it’s by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer, and she has done so much good work in researching in positive psychology over the years.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And this is just one of many supercool studies.

P: [Laugh]

M: I think she did the coolest ones to be quite frank.

P: Okay.

M: There’s some really um, really funky and fun studies out there, and Ellen’s done two that I’m aware of.

P: [Laugh]

M: But this one the Hotel Maid study, I’ll set it up for you.

So she went to a bunch of hotels and divided employees, maids of those employees into group one and group two.

In group one, she came in and told the maids and the cleaners all about the importance of exercise, how it contributes to lowering your heart rate and your blood pressure and makes you healthier and all of the raft off positive physical and mental benefits that you get from doing its exercize.

P: Ok.

M: We all know.

P: Sounds like my life coach.

M: [Laugh] We all know it. So she went and told them how to such eggs, right.

P: [Laugh]

M: And then she did, ran a bunch of tests on them and left.

P: And just walked out the door?

M: Yep.

P: Thanks and bye.

M: Yep, pretty much.

With group two. She did exactly the same thing.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: Importance of exercise, how it contributes to physical and mental health. And then she drew the connection to what the maids do day in and day out.

P: Mmm.

M: And said, you know, when you’re lifting your arms up and shaking the sheets that’s actually using your muscles, and when you’re vacuuming and all of the things that you do day in, day out and a lot of you may not realise, because I can see here on your reports were that you filled in on the way in, a lot of you say that you don’t do any exercise, but I can tell you for eight hours a day when you’re doing your shift. That is all exercise.

P: I’m a big believer in that.

M: And so she then did the tests and left.

P: Thanks and bye.

M: [Laugh] So a month later, she came back and redid all the tests. And lo and behold, when you tell people to suck eggs, nothing changes, right?

P: [Laugh]

M: So there was no change in behaviour in either group. No one did anything differently. [whispers] I think a lot of doctors could learn from this.

P: Ok.

M: And my friend Kelly exercise physiologist. Physios, a lot of people could learn from this. You tell people go away and do three times 10 reps of this calf raising exercise.

P: [Laugh]

M: And you’ll get better. And people go ‘uh huh.’ And then they forget it –

P: – as soon as they walk out the door.

[Laughter]

M: So lo and behold, all the maids went, ‘uh huh’ and then did nothing, right?

P: [Laugh]

M: But, but, but!

P: [Laugh]

M: Otherwise this would be the most boring story in the world.

P: [Laugh] Get on with it, keep going.

M: [Laugh] But group two believed they were getting more exercise than before.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And this belief led to a radical change.

P: What happened Marie?

M: [Whisper] Radical change.

P: Tell us Marie.

M: So Group two had less depression, less anxiety, more positive moods and higher self-esteem and confidence and greater job satisfaction.

P: That’s the big one.

M: So all of that is positive mental health impacts. Physically, their weight decreased significantly.

P: [Gasp] Hear that all you housewives of wherever you are?

M: [Laugh]

P: Go out and do some domestics [laugh].

M: As did their BMI, their Body Mass Index, and their blood pressure went down. So they got all the benefits from during exercise simply because they believed that what they’d always been doing was now exercise. Not just a boring job.

P: [Laugh] I’m ticking the boxes, yay!

M: [Laugh]

P: I think it’s so true. There’s such a benefit to the placebo effect. Now, being in therapy myself and someone that works with people day in, day out, and trying to get them better in whatever way, shape or form. One of the first things I talk about with my new clients is, if you don’t think I have achieved anything, don’t come back. There’s no point if you don’t trust the people that are working with you and trying to help you and giving you these exercises, that you don’t do. Or at least if you’re trying to do them. If you don’t believe they’re actually of benefit to you, it’s not gonna have the right effect. The brain has a lot to do with keeping us motivated than keeping things happening and working through, and that flow on effect to actual physical recovery is definitely linked as we’re seeing with the research.

M: So the fact that I didn’t buy into all this positive psychology BS.

[Laughter]

M: For so long, actually means that I was never going to benefit from it until I started buying into it anyway.

P: I agree.

M: That is a weird mind… I can’t say the F word.

P: It’s kind of like the emperor’s new clothes.

M: [Laughter]

P: It is. You’re just walking around naked until you actually believe what’s going on.

M: Yeah, the question is what do other people think?

P: [Laugh]

M: What are you wearing?

P: [Laugh] Better go put your clothes on… I get that all the time.

M: You so do, girl put some clothes on.

P: [Laugh] Anyway, we digress.

M: Yes. So look, this is, and I read this study and loved it, love, love, loved it. The fact that these people thought that what they’d always been doing was exercise, and they’ve reframed how they saw what they were doing, [and it] led to huge benefits.

P: Yep

M: And for me, the take home of all of this is to actually, take some time to look at my week and the small amounts of incidental exercise I do. And believe me, they’re small because I work from home.

P: [Laugh]

M: So I walk five steps to get from my desk to the toilet and maybe eight steps to get from my desk to the kitchen. There’s not much else going on for a lot of days and I spend during Covid a lot of time in my home. So it’s about when I do go out shopping, making sure that I park at the back of the parking lot.

P: Yep.

M: Or take the stairs if I do go out, things like that.

P: It’s those small things that do accumulate and as we’ve realised with the Covid experience, incidental exercise has decreased greatly.

M: Yeah.

P: And a lot of people aren’t moving as much and it’s the movement that helps to stimulate a lot of that brain activity that goes towards positive thinking, feeling all those good [hormones] dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin levels, all that sort of contribution.

M: Yep. So my challenge to myself is to look at all those little incidental things and to now call them exercise. And to tick that off.

[Laughter]

P: I like it. You’re sounding like my mom.

M: [Laugh]

P: I’ll tell this story though, this is a personal story. I have these visions of when I was a little boy, you know ages 5 to 8 of my mother doing domestics. Now mum was 5 ft four. She’s no longer 5 foot 4, she’s a lot shorter that that now. But mum would get her shoulder behind a bookcase full of books and move it so that every week she could clean the skirting board. This was every week. Mum was diligent about it.

M: That’s dedication.

P: Oh yeah. And that happened in the entire houses. So she would shift every wardrobe, every cupboard. She would pull it out and clean.

M: Now that’s exercise.

P: Huge exercise. Now Mom has never been an exerciser. We have one photo of mum in a netball team when she was maybe 20, it was really funny.

M: [Snort laugh]

P: My mother on a netball court. Wow, that’s really weird. But Mom has even an exercise that Mom is now 85 and she’s still getting around her own home. And she’s still doing her gardening and so forth. Admittedly, she’s got some health issues because she hasn’t maybe exercised as much as what she should have. But what has saved her, I think a lot, is that she was so determined of her housework. That was weightlifting. I mean, a bookcase full of –

M: But did she see it is weight lifting?

P: No, she just saw it as work.

M: Because what we’re saying now is if she’d seen it has weight lifting. She wouldn’t have those even small health issues you were talking about, right?

P: Maybe, quite possibly. But it is about clocking what you do throughout the day. And just because you’re not going to the gym doesn’t mean that you can’t be doing some movement and doing some loading and doing some resistance work.

M: Yes. Now moving back to how that relates to mind and body.

P: Did I go on a tangent?

M: Yes, you did.

P: [Laughter]

M: But I know that you’re really passionate about stuff and we should all do exercise. I’m just saying think about all the little things you do as exercise and then you can get off the hook.

P: [Laugh] I don’t need to go to the gym I did vacuuming.

M: What? Look that’ll get your heartrate up if you do it properly.

P: Absolutely, it does.

M: [Laughter]

P: So the power of the brain in that, that’s what matters?

M: Yes, absolutely.

P: [Laugh] I’ve got some research here from some of the journals from post-traumatic stress disorder and some really big advancements that have been going on in Australia with Mirjana Askovic a Psychologist with service for treatment and rehabilitation of torture and trauma survivors.

M: Say that ten times fast?

P: Yeah.

Now she has been doing a lot of work with traumatic stress disorder people about retraining brain activity and trying to not focus on reliving trauma but advancing positive mood thoughts with the brain, which actually helps with depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, all these secondary benefits and its using video games.

M: Oh!

P: It’s getting a person, instead of talking about the trauma of being a refugee and having to get a boat and come to Australia, she sits in front of a television, and they have to power a plane with good thoughts, positive thoughts and there’s two other planes on either side of them and if those planes start to take over, they have to work harder with their positivity and recalling happy memories, good thoughts, things that make you laugh, to power that plane along and that training is helping to promote levels of serotonin, oxytocin and those lovely neurotransmitters, which helps with the secondary incidences of depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, really amazing stuff.

M: I love a few things there. So first thing is that a lot of the science that you’re talking about there is really similar when we talk about gratitude about training your brain to recognise the positive.

P: Absolutely.

M: And you need to train it just like a muscle, right?

P: Yep.

M: It is a muscle.

P: [Laugh]

M: In that sense.

P: [Laugh] I’m going to leave that one alone…

M: In that sense it is like a muscle.

P: [Laugh]

M: We’ll leave it there and we might get angry emails.

P: [Laugh]

M: You’ve got to train it. You’ve got to train your brain to not focus only on negative, and get it to focus on positive.

P: Yeah, absolutely. For sure, and it works. The success rate of this program at the moment is 80%. That’s huge.

M: That’s crazy.

P: It’s great.

M: And then the other thing that I’ll chime in off the back of that is personally after I had my motorbike accident. I absolutely do think that you need to talk about it first. But there does come a point we’re talking about it is only reinforcing the negative. It’s not helping you to move forward.

P: Mmm, yeah.

M: So when I first used to tell the story of what happened, I would shake uncontrollably and I noticed probably after like the 20th time I told it, you know countless doctors, my family, my close friends would ask you what happened and probably a good 20 times in two weeks later, I noticed I wasn’t shaking as much and I wasn’t so tense when I was telling the story there was definitely a physiological impact to me, reliving that.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And telling the story. And the other one was that probably a good six weeks after the accident, the doctor was in one day and reached for my knee and I flinched.

P: Mmm.

M: He hadn’t even touched me and I flinched. I was again just so protective of that leg that I’d nearly lost. And he says to me, ‘You’re going to have to do something about that or it’ll become a thing.

P: [Laugh]

M: He finished up his consult and he walked out and I looked up at my husband and I was like ‘do what?’

P: [Laugh]

M: How do I not flinch?

[Laughter]

M: But you know, good old Google helped us out and we spent a lot of hours trying to untrain that flinch reaction.

P: Oh yeah, it’s huge, I’ve worked with some amazing people with that. I’ve had a woman with Parkinson’s and I worked with her and she had major traumatic stress from incidences in her previous life and it took us a good 18 months, but we’ve got to the point where she could handle me touching her rib. And I remember the treatment and I remember the day and it was a massive celebration for both of us because she didn’t flinch. She didn’t lock up, she didn’t respond in that typical fashion.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: 18 months. It’s a big trust exercise, but it shows that you can actually train that response and those emotional triggers to a better place.

M: Absolutely. So our conclusion then is that the mind affects of body and the body affects the mind.

P: [Laugh] The link is there. Definitely, there’s countless things you could pull out [of the research].

M: So I do you want to leave us with one last story. And it is from the same researcher at Harvard, Ellen Langer, and in 1979 she got a bunch of elderly men and put them into an environment that looked like 1959.

P: Aahhh.

M: And she asked them for the whole week to wear clothes that they would have worn in 1959, to eat what they would have eaten for breakfast, to pretend they’re back in their jobs at that time that their kids were young and from that time. And to pretend for the entire week that they were 20 years younger than what they were, and off the back of that, they had random people look at photos before and after and on average strangers thought that these people were three years younger after they came out.

P: Wow.

M: And not only that, these men saw a huge range of positive physical and mental impacts from just spending a week pretending to be 20 years younger. [Laugh]

P: Put yourself in that position. Put yourself around that idea of going. I’m gonna act like I am 50.

M: It’s not even that it’s tricking your mind.

P: Yeah.

M: Actively tricking your mind into impacting your body. So their eyesight got better, their hearing go better, the arthritis was less pronounced. The physical impact from them pretending for a week to me 20 years younger were amazing.

P: The power of brain activity.

M: Yeah.

P: There’s other stories of that with Parkinson’s disease and dementia and so forth that’s come out as well that’s lovely. I’ll just very quicky throw this in.

M: Yep.

P: This lovely lady, they were doing sound therapy, so music therapy.

M: Ohh.

P: Finding the music that applies to that person’s life from when they were younger.

M: Yep.

P: And these people who do not recognise anyone, sitting in a vegetable state. They put this old lady with the headphones on, and she started swinging her arms and clapping and being so mobile with this lovely music that made her feel like she was 20. And then she turned and looked at the man sitting next to her and went ‘Oh! I know you. You’re my son.’

M: [Gasp]

P: It’s the first time that she recognised him in two years.

M: Awe.

P: It’s such an advertisement for training your brain and doing things that link your brain activity to positive outcomes.

M: Absolutely.

I know we’ve spoken about positive affirmations before, but there is so much to explore in this. And I think we’re only just tapping into the potential of our minds to help us live happy and healthier lives.

P: Yeah.

M: And I think we’ll end it there.

P: End it there. What a lovely line to end on. [Laugh]

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

So Long 2020 (E48)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week Marie and Pete say so long to 2020 – From the crappiness of the year to how positive psychology interventions changed it. 

Transcript

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

P: And I’m Peter Furness, a Flagrant Interpretative Dance Enthusiast, a Storyteller of Movement and Hygge Loving Frozen Fan. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: So if you’re ready to say F[Beep] off to 2020.

P: [Gasp] Marie, you can’t say that, [Laugh!]

M: Then this is the place to be!

P: [Laugh!] And to take us one step further on our happiness journey, today’s episode is all about the year that was 2020.

[Happy Intro Music]

P: So are we telling 2020 to Beep off?

M: Well, here’s the thing. I think it really depends on how much control you’ve had over your emotions and your happiness levels this year.

P: I think 2020 has been the year of testing.

M: Absolutely. And, oh I can’t say this without feeling this horrible feeling of umm… arrogance.

P: Oh.

M: But 2020 tested me, and I feel like a passed.

P: Well done, well done, you get a gold star.

M: I really do.

P: He, he.

M: So three years ago, I have a really bad accident overseas. I came off a motorbike and tumble down a mountain, and I nearly died, and it really kick started me on this journey of self-discovery and really questioning what was important in life. And then 2020 happened and we launched our podcast in the middle of a global Pandemic.

P: At the beginning really. Wasn’t it? It was kind of right at the start of it.

M: Absolutely. Well, we were recording from November [2019] through till March [2020] and then launched on the 20 of March.

P: Yeah, we did.

M: Which was International Happiness Day.

P: It was, yes.

M: And that was really when –

P: Everyone was in lockdown. [Laugh]

M: Shit went…

P: South. [Laugh]

M: Shit hit the fan, lets be really honest.

P: Yes, very true.

M: 2020 just went downhill from there.

P: It’s given us a bit of a kick in the pants, hasn’t it?

M: Absolutely. And so all of these positive psychology research that we’ve been doing and behavioural psychology.

P: And training, behavioural training.

M: All that stuff that we’ve been preaching this whole year, we’ve really had to put to the test in our own lives haven’t we?

P: Yes, I agree completely. We’ve had to sort of look back on it. So we’re looking back on it in this final podcast for 2020, before we go on a very short break. What have we done in 2020? How good have we been with our positive psychology? And what have we found? What have we discovered?

M: You’re a really good gardener.

P: [Laugh!] My herb garden is fabulous.

M: [Laugh!]

P: Even through the 40 degree [Celsius] (104 Fahrenheit) weekend last weekend, it still bounced back, thank goodness. [Laugh]

M: My garden died.

P: [Laugh!]

M: Withered and died. Thank you Australian summer.

P: But you have Birds?

M: Yeah, I do.

P: In your bird feeder.

M: I go buy bird food and feed them.

P: [Laughter!]

M: And they come to my garden. Yes, it is true.

P: Oh, that is so country.

[Laughter]

P: Right, so how have we gone this year?

M: Let’s score this. So I on a scale of one to ten how has your year been from a happiness level?

P: On a happiness level, I would actually have to say that, oddly enough, through doing the podcast and through looking at all the information that we’ve been disseminating and preaching and researching.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: Because, as you know, one of the best ways to become a better… to put in a sports reference, the best way to become a better player is to become a coach.

M: Yes.

P: So to actually espousing and talking about happiness and telling people “well, you should do this!” You’ve got to look at your own [situation] and go ‘oh, I should do that too.’

[Laughter]

P: So I would say 2020 has actually been a very positive year for me.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I’m getting a sense of this a lot through my clients as well. 2020 has allowed us to all go back to the drawing board and define what is truly valuable to us.

M: What’s meaningful in life.

P: Very much. It’s definitely one of those moments, I think. We’ve all been pushed to the limits a little bit with our patience, with our understanding with our compassion with our fear, our security, our understanding.

M: Our uncertainty.

P: Yeah, all that sort of stuff and in those moments, That is when you go back to your root values and your core values and go, ‘Ok, well what’s truly important to me? Is it important that I make that deadline with work? Or is it important that I talk to my husband every night and have a nice conversation and ensure a good meal?

M: And ensure a good meal? How very 1950’s of you.

P: Aaacchh.

M: [Laugh!]

P: I’m a domestic housewife waiting to happen I swear.

[Laughter]

P: Give me a millionaire and I will have your drink and your slippers ready for you when you walk in the door. I’ll have dinner and I will massage you. I’m a domestic goddess waiting to happen. I’m so good for it. [Laugh]

M: You are. But would that provide you with meaning and purpose in your life? Because that is the larger question.

P: Oddly enough, I think there is a certain… Yes, I actually could answer yes to that there would be a certain joy there would be a certain fulfilment in being that role.

M: I think that is the dichotomy of feminism. That a lot of women do enjoy looking after other people and caring for other people. Anyway, so I think that there, that is a dichotomy of feminism, that the issue that feminism has raised with so many women is that they want to be strong and independent, have choice and they want to choose to look after their husbands sometimes to look after kids and raise kids and do a good job raising Children and I think it’s taken us a while to get over that fight, to have equality in the workplace and all the rest of it.

But some people get real purpose and meaning in their lives.

P: Absolutely.

M: From looking after others and from mentoring and coaching and raising good children.

P: Well, this comes from, it comes down to mindfulness. It’s the immediacy of the response of the action. So, if my partner walks in the door, and I have prepared a beautiful meal and the table is set. There’s a glass of wine waiting for him as he walks in the door. Then I’m taking care of him. But I’m also nurturing the space, and I’m nurturing our relationship. I’m nurturing myself within that. I’m pretty proud of that. And that’s, that’s a meaning that’s a purple -purpose. Purplefulness? That’s not a word? [Laugh]

M: Purplefulness.

P: [Laugh] Purposefulness? I’m trying to I don’t know… I’m digging here.

M: That’s purposeful?

P: Yeah, I’ll go there. That’ll do.

M: I forget what we were talking about.

P: [Laugh]

M: It gives you purpose and meaning in your life.

P: Yes.

M: Look, and I think again, back to your point with the mindfulness, it is just about knowing yourself well enough to know that cooking brings you pleasure. Now, the second you’re cooking.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: Day in, day out and it becomes a chore and a job, you might need a break from that. To rediscover your joy from cooking.

P: Remove it for a while.

M: And your mindfulness and your self-awareness and self-reflection will help you to rediscover that. But very, very quickly things can become monotonous, boring.

P: Day to day, daily chores, yeah.

M: Yeah.

P: Where you just want to go and order Thai takeout.

M: [Whispers] What’s wrong with that?

P: [Laugh] Well we all have those days. So if we take that to a larger context.

M: We have a lot of those days…

P: [Laugh] But if we take that into the wider context, there are the daily activities that we, the daily grind that we have to get through.

M: Yep.

P: Part of what we talk about here on the podcast, in terms of mindfulness and all that positive psychology around being present, understanding your Ikigai, all that sort of stuff that we have referenced over the last year. If you can come to a point where that becomes special and you can identify those moments, there’s an amazing amount of joy that comes with that. So, when I’m standing in the kitchen with my kitchen knives, which I recently lost, and I will get them back [laugh], but that brings joy and being able to go ‘I’m cooking for myself, and I cooked a really give meal’ that’s a joyful experience and it makes you feel nurtured and good about yourself, and that leads to good happiness.

M: So I think the lesson for me has been that this podcast, blog and my site has really made sure that I focused on being mindful.

P: Mmm.

M: About the good things and the things that I enjoy doing.

P: Yep.

M: And that I have kept my happiness in the back of my mind all year.

P: Mmm.

M: And it has helped me to ensure that I’m prioritising and practising positive psychology activities.

P: Oh, I can’t agree more with that.

M: That have helped me to weather 2020 in a way that I feel guilty about, almost. I feel that-

P: -Because you’ve succeeded?

M: Yes, so many people have struggled in 2020.

P: Oh, yes. Yes.

M: And I feel, I feel bad that I haven’t.

P: I think the interesting thing for me is every week Marie and I try to get together and we do our little recordings. And every now and then we might not have a week where we do it and we’ll have to catch up. For me it’s the regularity of catching up with you and talking about this stuff. It filters into my daily life. It filters into my actions. So when you’re sitting there and saying “Oh, yes. Everybody go out and keep a gratitude wall.”

‘Oh hang on, where’s my gratitude wall? do I have one? I don’t really have one, maybe I should go and put one up!’

M: Yes.

P: So it makes you more aware and it brings that idea of doing the regular activities into my consciousness.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So our commitment to meeting up every week, even when you were in Tamworth and I was in Sydney.

M: And your internet was shit.

P: Oh yeah, my internet is crap.

M: I apologise to everyone for the horrible sound, it was all Pete’s fault, just so we’re clear.

P: [Laugh] [Whispers] It was Marie’s fault.

M: [Laugh]

P: But getting back to the point.

M: What were we talking about?

P: [Laugh] Commitment of the regular interaction and the regular investment of, let’s say, 50 minutes every week about us talking about happiness and all that it entails, and all the little tasks that you have to do it filters into your awareness. And that’s enough to actually create a good response and a happier existence.

M: And I think that was the whole premise of our book, right?

P: Yes.

M: So if you’re not going to church, listen to our podcast, meet up with a friend and talk about this stuff.

P: Make it regular.

M: Journal, blog, whatever it is that makes it a regular occurrence in your life. Again, I feel guilty and I feel arrogant for saying this, but I think that it is 100% the reason why I’ve weathered a global pandemic, a move to Tamworth, separation from my friends, a job change all of that stuff like it was just another day.

P: He, he. It didn’t impact you as much as maybe it would have, maybe three years ago?

M: Absolutely. Before the accident, I was living in the rat race. I was succeeding by all external measures.

P: All the external measures of what you were measuring success by.

M: But I was definitely not living my best life.

P: Mmm.

M: Success and happiness are two very different things.

P: Very much. And I also want a reference one of the emails that we received from a listener who wrote into us saying she was completely effusive in her praise, which is always so lovely to hear. But the most warming thing was that she said that she wanted to do something similar.

M: Yes.

P: So she was going to commit to her own podcast or her own publishing of information around happiness. And that, I think is possibly one of the biggest wins you get.

M: Yes, that is why we’re here!

P: Yes and it makes a difference when you reach one person. And it’s the pass on effect, that one person goes out and then passes it on to 100 other people.

M: Yep.

P: So that filtering through creates a web, it creates an interconnectedness in exactly the same way that Covid reacts!

M: Oh! It’s viral, viral!

P: Viral! But we could do the same thing with happiness.

M: [Laugh]

P: We can actually create those good feelings, one person goes out and reaches 10 other people and those 10 other people go out and reach another 10 people, which becomes 100. And I really do believe that happiness works in that way. And all the good things that we’ve talked about in terms of being generous and gratitude and understanding and passion. I think it really infiltrates into other people in your lives. Not just yourself.

M: I think so too. I’ve brought my sister along on this journey.

P: Oh, the gorgeous Lealea. She has, her love language is touch, I love it.

M: [Laugh]

P: “I just need to hug you because my love language is touch too! Yay!”

M: [Laugh] It’s so funny because the amount people who have come up to me and they’re like, “I need to meet Pete, my love language is touch too.”

P: [Laugh!]

M: But love language has been a really popular episode.

P: Oh, really?

M: Yeah.

P: [Laugh] Considering I didn’t really know what love languages were before we did it.

[Laughter]

P: And that, in itself is a good one. It’s one of the benefits for me from doing this podcast. I’ve learned a lot of the terminology and the science behind stuff, and I’ve actually-

M: -You sound quite proud.

P: Yes. Oh stop it, I know you’re going to get proud about this.

M: I’m an ex-journo, I’m like ‘where’s that quote?’

P: [Laugh]

M: ‘Give me the quote and the proof.’ See, I went into journalism with this ideology that it was this beautiful profession, where you serve the people and you report the truth.

P: [Laugh]

M: And then I came out to the real world and there’s things like the daily Mail.

P: Channel Nine.

M: Breitbart.

P: [Laugh]

M: Let’s be really honest, all of the craziness that’s going on in the world and I had believed in unbiased journalism.

P: [Laugh]

M: And so, when we came to this podcast, it was about ‘show me the proof? Show me that this stuff is real?’

P: Yep.

M: And not only have I found so much research in this area. But, my own personal experience just tells me that this stuff is real. It is, it is my church.

P: Mmm.

M: It has become my faith and something that I believe so wholeheartedly in. And I don’t want to come across to others as someone who is preaching or someone who is arrogant in their beliefs and believes that everyone else should [believe them].

P: Yeah.

M: But I’m so torn. Because it has had such a positive impact in my life and influence in my life, on my marriage, on my friends on my family that I just wish I could bring everyone along with me. I feel like I am that cult leader –

P: [Laugh]

M: – about to tell everyone to drink the Kool-Aid.

P: [Laugh]

M: I feel crazy, but it has had that strong an impact on my life and I just want to share that with others.

P: When you’re getting the positive reinforcement from something naturally you do want to share it and you get passionate about it and you want to take people on the same journey. And I will share a personal story here of my adopted grandma, my adopted Nan, Nan McSweeney. She was 102 to when she died. She was the last living person to have met Mother Mary MacKillop. So when the beatification of Mother Mary MacKillop was happening, she was interviewed.

M: And for our non-Australian listeners, who is Mother Mary MacKillop?

P: Mother Mary MacKillop was an Australian nun who was working in Melbourne primarily, but also worked around the coastal regions of the East Coast. She was beatified in 1998?

M: 99?

[Mother Mary MacKillop was beatified in 1995]

P: She was made a saint. She is the Australian saint and that was done by the Catholic Church and my adopted Nan, Nan McSweeney, she was interviewed for that beatification and involved in that process of giving the evidence towards her being declared a Saint at the Church.

M: Sainthood.

P: Yeah. The point of the storey is that Nan was always so secure in her faith and she would stand there and wave you off with a handkerchief when you left for the evening and all these lovely old world qualities.

M: My Nana still does that.

P: It’s such a beautiful thing.

M: She’ll stand in the drive way and wave ‘til she can’t see you anymore.

P: Yeah. It’s like watching the plane take off. My dad would never leave when they would board he would watch the plane go.

M: We’re so fickle, aren’t we?

P: [Laugh]

M: Gen X, Y, Millenials.

P: [Laugh]

M: Well, anyway. So continue.

P: Well… The idea is that faith and believing in something, it means that you want to share it now. Now Nan never pushed her beliefs upon me, but I always felt included. So when she would come up and give me the blessing of the cross in holy water on my forehead, it was never religious. It was just Nan being who she was and it was an expression of love for her. And I, I think that with all this stuff that we do the happiness podcast and we are very exuberant about people coming on this journey with us. It is, ‘I’ve got this great deal you’ve got to buy in come on, come on, come on.’ It’s the carny thing!

[Laughter]

P: It’s getting into my ancestral roots. My father was a carny.

M: Sorry, I have to share.

P: [Laugh]

M: Pete is a descendant of carny’s.

P: My whole family. [Laugh]

M: I don’t know how I missed this? My entire life! I feel like there’s this major revelation that has just come forth.

P: [Laughter]

M: Alright, so 2020. Let’s circle all the way back, you can bring yourself back.

P: ‘Come back, come back.’ [Laugh]

M: Is it that.. oh I’ve got Titanic flashbacks going on right now. Anyway, [whispers] “Don’t go Jack.”

P: [Laugh] [whispers] “Don’t leave me.”

M: So we are almost at time and I started this episode by asking you on a scale of 1 to 10. What do you think your happiness levels of been in 2020?

P: I would say that… My instant reaction is like 8, 9,10. That’s my instant reaction of 2020 which again, I’m with you, I feel guilty for saying that. 2020 has been a challenge but I’ve done really well, I’m coming out of it going ‘Yay, I’ve managed it.’

M: Pick a number?

P: I’m going to go with nine. Yeah, going with nine. And that’s a great thing. And I think that it is because when shit happens, you can express it and you could be cranky. And you can throw screwdrivers down the hallway whilst your face down in a puddle of water because your washing machine has stuffed up!

M: You’ve got real issues with washing machines…

P: I have issues with technology.

M: Again, another time.

P: Yeah, yeah. But on the flip side of that, you can turn it around instantly and go right ‘what’s important going bang, bang, bang, bang.’ I’m clicking again, I do that when I’m excited.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And because of the work that we do here and because of the items and the factors that we highlight. It comes back to mindfulness, it comes back to passion, it comes back to what is relative. This has been an education.

M: Yep. So we are over time, yet again.

P: [Laugh] We always do.

M: We say this every time.

P: [Laugh]

M: I would say from 1 to 10, my happiness levels have been a ten this year.

P: Wow! Straight 10. Well done.

M: Yep, I’ve never had such a fulfilling, satisfying, happy year.

P: I think I’m going to cry.

M: Aww.

As I have this year. And it was in the middle of a global pandemic and a whole lot of change and turmoil, uncertainty, volatility. All of that’s been going on and I have been able to cope and to feel the negative impacts of that and to resolve myself to move forward with all of that and do it with a level of, dare I say, grace that I never had before-

P: Interesting.

M: – and I can only credit that to all the conversations we’ve had, the research I’ve been doing in the blogging, all of that which, blogging is pretty much in other way saying journaling.

P: It is, definitely and it’s a commitment.

M: Absolutely.

P: It’s hard to go sometimes.

M: Every single week.

P: It’s really hard to sit down and write another Blog every week.

M: Yep.

P: But when do it. You come up with this good stuff.

M: Absolutely and it’s the self-reflection and it has it has changed my life.

P: And that is the best advertisement that we could possibly finish this on. This stuff is real people, buy in!

[Laughter]

P: It’s so good!

M: For everyone out there, I wish you a joyous and happy holidays and New Year. And I have to say if 2020 has been bad year for you. It can only go up from here.

P: It can, and we’ll go up together.

M: Absolutely.

P: [Laugh]

M: Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (if we haven’t missed it) and have a happy New Year to everyone.

P: Absolutely.

M: And we’ll see you in 2021.

P: Thank you all for coming on this lovely journey with us, we really appreciate it.

M: All right. Well, thank you for joining us specifically today. If you do want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast. And remember, you can find us at www.marieskelton.com.

P: And Please let us know if we are fabulous, because we are-

M: [Laugh]

P: – by leaving us a review.

M: Yes we would be grateful to know that more than my sister listens to this podcast.

P: [Laugh] Until next time.

M: Choose happiness.

[Happy Exit Music]

P: Yay!

Related content: Read Happiness for Cynics article The Change Storm, listen to our Podcast Self-Care is Church for Non-Believers Pt 2 (E38)

How to Have a Happy Covid Christmas (E47)

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This week Marie and Pete discuss how to make the most of a socially isolated Christmas with great ideas for a Happy Holiday. 

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Transcript

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

P: And I’m Peter Furness a spreadsheet devotee, injury preventee and team-sport celebratory. That kind of worked. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: So if you’re feeling the pinch…

P: Of the yuletide Grinch…

M: Or maybe you just need some extra added Christmas fix…

P: Then this is the place to be!

M: And to take us one step further on our happiness journey –

P: [Laugh]

M: – not that Pete needs it I don’t think.

P: You didn’t realise what you were reading there did you?

M: No. I had no idea.

P: [Laugh!]

M: You changed it all!

[Laughter]

M: To take us one step further on our happiness journey today’s episode is all about how have a Happy Covid Christmas.

[Happy Intro Music]

P: [Humming out a Christmas Carol]

M: I don’t get it.

P: [Laugh] Really? I have to go into the second stanza? [Laugh]

M: Okay, so there are a lot of people, we have a lot of listeners from around the world, definitely quite a few in Australia, who I think are feeling a bit optimistic right now.

P: Oh we are. We’re ready to go. The borders are opening for Christmas, for us, which is a big thing.

M: Very big thing, but there are a lot of listeners out there who are still in isolation or lock down, or, you know any permutation of that, depending on they’re in.

P: Preparing for a second lockdown.

M: Yeah, and for Christmas, it’s kind of looking a bit depressing.

P: It’s not going to be easy.

M: Yeah. I know that when I was in States one year, a friend and I were travelling around and were in New York for Christmas and you forget that everything’s closed on Christmas day cause everyone’s doing stuff with their family.

P: [Laugh] Yes.

M: It’s probably most depressing Christmas I’ve ever had.

P: I had the same thing. I was in Dundee in Scotland, thinking ‘oh this will be great, I’m going to have a winter Christmas, it will be really nice’. Bloody awful! [Laugh!]

M: It really is. So a lot of people are looking at the possibility or the reality of spending Christmas, completely by themselves.

P: Hhmm.

M: Or with just them and one loved one or whoever is in their house, for the first time ever.

P: Which can be exciting and can be different if you choose to celebrate it. And I think that’s something that is really important. You have to choose to buy in on this one.

M: Yes, however, if you’re living by yourself, it’s tough.

P: It’s going to be tough.

M: Let’s acknowledge that.

P: Because you’re not going to be able to have people coming over, and I think that’s the fundamental one. I remember having a couple of Christmases in London, where the weather is terrible, let’s face it, it’s Christmas time, but we actually had a lovely [day]. We planned to be at home the whole day, actually for two days because London shuts down on Christmas Eve and it actually ended up being a really fun affair.

I mean, I was in the kitchen cooking, so I wasn’t happy space.

M: [Laugh]

P: We had four people in the house, and it was actually really lovely. So it was nice to have that experience on the back of my Dundee experience, which was me sitting in a red telephone box, ringing my family and crying because I wasn’t home for Christmas.

M: Aww..

P: I know I thought it was going to be wonderful, it really wasn’t.

[Laughter]

M: Yep, I know that feeling.

[Laughter]

M: So I think what I’m hearing from you is there is definitely a mindset thing to this. We need to go into Christmas this year knowing that it might not be what we’re used to.

P: Mmm.

M: That we’re going to make the best of it. But also, I think, allow yourself a bit of a cry, or allow yourself to feel lonely if… it is not what you want it to be and to feel disappointed and to acknowledge that change and potentially the pain or the crappiness of it.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: The point is not to dwell too long in it.

P: No.

M: And this episode is about talking about things that are able to help you maybe balance out those sad feelings that you might be feeling because Christmas this year won’t be what you would [have] hoped it would be.

P: Absolutely. Trying to find the positive way out of that negative encounter.

M: Yeah, balancing it a bit.

P: Mmm. There we go.

M: And so we were talking about quite a few things that you can do to bring yourself joy and happiness during the holidays.

P: Mmm.

M: And recently it was World Kindness Day and I wrote an article and did some research for that; and the research, we’ve definitely covered in previous episodes with the research about doing kind things for others and being generous to others is… [laugh]

P: There was a cat hair on my microphone!

[Laughter]

M: It kept tickling you.

P: I was like ‘what is going on?!’

[Laughter]

P: I couldn’t see it, I haven’t got my glasses on.

[Laughter]

M: Alright, so the research in to helping others and doing kind things for others is extensive and just a couple of pieces of research to point to.

So there was one study which looked at the effects of kindness based on performing acts of kindness for others or for yourself. And the study, looked at how to measure the levels of psychological flourishing, including social well-being and emotional well-being of the participants.

And when the study was over, researchers found that those performing acts of kindness for others achieved higher levels of psychological flourishing than the group doing acts of kindness for themselves. So while it’s important to be compassionate to yourself and forgiving of yourself and to have those moments of sadness.

P: Mmm.

M: If you’re, you’re disappointed at what Christmas might look like this year. A great way to get out of that and to move forward from an emotional point of view is to focus on doing something kind for someone else.

P: I just can’t get over the fact that you have a psychological flourishing.

M: [Laugh]

P: [Misty voice] I’m seeing a flower opening as if it were extending itself into the springtime sunshine.

M: Maybe we can take this episode and make it about visualisation as well. [Misty voice] Visualise yourself opening like a flower.

P: [Misty voice] Psychological flourishing.

[Laughter]

P: I love it. It’s a new win term for me.

[Laughter]

P: But yes. I think you’re definitely right there Muz, it’s about trying to find some positive avenues to explore, and one of those is definitely with the kindness and how you can unlock, unlock the double doors of the horizon. That’s an opera reference. Not many of our listeners would get that but anyway. [Laugh]

M: Yeah, I get that.

[Laughter]

M: So I guess what we’re saying is be kind to yourself, absolutely particularly this Christmas. It’s going to be very different from what a lot of us had hoped for and a lot of us had expected or wanted.

P: Yep.

M: And that brings disappointment. So be nice to yourself and understand that a lot of people will be feeling disappointment and sadness at that and not being able to spend Christmas overseas or with their family.

P: Definitely.

M: Or any… whatever you see as a good Christmas.

P: Mmm.

M: But also a great way to move forward, and to make it something, make something… make lemons? Make lemonade out of lemons, is to take some time to think through some things that you could do for others. There are definitely a lot of people in need, this year. People who have lost their jobs. So food banks are a great way to give back.

P: Yes.

M: You can get your friends together and get some canned goods together and donate them or deliver them.

P: Yeah.

M: Or if you don’t want to leave home, there are some great ways you can crochet socks.

P: [Laugh]

M: And learn to knit, and knit teddy bears for kids in hospitals.

P: Mmm.

M: There’s all kinds of things you can do just need to jump on the internet and look for activities that you can do from home that can give to others. And another great one I just got a phone call today, actually, from the Red Cross in Australia here, saying that they’re short on plasma, so I’ll be going into donate this Friday.

P: I think in terms of Googling, Google ‘things my grandmother would do.’

M: [Laugh]

P: That’ll give you something that you could do, which would be an act of kindness. I throw this out as a challenge.

Google ‘What would my grandmother do?’ Find an act of kindness in there and see if you can perform it so it could be that you need to learn how to crochet.

M: Love it.

P: That’ll be interesting, [laugh].

M: I think one of the great things about Covid is that a lot of us have gone back to things that our grandparents would have done. We’re gardening, we’re playing puzzles.

P: Mmm, mm.

M: We’re really exploring a simpler life, and a quieter life.

P: I think, I think it’s the life of connection, so there’s a way of connecting with someone over a board game, for example, because you’re, you’re involved in action, which takes your concentration and your focus and that in itself we know takes your focus away from being self-reflective in a negative aspect. So if you are feeling a little bit precious and vulnerable then taking your focus and putting it somewhere else can help.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: With way laying those sorts of emotions. But it also does help to connect you with someone on the other side of the chess board, for example, because you’re spending, you can spend two hours on a chess game.

M: Absolutely. And the one I was talking about you this afternoon actually is gratitude. Practising gratitude is about teaching your mind to scan for the positive things in your day and in your life and it’s teaching your brain to recognise the good not only the bad, which we’re wired to do.

P: Yes, absolutely that’s a really important one that we’ve talked about before.

M: Yeah

P: And whether that’s writing it down in a journal or talking to someone that you have in your life on a daily basis and going. Let’s talk about what we’ve achieved today. What was the good thing that happened today?

M: Yes. So, as we were talking about earlier, for me and my husband we’re now doing that every evening, and it’s really strengthened our bond.

P: Mmm.

M: It’s taken us away from talking about what groceries need to be picked up.

P: [Laugh]

M: What chores need to be done.

P: Nag, nag, nag woman!

M: [Laugh]

P: That’s all I’m hearing from Francis right now [laugh].

M: So, not cool.

P: [Laugh]

M: So, so not cool. [Laugh]

P: Can I just say for the record that Francis and I do have a relationship outside of Marie and my relationship. [Laugh]

M: But ours is number one, just so we’re clear.

P: Yes.

[Laughter]

M: Yeah, so again it is a great thing that you can do with a friend or a family member is to ask ‘what went well today?’ It gets really tough, and there’s a million articles out there about things that you can be grateful for because people end up saying the same things over and over and over again. But if you reframe the question to ‘what went well today?’, then you’ll never run out of things.

P: Mmm.

M: [Be]cause there’s always something that is a positive and that you can, or would be grateful for.

P: Mmm.

M: And when you talk about that with someone else, it’s really amazing how it opens up the conversation again. You end up bonding more, and it’s not about the chores and the to do list.

P: Mmm.

M: It’s about things that happened in your day that you can share with other people.

P: Yeah right.

M: And again, if you’re looking at a Christmas where you won’t be around the people you love or you can’t be close to the people you love physically, this is a great way to start doing something once a week, where you can bond virtually, from the phone or through What’s App and messenger and all the rest of it, to have a deeper level conversation with the people you love.

P: Mmm. One thing that I’m gonna throw out there as well is what you’re planning to do for Christmas? So if you don’t have a plan, this Christmas make one.

M: Absolutely.

P: Plan to have a day, even if it is cooking a meal for yourself that you eat whilst you’re zooming with someone else, one of your family members or the person that you want to be with. But plan that lunch plan that dinner plan that morning connection that you’re going to give and get the supplies, cook yourself a little backed ham or something, something small and invest some time into the doings that you would normally do -the doings? Is that good English? Yeah that’s good English.

[Laughter]

P: The actions you might normally partake in if [it were a non-Covid Christmas]. For me and my family it’s always a shared lunch. So if I’m in isolation in this year, I would zoom, but I would make sure I had a glass of wine in front of me with a table that was half full of three different meats.

M: [Laugh].

P: Thank you my darling sister. [Laugh] And a little bit of dessert, whether that be a piece of ice cream or an icy pole or something, and I’m going to zoom my family whilst I enjoy that meal.

M: Treat yourself, make it special.

P: Yeah.

M: So again, we did mention the study before, which said that treating others or being kind of others brings more emotional ..flourishing

P: [Laugh]

M: than treating yourself. But that’s not to say that having self-compassion and looking after yourself and being kind to yourself doesn’t bring many, many benefits.

P: Mmm.

M: So there’s a great study from University of Texas at Austin. Shout out, cause that’s my husbands university.

P: Aww.

M: Yep. And it shows that when you’re kind to yourself, some of the benefits, a better life satisfaction, greater interconnectedness with other people, more curiosity and higher levels of happiness.

P: Hmm.

M: So definitely over that period, make sure that you’re eating well, getting enough sleep and getting some exercise. But treat yourself to something a little bit special on Christmas Day. Give yourself something to look forward to.

P: Mmm. Plan it, that’s the thing.

M: Plan something to look forward to that’s a bit special.

P: Yeah.

M: And just because you’re doing it only for yourself doesn’t mean you can’t spoil yourself.

P: Too many people take that in, like I have this rather fabulous friend and we were talking about glassware. You’ve got your posh silver and you’ve got your good crockery and you’ve got your glassware.

M: Do you?

P: Well, maybe.

M: Maybe in the 18th century yeah.

P: [Laugh] This’s a recollection maybe of an older generation they put in the cupboard and they save it for that special time. Bugger it! Get it out now! Get it out for yourself!

M: Mmm.

P: Get that for you on your solo date with yourself and get out the good crockery, or get out the good crystal and have that glass of wine in your best crystal glass and celebrate the fact that you’re looking after and cherishing yourself by having the good stuff.

M: Yeah, some nice bath salts.

P: OK.

M: Or whatever it is that you enjoy doing, put some time aside to read a book or to watch your favourite movie, whatever it is that you want to do, that is a bit of a treat and plan it now, so you can look forward to it until it comes on the 25th.

P: Yep.

M: Yes, and that is something that I think a lot of people also again have been struggling with during Covid is all of our holidays and plans all of a sudden just got wiped off our calendars and we didn’t have something to look forward to.

P: We didn’t replace it with something else.

M: Exactly. So there is still a lot that you can do that isn’t a holiday overseas.

P: Mmm, yep.

M: It could be going for a walk in the park. It could be planting a garden. It could be.. there are so many things you could do at home. Or that you’re allowed to do in isolation, depending on the country you’re in, that you can look forward to doing. And that don’t need you to go to a tropical island somewhere or on a plane.

P: Yeah.

M: So there are some things, some ideas that we do have to be kind to others.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: If that’s the way you want to go and the best one after the year that America has had.

P: Mmm. Gosh.

M: Is to spread some kindness and positivity on social media.

P: Oh, do a positive post.

M: More than that. Jump on. And instead of just liking your friends posts actually comment on them.

P: Okay, that’s a simple thing.

M: Congratulations. What a great achievement. I love this photo. You’re looking hot, babe.

[Laughter]

M: Get on there and actually spend an hour just spreading some love and joy and kindness.

P: And then check in with yourself and note how good you feel,

M: Absolutely.

P: If you spend an hour on that, that’s going to give you some amazing crazy positive neurochemicals going around.

M: Yep.

P: [Laugh]

M: Definitely. So that’s something really simple and free that you can do.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: Another great one if you’re in a country that tips is, leave a larger than normal tip or even if you’re in a country that doesn’t tip.

P: Exactly.

M: It’s Christmas time. And a lot of the people who work in retail and restaurant hospitality there on minimum wage and an extra five or ten dollars can go a really long way.

P: Yep.

M: I like this one as well, I used to do this when I’d go on holidays away from my husband I’d leave post it notes around, that he’d discover.

P: [Laugh]

M: Fold them up in his underwear.

[Laughter]

M: Or in the bathroom, behind the mirror or something.

P: [Laugh]

M: Just little things.

P: Yeah.

M: Just little things to bring a smile to someone’s day.

P: I like it.

M: Definitely.

P: The one that I think is really great is writing a letter.

M: Yes.

P: Spend fifteen minutes writing an actual physical letter, get a note card or a blank card and actually write out to someone. To one person that you really appreciate in your life or has given you some really positive vibes or positive experiences in your life and write to them saying how much they’re appreciated. You don’t need to put it in a Christmas card. It doesn’t need to be a festive thing and then challenge them to pass that on to one other person, the pay it forward principle.

M: I like it. On the pay it forward principle. If you’re ever going to a drive through, another great one is to pay for the people behind your order.

P: Oh, wow, that’s cool.

M: Yeah.

P: I like that. [Laugh]

M: So you can do that in the States. They have a lot of coffee shops that [do] drive through so you can just buy a coffee for someone. But wouldn’t it be great to rock up and hear someone had paid for your meal?

P: That’s, that’s very nice. Yeah, that’s good.

M: Yeah, so there’s a whole range of little things you can do, some of them free, some of them cheap.

P: Mmm.

M: And some of them are just donating your time, and you can do a lot of them from your home. So if you’re worried about getting out of your home and catching Covid, then there’s a lot of things that you can do to take control of the your mental well-being and balance out the bad with the good.

P: Mmm.

M: And it’s just a case of putting aside time to do it.

P: Yeah, I’d agree with that.

M: And a lot of the time, that’s what we don’t do.

P: Yeah, mmm.

M: That’s what we don’t do. So I’m challenging anyone out there who is seeing the train coming their way.

P: [Laugh]

M: I know that if I was in a country right now, where we were in isolation and lock down over Christmas, I would be banging my head against a wall.

P: Yeah.

M: I would be having to combat that with some positive things. So, it, it’s just about planning for it.

P: Yep.

M: Planning to look after your own mental well-being and to balance out the bad with the good.

P: Yep.

M: ‘Cause we all go through bad things sometimes.

P: Definitely, yep.

M: Everybody hurts, sometimes.

P: [Laugh] And on that note.

M: R.E.M.

[Laughter]

P: Have you been listening to 80’s classics all day?

[Laughter]

P: I think there we’ll wrap it up for that one. That sounds like a good finishing point.

M: I do however want to wish for anyone who celebrates Christmas a Merry Christmas.

P: Of course.

M: And a Happy New Year and a Happy Holidays for anyone who is not celebrating Christmas.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And hoping that everyone out there who is dealing with isolation and lock down is looking after themselves and finding ways to bring joy and positive experiences into their lives to balance out what has been a really tough year.

P: Absolutely. Celebrate your little achievements no matter how small they are.

M: Yes.

P: Ok, thanks for joining us today. For more information, please remember to subscribe and like our podcast, you can find all our information on www.marieskelton.com a site about balance, happiness and resilience. You could also leave questions or propose a topic.

M: And if you like our show, we would love it if you could leave a comment or rating to help us out.

P: That would be our Christmas present from you.

M: Aww. Until next time…

P: Choose happiness.

[Happy Exit Music]

Related content: Read Happiness for Cynics article 5 Ways to Overcome the COVID Blues, listen to our Podcast Is it Even Possible to be Happy During COVID? (E34)