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7 Simple Steps to Happiness

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7 Simple Steps to Happiness

7 Simple Steps to Happiness Right Now 

This past year has weighed heavily on all of us. The world was disrupted in unimaginable ways, and we’re still reeling from the impacts. After months of constant stress and anxiety, many of us are just trying to get back on track. One of the things we’ve learned through the pandemic is that we cannot afford to attach happiness to things or circumstances.  

Your happiness is in your hands, and you can influence it with the small things that you do on a daily basis. Sample these ideas that will uplift your mood and improve your day.  

1. Connect With Family and Friends  

In today’s connected world, many people spend time with people without truly paying attention to them. If we’re not busy working, then we’re engrossed in our gadgets and screens. In the internet era it is all too easy to be online paying attention to someone miles away, whom you’ll never get to meet, while ignoring the very person next to you.  

Unfortunately, while watching TV, listening to music and playing games online can be good sources of relaxation and short-term satisfaction and happiness, we often spend too much time in front of screens, to the detriment of spending time doing things that are more likely to bring us long-term happiness and joy. 

The simple answer is to make an effort to put away your gadgets ever now and then and hold conversations that count. Find out how the people around you are doing. Listen to their experiences, thoughts, ideas, and opinions. The same goes for your colleagues and friends. Call them and have meaningful conversations. Forming deeper relationships with those around you will instantly make you happier. 

One of the best things you can do to build relationships: organise a group trip! Not only can everyone participate in planning, they will also have something to look forward to, and then there’s of course the trip itself which everyone will get to share and build new memories from. 

2. Perform Acts of Kindness  

At a time when so many people are struggling with job losses or reduced hours, or the stress of the pandemic, a great way to bring some joy into your life and someone else’s is to perform an act of kindness.  

  • Do you have people around you who are in isolation? Offer to pick up their groceries.  
  • Do you know of a family with someone who is sick? Drop them a hot meal or send a care package. 
  • Do you know someone who lost their job? Visit them with some basic supplies.  

Check on people. Hear them out. Comfort them. Donate to the community center. Just chip in where you can. Taking attention away from yourself and focusing on someone in need has been shown to leave you happier and more fulfilled.   

3. Do Something Brave  

Identify something that makes you nervous and tackle it. It does not have to be an enormous task. Have you been postponing a difficult conversation? Make that call and talk it over. Have you been meaning to apologise to someone? You may as well do it now. Maybe you can send that job application even when you feel underqualified, or unsure about moving on.  

After the initial anxious moments you’ll feel a joyful feeling of triumph, just like when you get on a rollercoaster or watch a scary movie. The small wins associated with overcoming your fears will also build your confidence and you’ll soon be attempting more challenging tasks.  

4. Start Your Day Positively  

Spend the very first moments of your day intentionally. Most of us reach for the phone even before we get out of bed, allowing whatever content we come across to set the tone of our day. Intentionality allows you to choose exactly what you want to expose your heart and mind to before anything else.  

Remember, how you spend your first moment of the morning has a significant effect of the rest of the day. Try spending 30 minutes listening to an inspirational podcast, reading, praying, meditating, exercising, journaling or anything else that will fill you with positive energy, and watch the rest of your day follow the same trajectory.  

5. Organise Your Space  

A well-arranged space instantly uplifts your moods and makes you more productive. Whereas a messy house is interpreted by our brains as a laundry list of to-do items –adding stress to our days. 

Start with your bed, which you can make immediately after getting up. It sounds like a small detail, but the sight of a well-made bed can instantly make you feel more organised and ready for the day ahead. It also reduces the tendency to slip back under the covers for a ‘few more minutes’ which just ends up throwing your day into disarray.  Similarly, every evening before bed, take a few minutes to arrange the house. If you have kids, it takes much more effort to remain neat, but it’s worth it to wake to a tidy space in the morning. Even the best mood will be dented when you’re tripping over toys and sitting on food spills. Once a week, arrange your working space as well. Get rid of what you don’t need. Decluttering makes maintaining order much easier. Just the sight of a well-organized room will help you release that stress and leave you feeling happier.  

6. Work on Acceptance and Moving Forward 

Many people are still in denial over the magnitude of loss that the pandemic has caused. If your life was disrupted immensely, you probably still have moments when you ask yourself, ‘did this really happen?’ Unfortunately, it did, and now the question is: what’s next? Grief is a natural and normal and needed reaction to loss of any kind. However, eventually we all need to find a way to move forward, and the way to do that is through acceptance.  

Accept the new circumstances of your life. Your job, income, age, weight, and all. You may not be where you’d have wished, but you’re here. Work to introduce a gratitude practice every day to rediscover what you have to be grateful for, and work to accept your current situation, and finally, set some new goals for the future to give you something to work toward and plan for.  

Remember, if you are truly struggling with how to move forward after a significant loss, please speak to a professional. Sometimes we all need a bit more help. 

7. Connect With Nature  

One of the easiest ways to bring instant happiness to your life is to step out and enjoy nature. If it’s sunny, even better. Feel the sunshine warm your skin. Soak in Vitamin D. Indulge in whatever elements of nature are around you.  

And it doesn’t have to be a 10-hour hike through rugged terrain. It could be as simple as bird watching in your backyard. Fix a bird feeder to a tree or on a pole (somewhere off the ground to avoid predators). Or you can drive to the local park, nature trail, forest, beach, and simply sit and watch. Why not try walking barefoot or just touch the trees. That simple emotional or physical contact with nature siphons away your stress and leaves you more relaxed.  

You don’t have to go for a vacation to feel happier. Neither do you have to spend loads of money. The above practices are well within reach and you can carry them out any day. Your happiness is mostly within your control and is you responsibility; gift it to yourself in abundance. 

Want to learn more about the science of happiness? Make sure to subscribe to my podcast Happiness for Cynics and my email newsletter for regular updates & resilience resources! 

Fighting the Loneliness Epidemic (E41)

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Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete discuss the global rise in loneliness levels, what is contributing to the increase and what we can all do to build stronger relationships.

Site discussed during the podcast: Examining Emotional Literacy Development Using a Brief On-Line Positive Psychology Intervention with Primary School Children  Jacqueline Francis *, Tan-Chyuan Chin and Dianne Vella-Brodrick Centre for Positive Psychology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia; tanchyuan.chin@unimelb.edu.au (T.-C.C.); dianne.Vella-Brodrick@unimelb.edu.au (D.V.-B.) * Correspondence: jacqui.francis@unimelb.edu.au Received: 14 September 2020; Accepted: 15 October 2020; Published: 19 October 2020 

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 pop up cycle user, smartphone and techno abuser and generic loose cannon on a Sunday boozer. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: So if you’re feeling low.

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

M: Or maybe you just want more.

P: Then this is the place to be!

M: And to take us one step further on our happiness journey, today’s episode is all about the loneliness epidemic.

[Happy Intro Music]

M: What is does Eeyore say?

P: I’m depressed?

M: Woe is me.

P: Oh well, oh well.

M: [Laugh]

P: I’ll just take another walk.

M: Someone like that. I feel like that’s what sums up my idea what our episode today should be about. [Laugh]

P: All right, let’s go with that. So we’re doing, we’re doing a Winnie the Pooh thing?

M: [Laugh]

P: Okay, so Marie the loneliness epidemic, is it all about Eeyore?

M: I think that’s a result of being lonely. And it is an epidemic, isn’t it, Pete?

P: Yes. Now I’ve got to admit, when I first heard about this, I was the cynical one my cynical hat went on. I was like ‘what, people aren’t lonely, how can they be lonely? Everything’s grand, everything’s wonderful and all this stuff about teenagers being lonely, oh pish posh, pish posh. But, turns out I was wrong.

M: Ha, ha. You’re wrong.

[Laughter]

P: No, There’s definitely a loneliness epidemic, definitely something that is becoming more important. And I think one of the one of the big indicators for me from the research that I did was that loneliness is actually a higher indicator of mortality than obesity and smoking right now.

M: What?

P: Yeah, according.

M: For real?

P: Yeah, according to a study done by the Australian Psychology Society in collaboration with Swinburne University in Victoria, the loneliness epidemic is becoming a bigger indicator of mortality than obesity and smoking in Australia as of 2018.

M: Wow. Well, I knew it was a problem. It’s really been, it’s been a hot topic. So burnout was big, loneliness just before that. This is a global problem, like many of the things that we talk about that crosses all demographics. There are some differences, though, right Pete?

P: Yeah, I’m finding with some of the studies that you’ve mentioned, Marie. I’ve got a couple of different figures and statistics down in here, and I do think, but I think the overall message is the same is that this’s a big indicator of what’s going on not only affects our mortality it affects our health, it affects our physical being as well as our mental well-being and the way that we live and the way that we interact. So this is all pre-pandemic Covid. Pandemic Covid has actually; I don’t know why I’m saying pandemic Covid, it should actually be Covid pandemic but anyway, we’re going reverse today.

[Laughter]

P: Pandemic Covid has changed the ball game a lot on brought this perhaps a little bit more to the floor. But we’re talking 2018 and 2017 and ‘15 in the UK they’ve been clocking the fact that loneliness isn’t big social problem and it’s causing a lot problems in terms of our health and the way that we work and who we are.

M: Yeah, and so the stereotype that it’s only in quotes “old people” is, is really false. It’s not just the elderly who are lonely. In fact, young Australians are reporting such a huge uptick in their loneliness, and it’s not necessarily that they don’t have people around them and that they don’t have family and they don’t have friends-

P: Yes.

M: -at school. It might just be that they’re not getting what they need or their relationships they have aren’t meeting their needs, and that could be because they’re too superficial, which is a another whole episode as well. But we have a lot of Facebook friends nowadays and social media friends that are very superficial, and you can feel that you’re connecting and you’re just not, right?

P: Yes.

M: And what that does is that it leaves a lot of people feeling unsupported and disconnected, and they feel lonely, even though they might have a lot of people around them. So I think that in particular really applies to the younger generations vs the older generations, who we’ve known for quite a while have a higher incidence of mobility issues and at times lose their licences and their ability to get out and into society and have those strong relationships.

P: I do agree, to a certain point. There’s some interesting stats in the study that I found though that are saying that in Australia in 2018 the over 65 were dealing really well. The two brackets that Swinburne University in the Australian Psychological Society clocked as the most lonely are the 18 to 26 year old’s and the 56 to 64 year old’s. The 65 year old’s and up are doing really well. [Laugh]

M: Well, they were until Covid, Yes.

P: Ah well that might be the changing.

M: Yeah, yeah. And then everything has just gotten really bad, social isolation says it all right? and social distancing. And I know there’s been a lot of discussion about terminology and being really clear that social distancing doesn’t mean not having relationships and connection. But the long and the short of the isolation is that we’re having to rely on technology to have relationships a lot more often, and that’s just nowhere near as good as face to face communication for a sense of connection.

P: And we’re not as good at it. Yeah, we’re not as good at it, apparently. So some of the things that have come out in terms of dealing with loneliness from some of the studies that I’ve done are talking about the way that we use social skills and this will apply definitely 18 to 25 year old age bracket is that we’re not developing our social skills sufficiently in our teenage years to take us through to that next stage where we get off the devices we get off the zoom calls on, and we actually interact on a one on one or a group basis on. And I think that that is where went falling short slightly for our young people and we’re not giving them the social skills to deal with going out there and making those true friendships that you talked about earlier Marie.

M: And it’s also about having a level of emotional maturity and understanding and an ability to reflect and to have tough conversations with people and to be uncomfortable.

P: Yeah.

M: And there’s a whole lot in there. And there’s research that came out today actually, in Victoria, I have to go find the study, and I’ll post it in our show notes. But they have done some research with some schools and Victoria to help kids with positive psychology interventions. And it was all focused around giving them the language to talk about their emotions and their well-being.

P: Aah, interesting.

M: And they’ve found that being able to vocalise what’s going on really helps people to- sorry – helps kids, to have better mental health outcomes. So it’s impacting their relationships, their connection with others. So I will put that in the show notes. But I think that if you’re spending all your time on social media in your teens, back to your point, in your, your younger years and you’re connecting with a device rather than a person, you can quite easily miss the lessons that we used to learn in the playground.

P: Very true, very true.

M: You know, if you don’t keep Sally’s secret, then you’ll be ostracised from the group for sharing, you know?

P: [Laugh]

M: That kind of thing, so you learned to keep secrets.

P: Good old Sally.

[Laughter]

P: All right, so one of the things that I found with the research that I did was that loneliness actually affects our health. And I guess this relates to regular what we’re talking to here in terms of the happiness. Loneliness, we know is not good for us, but it actually affects our physical health. And some of the points that have come up with the studies from big health that I saw and from the Australian Psychological Society is that loneliness affects our physical health.

Now there’s a lot of research out there about how it affects our mental health and how we have less social interaction, fewer positive emotions, we’re less likely to be resilient. But there’s a physical impact, things like headaches, stomach problems and one of the most interesting, we have a worsening sensation of physical pain if we’re lonely, that goes a lot back to our central nervous system and the way that our body and our brain interprets pain. But even things like greater difficulty with vision and communication. These are, these are real physical factors, these physical symptoms from an emotional condition.

M: Again going back to, you teaching me about these old Eastern philosophies and theories of mind and body.

P: [Laugh]

M: It is yet another example of how so intertwined our mind and bodies are. And I think you’re fooling yourself if you think-

P: That’s not very cynical today, Marie.

M: [Laugh] You’re fooling yourself if you think that they’re not connected nowadays, and there is centuries of Eastern thinking and research into this. But there is also Western science that now packs it up well for the cynics out there.

[Laughter]

P: Ok, so if we’re going to move on a little bit more about loneliness and how loneliness relates to us. I do want to talk about the ways the we can avoid loneliness. And if we’re talking about the kind of contacts that we have between relationships, we’ve got maybe three main ones.

One of them is:

The Family contact.

One of them is:

Our Friends.

And the other one that I want to talk about it is:

Our Neighbours.

P: Now Marie, as an Australian do you think Australians have good neighbour contact?

M: Our neighbour let us jump his fence the other day when we got locked out of our own home.

[Laughter]

P: Okay, now I like this. I like this idea. I want to ask what you were doing to be locked out?

M: No, we… I said have you got the keys? And he said yes. And he said, Have you got the keys? And I said yes. And this is what happens when you have been married and together for 15 years. You don’t actually listen to what your partner is saying to you. You just say yes.

[Laughter]

M: So we both left the house without keys. Just pulled the door shut behind us. So back to that relationship advice you’re about to give us Pete, listening is so important.

P: Contact between neighbours is a form of actually combating Loneliness and in Australia, our neighbour contact is not good. We have been shown to have less neighbour contact amongst our society than ever before and it depends on how many neighbours we do have. And the odd thing is that in the survey, the people who listed that they have no immediate neighbours actually have more contact with their neighbours than anybody. So if you live in the middle of the Outback and the nearest neighbour is 24 K’s away, you’ve got more contact with that neighbour than people in the city do.

M: Wow, I think the thing is though, that neighbour is also the closest possible friend that you could have. Whereas if you’re in the city, you’ve got thousands of people who could be friends in your immediate area.

P: Very true. This is fair, when we look at the big health study. It does talk about that in terms of proximity of people.

[Laughter]

M: I will say, though, having moved from Sydney to Tamworth recently that people in country towns are just that much friendlier and that much more open to new relationships, that much more welcoming and gracious of new people into their community. And I don’t know how to solve that because, having lived overseas, and I’m sure you’ve found it too coming from the country and living in many large cities Pete.

P: Mm, Hmm.

M: That cities are just so much harder to find a foothold in when it comes to friends and friendships and close relationships.

P: It is, and I think that the proximity of people to your living space makes you react in a certain way. Having lived in big cities and moved into smaller cities as well. In my time when you’ve got space around you, you’re more likely to reach out to the person that is closest to you. I think if you’re in a densely populated area, you’re more inclined to bunker down and hunker in and not necessarily connect with your neighbours because your space is private.

M: Hhmm. Maybe.

P: The science supports this Marie. I come back this up with figures. [Laugh]

M: It’s not the figures I’m doubting it’s your rationale for why.

P: Ok, all right. So if we look at the rates of how many neighbours you have, so people who list that they’ve got two neighbours or three to four or five to eight. The proportion of Australians with neighbours that they hear from at least once a month goes down after you list two neighbours, so if you’ve got three to four neighbours.

If you live in an apartment block, the figure is 15.9%. If you live with two neighbours, one on either side of you in a suburban house, 21. 1% if you have no neighbours, 30.4%. So that’s telling that living in an apartment doesn’t give you contact with your neighbours.

M: I agree but not because I want to hunker down. So having now, living in a house, I see my neighbours more often and I’ve had conversations with them and I’ve popped over the road to go say hi and introduce myself. Whereas I went an entire three years in my apartment block and only saw two of my neighbours on the floor so there’s ten apartments, I only saw two of them in that three year period, I only crossed paths with them twice.

And that’s the difference to me and both times I stopped and had a chat and actually with one of the people, they ended up looking after our cat when we went on holidays. But we had to have that crossing of paths in order for that relationship to start developing, and it just wasn’t happening. And I think that that is one of the downsides to the way that we live nowadays that has changed. That is leading to this loneliness epidemic. More and more people are living alone, but also more and more people are living in cities around the world, and there’s going to be a huge increase in mega cities over the next 20 to 30 years, so between now and 2050 and that means you’ve got to have high density housing.

And there’s been some really good work, again in the Scandinavian countries that they’ve got their xxxx together, where they’re designing different types of apartment buildings so that you have your personal space, your bedroom and a small receiving area like a small lounge room and then in the middle of the floor you’ve got big, open communal congregating and cooking spaces so you can sit and eat.

P: And I think this is the way forward it’s the design of our cities it’s the design of the way we live that is going to encourage the decrease in loneliness. And the stuff that I’ve come across as well talks about that in terms of the building of the community relationships. How to effectively manage loneliness to make people feel connected to their community. And this is where the big health study he talks about that in creating shared common interests and meaningful connections, walkable suburbs, community interaction and gardens and recreational parks, access to public transport, all those sorts of things. And that brings me back to my earlier point about apartment living faces more challenges for loneliness rather than those who live in suburban areas.

M: Mmm.

P: So if you live in an apartment block, you actually have to do a little bit more work to make sure that that loneliness endemic-epidemic doesn’t affect you in the same way. I think it’s, I think you’re right, it’s easier to make those connections in the country where you don’t have the density of population. A walk across the road does happen. You see your neighbour’s a little bit more because you might be in the backyard together. In the apartment buildings that doesn’t happen because they don’t have that structure of communal gathering or proximity that allows that private/public space. I’m getting a little bit confused there with my, um, with my references. So that might be another episode.

M: [Laugh] Another really cute story and I think that there’s so much negativity out there in the news, so I’m always really keen to share lovely positive news stories. There’s a great story from the UK from, from Frome in the UK, whether they connected an old folks home with a primary school and each group is getting ready to exchange happiness boxes and they’re going to come and share what makes them happy. So they’ve partnered on elderly person with a young person and they’re preparing their stuff. So they’re preparing little boxes and they’ll all meet and exchange boxes with their assigned person and share what makes them happy. And so one of the ladies has actually knitted a garment for every single kid in the class.

P: [Laugh]

M: And she said she loves knitting, but she loves it more when she can actually knit for someone else. But again, this is making those connections and they’re going to be solid connections. So these types the projects I just love, love this news story. [Laugh]

P: It’s great. I’ve got a similar one that’s actually a bit more local in Australia. It’s an Australian initiative called the Men’s Shed.

M: Yes.

P: It was a. You heard about this?

M: So my grandfather did Man Shed until he unfortunately, had dementia. So until it was just too much for him. Dementia and heavy machinery don’t go well together, sidebar for you kids. So he used to go with his brother every Tuesday morning and it is such a great Mental Health resource for older men.

P: Yes.

M: And also, the local Tamworth Men’s Shed were having a sale, their annual sale to raise money when we moved out here to Tamworth. So we went out there and they got me. I bought a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t need. But they were so lovely.

[Laughter]

P: The CEO David Helmers talks about this and saying that whilst they’re repairing items for the community and having sales, I’ll quote in here. “The most important thing is the men getting together, building those relationships, that brotherhood that exists in the sheds. They’re finding new friendships, but most importantly they’re finding meaningful purpose.”

M: Yes, friendship and purpose, two things that we’ve discussed many times.

P: The two really important aspects of that [quote].

M: Yes. Well, I think on that note we are over time again. We finish every episode with the same sentence of me saying “we’re over time again Pete.”

[Laughter]

M: But we might wrap it up on that beautiful quote. But Men Shed. If you do have some elderly man in your family and you’re worried about their loneliness levels, it is a great initiative, and I’m glad you brought it up Pete. So it might be worth checking it out. They’re all around Australia.

P: Excellent. That’s a good indicator for all of us to get out there and find that kind of community groups that might foster that sort of relationship building and it’s hard when you’re feeling lonely, I think, to drag yourself out and put yourself in the in the non, non comfort space. If I have one tip for listeners, I would say ‘say yes’ and follow up with action.

M: I’m going to add one tip in there, too, because I always have to have the last word.

[Laughter]

M: I will say if you’re not feeling particularly social because you are feeling lonely, then one of the best ways to get yourself out there and develop friendships coincidentally, is to put yourself at the service of others. So go spend a couple of hours a week volunteering.

P: Yes.

M: And there’s so many organisations that could use your, your time right now if you’ve got two hours; and you’ll be surprised how much giving others comes back to you.

P: Can’t agree more, can’t agree more. I would never have found you Marie if I hadn’t volunteered at the Volleyball Club, look at that.

M: [Laugh] It sucks you in doesn’t it?

P: Yeah [Laugh]

M: Anyway, thank you for joining us today if you want to hear more please subscribe and like this podcast as always, you can find us at marieskelton.com and you can send in questions or proposed topics there if you’d like.

P: If you like our tiny little show, Happiness for Cynics Podcast, we’d love a comment or a rating to helps us out.

M: Yes, that would make us happy.

P: [Laugh] Until next time.

M & P: Choose Happiness

[Happy Exit Music]

Related content: Read Happiness for Cynics article How To Make Friends As An Adult, listen to our Podcast The Importance of Being Social (E14)

Happy International Day of Friendship (E28)

by

Happiness for Cynics

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

Transcript

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

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

M: So if you’re feeling low.

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

M: Maybe just want more.

P: Then this is the place to be.

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

P: Awe

[Happy Music]

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

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

[Laughter]

M: Literally.

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

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

P: I’m schmitzing like a schmagetthi.

[Laughter]

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

P: Very big topic.

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

P: Yes.

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

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

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

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

M: Times can be much happier.

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

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

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

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

P: Yeah, that’s true.

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

P: Wow.

M: And feel lonely regularly in their lives.

P: OK.

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

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

M: [Laugh]

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

M: Shame.

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

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

P: [Laugh]

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

P: [Laugh]

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

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

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

P: Ah ha! He he.

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

P: Yep!

M: I like control.

[Laughter]

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

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

P: And that’s your personality coming out.

[Laughter]

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

M: Yeah.

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

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

P: Oh, yes, absolutely.

M: To go see someone.

P: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

M: And if it’s an activity I like.

P: Volleyball.

M: Food.

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

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

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

M: Yep, yep. I don’t know.

P: Maybe, maybe the pandemic has changed you.

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

P: Yeah, alright.

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

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

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

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

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

P: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P: Yeah. I have.

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

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

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

M: Oh, I love it.

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

M: So it’s just a perception thing.

P: Completely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: This is actual research not just story.

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

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

M: Yeah.

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

M: There are some vault conversations, yeah.

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

M: It’s your chosen family.

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

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

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

M: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P: Get to know?

M: Get to know.

P: And understand? [Laugh]

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

P: Yeah, Ahh yes.

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

P: He he

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

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

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

P: Right, He he.

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

P: Yeah.

M: Hi, I’m Marie..

P: How do I do this? [Laugh]

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

P: [Laugh]

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

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

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

P: [Laughter]

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

P: Markers that we achieve or aspire to.

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

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

P: Awe.. sad.

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

P: Yay.

M: Until next time.

P: Choose happiness!

[Happy exit music]

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