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Schools will now be required to support well-being, but the standards aren’t clear on what that means

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Rachele Sloane, The University of Melbourne and Annie Gowing, The University of Melbourne

New Child Safe Standards come into effect in Victoria this Friday, July 1. The set of 11 standards builds on the original seven. One significant change was made with little fanfare: well-being was included alongside safety as a key responsibility of organisations working with children and young people.

This change acknowledges growing community expectations and the shift toward a wellness-focused culture. Well-being is often discussed as self-evident.

Indeed, the new standards themselves do not provide a clear definition of well-being. Nor are they clear about associated expectations of what good practice looks like in schools and other educational settings.

Given these standards will amount to a requirement, organisations will need clear direction on how to meet their obligations in regard to well-being.

Well-being is a complex and multifaceted concept. Some researchers have even characterised it as a wicked problem. To meet this new responsibility to support, develop and provide for children and young people’s well-being, schools and educational settings in particular need to understand what this actually means.

Why have the standards changed?

Victoria’s Child Safe Standards recognise the vulnerability of children and young people and the responsibility of adults to help keep them safe. The standards have been in place since January 2016.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse presented its final report in December 2017. The Victorian government then reviewed the standards and made several recommendations to strengthen the standards and align them more closely with the national principles for child-safe organisations. The primary focus during this time was on safety.

In recent years, interest in the concept of well-being has exploded, particularly with the impacts of COVID-19 on children and young people. Research and debate on well-being have burgeoned.

The Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP) assists organisations to adhere to the Child Safe Standards. This has involved developing and embedding in practice the policy and procedures that support children’s safety.

The commission continues to provide guidance on the new standards. However, the concept of well-being has not been explicitly discussed or defined.

So what exactly is well-being?

Well-being is a term that seems simple enough on the surface and yet evades clear definition. It’s often defined as the subjective experience of quality of life. It is frequently linked to mental health, and in education is often conflated with attendance and behaviour.

The World Health Organization speaks about health as being more than merely the absence of illness. Its definition includes holistic well-being across multiple domains of functioning, but stops short of nominating a single definition of well-being itself.

The well-being of children and young people specifically is more complex still. As a concept, their well-being has been discussed simply as relating to mental health through to more complex understandings as an antidote to poor behaviour and as the key ingredient of positive outcomes.

The concept of youth well-being is so complex that there are increasing attempts to formally define it through conceptual framing. This framing is useful in drawing together knowledge from across disciplines and aspects of physical, mental and social health, along with subjective experience of life, behaviour and skills.

The problem remains that this framing doesn’t give us a concise and practical working definition. This may be because well-being itself is understood differently depending on the context and community in which it is being discussed.

What does this mean for education institutions?

This idea of including well-being in education is of course not new. Evidence to support the benefits of including well-being as an educational outcome has grown steadily over the past two decades.

Well-being has been included in Australia’s educational goals in successive policy directives. It’s reflected in growing numbers of focused programs targeted at schools.

Schools are already working to support student well-being through promotion, prevention and intervention. Unfortunately, definitions of well-being vary widely between policies and programs. The complexity and inconsistency of the concept and how to achieve it continue to create significant challenges.

This is reflected in the findings of a recent study of school principals in New South Wales and in the recommendations to come out of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. These difficulties suggest schools are overwhelmed with choice and need greater support to select evidence-based programs that are shown to be effective.

Including well-being in the new Child Safe Standards requires schools to focus on well-being. They must now take on an increased responsibility to care not only for student safety but also their well-being.

Schools will have to revise and develop policy in ways that acknowledge the importance and complexity of well-being. They will need to engage thoughtfully with this concept.

As the standards have not defined the term, schools will need to conceptualise this concept for their context. This means drawing together and making explicit all the aspects that the school community understands as well-being. That’s likely to cover health, skills and capabilities, behaviours and subjective experiences.

Policymakers need to provide greater conceptual clarity to support schools in this important work.

Rachele Sloane, Graduate Researcher and Tutor – Master of Education, Student Wellbeing Specialisation (MGSE), The University of Melbourne and Annie Gowing, Lecturer in Student Wellbeing, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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

How a sense of purpose can link creativity to happiness

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link between creativity and happiness

Gareth Loudon, Cardiff Metropolitan University

There are plenty of famous artists who have produced highly creative work while they were deeply unhappy or suffering from poor mental health. In 1931, the poet T.S. Eliot wrote a letter to a friend describing his “considerable mental agony” and how he felt “on the verge of insanity”. Vincent Van Gogh eventually took his own life, having written of “horrible fits of anxiety” and “feelings of emptiness and fatigue”.

So how are creativity and happiness linked? Does happiness make us more creative or does creativity make us happy?

Most of the research so far seems to indicate that a positive mood enhances creativity. But others have challenged this argument, suggesting a more complex relationship.

For example, a large study in Sweden found that authors were more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders compared to people from non-creative professions. Even in the corporate world, it has been suggested that negative emotions can spark creativity and that “anxiety can focus the mind”, resulting in improved creative output.

Meanwhile, the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi conducted extensive research on creative individuals across many disciplines, which found a common sense among all the people he interviewed: that they loved what they did, and that “designing or discovering something new” was one of their most enjoyable experiences.

It seems, then, that research to date supports a variety of different views, and I believe one of the reasons for this relates to time scale.

A key factor that affects creativity is attention. In the short term, you can get people to pay attention using external rewards (such as money) or by creating pressure to meet urgent deadlines.

But it is much harder to sustain creativity over longer periods using these approaches – so the role of happiness becomes increasingly important. My experience of working with a large number of commercial organisations in Wales (and my own career in the public and private sectors) is that creativity is often not sustained within an organisation, even when it is encouraged (or demanded) by senior management.

Typical reasons for this lack of sustained creativity are pressures and stresses at work, the fear of judgement, the fear of failure, or employee apathy. One way to tackle this might be to aspire to psychologist Paul Dolan’s definition of happiness as the “experiences of pleasure and purpose over time”.

He describes purpose as relating to “fulfilment, meaning and worthwhileness” and believes we are at our happiest with a “balance between pleasure and purpose”.

Therefore, if your work is meaningful, fulfilling and worthwhile it helps in supporting your happiness. It also has the added advantage of making you want to engage and pay attention (rather than having to).

Bringing purpose and creativity together helps provide the intrinsic motivation for undertaking creativity, what has been called the “energy for action”, and enables creativity to be sustained.

So, if you want to be creative in the long term, the key questions to ask yourself are whether you are doing work that is interesting and enjoyable for you, and is that work of value to you? Or, as the American academic Teresa Amabile puts it, do you “perceive your work as contributing value to something or someone who matters”.

Performance anxiety

Another question to ask yourself is: are you helping others gain that “energy for action”, whether you are a manager in a company or a teacher in a school.

In situations where creative work has not been associated with happiness, such as the example of some prominent artists and authors, it might well be that their creative work was still driven by a sense of purpose and that other factors made them unhappy.

Another common element affecting the happiness of many creative people is the pressure they put on themselves to be creative, something I have often seen with my own students. This kind of pressure and stress can result in creative blocks and consequently perpetuate the problem.

So maybe the solution in these situations is to seek pleasure rather than purpose, as a positive mood does seem to enhance creativity, or to encourage people to be more playful. For those creative people who suffer from mental health problems, it is a much more complicated picture. But perhaps the act of undertaking creative activity can at least help in the healing process.

Gareth Loudon, Professor of Creativity, Cardiff Metropolitan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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

Mental health: new study finds simply believing you can do something to improve it is linked with higher wellbeing

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Ziggi Ivan Santini, University of Southern Denmark; Charlotte Meilstrup, University of Copenhagen; Line Nielsen, University of Copenhagen; Rob Donovan, The University of Western Australia, and Vibeke Jenny Koushede, University of Copenhagen

The number of people struggling with poor mental health and mental disorders has been rising around the world over the past few decades. Those who are struggling are increasingly facing difficulties accessing the kind of support they need – leaving many waiting months for help, if they even qualify for treatment.

While it’s clear that more needs to be done to improve access to treatment, it doesn’t mean people inevitably have to struggle with their mental health as a result. In fact, there are many things people can do on their own to maintain good mental health – and even prevent mental health problems from developing in the first place. According to our recent research, one of the steps you can take to improve your mental wellbeing may be as simple as believing that you can.

In our recent study, we asked 3,015 Danish adults to fill out a survey that asked questions about mental health – such as whether they believe they can do something to keep mentally healthy, whether they had done something in the past two weeks to support their mental health, and also whether they were currently struggling with a mental health problem. We then assessed their level of mental wellbeing using the Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, which is widely used by healthcare professionals and researchers to measure mental wellbeing.

As you’d expect, we found that mental wellbeing was highest among those who had done things to improve their mental health compared with the other participants.

Interestingly however, we found that – whether or not our respondents had actually taken action to improve their mental wellbeing – people who believed they could do something to keep mentally healthy tended to have higher mental wellbeing than those who didn’t have this belief.

So while it’s most beneficial to take steps to improve your mental health, even just believing that you can improve it is associated with better overall mental wellbeing.

Though our study didn’t look at the reasons for this link between belief and better mental health, it could be explained by a psychological concept known as the “wellbeing locus of control”. According to this concept, people who have an internal wellbeing locus of control believe that their own attitudes and behaviour control their wellbeing. On the other hand, people with an external wellbeing locus of control think their mental wellbeing is largely controlled by factors or circumstances outside of their control (such as by other people or by chance).

It’s possible that having an internal wellbeing locus of control may subconsciously influence one’s outlook, lifestyle or coping mechanisms. This in turn may also affect mental health – and previous research has linked this type of belief to fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress.

This concept may explain why participants who believe they can do something to change their mental health are also more likely to have a high level of mental wellbeing. And this finding in itself has enormous preventative potential, as a high level of mental wellbeing is associated with a 69-90% lower risk of developing a common mental disorder.

Keep mentally healthy

We know from a large body of research that there are many simple things people can do in their day to day to support and even improve their mental health. This is why we developed the Act-Belong-Commit campaign, which provides a research-based mental health “ABC” that can be used by everyone, regardless of whether they’re struggling with a mental health problem or not.

Act: Keep physically, mentally, socially and spiritually active. Do something – such as going for walks, reading, playing games or taking up a hobby. An active mind and body can foster wellbeing and help quell overthinking or worrying about things that may be outside of your control.

Belong: Keep up friendships and close social ties, engage in group activities, and participate in community events. Do something with someone – whether that’s going to dinner with friends or joining a recreational sports league. Spending time with other people can help you feel more connected and build a sense of identity.

Commit: Set goals and challenges, engage in activities that provide meaning and purpose in life, including taking up causes and volunteering to help others. Do something meaningful. This can help you build a sense of meaning, mattering and self worth.

All three of these domains are fundamental to good mental health. Doing just some of these activities is associated with a range of wellbeing benefits, including higher life satisfaction, and lower risk of mental disorders, problematic alcohol use and even cognitive impairment. Feeling active, socially connected, and engaged in meaningful activities are generally linked with better health and a longer lifespan.

As part of our study, we were able to show that knowing these ABC principles can make an important difference. Among those who knew about them, about 80% said that the ABCs had given them new knowledge about what they can do to support their mental health, and about 15% said that they had also taken action to enhance it.

We should view the current mental health crisis as a wake-up call about how critically important it is that people are equipped with tools that may help them to support and maintain good mental health. The results of our study may serve to remind us just how much of an impact we can have ourselves when it comes to looking after our own mental wellbeing – even if it’s just believing that we can.

Ziggi Ivan Santini, Mental Health Researcher, University of Southern Denmark; Charlotte Meilstrup, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Copenhagen; Line Nielsen, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Copenhagen; Rob Donovan, Adjunct professor, The University of Western Australia, and Vibeke Jenny Koushede, Professor and Head of the Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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

Psychological tips aren’t enough – policies need to address structural inequities so everyone can flourish

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Sarah S. Willen, University of Connecticut; Abigail Fisher Williamson, Trinity College, and Colleen Walsh, Cleveland State University

“Languishing” is the in-vogue term for today’s widely shared sense of pandemic malaise. According to some psychologists, you can stop languishing with simple steps: Savor the small stuff. Do five good deeds. Find activities that let you “flow.” Change how you think and what you do, and today’s languishing can become tomorrow’s flourishing.

But in an unjust world burdened by concurrent threats – war, a pandemic, the slow burn of climate change – does this argument ring true? Can simple activities like these really help us – all of us – flourish?

As social scientists who study flourishing and health, we have watched this psychological approach capture attention – and massive investment. Most of this work is rooted in positive psychology, a fast-growing field that sees individuals as largely responsible for their own flourishing. This new research, most of it survey-based, aims to revamp health and social policy, nationally and globally. It may well succeed at this — which has us concerned.

What could be wrong with a worldwide effort to help people flourish? Our concern is that a narrowly psychological approach overestimates individuals’ control over their own well-being, while underestimating the role of systemic inequities, including those that well-designed laws and policies can help address.

Here’s what people told us affected flourishing

As researchers who combine surveys with interviews, we know that thousands of data points can tell us many things – but not the stuff you learn from sitting down with people to talk, and listen.

In a new paper based on our collaborative research, we asked open-ended questions that surveys cannot answer. Not just, “Are you flourishing?,” but also: “Why, or why not? What helps you flourish? What gets in the way?”

We took our questions to public libraries and private boardrooms, coffee shops and kitchen tables throughout Greater Cleveland, Ohio, speaking with 170 people from different backgrounds: men and women, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, Black, white and Latino. Would their answers align, we wondered? Would they mesh with the experts’?

In one area, our interviewees’ perspectives line up with leading survey research: For over 70%, social connections had a powerful impact on whether they felt they were flourishing. But other topics people raised are ignored in most leading studies of flourishing.

For instance, a full 70% mentioned a stable income. Nearly as many flagged what public health professionals call the social determinants of health – reliable access to things like healthy food, transportation, education and a safe place to live. Some also cited discrimination, unequal treatment by the police, and other factors described as structural determinants of health.

Poverty, inequity and racism get in the way

For people who face inequity in their own lives, the links between adversity and flourishing were crystal clear.

Over half of interviewees described themselves as flourishing. But less than half of those earning $30,000 or less annually were flourishing, compared to almost 90% of those with household incomes over $100,000. More than two-thirds of white interviewees were flourishing versus less than half of Black interviewees. And nearly three-quarters of people with a bachelor’s degree were flourishing, compared to just over half of those without.

A Latina woman we interviewed explained how poverty and other forms of structural vulnerability can impair flourishing: “If you have a home that’s infested with roaches, and mold, and lead, and water, then after you’ve worked so hard, you come home and just want to rest. And then you’re like oh, I don’t have food, and you didn’t want to cook … then you’re eating unhealthy.”

She described how all these factors affect relationships too: “You’re not being a good mom because you’re angry. … You cannot give 100% at home. … You cannot give 100% to work, and you cannot give 100% to social life, and you have no friends because you’re so angry nobody wants to talk to you.”

Other interviewees told us how entrenched racism obstructs flourishing. One Black woman described racism’s grinding toll as “exhausting” and “such a heavy lift every day.” She compared it to a game of chess requiring “strategies all day long.” The constant vigilance and pressure she described fit what health researchers call weathering, or premature deterioration in health.

Under circumstances like these, would savoring the small things and doing good deeds really help?

To us, the answer is clear: Without the conditions that enable flourishing, psychological exercises will inevitably fall short. More importantly, they risk leaving behind those already facing adversity and injustice.

Collective flourishing requires structural change

The path to flourishing is no simple issue of mind over matter. It also depends on society’s systems and structures: Safe, affordable housing. A living wage. Solutions to systemic racism. Affordable, quality food and health care, including mental health care. As decades of public health research have shown, factors like these deeply affect health and well-being. We contend that flourishing research and policy need to consider these factors as well.

Author Sarah Willen discusses flourishing on the Social Science & Medicine – Mental Health video podcast.

There’s nothing wrong with taking concrete steps to cultivate kindness, gratitude and connections with others. To the contrary, these are great ways to improve mental health and strengthen social solidarity. But tips like these are probably most helpful to people whose lives and livelihoods are already secure. For those who struggle to meet their basic needs and those of their loved ones, it will take a lot more than simple activities to flourish. It will take structural change.

“Hostile environments thwart flourishing; congenial environments promote it,” as disability justice scholar Rosemary Garland-Thomson puts it. Unless political leaders are willing to tackle the root causes of social inequities, chances of flourishing inevitably will be unequal.

Positive psychologists tend to see flourishing as a psychological matter, separate from social and political conditions. Our interviewees tell a different story. Policy proposals that ignore real-world perspectives like theirs risk leading policymakers astray.

[Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.]

Ancient views of flourishing may help forge a path forward. For Aristotle, flourishing is not just about happiness or satisfaction – it involves achieving your potential. In his view, this responsibility lies in one’s own hands. But modern public health research shows that the ability to achieve your potential depends heavily on the circumstances in which you are born, grow and live.

In hostile environments – of exclusion and oppression, scarcity and risk, war and forcible displacement – no one can flourish. Unless all of us – citizens, policymakers and researchers alike – are prepared to confront the root causes of today’s hostile environments, efforts to promote flourishing will inevitably miss the mark.

Sarah S. Willen, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Research Program on Global Health & Human Rights at the Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut; Abigail Fisher Williamson, Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Law, Trinity College, and Colleen Walsh, Associate Professor of Health Sciences, Cleveland State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Want to learn more about the science of happiness? Make sure to subscribe to my podcast Happiness for Cynicsand weekly email newsletter for regular updates and news! 

Wellbeing Centres… hippie communes or paths to happiness?  Interview with Diana Stobo  

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For cynics around the world, wellbeing retreats top the list of things of which to be sceptical. Conjuring images of fit and tanned, green-smoothie-drinking, yoga-pant-wearing health and fitness buffs or meditating hippies in sustainably sourced clothing and bare feet, it’s easy to simply dismiss wellbeing retreats as a fad for rich people or the fringes of society. 

It turns out, nothing is further from the truth. Research shows that consumers care deeply about wellness, with the market exploding in recent years. Global consulting firm, McKinsey, showed that 79 per cent of survey respondents across in six countries believe that wellness is important, and 42 per cent consider it a top priority. Over the past few years, people around the world have shown a substantial increase in the prioritisation of wellness. 

McKinsey estimates the global wellness market is valued at more than $1.5 trillion, with annual growth of 5 to 10 percent, and when it comes to wellness centres and retreats, Wellness Creative Co. estimates the wellness tourism market is projected to reach $919 billion by 2022.  

That’s why I recently sat down with celebrity chef, best-selling author, and health and wellness life-coach, Diana Stobo. Here’s our interview. 

Q: You have such a varied career in the wellness industry, and I’m interested to know what drew you to this industry and field of work?  

Diana: Ha, ha. You know, I don’t think anything drew me there. I think it was serendipitous. Honestly, I think you fall into it. When I wrote my first book, which has not been published, the first sentence was, “everything that I’ve done has led me to here.” 

I think that’s what we can all do. We can look back and go, “How did I get here?” And then you look at the things that you’ve done, the things that you’ve accomplished and what your life, the turmoils, the ups and downs, the adversity, and it all leads you to where you’re going. You can’t plan that. It just happens. You know that saying: we plan our lives and God laughs.  

I think, I think God was laughing the whole time as I was writing my books. You know, I have a girlfriend who told me once it was it was fantastic because I actually felt what she was saying when I went through my divorce was, I feel like my soul is driving the car and I’m a passenger. And I keep saying turn left, turn left and my soul’s ‘ha, ha, turn right’, you know? 

Or you say, stop, stop! And your soul runs through the light and you’re like, wow, the soul is doing something completely different than you had planned. And that’s, that’s how I got here.  

Q: Surely along the way, you’re loving what you’re doing. Is that fair to say? Because you’re so successful at it. 

Diana: One hundred percent, one hundred percent. Every single day I wake up and I go, if I wasn’t doing what I’m doing, what would I be doing? I don’t know. But I do pick and choose the parts that fulfil me. There are parts of what I do that I don’t love. You have to do it to get through. But I’ve learned to find people who can do it, and also let go of the outcome of you know, the control and just let people flourish in their own way, which is really great. Which is why I have such an amazing staff, because I read something once with Southwest Airlines. I don’t know if you know Southwest Airlines in Australia, but it’s “the friendly skies”, right?  

So, it’s an airline that’s basically… they tell jokes, and people can wear what they want. It’s super relaxed and the guy who put it together, he said, “We teach people, we show them the protocols, and then we say, but you can break them if it benefits the client.” And that’s the part that I love, you know. I have my staff be all that they are, you know, I let them become whoever they are yet stay within the confines of what the program is.  

And that’s probably how I live my life, honestly.  

Q: Today we’re here to talk primarily about wellbeing retreats or wellbeing centres, and I’ll get to that in a second. But I’d like to ask a sneaky question, off topic, because you’re also one of the original pioneers of the raw food movement, a leading raw food chef, health and wellness educator and the founder and CEO of Truth Bar. And I have to ask, what is it about how humans are eating today that needs fixing? What’s wrong with what we’re doing today?  

Diana: I know that when I went through menopause just recently a few years back, I started to put on weight again, and everything that I know and everything that I taught myself and everything that I teach went out the window when I started Googling. I started Googling, “What do you do with menopause?” And everything went down to supplements and ridiculous fad diets. And I got really confused, I really did. I thought maybe what I teach and what I know doesn’t work for me anymore, because I’m a new person because now I’ve got no hormones. So maybe, maybe I have to restructure everything. And so, I played the game for about two years, and honestly, I got fatter and fatter and fatter. It was really uncomfortable. And I got sicker and sicker, and so I just went back to what I know, and it worked.  

So, I think that there’s so much information that people get obsessed with the information and then they don’t know what’s real, what’s not real. You know, we first were taught to read packages, but if you’re reading a package, you shouldn’t be eating it, period.  

End of story, you know there’s so many things I can say about food. I can talk about food for six hours, get me on another podcast because food is such an important thing. 

And now at my hotel, The Retreat Costa Rica, we have an innovative doctor, and the reason I chose that is because everything is about nature and they’ll tell you the number one most important thing is what you eat. Number one. People think it’s, ‘I gotta work out more’ or it’s psychological. Everybody tries to pin something on their disease or dysfunction, but number one, the most important thing is what you put in your body.  

You are what you eat, and I don’t think that was ever taught to any of us. It certainly wasn’t taught to me. I mean, my mom used to have TV dinners when we were kids, and we would watch the wonderful World of Disney while eating something in a tin can that she heated up in the oven.  

I hope no one uses microwaves anymore. But microwaves… you shouldn’t even be in a room where a microwave is running because the radiation that it emits is huge. So, I don’t know. It’s almost like we have to relearn everything that we didn’t learn. And we love convenience, just like we love technology. But none of it’s good for us. None of it’s good for us.  

I really think that what we’re going through right now is… knock on wood…. It’s the beginning of something exceptional. It looks like despair right now and destruction. But I’m hoping that the storm will pass and everything will be washed away and we can look at life in a different perspective. I truly believe that we’re going to look at our history books differently. Everything is going to be different. And so, we have to be positive. Take care of ourselves. Remain healthy, happy, most importantly, and then we’ll see what unfolds. But don’t get obsessed with what’s going on.  

Q: A lot of us have been conditioned to be sceptical of wellness centres. Can you help bust the myths and for people, myself included, who have never been to a wellness retreat, can you explain a bit about what it is? And why it’s important for someone to spend money on a wellness retreat for a week versus going to Vegas?  

Diana: Well, that’s a fantastic juxtaposition. Wellness retreat or Vegas? Well, let’s just point out the basic stuff. You know, food and drink. That’s the first thing. When we go on vacation… it’s really funny, my brother just came to visit and he was eating a lot, and I said, you know, “slow your roll, dude. You’re a 57-year-old man. Really, do you really need to get a scoop of ice cream at three o’clock in the afternoon? I mean that should just be off limits until we’re grandparents, you know what I’m saying?” 

And he says, “Hey, I’m on vacation. I’m on vacation!” And that’s such a mentality that we go on vacation to destroy all the work we’ve done on ourselves. So just think of it in terms of going to a wellness place where you know that you’re only going to get the finest things to put in your body. Okay, we all go on a vacation or, let’s say Vegas, since you use that one. We go and we need to work out, right? So, we go to the gym and we take a yoga class or we walk up The Strip or something, and we try to find [one] and it’s hectic because it’s too hot out. We’re not really here, we’re rushing to get to a class.  

But you go to a wellness retreat and everything is available there for you at any given time. And whether you’re walking in nature or stretching on the yoga mats or going to the gym or getting a treatment massage, you get to choose. There’s no rush. There’s no anxiety. There’s no stress. There’s no ‘shoulds.’ There’s no ‘should nots.’ It’s all there. You can’t make a mistake at a wellness retreat. You can’t eat the wrong foods. You can’t drink too much. You can’t… I mean, there’s just nothing for you to do wrong. And if you do drink too much, you’re going to get a green juice in the morning that’s going to cure it all!  

So as far as all the “woo woo” and the meditation and all that, I actually break it down really simply. The Retreat Costa Rica is very unique that way. So, everything is very light, white. So, it’s like a blank canvas, and you get to paint the world you want. There are people who go and sit by the pool and read all day. They don’t attend anything. They go get a treatment. That’s the, that’s the idea of wellness is becoming who you really are, allowing yourself to unfold and discover yourself. When you’re on an agenda and drinking and eating things that you shouldn’t be doing. You’re just clogging your system. You can’t flow.  

So, why spend the money to go to a retreat rather than to Vegas? Because you want to feel good. That’s really it. I think a lot of people get wrapped up in the program and they go, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. I got to do that. And then, day three, they surrender. They’re like, you know what, I’m just going to go with the flow, and that’s, that’s where the healing happens. It really does. And I tell people, they’re like, “I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta get to yoga!” and I go “No, you don’t.” If you don’t want to go and you’re in a conversation, having connection with another guest and being in conversation is part of your process. So, sit, relax, heal. It’s all different. You know, it depends. Every place is different, but that’s what it’s like at the retreat.  

Q: So, what would a typical week look like for your guests?  

Diana: The typical week? Well, I think it’s really important to see the biorhythms. Like I said, a lot of people come in there with no expectations. I think the retreat is very unique. It calls to a lot of people, and they don’t know what they want when they get there. 

I see this time and time again. I don’t know if that’s true for every place, but because it’s laid out with such a clean agenda, it’s not a lot of rushing around. But a lot of people come in and go, “Okay, well, I want to go to the Volcano, I want to go to the beach, I want to make sure I have lunch. And what kind of… I want to juice this day. I want to do this. And they lay it down and they go to the front reception. And I’m telling you, they’re doing all the classes. They’re doing all their program. They’re doing it all, but they’re like trying to figure out how they can fit more in. Because they’re in Costa Rica and they want to fit it in.  

So, they go to the receptionist. And of course, they’re like, can you book this? Can you book this? Can you book this? Come day three, you know, they’re like, did you book those things for me? Oh, maybe you can take that off. 

In day four, they get up and they go straight to the reception and they say, “Cancel it all, I’m not leaving here.” The day starts, six am, seven am, whatever. It’s an open kitchen. So, people come in, they get their coffee, their tea, their elixirs, whatever makes them happy, their green juices.  

They go to yoga. Yoga is … an eight o’clock class for an hour, hour and a half, and it ranges, all the different flows so people can get a nice blood moving. And then there’s breakfast. And then there’s a hike, and then there’s open spa. There are two pools, two restaurants, and then, of course, there’s lunch.  

And then there’s another yoga. And then there’s sunset and then treatments in between and meeting with people. And another thing that happens is people come in they’re like, “I was wondering what I was going to do all day.” Then at the end, they’re like, “where did the day go?” Because it’s not very often that we take care of ourselves and just allow the day to unfold naturally. 

Q: What I’m hearing from you is that the first few days they’re still working like they’re at work. And in that constant busy mode that we like to be in and put ourselves in, how do we take the lessons from a wellness centre and apply them back into our day to day lives? When you know the kid’s school’s calling and they’re sick, and your boss needs something by deadline and your parents are coming for a trip to visit and all of, you know, all of the stuff. What would your tips be for your guests?  

Diana: Well, everybody is different, and some people take a lot from it. And some people just can’t surrender. They just can’t open their mind to a new way of life. They enjoyed it. Thank you very much. I’ll be back. But some people have… I would say a good portion of people have profound shifts.  

And what I think is… there’s the eating component. There’s the relaxation component. There’s the exercise component. There’s the spiritual component. And even if they take just a small portion of it back home with them, the next time they come, they’ll take another portion and they’ll take another portion. And that’s why people get addicted to these wellness retreats because they find their purpose. They find their meaning in life. They discover their soul. And in the rat race you don’t have time for that. So, it’s sometimes, it’s a shift, and it changes people immediately because they’re probably ready and on the precipice of change and then other people, it’s a slow burn.  

But everybody, everybody learns something. I mean, I can give you stories of people who I think probably will never learn anything, ever as long as they live. 

I had this great Buddhist teacher and he said, you know, he used to say it about somebody I knew. And he said “they’re evolving at the pace of a rock.” And, if you think about that, you’re like yeah, rocks do evolve. They just take a long time, right?  

Then there’s other people who are shifting like feathers in the wind. And so, everybody is different. But that’s how it happened for me. I became a wellness junkie because I started going when my kids were young. I would go for one week, and every time I came back, I felt like a new person. I thought, That’s the life I want for me. So, it took a while, took many years and a lot of visits to wellness retreats to find that.

Q: So, I assume, and I’m hearing that you practise a lot of what you preach at your own wellness centres. Can you tell me how these things have impacted you and your family’s lives? So what, what were those incremental changes that you started seeing and personally, what works for you?  

Well, I think saying no. I always I always tell people say yes to the universe, but you have to say no to the people asking for favours. Because that’s not the universe. That’s just, you know, people… say no and make more time for yourself. Time management I think is really important. That was the beginning.  

I think the physical part was work out less. You know, don’t work so hard on working out, like, actually find the… because I used to work out so much till my body hurt. And I don’t like doing that anymore. I think it actually creates too much acid in my body and long-term inflammation, etcetera, etcetera, that I learned to be more gentle.  

Food, I mean, my expertise is food and understanding food understanding more importantly what it does to your body, like we just we think about the internal, we eat it and then it comes out the other end, right? But what does it do? What does it do when it goes inside? And I love biology. I was a pre-med, I love physiology. I understand the body and how things work. I just never put two and two together. Never, I never thought about what I eat and where it goes and what it’s doing when it enters your body. And once you learn that you can’t go back, you would never put anything you know, icky into your body ever again.  

Little by little by little, you know, for some people, like they come, they go. You know, the one thing I love about the retreat is they always have a warm soup as an appetiser every night for dinner. And people actually get… They want it, they crave it, they can’t wait to have it. And so, the one thing I want to take home with me is I’m going to make soup every night. Okay.  

Have you ever seen the wheel of life? You use it for coaching, right? It’s a life coach tool, and you’ve got your, you’ve got your family, career, exercise, food, your livelihood, your finance. And that’s basically it. What parts of your life are empty that you need to fulfil? Yeah, focus on those first.  

Q: On that note, you did mention saying yes to the universe before. So, what’s next for you? 

Diana: Well, next Tuesday, I turn 57. I’m getting tired. I gotta say, I’m getting tired of the hustle. But what I built what I started to build 8 to 10 years ago is now still being nurtured.  

I mean, the Retreat, knock on wood again, is doing well. And I think that the after the storm that we went through and we’re growing, and so that is a project that’s still growing. We just added six rooms. We’re going to add 10 more rooms. And hopefully we’re creating a village, a community of wellness there. And then I have another company. Have another company is called Truth Bar. It’s a gut health bar, so I focus on the gut health and really bringing that to the surface so people can actually heal themselves with candy bars you know, functional food. 

For me, I just moved across country to another state. And, you know, I’m kind of I’m excited about settling and maybe having a little bit of a social life again. Because I’ve been working so hard for so long that I really want to connect and have deep relationships and spend some time with the people I love. And it’s hard. It is hard. I mean, I didn’t do it over the last two years, all the stuff we’ve been going through, and it really put an emphasis on how important all those people are. 

About Diana Stobo

The Retreat Costa Rica is the innovation of celebrity chef, best-selling author, and health and wellness life-coach, Diana Stobo. Her goal was to create a transformational wellness center that has since become a distinctively Costa Rican experience of “Heaven on Earth” — a resort and spa where guests experience a harmony of nature, nutrition, and wellness nestled among the lush vegetation of the rainforest. 

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

  

  

Three essential return to work resilience building activities

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Want to keep your employees through the Great Attrition? Help them build resilience. 

work team

In a recent McKinsey article about the turmoil of returning to work post-Covid, army veteran Adria Horn makes a case for why the Great Attrition is happening – blaming it on the return to work, which she says is psychologically similar and just as unnerving as returning from war. 

“Coming back from deployment is hard. You’re expecting it to be great. You’re home again, this should be great! But the biggest feeling is that things are different. The kids are different. Your favourite restaurant closed, your pet died, and your softball team broke up. The couch your partner bought while you were away is great—but it’s not the couch you knew. Home isn’t normal, it isn’t as it was. Things don’t meet your expectations, and you seem to have lost control, so your return experience doesn’t feel good at all,” says Horn, who served five tours of duty overseas. 

For many people in the U.S. and the U.K. who have been asked to return to the office, this is how they’re also feeling, and according to Horn, this is the reason millions of people are leaving their jobs in droves. The big issue, however, is that many of them don’t know why they’re leaving and more than that, many employers don’t know either. As we all know, we can’t manage what we don’t understand.  

“People’s hopes and expectations are going unmet in ways that many don’t realize and can’t articulate. Being off balance that way puts people on edge; it throws them off-kilter,” said Horn. 

Addressing inequity 

Before we go into what employers can do to avoid losing all their best talent (if it’s not too late already), it’s worth mentioning that any return-to-work plan needs to be flexible and cater to unique employee needs – yes, we’re talking equity. 

Everyone’s experience of working from home was different. While some people enjoyed the quiet and convenience of working from a home office and not having to commute, others struggled with the distractions of overcrowded homes and uncomfortable multi-purpose workspaces (and everything in between). 

Covid shone a light on systemic inequity throughout society, both pre-Covid and during Covid. Women in particular have suffered burnout at increasing rates as they have tried to juggle family and work commitments. Not only that, but research shows that at work, “women senior leaders do more to help their employees navigate work–life challenges, relative to their male peers. Similarly, they spend that additional time helping manage workloads, and they’re 60 percent more likely to be focusing on emotional support.” 

But it’s not only women who experience inequity in their careers and work life, there’s also people of colour, people with disabilities, people who identify as LGBTQ+, and many more. These groups have historically faced discrimination and lower levels of representation in senior management. All of these groups also experienced similar, yet unique, challenges during Covid.  

If employers want to both retain and attract the best talent, they need to start by understanding that individuals have different needs. Some people are clamouring to come back into the office five days a week, while others will quit if they’re forced to return for even one day a week. Thankfully, we know from hundreds of employee surveys around the world that most employees sit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, so it is possible to find an operating rhythm and standard, even while catering to individual needs.  

Covid has shepherded in a new age of work reform – one where employees have the power and expect more from their employers. Return to work policies and conversation must be employee centred, and companies that care only for profit or that don’t ‘walk the talk’ of their stated values will quickly lose the war for talent, if they haven’t already.  

Simply, this means asking individual employees “what would you prefer?” or “what do you need to perform at your best?” Without this approach, and as we have seen in the U.S. and U.K, employees will leave to find other companies which are willing to meet their needs. Period.  

Flexible return to work policies are the first step. The second steps is ensuring employees’ return to work meets their expectations. This takes effort and understanding from managers.  

Read on to uncover three essential return-to-work resilience building activities to help your team reconnect and build resilience. 

Three essential return-to-work resilience building activities  

Building resilience to avoid the Great Attrition

If there is one lesson the rest of the world can learn from the U.S. and U.K., it’s that we can’t wait to see what will happen when everyone returns to the office. To retain employees, we need to be proactive about building our office culture and manageing people’s expetations.  

As Horn pointed out, the problem is that people see ‘coming’back’ to work as a known thing. They feel it will be a return to normal, a known quantity, comfortable, safe. Yet employees will not be coming back to the same team, the same office and the same work as when they left. Everything has changed, and this disconnect will leave people feeling unease and off kilter, without knowing why. 

The reality is that employees will actually experience significant change, and we know that some will even be grieving what they’ve lost during her return to work (see the Kubler-Ross change curve). Good leaders will retain employees by putting in place interventions to negate the negative impacts of this change and help build employees’ resilience and wellbeing through this time. 

Here’s how… 

  1. Reconnect employees with meaning and purpose 

Reconnect your team members with their jobs by helping them connect with the meaning and purpose they get from their work. Help employees gain a renewed sense of passion for their work and the company. A simple way to do this is to focus on aligning character strengths with role tasks. Employees who know and apply their top character strengths in their work have better job satisfaction and wellbeing (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).  

Research also shows that using character strengths can help: 

  • Improve relationships 
  • Enhance health and overall wellbeing 
  • Buffer against, manage and overcome problems 

Additionally, research shows that employees who use four or more of their signature strengths have more positive work experiences and report their work is a calling in their life. 

ACTIVITY:  

  • STEP 1: Before the team comes back into the office, ask them to complete the free VIA Character Strengths survey.  
  • STEP 2: Once back in the office, book a ‘real-life’ meeting with the team and ask each team member to share their top character strengths and how they apply these in their job.  
  • STEP 3: Follow up with one-on-one meetings with your team members and if needed, explore opportunities for growth or stretch work that uses their top strengths.  
  1. Reconnect with the team 
work reconnect

The biggest employee benefit of a real office environment is being able to interact with people face-to-face. Yet as Adria Horn mentioned, for a while this will feel strange. The first step to building up that team environment and comradery is to acknowledge the weirdness. Let’s call a spade a spade. Some people will wear masks, some won’t. Some will still dial in to meetings from their desks, while others will find conference rooms to share. Some will want to hug colleagues, while others will bump elbows… it’s all going to be different, and that’s OK. 

Next, teams need to reconnect. Set aside dedicated time to get to know each other better and deeper over the first few months. Plan a variety of team activities for the whole team (don’t forget to make sure the activities are accessible to all – afterwork drinks might not work for parents, be mindful of food allergies when booking lunch, ensure any physical activities take into account everyone’s physical limitations, etc…). Make sure there is time for meaningful interaction. 

ACTIVITIES: 

  • Try learning something new as a team. You could watch and discuss a Ted Talk or take a LinkedIn Learning course and share notes.  
  • Check out these 5 Easy Resilience Activities for the Workplace or Google some team building activities. 
  • At the beginning of your team meetings, do a ‘round the grounds’ and ask your team to share their thoughts on various topics. You can pick anything, but here are some suggestions: What are you most proud of in the past year? What are you most looking forward to this year? In one word, how are you feeling today? Where is your favourite place to travel and why? What excites you the most about your work goals in the next year? What’s the one thing people don’t know about you? 
  1. Role model healthy mind and body habits 
role model

Change can be stressful, but people who prioritise healthy mind and body habits tend to cope better with change and stress than those who don’t. During times of change it’s especially important to support employees to find work-life balance. Yet ironically, when things get busy and life feels stressful, the first thing many people do is stop exercising, stop cooking healthy meals, stop sleeping enough hours each night… yet that is when these healthy habits are most important. 

Thankfully, all that’s needed here is some proactive and visible role modelling from leaders. To build an office culture where work-life balance is valued, role-modelling work-life balance and healthy mind and body habits is critical, particularly in front of younger workers who often take the lead from their bosses. If you’re leaving work early on a Friday to see your kids’ school play, let your team know. If you start early on a Thursday so you can leave early for soccer league or go to the gym, tell the team. If you are feeling burnout lapping at your heels, tell your team, and then find a way to take a mental health day – this is being vulnerable and it’s good leadership. Most importantly, don’t just head out the door on these days, make sure you say something, otherwise it may go unnoticed.  

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

Please note that I may 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! 

Prioritising happiness, interview with Tal Ben-Shahar

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Interview with Tal Ben-Shahar, best selling author and founder of The Happiness Studies Academy and Potentialife

Tal Ben-Shahar is an author and lecturer.  He taught two of the largest classes in Harvard University’s history, “Positive Psychology” and “The Psychology of Leadership.”  His books have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have appeared on best-seller lists around the world.  His latest books are “Happiness Studies” and “Happier, No Matter What.”

Tal consults and lectures to executives in multi-national corporations, the general public, and at-risk populations.  The topics he lectures on include leadership, education, ethics, politics, happiness, self-esteem, resilience, goal setting, and mindfulness.  He is the co-founder and chief learning officer of The Happiness Studies Academy and Potentialife.

An avid sportsman, Tal won the U.S. Intercollegiate and Israeli National squash championships.  He obtained his PhD in Organizational Behavior and BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Harvard.

The wholebeing approach
Tal Ben-Shahar

Q: All the way back in 2007 when you published Happier, which went on to become a New York Times bestseller, in the preface you wrote, “People are sensing and have been sensing for a while that we’re in the midst of some sort of revolution, and they’re not sure why.” So that was almost 15 years ago. And unfortunately for many people, the study of positive psychology hasn’t revolutionised their lives, in fact it seems to have remained the world’s best kept secret. So, I’m wondering, why do you think the science of happiness and wellbeing hasn’t had a bigger impact on humanity yet?

A: Thank you Marie for the question because it is an important one. You know, when you look at change, the way it happens is usually that it’s slow, slow, slow and then very fast. In other words, at some point there is… it tips, as, as Malcolm Gladwell puts it, it hasn’t tipped yet for the science of happiness.

However, I think we’ve gone through at least a few of the slow, slow, slow, which gets us closer to the very fast. And unfortunately, it seems like things need to get worse before they get better. What the pandemic has done is it has made things worse in terms of mental health, whether it’s stress and anxiety, whether it’s depression and what we’re beginning to see. And I can certainly feel there is much more interest, whether it’s from politicians or teachers, parents, businesses, much more interest in the field. So, I suspect that we’re getting a lot closer to that tipping point.

Q: I hope so. As you can probably tell from the title of this podcast. I was a cynic for so many years. I saw the T-shirt slogans and I didn’t understand the science behind it, and it’s been revolutionary in my life, and I just I want to scream from the rooftops to everyone else. “This stuff matters and it makes a difference!” So, what do you think, as we’re reaching this tipping point, will need to happen in the next few years for us to pick up the speed of adoption?

A: Yes. So, the key is really to connect this field to tie it to science. You know, the self-help or New Age movement has been around for a long time. People are talking about, preaching about, the good life. That’s been going on for millennia.

The difference now is that we have a science of happiness. You know, it’s imperfect as every scientific endeavour is. But the nice thing, or the important thing rather, about science is that you get closer and closer to getting the results, the sought-after results, which, when it comes to positive psychology, it’s higher levels of wellbeing.

So, as long as we stay committed to the scientific pursuit of happiness, then the progress initially maybe a little bit slower than it could have been if we had reverted to the self-help, new age, relying on charisma and promises. So, we are going a little bit slower, but I think it’s a much healthier route to pursue.

Q: So, what do you think needs to change apart from awareness of the science. Are we talking changes at schools in organisations, you know, the systemic ways that we organise our countries and our governments that needs to change next? What’s the future of this movement look like?

A: As far as I’m concerned, the most important thing is education and for that to change, universities need to recognise the importance of the science of happiness. Schools need to recognise it, and governments need to recognise it, and politicians, because most of the schools are public schools and the curriculum is determined often by politicians or their aides. So, it’s all about education. You know, Janusz Korczak, the famed Polish educator, said almost 100 years ago, “If you want to reform the world, you must first change education.”

And it certainly applies to the science of happiness. Now how do we do that? I’ll share with you a quick anecdote when we created our program for schools and we tried to get schools to buy in and when I say buy in, I just meant they didn’t even have to pay for it, so it was just to give us the time, which was an hour or two to a week.

We had real difficulties doing that, because principals said, “you know, we don’t have time, you know, we need every minute.” We need it to do extra math classes or writing classes or… and so on. And it was really challenging. And then I ended up basically asking friends of mine to introduce it. You know, friends of mine who were school principals. And there were three of them and they introduced it in their schools. They knew the content, but more as a favour to me than anything else.

And we did research on these on these three schools and over 1000 students. And the results we found were remarkable. So, we saw levels of resilience went up. Happiness, of course, went up. Anxiety and depression went down and interestingly, not surprisingly, I must add for us, but interestingly, grades went up.

Now as soon as we showed that grades went up and we published this in a couple of the top educational journals, as soon as people read that we had a long, we have still, a long line of schools vying for the program. So, you know, it wasn’t about anxiety, depression, happiness, resilience. It was mostly about grades. And frankly, I don’t care. If this is why schools come, then that’s fine. If organisations introduce a program in happiness because it increases profits, that’s great. Whatever it takes. Just introduce this program.

Q: I have to admit, I recently finished the Happiness practitioner certificate at the Happiness Studies Academy. I particularly love how you teach modern Western hard science and fact, alongside philosophy, religion, history, Eastern thinking. In your course, everything is really anchored around what you call the SPIRE model. Could you tell our listeners a little bit more about SPIRE? In particular, starting with what the acronym stands for, and maybe some examples of how to put it in practise?

A: Yes. So, SPIRE, the acronym stands for the five elements of happiness.

  • The first, S is the spiritual wellbeing.
  • P is physical wellbeing.
  • I stands for intellectual wellbeing.
  • The R is relational wellbeing.
  • And finally, the E is emotional wellbeing.

So, spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational and emotional. All of them are important for happiness but we don’t need to focus on all of them all of the time. In fact, it would be near impossible to do so. But at different times either throughout the day or throughout the week, we need to spend some time at least cultivating all five.

So, Spiritual wellbeing. Of course, it can come from religion, and it does for many people. But spiritual wellbeing is about a sense of meaning and purpose, first and foremost. And you can find that in a church, synagogue, or a mosque. Or you can find it in important work that you do or spending time with your loved ones or saving the world or enhancing the wellbeing of one person. You know, this is about finding meaning and purpose, which is important for spiritual wellbeing, which is important for happiness.

Another aspect of spiritual wellbeing is presence, being in the here and now. You know, if I pay attention to a tree that I walk by or to a person sitting across from me or to the fact that we’re alive and can, can hear or see or walk. These are all miracles if you think about it. You know, Albert Einstein once reportedly said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” And being present certainly brings out the miraculous in our in our life. So that spiritual wellbeing is about purpose and presence.

Physical wellbeing is about nutrition and about exercise and sleep, and recovery in general. For example, regular physical exercise has the same effect on our psychological wellbeing as our most powerful psychiatric medication. Working in the same way, releasing norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, the feel-good chemicals in the brain. So, physical wellbeing is a very important part of overall happiness.

Intellectual wellbeing is about curiosity, about learning. You know that people who learn who are constantly asking questions or curious; are not just happier, they’re not just more successful, they also live longer. So, curiosity may kill the cat, but it does the opposite for us humans. Intellectual wellbeing is about deep learning, spending time, whether it’s reading a book, engaging in a text or observing and studying a work of art or walking in nature. Again, being present to it and exercising our rational faculty, our intellectual faculty and really learning about the world around us. So, that’s intellectual wellbeing.

Then there is Relational wellbeing. Number one predictor of happiness, quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us. And that can be a romantic partner, it can be family, it can be friends, it can be colleagues at work. It actually doesn’t matter, as long as we have close, intimate, supportive relationships. Number one predictor of happiness.

Under relational wellbeing is kindness and generosity. One of the best ways to help ourselves, is to help others. Two sides of the same coin. You know, there’s a lot of talk around, you know, selfishness or selflessness. One is bad, the other is good. Well, I don’t buy either. What we need is not selfishness or selflessness. What we need is self-fullness, because when we help, others were also helping ourselves. When we help ourselves, we’re also indirectly helping others more likely to help others. So that’s relational wellbeing.

And finally, Emotional wellbeing is about embracing painful emotions, accepting them, giving them, giving ourselves the permission to be human. And why, Because of a paradox that if we reject or when we reject painful emotions, they simply intensify and grow stronger. And then it’s about embracing pleasurable emotions like gratitude, like joy, like love, like excitement.

And happiness is about all of these. And as I said earlier, we don’t need to do it all, all the time. But we do need to pay attention to all of them at different times.

A: Yeah, the key with happiness and that I always, even, you know today in online webinars with students, I emphasise with the students that how you define happiness is up to you. Meaning there are many ways, there isn’t one right way, and you need to find a definition that works for you. So, Seligman uses the PERMA model. You know, the P being Positive emotions, the E is for Engagement for being in the here and now for being in flow, R is for Relationships, M is for Meaning and A is for accomplishments or Achievements.

The SPIRE model. Visit the wholebeing institute to download your mini workbook.

Q: So, there are lots of different life satisfaction or wellbeing or happiness models out there. And probably the most famous is Martin Seligman’s PERMA model. I’m interested to know when it comes to SPIRE versus PERMA or other models, is it all just supporting the cause? Or are there differences in SPIRE and PERMA that you particularly wanted to focus in on that you think matter more or less?

And the key is to… First of all, obviously, they’re all valid and important elements of happiness and the SPIRE model that I came up with with my colleagues focuses on other things. For instance, PERMA doesn’t have the physical wellbeing element in it, which I think is critical for a happy life. You know, if I don’t exercise for more than two days. I feel it. I mean, I feel more anxious, you know, less calm. I feel like I’m not my best self. Far from it. We know that physical exercise effects our wellbeing. And also, when it comes to accomplishments and achievements, which is part of PERMA. I don’t see it as that important. In fact, it’s one of the biggest myths that people believe that the path to happiness lies in the achievement. Now, if you if you’re working towards something that is personally meaningful to you, where you’re finding you’re exercising your best self and your path to your purpose, that’s a different story. That’s not about the accomplishment or the achievement itself.

So, you know, we differ. We disagree. We’re still friends and supporting one another’s work. And I point out to my, to my students, you know if PERMA is more suitable for your temperament, by all means. If you want to, you know, create another model which will be, you know your own, then by all means [do that]. The key is to identify what’s important for us and then, more importantly, to cultivate that element.

Q: So, on that note, you taught hundreds of students at Harvard, so you’ve got firsthand experience with how people have implemented your teachings. Is there one thing that stands out above the rest that made the biggest impact in your student’s life? One intervention or area that you saw across the board came out on top more often. Even though everyone has a subjective understanding, and everyone is different. Is there something that stands above the rest?

There are a couple with your permission. So probably if I had to choose one, it would be what you mentioned earlier, which is the notion of the permission to be human. In other words, there are no good or bad emotions. There can be good or bad behaviour, but not emotions. Emotions are amoral. So, you know, feeling, experiencing envy towards my friend does not make me a bad or immoral person. If I act on that envy and hurt my friend, that’s a whole different story. And paradoxically, it’s when we accept and embrace painful emotions that we have most control over our behaviour. In other words, saying to myself, I should not experience envy not only intensifies that emotion, it’s also more likely to control me then similarly with fear. You know, experiencing fear doesn’t make me a coward. It simply makes me a human being. And courage is not about, not having fear, but about having the fear and then going ahead anyway. And then the paradox works in the same way here, when I reject fear when I say to myself, well, I shouldn’t be afraid, shouldn’t be anxious. The anxiety and the fear only intensify, and then they are more likely to impact my actions and rather induce lack of action. So, I think that’s the, that’s the main thing.

Other big ones would be the importance of physical exercise and physical exercise certainly during challenging times. And I would always ask my students, so when is the time you’re least likely to exercise? And inevitably they would say exam period, and I would emphasise and that this is the most important time to explode. Just like today, people say, “well, I’m not exercising because of lock down or because my favourite gym is closed.” And my response is, now is the most important time when their stress levels are at an all-time high.

And I’ll just say one more thing, which is more general. I talk a lot about, as you know, about emotions and the importance of permission to be human and about the importance of cultivating gratitude and love and the pleasurable emotions. And yet, I also emphasis that behaviour is more important than feelings, that what we do matters more than what we feel. In other words, it’s okay to experience fear, not the end of the world. It’s natural. It’s okay to experience envy. It’s okay to experience sadness and anxiety. We can still choose to act in a way that is most appropriate or most moral or most helpful and beneficial to us and the world. “So, behaviour trump’s emotions.”

Q: I think what I love most about that is it also addresses what the naysayers say about the toxic positivity movement. We’re really saying it’s okay to feel anger and pain and sadness and all of those, and in fact, it is encouraged and human to do so. And this model addresses that.

And it’s one of the central myths around happiness, namely, that a happy life is a life devoid of pain or frustration or disappointments. And in fact, the first step towards happiness is allowing in unhappiness.

Q: All right, so I think I know where this is going, but you might surprise me. So, I’ve asked what has been impactful in others. I’m interested to know what happiness habit you always personally prioritise in your week?

A: Yeah. You know, the happiness habit that I prioritise in my week is prioritising happiness. And what I mean by that is prioritising doing the things that contribute most to what I’ve come to call life’s ultimate currency, the currency of happiness. Specifically, it’s about, you know, first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, I meditate. I exercise three times a week during regular times and over the past year and a half have not been regular times. I do it five times a week. I put time aside for family and friends. And when I mean aside, it means that I disconnect from technology so that I can connect to people. I keep a journal, regularly. I do all the things that I teach, practise yoga, you know, three times a week. So, all these things I prioritise, and they help me then be a better version of myself, which is, you know, a kinder, more generous calmer version.

And, I said that behaviours trump emotions. I don’t always feel great. Just like anyone, anyone else. I feel anxiety, I feel, you know, fear, frustration, anger like everyone else. The difference, though, between you know, where I was 20, 30 years ago and today is that I realised that I first need to accept these emotions and then second ask, “What is the kind of person that I would like to be in the world?” and then act accordingly.

Q: I love that you said you practise what you teach. A lot of people don’t and again going back to this being a field where you’ve got to find what works for you. I think it was a real wake up moment when I read that Sonja Lyubomirsky doesn’t have her own gratitude journal even though she teaches about the importance of gratitude. Although I’m sure she practises gratitude in other ways.

A: She does it in other ways, and she’s very authentic about it. And she said, “Look, I saw the results in my studies. I personally cannot connect with it. I’ve tried.” And she has tried. I know that and she does other things, whether it’s meditation or she exercises regularly, she cultivates relationships in her life. Yeah, she gets an A for, for more than effort.

Q: I want to acknowledge no one is perfect and new habits are not easy to form. You do spend some time talking about forming new habits in your course and I’d love you to impart some final words of wisdom for someone who’s found a nugget in our discussion and would like to implement that in their lives for how they can successfully do that. What are your tips and helpful advice?

A: So, the first thing is to recognise that that many of the things that we know will make us happy are right in front of us. They’re accessible, and yet we don’t do them. Why? It’s because what I’ve come to call the rhetorical choices in our life.

So, if I if I said to you Marie, tell me, you have a choice, do you want to be grateful and appreciative of all the good things and the good people in your life? Or would you like to take them all for granted? Now it’s a rhetorical choice, you know, you and eight billion other people around the world, of course, would want to appreciate rather than take things for granted. And yet most people, most of the time, take the good things in their lives for granted.

So, we have a rhetorical choice here, and yet we choose unwisely. Why? Not because we don’t think it’s important, but because we forget, because we neglect, because we’re distracted and therefore the first thing we need to do is create reminders. Reminders can come in the form of a bracelet that I wear that will remind me to be appreciative or to be present in the here and now, rather than always distracted. Or to be kind and because we all want to be kind and generous, it’s a rhetorical choice to be so. And yet we forget, so we need a reminder. It could be a bracelet. It could be a screen saver. It could be a picture on the wall that symbolises the value that we want to incorporate or whatever it is. The first is reminder.

Then we need to think about repetition. It’s not enough to do something once or twice. We need to do it over and over again. If we want to have it become part of who we are, quite literally second nature, just like in sports. You want to become a better tennis player, you have to hit that ball, repetitively. The coach may need to remind you how to hit it, but after that you need to hit it over and over again. And after you repeat that action after you play that piano sonata, after you hit that ball, after you exercise gratitude repeatedly, then comes the ritual.

Ritual is, quite literally, neural pathways that have been formed and that make an activity automatic, habitual. But in order to do that, we need many repetitions, you know, whether it’s 30 repetitions or 21 repetitions or 80 repetitions. But we need repetition before it becomes second nature, whether it’s repetition of brushing our teeth before it became second nature, a ritual in our life, whether it’s the repetition of hitting a tennis ball before it becomes second nature, or whether it’s repeating, expressing gratitude or being kind.

So, we have the three R’s of change, first Reminders, then Repetition and finally Rituals.

Q: Thank you very much. Is there anything that you would like to add in that I haven’t asked you? I think we’ve covered quite a broad spectrum of happiness questions.

A: Yes, one thing. And that is to pick one thing or maximum two things from what you’ve heard, either in this podcast or elsewhere that you would like to introduce into your life, not more. Not over doing it. And pick that one or two things and create reminders around it. Repeat it often and much until it becomes a ritual. And only then you can move on to the second thing or the third thing that you want to introduce, gradually, slowly.

Want to hear more from Tal?

Visit:

Twitter: @TalBenShahar and @Potentialife

The wholebeing approach – Interview with Tal Ben-Shahar (E105)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Join Marie this week as she interviews happiness advocate Tal Ben-Shahar who shares his insights on happiness and the wholebeing approach. 

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 I think we’re kind of funny. 

[Intro music fadeout] 

Marie: Welcome back to our show, I am so excited about our guest. Tal Ben-Shahar is an author and lecturer.  He taught two of the largest classes in Harvard University’s history, “Positive Psychology” and “The Psychology of Leadership.”  His books have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have appeared on best-seller lists around the world.  His latest books are “Happiness Studies” and “Happier, No Matter What.” 

Tal consults and lectures to executives in multi-national corporations, the general public, and at-risk populations.  The topics he lectures on include leadership, education, ethics, politics, happiness, self-esteem, resilience, goal setting, and mindfulness.  He is the co-founder and chief learning officer of The Happiness Studies Academy and Potentialife. 

An avid sportsman, Tal won the U.S. Intercollegiate and Israeli National squash championships.  He obtained his PhD in Organizational Behaviour and BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Harvard. 

Tal Ben-Shahar: Hi.

Marie: Hello. How are you?

Tal Ben-Shahar: I’m doing okay, thank you. How are you?

Marie: Good. Thank you so much for joining us on the Happiness for Cynics podcast. We’ll get right into it. I’ve been a fan, a huge fan of your work, and you’ve definitely been instrumental in the positive psychology movement and all the way back in 2007 when you published Happier, which went on to become a New York Times bestseller. In the preface you wrote,

“People are sensing and have been sensing for a while that we’re in the midst of some sort of revolution, and they’re not sure why.” [Happier – Tal Ben-Shahar]

So that was almost 15 years ago. And unfortunately for many people, the study of positive psychology hasn’t revolutionised their lives, and it seems to have remained the world’s best kept secret. So, I’m wondering, why do you think the science of happiness and wellbeing hasn’t had a bigger impact on humanity yet?

Tal Ben-Shahar: Thank you, Marie. First of all, for having me here, and second for the question because it is an important one. You know, when you look at change, the way it happens is usually that it’s slow, slow, slow and then very fast. In other words, at some point there is… it tips, as, as Malcolm Gladwell puts it, it hasn’t tipped yet for the science of happiness.

However, I think we’ve gone through at least a few of the slow, slow, slow, which gets us closer to the very fast. And unfortunately, it seems like things need to get worse before they get better. And what the pandemic has done is it has made things worse in terms of mental health, whether it’s stress and anxiety, whether it’s depression and what we’re beginning to see. And I can certainly feel, there is much more interest, whether it’s from politicians or teachers, parents, businesses, much more interest in the field. So, I suspect that we’re getting a lot closer to that tipping point.

Marie: I hope so. As you can probably tell from the title of this podcast. I was a cynic for so many years. I saw the T-shirt slogans and I didn’t understand the science behind it, and it’s been revolutionary in my life, and I just I want to scream from the rooftops to everyone else. “This stuff matters and it makes a difference!”

So, what do you think, as we’re reaching this tipping point, will need to happen in the next few years for us to pick up the speed of adoption and buy in from people?

Tal Ben-Shahar: Yes. So, the key is really to connect this field to tie it to science. You know, the self-help or New Age movement has been around for a long time. People are talking about, preaching about, the good life. That’s been going on for millennia.

The difference now is that we have a… we really have a science of happiness. You know, it’s imperfect as every scientific endeavour is. But the nice thing or the important thing rather about science is that you get closer and closer to, to getting the results, the sought-after results, which, when it comes to positive psychology, it’s higher levels of wellbeing.

So, as long as we stay committed to the scientific pursuit of happiness, then the progress initially maybe a little bit slower than it could have been if we had reverted to the self-help, new age, relying on charisma and promises. So, we are going a little bit slower, but I think it’s a much healthier route to pursue.

Marie: So, what do you think needs to change apart from awareness of the science. Are we talking changes at schools in organisations, you know, the systemic ways that we organise our countries and our governments that needs to change next? What’s the future of this movement look like?

Tal Ben-Shahar: As far as I’m concerned, the most important thing is education and for that to change, universities need to recognise the importance of the science of happiness. Schools need to recognise it, and governments need to recognise it, [and] politicians, because most of the schools are public schools and the curriculum is determined often by politicians or their aides. So, it’s all about educational. You know, Janusz Korczak, the famed Polish educator, said almost 100 years ago,

“If you want to reform the world, you must first change education.” [– Janusz Korczak]

And it certainly applies to the science of happiness. Now how do we do that? I’ll share with you a quick anecdote when we created our program for schools and we tried to get schools to buy in and when I say buy in, I just meant they didn’t even have to pay for it, so it was just to give us the time, which was an hour or two to a week.

We had real difficulties doing that, because Principles said you know, we don’t have time, you know, we need every minute. We need it to do extra math classes or writing classes or… and so on. And it was really challenging. And then I ended up, you know, basically asking friends of mine to introduce it. You know, friends of mine who were school Principals. And there were three of them and they introduced it in their schools. You know more, I mean, they liked the content. They knew the content, but more as a favour to me than anything else.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben Shahar: But there was… This was enough for us to actually do research. And we did research on these on these three schools and over 1000 students. And what we found, the results we found were remarkable. So, we saw levels of resilience went up. Happiness, of course, went up. Anxiety and depression went down and interestingly, not surprisingly, I must add for us. But interestingly, grades went up.

Now as soon as we showed that grades went up and we published this in a couple of the top educational journals, as soon as people read that we had a long, we have still, a long line of schools vying for the program.

Marie: Mmm hmm. Yes.

Tal Ben-Shahar: So, you know, it wasn’t about anxiety, depression, happiness, resilience. It was mostly about grades. And frankly, I don’t care.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben-Shahar: If this is why schools come, then that’s fine. If organisations introduce a program in happiness because it increases profits, that’s great. Whatever it takes. Just introduce this program.

Marie: Sure. All right, I have to admit, I recently finished the Happiness practitioner certificate at the Happiness Studies Academy, and I am a huge fan and I particularly love how you teach modern Western hard science and fact, alongside philosophy, religion, history, Eastern thinking. And the whole time was taking your course, I was thinking, I’m really getting an arts degree here, not just a social science psychology degree. But in your course, everything is really anchored around what you call the SPIRE model.

So, I wonder if you could tell our listeners a little bit more about SPIRE? In particular, starting with what the acronym stands for, and maybe some examples of how to put it in practise.

Tal Ben Shahar: Yes. So, SPIRE, the acronym stands for the Five elements of happiness.

  • The first, S is the spiritual wellbeing.
  • P is physical wellbeing.
  • I stands for intellectual wellbeing.
  • The R is relational wellbeing.
  • And finally, the E is emotional wellbeing.

So, spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational and emotional. All of them are important for happiness but we don’t need to focus on all of them all of the time. In fact, it would be near impossible to do so. But at different times either throughout the day or throughout the week, we need to spend some time at least cultivating all five.

So, Spiritual wellbeing. Of course, it can come from religion, and it does for many people. But spiritual wellbeing is about a sense of meaning and purpose, first and foremost. And you can find that in a church, synagogue, or a mosque. Or you can find it in important work that you do or spending time with your loved ones or saving the world or enhancing the wellbeing of one person. You know, this is about finding meaning and purpose, which is important for spiritual wellbeing, which is important for happiness.

Another aspect of spiritual wellbeing is presence, being in the here and now. You know, if I pay attention to a tree that I walk by or to a person sitting across from me or to the fact that we’re alive and can, can hear or see or walk. These are all miracles if you think about it. You know, Albert Einstein once reportedly said that,

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” [– Albert Einstein]

And being present, uh, certainly brings out the miraculous in our in our life. So that spiritual wellbeing is about purpose and presence.

Physical wellbeing is about nutrition and about exercise and sleep, and recovery in general. For example, regular physical exercise has the same effect on our psychological wellbeing as our most powerful psychiatric medication. Working in the same way, releasing norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, the feel-good chemicals in the brain. So, physical wellbeing is a very important part of overall happiness.

Intellectual wellbeing is about curiosity, about learning. You know that people who learn who are constantly asking questions or curious; are not just happier, they’re not just more successful, they also live longer. So, curiosity may kill the cat, but it does the opposite for us humans.

Under intellectual wellbeing is about deep learning, spending time, whether it’s reading a book, engaging in a text or observing and studying a work of art or walking in nature. Again, being present to it and exercising our rational faculty, our intellectual faculty and really learning about the world around us. So, [that’s] intellectual wellbeing.

Then there is, under Relational wellbeing. Number one predictor of happiness, quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us. And that can be a romantic partner, it can be family, it can be friends, it can be colleagues at work. It actually doesn’t matter, as long as we have close, intimate, supportive relationships. Number one predictor of happiness.

Under relational wellbeing is kindness and generosity. One of the best ways to help ourselves, is to help others. Two sides of the same coin. You know, there’s a lot of talk around, you know, selfishness or selflessness. One is bad, the other is good. Well, I don’t buy either. What we need is not selfishness or selflessness. What we need is self-fullness, because when we help, others were also helping ourselves. When we help ourselves, we’re also indirectly helping others more likely to help others. So that’s relational wellbeing.

And finally, Emotional wellbeing is about embracing painful emotions, accepting them, giving them, giving ourselves the permission to be human. And why, Because of a paradox that if we reject or when we reject painful emotions, they simply intensify and grow stronger. And then it’s about embracing pleasurable emotions like gratitude, like joy, like love, like excitement.

And happiness is about all of these. And as I said earlier, we don’t need to do it all, all the time. But we do need to pay attention to all of them at different times.

Marie: I love E [Emotional wellbeing]. It came late in the course because it’s the last one, but something that really stuck with me that you said, was that,

“There are no bad emotions, only bad behaviours.” [– Tal Ben-Shahar]

And I’ve said that too many people and discussed the learnings, which I think is part of the I [Intellectual] of SPIRE, is taking what you’ve learned and having those deep discussions with others is part of my joy of learning. And when I’ve mentioned that to people, it’s one thing that they really stop, and they take it in, and they think about it. And there were so many nuggets throughout the year and my friends have gone, “Oh, that’s really deep.” They have prompted some wonderful discussions as well.

So, there are lots of different life satisfaction or wellbeing or happiness models out there. And probably the most famous is Martin Seligman’s PERMA model. I’m interested to know when it comes to SPIRE versus PERMA or other models. Is it all just supporting the cause? Or are there differences in SPIRE and PERMA that you particularly wanted to focus in on that you think matter more or less?

Tal Ben Shahar: Yeah, the key with happiness and that I always, even, you know today in a in online weapons are with students. I emphasise with the students that how you define happiness is up to you, meaning there are many ways there isn’t one right way, and you need to find a definition that works for you. So, Seligman uses the PERMA model. You know, the P being Positive emotions, the E is for Engagement for being in the here and now for being in flow, R is for Relationships, M is for Meaning and A is for accomplishments or Achievements.

And the key is to… First of all, obviously, they’re all valid and important elements of happiness and the SPIRE model that I came up with, with my colleagues focuses on other things. For instance, PERMA doesn’t have the physical wellbeing element in it, which I think is critical for a happy life. You know, if I don’t exercise for more than two days. I feel it.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben-Shahar: I mean, I feel more anxious, you know, less calm. You know, I feel like I’m not my best self. Far from it. We know that physical exercise effects our wellbeing. And also, when it comes to accomplishments and achievements, which is part of PERMA. I don’t see it as that important. In fact, it’s one of the biggest myths that people believe that the path to happiness lies in the achievement. Now, if you if you’re working towards something that is personally meaningful to you, where you’re finding you’re exercising your best self and your path to your purpose, that’s a different story. That’s not about the accomplishment or the achievement itself.

So, you know, we differ. We disagree. We’re still friends and supporting one another’s work. And I point out to my, to my students, you know if PERMA is more suitable for your temperament, by all means. If you want to, you know, create another model which will be, you know your own, then by all means [do that]. The key is to identify what’s important for us and then, more importantly, to cultivate that element.

Marie: So, on that note, you taught hundreds of students at Harvard, so you’ve got firsthand experience with how people have implemented your teachings. Is there one thing that stands out above the rest that made the biggest impact in your student’s life? One intervention or area that you saw across the board came out on top more often. Even though everyone has a subjective understanding, and everyone is different. Is there something that stands above the rest?

Tal Ben-Shahar: There are a couple with your permission.

Marie: Mmm hmm. Of course.

Tal Ben Shahar: So probably if I had to choose one, it would be what you mentioned earlier, which is the notion of the permission to be human. In other words, there are no good or bad emotions. There can be good or bad behaviour, but not emotions. Emotions are amoral.

So, you know, feeling, experiencing envy towards my friend does not make me a bad or immoral person. If I act on that envy and hurt my friend, that’s a whole different story.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben-Shahar: And paradoxically, it’s when we accept and embrace painful emotions that we have most control over our behaviour. In other words, saying to myself, I should not experience envy not only intensifies that emotion, it’s also more likely to control me then similarly with fear. You know, experiencing fear doesn’t make me a coward. It simply makes me a human being. And courage is not about, not having fear, but about having the fear and then going ahead anyway. And then the paradox works in the same way here, when I reject fear when I say to myself, well, I shouldn’t be afraid, shouldn’t be anxious. The anxiety and the fear only intensify, and then they are more likely to impact my actions and rather induce lack of action.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben-Shahar: So, I think that’s the, that’s the main thing. Other big ones would be the importance of physical exercise and physical exercise certainly during challenging times. And I would always ask my students, so when is the time you’re least likely to exercise? And inevitably they would say exam period, and I would emphasise and that this is the most important time to explode. Just like today, people say, “well, I’m not exercising because of lock down or because my favourite gym is closed.” And my response is, now is the most important time when their stress levels are at an all-time high.

And I’ll just say one more thing, which is more general. I talk a lot about, as you know, about emotions and the importance of permission to be human and about the importance of cultivating gratitude and love and the pleasurable emotions. And yet, I also emphasis that behaviour is more important than feelings, that what we do matters more than what we feel. In other words, it’s okay to experience fear, not the end of the world. It’s natural. It’s okay to experience envy. It’s okay to experience sadness and anxiety. We can still choose to act in a way that is most appropriate or most moral or most helpful and beneficial to us and the world.

“So, behaviour trump’s emotions.”

Marie: I think what I love most about that is it also addresses what the naysayers say about the toxic positivity movement. We’re really saying it’s okay to feel anger and pain and sadness and all of those, and in fact, it is encouraged and human to do so. And this model addresses that.

Tal Ben-Shahar: And it’s one of the central myths around happiness, namely, that a happy life is a life devoid of pain or frustration or disappointments. And in fact, the first step towards happiness is allowing in unhappiness.

Marie: All right, so I think I know where this is going, but you might surprise me. So, I’ve asked what has been impactful in others. I’m interested to know what happiness habit you always personally prioritise in your week.

Tal Ben-Shahar: Yeah. You know, the happiness habit that I prioritise in my week is prioritising happiness. And what I mean by that is prioritising doing the things that contribute most to what I’ve come to call life’s ultimate currency, the currency of happiness. Specifically, it’s about, you know, first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, I meditate. I exercise three times a week during regular times and over the past year and a half have not been regular times. I do it five times a week. I put time aside for family and friends. And when I mean aside, it means that I disconnect from technology so that I can connect to people. You know, I keep a journal, regularly. You know, I do all the things that I teach, practise yoga, you know, three times a week. So, all these things I prioritise, and they help me then be a better version of myself, which is, you know, a kinder, more generous calmer version.

And, you know, I said that behaviours trump emotions. I don’t always feel great. Just like anyone, anyone else. I feel anxiety, I feel, you know, fear, frustration, anger like everyone else. The difference, though, between you know, where I was 20, 30 years ago and today is that I realised that I first need to accept these emotions and then second ask, “What is the kind of person that I would like to be in the world?” and then act accordingly.

Marie: I love that You said you practise what you teach. A lot of people don’t and again going back to this being a field where you’ve got to find what works for you. I think it was a real wake up moment when I read that Sonja Lyubomirsky doesn’t have her own gratitude journal, laugh, even though she teaches about the importance of gratitude.

Tal Ben-Shahar: Laugh.

Marie: I’m sure she practises gratitude in other ways.

Tal Ben-Shahar: She does it in other ways, and she’s very authentic about it. And she said, “Look, I saw the results in my studies. I personally cannot connect with it. I’ve tried.” And she has tried. I know that and she does other things, whether it’s meditation or she exercises regularly, she cultivates relationships in her life. Yeah, she gets an A for, for more than effort.

M: Laugh. Okay, so before we go, I want to acknowledge no one is perfect and new habits are not easy to form. So, I do want to. We normally end on what are your recommendations for introducing a new happiness habit? Or what’s the one piece of advice? But you do spend some time talking about forming new habits in your course and I’d love you to in part some final words of wisdom for someone who’s found a nugget in our discussion and would like to implement that in their lives for how they can successfully do that. What are your tips and helpful advice?

Tal Ben-Shahar: So, the first thing is to recognise that that many of the things that we know will make us happy, are right in front of us. They’re accessible, and yet we don’t do them. Why? It’s because what I’ve come to call the rhetorical choices in our life.

So, if I if I said to you Marie, tell me, you have a choice, do you want to be grateful and appreciative of all the good things and the good people in your life? or do you or would you like to take them all for granted? Now it’s a rhetorical choice, you know, you and eight billion other people around the world, of course, I want to appreciate rather than take things for granted. And yet, and yet most people, most of the time, take the good things in their lives for granted.

So, we have a rhetorical choice here, and yet we choose unwisely. Why? Not because we don’t think it’s important, but because we forget, because we neglect, because we’re distracted and therefore the first step in introducing change. Based on many of the changes that we know, we want to introduce many of the choices that we know we want to make.

The first thing we need to do is create reminders and reminders can come in the form of a bracelet that I wear that will remind me to be appreciative or to be present in the here and now, rather than always distracted. Or to be kind and because we all want to be kind and generous, it’s a rhetorical choice to be so. And yet we forget, so we need a reminder. It could be a bracelet. It could be a screen saver. It could be a picture on the wall that symbolises the value that we want to incorporate or whatever it is. The first is reminder.

Then we need to think about repetition. It’s not enough to do something once or twice. We need to do it over and over again. If we want to have it become part of who we are, quite literally second nature, just like in sports. You want to become a better tennis player. you have to hit that ball, repetitively. The Coach may need to remind you how to hit it, but after that you need to hit it over and over again. And after you repeat that action after you play that Piano sonata after you hit that ball after you exercise gratitude repeatedly, then comes the ritual.

Ritual is, quite literally, neural pathways that have been formed and that make an activity automatic, habitual. But in order to do that, we need many repetitions, you know, whether it’s 30 repetitions or 21 repetitions or 80 repetitions. But we need repetition before it becomes second nature, whether it’s repetition of brushing our teeth before it became second nature, a ritual in our life, whether it’s the repetition of hitting a tennis ball before it becomes second nature, or whether it’s repeating, expressing gratitude or being kind.

So, we have the three R’s of change, first Reminders, then Repetition and finally Rituals.

Marie: Thank you very much. Is there anything that you would like to add in that I haven’t asked you? I think we’ve covered quite a broad spectrum of happiness questions.

Tal Ben-Shahar: Yes, one thing. And that is to pick one thing or maximum two things from what you’ve heard, either in this podcast or elsewhere that you would like to introduce into your life, not more. Not over doing it. And pick that one or two things and create reminders around it. Repeat it often and much until it becomes a ritual. And only then you can move on to the second thing or the third thing that you want to introduce, gradually, slowly.

Marie: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for your time and for talking to our listeners. It’s been truly a pleasure. And I know that you have a very busy schedule full of happiness habits, so really appreciate. And I’m grateful for the time that you spent with us today.

T: Thank you, Marie.

M: Thank you.

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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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How to remain youthful and resilient despite stress

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How to remain youthful and resilient despite stress

Jolanta Burke, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and Padraic J. Dunne, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences

A bit of stress can be good for your mental and physical wellbeing, but too much can lead to anxiety, depression and other health problems. It can also make you age faster. So learning to become more stress-resilient is important if you’re not in a hurry to grow old fast.

Studies have shown that people who aren’t good at managing their stress can increase their risk of dying prematurely by 43%. The increase in deaths might in part be due to the effect stress has on DNA.

DNA, which is found in nearly every cell (except red blood cells), contains genes that code for the building blocks (proteins) that comprise your body. DNA consists of two strands woven together in the famous “double helix”. Your cells are constantly making copies of themselves, and when a cell divides, the two strands unravel and an identical copy is made of each – well, most of the time.

Sometimes mistakes happen during the replication process, especially at the end of DNA strands. These mistakes can cause mutations in the copied DNA, leading to the cell becoming cancerous. Luckily, cells have protective caps called telomeres at the ends of the DNA strand that are designed to ensure these mistakes don’t happen.

Telomere caps are like sequences of beads (telomeric repeats). Each time the cell divides, the next generation loses one bead of telomeric repeats. Unfortunately, each cell has a fixed number of these repeats, meaning that it can only replicate a certain number of times before the protective telomere caps are eroded. This number of cell divisions is called the Hayflick limit. Once a cell reaches the Hayflick limit (up to 60 cell divisions, for most cells), it self-destructs (safely). This is the essence of ageing.

Some cells in the body, especially the immune cells that fight infection, possess molecules called telomerase. Telomerase can add the beads back (telomeric repeats) in immune cells (and some others, such as cancerous cells), meaning that ageing can be reversed in these cells. Telomerase can add the beads back, meaning that ageing can be reversed in the cells in question.

This makes sense as immune cells have to replicate many times to fight viruses and bacteria. Without telomerase, they would reach their Hayflick limit and disappear, leaving organisms with no protection. Unfortunately, however, even telomerase stops working properly when people reach their 80s and lose their immune cells to ageing.

It’s not all beyond your control

Smoking, excess alcohol consumption, being overweight and stress are all associated with telomere loss. Telomerase does not work as efficiently when a person suffers from excessive stress, and this causes premature ageing.

Adopting a healthy lifestyle, such as eating a plant-based diet, can stop and even reverse the process. And physical activity, especially intense exercise, can also increase telomerase activity. So leading a healthy life can decrease the speed of ageing as can managing your stress.

As we mentioned earlier, not all stress is bad. In psychology, we differentiate between “eustress” (positive stress), which is necessary for us to succeed at work, in sport and relationships, and “distress” (negative stress), when pressure becomes too much for us to manage. Distress is what most of us mean when we say or feel that we are stressed; it is also what might speed up ageing in your cells.

So there is no need to protect yourself from all stress, only the distress that lasts for a long time, is relentless and prevents you from living your life to the full.

Embracing stressful events and using coping strategies such as seeking help from friends or becoming resourceful when dealing with challenges, can create stress resilience, which in turn is associated with longer telomeres. Also, reappraising an anxiety-provoking event, such as taking on a public speaking engagement, by perceiving it as exciting can help you to manage stress. These techniques can stop eustress from becoming distress and enhance stress resilience.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back after adversity and become resistant to daily stressors. Besides problem-solving, social support and effective use of coping strategies, mindfulness can also help you become more resistant to daily stressors.

Other techniques include doing things that enhance your positive emotions, such as reading a book, listening to music, or playing a computer game. Experiencing positive emotions broadens your mind, allowing you to perceive and draw from your psychological, intellectual and social resources, especially when experiencing adversity.

Ways to improve your wellbeing and happiness

We can’t yet be sure that these psychological strategies affect telomeres and by extension the ageing process. However, telomere length and telomerase activity in your cells do seem to be negatively affected by stress and positively affected by stress management. So if you have lifestyle changes you can make to help you develop stress resilience, you might want to adopt them. They might not make you live as long as an Arctic shark, but they could add some precious years onto your life.

Jolanta Burke, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Positive Psychology and Health, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and Padraic J. Dunne, Lecturer, Centre of Positive Psychology and Health, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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