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Why You Need to Stop Skipping Your Lunch Break (E24)

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Happiness for Cynics Podcast

Many studies have shown that prolonged sitting is the new smoking. Yet despite it being really bad for our health, so many of us don’t take lunch breaks! Join us as we discuss the importance of taking a lunch break, and how to give your brain a rest, get some sun and exercise and eat more mindfully.

Transcript

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

P: And I’m Peter Furness, a poster hanger, towel folder and furniture re-arranger each week will bring to you the latest news and research in the field of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: You can find us at marieskelton.com, which is a site about how to find balance, happiness and resilience in your life. We talk about a lot of same research we cover here on the podcast, including some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life.

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

M: Taking a lunch break.

[Happy Intro Music]

M: So Pete. We need to take a lunch break.

P: Oh, I’m bad at this.

M: I’m really bad at it too. Well, no, I swing, I swing. I have no what’s the word I’m looking for? Discipline.

P: I don’t believe that for a second. [Laugh]

M: No, I really have no discipline. I could be really good at this I’m a lunch break taker.

P: Hi, my name’s Marie Skelton lunch break taker.

M: I haven’t had a lunch break for seven years.

P: [Laugh] Yay Marie! Can I get a t-shirt?

M: [Laugh]

So, according to NPR [National Public Radio], the majority of Americans don’t take their lunch breaks.

And you’ve got an Australian stat too, don’t you?

P: Yes, I do.

A lot of Australians don’t take them, either.

Almost one in three [Australians], 28% of people habitually eating at their desk and 33% of people are skipping lunch entirely more than once a week.

M: I’ve definitely been there and actually since I’ve started working from home. So since Covid and self-isolation, I’ve become really bad, really, really bad at it.

P: See, I find that interesting because at home I naturally want to hang out in the kitchen. It’s my happy place, so I I’m very good at getting my..

M: I’m the exact opposite, I’m like I have to go to the kitchen, if I don’t cook my husband’s going to divorce me. It’s been too long.

[Laughter]

P: I’m strange, I use cooking to relax me. So the kitchen’s a happy place for me. But yeah, I often will if I am staying home, I’ll often get up go for a cup of tea, get up have lunch, make some lunch or microwave something.

M: Yeah so I’ll look at the clock and it’ll be two o’clock and I’ll be like crap and I’ll go grab something. I’ve been a lot better, actually diet wise lately, so I’m having salads and doing a good job eating well, but I will bring it back to my desk and eat it while I juggle phone calls and everything.

P: I’m guilty of that as well, being a small business owner and working on a client based schedule, so I’m terrible at keeping my clients to a count and I always go overtime with them. I found that I actually for many years didn’t have a lunch break at all. Then I started allocating a lunch break that was 15 minutes.

M: [Laugh]

P: Woah, go Petie! [Laugh]

I’ve recently increased that to 45[minutes], which is much better because there’s 10 minutes at the beginning of that and there’s five minutes at the end where you’re kind of preparing for the next client or the next client turns up early. So you know, you do get chipped away a little bit, so it probably ends up being about 20/25 minutes. But it is really, really important to schedule it in and what we’re probably going to come to in terms of diet and so forth is making sure that you’re prepared so that you can make maximize that time. So I always bring my lunch in from home, that I’ve cooked and it’s in the microwave on the way before I’ve even said goodbye to the last client.

M: Yeah, I found that I ate a lot more healthily when I brought my own food in definitely, but it encouraged me in the office to then eat it at my desk. Yeah, so going out for lunch made me have to leave the office, and while I was out, I might pop past a shop and have a look or pick something up or just go sit in the park to eat it. And I have to say the times where I have felt the happiest and the most satisfied with life are the times where I’ve had a really good balance at work between motivating, challenging work but enough time to take a lunch break.

P: And it’s really important for your work productivity as well.

M: Yep, absolutely. So there’s three things that not taking a lunch break impacts on:

  • Firstly, your physical health. For a number of years now, people have been saying prolonged sitting is the new smoking.

P: I’m doing this every day.

M: It’s really bad for your physical health.

  • Secondly, your brain needs rest.

P: Absolutely.

M: Particularly for white collar type work. If you’re writing and thinking for a lot of what you do, 9 to 5, you need to give it a little bit of time to rest.

  • And then the third thing is you’ll eat more mindfully if you get away from that activity that you’re doing and sit and enjoy your lunch.

P: Yes.

M: And so if you’re struggling with weight or weight loss. Eating mindfully is one of the biggest new trends in weight loss. It’s not about what you eat. It’s about more mindful about how you eat is the latest thing there. So definitely taking a lunch break can have a huge impact on your weight loss journey.

P: I want to pick you up on that second point as well Marie, in terms of the productivity and having the break. There is a lot of science that supports the fact that we need to stimulate our brains in different ways to allow different pathways to be accessed and allow different synapses to open up. So frontal lobe, parietal lobe, accessing the different lobes makes for a healthy brain. And if you are obsessed over a problem or an issue and you’re focused and you’re inside that issue for over an hour, I can’t quote the study because I didn’t have time to look this up. I know this is true, so you’ve just got to blind faith here.

[Laughing]

P: Walking away from the problem and then coming back, allows you to reset.

M: Yep.

P: It allows new ideas to drop in and allows you to come back and perhaps look at the issue in a different way, which results in a better, it brings about a better result.

M: Also what we were all told, when we’re studying for exams at school, come back to it. Yes, because the more you focus on something the less likely you are to solve it. But the other thing is, we have natural body rhythms and –

P: – Circadian rhythms.

M: Yes, that’s day and night time sleep. We’ve also got a 90 minute blocks of time that your body goes through during the day. Right? So again, there’s so many different studies and different research about whether your body clock or your brain in their own different times at times can function. Some people say, for only as much as 20 minutes at a time. If you’re fully focused. So again it depends who you look at, whose study.

P: Yep

M: And again the other side is, they say take a break. Now what does that mean? So some studies have definitely shown that just a few minutes is enough to help you reset and go again. But taking as little as 20 minutes in one study has been shown to increase your productivity for the entire day. So if you can’t do anything else, take a 20 minute lunch break.

P: Yep. And the idea of having 20 minutes is, it’s long enough to actually allow yourself to be distracted and to re-energise and to be distracted by something else. And getting up and physically getting away from the desk is really important there, because walking around is going to stimulate a whole heap of body things that go on that create chemical reactions and allow your brain to focus. But it’s allowing your physicality to override what’s going on in the brain. And it wakes everything up gets things stimulated and moving.

M: I think it also resets you. So as someone who’s been through burnout at work through a particularly busy period in Corporate Australia. So I was working for a large corporate we we’re going through a royal commission I was working in public affairs.

P: He he.. [Laugh]

M: Things were shit.

[Laughter]

M: Right? And I just felt like I didn’t want to go take lunch because I didn’t want to be there for another 30 minutes at the end of the day. It just meant, I wouldn’t get through everything, and I’d be there until eight o’clock, not seven thirty or whatever it was. So the logic made sense and I was still just slugging through stuff that I needed to get through. But what that lunch break does is it stops that day to day build of stress, the cortisol levels that build over time. It’s a circuit breaker, and it takes you back to zero again. So the irony of that burnout period is that I knew I needed to exercise, but I stopped exercising. I knew I needed to eat well because it was going to be a very stressful year… or three.

[Laughter]

M: And I started taking getting take out. I didn’t have time to prep my meals. I knew I needed to just get out and get some sun even.

P: Yes.

M: Get outside and to take that mental break. And I just felt that I couldn’t and lo and behold, burnout.

P: Funny that.

[Laughter]

M: We know it and I think that’s the trick, really is actually finding a way to dig yourself out of that hole when you know you’re in it.

P: And that’s where the physical thing can come out, getting yourself…

M: But even 20 minutes, and you can combine them all. Get outside, eat a salad or some protein and vegetables. Eat something healthy-ish.

P: Eat something you’ve cooked yourself. It’s as simple as that.

M: If you’ve got time or find time. Or buy it, I mean there’s plenty of options in most big cities or food courts. You can find healthy food and then walk for the rest of the lunchtime. Get out in the sun or through the mall if it’s raining and walk.

P: I’ve actually found that I do that myself. If now that I have my prolonged lunch break [laugh], I actually go. Oh, I’ve had my lunch, I’ve not done anything, I’ll go around the block and it is just a simple walk around the block, and it’s just to get out, get a different stimulus, get outside even though it’s in CBD and it might be a bit smoggy and so forth. It’s still, it’s still better than staying in those four walls because you feel like you’ve had a change and then you can come back for the afternoon session and go hard again.

M: And just getting your muscles moving.

P: Mmm really important.

M: Absolutely so they say sitting is the new smoking. So it is definitely proven to not be as bad a smoking. But just like everyone jumped on the idea that smoking was bad and we saw all those horrible ads come out. Australia’s really bad for shock ads. I’m surprised we haven’t seen sitting shock ads. What do you make of that?

P: I don’t know. It’s probably not dramatic enough.

M: [Laugh] A whole bunch of people just sitting around, “oh the horror!”

P: “Oh the humanity!”

M: The diseases and illnesses that are tied to long term sitting include cancer, heart disease and type two diabetes. And the research shows that the effects of long term sitting are not reversible through exercise or other good habits.

P: That’s a very interesting one.

M: Can’t take these [away].

P: You can’t get it back.

M: And It’s also going to take time off the end of your life. So morbidity rates with not being able to move, comes back to that lovely little test you can do about getting sitting cross legged on the floor.

M: Yes, this is a good one.

P: And getting up without using your hands.

M: Yes, so if anyone hasn’t seen this, they give this test to people in their sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, and they ask you to sit down on the floor with your legs crossed. And then if you can kind of rock forward onto your feet and get your body up into a standing position without putting your hands down, then you’ve got the core strength and flexibility that you should be able to live far longer into the future.

P: And have a better quality of life in your senior years and because it’s the ability to be able to get yourself up that has complete links with morbidity, with heart disease with diabetes and it also [is good] in terms of range of motion and being able to look after yourself in case you fall.

M: Well it actually shows that you are less likely to fall because you’ve got the body strength.

P: Exactly.

M: And once someone who’s elderly falls and starts losing their balance, then it’s a very quick decline from that point forward. Generally.

P: Yes

M: The other thing that adds onto that is the injuries that come with the fall. The broken hips or legs etc. Also not good.

P: Yeah

M: Anyway this is a complete sidebar.

So taking lunch breaks.

P: [Laugh]

M: Maybe we can all sit down and practise standing up…

[Laughter]

P: with your lunch!

[Laughter]

M: So what are some good things to do, even if you only have 20 minutes, we’ve talked about a few of them already. So if you’re going to take a lunch break, you’re busy, you’re stressed. How do you maximise that 20 minutes that you make time for, if you can only make time for 10 minutes. What do you do?

P: Prepare. You’ve got to be prepared.

M: That takes more time Pete.

P: No, what I’m saying is that if you know you’ve got 20 minutes for a lunch break. Then you need to pre-prepare your meals. You need to have that installed so that you don’t waste 15 minutes wandering around the food court going, ‘Oh do I have curry? Or do I have sushi? Do I have curry? Do I have sushi?

M: Well, see my mind would say prepare before I leave the office to go get sushi.

P: Well that works. That’s still preparing.

M: Straight downstairs, get something that’s not deep fried.

P: You know what you’re going to have. You know what you’re going to have and you’re setting up and you have a goal in place. So you’re not going to be distracted by the deep fried southern chicken burger which may have come to $10.50 from Betty’s burgers today.

[Laughter]

M: Oh I love Betty’s Burgers.

Which is still okay, in moderation.

P: Absolutely.

M: Alright. So you’re saying prepare. I’m saying get outside and mindfulness. So once you’re outside, if you are struggling to find 20 minutes a day to go and have a lunch break and you need to maximize the time that you spend then:

  1. Make sure that you refuel, obviously, and the healthier the better, as we all know. But refueling is refueling.
  2. Secondly, get some sun if you can.
  3. Thirdly, while you’re out, take a moment to look at nature. So wherever you are it’s about stopping and smelling the roses or at least noticing them.

P: Yes

M: And that is a really good reset for your brain. So this is that mental reset. If you go out and you rush from shop to shop and you have to pick up milk for breakfast tomorrow and you get your food and you make it back. And oof, you’re out of breath and it’s been 20 minutes. There’s some definite positive benefits from a physical and recharge perspective, but not necessarily from a mental health perspective.

P: Okay.

M: So if you’ve just rushed through your lunch break and it’s just another tick box activity for you that you had to get done and that you had to make sure happened in your day. You’re not resting your brain. If it’s a stress to get it done. So just taking those moments to enjoy the sun on your face or to stop and smell or notice the roses or even the grass.

P: It’s funny when I’m like working in the CBD. I often find myself searching for green space because there’s, where I am, which is down towards King Street Warf, it’s actually a bit of a walk to get to Hyde Park and that’s really the only green space in that corner of the CBD. There’s blue space, which is down by Cockle bay, which is fine, but to be actually able to sit and have your lunch in a green area. It’s actually not that easy in the CBD of Sydney.

M: And to get sun at the same time, you’re in shade most of the time.

P: Yeah.

M: Absolutely, if you’re in the middle, it’s a decent hike.

P: It’s where roof gardens would be really advantageous.

M: Yeah, we don’t do roof gardens in Australia.

P: We don’t make enough. I don’t think we do to take enough advantage of our rooves in Sydney. I think that we’re falling short on that one a little bit. Maybe another episode, [Laugh].

But I do want to clock one thing about exercising in your lunch break.

M: Yes

P: Now I was shocked by this one. According to my stats, only 7% of us use the lunch break to exercise, which I really didn’t think I thought would be a lot higher in Australia.

M: Hold on look, it takes women, and men, but mainly women 30 minutes to get ready in the morning, at least often an hour, depending on what your hair rituals are. If you’ve showered and washed your hair, which you have to do after you sweat. Okay before you go, especially corporate. Before you go back into an office, it’s let me just say it’s rude if you don’t. Let me just put that out there. If you do now shower after you exercise and you come back in the office. Don’t come near me. It is not something that everyone wants to smell in their two o’clock meeting.

P: [Laugh], no definitely not.

M: So I fully understand why people wouldn’t exercise at lunch because you just don’t have time to turn it around. You’ve got to get there and back. You’ve got to do the exercise, whatever it is and you’ve got, if you’re doing something that makes you sweaty; if you’re going to go do a nice stretching class.

P: You can still sweat.

M: A nice, light stretching class. Then maybe you could make that work without the shower and all the prep to get back into your corporate attire that goes afterwards.

P: I still, I was a lunchtime exerciser. I would duck down in between 11 and 12:30-

M: -That’s an hour and a half.

P: So 90 minutes and it didn’t always happen, but yeah again it was about planning that in. So that was a Tuesday and Thursday thing, and I knew that Tuesdays and Thursdays I took 90 minutes, again scheduling and preparing and that was my days exercise. Where I did go down and do some exercise in that time and then come back so that I was ready and prepped to go again in the afternoon.

M: I think that’s lunch break Nirvana to be able to do that.

P: [Laugh]

M: But then you’ve also got to find time to eat as well, and that’s the potential downside to putting exercise in.

P: And that’s what I wasn’t doing as well. In that I was grabbing food on the fly and shoving it in and half eating lunch and then waiting for the next client and half eating it after that. Yeah, maybe I wasn’t quite clocking that in the right way, but it felt like I was.

M: Well look I think it never hurts to get some exercise in at lunchtime. To get some exercise in, in general.

P: Well, again, it helps your mental energy as well.

M: Yes. Oh, so good for your happiness levels in general. All right, well, I think that’s about it for today.

P: Done.

M: Thank you for joining us. If you do want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast.

P: Stay happy, people.

Related content: Listen to our Podcast: Wellbeing and Your Environment (E21)

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10 Best Personal Development Podcasts To Motivate And Inspire You

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

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

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

10 Best Personal Development Podcasts to Motivate and Inspire You

#1 Happier

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

#2 Good Life Project

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

#3 Happiness for Cynics

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

#4 Design Your Dream Life

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

#5 The Life Coach School Podcast

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

#6 Ten Percent Happier

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

#7 Tony Robbins

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

#8 The School of Greatness

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

#9 The Science of Happiness

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

#10 The Tim Ferris Show

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

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

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

Wellbeing and Your Environment with Lee Chambers (E21)

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Happiness for Cynics Podcast

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

About Lee Chambers

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

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

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

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

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

Transcript

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

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

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

[Happy Music]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First of all Noise.

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

Density.

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

Temperature.

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

Lighting.

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

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

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

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

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

[Happy Exit Music]

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

Enabling Happy Cities (E20)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

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

Transcript

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

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

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

P: So sorry. Hi, I’m Peter Furness, a mover and shaker, Covid[19] time baker, opportunity seeker and maker. Each week we will bring you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology known as happiness.  

M: You can find us at marieskelton.com, which is a site about how to find balance, happiness and resilience in your life. We talk about a lot of the same research we cover here on the podcast, including some really practical tips for bringing joy and happiness into your life. 

P: Bubbles for everyone.  

[Laughter] 

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

[Happy Intro Music] 

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

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

M: Sure. 

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

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

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

P: ‘Oh, that’s bloody lovely.’  

James: ‘No, thank you.’  

P: And he goes on to say.  

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

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

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

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

P: Well I just knew.  

M: of course… 

P: I just bought in from the beginning. 

M: Uh, huh.  

P: Does that make me better than you?  

M: What evs… Happy Cities, Pete.  

[Laughter] 

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

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

M: You flew through those Pete. 

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

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

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

P: Is it still? 

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

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

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

P: And sometimes we may forget that. 

M: Oh, absolutely. 

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

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

So first one is Safety and Security.  

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

P: Absolutely. It’s a necessity. 

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

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

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

P: Yep 

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

The next one is Affordability.  

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

P: True.  

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

P: Yeah, definitely. 

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

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

M: All right, we will move on  

Tolerance and Inclusivity.  

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

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

P: Yeah, I’ve seen this. 

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

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

Trust.  

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

P: Oh! Yeah. I’ll give you that. 

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

P: [Tentative] OK. 

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

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

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

Health and Life Balance.  

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

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

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

M: Yep 

P: Okay, moving along. So 

Sociality

…is that how you say this word?  

M: Yep 

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

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

P: Which makes the happiness.  

M: Such a great, great initiative. 

P: That and the adopt a grandma. 

M: Oh, I love this one! 

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

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

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

Economy and Skills  

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

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

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

P: Yeah, utilising the labour force.  

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

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

M: Oh, they were fabulous. 

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

M: Yep, yep absolutely. 

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

M: Of course you did. 

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

M: Uh, huh. Yeah  

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

M: All right, last one;  

Meaning and Belonging. 

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

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

P: Yeah definitely, they tick many boxes. 

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

P: [Laugh] Way too much information.  

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

P: The processes. 

M: Exactly. 

P: How do you get people involved?  

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

P: Exactly.  

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

P: Very exciting. 

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

P: No worries folks, buy into happiness. 

[Happy exit Music] 

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

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

Finding Purpose with the Japanese Secret of Ikigai (E18)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Have you ever wondered if there was more to life? Are you looking for more passion and purpose? Look no further than the Japanese secret to a long and happy life: Ikigai.

Ikigai comes from the people in the small Japanese community of Okinawa, a remote island with a remarkably high number of centenarians (people over 100 years old). IIkigai has also been proven to be a major factor not only in their longevity but also their happiness.

https://pod.co/happiness-for-cynics/discover-your-passion-with-the-japanese-secret-of-ikigai

Episode notes

In this episode we spoke about how many low income earners might not have much choice in the jobs they perform – Marie pulled a number out of thin air to make a point (30%). To ensure we don’t get angry emails, and to set the record straight, this ABC news article from last year can give you’re the real stats. In short, the average Aussie (median income) is $48,360 before tax, according to a report released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and many people below the median struggle to pay bills and meet healthcare needs.

Transcript

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

P: Hi there. I’m Peter Furness, and I’m a bicycle meander, baking indulgent and non-morning exerciser. Each week we bring you the latest news and research in the field of positive psychology, otherwise known as Happiness.

M: You can find our podcast at MarieSkelton.com, which is a site about major life changes and how to cope with them. The site uses a lot of the research that we talk about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing happiness and joy into your life.

P: So on to today’s episode, which is all about finding your passion and purpose.

[Happy intro music]

M: So welcome to today’s episode, which is about finding your passion and purpose.

P: Everybody’s gotta have a purpose. There is a song to go with that Marie, ‘Avenue Q’ people look it up.

M: So today we’re talking about having something to do in life, and the reason this is so important is that people who are happy and fulfilled live longer and people who have purpose in their life are more happy and more fulfilled. So you live a better life and the longer life.

P: Absolutely.

M: So, the opposite is also true for people without purpose in their life. And when we say purpose, really, lot of the time for most people, it’s their job.

P: Much of our purpose is lined up in our identity of what our occupation is. Definitely.

M: Absolutely. And that doesn’t mean that it has to be your job, and it only has to be your job. And jobs are taking on a lot different looks and feels nowadays. Definitely a lot more people working from home and the gig economy and services that you can provide online are changing the way that people work, definitely. But for a lot of us, when we talk about purpose, it’s what gets you out of bed in the morning and what you do with the bulk of your hours during the day.

P: But I think some people fall into the trap of not taking charge of that.

M: Absolutely.

P: They’re being led down a path that they think is this’s what I do. But when they actually do the work on themselves, it’s actually know what they want to be doing. That’s possibly what we’re going to talk a little bit more of today.

M: Definitely. And I think this concept of what you want to be doing is pretty new. To be quite frank.

P: Really?

M: Yeah. I don’t think our parents had as much luxury of choice.

P: Yeah, fair enough. They didn’t. They did the solid job. Get a good job. Stick at it. Don’t change jobs. You stay in the same job for 40 years, you stayed with the same company or that sort of stuff. You’re definitely right there. We jump around a lot more and we’re actually encouraged to. I remember sort of hearing from different people saying, I’ve got to move it’s been three years. I’m like ‘Oh, really? Three years and one company. Wow.’

M: Yeah, definitely.

P: You know everybody and the tea lady.

M: I’m one of those. I’m bored now.

[Laughter]

P: Well, that’s the other thing. If, if you’re not having a purpose or you haven’t done the work on finding your purpose, you may find yourself saying, oh I’m really bored with life. Why am I bored with life? This could be a good episode for you people out there that are feeling a little bit stale or a little bit stagnant and wondering ‘Is there a bigger picture?’

M: Yep, definitely. So we’ll look into that in a second. But firstly, I want to, of course [be]cause it’s me, throw some stats in there.

[Laughter] It’s all about the research.

M: Absolutely. But discuss what happens when you have no purpose, and that is such a bad place to be in when you look at the stats. So again, here we go with stats.

So in the US [United States]. Gallup[i] found that the longer you experienced unemployment, the more likely you are to report symptoms of psychological unease, so that can include things like anxiety and depression. Also, they found that one in five people without a job for a year or more report that they have been or are currently undergoing treatment for depression. So one in five people and the rate is about double the rate of depression of those who’ve been without a job for fewer than five weeks. So what that means is, if you’ve got a job, you’re less likely to have depression. If you don’t have a job, you’re more likely to get depressed. And the longer you go without a job, the more your chances of being depressed increases and another way of looking at a major life moment where your purpose might change is retirement.

P: Hhmm. [Sound of agreement]

M: And there’s a study by the London based Institute of Economic Affairs that looked at the likelihood that someone would suffer from clinical depression. And it actually goes up by about 40% after retiring.

P: Very surprising that figure and yet when you think it. I remember when my parents retired, they both retired at the same time and we were all focused on Mum. But what we didn’t realise was it was actually Dad that we had to worry about because Mum made the transition really well. I think because we pushed her to get a hobby. It was like, ‘You’re not going to sit at home and do nothing, so let’s find you something.’ And we forgot about poor old Dad, and it was Dad who actually suffered. He started painting everything yellow.

M: [Laugh]

P: He had some yellow paint, and so everything in the house got painted yellow, the barbecue, the stakes in the garden, the fence.

M: Oh dear..

P: [Laugh], poor Dad.

M: I think that is also a little bit just the way that we’ve expected men to suck it up and move on, and there’s so many great movements out there now about men’s mental health.

P: Mmm, oh definitely. And it’s been, it’s the planning and it’s having the foresight and the forethought to go right ‘I’m retiring in five years. What can I do?’ What can I be a part of? That’s where volunteering comes into it. Our extracurricular activities and if you’ve spent the time during your working life developing strong social connections in those extracurricular activities, albeit sport, church, community groups, all that sort of stuff. That and I think the science would probably back me on this is that that’s going to set you up well for retirement because everything doesn’t stop. I feel sorry for the blokes, particularly in rural areas where men get up and go to work. That’s what they do and then all of a sudden, when they’ve stopped working, there’s nothing to get up for.

M: Absolutely. I’ve been interviewing quite a few people for my book on this topic. So yes, the science does back you up on this.

P: Yay!  I was going out on a limb, quoting without looking at research. There we go!

M: Yeah, absolutely. And look that 40% who struggle after retirement. There’s a whole body of research on that, and one of the big things is purpose. And the other big thing that you mentioned, there was those social connections, so important for your retirement years.

P: Which is a nice segway into what we’re going to talk about today-

M: Actually, it is.

P: – Which is the Japanese concept of Ikigai. What is Ikigai, I hear you ask?

I love this explanation we came up with when we were talking about it. It’s a bunch of circles.

[Laughter]

P: It’s bubbles people. It’s all about bubbles. Bubbles, so in English a rough translation for Ikigai is a reason for being and it finds its origins in a little village in Okinawa, which is little island in Japan that has a high, really high number of centenarians, which is people over 100 years of age. We call it a blue zone, the amount of people who are centenarians and have quite a number of them in one location it’s called a Blue Zone and while their age may have been attributed to diet and lifestyle, there is the practise of Ikigai, which has been noted as a major factor not only in their longevity but in their happiness. So we can talk about Ikigai being, it’s a tool. It’s a way of doing some work. It’s a series of questions that you can ask yourself that look at the four major components of… and I’ll go through these if I can.

  • What you love;
  • What you’re good at;
  • What you can get paid for; and
  • What the world needs.

So we’re looking at passion, your mission, your profession and your vocation and that lovely little sweet spot where all those four elements tie in is what your Ikigai is. The reason you get up in the morning, it’s the reason you wake up and go ‘today I’m doing this because this is what I do.’

M: And I, I think that every year 11 student should have to do this exercise.

P: Oh, I agree. Definitely.

M: Right, because I remember filling in a bunch of circles A, B, C or D. Or would you prefer to be a gardener or an astrophysicist?

P: [Laugh]

M: And, and I said Gardner there, because it’s top of mind because Gardner came back as something I should consider as a career choice.

P: Oh, really?

M: Yes, anyway.

P: Surprising considering you can’t keep a herb alive.

M: I can’t, at all. I just have to look at a plant and it dies.

P: [Laugh]

M: Seriously.

P: Your terrariums doing okay.

M: I haven’t killed the plants that live in a desert? Yeah, Thanks.

P: [Laugh]

M: But I love that this considers not only the realities of what you’ll get paid for.

P: Yes.

M: But also what you’re good at and what you love. And I don’t think that enough emphasis is put on finding a way to get paid for what you’re good at and what you love. We, at school are taught more here are the things that you need to learn, and it doesn’t matter if you’re good at them, you’ve got to work harder.

P: Oh, yes. The markers, yeah.

M: And it doesn’t matter if you love them. That just wasn’t a factor at all. But this is about finding what, what sparks you.

P: Yeah.

M: And then how you can make a career out of that. The other thing that I will say though, is so many of us don’t do what we love and what we’re good at or even what the world needs on a daily basis. We do what we can get paid for.

P: Exactly. We put too much emphasis on one element of the off the four. And I think that that’s something that we could all do a little bit. This’s the thing about doing these exercises, it makes you look at the process of what you should be doing in a much more, I’m going to say spherical, and you’re probably going to pull me up on that one Marie, it’s a more rounded perspective of looking at it. It’s not just looking at what can I get the most amount of money for and what is my profession going to be according to how much money I can generate? That’s not the way to make this decision. And that’s what I like about the Japanese principle is it’s a much more rounded, much more spherical perception of coming at what, what choice should I be making?

M: I absolutely agree with you. The other side of what I was saying, though, is that for a lot of us, we don’t have that choice. You have to solely look at what can I get paid for?

P: Okay. Yep, true.

M: So for a large portion of the population, I think that you take what you can get.

P: That’s an interesting one. I guess I wasn’t part of that large portion, and it’s funny, I was watching Gardening Australia recently.

M: As you do Peter [laugh].

P: It’s a Covid[19] thing. It’s gotten me into gardening Australia. I actually love it, but they were interviewing this, this couple that we’re doing a garden and he was a sculptor and she was an artist and forgive me for, for being a little bit coy here, but sculptors and artists and those people, we don’t make choices according to money. We’re like, I’m going to go and be a plant specialist. They take that passion side, and that’s what they run with. They don’t go with what can I generate my income with.

M: And I think that’s such a blessed and privileged position.

P: It is a privilege definitely.

M: Yes, I guess what I’m saying here or what I’m trying to get at is that some of us have a reality. That means they have to work 60 hours in a minimum wage job in order to pay the bills and provide food for the family, right.

P: Yeah, well we all have to pay the bills and so forth.

M: But what I’m trying to say here is that you can do that with passion. So you’ve mentioned it before Pete. And I worked retail through university. You can bring a passion to living to a retail job that really doesn’t excite you. I worked in a muffin shop for the longest time.

P: [Laugh]

M: It was not lighting my fire, let me tell you that. But I had some of the best memories from great customers, good colleagues, lots of laughs. And I just don’t want this to be inaccessible to the, I’m going to pull a number out of whatever, you know, the 30% of Australians who have to take what jobs are available and who don’t have the luxury or the privilege that we have off choosing from a wide range of different career options or vocations.

P: Okay, so if we if we if we look at that 30% and we look at the concept of Ikigai, I actually believe that this process of going through this tool and using this tool is a way to unlock maybe some of the passion and unlock some of those other elements that does help you to bring purpose and fulfilment to a role that you’re really not wanting to do.

M: Absolutely and then the other thing is again. It doesn’t have to be your job. So if you find that your passion is an art and you cannot make a living out of your art.

P: So many of us can’t.

M: Then how do you bring your passion for art into your life in another way?

P: And that’s, that’s the, that’s the key. That’s the golden little .. nugget of jewel right there.

M: Absolutely. Well, good. I think we’re finally getting to the same point here.

P: It just took us a little round about.

M: Ha, Ha, I, I just don’t want to forget that I feel like we’re really quite privileged when it comes down to it to have the choice, and a lot of people don’t. But that doesn’t mean that this isn’t accessible for them as well.

So if we come back to the older generations in Okinawa and the concept of Ikigai, this is baked into the way that this society works. It’s really worth having a look online. If you haven’t looked at this before.

So they, they put the principles into practice. The community is really geared to activities that bring joy, and, like dancing and singing and giving back to the community and doing all these things in social ways as well. Not, not by yourself. And the impacts are huge.

P: Yeah, it’s a supported environment. If you, if you like it, it’s part of the culture.

M: Exactly.

P: It’s part of the infrastructure that’s already there. It’s geared towards this practise and it’s proven, it’s proven to be effective. As we can see, it’s a blue zone.

M: Yep, all right. So do we have any tips?

P: We do [laugh]. I’m going to let you go with those ones Marie, to start off with.

M: All right, I’ll go.

The first step to changing your life… That’s huge!

P: OH, that’s a massive leap into the unknown there.

M: [Laugh]  

P: Just dive right in!

M: First step is to understand yourself better.

P: That’s very Jungian[ii] thing isn’t it?

M: That’s not the cynical Marie that I’m used to being is it?

P: [Laugh] maybe you’ve gone through this process already Marie. You’ve done the work and it’s all about working. This doesn’t happen, magically. And I think that’s one of the points I do want to make. I’m going jump in here Muz. This stuff is hard. It’s hard yakka. You can’t just cruise along and expect it’ll just, to come through. It’s got to come up. You’ve got to actually go and do the work and do the exercise. And this is what this tool is great for its. It’s asking the right questions, so that you do sit down and go right ‘What is my purpose?’

M: Absolutely. So go online. Have a look for Ikigai, it’s I-k-i-g-a-i, and you’ll see the circles that Pete was talking about with the four elements of Ikigai.

And the first step is to write down all the things that you love, that you’re good at, that you can get paid for and that the world needs. And next, once you’ve written down all of those things, you need to set some goals. So once you’ve worked out where the intersection of all those four things lies best, might not be perfect. You might not find one thing that fits right in the intersection of it all-  

P: I think that’s really important to keep in mind it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just go with it. Have a little faith.

M: – but might find something that meets three of those four.

P: Exactly.

M: So once you’ve got that, knowledge without action is useless. So to reach your goals, you need to change your behaviour, which means you need to change your habits. And there’s a great book that is an international bestseller about changing habits, and it’s James Clear’s, ‘Atomic Habits’. So pick up that book, and in that book he talks about how and, and it’s a proverb that’s been around for centuries. You know, ‘the journey of 1000 miles starts with one step.’ And taking one step is so easy to take. That small, tiny habit that you start adds up over a lifetime to be massive.

P: Starts the ripples.

M: So take the time to do the brainstorming and the self-reflection, and then you’ve got to put into action.

P: And this might be, I’ve got a little list here Marie from two people who have written the book on Ikigai basically, they are..

M: Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles.

P: Well done Marie, was a nice pick up there. I just dropped the mike. So these guys are well known Western authors of the Ikigai method and How to Find Your Ikigai, the Japanese practise and these steps all are pretty easy steps to sort of follow to keep you along the lines of maintaining that Ikigai, because Ikigai is not a static concept, it’s, it’s an ever changing concept. Our purpose in life changes from when we’re 17 to when we’re 45. We don’t have the same purpose. So this is not something that you do once, and you just keep following that path blindly. It’s something to revisit every now and then, so that you move along with your life changes and with your systems that are in process and buying a house and having Children. Your, your needs change your, your purpose changes.

So this is something to revisit all the time.

M: All right, so you’ve got 10 steps don’t you Pete?

P: I do, Thanks to Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles, who wrote the book on Ikigai. The 10 steps include:

  1. Staying active, not retiring.
  2. Leave urgency behind and adopt a slower pace of life. Chill out people.
  3. Only eat until you are 80% full. I like that one it’s such a conceptual one.
  4. Surround yourself with good friends. Social connections.
  5. Get in shape through daily gentle exercise. That’s that lovely idea of maintaining gentle exercise and not hitting the intensity all the time, because is a negative influence on our longevity.
  6. Smile and acknowledge the people around you. See the people when they’re in front of you.
  7. Reconnecting with nature. Forest bathing, I keep coming back to it. It’s a real thing, look it up.  
  8. Give thanks to anything that brightens your day and makes you feel alive. This comes back to what we’re talking about, about self-care being church for non-believers. It’s another one of our episodes. M: And Gratefulness. P: Gratefulness definitely.
  9. Live in the moment. Mindfulness. And then the last one.
  10. Follow your Ikigai.

M: All right. I think that’s a good place to stop. Thanks for joining us this week. We’ll see you next week.

P: Stay happy people.

[Happy Exit Music]

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

[i] Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide.

[ii] Jungian – In reference to Carl Jung. Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung’s work was influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, and religious studies.

Self-Care is Church for Non-Believers (E17)

by

Happiness For Cynics podcast

More and more people around the world do not believe in a God, and therefore do not attend church regularly. This is such a shame, as the act of going to church has so many benefits including making your happier. In this episode, we discuss the ways in which you can replace some aspects of church, if you’re a non-believer, so you can bring more happiness into your life.

https://pod.co/happiness-for-cynics/self-care-is-church-for-non-believers

Transcript

M: Hi. I’ve forgotten our intro.

P: [Laugh] we should never have negroni’s before a podcast.

M: We should always have them.

[Laughter]

M: Welcome the happiness for cynics. That is not how this normally goes. I’m Marie Skelton a writer, podcaster supposedly and an expert in resiliency and change.

P: Hi, I’m Peter. I’m the co-host. I’m a herb harvester, a Feng Shui factualiser and I can’t remember the third thing that I am this week.

M: Maybe we shouldn’t do negroni’s before… [laughter].

This week however, we are talking about self-care and how self-care is church for non-believers.

P: I love that quote. That’s a brilliant that’s a Marie-ism, by the way, folks, that’s a complete Marie-ism.

M: I’ll have to turn that into one of those quotes.

P: Yeah do.

M: You know like the image on Facebook.

P: Think about it ‘Self-care is church for non-believers.’

[Happy intro music]

M: Okay, welcome back. That was probably the weirdest intro we’ve ever done. Alright, self-care we’re here to talk about self-care. We were talking the other day about how self-care is really important, and it’s, it’s important to do all the fabulous things that we talked about. But you’ve got to balance that with looking after yourself as well and taking time to relax and recharge and really focus on your inner self as well, so we were keen to do an episode on self-care and then we came across this idea of self-care being church for non-believers.

P: I love this, it’s brilliant. Such a good quote.

M: So reason that we say that, there’s a couple of stats here that I’ll paint the picture with. So we start in the States. There’s a recent study by the Pew Research Centre, which says that the percentage of Americans who believe in God attend religious services and pray daily has declined significantly during the last eight years. And then, if you look at the latest census results on religion from 2016 in Australia, about 30% of Australians selected no religion, and that’s more than 7% higher than the previous census, where they measured religion in 2011.

So one in three-ish Australians no longer believe in religion and ergo we will assume they don’t go to church.

P: True, I’ll give you that.

M: Making a leap there, but we’re going to make that assumption. And again, I’m not religious and you know each to their own is my philosophy on that. However, one in three Australians are losing the benefits off attending church and that’s just such a shame. So whether you believe in God or not, the benefits of going to church include learning things like kindness, gratitude, service to others, mindfulness having social interaction on a regular basis, meditation, awe and forgiveness.

And we’re going to go into a few of those right now because they all make the wonderful bucket of self-care. But they’re also critical for happiness.

P: I’m sorry. I’m just thinking of Kentucky Fried Chicken now you said, Bucket.

[Laughter]

P: It’s like a little bucket that you can choose from.

M: Exactly, there’s wings, there’s drumsticks.

[Laughter]

M: So let’s start with your, your church bucket here.

P: [Laugh] Do I have to wear my Sunday best? Do I have to dress up?

M: No, this is all about you-

P: – Oh, but I want to wear my hat with the fascinator.

M: You don’t have to but you can.

P: Well, this is the interesting thing is that I think that before we get into everything I’m going to segway here Marie. The fact of going to church, it was a huge social construct, traditionally in, especially in Australian lifestyles. But in Western lifestyles in general, actually, no, that’s not even true.

M: In the states you get dressed up there too. For those of you who think what enough does this Aussie girl know about the states? I did live there for eight years, some I’m kind of semi sort of calling myself a little bit American and I married an American.

P: You’re married by passport.

M: [Laugh] Exactly.

But oh, in the South.

P: Oh yeah, that’s the image I’ve got.

M: They get dressed up for church.

P: Definitely. It’s the social construct. So, the fact of actually going to church of actually taking the time in your weekly schedule to allocate one hour to go to a location, to go to a ceremony to get dressed up to invest in an action that is community driven. It’s something that set a precedent for interaction on people on so many different levels. And that’s what we’re going to talk about with when we talk about the sections that we’ve nominated.

M: What I love about the social interaction piece there Pete, we’re starting with that one, is the church construct encourages people to think about others and you welcome new people into the community. It’s just like, so we met through volleyball, and there is a tribe aspect to that as well. Definitely just like with church, where you look, well you should there’s always the misfits, but you should look after the new people that come into the club or the church or the environment that you’ve got there and you look out for them and you look out for each other. And for people who have never been to church or who haven’t maybe had that team aspect in their life that we have, I think it’s, it’s scary to me that they may never have experienced that community welcoming them in. I think everybody can experience this. It’s like starting in your job, the first time you walk into a new office you don’t know anyone. Everyone has their mates that they say good morning to, everyone hangs out in coffee shop. You’re the, you’re the newbie. You’re the brassy eyed, bushy tailed woman with your negligee scarf. It’s Jane Fonda in 9 to 5.

M: Here’s the thing though. The expectations on a workplace is very different from those at church or in a team sport.

P: OK, fair point. I’ll give you that.

M: You don’t have to, give two hoots about the person you work with.

P: All right, fair yes.

M: You don’t have to be nice to them if the boss isn’t looking, right?

P: Yeah

M: And so there’s a very different social element, and that’s why when we’re saying self-care is church for non-believers, finding your tribe, and there’s a lot of talk out there about finding the tribe and its people who will look out for you and go above and beyond for you. There’s a lot of lonely people out there who don’t have a tribe.

P: Exactly

M: And church would always take everyone in. Yet regardless of your personality, differences, preferences, all of that. Sports, there’s a little bit more argy bargy there, but –

P: – Especially if you play with Brazilians.

[Laughter]

M: – but you’ve got to bring everyone in to achieve a goal, right? And in theory you have to do that in workplaces. But in practise, I don’t think that drive to be accepting and welcoming to everyone is there.

P: Which I think brings up a point that’s really valid is that you’re putting yourself in the space by going to something like church. It’s, you’re expected to be friendly. You’re expected to welcome new people in. So there is that expectation of like ‘you will be nice, eh?’

M: So that social interaction. So I think, for people who are not going to church anymore they’re perhaps missing that tribe. And there’s a few definite opportunities for people to find that in other areas of their lives. But perhaps not as easy as just rocking up to church.

P: Oh, I agree. Definitely.

M: Whatcha got next?

P: Oh, kindness.

M: Yes, be kind. So the whole process of going to church, you’re putting yourself in a place where it is expected of you to contemplate kindness. Contemplate being good to your neighbour. Being nice to your fellow man. All those kind of community constructs that are really based on every society. I’m not just talking about –

M: Do unto others

P: – Western society.

M: I know that one, do unto others!

P: [Laugh] Go Muz, quoting the… what is it 15 commandments.

M: 10

P: It was 15 first, Moses threw a tablet.

M: We should not –

P: – Moses had a hissy fit and he threw a tablet [laugh].

M: Again, I apologise

P: He so did it was Charlton Heston.

M: Alright, maybe we shouldn’t use popular culture as a reference for peoples religions.

P: That’s fair, I get it.

M: Because this matters to [some] people.

P: But my point is you’re putting yourself in the kindness space and you’re expected to be [a] kinder [person] tapping into that. It’s like, OK, I’ve got to be nice to this person and it’s the fake it till you make it concept by putting yourself into a process where you’re forcing yourself to be kind. Maybe you actually might get a bit of beneficial kick-off from that being kind not only to others, but to yourself.

M: Absolutely so as we’ve mentioned in previous episodes the research on kindness is kind of one of the most selfish things you can do. I think we’ve said before another Marieism. The benefits from oxytocin I think and again we keep talking about all the fabulous chemicals in our brain, but the benefits that you get from being kind others are huge. So much so that being kind to others can be seen as a selfish act. And one of the major tenets of nearly all religions is ‘do unto others.’

P: That’s right.

M: So if that is not being reinforced through Sunday school and through your life once a week –

P: Yep, it’s a little reminder when the pastor or the person is standing up on that pulpit saying, “who have you loved of your fellow man this week?” And it’s like forcing you to go ‘right, I have to do this’ and that’s a weekly reinforcement.

M: I think it is that real weekly reinforcement. So whether you’re helping out with tea after the service.

P: Oh yeah, they always had good bickies at the Salvation Army.

M: Or whether you’re participating in a more formalised church program that helps the elderly mow their lawns, what whatever it is that your church environment does not having that in your week because you’re not religious, is a real loss.

P: Definitely, which is a nice segway into, into-  

M: – gratitude.

P: There we go.

M: [Laugh] I read your mind.

[Laughter]

M: And we’ve talked about gratitude, I think it was our third or fourth episode in season one, but again, being grateful for what you have and prayer is one of those things where you thank the Lord for the blessings that you have. And again, if you’re not going to church on a regular basis, the need for being grateful is not being reinforced in your day to day life.

P: Yes.

M: And again I would argue that in the absence of church, what are you doing in your weekly lives to remember to be grateful?

P: Yeah. If you’re not being like the self-help gurus and certain people like yogis who practice every day sitting there, looking at your mantras and looking at your chants and saying these things to yourself as a matter of wrote that’s a daily reminder as much as what church is if you’re not involved in those daily acts, even the act of saying a prayer before dinner that was a big social construct is that there was always the expected thing, and –

M: Two, Four, Six, Eight

[Laughter]

M: Dig in, don’t wait!

P: [Laugh] you could take that one. Yes, well, if we take it in the in the literal sense, you’re being thankful for the fact that you have food on your plate.

M: Which and I’m sure if any of us Journal on gratefulness. Having food is such a First World right.

P: Exactly.

M: It’s not a privilege anymore. I bet you, you pick up anyone’s gratitude journal in the First World and they’re not thanking people for the food on their table.

P: Okay. What’s next?

M: Service to others.

P: Aahh, being generous to others, it’s such a fulfilling action. There’s a lot of research out there that the supports the fact that if you are actually giving away 10% of your time 10% of your income, 10% of your energy in the service of others, you gain back tenfold what you’re giving out.

M: Absolutely.

P: It’s a no brainer, by giving out your generosity and actually offering up something that you have, it invites so much goodwill back into yourself. And again, it’s that selfish act, not a self-less act. It’s reinvigorating your own self esteem. It’s making you feel good. Who doesn’t feel nice when you give a dollar to the person who’s on the street corner begging for money? You think I’ve done my good deed for the day that reverberates through your day hugely. And if something’s – I’ve gotta stop clicking sorry – [Laughter], if when you’re having a bad afternoon, sometimes it’s enough to go you know what my karma jar is full because I gave that dollar to the homeless person this morning.

M: I think there’s also an even greater benefit. So, I’ve done a lot of coaching and a lot of the time for free.

P: Right.

M: Sadly, I’m not making money off my volleyball coaching, but there’s, there’s a sense of the inner satisfaction, and I don’t even know how to describe it. When you have those moments through a season, when a player executes a skill that you’ve been working with them on or they finally get it, and a lot of the time they’ll perform the skill and the first person they lock eyes with is you. You know?

P: Absolutely.

M: Right? Those moments where you’ve spent hours trying to help someone else to be better and they are executing what you’ve been working on together. They’re so valuable, so, so valuable, and you remember those, I remember those moments with those players years later. I don’t remember the projects I’ve worked on in corporate life or a lot of other things. But helping others to grow is such a positive thing.

P: Tim Minchin talks about it in his address to the Melbourne University [and others] a couple of years ago when he gave his ‘Nine Lessons of Life.’ If you haven’t watched it, watch it, it’s fabulous. Tim Minchin says “Be a teacher. Share your love, Share your passion. Share what you know because it will come back upon you.”

M: Yep.

P: And it’s so true.

M: Absolutely. All right, so I’m going to bucket two other benefits of church together here and they’re definitely more your areas of expertise than mine.

P: Yeah.

M: So mindfulness and meditation.

P: Oh dear meditation.

M: I’m bundling them together because we are running a little short on time now, But really, I think we should bump out to 30 minutes because every episode we say we’re running short on time don’t we.

[Laughter]

P: Maybe our listeners should vote on that on the poll.

M: We’re trying to keep it 20 [minutes] so it’s short, sharp commute time. But anyway. So there is definite research about attending spiritual retreats in particular if you’re talking about mindfulness and the greater psychological well-being that you get and feel good hormones in the brain from mindfulness in particular, and then meditation, you’re into meditation.

P: I’m a big time meditator. And I’m a big supporter of it because it is, there are so many benefits that lead to some of the other things that we’ve already talked about today. Kindness and gratitude. When you meditate, you calm your mind down. And it’s not about eliminating thoughts. It’s about recognising thoughts and giving weight to them. It’s such a brilliant way of accessing parts of our physiology and our mental capacity that has huge benefits.

M: Actually, the title of this is self-care. And if you can’t take in the negative and let it go, then you’re not looking after your mental health.

P: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, and actually, I’m gonna skip, we’ll end on your last one here. But skip to forgiveness, which is another teaching in many religions around the world forgiving others.

P: Yeah

M: And again this is, this is a way of letting go of that negativity. And there is yet again a lot of research about the positive benefits of letting this stuff go, allowing yourself to move on and not holding yourself back because of what others have done to you.

P: Being kind to yourself is part of self-care. Very, very important factor. Don’t be too hard on yourself people. Everyone is human, everyone makes mistakes, and it’s OK to make a mistake, as long as you learn from it.

M:  And it’s okay to have negative emotions too.

P: Absolutely. They serve you well. They’re a great lever.

M: And I think right now we’re all experiencing the full pendulum swing of emotions being in isolation and dealing with Covid and the increased anxiety we need to be okay with that. I think we’re learning some really good self-reflection and growth lessons from an emotional perspective because of Covid.

P: I think the awareness has brought it definitely back onto the floor where we’re now concerned with our community connections. We now are concerned with how our daily actions affect not only ourselves but others.

All right, we’re going to move onto the last one, awe. We’ve talked about this before awe inspiring stuff.

M: Awe, A W E, it’s very easy to be like or what? Or what?

P: [Laugh]. I’m going to tell a personal story here. So going through Italy with my niece a couple years ago in Europe, we went to Florence. We’ve done gone for a walk down to the Duomo the cathedral in Florence, and we stood there in the evening light and I’ve got to say it was a pretty amazing aspect. I didn’t know anything about this cathedral I didn’t know about the Medici’s at that time. But I’m standing there in front of this cathedral and it looked like something made out of cardboard, But it was so incredible and the way the light hit it, I was having a moment. Uncle Peter may have got emotional and had a tear in his eye and my niece turns around to me and says “You ‘right.” “It’s okay darling Uncle Peter’s having about a moment”, and she said “Okay, I’m going for ice cream.”  [Laugh]

M: I, especially coming from Australia, I could not agree with you more going through Europe I, I guess there’s a point where there’s only so many churches you can see but when they’re all 15th, 16th century churches and I can only think of Notre Dame and it still breaks my heart that it burnt down but thankfully we got to see it. But there is this understanding in a lot of religion that the place you go to worship should inspire awe.

P: Which brings us back to the point. Churches were built to inspire people they were a connection with the higher power. There were a connection with God. They were meant to lift you up.

M: So as far as awe goes, you don’t have to find it in buildings only as we’ve discussed in the past, we can find it in nature very often. It’s about putting yourself in those moments where you’re standing in front of the Grand Canyon or beautiful mountains, and you take the moment to be mindful and experience your place in the vastness around you. So we are needing to wrap up now Pete.

P: Oh dear. We’ve gone overtime again.

M: But I guess the last thing I just want to say to people is if you are not religious. How are you bringing these items into your life on a weekly basis? How are you replacing what church used to bring to people which was happiness. These elements that we’ve talked about kindness, gratitude, service to others, mindfulness, social interaction, meditation, awe and forgiveness, all of them were being reinforced in people’s lives, and they’ve all been scientifically proven in multiple surveys and research to bring happiness. So that’s my challenge. Find your church, find your church, find your tribe and find ways to make these habits.

P: And really invest in them. So, so make sure that you clock them, write them out and say, like, to a daily check and see if you can tick all eight of those boxes. Eight? Seven? [Laugh]

M: That many boxes, tick all of those boxes! [Laugh]

P: And that’s the benefit and whether you believe or not in religion, church served that purpose. So we need to find a way to invest in that. And it can be as simple as spending 15 minutes at home being mindful or meditating all those sorts of actions. Church doesn’t need to be a building. You’re absolutely right. It can be your backyard as long as you invest –

M: -Or your mind.

P: Exactly. You can invest in that but being mindful and being open to it is really important.

M: I think that’s a great place to end. Thanks Pete.

P: Aww, no worries.

M: See you next week.

P: Stay happy, people.

[Happy Exit Music]

The Benefits of Psychological Safety with Nicki Bowman (E16)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

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

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

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

About Nicki Bowman

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

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

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

Find her at www.nickibowman.com.

Transcript

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

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

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

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

[Happy intro music]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NB: Yes

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

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

M: uh huh

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

M: Yeah

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

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

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

M: Oh, wow.

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

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

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

NB: Yep

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

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

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

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

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

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

NB: Yep, I do.

M: What’s that about?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Social Media Detoxing (E15)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast

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

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

Transcript

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

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

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

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

So time for the happy music.

[Happy intro music]

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

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

M: Hehe as a principle, so am I.

[Laughter]

P: [Whispers] They don’t work.

[More laughter]

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: Ah nice.

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

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

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

P: – FOMO?

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

P: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

M: Yes

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

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

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

M: Absolutely.

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

M: Yep

[Laughter]

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

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

So first, find a detox, buddy.

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

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

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

So number three and this is the big one.

Delete your Social Media Apps.

P: [Deep breath in!]

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

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

M: People are like ‘delete, stupid podcast –

[Laughter]

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

Finally change your lock screen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

P: Yeah, Active distraction.

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

P: Hit the delete?

M: Yep

P: [Singing] freedom!

[Laughter]

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

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

P: Stay happy folks

[Happy exit music]

The Importance of Being Social (E14)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 14

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

Transcript

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

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

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

P: We’re talking about socialising and isolation.  

M: Sounds like a plan. Cue music.  

[Happy music] 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: Absolutely love it.  

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

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

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

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

M: Yeah 

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

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

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

M: [Laugh]

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

M: [Laughing] Hold on, hold on –

P: What, what, what, what?

M: You just said face on face.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: Yep

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

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

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

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

P: [Laugh] Yeah, exactly.

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

P: Dementia and Alzheimer’s.

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

[Laughter]

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

P: The one constant.

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

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

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

P: Definitely.

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

P: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

P: Oh, I thought we were recording.

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

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

[More laughter]

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

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

P: [Laugh]

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

P: OK

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

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

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

M: Yeah, we do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Laughter]

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

[Laugh]

P: It’s face to face time.

M: It went from drag show to…

[Laughter]

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

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

P: It’s the old fashion, smoko.

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

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

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

P: Oh, that sounds fun.

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

P: Oh dear, that could be dangerous.

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

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

M: Science says!

[Laughter]

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

P: Oh.

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

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

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

P: Done! Done and dusted.

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

P: Stay happy people.

[Happy exit music] 

Exercise Makes You Happy (E13)

by

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 13

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

Things we Talked About on This Episode

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

Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

[happy music]

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

M: Haha, Love it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: while we’re doing exercise?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: I love Cheery Ripes!

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

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

P: Bahahaa

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: Yeah yeah yeah, like you care.

P; So sad. Hahaha

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

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

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

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

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

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

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