Had to share this terrific talk about the fact that pretty much all of us have our ideas of happiness so so wrong. At the end of the talk, Shawn Achor talks about five things we can do to re-train our brains to look for the positive so that in turn our world becomes a happier and easier to navigate place.
Here are the five things:
3 Gratitudes - If you spend each day simply writing down three things you are grateful for that day you will train yourself to focus on the positives in your life, no matter how small. According to Achor, twenty one days of this and you’ll have already re-wired your brain to automatically see the good and less of the bad. This is especially important for those people who spend a lot of time avoiding thoughts they don’t like, instead of simply thinking better happier thoughts which in time will triumph. ‘Don’t think of a black cat’, as we all know, doesn’t work. Better to think of a white one instead.
I’ve done the 3 Gratitudes thing in the past. But I think this is something I should personally do more often. Ok, like every day.
Journaling - Did you ever write a diary? That’s all this is. But it’s actually extremely therapeutic - you get to talk things through with yourself. I think it’s important to note that Journaling isn’t just writing down ‘Went to shops, came back, took out bins’ but is more of a forceful attempt to write down a certain amount of words a day - that way, you’re going to get past the ‘bins’ part pretty quickly and get onto the stuff like ‘Where the heck is my life going’ and ‘Perhaps I should eat more broccoli and I really must start writing that book’. It only really works if you stick at it though.
I have sporadic attempts at Journaling and I can attest to the fact that it’s extremely good for you. You need to spend about 15 minutes a day writing stuff down. A brilliant website to help you do this is 750 Words. I use it as often as I can (when I haven’t fallen off the Journaling wagon). It’s private, helps kick your butt, and if you think you can’t afford 15 minutes each day to talk to yourself, get the fuck off Facebook, Twitter and Google +.
Exercise - Yup, good old fashioned exercise gets your blood flowing, releases lots of nice things in your brain that make you think properly, yet for so many of us it’s one big Catch 22 - I’m snuggled up in bed and I’m miserable so why the buggery would I want to go out and run around a lot. The stupid thing is, if you did a bit more running around, bed would be more gratifying and more cosy, you’d have better thoughts while you were in bed, and being lazy would become a lot more fun.
I exercise. Don’t forget that exercising can also get you out of the house. Cycle somewhere if you get bored walking. As someone who likes goals and stuff to do, I have discovered that Geocaching can give my bike rides and walks a bit more meaning. Nonsensical meaning, but better than walking or running around the block which I must admit I’ve always had a problem with.
Meditation - People really should meditate. Personally I think it should be taught in schools. So many people struggle with overactive minds, worry, lack of sleep and everything associated with brain buzz, especially in this hyper-connected world, that it’s incredibly useful to have a skill (which is what it is) that enables you to switch off properly for a few minutes each day. Switching off ISN’T buying a giant coffee and reading a newspaper - that’s pretending. Real switching off using meditation gives your brain a chance to change state, which impacts your entire day. And then your life.
As you can tell I’m a big believer in meditation. I’ve been doing it since I was about ten or eleven as I used to have a terrible time turning my brain off and could never sleep as a child. People give themselves a hard time about meditating though - which in itself is missing the point, and in a way proves how fucked up and aggressive we can be with ourselves, even when we’re trying to do ourselves a favour. I have a cool app on my iPhone called Insight Timer which makes pretty dinging noises and lets me forget about how long I’ve done, something you really don’t want bugging you while you’re meditating!
Random Acts Of Kindness - What’s great about this one is, because we’re all so connected, you really don’t have to go very far to say something nice to someone. Most of us only say nice things to each other when we’re drunk. How about saying just a few nice words in a post on someone’s blog? Or someone’s Facebook updates? Or a really nice Tweet? Or text message? I really doubt if you did this more often it’s going to do anything but put you in a really good mood.
You know what? It’s tough to be sincere and say nice things to each other without being sarcastic, especially for us English. That’s why we have such problems with sincere Americans - we short circuit because we think they can’t possibly mean it. If there’s anything we can learn from the States it’s that ‘Have a nice day’ can be said truthfully. So drop the sarcasm, and without being revolting, say something nice to someone today. And tomorrow. And keep going. If you can’t be nice to other people you’re going to struggle with yourself.
Notes