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Savour positive emotions to boost wellbeing

Appreciating the breathtaking moments of life can help build positivity

Appreciating the breathtaking moments of life, and savouring the emotions associated with them, can help build positivity and boost wellbeing

“Concentrate [yourself] upon the moments of a life that is itself but a moment.” This quote from Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray could have been taken from a modern manual on mindfulness, or an article on positive psychology. It also sums up new research that encourages us to savour the emotions associated with special moments to enhance feelings of wellbeing.

The university study reveals that the it’s not just the response we have to something beautiful or breathtaking or moving, but the ability to keep hold of positive emotions – to savour them – that can boost wellbeing. And the research looked at people who can and people who can’t savour the moments of life, and who are perhaps more inclined to feel depressed.

“It’s important to consider not just how much emotion you experience, but also how long these emotions persist,” said researcher Aaron Heller, University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Miami. He added: “We’re looking at how one person can savour a great deal from that beautiful sunset or a memorable meal, but how another person who might be susceptible to depression can’t savour that sunset and those positive emotions subside quickly.”

The study looked at how the effect of a positive emotion on neural pathways in the brain, even if it lasts for a few seconds. The research found it could “predict the persistence of a person’s positive emotion minutes and hours later… [leading to] a growing understanding of how mental disorders such as depression might be manifested in the brain”.

The study explored sending frequent prompts sent to people via their smartphones, to help embed positive emotions more regularly and efficiently. The researchers also suggested that meditation, and showing kindness and compassion to others, could impact on an individual’s ability to savour the moments – and the positive emotions – of life.

Women suffer more summertime stress than men, says study

Planning a holiday and keeping everyone add can add to female summertime stress

Planning a holiday and keeping everyone happy can add to female summertime stress

Holiday season has started: traditionally a time for sun, sea, sand – and stress, especially if you’re a woman. Or at least that’s what figures from a travel company survey suggest.

Research among 1000 people by Momondo shows that women are far more likely to be stressed than men when it comes to planning holidays (33% of women compared with 23% of men). The same percentage of women and men endured stress during the journey and getting to the destination. Overall, 54% of people feel more relaxed while on holiday, but one in four women still felt stressed about some aspect of their holiday while they were meant to be enjoying it. Four in 10 men admitted that they felt no stress whatsoever regarding their holiday (planning, getting there and coming home) compared with a quarter of women.

Momondo said: “Commonly women may be more involved with the organisation and planning stage of a trip, which can involve some skill in balancing a group’s expectations and budgets. This could result in some anxiety in connection to the holiday.” The company offers some tips on how to have a stress-free holiday.

Two of the best tips are: remembering to unplug and leave your work at home; and lowering your expectations. It’s pointless piling pressure on yourself to create the perfect holiday for everyone else. Let go of responsibility and have a good time too.

Can there ever be a timescale for “getting over” a bereavement?

Is it possible to put a day and time on when you’ll feel better after a bereavement?

I’ve always taken the view that bereavement has no timescale attached to it. The day will come when the pain alleviates, but it won’t disappear for good. Grief is for life. And we learn to live with it. I believe that we grieve for as long as we need to, even when the rest of the world believes we should be “getting over it”. Whatever “over it” means.

However, new research from a charity that offers end-of-life care is challenging my views. A survey of 2053 people by the Sue Ryder charity, which offers support and advice on death, dying and bereavement, has calculated the amount of time it takes to feel better after a bereavement: two years, one month and four days. Crucially, the research found that people who had someone to talk to about their grief would recover far more quickly than people who couldn’t open up about it. People with no support grieved, on average, for nearly three years (an extra eight months, three weeks and five days compared with people who could speak about their feelings).

Significant stats from the Sue Ryder survey include:

A third said bereavement had a negative effect on their wellbeing, with some considering suicide.
A quarter suffered in silence, bottling up emotions that would then explode at a later date.
People aged 45-54 took twice as long to feel better than 16-24-year-olds.
Women take longer than men to feel better: two years and four months compared with one year and nine months.
One in four men said they couldn’t talk about bereavement with anyone, compared with one in seven women.
One in 10 people were too embarrassed to admit they were scared or upset.

The Sue Ryder charity is offering an online forum for support following a bereavement, as it may be easier to open up anonymously if embarrassment kicks in at not being able to “cope”.

My view is that one’s bereavement is one’s bereavement. The length of time it takes to grieve depends on the circumstances of the death, the attachment you had to the person who’s died, and how you feel about yourself at the time. Reaching out for help can be a lifeline. But only you can know when the time is right for you.

Can stress really be friend not foe?

Don’t fight stress and it can point you in the right direction, say US psychologists. (pic courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net)

Relying on coping strategies to avoid stress – rather than embracing stress as a natural and welcome part of our everyday lives – could be causing us more problems in the short and long term, according to US psychologists from Stanford. They argue that stress can be more helpful than harmful, if you only change your stress mindset.

That might initially seem like an upside-down concept, particularly given the rise in recent years of mindfulness-based stress reduction courses and other stress management techniques to help quieten the mind, calm the breathing, and tame the anxious thoughts. But the Stanford research proposes that resisting stress through avoidance or procrastination, or amplifying it through catastrophic or destructive thinking, can increase instances of depression, divorce, job loss etc. In other words, all the consequences the stressed-out person is desperately seeking to avoid.

How I interpret the research is that the psychologists are suggesting we come to view stress as a way to help us meet our challenges rather than be defeated or victimised by them. Yes, they acknowledge that stress is responsible for some rather unpleasant physical and emotional consequences. Yet they argue that stress (or the response to adrenalin in fight or flight mode) is there to help us stand up to our difficulties rather than feel we need to run from them. Importantly, we don’t need to feel crushed by the weight of life’s injustices, or fear that our stress levels are another sign that we’re weak and unable to cope.

Here are three further key points from the research that I believe provide insight: (more…)

What are you planting today to help you believe in tomorrow?

How does your psychological garden grow?

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” This is one of the most memorable quotes from one of the world’s most iconic women, Audrey Hepburn, whose 86th birthday would have been today. It’s a quote about inspiration, and about trusting that the seeds you sow today will one day blossom into something beautiful and meaningful.

While Audrey Hepburn’s quote has been related to the humanitarian work she did for children, from a psychotherapy perspective all kinds of shoots can spring forth from this rich metaphor. Some I have in mind are these:

What types of thoughts are taking root in your mind? Benign, helpful ones that will later bud into positive beliefs – or negative, destructive thoughts that will build resentment and breed rot in your flowerbeds?
Are you eyeing up your neighbour’s flowers – as spring breathes life into gardens across your neighbourhood – wishing you could have what they have? Or do you want to trample on them in the spirit of envy because the grass isn’t greener in your life?
Are your entrenched behaviours beginning to stifle the significant others in your life, like ivy around a tree?
Is your prickliness spreading like a bramble, ready to trip people up?
Are you primped and prepared for everyday weathers? Or are you wild and unwieldy like an overgrown garden?

Do you wish you could bloom like a peony, rather than twist like a thorn – but don’t know how? Are you ready to dig around in your psyche for clues as to how your life can change, and plant something more positive for your future? Then psychotherapy could be for you.

To take the first steps in helping your psychological garden to grow, call 07956 823501 or email davanticounselling@gmail.com

Suffering from writer’s block? Try writing about the block to shift it

Writing about your writer’s block can help shift the block and get to the point.

I always love it when writers share their tips on how they overcome writer’s block – especially when they joke that other professions (eg plumbers, dentists etc) don’t suffer blocks. They just rock up and get on with their jobs rather than waiting for the muse to strike.

In a recent Shortlist article with 20 tips from writers on writer’s block, writers recommend discipline, just getting on with it, imagining you’re writing for a friend or family member, and writing a first draft knowing that no one will see it.

The tip I’ve found from experience that can work extremely well comes from Charles Bukowski, who says: (more…)

Can we be happy without feeling guilty?

Why does your happiness get judged, criticised or called selfish? What would happen if you allowed yourself to be happy – no strings attached? (pic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/Stuart Miles

What would happen if you allowed yourself to be happy – no strings attached? (pic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/Stuart Miles

As it’s the International Day of Happiness – a time for us all to reflect on what happiness means – I can say that the predominant aim of clients coming for private therapy is to feel happy. There is a lack in their lives, or a block, and if only that lack or block would move out the way – or, if other people in their lives would change – then they’d be happy. Yet very often that lack or block isn’t because of other people. It lies within.

I see it in clients who would love to do something creative – like write, draw, sing, dance, cook, paint, colouring in. Whatever makes them happy. Yet they say they’re “not creative” or “it won’t lead anywhere”. And so the potential happiness they could gain – from creating something unique that wouldn’t exist had they not created it – remains lost, unsaid, unwritten, unpainted, unsung.

People who yearn to feel happy can often feel selfish if (more…)

New campaign challenges ‘headclutcher’ images of depression

Time to Change is calling on the media to stop using stereotypical ‘headclutcher’ images to depict depression. (image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/Jeanne Claire Maarbes)

What does a depressed person look like? Permanently sad, often clutching their heads, much like this person in this picture to the left? It’s the stereotypical image that’s likely to spring to mind when thinking of someone with depression. But a new campaign from Time to Change, called Get the Picture, wants the media to think differently about how they depict depression.

Its poll of 2000 people revealed that:

80% of people don’t believe that ‘headclutching’ photos tell the truth about what it feels to have a mental health problem.
Images showing suicide may trigger suicidal feelings (among a third of people who responded to the poll).
Most importantly, people with mental health problems don’t look depressed all the time.

I agree with Time to Change that to continue to show depression in this cliched way merely exacerbates the stigma around mental illness. Members of the public are invited to take part in the campaign by taking a fun ‘headclutcher’ selfie and tweet it with the hashtage #GoodbyeHeadclutcher.

I will do my bit by being more creative when researching images to illustrate this blog.

Only the lonely? Five strategies to help tackle social isolation

Life is so short. Share your heart and spend time with people who count. (pic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/StuartMiles)

Ever had that moment when you’re in a group of people you don’t particularly connect with, and you’ve never felt more alone? Find yourself retreating to your bedroom more and more, so you can avoid social situations and be on our own? Or just prefer your own company to other people’s?

These scenarios can happen to anyone. Yet while planning some ‘me’ time in your diary can help you build resilience and feel emotionally robust, it’s when these tendencies for ‘alone time’ overshadow the impetus to socialise that issues can emerge. Increasing feelings of isolation when surrounded by friends or acquaintances – or a bigger preference to be on your own, to the exclusion of other people – can lead to bigger problems down the line. Even health problems, according to a recent study. Loneliness can be a bigger killer than obesity or smoking 20 a day. And don’t believe that feelings of social isolation are just for the elderly, either.

Research from Brigham Young University highlights the health worries for people who are lonely or socially isolated – and that means anyone of any age, size, culture or disposition. The obvious but often seemingly unachievable antidote to loneliness is to reach out to to others. Lead study author Julianne Holt-Lunstad says: “We need to start taking our social relationships more seriously.”

But how to reach out socially when you feel unable or unwilling to do so? Here are my five tips for starting to combat loneliness: (more…)

Redundancy can create long-lasting trust issues

Losing your job can make it difficult for you to trust people again. (photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/pakorn)

Losing your job can create such deep scars in your self-esteem that it can take you 10 years to be able to trust people again. Not even a new job can heal the wound or help you regain a sense of self, according to a study of 7,000 British adults by the University of Manchester.

Social scientist Dr James Laurence found that being laid off can create “a decade of distrust” – and the cynicism doesn’t go away even when the person made redundant returns to employment. He said: “People’s willingness to trust others tends to remain largely stable over their lifetime. However, this work shows that trauma like redundancy can shift people’s outlook of the world and this change persists long after the experience occurred.”

Losing your job can feel traumatic, especially if your identity and self-esteem are wrapped up in the work you do. Redundancy can bring up all kinds of feelings of failure and shame, and the study shows that the impact can be long lasting. When the sense of self is punctured, it can take a long time for the trauma to be processed and for the person to feel whole again.

If you’re suffering the effects of redundancy and would like to regain trust in others and faith in yourself, email or call Karen on 07956 823501 to book a confidential counselling appointment.