What was the last good, positive thing that happened to you? Perhaps it made you smile or dance around the room or maybe even want to shout it from the rooftops. We all want to feel good, both in the moment and about our lives in general. And most of us do this automatically by using strategies to help savour those precious happy times.

Research suggests we don’t always use the best strategies to feel good. In fact some strategies heighten good feelings and overall satisfaction, while others can reduce them. Quoidbach et al. (2010) call these savouring and dampening strategies. They carried out some research to see

which were most effective and how they affect both our thoughts and feelings.

Here are the standard four savouring strategies that we tend to use. Each is paired with the corresponding dampening strategy:

1. Showing you’re happy

Savour: If you’re happy and you know it…then smile! Our physical actions feed back into how we feel and displaying happiness makes us feel even happier. This is known as embodied cognition: check out this article on 10 Postures That Boost Performance.

Dampen: But sometimes people don’t like to show they’re happy. Whether it’s because of fear, shyness or modesty, people do hide their positive emotions. Whatever the reason, it’s likely to make us less happy if we suppress our positive emotions.

2. Being present

Savour: Our minds naturally wander, even when we’re busy (see this article: Does Keeping Busy Make Us Happy?). But if we can keep focused on what we’re doing now we’ll feel better.

Dampen: Distraction is the enemy of savouring. Instead of enjoying what’s happening now, our minds wander off. Unfortunately we quite often wander off to our worries. This dampens down the positive emotion we feel.

3. Celebrating

Savour: If something good happens then make sure you celebrate it by telling others. By capitalising on our success (or luck) when it comes along, we increase our positive emotions. So, throw a party!

Dampen: Instead of celebrating, though, sometimes people look for faults. Yes, they say to themselves, this was good, but it could have been better. This tends to reduce life satisfaction, optimism, self-esteem and happiness. Avoiding nit-picking will lead to more enjoyment.

4. Using positive mental time travel

Savour: Although our minds often wander to depressing subjects, they can also wander to good things. We can remember good times and anticipate upcoming events. I’ve often thought that one of the secrets of life is to try and always have something to look forward to, no matter how small it is.

Dampen: The other side of the coin is that our minds can just as easily take us back to past embarrassments or forward to imagined future irritations. The more we can resist this, clearly the happier we’ll be.

What works best?

All of these are very familiar but which savouring strategies work best and which dampening strategies are the most detrimental?

Quoidbach et al. found that positive mental time travel and being present were most strongly associated with heightened pleasure. The interesting thing is that these are opposite strategies: one involves focusing on the here and now while the other involves drifting off somewhere else.

The fact that both work is probably because most people feel happy enough the majority of the time and, if they don’t, they can wander off in their mind somewhere else fun.

So that’s our feelings in the moment, but what about our thoughts, our evaluations of how we’re doing: our life satisfaction? The best savouring strategy for increasing our life satisfaction was capitalising. According to this research there’s nothing better than celebrating our wins for helping us feel our lives are going well.

On the other hand fault-finding and letting the mind wander to negative events are most likely to reduce our satisfaction with life.

Overall this study found that there was no one silver bullet to maximising your positive emotions and life satisfaction. Some strategies were better than others, but overall the people who were happiest were those who were flexible with which strategy they used.

So if you want to feel better for more of the time then try out all of these strategies at different times and in different situations. The more you can adaptively boost (and avoid dampening) good feelings, the better you’ll feel.

( Source: psyblog.com)

source: stock photo 123rf.com

Simone de Beauvoir once said: “To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won.”

To feel like life is somehow accidental or without meaning forms one of the primary symptoms of depression: a loss of pleasure, a loss of connection, a loss of hope.  It would be difficult to live happily beset by the idea that life is meaningless. Meaning is how you create your life and give it purpose. Meaning is very personal – giving life meaning involves being aware of your choices, being cognisant that simple things can be meaningful. Having purpose helps you find meaning.

Finding purpose is actually one of the most rewarding activities in being human – yet how do you strive toward purposefulness? Fully? Partially? Just as an aside? Consider the worst case scenario: if life is pointless, doesn’t that free you? Can’t you play, Be, celebrate moments of existence because one day your life will end – it will be gone. We spend much of our time avoiding this fact. The beauty of the moment, if consciously realised and acknowledged, attended to and engaged, offers freedom. Our time here is precious – literally irreplaceable. So live authentically. Use your existential freedom to engage with life and experiment with new perspectives. Stuck in traffic? Instead of getting angry practice following your breath, attending to it freely, without changing it – just noticing it. The breath is the anchor of the mind. By attending to your breath, your mind and your ‘self’ – the time at the traffic lights will not be wasted.

Do you look for patterns in your life? Do things happen to you that seem to connect one thing to the other?  This is part of your creative voice:  you can certainly put things to work as fodder for your own personal evolution. When you read something, record your thoughts – start a journal. Give voice to your wanderings through the world, your musings, your connections, the things that happen out of the blue – your opportunities.

Uncertainty need not be a bad thing, although many people struggle with tolerating a sense of ambiguity. Many clinical disorders, particularly those involving anxiety are in part defined by people’s desire for clarity and closure – the sense they have ‘completed’ something. Raising tolerance for ambiguity – being prepared to acknowledge your fear or your anxiety is potentially an opportunity for learning new self-care skills for example.

The mind seeks meaningfulness. The mind is wonderfully organic and constructive by nature – it seeks to find threads, looks to follow and find connections. Trials and difficulties often set us on a course for discovering. The expectations of this journey are yours to make – be it one simple lesson to learn in life.

Of yourself, hope to live as fully as possible. Play around with the idea of acknowledging and opening to the difficult parts of life rather than struggling with them. Difficulties don’t just detract from your quality of life they can give you a challenge to overcome. There can be opportunities in the ‘shadow side’ of life if you are willing to let go of the struggle and learn acceptance, mindfulness, letting-go, and putting the shadow side to work for you creatively.

I must be perfect.                                                                                                          

Everything I do should go easily and without effort.

It’s safer to do nothing than to take a risk and fail.

I should have no limitations.

If it’s not done right, it’s not worth doing at all.

I must avoid being challenged.

If I succeed, someone will get hurt.

If I do well this time, I must always do well.

Following someone else’s rules means that I’m giving in and I’m not in control.

I can’t afford to let go of anything or anyone.

If I show my real self, people won’t like me.

There is a right answer, and I’ll wait until I find it.

Procrastination causing you distress? Start your journey of understanding and grab a copy of Procrastination: Why you Do it. What to do about it NOW. Jane B Burka., & Lenora Yuen. This is a fantastic book based on years of clinical experience. Super insightful, and super helpful for anyone who procrastinates out of habit or even just a little bit.

Dr Simone Hughes features a creative non-fiction piece on bulimia called ‘Stuck’ in the latest issue of dotdotdash magazine, Sacred (no 7).  Bulimia is an insidious condition characterised by uncontrolled binge-eating and the use of compensatory practices to offset the binge such as purging and laxative abuse.  Although the condition is predominantly experienced by females – 1 in 10 sufferers are male.

Bulimia is a complex disorder. It is often maintained by the sufferers attempt to control and manage their negative emotions. The condition involves a degree of shame that is overwhelming for the sufferer and this tends to interfere in their getting help.  The person with bulimia is often impulsive, with a low frustration tolerance and they may be temperamentally predisposed toward ‘addictive’ behaviours. Bulimia may be effectively treated by a clinical psychologist and anti-depressant medication can be useful in reducing the impulse of binging. Building self-esteem, learning about negative thinking styles and exploring other ways of functional emotional expression are often key elements in treatment.

Title: Spousonomics. Or how to maximize returns on the biggest investment of your life.

Authors: Paula Szuchman & Jenny Anderson

www.rbooks.co.uk

pp. 332.   Circa: 2011

FIND OUT MORE: http://www.spousonomics.com/

Sick of the fights? Sick of things NEVER changing? Sick of feeling unheard and misunderstood in your relationship?

Spousonomics is a practical and funny book about the economics of love. It looks at the laws of supply and demand and applies economic thought (like ideas on the status quo)  in a fun way to kick-start your relationship and sex life. It takes Game Theory and helps you redefine out-dated ideas of winning in negotiations and relationship conflicts. The book is well researched with its own inbuilt survey data collated to highlight its primary thesis. For example, 53% of people keep arguing even after they start repeating themselves! 34% keep fighting even after they can’t remember what they’re fighting about and 34% keep fighting even after they know they’re wrong!

Irrational? Well. Yes.

This book looks at the complications of  the age-old problem of ‘I WANT’ ‘YOU WANT’ in relationships. It gives a fresh twist to bettering your relational bonds and shows you how to maximize the good-stuff. It’s not written by psychologists but by Paula Szuchman who is the Page One Editor of the Wall Street Journal and Jenny Anderson who is a New York Times reporter. They are both married and both have struggled with the usual tyrannies: deprivations of energy, libido, struggling with children and money trickiness, absences of empathy —

Let’s take a look at the text … “Sometimes our sense that we’re losing stems simply from the way a choice is framed…Frame a choice differently and you might change your mind about which path to take. You might also feel open to compromise. That’s because our willingness to compromise has a lot to do with whether we think we’re losing or whether we see the potential for a gain.” (pp. 53-55).

Sounds rational? YES. Spousonomics addresses the irrationality that can plague our decision making. It uses funny vignettes, clever graphs and facts and figures, and provides solutions to get you breathing life into any dwindling flame. The perspective taken in this book is based on the premise There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.

Chapters cover topics such as Divisions of Labour, Loss aversion,  Supply and Demand, Moral Hazards in relationships, Incentives for getting your partner to do what you want, Trade-offs, and many other powerful strategies for change such as using signals, gifting to your partner and letting go to enhance your enjoyment and connection.

I like.

Highly recommended. * * * * *

Mindfulness is a nonjudgmental ‘centred’ awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the field of attention is acknowledged and accepted as it is. Preoccupation with worries, blaming, resentfulness, perfectionism, self-criticism, denial and so on are the types of negative mental activities that fuel anxiety and depression.  The skills of Mindfulness are useful for bringing a greater sense of ease and direction to this mental chatter.

To benefit from Mindfulness it is not necessary to change your world-view.  The practice is about learning to focus and shift your attention. You can choose to focus your attention on the present moment or you can choose to focus it elsewhere.

Try this Mindfulness exercise and focus on a single minute:  To begin, find a comfortable place to sit in a room where you won’t be disturbed and turn off any distracting sounds. Start timing yourself with a watch or stopwatch. Then, without counting the seconds or looking at the watch, simply sit wherever you are. When you think a minute has passed, check the watch again, or stop the time. Note how much has really passed.

Did you find it difficult to sit quietly for a minute? Did a minute seem like a long time or a short period of time?  Did you feel hurried or relaxed? What attention did you give to your thoughts?

In practice, Mindfulness is about developing curiosity and interest in your experiences. Take something like the washing up. You may not enjoy washing up! But if you practice Mindfulness while you wash up, you may find that you connect at a deeper level with the experience. Washing up when done mindfully can become an enjoyable activity! The feeling of the water on your hands, the movement of washing, it can almost seem like it is a baby you are bathing, carefully and surely, instead of the dirty dishes.

Noticing and Focusing. These are two skills you can learn in Mindfulness practice. You can notice more fully the world around you and focus your attention on your breathing. Your breath is always in the present moment and by focusing on it, you shift your attention to the present moment. If you find your mind wandering off, you can bring your attention back to the present moment.

Mindfulness-based skills are increasingly being taught by clinical psychologists through therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).  If you would like to discuss opportunities to learn Mindfulness practice further, please contact Dr Simone Hughes.

I SHOP, THEREFORE I AM: SHOPPING ADDICTION…

Do you feel out of control when you shop? Do you shop to fill an emotional void? Do you feel irritable or tense when your impulse to spend is curbed? Credit cards, online shopping and cash machines flood the retail market so that today’s consumer can buy immediately and on impulse. Did you know that compulsive buying is estimated to impact on 8% of the population, but some estimates suggest shopping addiction could impact on up to half of the population. Up to 60% of people with a shopping addiction are grappling with huge debts and 40% are unable to pay back their debts. Fifty percent suffer from significant guilt after making a purchase and report that about half of the items they buy never get used. On average, a person with a shopping addiction will experience seventeen out of control buying-experiences per month…

Want to find out more? Creative Focus features an article on Shopping Addiction in the March edition of Swan Magazine.

Strike a blow to the ordinary and mundane and choose more meaningful life options. Simplicity Circles are for people who are interested in rekindling their sense of joy while reducing their ecological footprint. They are for people who want to live a balanced, happier, and more genuine life. As part of a Simplicity Circle you will be invited to rethink your values, life balance and attachments. The group will help you promote a less competitive lifestyle and help you to live in a way that is sustainable for both the environment, the individual and family. We will use group discussions, values discovery and recovery, art techniques and journaling to encourage you to find new ways of living mindfully and meaningfully.

If you would like to register your interest please contact us. Dr Hughes will send you further information.  Go lightly…

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Creative Focus is interested in expanding the network of resources available to people with a passion for the arts, crafts, and creative writing. We want to help grow the cultural tenacity of your life and we are exploring a range of online options to help us achieve this goal. Find us on Facebook and Twitter.