‘The secret to happiness is
flowing not forcing.’
Unknown
The beginning of a new year is traditionally
the time for resolutions and resolves to change our life. Although I have
always been a bit skeptical about New Year’s
resolutions (as it seems that most of them are broken within the first couple
of months), the beginning of this year simultaneously marks the end of this
blog, and therefore, this seems to be a good time for a
little recap.
So below is a list of my Top Tips for
increasing the level of subjective well-being and fulfillment in our future
life. As regular blog readers will know, there is little point in waiting for
our life to become perfect- because there is just no perfection in the real
word, at least not in the long run. Therefore, it is a question of an ongoing
process of adjusting certain habits, behaviours and mindsets.
The tips
represent the points that I find personally most important, but the list is of
course by no means exhaustive (otherwise it would not have taken me almost a
whole year to go through all topics associated with well-being individually). All
points are based on previous posts, which you can access by
clicking on the enclosed links.
My Top Ten Tips for
well-being
- Do not try to seek eternal
happiness- happiness cannot be directly pursued. It
arises indirectly when you live well. The points below are a good guide for this.
- Get the
basics right: Get enough sleep. Exercise
and eat well. Spend time in nature.
This is not optional. All these things have been proven to support healthy
brain function, which is absolutely essential in order to feel well. See also
the post Don't Forget The Basics, Self-Control, Food For Thought
& The Great Outdoors.
- Build and deepen positive connections
to other people. Right after the basic physical needs, this is
the most important factor for our well-being. Spend time together and talk. Be
kind to others and let others help you. Look for people who are supportive and allow
you to grow. See also the posts about Improving Relationships With Others , Me, We, Them- What Drives Our Decision Making and Empathy and Compassion. Regarding the
difficult people: See them as a challenge (not a threat), but don’t spend more
time with them than necessary. For more information go to: Understanding Interpersonal Difficulties, No Need To Shout 1 & No Need To Shout 2.
- Be kind to yourself. Self-Compassion is a strength and has nothing to do with
self-pity!
- Be clear about your values,
priorities and goals- they give your life meaning. If you
are unsure about your values, completing the signature strengths test may help
you to get a clearer idea. See also the post About Finding Meaning.
- Change
what you can change, but when you cannot change something then let it go and
forgive. I have found this point really helpful. It is
easy to waste a lot of time and energy lamenting things on which we have no
influence, and it is a lot wiser to focus this energy on something positive and
productive. Working Out What To Do, Forgiveness & Acceptance can give some further ideas.
- Be grateful for what you have, even the little things. Practicing gratitude (rather than regretting what we don't have) is one of the fastest ways to increase our subjective well-being. See also the
post on Gratitude.
- Stay optimistic and hopeful (but
not too much!). To learn more about finding the right balance, see Hope and Optimism.
- Learn to deal with difficult
situations, your weaknesses, mistakes, failures and errors.
Long-term happiness and well-being are only possible if learn to cope with adversity
and are able to look at ourselves, others and the world openly and honestly ‘warts
and all’: Courage, Dealing With The Darker Days, Perfectionism, Self-Compassion and About Resilience 2.
- Live mindfully and meditate- there
is plenty of scientific evidence showing that mindfulness and meditation
practices have a large variety of beneficial effects, and if you would like to
focus on just one activity to improve your life, then this is a good starting
point. See the previous post on Mindfulness. Some further updates on
meditation and mindfulness can be found below.
If you like, you can use above tips as a
guideline for any changes you may want to make to your life in the coming year.
However, remember that most (New Year’s) resolutions fail, because we want to
achieve too much too quickly. Instead, the secret of success often lies in
making little and incremental, but consistent changes towards a goal. With some
patience and persistence, we can then achieve a slow but lasting
transformation.
This is particularly true as we cannot achieve
happiness by directly striving for it, as suggested by the quote above in the
introduction: When we try too hard, we will not get there.
Mindfulness revisited
From all topics discussed on the blog, I have
personally found the topic of mindfulness and meditation most fascinating and
revealing. Although I had thought that I was aware of the benefits of
mindfulness practices for quite some time, it turns out that I had in fact only
just scratched the surface. However, the excellent books Full
Catastrophe Living: How To Cope With Stress, Pain and Illness Using Mindfulness
Meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn and The Science of
Meditation: How to Change Your Brain, Mind and Body by Daniel
Goleman and Richard J Davidson have given me a deeper understanding of the
potential of these techniques, and I thought that you may be interested in an
update on this topic.
One
of the difficulties with mindfulness and meditation is that they are difficult
to describe to other people, who have not come across them before. So here is
another try:
At
the most basic level, mindfulness
may be described as a way of living,
where we pay attention to present moment experiences (including
mental/emotional experiences and body sensations) with a compassionate, open
and accepting attitude.1 Mindfulness can be learnt through different
mindfulness exercises and meditations (see below). However, mindfulness does
not necessarily require these practices, as it is also possible to be mindful
in our daily lives by staying in the moment and actively observing our
moment-to-moment experiences. There are different variations of mindfulness.
Probably the best researched mindfulness-based intervention is Mindfulness
Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which has been developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn a few
decades ago. MBSR consists of a combination of different meditations and
exercises which are taught over a period of 8 weeks, after which time
participants are encouraged to continue with regular meditation.2
Meditation can be most
broadly thought of as a form of mental
training, just as sport can be described as physical training.3
However, as you all know, there are many different types of sport. And
similarly, although the most commonly practiced meditations have their roots in
Yoga and Buddhist spiritual traditions, there are many different types of
meditations (e.g. breathing meditations, observation of thoughts and emotions,
transcendental meditation). Furthermore, as with physical exercise, these meditations
can be practiced to different levels from the ad hoc, intermittent exerciser
over the more serious ‘leisure’ sportsman to Olympic level so to speak.
In
terms of the duration of effects of meditation, it is possible to differentiate
between transient effects which only occur temporarily during the meditation
practice itself (state effect),
whereas it is also possible to induce lasting changes, which change how we
behave and think in our daily life even outside the times of meditation (trait effect).3 The trait
effect is made possible by neuroplasticity,
a phenomenon that we have previously discussed on the blog. Neuroplasticity means
that our experiences physically change the connections of nerve cells in our
brains. This may not have measurable effects with a single, non-traumatic experience
but with focused and repeated mental practice (such as meditation), we can
re-shape our brain in a way, which causes noticeable and lasting changes.
Now,
the interesting thing is that the specific
type of effect that we can expect from meditation practice and the strength and
duration of the effect (state vs trait effect) very much depend on the type
of meditation that we practice and on the time
that we put into the practice.3
For
example, meditations with an emphasis on
focusing attention on breathing and/or body sensations decrease mind-wandering,
whereas observation of thought
meditations increase our meta-awareness (meaning that we consciously think
about thoughts and emotions, which makes us feel less entangled in them), while
loving kindness meditations (where
we evoke warm feelings of compassion for ourselves and others) increase positive emotions.3
Furthermore, during the meditation itself, breathing meditation tends to have a
relaxing effect (decreasing the heart rate) whereas observing thoughts and loving-kindness
meditations are not necessarily relaxing and may even increase the heart rate.
As
a general rule, trait effects are generally only observed in regular
meditators.2,3 Although brief exercises (e.g. on mobile phone Apps)
may have a temporary relaxing effect, they are unlikely to lead to longer
lasting changes.
However,
is we are prepared to put in more practice, there are many further potential benefits,
which may include (depending on the chosen practices): An overall increased
subjective well-being; improved emotion regulation and increased mental and
physical resilience; better interpersonal relationships; improved concentration,
memory and reaction times; a reduction in anxiety, depression, hypertension and
stress; reduction in chronic pain.2,3 Regular (daily) meditation practice
can therefore help us to find inner balance and wisdom, which can help us in
daily life.
Despite
these potentially immense benefits, it has to be stressed that meditation is not
for everybody. Some people simply do not get on with it. More seriously, occasional
adverse effects have been reported (also called ‘Dark Night Phenomenon’)
although meditation (including mindfulness programs) is generally considered to
be a safe form of mental training. These are rare, but can be serious ranging
from severe panic attacks to the feeling of depersonalization and psychotic states.
Harmful effects are more likely to occur in meditators with pre-existing mental
health issues and in participants of intensive training retreats lasting
several days. It is therefore advised that people with a history of mental
illness should practice meditation only after assessment by an experienced
instructor and not during an acute episode of illness.4
To return to the analogy of sport, it takes
some training to become fit, and if we have not exercised for a very long time or
have some sort of ailment then it may be better to do the training under
qualified instruction in order to avoid injury. However, whereas we often have
a very goal-orientated approach with physical exercise, mindfulness and
meditation practices call for a non-striving attitude in order to become better
at them. Again, this is very similar to the paradoxical effect that direct striving
for happiness will actually slow us down in achieving just this. With
mindfulness this makes a lot of sense, as the essence of a mindful life is to
be present in the moment, with an open and accepting attitude towards new
experiences (being mode) rather than trying to strive and control (doing mode).
When taking up mindfulness and/or meditation
training, it is therefore advisable to do this with an open mind and not in
order to achieve any specific benefit that I have listed above. This is also
captured in a Buddhist joke:
A Zen student went to a temple and asked how
long it would take him to gain enlightenment if he joined the
temple.
"Ten years," said the Zen master.
"Well, how about if I really work hard and double
my effort?"
"Twenty years."
If you are interested in a mindful start in the New Year and setting long-term intentions, you may also be interested in this article, which was sent in by a good friend and blog follower: https://jackkornfield.com/dedication-and-long-term-intention/. Jack Kornfield's website also contains many other interesting articles on the topic of meditation.
You could also sign up to a mindfulness course. If you live in the UK then you find an appropriately qualified and accredited teacher near you via this website: https://www.mindfulnessteachersuk.org.uk/uk-listing/
Preview: Next week we have
reached the end of the Good Life Campaign blog, but you can look forward to a
downloadable PDF ‘eBook’.
References and further evidence-based reading:
1. Williams
M, Penman D. Mindfulness: A Practical Guide To Finding Peace In A Frantic
World. Hachette Digital Little, Brown Book Group; London, UK. 2011.
2.
Kabat-Zinn J: Full Catastrophe Living: How To Cope With Stress, Pain and
Illness Using Mindfulness Meditation. Piatkus. 2013.
3. Goleman D,
Davidson RJ. The Science of Meditation: How to Change Your Brain, Mind and
Body. Penguin Random House UK, 2017.
If you found this
information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it
is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good
deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this
because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this
post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad!
Donations are in aid of the International Rescue Committee and the World Veterinary Service
