Have you got the Happiness Habit?

In my recent posting on Positive Psychology and Coaching I referred to Sonja Lyubomirsky's new book, "The How of Happiness".

The video clip from 20/20 is a great intro to the science behind the book. The case of the identical twins is fascinating isn't it?

On Tuesday I was fortunate enough to take part in a telephone seminar with Professor Lyubomirsky, in which she outlined the key messages from the book. The things which I found most interesting were:

1) that happiness takes effort - i.e. you need to be prepared to work at it; it may not come naturally

2) according to Lyubomirsky, you need to ensure that you choose the strategies which you're comfortable with. Some may not be your cup of tea. She readily admits to finding the Gratitude exercise difficult. If that's the case try something else.

3) whatever strategies you find work for you need to become habits - things that you do on a regular basis without thinking about it, like cleaning your teeth twice a day. How will you get the happiness habit?

4) some of the strategies which have been empirically validated, like gratitude, savouring and acts of kindness, may sound corny and trivial, but they do work. Plus, you have nothing to lose by trying them for a few weeks.

Let us know how you get on with her 'Person/Activity Fit' diagnostic tool (p73) and the various strategies you choose as a result.


Thanks to Christine Duvivier for the links.

The Benefit of Saying "Thank You"

Have you written your thank-you letters for all the gifts you received this Christmas?

You might be interested to know that there's been a great deal of research into the benefits of gratitude; grateful people, for example, report higher levels of life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and positive emotions, as well as lower levels of depression and stress*. I've talked about gratitude in several postings before, covered new ways of expressing gratitude, and looked specifically at Peterson's 10 minute exercise to increase your well-being by identifying the things you're thankful for.

This 30 minute BBC Radio 4 programme today explores the subject both for those people expressing their thanks, and for the people being thanked. It's well worth listening to for some real-life insight into the research.


* McCullough, Emmons & Tsang (2002)

Thanksgiving in 21st Century

Most people know that Thanksgiving is celebrated in North America on the 4th Thursday in November (i.e. last Thursday 22nd), and also in Canada in early October. Like our own Harvest Festival in September, this traditional holiday is an opportunity to give thanks for all the things that you have at the conclusion of the harvest season, both tangible and intangible.

In this New York Times article last week, journalist Henry Fountain considers Thanksgiving 21st Century style - via the practice of keeping a Gratitude Diary. We've talked about gratitude several times before; there's increasing empirical evidence to show that being grateful in a mindful way, for example through a diary or a letter, increases your well-being.

What I like about Fountain's article is the acknowledgement that giving thanks is simple but not easy, it requires some effort and self-discipline.

I think this is a very important message to get across to the Victor Meldrew's of this world*; happiness isn't something that just happens, despite what you often see in films and magazines, you actively need to do something. That something varies from person to person, although Positive Psychology is giving us a lot to go on.
So if you haven't tried it, I challenge you to keep a gratitude diary for three weeks, and see what a difference it makes.


PS You might like to know that there is a Victor Meldrew Appreciation Club on the business networking site Ecademy...and yes, it is British....




Thanks to Viv Thackray for the link

Positive Interventions - Gratitude

A new slant on the Gratitude Diary.

There is empirical research to suggest that writing a Gratitude Diary is an effective positive intervention; most studies to date have concentrated on writing a Gratitude Diary on a daily or weekly basis; we have blogged about this before, in March, June and August. Today a friend and fellow UEL MAPP student, Paul Marshall, sent me this five minute gratitude video, with the suggestion that you download it onto your ipod and play it every morning in order to enhance well-being.

I'm not sure if it will be as effective as writing down what you're grateful for, because the act of writing in itself is known to be extremely important in processing information, however, why not give it a try for a week and let us know whether you notice any difference in your level of well-being?

P.S. Sometimes the Gratitude Diary intervention is referred to as 'Counting Your Blessings'. If you're considering using it with a coaching client, you might want to think about what to call it beforehand as there are religious/spiritual connotations to the latter which may not be suitable in your particular situation.

Using Your Strengths in New Ways - 3

How to Use Your Top 5 Character Strengths in New Ways - Part 3. If you've just completed the VIA-IS online survey and are wondering what to do with your Top 5 Strengths, read on...

There's increasing research to show that focusing on your strengths at work rather than on your weaknesses brings huge benefits, not just to yourself but also to your organisation. As mentioned in one of our previous posts, companies like Norwich Union are using strengths-based approaches successfully in the business, for example in recruitment. Other organisations are focusing on strengths for personal development, using them as the basis for the Annual Appraisal, for example. It gives employees a boost of confidence and really helps them feel good about themselves, in a way that leads to further performance improvements.

In the last couple of posts we've looked at new ways of applying strengths (from the VIA-IS online survey, not from the Clifton StrengthsFinder, which actually measures talents). Today we continue on this theme with six more strengths. Try picking one activity from one of your Top 5, and stick with it for a couple of weeks. If you find it isn't working after a day or so, try something else.

LEADERSHIP:
i) Organise a social get-together for your team or department
ii) Go out of your way to make a new colleague feel welcome
iii) Take responsibility for an unpleasant task at work and make sure it gets done


GRATITUDE:
i) At the end of the day write down three things that went well
ii) Write and send a gratitude letter
iii) Keep track of how many times you say thank you during the day and increase the number every day for a week.

PERSPECTIVE / WISDOM:
i) Think of the wisest person you know and try to live one day as if you were them
ii) Resolve a dispute between two work colleagues, or two family members
iii) Don't give advice unless asked, and then do so as thoughtfully as possible

FORGIVENESS:
i) Let a grudge go every day
ii) Write a forgiveness letter, do not send it, but read it every day for a week.
iii) When someone does something you don't understand, stand in their shoes and try to work out their positive intention

TEAMWORK / CITIZENSHIP:
i) Pick up litter that you see on the ground
ii) Volunteer your time to a charity, community group, Parent-Teacher Association, Parish Council etc
iii) Organize a team / department dinner
iv) Act as a facilitator

BRAVERY:
i) Speak up for an unpopular idea in a group
ii) Stand up for someone even if you disagree with them
iii) Protest to the appropriate authorities about an injustice that you observe

These are just some examples of activities, you can of course adapt them to suit your circumstances.

We'd be delighted to hear your experience of using some of these activities in practice, or if you have any ideas for new ones, so please send us your comments.

We'll cover the remaining 7 Character Strengths in future posts.


Thanks to Professor Jonathan Haidt , author of The Happiness Hypothesis, and the students in his psychology class at the University of Virginia and Chris Peterson for many of the suggested activities.

Happiness Tools

Top 10 Happiness Tools

Following on from yesterday's post about the Open University Psychological Society's Psychology of Wellbeing Conference , I'd like to share with you the Top 10 Happiness Tools, devised by Dr Richard Stevens, Dr Jane Henry, Linda Corlett and Nevia Mullan , which were tried and tested during the BBC2 documentary ‘Making Slough Happy’.

1. Physical exercise - take half an hour of exercise three times a week.
2. Count your blessings - see our previous post for more information.
3. Set aside some time for talking to your partner or closest friend - an hour long, uninterrupted conversation.
4. Plant something (pot, container, window box) and tend it carefully.
5. Cut your TV viewing by half.
6. Smile at and/or say hello to a stranger at least once a day.
7. Phone a friend - make contact with someone you haven't seen for a while and arrange to meet up.
8. Have a good laugh at least once a day.
9. Give yourself a real treat every day and take the time to savour it.
10. Do a good turn for someone every day - see this post for further information, or look at Random Acts of Kindness for ideas.

To this list, and following Bernard Gesch's nutritional advice mentioned in yesterday's post, we would also add:
11. Ensure you're getting the recommended daily allowance of essential vitamins and minerals.

Over the next couple of weeks we'll be looking at some of the research which supports these Happiness Tools.

Stevens et al suggest you try using them for two months and see the difference they make to your happiness. On average they made the citizens of Slough 33% happier, so they can work for you too. Let us know how you get on.

Counting Kindnesses and Happiness

This is fascinating stuff...you may recall our blog a few weeks ago about how counting your blessings can make you happier. Well I have stumbled across another article about counting, this time in the Journal of Happiness Studies; the focus is on how counting your kindnesses can increase your level of happiness.

"Simply by counting acts of kindness for one week, people appear to have become happier and more grateful" (say Otake, Shimai, Tanaka-Matsumi, Otsui and Fredrickson, Nov 2006).

'This is too good to be true', I hear your cry, 'surely it can't be that simple?'... Well, it would seem that there's no catch.... Only that you have to be a) happy and b) kind to start with... Oh and c) you have to be able to count. Ah, I knew those years I spent number-crunching would come in useful sometime...

Counting your blessings and Writing Wrongs– how to increase your well-being

When Jenny and I were completing our Certified NLP Practitioner’s course, one of the exercises we were required to do was to write a Daily Journal. Part of the Daily Journal focussed on confirming 3 outcomes for the following day, the other part focussed on reviewing the past 24 hours, identifying the best bits and the learning points. John Seymour , our trainer, was confident that this exercise would make a difference to our lives, and informal research amongst our peer group at the time confirmed this to be the case.

Around the time I started writing my journal, I read an article, ‘Writing Wrongs’ , in the first issue of Psychologies magazine by Professor David Servan-Schreiber of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In the article, about the value of writing things down, he quoted a clinical study which showed that “...those (patients) who had spent just 20 minutes a day writing about their problems, for three days in a row, were feeling better, taking fewer drugs to relieve their symptoms and seeing their doctor less often”. His ‘journal rules’ are as follows:

1. The journal must remain strictly confidential
2. It must be honest (don’t waste time lying to yourself)
3. You must write it on a regular basis…and stick to your timetable.

As a Positive Psychology student, my interest is weighted more towards counting my blessings than writing about the negatives. Nevertheless, I don’t doubt the value of ‘Writing Wrongs’ in specific contexts (and, interestingly, I thought Servan-Schreiber’s explanation of the impact of the process of writing on images stored in the brain made sense of why NLP works).

If, like me, you are keener to try identifying good things in your life than you are to dwell on the bad things, here are the instructions for a 10-15 minute exercise, courtesy of Chris Peterson*

1. At the end of each day, before going to sleep, write down 3 things that went well during the day. Do this every night for 1 week.
2. The 3 things can be of relatively small importance (my friend told me a brilliant joke) or relatively large importance (my friend just got married).
3. After each positive thing, answer in your own words the question “Why did this good thing happen?”

You may be interested to know that Peterson’s own research shows that if you continue to do this exercise beyond the suggested 1 week, you can increase your happiness and decrease your symptoms of depression over the long-term. 10-15 minutes of your time every day doesn’t seem like a lot to ask for such a reward, does it? Go on, have a go, you know you’re worth it....

* Peterson, C, A Primer in Positive Psychology(2006) p38.