by Nikki Young | November, 2015 | Health, Positive Psychology, self-development
Shifting into Positive Emotions is Easy Learning to shift into uplifting emotional states that reverse the energy drain caused by stress is easy and empowering. With just a bit of practice it can become like shifting gears while driving. It’s crucial because it’s mainly in our feelings where our stress lives. The most powerful energy boosters are the feelings we all want more of: appreciation, gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, love, etc. These feelings regenerate and sustain us through creating hormonal mixtures that nourish our cells and reduce fatigue. In contrast, negative feelings seriously sap our strength. Our emotional state is up to us – it’s not a given fact Most people seem to take their inner emotional state as a given. Not many of us know that we have the power to shift into positive emotions at will – even in moments of acute stress. And yet, it is so simple that I ask myself why we haven’t been taught this life-changing practice before. Feeling an emotion such as appreciation or gratitude creates a more harmonious state often referred to as “flow”, or “the zone”. It can be easily done with an exercise that takes only a few minutes. The Institute of HeartMath defines this state of internal and external connectedness as “coherence”. It has developed research-based tools and technology that help to cultivate it. How would I like to feel instead? Coherence is directly associated with improved health and cognitive functioning as well as increased access to intuition. Another remarkable benefit is that each time the system is in a state of coherence, it is building up resilience to...
by Nikki Young | October, 2015 | Community, Health, Relationships
Women and men can learn from each other how to de-stress Are you aware of the fact that women and men de-stress in entirely different ways? Now this is one piece of important information. Research shows that women tend to release stress through doing chores while chatting to others. They enjoy brewing coffee or tidying up while talking to each other about a zillion of emotional issues. This was quite easy to accomplish in traditional settings of living in extended families or tribal societies in natural surroundings where women spend a lot of time in the company of other women and shared some burdens of housekeeping. In today’s post modern societies with their large numbers of single households or married couples without children, de-stressing that works for both partners seems to be a massive challenge. Most people know that many men de-stress by going into the famous cave. A state of mindlessness is the preferred mode. Perhaps this is a state women could benefit from understanding and cultivating within themselves. The Importance of the Empty Box A stressed man is not exactly well equipped to deal with a stressed out woman who wants to chatter a stream of words into his ears while she moves many items around. This is likely to become unsettling for the standard stressed man and can easily aggravate him. Mark Gougon brilliantly brings this message across in his “Tale of two brains”. He cracks people up with his poignant truths. His term of that particular part of men’s brains says it all: “The Nothing Box”. Men can be completely braindead for hours, he...
by Nikki Young | October, 2015 | Community, Positive Psychology, Work
Well-Being – more than a passing fad? Polly Vernon recently wrote an upbeat article about 2015 fads she has openly embraced – Pilates, Uber, summer cocktails, sobriety, Instagram and Almond milk to name a few! As a style journalist, trends are kind of her bread and butter. I reflected on my own indulgence in the ‘latest craze’. Reading anything to do with my role, listening to Engage for Success podcasts, attending Happiness seminars and making new connections at Culture Meet-Ups all hold great appeal. The concepts of pre-approving ideas, celebrating failures and transparent salaries draw me to explore them more deeply and practically. I rejoiced in International Happiness Day with my team this year and I’m currently exploring the synergy between Culture and Brand. Well-Being at work No surprises then how animated I get about mental and physical well-being at work! When I found the nef research on the Five Ways to Wellbeing, I knew my next intervention lay right there…. “The Five Ways to Wellbeing are a set of evidence-based actions which promote people’s wellbeing. They are: Connect, Be Active, Take Notice,Keep Learning and Give. These activities are simple things individuals can do in their everyday lives.” Mental Health in the UK is currently in the spotlight, spearheaded by famous names such as Ruby Wax and Stephen Fry, but the spectrum of mental health issues tend to be poorly understood by the general population. As a result, stigma and a lack of support prevail, often worsening the issues. But what if we could do something preventative? Something easy to build into our everyday lives?. Wouldn’t it be great if more employers realised that employees everywhere are...
by Nikki Young | October, 2015 | Health, Positive Psychology, self-development
Stress: not as bad as you think? Stanford psychologist Dr Kelly McGonigal has written a very interesting book called “The Upside of Stress. Why stress is good for you (and how to get good at it)” (2015, Penguin Random House, London). You may, like me, be surprised to learn that your relationship to the stress in your life is a bigger determinant of its harmfulness than the existence of stress itself. So if you believe the stress in your life is bad for you then you will most probably be right. On the other hand, if you believe you are doing something meaningful and the stress your experience is giving you energy and resources to lift your performance to meet the challenge – then you are probably also right and also healthier. What matters is your mindset about the stress. Kelly McGonigal’s point is that we only feel stress when we are engaged in something meaningful that is being challenged in some way. Avoiding stress would, at the extreme, mean avoiding doing anything meaningful and that does not offer a full and satisfying life. Using Stress to your Advantage So how do you get a positive mindset about the inevitable stress that comes with making things happen in the world that you care about? A very powerful intervention is to write about your most important values and how your day’s activities relate to those values. Writing about your values for 10 mins helps you see meaning in your life and how your activities support what you want to be true – even if they are stressful to do...
by Nikki Young | October, 2015 | Health, Positive Psychology, Work
Happy?: confessions of a Chief Happiness Officer (CHO) Question: Is being happy the same as doing happy? I would argue that it is not. Doing happy is what I do at the office. As a CHO I focus on other people’s happiness at work and how to improve it to drive up their enjoyment of work and ultimately their productivity. I do this through various interventions both remote and face-to-face. I could recount many a meeting that I’ve been invited to and the opening gambit is “I wanted to meet with you because I’m not feeling happy”. And all of a sudden I feel, and am assumed to be, responsible for someone else’s happiness. So I would definitely say I DO happy. But would I say I AM a happy person? Probably not. I tend to be a bit glass half empty to be honest. Even when I can see the funny side in how dramatically sh*t things are. I tend to over empathise and internalise other people’s emotions which can lead me to feeling overwhelmed. And when my job is listening to other people’s emotions it’s hard to stay resilient and happy in the face of what can feel like a mountain of doom. Counsellors have supervisors to help them manage the weight of what they hear in the line of duty, but no such role exists for CHOs. Plus (and here comes the spoiler alert) I have a history of depression and have been taking anti-depressants for the last 8 months following the death of my beloved grandmother. So no. It would be fair to say...
