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Supporting Your Well Being

How to use this guide… As you work through this guide it will be useful to identify actions that could be used to improve your well-being. It is suggested that you prioritise 3 of these actions and make them as specific as you can and ensure that they have an agreed date for completion (page 13) As you explore new ideas be kind to yourself and be non-judgemental. It is worth setting yourself small goals which can be achieved and not huge goals which can be overwhelming. Good luck in completing your actions… Introduction “Happiness is not pursued by the conscious pursuit of happiness. It is generally the by-product of other activities” Aldous Huxley Positive Psychology can help us support our well-being using a range of tried and tested techniques. This guide has some suggested activities in the body of the text and a resource list provided as an Appendix. This guide explores what well-being is and how we can support it effectively. We know that we have set positions for how we see the positive and negative in life. Daily practice of a range of activities which supports our well-being can develop a positive mindset and build up resilience. This has a short term impact about how we feel and what we worry about. In the longer term it can improve our mental and physical health through using well-being activities every day. It is important that we do not run ourselves into the ground by focussing on the non-essential. There is a danger currently that we can get into a rut. Adding new well -being activities can break up the day and provide new positive experiences in our life. If we do a few well-being practices a day and focus only on what we can control, a range of evidence suggests we can improve how we manage our stress and increase our resilience. It may seem selfish that this briefing focusses on you and not others well-being. However, by focussing on maintaining your well-being you will be able to do the best for others personally and professionally. It is worth getting your bucket list out now and activating it as soon as you can. Now might be the time to go back to a hobby you no longer have time for. As you use your well-being practices share what works with others so that they build up their own well-being. Well-being is not about framing everything in a positive way more about increasing your resilience through the practice of well-being activities. We need to avoid catastrophising where things of little importance take on a far greater impact than their value.

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The following model can be applied to the Coronavirus situation

REMEMBER… You are responsible for…

Your attitude

How much news you watch

How much you laugh

How many fun things you do at home

How you isolate/social distance yourself

Shopping for what you need and not for the sake of it

How you follow guidance and recommendations on Corona Virus

How you choose to engage positively with everyone You are not responsible for…

If there are toilet rolls in the shops

Making predictions

How others behave

How long this will go on

If others socially distance

If people gather in the park

1 What you

control

2 What you do not

control

Well-being is

focussing on 1

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“Success in life is founded upon attention to the everyday things nearest to us rather than the things that are remote and uncommon” Booker T Washington It is therefore important that you only worry about what you can control. What is Well-Being? Whilst well-being has many simple definitions it and happiness are often linked. Finland has in March 2020 for example been rated as the happiest country in the world 1 using six well-being indicators. The make-up of the global well-being index is made up of…

GDP per person

Social support

Healthy life expectancy

Freedom

Generosity

Absence of corruption Whilst there are objective ways of scaling various aspects of well-being (3 models are explored on page 5/6) this guide is interested in people’s subjective well-being e.g. how they feel now. It argues that well-being and happiness are different things that are linked together Moving away from the definitional issue it is clear that being happy is part of our well-being although not the only part. The use of rewards to support our well-being is explored in Activities 3 and 4 as an example of broader components of well-being. In Activity 7 you can make a list of 5 activities which support your well-being positively now. In the second part of the table you can put an alternative if you can no longer practice an activity. If you do some sport you will be able to carry it on if it’s an activity you do by yourself e.g. cycling but not if it’s a group activity such as Netball. A recent press story2 from France showed how a man had run a marathon by running on his balcony which of course shows human creativity at its best. In these times it is about the safest alternative in some of our well-being activities. Again, reflect on how these lists change day to day and what is influencing this. It might be worth practicing how to become less reliant on things which feed your worries, identifying one or two sources of good information and using these to influence your thinking will be positive.

1 https://worldhappiness.report 2 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2020/mar/22/man-runs-marathon-on-seven-metre-balcony-during-french-lockdown-video-report

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As could stopping worrying about what others are doing and reflect and identify what you are doing to be the best you can be today. We will explore later in the guide why this is so important. The way we use social media can support or damage our well-being. A useful article can be found at… https://theawarenesscentre.com/social-media-mental-health-tips/ Exploring the rewards3 you have in your work and personal life is important. The idea of well-being has a long history in many countries and religions and our current reframing of well-being through the lens of Positive Psychology explores two key areas… Eudemonic well-being which focuses on how we contribute to a meaningful way of life and Hedonic well-being in which we spend time on pursuits which give us personal satisfaction. In the down time many of us will currently have, we can use this time in a positive hedonic way e.g. reading that book you have been meaning to or in a more negative hedonic way e.g. go online shopping for ‘wants not needs’ It is important that hedonic activities add to your life positively and do not feed addictions. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Now is the time to focus on the essential and an engaged and informed focus on well-being is one way to do so. As we begin this period of lock down, we are unclear what will happen. What we can do is develop a mindset to understand how we feel and why. We can use our knowledge to improve who we are and how we interact with the world. If we take a purist definition of well-being which Keyes (2003) sees as “being focussed on flourishing” this guides us to a focus on one dimension of well-being rather than on many. The next section provides some key ideas to support your positive well-being. It may be worth exploring the many models of well-being which exist. These include Ikagi from Japan, Hygge from Denmark and Lagom from Sweden. However, as a starter for ten it is worth thinking about the SERENE model Sleep well Eat sensibly Relax frequently Exercise regularly Nurture a healthy mind Enjoy life and its challenges

3 See Activity 3 and 4

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A further model suggests Well-being is made up of eight dimensions…

Movement and Nutrition

Social Connection

Coping Skills

Mood Boosters

Sleep and Relaxation

Goal Setting

Physical Environment

Values and Purpose

If you develop a habitual response to adversity such as lashing out, hiding away, pretending everything’s ok, running away then you might be activating the Flight, Fight or Freeze part of your brain. With less spaces to escape to its important that this is addressed if you are going to look after your well-being. It’s also important if you work at home that you take regular breaks. In Sweden the Swedes use Fika which is their formal morning and afternoon coffee breaks. It’s important if you are working at home that you build these breaks in. This allows as neuroscientist Josh Davies argues two awesome hours per workday where you produce your very best work. This is linked to the psychology behind Flow which is discussed later in this briefing. Martin Seligman the founder of Positive Psychology developed the Perma model which is shown below.

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More information about the PERMA model can be found at https://positivepsychology.com/perma-model/ Using one of the models it is worth thinking about are there any gaps in your life and if there are what are you going to do about them. If you do not like any of these models, then find another model and apply it your life. Think about identifying the aspects of well-being which you look after and the aspects you need to do some work on. It might be helpful to develop an action plan or do some journaling. Using emotional intelligence is key to supporting positive well-being and the next two sections looks at understanding how to work effectively with your emotions. A mindful approach from Japan has been applied to the task of cleaning . It is called Soji where you immerse yourself in the cleaning task with absolute focus for 20 minutes then finish. By immersing yourself in this way you do not get distracted and obtain the benefits of absolute focus. This will reduce stress and it can be linked to mindful breathing if you search on You Tube you can find a number of free mindful meditations which may be helpful. Positive Emotions It is worth thinking about your current social network (family, friends, colleagues and neighbours) and exploring those who give you positive regard. A time of crisis may not be the time to change this network however some mindful reflection may support you to prioritise the parts of your network which support your well-being positively. Ideally your positive network does not give you conditions of worth e.g. positive feedback only when you conform to another’s rules or conditions. If you are not surrounded by conditions of worth, then you will not move towards your potential and improve your well-being. If you have lots of external negative voices, then through exploring your well-being you can strengthen your inner voice and focus on positive actions to improve your well-being. Your social network can be mapped into radiators and drains . To support your well-being effectively you need the unconditional energy from your radiators and explore how you reframe / close your relationships with your drains. If critical voices are damaging your sense of self based on earlier experiences, it is worth exploring these with a coach or counsellor. Part of this is mindfully exploring your responses so that you respond non judgementally and do not judge your actions as good or bad just as existing and being what they are. Through talking to a friend, you can explore the conditions of worth which exist from your family or friends’ network and explore what you can do to change them. It is ok not to want negativity in your life. Avoiding people who give conditional approval is a key skill in building your well-being. Shafir & Mullainathan (2013) explore the idea of bandwidth e.g. the resources you have available to new issues and problems. For many of us the challenge is to give ourselves space to think when needed. When we are facing new challenges or feel overloaded our first strategy must be to slow our brain down and become mindful of the choices we are making.

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In times of high stress these can become toxic and damaging and decrease our sense of well-being. As Dweck (2017) argues in Mindset we can adopt a growth or a fixed mindset – the choices we make can again increase or decrease our sense of well-being. More on the ideas behind Mindset can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiiEeMN7vbQ Much of the current press reporting suggests that personal resilience will decrease over time and this is especially so if we are focussing on problems. Those problems which we are unclear as to how we should best respond and without obvious solutions tend to increase our anxiety. In measuring your own anxiety, a useful tool is to self-score problems on a scale of 0 where there is no anxiety and 10 maximum anxiety. Scoring anxiety in this way is the first step to gaining control and using a range of strategies such as mindfulness to process and reduce this figure. A figure of 4 or below is considered to be acceptable whereas 7 and over is on the route to toxic stress and needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Reflecting when your score changes will support you to develop your resilience and understand better what factors support or increase your anxiety. If there are times in the day when you do not have a score of 0 then you can start to explore the reasons and address the root causes. You could think of developing a Mental Health first aid kit which has some basic actions for you to follow…

Take simple actions such as having a cup of tea without trying to multitask at the same time

Change your relationship with your mobile phone

Use smells from candles or essential oils to change your mood

Sit in the sun and enjoying the sensation of heat on your skin

Drink a glass of water sip by sip

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Now might be the time to start to address an issue you have been putting off. A simple way of doing this is to:

1. Face it

2. Greet it by considering options

3. Beat it by employing solutions. Emotional Needs In any period of self-reflection, it is important that we meet our emotional needs. These are identified as…

Feeling safe

Being noticed and giving attention to others

Feeling appreciated or experiencing a sense of status

Acting with appropriate autonomy over decisions in our lives

Belonging or being accepted by the community

Having a close relationship or friendship with at least one other person

Experience relevance or purpose in our existence

Have sufficient privacy

Feeling a sense of achievement and progression through our own efforts

Having an emotional rapport with others If you want to increase your sense of well-being now is the time to do an audit and see if any of those factors are missing from your life and what you can do to address them. Again, you might have considered this but the psychology of the next few months suggests that there will be elements of learnt helplessness ahead (Seligman 1972) and doing all that we can to support positive well-being is crucial at this challenging time. There is a danger we can get overwhelmed and monitoring our stress is crucial to ensure that this does not happen. Both exploring emotional needs and positive emotions suggests that we can start to understand the impact of positive and negative emotions upon our well-being.

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Celebrating the Positive Our brain is wired to focus on the negative before the positive. Recent research using brain scans suggests that the speed of transmission is also faster for negative information than positive. At a time of crisis, it is clear therefore that we need to identify the positives and a journal or online app is a useful resource for this, identifying three good things that have gone well in a day are essential, however they are recorded. If we are giving feedback to staff or volunteers, ensure that we provide 3 positives for every one negative using the Losado framework. It might be worth thinking about the tone you use in e mails, you want the tone to be a positive not a negative one. Activity - Identify three good things in a day… 1. 2. 3. How do they compare to the following list?

• Happy

• Confident

• High levels of self esteem

• Energy and vitality

• Experiencing less stress

• More resilient

• Goal orientated

• Better work performance

• More engaged at work

• Easier to grow as individual This is a useful article on creating positivity in work… https://www.impraise.com/blog/how-to-recognize-and-celebrate-success-at-work

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Using Your Strengths One of the ways in which you can use your understanding of using the positives in your life is by using your key strengths... Within the field of Positive Psychology there is a lot of focus on using your strengths. Before you complete the strengths questionnaire it is worth thinking why it is important to use your strengths. Activity Use the strengths based questionnaire below which is free https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register Then answer the following questions 1. Are there any surprises in your top / bottom 5 2. How will you use your top 5 e.g. play to your strengths The website has some interesting articles and suggestions for how you use your strengths and is worth a read. Creating Flow in your Life Flow is also described as the state of optimal experience, it has been described as high skill – high challenge or being in the zone. Activity 8 explores flow in your day to day life. As part of your well-being it is worth thinking about how you create flow daily as part of increasing your well-being. Positive Sleep For those who struggle with good sleep it is worth thinking about your sleep hygiene and your approach to a ‘good night’s sleep’. There is robust evidence now on what works in order to get a good night’s sleep. Some practical tips will include

No bad news before bed (only consume the news you can handle)

Having a clear mind before bed – a comedy on TV not something to increase anxiety

Regulate the day so that sleep is worked up to with no sudden break between high activity and bed (build up to sleep at least 2 hours before your bedtime)

Regulate breathing when preparing for bed

If sleep does not come – go to another space and return to bed when sleepy

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If you are ruminating4 before bed and you have a poor thinking pattern. Move from “I am going to get ill” to “it’s my thoughts that say I am going to get ill’ This can be practised whenever you get such thoughts If you cannot sleep it is worth keeping a sleep diary so you can explore any patterns or underlying factors . Being Creative in a Busy Life If we are lucky enough to get more time through the current situation it is worth thinking about what creativity is and how we can apply it to our lives. For those of you who love a good process see how your day changes if you wear non matching socks or create a meal with ingredients that do not go together. Think about what’s the worst that can go wrong. You if you do things differently it can be a more playful way of life. Being playful is part of supporting your well-being and as already discussed it is important that you are non-judgemental in yourself. It is worth thinking about the role of creativity in supporting your well-being. Thinking about how we approach tasks is discussed in the next section on switching between tasks. Again, how we approach this can have a positive or negative impact upon our well-being. Switching Tasks We know that lots of us switch tasks without thinking about it. However, getting to a state of focus takes at least five minutes and often longer if we have switched tasks. By getting balance back into our life we can focus more easily. Some techniques for this include…

Getting up earlier

Planning ahead

Using grey time e.g. unallocated time

Saying no

Editing your to do list

Having a clear out

Thinking positively

Being kind to yourself More about the psychology of switching tasks can be found here https://danfries.net/multitasking/

4 See Activity 1 for an activity on this

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Positive Ageing It’s important when thinking about ageing to focus on not adding years to life but adding life to years. It’s defined by the Australian Psychological society as… “the process of maintaining a positive attitude, feeling good about yourself, keeping fit and healthy, and engaging fully in life as you age” Ten steps to positive ageing are… 1 Set your intention to age positively

2 Find out what you believe about your own ageing

3 Replace the negative beliefs with positive ones

4 Create a positive mental image of yourself

5 Maximise your optimistic outlook

6 Increase your sense of gratitude 7 Be mindful 8 Undertake a Life Review 9 Establish what is most important to you 10 Develop a life plan for your later years It was Audrey Hepburn who wrote… “As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and one for helping others” If you would like to receive a copy of Training Materials on Positive Ageing then pleas e-mail me (address below) Conclusion This guide has explored what well-being is and how we can develop and understand the impact of some of its key components. Whatever you do and whatever roles you occupy currently ‘The times they are a changing’ Please feel free to use the ideas that work for you in this guide. Focussing on supporting your well-being currently is not selfish but a needed activity to support each of us to be the best person we can be in these challenging times. Every day celebrate what you have achieved.

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Decide on three actions and write them below with a start and completion date against each… 1 2 3 Remember do not overload yourself with lots of actions. We know that to develop any new habit takes 21 repetitions so build upon what works for you. Once you have completed three actions then think about other areas of well-being you can focus on. It is important that well-being activities become part of your daily life and provide positive support. Mike Lewis Hawliau Consultancy March 2020 mike@hawliau,co,uk 07748 367 436

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Activities

1. Worries As an activity it would be useful to produce two lists List 1.. Worry’s which you control List 2..Worries which you have no control over Then prioritise a few where you are ruminating about the issues… (NB..The issue of rumination can be explored using Mindfulness) Brain scans have shown that ongoing worries become debilitating and can result in poor mental health. 2. Well-Being Over a day identify all the activities that have a positive impact upon your well-being. In the list explore what the balance is between eudemonic and hedonic activities to achieve well-being. Share your list with a colleague/friend and explore if the balance suits your well-being needs currently and if there are any changes which you need to make. 3. Rewards Identify three rewards which cost nothing and can be done easily which you could implement immediately. 4. Work Rewards Are there any rewards which you received from work which you can no longer access? If so, identify alternative ways of achieving this? 5. Values Do your values match how you live your life? If they do, please identify some additional small changes to support you to increase this link. If they do not, identify changes which you need to make to increase values being met. If you get stuck on these don’t procrastinate but speak to someone that you trust to help coach, you with this. 6. Emotional Needs Using the list shown on page 8 of emotional needs score each from 1 to 7 where 1 is not met at all to 7 fully met. Then for the 3 with the lowest scores identify some actions you can do to increase the score. Whatever results you get it is important that you are kind to yourself and only agree some actions of that need that are important to you. Explore the importance of being non-judgemental using Mindfulness.

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7. Current Well-Being Alternatives

Current well-being activity Alternatives in these constrained times

1

2

3

4

5

8. Flow In a chilled space with no distractions make a list of activities you have done in the last 72 hours. Which of them gave you a flow experience – see criteria below. In your journal explore how you can repeat some of your favourite flow activities over the next week. Flow is made up of…

Clear goals with immediate feedback

It’s intrinsically rewarding – you want to do it

Absolutely absorbed in the activity

You are in control

A challenge you can meet

No concern about failing

Timing of the activity becomes less important

No self-consciousness

9. Quotes Give yourself 10 minutes to find some well-being quotes online. Pick your favourite one and write it up and put it on the wall. At the end of every day look at your quote and reflect on the day and explore how you have been the best person you can be that day. Write up your daily reflections and then weekly, reflect on those reflections. Use these reflections to make small changes in your life. Whilst the following two quotes on the face of it seem to have no practical application. There are some useful visual tools which you can get online to look at scenery, nature etc to fire your imagination with… “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” Henry David Thoreau “When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds ,cleanses me with its noise and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused” Rainer Maria Rilk

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Resources5

What is Positive Psychology?

Articles https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/what-is-positive-psychology-definition/ PERMA https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/perma-model/ TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology

Mindfulness

Article https://www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/ TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes

Being Creative Articles https://www.thebalancecareers.com/creative-thinking-definition-with-examples-2063744 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249423 Questionnaire http://www.testmycreativity.co

Positive Ageing

Articles http://positiveageing.org.uk/approach/ TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/isabel_allende_how_to_live_passionately_no_matter_your_age

5 I have free PowerPoint presentations on all of the topics in the resources section . Please contact me if you want a copy

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The Hygge Approach

Articles https://analyze.life/embracing-hygge-the-danish-approach-to-happiness/ http://hyggehouse.com/hygge

Resilience

Articles https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573269/ https://www.employment-studies.co.uk/system/files/resources/files/mp94.pdf Questionnaire https://www.nwpgmd.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/resiliencequestionnaire.pdf

Key Strengths

Questionnaire http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey Articles http://positivepsychology.org.uk/strengths-recipe-for-success/ http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/courses/archive/Pos10-11-safari-archive/strengths/webarchive-index.html