Battling lockdown boredom with purpose and joy

Happy New Year! 2021 is finally here and with it comes expectations for a healthier, happier and more ‘normal’ year.

Here’s hoping that Lockdown 3.0 really is the last in the coronavirus trilogy and we don’t have to endure an ongoing franchise of disruptions to our daily lives. With the vaccine rolling out, hopefully like Frodo and Samwise in Lord of the Rings, we can overcome the odds and return to a restriction-free life.

Although we have more hope third time round, the impact of another lockdown can take its toll on our wellbeing. The monotony of Groundhog Day – great film, not so great in real life – can affect our mood, motivation and satisfaction with life. How can we get through this and keep our wellbeing afloat? All it takes is spending 15 minutes planning, so every day involves two things: something purposeful and something enjoyable.

Battling boredom

Sometimes, it can be good to be bored. Boredom can spark creativity and give our minds a rest from the constant comings and goings of everyday (pre-lockdown) life. However, the boredom experienced during lockdown tends to be more enduring. Nearly two-thirds of people in the UK were negatively impacted by boredom in the previous lockdowns, with life satisfaction, happiness and feeling worthwhile consistently lower and anxiety levels remaining higher than before the first lockdown.

Research has shown that boredom is linked with anxiety, depression, overeating and drug and alcohol abuse, so it’s essential we battle the boredom! Our usual resources of meeting friends, going to the cinema, group exercise and just changing our environment is not available at the moment, so we need to reflect on what gave us purpose and joy in the previous lockdowns and factor these into our days over the coming months.

The importance of purpose

Having a sense of purpose can really benefit our wellbeing, which you can read more about in this previous blog post. Feeling purposeful can result in:

Increased exercise and health-promoting behaviours
Feeling better about how we look
Feeling more satisfied with life
Better recovery from negative and stressful life events – so we could infer that doing something purposeful can help us cope better with the lockdown

How can we do something purposeful during lockdown? Well, it doesn’t have to be a huge, big, life-altering thing. It can be simple achievements such as:

Finally sending back the online delivery which doesn’t look right
Planting seeds or bulbs in the garden or in pots
Sorting out your home / car / pet insurance before it’s up for renewal
Cooking a recipe you’ve never tried before
Ticking off each item on your life admin list

Make joy a daily habit

Day to day joy and happiness can improve our mental wellbeing. This may sound obvious, but with so many of us experiencing, stress, anxiety and other negative emotions during lockdown, it can be hard to be happy. Feeling happy and joyful have multiple positive effects on our wellbeing such as having stronger relationships with others and increased life satisfaction.

We can increase feelings of happiness and joy during lockdown by:

Spending time in natural environments such as parks and forests
Being kind to others
Being near, in or under water. If you can’t make it to a lake or a beach, a simple bath or shower can also work
Exercising

This month’s activity

Above are just a few ideas on how to include something purposeful and joyful into our daily lives. However, before you start planning the days ahead, first think back to the previous two lockdowns. What gave you a sense of purpose or achievement? What brought you joy?

This month’s activity is to plan one purposeful and one enjoyable thing for each day, to help maintain your wellbeing through Lockdown 3.0 and finish the coronavirus trilogy a wellbeing hero. You can do this the night before, in the morning or you can plan one week at a time, whatever works for you. It shouldn’t take longer than 15 minutes. Give it a go and see what difference it makes to your wellbeing.

You don’t need a worksheet to complete this activity, but one is provided here in case you find it useful to work from. It includes space to jot down your plans for something purposeful and enjoyable over a 7-day period, as well as some questions to help you reflect.

battling-lockdown-boredom-worksheet Download

I’d love to hear how you get on with eating incorporating purpose and joy into your day and the effect on your wellbeing. Please do get in touch 15minutewellbeing@gmail.com or comment in the box below.

I deliver online wellbeing workshops, so if that’s something that would benefit you or your organisation, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

I also share wellbeing-related research, news and stories on twitter and Instagram in between weekly blog posts so do follow @15minwellbeing on both platforms to keep up to date.

The wellbeing breather: pause to make better use of your time

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When was the last time you got through your to-do list? Yesterday? Last month? Sometime before Covid? With lockdown came this mystical idea of us having extra time on our hands to do more and be more productive: finally write that novel; upcycle that old piece of furniture; or even just do that extra bit of reading to get ahead on the big project at work. For many of us, that hasn’t been the case and the pressures on us have intensified.

We all need a break, but time is going so fast and there’s so much to do. It feels like we don’t have the time. But we do, we just need to allow ourselves a few minutes to take stock of our thoughts and feelings and focus on our wellbeing. A short time out can help us reset, refocus and make better use of our time. This month’s post offers a short, simple, mindfulness technique that can help us increase our efficiency: The wellbeing breather.

How mindfulness can support our wellbeing

Mindfulness-based interventions can be effective in reducing stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, pain and improving quality of life. Mindfulness has been shown to improve wellbeing by addressing cognitive and emotional reactivity and reducing repetitive negative thinking. That is, mindfulness can help us clear our minds, make more rational decisions and feel better about ourselves.

When things feel like they are piling up on top of us, mindfulness can help us regulate ourselves better and feel more positive. If we are aware of what is taking place in the here and now, we are more likely to make choices and behave in ways that meet our needs, interests and values. Therefore, being mindful of what’s going on for us in the moment can improve our wellbeing.

The wellbeing breather

Mindfulness can help us see the present moment clearly and starts with taking notice of our bodily sensations, thoughts and feelings. That’s what this month’s activity is all about, taking notice of what we are thinking and feeling and channelling our energy, so we have the headspace to focus on what we really need to.

The wellbeing breather is a variation of the Transitional Pause, developed by the Mindfulness Centre of Excellence. Over the last three years since I first tried this activity, I have really benefitted from taking a short time out to acknowledge how I am feeling and set a small, manageable goal for the rest of the day.

The purpose of the wellbeing breather is to help us park any overwhelming thoughts and focus on the next task at hand. A key feature of this mindful activity is to silently name our thoughts so we can increase our awareness of them, which is beneficial for our wellbeing. It can help with:

Overcoming anxiety about difficult tasks or meetings
Setting aside negative thoughts that are intruding on our day
Channelling our energy to get things done more efficiently

Here’s how to do the wellbeing breather. If it’s easier, you can listen to this audio recording to guide you through the exercise.

You can do this activity sitting or standing. If you are sitting, make sure you are seated comfortably with a straight back and your head, neck and shoulders feeling as if they are neatly stacked on top of each other. You want to be comfortable but attentive. If you are standing, plant your feet firmly on the ground so you feel balanced and grounded. Keep your back straight and position your head, neck and shoulders so they feel neatly aligned.
Soften your gaze, or if you feel comfortable, close your eyes.
Acknowledge how you are feeling right now. What’s happened in the last 24 hours? What positive things have happened? What’s bothering you? If it’s something that happened more than a day ago, that’s ok. It’s important to acknowledge our positive and negative experiences.
Has anything happened in the last 24 hours that has played on your mind? If so, take a moment to silently name it. Now you’ve named it, recognise how it made you feel. Try and name the thoughts and emotions you experienced. Take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Let’s move on to the here and now. Take some time to notice your body. Start with your feet on the floor. Notice the feeling of the floor on your toes, balls of your feet and heels. Notice other parts of your body that are touching each other or objects in the room. Where are your hands resting? How do they feel? If you can feel any tension in your body, draw your awareness to it.
If your focus turns to your thoughts, that’s ok. Acknowledge it and return to focusing on your body.
Turn your attention to your breathing. As you breathe in through your nose, notice the air entering your nostrils and filling your lungs. As you breathe out, feel the movement through your body and the air leaving your mouth. Continue to focus on your breathing. If you become aware of your thoughts, that’s ok. Acknowledge your thoughts and then turn your focus back to your breathing.
Let’s start thinking about what’s happening next in our day and the day ahead. How are you feeling about what’s coming up? Whether it’s positive, negative or mixed feelings, take a moment to silently name them. Take one deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.
What is one thing you hope to achieve today? It may be something specific like to complete a task, or it may be something broader like acceptance or patience. Silently name it and make a pledge to yourself to work towards it. Take another deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Open your eyes or refocus your gaze. Centre yourself back in the room and take one last deep breath to ready yourself for the rest of the day.

The workbook for the wellbeing breather encourages you to reflect on how you feel after completing it. Why not take a few minutes to consider how you feel immediately after the exercise, then take a few minutes later in the day to reflect on the impact it had on the rest of your day. This, plus the activity should take no longer than 15 minutes.

wellbeing-breather-worksheet Download

I’d love to hear how you get on with the wellbeing breather and what effect it has on your wellbeing. Please do get in touch 15minutewellbeing@gmail.com or comment in the box below.

I share wellbeing-related research, news and stories on twitter and Instagram in between monthly blog posts so do follow @15minwellbeing on both platforms to keep up to date.

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Turning your passion into purpose

You know what you’re passionate about, but how do you translate that into something meaningful you can do every day? You may have figured that out already, or have no idea where to start. Wherever you’re at, this week’s blog helps us do just that and continues our journey to find our Ikigai, or reason for getting out of bed in the morning.

Last week we looked at what we love and what we are good at. The purpose of this was to find or rediscover our passions. You may have realised one passion or multiple ones. This is the first step in finding your Ikigai and knowing your purpose in life. This week we are looking at the next step – exploring what the world needs and what we can get paid for – to help us live each day with more meaning and fulfilment.

How can Ikigai benefit my wellbeing?

Why are we even looking at Ikigai and our purpose in life? Well, Ikigai has been linked with a range of benefits for our wellbeing, including:

Living longer. People with Ikigai have a reduced risk of developing health problems and are more likely to live longer. Residents of Okinawa, Japan, have the highest life expectancy in the world. What do they have in common? Ikigai.
Life satisfaction. Both men and women with Ikigai have been shown to be more satisfied with life and experience fewer symptoms of depression.
A sense of accomplishment and fulfilment. Ikigai is linked with feeling fulfilled and like we have accomplished something. This sense of achievement in turn, further promotes wellbeing.

What the world needs and what I can get paid for

When we think about what the world needs, we could come up with a whole host of things – reducing plastic use, equality for all, less crime, more community engagement, better health…the list goes on. This can feel a bit overwhelming and hard for just one of us to address.

For this stage of Ikigai, think about what the world needs in relation to your passion. For example:

If you care about the environment and are good at organising events, could you apply your passion to organising group litter picking or cleaning up community events?
If you love getting fit and are good at helping others, could you encourage others to do the same to help tackle obesity?
If you really care about mental health and are good at writing, could you start a blog to improve others’ wellbeing? (This is how 15 minute wellbeing came about!)

We often think of what the world needs as huge solutions to huge problems. However, it is difficult for one person to have all the answers. However, just one person can make a massive difference by focusing on just one aspect of what the world needs. This is where the ‘what can I get paid for?’ question comes into play.

Using the above example of loving getting fit and being good at helping others, there is no job titled (as far as I’m aware) ‘Obesity Tackler’. However, you could get paid for working as one of the below (among others):

Personal trainer
Gym manager
PE teacher
Sports coach

This week’s activity

To help figure out what the world needs and what you can get paid for, try answering the questions below. For all the questions in this week’s activity, you can give more than one answer, so don’t worry if you don’t find your Ikigai straight away – this is completely normal. Spending 15 minutes on these questions can get you in the Ikigai mind set so don’t rush and answer everything honestly.

What does the world need?

What are the things my friends and family struggle with in their day-to-day lives?
What could be done to benefit my local community?
What issues are commonly featured in the news?

What can I get paid for?

What roles exist that relate to what I want to achieve?
What project(s) could I work on alongside my main source of income? This is known as a ‘side hustle’

All the questions are included on this week’s worksheet, so you have somewhere to record your answers. Click the link below to download the worksheet. You can fill it in using the ‘fill and sign’ tool or alternatively print it off and fill it in by hand.

ikigai-part-2-worksheet Download

If you enjoyed discovering your Ikigai, or feel that finding your Ikigai has helped improve your wellbeing, please do get in contact and share your story.

I share wellbeing-related research, news and stories on twitter and Instagram in between weekly blog posts so do follow @15minwellbeing on both platforms to keep up to date.

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What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Stuck in a rut? Not sure where your life is heading? Feel like you’re going through the motions?

We all go through lulls from time to time, but feeling like we don’t have a purpose can be detrimental to our wellbeing. Those of us without a sense of purpose are more likely to be depressed and have a shorter lifespan than those with more meaning in their lives. Having a sense of purpose and some control over our lives are key to wellbeing.

This week’s post is all about helping us find or re-discover our sense of purpose. This may seem a bit daunting, but by answering a few key questions and reflecting on what we are passionate about, our purpose will become clearer.

What has purpose got to do with wellbeing?

Feeling purposeful has many benefits for our wellbeing. Firstly, it helps us recover from negative and stressful life events. Even when controlling for other factors such as age, gender and subjective wellbeing, higher levels of purpose in life were linked with better recovery from a negative event.

Secondly, purpose in life is linked with increased exercise and other health-promoting behaviours. When given a meaningful task to do over a period of time, those who engaged with the task – those who introduced a purpose into their lives – demonstrated improved stamina and flexibility.

Thirdly, people with a sense of purpose feel better about how they look and are more satisfied with their lives.

So how can we find our sense of purpose and improve our wellbeing?

Ikigai (‘ee-key-guy’)

The Japanese have a concept called Ikigai, which essentially asks, ‘what gets you out of bed in the morning?’ Ikigai relates to the happiness of doing activities involving mental or physical effort to achieve a purpose or result. That purpose could be anything from improving the environment to creating art or helping others. We all have own purpose, we just need to find it.

There are four key questions to answer to help find your Ikigai:

What do I love?
What am I good at?
What does the world need?
What can I get paid for?

Answering these questions is like following a treasure map to help you find out wonderful things about yourself, that you can share with the world and others will thank you for it.

What do I love and what am I good at?

Identifying the passion and talents we have can give meaning to our lives. The two elements of Ikigai we’re looking at this week are what we love and what we are good at. We can find our Ikigai where these cross over. As this is 15 minute wellbeing, we will just focus on these two questions this week, and what the world needs and what we can get paid for in next week’s post.

To help you figure out what you love, answering the following questions may give you some ideas. For all the questions in this week’s activity, you can give more than one answer, so don’t feel pressured to find one clear purpose straight away. It can take time to find your Ikigai so don’t rush and answer everything honestly.

What do I love?

What activities give me a sense of excitement?
If money was no object, what would I spend my time doing?
What did I love to do as a child?

What am I good at?

What are the things I do that often get a positive response?
What do people compliment me on or praise me for?
What subjects did I do best in at school?

ikigai-pt1

If you enjoyed the first step in discovering your Ikigai, or feel that finding your Ikigai has helped improve your wellbeing, please do get in contact and share your story.

I share wellbeing-related research, news and stories on twitter and Instagram in between weekly blog posts so do follow @15minwellbeing on both platforms to keep up to date.

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Celebrating Mental Health Awareness Week

May 13^th to 19^th is Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK. The purpose of Mental Health Awareness Week is to start conversations about mental health to reduce stigma, help people get the support they need and to save lives.

To celebrate Mental Health Awareness Week, I will be posting a blog and 15 minute activity to improve your wellbeing every day this week. So you get an extra six wellbeing activities this week! I hope these activities improve your wellbeing and encourage you to have healthy, meaningful conversations about mental health and wellbeing.

Reflection rather than rumination

As we learnt from the first reflection blog post, the ability to learn from past events can improve our current and future wellbeing. Taking time to reflect can:

Improve our motivation,
Reduce anxiety and
Help us plan for the future

Often, when we feel low, we may ruminate which is bad for our wellbeing. Repeatedly focusing on problems or negative events we’ve experienced can lead to increased depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. Today’s activity therefore encourages us to reflect on the positives rather than ruminate, even when we have a bad day.

Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day
Alice Morse Earle

Today’s activity was inspired by the quote above – one of my favourites which I come back to time and again. When you’ve had a bad day, or things are getting you down, it’s important to remember that good things do still happen and that we should not give up.

On days when it all feels a bit too much, reflecting on positive events (no matter how small) can help us feel better about ourselves and maintain our wellbeing.

Whether you’ve had a good, bad or a somewhere in-between kind of day, spend 15 minutes reflecting on three good things that have happened. When you do have a bad day, try repeating this exercise to keep your spirits up and remind yourself that there is something good in every day.

Click the link below to download the worksheet. You can fill it in using the ‘fill and sign’ tool or alternatively print it off and fill it in by hand.

every-day-may-not-be-good Download

Check back here (and@15minwellbeing on Instagram and twitter) tomorrow for the next wellbeing activity as part of Mental Health Awareness Week!

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Bag up your worries and let go of stress

Stress. What a horrible feeling and unfortunately so many of us experience it. Whether it’s work, Brexit, travel, relationships, not being able to switch off or just having too much on our plates, stress is becoming a frequent, unwelcome visitor in our lives. During a typical week, 72% of us feel stressed at some point – this is not good for our wellbeing and frequently feeling stressed can also lead to problems with our mental and physical health.

Let’s change this. April is National Stress Awareness Month, so each 15 minute wellbeing blog post throughout April will focus on how stress affects our wellbeing and provide a range of activities aligned with the seven wellbeing themes to help us feel less stressed and anxious. Stress doesn’t have to be a part of life that we just accept, we can overcome it and feel better within ourselves.

What is stress?

Stress is how our bodies respond to an event or situation that is new, unexpected, threatens us or something that we have little control over. When we experience a stressful event, our bodies produce hormones that put us into ‘fight or flight’ mode. That is, these hormones prepare us to fight the threat, or run away from it.

Sometimes, this response is useful – it can help us respond quickly in high pressure situations and protect ourselves if we need to. If we only experience stressors and stay in fight or flight mode for a short amount of time, then we are unlikely to have any long-term, negative effects. However, if we experience stressful events frequently, or are constantly in fight or flight mode, our resilience to stressors reduces and we feel unable to cope. This leads to us regularly feeling stressed which can have a knock-on effect on our mental and physical health.

Why our lives are so stressful

Whereas our cavemen ancestors were mainly concerned with shelter, food and avoiding predators, a whole host of things can cause us stress in the 21^st Century:

Work – over two-thirds of people in a national survey felt excessive pressures at work (i.e. having to take on extra work to compensate for staff absences, unpaid overtime) was their main source of stress. This, plus balancing our work and home lives can make us feel overwhelmed.
Money – although employment has risen, the amount of money we earn has not increased substantially since the 2008 recession. This means that many of us don’t always have enough money to make ends meet and more than 1 in 5 of us have experienced debt-related stress.
Social media – Nearly half (49%) of young people surveyed felt the comparison and constant pressure of keeping up with others on social media was a source of stress.
Health – long-term health conditions are a source of stress for over a third of adults.
Commuting – as we learnt in last week’s post, lengthy commutes and journey delays can increase the amount of stress and anxiety we experience.
Current affairs – a third of us in the UK are stressed about Brexit.

How stress impacts our wellbeing

Stress can have a detrimental effect on our wellbeing. Experiencing lots of stress has been linked with depression and self-harm. In a national survey, 51% of respondents who felt stressed also felt depressed, with even more – 61% – feeling anxious as a result as stress.

Stress and anxiety can become a vicious cycle: stress leading to anxiety and the worrying linked with anxiety resulting in us feeling even more stressed. Rumination (constant worrying) is one of the strongest predictors of negative wellbeing. If we can reduce how much we ruminate, then we can start to overcome stress and improve our wellbeing.

Common, unhelpful ways we cope with stress

We have all developed our own ways of coping with stress, some of these are helpful whereas many are only short-term fixes. To alleviate stress we may eat unhealthily, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol or take drugs. While these can provide a momentary distraction from our worries, they don’t help us overcome them.

Bag up those worries

This week’s activity uses a short and cathartic exercise to help you overcome the stressors and worries you may be currently experiencing. It involves writing, drawing or sticking things that represent your worries in the bag on the worksheet and then scrunching or ripping it up. The purpose of going through this process can help you let go of your worries and realise that you have some control over your worries, they don’t have to control you.

Click the link below to download the worksheet. It’s recommended for this exercise that you print it off so you can scrunch it and rip it! If you don’t have a printer, draw your own bag and follow the instructions on the worksheet.

bag-of-worries Download

If bagging up your worries has helped improve your wellbeing, please do get in contact and share your story!

I share wellbeing-related research, news and stories on twitter and Instagram inbetween weekly blog posts so do follow @15minwellbeing on both platforms to keep up to date.

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How do we know what’s good for our wellbeing?

There’s so much focus on self-improvement these days – making changes to our lives to improve our performance, our physical health and mastering new skills. It’s generally straightforward to tell what helps us improve in these areas:

Testing new time management techniques to meet our targets at work
Increasing the amount of exercise we do to increase our physical fitness
Regular practice to learn a new skill

But how do we know what is and isn’t good for our wellbeing? We all lead busy lives so it’s hard to tell what is good for us and what might be having a negative impact on our health and wellbeing.

Having an insight into our thoughts, feelings and behaviours can improve our wellbeing. We gain this insight through the process of reflection. If we can identify what is good and bad for our wellbeing, we can make the changes we need to improve and maintain our wellbeing.

Theme 6: Reflection

Reflection builds on last week’s theme of mindfulness, as it also involves recognising our thoughts and feelings. Focusing our attention on ourselves can help with our personal growth and wellbeing – reflection consolidates learning from our experiences and enables us to apply this learning to new situations.

What is reflection? Self-reflection is the process of focusing on ourselves and increasing our awareness of our thoughts and feelings. Having an insight into how we think, feel and are motivated is key to our psychological health. Taking time to reflect can reduce anxiety, improve motivation and help us plan for the future.

It is important to understand that reflection focuses on learning from past events to improve our current and future wellbeing. It isn’t rumination – repeatedly focusing on negative events or problems that we’ve experienced without finding ways to overcome them. Rumination is linked with anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Rather than ruminating, the activities in this theme will encourage us to reflect upon setbacks and challenge with the aim of overcoming them in the future. Reflection is all about practice and as we progress through the blog, more tasks and techniques will be provided to help you reflect.

Why reflection is good for our wellbeing

Taking the time to reflect can help us:

Learn from past experiences
Manage ourselves and our lives better
Make better informed choices for the future
Adapt to new and/or changing situations
Problem solve
Make choices that improve our health

Through the process of reflection, we can identify imbalances in our feelings and personal needs. Once these have been identified, we can make changes and choices that address them. This process of reflection and behaviour change has been shown to improve our wellbeing.

Reflection can increase our ability to learn – which we already know is good for our wellbeing. Additionally, the relationship between reflection and wellbeing works both ways – positive self-beliefs can lead us to evaluate ourselves positively.

The onus on improving our wellbeing is ultimately on us. Taking 15 minutes to reflect can help us figure out what we need more and less of to improve our mental and physical health.

This week’s task gets you to reflect on the people, places and things that are good and bad for our wellbeing. Every day we interact with other people and the exchanges we have with others can have a huge impact on our mood and overall wellbeing. The environments we live, work and socialise in can affect how we feel about ourselves. The things we do and activities we engage in can also influence our health and wellbeing. This week’s activity worksheet includes some examples to help you reflect on what’s good and bad for your wellbeing.

Click the link below to download the worksheet. You can fill it in using the ‘fill and sign’ tool or alternatively print it off and fill it in by hand.

whats-good-and-bad-for-my-wellbeing Download

If reflecting on people, places and things has helped improve your wellbeing, please do get in contact and share your story!

I share wellbeing-related research, news and stories on twitter and Instagram in between weekly blog posts so do follow @15minwellbeing on both platforms to keep up to date.