Stiff neck? Tight shoulders? If you’re suffering with these, you’re not the only one. Over 4.6 million adults in the UK are estimated to suffer with shoulder pain, with over a quarter of the elderly population experiencing it. Between 15% and 31% of us have experienced neck pain lasting one day or more in the last 12 months.
Musculoskeletal problems such as neck and shoulder pain (as well as back pain and upper limb problems) were the second most common reason for sick days at work in 2016, resulting in 30.8 million working days lost that year. Pain in these areas is not only uncomfortable, but is having an effect on our day-to-day lives. If it can stop us going to work, what does this mean for our wellbeing?
Our mental and physical health are interlinked and muscle tension and pain is no exception. Ongoing physical pain is linked with diminished wellbeing and a poor quality of life. In some cases, neck and shoulder discomfort is caused by injury, but in others, it is a result of ongoing stress.
When we experience stress,
our muscles tense up but then relax again once the stress has passed. If we
regularly experience stress or anxiety, the muscles in our bodies can become
constantly tense, leading to discomfort and pain. Constant muscle tension in
our necks and shoulders can lead to other physical health problems such as
headaches and migraines, which in turn negatively affect our mental wellbeing. Stress
and muscle tension can easily turn into a vicious cycle resulting in ongoing,
poor wellbeing.
Stretch out your tension
Today’s activity consists of two simple exercises that can relieve the tension in our shoulders and necks and consequently improve our wellbeing. If you are currently under the care of a medical professional for any shoulder or neck conditions, please consult with them first before undertaking these exercises.
The exercises require no special equipment, just a
doorframe and a chair. The ‘lean in’ exercise stretches the deltoid muscles
across the front of your shoulders and the ‘scalene stretch’ stretches the
scalene muscles that run down either side of your neck. Follow the instructions
on the worksheet carefully and remember – these are meant to be relaxing and
stress-relieving, there is no need to push yourself unnecessarily.
Sometimes it feels like we’re surrounded by stuff, with nowhere to put anything. How much of this stuff do we actually need? Have we used or worn it all in the last year? If the answer to these questions is ‘not all of it’ then all these things may be cluttering your life unnecessarily.
Clutter can contribute to feelings of stress and not being able to achieve our goals. Mess around the house can make us feel stressed as we may perceive it as another task that we haven’t been able to complete. This adds to the feeling that there isn’t enough time in the day to accomplish our goals, which can make us feel even more stressed. In this third post during National Stress Awareness Month, we will be exploring the benefits of tidying up, getting rid of things we don’t really need and donating them to charity.
You may have heard of the ‘KonMari’ method popularised by the TV show ‘Tidying Up with Marie Kondo’. This method encourages us to get rid of items which no longer ‘spark joy’ in us. This is similar to the quote by William Morris: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” Focusing on the items that make us happy and removing those that are no longer of use to us can result in a transformation of not only our homes, but also our emotional wellbeing.
Is Marie Kondo onto something? She could well be. Living in a messy, cluttered house can have a negative impact on our wellbeing. If we feel like we live in a cluttered home, we are more likely to feel stressed, as shown by increased levels of cortisol (the stress hormone).
Why we are reluctant to declutter our homes
Although clutter and mess can cause frustration and have a detrimental effect on our wellbeing, many of us do nothing about it. Why is that? Tidying up and throwing things away is an unpleasant, often time-consuming activity for many of us to do, so we avoid it and spend that time procrastinating instead. For those of us who avoid throwing things away, or even hoard objects, we may keep hold of things because we believe that:
We just need more time to sort things out
We don’t have too much stuff, we just need more storage space
We need to keep them for the future, ‘just in case’
If we throw things away, we may harm the environment
If you are concerned that you may have a problem with hoarding, the Clutter Image Rating may be useful. Also, speak to your GP or a mental health practitioner for advice and support.
We can also become overly attached to our personal items, which makes it hard to get rid of them, resulting in a build-up of objects in our homes and lives. We then add to this ever increasing amount of objects because we believe we actually need the things we want, which is rarely the case. Do we want three different types of black ankle boots? Yes. Do we need three different types of black ankle boots? Almost definitely not.
How getting rid of clutter can improve our wellbeing
In comparison, if we feel like we live in a home that is tidy and in order, we feel less stressed. When decluttering we use our problem solving skills, giving us a sense of mastery and control, which helps us feel better about ourselves and increases our belief in our ability to achieve our goals.
One of the positives of tidying up is that we can see the difference we have made straight away. When our things are out of place, this can cause us to feel anxious. Putting things in order can relieve anxiety relatively quickly. Additionally, decluttering can involve three of the key wellbeing themes we’ve covered in 15 minute wellbeing:
Physical health – tidying is a type of exercise, which can improve our mental and physical health
Mindfulness – concentrating on just decluttering a space can keep us in the here and now, which in itself can help reduce stress
Giving – giving our unwanted items to charity can not only pass on joy to others, but also increase our self-worth
This week’s activity is a seemingly simple one – declutter a space in your home. It may sound daunting –and it’s ok to feel that way – but in line with all the other activities, you only need to spend 15 minutes tidying a space. Pick a small, manageable space such as a bedside drawer or the pile of bits and bobs on the stairs. Take a picture of how it looks before decluttering, then take another when you have finished.This will help you see what a difference just 15 minutes of tidying up can make.
Once you’ve finished tidying, bag up those items you don’t need and donate them to your local charity shop. Giving to others can further enhance our wellbeing by giving us asense of self-worth and purpose.
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.
If tidying up had a positive impact on your stress levels or wellbeing, please do get in touch 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.
It’s been widely reported that exercise is not only good for our physical health, it can benefit our mental health too. Yet many of us find it hard to maintain our motivation to exercise. Even when we have good intentions to exercise, they don’t always last.
Each year, one third of people in the UK make a New Year’s resolution to get fitter, yet 63% of us break our resolutions. On average, two thirds (66%) of New Year’s resolutions last for one month or less. If your exercise and fitness goals have fallen by the wayside, you’re not alone.
If you’re struggling to find the motivation to exercise, it could be that you haven’t found the right physical activity for you. Not getting the mental high from working out that you’re after? Then maybe it’s time to change your exercise routine. This week’s blog post can help you find the best exercise for you and your wellbeing.
Theme 4: Physical health
The focus of today’s post is exercise and how choosing the right type of exercise for you can help improve your mental health. As we progress through the blog posts each week, you will discover that this theme is about more than just exercise. Other elements of our physical health – what we eat, how we sleep and self-soothing activities – can all impact our health and wellbeing.
Often, when we think about exercising we think about long runs, intensive gym sessions and ‘no pain no gain’. The good news is that physical exercise does not need to be vigorous to have a positive impact on our mental health. Even better, just 10 minutes of exercise is enough to elevate mood. Those of us who struggle to make time for exercise can still improve our wellbeing by incorporating a brief amount of physical activity into our lives. Over time, 15 minute wellbeing will introduce a range of physical activities that can be completed in 15 minutes or less and enhance our wellbeing.
Why is exercise so good for our wellbeing?
Exercising can distract us from our negative thoughts, improve our perceived ability to cope with stressful situations and increase our sense of control. Physical activity can also improve our quality of life, mood, self-perception, social interaction and life satisfaction.
Exercise can also help us cope with mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. Aerobic and anaerobic exercise (such as resistance training) are effective treatments for depression. Regular exercise may help prevent people prone to feelings of anxiety from panicking when they experience symptoms such as increased heart rate and sweating. These physical reactions occur during exercise so regular exposure to them through physical activity could reduce the frequency of panic attacks.
Making small changes to the amount of exercise we do – even if we don’t do much at all – can enhance our wellbeing. For example, going for a walk can help us feel good. If we go for a walk with someone else, it has the added benefit of increasing our connection with others.
If we feel better after exercising, why is it so hard to keep doing it?
One factor to consider is the intensity of our physical activity. Do you tend to start off too hard? When we exercise to the point where it is hard to talk, the immediate mood boost we usually experience after exercising is delayed by approximately 30 minutes. This delay in mood enhancement can put us off exercising. Starting slowly, with a moderate exercise plan can help us to maintain our physical activity goals.
Have you found the right exercise for you? It is important to find a physical activity you enjoy, not one that feels like a chore. If you start a gym class to help you lose weight but you don’t actually enjoy it, it’s unlikely you’ll stick at it.
One way to find the right exercise for you is to consider your social-psychological needs, which can change over time. These are:
Achievement
Mood and tension release
Playfulness
Search for meaning
Self-esteem
Stress management
Different needs require different exercises. If you want to cope better with stress, activities that provide a welcome distraction such as running or aerobics would be beneficial. Activities such as competitive team sports are likely to add to the stress that you’re already feeling, so you won’t get the same sense of enjoyment from them.
Therefore, it may be that you haven’t found the right exercise to meet your current needs. Today’s activity helps you do just that! The worksheet includes a quiz to help you determine your current social-psychological needs and the types of exercises that match these needs. Once you’ve discovered what type of exercise may be right for you and your wellbeing, why not give it a go?
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.
If you are doing the right type of exercise but are struggling to stay motivated, research has shown that the following can increase your chances of staying active:
If you take up a new physical activity or make a change to your exercise regime, please do get intouch 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 tokeep up to date.
Giving is often associated with gifts or lavish acts that cost a lot of time and money. Although it is nice to give and receive presents, this is rarely the route to long term happiness and positive wellbeing. Research conducted around the world has shown that materialism is linked with low life satisfaction. The giving we are talking about today isn’t about gifting material goods, but gifting our time to support others.
Theme 3: Giving
The next theme that can improve our wellbeing is giving. The type of giving we are focusing on is prosocial behaviours such as volunteering, sharing and cooperating to benefit others. This could range from offering our seat to someone on the train or comforting a friend who is going through a tough time: giving to others does not need to involve spending lots of time or money. Altruistic behaviour such as helping others and sharing can lead to feeling more positive and increased self-worth. Giving back to others and reciprocating kindness can improve wellbeing for people of all ages.
Why giving is good for our wellbeing
When we give to others, the reward areas in our brains are stimulated, which makes us feel good about ourselves. Helping others and sharing can give us a sense of self-worth and purpose. Not only that, giving and sharing can result in developing new, stronger relationships throughout life which are also essential to wellbeing.
In a national survey, 80% of people in the UK said they felt good after being kind, with 87% feeling that being kind to others has a positive effect on their own health. Helping other people can give us a sense of euphoria or a ‘helper’s high’ which can reduce stress and improve our wellbeing. If you’ve seen the episode of ‘Friends’ where Joey and Phoebe argue about whether there is such a thing as a selfless good deed, it looks as if Joey may be right – helping others helps us feel good.
Image subject to copyright
Small acts of kindness can make a big difference
Whether it’s volunteering or a small act of kindness to someone else, giving is linked with positive wellbeing. Those who are kind to others – including those who commit small acts of kindness – report benefits such as:
Being kind to others does not need to be time consuming: one study asked participants to commit five random acts of kindness each week over six weeks. These acts included visiting a sick relative, helping someone with a problem and donating blood. Wellbeing improved amongst those who carried out these random acts of kindness compared to those who didn’t. Other research has shown that committing just one act of kindness a week over six weeks led to increased wellbeing, compared to those who did not help others.
When giving our time to others, it is important to look after ourselves. If we overly focus on helping others without considering our own needs, we can put ourselves at risk of burnout, feeling guilty and even depression. Therefore it is important not to take on too much and spread ourselves too thinly –spending just 15 minutes of our time giving is enough to not only help others, but benefit us too.
Today’s activity asks you to give 15 minutes of your time to someone or something else. The worksheet provides you with some ideas on how you can give your time, be it helping someone else or your local community. These are just suggestions so if you’d like to give 15 minutes of your time doing something else to help others, then do. There is also space on the worksheet to reflect on how it went and how you felt afterwards.
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.
If you have any ideas about other activities we can do by giving 15 minutes of our time, please get in touch so they can be shared with everyone. It would be great to create a ’15minute giving’ database so any contributions would be greatly appreciated.
I share wellbeing-related research, news and stories on twitter and Instagram inbetween weekly blog posts so do follow @15minwellbeing on both platforms tokeep up to date.
Today is Valentine’s Day which celebrates love. Although many people enjoy exchanging cards and gifts and declaring their affection for others, some of us find Valentine’s Day very difficult. If you’re in a relationship or not, the romantic ideals shown in films, TV and social media can be hard to live up to, which isn’t great for our wellbeing.
Today’s post uses Valentine’s Day to introduce the next theme that can improve your wellbeing – learning. Learning in adulthood can help us feel more positive about ourselves and our lives – this is what today’s blog and activity aim to do.
But what’s learning got to do with love? One of the key benefits of learning is that it helps us connect with others. Also, learning about the different types of love – the focus of today’s activity – can increase our awareness of the different ways we love and are loved, most of which aren’t celebrated on Valentine’s Day.
Theme 2: Learning
Learning broadens our minds and improves insight into all aspects of our lives – ourselves, our relationships and the world around us – which in turn is good for our wellbeing. Learning isn’t just about memorising something new, ready for a test. It also involves having new experiences, developing skills and gaining knowledge that can enrich our lives.
Learning can be a time consuming process. However, a recent large-scale study showed that training related to hobbies or leisure activities does not need to be of a high intensity or duration to improve wellbeing. Therefore, learning something new in just 15 minutes can help you feel better within yourself.
Why is learning good for our health and wellbeing?
Learning beyond our school days has many benefits such as helping us to connect with others, give us a sense of purpose and increase our self-esteem and self-confidence. Continuing to learn after school, college or university is linked with feeling:
More optimistic;
More satisfied with life and
More capable of dealing with stress.
The confidence and self-efficacy gained by learning can even improve our ability to manage our health. For example, we can make better decisions about our health and better adhere to instructions from clinicians. Not only that, lifelong learning can prolong independence which can result in less reliance on healthcare services as we get older.
Reservations about learning
Although learning can have a range of benefits for our wellbeing, some of us have had negative learning experiences which cause us to feel stressed and anxious. This may in part be due to the association between learning and assessment. Even when assessments are routine and expected, the possibility of failure can be very distressing.
None of the 15 minute wellbeing learning activities involve any tests or assessments, just questions that encourage you to gain new knowledge, develop skills and even challenge you to try something that you may not have done before.
Different types of love
Valentine’s Day typically celebrates romantic love between couples and encourages single people to share their hidden romantic feelings and affection for one another. However, there is more to love than romance. The ancient Greeks had more than 30 different words to describe love in all its forms. ‘Eros’ is the word used for attraction, romance and sexual desire, the type of love typically celebrated by Valentine’s Day.
Another type of love is ‘Philia’ the love we have for people with whom we share experiences and goals. This may be your team mates in a netball or football club, soldiers in the same army regiment or even your co-workers.
Today’s activity asks you to discover and learn about different types of love. Not only that, but also reflect on your experiences of the multiple ways we love and are loved. The worksheet has space for you to note up to four different types of love, though you do not have to fill in all the boxes if you run out of time.
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.
If you’d like to share how you got on with this activity, or a type of love that you experience, please do get in touch.
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.
15 Minute Wellbeing 