Make your senses happy

There are certain things that I always find comforting regardless of my mental state. They might conjure memories or just be inexplicably reassuring.

When having a panic attack they suggest focusing on one thing for each sense to bring you back. One thing you see, one you hear, one you smell, one you feel and one you taste.

Can the same use of senses lift us up when we are depressed?

Touch

For as long as even my parents can remember I have had a strong attachment to satin ribbons, the softer and silkier the better. Rubbing satin is very calming to me and as I child I collected anything I found that had that satin texture. I would suck my thumb and rub the “silky” to feel calm. I’ve long given up the thumb sucking, but even now I keep a few of the softest ribbons I collected in a draw. Just rubbing one between my thumb and forefinger gives me a feeling of peace.

Sound

The opening song to the little known film Cats Don’t Dance (it’s really hard to find but so worth seeing) is my go to “cheer up” sound. It’s an upbeat song and singing along to it always gives me a feeling that I can take on the world

Smell

This one was harder to think of, but the smell that comes to mind when I think of a happy feeling is hay. Specifically the warm hay smell of a guinea pig. We had many guinea pigs growing up, and although I was never as attached to them as some of our other pets, their warm hay smell is very comforting. Walking around a pet store, I always take a deep breath when I get to the rabbit/guinea pig area. That mix of hay, sawdust and animal just smells like happiness some how.

Sight

I’m doing these easiest to hardest and it’s a toss up between the final two. My initial answer was Bill Wurtz history of the entire world, I guess. A YouTube video that I have watched countless times to distract me, but I think that’s more the sing song nature of it (especially as I’m singing “the Cambrian explosion” to myself as I type) so I’m not going to count it as sight.

Instead I’m going to say two screen shots I’ve saved on my phone. I’ve had them years so I don’t know where they originate (sorry to original posters for not giving credit). They both cheer me up in different ways. The first gives me a feeling of inner strength, and the second just makes me smile.

I highly recommend saving little things like these on your phone for when you need a little pick me up.

Taste

I have an unhealthy relationship with food so this takes the cake (sorry couldn’t resist) for being the toughest to think of. What food would I always be happy to eat? I love chocolate, but it doesn’t make me happy per se.

I actually took a few days to think about it and the constant in my life, the thing that can make me eat things I hate – is ketchup. Good old tomato sauce. So although a little bit of it won’t relax me, it does give me the power to do things I can’t otherwise. That knowledge makes me happy in a different way to the others, but it is happiness.

What makes your senses happy?

It’s actually been interesting to compare how I feel with others. I asked my husband about his 5 choices and he had different ways of thinking. His touch was a good hug, and his sound was my laugh. I realised that I hadn’t included people anywhere in mine!

So what are your 5 choices? Can you use them to lift you up when you are down?

Changing your dreams

Imagine you’ve made a gradual change. You’ve lost weight. You don’t notice a big difference because you see yourself every day, then you bump into someone you haven’t seen in 6 months. They are shocked at the change in you – “you look so different!” “Wow you look great!”. Suddenly you see yourself from their perspective, “I guess I have changed lots!”

We don’t think about how we change inside in the same way, but it really is very similar. We gradually change day by day without really noticing.

When we spend our lives working towards goals or often just doing the day to day to survive, we don’t stop to reflect very often. So do we still want what we are working towards? Are our goals the same as they were before?

It can feel daunting to realise that what used to be important no longer is, especially when you’ve worked hard for something. But your priority should be what will make you happy, not a feeling of obligation to your past ambitions or finishing what you started.

What was your dream job when you started, might not give you the same fulfilment now. Your experiences shape and change you, you are forever growing. Embrace your future self instead of clinging to the past.

It’s a scary, but exciting thing to discover you’ve changed, you’ll find potential you never thought possible. Where will your next adventure be?

This might seem a bit abstract and cryptic compared to my other posts, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about lots lately. I’ll reveal more in next week’s post!

Positivity and Recovery

Last week I faced my fears and did a bit of public speaking. I did an hours session for 15 people from work about the importance of positivity. I was shocked by how much they all appreciated it.

I was raised a pessimist the way other people are raised as Christian, Hindu or Muslim. My mother’s mantra was always to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised. However when I got ill, this outlook really held me back from recovery. I was frustrated and angry at my body for not working, and the distance between where I was and my goals seemed insurmountable and getting no closer each month.

It was once I started having talking therapies that I realised how much I was holding myself back. If I looked back at where I’d been a month ago instead of forwards to a distant goal, I could see a lot of progress. If I gave my body love and appreciation instead of hostility and anger my recovery was more noticeable.

So the tips I taught my colleagues were this:

Create positivity around you

By making an effort to be kind and polite to those around you, it makes it a nicer environment. That will lift you up. If you continue a cycle of negativity with a difficult person, you are really just dragging yourself down. Choose to be the kind of person you want to be around. Emulate the behaviours of people who make you feel happy.

Challenge your negative thoughts

We all are prone to assuming the worst, to worrying people think negatively about us, or to dreading an upcoming task. Particularly the thoughts about other’s disliking or judging us are easy to counter. We are all the centre of our own universe, and unless we are interacting with someone, we probably aren’t thinking about them. So if you trip over in public, or embarrass yourself in some way, remember that was a minute part of everyone else’s day even though it was massive to you!

When looking at an upcoming task you are worried about, think about how much you will learn from doing it, how much skill you are showing off, or how much the people you are doing it for appreciate it. Don’t put it off, you’ll only be fretting about it until it’s over, so embrace the challenge and dive in!

Be kind to yourself

When you are feeling down, imagine that all the negative thoughts are being said by someone you love. If they said those things about themselves you would comfort them, tell them how untrue those things are, how amazing they are. Don’t treat yourself any differently! You deserve all the kindness you give your loved ones. You deserve that love too. So be compassionate to yourself when you are feeling vulnerable.

Be grateful

Gratitude is a powerful tool, I could probably do a separate blog on it. The basic principle is this, don’t focus on the things that are making you unhappy. Before bed, or first thing when you wake up take a moment to think about the things in life you are grateful for, the things you are lucky to have. Many people don’t have the luxuries you do, so appreciate them instead of taking them for granted. By focusing on those amazing things or people you have in your life, you will give yourself a little positive boost to start or end your day with. It’s a simple trick to reverse your negative focus.

Overall wellbeing

It’s very easy to blame a particular thing for our unhappiness or our ill health. If it wasn’t for that one thing we would be happy, successful and healthy. Fixating on one area gives us a focal point, but it also gives us an excuse. I can’t fix that one thing, then it’s not our fault. But really, if we are being honest with ourselves, our health and happiness is so much more complex.

Years ago I attended a great talk from someone at People’s Health Trust, he said that health is being physically, mentally and socially well. It’s not even a new concept, it was the World Health Organisation definition of health back at the turn of the 20th century! We often think of health as a narrow and negative field, where we are just trying to get by. However considering it as lots of little things and that good health means all areas are 100%, can give us a higher aim. We aren’t just trying to be well enough to function, we are trying to be healthy and happy in all areas of life.

This broad view is the opposite of our focused blame. It can seem overwhelming at first, but really it’s breaking a big concept down into lots of smaller parts. Don’t let the number of areas scare you, because each one is little and easy to impact!

The way I like to think of this is as though we are a character in the Sims. Each Sim has an overall mood bar, but there is a sub menu of other bars, 6 total covering basic needs. However they now also have extra mood modifiers based on experiences, environment and fulfilment of ambitions. This makes mood much more complex.

You’d imagine a happy Sim would have their basic needs mostly met, but if a Sim has bonuses (e.g. for having fun, donating to charity, being in a nice house, making a nice meal) they can be happy even with a two bad bars!

Likewise, having all your bars being full doesn’t get you into the top level of happiness, the Sim needs some positive bonuses as well as their basic needs being met. In fact they can be almost perfectly happy without their bars being maxed out!

As you see the bars are green in these scenarios, but the bonuses make all the difference!

So try to imagine your wellbeing as like a the Sims overall mood bar. Fulfilling your basic needs will get you so far, but it’s the extra little things that will build you up. Just because you can’t improve one bar doesn’t mean you can’t be happy and fulfilled, you just need to find your bonuses! The little things that make a difference to your day.