What Makes ‘Liking Your Body’ So Damn Hard

I’m a life coach who specializes in helping women stop “feeling crazy around food” (including diet-binge cycling, emotional eating, obsessive food thoughts, etc.). As you can imagine, my work involves doing a TON of body image work with clients, as it’s my perspective that body hate is what gets us into these dysfunctional patterns to begin with.

Whenever body image comes up with clients, however, I’m almost always asked:

“Do you REALLY love and accept your body exactly as it is right now? Do you never have moments when you wish your body was different? It seems like one of those things people say, but like, that can’t be real.”

Which is when I have to explain a reality of “body image work” that too many coaches and counselors often neglect...

While I choose to love and accept my body today under all circumstances, that doesn’t mean other people will agree with me or do the same. And because, as a human, I’m a relatively social creature by nature, it’s not always easy to deal with rejection or disapproval by others (whether that rejection be explicit — like when I was bullied by my pediatrician for being a fat baby — or implicit, like when I’m constantly being told what “hot” looks like, and it doesn’t look like me).

The deal with “body image work” that we all need to get hip to, and that I hope mental health professionals will discuss with their clients in more depth as time goes on, is that loving our bodies as they are today requires a commitment to being proudly ourselves in spite of potential judgments by others.

In other words, a big part of doing “body image work” means learning how to handle having different opinions about weight, beauty, and/or “health,” than other people.

And that reality is something that, unfortunately, doesn’t go away.

There is no denying that weight stigma exists, and that the social problem of weight stigma is often what makes our body dissatisfaction and/or food problems most difficult to escape.

But we only have two choices in how we can respond to to this social problem today:

1. We can pander to it.

We can stay in on Friday nights.

We can honor the social systems that oppress us.

We can wear pants when it’s 90 degrees.

We can deny ourselves dinner dates because we’re scared of the menu.

We can wear t-shirts during sex.

We can NOT have sex.

We can blame ourselves for behaviors that are direct consequences of dieting and body shame (i.e. emo & binge-eating).

We can fear food.

We can weight-cycle (the technical term for yo-yo dieting that is clinically understood to be far more dangerous for our bodies than fatness of any kind).

We can starve ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually... all in the name of prejudice, primarily towards women’s bodies, but increasingly towards men’s as well.

OR

2. We can choose to be proudly ourselves in the face of bias.

We can stop hiding.

We can buy clothes we like now.

We can enjoy our food choices.

We can go swimming in the ocean, in a bathing suit, in daylight.

We can make love with the lights on.

We can take a stand for ourselves and all others affected by a culture of weight discrimination.

We can choose health at any size.

We can show up to our college reunion (and even get down with our bad selves).

We can refuse to participate in body shaming behaviors (including dieting for weight loss, derogatory body talk, and/or “health shaming”).

We can live fiercely today rather than wait indefinitely for a certain body size.

How long have you been waiting? How many years do you have left on this precious planet Earth?

The choice is yours.

And if you think I’m onto something here, you can read more of my food and body image insights at www.isabelfoxenduke.com.

Source:  Isabel Foxen Duke
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isabel-foxen-duke/what-makes-liking-your-body-so-damn-hard_b_7041796.html

More really good stuff :-)

How Incredibly Successful People THINK

Let's Exercise Because We Love Our Bodies, Not Because We Hate Them

What if we started talking about fitness and exercise more positively?

I'm an indoor cycling instructor and dabble in other group exercise classes. I love teaching. It’s something I fell into as a temporary gig, but I’ve ended up enjoying it a great deal.

When I teach, I'm aware that what I say can stay with the participants—in the same way that other instructors’ words stay with me. I'm intentional about giving positive feedback and encouraging the people who work out with me. I instruct them in the proper form so that they can gain endurance and strength. I push them to go faster, harder, and longer so that they can be proud of their increased fitness level.

You know what I don’t do? I don't encourage them to lose their belly. I don't tell them to banish fat.

These aren't the ultimate goals of exercise. But that’s the language we’re constantly confronted with in the fitness world. As someone who usually has fun trying new activities and visiting new gyms, I'm frustrated by gym lingo. So much of it is negative, and so much of it is about hating yourself. I exercise because I love myself and love seeing what I can push my body to do. Hearing other people—especially women—talk about their bodies in a negative fashion is heartbreaking. So I wonder: Would people be more successful in achieving their fitness goals, happier with their progress, and more likely to sustain an active lifestyle if we framed exercise in more positive terms?

An article from Time magazine commenting on the new term "skinny fat" noted that being skinny doesn’t equal being healthy. People may have a poor diet and never exercise but look like they're in perfect shape. Others may have eating disorders that keep them thin, even as their bodies are shutting down. Neither of these are healthy ways of living, but we often discuss being skinny and being healthy as if they're interchangeable.

Exercise, for those of us blessed with the privilege, should be a healthy part of life. In fact, I like to say that no one can afford not to exercise. But fat talk and body shaming don’t encourage healthier choices. According to a recent New York Times article, such language does the opposite—it makes women less likely to take care of their bodies.


Too often we're warned: “No pain, no gain.” We're pushed to “work that butt off.” We're told to “think about how hot you’ll look in those jeans.” And of course, there are those incessant reminders that “swimsuit season is coming up.” But just like the unattainable images of beauty that Hollywood tells us to hold as ideal, exercising to “earn our beach body” isn't a realistic goal. It’s not specific. It's not measurable. And it doesn’t actually have anything to do with health.

The messages put forth by ads at the gym, by fitness instructors, and by mainstream media promote an unhealthy obsession with body appearance and limited attention to much else. The overwhelming focus on the visual aspects of women’s bodies often means that we don't pay enough attention to our worth as individuals.

My body looks nothing like what I see on the cover of Cosmo or Shape, and it never will. But I love my body the way it is because for me, the purpose of exercise isn't to make my figure pleasing for other people to look at. My legs have carried me through two marathons, seven half marathons, and a few triathlons to boot. It will continue powering me through whatever I decide to do next. My arms and core aren’t skinny or even all that solid. But they allow me to move, to be independent, and to carry just about anything I need.

I’m proud that most days I’m able to appreciate my body not for what it can do but for what it is. It hurts and worries me that we are so often told—and so ready to believe—that we aren’t good enough. Our bodies are beautiful and don't need to be “fixed.” Let's quit the negative talk, and turn the fitness conversation to celebrate the amazing abilities of our bodies instead.

Article Source:  Hannah Morrison Shultz

http://verilymag.com/2015/05/health-fitness-exercise-gym-workout-positive-body-image-love-your-body

Just came across this article - I love it - what about you? - more of this kind of attitude is needed

Yoga to Make You Happy, Relaxing Beginners Routine for Stress & Depressi...

Yogis Score High on Happiness

No matter how much we lust after worldly objects and material pleasures, in the end, we all just want to be happy. But despite our efforts, happiness often eludes us. Now the ranks of science have stepped in to help unravel the secrets of this precious state of being. And they’re discovering what yogis have known all along.

Happiness, it seems, has a biological component. Groundbreaking studies conducted by University of Wisconsin psychologist Richard Davidson over the past decade have shown that people who report high rates of happy feelings have a larger and more active left prefrontal cortex than their depressed counterparts. Other studies have concluded that happiness may be a matter of genetics. A 1996 study of 1,500 pairs of twins at the University of Minnesota found that, on a self-report happiness scale, adult twins were highly matched in their scores despite variations in income, marital status, and education.

Happiness also seems to lie outside the limits of material wealth and life events. Winning the lottery may tip the emotional scales at first, but most people return to a certain grade of happiness within three months. This is nothing new to the practitioners of yoga. As Dr. R.M. Matthijs Cornelissen of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, explains, “In the Vedic tradition, ananda, or delight, is seen as being present in the essence of everything that exists. Happiness is thus not something that depends on what you have, but what you are.”

In fact, many studies suggest that yoga can effect positive states of mind, despite life’s highs and lows. In 1993, a British team measured the effects of three relaxation techniques - chair sitting, visualization, and yoga and found that yoga resulted in the greatest increase in alertness, mental and physical energy, and lust for life. Likewise, a 1994 German study, which compared a group of women practising hatha yoga to a second group that did not, found that the yoginis showed markedly higher scores in life satisfaction, and lower scores in aggressiveness, emotionality, and sleep problems.

“Yoga primarily changes your consciousness, which includes your way of looking at things,” says Cornelissen. “In the process, many aspects of your physical functioning also change, including your brain chemistry.”

Whether we use yoga or some other self-affirming behavior, it’s clear that even born-to-be-negative types can choose to cultivate happiness. Just as a bad mood can become a bad habit that perpetuates unhappiness, so can nurturing positive feelings lead to a more permanent positive state of mind.

Source:  Written By:  Angela Pirisi
http://www.yogajournal.com/article/health/yogis-score-high-on-happiness/ 

Yoga is my favourite all-time physical activity.  Used to do a lot of gym, spin classes, body pump, etc. but yoga is far superior on all counts, including for shaping up, focus, happiness, concentration, etc. etc. :-)

Mozart, Beethoven and why happiness can get in the way of creativity

The idea that sadness somehow kindles creativity is a popular and long-lasting one. Its roots go back to antiquity; even Aristotle noted that those who excelled in the arts, politics and philosophy had a tendency toward “melancholia.” The artistic canon appears to be full of people whose dark mental states kindled their brilliance but also brought their lives to an early end — such as Vincent van Gogh, Anne Sexton, Mark Rothko, Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf.

This notion is widespread, but in science it remains controversial. Past studies have suggested that negative feelings can provide fodder for art and trigger more self-reflective thought. Others have shown that influential figures in science and art have a tendency toward depression. But research has not really demonstrated a direct link between sadness and many of the most lasting achievements in art history.

Now, a fascinating new study from an economist at the University of Southern Denmark appears to show that link.

The researcher, Karol Jan Borowiecki, examined the emotional state of three of the West’s most influential composers through the full course of their lives. Using linguistic analysis software that scanned the text for positive and negative emotions, such as joy, love, grief and hurt, he analyzed 1,400 letters written by Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Liszt to their friends, colleagues and loved ones. He then compared that data with the compositions they produced in a given time period, looking in particular at their most influential and transformative works.

What he found appears to bear out popular ideas about creativity and melancholy: a link between periods of negative emotions, especially sadness, and artistic brilliance.

The three composers that Borowiecki studies lived in roughly the same time period and region of Europe, and all had turbulent lives, sometimes tragic and sometimes jubilant.

Mozart was lauded as a child prodigy but was driven to depression when he was forbidden from marrying a girl he loved and his mother suddenly died. After the death of his father, Liszt became his family’s sole breadwinner at a young age; he was never able to marry the woman he loved, and he saw his children pass away before him.

After a period of poverty, Beethoven discovered at 30 that he was going deaf, and he was emotionally stricken when at the end of his life a nephew under his care tried to commit suicide. The translator of Beethoven’s letters said he fluctuated emotionally between “explosions of harshness and almost weak yieldingness, while striving to master the base thoughts.”

 Positive and negative emotions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Image: Karol Jan Borowiecki
For all their extraordinary achievements, Borowiecki’s analysis suggests that the causes of these composers’ happiness and sadness were the same as any ordinary individual. Their letters reflected high emotional states when they had stable and engaging employment, solid personal relationships and good health. Negative emotions appeared when they fell on hard times financially, when their health became poor or especially when a close relative died.

Borowiecki’s analysis suggests that negative emotions are not just correlated with creativity but that they actually have a causal effect on it. Using econometrics, he calculates that a 9.3 percent increase in negative emotions leads to a 6.3 percent increase in works created in the following year. To generate an entire important composition in the next year, the composer would need to see his negative emotions increase by about 37 percent.

“Creativity, measured by the number of important compositions, is causally attributable to negative moods, in particular to sadness,” he writes.

The analysis turned up a few other interesting findings. For one, composers appeared to write more letters in times of negative emotion — especially when they were angry — and fewer when they were happy. The data also showed that getting a permanent, tenured position and being married or cohabiting were associated with less productivity and less creative output.

Of course, this shouldn't be a rationale for anyone who has depression to stop taking their medication. But it appears that the most lasting inspiration for artists may come from the most difficult moments.

Source: Written by Ana Swanson,
This article is published in collaboration with Wonk Blog.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. 

Sad piano (this will make you cry) by Michael Ortega

10 Troubling Habits Of Chronically Unhappy People

Happiness comes in so many different forms that it can be hard to define. Unhappiness, on the other hand, is easy to identify; you know it when you see it, and you definitely know when it’s taken ahold of you.

Unhappiness is lethal to everyone around you, just like second-hand smoke. The famous Terman Study from Stanford followed subjects for eight decades and found that being around unhappy people is linked to poorer health and a shorter life span.

Happiness has much less to do with life circumstances than you might think. A University of Illinois study found that people who earn the most (more than $10 million annually) are only a smidge happier than the average Joes and Janes who work for them.

Life circumstances have little to do with happiness because much happiness is under your control—the product of your habits and your outlook on life. Psychologists from the University of California who study happiness found that genetics and life circumstances only account for about 50% of a person’s happiness. The rest is up to you.

"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” – Benjamin Franklin

Unhappy Habits

When people are unhappy, it’s much more difficult to be around them, let alone work with them. Unhappiness drives people away, creating a vicious cycle that holds you back from achieving everything that you’re capable of.

Unhappiness can catch you by surprise. So much of your happiness is determined by your habits (in thought and deed) that you have to monitor them closely to make certain that they don’t drag you down into the abyss.

Some habits lead to unhappiness more than others do. You should be especially wary of the ten habits that follow as they are the worst offenders. Watch yourself carefully to make certain that these habits are not your own.


1. Waiting for the future. Telling yourself, “I’ll be happy when …” is one of the easiest unhappy habits to fall into. How you end the statement doesn’t really matter (it might be a promotion, more pay, or a new relationship) because it puts too much emphasis on circumstances, and improved circumstances don’t lead to happiness. Don’t spend your time waiting for something that’s proven to have no effect on your mood. Instead focus on being happy right now, in the present moment, because there’s no guarantee of the future.

2. Spending too much time and effort acquiring “things.” People living in extreme poverty experience a significant increase in happiness when their financial circumstances improve, but it drops off quickly above $20,000 in annual income. There’s an ocean of research that shows that material things don’t make you happy. When you make a habit of chasing things, you are likely to become unhappy because, beyond the disappointment you experience once you get them, you discover that you’ve gained them at the expense of the real things that can make you happy, such as friends, family, and hobbies.

3. Staying home. When you feel unhappy, it’s tempting to avoid other people. This is a huge mistake as socializing, even when you don’t enjoy it, is great for your mood. We all have those days when we just want to pull the covers over our heads and refuse to talk to anybody, but understand that the moment this becomes a tendency, it destroys your mood. Recognize when unhappiness is making you antisocial, force yourself to get out there and mingle, and you’ll notice the difference right away.

4. Seeing yourself as a victim. Unhappy people tend to operate from the default position that life is both hard and out of their control. In other words, “Life is out to get me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” The problem with that philosophy is that it fosters a feeling of helplessness, and people who feel helpless aren’t likely to take action to make things better. While everyone is certainly entitled to feel down every once in a while, it’s important to recognize when you’re letting this affect your outlook on life. You’re not the only person that bad things happen to, and you do have control over your future as long as you’re willing to take action.

5. Pessimism. Nothing fuels unhappiness quite like pessimism. The problem with a pessimistic attitude, beyond it being hard on your mood, is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you expect bad things, you’re more likely to get bad things. Pessimistic thoughts are hard to shake off until you recognize how illogical they are. Force yourself to look at the facts, and you’ll see that things are not nearly as bad as they seem.

6. Complaining. Complaining itself is troubling as well as the attitude that precedes it. Complaining is a self-reinforcing behavior. By constantly talking—and therefore thinking—about how bad things are, you reaffirm your negative beliefs. While talking about what bothers you can help you feel better, there’s a fine line between complaining being therapeutic and it fueling unhappiness. Beyond making you unhappy, complaining drives other people away.

7. Blowing things out of proportion. Bad things happen to everybody. The difference is that happy people see them for what they are—a temporary bummer—whereas unhappy people see anything negative as further evidence that life is out to get them. A happy person is upset if they have a fender bender on the way to work, but they keep things in perspective: “What a hassle, but at least it wasn’t more serious.” An unhappy person, on the other hand, uses it as proof that the day, the week, the month, maybe even their whole life, is doomed.

8. Sweeping problems under the rug. Happy people are accountable for their actions. When they make a mistake, they own it. Unhappy people, on the other hand, find problems and mistakes to be threatening, so they try to hide them. Problems tend to get bigger when they’re ignored. The more you don’t do anything about a problem, the more it starts to feel as though you can’t do anything about it, and then you’re right back to feeling like a victim.


9. Not improving. Because unhappy people are pessimists and feel a lack of control over their lives, they tend to sit back and wait for life to happen to them. Instead of setting goals, learning, and improving themselves, they just keep plodding along, and then they wonder why things never change.

10. Trying to keep up with the Joneses. Jealousy and envy are incompatible with happiness, so if you’re constantly comparing yourself with others, it’s time to stop. In one study, most subjects said that they’d be okay with making less money, but only if everybody else did too. Be wary of this kind of thinking as it won’t make you happy and, more often than not, has the opposite effect.

Bringing It All Together

Changing your habits in the name of greater happiness is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. But it’s also important for another reason—taking control of your happiness makes everyone around you happier too.

Source: By Travis Bradberry 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2016/07/26/10-troubling-habits-of-chronically-unhappy-people/2/#2c9fd3443e56

Travis co-wrote the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and co-founded TalentSmart.

Why do we enjoy listening to sad music?

Sad music might actually evoke positive emotions reveals a new study by Japanese researchers published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Psychology. The findings help to explain why people enjoy listening to sad music, say Ai Kawakami and colleagues from Tokyo University of the Arts and the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan.

Kawakami and colleagues asked 44 volunteers, including both musicians and non-specialists, to listen to two pieces of sad music and one piece of happy music. Each participant was required to use a set of keywords to rate both their perception of the music and their own emotional state.

The sad pieces of music included Glinka's "La Séparation" in F minor and Blumenfeld's Etude "Sur Mer" in G minor. The happy music piece was Granados's Allegro de Concierto in G major. To control for the "happy" effect of major key, they also played the minor-key pieces in major key, and vice versa.

The researchers explained that sad music evoked contradictory emotions because the participants of the study tended to feel sad music to be more tragic, less romantic, and less blithe than they felt themselves while listening to it.

"In general, sad music induces sadness in listeners, and sadness is regarded as an unpleasant emotion. If sad music actually evokes only unpleasant emotion, we would not listen to it," the researchers wrote in the study.

"Music that is perceived as sad actually induces romantic emotion as well as sad emotion. And people, regardless of their musical training, experience this ambivalent emotion to listen to the sad music," added the researchers.

Also, unlike sadness in daily life, sadness experienced through art actually feels pleasant, possibly because the latter does not pose an actual threat to our safety. This could help people to deal with their negative emotions in daily life, concluded the authors.

"Emotion experienced by music has no direct danger or harm unlike the emotion experienced in everyday life. Therefore, we can even enjoy unpleasant emotion such as sadness. If we suffer from unpleasant emotion evoked through daily life, sad music might be helpful to alleviate negative emotion," they added.

Article source:  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130711135459.htm

Story Source:  

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Frontiers. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

Kazuo Okanoya, Kentaro Katahira, Kiyoshi Furukawa, Ai Kawakami. Sad music induces pleasant emotion. Frontiers in Psychology, 2013; 4 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00311

---

Happily Retired Now! (The Happy Retirement Song)

OH YESSSS!!!!

Escapism... Is it Good or Bad?

As someone who lives in a world of entrepreneurship, I often hear discussion about "wasting time" and how people don't watch TV, or go to movies, or do anything that could be considered "counter productive," unless it's something that is teaching you how to run your business (i.e. the umbrella of "personal development").  I feel like those who do spend time doing those things are looked down upon as though all they are doing is wasting their time.  You know what I think, though?  I think that this "personal development" that people talk about can come in many media and art forms.  A big part of personal development is simply about improving ourselves.  Sometimes this involves improving ourselves through our habits and skills (which is truly necessary, and I highly recommend), but other times it simply means learning to work through some of the shit that life is throwing at us... and THAT is where I think "escapism" is a completely valid form of personal development.

Not all people can "snap out of it" simply with a good pep talk and pat on the back (or ass... whatever floats your boat).  There are many, many different personality types out there, and a lot of times we have trouble understanding each other (*side note* this is why I love the My Little Pony cartoon, because it's teaching kids [and some adults] early on how to deal with people of different personality styles, in different circumstances, from different walks of life, and how to all get along and work through things together *end side note*).  Some people truly need to dive into some form of escapism in order to clear their head and truly find themselves again.  They are not being "lazy" when they do this... they are working through some shit.  And, you know what?  Even if they aren't at any given moment, I think it's totally ok to sit down and just enjoy something for the sake of enjoying it every once and a while (or, in my case... 1 to 3 hours per night... yes, I watch TV *gasp* OH NO HOW COULD SHE!?).

Look, I'm not saying that you should re-prioritize your life and put your escapism first before all other things (because that wouldn't be the healthiest way to go about it either), I'm just saying that I understand that there can be a valid place in life for it to happen.  Sure, you never want to escape to the point of it being running away from life completely, but sometimes people need to deal with shit and HOW they deal with shit is going to be different person by person.  The important thing is truly learning to understand ourselves and become vividly aware of how we deal with things and what we need to do in order to find ourselves again.

Why am I ranting on this?  Well, I just got out of a Supernatural panel at San Diego Comic Con (stay with me here, kids).  For those who don't know, that show just wrapped up season 11.  Yes, that's a lot of television! Yes, I watched EVERY EPISODE just this year (starting in January when I came down with the flu really badly).  So, needless to say, I binge watched a bit.  What I didn't realize, at the time, is how watching that show was helping me through things that were beginning to unfold in my own life (well, look, ok... my life has been a bit shaky this year.  If you want to see reasons, just read my last blog).  I was going through hard times for longer than a lot of people may have realized, because I was hiding it all away.  So, I still did my job during the day, but at night I joined the Winchester brothers on their hunts and it helped me get the bottled emotions out.  I'd laugh, I'd cry, and I'd find relatable circumstances in the show that helped me guide my own life (yes, this IS possible even in a show where the main characters are running around shooting ghosts in the face with rock salt loaded into shotguns).  I'm just saying, before you judge someone, learn how they heal.   Just because you don't understand, doesn't mean that the other person is wrong.  So, before you think someone is silly for being into something (a tv show, a movie, a band, etc.), realize that the deep rooted reason for them being so into that thing may have nothing to do with the actual thing itself, but could perhaps have to do with the time in their life in which they decided to latch onto that thing, and what that thing helped them work through personally.

Survey says...

Overall, I think escapism is GOOD (to a point).  Just remain self aware and know when you may be diving in too deep.  Stop feeling guilty if you need to use escapism as a method to cope, or simply just to unwind.  If you are someone who copes this way, look at what characters you are drawn to and ask yourself what about them speaks to you.  Learn about yourself more by taking a deeper look at the characters you relate to.  Even fiction can help you learn a little bit about yourself in the long run.  Take the lessons you can get in life from wherever they are provided, because you never really know how life is going to speak to you.

Source:  By Melanie Bolen
http://www.chicagonow.com/shiny-side/2016/07/escapism-is-it-good-or-bad/

Key to being happy in your retirement? Having a partner and close family nearby

THE KEY to a happy retirement has been revealed, according to new research.

More than two-thirds (68 per cent) of over-60s say they are happy with their lives.

And 69 per cent of those asked said that having a partner is one of the key factors in their happiness.

Around 58 per cent said having close family living nearby was important and 61 per cent said loving where they live is vital. Just under half of respondents said having enough money was important.

But more than one in ten over 60s claim to be unhappy with their lives.

Money was the root of all evil with 36 per cent picking lack of cash as the main cause of their unhappiness. 

The least happy over-60s are in the North East and London - nearly one in five people in the North East claim to be unhappy, the highest number in the UK followed by London.

The research from over-60’s property experts Homewise’s showed that just six per cent in both the West Midlands and Scotland suggested they were unhappy, the lowest figure in the UK.

Moreover more than one in three over 60s in Scotland claim to be “very happy” with their lives. 

One in three across the country highlighted the fact that they don’t have many holidays as the main cause of their unhappiness while 32 per cent feel lonely as they don’t have a close family that they see a lot of. Three in ten feel lonely because they don’t have many friends.

More than a quarter highlighted their poor health as the main reason for feeling unhappy while a similar number blamed their lack of an active sex life.

Mark Neal, Managing Director at Homewise, said: “Family and where you live appear to be the main reasons for living a happy life in retirement and it is interesting that is not necessarily all about money when it comes to happiness.

“Unfortunately that is the reverse when it comes to being unhappy where finances seem to be the biggest issue for many.


“We believe that the Home for Life plan can help by enabling over-60s to move to a new home under a lifetime lease and release money to not only clear any debts but also allow those in retirement to live happily.”

Source:  John Fitzpatrick
http://www.express.co.uk/finance/retirement/693448/Retirement-pensioner-happiness-partner-love-money

Andy Puddicombe: All it takes is 10 mindful minutes

4 Ways Mindfulness Can Enhance Your Happiness

ha

“It is the mind that translates good and bad circumstances into happiness or misery. So happiness comes with the purging of mental toxins, such as hatred, compulsive desire, arrogance and jealousy, which literally poison the mind. It also requires that one cease to distort reality and that one cultivate wisdom.” Matthieu Ricard

Mindfulness is an effective mental technique, originating from the 2,500-year-old Buddhist contemplative practices and adapted to suit non-religious contexts, including board rooms, corporations, hospitals, schools and sports teams.

It is a practice that supports the capacity to stay focussed on what you are doing as you are doing it, a powerful antidote to the distractible nature of the mind and the information overload in our digital world. When practiced regularly, it can bring more calm and effectiveness into everyday life, reducing stress and enhancing mental capacity.

Here are four ways mindfulness can make you happier:

1. It can help you get out of negative thought loops

"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” — William James

So often what gets in the way of our happiness is the tendency of the mind to fall into unhelpful loops of negative thinking. This can propel us into a downward spiral and affect our lives in many unhelpful ways. Mindfulness meditation is a form of rigorous training of the mind which helps us to become more familiar with the nature of the mind and more skillful in noticing when our minds are getting caught up in these unhelpful patterns of thought. When we learn to observe this, we can actually choose to disengage and move our attention in ways that support us rather than pull us down. Whether it’s loops of worry, planning into the future, replaying events from the past, or caught up in self-judgment — when we develop the skill of mindfulness and bring this quality of awareness to the working of our own mind, we open up a whole new possibility toward greater happiness. We begin to have the power to be the master rather than the slave of our mind.

Next time you catch yourself in a negative thought loop, see it for what it is, the mind caught up in a wheel of thinking, and realize that at any moment you can simply disengage from that pattern of thinking and move your attention to something else. Try redirecting your attention to the body by engaging in some kind of physical activity. This may short circuit negative thinking and ground you back to the here and now.

2. It can make you feel more connected to others

"The greatest gift you can give someone is your attention.” — Jim Rohn

We are social animals that have evolved to be in relationship. From a very young age the healthy development of our own brain requires interactions. Loneliness has now been suggested to be a risk factor for diseases ranging from cardiovascular disease to Alzheimer’s. In order to flourish we need to feel connected to others. Mindfulness can deepen and enrich our relationships as we bring a quality of present moment attention to the people around us.

3. It can connect you to a sense of inner contentment

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.

When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you — Lao Tzu

Many of us can get caught up in the hedonic treadmill, constantly needing stimulus from the outside world to give us a hit of happiness and pleasure. Whether it is money, relationships, approval, or success, this kind of happiness is dependent on external factors which are transient and over which we have no control.There is another form of wellbeing and happiness, eudaimonic happiness, first explored by Aristotle. This type of happiness and flourishing is not dependent on external circumstances but rather emerges from an inner sense of wellbeing and a living in alignment with ones values. Mindfulness is a practice which can help us cultivate a sense of inner wellbeing which allows us to feel content and well without needing to obtain anything from the outside world. It’s a rare feeling in this age of consumerism but it is available to all of us at any moment.

4. It can enhance your gratitude.

"Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance" — Eckhart Tolle


The practice of mindfulness helps us to slow down even if just for a few moments and reconnect with what is happening from moment to moment. This slowing down enables us to notice more of what is present both in our environment and within ourselves. As we notice more of what is happening around us and within us, wonder and gratitude can spontaneously emerge. Whether it’s being more present to the tastes of a home-cooked meal, or connecting with something as simple and miraculous as the breath — mindfulness can infuse our lives with gratitude and enhance our appreciation of the ordinary things which can so often pass by unnoticed.

Article Source:  Dr. Elise Bialylew
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elise-bialylew/mindfulness-happiness_b_7049292.html

Science says happier people have these 9 things in common

Everybody wants to be happy. 

That's why the science of happiness has taken off in recent years, with the skyrocketing popularity of positive psychology, which focuses on what makes individuals and communities thrive. Researchers have even started to produce reports on happiness around the globe. 

At this point, we actually know a fair amount about how certain behaviors, attitudes, and choices relate to happiness.

Most research on the topic can only find correlations — if we absolutely knew that one certain thing made everyone happier, psychologists' jobs would be a lot easier. But researchers do think that as a rough estimate, something like 40% of our happiness is under our own control (with the rest being determined by genetics and external factors). That means there's a lot we can do to control our own happiness.

Here are nine happiness-promoting behaviors that are backed by science.

1. Relationships are essential:

A major study that followed hundreds of men for more than 70 years found the happiest (and healthiest) were those who cultivated strong relationships with people they trusted to support them.

Source: The Harvard Study of Adult Development

2. Time beats money:

A number of studies have found happier people would prefer to have more time in their lives than more money, and even trying to think that way seems to make people more content.


Source: Tech Insider

3. But you need enough money to pay the bills without stress:

People's well-being rises with income up to about $75,000, studies have found. (That number probably varies depending on your cost of living.)


Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

4. Stop to smell the roses:

People who slow down to reflect on good things in their lives report being more satisfied.

Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

5. Perform acts of kindness:

Give your friends a ride to the airport or spend an afternoon volunteering. Some research has shown that people who perform such acts report being happier.


Source: Review of General Psychology

6. Regularly break a sweat:

Exercise tends to help fight off mental illness. And studies show that happiness is associated with physical activity; increased levels of activity are even connected to higher levels of happiness.


Sources: American Psychological Association, BMC Public Health

7. Buy fun:

People tend to be happier if they spend their money on experiences instead of things. But researchers have also found that buying things that allow you to have experiences — like a tennis racket or a book — can also increase happiness.


Sources: Psychological Science, Journal of Consumer Psychology

8. Learn to be present in the moment:

Several studies have found that people who practice mindfulness meditation experience greater well-being.

Sources: Journal of Clinical Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

9. Spend time with friends, especially close friends who are happy:

Interactions with casual friends can make people happier, and close friendships — especially with happy people — can have a powerful effect on your own happiness as well.

Article Source:  Kevin Loria http://www.techinsider.io/happiness-traits-behaviors-characteristics-2016-7