November can be a bleak month with its dark mornings and evenings and busy schedules that ignore our need to slow down during the winter months. So a perfect time, perhaps, for the launch of a new book, Positive Health: 100+ Research-based Positive Psychology and Lifestyle Medicine Tools to Enhance Your Wellbeing.
The authors – the psychologists Dr Jolanta Burke and Dr Trudy Meehan, the psychotherapist and research scientist Dr Padraic Dunne, the psychologist and pharmacologist Prof Ciaran O’Boyle and the professor of coaching Christian van Nieuwerburgh – all teach at the Centre for Positive Psychology and Health at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and are enthusiastic advocates of the many wellbeing practices outlined.
The book is a compendium of the healthy-living practices examined by the authors in a series of free online courses on the science of health and happiness that attracted 30,000 participants during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Centre for Positive Psychology and Health at the RCSI is one of a growing number of academic faculties which teach students and coach people across the six pillars of lifestyle medicine – physical activity, healthy eating, stress management, sleep improvement, social connection and the avoidance of risky substances.
Burke says the aim of the book is to let people choose interventions that suit them best, with chapters explaining tools to help you stay calm, be energised, cope better, feel good, deal with relationships, plan your future and more.
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Sleep studies
She says she particularly likes one research study in which people switched off all digital devices an hour before going to sleep and spent that time doing other things. “One week later, they had better quality sleep. They talked to their partners much more and their sex life improved,” explains Burke. The section on sleep also notes studies which found that people get more pessimistic when they don’t get enough sleep while conversely, adequate sleep reduces depression, anxiety and stress.
Another practice that Burke suggests to enhance relationships is to pay more attention when your loved one is sharing good news. Researchers traditionally looked at how couples argue as the best predictors of their happiness and relationship longevity. But new studies have found that by reacting to another’s good news with enthusiasm and genuine interest – as opposed to ignoring it, half-heartedly acknowledging it or searching for the downside to the good news – matters more for enhancing relationships.
The simple practice of taking and sharing photographs on your smartphone within connected groups has also been found to improve wellbeing of the individuals in the group. And Burke says she personally finds it useful to ask the question “What went well for you today?” “Even on bad days, people have found that asking themselves this question allowed them to have a more balanced perspective on their day,” says Burke.
Dunne says that, after many years of working as a psychotherapist, he has realised how important it is to respect your body when you are stressed. “We need stress to live our lives but the problem in the 21st century is that stress becomes all encompassing and bleeds into everything,” he says. Dunne is a firm advocate of simple breathing practices that people can do several times a day (when waiting for the kettle to boil, when waiting for a bus, etc). “We need to relearn how to breathe. If you equalise the inhalation with the exhalation – five seconds in and five seconds out – you put a brake on your nervous system which reduces the stress response,” he explains.
Acts of kindness
Von Nieuwerburgh says that kindness is often underestimated as a practice that brings benefit both to the giver and the receiver. The idea of random acts of kindness has gained ground in the last decade or so and one study found that performing five acts of kindness on a specific day every week for six weeks increased participants levels of happiness. Kindness has also been found to be particularly beneficial in schools as it helps students improve their mood and resilience while reducing social interaction anxiety.
“The important thing about this book is that we aren’t prescribing things, people can choose them. And I think that we have learned from the Covid pandemic how important it is to get balance and harmony in our lives. So rather than trying to do more, people can think about what’s going on in their lives and what the optimal balance is for them. It’s about stepping back from goals and instead trying to make things work,” he explains.
The book also offers guidance on how to sustain healthy living practices – which many of us often start enthusiastically but then let go of quite soon afterwards. The tips for maintaining wellbeing practices include ensuring you are doing them at a suitable time (eg running at the same time and place a few times a week), writing down your motivation for doing the practice, telling others about your plans and rewarding yourself appropriately for your achievements.
Meehan cautions that the practices outlined in the book aren’t a substitute for therapy for those who have more serious mental health difficulties. “Most people will have the capacity to do these practices but they shouldn’t expect to be able to do everything on their own and self-help tools shouldn’t be used by health professionals in the absence of services,” says Meehan.
She says that each person will need a certain level of energy to engage with many of the practices outlined. “If their threshold is too low to energise, they should seek professional help or engage in community supports. Some people are tortured by the experience of failing to help themselves,” she adds.
O’Boyle also says it’s all very well to talk about empowering individuals but that there are marginalised groups of people who don’t have access to healthcare. “We have to work to improve the health and wellbeing of people working in education, the corporate sector and in non-governmental organisations. Such leadership-driven change can then have a powerful impact on other people’s lives,” he adds.
Positive Health: 100+ Research-based Positive Psychology and Lifestyle Medicine Tools to Enhance Your Wellbeing is published by Routledge
