Mindfulness for Happiness: Does it Help? (Ep 08)

What are the benefits of mindfulness, that is, ‘paying attention, on purpose, in a non-judgemental way’? This episode of ‘Happiness, a Sceptics Guide‘ looks at the mindfulness megatrend. What is mindfulness and can it make us happier?  Should mindfulness (and happiness) be about liberation from conditioning or adjustment to conditioning? Check out this podcast episode over on Podbean: Mindfulness for Happiness. Does it help?  The episode features a chainsaw. Surely, that’s got to be a first for a mindfulness podcast.

It would be great to have you support over at Podbean, alternatively, you can listen to the podcast in this handy video:

Based on Gary’s book ‘The Psychology of Wellbeing’ (published by Routledge. See here for the UK, or here for the US.

#happiness #mindfulness #selfhelp #wellbeing #psychology #chainsaws

Happiness, A Sceptics Guide – The Story So Far – Review 1

The first in a series of ‘the story so far’ reviews of  the podcast Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, this bonus episode, looks back on episodes 2 to 6 to recap on the takeaway points from: ‘What is Happiness? (02)’; ‘Happiness & Meaning (03)’; ‘Happiness & Wellbeing‘ (04)’, ‘Happiness & Coping with Stress’ (05), and ‘Happiness, Survival & Growth‘ (06).  And it concludes with looking at ‘what’s next?’

Based on Gary Wood’s book ‘The Psychology of Wellbeing‘ (published by Routledge. See here for the UK, or here for the US.

Do consider following Happiness, A Sceptics Guide over on Podbean or wherever you find your podcasts. Or, just stay put, and check out this handy video:

#stress #happiness #wellbeing #wellness #psychology #meaning #survival #growth #thriving

What is Happiness?

The second episode of ‘Happiness, A Sceptics Guide’, aims to answer the question ‘What is happiness?’ And, to unravel popular psychology terminology. It’s all based on Gary’s book ‘The Psychology of Wellbeing’ (published by Routledge). To read more about the book, for the UK go to: https://amzn.to/3gmgukd and for the US go to: https://amzn.to/3gmgukd

Follow ‘Happiness, A Sceptics Guide’ over at Podbean or stay where you are and check out this handy video:

#happiness #sceptics #psychology #coaching #wellbeing #wellness

The Psychology of Wellbeing – An Introduction

The Psychology of Wellbeing is the third book in my ‘Routledge triptych’. The first was The Psychology of Gender, and in the final chapter, I began to explore the idea of storytelling in psychology. And in the third book, I develop this idea and team it with the self-reflection. This gives the book a subtle nod to self-help books. It also connects it to the second book in the trio is Letters to a New Student. It’s a strong study skills book with a strong emphasis on wellbeing. And, after writing it, I developed the idea of study skills as life skills, for a workshop.

In the following short video, I introduce the main themes in The Psychology of Wellbeing and pose the questions it attempts to answer. And a transcript of the video follows.

Buy: Amazon UK  /  Buy: Amazon USA 

Transcript for The Psychology of Wellbeing introductory video:

Questions of how to ‘live the good life’ & to ‘live long and prosper’ have occupied us for thousands of years. But in recent times there’s been a massive boom in wellbeing. It’s a multi-billion-dollar industry, that shows no signs of slowing.

More of us now spend more time talking about wellbeing, reading about it, researching it, and writing about it. From magazines to self-help books, from workplace reports to government papers. And with so much on offer, it grows ever tougher to sift the science from the ‘snake oil’.

So how do you decide what works, what doesn’t, and what’s just hype? How do we spot the breakthroughs from the fake news? And crucially, what does wellness mean to you?

Is it financial security or good relationships? Is it having a purpose in life and setting goals? Is it being mindful or grateful? Is it all down to positive thinking or simply good luck? And fundamentally, does it really count as wellbeing if it comes at the expense of another?

I’m Gary Wood author of The Psychology of Wellbeing. It’s a short, accessible book to bridge the gaps between ‘everyday’ ideas, pop-psychology, and academic knowledge. But instead of trying to supply all the answers, the book uses self-reflection and storytelling to build critical skills to ask better questions.

Written in the middle of a pandemic, and with a few health challenges of my own, the book asks you to look at where you get your knowledge and how you know you can trust it?

Who’s got your ear? Is it scientists, academics & doctors, self-help gurus, journalists or those politicians who tell us not to listen to the experts or trust the evidence of your senses but to take their word for it? Or maybe it’s ‘friend of a friend’ who ‘knows someone who heard something’.

The book looks at definitions of wellbeing, the self and normality, the impact of inequality, the effects of stress and how trends such as mindfulness and positive psychology can shape our happiness, and our view of the world. It also offers a critical review of the self-help industry and a plan to help you choose & use self-help books to best support your wellness goals.

But most of all, The Psychology of Wellbeing helps us to understand the wellbeing stories of others and tell better wellbeing stories of our own.

About the author
Dr Gary Wood is a Chartered psychologist, solution-focused life coach, advice columnist and broadcaster. He is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has more than 20 years’ experience teaching and applying psychology, in universities, in corporate settings and in the media for magazines, radio and television. He is based in Birmingham and Edinburgh, UK.

Buy ‘The Psychology of Wellbeing’ at Amazon UK or Amazon US

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Buy ‘The Psychology of Wellbeing’ at Amazon UK or Amazon US

Reflections on Writing ‘The Psychology of Wellbeing’ – based on the preface to the book

During the first UK lockdown in the Coronavirus pandemic, I was putting the finishing touches to my book ‘The Psychology of Wellbeing’. The writing process was beset with a number of health and wellness concerns of my own. I’ve discussed these in the preface to the book, and in this short promotional video. And I also ponder the relationship between readers and writers of a book. 

Buy: Amazon UK  /  Buy: Amazon USA 

Transcript of ‘Reflections on Writing the Psychology of Wellbeing’:

Sociologist William Simon writes that ‘All attempts at theorizing social life are, at the same time, works of autobiography’. And I’ve joked more than once that writing this ‘wellbeing book will be the death of me’. Because it wasn’t so very far from the truth. A major depressive episode didn’t help the writing process. Neither did another attack of sciatica and lower-back pain, a tooth broken beyond repair, and finding a lump in my armpit. And all this at the start of a pandemic.

It caused me to question if psychology had anything to say about improving wellbeing. And even if it did, was I fit and ready to write it? It certainly didn’t seem so. Also, this book is part of a bigger story – a series called ‘The Psychology of Everything’. And, I realized I’ve never stopped to ask if psychology does have something to say about everything. And yet, somehow,  here we are.

Before starting this book, I thought it was lexicographer, Dr Samuel Johnson who wrote, ‘a writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it’. But we can’t pinpoint where Johnson wrote that. We just find traces of others telling us he did. And this is a reminder to check our sources of information. But whoever said it, the sentiment holds true. Books are paths crossed in the autobiographies of writers and readers – even if we share just a page or a few lines, or a quote for an essay.

I’m GaryWood, and in this book, I tell you A story of the psychology of wellbeing. And within reason, I’ve tried to let my voice come through, albeit with fewer expletives. Because as you reflect and take the story forward, it’s vital for you to know where it came from. It’s shaped by my personal and professional experience, just as your story is shaped by yours.

Sociologist Stanislav Andreski contends that ‘anybody who searches for the truth about human affairs and then reveals it cannot avoid treading upon some toes .’And, if I’ve done my job right, it might burst a few bubbles, pull some rugs or even cause the odd existential shrug. But hopefully, it will empower too. It isn’t a ‘because I say so’ kind of book. I view writing as an act of rebellion. My approach to life coaching is the same. I encourage and challenge people to be themselves, or transcend themselves, despite themselves.

The book aims to answer frequently asked questions and offers you a critical framework to ask better ones. These are your paths of continuation for reading, writing, and researching wellness. You take up where I left off.

So here it is. Over to you.

About the author
Dr Gary Wood is a Chartered psychologist, solution-focused life coach, advice columnist and broadcaster. He is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has more than 20 years’ experience teaching and applying psychology, in universities, in corporate settings and in the media for magazines, radio and television. He is based in Birmingham and Edinburgh, UK.

Buy ‘The Psychology of Wellbeing’ at Amazon UK or Amazon US

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Buy ‘The Psychology of Wellbeing’ at Amazon UK or Amazon US

When that brick wall is a mental block – how coaching can help you to grasp the goals you reach for

Often our goals are in sight but seem out of reach. It might feel that you take one step towards your goals, and they seem to take a step back. I get many queries from potential clients saying just that. They talk of brick walls and mental blocks and self-sabotage. Sometimes there’s a post-mortem of what they should’ve done. In this blog post, I challenge that goals being ‘out of reach’ is a bad thing. It’s not. It’s how things should be. It’s how coaching works. 

Accepting Things the Way They Are

A few years ago, I took a course in pranayama (breathing yoga) as part of the research for a book. One phrase, from the course, stuck with me: the present moment is inevitable.  As a personal and professional development coach, my first job is to challenge clients to consider that things are as they should be and that this moment is a starting point. The alternative is to indulge in ‘why’ questions, which are abstract, philosophical questions. You can a different answer every time you ask why? And every time, they cause you to look back. Instead, in coaching, I ask lots of concrete ‘how’ questions. They will take you forward. In coaching, the first step is to accept that whatever you’ve done up until now has got you here. It’s just that you now need a different plan to take you further. And that’s what we’ll work on, together.

Our goals ARE out of reach –  at the moment

As the Robert Browing line goes ‘One’s reach should exceed one’s grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ It’s the purpose of coaching to reduce or eliminate the gap between reach and grasp. Goals are supposed to stretch us. The secret is not to set them so far out of reach that we lose hope and motivation. Conversely, if we make them too easy, we’ll tire easily, become bored and give up. Coaching aims to tread that fine line between resolution and resignation. So, if the goal is very grand, we simply break it down into a series of milestone goals that stretch you. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is just to take some action, any action, in the direction of the goal. It doesn’t matter how small that step is. I’ve pretty out the Tanzanian proverb ‘Little by Little, a little becomes a lot‘. The quickest way to change perceptions and attitudes is to take action. By the time you’ve reached the first milestone, your perspective will have changed, and you’ll be better equipped to tackle the next one.

Brick Walls and Mental Blocks

Some people talk of ‘mental blocks’ as if they are physical barriers. They aren’t. Coaching is about working with you to remove attitudes that get in the way of moving forward. It involves challenging negative thoughts and self-talk and looking at alternative metaphors, scripts and ways of describing situations. But it’s also about taking stock of skills and strengths to create a method of working and an action plan that’s tailor-made for you. In coaching, it helps to ‘suspend your disbelief’ and enter into it with an attitude of positive anticipation. Instead of asking will it work’, ask ‘how will it work?’ It’s also about trying things out like personal experiments – testing the water to assess the impact of a small step forward. Ultimately, with any attitude, it’s important to ask ‘How is this taking you forward?’ If it’s not, what attitudes will? Then, try them out and see how they work for you.

Up for a challenge?

In coaching, the aim is to help you to reach your goals or get as close to them as is practically possible. I’m Gary Wood. I’ve been coaching students since the mid-90s and private clients since the early-noughties. My coaching training and practices are grounded in evidence-based psychology. My specialism is attitude change – the cornerstone of coaching. I’ve written five books on various aspects of psychology, the most recent is Letters to a New Student on study skills, but has a lot to say about life skills. And as I coach, I love a challenge.

So, get in touch for a chat. 

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Learning Skills as Life Skills (and vice versa)

It’s tempting to view formal education as learning and then everything else that happens afterwards as your ‘real-life’. However, it’s a false dichotomy. We continue to learn throughout our lives, whether or not we want to. Recognizing this can help us to see the connection between learning skills and life skills. How we approach learning informs how we approach life and vice versa.

I was invited to speak at a learning and training event and submitted the title ‘Learning Skills as Life Skills’. The idea is based on my book Letters to a New Student ( Read a sample: UK / USA ). In this post, I offer four main factors that provide a blueprint for lifelong learning. It’s a slight reworking of the book’s structure.

Four Factors for Lifelong Learning: Attitudes, Wellbeing, Cognition, and Management.

The four factors of attitudes, wellbeing, cognition and management interact with each other. A change in one affects the others.

Based on Letters to a New Student ( Read a sample: UK / USA )

Attitudes

Attitudes are the cornerstone of how we make sense of the world. In coaching, I use the principle ‘the viewing influences the doing, and vice versa’.  It’s a key principle in confidence-building.  How we view the world shapes what we do in the world. As coaching is action-led, it’s the doing that builds the confidence. For more on this, see Unlock Your Confidence.

A concept in psychology often relegated to a ‘stress-busting’ technique more accurately offers a philosophy for coping with life. Psychological hardiness is made up of three attitudes – the three Cs. These are control, challenge and commitment.  In short, emphasize what you can control, reframe problems as challenges (or goals) and commit to connecting with other people, and show a curiosity about the world.

Having to study when we’d prefer to be doing something else can lead to feelings of resentment. This attitude makes it more challenging to process and retain information. Learning is inevitable. It’ll happen whether or not we set our own goals. When facing a deadline, often, I’d much prefer to be doing something else. But I remind myself that it’s an opportunity to achieve a personal-first or a personal-best. With students, I ask them to consider how formal learning is a luxury. It’s similar for life-tasks, such as ironing or washing dishes or paperwork. They seem to take longer with feelings of resentment. The secret is to find an attitude that changes the emotional tone. Hence my Zen-Ironing. It’s a nice metaphor for smoothing out the wrinkles of life. Ok, so that might be stretching it. But it works.

Wellbeing

When faced with a demanding goal there’s often a temptation to put wellbeing on hold. The illusion is that if we don’t bother about wellbeing, the time saved can be used on the task. We can then catch-up on wellbeing when the task is over. However, this is stress-based, survival thinking. If we treat self-care as a foundation rather than an add-on, it can have a beneficial effect on mood and cognition. Investing in your wellbeing supports learning (and life). Sleep, diet, exercise, hydration, and relaxation exercises all interact. Together they will aid peak performance so that you make the most of your time add. Neglecting wellbeing means you’ll gain a bit of extra time to use inefficiently. 

Cognition

Often we stumble on to study techniques that work for us. These might be time-consuming, boring and inefficient, but because we have had some degree of success with them, we are reluctant to give them up. However, rather than leading with personalization, it’s crucial to learn basic principles of human psychology, and then put your twist on it. That way, you work with psychology rather than fight it – working smarter, not harder. The three simplest things to implement are:

1. Work in shorter blocks to give your brain time to digest the information.
2. Vary your learning techniques to keep it interesting. Boredom is a choice.
3. To process the material at a deeper level, ask and answer questions rather than rely on rote learning

For more information see Letters to a New Student ( Read a sample: UK / USA ).

Management

Some might find it difficult to ask for help, when studying, or in life. It’s not a weakness or an admission of failure; it’s resource management. Most people like to help, so why deny the opportunity? And, you will get the chance to ‘pay it forward’. Knowing when to ask for help and who to ask are essential learning skills and life skills. Begin by making a list of your go-to people. 

Whether it’s life or learning, time management is essential – plan to do whatever you need to do, and do it. It’s also crucial to plan in the downtime, and most importantly, your wellbeing. What’s not so obvious is managing moods and motivation. It’s not just about aside the time; it’s adopting supportive attitudes and using techniques to get in the mood. And, sometimes that means just getting on with it. Who says we always have to be ‘in the mood’. Do it, and let the mood catch-up!  After a period of writers’ block, I learned that a ten-minute walk first thing in the morning sets me up for the day. I also know that the worst thing for my productivity is switching on the television in the morning for the news. For me, first thing in the morning, no news is good news. 

And finally, there’s the driver of all peak performance – goal-setting. It shouldn’t get to the point that we feel ‘bludgeoned’ by goal-setting. Goals are a means to an end. They provide the structure and the momentum to keep moving forward. They should stretch you but not overwhelm you. There are many posts on this blog about goal-setting – check them out.

Meaning: The Meta-Principle

The over-arching principle in learning and life is to make it meaningful to you. Use the four basic principles of attitudes, wellbeing, cognition and management, and adapt to your circumstances, strengths and values. 

Summary

So those are the basics of using ‘learning skills as life skills’, and vice versa. To find out more, read the book or drop me a line to find out about academic coaching or life coaching. In the meantime, here’s a summary of the main points:

• Frame your experiences with positive mental attitudes.
• Take care of yourself – Exploit the mind-body connection.
• Work with cognitive psychology rather than against it.
• Be proactive – Manage time, moods and motivation.
• Finally, make it meaningful to you.

About Dr Gary Wood

Dr Gary Wood is a Chartered Psychologist, solution-focused life coach, and broadcaster specializing in applied social psychology. He is on the British Psychological Society’s ‘media-friendly psychologists’ list and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Gary has taught psychology in several UK universities and is widely quoted in the media. As a consultant, he works on health and social policy research projects and reports, for government bodies, broadcasting ‘watchdogs’, NHS Trusts, charities, and media companies.

Books by Gary Wood

• Letters to a New Student (Read a sample or buy: UK /  USA ).
• Don’t Wait For Your Ship to Come In. . . Swim Out to Meet It (See UK / USA)
• Unlock Your Confidence (See UK / USA)

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