All posts filed under: happiness

4 Easy Ways to Feel More Positive

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Positive emotions such as joy, love, amusement, gratitude and pride are the foundations of a flourishing life. Experiencing positive emotions not only makes us feel good but encourages creativity and social interaction. Positive emotions also broaden our perspective. Think about a time when you last felt inspired – did anything seem possible? Or a time when you felt deep awe – did your personal problems fade away with the realisation of something far greater? How can we cultivate positive emotions and experience more of them? Boosting both our health and happiness. According to Positive Psychologist Dr. Barbara Fredrickson – who has spent over 20 years studying positive emotions, there are four steps to increasing our positivity ratio. To be clear, the idea isn’t to avoid negative emotions – we need those in order to grow and flourish too – but instead, to counteract the negativity by boosting our ratio of positive emotions. The four steps are: Allow yourself to go back and re-experience positive emotions on a regular basis. Remembering what different positive emotions feel like allows us …

Ditch Those Toxic Tech Habits and Become a Better Version of You! 

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Care to admit it or not, we’ve become a nation of tech addicts who spend more time looking at our screens each day than sleeping (on average 8 hours 41 minutes). When the average adult picks up their phone over 150 times a day, it’s hardly surprising that 69% of children say their parents spend too much time on technology. If we look at the building blocks of happiness found in Positive Psychology Professor Martin Seligman‘s PERMA model, we find five key areas we need to nurture and cultivate in order to live our most happy and flourishing life. These are – POSITIVE EMOTIONS ENGAGEMENT RELATIONSHIPS MEANING  ACCOMPLISHMENT So what’s the impact of our technology addiction on each of these building blocks? And how do our digital devices stop us feeling, thinking and experiencing happiness? Let’s take a closer look at what toxic habits we could give up in order to boost our happiness. 1. POSITIVE EMOTIONS (P) You’ve heard it before and yet you continue to watch one last episode of your favourite TV …

Want to Feel More Fulfilled? Go Find your Flow!

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Time stands still, oblivious to your surroundings, the world is set to pause, fully absorbed on your task at hand, focused and concentrating, time disappears and you become completely lost. Psychologists call these fully absorbent times, ‘flow states’ or a ‘heightened state of consciousness’. Times when our skills and competency are tested and our ability is just about sufficient to meet the challenge. Stretching us to our maximum limits. If the challenge is too easy, we become bored and lose interest. Too hard and we become anxious and want to give up. So flow can only be found under very specific conditions. Perhaps you find yours completing a difficult crossword or playing a musical instrument. You might find it writing up a new project at work or giving a public speech. Learning a new skill like tiling your bathroom! Regularly finding flow is incredibly important to achieving inner happiness because it leaves us feeling worthy, satisfied and pushes our personal growth by testing our limits. We ultimately feel fulfilled and proud of ourselves, which does wonders for our self-esteem. Unfortunately, time spent scrolling social media sites, watching netflix and answering whataapps doesn’t …

What Makes you Happy?

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Last night my co-leader Andy and I hosted week one of the Action for Happiness course Exploring What Matters.  An eight week course designed to bring communities together to explore the things that really matter for a happy and meaningful life. The course involves  watching videos, carrying out positive psychology interventions (things proven to make us happier!) along with lots of group discussion and sharing. Backed by the Dalai Lama it aims to spread happiness and joy, starting with individuals within our communities, who commit to doing as much as they can to help others and reduce misery. Each session has a theme based on big questions and last night along with our 20 attendees, we explored What really matters in life? Is it money or success? A thriving family home full of love and support? Or simply safety, warmth and food on the table? One of the first surprising facts we learnt is less than 1% of our happiness is affected by our income (our group guessed 10-25%). This is measured by government polls. So even though the US economy has experienced …

Reflect, Recharge & Redefine for 2017

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On Saturday 7th January 2017, Technotox is delighted to be hosting a one day urban retreat to get your mind, body and soul recharged and focused on the year ahead. Together with expert nutritionist and pilates instructor Ruth Tongue, we’ve created a day of nourishing, energising activities combined with personal development and style workshops, so you can treat yourself at the same time as growing yourself. What’s Included? Energising Pilates Class Personal Goal Setting Workshop Raw Vegan Cookery Class  Mindfulness Meditation Style, Personal Branding & Confidence Workshop Healthy Lunch, Snacks & Refreshments Stretch and Unwind Finish  We’ll kick-start the morning with an energising pilates class followed by a raw vegan cookery class from our expert Nutritionist and Sport Stylist ambassador, Ruth Tongue. Lucy Faulks, CPCC life coach and founder of Technotox, will then host a reflection and goal setting workshop. Using tools and techniques to assess where you are at the start of the year, and encourage you to look forward to where you want to go in 2017. You’ll then create a set of achievable, measurable goals to get you there. She’ll also look …

10 Keys to Happier Living

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To celebrate World Mental Health Day earlier this month, Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) collaborated with Action for Happiness to produce a “10 Keys to Happier Living” poster. Listing everyday actions to boost wellbeing and improve your mental health. It’s a wonderful tool to print out and refer to when you’re feeling a bit low or out of kilter. You could even check it every day and take positive action to protect your mental health. Download a printable pdf here –  10-keys-to-happier-living  

Improve your Focus, Reduce Stress and Boost Creativity

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Can you find 10 minutes this weekend to begin your meditation journey? Scientists have proved that meditation enhances mental performance by improving focus and concentration. It also boosts our creativity and self-acceptance, encourages empathy and boosts our immunity. Counterbalancing the detrimental effects of stress and anxiety. (For more benefits see here). If you’re keen to kick-start your learning and want to see how meditation could impact your life, we’ve created a 10 minute audio guide to help you navigate one of the trickiest first steps – learning to focus the breath. Those with highly active, inquisitive minds will know just how difficult it can be to silence the endless chatter, but with a little help and a lot of patience, it can be done! And if you feel like you’re ready to try a 5 minute mindfulness meditation, why not give this one a try.  

What’s the Big Fuss about Meditation?

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Evidence suggests meditation has been around since 1500 BCE, making it well over 3500 years old. But what is about this ancient art form that’s survived the test of time and what are the current scientific studies telling us about the benefits of meditation? When the first New York marathon was run in 1970 there were only 127 competitors. A time when little was known about the benefits of physical exercise for our health and wellbeing. Nowadays these are widely publicised, and 46 years on there were over 50,000 runners in the 2016 New York marathon. Exercise has become an integral part of our daily lives, and at Technotox, we believe it’s only a matter of time before meditation follows the same route. After all, now the evidence exists, why shouldn’t we spend as much time and money looking after our mental and emotional health as we do our physical health? If you’re still not convinced, or simply need reminding of meditation’s plethora of benefits, we’ve chosen our top ten to share with you – Boosts positive emotions
 Meditating stimulates activity …

How the Danish ‘Hygge’ can help us through a Stormy Summer

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In the United Nation’s World Happiness Report for 2013, 2014 and 2016, Denmark took the hot spot (and came third in the 2015 report). Despite cold weather, almost non-existent summers and depressingly short and dark winter days, what is it about Danish people that make them amongst the happiest in the world? Could the Danish word ‘Hygge’ (pronounced “HUE-gah”) be the key to their success? In its simplest form, Hygge means appreciating the little things in life – like tea, friends and family. It means creating a nice, cosy atmosphere and taking the time to appreciate the simple things in life with the people you love around you. It’s connection and intimacy, with a whole heap of gratitude. Hygge is something Danes crave and they make sure they get it at all costs. It’s integral to their wellbeing and provides food for their souls. And the proof’s in the pudding! How can you create your own Hygge this weekend? It might be rainy outside, but light a fire, invite some mates over and take the time to enjoy the simple …

Be happy. Be productive. Build PERMA.

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We all want to be happy. When we’re happy we look on the bright side of life, take ourselves less seriously, become more motivated, loving, and are generally better people. Scientist know our genes and upbringing influence around 50% of the variation in our personal levels of happiness.  Our circumstances 10%, e.g our income and external environment. Which leaves as much as 40% accounted for by our daily activities – the relationships we keep, the work we do and the choices we make. Our actions strongly impact our happiness levels, which is great news because it means we have great control over them and can therefore almost instantly, boost our happiness. Respected positive psychologist Professor Martin Seligman developed a well-being theory called the PERMA Model. It combines the five building blocks required for a happy and flourishing life. These five blocks are – POSITIVE EMOTION (P) Experiencing feelings of joy, hope, love, inspiration, satisfaction, gratitude or any positive emotion allows us to experience wellbeing. ENGAGEMENT (E) When we’re fully engaged in a challenging task and time seems to stand still, we experience a state of flow (see blog post ‘How do you …