Think Happy!

If I told you that Mike Reeves-McMillan’s Changing Health Behaviours was a collection of his blog posts, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s just another sub-rate, self-published, collection of unconnected rants.

But you’d be completely wrong.

Mike, a hypnotherapist and health coach from New Zealand, has come up with a book that possesses a rare quality nowadays: it is actually worth reading! At the very least, the book presents tested, simple techniques of personal change as well as easy-to-follow information about how to become healthier and happier people. Much of the information here is nothing new. A lot of it is simple common sense. Yet, there is so much good information here, collected together in one place, accessibly written, than this is a book I will be recommending far and wide.

Although much of the content is based on material from Mike’s blog, Living Skillfully, the blog posts have been re-ordered, edited and made to flow as more of a whole. The book is accompanied by an MP3 CD of 20 hypnotherapy tracks, which include all of Mike’s Healthy Lifestyle and Transformation Skills recordings. The book and CD actually work surprisingly well together, with a section at the end of each chapter demonstrating which tracks to listen to in order to ‘help you make the shifts of thinking, feeling and behaviour’ that have been discussed in that chapter.

Initially, I thought that I wouldn’t get on with the CD, as I had expected Whale music and all of the other stereotypes associated with hypnosis/relaxation tracks, not just Mike’s voice. However, it is actually very effective, with my favourite track being the simple relaxation one. (Check out the Blue Sky induction and Blue Sea deepener. Excellent stuff!)

The sheer scope of this book is impressive. The first section deals with ‘Health Behaviours’ and starts with what Mike calls ‘the Big three’ : Being Smokefree, Eating Well, and Being Active. The material on smoking is some of the best that I have read in one place. He then moves on to ‘The Supporting Cast’ and discusses dealing with stress, getting good sleep, alcohol in moderation, and Positive Relationships. As someone who has suffered with insomnia, I can enthusiastically recommend the material on getting good sleep, along with the accompanying hypnotherapy track.

Section two discusses ‘Change Techniques’ and looks at Habit Change, Emotional Management, Change Planning and Execution and Self-Hypnosis. This section provides simple techniques to change your health behaviours for the better. A couple of my favourite techniques demonstrate both the simplicity and effectiveness of Mike’s writing:

1. One Simple Step Towards Managing Emotions

…What’s happening when we put our feelings into words? Matthew D. Lieberman and colleagues did a brain imaging study, reported in Psychological Science. They found that when participants in the study labeled the emotions they were feeling, it disrupted the activity of the amygdala (which isn’t a Star Wars princess but a part of the brain involved in emotion). The use of words activates a different part of the brain, and appears to shift the mental activity there, away from feeling the emotion.

The way that I show my clients to exploit this effect is based on Mary Mrozowski’s “welcoming prayer”, which isn’t actually a prayer at all. It’s simply a practice to use when you notice yourself feeling an emotion: saying “Welcome” and giving it a name – “Welcome, fear,” “Welcome, anger” or whatever the emotion might be.

In doing so, you are paying attention to the emotion – so it won’t go behind your back and manipulate you into doing something you may regret. You are accepting the emotion as being part of your conscious experience, which then enables you to let it go more easily. And you are naming the emotion, which brings into play the mechanism identified by Lieberman and his team.

I practice in the shower most mornings, when I’m relaxed, just welcoming the four main negative emotions – fear, anger, sadness and guilt. That way, when one of them comes along during the day, I’m in the habit of the welcoming practice and can immediately discharge a lot of the energy of the emotion.

2. A Simple Mood Control Technique and How it Works

One of the simplest and most powerful techniques in my hypnotherapy repertoire is anchoring, in which you associate a touch with a mental state or mood. Anyone can use this; it doesn’t even require hypnosis, though it will certainly be more powerful with hypnosis…

The easiest form of the technique is this: Imagine yourself as vividly as possible into the mental state or mood you want - calm, confidence or whatever you like. Start with a memory of being in that state, and make the memory big and bright, loud and clear, firm and strong; see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt, if there are smells or tastes include them too, and turn up the power on the memory as if you were adjusting the controls on a TV or radio.

You could use Michael Breen’s “nested images” technique to build it up even more strongly. Imagine yourself in the state as if you were looking at yourself from outside, and notice what you look like. Then mentally “step into” the image of yourself in that state so that it’s you who’s experiencing it. Once you’ve done this, imagine yourself from outside again experiencing the state even more strongly, and repeat until you are as deeply in the state as you can manage.

When you have the state or mood as clear as possible, and are experiencing it very strongly, touch your thumb to one of your fingers - it can be any one, though most people pick the forefinger - and press firmly for a few seconds.

You need to practice this a few times, but once you have done so, that mood or state is available to you at any time simply by using the thumb-and-finger press. Try it.

I’m sure that the first idea could sound a little wacky, if it’s the first time you’ve encountered this. However, it has a lot in common with practices like The Sedona Method, that many people find helpful for releasing negative emotions. (At this point, I’m tempted to use an analogy from Aikido, but I’ll save that for another time!)

As for the second, all I can say is that it really does work, as a number of people I’ve used this with can verify.

So, now I’ve got all of my gushing out of the way, are there any downsides to the book? Not many, actually! All I would say is that the editing and internal design could have done with a little more work. The Contents Page, for example, reeked of self-publishing and the sections within the chapters could have been spaced-out a bit better. But, hey, if that’s as bad as it gets then you know you’ve got a good book on your hands.

The Verdict

For anyone who wants to improve their health and lifestyle, but is cynical of much of the esoteric ‘fluff’ that passes for personal development these days, this book should be warmly welcommed. It does exactly what it says on the tin, offering practical advice on what a healthy lifestyle consists of and effective personal change techniques that enable you to begin to enjoy that lifestyle.

Would I recommend it? Well, the CD was great and surprisingly effective, for something so simple. The book is immensely useful and unceasingly practical. It includes a basic practical introduction to self-hypnosis…

I would more than recommend it! Trust me, you’re going to want to buy spare copies, some to give away and one to ensure that you’ve always got one for yourself.

Well, if you’re wondering why I haven’t posted for a while (which I guess you’re not because you must be used to it by now!), it’s because of a family tragedy.

Our beloved Macbook fell down the stairs on Tuesday morning and was officially declared dead at the scene. We’re now waiting on the insurance company to find out what they can do for us. I am not yet able to get excited at the prospect of a new laptop, because I still feel nauseous at the sight of the last one in mid-flight!

There are a couple of posts waiting to be polished-off and posted. I’ll try to get to those over the weekend at some point, but online time is obviously scarce at the moment.

This question could hardly be any more important. Almost any time I mention the topic of happiness to people, I encounter two extremes. There are those people who seem overcome by their own ego and are happy to tread on everyone in their way to make more money in the hope of finding more happiness. And then there are those who almost seem willing to be trodden on, because they view seeking happiness as the height of selfishness.

I passionately disagree with both extremes - and I consider them both detrimental to the pursuit of happiness. Instead, I am committed to what I like to ambiguously call Loving Happiness. In short, this is the belief that it is not seeking our own happiness that is selfish; it is seeking our own private happiness at the expense of others that is so. However, a true hedonism - an ethical pursuit of happiness - loves to see happiness spread and recognises the need to take responsibility for that. Ethical hedonists recognise that happiness begins at home.

Ironically, those who are determined not to seek happiness - out of an apparent higher regard for those in need around them - are likely to spread sadness and depression to those they are trying to help. What’s loving about that?

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just come across a simple-but-useful article at realsimple.

You can read the full piece here, but I’ve included the main points below:

1. Turn your shower into a relaxing ritual
2. Knead away stress with a hand massage
3. Pause for a few soothing seconds
4. Take a nice, sleep-enhancing soak
5. Brush your way to relaxation
6. Chill with aromatherapy

Simple, to the point, but good advice nonetheless. Read the full post here.

It’s easy to blog about keeping your new year’s resolutions, but it seems like I should have resolved to blog more often. Perhaps then you’d see more of me!

Well, I can blame it on starting a new job, or on spending increasing amounts of time on my hypnosis practice. However, that wouldn’t really get us any where. All I really need to do is get blogging!

So, this is just a quick heads up to say that I fully intend to be posting more often, particularly on the primary topic of this blog that remains close to my heart: practical steps to happiness. I’ll also share a few useful memory tips, as well as share some of my thoughts on hypnosis. (On that last point, look out for an interview with the exciting young hypnotist, Nathan Thomas.)

First off, tomorrow I’ll post my review of Mike Reeves-Mcmillan’s excellent book, Changing Health Behaviours.

“How to keep your New Year’s Resolutions” has, unsurprisingly, been a popular topic on blogs and websites over the last couple of months. With only 20% of us managing to keep our resolutions throughout the year, I figure we could use all of the good tips we can get.

The good news is that three months in, some research records that 63% of people say they are still keeping their resolutions. So, some point over the next nine months, 43% of us will finally cave in. That - along with some people’s choice to give something up for Lent - makes now the perfect time to add a little more fuel to the fire and firm up those resolutions.

But, with so much good advice out there, why am I adding to the list? It’s simple really - I’ve not seen this tip anywhere else. And, as bold as it might sound, I believe that the 1 tip I’m including below is the icing on the cake. In fact, without this 1 step, all of the good advice in the world won’t help you keep your resolutions. (That should give-away that what I’m saying is hardly rocket science and has possibly only not been listed elsewhere because it’s just so damn obvious!)

The 1 Key to Keeping your New Year’s Resolutions

You’re gonna kick yourselves, but the 1 step to keeping your New Year’s Resolutions is actually incredibly simple:

You Have to WANT it!

I know what you’re thinking - that’s ridiculously obvious. That may be so, but that doesn’t mean it’s taken as seriously, or given as much credit, as it should be.

For example, the top two New Year’s Resolutions are:

1. Lose Weight
2. Quit Smoking

The trouble is, hardly anyone wants to do those things. And, as if it needs saying, no one’s going to do something they don’t want to do. As Blaise Pascal, the renowned 17th century philosopher and mathematician wrote:

“All men seek happiness without exception. They all aim at this goal however different the means they use to attain it. . . .They will never make the smallest move but with this as its goal. This is the motive of all the actions of all men, even those who contemplate suicide.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting my 1 key tip to keeping your resolutions (New Years, or otherwise). However, I couldn’t pass the opportunity to link to a post discussing one of my favourite topics: Speed Reading.

Over at Lifehack, Thursday Bram has written a useful introductory article on the subject.

Speed reading isn’t just a matter of cranking up the speed at which your eyes cross a page, though: there are multiple methods for increasing your reading speed. It’s also worth considering that different approaches to reading have both benefits and drawbacks. In general, the methods that allow a person to read faster don’t always provide for the same level of comprehension that slower reading allows.

Read the rest here.

In a couple of days, I’ll be posting some tips on how to keep your resolutions. (Now seems like a good time, because I guess it’s around now that some of us are flagging.) In the meantime, enjoy this good stuff, from Pick the Brain:

Something happened on the way to adulthood. Somehow I started to become burdened with obligations and responsibilities. I became regretful over decisions made and full of doubts about those that would have to be tackled in the future.  I became saddened by the bad things that happened to the good people I knew, and from reading about the misfortunes of strangers. Life simply was no longer fun.

I would hazard to guess that many adults feel this way. In between childhood and adulthood, things like work, marriage and family intervene and suddenly we become incapable of experiencing the pure, unadulterated happiness we felt when, as kids, we were free of all these things.

…When we were children, we were given permission to devote endless amounts of time to playing games, having fun and laughing. As adults, no one is giving us this permission, so we’ve got to give it to ourselves, without feeling guilty about it. We work hard, so why shouldn’t we be able to have some fun?

Read the rest here.

Well, I guess that Christmas is the time for miracles, so finding this story today was a welcome discovery.

Anyone watching the patient known as “TN” successfully navigate his way through an obstacle course would have thought an eerie “sixth sense” was guiding his path.

Blinded by two strokes that destroyed his visual cortex, he has been unable to see for years, despite having healthy eyes. Nevertheless, TN successfully avoided all the obstacles, without a single mishap.

…TN’s ability is a rare form of “blindsight” – a condition where brain-damaged individuals who don’t have a mental image of their surroundings still subconsciously react to visual information.

…Brain scans had previously revealed that TN could recognise facial expressions, since the amygdala region showed increased activity when he was faced with fearful, angry or joyous faces. This suggested his mind could process some visual information, albeit subconsciously.

See for yourself below:

Isn’t it just incredible, what the brain can do?

Meditation may be more effective than drug treatments for preventing relapses into depression.

Mike Reeves-McMillan points to an interesting find on the BBC News website, which reports that Group meditation is as effective as drug treatments for stopping people slipping back into depression. The study, published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, found that Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy was actually more effective than medication in improving patients’ quality of life.

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy is a blend of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and meditation techniques rooted in Buddhism. The effectiveness of Mindfulness practice lies in helping patients recognise their patterns of thinking and to note drops in their mood. This then enables them to stop depression in its tracks. Speaking personally, one of the most powerful things I’ve learned whilst battling depression is putting the breaks on the escalation of negative thoughts. So, this sounds great to me!

If you want to find more, check out the following links:

1. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy at Wikipedia
2. www.mbct.com
3. www.mbct.co.uk
4. The Prescription is Meditation
5. Center for Mindfulness
6. The Mindful Way through Depression by J. Mark G. Williams, John D. Teasdale, Zindel V. Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn

And, of course, a hat-tip goes to Mike.