Would You Like to Live to 100? The Secrets to a Long, Healthy Life

Image by Huynh Nguyen

I often wonder how long my life will be. I’m 55 now, so hope to have at least another 30 years, if not more. My beloved grandfather lived to 104, so that bodes well, genetically! But perhaps more important than how long I live is how well I live – staying healthy, active and mentally sharp for as long as possible.

This intriguing question was answered in a fascinating Netflix documentary series I watched recently – Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. It’s presented by author Dan Buettner, who travels around the world to different ‘blue zones’ – places where there is an unusually high concentration of centenarians – to find out why people live longer there. Buettner visits Okinawa, Sardinia, the Greek island of Ikaria, Nicoya in Costa Rica, Loma Linda in California and ends up in Singapore.

In each of these blue zones people do not just live longer, they live well too. And some live remarkably well – in Costa Rica, he meets a 100-year-old cowboy who looks about 60, but is still working from dawn to dusk. He is so remarkable that the Costa Rican researcher Buettner is working with doesn’t believe him and checks his age on the national register! He is, indeed, 100 – and miraculously young, fit and healthy.

The secrets to living long – and well

In each of these blue zones, there are slightly different factors that help people thrive into old age. In Sardinia, the steepness of your village is key, because it means you are walking up and down steep hills every day of your life. But this is also a theme, because although in Singapore people are strongly encouraged to take daily exercise like walking, cycling and working out by the government, it’s generally the constant, low-level exercise that marks these places out.

Gardening, walking instead of driving, dancing, chopping wood, doing things by hand around the house – this kind of activity is key for longevity. Diet is another theme, even though the particular things people eat vary from place to place. The religious community in California (who are also mad about exercise) are mostly vegetarian. In Costa Rica they eat lots of black beans, in Okinawa it’s a particularly nutritious purple sweet potato, murasaki.

But along with diet and exercise, the most powerful learning for me was that having a sense of meaning, or purpose in their lives was key. Alongside this was the quality of their relationships. In every village, town or city Buettner visits, people live in warm, interconnected webs of relationship. These elderly people are not put in care homes, but kept in their families’ homes, or visited often by people in their community.

Love is the magic ingredient

If I’m honest, this doesn’t surprise me. I have written often in these posts about the importance of (good) relationships for our health. Evolutionarily, this makes sense, because we evolved from a common ancestor with apes like chimpanzees and bonobos. Apes don’t live alone. They live in large, social groups, as did every species of human, including homo sapiens.

This began to change just 10,000 years ago, with the agricultural revolution – and accelerated a few hundred years ago with the industrial revolution. Workers moved away from their traditional rural communities (where they lived in villages full of extended families, much like the blue-zone inhabitants) to live in towns and cities, doing back-breaking shifts in factories before going home to their small, nuclear family, or living alone.

Research increasingly shows us that living alone is not good for us, especially if we are often lonely. So perhaps the most important thing you could do, today and for the rest of your life, is to invest in and improve the quality of your closest relationships. If your family of origin was not a happy one, think about creating a ‘chosen family’ – perhaps your partner and children, friends and neighbours.

The blue zones teach us that eating well, exercising often, maintaining our interests, hobbies and even work well into old age are all crucial ingredients of a long, happy life. But even more important is the quality of our relationships – loving and being loved is the magic ingredient to a rich and fulfilling life.

I hope you find that useful – and do watch the documentary series, it’s fascinating.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

Warm, Loving, Calm… What Self-Energy Feels Like

Image by Zain Bhatti

Internal Family Systems therapy is definitely having a moment. If you have tried to find an IFS therapist or supervisor recently, you will know exactly what I mean. And if you want to train in IFS, you will actually need to enter a lottery, as the courses are so popular right now! So what is IFS – and why is it surging from a little-known, slightly out-there model to the mainstream of psychotherapy?

IFS was founded by Dr Richard Schwartz (who prefers to be called Dick) in the 80s. Dick says that he learned the model from his clients, because they kept saying ‘A part of me thinks this, but another part thinks that…’ or ‘One part wants me to binge on cake, but another part really doesn’t want me to and is berating me about it.’

As a systemic family therapist, Dick was trained to think systemically, because rather than working with an individual client his sessions featured their whole family. And he began to see these families existing not just in his clients’ external worlds but inside their heads, too. This, for me, is probably the biggest revolution to have occurred in the therapy world for decades – the idea that we are not just one, unified self (Dan) but we have a brain that creates what we think of as ‘us’ in a system of parts (the many parts of Dan).

What is the Self in IFS?

I won’t go into detail about these parts here, as I have explained them in many other posts, webinars and talks for Insight Timer. Instead, I would like to focus on what Dick calls, ‘Who you really are, deep down’. Because all of these parts, as lovable and well-intentioned as they are, often develop to help us deal with trauma or other painful incidents in our lives. So they are stuck in somewhat rigid roles, either holding painful memories or helping us cope with them. And the way they do that can, unintentionally, be deeply unhelpful – like the bingeing or berating in the example above.

One of the many lovely ideas in the IFS model is that there is another you, at your core, which isn’t a part. That you is warm, loving, kind, compassionate, strong, calm and deeply healing, if we can access its nourishing energy. And this is your Self.

Again, if this sounds a bit out there, just think about it from a biological perspective. Every second of every day of your life, your body is healing, repairing and replenishing itself. This happens on a cellular level constantly, without you having any awareness of it. We know this is true, because you’re alive to read this post!

If this constant cycle of repair was not happening, you wouldn’t be here. For example, if you broke your leg playing football, the doctors would set the bone and put a cast on your leg, but all the healing would come from within. Your body would heal itself.

The same is true of your mind, brain and nervous system – where all the wounds from childhood, or other painful parts of your life, need to be healed – and in IFS, it’s the Self that does that healing, especially for the wounded parts who live inside you. As a critical thinker, whose initial training was in evidence-based therapy models like CBT, this explanation helps me understand what Self is and why it is real. It’s just the psychological version of the same forces that heal your broken leg.

What does Self-energy feel like?

If you have never experienced IFS, this may still seem a bit weird or hard to grasp, which is fine. Dick says that until you experience this stuff, it’s all just words. But one metaphor that is often used for Self is that of the Sun. So if you imagine you are on that plane in the photo, when you took off and before you flew through the clouds, you would know the Sun was above them, intellectually, but you wouldn’t be able to feel it.

And then that magical moment would happen where you burst through the clouds and there, in all its glory, was the beautiful, life-giving Sun. You could see it, feel its warmth through the plane window – even if you shut your eyes its bright, powerful light would shine through your eyelids. There would be no doubting or questioning it, because you were experiencing this delicious energy, not just imagining it.

Here are some other times you may have felt Self-energy, without being aware of it:

• When you looked at your partner’s face, thought of all the years you had spent together, all the times they had helped you when you were sick, or down, or struggling and your heart just filled with love

• Sitting with a friend as they tearfully told you a sad story from their life and you just listened, calmly and patiently, before giving them a big hug and they collapsed in your arms, sobbing until the anguish left their body and they felt soothed and restored

• Holding your newborn baby in your arms for the first time and feeling the kind of overwhelming, all-consuming love you didn’t know until that moment was even possible

• Being in such a deep flow state while doing something utterly engrossing that time slipped away, your mind went quiet and all that existed was you, the moment and the task

• Holding your ground with a rude co-worker when they crossed a line and feeling completely calm, strong and sturdy – unshakeable in your conviction

• Seeing a photo of an impoverished child in your newspaper and feeling such sadness, such compassion for that little person that you immediately made a big donation to a charity working in their part of the world, which helped you feel hopeful and determined to relieve suffering in your human family

I hope that gives you a little taste of Self-energy, especially if you are struggling right now. Remember that, whatever you have been through in your life, it’s never too much and never too late to heal. And the magic ingredient in that healing is, of course, Self-energy.

And here is a practice I recorded for Insight Timer – Accessing Healing Self-Energy – which you might enjoy.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

What Can Buddhism Teach Us About How to Live a Good Life?

Image by Jamie Street

Many of us in the West assume that Buddhism is mostly about mindfulness. That’s because, in the 1970s, mindfulness entered the Western medical mainstream as an eight-week programme: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). From there, interest in mindfulness snowballed until, today, we have mindfulness programmes in schools, prisons, hospitals, corporations – even the House of Commons!

And this is a wonderful thing – mindfulness has a host of benefits for our mental and physical health, so the more people incorporating it into their daily lives the better. It’s just that mindfulness, and meditation more widely, is just a tiny fraction of Buddhist teaching, practice and psychology. In fact, Buddhist teaching is mostly about how to live your life, rather than how to sit on a cushion.

As someone who has long been fascinated by Buddhism, I was intrigued by this idea – that there might be a set of guidelines about how to live a good life. And not just for monks and nuns – who have incredibly complex guidelines about how to live – but for a layperson like me.

I try to live my life according to these Buddhist ‘precepts’, which are very much guidelines, rather than strict rules. That speaks to me, because I don’t much like organised religion, the idea that this or that action is sinful and will be punished, or virtuous and will be rewarded by everlasting heavenly bliss.

Remember that the Buddha was primarily a teacher and psychologist, who offered his insights into how to free ourselves from suffering. And living by these precepts is a key part of that – so here they are…

The five precepts

1. To abstain from taking life

2. To abstain from taking what is not given

3. To abstain from sensuous misconduct

4. To abstain from false speech

5. To abstain from intoxicants as tending to cloud the mind

Let’s break these down, one by one. First, the Buddha taught that we should avoid taking life – in fact, we should not kill any ‘sentient’ being. This obviously means not killing any other human, but there is a great deal of debate about what sentient means and how far we should take it. Personally, this precept is a big part of my being vegetarian, because I don’t like to kill any other being – not cows, pigs, sheep or fish, but also ants, wasps and other pesky creatures. How you interpret this one is up to you, but given the climate emergency and ecological crisis, it certainly seems helpful to avoid harming living things wherever possible.

The second precept seems fairly simple – it basically means don’t steal. But it also means not cheating on your taxes, or exploiting other people’s generosity. If it’s not given to you freely, it’s best not to take it.

Precept three is all about sex – sensuous meaning sexual. So of course we should never assault, harass or harm anyone sexually. But I think this also speaks to not having affairs, using pornography, or otherwise letting your sexual desire lead you into taking unkind or un-compassionate action.

The fourth precept essentially means don’t lie. But this is more subtle, as it also means speaking the truth wherever possible – unless it means hurting another person. Sometimes it’s best to stay silent, or hold information back until someone is ready for it. So, as with all the precepts, it takes a bit of thought and is subtle and sophisticated, rather than a black-and-white ‘do this’ and ‘don’t do that’. You kind of have to figure it out for yourself.

Finally, precept five is all about drugs and alcohol – don’t misuse them, of course, but also don’t ingest anything that will make you mindless, as opposed to mindful. Remember that the Buddha taught we should aspire to being mindful all the time. When walking, eating, drinking, talking, thinking, using the toilet, working, watching a movie, and so on. All the time. So ingesting a substance that interferes with that ability is not helpful.

Advice for non-Buddhists

Let me be clear here – I’m not trying to convert you to Buddhism! These precepts are just as helpful for Christians, Muslims and atheists as they are for Buddhists. They are simply suggestions about how to live a good life, which causes you and other living beings as little suffering as possible. Feel free to follow all of them, or none. And if you do follow them, remember they are not strict rules, but guidelines that you can adapt to suit yourself and your situation.

For example, you may love meat as part of your diet. If so, perhaps you could reduce the amount of meat you eat and buy organic chicken, say, instead of battery-farmed chicken. That will cause a great deal less suffering to the chicken you’re about to stick in your oven!

You don’t need to be a monk, or live a perfect life. Just do as much good as you can and that will make a huge difference, to you and the rest of the world.

And I hope you find these ideas as helpful as I have.

May you be well

May you be happy

May you be free from suffering

Dan

Giving Thanks for Our Wonderful National Health Service

Image by Ani Kolleshi

I had to go to hospital today. Nothing serious – just a routine scan for an ongoing health problem. It was not very pleasant, but mercifully short and the results were good.

But this is not a story about my health. It’s a story about my health service – and yours, if you live in the UK. I’m talking about the National Health Service (NHS), founded in 1948 by Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan and his Labour Government, providing healthcare that was ‘free for all at the point of delivery’.

What a remarkable statement that is – free, high-quality healthcare, available to anyone who needs it. For my many readers in the US, you know only too well how crippling health problems can be if your healthcare is largely delivered by private, profit-making companies. Serious illness in the US and elsewhere can be financially catastrophic for those affected and their families.

Not here. Despite successive governments trying to destroy the NHS and sell it off to private healthcare companies (many of our Government Ministers are on the boards of these companies, while they are also major donors to the Conservative Party), it still provides a wonderful service. Years of underfunding, doctors, nurses and other frontline staff being woefully underpaid, chronic staff shortages, crumbling hospitals… Despite all of this, every single person who looked after me today was patient, kind and compassionate.

The procedure I endured this morning is called a gastroscopy – if you have been lucky enough not to need one, it’s hard to overestimate how unpleasant it is. They essentially stick a thick tube down your throat, inflate your stomach with air and do other less-than-fun things, to check that all is well in your digestive system.

As I lay there, in considerable discomfort, the all-female team constantly checked on me, reassured me, stroked my back through the worst moments. They were just so kind. And I am so grateful – thank you, thank you to those four lovely women, for taking such good care of me.

Not taking goodness for granted

As I left Whittington Hospital, mighty relieved that it was all over, at the entrance was a group of junior doctors, who are currently on strike. Why? Because their pay is insultingly low; they are burnt out and exhausted after two brutal years of Covid; morale in the health service is at an all-time low; and, adding insult to injury, the right-wing press and politicians demonise GPs and other doctors, blaming them for entirely political failings.

And they have had enough, as have I. Our doctors, nurses, paramedics, porters, physiotherapists, psychologists, cleaners, receptionists and all the other remarkable men and women who make up the NHS are heroes. They kept us all safe and well through the worst public-health crisis in living memory. Many of them gave their lives to protect ours.

They deserve our love and gratitude, not terrible pay and working conditions, or to be vilified in the media.

So thank you to everyone at the Whittington Hospital, who treated me with such kindness – and have done throughout my life. Thank you for keeping me and my family safe. Thank you for your dedication, your hard work, your selflessness.

Know that you are loved and appreciated – and that we never take your goodness for granted.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Seek Out Moments of Beauty in Your Day

Image by Arno Smit

It may be freezing cold in London today, but spring is finally here. I know this, despite still wearing my winter-coat-hat-scarf-gloves combo, because of the blossom. Every afternoon, when I have a break between sessions, I take a long walk around my neighbourhood – and today everywhere I looked, glorious, vibrant, soul-nourishing blossom was popping and fizzing into life.

This is my favourite time of year because after a long, cold, gloomy winter, spring brings a surge of life, hope and positivity. ‘We made it,’ I always think to myself. Another tough winter navigated, as well as possible, and now the reward is all this colour and life. Plants, birds, insects, squirrels – everything roaring back into life after winter’s semi-hibernation.

When it’s hard to see in colour

And the best time to find ways of draining every drop of joy from all this life is actually when it’s hardest – when you are struggling with low mood or even a full-blown depression. Because when you’re low, it can be hard even to see the colours around you, let alone enjoy them. So you have to train yourself, bit by bit, to seek out and savour moments of beauty in your day.

Of course, another word to describe this would be mindfulness – and ‘experiencing your experience’, as Buddhist teachers say, rather than living entirely in your head, is a key element of mindfulness practice and courses like MBSR or MBCT.

Here are some of these moments, from an average Wednesday in my little north London suburb:

• I just watched a video, on social media, about a boy who has suffered far too much for such a small person. When he was rushed into hospital with sepsis and pneumonia, they discovered a brain tumour, which they removed through surgery and radiotherapy. As he was getting treatment, his father died suddenly (I am not ashamed to say that my eyes were welling up at this point)

  But this kid – a passionate, lifelong Everton fan – was on a tour of the ground when he ‘accidentally’ bumped into the whole team, including his hero, the Everton/England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. He was overwhelmed with emotion – as was I! But he soon recovered and was kicking a ball about with his heroes. Oh lord, just a beautiful thing – he will remember that day for the rest of his life

• Outside a shop near my office, I saw two small girls hugging tightly on their way home from school, not wanting to say goodbye – despite their parents’ sleeve-tugging encouragement. They just loved each other so much! The next school day was an eternity away, so they kept hugging, pressing their little cheeks together. I shared a smile with one of the parents. And it was quietly lovely

• I moved on to another shop, a little further along the road, where we buy our fruit and veg. It’s called Tony’s Continental and is a family-run place that’s at the heart of our little community – if you are ever in East Finchley I strongly recommend it! I haven’t been there for a while, for various reasons, but when I said hello to one of the owners, he greeted me with such warmth and friendliness

  We talked about football, as men do, but football was just a conduit for conversation and connection. We were saying, ‘It’s great to see you and hang out,’ in that safe, male kind of way that sports-talk provides. So simple. So nice

• And, of course, blossom! So many trees just starting to flower, smatterings of pink and white lining the street. Cherry, plum, blackthorn, forsythia, daffodils bobbing their little yellow heads… These pops of colour and reminders that Nature finds a way, even in the urban environment where I live and work, really make my heart sing

Not easy, but important

I know that if you are feeling down, moments like this may seem elusive – or even impossible to find right now. It’s not easy, I’m painfully aware of that from personal experience. But I also know that making an effort to seek out these moments of colour, of humanity, of beauty in your day is a powerful antidote to depression. 

It reminds us that we are alive. That there is always hope, if we allow it into our minds and hearts. That even if today is rough, tomorrow might be better.

I hope that helps, a little – and if you are struggling, sending you love and warm thoughts, wherever you are in the world,

Dan

What is the Secret to a Happy Life?

Image by Vonecia Carswell

Everybody wants to be happy, right? Me, you, that barista who served you coffee this morning and the homeless guy who looked so sad and lost on your way to work. It’s hard-wired into every human to avoid pain and seek pleasure – especially a consistent, lifelong feeling of happiness.

But the tricky thing is how? How do we learn to be, if not happy, then happier than we are right now? What if we struggle with mental-health problems and happiness seems like a distant mirage that fades every time we think it’s close? And what if we experienced significant trauma in our childhoods and so just leading a ‘normal’, functional life is a day-to-day struggle, let alone some fanciful notion of actually being happy?

I spend virtually every waking moment of my life pondering these questions. All I do is think, read, research, learn and practice with my clients (and myself, my friends and family) how to be happier. How to heal and recover from past traumas and childhood hurts. How to lift the mood of depression or calm the agitation of anxiety.

the search for happiness

One book, in particular, has stood out to me recently as I conduct this search. It’s The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schultz. Unlike many psychology books I read, it’s extremely well-written and highly readable. And it contains some genuinely transformative pearls of wisdom on what it takes to live a rich, meaningful and happy life.

The authors are the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development – a truly remarkable piece of research that has followed 724 men since they were teenagers in 1938. Approximately 60 of these men, now in their 90s, are still left. The Study chose two groups of men, one comprising Harvard students and the other from Boston’s most deprived neighbourhoods.

What’s so remarkable about this study is that it follows these men through their entire lives – from teenage years until, for many of them, those lives come to an end. And the researchers are able to glean a vast treasure trove of information about them, asking at regular intervals about every aspect of their health, day-to-day lives, their marriages, work, kids, views on life, coping strategies when times are hard…

This book is profoundly moving, because we hear the stories of these men, their triumphs and failures, greatest joys and toughest moments in their lives. We also hear from some of the 1,300 children of the original participants, who were later added to the project. It’s a brilliant book – I can’t recommend it highly enough.

And remember this is a study on what makes us happy. What constitutes a good life. Not just the things that make us sad, stressed or afraid.

So what does make us happy?

Having tracked all of these people, for so many years, the researchers found a few key ingredients that seemed to add up to a well-lived life, whatever their class, income level or occupation. Trying not to have any regrets was one ingredient, as was developing successful coping skills for the bumpy bits of life.

But the most important ingredient seems to be about other people – developing and maintaining warm relationships was the most important factor determining which of these Bostonians were happy and which less so. In some ways, this is common sense. We know that, for example, being in a warm, loving, mutually supportive romantic relationship makes us happy. And we know that having close friends makes us feel good in all sorts of ways.

But studies like these, as well as decades of research into attachment, give us cast-iron, empirical proof that loneliness is a real problem for our mental and physical health; that the kind of relationship we have with our parents hugely influences the relationships we forge as an adult; and that having close, positive relationships with friends, family, colleagues and others is the key to a happy life.

What if your relationships are not good?

We have to be careful with studies like these, because it’s easy to think, ‘Well, my relationships are awful. I maintain distance with my family, am single and struggle to make friendships, so am I doomed to unhappiness?’ And my answer would be no, not at all.

Many of us – myself included – have difficult relationships with family members. You may also find friendships difficult, perhaps only having one or two good friends, or finding social situations hard to navigate. You may not have a partner, which is a source of ongoing sadness for you.

If so, please don’t despair. We live in the 21st century and there are many ways of living a good life that don’t involve marriage or children, let alone a wide network of friends.

But it’s helpful to remember that humans are social, tribal animals. Our brains are wired (indeed, primarily developed) for attachment, connection, relationship.

So if your relationships currently make you unhappy, please do get some good-quality therapy to help you cut loose those people who make you feel bad and find new people who light you up, or make you feel safe, or who just get you and accept you for who you are.

We can all do that, at any age and life stage. As I’m always saying in these posts, It’s never too much and never too late to heal. That applies to relationships too.

So please read the book, I’m confident you will enjoy it. And I wish you strength, courage and determination on your road to happiness, however long it may be.

Sending love and warm thoughts,

Dan

Overcoming Depression: How to Lift Your Mood & Feel Happier

Image by Sankalp Suradkar

Depression can feel absolutely awful. When you’re really down, you might feel exhausted, as if the smallest task is utterly daunting. Your thoughts will probably be incredibly negative and laser-focused on everything that is ‘bad’ and ‘wrong’ about you. You might feel either agitated or empty and frozen inside. You may sleep all the time or very badly, eat too much or hardly at all.

The way depression affects us varies widely from person to person. That’s why Paul Gilbert, one of my heroes in the therapy field and founder of compassion-focused therapy, says it’s better to think of ‘depressions’, as there are so many causes and manifestations of this incredibly common mood disorder. But whatever the cause and however it affects you, depression can be grim.

I know this from personal experience. After my father died, suddenly and traumatically when I was 24, I struggled with depression for many years. As well as losing him, which in itself turned my world upside down, that single traumatic event unlocked all the pain and hurt of my life up until then. I spent years in therapy, trying different therapists and approaches, none of which (I now know, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight), were that effective or helpful.

Like many people struggling with mental-health problems, I self-medicated with alcohol and other substances. Again, I now understand that these substances were mostly doing two things: first, numbing the pain; and second, giving me a much-needed hit of distraction and dopamine, so I felt happy and good for a few hours. Sadly, those short-term bursts of excitement were followed by even worse bouts of depression, as well as self-loathing and profound disappointment in myself for doing it again.

Emerging into the light

I knew something had to change. So I retrained as a therapist (more accurately, I returned to this field after a stint in journalism, having first trained as a counsellor in 1994-7) and slowly got my life together. I did a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) course, which helped me integrate a daily meditation practice into my life. I have relished those 20 minutes of silence and stillness almost every day since then.

I found a kind, loving partner who is now my wife. She was there for me in some extremely tough times, as I have been there for her when she struggled. This alone has been incredibly healing for me – I feel deeply blessed and grateful to have this wonderful person in my life.

I began to study in great depth the newer, more scientific, brain-based approaches to therapy, like schema therapy, internal family systems therapy, cognitive therapy, MBCT, compassion-focused therapy and many more. For the first time I started to understand what causes depression, anxiety, stress and all the other psychological problems we are all vulnerable to, being beautiful but fragile humans.

A mind-body approach

It’s not always easy for me to be so open about my struggles with mental health (and even harder to admit to the self-medicating, which I very much regret), but I do so in my writing, teaching and therapy practice to ‘normalise’ both psychological difficulties and the ways we try to cope with them, however unhelpful they may be. I am a flawed, fragile human being, just like you. But I also talk about this stuff to say, this is what worked for me, so it could work for you too.

As well as all the learning I have done about the mind, brain, nervous system, different theories and models of psychotherapy, I have to say that one of the most powerful tools I have found to boost and regulate my mood is physical exercise. As I write this, I have just come back from the gym. I exercise almost every day, partly to help with some chronic back issues, but also because it just makes me feel so good!

There is a huge amount of research into the beneficial effects of moving your body on your thoughts, emotions and mood, so if you struggle with depression please do try moving, even a little. You may hate the gym, which is absolutely fine. How about swimming, in the local pool or better somewhere wild? Or dancing – play your favourite tunes, loud, and jump around a bit.

Martial arts are great, especially if you have a trauma history and want to feel safer in your body and your life. Yoga is amazing, providing nourishment and exercise for the body, mind and soul. There is also a great deal of evidence supporting yoga as a trauma-healing practice.

If you have a bike, go for a ride. If you have a garden, get digging and feel your hands in the soil, which also reconnects us to Nature and answers a call deep in your bones to live a wilder, more natural life.

Start with small steps

Having spent years struggling with depression, I know that someone advising you to exercise can feel irritating, even condescending. Of course you already know this! Your GP has probably told you, along with your friends, social-media feed, newspaper, numerous mental-health documentaries, and so on. But I have to say, sometimes we can know all the right things to do, but the hardest thing is actually doing them.

So start small. If you haven’t left the house for days, just go for a walk around the block. Breathe some fresh air. Move your body, a little – it’s desperate to move, trust me. Tomorrow try two blocks. The next day three… and before you know it, you are walking for an hour and noticing a real uplift in your mood.

This is not rocket science, I know, but it really does help.

You may also be interested in a Zoom webinar I’m planning on Saturday 15th October 2022: Overcoming Depression – How to Lift Your Mood & Feel Calmer, Happier & More Hopeful. Take a look at my Webinars & Workshops page if you would like to know more.

And I very much hope that some of my story is inspiring for you. It may help to know that I don’t get depressed any more. I have up days and down days, like everyone, but those long, awful bouts of depression are mercifully in my past.

I barely drink, apart from a few glasses of wine at the weekend. I mostly live a sober, mindful life. And I have a job I love, that brings great joy and meaning to my day-to-day existence. If I can turn my life around – which was a mess, trust me – so can anyone. Including you.

Sending you love and strength, whatever you might be struggling with right now.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Guided Imagery: Building the Healthy Adult Mode

Image by Sharon McCutcheon

One of the key aims of schema therapy is to build your Healthy Adult part (or ‘mode’ in ST language). This is the part of you that is calm, compassionate, strong, rational and resilient. For most of us, this process is not easy – especially if you have a trauma history and so struggle to feel or access these inner resources. But it is doable, for anyone, if you get the right help and support.

That’s why my latest recording for Insight Timer is a guided imagery that will help you do just that. Just click on the button below to listen to the recording, Imagine a Happier Future – Guided Imagery.

I record these meditations, guided imagery, talks and breathing techniques for my clients and as part of my Heal Your Trauma project. They are free for anyone to listen to – with an optional donation, if you would like to support the project.

I hope you find the imagery helpful – and do feel free to try any of my other recordings on Insight Timer, which I will keep adding to over time.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Try This Hardwiring Happiness Meditation to Boost Your Mood

Image by Lesly Juarez

This short practice is adapted from Rick Hanson’s wonderful book, Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm and Confidence. He reminds us that the human brain is overwhelmingly focused on protecting you from threats. Let’s think about why that might be. For millions of years, our ancestors evolved to live in the wilderness. They formed small bands of hunter-gatherers, living in caves or fortified villages surrounded by hungry, poisonous and dangerous animals, as well as other bands they mostly lived alongside peaceably, but who could attack at any moment. This was a dangerous time to be human.

So your brain evolved to live in this world – not the 21st-century world we live in now, which for most of us involves an urban existence, in peaceful democracies and with far fewer life-or-death threats than your brain evolved to deal with.

But your threat-focused brain still operates as if you were living in the forest, or out on the savannah. And this is why all human brains have an in-built negativity bias, meaning you are laser-focused on bad stuff – threats, worries, painful memories, financial difficulties, relationship troubles… You think about that a lot and pour huge amounts of mental energy into ruminating about the past or worrying about the future.

When good stuff happens, you enjoy it for a moment, then it’s gone. And you move quickly to hungrily searching for the next thing to worry about. This is not your fault – it’s just what brains do.

As Rick Hanson says, your brain is like Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good. So we need to build our mental muscles to help us pay as much attention to good stuff as we do bad.

The practice

Here’s a short, powerful, neuroscience-derived practice I use with all my clients, as it’s so helpful for correcting that negativity bias, helping you focus on and enjoy pleasant experiences and stop obsessing about unpleasant ones.

1. Start by finding a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down and closing your eyes. Take some deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth, counting four seconds in and four seconds out. Keep breathing, letting the breath be calming and nourishing for you. Let your abdomen rise and fall with each in-breath and out-breath.

2. Now think about something good that happened to you recently. This could be something from a whole spectrum of pleasant experiences, from tiny moments of joy, like eating a delicious piece of fruit, seeing pink blossom framed by blue sky, or reading a book you found deeply enjoyable; right up to powerful, profound experiences like asking someone to marry you, winning an award for your work, the birth of your first child, or someone you love deeply recovering from a scary illness.

3. Visualise that experience in as much detail as possible – really imagine that you are there and it’s happening to you in the present moment. Where are you? What do you see around you? Are you alone or with someone? How does this experience unfold – is it a conversation, phone call or email exchange? Or is it just something you see, hear, smell or taste? Focus on the sensory details of your experience as vividly as possible – the more vivid this is the better.

4. Now focus on how you are feeling during this experience. What emotions do you notice in your body? Do you feel calm, happy, joyful, excited, proud, satisfied, relieved, inspired, moved, awestruck… Or something else entirely?

5. Really focus on the visceral experience of the emotions in your body. For example, you might feel an inner warmth, or a lightness in your body, or perhaps a pleasurable upsurge of energy. Whatever you are feeling, just focus on it, enjoy it and let it soak into your body for around 60 seconds. Then take a deep breath and open your eyes.

6. So, here’s the miraculous bit – you just hard-wired that experience and the positive feelings linked to it into your brain. It only takes 10 seconds to do this, but the longer you allow for this process the better. Plus, you are simply enjoying pleasant experiences fully and completely, so the longer you do that the more enjoyable it will be for you.

7. Try to get into the habit of doing this whenever something good or enjoyable happens. If you build this practice into your daily life, over time you will start to tilt the scales of negativity and positivity in your brain. Eventually, you will find yourself ruminating and worrying less about bad stuff; and feeling calmer, happier and more content.

8. Now continue with your day, looking out for positive experiences to hardwire.

I very much hope you enjoy this practice – I have recorded it as a Hardwiring Happiness Talk and Meditation for Insight Timer. You can listen to the recording, plus my collection of meditations, breathing techniques and guided imagery using the button below.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How Chronic Pain and Illness Affect Your Mood

Image by Toa Heftiba

As I sit writing this, I am in a moderate amount of pain. Like millions of people around the world, I suffer from chronic musculoskeletal (back and hip) problems, so most days come with either a small or large dose of pain, depending on how well I am looking after myself, how stressed I am, how much sitting I do that day, and various other factors.

Having been in some degree of daily pain for almost two years now, I have learned a few things about the relationship between physical pain and mental suffering:

• It's important to distinguish between 'primary' and 'secondary' pain. I learned this from Vidyamala Burch, founder of the excellent Breathworks. This organisation provides the Mindfulness-Based Pain Management programme, which has a strong research base behind it and helps many people in the UK and beyond deal with chronic pain and illness.

• Burch also co-wrote Mindfulness for Health: A Practical Guide to Relieving Pain, Reducing Stress and Restoring Wellbeing with Danny Penman. In this superb book the authors explain that primary pain is the actual raw data caused by, say, a gash in your leg. Intriguingly, the majority of the pain you end up experiencing is secondary – the pain created by your brain as it amplifies that raw data, depending on the way you think about and respond to your primary pain.

• This only became clear to me recently when I visited my osteopath during a bad patch physically, feeling down and hopeless about resolving my problems. He reminded me that the pain was significantly better now than when I first came to see him; and that it was crucial to remain as positive as possible, because my negative thoughts ('I will never get over this'; 'Nothing will help'; 'I can't stand the pain any more') were undoubtedly making the pain worse (this is essentially what the Buddha taught – that human life inevitably involves pain, but we create suffering by our response to that pain. But that's a topic for another day).

Managing the pain

I think it's important to note here just how hard it is to maintain a positive, optimistic mood in the face of chronic pain or illness. As anyone with a long-term condition knows, it grinds you down, especially when it flares up or your symptoms get worse for whatever reason. Please don't think I underestimate the impact of physical ailments on your mood – it is a struggle and gets everyone down from time to time, as well as causing stress and worry/anxiety about the future.

I couldn't understand that vicious cycle any better. But once you understand the relationship between pain sensations in the body and the way that your brain either amplifies or minimises those sensations, it seems crucial to me that you do all you can to use your brain/mind to help your body.

 When I first hurt my back and was really struggling, Vidyamala Burch's guided meditations really helped pull me through. Visit her website (www.vidyamala-burch.com) to find out more. And if you are dealing with chronic pain or illness, my thoughts and well wishes go out to you – I hope you get the medical help you need and manage to overcome your problem soon.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How Compassion Can Improve Your Mental Health

Image by Jude Beck

The most exciting new developments in psychotherapy at the moment are a fusion between three approaches: cognitive therapy, neuroscience and Buddhist psychology. Cognitive therapy is the most effective form of 'talking therapy' for a whole host of problems, such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and phobias.

Neuroscience has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, mainly because of MRI scans of the brain, which show us which parts of the brain 'light up' when, say, we get angry or excited. And Buddhist psychology – a 2,500-year-old discipline for training the mind and freeing us from suffering – is increasingly being incorporated into Western approaches to psychotherapy.

Mindfulness and compassion

The Buddha said the two core concepts in his teaching were mindfulness and compassion. I have said plenty about mindfulness on other areas of the site, but I increasingly realise the importance of compassion and teach my clients to be kinder and more compassionate to themselves.

To explain just why compassion is so important for mental wellbeing, I need to explain a little about how the brain works, according to the Compassion-Focused Therapy model. There are three affect-regulation systems in the brain (affect just means emotion, so these three systems control how we feel):

• Threat-protection system

• Drive-excitement system

• Soothing-contentment system

The threat-protection system is, as the name suggests, all about protecting us from danger. It's linked to the fight-or-flight response and reacts in split seconds if it senses a threat, causing a ripple of strong emotion that acts as an alarm and motivates us to act.

So anger (fight) and anxiety (flight) are triggered by this system when we face both genuine threats, like a gang of hoodies or speeding bus hurtling towards us; or 'psychosocial' threats like a dressing down from our boss or warning letter from the bank.

The drive-excitement system helps us achieve and get things we want, so it's linked to ambition, success, starting exciting projects or conquering our nerves to ask someone out on a first date. It's largely helpful, but can cause problems if we get blocked or thwarted – this leads to anger and frustration because we are too determined to get what we want out of life.

Soothing-contentment system

And the soothing-contentment system is all about calmness, peacefulness, contentment, feeling safe and secure. It's a counter-balance to the threat-protection system, calming us down after the threat has passed and making us feel relaxed and at ease. It's also the system that both activates and responds to kind and compassionate thoughts, feelings and fantasies.

So, what does all that mean for you? Well, if you suffer from chronic stress, anxiety or depression; if you are prone to harsh self-criticism or self-blame; if you feel angry and dissatisfied much of the time, your threat-protection system is over-stimulated and your soothing-contentment system needs strengthening. None of these systems are good or bad – they all have an important function in keeping us alive, in helping us achieve our goals and making us feel loved, safe and secure.

The trouble starts when they get out of balance, so an important part of therapy is helping you develop more kindness and compassion to yourself and turning down the volume on that loud, harsh, self-critical voice that finds fault with everything you do.

If you want to know more about why compassion is so important, or about compassion-focused therapy, read Paul Gilbert's The Compassionate Mind or Overcoming Depression: A Self-help Guide Using Cognitive Behavioral Techniques, both wonderful books; you could also read Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill, a life-changing book by scientist/Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard; or Loving-Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, by meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. And visit Paul Gilbert's Compassionate Mind Foundation for details of workshops and talks.

Finding your compassionate self

You might also like to try this simple guided imagery exercise, which aims to strengthen your compassionate self:

• First, find a place where you can be alone and quiet. Sit comfortably and breathe slowly and evenly for a few minutes.

• Now imagine you are a wise and compassionate person. Think about all the qualities you would love to have as such a person and imagine you have them. Remember that it doesn't matter if you have these qualities or not – research shows that just imagining you do will change your brain in positive ways.

• Imagine having great wisdom and understanding; imagine having strength and fortitude; imagine having warmth and kindness and never being judgmental again. Spend some time thinking about what each of these feel like.

• Think about what other qualities you would like to have in your compassionate self and imagine you have them. Adopt a kind and gentle facial expression and body posture and spend time exploring them. Think about yourself 'at your best', recalling a time you felt calm, kind and wise and – as you keep breathing slowly and steadily – focus on these memories and qualities.

• Finally, imagine the sound of your voice, your tone, pace and rhythm when you speak from this compassionate self. Imagine the emotion and feelings that are in you and expressed in the way you speak.

• Every day, spend a little time playing with this role of being a 'calm, compassionate self'.

Finally, remember that it may be quite hard to feel kindness or compassion towards yourself, especially at first. But through those MRI scans we know that simply trying to create those feelings activates the soothing-contentment system, which is a small but powerful first step on the road to feeling stronger, happier and more at peace.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How Mindfulness Can Help with Chronic Pain

Image by Joyce McCown

If you suffer from a medical condition that causes you chronic pain, life can be gruelling. Nobody likes being in pain, so over time it can really grind you down. Musculoskeletal problems like hip, knee or lower-back pain, arthritis and other ongoing, hard-to-treat conditions can sap your strength and energy over time, making it hard to stay positive or hopeful that a solution will eventually be found. Dealing with pain can make you stressed or depressed, as the ongoing struggle – unsurprisingly – causes sadness and low mood.

But if you or someone you care about is struggling with a painful condition, it's important to know that there is very good evidence for the impact that psychological treatments can have – in particular, cognitive therapy and mindfulness meditation.

Of course, thinking differently about your problem, the core strategy in cognitive therapy, will not take away the pain (although it can significantly decrease the amount of pain you are in). Instead, it will help you stop thinking so negatively about the problem, which will boost your mood and stave off the risk of depression. 

The mindful approach to stress

Since the 1970s, mindfulness – in particular, mindfulness-based stress reduction, or MBSR – has been used to help people with a wide range of psychological and physical ailments. MBSR's founder, Jon Kabat-Zinn, developed his revolutionary approach to help people who had been failed by traditional Western medicine.

He worked with patients suffering from treatment-resistant spinal problems and even terminal illness – and had a remarkable success rate at lowering their stress levels and improving the quality of their daily lives.

As with all forms of suffering, whether emotional or physical, the mindful approach is to change our relationship to the thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, enabling us to stop fighting or resisting them and – counterintuitively – accept them, even if we do not want them to be there.

Over time, we find that this stance of acceptance is an extremely powerful one, allowing the 'aversive' experiences to come and go, so they don't get stuck or morph into other forms of suffering like self-criticism or anger.

I want to be clear: I am not minimising how hard or upsetting it can be to live with chronic pain (as someone with ongoing back, hip and other musculoskeletal problems, I know that only too well). But being human inevitably means dealing with stressors, large or small; and, if we cannot free ourselves from them, we must find the best possible way to live with them.

Warm wishes,

Dan

The Difference Between Pressure and Stress

Image by Kiefer Likens

People often tell me that they 'thrive on stress'. I respond that they might be confusing pressure – which can be energising and motivating, if we respond to it well – and stress, which always has a negative impact on us. Let me give you two examples:

James is a 30-year-old entrepreneur, who has recently launched a startup website selling his own brand of clothing. James is passionate about his new business and thrives on the pressure he puts himself under to make it successful.

He works long hours, but knows this is necessary to get a new business up and running. James thoroughly enjoys every minute of his working day, so never feels stressed or overwhelmed – the fact that his business is doing well helps him stay positive and optimistic about the future. 

So for James, it's clear that the – self-imposed – pressure is a positive thing; it gives him the energy and drive he needs to make his new business a success.

Emma is a 26-year-old nurse working in a busy hospital in inner London. Over the last year, she has seen wave after wave of cuts in the number of nurses and support staff working on her ward. She and her colleagues work very long hours with no breaks – Emma wolfs a sandwich during her daily meeting with the other nurses. Sometimes she goes hours without even a drink of water or toilet break, as she is swamped with constant crises and demands from her patients.

Emma's nerves are stretched and jangling, she feels exhausted and irritable all the time – recently she snapped at a difficult patient, which shocked and upset her. Emma is so stressed that she doesn't know how much longer she can take it and is seriously considering quitting nursing before she becomes seriously ill.

The impact of chronic stress

It's clear that Emma is suffering from chronic, debilitating stress, which is affecting her physically and psychologically. Like many people suffering from stress, she feels overwhelmed, under-supported and out of control of her working life. If she doesn't do something soon, she may will burn out or develop a more serious illness, as all the research shows that long-term stress is harmful to the body and mind.

In schema therapy terms, this kind of stress is generally caused by a demanding part, which drives us on to work harder and harder, never feeling that what we do is good enough. This part can also make us feel under pressure – but it's not the kind of positive, motivating pressure James thrives on. This pressure is unpleasant, debilitating and overwhelmingly negative.

James's enjoyable pressure is probably coming from his Healthy Adult, which encourages and motivates us, rather than being critical or undermining of our best efforts.

If you are struggling with short-term stress, cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) will be extremely helpful. If becoming stressed is a pattern for you, or it's affecting every area of your life, schema therapy may be more suitable.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Why Exercise is Key for Good Mental Health

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Most psychological problems – such as chronic stress, anxiety or depression – will require some kind of psychological treatment, especially if they persist over time. But it's easy to underestimate the impact of direct physical interventions on psychological problems.

Partly, of course, this is because the whole separation of mind and body is an artificial one – your mind is the product of your brain; hormones play a key role in regulating your moods; psychological problems such as stress and anxiety have a whole range of physiological symptoms... In reality, your mind and body are inextricably linked, with an exquisitely complex feedback system between the two.

So it should come as no surprise that regular physical exercise is key to good mental health. Think of exercise in two main areas: cardiovascular and relaxing. Cardio exercise such as cycling, dancing, racquet sports, football, brisk walking or swimming, weight training or martial arts burns off hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol that are produced when we are anxious or stressed.

Just 20 minutes of moderate exercise gives you a shot of endorphins, which help you feel happy and calm; and regular cardio exercise is proven to be just as effective as antidepressants for mild to moderate depression (and with no nasty side effects).

Stress-relieving exercise

Relaxing exercise includes yoga, tai chi, gentle swimming or slow walking and is an excellent stress-reliever, especially if you do it in a green space, such as your local park. This kind of exercise activates the relaxation response, which balances out the stress response and helps you feel calmer and more relaxed. If you are suffering from depression, you may lack the energy to do more vigorous exercise, but it's really important to do something even if it's just a walk round the block.

So if you're stressed out, struggling with an anxiety problem or depressed, remember that exercise will really help – and if the problem is short-term, it may be all you need to regain your equilibrium and feel better, so why not give it a try?

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Use Mindfulness in Daily Life

Image by Lesly Juarez

In recent years, mindfulness has gone from being a little-known (in the West) form of Buddhist meditation to a hugely popular, much-written-about practice. It's hard to pick up a Sunday supplement these days without reading something about mindfulness, whether it's being taught to schoolchildren to deal with exam stress, or embraced by corporations such as Google, Facebook and eBay – it has become one of the buzzwords of our age.

This, of course, is a great thing – I strongly believe that everyone should meditate, and if we all lived our lives along Buddhist principles many of the world's problems and most of our cruelty and inhumanity to each other would be transformed overnight. But I am concerned about the misunderstandings of mindfulness, so wanted to set the record straight.

Mindfulness – especially in a psychotherapy context – is a skill. I teach my clients mindfulness techniques like I teach them any other skill, like how to identify and challenge negative thoughts; how to use relaxation techniques to de-stress and reduce anxiety; or how to 'push against' their avoidance in order to face and overcome their fears. 

Formal vs informal practices

To understand this, it's helpful to think about the difference between formal and informal mindfulness practices. Formal practices involve sitting (usually, although they can include movement) in a quiet room, closing your eyes and concentrating for 20 or 30 minutes on your breath, body, thoughts or some other point of focus.

Informal practices simply involve waking up to the sensory experience of your moment-to-moment experience, whether that's looking intently at a leaf, cloud or sunset; concentrating on the many and varied sounds coming to your ears; eating your apple or sandwich and relishing every taste, smell, texture and colour of the food.

Although I encourage my clients to develop a formal practice – and have a daily practice myself – it's the informal practices that can be so powerful if you are suffering from a psychological problem like depression, anxiety, chronic stress or an eating disorder.

That's because they allow you to choose where to place your attention – on the negative thoughts swirling through your mind, the painful emotions and physical sensations in your body, or... something else. Anything else.

Try this informal practice

Here's an example:

You are sitting in a cafe, having a pleasant day, when you receive a text message from your ex-boyfriend saying they want to see you. You have only just got over the breakup and this text, out of the blue, triggers a cascade of 'what if' thoughts...

'Why does he want to see me? What if he's changed his mind? Does he still love me? Maybe he's met someone else and wants me to hear it from him. God, that would just kill me...'

Unsurprisingly, these thoughts trigger a wave of powerful emotions: anxiety, upset, hope, fear, sadness, jealousy...

Within a few seconds, you have been catapulted from feeling happy and calm to being tossed around on waves of emotion. Then you remember your mindfulness training, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. You sit upright and let your tense shoulders drop and relax.

You focus on the warm, milky, chocolatey cappuccino in front of you, inhaling deeply of its aroma and then take a sip, tasting the coffee and noticing the sensation as it travels down your throat. Your mind keeps trying to pull you away with a string of 'what ifs' but each time you simply notice the thoughts, then gently but firmly bring your attention back to the coffee.

Your emotions naturally subside and you feel calmer. You put your phone away, deciding to respond to the text tomorrow, rather than rushing a reply you might regret. And you smile, at how just being mindful helped you out of a dark place.

Of course, it's best to develop both a formal and informal practice, but understanding why you are doing so can help you overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations involved. Developing this skill is, I believe, one of the simplest but most powerful steps you can take in overcoming your problem, whatever it might be.

And once you learn how to apply them, mindfulness techniques are free, with no horrible side-effects, unlike some of the other treatments on offer.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Loving-Kindness Meditation – Part Two

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I recently posted about Metta Bhavana, or loving-kindness meditation, giving you the first two steps of directing loving-kindness to yourself, then a friend – you can find the full meditation below. Just to recap, in Pali, the Buddha's language, metta means ‘love’ (in a non-romantic sense), friendliness, or kindness.

Bhavana means development or cultivation. But you don't have to be a Buddhist, or have any interest in Buddhism, to benefit from this practice – mindfulness meditation is increasingly taught as a secular, non-religious series of practices – loving-kindness is one of these.

As a therapist, I help many people who are harshly self-critical or full of self-dislike. Sadly, this internal self-attack often leads to psychological problems like depression, low self-esteem, chronic stress, anger or anxiety. Increasing your sense of kindness and compassion – towards yourself and others – is a proven way to generate positive mental states such as joy, love, calmness, equanimity and strength.

The practice

The full Metta Bhavana practice traditionally encompasses five stages, so allow five minutes for each stage. Here is a step-by-step guide to the practice:

1. This practice will take 25 minutes, so switch your phone to silent (if it has a timer, set it to repeat after 5 minutes) and make sure you will not be disturbed. As with all meditation, it's important to attend to your posture, making yourself comfortable on a cushion on the floor or a straight-backed chair, sitting with your spine, neck and head in alignment. Your posture should be upright and alert but relaxed.

2. Bring your awareness into your body, starting in your feet and travelling slowly all the way up to your scalp. If you notice any tension or discomfort, allow that part of the body to soften and relax. Then bring your awareness to the heart region – it can help to place your hand over your heart and feel the warmth this generates. Allow this warmth to permeate into your practice.

3. In stage one, you direct metta towards yourself. You can visualise your face, perhaps seeing the metta as a golden light shining from your heart and enveloping your whole being. Or remember a time when you felt happy, or proud of yourself – there is no set rule, so whatever helps you get in touch with positive feelings towards yourself is fine. (If you don't feel anything, that's not a problem – feelings will come in time, so don't try to force them). Repeat these phrases in your mind: 'May I be well. May I be happy. May I be free from suffering.' Say them slowly and deliberately – this a great gift you are offering yourself, so don't rush it.

4. If you become distracted by thoughts, sounds or body sensations, that's not a problem. Simply notice that your attention has wandered and gently bring it back to the phrases.

5. In part two, we direct metta towards a friend – this should be someone you feel positive about, not a person with whom you have conflict or difficulty. Repeat: 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.' If you feel like varying the phrases to suit this person, that's fine – so it could be 'May you be free from stress. May you be confident. May you be free from anxiety.' Again, don't force this, but if it happens naturally that's fine.

6. In part three, we direct metta towards a neutral person. This can be someone you see regularly but have never spoken to, maybe in the supermarket or your favourite coffee shop. See this person's face in your mind's eye, then repeat 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.'

7. Part four entails directing metta towards a difficult person in our lives. At first, it's best to choose someone you are having a little difficulty with, not your worst enemy. Unsurprisingly, this is generally the hardest stage, but remember that when you fill your mind with negative, angry, hostile thoughts, or fill your body with emotions like resentment or hatred, you are the one who is suffering, not them. And the Buddha taught that all beings deserve our compassion, not just the ones we like!

   Repeat 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering,' perhaps visualising golden light flowing from your heart to the difficult person. If you struggle, place your hand over your heart to generate warmth in this region, then try again. If you feel numb or angry, that's fine, just accept these feelings and continue repeating the phrases, as having a positive intention is the most important thing.

8. Finally, we direct metta to all life. You may want to start by imagining yourself your friend, the neutral and difficult persons, sending metta to each in turn. ('May we be well. May we be happy. May we be free from suffering.') Then expand that circle to include all of your friends, family, community, residents of your city, country, continent... expanding the flow of metta until you cover the whole globe. Then include insects, fish, birds, mammals, reptiles... ('May all life be well. May all life be happy. May all life be free from suffering.')

9. After 25 minutes, allow yourself to sit quietly, noticing if you feel any different than when you started. If not, that's fine, but you may notice a greater sense of softness, an uplift in your mood, or feelings of warmth and friendliness. Just allow whatever's happening right now to be there, then slowly open your eyes and start moving your body; and take this new attitude into the rest of your day.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Sleep, Mental Health and Wellbeing

Image by Alexander Possingham

When I start working with someone, one of the first questions I ask them is how much sleep they are getting. This is for two reasons: first, if someone is having disrupted or not enough sleep, that is often a symptom of deeper psychological problems like chronic stress, anxiety or depression. And second, not getting the sleep we need – especially on an ongoing basis – can make problems like these much worse.

It's common sense that we all need to sleep (different people needing more or less, but probably around 7.5 to 8 hours for most of us) but researchers are increasingly understanding the role of sleep and what is happening in our brains and bodies during our night-time rest. For example, we now know that dreaming is the way the brain processes and stores all of the important information we absorb during the day.

Your brain has to sift through vast amounts of information, discarding most of it and storing all the things it thinks you will need at some point. So if we don't have enough nocturnal downtime, or our sleep is broken, we don't get enough REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is when we dream.

Sleep and your mood

Anyone who has kids knows only too well the impact that sleep deprivation has on our ability to function throughout the day. I often think that you don't know the value of sleep until you have a small baby, when it becomes like gold dust!

Bleary-eyed parents will find it harder to concentrate, have perspective on their problems and make decisions; and their short-term memory will also be affected. Unfortunately, they will probably also be more impatient, snappy and irritable, as well as being prone to low mood and potentially depression.

Humans need sufficient sleep, rest and downtime – our bodies and brains are hard-wired for them, just as they need oxygen, food and water to survive. So if you are suffering from insomnia, you need to take that seriously. It could be related to (or causing) a psychological problem; it could also be draining your energy and joie de vivre, making life seem a bit bleak and joyless.

The good news is that fairly straightforward things like exercise, diet, caffeine and alcohol consumption, as well as sleep hygiene can make a huge difference to the amount and quality of sleep you are getting. So if you are struggling to sleep please don't suffer in silence – do see your GP, or get help from me or another therapist.

Warm wishes,

Dan

5 Myths About Mindfulness Meditation

Image by Katerina Jerabkova

It's wonderful that mindfulness has gained so much popularity in recent years – it's hard to read a newspaper or Sunday supplement without finding a story extolling the benefits of meditation. Unfortunately some of these stories are not entirely accurate, and many people have misconceptions about what meditation is and how it can help.

Here are five of the most common myths and misunderstandings I hear about meditation, to help you gain a clearer insight into this potentially life-changing technique:

1. Meditation is just for Buddhists

Not so. Although mindfulness meditation is a 2,500-year-old Buddhist technique, it is increasingly used in Western psychological, medical, educational and business settings. If you learn meditation from me, or another therapist, you are essentially learning a technique, like using thought records to challenge unhelpful thinking.

Although I do have a strong interest in Buddhist psychology and philosophy, I only talk about that to my clients as far as they are interested in it. So you don't have to believe in any form of religion to benefit from mindfulness, all you have to do is sit quietly for a short period every day and watch your breath. That alone is proven to have a raft of benefits, from reducing stress and anxiety to lowering blood pressure. Simple.

2. You have to clear your mind of all thoughts

Again, no. If your mind is empty of all thoughts, you have a very unusual mind indeed. We are always thinking – even when we sleep – so the idea that we should somehow magically stop thinking when we meditate is neither helpful nor realistic. Instead, if we are trying to focus on our breath, say, when we find our mind carrying us off into thinking about lunch, we notice that and gently bring our attention back to the breath.

Again, again, again – it might happen 100 times during a 20-minute meditation, but that's not a problem at all. In fact, this is the practice, because each time you notice and bring your attention back, you are strengthening your ability to focus, which is the whole point of meditation.

3. You have to meditate somewhere quiet

In some ways, this is true – it's helpful to meditate in quiet places, for example at home in the early morning. But mindfulness is a skill we are trying to cultivate for when we need it – on the Tube, in a meeting, in a shopping centre. So the more you practice in everyday situations, the more that skill is available to you when you most need it – like your toddler having a meltdown in the supermarket.

I often meditate on the Tube, because it can be an unpleasant place – noisy, packed with people, hot, glaring lights... Far better to close your eyes and focus on sounds, say, than ride along grimly trying to ignore it all.

4. Meditation should always make you feel relaxed

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There's a saying in Zen meditation: 'Just sit'. This means just meditate, every day: hard/easy, enjoyable/frustrating, relaxing/no change. It doesn't matter, because we meditate for the long-term benefits of daily practice.

If you do it most days for a period of time, you will probably feel calmer, more grounded, less stressed, happier, more able to deal with stressors without reacting impulsively or unhelpfully. That's why we do it (and why I have, most days, for six years now – and will for the rest of my life).

5. Meditation is New Age hocus-pocus

It's true that meditation conjures up images of bearded, be-sandalled folk, incense and crystals. But mindfulness meditation, as well as having that 2,500-year history behind it, has been rigorously studied and researched in prestigious medical establishments since the 1970s.

There is a huge body of research proving its effectiveness for a wide range of psychological problems, such as stress, anxiety and depression; and for medical problems like chronic pain and high blood pressure.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Bibliotherapy to Help With Your Stress

Image by Thought Catalog

What is bibliotherapy? Well, health professionals increasingly see the benefit of reading for people suffering from a wide range of physical and psychological problems. In fact, a Government-backed scheme – Reading Well Books on Prescription – 'prescribes' specific books for people struggling with, say, depression or worry through their GP.

I have always recommended books to my clients, so this post is part of my ongoing bibliotherapy series (here are my posts on the best books for anxiety, mindfulness, compassion, anger issues and depression).

If you are suffering from stress, you will find these books helpful in managing your stress levels:

1. The SuperStress Solution: 4-week Diet and Lifestyle Programme, Roberta Lee, MD. Dr Lee is an integrative physician, which means she combines the best of evidence-based Western medicine with strategies and techniques from alternative approaches, focusing on meditation and relaxation techniques, sleep, exercise, work/life balance, diet and nutrition.

   Her argument is that the kind of stress those of us living a 21st-century urban life now suffer is far worse than our parents faced, so it has evolved into SuperStress; a type of chronic stress that is insidious and creeps up on us, given the constant drip, drip of stressors such as 24/7 digital media never letting us relax; the pressure to be perfect parents, partners, family members and employees; the endemic lack of job security; too much sugar, caffeine and alcohol; insufficient sleep and rest; and rolling news bombarding us with scary and upsetting stories. Her argument is very persuasive and it's an excellent book, so highly recommended.

2. 2. How to Deal With Stress, Stephen Palmer & Cary Cooper. This is a sensible, practical guide to reducing your stress by two world-leading experts in stress management. Having trained with Stephen Palmer at the Centre for Stress Management, I can personally vouch for his expertise in this area (he is also an excellent CBT therapist).

   The authors explain how to identify the cause of your stress, then offer a plan to help manage it. They offer practical guidance on time-management (hardly a scintillating topic, but important if you have a never-ending to-do list and not enough time to do everything on it), exercise and relaxation techniques, as well as nutrition. It's also the shortest of the three books listed here, so is helpful for the time-poor.

3. 3. Overcoming Stress: A Self-help Guide Using Cognitive Behavioral Techniques, Leonora Brosan and Gillian Todd. When I start working with someone using CBT, I always recommend a book from this Overcoming... series, as they are all written by leading CBT experts in their particular field.

   Not only will this give you an excellent introduction to stress and its physical, psychological and behavioural impact on you, but it will also explain CBT and how it works; with a particular emphasis on the role of unhelpful thinking in driving your problems with stress.

Warm wishes,

Dan