Category: Brain Health

How Feeling Active Improves Happiness

I had an interesting email show up in my inbox a couple of weeks ago from the Greater Good Science Center. The subject line of how being alone can increase happiness snagged my attention. But there was a lot more information in the email that lead to additional cogitating.

 

In the article, which I clicked through to, Greater Good Magazine managing editor, Kira Newman, highlighted three main (revelations-to-her) takeaways from her recent excursion to Melbourne, where researchers from over 60 countries gathered for the International Positive Psychology Association’s 6th World Congress. She said that the findings the researchers shared “added depth and complexity to our understanding of major keys to a flourishing life.”

The second point Newman highlighted in her article is what I want to share with you today.

It centered on the positive emotion—or perception—of feeling active.

 

Benefits of positive emotions—

Researchers have discovered that people who experience more positive emotions benefit in numerous areas. They tend to enjoy—

  • Stronger immune systems
  • More frequent exercise engagement
  • Lower risks of heart disease
  • Longer lives

 

Researcher Sarah Pressman wanted to answer another question about feelings and emotions:

What role does “feeling active” play in our health and well-being?

 

Pressman and her colleagues found a sizable link between positive emotions and different health measures. As Newman notes in her post:

 

“For men, feeling active was the positive emotion that predicted how long they lived.”

 

That finding gives me a lot of insight as to why my formerly athletic husband consistently complains about “not getting enough exercise” and not feeling accomplished at work, even though he has—by all observations—accomplished much and has a very successful and distinguished career.

But there was another interesting finding in the research:

 

Feeling active didn’t necessarily correspond to how physically active people actually are.

 

Translation?

It doesn’t just matter how physically active you are but how active—energetic, vigorous, and vital—you feel. It’s all about your psychology state.

Most of the research in this area has been derived from workplace settings and what psychologists refer to as relational energy—how some people rev us up while others drain and exhaust us.

Personally, my feeling active quotient has been in the tank lately, and it’s negatively affecting every aspect of my life, from my family relationships to friendships and beyond. I don’t feel active. I feel like a slug. A broken-down, washed up and washed out slug. Most of the time, anyway. As my injuries improve, the pain subsides, and my energy level increases, I feel more active. But I know I’m more active than the average person, so my feeling active meter might look a lot different than someone else’s.

 

Future feeling active research—

What do researchers want to learn about this feeling active measurement and perception in the future? These might be some things they look at:

  1. What makes us feel active?
  2. How is that beneficial in other ways? (What other areas of life does this feeling affect?)
  3. Can we get happier just by “boosting the pep in our step”? In other words, I guess, can we fake it ‘til we make it?
Your turn—

If you’re up for it, get a journal and write down all of the activities, hobbies, interactions, etc. that make you feel active? As the old sixties’ saying goes: What turns you on?

Conversely, what turns you off? What drags you down emotionally, physically and spiritually? Since research is more and more proving the inter-relationship of these life components, it’s an important consideration.

 

NEXT WEEK we’ll look at how future hopes, dreams and planning increase your happiness.

Got any daydreams you’d like to turn into real happenings?

Until then, remember, the joy of the Lord is your strength. All of this other stuff we’re learning to help us enjoy life more is simply icing on the cake!

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

3 Potential Benefits of Working Standing Up

I recently splurged and treated myself to a pricey item, one that, supposedly, is going to help improve my health and reduce my risk of heart disease, help me lose weight and drop my cholesterol numbers, AND boost my productivity.

I bought myself a fancy work desk (more like a pretty sizable work counter) that raises and lowers at the tap of a finger. It also has USB cable ports. And it has a black glass surface, so, instead of using post-it notes, I can write notes on it with special wax pencils and then wipe then erase the notes.

 

Potential dangers of sitting down while working—

According to the insert shipped in the box with the desk, the Journal of Physical Activity and Health found that, on average, people spend 5.8 hours sitting at their desk at work.

I cringed when I read that, since I was putting in longer hours sitting at my desk a little over a year ago. And I paid for it. Am still paying for it, actually, with tighter muscles that scream in protest when I try to re-lengthen them; in stiff knees that are still giving me trouble; and in weight gain I’m still battling to shed.

And I always feel sorry for the receptionists at companies or doctors’ offices who seem to be glued to their chairs, parked before their computers as they check in patients and answer the persistent phone calls.

 

The insert also sited a Nielsen study that found we spend 58 minutes on a PC or Internet. I don’t know where they got that statistic, but most people I know, who are working, spend a lot more time than that on their computers.

In addition, we spend 1.39 hours on the Internet on our smart phones. And that’s probably spent in the sitting position.

I’ve returned to using my phone way too much for Internet perusing and have laid down some personal rules for myself: I shut down my computer and phone by 7:00 PM (or soon after), and I try to make myself leave the phone alone in the morning, before I’ve spent quality time with the Lord in Bible study, devotion time, and prayer.

 

Benefits of standing while working—

Productivity:

According to the insert, standing while working can boost your productivity by 46%.

(Daily Science covered the results of a standing-up productivity study published in IIE Transactions on Occupational Ergonomics and Human Factors.)

I’m going to guess that’s one of the reasons it’s true is because most people hunch over their computers, pecking away at their computers with their necks lurching forward and down, their shoulders rounded over, and their eyeballs at the wrong level to really see the screen well. Sitting like that compromises your breathing, tending to make it shallow and unproductive. You don’t get as much oxygen into and through the system, and you tire faster and throw your body alignment out of whack.

Just perching a separate monitor from your laptop on your desk, one that sits up at eye level with you, helps immensely in correcting this.

But standing while working can help circulation. But standing all day to work also comes with vascular risks, so don’t overdo a good thing!

 

Weight Loss:

Another potential plus is that you can lose weight, up to 20 pounds per year by standing two hours a day, if the insert is correct. The research sited is found on the livestrong.com site.

 

Improve your cardiovascular system:

Spending less time sitting also helps lower your blood sugar (decrease your risk of acquiring diabetes) and cholesterol (reduce your risk of heart disease). This “fact” was taken from Harvard Health.

 

I’m already enjoying my desk, and it’s got a great support bar as part of the legs/support system that I can rest my feet on while sitting down, and prop one foot on while standing up. Raising your knees a little higher than your hips also helps circulation while you’re sitting down and working. It certainly makes the sitting position much for comfortable, and I’m less likely to scrunch my legs backward, entwine my feet, and jam my big toes into the ground!

I certainly don’t feel as stiff or pinched up when I rise to take a break, which you should do every forty minutes, at the minimum. Which returns me to the standing up article that says people started feeling physically better after one month of standing up while working. They complained less of physical issues or discomfort.

 

I’ll keep you posted on the effects. Can’t tell yet if I’m more productive, but I certainly enjoy my time spent at the computer more. And I’m trying to incorporate what I can to improve my health with the goal of making life more enjoyable and being able to perform my work as well as I possibly can.

And the desk looks really sleek in my newly painted study where I work. Now my husband wants one. And I’m considering buying a couple for my sons for Christmas presents.

 

Standup desk options—

If you can’t buy a fancy desk, consider purchasing a low-cost, hundred-dollar model to set on the dining room table or a card table. The one I got for Christmas a couple of years ago is rated as one of the top stand-up work desks. It’s large enough to spread some papers out on, and it has an easily adjusted height. Having a desk like that gives you the added benefit of changing work scenery, which can also increase productivity.

Do your homework, though. Mobile desks can get REALLY pricey; and some users complain that the electronics on them fizzles out pretty quickly.

 

But Buyer Beware!

Take note that there is no specific, science-backed research data on how long you should spend sitting versus how long you should spend standing while working. And don’t convince yourself that your standing at work replaces outdoor activity—like walking—or general exercise to raise your heart rate. It’s just one more piece of the health puzzle to consider.

 

Until next week, sit down less, stand up and move around more, and work healthy! To feel better physically.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Positive (Productive) Solitude—How Being Alone Can Make You Happy

A recent Greater Good Science Center on-line magazine article really caught my attention. Although the post’s title, “Three Emerging Insights About Happiness,” could have been a ho-hum trigger, the email subject line snagged me:

“How Being Alone Can Make You Happy.”

I perked up and quickly clicked through.

Why?

Because I tend to like being alone, even though I extol the virtues of socializing.

I know. That sounds disingenuous and a little dishonest. But it’s true.

Let me explain.

Although many people would swear on a Bible that I’m a total extrovert, I’m not. In fact, I’ve taken several personality tests—including one when I entered graduate school eons ago, and another one maybe a handful of years ago—that indicated I was borderline sometimes-extrovert, sometimes-introvert. It just depended upon my mood and the social situation. And it still does.

Maybe my initial college introversion came more from being insecure about whether or not I actually deserved to be attending graduate school where I was; and being downright terrified about whether I had the brains to actually be successful in graduate school.

I loved socializing and could chat up a storm (still can) and can easily and comfortably work my way around and through groups of people. But I grew up an only child and learned to spend a lot of time alone. Spending hours in a gym, working out alone (with just my dad or another coach) simply re-enforced my aloneness. I didn’t always like it, (I often loathed the isolation); and it made it difficult to develop friendships, but I learned and adapted.

As a writer, I spend hours alone in a VERY quiet house every day, except when my Shetland sheepdog Dolly ruins my eardrums barking.

So with all of that in mind, I read the article with tremendous interest, trying to glean insights for those of you who would like to spend time alone, learn to spend time alone, need time alone, and would love to know what benefits you can get from that alone time.

 

Greater Good Magazine managing editor, Kira Newman, highlighted three main (revelations-to-her) takeaways from her recent excursion to Melbourne, where researchers from over 60 countries gathered for the International Positive Psychology Association’s 6th World Congress. She said that the findings the researchers shared “added depth and complexity to our understanding of major keys to a flourishing life.”

Newman went on to say that attendees heard about when kindness makes you happier, and when it doesn’t. Now the latter part of that statement in itself—especially with the “Be Kind” movement in full swing—is a revelation for many.

She also noted:

“Researchers also addressed modern obstacles to happiness—from the way we’re hooked on technology to a widespread sense of disconnection and loneliness.”

Defining positive solitude—

It is well known that social connection is one of the keys to happiness and longevity. For many, feelings of being separated from others—on the outside or forgotten—equals loneliness and disconnection.

But a group of researchers—Martin Lynch, Sergeyt Ishanov, and Dmitry Leontiev—at Russia’s National Research University Higher School of Economics—have investigated “the phenomenon of positive or ‘productive solitude.’”

Newman asks,

 

“Does solitude have to be a negative experience? Can time alone feed our well-being?”

 

She explains that positive, or productive solitude is in contrast with the more unpleasant experience of being alone.

 

“Productive solitude doesn’t occur because we fell disconnected from others; it’s something that we deliberately seek out.”

 

Productive or positive solitude is when we use the solitary time not for negative ruminating or feeling sorry for ourselves because we’re alone, but using the time for

  • Contemplation
  • Reflection, or
  • Creativity

In other words, it’s time spent being intentionally productive engaging in something that will enrich your life physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.

The benefits of productive (positive) solitude—

Researchers note that people who practice periods or times of positive solitude tend to feel more positive emotions, like:

  • Relaxation
  • Calm
  • Greater pleasure
  • Greater meaning
  • Less of a sense of void in their lives.
Who benefits most from productive (positive) solitude?

It’s not surprising to learn that introverts tend to benefit most from practicing productive solitude. After all, introverts easily tire from too much social stimulation, or having to socialize with large groups of people, and get re-energize with alone time.

But another group also benefits:

Those who enjoy emotional and psychological maturity.

 

Would you count yourself in that category—an emotionally and psychologically mature person?

That’s one of the primary goals of my website, which hosts this blog—for all of us to grow into emotional, psychological (and spiritual) maturity.

 

Tips for achieving positive solitude effects—
  • Deliberately schedule alone time to do something you enjoy, without interruption.
  • Spend solitary time in a peaceful setting, like nature.
  • Disconnect from social media, turn off your phone and computer, tuck them away and focus on something else—like prayer, drawing, meditating, stretching, thinking, daydreaming, doodling, coloring. Even cleaning out a room or closet can reap positive solitude rewards, especially if that chaotic space makes it difficult for you to feel peace and tranquility or achieve any type of productivity.

 

What positive/productive solitude isn’t—

Positive solitude isn’t time spent alone doing regular work or trying to catch up on office demands.

 

Deterrents to positive solitude—

If you aren’t used to practicing positive solitude, you may find your normally busy or over-stimulated brain challenged, and rebelling. The brain loathes change and habit-correction.

But persevere! It may take you a few attempts (or many) to discover what you’d like to do during your alone time, or determining what activity gives you the most bang-for-your-time buck.

  • If you must, set up a positive solitude reward. Your choice.
  • Deliberately schedule alone time for doing something you enjoy.
  • Think of it as time spent cultivating new attitudes, and growing happier!

Again, persevere!

Happiness gained from positive solitude awaits you!

 

NEXT WEEK: What does “feeling active” have to do with your happiness factor?

If you have any tips for other readers on how you spend positive solitude time, please share them, so we can grow and explore together!

Until next week, enjoy your solitude.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

The Important of Daily Stretching: Reducing Injury and the Effects of Aging

A lot of folks think stretching is just for athletes, young people, or yoga and Pilates devotees.

 

Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

Stretching is important at all stages of life to maintain healthy, fluid and well-oiled joints, functioning muscles, balance and flexibility. It also helps reaction time.

Stretching should be a part of everyone’s daily wellness routine.

As gymnasts, we usually stretched as a group, before and following practice. Sometimes we helped each other stretch. The encouragement and aid helped.

 

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a buddy, or guide, take you through a dedicated stretching routine?

Stretch help is on the way!

 

It turns out that a big massage chain has done just that—developed a dedicated stretching program.

Experts, who, between them, have 85 collective years of studying the functional movements of professional athletes and performers, have developed it through extensive research.

The method consists of ten targeted stretches that work from your top down. The stretches are designed to help your muscles reach their maximum flexibility.

The stretches are designed to be to be slow and deliberate traction techniques. The stretch “providers” take you through this guided stretching, which gently moves you beyond your resistance points. The goal is to increase circulation, reduce tension from the head down to your toes and improved muscle function.

The providers—who are knowledgeable in kinesiology (study of human movement) and anatomy—are all professionally trained and certified in the technique.

Sessions can be enjoyed in thirty or sixty-minute increments.

 

My opinion—

I haven’t given it a go yet. I’ll need to wait for my knee injury to calm down (since one of the stretches involves kneeling and leaning back on your heals) before trying it out. But I’m excited about the possibilities.

It’s a lot more fun and effective to have a “coach” guiding you through movements and workouts. And I’m going to guess that includes stretching!

Until next Wednesday, keep stretching and flexing that body! Ease and joy of movement can make life so much more enjoyable.

Blessings,

Andrea

 


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

How to Pursue, Build, and Nourish Friendships

Have you ever met anyone who seems to yack and yack and yack and doesn’t let anyone else get a word in edgewise?

Most of the time they’re usually talking about themselves, their activities (or lack thereof), or their problems. They can be exhausting to listen to.

 

I’ve had some interactions like that, especially with new acquaintances, people I’ve just met or recently met. On a weeklong writing retreat, I spent much of the week listening to one woman’s life story, (which was quite a story), with all of its pitfalls and sadness; although she frequently interjected words of praise to the Lord and joy and how much she liked to write.

On the last day of the retreat, I sat at the dining room table with her, listening to her tell me—and the other seven writers seated at the table—about more gory life history. When it was time to leave, I said goodbye and started to go. She looked at me and said, “Wow. We have to leave already, and I didn’t even get a chance to talk to you and hear your story.”

The first thought that crossed my mind was Of course not. You were too busy telling yours. I’ve been with you for a week, and you never asked.

I’d been in close proximity and boarding in the same house with her for six days, and not once did she ask me about me, or my life.

 

The heart of the matter—

She may have just been a talker, but—as much as I tired of her droning and was irked by her assessment—and insinuation that I’d withheld information from her—I sensed something else going on.

This woman was either scared or lonely, which meant she talked incessantly to cover her fear; or people never really listened to her. Or she didn’t have enough close friends that really listened and gave her honest feedback.

That’s where so many of us find ourselves these days—scared and unsure of ourselves around others, especially strangers; or just flat out lonely. Plugged into the Internet or television with no real friends to share life with. Covering up our loneliness with busyness and cramming too much activity into a day. Being pressed on all sides by family and work.

And that’s one of the reasons we’ve been covering friendship building on Meditation Monday blogs for the last month.

 

Our purpose—

God didn’t put us on this orb and allow us to populate it because we’re supposed to live and go it alone. We need to make connections and share life. At the very least, we are to be Jesus-with-skin-on to others.

This post will give you another idea for building friendships.

 

Connect or reconnect with old friends—

Having a connection to your past through someone else is important. Someone you grew up with, came of age with, slogged through growing angst with.

I think we intuitively know that and that’s one of the reasons so many in their 40s, 50s and 60s (or older) start looking for “old friends or classmates” and try to reconnect or establish a new friendship through a common bond.

 

Regretfully, high school friendships dropped off the radar for me some time around the birth of my first child. I’d done a pretty good job of maintaining contacts during college and then beyond, but either busy life or inattentiveness caused my connectedness to whither away. Then the same thing happened to college friends, as we moved on, moved away, and started careers and had children.

I’ve begun rectifying that, with a very close high school friend. (I honestly didn’t have too many really close BFFs. I was too busy swinging from uneven bars and being a gym rat to nurture friendships the way I should. And I realize now that I also had too many hang-ups to be a really good friend. It’s one of my biggest regrets.)

 

I’ve managed to keep in touch with a friend from my freshman year in college, even though she transferred to another college our sophomore year. She lives up the road from me in the north Phoenix area. We mostly communicate via text message, but sometimes it’s a visit, (I flew to Las Vegas to visit her once, drove to Central California from Southern California another time, and enjoyed her guest bedroom after a Phoenix writing retreat on another).

Even when months slip by, she knows I’m only a phone call away; and we’ve prayed each other through some pretty rough times. And I recently learned that she and her husband are buying a retirement home just minutes up the road from where we bought our retirement lot.

And I count myself blessed that my beloved and I came of age together in college. As my youngest noted the other day: “You and Dad sure have a lot of good stories together!” We do. I only hope I can remember them in another ten, twenty or thirty years!

Tomorrow—Tuesday, August 13—will mark 36 years of married memories and 40 years of significant other memories.

 

Maintaining or building a friendship—

Regular conversations, cards, text messages go a long way in maintaining a friendship, or even building a new one.

I’ve recounted the story before about an older woman I’d been doing Bible study with calling me not long after the birth of my youngest, which was a difficult, isolating time due to his prematurity and sensitivity issues. I did not hear the phone ring, so her call went to voice mail. When I listened to it, I broke down in grateful heaving sobs.

“Hi Andrea. It’s Louise. I just wanted to let you know I’ve been thinking about you, and if I didn’t call to let you know, you wouldn’t know that.”

What a simple, beautiful call that was to an exhausted, stressed and overwhelmed parent of a new preemie.

I wasn’t alone. Someone was thinking of me.

 

And now that I’m feeling a little overwhelmed about my mother’s condition and having 100% responsibility for her, her medical care, and her funds, I’m in need of more phone calls like that—calls of empathy and sympathy, especially from people who have walked through this kind of valley. Ones that know what it’s like to care for an aging, dementia-ridden parent that never treated you all that well to begin with and who still communicates with a barbed-wire tongue and combative, screeching decibels.

As one person told me, after she gave me priceless direction on how to set up in-home medical care for my mother: “I totally get what you’re suffering. Other people who haven’t gone through what you’re going through don’t get it. They never will. And don’t expect them to. Talk to people who understand.”

It was a fluke that I’d even connected with this woman on the phone, the owner of the company I needed to contract with, who only answered the phone because her receptionist was on vacation. She was patient, informative and compassionate. I knew I was talking to a kindred spirit, and that God had placed her in my path to give me some emotional (and eventually physical) relief.

I heaved grateful sobs when I got off the phone with her.

One connection with a kindred spirit.

And I’m considering finding a support group to encourage me on this new season of my life. Hopefully I’ll make another friend. I already have one who’s is undergoing much of the same, and we are supporting one another.

 

Keep trying—

The goal is to keep trying. Persevere. If one person doesn’t show interest in spite of all of your efforts, then graciously move on and try someone else or another setting. Invite someone out to lunch or over for tea, to try to connect. Usually you’ll know immediately whether or not there’s a potential heart bond.

I’ve come to realize that I can’t just dredge up high school friendships that weren’t there in high school, or pretend some existed or went deeper when they didn’t. I can go to my high school reunion and enjoy conversations without expectations of being asked to join “the group” for outside social events. I can move forward from where I am, at this age, with the needs, weaknesses, goals and gifts I have now.

In this season of my life.

 

Be realistic—

Don’t spread yourself too thin. Work on maintaining and deepening the precious friendships you do have and focus on the new person or two you’d like to spend more time, or encourage. I’ve noted a couple of people I can tell need someone to come alongside them, as encouragers, so I’m making plans to spend some time with them.

Start with something low key, like grabbing a cup of coffee, going to a movie, inviting someone over for a swim if you have a pool they’d enjoy.

Don’t be too hard on the friends who go for months or maybe longer without getting in touch with you. Extend them grace and the benefit of the doubt. Check in with them via text or a call or email to let them know you’r thinking of them and love them. Yours may be the most uplifting, positive message they’ve heard in a long time. Life and time zip by quickly before people realize it; and life is hard—harder for some than others.

Be creative. As I tell my kids, try to find some common ground and interest you can connect on. You’d be amazed at what blossoms for your efforts!

 

 NEXT WEEK we’ll see what the Blue Zone researchers discovered about the importance of lifelong friendships.

Until then, branch out and try some new things, do your best to connect with an old friend, work on deepening the relationships you already have.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.