Tag Archives: happiness

Way 13/Day 13: Make it a great year – listen unselfishly.

Listen unselfishly.

Listen without planning how you will respond.

Listen to hear three important themes:

  1. The content: what is the information being shared with me?
  2. The emotion: how does the information being shared affect the person speaking to me? What can I draw from strong or subtle clues in expression, tone, pace of speech?
  3. What does this mean to the speaker?

Respond with a focus on the person speaking – not turning the focus on you. Unselfish listening – listening that isn’t just focused on planning on what to say next – is a powerful force for good. It’s hard and, as far as I can tell, it takes practice for a lifetime, but it’s worth trying again and again.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 12/Day 12: Make it a great year – work hard at something.

Yesterday the message was play – today’s the opposite.

Push yourself at something on an ongoing basis. Not crazy-hard – not without careful consideration of the process of change and development in that particular arena – but consistently. Consult experts for guidance on the particular area so you know how much effort is smart and how much is fruitless and/or dangerous.

Persistent effort changes the brain. Just like stewing over resentments makes one better at being bitter and resentful, persistent rehearsal of a new skill makes us better at it. However, there are limits. The brain develops in the way it develops. Until the brain has reached a certain level of development, for example, it’s not useful to try to pound algebraic concepts into elementary school students. They might memorize stuff to make grownups happy, but the ability to think abstractly that all those pesky “x” and “y” problems require is one related to neurological development, and that happens when it happens, not when competitive parents would like it to be.  That might be age 10 but for other kids, it might not be until age 12 or 14. That’s not a measure of intelligence, it’s just a pace of childhood development.

Staying young-at-brain requires exercising it. Find something interesting and push yourself.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 11/Day 11: Make it a great year – play.

Have fun. Play. Every day.

Go down the sliding board. Get on the seesaw. Play tag with your retriever and let your cat chase you while you scamper around dragging a piece of ribbon on the floor like prey. Do things where the end result isn’t anything in particular so you can let go of being focused on producing something “worthwhile.” A laugh that makes your belly hurt is worthwhile.

Playing means: enjoying an activity for the fun of it, not for the end result. That makes “play” different from sticking religiously to an exercise routine, or letting your competitive side take over and turn a game of kickball into some sort of gladiator blood-sport. It’s doing stuff – so watching other people “play” a sport for money isn’t play. It might be fun, but it’s not play.

If you have a pet or a child in your world, it’s easier. Follow their lead for five minutes or a whole lot more.

Go have fun. Go out and play.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 10/Day 10: Make it a great year – give stuff away.

Most people in the US are blessed with having more than we need. Much more. So much more that we invest in fancy containers to hold it in new ways, rent special places away from our home to use as vacation homes for our extra stuff – and yet many of the people who do these things also continue to shop as a form of recreation.

Consider adopting, at least for a while, one or more of these approaches to your surfeit stuff:

  1. For each new non-perishable item you bring home, select something else to give to charity. You may start considering purchases carefully in light of figuring out what goes into the pile for AmVets when you put the new thing away.
  2. Try to select one item per day for a set number of days to give away. One author did this for a year; you might practice it for the 40 days of Lent.
  3. Have a 30-day list. If a non-essential still seems like a very good idea in a month, then you can decide to make the purchase.

If, on the other hand, your problem is an addiction to shopping, recognize that shopping is meeting one or more emotional needs in an unhealthy way, and find a better way to meet those needs. If you are in debt and out of space because of a shopping addiction, consider seeking professional guidance. You may be struggling to sedate emotional pain with the short-term rush of attention and gratification that shopping can provide.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 9/Day 9: Make it a great year – remember who made who.

So, I am seriously dating myself…but do you remember that old AC/DC song, Who Made Who, which was part of the soundtrack for the 1986 Stephen King film, Maximum Overdrive, a movie about machines taking over – before the Terminator series?

(I remember the song but didn’t see the movie. I don’t watch horror movies. I have the news of the day for that.)

The film characters suffered due to all sorts of machines behaving very badly.

Well, we have our electronic devices. They don’t have to run us over (people are causing accidents by yielding to the call of the phone without the phones doing anything). We just follow orders from our phones. Who’s the boss?

If you jump when your phone pings, rings, shimmies or shakes, the phone is the boss of YOU. If you have to terminate quality time with a loved one because some dopey show is about to go on, the television is the boss of YOU. You have surrendered your autonomy to what is merely a tool to make your life easier. These objects exist to serve YOU. You can make it a better year by deciding that you are the boss of your phone, and your television, and all your other devices.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 8/Day 8: Make it a great year – express gratitude again.

Is there someone who had a powerful influence on you – and you haven’t really acknowledged that? Taking the time to express gratitude – in a letter is great – is important for you and could be very helpful and encouraging to the recipient. I had this experience last year. After the term was over and final grades were in, a former student sent me a very brief, thoughtful note, letting me know how much that student had enjoyed being in class and how much she’d personally gained from being in two courses with me. It was private between the two of us, not a public commendation, and for me, that made it very significant. It was a morale-booster. If you have people who have helped you, please send a note or make a call; it will make your year better and will probably improve their year, too!

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 7/Day 7: Make it a great year – express gratitude.

The research is clear: expressing gratitude improves our mood and reduces symptoms of depression. A few “ways” will address gratitude. For this one – show some gratitude for small, daily acts of kindness and consideration. Even if it’s someone’s job to take out the trash, or bag your groceries, or clear the table – say thank you. Look at the person – make eye contact. Be sincere, be clear, and express your gratitude.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

31 Days/31 Ways: Make it a great year!

Day 5: Eat something healthy each day.

A lot of people make resolutions that sound like this: “I’m going to give up junk food!” “I’m not going to eat any carbs!” or some such extreme commitment. Then they fail by eating carbs (which we need) or eat something assigned to the “junk” category. It’s a lot easier to achieve success by doing rather than not-doing. Action is empowering; the punitive, goodie-removing approach sets you up for resentment. So turn it around: instead of some sort of mean-parent, “That’s it! No treats for YOU!” in the mirror, promise yourself to eat one healthy snack each day: a piece of fresh fruit, some raw veggies, a handful of nuts – whatever is appropriate for you and your allergies/dietary restrictions. It’s easier and more encouraging to experience success – and the encouragement to keep it going that success engenders – by DOING rather than not-doing.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Day 4/Way 4: Make it a great year!

Move it.

Check with your doctor and follow the advice on exercise. Physical exercise (at the appropriate level for YOU) can help make it a great year by reducing the chemical and emotional effects of stress; improving brain health and therefore cognition; improving the quality of sleep and thus emotional well-being and daily functioning; and reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Don’t fall into the all-or-nothing fallacy. If you can’t do “a lot” or whatever you used to do, that’s okay: doing something that is appropriate for you is better than doing nothing. Make a commitment to do something specific in line with your doctor’s recommendations; it will help make it a great year.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Day 3/Way 3: Make it a great year!

Back away from the television…or tablet…or computer…or whatever else electronic screen mesmerizes you during non-work/non-school hours.

The average American is consuming 5 hours or more of non-work/non-school related screen time daily. It’s worse for retirees, who average 43 hours a week. There are lots of ways reducing screen time can make it a much better year. I’ll pick one: the fact that much of what’s on there has an ulterior motive of making you feel badly about yourself and your life. If you weren’t dissatisfied, you wouldn’t be tempted to spend money on whatever is being marketed. Your stuff isn’t as new, your face hasn’t been airbrushed and you didn’t have a staff of five fixing up your hair and makeup so, compared to what you see on television, your life and mine look pretty blah. Even if you’re too smart to think so consciously, that subconscious message is hammering away. Make it a great year: just reduce exposure and do something that will make you feel good about your life, instead.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.