The World Happiness Report 2024 and the Pursuit.
In a world often measured by material wealth and economic prosperity, the pursuit of happiness stands as an enduring quest, transcending boundaries of geography and culture.
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Easy ways to know about Financial Stress and Mental Health are right here.
In a grief-stricken world by the raging pandemic, it is pretty natural that our lives have been affected in a way like never before. Our methods of working and the way to look at the world have changed drastically.
When there is no limit to the number of deaths that are taking place daily, it is but natural that people around the world are facing a crisis. This article is dedicated to talking about Financial Stress and Mental Health.
Here we will help you understand the basic causes of the particular stress. Apart from that, we will also help you out with the remedies to the ever-growing problem.
Financial stress is stemmed from money. It is the shortage of money but sometimes not knowing where to invest the money to keep it safe also causes a lot of trouble. There are times when financial stress can result in affecting an individual mentally.
The following tips will be helpful to keep a check on the financial stress and take care of the mental health:
Create a routine of self-care
Due to the pandemic, there has been a constant fear in people’s lives, which has been given rise to a different lifestyle throughout the world, which is fashionably called the “new normal.” This is done to provide a ray of hope to the people across the globe.
The phrase new normal has been used to look at life and give a fresh start to it. People should take this opportunity to create a new routine of self-care to help them take control of Financial Stress and Mental Health.
Try engaging in activities that are indoors but at the same time are interesting enough to keep you occupied.
Take care of your sleep schedule and try to get enough sleep to keep you feel fresh throughout the day. If you want to do something challenging, you can try out learning a new skill and try excelling at it. Try to include simple physical exercise.
Connecting with friends and family virtually
Connections nowadays are of utmost importance. In such times of medical emergencies, you never know when the need for a particular service might crop up.
If you remain well connected with the family members and check on them at regular intervals, the feeling of isolation might seem lesser. Engage in Skype calls and Zoom calls to provide hope to each other.
Online Therapy
Since everything has turned online, you should make the most available online therapies. Sometimes speaking it out to an expert might help you gather knowledge and find solutions regarding the problems you are facing.
There are individual therapy sessions as well as group therapy sessions. You can engage in online sessions till the situation is brought under control. After that you can join in a counselling course offline.
Government Programs
The government has launched various programs related to how to combat the trauma of the COVID situation. Some of these include economic impact payments, extended unemployment benefits. Make proper use of the help that is made available.
These can be stressful if you do not know the correct ways of processing these programs. Reach out for help if you are in need any get informed thoroughly.
Understand the money you are using and use it wisely
Money is directly proportional to financial stability. Make it a habit to think and check out the ways that you can stop spending more than that is required. Keep a record of what you spend on and try to cut down on your expenses if possible.
Stay motivated
A positive lookout and mindset helps to fight battles like no other. Always try to find out something positive from your actions. Spend wisely. If you have debts to clear, make sure you do them only after repeated calculations.
Avoid Alcohol
Getting addicted to alcohol is one of the common problems people face while they are not being able to manage their finances. It might provide a temporary relief, but later on, it might get all the more difficult.
The monetary expenses might create Financial Stress and Mental Health issues. Seek help while it is not too late. We are here to help you know How to Reduce Financial Stress?
What are some of the signs that imply that you are facing financial stress?
Here is a list which helps to determine if you are suffering from monetary stress.
Loss of control
Activities are not under the control of the individual. You might end up doing things that give you momentary pleasures to keep your problems at bay. This is a temporary way to deal with Financial Stress and Mental Health.
Loss of concentration
Every work needs the right kind of concentration. There are time limits that are set for each task to be completed. Without the right level of concentration, we cannot focus on our job.
This might cause financial loss and in turn set in stress. If you face such problems, this might signify mental health issues.
Call it what you will, peace of mind, inner peace, sanity, contentment, serenity – that feeling of freedom from when your brain just won’t shut up and in bad moments you feel only marginally less negative about the world and others than you do about yourself.
In a world full of fear about the pandemic, your job, financial stress, the planet, walking home late at night, whether your kids are safe, the next interest rate rise or maybe that secret we pray never sees the light of day, most of would rather spend time with a sustained, quiet satisfaction than on a speedboat with champagne and celebrities.
It’s a different feeling from ‘happiness’ – though most of want that too.
Happiness is great but in truth it is usually a passing state, although certainly one to be grateful for. Nobody is happy all the time and if they claim to be, well, good luck to them. Contentment or peace of mind is true freedom. So how do we break the chains that hold us back from freedom of the mind in 2021? Here are some ideas.
Worrying excessively about Covid
By this we don’t mean to say it’s not a real thing, actually, quite the opposite. When we accept the evidence of reliable and dour scientists and public health experts and just do what they suggest, the surprising effect is we have less to worry about. That’s because we are not fighting it anymore – and fighting is very often based in worry and fear.
We suggest keeping yourself, your family and your workplaces as Covid-safe as reasonably possible, doing what is asked by authorities – and outside of that, concentrate on living your life. Make your time count for and with those that matter.
Too much screen time
If scrolling through Facebook a few times each day, or news websites, makes you feel connected, or if you have Netflix and just wanna chill, good for you, do it. But if you do it again, and again (and again), sorry to break it to you, but you are not living a healthy life. Period. And as for social media being sociable? Give me a break, Facebook is about as ‘social’ as a phone plan “cap” that somehow makes you spend more.
When used for a specific task, with time limits, social media can be fun and creative but used unconsciously and habitually it is empty, pretend connection. Hit the X on that tab and go get some real face-time with friends, or write someone a letter. If they are across oceans, ring them up to talk and if you can, start saving to go see them.
Putting up with financial stress
No, we are not about to suggest some wealth maximisation (aka get-rich quick) scheme. We are suggesting that continuing to live with worries about money is going to make you sick and/or keep you that way.
Financial stress is the biggest stressor for people in the United States and Australia, and as yet, employers aren’t doing much about that – although that is sure to change as corporate wellbeing programs catch up. In the meantime, do something about your low financial literacy, learn how to keep and stick to a budget, learn how to be mindful with money.
Do something about your fears over money. Be grateful for what you already have rather than always wanting more. Try to stop spending money you don’t actually have yet with too-easy tools like Afterpay or ‘pay-on-demand’. If you really need more money, then take some action: study, look for a different job and if you have the time maybe do some more work in the evenings or at weekends.
Comparing yourself to others
When did this very human trait ever work out really well? Everybody has a bad day and sometimes everyone just looks fitter, richer, like they have more friends or are just more ‘together’. They might be, but they may have very serious problems you cannot see on the surface.
You might see someone worse off and feel grateful, but deep down you may also feel a bit empty from witnessing someone else’s suffering. And why were you comparing in the first place? Perhaps from a lingering sense ‘is this all there is’? Stop distracting yourself from your own life and try practicing gratitude every day.
It’s not hard it just takes commitment. Write a gratitude list. World famous monk David Steindl-Rast suggests we can only be happy when we are grateful and we can do this by reflecting on the valuable things in life that we have been given – not things we paid for or earned. Watch his wonderful TED Talk on gratitude here.
Caring too much about others
Kindness is a really nice quality at face value, we need more of it in the world. But if you secretly wish you didn’t have to do so much for others, or expect something in return for your good deeds you may be just be avoiding the difficult reality of your life and even co-dependent.
Co-dependence is a word similar to the phrase ‘Global Warming’, in that it sounds much friendlier than what it actually is. Global warming is really dangerous climate instability, which is a bit more than feeling cosy in winter. Co-dependence is adjusting your behaviours to please others, no matter the cost to your wellbeing.
People who think co-dependence is healthy are usually thinking of interdependence. “The healthiest way we can interact with those close to us,” according to Barton Goldsmith of Psychology Today, “is by being truly interdependent. This is where two people, both strong individuals, are involved with each other but without sacrificing themselves or compromising their values.”
Being busy, staying busy
If you need something done, as the saying goes, ask a busy person. While you’re at it, give them a gold star but whatever you do, just don’t ask them how their mental health is. If you are busy all the time, what is all that white noise doing inside your head? Do you feel calm, at peace? Never forget you are a human being not a human doing.
Busy-ness can feed anxiety, that nagging chatter in your brain that undermines your self-esteem. You need to stop, at least once a day, take stock, and rest with your own thoughts. Try mindfulness meditation as a way of learning to still the mind and accept your thoughts without judgement.
From that you may learn it’s ok to be still and that you are still valuable – perhaps even more valuable – if you don’t do quite so much. You’ll probably be easier to be around too.
Staying in a job where you don’t want to excel
Maybe it’s because you aren’t respected, the boss just cut staff numbers, or froze wages again but parks his new sports car in the basement. Maybe you are doing law or medicine or IT because you think it makes your parents happy.
Whatever the reason, you feel resentful at work but you stay anyway, usually because you think financially you are trapped, or that a career change would disrupt your life too much.
But getting stuck in a job you hate is a slow death of the soul, one that invariably impacts on your mood and can lead to acting out with (or internalising) anger or with impulse spending or even addiction.
Plus you just may be holding yourself back from a bright new chapter in your life. How will you ever know if you don’t try? At least allow yourself to dream or brainstorm what might make you a happier person.
Treat your grudge like a tiny kitten
Who isn’t angry deep down about someone who harmed them in some way? Not everyone, sure, but a lot of people. If you get into a pattern of almost protecting that grudge every day, even nurturing it, guess what – it’s going to grow.
After a while you’ve held it so close that you begin showing it off, like an 8 year old with new roller skates. A resentment is not a pet, it’s a poison. Ever heard the saying ‘holding a resentment is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to get sick?’
It kinda is. Take action to deal with your resentment, work out your part in it, talk to them with a will to build bridges. And remember honesty without compassion is cruelty, or at least an invitation to an argument.
Doing nothing if you know you have a problem
You know what I’m talking about. That anger you hold, your unprocessed grief, your money problems (whether spending too much, ‘under-earning’ or just ignoring finances), your pattern of bad relationships, your secret addiction or unhealthy behaviour.
In recent years , Prince Harry has come out about the effect hiding his sadness about the effect of Princess Diana. “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well,” London’s Telegraph reported Harry as saying.
Nobody is perfect or strong enough to deal with life’s train wrecks on their own. Pretending to be fine is going to stop working at some point, perhaps disastrously. But then what? Don’t waste any more time, start right away. There are different price points for counselling and support groups for all kinds of life issues from eating disorders to post-traumatic stress.
No matter what you think of yourself deep down, you deserve help. Imagine someone saying you didn’t deserve help – how would you react? So step outside your own head and go help that person – you.
Accepting reality
We touched on it above a few times: ignoring and resisting problems actually causes more grief and suffering than facing them.
That’s easy to say when it’s not us having that excruciating conversation, such as asking your lender for a hardship variation on your mortgage, or laying out the facts to the boss who doesn’t like you why you really do deserve a raise, or admitting to your partner that you haven’t been entirely honest.
Yes, uncomfortable conversations are difficult and painful. Especially when they are with ourselves. That might include actually following through to construct a budget and seeing the source of your financial problems.
But after the conversation is over, you have the beginnings of new, much healthier behaviours and habits. Yes, you have to follow through and things might get harder before they get easier, but you no longer be need to be burdened the solvable problems.
You just need to get moving and do something, beginning with the smallest of steps. The most important of those is to get real. Pretending that truly unsustainable situations – whether emotionally, financially, mentally or physically are fine and don’t need to change will just cause you unnecessary pain and drama.
Being real can sometimes hurt a bit, but as a way of thinking and understanding the world it’s both a relief and an effective change to make.
If you are experiencing distress in your life and live in Australia call: Lifeline 131114, Mensline 1300789978 or Beyond Blue 1300224636; regarding debt problems, the National Debt Helpline may be of use on 180 0007 007 , or go here for a list of hotline numbers relating to different crises.
Financial stress behind mental health insurance claim spikes.
New research reveals that financial stress is a hidden mental health trigger for Australians to submit insurance claims, part of a trend alarming the life insurance industry.
The financial stress burden faced by Australians is, according to analysis by Rice Warner, a major factor in the escalating numbers of mental health-related claims that insurers are wrestling with.
In a report commissioned by an Australian start-up, Financial Mindfulness, to examine the viability of a program to reduce personal financial stress, it was estimated that well over half of mental health-related insurance claims are due to financial stress.
“It is not unreasonable to assume that 60 % of mental health claims have financial stress as a primary or secondary contributor,” Rice Warner consultant Heather Brown wrote.
Other research also commissioned by Financial Mindfulness in July 2017 found that Australians under financial stress suffered severe impacts on their mental and physical health and relationships.
While musculoskeletal conditions are the biggest category of claims for both IP and TPD claims, it is widely acknowledged that mental health is the fastest growing cause of insurance claims. Many agree because decades of stigma is lifting.
Rice Warner’s Group Insurance Claims Experience Study, a huge research project into 140,000 claims across 16 superannuation funds from 2011 to 2014, revealed another stunning finding, about the leading causes of IP claims in particular.
Mental health issues were the leading cause of IP claims during most Australian prime child rearing and career-building years (25 to 45 years). IP insurance premiums are worth an estimated $4.1 billion in annual premiums.
The types of insurance most affected by mental health claims are Total and Permanent Disability and Income Protection. 20% of all IP claims are due to mental health issues or suicide, while the figure was 15% for TPD.
According to Financial Mindfulness Founder and CEO, Andrew Fleming: “The trend of mental health insurance claims lead us to believe that this is the number one issue facing the life insurance industry.
What is the major reason behind mental health claims? Financial stress.
“Financial stress is having a major impact on Australians mental health.
Recently we announced our results from a detailed survey on Financial stress which highlighted the severity of the problem.”
More than one in three Australian’s surveyed (38%) worried about money “all the time”.
Those who identified as being financially stressed, said anxiety (66%), depression (64%) and social isolation (55%) were the consequences of financial stress.
Financial stress devastating Australians, close to 1 in 3 Australians suffer from significant financial stress, which has for the first time been comprehensively examined in new research by CoreData.
The results show financial stress leads to anti-social behaviour, relationship conflict and breakdown, isolation, sleep loss and symptoms of depression.
Most of us are aware of financial stress; the phrase appears daily in media coverage of money issues. But how money worries diminish Australians’ quality of life hasn’t been fully understood – until now.
But how money worries diminish Australians’ quality of life hasn’t been fully understood – until now.
Australian start-up Financial Mindfulness commissioned global research firm CoreData in July 2017 to question 1000 Australians about what financial stress does to their relationships and their physical and physical and mental health.
CoreData dug deeper into the issue than anyone ever has in Australia, creating the first ever personal Financial Stress Index, based on responses to 17 questions.
The results show nearly one in three people (30.4%) are suffering from significant financial stress and they are struggling compared to those who are not financially-stressed. Women were more likely to be more financially-stressed than men (33.4% v 27.6%).
Dr Nicola Gates, chief scientific advisor for Financial Mindfulness, said significant financial stress was “a lot more common than I had believed”.
“Worse 80% of them report severe discomfort – psychological and physical discomfort as a result,” Dr Gates said. “Financial stress is an issue that needs to be talked about in order to reduce stigma and shame, and to bring about intervention.”
35 cent of respondents suffering financial stress admitted using drugs or alcohol to manage negative feelings associated with personal finances during the past month. That level of abuse was a remarkable 18 times higher than people not under financial stress.
More than 66 per cent of those suffering financial stress said money worries directly led to feelings of fear, anxiety and/or depression – three times higher than people unaffected by financial stress. “Financial stress, like other stress, is a significant threat to our mental health and can lead to mental illness,” Dr Gates said. “For example, financial stress can cause a person to feel shame and develop a sense of failure which may lead them to become depressed.”
One of the most surprising findings was that financial stress is felt broadly, and not only experienced in low-income households. Respondents on salaries of up to $150,000 a year with investments of up to $750,000 were only marginally less financially-stressed than those who earned up to $90,000 with investments of up to $350,000.The findings also showed that financially-stressed Australians reported:
The results of this press release appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Financial Standard.
Mindfulness practice reduces time off work for anxiety sufferers.
Working with someone who is extremely anxious isn’t always fun, but it’s worth remembering stress hits everyone, including us. Anxiety disorders are by some measures the most common mental health issues in the western world, even more common than depression.
Previously research has shown sufferers of anxiety – which could be defined as continuous feelings of stress or worry – typically take more sick days at work and use more mental health services than average workers.
But mental health problems are so common they are basically unavoidable in the workplace, affecting at least 45 percent of all Australians in their lifetimes and possibly more, according to charity Sane Australia. Undetected mental health issues can also be triggered by major life events and financial stress events.
Hence the move to expand corporate wellness programs beyond physical health, and embed mental health programs and tools in them. Mindfulness is one such promising tool.
Mindfulness has been shown in many studies to positively affect symptoms of depression, insomnia and anxiety but now there is proof of improvements that could directly benefit employers: rates of absenteeism in anxiety sufferers fell after establishing a meditation practice.
A team of seven researchers, led by Dr. Elizabeth Hoge, associate professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center, split a 57 subjects diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder into two groups, with half doing eight weeks of “attention control” training while the others did MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) training.
Those that did the mindfulness cut their time absent from work by nearly two-thirds, while the control group actually increased the amount of time they took off work.
The measurement scrutinised in Hoges’ latest research paper – called Effects of mindfulness meditation on occupational functioning and health care utilization in individuals with anxiety – was “partial days missed” and not full days. Why?
“This may be the most sensitive measure of how anxiety disorders impact work performance, as employees … may come late to work, or leave early depending on their mental state,” her report said.
For those who continued practicing mindfulness in their own time, the reduction in absenteeism continued and there was a similar decrease in visits to mental health professionals.
The report concluded: “Mindfulness meditation training may improve occupational functioning and decrease healthcare utilization in adults with GAD.”
Hoge recently published research from a similar experiment which found a group which had undergone mindfulness training “felt” less stressed and had lower levels of the stress hormone ACTH in their blood than people who did stress management training.
If you need to speak to someone about your anxiety call Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636 or Sane 1800 18 7263.
Mindfulness could complement CBT interventions for depression.
Anyone who has been truly depressed understands how vast the difference is between knowing it’s helpful to talk to people and regularly being able to connect with others.
Depression, and its nagging stablemate, anxiety, often render a person so exhausted and full of self-doubt that it feels impossible to escape the prison cell of their own thoughts.
Anhedonia is a common symptom of depression, which is the loss of the ability to experience pleasure – emotional flatlining. A mindfulness practice could hold a key of sorts to that prison and even help sufferers to begin experiencing more fulfilling relationships in their lives.
But such a healthy change might not come about by doing a mindfulness alone, although multiple studies confirm its effectiveness in alleviating the symptoms of depression. The idea here is that mindfulness could complement and even enhance the effectiveness of specific Cognitive Behavioural Therapy interventions for depression.
The positive effect of ‘daily uplifts’
New research done in New York, by Lisa Starr, of the University of Rochester and Rachel Hershenberg, of Stony Brook University and published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that positive events in real-life conditions had a greater positive impact on sufferers of depression than in laboratory conditions.
They wrote: “experiencing or even just anticipating uplifting events in daily life was related to feeling less depressed that same day”. The researchers called these “interpersonal uplifts”, such as participating in fun activities with friends or family.
“It’s the social activities—positive, everyday experiences that involve other people—that may be most likely to brighten the mood of those struggling with depression,” Starr wrote on the University’s of Rochester’s website. “The same is true for the expectation of good things to come,” although Starr noted people with depression are actually less likely to anticipate positive experiences. The study included 157 young adults, a third of whom had depression ranging from mild to severe. Sandra Knispel, writing on the University website concluded: “In other words: If you’re feeling seriously blue—make a concerted effort to do something fun with friends.”
Overcome negative thinking with mindfulness
Of course the advice ‘just do something fun with friends’ is easy to say but might feel impossible to do if you are bound by negative thinking, especially about yourself.
This is where mindfulness could help enormously, says Marc Richardson, psychologist for Financial Mindfulness who also works private practice in Sydney.
“Self-recrimination does lead to greater levels of worthlessness which compounds our unwillingness to engage in those interpersonal events which have really clear effects on brightening the mood. It’s hard to access those events when the overwhelming sense is ‘I’m worthless’.
“Mindfulness is about lifting our level of awareness and that improved awareness would give us the ability to notice the negative thoughts which are such a big part of depressive symptomology.
“Mindfulness has the capacity to act as a circuit breaker to rumination on negative thoughts, allowing us to catch those negative generalisations and challenge them, and make us more willing to engage in those activities we know are beneficial.
Richardson explained how that process could also help anxiety sufferers too.
“Depression is closely aligned with anxiety and in both people tend towards living in a future-oriented state rather than a present state. They will typically worry a lot about what might happen next, almost with an impending sense of doom.
“Mindfulness brings us back to the present moment and allows us to connect with the here and now rather than identify with our negative projections.”
Richardson believes a mindfulness practice could allow us to make decisions to follow through with, or perhaps even plan, those ‘daily uplifts’, such as meeting with family and friends for healthy fun activities.
“The more people engage in mindfulness, the more self aware they will be. That greater capacity to be present will surely improve our capacity to be in relationships.”
What ‘fun’ activities?
If you are depressed or anxious you might well ask ‘what sort of activities?’ In the end that will come down to you: who do you feel happy around, what do you like doing that lifts your mood naturally? You are best advised to talk to a therapist or loved one, or journal, to work this out. But here are some suggestions:
How mindfulness helped a bunch of chronically anxious worriers.
Time magazine recently ran an article with the headline ‘how mindfulness helps you handle stress better’. So what you ask? Sounds like every second story spruiking mindfulness as a wonder cure these days, right?
Except that the article is about research done by someone who wanted to cut the crap and find out if mindfulness really does work. Or not.
At a personal level this article is it spoke to me – the writer of the story you are reading – deeply because it looked at the effects of mindfulness on a mental health problem I have suffered all my life, which at times overwhelmed me.
First, to Dr. Elizabeth Hoge, associate professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center. “There’s been some real skepticism in the medical community about meditation and mindfulness meditation,” she said.
According to Time, Hoges he and her team wanted to deduce if people just felt better after meditating, or if doing meditating caused measurable changes in the body’s markers of stress.
So they ran people through a stress test that would give anyone rubber legs: “eight minutes of public speaking, followed by a round of videotaped mental math in front of an audience of people in white lab coats with clipboards.”
Then they made them do the stress test again, just to be sure. But first they split the group into two.
Half underwent mindfulness training (including breath awareness, body scan meditations and gentle yoga) and the other half did a stress management education course (including lectures on diet, exercise, sleep and time management).
Both groups did eight weeks training with the same amount of class time and homework.
The group that did the mindfulness training reported feeling less stressed, but blood tests showed they had lower levels of stress hormone ACTH.
The meditation group also may have been strengthening their immune systems via lower “pro-inflammatory cytokines”, alien-sounding molecules linked to depression and other neurological conditions.
On the second run of the stress test the meditation group outperformed the stress-management group by even greater margins.
“We have objective measures in the blood that they did better in a provoked situation,” says Hoge. “It really is strong evidence that mindfulness meditation not only makes them feel better, but helps them be more resilient to stress.”
Now back to me – the writer of this article – if you don’t mind.
After the death of my mother and redundancy from a 20 year career as a journalist I spent time receiving treatment for depression. To my confusion I left with a diagnosis of generalised anxiety disorder.
I felt dismayed and worried. How I felt was: ‘what on earth am I supposed to do with this?’
Generalised anxiety disorder, according to Way Ahead – Mental Health Association NSW, is “intense anxiety and worry about a variety of events and issues (for example, work, health, family), and the worry is out of proportion to the situation… [sufferers get] restless, easily tired, difficulty concentrating, easily annoyed, muscle tension, and/or difficulty sleeping.
While many people worry about things from time to time, people with Generalised Anxiety Disorder experience worry a large proportion of the time and it interrupts their lives. ”
Tick, tick, tick. It’s hard to admit, but this is me.
My beautiful late mother, Rosemary, may she rest in peace, worried incessantly. She worried so much it annoyed everyone around her – and mortified her teenage sons.
She worried every day until she knew she was going to die (from brain cancer) and then, quietly, she stopped worrying.
She also had trouble with anger, supressing it until she would rage. It’s even harder to admit, but this is also me. Taxi drivers who take me ‘the long way home’ have copped some fearful sprays from me over the years.
So I guess I ended up a bit like my mother, but I’d rather avoid the sad cure she found.
In the treatment centre I attended, South Pacific Private, I did a simple mindfulness meditation exercise most days – 10 minutes sitting still and concentrating on my breathing. I have done it around 70 times since leaving the centre in January, increasing the duration to 15 minutes a day. I also try to do micro sessions several times a day.
I haven’t had a blood test to show, so I don’t know how my stress hormones are or what my cytokines are up to, but I feel better. How? I worry less.
I still worry, but you have no idea how good the feeling behind that simple statement feels: I worry less.
There’s a lot more too. I am growing the ability to see my thoughts and feelings as separate from me – almost as passing storms across a blue sky – instead of experiencing them as a sort of nasty conjoined twin hissing at me.
I don’t see my thoughts as instructions, but just as thoughts.
I don’t have to let them define what I do next. If my thoughts tell me: ‘I feel down, I wonder if there’s any cheesecake left’, I can phone someone, listen to music or go for a bike ride instead. If my head sees someone smoking and wants one too, I can stop and say ‘no, that thought is not helpful’, and I do. I quit smoking in December and haven’t had a cigarette since.
I sleep better and have little muscle tension. Though am still restless, I have a level of awareness of this – and, interestingly, of how my behaviour affects others – way beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.
I still get easily annoyed – although much less so. I am more patient. If I need to stay on hold for 45 minutes to the phone company I am more inclined to express healthy anger when I get through, then detach without flogging the poor person who answers the phone.
If I do get too angry, I can cool off much quicker and apologise expecting nothing in return.
I now get on with cab drivers, even if doing so costs me $5 more.
I’m sure if I was assessed again for generalised anxiety disorder I would still fit the bill. So I am not cured. But life for me, and those very close to me, is a lot easier.
Mindfulness meditation is not a cure and there have been questions about its real effectiveness. But I know it works, and I don’t need to ask my cytokines to prove it.
Good mental health a much bigger factor in happiness than money.
Earlier this week Norway was named the happiest nation on earth, by the United Nations researchers, just ahead of Denmark.
Northern European countries dominated, with Iceland, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden also in the top 10; perhaps there really is something to the saying ‘cold hands, warm heart’.
Australia rated 9th happiest, the United States was 14th and the United Kingdom 19th.
The bottom five places were filled by Rwanda, Syria, Tanzania, Burundi and the Central African Republic.
Why should we care about something that might be considered frivolous compared to harder-headed indicators like economic growth, interest rates and GDP? Because the world is changing and economics no longer rules unchallenged.
As the report points out: “In June 2016 the OECD committed itself ‘to redefine the growth narrative to put people’s well-being at the center of governments’ efforts’. Norway came first, it is pointed out, despite weak oil prices. The nation depends heavily on oil and gas resources, but in recent years has sunk profits from those industries into a transparent, ethical, future fund.
The UN team behind ‘The World Happiness Report’ used data from telephone and face-to-face interviews conducted by Gallup with around 1000 people from 155 countries over three years (2014-2016). Respondents were asked to rate their life on a scale of 0-10.
A key chapter of a report, ‘The Key Determinants of Happiness and Misery’, included some fascinating insights for companies, policy-makers and individuals interested in what makes us happy and unhappy, and how we can go from one state to the other.
The chapter focused on deeper research done in four countries: the US, UK, Australia and Indonesia.
“In all three Western societies, diagnosed mental illness emerges as more important than income, employment or physical illness.” The reverse was true in Indonesia, although in all four countries mental illnesses were more significant to our happiness and misery than physical illnesses.
The research found our levels of income and education per se weren’t major factors in happiness. Our tendency to compare ourselves with others in these areas was a bigger problem.
“Household income per head explains under 2% of the variance of happiness in any country,” the authors wrote. “Moreover it is largely relative income that matters, so as countries have become richer, many have failed to experience any increase in their average happiness. A similar problem relates to education—people care largely about their education relative to that of others.
“In all countries the most powerful [improvements to misery] would come from the elimination of depression and anxiety disorders, which are the main form of mental illness. This would also be the least costly way of reducing misery.”
The report made no mention of financial stress as a factor in misery experienced by adults, but it is worth pointing out that research shows clear links between money worries and those major mental health issues, anxiety and depression.
In 2013, researchers from the University of Southampton found people with unsecured debt (such as credit card debt, student and personal loans) were 3.24 times more likely to suffer “mental disorders” than those without unsecured debt and 2.77 times as likely to have depression. Tragically they were 7.9 times more likely to take their own lives.
It is no surprise then that the World Happiness Report’s researchers found addressing the emotional health of children was more important to set someone up for a happy life than academic qualifications. A child’s experiences at school were found to be more important than their test scores.
“What in turn affects the emotional health and behaviour of the child? Parental income is a good predictor of a child’s academic qualifications (as is well known), but it is a much weaker predictor of the child’s emotional health and behaviour.
The best predictor of these is the mental health of the child’s mother.” Disappointingly for dads, researchers found a father’s mental health wasn’t as important in determining happiness and misery as a mother’s.
Again, the report made no mention of mindfulness – this wasn’t the work to go into the array of potential solutions.
But with mental health such a huge factor in determining the happiness or misery of people in the US, UK and Australia, and other research showing money worries are linked with anxiety and depression, mindfulness around money is without doubt one important and useful tool in the search for happiness.
Find out by completing our Financial Stress Index (FSI) now.
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