Archive for Famous fives

5 herbs for happiness

20 July 2009 · Filed under Famous fives · Tagged , , , ,

Chamomile

My friend Sorrell at the Chamomile Clinic has sent me something to share with you: her five herbs for happiness.

  1. Lemon balm – a truly balancing herb, whether you are anxious or depressed this herb can bring back a sense of balance into your life and it tastes delicious as a herbal tea.
  2. Valerian – a great sedative for anxiety and insomnia with no hangover effects
  3. Chamomile – a safe remedy for children, it soothes them to sleep, has a reputation for preventing night terrors and helps relieve grumpy tantrums
  4. Peppermint – traditionally known as a herb for grumpy old men (but if you hadn’t noticed women are grumpy sometimes too), it will work to settle an upset stomach too.
  5. Skullcap – for the overactive mind that can’t switch off, this herb can help those who don’t let go so easily from the troubles of the day, or just need a break from their own thoughts when times are tough.

I’ve tried 2, 3 and 4 myself and they definitely helped me calm down and sleep better. You can contact Sorrell by email for more tailored advice and recommendations, or find a herbalist near you via the NIMH.

And for those of you who don’t believe in all that herbal medicine gubbins, Sorrell has shared her Mindapples five-a-day with us too:

  1. taking at least 10 minutes a day to be alone and meditate, or practice self-hypnosis
  2. drinking some herbal tea
  3. enjoying a soak in a warm bath with my favourite essential oils
  4. tending to the garden
  5. smiling at a stranger everyday – spread the happiness

Thanks Sorrell!

Posted by Andy Gibson

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Solitude

10 July 2009 · Filed under 5-a-day for your mind, Famous fives · Tagged , , , , , , ,

Ed Wardle, Alone in the Wild

We’ve been a bit quiet here on the Mindapples blog (my book coming out, Lauren’s MA due in, Tessy on holiday…), but there’s a lot going on behind the scenes.

One of the things I’ve been up to is contributing to a new Channel 4 programme, Alone in the Wild, in which Ed Wardle will be living alone in the Yukon wilderness for 3 months, starting this week. Adam Gee at Channel 4 tells me that no experiments in human isolation have ever gone beyond 8 weeks, so no-one is sure what Ed will experience towards the end of his stay. He’s a brave guy and I’m watching his progress with interest.

Channel 4 interviewed me for their website , along with Terry Waite, Sarah Maitland and other more qualified people than me, about what I thought would be the impact of solitude on Ed’s mental health. I drew on many of the Mindapples responses to inform the discussion – thanks to all of you for contributing – and as you can see, from reading your 5-a-days it’s clear that solitude is good for the mind, but connection with people is really important too. Spending time with people is the most popular of all the activities you picked. I also mentioned some of the other things which you said helped you, including reading fiction (also a popular choice), and attention and relaxation techniques such as morning pages and mindfulness.

I’m not sure I was quite as confident as I sound from the interview – I’ve certainly never wanted to be seen as an expert on mental health – but I hope it’s interesting and gives you food for thought. Let me know what you think, or if you have anything to add, either here or on the Channel 4 site. You can also follow Ed’s progress on Twitter and join the conversation there too. After all, it’s nice to know we’re not alone!

channel4.com/programmes/alone-in-the-wild/articles/andy-gibson-on-solitude

Posted by Andy Gibson

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Celebrities – your votes are in

27 March 2009 · Filed under 5-a-day for your mind, Famous fives · Tagged , , , ,

Mindapples volunteer Heleana has done a marvellous job of tallying up all your answers about which celebrities you’d like to hear from. Here are the top 20 people whose five-a-days you’d like to know:

1. Stephen Fry (we love you Stephen!)
2. Barack Obama
3. Gordon Brown
4. Dalai Lama
5. Nelson Mandela
6. Richard Branson
7. Queen Elizabeth II (I nearly got her five last month but missed my chance – doh!)
8= Oprah Winfrey
8= Tony Blair
10. Bill Gates
11. Madonna
12. George W Bush
13. Thom Yorke
14. Jo Brand
15. Johnny Depp
16= Warren Buffett
16= Richard Dawkins
16= Amy Winehouse
16= Sting
19. Dawn French
20. Gordon Ramsay

Thanks for all your suggestions and please do keep them coming. We’ll get on the case with asking these good people for their five-a-days, so please send this around and let’s see if we can get the attention of someone who knows them.

And if you want to cast your votes too and tell us who you’d like to hear from, please take the test!

Posted by Andy

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Daily Routines

6 January 2009 · Filed under Famous fives, Inspirations

booksA delightful blog I found called Daily Routines through One Floor Up, collects the stories of daily routines of ‘How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days.’

Example:

P.G. Wodehouse
“On most days, he would get up at half past seven, go out onto the porch at the back door, and do the “daily dozen” sequence of calisthenic exercises he had performed every day since 1920. While Ethel, always a late riser, was still upstairs in bed, Wodehouse would prepare his regular breakfast — toast and honey or marmalade, a slice of coffee cake and a mug of tea — and, as part of the early morning routine, he would read a “breakfast book,” for example a Rex Stout or Ngaio Marsh mystery. Then he would light the first pipe of the day, crumbling the cigars Peter Schwed sent him into the bowl in preference to pipe tobacco.”

You can even submit your own routine….

Posted by Tessy Britton

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Resolutions for your Mind

2 January 2009 · Filed under Famous fives, The idea · Tagged , , , ,

cosmosMental Health charity, MIND, warned yesterday that New Year’s resolutions could be bad for your health – particularly when we are armed with self-improvement resolutions.

Mind chief executive Paul Farmer said focussing on problems or insecurities can lead to feelings of hopelessness, low self-esteem and even mild depression.
“We chastise ourselves for our perceived shortcomings and set unrealistic goals to change our behaviour, so it’s not surprising that when we fail to keep resolutions, we end up feeling worse than when we started,” he said.

“In 2009, instead of making a New Year’s resolution, think positively about the year to come and what you can achieve.”

While I admit to increasing my exercise in recent weeks to boost my wellbeing, I have given Paul Farmer’s timely and sensible message some serious thought since yesterday. So yesterday’s observations were:

1. I make really good cheese sauce. Resolved to make more cheese sauce, or even look at some new recipes. Sometime. A small thing I know, but trying to look for assets rather than deficits… which is one of my favourite topics today.

2. I have some really amazing friends. Some of whom have sent me the most uplifting and kind messages in recent weeks. So I have resolved to communicate more with the lovely people I already know and love… and…not to rely on Twitter too much to keep a sense of connection alive, or indeed to neglect the majority of friends who aren’t even on Twitter.

I may have been inspired by reading about the correspondence patterns of Darwin and Einstein? During their lifetimes, Darwin sent at least 7,591 letters and received 6,530; Einstein sent more than 14,500 and received more than 16,200. And also by the rather beautiful concept of writing letters to the future through Douceurs (which translates to ‘sweet words’ and ‘gentleness’) designed by Lauren Currie

So perhaps rather than not resolving anything at all, we should be making them more fun and personal and less medicinal! How very Mindapples…

Posted by Tessy Britton

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Alastair Campbell’s five-a-day

16 December 2008 · Filed under Famous fives, News · Tagged , , , , ,

Yesterday, Jo and I went to Stand to Reason’s ‘Celebrating Recovery’ conference at City Hall to pester politicians about Mindapples. And within five minutes of arriving, we’d already got Alastair Campbell’s five-a-day!

Alastair Campbell's five-a-day for mental health

In case you can’t read that, it says:

  1. Sleep
  2. Family / home
  3. Exercise (including playing football)
  4. Bigger cause (including Burnley FC)
  5. Laughter (see 4)

He also took a Mindapples badge and gave us his e-mail address, which was very nice of him. So I feel it’s only fair to give his new book a plug too, since he was signing copies of it for several hours in the foyer until we all thought his arm would fall off.

Then Anne Milton, Shadow Minister for Mental Health, shared her five in her speech:

  1. Gym/exercise
  2. Gardening (she told lovely anecdote about her grandfather’s 1910 gardening book, which included the line “no gardener can fail to be exhiliarated by the sight of snowdrops bursting forth”)
  3. A glass of wine with her very supportive husband
  4. Friendships

(That’s only four, Anne, but we spotted the cheeky glass of wine in point 3, so we’ll count that as number 5.)

I also had nice chats with Dr Liz Miller, Paul Jenkins at Rethink, and Stand to Reason’s energetic founder Jonathan Naess. And we rounded things off with a great plug for Mindapples from Kathryn Tyson, policy lead on mental health at the Department of Health. Yay!

I liked the energy around Stand to Reason too: good speakers, a positive energy and a sense of being really grounded in people’s daily experiences. I’m wondering if there’s a way we can work together in the future.

Posted by Andy Gibson

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Tal Ben Shahar

15 December 2008 · Filed under Famous fives · Tagged , , ,

Tal Ben Shahar, Harvard positive psychology lecturer and author, has been kind enough to send through his five-a-day:

  1. Time with people I love – usually with family members.
  2. Doing something that is meaningful and pleasurable to me professionally (usually writing).
  3. Quiet listening to favorite music.
  4. Physical exercise for 30-60 minutes (running/yoga/etc).
  5. Gratitudes before going to bed.

Gratitude is an interesting one – it’s like the old cliche of ‘count your blessings’, but I’m interested in how specific he is here. Gratitudes for the day passed, just before bedtime, sounds like a recipe for a more enriching and happy sleep to me. Might have to give that one a try…

So thanks very much to him, and thanks also to banana-eating happiness dude Very Happy Phil for telling him about the project.

Posted by Andy Gibson

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Calling all bloggers

28 November 2008 · Filed under Famous fives, News · Tagged , , , , , ,

Dear blogosphere,

It gives me great pleasure to invite you to join the Mindapples project and tell the world, what’s your five a day?

Here’s how it works:

  • Write a post telling your readers five things you do that help keep you mentally well (and answer any of the other survey questions too if you like)
  • Link to the Mindapples site www.mindapples.org
  • Invite five blog-friends to do the same (if you want to)

And that’s it.

Here are my five (at the moment):

  1. Playing the piano
  2. Talking with my best friends
  3. Emptying my inbox (yeah, right)
  4. Listening to podcasts in bed
  5. Walking in the park

And I’d like to invite Euan Semple, Stowe Boyd, JP Rangaswami, Ewan Macintosh and David Jennings to do the same.

And while we’re at it, Stephen Fry and, ooh, Richard Branson too. (Well it can’t hurt to try.)

In fact, I’ll just ask everyone I know.

Yours sincerely,

Andy Gibson

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Five things happy people do

14 November 2008 · Filed under Famous fives · Tagged , , , ,

And here’s another expert list of “things we should do to be happy”, this time from neuroscientist Gabrielle LeBlanc who has “canvassed the leading experts on what happy people have in common”.

Well okay, actually it’s from Oprah.com. :-) Here’s a quick summary…

  1. Find your own golden self
    Eudaimonia means striving toward excellence based on one’s unique talents and potential. Aristotle considered it to be the noblest goal in life. “Eudaimonic well-being is much more robust and satisfying than hedonic happiness, and it engages different parts of the brain,” says Richard J. Davidson, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So it’s not all about eating chocolate (although surely sometimes…), it’s about being meaningfully engaged with your life, and with yourself.
  2. Design your life to bring you joy
    I like this one. “People don’t devote enough time to thinking seriously about how they spend their life and how much of it they actually enjoy,” says David Schkade, PhD, of the University of California San Diego. Schkade says that if you transfer even an hour of your day from an activity you hate (commuting, scrubbing the bathroom) to one you like (reading, spending time with friends), you should see a significant improvement in your overall happiness. Taking action is key.
  3. Avoid “if only” fantasies
    If only I get a better job…find a man…lose the weight…life will be perfect. But actually, research suggests we’re surprisingly bad at predicting what will make us happy. We also have a natural ‘dimming effect’ which makes hedonistic pleasures fade as we get used to, say, being in a relationship or having a new house. Fill your life with novelty, but value what you’ve already got.
  4. Put best friends first
    It’s no surprise that social engagement is one of the most important contributors to happiness, but according to research by Meliksah Demir, PhD, at Northern Arizona University, it’s the nature of the relationship that counts. Rather than dashing around chatting with acquaintances, you get more joy from spending longer periods of time with a close friend. And that doesn’t necessarily come from delving into heavy discussions. One of the most essential pleasures of close friendship, Demir found, is simple companionship, “just hanging out,” as he says.
  5. Allow yourself to be happy
    Many of us are convinced, deep down, that it’s wrong to be happy (or too happy). Whether the belief comes from religion, culture, or the family you were raised in, it usually leaves you feeling guilty if you’re having fun. “Some people would say you shouldn’t strive for personal happiness until you’ve taken care of everyone in the world who is starving or doesn’t have adequate medical care,” says Howard Cutler, MD, co-author with the Dalai Lama of The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World. “The Dalai Lama believes you should pursue both simultaneously.”

So there you go. I reckon I should stop meaningfully engaging in the world now and go hang out with my best friends.

It seems everyone from Oprah to the Dalai Lama has got an opinion on this stuff. What’s yours?

Posted by Andy Gibson

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12 steps to happiness

10 November 2008 · Filed under Famous fives, The idea · Tagged , , , , , ,

Here’s another take on the “things you should do to be happy” riff, this time from the Care Services Improvement Partnership. Interestingly they reference the economic crisis – which is funny because the economic crisis is also referencing us.

Here’s a summary of their, erm… twelve:

In situations of sustained social, economic and psychological stress, most people experience symptoms of mental illness. What might be called the ‘five fruit and vegetables’ of mental health help to protect mental wellbeing for everyone, whether or not they have symptoms. They include:

  1. keeping physically active
  2. eating well
  3. drinking in moderation
  4. valuing yourself and others
  5. talking about your feelings
  6. keeping in touch with friends and loved ones
  7. caring for others
  8. getting involved and making a contribution
  9. learning new skills
  10. doing something creative
  11. taking a break
  12. asking for help

These ‘positive steps’ for mental health are familiar themes in a wide range of research on what people who experience mental health problems find helpful. They provide a foundation for everyone’s mental health and now need to be much more widely disseminated to the general public.

My goodness there are a lot of these lists out there. I could really stress myself out worrying about all the things I’m not doing. ;-)

Anyway, it’s good stuff really so do read more in the full (pdf) document, Making it Possible: Improving Mental Health and Well-being in England.

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