The next couple of activities come from my feeling good handbook. They are about how to help yourself and help others as you recover after a heart attack and stents. They are about how our shared experiences can boost the feel good factor in ourselves and the people we meet throughout our recovery.
Sometimes we want to help ourselves feel good and get wrapped up in our own world. We dare not to venture outside our own reality and don’t want to interact with others as we think that they are doing OK.
We often compare our insides, what we think and feel with other people’s outsides, this is what others want/allow us to see of their lives. That’s like comparing apples and oranges! My advice is give it up as a bad job and remember we are all unique and individual.
A good way to feel good is to help others feel good instead (how many good’s can I get in one sentence)! By increasing the pleasure in another persons life can have a remarkable boomerang effect. Those good feelings will bounce straight back at you. Causing you to feel real great with the knowledge that you have made a difference to others. Try out the following activities and experience feelings of joy and happiness as others feel good too.
Smiling
Smiling, laughter and humour are the best medicine and I recently researched 9 reasons to Smile! I don’t just mean a paltry forced grin and a big beaming smile. Do this whenever you can at whomever you can – even the cat or yourself!
Heart rate – Smiling slows the heart and relaxes the body. People who smile and laugh often are less likely to develop heart disease.
Blood pressure – Smiling temporarily lowers blood pressure.
Stress – Smiling releases endorphins that reduce your stress hormones.
Mood – Endorphins lift your mood. It’s something simple, easy to do, and free.
Trust – Studies show that we are more trustful of others when they smile. Trust is an important part of social health.
Pain – Smiling and laughter both have been shown to reduce pain. They release endorphins that lift your moods, and many of the endorphins act as natural painkillers.
Looks – Smiles naturally lift the face. There have been studies that have shown that smiling makes people look on average around 3 years younger.
Longevity – According to another study, people who smile more often live around 7 years longer. Releasing stress helps the heart, and more to keep you healthy longer.
It’s contagious – Around 50% of people smile back.
Take action: Give smiling a go today, see how many people you can make smile back at you as you show them your happy face. Don’t keep it to yourself, send me an email and let me know how you get on.
Acts of kindness
Just think how different this world would be if everyone took a few minutes out of their week to do something for someone else. Doesn’t have to be a big thing, something small and simple can literally make someone’s day and improve how we feel.
Did you know that kindness has been scientifically proved to give you benefits too? It is also contagious, everyone that experiences the act of kindness whether it is the giver, the receiver, involved or a bystander that sees it. Everyone gets the benefit and it increases the chance of them doing the same for others. This then would make kindness something that is teachable and shareable. Wow, what a skill! How many hundreds of people’s lives can you affect with each and every act of kindness you make.
- Choose a person
- Decide on an act of kindness
- Pick a date, time or place
- Take action
- Hush don’t let them know
- Feel tremendous
Take action: Quite literally take action.
Are you eager for more top tips? You can find them here; It really is all about you.