Wellbeing

Fighting back to be better

People with good emotional wellbeing enjoy everyday activities, rise above the challenges they may experience throughout the day, and feel purposeful and content. You can manage life’s challenges, work effectively, and contribute to society with good well-being.

How can I improve my wellbeing?

Achieving a state of overall wellbeing requires nurturing the critical pillars of a healthy lifestyle:

  1. Prioritise getting sufficient, high-quality restorative sleep each night, as sleep deprivation can severely impact mental health.
  2. Proper nutrition through a balanced diet full of fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats is also crucial for both physical and mental wellbeing.
  3. Regular exercise, even just a daily walk, releases endorphins that boost mood and reduce stress.
  4. Maintaining quality social interactions and a strong support system is vital – humans are social creatures who need meaningful connections.
  5. Build resilience to stress by regularly practising mindfulness, gratitude, or yoga. Strengthen insight by examining how your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs shape your view of the world. Develop a sense of purpose and contribute to society through work, volunteering, or hobbies.
  6. Finally, steer clear of substances that can harm your emotional wellbeing. This includes avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking, and using recreational drugs. Additionally, it’s crucial to steer clear of harmful prescription medications such as benzodiazepines and opioids.

Click on the resources tab for more information on sleep, nutrition, and exercise. The Healthy Minds Program (see below) will help you to develop quality social interactions and resilience. It can be considered as a foundation that assists in building a happy life free from unnecessary stress.

Further down this page, we provide additional wellbeing tools sourced from the internet and books. Feel free to browse and use them as you need.

Healthy Minds Program

The Healthy Minds Program is a science-based tool developed by renowned neuroscientists to help cultivate well-being through training your mind. It is based on decades of research showing that qualities like awareness, connection, insight, and purpose are key pillars of wellbeing that can be strengthened through meditation and other practices. Click here to download the app: Apple App Store ( click here) or Google Play (click here)

The video below provides testimonies for the effectiveness of the Healthy Minds Program:

Dr. Laurie Santos’ 5 Favourite Coping Tips

Dr. Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University, shares her top 5 coping strategies (click here) for dealing with challenging times:

  1. Meditation – She recommends starting each day with meditation, even if just for 1-2 minutes. This helps center yourself and create stillness.
  2. Journaling – Writing down 3 things you’re grateful for each day. This promotes an attitude of gratitude and looking for positives in life.
  3. Exercise – Any form of movement and getting your body active. Exercise is proven to boost mood and well-being.
  4. Acts of Kindness – Doing something kind for someone else, which creates a sense of connection and purpose.
  5. Belly Breathing – Taking a minute to breathe deeply from your belly. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system to induce calmness.

The overall message is having a “mental health toolkit” of positive coping strategies can help you better mana

5 Tips for Well-being

Coping with difficult emotions.

The RAIN technique (click here) is a mindfulness practice designed to help individuals cope with difficult emotions by fostering awareness and self-compassion. Developed by meditation teacher Michele McDonald and popularized by psychologist Tara Brach, RAIN stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture.

  1. Recognize: Identify and acknowledge the emotions you are experiencing without judgment.
  2. Allow: Accept the presence of these emotions, letting them be as they are without trying to change or suppress them.
  3. Investigate: Explore your emotions with curiosity and openness, understanding their origins and how they manifest in your body.
  4. Nurture: Offer yourself compassion and kindness, providing the care and support you need in the moment.

This technique can be practised anytime and helps in reducing stress, anxiety, and emotional suffering by promoting a mindful and compassionate approach to handling intense emotions. For more information on the RAIN technique for coping with difficult emotions, click here.

Breathing Techniques

Stop, Breathe, Be for Mindfulness

The Stop, Breathe, Be method is a simple yet effective mindfulness technique designed to help individuals manage stress, reduce anxiety, and increase present-moment awareness. This brief practice can be performed in just a few seconds, making it easily applicable to various situations throughout the day.

The Three Steps

  • Stop: The first step involves deliberately pausing whatever you’re doing. This creates a moment of stillness and interrupts any automatic or reactive behaviors.
  • Breathe: Next, take a conscious breath. Focus your attention on the sensation of breathing, which helps anchor you to the present moment and activate the body’s relaxation response.
  • Be: In this final step, simply be present. Observe your current state without judgment, noticing your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations.

Controlled breathing techniques can used at times when you experience high stress with panic or with more chronic anxiety. It can also help you when you struggle to fall asleep.

Cyclic sighing is a controlled breathing exercise highlighted in a Stanford Medicine study and it offers a simple and effective way to reduce anxiety and improve mood. This technique emphasises long exhalations and can be practised at home for five minutes daily. Click here for more information and a video demonstrating the technique.

Other breathing techniques are 4-7-8 breathing and box breathing:

  • 4-7-8 Breathing: Breathe in for a count of 4, hold for a count of 7, and exhale for a count of 8.
  • Box Breathing: Breathe in for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4, and exhale for a count of 4.

Podcasts

Books and other resources on well-being

Take a Mental Health Test: (click here) Online screening is one of the quickest and easiest ways to determine whether you are experiencing symptoms of a mental health condition. For online tests of depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar and other mental health conditions, click here.

Build the Life You Want by Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey (click here) is a valuable guide for achieving well-being and personal fulfilment. The book is divided into three key sections:

  1. Managing Emotions: Teaches emotional self-regulation, metacognition, and the ‘macronutrients of happiness’—enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose. It highlights the importance of changing perceptions and reactions rather than circumstances, using techniques like gratitude and positive reframing.
  2. Building What Matters: Focuses on nurturing family, friendships, work, and faith. It offers strategies for managing conflicts, fostering real connections, maintaining work-life balance, and practicing mindfulness and spiritual growth.
  3. Becoming a Teacher: Encourages sharing personal growth wisdom and making loving choices daily.

The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal (click here) explores the science behind self-control and provides strategies for enhancing willpower. McGonigal breaks down willpower into three components: the “I will” power to take action, the “I won’t” power to resist temptations, and the “I want” power to stay focused on long-term goals. The book discusses how factors like stress, sleep, nutrition, and decision fatigue can deplete willpower, which is a finite resource. McGonigal offers practical techniques such as mindfulness, exercise, proper nutrition, and if-then planning to boost willpower, manage cravings, and build habits that support achieving personal goals.

The Stoic Challenge by William Irvine (click here) offers a modern take on Stoic philosophy, providing practical strategies for turning setbacks into opportunities for personal growth. Irvine emphasizes the Stoic idea that our responses to events, not the events themselves, determine our happiness. He introduces the concept of viewing obstacles as “Stoic tests,” which can help us build resilience and maintain tranquility. The book covers techniques for re-framing challenges, practicing negative visualization, and focusing on what is within our control. By adopting a Stoic mindset, Irvine argues, we can better handle life’s difficulties and cultivate a more fulfilling and serene life.

The Resilience Project by Hugh van Cuylenburg (click here) explores strategies to build resilience and improve mental wellbeing through three core principles: Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness (GEM). Drawing from personal experiences, his work with disadvantaged communities, and scientific research, van Cuylenburg shares practical techniques for cultivating a positive mindset and coping with life’s challenges. The book emphasizes the importance of appreciating what you have, understanding and sharing the feelings of others, and staying present in the moment. By integrating these principles into daily life, van Cuylenburg aims to help readers develop greater resilience, enhance their mental health, and lead more fulfilling lives.

The Mindful Day by Laurie Cameron (click here) provides practical guidance on incorporating mindfulness into daily life. The book is structured to help readers integrate mindfulness practices into their routines, enhancing their wellbeing, productivity, and relationships.

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (click here) explores the nature of creativity and offers advice on how to live a creative life. Gilbert encourages readers to embrace their curiosity and tackle their fears to unlock their creative potential. She emphasizes the importance of perseverance, courage, and playfulness in the creative process. The book is divided into six sections: Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust, and Divinity, each addressing different aspects of the creative journey. Gilbert shares personal anecdotes and insights to inspire readers to pursue their passions without being paralyzed by perfectionism or external judgments. Ultimately, “Big Magic” is a motivational guide to embracing creativity with joy and openness.

Indistractable by Nir Eyal (click here) explores strategies for managing attention and minimizing distractions to enhance productivity and achieve personal goals. Eyal identifies internal triggers (emotions and thoughts) and external triggers (environmental cues) that lead to distraction. He offers practical techniques for becoming “indistractable,” such as:

  1. Master Internal Triggers: Understand and address the emotional drivers of distraction.
  2. Make Time for Traction: Schedule time for important tasks and stick to it.
  3. Hack Back External Triggers: Modify your environment to reduce interruptions.
  4. Prevent Distraction with Pacts: Use precommitment strategies to stay focused.

Eyal also emphasizes the importance of nurturing healthy relationships and creating an indistractable work culture. The book combines psychological insights with actionable steps to help readers take control of their attention and achieve their long-term goals.

Atomic Habits by James Clear (click here) is a practical guide to building good habits and breaking bad ones. Clear emphasizes the power of small changes, or “atomic habits,” in creating remarkable results over time. He introduces a framework for habit formation, focusing on cue, craving, response, and reward. Clear discusses how to make good habits attractive, easy, satisfying, and immediately rewarding, while also breaking down the process of habit stacking and environment design. Throughout the book, he shares scientific research, real-life examples, and actionable strategies to help readers transform their habits and achieve lasting change.

The Science of Well-being

The Science of Well-being (click here) is a course instructed by Dr Laurie Santos. She will help you gain skills in gratitude, happiness and meditation. During your journey, you will engage in multiple challenges, all designed to improve your well-being by increasing your happiness and developing positive habits. If you want to enrol in this course, click here for more.