Christmas is over, those two weeks flew by and now you’re back at work. It’s cold, it’s dark, it’s wet and February half-term seems like such a long way away. Depressing isn’t it? Well, that depends on how you look at it. You see, if you are an optimist, you will no doubt look back over your holidays with some fond memories and be looking forward to some things coming up. Optimism is the belief that the future will be desirable and enjoyable and studies show that optimistic people tend to be healthier, happier and suffer less from depression. The good news is we can all learn to look on the brighter side of life more, and below are three ways that may help you on this journey.
Although our Christmas break may have been riddled with some stressful times, these memories can cloud out the many small pleasant and satisfying moments we also enjoyed. It’s important to savour the good times, no matter how small, and express gratitude for them as this primes our minds to believe that the future will contain more positive experiences like these again. Gratitude switches our minds away from dwelling on what we lack, to savouring what we already have. Research from Prof. Robert Emmons shows that these gratitude practices can help:
Shakespeare once wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” And he had a point. In psychological terms, changing our perspective on things is often called ‘reframing’. It’s when we consciously try to view an event from another perspective and, literally, see it from a different point of view. When we are able to exert greater flexibility with our thinking, it allows more room for the possibility that things may actually be OK (or at least better than we first thought!).
Ultimately, optimism is about the art of looking forward to things and believing that they will turn out well. So, it is important that we give ourselves ample opportunity to have things to look forward to. This is called ‘anticipatory savouring’ and it’s been shown to be good for boosting our wellbeing. Why not experiment with these ideas:
Adrian Bethune is a primary teacher, founder of www.teachappy.co.uk and the author of Wellbeing in the Primary Classroom. He tweets @AdrianBethune
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