I Just Want A Hug

What is it about hugging that makes us feel so good? We all know that we feel better, happier, more relaxed, and sometimes a little amorous after a hug, but why is that?

The physiological reason is that when we hug, it stimulates oxytocin. Oxytocin is one of the many neurotransmitters in your brain and acts on your limbic system where our emotions are housed. 

In simple terms, when we hug we form an immediate social bond which connects us to other people. In countries where people hug a lot, there is recorded lower heart rates and cortisol levels. As you will know, cortisol is released into our blood when we are stressed.

Additionally, hugging causes other 'feel good' chemicals to be produced such as serotonin and dopamine. The nervous system is also ‘balanced out’ when we hug, whatever that means.

Women know the benefits of hugging. Look around you, you will often see women hugging each other when they first meet, when they share a story, when they enjoy what was just said, when they laugh, and when they say goodbye. It is not uncommon for women to hug each other at least three times when they meet and chat.

Men, we shake hands from a distance. Can’t get too close, don’t what people to think that we are soft now do we? We might come in close for a shoulder touch but will always slap the other person's back just so that it looks like we aren't hugging or exchanging emotions. Can't have that, we make it look like a shoulder charge on the footy field to cover up our natural urge and response.

Men could do with hugging men more often. In countries where men hug men such as India, there are lower rates of stress, depression and emotional problems. And it's not just because they have other things to worry about, because they actually don't. Most are content with their lives whatever that is. You will see men walking hand-in-hand as we used to do many years ago.

A cautionary note – men hugging men is a good thing, men hugging women can be okay, men hugging women after a couple of drinks is probably in dangerous territory and should be used with the upmost discretion. A couple of glasses of alcohol, a hug, and the next thing is the man thinks that she loves him. She doesn't you fool, hug goodbye and leave immediately!

If you can't control yourself, stick to hugging animals.

Link Your Emotions To Your Goals

I recently read a book authoerd by Dr Kerry Spackman titled The Winner's Bible. It discusses ways in which to rewire your brain. What resonated with me and with my work is that if you link emotions to goals, there is a greater chance of success.

Yesterday I posted on visualisation and how, if done alone, it doesn't work. You actually need to do something physical to accompany the visualisation. Similarly, taking physical action alone may not be all that is required to achieve your goal. (Although you might get there eventually).

The third part of the equation is what I term drive. So how do you gain drive, you use visualisation and link emotion to it. When visualising, you need to engage your emotional brain. As Kerry points out "Deep emotions make you do things". 

Visualise time and again with engaged emotions (in your mind) see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, etc. By continually doing this you will end up with unshakable beliefs and a higher likelihood of success. And I don’t mean spend half your life doing this, just whenever you feel that your brain has an ‘opening’ from the constant barrage of noise, send it a message.

Here's an analogy I use to describe in practical terms how emotions impact on your mind. Try and recall a training session that you attended outside of your workplace. If it was over 3 months ago I bet you can't even remember the title of the session let alone what was discussed or what you learnt.

However, I guarantee that you will remember where it was held and the lunch. Why? Because you had difficulty locating the venue so your emotions were engaged to ensure that you weren't late. You remember the lunch because your senses were involved while you were eating, smell, taste, etc.

That's how it works, engage as much of your brain (mind) as you can when visualising success and you will achieve your goal much faster. 

If you had asked me about this 15 years ago I would have said that you just need to get on with it, you don't need to visualise anything. I would probably have also said that you need to go and see a psychologist because you were mad. I was wrong on both counts.... 

This stuff really does work.

Does Visualisation Work?

The answer is simple, no and yes. No - visualisation by itself does not work. If it did all of us would have the job, house, and life that we dreamed of. (Sorry to those of you who read the book The Secret and believed it was true.)

Yes, research tells us that if you use as many of your senses as possible when seeking a goal, you have a higher chance of success. The entire answer centres on the mind and body working together, your psychology and physiology.

And, this is also the quickest way for your wellness to deteriorate or to repair yourself when you are in the mire.  Here's how it works.

When we worry about something, guilt and regret being the most intense things to worry about, our brain starts to focus on nothing else. We tend to lose sight of reality, everything becomes exaggerated, and we just want to cuddle up on the couch while we try and figure things out. The last thing that we want to do is exercise, the one thing that can actually help us in this time of worrying.

As our brain focuses more and more on what we are worrying about, we curl into a ball, we go into the foetal position. This is caused by your bodies fight or flight response. Don't worry, (as if you need more things to worry about) you aren't becoming a baby, you are simply protecting your vital organs - the heart and lungs.

Exercise alone won't help you if you are too deep in the mire, but it can help if you exercise early enough. Research tells us that exercise has extraordinary benefits for the mind and body. (Maybe I will post on this topic tomorrow).

The other thing that you need to do along with exercise is to visualise. Use your brain to focus on the future without worry, to see yourself being as happy as you once were, to distract yourself from worrying. Importantly, to take the focus away from guilt and regret.

Eastern culture has known this since forever (slight exaggeration), they know that the mind and body are inextricably linked. They know that visualisation by itself doesn't work, you actually need to do something.

Bottom line, when you are in the depths of guilt and regret; forget what you have done, get off the couch, do something physical like go for a walk, think (visualise) yourself in a better place, and move forward.

It works, trust me on this. If it can work for me it can work for anyone because I was the biggest sceptic on this ‘stuff’.

Smile!

You've heard it before, 'When things go bad, just smile', 'A smile makes a big difference', 'It takes less muscles to smile than it does to frown', 'A smile will make you feel better'. But are these sayings actually true, does smiling really make a difference to your mood?

Science tells us that smiling releases neuropeptides (neuro = nervous system), those things that change our mood and help fight off stress.  Additionally, the 'feel good' neurotransmitters called dopamine, endorphins and serotonin are all released when you smile. This helps to relax your body and lower your heart rate and blood pressure.

Endorphins also act as a natural pain reliever and the release of serotonin works as mood lifter. So why wouldn't you want to smile just from what neuroscience tells us?

My interest is in the customer service industry. When a customer consultant smiles, they not only feel better and react better, the customer feels the same way. It's a bit like a yawn, experiments by psychologists reveal that a smile is infectious.

If you smile, others around you will smile back most times and they get the same benefits as you do. Plus, it is hard to get angry at someone who smiles at you. (Don’t smile at someone who is already angry, you will just inflame the situation.)

So how does this work? It takes about the same amount of muscles to smile as it does to frown, in fact a study of anatomy will tell you it takes around eleven muscles to frown and twelves muscles to smile. Sorry to debunk that myth.

The muscles used to smile are so unique that your brain recognises the effort involved in putting a smile on your dial. And because you always smile when you laugh, the muscles become associated with happiness. So, it works in reverse, you smile and your brain ‘thinks’ that you are happy and will release all that fell-good stuff.

There you have it, four hours of research on neurology, psychology and anatomy by me to tell you what you already knew, smiling will make you feel better and will make those around you feel better.

For those people who don't have a reason to smile or can't force a smile on their face, place a pencil sideways across your mouth. This will use the same twelve muscles associated with smiling and your mood will lift. Just don't do it in public. 

Just Flick It

You may have heard it before, but I think that it is worth repeating. One of the fastest ways to change a bad habit is to wear a rubber/elastic band around your wrist and flick it whenever you catch yourself doing something that you want to change.

Habits are formed over time and become so ingrained in our brain that they become 'normal'. The longer that you have had the habit the harder it is to change or eliminate it. 

It can take up to 80 days to change a habit, particularly if it is a life-long one. I don’t know who came up with the theory that it only takes 21 days to change a habit, if it was that easy we wouldn’t have any bad habits would we?

Because it is so hard to change a habit, we often give up before the new habit is formed. Or, we change something related to the new habit far too early and haven’t allowed enough time for the new habit to form because we think that what we are doing isn’t working fast enough.

If you change just one thing associated with the new habit, which is just a pattern of behaviour, it is like starting from day one again. It is important to stick with what you started for as long as you can.

However, I found that using the rubber band technique can speed up the process of change. The downside, there's a bit of pain involved. The amount of pain is up to you…

The idea is to flick the rubber band on the inside of your wrist, this area is very sensitive to pain. The pain caused by flicking the band changes your pattern of behaviour as the pathways formed from the previous repetitive habit is disrupted. Each time you flick the band the brain no longer follows the same pattern, it is too busy trying to hide from the pain!

I used this technique when I was going through a bad patch continually having negative thoughts. The more I thought about the same bad thing the harder I flicked the band. Sometimes I would end up with a red welt on the inside of my wrist but I tell you what, I soon stopped having those negative thoughts.

This technique took three months to work for me and 16 years later I now only have to touch the inside of my wrist with the tip of my finger and my mood changes immediately to a positive one. I guess the brain is worried that it is going to feel pain if it doesn’t cooperate.

Try it for yourself, just be a little gentler with yourself than I was.