Category: Happiness

The Home Of Happiness
What’s the most important step in the process of becoming happier? It’s the first step. The first step towards happiness is to decide to be happy. On these pages I’ll be explaining that first step and all the other techniques by which you can become happier.
Your comments are welcome.

A Merry XXXmas!

If you had to choose between food and sex, which would you go for? I pose the question because, as regular readers of my blog will know, there does seem to be a trade-off. Revel in food and the resulting spare tyre means you can’t revel in sex as much as you would have done.

Probably the worst time of the year for sex, then, is the Christmas/New Year holiday. Which means that all the sexy underwear from Father Christmas is going to waste. Christmas just isn’t a very good time for the art of love. There’s all that shopping, wrapping, cooking and cleaning, not to mention the guests in the spare bedroom. And, of course, the overeating.

Research by Carnegie Weight Management suggests the typical Christmas lunch with all the trimmings would have amounted to about two thousand calories. Add in breakfast, supper, drinks and snacks during the day and plenty of revellers would have downed as much as four thousand or even six thousand calories.

Just to remind you, there’s a theory that if the ratio of your waist to your hips exceeds 0.9 for a man or 0.85 for a woman then your sex drive and performance will be compromised. Well, I’ve been testing this out. And after a bit of a struggle I finally got down to the magic ratio on Christmas Day. That’s to say my waist measures 84.5 cm and my hips measure 94 cm, and dividing the former by the latter produces 0.899.

It was actually harder than I thought it would be, because as you lose weight around your middle you also tend to lose it around your hips, so the ratio doesn’t change that much. You have to do something to build up your thigh and buttock muscles and in my case it was cycling. And on Christmas Day itself a touch of snowboarding.

So has it worked? Well – and I’m trying to be scientific here – I think it has. Not that I exactly had love handles the size of elephants’ ears anyway. And, of course, the effects of these kinds of things are fairly subtle. Sex drive and performance are not constants and it’s not always easy to work out what was the cause of any change.

All I can say is, give it a go. Put that Christmas lunch firmly behind you and resolve that in the New Year those love handles will be no more.

Meanwhile, if any of you have stories or data on the relationship between your sexual prowess and your waist:hip ratio please share them with us by clicking on ‘comments’. Or, indeed, if your sex drive suffered (or increased) when you put on weight that would also be interesting.

So which will it be for you? Food or sex? Which makes you happiest? I’ve made my own decision. I’d rather have more sex and less food, rather than the other way around. So my own Christmas lunch was muesli eaten out of a plastic pot in the car park of my nearest ski station. I was about to write that sometimes you have to forego a pleasure in the search for a greater happiness. But, actually, it’s not true. The muesli was great!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and I wish you a 0.9 (or 0.85) New Year.

Leveson and happiness

In the same week that we had the Leveson report on the British ‘press’ we also had the Rory Peck Awards for freelance journalists. They are the men and women who risk their lives, without even a salary, to expose the terrible things that are going on all over the world. So it’s unfortunate that everyone in ‘the press’ is being tarred with the same brush. Award winners like Alberto Arce and Ricardo Garcia Vilanova from Spain, who took the features prize for a self-funded film about rebel fighters in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata, are not the same kind of ‘press’ as the men and women who sit in their cosy tabloid offices and make up stories about celebrities.  Mani, the French freelance photographer and film maker, who won the news award for his report on the shelling of Homs in Syria, is not that kind of ‘press’ either. Nor is Daniel Bogado of Britain who won the Sony Impact Award for his film on the fighting between government troops and civilians in the Sudan. Nor was Rory Peck himself, a freelance cameraman who was killed in Moscow in 1993.

There are journalists, men and women, who risk their lives to make the world a happier place. They should not be damned for the mistakes of people who are not real journalists at all.

But why is it that there are so many people, not just in the ‘press’ but in the media generally, who don’t want to make the world a happier place? Why, in fact, do so many wealthy producers, directors, actors and writers do things to make the world a worse place?

The US Academy of Pediatrics has said this: ‘More than one thousand scientific studies and reviews conclude that significant exposure to media violence increases the risk of aggressive behaviour in certain children, desensitizes them to violence and makes them believe that the world is a “meaner and scarier” place than it is.’

Why put time, effort and money into violent films and video games that have no actual benefit to anyone – other than those who take the paycheques?

If you’re already a very rich, successful producer, director or actor, why not use that position for doing something good in the world? Why not makes films and video games that are uplifting? Why not make films and video games that make people more compassionate and more sensitive? Why not do things to make the world a happier place?

Pain, Happiness And Sex

My latest project is a book on pain relief. It obviously ties in with Help Yourself To Live Longer, first published in 2008 and with a new edition in 2010. But what does it have to do with happiness, a subject on which I write frequently? Quite a lot, actually.

The fact is, it’s just not easy to feel happy when you’re in pain. So dealing with pain is a sort of prequel to my book How To Be Happier, a new edition of which has just been published (Teach Yourself £10.99). Sex is a great way to make yourself happier, especially if you know all about prolonging it to increase endorphins, but it’s hard to feel sexy when your back is agony. (If you don’t know about prolonging sex you might like to read Have Great Sex or Get Intimate With Tantric Sex.)Nor is it easy to exercise, meditate or concentrate on changing the way you think.

If you’re suffering from pain but still keeping happy I’d like to hear from you. Just click on ‘comment’ at the top of this article and let us know what techniques you use. The book should be finished in January and published summer 2013.

Nobel Happiness Prize

Congratulations to the European Union for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s well-deserved. To explain why I quote the following:

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

No religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace…

 

Those, of course, were the words of the late John Lennon, who was assassinated in 1980.

All of the whingeing about the EU is symptomatic of why so many people aren’t happy. The reason is this. They focus on the negative and close their minds to the positive. And the thing they focus on the most is money. But even on that they’re wrong. In the years I’ve been living in Spain I’ve seen with my own eyes the tremendous rise in living standards due to EU membership. Spain joined in 1986 when per capita GDP (a good measure of living standards) was less than 8,000 euros at 2005 prices. By 2005 it was over 23,000 euros. In other words, there was almost a threefold increase. Incomes may have fallen back recently but most people are still far better off than they would have been without the EU.

Personally, I love the EU. I don’t regard it as being ‘ruled by Brussels’ because every EU country is a member of ‘Brussels’. But, to me, the EU isn’t so much to do with either politics or economics. To me, the EU means the freedom to set up home and work almost anywhere in Europe that I choose, to be myself in the environment that suits me. And what a wonderful ‘country’ the EU is, stretching from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, and from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. Who wouldn’t want to live in a country that includes the Alps and the Pyrenees and some of the world’s greatest cities? To me, the EU is freedom. And freedom is happiness.

How To Be Happier

I’ve just heard from my publisher that my book How To Be Happier has now sold over 50,000 copies. Okay, it’s not quite in the Dale Carnegie league, but it’s a significant number of books. And the fact that it’s the most successful of my self-help titles suggests there are a lot of people who feel they’re not as happy as they’d like to be.

I’m reminded of the board game Monopoly where you get given a certain amount of money right at the start. From then on you can sit on your money or you can make an effort to increase it. In real life, happiness is much the same. You start out with a genetic inheritance that gives you a certain level. That comes for free, as it were. If you want more you have to make an effort.

Where happiness is concerned, the first step is to make the commitment that you’re going to make happiness rather than, say, money, or power, your goal. You have to make the decision that you’re actively going to do things to make yourself happier (and avoid, as far as you possibly can, the things that will make you unhappy).

As to what those things are, well, the book is full of ideas. I don’t believe anybody could work their way through it, following all the practical suggestions, without being happier. If you’re one of the 50,000 I’d love to hear from you how you got on. Just click on ‘comments’ at the top of the blog.

Olympic Gold For Happiness

The Olympics have provided us with a fascinating lesson in happiness. We’ve seen athletes thrilled to win bronze medals and we’ve seen athletes devastated at winning ‘only’ silver.

The contrast between swimmer Rebecca Adlington and rowers Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase could not have been greater. Rebecca came third in the 800 metre freestyle and was clearly delighted.

By contrast Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase in the Lightweight Men’s Double Sculls were distraught at coming second. Spectators watched in amazement as the two men apologized for, as they saw it, letting everyone down. Even the BBC interviewer, confronted by the misery of the two men, was fighting to hold back tears.

Here’s what Zac Purchase had to say: ‘When you put everything in and you lose, there is no hiding place. We’ll spend days, weeks, months, the rest of our lives, trying to work out if we could have done more.’

This is a recipe for depression. There are nearly seven billion people on the planet and only one can take individual gold in any given event. Don’t bet your happiness against odds like that.

Stephen Covey And Self-Help

Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, has died at the age of 79. In his lifetime he is believed to have sold some 20 million books. And on the BBC’s Today programme this morning, businessmen Luke Johnson and Mark Constantine revealed that they both read and take inspiration from self-help books. Self-help books, it was pointed out, are an incredibly cheap source of both information and motivation. Quite right. So why not buy yourself a copy of, say, How To Be Happier or Have Great Sex or Get Intimate With Tantric Sex. Where else would you get so much pleasure for just a tenner?

Happiness, Money And Drugs

The unfortunate death earlier this month of Eva Rausing, wife of Hans Kristian, the Tetra Pak heir said to be worth 5 billion, suggests that fabulous wealth doesn’t automatically translate into fabulous happiness. She was found dead at home after her husband was arrested on suspicion of possessing Class A drugs. The couple, who met in drug rehab 25 years ago, were said to be taking a cocktail which included morphine, heroin and cocaine. Apparently, Eva had told a friend: ‘If I stay with Hans I know I will die.’

Ever since I wrote How To Be Happier people have been telling me that I’ve been missing something. ‘Isn’t it true that you need money to be happy?’ they say. Well, it’s certainly true that being unable to pay the bills causes a lot of unhappiness. And it’s also true that a bit of money on top to buy at least some of life’s more expensive pleasures – an annual holiday, a decent car, a modern kitchen – can make you very cheerful. But beyond that, there’s really no evidence that more money equals more happiness.

Certainly, with a lot of money you can buy a lot of drugs – and a lot of misery. According to a report in the Mirror, Eva’s family went so far as to hire an eight man former SAS surveillance team to try to prevent her buying drugs. But even they couldn’t stop her.

The list of the rich and famous who died from drugs includes Olivia Channon, daughter of the then MP for Southend West, in 1986; John Hervey who died penniless aged 44 in 1999, despite having inherited around 40 million; Radio Rentals heiress Jayne Harries; John Paul Getty III (grandson of oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty) who rendered himself quadriplegic and nearly blind after taking valium, methadone and alcohol, but lingered 30 more years. And there are many more.

Drugs are a big mistake. Never ever imagine they can be the solution to a problem or a fast track to happiness. Money is not a fast track to happiness either. If you’d like to know what is, you can buy How To Be Happier on Amazon.

Drugs, Wealth And Misery

Ever since I wrote How To Be Happier people have been telling me that I’ve been missing something. ‘Isn’t it true that you need money to be happy?’ they say. Well, it’s certainly true that being unable to pay the bills causes a lot of unhappiness. And it’s also true that a bit of money on top to buy at least some of life’s more expensive pleasures – an annual holiday, a decent car, a modern kitchen – can make you very cheerful. But beyond that, there’s really no evidence that more money equals more happiness.

The unfortunate death earlier this month of Eva Rausing, wife of Hans Kristian, the Tetra Pak heir said to be worth 5 billion, certainly suggests that fabulous wealth doesn’t automatically translate into fabulous happiness. She was found dead at home after her husband was arrested on suspicion of possessing Class A drugs. The couple, who met in drug rehab 25 years ago, were said to be taking a cocktail which included morphine, heroin and cocaine. Apparently, Eva had told a friend: ‘If I stay with Hans I know I will die.’

Certainly, with a lot of money you can buy a lot of drugs and a lot of misery. According to a report in the Mirror, her family went so far as to hire an eight man former SAS surveillance team to try to prevent her buying drugs. But even they couldn’t stop her.

The list of the rich and famous who died from drugs includes Olivia Channon, daughter of the then MP for Southend West, in 1986; John Hervey who died penniless aged 44 in 1999, despite having inherited around 40 million; Radio Rentals heiress Jayne Harries; John Paul Getty III (grandson of oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty) who rendered himself quadriplegic and nearly blind after taking valium, methadone and alcohol, but lingered 30 more years. And there are many more.

Drugs are a big mistake. Never ever imagine they can be the solution to a problem or a fast track to happiness.

Alan Turing, Sex And The Law

This is the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, the mathematical genius awarded the OBE in 1945 for the role he played in breaking German codes at Bletchley Park. But in 1952, everything changed for him. That was the year he was arrested for homosexuality. He lost his security clearance and, rather than go to prison, accepted ‘chemical castration’. Some two years later he was found dead from cyanide poisoning.

In 2009, the then prime minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government. Unfortunately, as someone else said, the only thing we learn from history is that we never learn anything from history. There is a type of person who becomes enraged by what other people do sexually in private. And, unfortunately, those seem to be the people who make the laws. People continue to be persecuted for things that have nothing whatsoever to do with governments.

The UK’s first sodomy law, ‘An Acte for the punysshement of the vice of Buggerie’, was passed in the reign of Henry VIII in 1533. The maximum penalty was hanging and confiscation of property – which conveniently allowed Henry to confiscate monastery lands.

Sodomy remained a capital offence until 1861 and the law against it wasn’t repealed until 1967. Around the world, about 70 countries still have laws against homosexuality. Places that have the death penalty for homosexual acts include Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Yemen, Mauritania, and Sudan, as well as parts of Nigeria and Somalia.

As recently as 1990, gay men in the UK were found guilty of assault and unlawful wounding after they had voluntarily taken part in sado-masochistic sex sessions, even though none of the men had needed medical treatment nor suffered permanent harm. Their appeal to the House of Lords was dismissed in 1993.

I don’t want to be thumped around during sex and I don’t suppose you do either, but what exactly has it got to do with the government? The government hasn’t intervened to stop people boxing, nor to prevent them taking part in extreme sporting events like the Iron Man, nor to prevent them having piercings. It’s something about sex that disturbs our legislators. I suggest they go to see a good psychotherapist.

If you’d like to say something on the subject, please click at the top of this article on the word ‘comments’.

It’s Never Too Late

Last weekend Arthur Gilbert completed his 41st triathlon, comprising a 500 metre swim, a 20 km bike ride and a 5km run. His time was a very creditable 2hr 47 min 22 sec – working out at about 1 kph for the swim, 5kph for the run and 17 kph for the ride. Creditable, that is, for a youngish, moderately athletic person. But Arthur Gilbert is not young. He’s 91 and officially the world’s oldest triathlete.

At the age when most people’s bodies cause them only discomfort, pain and embarrassment, Arthur’s is still bringing him pleasure and contributing to his happiness. And Arthur didn’t even start running triathlons until he was 68. Which all goes to show that it’s never too late.

Last year another 91 year-old, Charles Eugster, told the Guardian newspaper how, six years earlier, at age 85, he had looked in the mirror and seen ‘an old man’. ‘I was overweight, my posture was terrible and there was skin hanging off me where muscle used to be.’ He decided to do something about it.

The astonishing thing about Charles (pictured) was that he already went rowing six times a week. Many people might have felt disillusioned and given the whole thing up. Not Charles. He reasoned that he needed to do even more. He added bodybuilding, for muscle, and judo to ‘teach me how to fall properly’. At age 87 he went wakeboarding for the first time. In 2010 in competition, with some modifications on account of his age, he did 57 dips, 61 chin-ups, 50 push-ups and 48 abdominal crunches, each in 45 secs. He could easily pass for a man 20 years younger and there are bits of him that look 40 years younger.

Charles is proof that as you get older you have to do more, not less. For the past three years he’s added hypertrophy training, which means taking the muscles to the point of exhaustion. The result has been a 50 per cent increase in muscle strength. If you’d like to read more about Charles take a look at his website at http://www.charleseugster.net/index.htm.

Meanwhile, how am I getting on with the HIT (high intensity training)? Well, I’ve discovered that you really need an indoor cycling or rowing or cross-country  machine. Out in the ‘real world’ it’s too dangerous to take yourself to the point of total exhaustion, in the way I described in a recent blog. Falling off your bike on a road is not a good idea. But I’m getting as close as seems prudent. And I’m increasing my regular exercise – on Tuesday I cycled 17 km to the beach, swam, then cycled back again – and that included about 700 metres of climbing. I felt pretty pleased with myself – until I read about Charles and Arthur.

Depression And Exercise

You may have seen the reports this week that physical exercise is ineffective as a treatment for depression. Well, I don’t agree. John Campbell, Professor of General Practice and Primary Care at Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry at Exeter University, described it as a ‘carefully designed research study’. But was it?

Here’s what happened. Researchers from the Peninsula College, together with those from Bristol University, took 361 patients aged 18 to 69 with mild to severe depression, and divided them into two groups. Half were given the ‘usual care’ and half were given ‘usual care’ and, in addition, advised to take exercise. At the end of one year the two groups were assessed. Those assigned to the ‘exercise group’ were slightly less depressed but the difference was not considered large enough to be statistically valid.

So, if you suffer from depression, can you drop the exercise? Well, of course, exercise has other well-known health benefits, so that wouldn’t be a good idea on physical health grounds anyway. But the two big flaws in this study were, firstly, that it relied upon self-reporting of exercise levels and, secondly, that the ‘exercise group’ only did, on average, twice as much exercise as the others (assuming they didn’t exaggerate).

Now, most people don’t take much exercise. So testing the effects of doing twice as much is far from conclusive. Twice nothing is nothing. All that happened was that the ‘exercise group’ met PE trainers three times face to face and had 10 telephone calls. If I’d been running the trial I’d have had regular organised exercise sessions at, maybe, three different levels.

Now, it doesn’t take a lot of exercise to make a difference but it does have to be vigorous. For example, as I reported in my book How To Be Happier just eight minutes of exercise increases noradrenaline (norepinephrine for US readers) up to ten times, while 12 minutes increases endorphins five times, and 30 minutes almost doubles PEA. All these chemicals are mood boosters. But the research that produced these findings was conducted on people exercising vigorously, which is to say, at around 70 per cent of maximum heart rate. At that level you’d still be able to talk but you’d be puffing.

The researchers took the view that it wasn’t realistic to ask depressed people – possibly middle-aged, overweight people who didn’t normally exercise – to, say, get a bicycle and cover 20 miles a day. Fair enough! But that’s not a comment on the efficacy of exercise. All this study has shown is that ambling along behind a dog does little to combat depression. My advice is to ignore the headlines. Keep exercising. The more the better.