Adding joy to your life

As people across the UK return to work and school today, this particular Monday morning may be a tough one for many. And if you are prone to low mood, or just going through a hard time, every morning might feel like a challenge. Sometimes it's hard to find happiness or joy in our daily lives – everything can look a bit bleak and gloomy. If this sounds familiar to you, why not try this simple mindfulness technique, which helps us realise that there are countless opportunities for pleasure, satisfaction and joy on any given day. 

This technique is taken from The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness, by Mark Williams et al. It's a wonderful book and the perfect introduction to mindfulness, especially if you would like to use MBCT (mindfulness-based cognitive therapy) to combat depression or any other form of persistent unhappiness.

It's called the Pleasant Events Calendar and simply involves keeping a record of pleasant events throughout the day, however small or seemingly insignificant. For each event, the authors suggest answering the following questions:

•What was the experience? (eg seeing a burst of sunlight on the autumn leaves)

•How did your body feel, in detail, during this experience? (Feeling of lightness in the chest and head; corners of mouth lifting upwards in a smile)

•What thoughts or images accompanied this event? ('Autumn is wonderful'; 'They are so beautiful' (the trees and leaves))

•What moods, feelings and emotions accompanied this event? (Pleasure, happiness, contentment)

•What thoughts are in your mind now as you write this down? (I was upset about summer ending, but I've remembered autumn can be wonderful too – there's no need to be so gloomy!)

Try this every day for a week and, hopefully, you will realise that every day is full of potential moments of pleasure and joy – the world is incredibly beautiful if we just remember to stop and appreciate it. It's also a good reminder that some of life's greatest pleasures are in the sensory experience of nature, a delicious meal or the bubble of a child's laughter. All the things we can easily miss when our mood dips and happiness seems so elusive.

Best wishes,

Dan

Tags: CBT, Chronic worrying, Depression, Happiness, MBCT, MBSR, Mental wellbeing, Mindfulness meditation, Negative thinking