8 Scientifically Proven Practices to Well-being and They Work, I Proved it.
We all hear the word Well-being often now in our day to day lifestyle and all types of information to help us support our well-being, but what does well-being actually mean.
According to the Oxford dictionary it means:
While I think this is a pretty basic, but accurate definition I would say it is all of those things the state of being comfortable, healthy and happy.
I have had a passion for exercise, health and well-being from a young age, but I certainly wasn’t always healthy and happy, comfortable yes with a loving family, but not always comfortable with myself. In fact I was actually pretty unhealthy and unhappy for a long time and definitely uncomfortable with who I was at certain times.
It sure has been a work in progress but one I have always been willing to learn more about and have done for over a few decades now and I know I have changed through what I have learnt and implemented into my lifestyle.
I am in no way perfect and it hasn’t always been easy to make changes or keep up good habits but I am so much happier, healthier and comfortable for it and it is my aim now to tell people what I know and what actually works.
During the first lockdown in Australia back in March, my idea for what I would do with The Konnection Club started to evolve I had planned to do some events but had to cancel them. I might get a few happening at the end of this year.
I had been learning about the importance of social connection on our well-being for sometime but I decided to take it further by enrolling in a course called The Science of Well-being put together by Professor Laurie Santos from Yale University.
It has now gone onto become the most popular course at Yale, with the plan for it to be implemented as a more extensive course. It is available through Coursera online and is a free 10 week course. I highly recommend taking it, if this is something you might be interested in.
The aim of the course was for us to learn the science and practices of well-being not only for ourselves but also more broadly how they can be implemented in society.
What surprised me was that just after 10 weeks my levels of well-being improved. We took two baseline tests at the beginning and then again at the completion of the course. My happiness and well-being scores were actually not too bad to begin with however they did improve.
During the end of the course we were asked to pick one of the practices and implement it each day over a four week period and track it on an app. I chose Meditation which I had been doing for sometime but in this case I tracked it in the app and was more conscious of doing the practice each day.
At the conclusion of the course we took the tests again to measure our happiness levels. Mine definitely increased but what I was most blown away by was that the measure of loneliness increased significantly.
Even though I am single and spend time on my own I would not have considered myself lonely as I have a huge family and are engaging with people all the time. This was a huge shock to me but I was also excited as this has a huge implication for people. It had a huge implication on me as I suffered a lot of grief as a young adult that I felt burdened me for decades. It was during back then after my mum passed I decided that my happiness was the most important thing. Now I had evidence of the things that actually do work.
Many of the things we all know about include exercise, sleep, social connection, meditation and gratitude. I have included a number of these for many years as part of my lifestyle, and I knew they were doing me good long before I knew any of the science behind it, but now I have the proof and the confidence to know that these things I have been doing were all positive and purposeful.
The following practices are:
- Social Connection
- Using your Signature Strengths
- Gratitude
- Exercise
- Kindness
- Sleep
- Savouring
- Meditation
You are probably already familiar with many of these and how important they are to your own lifestyle and well-being.
Practices of well-being are just that, practices and a few minutes a day over time can make really significant changes. They also do need to be practiced it is not just enough to know, we also have to do.
After 10 weeks of implementing what we were learning with these practices which was our homework throughout the course each week I was able to see real changes that are based in science.
These are important topics I will be covering in more depth, touching on some of the science that make these practices so good for us.
Also with little tips to introduce some daily habits, that all go towards actually really helping better your well-being.
Let’s all make 2021 a year of well-being for ourselves, and others.
Adios Amigos (Goodbye Friends) (I learnt Spanish on DuoLingo during Lockdown!)
Kathryn Perez.