Think happy thoughts!

0:02 A listener production. Welcome to series two of Crappy to Happy. We are so excited to be back and thank you so much for tuning into the first series listening to us. And we have had a wonderful response. So many questions come through, haven't we casts? We sure have. We're super excited to be back in the studio. We have had an amazing response, and yeah, like you said, lots of people asking for more and asking us. To go deeper into some topics. So we're really excited to have the opportunity. Yes, and we've looked at those top topics that you guys have reached out and said, we want to know about this, and we've put together a whole series based on those topics and we're going to talk about them.

0:47 So thank you so much for the wonderful suggestions. I am Tiffany Hall. I'm a trainer, I'm an author. I am the founder of tifxo dot com, a fitness and weight. Loss website, and I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist in private practice. And i am the resident psychologist on tivxso dot com. And I teach meditation and mindfulness and run courses on happiness and well being. Cas What is Crappy to Happy All about? Crabita Happy is a show where we give you simple tools and tips and strategies to help you live a healthier, happier life. So you're a trainer, I'm a psychologist. We cover all things mind and body. In season one we covered off the cult of busy, dealing with emotional eating, self sabotage, and now in season two, we've got a whole bunch of brand new topics.

1:39 Life after a baby, very relevant to you right now, aging gracefully more relevant to me? No, no, and things. Like positive thinking, mindfulness, whether we need a digital detox, I don't know what I want to do when I grow up? All these questions, life questions. It's so helpful. Yeah, really common topic that come up all the time. Okay, so, without any further ado, let's get into topic number one, thinking happy thoughts. Does positive thinking really work? Please? Cast kick this one off. This is a great topic. It is a topic very close to my heart and obviously perfect for a show called Crappy to Have It. Yes, So, there is a lot of research now that supports the fact that the more positivity you have in your.

2:26 Life, the better off you. Will be WHI I'm talking about positive thoughts and positive feelings. I want to say, though, I think we all know that, and this is where positive thinking comes under attack a little bit, like it's not possible to be always positive all the. Time, Thank you, cas, because I'm sitting here right now with a broken ankle and I am feeling so not positive about it right and I want to know is positive thinking going to help me get through this injury? Is it going? Short answer, yes, absolutely, And I think those people who are really positive all the time mostly we want to punch them in the face. Yeah, there's positive and then there's diluted. So that's really annoying, okay, And in fact, yeah, that's that's true. We can't be too positive, but we're not about putting sunshine and smiley faces and rainbows.

3:15 Over all of the you gotta be realistic, exactly, over. All of the negative and the terrible things that happen in life. The truth of it is, though, and there has been some research about this, that when we talk about happiness, if we sort of water the whole positivity thing down into happiness, which is all covering good of a word that a lot of our happiness comes down to our intentional thoughts and activities, not our life circumstances. In fact, there's some research and I think this has been disputed a little bit, but generally speaking, there is still some evidence that says so roughly half of our temperament, basically our general happiness comes down to our biology, and of the other half, forty percent is directly attributed to how we think and how we behave Only ten percent is attributed to your circumstances in life. So that includes whether you're single, married, what sort of a job you've got, whether you've got a job or not, whether you have got kids, how much money you make, where you live.

4:18 All of that has very little to do fascinating, So it's only ten percent, yeah, which doesn't mean that at any given time. If you're having a really bad day because you've got a broken ankle. That's very relevant to you right now. But in the scheme. Of things, if you were to suffer extreme misfortune today, or if you were to win the lotto today, basically in twelve months time, your happiness would be pretty much the same as what it is today. So after an adjustment period, after that sort of settling into or the initial shock or the joy or the whatever it is. Of that new thing, good or bad.

4:58 Then you generally kind of hover back to a certain happiness what they call the happiness set point. Okay, so, but that doesn't mean that that happiness set point can't change. Cas. When you say you're predisposed to be a certain level of happy, what do you mean by that? So? I guess that generally that means you your genetic predisposition is you're the temperament that you're born with. You know, so we can see even with. Little kids, some who are more quite shy, introverted some and more extroverted outgoing, we have a genetic predisposition which is like our hereditary basically our biological hereditary. You know, we can be predisposed to things like anxiety, if there is a family history of anxiety, depression, if there's a family history of depression. It doesn't mean that you're predetermined to have those things. It just means that you may be more at risk because of your genetics, the same as you might be predisposed to diabetes or you know, lots of other family hereditary conditions. Having said that, you know, I would have to add in there a disclaimer that some of that stuff. If your mum and your grandma and your great grandma were all highly anxious and you end up being anxious, part of that will be to do with genetics, and part of it will also be with what is modeled to you. Yes, so what you learn from seeing in your family. So there's a mix of things there, but that's I guess that's generally what we mean by that genetic predisposition. Some people are a bit more optimistic, some people are a bit more pessimistic.

6:24 It's just the way we're. Sort of wired, okay, which is not to say and this is the important thing that you can't shift that. The question is, well, why would you want to shift it? Because some people will say those people who are the more pessimistic will tell you that they're the realists actually, and that all of this positive thinking is a you know, it's just a lot of rubbish and it's being idealistic. But what can you tell us about how being positive can affect you? I thought you would never ask. So there is research to show that people who are more positive, for example, are have less risk of hypertension, of diabetes and stroke.

7:05 People with who are more positive. Generally, they tend to cope better with stress and with adversity. We know that people I have to tell you about the Nun study. I will in a minute, that they live longer. They have a stronger immune system, sorry, a stronger immune response. So you know, you inject people with flu stuff and watch how well their bodies produce antibodies, so they respond better to stress and all to exposure to illness. They also tend to have lower risk of cardiovascular disease. And they you know, partly there's some correlational effects here too, because partly maybe they just live healthier lives because they tend to be more optimistic, so they tend to look forward to a brighter future, so therefore they take better care of themselves.

7:49 So there's all sorts of things that interact. So casts all these benefits. That's to do with. Your brain, right, the way you're having these thoughts and the thoughts releasing certain chemicals is. Changing now changes the biology changes your biology, It definitely does. It's the thoughts. The thoughts change your biology. Yeah, well, the thoughts impact your feelings. Feelings then loop back and impact your thoughts, and all of that affects your behavior, so it becomes a very self reinforcing and self fulfilling. And the same thing can happen with negative thoughts and negative feelings. Portisol and all those the negative hormones, and I know what that can do to you. Yeah. Now, remember we don't want to demonize cortisol, because some of it. Is we'll talk about that actually in another episode.

8:31 Yes, because the effects of cortisol can be positive and helpful. It's just if it's that overproduction, too much stress, too much chronic stress, and no relief. I want to tell you about this study which I heard about, which I love, and it's famously known as the Nun study. So groups of nuns when they were entering the convent, this is way back in the nineteen thirties nineteen forties, they asked them all to write a brief biography, so they had to write a story about themselves and their lives. So a lot of these nuns were entering the convent so as teenagers, maybe having come from homes where they couldn't afford to like they didn't go to school, or the family couldn't afford to look after them, so they would enter the convent and sixty seventy years later, some researchers started to analyze those biographies and looked at the ratio of the balance of positive versus negative kind of statements and phrases.

9:21 The way they described their life and themselves. They looked for particular words and phrases that reflected positivity versus negativity. The nuns who had, on the whole more positive words and phrases, some more positive outlook on life, on average lived seven years longer than the nuns who had more negative statements. The other thing is this was actually not even a study about longevity. This was a study about Alzheimer's. So they found that I don't remember the exact percentage, but many more of the nuns with the negative outlook were inclined to develop Alzheimer's in older age. So you know, they're looking at these studies now when these nuns are in their.

10:01 Six incredenties eighties. There's one particular nun who was a particular example who lived into you know, she went on to do these great things and make lots of contribution, had a strong sense of purpose. Her biography was very positive. What these nuns also did was they so this is how they know about the Alzheimer's as well, is that they donated their brains to science at the end. So this one particular nun who lived a very long, healthy life, she had, you know, had a great positive outlook, She had a strong sense of purpose. She donated her brain to science, and her brain had all of the physical evidence of somebody with late stage Alzheimer's in her life. She never ever expressed a symptom. She never had any of the outward like, you know, we know what Alzheimer's looks like, we know what dement she looks like. Her brain had all of the plaques that normally would say that this woman had Alzheimer's, but she never had a symptom of Alzheimer's. But that's basically saying that you can actually have the physical effects of a disease and not actually experience any of the symptoms of it.

11:05 So, Cas, what does that tell us about the power of positive thinking? Yeah, well, I tell it says a lot, doesn't it. But how we think affects not only how we feel, it affects our physiology. You know what. I'm so interested in this. As a trainer, my job is. To get the best out of people their potential. And I have seen in clients and through my community of people I train online that sometimes what I expect of them in terms of positivity and encouragement and telling them what I expect, sometimes they live up to that expectation, even despite you know, perhaps not believing in it themselves. And I did read that this was called the pigmalion effect, about what we expect from other people and from ourselves manifests itself in the world. So, you know, expectations become reality just from me infusing you with positivity and you believing in yourself. And it's something that I've seen time and time again in sports psychology and through training people.

12:06 And you know, growing up around Olympic athletes who were always into the positive thinking, and even in around healing injuries and rehab it has manifested and there has been a difference. So I've seen that myself. Absolutely, And the pig mailing effect is something that would you say is true would you psychologically? You know, So if we talk about the function of negative emotions versus positive emotions, the function of negative emotions is generally to have us avoid something that we perceive to be a threat or a risk, right, so therefore, when we are feeling negative or thinking something negative, we.

12:47 Focus in on that. We become consumed with that problem because our biological evolution, the way we've evolved, is to focus in on the threat. So we might if we feel fear, then we focus on how to avoid that thing. We feel angry, we focus on how we you know, fight that thing or whatever it is, And so that creates a downward spiral. But when we experience positive emotions, that is the opposite effect. It tends to and researchers have studied this that it opens us up to possibilities. It literally opens up our minds and opens up our world to a greater level of possibilities. We very much find what we're looking for. It's what you're talking about. Right, And so someone says to you, you can do ten push ups on your toes. You can do that, And then the client they say, well, if TIP believes I can do that, I can do it, And then they can do it even if they've never done it before in their life.

13:41 I've seen that happen. Yeah, it does happen. And different people will respond to that in different ways. Some people will be more inclined to respond to that in a positive way and to meet your expectation. And some people won't. Some people might shut down, you know, with the whole I can't. But this is where we have the power of choice, and this is where we have to remember that we do have a choice. Yes, the whole ratio of positive to negative thoughts is if you called up today, for example, and said, Cas, I can't do the podcast today, yes, And if my first thought was fantastic, I was really unprepared and I'm really glad to have this day off that gives me an extra day to prepare, I would have a whole different emotional response, and then I would go off and I.

14:27 Would happily prepare. If my thought when you said, Cas, I need to cancel, if my first thought was that's if she doesn't respect my time. You know, I was all organized for this, I've wasted my money coming to Melbort whatever, then I would have a whole different emotional response and my behaviors would all be different. Same that happened. That is relevant to every single thing, every single day. Everything we encounter in life, we automatically make meaning of it, and then that affects how we feel about it and that affects how we our behavior, our behavioral response. So oftentimes add the ways that we think and the ways that we make meaning and the ways that we interpret things are so habitual and so entrenched that we're not even aware that we're defaulting to this negative interpretation, defaulting.

15:11 And that's what I wanted to ask you, Kas, how do you break out of that? So then once you become aware this is more mindfulness is a great one, and we'll talk more about that. But as soon as you become aware that that's what you're doing, you can actually start to challenge those automatic thoughts that you have and start to shift the balance more to something that's more positive, or at least to question or loosen the grip I suppose on the power of your belief in the negative interpretation. You know, you can consider that there might be another possibility. Maybe Tiff really wasn't out to just sabotage me today. You know, you can actually put some space between you and the thought to open up some more possibilities. But that's what I mean about this choice point. We're all making meaning, and we can all choose to once we know what we're doing, we can all choose to view something with a more positive outlook for or a.

16:00 More negative one cas I can so relate to this right now. I saw this topic and we had prepared for it, but then this morning I thought, how am I going to talk about positive thinking because I'm not feeling very positive right now. I've broken my ankle and sure, a broken bone. It's not a big deal, but for me that means I can't work because my job is to film fitness videos. It affects my business, it affects me personally. I can't carry my five month baby. I can't pick him up, I can't walk with him. So the logistics of having someone at home the whole time to carry Arnold and change his nappy and pick him up out of his cot to feed him is very difficult right now. So I am trying to stay positive, but sometimes it's just a little bit hard.

16:42 Sometimes it really is. And I think that we're not about banishing all negative emotions. That is key, were not about being unrealistically positive, because there is space for the full range of human emotions. And in fact, the more we pursue happiness, the more we're there's research about this, the more people kind of desperately seeking happiness. I want to be happy all the time, the more depressed they are, So we're not about chasing happiness at all costs and the banishing negativity. You and I have talked about this before, because we actually have to be able to be able to tolerate and be able to handle the full range, and to be able to have their skills and the resources to manage difficulty like a broken leg, like lots of things. Lots of people experience really difficult, tragic things all of the time. But by changing the ratio, and we'll talk a bit about this afterwards, changing the ratio of positivity positive to negative emotions, we actually tend. It does tend to equip us with the skills to better handle life's difficulties. So it doesn't mean that you can't feel badly your ankle, It doesn't mean that we can't. You all feel bad at some point.

18:00 What we want to do is be careful about the balance. And I do find look and injury is one thing, physically being hurt and feeling restriction that way, but also I do find that being in the world at the moment, it can be a little bit hard and for myself running an online business. I'm open to every opinion in the world. Every opinion's come at me. For example, since having a baby, lots of opinions on parenting, on breastfeeding, on how to manage my milk, and everything has come at me. And that can be hard sometimes when you're surrounded by so many opinions in the modern world through social media. How do you stay positive when you're comparing yourself to other.

18:44 People, when people are weighing in on how you're living your life? Really good question, and you're quite right. We're bombarded with all sorts of reasons to feel crappy all. Of the time. Social media is only matter worse. And I find that social media feels a bit more negative than positive. There's research about that to in fact, the more time that you spend on social media can actually increase your anxiety and depression, depending on what you use it for. But yeah, there's some research about that. We're just generally busy and stressed and overwhelmed and there's a lot of crappy. Things and available available twenty four seven. Yeah, so I think it's a great question, and I think that after the break we'll come back with some strategies for how we can.

19:25 Tip the balance over into feeling a bit more positive. Welcome back to Crappy to hap you With Tip and Cass, we're talking about positive thinking. We've been chatting about how hard it can be sometimes to stay positive when life throws you a curveball and you're feeling a bit crappy. Now we're going to give you some tips and tools to feel more positive. So, Cass, where can we start? I think I'd like to start with first of all, when we talk about the balance. Barbara Frederickson is a psychologist who's done lots of research in this area, and what she has found from really decades now of research is that the magic ratio of positive to negative emotions, let's say, is three to one. That's what we want to be aiming for. So if you consider that our we all have a strong in built negativity bias, which I think you and I have talked about. If you have, we tend to default to focusing on what's going wrong, not what's going right. And so because we are inclined to focus more of our attention, focus more of our thoughts and therefore feelings, et cetera, on what's going wrong, then we want to consciously try to pull that back and shift it to deliberately, like intentionally focus more on what's going right, to shift that balance to a three to one ratio. Okay, So this means we're not about eliminating negativity, because that would be impossible and that would be counterproductive. But if you think about it in that way,

20:57 then sometimes the best way to shift the ratio is actually not even necessarily. While there are ways that we can focus on upping the positive and we will talk about that, sometimes the best thing you can do is actually to start to try to reduce the negative. Okay, for example, staying away from people who drag you down, you know, staying away from conversations which are gossipy, negative, sarcastic, you know, competitive, Yeah, competitive, people who are unsupportive. There's lots of negativity that seeps in that we can actually deliberately try to weed out, like to move away from, and by doing so, we're naturally then shifting the balance more to what's positive.

21:41 So cas we just have to stay away from negative people to shift the balance. Anything that's a negative influence, let's say, anything that adds more negativity to your life, that includes social media. There's a lot of advice out there at the moment to delete social media accounts that stop following sorry, social media accounts that make you feel bad about yourself. We don't have to watch the news three times a night and see all of the bad things that are happening in the world. Yes, So staying away from the conversations. You know, if there's gossipy conversation happening in the lunchroom at work, you can choose to remove yourself from it. Because of negativity breeds negativity, and all emotions are contagious.

22:21 Actually, so the more that you. Are with people and environments that are that kind of negative and toxic, the more you're going to absorb that, and that's going to directly impact you, and then you're going to take that and have that impact all the people around you. Yeah, you really do have to protect your energy. And I so believe in that the transfusion of energies. Ah, yeah, And it's fact. It's fact that we actually have mirror neurons which make us emotions are contagious. It's like when I yawn, you yawn, Yeah, Like we actually mirror the person in front of us, and we have this really powerful contagion effect with emotions, so we know if you're around somebody who's really down, how you feel and you know, so you want to support people, but you don't want to be dragged down other people's issues and problems.

23:07 Mirror neurons are interesting. Why do we have those? Yeah, they are interesting. I guess that's just part of our evolutionary biology again, because we are finally tuned. Our brains are finally tuned to pick up on subtle cues in front of us. So we needed to know as cave people surviving, we needed to know if somebody in front of us was a friend or a foe. So we'd pick those things up and then we would and you know, and you'd reflect that back to the person in front of you. So we pick up these subtle cues. Baby's born. I don't know if you did this with Arnold. When he's born, they they mirror back to you your facial expressions. Yes, he's just started to do that.

23:48 Well they do raspberries and yeah, lovey is gorgeous. But they do it from newborn, like they do it straight from the womb. So we are designed to tune into it to the people close to us, and to align ourselves socially with people account survive without a tribe, So we have to align ourselves socially and so that the mirror neurons are all part of. That amazing So cas, what else can we do to keep the positivity? Well, once we've successfully kind of weeded out some of those negative influences, then we can start focusing. On upping the positive. So probably one of the most beneficial, the most reported and activities that you can do, is to count your blessings.

24:31 So essentially focusing on what you're grateful for. It is an. Immediate mood booster, an immediate perspective changer. And I tell people, no matter how crappy a day you are having, there is always something to be grateful for. And that's true, It is so true. And this is something that my dad does. He has a journal sitting by the coffee machine and it's there for everyone to read all his good things, and he writes three good things a day whilst he makes his coffee, and they can be his wife's breakfast or mum making breakfast. He was grateful for. His blender the other day, for his genes, for the dog's temperament. You know, Arnie gets a mention, he's so cute. It's lovely.

25:13 It is lovely, and I'm trying to do that myself. You know. One of the things I'm grateful for with this broken ankle is that's forcing me to learn more about rehab and seated exercise for those who maybe are elderly or disabled or can't. There are plenty of ways you can do terricize and exercise seated, and I want to help people to learn how to do that. So I'm going to shift my training program to helping people to do exercise. Seated perfect because that's a great positivity and hands is to find the meaning and we'll talk about that in other shows actually, because finding meaning and having a sense of purpose is a great way to boost that positivity.

25:54 Okay. The gratitude journal is a really like it's a tried and true kind of tactic and it's used in lots of research studies, you know, getting people to write down the three things that they're grateful for each day. And what it does is it doesn't just in that moment, make you feel good, make you feel grateful, and shift your perspective. But what it does too is the more. When you know that every day I'm going to write down three things, you start to look for the things. Yes, so you start to shift your focus and shift what you shift your. Perspectives, training your brain with people. With depression, when they ask them to write down three good things that happens today, no matter how trivial you know, just getting a green light, or having a clean shirt to wear, something.

26:35 That spreshly washed spinach in a bag that was in my dad's story. There you go. Then what happens is they find it quite effortful at first when they're very, very down and very depressed. But what happens is after the second or the third day, then they start looking for the things because they know that they have to write it down. So it changes your perspective. Instead of focusing on everything that's going wrong, you start to look for everything that's going right. So the gratitude thing is a really good one, really big one. The other one is kindness, actually doing something kind for somebody else, And it can be as simple as paying attention or paying a compliment. It doesn't have to be going out and volunteering for a local charity, although that's great too.

27:20 They don't have to be grand gestures. They can just be small things. Noticing somebody's new haircut and actually, instead of thinking it, actually saying it to the person. And this outward perspective, like putting the focus onto making somebody else feel good, actually has the effect of making you feel good. That's a really powerful one as well. Gratitude and kindness. So, Cas, I'm just sitting here admiring your beautiful top today. You look so beautiful, and. I've written down three things and positive and I'm grateful for and you know what, my ankle's feeling better already. No, the power of positivity. The power of positivity. But in all seriousness, Cas, how long do you have to do this to see results?

28:05 How long? How long does it take to change your brain to retrain it to be more positive? If you're starting to talk about neuroplastics speak, then I guess these things would have to be not one offs, clearly, they would have to be things that you put into practice over the long term. Like I know a lot of the research about mindfulness and practicing mindfulness is another way actually that. You can change your happiness set point. And that's one of the strategies because what mindfulness does is it makes you more aware of your. Patterns and it also puts a little bit of distance. That thing about mindfulness is that it puts some space between you and all of the stories in your head. Yes, and so when you can start to observe them and just be able to say to yourself, oh, there I go again with my negative story, instead of believing every negative story you tell yourself, then that can diffuse some of that negative thinking.

28:51 And mindfulness over time. For a relatively short period of time, you know, an eight week course in mindfulness can can definitely improve your capacity to deal with stress and difficulty and things like that. Yeah, okay, so a lot of the research is done on eight week courses. And the kindness it is so important. And you are in the Tifexo community all the time with our members and encouraging them to do these positive tools and strategies to implement them, and many of them do. And one of the things that I love in the community, if there's a ninja who is struggling, sometimes another member will pay for them to do the program. And that pay it forward has really taken off in the community where people are buying each other memberships and.

29:37 It's so beautiful. And I did read somewhere about how spending money on stuff doesn't so much make you happy, but spending money on experiences and sharing those experiences on I think it was called pro social spending. Spending on others and trying to help them can bring about more happy and positivity. So spending money on experiences over things, yeah, that's proven. But also yeah, they've done experiments where they give people twenty dollars and say you can spend it on yourself or you can spend it on somebody else, and the people who spend the money on other people report the greatest boost in mood and happiness.

30:19 It really does work, And with all this positive thinking, I do think it's very effective because at the end of the day, your beliefs dictate your efforts. So if you are being positive about a situation, say in my own world, coaching people to lose weight on it with a weight loss fitness program, if they believe they are capable. Of losing weight, then they put in more effort. But if they believe that they never lose weight, that it's always hard, that it's impossible for them due to hormones or thyroid or something. You know, then it's usually more of a struggle. So I do believe the more positive you are, the more effort you put in and the better result you will get. So there are lots of other things you can try. Actually, So one is spending time in nature. That's proven to boost mood. Now, I will say though on a nice day, so.

31:10 Whether really yeah, the sun vitamin D I get that. Well that yeah, So twenty minutes a day on a lovely day outside. We know that weather impacts mood. There's a something called SAD for like seasonal affect affective disorder, which is when people get depressed in the winter. So so you know, sometimes you can't help the climate, you know, the. Environment that you live in. But what you do have power over is on a nice day, you can go and spend twenty minutes outside or you can stay inside all day. And if you spend twenty minutes outside, that's a proven mood boost. And I tell you, as a new mum, the maternal health nurse kept saying to me, get outside, get outside. I'd be like, I'm too busy. I've got a baby and running visits.

31:50 But once I started to go outside in the sunshine for fifteen minutes with the PRAM. As long as I could muster, I did feel better. It makes a huge difference, Yeah, makes it huge difference. Here's one play to your strengths. This is actually a positive psychology intervention. Yes. I took this test online. Yes, so you can do it. This is about character strengths first. So this is like your not just like I'm good at English or maths or numbers or whatever. This is about what are my values in action? Yes, it's called the via strengths, which is values in action. So these are things like hope, determination, zest, humility. There's a whole list of them.

32:31 There's twenty four of them actually, and you can do this little survey online for free, or you can pay twenty five dollars to do the paid one. And it tells you. What your top strengths are and if you choose to engage in activities that play to your strengths, if you find opportunities to use the things that come most naturally to you, it's huge for improving your happiness and your I guess the word is flourishing is the word we use in positives like you know you're flourishing in life increases more that you use those strengths, and it also shows you other strengths. I love that nothing's called a weakness on this thing. Yeah, if there's twenty four and so whatever is at the number twenty four isn't a weakness.

33:11 It's just a strength that you could choose to develop. Yes, so they're on a spectrum. But if you know this. We all know this intuitively, don't we If we're if we're acting in ways or doing things that don't align with who we fundamentally are, if. It feels off and it feels wrong, yeah, it's a downer. So the more you can and it's great for teams actually to like teams at work if you know that people aren't just just annoying you, they're actually they've got a different strength. You can actually complement each other's strength, especially. With things like public speaking or whatever may come up. Leading a meeting. You can just improves relationships. So there's that ripple effect again, that improving that positivity outwards, savoring the good stuff. So mindfulness is about just being present to what's happening. We've talked about these, even if it's not pleasant, just being able to be present to it.

34:03 Savoring is when you deliberately focus on like sucking. Every bit of joy out of the positive. Moments, So being fully present to what you're witnessing, what you're experiencing, like being if you're looking at a beautiful sunset, if you're having a lovely cup of cove with a friend, not being on your phone. Actually I do this with the baby. Yeah, bringing your full awareness and your full attention into that moment, and you can actually savor not just experiences in the moment that that's great. You can also savor memories. You can relish a happy memory, or you can anticipate something really that you're looking forward to in the future. So that's a way to up your positivity kind of index as well. And easy and simple, easy.

34:44 Yes, So instead of shifting, you know, instead of focusing on all the things I've got to do and how blow I am and all of that, like, actually really savor the good things that are there to be they're there to be had. So there's just a few ideas about how we can actually shift that balance away from the negative and more into the positive. And obviously there's lots of reasons why that's a good thing to do. Yeah, there's plenty of positive benefits of positivity, and so there's heaps of great strategies. Thank you, cas. I was feeling pretty crappy coming into this podcast with my broken ankle, but already I'm feeling more positive about it, and I'm going to implement some of those strategies. Thank you. That was episode one of season two Crappy to Happy, And if you like the episodes and you enjoy the program, then please get in touch, give us a rating, give us a review.

35:29 We genuinely love to hear from you. This show is for you, so tell us what you think. Yeah, we want to help. Next up, we're talking mindfulness one oh one, the real basics of mindfulness and meditation. Thanks for being with us. We'll talk to you soon. Crappy to Happy is presented by Cash Done produced by David Vilenski, Audio production by Darcy Thompson. Listener