‘’Positive health’’ is a field of study proposed by Seligman in 2008, which takes an innovative approach and aims to help people stay healthier, happier and recover more quickly from illness, by identifying ‘health assets’. Health assets are personal attributes that make it more likely that you will live a longer, happier life, have a reduced need for healthcare, and experience better outcomes when illness does strike. 

In the midst of the current Covid-19 pandemic, these ideas are more relevant than ever and working toward some of these health assets can provide an important contribution to your health and happiness. 

The link between positivity and good health

The suggestion to study ‘’positive health’’ came from a wealth of evidence that has linked positivity and attributes with well-being and good health! For example, researchers analyzed the diaries of 180 nuns and found that those who reported more positive emotions had a longer life expectancy. Incredibly the most positive nuns lived on average 10 years longer! Furthermore, optimism and positivity have been found to be protective against heart problems and strokes as well as being associated with less clinical diagnosis’ and increased longevity! In fact when looking at 120 men who had suffered from heart attacks, guess what predicted their chances of survival? Not blood pressure, cholesterol, or damage from the first attack as you might expect, but optimism! Of the 16 most pessimistic men 15 died in the following 8.5 years. 

Although it is not entirely clear how positivity leads to these better outcomes, the amount of evidence linking the two makes it hard to ignore the effect positivity has on our health and clearly shows that there could be some benefit to taking a more positive outlook. 

Health Assets

So what are some of these ‘health assets’ that can help you live a longer and happy life?

  • Optimism

Optimism is all about how we perceive things. As humans it’s very easy to take a negative perspective, in the past this was probably evolutionary advantageous when we had to watch out for danger. Instead practise positive self-talk and try to challenge your pessimistic thoughts with more positive and optimistic thoughts. Observe the effect this has on your behaviour and the outcomes.  

  • Supportive friends and family

It is important to surround yourself in friends and family who support and motivate you, in times of joy and distress. Just being able to talk about your problems with someone can provide a great sense of relief.  

  • A sense of purpose

Having a sense of purpose, and giving some meaning to your life, will give you a greater satisfaction in things you do and achieve. Try writing down your values, or create some ‘SMART’ goals, this can help make it clearer for you so that you can reach your goals. 

  • Exercise

Research has shown that regularly participating in moderate exercise can do wonders for your health.The equivalent to around 10,000 steps a day can already be a great benefit. There are many ways you can exercise such as running, yoga, swimming, whatever suits you best!

  • Self regulation skills

There is a wealth of evidence linking self-regulation with wellbeing in both adults and children, therefore is a vital skill. Self-regulation is about how you manage your emotions and behaviours, or ‘self-control’. Try challenging yourself to do something you don’t particularly want to, or delaying ‘rewards’ until you have reached your goal, for example not eating your favourite food until you have been running at least two times in the week!

Do you want support reaching some of your healthy lifestyle goals? Or are you struggling to keep ‘positive’? Click here for more information about online help via NiceDay.

When you encounter difficult situations or problems in your life, you often want to fix the problem. You look at the things that aren’t going well and what you can do to change that. You call this your problem solving ability. This is often quite effective in solving most problems, but what if a problem seems unsolvable? Are there any other perspectives, besides having to solve the problem? What if there is a solution that has nothing to do with the problem? Look at solutions instead of problems; this can be more successful than you think!

Solution-oriented approach to problems

When you look at solutions instead of problems, you focus on the things that go right instead of the things that aren’t. You focus less on analyzing the problem and the things you don’t want. Instead, you look at the things that make you happy, your strengths and the things that you do want. One might imagine that this will also bring along a lot of positive feelings. This approach is used during solution-oriented therapy, a treatment within positive psychology. You learn not to focus on the problem, but on the possibilities and the solution. You focus on doing things that already go well, whilst you use your strengths and resources to solve the problem.

How can you do this?

Naturally, you don’t have to follow solution-oriented therapy to apply this to your daily life. Take a look at the tips below to get started yourself!

  • Do more of what works for you instead of what doesn’t.
  • Look at what you do want instead of what you don’t want. So don’t say: “I don’t want to have mood swings anymore”, but say: “I would like to have a more stable mood”. This gives you a positive goal, after which you can ask yourself: “What is the first step I’m going to take to achieve this?”.
  • Think about the things that do go well. You can track this in a positivity diary, for example. This learns you to look at the things that go well, that you might want to do more often.This helps you to become aware of your strenght.
  • Think about the three of your personal aspects that have brought you where you are right now.
  • Ask yourself these questions:
    • What is already going well? What else? How did I manage to do this?
    • What do you want to do more of?
    • In what area would you like to see the biggest improvement?
    • What are you hoping for? What difference would that make?
    • Who or what would help you to reach your goal?
    • What is the first step you will take to realize the solution? And what is the second step? On a scale of 0 to 10, how close am I towards the solution?
    • Imagine your problem is miraculously solved this evening. What will be the first thing that will make you notice, tomorrow morning? What will you feel, think or do? Try to think about this!

Practice

With these tips you can make the first steps towards a solution-oriented approach of your problem. Try to regularly practice; e.g. set a reminder in the NiceDay app that reminds you to do this.

“Think about the solutions, not about the problems“

There are periods where we may have more negative than positive thoughts, which can cause us to have more negative feelings as well. We get caught in a negative vicious circle, and it can be hard to break out of. Can you use a bit of extra positivity in your life? Do you need support breaking out of this circle? Find some helpful exercises in this blog!

Negativity Bias

As humans we naturally tend to focus on the negative aspects of life. We call this a ‘negativity bias’. This was probably once, in the past, evolutionary advantageous when we would have to watch out for danger in the form of predators and disease in our environment and most days were a challenge for survival. However, it’s something we don’t really need in our daily lives anymore.

But this bias has generally stuck with us and we find it much easier to pay attention to and learn from negative things, rather than take into account the positives. For example, if you have received criticism at work, think about how easy it is to focus on this, instead of all the other good work you have done. Or, if it’s raining outside it’s easy to focus on the weather and what you could have done if it was sunny, rather than focusing on what is still good about the day.

Positive Psychology

This negativity bias has even permeated its way into psychological research, where the majority of research focuses on mental disease or ‘curing’ our problems and complaints. Positive psychology has instead tried to tackle psychology from a new perspective and focuses on prevention, our character strengths, and positive life experiences. So that we can move past merely ‘surviving’ to instead living a happy and fulfilling life.

It has also proposed and tested some exercises that can help us bring more positivity and optimism into our life. Below you will find a few of these exercises and how you can use the NiceDay app to help you complete them. 

  • The Gratitude Journal

The gratitude journal is one that has already briefly been mentioned in this blog. Research has shown that by regularly paying attention to small things in our day to day, that we otherwise might ignore or forget about, can increase our happiness! (Davis et al., 2016; Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006.)

Set a time everyday or at least a few times a week, to write down a number of things that you are grateful for. These can be very small things, such as ‘’I had a delicious breakfast this morning’’ to big things such as ‘’I passed my driving test today’’. Try to be specific and focus on the feeling it gives you when you remember it. 

A gratitude journal in the NiceDay app

  1. Open up the “Diary” tracker in the app and tap on the cogwheel in the top right corner. This will allow you to set a reminder to make a diary registration and set up how often this reminder occurs. (Here you can dowload the NiceDay app)
  2. Set the reminder title to ‘Write Gratitude Journal’.
  3. Open up the “Diary” tracker and fill in at least three things that you enjoyed or are grateful for. 
    1. If you are struggling to think of things: Try to imagine what life would be like without something that you normally take for granted. E.g. A hot shower, your favourite food. 
  4. Try to reminisce and reflect on these good things.

  • Savoring 

Society currently rewards ‘busyness’ and productiveness. For a lot of people, this makes it very hard to do ‘nothing’. Plus, through this it becomes easy to forget to savour and truly appreciate the pleasurable moments. Instead we focus on the next thing we have to do. Fred Bryant (2003) defines savouring as ‘’A mindful process of attending to and appreciating the positive experiences in one’s life’’. So, savoring involves putting deliberate effort into slowing down, appreciating a good/enjoyable moment and reflecting on it for a while.

Take a moment to be aware of the positive feelings that arise, be proud of yourself for your accomplishments and allow yourself to be happy! For example, after you achieve something, take at least 5 minutes to sit and reflect on that feeling. Or, savour the small pleasures in life! think of paying attention to the cool breeze on your forehead or enjoying the taste when you eat something sweet.

It is important not to do anything else but savour during these moments. However, It can also be helpful to reminisce later on these moments, to reflect and write about them in the NiceDay Diary. 

  • Strength based-life story

This exercise involves writing down your life-story, but purposefully taking a positive perspective. It is important that you take into account your strengths and talents, and in particular your achievements and the challenges you have overcome. Think about how you differ now in the present from the past. What has changed and what has improved? What are you currently struggling with? How can you use your strengths to overcome this? This exercise can help you develop a more positive self-image, become more aware of your strengths, and how you can use these strengths to reach your current goals.

Write your story in the NiceDay diary so that your professional can read and reflect on it with you, or reflect on it yourself!

  • One door closes, another door opens

Optimists choose to focus on realistic positive aspects, instead of focusing on the negative aspects of reality. Write in detail about a time when you faced rejection, disappointment or failure and what the result of this was. What opportunity was lost? Then ask yourself what opportunities arose as a result of this? What happened that you’re happy about that would not have happened if it wasn’t for this setback?  

For example in NiceDay diary write: 

  1. An important door that closed for me was:
  2. And the door that opened as a result was:

Try to come up with at least two doors that opened for each door that closed. After completing the exercise, reflect on how long it took you to realise that this door opened. Then think of what stopped you from realizing this.

NiceDay

Are you struggling with depression? Or finding it difficult to focus on the positive aspects of life? Practising with these exercises may help you become more positive. Are you looking for more help in dealing with your depression? Here you will find more information about treatment via NiceDay.

It is okay to have negative thoughts and feelings. Especially in a time like this, it’s not strange if you notice that your thoughts are often a bit more negative than they were before. But, maybe you have also noticed that these negative thoughts also bring negative feelings… and that’s not nice! I have good news for you: you can learn to live and think positively! Find some tips on how to do this in this blog.

1. Thoughts and feelings

To live more positively it is important to first take a look at your current thinking pattern. Negative thinking often happens subconsciously and automatically. The negative thoughts ‘automatically’ force themselves upon you. These automatic negative thoughts can cause negative feelings. To prevent you from feeling negative, it is crucial to become aware of your negative thoughts. Try to recognize them! When you do recognize them, you can ask yourself a few questions:

  • How much evidence do I have for this negative thought?
  • Can I look at it from a different perspective?
  • What would I advise a good friend / family member if they had the same negative thought?

By taking a good look at your negative thoughts, you’ll notice that it’ll make you feel differently. It often creates a less negative or even a positive feeling!

2. Reflect

Us people often tend to ignore our successes and focus on the things that go wrong. Why don’t we try to turn it around? So, what are you truly grateful for? What are you proud of? What compliments have you received lately? Write it all down and try and look at it from a different perspective. 

  • Tip: Buy yourself a nice notebook or gratitude journal. This might motivate you to continue to reflect on a daily basis.
  • Tip 2: Start your day with a little moment of reflection for a positive attitude.

3. Share

Share positive experiences, stories and ideas with other people. This is a good exercise to maintain your focus on becoming more positive. Talk to a friend, neighbour or a family member and exchange positive thoughts and stories. By sharing ideas and tips, you can learn from one another! Motivate each other to keep on going and support each other when things aren’t going well.

Staying positive isn’t always easy. Especially when there are things that you usually love to do, but can’t do anymore. It’s something we all go through during the current corona crisis. Everyone will recognize that you miss certain things; such as having a birthday party, seeing your family, planning a nice dinner with your friends, going to a restaurant or dancing in a club. Since there is not much we can do about corona, it might be useful to shift our focus to the positive things in life. How will positivity get you through the corona crisis? 

Negativity

Our brain easily focuses on the negative. This can be explained from our biological predisposition. A long time ago, it was very important that we remembered negative events, because it increased our chances of survival. For example, it was good to know which berry would make you sick or which snake infested areas you should avoid. Although most negative things in our lives right now don’t affect our survival any more, the mechanism still works the same. This often gets in our way more than it helps us.

Focus on positivity versus negativity

The down side of focusing on the negative is that it affects how you feel. If you tend to focus on everything you can’t do, you will soon feel very limited. Every time you can’t do something you’d like to do, you’ll be incredibly disappointed. This can make you feel down, anxious or sad and can get you stuck in a negative circle. Nobody wants that! Luckily there’s also good news; you decide what you focus on.

Focussing on the positive works the same as focussing on the negative; like a spiral. Once you start focussing on the things you can do or the things that are going well, you’ll start seeing more positive things. This will also make you feel better; you end up in a positive vicious circle.

An example

Person A focuses on the negative: “Because of this stupid pandemic I can’t celebrate my birthday the way I would like to”. Person B focuses on the positive: “I’m so happy that I have so many friends with whom I would love to celebrate my birthday, that is true wealth! As soon as I can, I’ll have my birthday party”.

You could imagine that Person A feels disappointed, sad and angry about the situation. She can’t celebrate her birthday the way she would like to. On the other hand, Person B will probably feel grateful, happy and connected.

Practice

Shifting your focus from the negative to the positive won’t be done in a single day. Below you find several exercises to help you with this:

  • Start a positivity or gratitude diary. Each day, write down what made you feel happy or grateful.
  • When something negative occurs, ask yourself the following question: “Am I missing any positive sides to this event or restriction?
  • Notice that you tend to give in to your negative feelings when something can’t be done? Try to realise that you are possibly focusing on the negative too much. Take the time to sit down and think about what could be going one. You won’t be able to find the perfect solution, but you might find a solution that meets your needs (having a connection with family or friends, having a good chat or having fun with others).
  • Spend your spare time on the things you enjoy. Read a good book, write a letter, watch a good movie, go on a run, take a bath or schedule a self care day!). This way, your spare time will at least bring you something positive.

We would like to feel happy, satisfied and good and some of us could use some extra help at this time. With the help of positive psychology, we focus more on strengthening things that are going well (strengthening the positives) instead of reducing complaints (reducing the negatives). How can you stay positive, especially in these difficult times?

Important aspects of positivity

Martin Seligman is a renowned psychologist and supporter of positive psychology. He has developed a model with 5 important aspects of well-being. These 5 aspects are  equally important for every person. It is good to take a moment to consider what is important to you. What is going well? What could be even better? If you know how the following 5 aspects are important to you and you act accordingly, it will contribute to your mental well-being and your happiness!

  1. A pleasurable life

In a pleasurable life there is room for fun, enjoyment and the experience of positive feelings. When we feel negative emotions, our perception becomes smaller; you can end up in a downward spiral. However, when we focus on positive emotions, we get a wider perspective; we feel more positive emotions and also attract more positive experiences. This makes us more flexible, healthy and creative. To what extent do you feel happy and satisfied? For example, what do you enjoy intensely? Having an enjoyable life is the icing on the cake: it is often a byproduct of achieving important things. If you want to spice up your enjoyable life, scroll down for some helpful assignments.

  1. The good life

You feel involved in your work, hobbies and relationships. The involved life is about what you are committed to. In the good life you use your strongest characteristics, this allows you to experience flow: you are absorbed in challenging tasks. The good life does not always go together with happiness because it is about strengthening your character (self) and qualities. You may feel growing pains, but you will eventually feel at one with your “task”. To what extent do you feel fulfilled in your work, hobbies and relationships? What are you really good at? Do you want to strengthen your good life? Then scroll down for a number of assignments.

  1. Having positive relationships

This is about having meaningful relationships with others. In positive relationships, you invest time and energy in establishing and strengthening relationships: happy people often have good relationships. To what extent do you feel a warm and trusted bond with others? For example, can your friends trust you? Do you take the time to pay attention to your friends? Would you like to grow in positive relationships? Scroll down for a number of assignments that can help you do this. 

  1. The meaningful life

This is not only about yourself, but also about something greater. Think of a good cause or an altruism that contributes to a greater cause, for example caring for others. The following points contribute immensely to the sense of “the meaningful life”: appreciation for beautiful things in life, gratitude, hope, humor and playfulness, religion or spirituality. Giving meaning takes away some boredom, it protects us against depressive symptoms and therefore ensures a better quality of life. Do you want to focus more on a meaningful existence? See below for a number of assignments that might help.

  1. Achieve something in your life

It is often said that you learn the most from your mistakes, but research has shown that you learn even more from your successes! If you want to achieve something and, for example, if you are being supervised, it is also important to reflect on what is going well and how you can continue to build on it. Achieving something also involves paying attention to what is going well. In addition, it is about pursuing short and long term goals. It is about having passion and dedication to stay focused and gain knowledge. We see that dedication and persistence is more important than talent. To what extent and how often do you have the feeling that you have achieved something? And do you pay attention to what is going well? Do you want to strengthen this? Below you will find relevant assignments.

To feel satisfied and happy, it is therefore important to focus on what is going well. Because by becoming aware of what is going well (with the help of assignments), you can force yourself to think positively, feel positive and behave positively. If you practice with it often enough, you will subconsciously be more positive in life. And that’s what you want: to become positive unconsciously!

Assignments from positive psychology

Have you read the above blog about ‘’How you can stay positive” and would you like to get started? Below you will find you some assignments!

Assignment 1: A pleasurable life

To work towards a pleasurable life, you can try the following assignments:

  • Positive Imagery: This involves thinking back to positive events. For example, reflect on three things you did today that are good for you. For example: “I had a healthy breakfast this morning, it felt good for my body.” And for example, instead of: “The sun was shining and it made me happy.” You can  think, “Because the sun was shining, I went for a long walk.”
  • A positive diary: write down three things every day that you are grateful for despite what is happening or has happened? For example, “Even though I feel a little uncomfortable now, I am proud that I honestly told my friend what was bothering me.”
  • Approach your time the same way you would a bank account: the time you have can be seen like a bank account. Every morning there are 86,400 seconds on your account. If you haven’t used it up at the end of the day, the seconds will expire. If you took this perspective, what would you do? Most likely you would try to spend every second as best you can.

Assignment 2: A good life

To work on a good life, you can try the following assignments:

  • Ask questions about a troubled childhood: Reflecting on the ways you survived your childhood struggles can help you feel more self-respect and pride. Think about: what helped me survive? What have I learned from it? How do I manage to have in my adult life what I missed as a child?
  • Positive imagery: write a letter from the future. A letter in which you write that things are going well, and what you did to get there. You can write about: what has changed? Who else is in your life? Which people have left?

Assignment 3: Positive relationships

To work towards having positive relationships, try the following assignments:

  • Spend quality time with you friends: When was the last time you actually interacted with your friends? When did you do something together? How can you give your friends more attention? Or what can you do to make new  friends?
  • Try not to worry about yourself: those who pay too much attention to themselves are unhealthier, feel more lonely and less happy than someone who thinks about others. Be there for someone else, it makes the other person and you happy!
  • Forgive someone else: if you are angry with someone it can give you a lot of stress (more cortisol production) and this can deteriorate your immune system. Anger is a normal emotion and it is sometimes necessary. However, try to control your anger, because anger often causes you more stress.

Assignment 4: A meaningful life

To work on a meaningful life, try the following assignments:

  • Find meaning in your day-to-day: Think of something simple and positive like complimenting someone close to you or doing a good deed like sending someone a card. You can also find meaning in the best, worst, and most common things. For example, during a crisis (such as Covid-19) people feel more connected to each other.
  • Expand and experiment with hope: discuss a problem that annoys you: how often does this happen? What exactly is going on? Why does it bother you? After you have this clear in your head, think about questions such as: what would be the most ideal situation? What are you hoping for? Will there come a time when the situation will be different? Have you felt hopeful before? Try to look at the situation in a humorous way: laughter reduces tension.
  • Take care of your body: watch what you eat, drink, exercise enough and get enough sleep. Take care of yourself!

Assignment 5: Achieving something in your life

To work on achieving something in your life, try the following assignments:

  • Name your successes, talents and ambitions: sometimes people say positive things about you, but you are not there to hear it. For example when you have passed away, or when a former colleague leaves your company. Together with your friends and family, investigate where your qualities lie and what they think is positive about you, to build a positive self-image.
  • Build a growth mindset: When you face challenges, making mistakes is inevitable. Nobody is too old to learn. What can you learn from someone else? This is a difficult topic, but it feels satisfying to talk about it.
  • Go for better instead of good: ask about what is going better instead of what is going well. For example: when your colleagues notice that you have better planning than you did before, see this as a nice compliment: you are growing!

These assignments come from the book Positive Psychology by Fredrike Bannink. This describes Seligman’s well-being theory in detail.

A few years ago I won a trip to New York. This inspired my sister; she also wanted to win a trip abroad! And it worked! In fact, within a year she won a trip to Florida, Lima and Valencia! You’d think that this is an actual miracle? But, that is definitely not the case! According to the Law of Attraction you can attract whatever you want. How that works? I’ll explain it in this blog!

Attention, focus and energy

To start, it is very important to be realistic. This isn’t about magic and you can’t just get whatever you want in life. When you buy a lottery ticket, of course you can hope that you’ll win the big prize. However, the chance that you actually will win it is 0,00002%; not a very realistic goal.

With the Law of Attraction it is about attraction those things that you truly want. If you put your full attention, focus and energy into something, chances are bigger that you will succeed. To achieve something you can teach yourself certain behaviour and habits. Take the example of winning the lottery. Just buying the lottery ticket isn’t something you put a lot of energy or attention into. You are waiting for a miracle that will make you win the big prize. When you decide that you truly want to win something, you can decide to fully go for it. You can put all your energy into this single goal and participate in every contest or lottery you can think of. When you do this, it’s highly likely that you will eventually win something! You increase your chances by putting energy into your goal.

How does this work in your brain?

You can try to understand how this works with neuroscience. Look at your thoughts as a big energy field. You cannot put your energy into everything at the same time, so it’s about what you choose to focus on. For example, when you learn a new language. It will be a challenge for your brain to get used to these new sounds. The more often you hear the language, the easier it will be for your brain to process it. By learning you train your brain.

Interaction between people also consists of energy. When you enter a room full of happy people, you can feel the energy and it can affect your own feelings. You can also turn this around; by feeling happy, you automatically attract happier people.

How do you make sure it works?

But how do you make sure that the Law of Attraction works for you? Take the following into account:

  • Think about what you want to achieve and try to visualize it. You determine your own thoughts! By properly thinking about what you want, you can focus on it.
  • The conscious and subconscious! Remember that your subconscious plays an important role in this. To a large extent, our behaviour, thinking, emotions and choices are influenced by our unconscious. It is therefore important that you feel the things you want from within and believe in them yourself. You will radiate this and you will then also subconsciously take actions to achieve what you want to achieve. E.g. If you would like to be in a relationship, you can consciously register yourself on Tinder. But, in your hunt for a partner, the unconscious plays a big role. You can unconsciously radiate what you are looking for to the outside world and act accordingly. If you have a very clear idea of ​​what person you are looking for, you will automatically respond more positively to someone that fits your needs. Then they will also respond more positively to you!
  • Give yourself time and stay focused. Some things need time, Rome wasn’t built in a day!
  • Take action to work on your goals. It is crucial that you keep putting energy into the goals that you want to achieve.

Conclusion

According to the Law of Attraction it is not about fantasizing about your dreams, or about sitting and waiting for a miracle to happen. It’s about truly thinking and understanding what you want to achieve. Then you can, consciously and subconsciously, put your full attention and energy into this. This is applicable to many situations; from a successful job to relationships or winning prizes. When we look back to the example of winning a trip, you can see that my sister put her full attention and energy into her goal. She looked for competitions everywhere and participated in everything. She fully focussed on her goal and increased her chances of winning a trip

A year later we wanted to continue our succes, and we dedicated the month of December to our goal. Every day we spent an hour participating in competitions. What happened? We were flooded with prizes; from AirPods to interior make-overs and gift cards. We even ended the month with a mini New Year’s Eve cruise!

Reading tip

Would you like to read more on this subject? The books The Secret and The Law of Attraction are both about this subject.

Every month there is a theme at the center of the NiceDay blog. The month of August this theme was “Vitality”.

Vitality: the energy to live. What ensures that you get more energy in life? And which things can you better leave out? For this theme we focused on all the things you can do to feel more vital; whether this is in the field of nutrition, work, or mental health. Would you like to read more about this? We have listed all recent blogs for you:

Do you sometimes feel that everything is just too much for you? Do you get upset about the smallest things? Too much tension can break you up and can have a major impact on your vitality. Psychologist Sandra Martens explains how you can look at your stress according to the bucket metaphor.

Difficult periods come and go: they are part of life. We don’t feel so good for a while, and that’s okay! In this blog I will give you a tip to stay vital in difficult times.

In the Netherlands, more than 1 in 3 marriages ends in divorce. As humans, are we made to stay together for a longer period of time? Love, relationships and our happiness therein play a big role in our vitality. In her blog, psychologist Maaike discusses the success of a long-term love relationship.

An important part of going through life healthy is exercise! Esther from 100% yoga shares some of her yoga videos and the best tips for beach yoga in the Netherlands.

Taking good care of yourself is important, both physically and mentally. It ensures that you stay healthy and vital, that you know what you need and that you can be there for others without passing yourself by. Do you want this too? Then read on!

The dark winter days are not pleasant for everyone; some people feel lethargic and suffer from winter blues. In this blog I will give you tips on what you can do against winter blues. This way you get through the dark winter months energetically!

While we are in the midst of a pandemic, it can be all too helpful to have a positive outlook on life. Working on a number of health pillars can make an important contribution to your health, vitality and happiness in a bizarre period. Read more about it in this blog by Martijn.

The new season has also brought new corona rules, and we will be working from home more and more. But how do you ensure that you stay vital, even though you stay at home a lot? Psychologist Alison gives some useful tips in her blog!

Do you have periods when you feel lethargic, get irritated easily and can cry about everything? It may have to do with the menstrual cycle, you can read more about this in this blog!

Anxiety, loneliness, insecurity or stress. The corona crisis can lead to more negative feelings. How do you stay positive in these times? It can help to keep a positivity diary to write down the things that are going well.

1 negative experience equals 3 positive experiences

We humans remember negative experiences better and longer than positive experiences. Our brain is shaped like that. When you try to remember things from when you were two years old, it is very difficult. Often the things you do remember are the bad experiences, like when you lost your parents in a big shop or the fear of the first day of school.

To ‘correct’ a negative experience you need at least three positive experiences. So one negative experience is opposed to three positive experiences. It is therefore good to reflect more often on the positive experiences. For example by noting down daily what is going well. You are more aware of the positive experiences you have one day. Keeping the positive things per day is called a positivity diary.

Positivity diary

You can note down small and big successes in a positivity diary. You can also note various positive experiences. Your thoughts and feelings are also important here.

Here are some examples to get you started:

  • Today I had a nice walk
  • Today I went for a run
  • I cooked a nice meal myself
  • I think I have organized my work well today
  • Today I called a friend and had a good conversation

Tip: you can use the NiceDay app to write down your feelings and positive things.

Hygge: the Danish way of cosiness. It’s all about being calm and peaceful with all that is important. And the Danish know what’s right, they can call themselves the happiest country in the world for a couple of years already! Want to know their secret? We describe it in 6 steps.

Step 1: Seek warmth and comfort

After a tough day of work, it’s time to destress. Go and get comfy! Take off your jeans and get into a woollen sweater or your favourite pyjamas. Make a cup of tea and sit close to the heater. It’s cold enough outside already!

Step 2: Get a cosy interior

Make your home a cosy place. Don’t use bright colours in your interior but go for colours that radiate calm. Candles are very hygge, so light them even when you’re alone! Get some nice pillows and a beautiful rug. Change your bathroom into a spa and get some (extra) plants. Dive in Pinterest for some nice ideas! Your surroundings unconsciously affect how you feel.

Copyright Pinterest

Step 3: Spend time with family and friends

Spend some time with your loved ones. Turn off the television and do not use your phone, enjoy each other’s company. Take a moment to be grateful for what you have and for the people who are part of it.

Step 4: Get some me-time

However, it’s also important to spend time with yourself. Do something you like and relax. Take a bath or read a book or magazine. Don’t think about other people’s needs and focus on yourself. It’s time to recharge!

Step 5: Comfort food

Does cooking stress you out? Go for comfort food! Comfort food can be very healthy, for example a vegetable stew and warm apple with cinnamon as a dessert. Also hot drinks and soups are hygge-proof.

Step 6: Get your rest

Stress is not done: hygge is all about rest and calm. Enjoy your night. Take care of yourself and the people around you. Let all the things bugging you go! Search the web for relaxation exercises of try some mindfulness.

“Hygge is about simplifying life, a feeling of cosy, being aware of a good moment, lingering over an evening with friends and stopping to enjoy the simple pleasures.”

NiceDay: Do you suffer from stress? Plan a hygge evening in your Daily Planner and write down in your diary whether it was successful and how it felt.