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Do you have a shopping ADDICTION? How to beat it!!

Is your Visa bill bigger than your savings account? Do you continuously find yourself eating two minute noodles until your next pay cheque comes and you can afford to live large again? Then this post is for you!!

Fear not, you are not alone! One in 12 Australians report compulsive shopping, also known as Oniomania (Intill, 2004). Research also shows that women are more often affected than men. Oniomania is often a response to feelings of sadness, depression, low self esteem, loneliness or anger. As we feel worse, our urge to spend increases. Have you found that post shopping binge, those same feelings return? Whilst spending may relieve painful emotions short term, the job of shopping is a temporary fix only. Those negative feelings often return, intensified….especially when this is coupled with a large credit card bill or poor financial choices.

Why is purchasing such a pleasurable experience? Why do some people have more trouble controlling the urge to purchase than others? Biological components are also at play.

Dr Joshua Buckholtz (2011) showed that people with high concentrations of the neurotransmitter Dopamine were more likely to engage in compulsive behaviour, such as overspending and even behaviours such as gambling and drug use. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter present in all healthy brains, is associated with “reward” and high levels may cause individuals to seek reinforcement through negative behaviours. The implications of this are that compulsive spenders may also engage in other compulsive behaviours such as overeating or risky.

How is shopping addiction treated?

Psychological treatment focuses on helping people with shopping addictions to change their behaviour patterns. This involves looking at the underlying feelings or thoughts that drive the spending, and then helping to address and change those thoughts and feelings. Treatment may also involve helping to replace shopping with more positive behaviours and building alternative coping strategies.

Anti-depressant medication may also be utilised if compulsive shopping stems from underlying depression. Some anti-depressants may also assist in reduce impulsivity, which also may be a factor underlying compulsive shopping.

Could changing the way you spend your money be a useful strategy? Can you get more bang for your buck!?

Money doesn’t always buy happiness, so they say! (Although, I wouldn’t know, having not yet experienced the money part of the equation….). Dunn, Aitkin and Norton (2008) posit that the way we spend our money may be at least as important as how much we earn.

In a study by Dunn, Gilbert and Wilson (2011), the authors outlined several key concepts which underlie why spending doesn’t always bring happiness and provided some key learnings to help us get more “value” from our money.

1) Purchasing of experiences brings more happiness than the purchasing of material goods. Think about the happiest moments you’ve experiences in the past year…. Did they include “that time you bought that fabulous $200 sweater you wore once, then shortly ruined after misreading the dry clean only tag!?” or were they the memories you shared with friends… An overseas trip, seeing an amazing live band or learning to scuba dive…

2) Many small pleasures trump excessive large ones – savouring a small piece of chocolate is often far more satisfying than gorging on the whole box. A special treat like a good coffee, a delicious cupcake, a massage or a night out will bring you far more satisfaction than a whole box of cupcakes or having a night out every night of the week. One new handbag will probably bring you more happiness than 10 new handbags.

3) Delay consumption!! The anticipation of a new purchase makes it all the more exciting. As adults, no one tells us what we can and can’t have. Without setting our own limits, it’s easy to fall into an “I want it all, now!” trap. By delaying purchases, we are better able to consider the value of that purchase and are more likely to make a wiser choice. It also means that when we do make a purchase, that it’s all the more satisfying!

4) Using money to benefit others brings us more happiness than using the money to benefit ourselves. Dunn, Aitkin and Norton (2008) conducted a study where people were randomly assigned to spend money on either themselves or others. Participants assigned to spend money on others experienced greater happiness than those assigned to spend on themselves.

Ok great….so spending differently might help but what can I do to reduce my spending entirely?

1) Set yourself a goal – examples may include saving a small amount each week for a special purchase, such as a holiday, without using credit card or savings. The more meaningful you make this goal, the more likely you are to stick with it. Just remember to make this goal realistic and attainable!! A small success will encourage you to set bigger goals.

2) Delay consumption! Next time you have a sudden urge to purchase a fabulous new bag or delightful pair of shoes, stop and reflect. Often once we take away the emotion from the purchase, we realise we never needed it that much in the first place. Try waiting 24 hours before you go back to the store/website

3) Unsubscribe from shopping related mailing lists and newsletters. Each day my inbox is flooded with emails about various sales, new products, fantastic deals etc…. Try removing yourself from online shopping mailing lists. Unsubscribe/stop viewing “consumer blogs” such as fashion blogs. If there are certain blogs which influence you to spend, try and avoid these pages. Consumer blogs often project an ideal picture of what it’s like to “have it all.” Bloggers may seem to have a new outfit every day, but stop and reflect – they’re probably a) given these items from sponsors, or b) live out of their car so they can afford shiny things. If you also find magazines are also motivating you to spend, trying eliminating these for a while and replacing them with reading a novel or interesting article instead.

5) Avoid spending time in shopping centres/malls! If you don’t see it, you won’t be tempted to buy it!!

5) When the urge strikes, engage in exercise instead. A short walk or trip to the gym can help us to disconnect from the urge to spend.

6) Examine the underlying thoughts that are driving you to spend. Are you shopping to deal with feelings of depression and anxiety? Are you lonely or bored? Are you trying to boost your self esteem through material goods? Once you understand the underlying motivation behind your spending, you’ll be better able to deal with negative emotions in a healthier way.

7) Avoid shopping when you’re feeling depressed. You’ll be far more likely to use purchasing as an emotional bandaid and potentially make impulse buys. If you’re having a bad day, try engaging in meaningful activity such as exercise or a hobby, or arranging a time to meet up with a friend or chat to them over the phone.

8) Use positive self talk when you feel tempted to spend. For example “I can choose not to spend” or “imagine how good I’ll feel if I reach my savings goal.”

9) Practice gratitude!! It could help improve your self control!! Try keeping a log of three things you’re grateful for each day!!

Do you struggle with shopping addiction!? Do you want to change your habits? Try some of these tips!! If you’re finding shopping addiction is interfering with day to day life, see your doctor for a referral to a psychologist or call Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14.

Boost your Mental Toughness!!

When you hear the term “Mental Toughness” it’s easy to think of sportspeople, or people putting themselves through extreme feats like climbing Mount Everest!! Mental Toughness seems to be everywhere today, and is frequently referenced in sporting literature…. but do you need to be super sporty, or hike through mud and snow to be mentally tough? Or can mental toughness help anyone achieve their goals? Are there mentally tough musicians, dancers, office workers, accountants etc!?

Anyone, in fact, can be mentally tough….regardless of your interest or lack of interest in sport/ice bucket challenges/Tough Mudder/eating insects etc. *Phew!*

Mentally toughness can be defined as “a collection of values, attitudes, behaviours, emotions, which enable and individual to persevere through any adversity, and to maintain concentration and motivation when things are going well” (Gucciardi & Gordon, 2007). So in a nutshell, it’s about having qualities which can help direct you to persevere towards your goals and to be motivated to keep persevering!!

So what are these wonderful qualities which make up mental toughness? Clough & Strycharczyk (2011) use the 4 “C’s” model of mental toughness, which breaks mental toughness into:

Challenge – this is about embracing change, and seeing challenges as opportunities for growth!
Control – this is about having a “can do” attitude, feelings of accountability and belief you can achieve the outcomes you want, as well as your ability to control your emotions.
Confidence – a belief in your own abilities, as well as confidence in your ability to influence others!
Commitment – an ability to set clear goals, and to persevere towards them!

This all sounds great in theory, but are some people just born more “mentally tough” than others!? Well luckily, mental toughness can be taught, and there are several strategies which have been tried and tested in the field of sports psychology, which are now translating to coaching and management literature.

There is no quick fix to become mentally tough, but through a combination of strategies, you can increase your mental toughness….here are a few of my favourite strategies!!

Goal setting. Whilst this sounds simple, setting clear goals can help to direct your attention to the important tasks you need to focus on, and can enhance your commitment to goals. Just remember to set your goals at a level of difficulty that is at the right level of challenge. You may start which smaller, easier to achieve sub goals, then work towards increasing your sense of challenge buy progressing setting more difficult goals. Think about how you will measure your goals….how will you know when you’ve achieved them? Think about the support or resources you might need to achieve your goals.
Mindfulness. Mindfulness compliments mental toughness in many ways – mindfulness is actually a fantastic tool for helping you to develop attentional control and focus (a key element of the “control” component of mental toughness!). In turn, when you’re better able to focus and remain in control of your emotions, you may just find you experience increased confidence as a result of this!
Imagery. Imagery, or mental rehearsal, is commonly used by athletes who are trying to practice and perfect their technical skills, without engaging in physical practice, and can also help increase your feelings of confidence and control. Whatever you’re working on developing your mental toughness for, you can apply imagery to. Are you giving a performance? A speech? Playing in a tennis match? Whatever the task, close your eyes and imagine performing the task in real time. Imagine yourself in the same setting where you would perform the actual task. Think of the feelings you would typically have at the time of the task, and try and bring those to mind. Practice your task/performance in as much detail as you can, using all your senses (imagining the task, imagining the sensations you would feel, imagining the sounds that you would hear). Imagine yourself performing the task perfectly!
Reflection. Mentally tough people regularly reflect on their successes and setbacks…what worked well and what didn’t. Reflection is a key tool to help you to review your progress, acknowledge your successes and improvements, and to make adjustments to your goals and strategies to achieve them if they’re not working!! You could also reflect on your past successes in similar situations to increase your optimism and confidence even more!!

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Remember, like all changes, building mental toughness takes time and persistence!! Enlisting social support from friends and loved ones can also be a great tactic to help support you in your changes.

Would you try some of these strategies? Would you go on a mental toughness journey to help you to achieve and persevere at your goals?

Change your habits

Change is hard work!! It’s often much easier to maintain the status quo than to challenge ourselves to change habits.

Here are a few of my favourite posts on goal setting to help you get started on the path to achieving your goals!!

How to set (really good) goals!
Self monitor and reflect on your current behaviour before you start your changes
Consider the different pathways to help you to achieve your goals and increase your hope!!

What do you want to achieve? Why does it matter to you? Would you try some of these tips?

A simple strategy to improve your self regulation

I for one, know what it’s like to set goals just to realise I haven’t come close to achieving them!! I’ve set about many resolutions to increase my exercise, save money, improve my diet etc, but haven’t got there…why is this? Did I not clearly define what I wanted to achieve? Was I not motivated to actually achieve the goal? Or could it have been that I hadn’t taken the time to look at what I was currently doing, and reflect on this is relation to what I wanted to achieve.

Self regulation lies at the heart of goal setting. Self regulation is about firstly setting a standard for our desired behaviour, then monitoring our current behaviour….if the fit between our desired goal and our current behaviour is right, then we don’t need to act to change what we’re doing….. but if what we want to achieve does not match up with what were currently doing, this discrepancy (also known as Cognitive Dissonance) then motivates us to act!!

So….when preparing to make a change, firstly, set a clear goal for what you want to achieve (for example, I want to reduce my coffee consumption to one cup per day)…and then spend some time collecting some observations about what you are currently doing (currently drinking four cups!). It’s likely that simply comparing what you’re currently doing, to the goal or standard you wish to achieve, will increase your motivation to act towards change, as you have a clear baseline for what you want to address. Taking the time to really notice what we’re doing, also helps us to notice when we’re doing things on “auto-pilot” and to reflect on possible triggers for our behaviours. Is it that in fact I go for another coffee when I’m in need of a break, or is it to relieve boredom?

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Wanting to change your diet? Start with a 1 week food diary where you write down everything you eat each day. Wanting to save money? Keep a log of every purchase you make (no matter how small) for seven days. At the end of your week reflect on your log/diary in relation to where you want to be. Then have a think about the triggers or antecedents that might have led to the behaviour you’ve logged. This simple self monitoring task is very likely to increase your motivation and help you achieve your goals. Continue your log as you set about achieving your goal, and this will give you objective feedback of your progress!!

It may sound basic, but it works!! Have you tried this strategy when making a change?

References:

Watson, D. (1997). The principles of self-regulation. Self directed behaviour: self modification for personal adjustment. Pacific Grove: California, pp 111 – 136.

The biggest predictor of happiness

What is it that you feel you need in order to live the good life? Is it money, a good career, being able to enjoy creature comforts? What is it that keeps us happy throughout our lives?

A recent longitudinal study provides us with key insights into what matters most when it comes to happiness. The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest study of adult development that’s ever been done. The study involved tracking the lives of 75 men, asking them detailed questions about their health, work, family and their home lives. The participants in the study were a group of two men; the first, a group of Harvard graduates, and the second a group of men from Boston’s poorest suburbs.

The key findings of the study were:

Forget about wealth, fame and success – it’s good relationships that keep people happier and healthier
People with good social connections with family, friends and community are happier, healthier and live longer.
People who are more isolated than they want to be are less happy, have more declining health, their brain functioning declines sooner and they live shorter lives.
It’s not the number of friends that you have, it’s the quality of your close relationships that counts!
High conflict relationships can be bad for our health!
Positive relationships can serve as a buffer against declining health as we age
With age, being in a secure relationship where we can count on the other person, can be protective for our brains (participants in their 80s in secure relationships had sharper memories than those who weren’t!!)

The study’s director, Robert Waldinger, concludes that “the good life begins with good relationships.”

This study is another reminder that for all the demands life places on us, positive relationships are worth prioritising over all!! Do you nurture your relationships? What can you do to feel more connected to family, friend or your community?

Worried? Try this simple technique to reduce your worries

Do you find yourself caught up in your worries? When my stress levels increase, I find that it’s easy to become distracted from the present and find myself caught up thinking about things outside of my control.

Whilst it’s normal for everyone to have worries, if you’re finding anxiety is getting the better of you, or you can’t seem to stop thinking about everything that’s going wrong, it might be time to schedule in some worry time!! “What!? Why you you want to worry even more!?” you ask.

Worry time is one of my favourite CBT techniques to help reduce ruminative worries. It’s worked well when I’ve taught it to clients, and I also found that it worked really well for me personally (particularly when going through stressful events or major life changes).

The reason worry time seems to work so well, is that by giving your worries the time of day they’re asking for, they become less scary, less over whelming and less daunting.. and they stop capturing your attention throughout the day, because you’ve made room for them.

So here’s how you do it!

Schedule in a time each day that you will devote purely to worrying!! Yes, you heard me!! It might seem crazy and paradoxical, but the point is that by allowing your worries some time of day, you may find that they aren’t so distressing any more….or that you even start to tire of thinking about them!! You might allocate 5 to 10 minutes per day – I strongly suggest doing this in the morning, not at night or before bed. During your worry time, set a timer or alarm to signal the end of your worry time.
During your worry time, think about all the worries that have been causing you stress. Give them time of day – if you run out of worries, repeat the ones you’ve already covered! You can say them silently in your mind, or you may find it easier to say them out aloud.
The first few days you try worry time, you may find this quite upsetting, but the more you practice, the easier it will become, and the less distressing the thoughts will feel. If you feel worked up after worry time, try taking some deep breaths, or having a hot shower to help you refocus.
The more you do this technique, you may even find that you find it difficult to fill your 5 – 10 minutes time slot, which means it’s beginning to work – you;re giving your thoughts the time of day they’ve been asking for, and they’re becoming not so scary and overwhelming anymore!!
Over the course of the day, if you find your worries popping into your mind, tell yourself that you will address these during your next worry time – you can even write yourself a reminder note if this helps. You may find that over the course of the day, you’re not as distracted by your worries, and better able to switch off from them. This will in turn help you to feel more in control of your thoughts and feelings.

If you like using apps, you can also download the Reach Out WorryTime App, which can help you structure your Worry Time and allow you to enter your worries as they pop up.

Would you try this technique? If you’re finding your worries are stopping you from doing the things you care about, or if you are feeling distressed, speak to your GP, or contact Lifeline, on 13 11 14.

Best of the Best Wellbeing Apps

Do you use wellbeing apps? Wellbeing apps are huge at the moment and with improvements in technology are getting better by the day. However, it’s often hard to know where to start (and it’s so much easier to scroll through Instagram than to do something mentally taxing)!! I’ve been road testing a few apps lately, and have found that being able to use my smart phone to fit in health and wellbeing activities around my busy schedule has been fantastic. I can practice mindfulness anywhere, get a free workout without going to a gym, and become more mindful of my health behaviours.

No more Snapchat, it’s time to improve your wellbeing!!

Here are a few of my favourite apps:

Mindfulness and Psychological Wellbeing

Smiling Mind (Cost – Free!!). This is my favourite mindfulness app – it has mindfulness meditations designed for adults, as well as for children and teens. You’re guided through simple to follow mindfulness activities that require no previous experience with mindfulness. The great thing about this app is that you can follow structured programs, or you can choose “bite-size” meditations from as short as 2 minutes. Once you get your practice up, you can also choose from longer and less guided meditations. The app keeps track of your practice time, and you even receive reward badges as you build up your practice time!! I also find the voice of the narrator to be quite pleasant!!
Calm (Cost – Free for a selection of meditations, then $14.99 per month on a subscription basis). Calm is another mindfulness meditation app which is great for beginners. With the basic free app, you can complete the “seven days of calm” course, which will take you through a 10 minute daily mindfulness meditation, which includes information about learning mindfulness before each meditation commences. You can also access a loving kindness meditation and a body scan meditation for free. My favourite thing about this app, is the relaxing sounds and visuals which play in the background during the meditations (you can choose from a gently flowing lake, falling rain, waves on a beach and all sorts of other delightful sounds!!). If you decide to subscribe, you can access mindfulness courses to help with anxiety reduction, increasing focus, happiness and other great topics.
Mind the Bump – (Cost – FREE): This is another great app from the creators of the Smiling Mind App, in collaboration with Beyond Blue. It’s specially designed for new mothers, pregnant mothers-to-be and for partners too, to support their emotional wellbeing when becoming parents!! I thoroughly recommend this for mummas and mummas to be. As well as guided meditations, it also includes introductory information about mindfulness and info on the importance of mindfully caring for your baby.
Mood Mint (Cost – $2.99) – Mood Mint is a game designed to reduce stress, anxiety and depression, and uses a technique called Cognitive Bias Modification, which trains the brain to develop a tendency to focus more on positive information in your day to day life, rather than negative information!!

Fitness and Exercise

Freeletics (Cost – Free – with additional in-app purchases) – Freelethics gives you short workouts which can be tailored to your fitness level!! You can choose from a variety of routines, and no equipment is needed!! I just started on the “Aphrodite” which consists of a series of Burpees, Squats and Situps. If you don’t know what the hell a “burpee” is, luckily the app also provides short videos of how to perfect each technique (Phew!!).
FitBit (Free, but you have to buy the Fitbit first approx. $80 – $370). I recently started tracking my daily steps, using the FitBit app. Since doing this, I’ve actively been finding ways to increase my walking throughout the day. As well as tracking your steps, the FitBit app can store all sorts of information – you can enter your daily calories, and based on your height, weight and daily exercise, the app will calculate how many calories you should be consuming. You can also track your quality of sleep, how much water you’ve consumed and set goals around exercise and weight. I’ve been using this app every day for about a month now and find it’s helped me to increase my exercise, as well as become more mindful of what I’m eating each day.
Pocket Yoga (Cost – $4.99). Pocket Yoga takes you through easy to follow yoga routines from 5 minutes, up to an hour long!! This is a great way to practice yoga at home (however, I would suggest doing some initial classes first to correctly learn the poses if you’re a beginner).

Close your Facebook/Candy Crush/Snap Chat App immediately!! There are a world of amazing health and wellness apps out there which you can draw on to improve both your mental and physical health!! Do you use any of these? Do you have any favourite health and wellbeing apps I haven’t listed here? I’d love to hear about them!!

Positive Thinking: Can Self Talk and Positive Affirmations Increase your Performance?

Our minds are constantly chattering away with an internal dialogue, or “self talk.” Our self talk can be helpful, and can help to increase our confidence, mood or performance, or at times, self talk can be negative, which can lead to decreased confidence, performance difficulties and low mood.

Do you use positive thinking to help you get through tough situations, like public speaking, performances or even social situations? Does it work for you? Using positive affirmations or “positive self talk” is often praised as a key strategy to increase performance, and even to change our moods…but is self talk actually effective? Could simply replacing a negative thought with a positive one actually change how we feel and help us to perform better?

Some people like to use positive affirmations to increase their confidence (eg, “I’m great at X, I’m amazing!!” etc), but it’s important to use such affirmations with caution. If you don’t actually believe the content of a positive affirmation to be true, then it could backfire. A study by Wood, Perunovic & Lee (2003) evaluated the effectiveness of positive self statements. The results concluded that for people with low self esteem, positive self statements can be ineffective and can cause the person’s feelings about themselves and their mood to feel worse!! For people with high self esteem, positive self statements were shown to lead to a small increase in positive feelings and mood. The authors of the study outline that “Repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, but backfire for the very people who ‘‘need’’ them the most.”

Self talk is a popular technique in the field of sports psychology, but there is surprisingly little evidence to support its benefit… however, Moran (2004) outlines that self talk may be useful in performances, as it can direct our attention to focus on key cues and demands related to a performance.

So with all this confusion, how can you best use self talk to support your performance in any given situation? Try the following tips:

Keep self talk positively phrased, emphasising what you should do, instead of what you should avoid. For example, “I can choose healthy food options”, rather than “don’t eat junk food!”, or “relax my shoulders and breath deeply” rather than “don’t make any mistakes!.”
Don’t use positive affirmations you don’t believe to be true – instead, find a statement that focuses your attention on something you can control or focus on.
Keep positive statements focused on things within your control, for example “Take a deep breath to relax,” “soft grip,” “focus on your posture,” “if I make a mistake, take a breath and start again” etc.
Keep it short and simple, and as vivid as possible, to focus your attention on cues relevant to the task. Try a trigger word related to performance cues like “relax”, “energise!” “soft tone” etc.
Use past successes to boost your confidence – rather than a general positive affirmation “I rock at public speaking!,” you could focus your self talk on a past successful performance “I felt confident when I gave a speech at last month’s team meeting and received great feedback!”

Do you ever use self talk to help you to focus at work, during sports, or when giving performances? Would you try this?

Gratitude: Increase your wellbeing by practicing gratitude

Do you practice gratitude? Do you take the time to stop and think about all the things you are thankful for each day? Whilst I continually express gratitude to my skim cappuccino in the morning, I rarely find the time to truly reflect on the things I’m grateful for. In my experience, it’s easy to feel like you always need more and to compare yourself with others. Despite all the wonderful things that happen each day, feelings of wanting more can override my ability to think about all the positive things in my life – from the amazing family and relationships I have, to having the freedom to pursue my goals, or simply the beauty and wonder of being in nature.

Practising gratitude is a great way to put things into perspective, but in addition, having a grateful outlook on the world could greatly increase your wellbeing, through a multitude of factors!

In addition to leading to increases in positive emotions, Emmons & McCullough (2003) state that “gratitude is effective in increasing well-being as it builds psychological, social, and spiritual resources.”

Being grateful can lead you to reciprocate acts of kindness towards others (performing acts of kindness also boost happiness!).
Gratitude can strengthen the social bonds you have – for example, by reflecting on the positive actions of a friend or family member, this may help you to feel more cared for and help you to be mindful of the supportive relationships in your life.
Gratitude has strong links with spirituality and may help strengthen spirituality
As a positive emotion, according to Broaden and Build Theory, the practice of gratitude can lead to increased creativity and flexibility.

Gratitude has also been recently linked to increases in self control!.

How could you integrate the practice of gratitude into your day? Would you keep a gratitude diary or log each day? How could you integrate discussions around gratitude into dinner table discussions, or in the workplace? Do you express gratitude to the people you care about this? What are some creative ways you could do this?

I would love to hear some suggestions!

Gratitude could improve your self control

Is self control an area you need to improve? I know that I’ve often regretted a late night online shopping session (the sale was just so good, they were practically giving it away!!), or felt remorse over too many chocolate croissants purchased on the run! I’m not known for my budgeting skills, and often have been known to make an impulse purchase… but what if there was another strategy that could help improve my self control (without feeling like hard work!!). Gratitude could be a possible answer!!

The benefits of expressing gratitude are now well documented. Studies have shown that by practising gratitude, you can experiences increases in happiness and wellbeing!

But….gratitude can do more than just lead to increases in happiness…it could help you to become more patient and less impulsive!! A new study by Dickens and DeSteno (2016) showed that people who expressed gratitude, were more patient and less impulsive. The more grateful participants in the study were able to be patient, and bypass a short term reward ($30 now), for a better reward in the future ($50 later).

“Wow….sounds great…. but how do I become more grateful?”you ask. Some simple techniques you can try include:

Three things – each night, think of three things you are grateful for that happened during the day. This could be a great activity to do around the dinner table with friends or family.
A gratitude diary – keep a log of all the wonderful things you are grateful for – it could be a small thing, like the amazing coffee you had in the morning, or something bigger, like gratitude towards a friend.
Write a gratitude letter to someone who has impacted your life – it might be a teacher, or mentor, or someone who helped you through a tough situation – you don’t have to send it, but if you did, you might find this equally rewarding (for anyone who read my post about acts of kindness, these are also linked to increase happiness and wellbeing!!).

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Would you try these? Not only could you experience increased wellbeing, but you may also find your self control and patience improve too!! Woohoo!!