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Top ways to make your commute a chance to relax

by on 5 January 2017in PipCorporate, PipLife

Your commute is just a stressful part of your day, right? Running for trains, buses and trams that are never on time or being stuck in endless traffic jams on a rainy Monday morning – yuck.

 

But let’s look at it another way. A commute is a free section of time in which you have no responsibilities but to get from A to B. And unless you’re driving, someone else is even doing the hard part for you. So your commute is actually a perfect opportunity to take time out to relax. Here we give our top three ways to make your commute relaxing:

 

  1. Reading while moving can be difficult if, like me, you get motion sick or if you have to stand. It’s obviously not an option if you’re driving either. But immersing yourself in a story can be a great way to step outside of your own thoughts temporarily. Nowadays there are multiple podcasts and audio versions of books meaning you can stick in a pair of headphones, or a cable into your car radio, and enter someone else’s story.
  1. Mindfulness is a word we hear everywhere but it really comes down to one premise – taking time to be in-the-moment instead of being stuck in your thoughts. Try a mindful moment on your commute. Focus your attention on all of the physical sensations that you feel, good or bad, but without responding to them. You may notice your feet planted firmly on the floor, your hand on a cold support structure, the sway of your body as you turn a corner. You may notice the people around you, the bright red of a coat or the black of someone’s shoes. When you look outside you may notice buildings, trees, shops or something you’ve never noticed before. If you are driving you can still be mindful, although we would not advise looking out the window while moving! Try it while stopped at lights or be mindful of your actual driving.
  1. Use the Pip. Let’s be honest, you or your workplace got a Pip and you keep forgetting to use it. Like any good thing you build a habit by doing it regularly. Why not start by using the Pip on your commute? All you need is the tiny Pip, your phone and, if you like, a pair of headphones. See it as a buffer between home and work in the mornings and work and home in the evenings when you can reset your mental set from one to the other.

 

 

Don’t let the daily commute stress you out, try one of our tips and make it a little me-time in your day.

 

 

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Online versus Face-to-Face Catch-Ups: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

by on 12 August 2016in PipLife

The ease of online communication nowadays means that more of our social interactions are moving online. But are we missing out on important face-to-face interactions? We summarise the research comparing online to face-to-face communication.

 

Easiness vs. Happiness.

Online communication is quick and easy. It’s particularly important for people who live away from family and friends. However, research suggests that people tend to be happier after face-to-face compared to online interactions [1]. Researchers in China found that face-to-face time with friends and family was associated with better quality of life but this was not true for time spent interacting with others online [2]. While social media helps us to stay in touch it needs to be supplemented with face-to-face time to really improve mood.

 

Efficiency vs Impressions.

When it comes to problem-solving in work online communication through email or message boards is particularly useful. Indeed, research on college students found that problem-solving online was more efficient than face-to-face [3]. Yet online communication, particularly in a work context, can sound cold and lead to misunderstandings. Researchers comparing interactions between the same people online and face-to-face found that people meeting face-to-face formed more positive impressions of their conversational partner [4]. If you need a quick solution online discussion may suit but if it’s a tricky interaction or a sensitive business partnership a coffee may be better.

 

Satisfaction vs Closeness.

Online interaction, for example through Facebook, helps to nurture relationships leaving people feeling more socially connected [5]. That said, face-to-face communication leads to an additional feeling of closeness that online interaction does not have [1]. If you’re already close with somebody online communication may not affect the quality of your interaction but a new relationship probably needs to be nurtured with face-to-face time.

 

Online communication is often denigrated as a poor replacement of face-to-face time. For most people, however, online communication is on top of, not instead of, face-to-face time. In fact, research finds that social network quality is more important and social network quantity. Nurturing those relationships that make you feel happy, supported and satisfied is important whether it’s online, offline or, even better, a combination of both.

 

1. Mallen, M.J., S.X. Day, and M.A. Green, Online versus face-to-face conversation: An examination of relational and discourse variables. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 2003. 40(1-2): p. 155.

2. Lee, P.S., et al., Internet communication versus face-to-face interaction in quality of life. Social Indicators Research, 2011. 100(3): p. 375-389.

3. Qiu, M. and D. McDougall, Foster strengths and circumvent weaknesses: Advantages and disadvantages of online versus face-to-face subgroup discourse. Computers & Education, 2013. 67: p. 1-11.

4. Okdie, B.M., et al., Getting to know you: Face-to-face versus online interactions. Computers in Human Behavior, 2011. 27(1): p. 153-159.

5. Grieve, R., et al., Face-to-face or Facebook: Can social connectedness be derived online? Computers in Human Behavior, 2013. 29(3): p. 604-609.

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Top 5 ways to keep a good work-life balance

by on 5 August 2016in PipLife

You know that work-life balance is important but knowing and doing are two different things. So how do you start? We have 5 top tips to help your work-life balance.

 

1) Timetabling: If you find that work leaks into your leisure time more often than not it’s time to make a timetable. Whether it’s allocating a fixed number of hours to work if you’re self-employed or vowing not to check your email after a certain time a timetable will help you to recognise when it’s worktime and when it’s leisure-time.

 

2) Be flexible: It sounds contradictory to timetabling but flexibility is important in life. There are times when you need to prioritise work but these should be balanced by other periods when you prioritise yourself, be it a long weekend, a vacation or evenings with family and friends. If you get a work email at 11pm on a Sunday night do you really need to answer? The answer might be yes, sometimes, but it’s unlikely that the answer is yes, always.

 

3) Switch on/switch off: Get in the zone when you’re in work. Social media is a big distraction so if it’s not a necessary part of your workday you probably don’t need to check it. Research shows that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind so getting fully absorbed will leave you happier and more satisfied with work [1]. When you leave, switch off. People who switch off from work while away come back relaxed and engaged while those who dwell negatively on work while away come back disengaged and unhappy [2].

 

4) Spend time alone: Many of us run from work to social commitments, surrounding ourselves with people always. The contrast of being alone with free time can feel unsettling. Learn to spend relaxation time on your own. Take a long walk, go to a yoga class, eat lunch in a nice café, read a book or spend time with your Pip. Social engagement is important but time alone can be just as recuperative.

 

5) Have a hobby: A daunting thing to realise as an adult is that you don’t know what to do with leisure time when you don’t have commitments. One way to help work-life balance is to have a hobby. Whether you like art, exercise, music, volunteering or any other fun activity, set aside time when you are going to do it and, importantly, tell people about it. If you have a set time in which you plan to do something, and if people know that you are going to do it, you will be more likely to down tools and go out to do it.

 

Work is an important aspect of life and fulfils many of us but stress and burnout can make it a drain if it is not balanced with a little fun as well.

 

1. Killingsworth, M.A. and D.T. Gilbert, A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 2010. 330(6006): p. 932-932.

2. Fritz, C. and S. Sonnentag, Recovery, well-being, and performance-related outcomes: the role of workload and vacation experiences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2006. 91(4): p. 936.

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Five Ways Your Friends Can Help You to Reduce Stress

by on 29 July 2016in PipLife

Social contact is one of the most important ways of relieving stress. Yet as we get older and have more responsibilities it can be too easy to forgo contact with friends in favour of all of the other tasks that we have to complete. Here we give you five reasons why you should pick up the phone and arrange a catch up with a friend:

 

  1. Friends reduce your body’s stress response – in one study researchers found that children who had a negative experience while their best friend was present not only felt better about themselves afterwards but also had lower levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, than those who did not have a friend present [1]. If you’re having a hard time try catching up with a friend to bring those stress hormones down.
  2. Friends make us healthier – when our friends are healthy we tend to be healthier too. A research study in Australia found that the healthier people’s friends were in terms of their diet and exercise levels, the healthier they were as well [2]. The next time you’re thinking of ditching a catch-up for the gym why not go together? You’ll have the benefit of friendship, exercise and potentially spreading these health benefits to your friendship group all in one go.
  3. Friends make us sharper – stuck with a difficult problem? Phone a friend. Research shows that a 10 minute chat on a social topic can boost executive function, the type of mental agility that helps us to solve problems [3].
  4. Friends make us laugh – laughter is good for us. It improves mood, reduces stress and may even boost our immune system [4]. Get together with a friend who makes you laugh and your body will thank you.
  5. Friends can make you live longer – researchers gathered all of the research on friendship and mortality in 2010 and found that people with strong social ties lived longer than those without. This was true even after they accounted for health differences in the participants [5].

 

Don’t neglect the friendships that make you feel good. Sometimes it’s important to put life on hold for a short while to nurture the relationships that keep you happy, healthy and sane in this busy world.

 

1. Adams, R.E., J.B. Santo, and W.M. Bukowski, The presence of a best friend buffers the effects of negative experiences. Developmental Psychology, 2011. 47(6): p. 1786.

2. Ball, K., et al., Is healthy behavior contagious: associations of social norms with physical activity and healthy eating. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2010. 7(1): p. 1.

3. Ybarra, O., et al., Friends (and sometimes enemies) with cognitive benefits: What types of social interactions boost executive functioning? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2010: p. 1948550610386808.

4. Bennett, M.P., et al., The effect of mirthful laughter on stress and natural killer cell activity. Alternative therapies in health and medicine, 2003. 9(2): p. 38.

5. Holt-Lunstad, J., T.B. Smith, and J.B. Layton, Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. PLoS Med, 2010. 7(7): p. e1000316.

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Science behind forming new habits

by on 29 April 2015in PipLife

As we all know new habits are hard to form. You may have the best intention of running every day before work and you do, for the first day or two.  After that you start to make excuses, you miss a few days, you’re tired the next day and soon months have gone by since you ran. The key way to ensure that you keep doing something you want to do is to make it a habit. But how do we do this?

 

The good news is that we all make habits all of the time. For the majority of our waking hours we work based on habits. Habits allow us to head straight for the shower in the morning before we realise our brains have properly woken up, they allow us to make breakfast and get out of the house at the same time each morning to get to work. Without habits we would have to plan each of these activities and monitor ourselves as we did them. The advantage of having habits is that while part of our brain is engaged in automatically completing the mundane morning tasks, the rest of our brain is free to think about other, more important, things such as the complex problem that faces us in work or what to have for lunch [1]. We don’t have to fight with ourselves to shower every morning because it is a habit. We do fight with ourselves if we want to leave the warm bed to go for a run because that is not yet, for most of us, a habit.  To make a habit we have to make the behaviour automatic.

 

The basal ganglia is the part of the brain that is involved in the formation of habits [2]. When we first learn a new task there is a section in the front part of our brains – called the pre-frontal cortex – which is activated. The pre-frontal cortex is the part of the brain involved when we have to make decisions and plan things or when we have to remember many things at once, as we do when first learning a new task. When a behaviour is repeated multiple times, however, it becomes automatic and we can see this change happening in the brain as well. When people are given a new task to complete their pre-frontal cortex works hard but when they have learned this task, and repeated it so many times that it has become automatic– or a habit – the activity switches to further back in the brain – to the basal ganglia [2].

 

In order to teach our brain to make this change the behaviour we want to make a habit of has to be repeated multiple times in the same context with the same cues. Our environment is filled with cues which tell us what to do when. When we get into bed we feel sleepy, when our alarm rings we get up, when we see the front door we take out our keys. Our brain likes cues and so if we want our brain to make a behaviour automatic we have to give it the same cues [3, 4]. This means that instead of saying ‘I’ll go for a run every day’ you should say ‘I’ll run every day as soon I get up’. If you do this enough times then your brain will learn to associate your alarm clock with running and you will automatically get up and run.

 

You can do the same with the PIP. If you say ‘I’ll use the Pip for 5 minutes every morning before my coffee’, you will automatically reach for the PIP when you see the jar of coffee in the morning. The time taken to form a habit is different for everyone but the good news is that every time you repeat the behaviour it becomes a little more automatic [4]. And even better, you don’t have to berate yourself if you miss just one day because a recent study found that, as long as you consistently do the behaviour on most  days, missing it for one day doesn’t make too much of a difference [4].

 

  1. Wood, W., J.M. Quinn, and D.A. Kashy, Habits in everyday life: thought, emotion, and action. Journal of personality and social psychology, 2002. 83(6): p. 1281.
  2. Yin, H.H. and B.J. Knowlton, The role of the basal ganglia in habit formation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2006. 7(6): p. 464-476.
  3. Neal, D.T., W. Wood, and J.M. Quinn, Habits—A repeat performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2006. 15(4): p. 198-202.
  4. Lally, P., et al., How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010. 40(6): p. 998-1009.