In episode 27, the season's finale of Happiness, a Sceptics guide, your hosts Paul Flower and Dr Gary Wood explore the topic of awakenings or personal transformations from the unlikely source of a story by Friedrich Nietzsche - a name not usually associated with happiness and wellbeing. As well as the usual tangents and asides, this episode continues the twin themes of self-reflection and storytelling as used in Gary's book The Psychology of Wellbeing' (published by Routledge). For the UK check it out at https://amzn.to/3gmgukd and for the US go to: https://amzn.to/3gmgukd

You might also want to take a peek at 'Don't Wait For Your Ship to Come In. . . Swim Out to Meet It' - for UK see: https://amzn.to/37Je6T4  and for USA see: https://amzn.to/3KYqY68

To offer a little encouragement, please like, subscribe and share, wherever you find your podcasts. And if you'd like to make a small donation to the production coffers of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, please visit Buy Me a Coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/scepticsguide

#psychology #humour

In Episode 26 of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, your hosts Dr Gary Wood and Paul Flower looked at whether optimism and pessimism are personality types or just ways of explaining the world. This episode brings together ideas from Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Positive Psychology.

Check out Martin Seligman's book 'Learned Optimism. For the UK see https://amzn.to/3tmlk7K and for the USA see https://amzn.to/3N5FH0M

For a summary of 'Learned Optimism' check out Gary's book 'Don't Wait For Your Ship to Come In. . . Swim Out to Meet It' - for UK see: https://amzn.to/37Je6T4  and for USA see: https://amzn.to/3KYqY68

To offer a little encouragement, please like, subscribe and share, wherever you find your podcasts. And if you'd like to make a small donation to the production coffers of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, please visit Buy Me a Coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/scepticsguide

In this special bonus episode (Ep.25), your podcast hosts Paul Flower and psychologist Dr Gary Wood invite you to 'Spring into self-care. The podcast offers the season of 'green-shoots' as a time to do a bit of spring cleaning to sweep in some happiness related changes and sweep out what's not lifting you up. Gary introduces his idea of 'Zen Ironing' as a way to both change attitudes for unpleasant tasks, and as a model for getting organized. Gary offers the idea that all the little chores we love to hate are really acts of self-care.

For a complete personal development course in a book, to fully spring-clean your life, You check out Gary's book 'Don't Wait For Your Ship to Come In. . . Swim Out to Meet It' - for UK see: https://amzn.to/37Je6T4 and for USA see: https://amzn.to/3KYqY68

Please like, subscribe and share, wherever you find your podcasts. And if you'd like to make a small donation to the production coffers of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, please visit Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/scepticsguide

In Episode 24 of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, your hosts Dr Gary Wood and Paul Flower continue to build on themes from earlier episodes. This time it takes a deeper dive into Positive Psychology, and the model of flourishing called PERMA, first mentioned in Episode 04 on Happiness and meaning.  PERMA is an acronym for Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Achievement.

This episode also carries on where the last one (Ep.23) left off and continues the conversation about gratitude. 

PERMA is covered in the penultimate chapter (six) in Gary Wood's book 'The Psychology of Wellbeing' (published by Routledge). To read more about the book, for the UK go to: https://amzn.to/3gmgukd And for the US go to: https://amzn.to/3gmgukd

To check out the Tactics for Happier Living quiz visit: https://programs.clearerthinking.org/tactics_for_happier_living.html 

To check out the Daylio App visit: https://daylio.net/

The podcast hosts are not affiliated with either clearthinking.org or Daylio and they offer the links for information and discussion purposes only. 

Please like, subscribe and share, wherever you find your podcasts. And if you'd like to make a small donation to the production coffers of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, please visit Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/scepticsguide

In Episode 23 of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide your hosts Paul Flower and Dr Gary Wood take a look at the link between gratitude and happiness. The episode also draws together themes from previous episodes on Stress (Eps 05 and 06), and Mindfulness (Ep.10).

To try the Gratitude and Anticipation Experiment, check out Gary's video: https://youtu.be/gJ4mnO_Ynjk and supporting blog post 'Getting the Gratitude Attitude that includes a PDF download to take part in the experiment: https://psycentral.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/gratitude-attitude-optimis-free-pdf-diary-sheet/

And, you can read more about gratitude in Gary's book 'Don't Wait For Your Ship to Come In. . . Swim Out to Meet It'.  For the UK see: https://amzn.to/3t9xMXp and for the USA see: https://amzn.to/3LIg1Xk

To offer a little encouragement, please like, subscribe and share, wherever you find your podcasts. And if you'd like to make a small donation to the production coffers of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, please visit Buy Me a Coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/scepticsguide

We'd be most grateful.

In Episode 22 of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, your hosts Dr Gary Wood and Paul Flower look at the many splendoured thing called love.  They look at the different styles of love, and how passion, intimacy and commitment combine to form different types of love, and how this relates to happiness. The proceedings are punctuated by the usual 'colourful' asides.

For more on gender and relationships check out Gary Wood's book 'The Psychology of Gender'. published by Routledge. For Uk see: https://amzn.to/34hR0BA and for US see: https://amzn.to/3BbW8mZ (It's available as a paperback, e-book and audio book).

'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.' - Elisabeth Barrett Browning.

In this bonus review episode (Ep.21), Paul Flower and Dr Gary Wood look back over the previous five episodes of the Happiness, A Sceptics Guide podcast on the theme of making the happiness insights stick, to formulate a personalised happiness development programme.  In the four (of the five) episodes, the podcast explores the theme of storytelling:

• Telling Better Happiness Stories (Ep15)

The present episode concludes with ideas from Paul of what the podcast should discuss next to keep the narrative moving in a worthwhile direction.

Please like, subscribe and share, wherever you find your podcasts. And if you'd like to make a small donation to the production coffers of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, please visit  BuyMeACoffee or Auphonic.

In this bonus episode (Ep.20), Happiness, A Sceptics Guide takes a moment to drive home the point that there's more to goal setting than January 1st. Instead, you can use another arbitrary day like the Lunar New Year.  Podcast host and psychologist Dr Gary Wood tells the story of how the Chinese character of 'Fu' symbolising happiness came to be upside down on Lunar New Year decorations. And in an effort to inspire sceptical co-host Paul Flower to action, explains how the themes in this tale relate to the themes in the podcast's pursuit of a personalized programme of the pursuit of happiness and psychological wellbeing.

Please like, subscribe and share, wherever you find your podcasts. And if you'd like to make a small donation to the production coffers of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, please visit  BuyMeACoffee or Auphonic.

In Episode 19 of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, your hosts Paul Flower and Dr Gary Wood look at some techniques for creating happier endings for your happiness stories. And for a podcast that aims to make you happier whatever we encounter more than a little resistance to these techniques.

For more information on the 'letter from a future self' technique, check our Gary Wood's blog post: https://psycentral.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/future-self-letter-goals-dr-gary-wood-life-coach-birmingham/

And for more on 'best future self' for retirement planning, see: https://psycentral.wordpress.com/2018/10/26/planning-for-retirement-meaning-and-happiness-goals/

If you'd like to make a small donation to the production coffers of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, please visit  BuyMeACoffee or Auphonic.

Ep.18. In this episode of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, psychologist Dr Gary Wood and 'sceptic on the street' Paul Flower use the PR stunt of Blue Monday - the so-called unhappiest day of the year - to explore the links between trust, truth and wellbeing.  To find out more about why Gary turned down the Blue Monday campaign, check out his blog post:  https://psycentral.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/psychobabble-blue-monday-psychology/

Based on Gary Wood's book 'The Psychology of Wellbeing' (published by Routledge). To read more about the book, for the UK go to: https://amzn.to/3gmgukd And for the US go to: https://amzn.to/3gmgukd

If you'd like to make a small donation to the production coffers of Happiness, A Sceptics Guide, please visit  BuyMeACoffee or Auphonic.