I Get a Good Feeling: Tried and tested advice

It’s Friday. So-close-to-February-it’s-silly Friday. It was also sunny. Which means that most of us are caught up in the end-of-week euphoria that precedes the weekend.

In our establishment, this means that everyone is even perkier today than usual, (and we’re pretty perky in the PR industry), and this has remarkable consequences. We talk to each other more, we take more time to listen, there are fewer grumbles and the ticks against the task-list occur more and more frequently. In general, we become more efficient and more engaged the more positive we feel.

Of course, this is stating the obvious – the more positive we feel, the more productive we become. But does it take something as simple as sunshine and what day it is in the week to counter negativity?

After what feels like months of being bombarded with stories on how to counter the doom and gloom of January, I thought this the perfect time to reflect back on some of the top blues-beating advice pieces that you just can’t seem to escape in the New Year:

“Exercise the easy way”, “The lazy person’s work-out”, “Burn calories by breathing louder”, “Live on this diet of marshmallows and drop five stone” etc…

There are still a surfeit of diet and keep-fit stories in the media, following New Year’s resolutions and the need for a total body-image overhaul now that we’re firmly set in to 2012. And at face level, I’m in favour of a good piece of health and fitness advice.

But the ‘lazy person’s workout’? An ‘easy’ workout? Is that not a contradiction in terms if ever there was one? Sorry media, but these advice pieces won’t fool me. Exercise releases ‘feel good’ chemicals in your body; endorphins that improve your mood, thereby making you feel better. I can’t imagine signing up for that “Do as little as possible class” works wonders on the fitness or endorphin/feel good front…

“Smile at a stranger”, “Smiling is contagious”, “Smiling goes a long way towards cheering everyone up”, “Smiling will solve the financial crisis” etc…

In sentiment, again, I agree. It is hard not to smile back at someone who is smiling at you. But this will not always hold true if the smilee is grinning away at someone in a particularly foul mood. In fact, it could have quite the opposite effect.

I was the perpetrator of this on Monday morning when, squashed like tuna flakes (it’s normally sardines I know, but tuna in this case, just to be original…) on the Victoria line one girl made the ultimate error of not holding on, thereby sending herself and her stilettos flying onto my ankle. Her giggle and beaming smile of an apology did not merit even a grimace of pain in return, in my opinion.

A genuine smile, say in greeting a colleague, works wonders. Simpering at someone who has stubbed their toe, for example, does not…

“Get out more”, “Try this, that and the other”, “Be a tourist in your own town” etc…

Now this I can identify with. There is indeed something about the New Year that inspires the urge to ‘try stuff’. And keeping busy, getting out and about and having a sense of purpose to whatever it is that you’re up to works wonders on your happiness levels.

This month saw me become a tourist in Greenwich (thanks client), a fan of stand-up comedy gigs and a dab hand at DIY/interior design. Having a plan and a half for the weekend ensures there’s something to look forward to throughout the week, contributing to that positive mind-set at work and thereby boosting productivity. Without you even knowing it, the working week will whizz by.

So how do you feel about being told to lose weight, smarten up, travel here, avoid this, and buy that? Do you heed the advice or cynically question its validity? In the meantime, it’s Friday. And the sun shone. So keep smiling…