The Happiness Diary

True to my word, I am now back after 7 days.  Over the last 7 days I kept a happiness diary working out my moods throughout the day over a seven day period to see, as said in my last blog, if my mood changes throughout the day.  It does.

But not in the same way as the previous blog suggests. I have discovered alot about myself in the meantime.  Firstly, I am definitely a morning person. Never had any grumpiness in the morning. And the second thing, is that throughout the day, my mood is quite neutral. However, there are times of the day where my mood reaches extreme happiness and unhappiness and mapping those out is quite interesting.

Unhappy. Being late in the mornings. Having to scream and shout at a seven year old to get ready for school put me in a grump for 45 minutes. It was only when I got to work and managed to vent it out to work colleagues did my mood reach neutral.  Unhappy. Last minute change of plans and my presentation was moved forward 6 weeks. Left me in a grump for only 15 minutes until I talked myself into believing it would be achievable - but other things had to take second place.

You get the jist. Work, home, life, family, loved ones, friends all give me reasons to be unhappy, but as equally they also are the ones who lift me out of my grumpy moods.  My mood didn't fluctuate all that much during the day, but it was little things that came along that put me in grumps.  Its the human interactions that make both happy and unhappy. So now I know.  The key is to quickly realise when those unhappy moments come along and identify the people who will lift you out of them as quickly as possible. I certainly know who those people are, and they are all on emergency speed dial.

slim your way happy

Ok, so a recap on the milestones I have set myself so far:

1) be me
2) can't change others
3) sleep 8 hours a night
4) leave the phone alone
5) spend more time outdoors
6) invest in exercise

When reading articles on people and society, and happiness one thing that really strikes me when reading on other peoples journey's are the same phrases that I seem to read over and over "I would definetely be happier if I was slimmer".  I have pondered over this a lot, and I cannot judge for others if being slimmer will make you happier, but I guess I can be true to myself and analyse myself.

The first thing I did when trying to analyse this was look back at pictures of myself to remember what it was like when I was a few stones lighter, I did have a romantic notion that I was so much happier then. But photograph upon photograph... I was barely smiling.. actually I would go as far as saying I looked miserable.  The photos also triggered memories, the emotions that ran through me were that of sorrow and pain. Was I really that unhappy?

So, for me, being slimmer did not make me happy, there was too much unhappiness around me.  If I am totally honest, food is a very central part of my life, I love cooking, entertaining around food, eating out. Who am i kidding, I can't live on celery and detox juice? Maybe that was why I was so miserable before because I wasn't being me.  My suspicions are that when you are unhappy, its usually a complex array of events and never one thing, but dieting and not caring about food does contribute to my unhappiness. So here I am, being me. I am far happier now than I have ever been, even though the demands of my every day life are immense, far more than in the past.  So be me Zahra. Forget the no carb malachy and enjoy food.

However, saying that, another realisation that i have is that some foods don't make me happy, they leave me feeling bloated and lethargic.  The classics are chocolates and cakes. For that split second as you put it into your mouth, you get this moment of happiness. However for hours after, I have a feeling of unhappiness. With activities that give you both happiness and unhappiness, you need to decide how much of each you get and if its worth it. For chocolates and cakes its 1 minute of happiness vs 180 minutes of unhappiness. So here is my next happiness project, cut the cakes. Not because I want to slim myself down, but they don't make me feel good at all.  I am not going to cut them out completely, but cut them down to only twice per week.

Knowing when to stop

Right, fairy Zahra is back to spread the words of happiness once again.  Now that I have come to two realisations, a) be me, and b) I am doing this alone, I thought that now is the time to start making of list of things to start implementing to make me happier.  Surely, filling your life with things you know make you happy will make you happy.  And ofcourse peoples personal happiness check lists differ.  Seeing friends and loved ones more, spending more time together in a relationship, spending more or even less time with the kids, taking up a new sport, activity, hobby... list is endless.

Indeed this endless list is the thing that got me thinking, at what point does the happiness project become a burden?  Like everything in my life, it can be described by my favourite graph, A Michaelis Menten curve ( you science geeks know JUST what I am talking about). For the non scientists, here it is:

         

There must be a point, which is an arbitary unit and different for each individual that the happiness activities you are implementing start to make you unhappy simply because you have taken on too much. If I am  honest, I have seen it all too much around me where people "burn out" from doing so much, similar to a little enzyme chomping away at a molecule (thats what Michaelis Menten is all about). Unless something changes in your environment, like your support network, your job, your family situation, or for the little enzyme, the temperature, the amount of enzyme, the buffer its in (the environment) you will get to a point where you can add all the happiness activities you want, you will fail to be happier. This is Vmax - the maximum happiness you can possibly get. Then even after that you might find that you are starting to get unhappy... or if you were an enzyme... you will start to denature.

So, the key here is identifying your Vmax.  That is the challenge. And so that is when listening to feedback is vital (my line manager will be so thrilled to hear this).  You have to listen to those around you, particularly those who have your best interests at heart when they are telling you to slow it down. In addition, you have to be quite intune with your own body and start to realise when enough is enough. I think I am probably close to Vmax, which is why the changes I am about to implement are not going to be drastic. Where on the Michaelis Menten Curve are YOU?