It's time, don't you think?

2016 has arrived.

All those things you've always wanted to do. That life you have wanted to live.

Isn't it about time you started to put things in place?

Want to find your soul mate?

Want that job?

Ever get stuck on the word 'should'?

You know - I should do some exercise. I should phone my friend. I should eat some spinach.

And then the word 'must'... I must sort out my filing, I must pay attention. I must pay the bill.

The definition (according to the online dictionary) of the word 'should':

used to indicate duty, propriety, or expediency.

Today I had a Skype call with a few of the participants in the study group of the Science of Happiness course through Edx.

This was my second Skype conference call.

And both times I have come away from these with a profound sense of appreciation.

We now have the research to back up what we think and believe promotes well-being. The concepts are simple and nothing is mentioned at all about owning stuff or watching tele :-)

Quite some time I posted this on my Facebook page.... I'm not sure if anyone got it.

This concept occurred to me at work one day. It had been a hard week, and to put it bluntly - I was feeling a bit 'peeved' about a few things. These things had been going around and around in my mind for a few days. One morning - I realised that the anger was beginning to consume me. I was feeling tense, I wasn't enjoying my food. And I sat, with this anger, it dawned on me. In order to stop being angry - I had to do something to change my circumstances. That in itself was obvious, but I also realised that if I never got angry about things - I would be much less likely to make significant changes in my life....

So for the last few weeks, I've been doing a few courses (all in the name of research of course). Two are on Happiness - (A Life of Happiness and Fulfilment and The Science of Happiness), and the other is on Resilience. (Through Coursera and Edx). All are excellent courses and highly recommended.

In all the courses they talk about how humans are naturally wired to seek the 'bad' or negative in circumstances - it's a life saving strategy (noise in the bush - better think it's a lion rather than a bird, rather being the other way around). However, clearly it doesn't always serve us well in the modern world

Have you ever suffered from butterflies in your stomach? A feeling of dread? Sweaty palms? Feeling that you are struggling to get a breath? Feeling nauseous? Or a general feeling of being on edge, startling easily?

Most of us have experienced this feeling at some point in our life. Usually brought about by being asked to speak publically, awaiting a job interview or waiting for life changing good or bad news. It's normal, it serves a function and we wouldn't be human without it.

But what do we do when it's seems to stay? When the feeling appears to come on for no reason and then doesn't leave us?

There is more and more evidence arising about how our gut bacteria not only is hugely influenced by what we eat, but more importantly - that our gut bacteria may be having huge influences on how we feel. Yes, that's right, whether we are happy, sad, anxious, depressed or otherwise 'not quite right'.

As the youngest child in a family of six, I can quite happily say I didn't take much responsibility for much. Why would I when I have a number of older caring people to look after me?? And although this trait has followed my gently into adulthood - I've also