From when you were a kid, to the age you are now – the clothes, the books, the home items, the magazines, the shoes, the electrical goods, the furniture, the carpets, the crockery, the mobile phones, the computer games, the cushions, the kettles, the deckchairs, the cars . . . everything.

Where are they now ?

Assuming you’re home isn’t some vast Indiana Jones like warehouse full of everything you’ve ever owned (how disconcerting would that be?), it’s safe to assume the vast majority of the things you’ve bought you eventually threw away.

Why ?

All those raw materials, all that energy used in manufacture and transport, all the water used to grow the wood or cotton etc, all the chemicals, all the packaging? None of it really thrown ‘away’ of course, there’s no such place, but landfilled in some home in the ground – several hundred tons of your own personal waste.

Why ?

Sometimes we just get bored or tired of things, sometimes things go out of style, sometimes we’ve just no further use for something, but it’s more than likely that a large percentage of the stuff you’ve thrown away, you got rid of because it was broken.

Just a couple of generations ago many of these broken things would have been repaired, once, twice or even over and over again – whether tables, clothes, shoes or tools. This attitude of scarcity, of material things being limited and valuable, is now largely history. In our throwaway society stuff is cheap – it usually costs less to buy a new one than it would to fix the old one, and certainly it’s a lot less hassle. Who has time to fix stuff these days ?

But taking the time and effort to repair things is making something of a comeback – from Amsterdam’s Repair Cafes (which are now popping-up further afield), to increasing numbers of writers and bloggers discussing it – check out My Make Do and Mend Year or The Case for Working with your Hands.

Some of this is down to austerity of course – we’re all having to get by on less money than before, and so feel more inclined to patch up our coat, or re-screw the table leg, than use the excuse to buy something new. But some of the popularity stems from an increasing awareness of the connection between our own wasteful, consumerist lifestyles, and the environmental and social damage being done elsewhere in the world to support them. We increasingly understand it’s hypocritical to bemoan global warming while buying endless replacement gadgets and stuff made in Chinese coal powered factories, or to feel appalled about poor working conditions or workplace disasters elsewhere in the world, while buying endless £3 T-shirts on the High Street.

Just to be clear – I’m as much a hypocrite as anyone else – consumption is so deeply woven into our society it’s not an easy thing to avoid.

This isn’t just a personal problem – we’ve built our whole economies on a model of never ending consumption. We need to maintain ‘consumer confidence’ or GDP takes a bit of a hit. The phrase ‘planned obsolescence‘, you might be interested to learn, was first used in 1932, in a plan to help end the depression by ensuring all manufacturers produced goods that were designed to quickly break – in order to stimulate and perpetuate consumer demand! They realised even then, that if we all simply stop buying new stuff we’re going to have to face some rather difficult consequences.

On the other hand the phrase ‘waste not want not‘ dates back to at least the 1700s, and suggests that if we were to waste less in the present, then we’d have more left for ourselves in the future.

Solving this dilemma – by ensuring resources are used not just effectively, but also efficiently, but without collapsing the economy, is one of the key challenges of sustainability. To achieve it we’ll need to develop a much more circular economy, making it easier to use and reuse materials – while at the same time decoupling economic growth from consumption.

In the meantime, as policy makers and economists wrestle with how to do this, I’ll keep fixing my 10 year old bag . . . buy less, mend more.

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The difference between who we are and who we want to be . . . is what we do.

This post starts and ends with two ‘motivational’ quotes.

There are two types of people in the world – those who like ‘motivational’ quotes on the internet, and those who definitely don’t.

Apologies if you’re in the second group.

Not everyone likes being ‘motivated’ to do stuff, especially by sanctimonious bloggers. If being ‘motivated’ isn’t really your thing, and you feel far more comfortable making up your own mind about what you intend to do, and when you’re going to do it, then I’m genuinely sorry for this clumsy attempt at ‘motivation’.

To be honest, I agree with you anyway. I’m always resistant to anyone telling me what I should do, or what I should like. I think I’m generally more likely to like a song, film or book if I feel I’ve discovered it by myself, than if it’s been recommended it to me. None of us like feeling ‘bossed about’.

The problem is we have busy lives, too many distractions and too little time. We read a well written and powerful article about the plight of the flatulating acid-spitting  zumzizeroo, agree it’s a terrible thing and that something should be done, consider writing to express our views or lobby decision makers – but somehow always end up clicking on the another hyperlink instead.

Issues and concerns enter our thoughts, and then almost immediately drift out again. Petitions go unsigned. Surveys go uncompleted. Views remain unexpressed. Ignorance and greed goes unchallenged. . . . Situations remain unchanged.

Of course we obviously can’t change everything by simply sending an email about it – I’ve written before about the need to Avoid Slacktivism. But sometimes in this hyper-connected world, public opinion makes a difference  - I’ve also written before about Changing the World from your Keyboard.

If you can spare a few minutes today to be an email warrior for five minutes – here are a few humble suggestions of worthy causes you could put your keyboard to.

Do it now . . . because sometimes ‘later’ becomes ‘never’.

(sorry – I promise no more ’motivation’)

1 - Email your MP and tell them you care about climate change and favour policies that fairly and sensibly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and encourage sustainable sources of energy. Perhaps support an amendment to the current Energy Bill.

2 - Register with Hugh’s Fish Fight Campaign, to end fishing discards and protect marine conservation zones.

3 - Sign Greenpeace’s online petition to Protect the Arctic from offshore drilling.

4 - Spend 3 minutes to register as an organ donor

5 - Petition your local council on a local issue of your choosing

6 - Sign a petition calling for the banning of neonicotinoid pesticides believed to be responsible for significant bee decline.

7 - Send an email on behalf of Amnesty International’s campaigns around the world.

8 - Check out the online petitions on the Government website. 100,000 signatures means consideration for debate in the Commons.

9 - Register with 38 Degrees or Change.org to get updates of new campaigns.

10 - Email your friends, or post something on your social media to raise awareness and support.

Photo by Alan Cleaver via Flickr

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It refers to the practice of defending a position or point of view against critics or opponents. It’s often used in a religious, or occasionally philosophical or political context . . . but I’m using it here in a scientific sense.

A climate change sense, to be specific.

As I’ve written before, I share the view that man-made climate change is real and occurring as a consequence of our use of fossil fuels, and also share the concerns of numerous organisations and individuals that this will have a potentially devastating effect on people everywhere, especially the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. Responding to rising sea levels, repairing after more extreme weather events, ensuring sufficient water and food supplies and managing the resulting mass migrations that are likely to occur all look set to become incredible challenges for our warming world.

What we should do about this,  is a legitimate subject for debate. Less fossil fuels ? More renewables ? More nuclear ? More tree planting ? Less deforestation ? Lower energy agriculture ? More efficient agriculture ? Less meat ? GM crops ? Geo-engineering ? Adaptation ? Tax ? Subsidies ?

It makes sense to me to do what we reasonably can to quickly decarbonise our economies, and that in the interests of fairness, most of the cost of this should be borne by the richest economies and people in the world (ie: us). This approach is broadly known as contraction and convergence. This is my opinion – everyone else will have their own.

We’re all entitled to our own opinions, but there is seemingly ever more disagreement about the facts presented in the media.

We now have a debate between climate proponents and sceptics. Hawks and doves. Doom-mongers and denialists !

You might be familiar with some of the various sceptical arguments which frequently get cited:

‘CO2 is not a pollutant – only a harmless plant food‘

‘There is no evidence the climate is warming – it may even be cooling‘

‘The Earth’s climate changes naturally, and it’s nothing to do with us‘

The first one really just comes down to the definition of pollutant and harmless – though CO2 is clearly not totally harmless (that our bodies exhale it is a clue), but it’s toxicity isn’t really the issue here.

The second is just a misrepresentation of the facts. There is ample evidence that the world has a strong warming trend – regardless of weather it’s snowing outside Boris Johnson’s window.

The third is more interesting, because, of course it’s  half true.

The planet’s climate has indeed always changed, long before we had anything to do with it, and the extent of this change has been quite remarkable.

While most of us talk about ice ages, Geologists talk about glacials – periods when there is year round ice cover at one or both poles (such as now), and inter-glacials – periods when the world is totally ice free year round. We are currently coming out of an ice age, which peaked around 22,000 years ago, with widespread ice cover across much of Europe and North America, as far south as Germany, the UK and Ireland.

Going further back there have been numerous warm and cold periods in the Earth’s history, including a period around 400-600 million years ago, when the entire planet is thought to have frozen !

These glacial periods come and go, partly driven by the presence of large land masses at one or both of the planetary poles (via plate tectonics), partly by orbital variation around the sun, and partly (most scientists believe mostly) by variation in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

So given all this natural variation – do the sceptics have a point ?

It’s a question of timescale.

What’s different now is that  carbon dioxide levels have been increasing at incredibly rapid rate in recent years. Measurements of ice cores from Antarctica show that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels varied between 180 and 210 ppm during recent glacials, and 280-300 ppm during recent interglacials.

But, the current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 391 ppm (2012), and is still rising.

We are quickly moving into atmospheric chemistry territory outside the normal range of the recent historical past – at least the last 800,000 years, and possibly much much longer. With global emissions continuing to increase year on year, ever higher levels are now effectively ‘locked-in’, no doubt triggering various tipping points and feedback mechanisms on the way.

Climate change is part of the natural state of the earth – but there seems little doubt our global use of fossil fuels is moving us quickly to somewhere new, outside the variation of the recent past, and that coming to terms with a much warmer world is going to be a significant challenge for us.

What we should do about it is going to have to be another post entirely . . . in the meantime think carefully before buying a house near sea level.

Photo by  Alastair Rae, via Wikicommons

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Imagine you knew you’d loose a quarter of any money you put in your pocket, it would get pretty annoying pretty quickly wouldn’t it? You’d have a couple of obvious options – put an extra 25% into your pocket every morning, so when you needed money you’d still have enough left, or alternatively, (drum roll) you could fix the hole.

What if you had a computer that that crashed 25% of the time, taking your recent work and files down with it . . . you could either spend more time redoing the work, or fix the computer.

Or what if you had a dishwasher that broke 25% of your plates . . . you could either keep buying replacement plates, or fix the dishwasher.

You get the idea.

What if you lived in a badly insulated home, so that 25% of the energy used to heat it almost instantly disappeared via draughts, or through the walls and roof, as waste heat ?

Sometimes I think that if heat was perhaps a luminous red colour, rather than being invisible, and we could see it wastefully escaping from our homes and workplaces, we’d probably be much better at conserving it (of course if you go draught hunting around your house with a thermal camera, that’s exactly how it’ll look).

We read almost constantly about the energy crisis the country, and indeed the whole world, is facing. There’s plenty of disagreement about where the extra energy we need should come from, but whether we import more gas, decide to build nuclear power stations, turn to fracking, or try our very best to expand renewables, there’s one thing no one seems to be disagreeing about – whatever we do, we’re very likely to be paying a lot more for our energy in the future. This isn’t news. We’ve all noticed our bills rising for some time, along with the rising cost of fuel and the knock on effects on the cost of all transported goods.

It’s not all about economics of course – there are also climate consequences, safety and pollution concerns, visual impacts and land and water resource implications. Clearly some possible sources of energy are worse than others, but they all have some downside.

But there is another alternative open to us.

We could use less !

It’s almost always easier to use less energy than produce more, and pound for pound it’s far more cost effective – even over quite short time frames. Buying another £1,000 of energy heats your house for a year or so. Spending £1,000 on energy efficiency measures, will mean your house uses less energy every year thereafter, and without generating any radioactive waste, upsetting anti-wind farm types, or contributing (much) to climate change.

In a typically confused environmental way, the current UK Government has policies that both support and work against energy efficiency at the same time. The Green Deal and the new national Green Bank are now both helping to support the public and businesses improve their energy efficiency. While at the same time energy efficiency regulations have been relaxed for a range of construction projects – a decision which looks set to land the government with a judicial review !

We tend to think of energy efficiency mainly in terms of low energy light bulbs, loft insulation and snake shaped draught excluders, as well as all kinds of other improved technologies from better car engines to smarter and more efficient power networks.

But improving efficiency isn’t just down to the technology

If we want low carbon affordable energy, we’re also going to have to change our behaviour, and make sure we’re using energy as efficiently as we can.

Most of us will already be doing all the easy stuff – switching off lights in empty rooms, turning things off properly – not just putting them on standby, not overfilling the kettle etc. All very sensible of course, but surely we all know it’s going to take a lot more.

Are we ready to give up our holiday flights ? Reorganize our lives and jobs so we need to drive much less ? Start repairing our things rather than constantly replacing and upgrading them ? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Another option for many of us could be to try getting used to having our homes a little colder. Thanks to central heating, our homes are now an average of 5 degrees warmer than they were thirty years ago.

If your thermostat is set at between 18-20 degrees or so, try dialing it back a little.

And if you’re cold, try wearing a onesie around the house to keep warm . . . you know it makes sense.

Photo by JBLM MWR Marketing via Flickr

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And the thing before that ?

And before that ?

We could all go on, but for most of us sat reading this in the first world, it’s a list that very quickly becomes very long – snacks, clothes, gadgets, books, gifts, coffee, trips, fuel, entertainment, meals out, apps, toiletries, drinks, stuff for home, stuff for the kids, stuff for ourselves . . . It’s not that buying things in itself is bad, it’s just that we all consume so much.

Although it probably doesn’t seem like it, we’re among the richest people that have ever lived, and if you’re reading this online, somewhere warm and dry, with a full stomach and a drink that won’t give you a disease, you’re already one of the richest twenty five percent of people in the world. If you earn the average UK wage of £26,500 a year, you’re in the top 1% !

Drop in on the website How Rich am I to use their calculator and see how you measure up.

We know it’s a big world out there and we know there are millions and billions of people living in poverty while we have so much, but it’s somehow too much to comprehend, too distant, their lives are too different to ours – we can’t relate to it, so we don’t see ourselves as rich. This disconnect is entirely normal and natural, but it means we’re left comparing our lives and our stuff with the society around us . . . along with all the advertising, streets filled with shops and a focus on the lifestyles of the rich and famous, we’re easily left with the sense of wanting more in order to be happy.

US writer Jeff Yeager talks about ‘Slaying our Enoughasaurus’ – deciding that ‘enough is enough’ and conditioning ourselves to spend less and to be content doing so. He’s one of many now advocating a more frugal but happier life.

I’ve written several times about consumerism and simpler lifestyles but the truth is I’m as guilty as anyone else – it’s very hard not to be a hypocrite.

This Lent I’ll be doing a money diet – and reducing my spending as low as I can.

It’s obviously not a total ban on spending money – I’ll still be paying the bills, putting petrol in the car and food on the table, but the aim is not too much else. No takeaways, meals out, purchased lunches, drinks in the pub, clothes, books, games, music, apps, gadgets or anything else – well almost. I’ve decided to make a few exceptions: I’ve got two social commitments (a meal and a film) with friends that I’m going to honour, but I’ll be doing so very much at the frugal end of things. I’m also going to continue with the sport and exercise I do, but apart from this (and a trip to the dentist) I should be ‘consumption free’ until Easter . . . we’ll see what happens.

Six weeks doesn’t actually seem that long. Robin MacArthur went for a year without buying anything new (almost).

So why am I doing this ?

Well the idea is to teach myself a little more self-control and resilience – freedom from desire etc, but also to see how easy it would be to reduce our spending longer term. Having lower overheads, fewer commitments and more money in the bank seem generally very sensible things to do in these uncertain, austere times.

I’m also hoping giving up spending for Lent will encourage me to spend a bit more time in the garden . . . it definitely needs it !

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Photo by Tax Credits, via Flickr

You know, terms that are self-contradictory, like act naturally, original copy, open secret, deafening silence, military intelligence, or my personal favourite Microsoft Works.

How about Sustainable Development ?

Can development ever truly be sustainable ?

Ultimately it comes down to what you think the words sustainable and development mean.

Sustainability is the ability to endure, and in this context is usually taken to mean something along the lines of: The ability to meet our own needs, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs (the so called Brundtland definition).

This implies that we should hope to provide future generations with the same access to resources that we have available to us today, including energy, raw materials, fresh water, fertile land or natural landscape and habitat.

So for example, when it comes to energy, solar is considered sustainable but oil is not – as roughly the same amount of solar energy will continue to fall on the planet every day (at least until far into the future), while oil is a finite resource and will become increasingly scarce before running out.

With more and more of us on the planet, and all of us wanting to have more and more stuff for ourselves, trying to develop sustainable practices and technologies is increasingly important if we want our children and grandchildren to have a better, or even a similar quality of life to us.

So back to development.

We all want homes to live in, jobs to go to, food on the table, health, education, leisure, water, sewerage, electricity, faster broadband, occasional holidays and any number of other things, which all makes development important and desirable. How can we do this in a sustainable way ?

If we build new homes far away from places of work and facilities, it means people will have to use more energy in travelling. If we build in flood plains it means more resources dealing with the effects of frequent flooding. If we don’t install sufficient insulation in new buildings, it means more energy in heating. If we don’t provide efficient plumbing and water storage systems, it means using more water than we need to. If we cut down a forest or concrete over a wetland to build a new town or motorway, it means there is less habitat left for wildlife.

These kind of considerations are very familiar to those of us with a ‘green streak’, but we must remember this is only one aspect of sustainability.

As well as the environmental, the social and economic aspects are equally important – issues of equality, opportunity, crime, access to jobs and services, affordability, fairness ? We don’t want to saddle future generations with either a depleted and polluted planet, a fractured and violent social structure, or a huge unaffordable debt.

Unfortunately these so called three pillars of sustainability (environmental, social and economic) are very often seemingly pitted against each other – Do you want unspoiled landscapes or wind turbines ? Do you want cheap food or low impact organic farms ? Do you want nice houses with gardens in the countryside, or more countryside ?

These are not easy questions to answer, and can be very emotive, especially when considering our own local environment – we might all be a little bit NIMBYist on occasion . . . but we have to remember recycling plants have to be built somewhere, unless you’re a BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) !

So what does all this matter ?

You might not be aware, but a New National Planning Policy Framework (the NPPF) came into force in the UK last year, guiding the shape of the UK’s future development, and (so the Government hopes) helping construct our way back to economic growth.

In it there is a clear presumption in favour of sustainable development - but what does this mean ?

Unfortunately there’s no simple answer – we all weigh the various factors differently, and a global supermarket chain might have a very different view about what sustainable development means than you might, for example.

But there is something else.

The NPPF also includes a strong commitment to localism, improving the voice of the local community in the planning process – to help decide what gets built where, and what sustainable development means locally.

If we want the proposed wind farm, or don’t want the proposed supermarket then the onus is on us to find our voice – attend meetings, write letters, send emails, comment on policies and ultimately use our vote in local elections . . .

As a former physicist I’m partial to the odd Einstein quote, and though this one might seem a little strong, the sentiment applies:

“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil. It will be destroyed by those who watch but do nothing”

Photo from Ivan Walsh via Flickr

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Perhaps its thick, dense tropical jungles inhabited by unique wildlife – especially lemurs, either that, or the Dreamworks cartoon film – also with lemurs.

Unfortunately, these days Madagascar is looking a bit different.

Since the first arrival of humans, Madagascar has lost over 90% of its original forest cover, and seen the extinction of many of its original native species, including the enormous elephant bird (extinct by the late 1600′s) and numerous species of giant lemur.

It is estimated around half of this deforestation has occurred since the 1950′s and is continuing today, fueled not only by traditional slash and burn methods of farming, but also by the continued expansion of beef cattle grazing, illegal logging, and clearance for mining and coffee production. All these practices are exacerbated by Madagascar’s extreme poverty and governmental corruption.

Madagascar is home to almost 100 different species of lemur – the iconic primates found nowhere else in the world, almost all species now being classified as endangered. Though lemurs have been legally protected for decades, many local people, desperate for income, continue to hunt them for sale as bushmeat, but it is the continuing destruction of their habitat that is driving them ever closer to extinction.

Solutions are hard to come by.

As in all such circumstances more regulatory protection and stricter controls can only provide a temporary solution. If we want our future world to contain lemurs living in the wild, we will have to find a way to ensure rural Madagascan’s are able to improve their standard of living and have achievable life aspirations without having to destroy their natural environment. Fair trade, debt relief, targeted aid and encouraging political reform will all play a part.

It’s estimated that over 400 million people have seen the Dreamworks Madagascar films, but only a tiny proportion are probably aware of the extent of the danger faced by lemurs and Madagascar’s forests – something you might want to mention the next time the films are repeated on TV.

Photo by Cornelliuscz, via Flickr

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“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted”

Not such a long time ago, in a toll-booth not so very far away,  a woman in a red Honda full of Christmas presents, about to cross the San Francisco Bay Bridge, paid the toll not only for herself but also for the next six cars.

One after another, the drivers of the next six cars were told they didn’t have to pay, as a lady in a previous car had already paid for them. It turned out the woman in the Honda had earlier read the phrase “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty” written on a card stuck on a friend’s fridge, and liked the idea so much she thought she’d give it a go.

Another woman, Judy Foreman, saw the same phrase graffitied on a wall and mentioned it to her husband, Frank. Frank was a teacher and also liked the phrase, putting it on a notice in his classroom to help inspire his pupils. One of the pupil’s parents was a columnist at a local newspaper and after being told about the phrase, decided to use it in a short article in the newspaper.

After reading this article, the writer Anne Herbert was so inspired by the idea she decided to write it on a table mat in a Sausalito restaurant – and, this convoluted and unlikely sounding story is often cited as the origin of the phrase ‘random acts of kindness‘.

Unlike the origin, the idea itself is straightforward – by practicing more kindness to others in our everyday lives, we can help create ‘cycles of kindness’.

We’re probably all familiar with the idea of ‘cycles of violence’, that violence perpetrated on one person by another increases the chance that person too will too go on to commit violence against others. This is considered a factor in both armed conflict and domestic violence, there is a strong desire to ‘get even’, and if not with the one who harmed us, then someone else.

There is plenty of evidence that many other behaviors can be learned and spread the same way, including kindness.

Deliberate kindness seems to be an idea whose time has arrived, with many individuals, families, groups and communities around the world actively trying to be kinder in their everyday lives:

In the Bay Area, the Haswell family have brought together over two hundred volunteers to spread kindness at local events.

Just before Christmas a customer in a Canadian coffee shop brought a coffee for the person behind them in the line, who then went on to do likewise for the person behind then. Amazingly, the next 228 people did the same !

Instead of having a party, Syed Muzamil Hasan Zaidi decided to do 22 random acts of kindness across Islamabad, Pakistan to celebrate his 22nd birthday.

Bob, founder of the Million Acts of Kindness website is currently spending a year cycling around the perimeter of the USA, visiting schools along the route to promote kindness between pupils.

A Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has been set-up, promoting the virtue of being kind, and is now running educational workshops in Colorado schools.

The comedian Danny Wallace wrote a best selling book promoting the concept, and suggesting that people commit to carrying out one random act of kindness every Friday.

And any internet search will find hundreds of people interested in doing more random acts of kindness, or offering suggestions for kind things to do.

If you think this sounds just a bit too soft and fluffy, there is also a lot of serious investigation ongoing into understanding and teaching kindness, amid evidence that experience of kindness has a definite positive effect on public health and pro-social behaviors.

The most interesting and amazing thing is that it boosts not only the person receiving the kindness, but also the person being kind.

Something to think about when you have the option to give way at your next road junction on the way home . . .

“Ask yourself have I been kind today ? Be kind everyday and change your world” – ANNIE LENOX

Similar articles – Charity Does Begin at Home, Saving Lives

Photo by Katerha, via Flickr

You’re not alone. The long and cold month of January can be a struggle for a lot of people, once the festive fun of Christmas and the New Year is over, and real life, real work, real problems and real bank balances return.

In addition the further north you are the less daylight you see over the winter months, with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) being a real, but often unacknowledged, problem for up to ten percent of the population.

The depressing effects of the winter are very real in northern climes, not just due to the reduction in sunlight, but also because we tend to get less physical activity and social interaction, due to the poorer weather and darkness. We also often pick this time of year to try and reinvent ourselves with New Year resolutions and promises of healthier lifestyles, which can just put us under further stress !

As I’ve written before, happiness is a hot topic at the moment, as any lunchtime spent browsing in a bookshop will confirm, which is probably as much to do with the current austerity as anything else, but it does open up a conversation about all sorts of interesting things – including community relationships, work-life balance, materialism and consumerism.

If you could do with a few mid-week and mid-winter suggestions to cheer yourself-up then look no further, but remember just reading about how to be happier isn’t actually going to help – if we want to change we’re actually going to have to DO something.

1 – Get a Bit More Exercise

Our modern sedentary lifestyles mean that we spend most of our days just sitting – changing locations from our car, to our desk , to our sofa. There’s plenty of research showing that exercise has a significant positive effect on mood and can help reduce depression. Even short amounts of regular exercise can help, boosting self esteem, shifting our mental focus and encouraging social interaction, with exercise outside also making the most of what little sunlight there is. In addition physical exercise causes your body to release endorphins, which give rise to feelings of well being, pain relief and relaxation.

2 – Brighten Up Your Environment

Our physical surroundings also play a significant role in affecting our mood. Making a change and brightening things-up, or even just a bit of decluttering or cleaning, can have a tremendous positive effect – as it not only reduces visual reminders of things left undone, or still to do, but also helps us begin to exercise more control over our environment, which is an important aspect of our wellbeing. Increasing the amount of light available might also be a good idea, especially if you are prone to SAD, perhaps try a spot of DIY light therapy.

3 – Get Out of the House

When its dark and the weather’s miserable it can be easy to get into the habit of never leaving the house. Make an effort to get out more – to public spaces like cafes, or just to have a short walk around. As well as helping provide a bit more exercise and social contact, regularly changing our environment is shown to have a positive effect on mood, as new visual surroundings stimulate our interest and tend to distract our focus away from ourselves.

4 – Get Organised

Having control over our lives is an important part of our wellbeing, and with increasingly complex and fragmented lifestyles, a sense of disorganisation, chaos, or having too much to do, can all contribute to a feeling of being overwhelmed. Taking small, definite steps to get things more up to date and under control can often bring a sense of satisfaction and progress, and reduce triggers for negative thoughts and concerns, such as thinking about unpaid bills, piles of washing or long lists of things to do. Getting more organised will also help free-up more time to spend doing things you enjoy.

5 – Change Your Thinking

It seems almost silly to suggest one of the ways we can be happier is to just ‘try to be happier’, but it’s actually true. Being more aware of our own mental life, and taking more control to discourage negative streams of thought, is considered an important element in reducing depression. Known as mindfulness, it’s no more than attempting to be more consciously aware of our patterns of thought, and seeking to interrupt, and not dwell on negative concerns or outcomes.

6 – Get More Sleep

As I’ve written before, lack of sleep is well known to have a significant negative effect on our mood. Research has shown that when people are limited to less than six hours of sleep per night they become more stressed, more irritable, more angry, more sad and more mentally exhausted. Our busy modern lifestyles and the ubiquitous presence of screens and entertainment mean sleep is one of the things we often sacrifice . . . If we want to be happier, we should get more sleep !

7 – Let Go of the Bad Stuff

It seems obvious to say it, but being constantly reminded about ‘the bad stuff’ tends to make us miserable. Unfortunately most of the news we see tends to be ‘the bad stuff’ and we can easily become unduly influenced by world events, the state of the economy, crime and political developments we’re unhappy about etc. Of course I’m not advocating we disconnect from the world, but it might not be a bad idea to balance these constant sources of negative news with a few more positive ones. There’s plenty of good stuff happening out there as well, and being a bit more aware of it might help us feel more positive about the world.

8 – Have More Fun

When we feel a bit down it’s easy to loose touch with many of the things that give us pleasure or that we enjoy, like hobbies and social events, and taking steps to reconnect with the things we enjoy can help us have more fun. Even making plans and arranging dates in the diary, for a holiday, trip, cinema visit or meal out, or even just a get together with friends, as something to look forward to, can have a positive effect. You might also want to invest a bit of time in watching, listening to, or reading some comedy – smiling and laughing produce a powerful effect on our mood and sense of wellbeing.

9 – Do Something for Someone Else

If we want to be happy, there’s a balance to be struck between doing things for ourselves and doing things for other people. If we feel we are always working for and trying to please others, then perhaps we need to concentrate on ourselves for a while, but for many of us shifting our focus away from ourselves and our own problems, and doing something to help others will probably be beneficial. Thinking about, and more importantly doing things for, other people provides connection, purpose and control, and also creates a sense of gratitude as we put our own problems into perspective.

10 – Spend More Time with Friends

Studies into improving happiness have looked at a large range of factors and methods, including many of those listed above, but consistently one factor is judged to be more important than any of the others. If we want to be happier, it seems, we should spend more time in the company of people we like.

Photo by JustTakenPics, via Flickr

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A guest post by Joshua Becker, author of the Becoming Minimalist blog, and on a journey towards rational minimalism with his family in Arizona. He is also the author of two several books on simple living, including :Simplify, Simplicity Inside Out and Living with Less.

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” – Wayne W. Dyer

Minimalism as a lifestyle, is a movement that seeks to pare down possessions to only the essential. Because life can be lived richer and fuller when unnecessary possessions have been removed, it is a growing trend that includes more than just young, single, 20-somethings. Many families are embracing the lifestyle as well.

And more and more are being introduced to the lifestyle every day. Perhaps, even, this is your first introduction.

Some people get nervous when they hear the term “minimalist.” For them, it conjures up images of destitution, barren walls, and empty cupboards. Rightly so, they decide that is no way to enjoy life. Believe me, I agree – that is no way to enjoy life. And since deciding to become minimalist years ago, we have been on a journey to define what it means for us and how it fits into our unique lifestyle.

We live in the suburbs of Arizona. We have two small children. We are active in our community. We love to entertain and show hospitality. While not exceptional, our life is not identical to anybody else. It is our life – nobody else’s. Minimalism, for us, would have to be unique. It would require us to determine the most important pursuits in our life and remove everything that was distracting us from it. And in so doing, we would find a new way to live life that adds richness and fullness around life’s most essential elements.

To determine if minimalism may indeed be the right lifestyle for you consider some of these questions:

1. Do you spend too much time cleaning?

If you enjoy clean, tidy rooms but don’t like to clean, minimalism just may be your answer. After all, the easiest way to reduce your cleaning time is to simply own less things. It works every time.

2. Are you trying to get out of debt?

Debt holds our life in bondage and weighs heavily on our shoulders. Getting a handle on it by buying less things is one of the most life-giving actions you can take.

3. Is there too much stress in your life?

Physical clutter results in extra stress on our lives. Minimalism removes the clutter and limits the distraction that it causes. Minimalism may be just the breath of fresh air that your home needs to help you relax and unwind.

4. Would you like more time in your day?

Consider for just a moment the amount of time that our belongings drain from our life. Whether we are cleaning, organizing, maintaining, repairing, removing, or shopping, our possessions demand a large percentage of our time. Owning fewer of them results in less time spent maintaining them.

5. Are you environmentally conscious?

Minimalism reduces our impact on the environment by requiring less resources on the front end for production and reducing the amount of waste on the back end.

6. Are you frugal?

While becoming minimalist doesn’t mean that you have to spend less money, it certainly provides the opportunity. And because you are buying less things, you also have the option to make higher-quality purchases that last longer.

7. Do you enjoy financially supporting other causes?

Minimalism provides an opportunity to not just save money for the sake of keeping it, but for using it to further causes that we believe in. After all, once you become content with your belongings and have been rescued from the race of accumulating possessions, you have no need to hoard money. You find new freedom to support the causes that you hold most dear. Currently, the Becoming Minimalist community is raising $10,000 for Charity:Water.

8. Are there things you value more than material possessions?

Minimalism seeks to intentionally promote the things in life that we most value and remove anything that distracts us from it. It allows our life to center around our deepest heart desires rather than the items on sale at the department store.

9. Are you not afraid of change?

Minimalism is a counter-cultural lifestyle that will force changes in the way you spend your time, energy, and money. Of course, almost every change is for the better… so it’s definitely worth the effort.

10. Is your life too valuable to live like everyone else?

Our heart, soul, and passions makes us valuable and unique. Don’t sacrifice your important role in this world by settling for the same temporal possessions that everyone else in your neighborhood is chasing. Your life is far too important… and short.

Your particular practice of minimalism is going to look different from anyone else. It must! After all, you live a different life than anyone else. So find a style of minimalism that works for you. One that is not cumbersome, but freeing based on your values, desires, passions, and rational thinking.

Ultimately, you will begin to remove the unneeded things from your life. As a result, you will find space to intentionally promote the things you most value and remove anything that distracts you from it.

Photo by jlz, via Flickr

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