Grow Some Plants, or At Least, Do Some Digging

The practice
Find a way to do some gardening. Whether it's re-potting your house plants into good new compost, or planting a row of pole-beans alongside your house or on your balcony, gardening is good therapy. You don't have to do anything complicated. Hanging out with plants, enjoying their progress from sprout to leaf to flower to fruit, is satisfying and calming in itself. But actually, it turns out having your hands in the soil is extra good against depression.

The theory
I have always said that I feel better when I can garden, on however modest a scale, but it was only today that I discovered new scientific research that indicates why. The bacterium mycobacterium vaccae, present in soil, apparently increases serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is a neurochemical that seems to be linked to depression--if you don't have enough of it. Mycobacterium vaccae also encourages growth of serotonin receptor cells, which means that it makes it easier for your brain to be positively affected by serotonin, too.

Obviously the scientific data is more complex than I'm making it sound. But the bottom line remains the same--getting your hands in some soil is scientifically proven to be very likely to make you feel better.

Movies for Mood

The practice
Be selective about what you watch this week. Try a fast on violent, disturbing, crime-centred TV and movies, and instead watch things that promote optimism and hope. Movies are a fast, effective way of changing your mood and shifting your perspective.
Here are a few suggestions:

Shifting out of loneliness and feelings of not fitting in:
The Station Agent
Bagdad Cafe
Ma Vie En Rose
Chocolat
Bend It Like Beckham

Shifting out of feelings of despair, injustice, stacked odds:
The Shoreshank Redemption
Erin Brokovitch
Jackie Brown
Rabbit-Proof Fence
Monsoon Wedding
Seabiscuit
La Misma Luna

Shifting out of feeling stuck in a rut in a boring or depressing life:
Shirley Valentine
The Full Monty
Eat, Pray, Love

The theory
Humans throughout time and across cultures have been thrilled by love stories, transfixed by scary ghost stories, or motivated by rousing tales of heroic achievement or battles against injustice. The Ancient Greeks knew the healing power of stories. Their theatre was a tool for emotional catharsis--people went to the theatre not to be entertained, but in order to be moved by powerful emotions. Movies are the modern equivalent, providing a powerful emotional experience that sweeps us up and moves us. They can reframe our experience and shift our perspective on our lives.

Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh stresses the importance of being mindful of what we take in, whether it's food, drugs, or media, because whatever goes into us affects us more profoundly than we may realise. If we want to be calm and happy, then we need to set ourselves up for that. He's referring to a phenomenon called priming--a psychological process described by Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink. It refers to the fact that whatever you're exposed to sets your neural networks up in a way that influences your subsequent behaviour. So, people who are asked to read a text full of rude words are more likely to interrupt an investigator than those primed with neutral words. People primed with polite words are much less likely to interrupt.

If you watch a story that fills you with feelings of hope, even temporarily, you're more likely to feel hopeful afterwards. Likewise, watch out for movies and stories that do the opposite.

Go For A Walk Among Trees

The practice
Go for a brisk walk, every day, for half an hour. Take your walk in nature, or in an area where you can see trees and other plants, such as a park or a pleasant area with gardens if you're in a city. It sounds banal, but it's better and faster than Prozec at making you feel happier--according to studies.

The theory
There are two parts to this. The exercise itself, and the natural setting.

The exercise:
A Harvard Medical School study conducted in 2005 showed that "walking fast for about 35 minutes a day five times a week, or 60 minutes a day three times a week, had a significant influence on mild to moderate depression symptoms".

No-one knows exactly why exercise makes people feel better, but one theory is that it stimulates production of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which has a direct effect on mood. It also stimulates production of endorphins, the feel-good chemicals. They switch in after about thirty minutes of mildly aerobic exercise--exercise that makes you breathe just a little faster.

It's not clear how briskly you have to walk--I'd say a slow walk is probably better than no walk at all, but the study did show that you need to be out for at least half an hour. "Walking fast for only 15 minutes a day five times a week or doing stretching exercises three times a week did not help as much."

The natural setting:
A lot of research is now coming out about the beneficial effects of nature. It calms us down.

"A small study by the University of Essex commissioned by UK mental health charity Mind compared the benefits of a 30-minute walk in a country park with a walk in an indoor shopping centre on a group of 20 people with depression. After the country walk, 71 per cent reported decreased levels of depression and said they felt less tense while 90 per cent reported increased self-esteem. In contrast, only 45 per cent experienced a decrease in depression after the shopping centre walk."

The result
Try it and leave your feedback.

Reset Your Radar For Friendly Smiles

The practice
Here's a free, easy and fun experiment for reducing stress, social anxiety and depression. It's a game on a website
called MindHabits.com.

To play the game, you look at pictures of people, and click on the ones who are smiling.
That's it!

Try the free version for ten minutes every day for a week and see if you feel happier.

The theory
The MindHabits website has lots of research documented on it, but here's the executive summary.

Research shows that many of us scan for danger in social situations: we automatically tend to focus on signs that might indicate rejection or criticism from other people, presumably so that we can defend ourselves against it. But this tendency reinforces our sensitivity to criticism and rejection, making us much more focused on the negative feedback we get, than on the positive. So that one grumpy person can ruin our day, even if everyone else is friendly.

The MindHabits software "teaches people to look for the smiling/approving person in a crowd of frowning faces. By doing this repeatedly and as quickly as possible, this trains an automatic response of looking for acceptance and ignoring rejection." This induces a fundamental change in orientation to other people, which in turn tends to make you happier.

The result
Studies quoted on the MindHabits website show that after using the software, people become less distracted by rejection, and less stressed at work and school. (When I was told about this software, I was told it reduced cortisol in subjects by 17%, which would indicate a large reduction in stress, but I haven't been able to find this figure on the site.)

Try it, and send your comments.