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The Rough Guide to Happiness 1
Don’t worry, be happy….find out how! What is happiness? And how can we achieve it? The Rough Guide to Happiness is the ultimate ‘how to be happy’ handbook. Discover how to effectively improve your work/life balance, increase self-esteem, and nourish your mind and body while nurturing relationships with the ones you love. The Rough Guide to Happiness will help you navigate your way through all parts of modern day life, offering a practical and effective range of happiness-building techniques. Rely on realistic suggestions from Dr Nick Baylis, a practising therapist and former Dr Feelgood for The Times Saturday Magazine, who has worked with everyone from young offenders to stressed airline pilots! Are some people genetically predisposed to be happier than others? Can money or technology make us happy? The Rough Guide to Happiness explores all these questions and more, going beyond facile tips to offer a deeper understanding of what happiness is with easy solutions for you to implement in your daily life. Drawing on the best ideas from every field, from Hypnosis and Energy Therapy to Positive Psychology and Buddhism, The Rough Guide to Happiness provides a wealth of inspiring insights on how to relieve stress and achieve lasting contentment. Make the Most of Your Time on Earth with The Rough Guide to Happiness.
- GenresNonfictionSelf Help
336 pages, Paperback
First published March 24, 2009
9 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 24, 2009
Uncommonly refreshing! A healthy skepticism guides this book's survey of happiness across varied fields of thought. Skepticism, however, is not its defining attribute; hope and energy pervade these pages. Very highly recommended!
May 31, 2010
When I saw this book, I have to be honest, I didn't read the description. I just saw the title and thought I would love to know more about it. As I was reading it, I was happy to read it, but bored to death too.
The book is small, but don't let that fool you. It has mounds of useful information on the subject of happiness, it's just given to the reader in textbook format. I felt like it was the early '90's and I was back in highschool. Not fun!
I'm happy to be unhappy with this particular book, though I know there are people out there that would prefer the no-nonsense approach to giving information. Just wasn't the book for me.
The book is small, but don't let that fool you. It has mounds of useful information on the subject of happiness, it's just given to the reader in textbook format. I felt like it was the early '90's and I was back in highschool. Not fun!
I'm happy to be unhappy with this particular book, though I know there are people out there that would prefer the no-nonsense approach to giving information. Just wasn't the book for me.
November 5, 2009
Rough Guides are great because they cover so much information. They are quite comprehensive in each subject. This book was no exception. It is a great place to begin exploring the topic. I learned from this book that there are an almost infinite amount of factors that contribute to happiness, and that happiness is complicated due to human nature.
"Happiness" is much harder to define than you might think. Dr. Baylis begins by defining "happiness" for the purposes of this book: "Happiness is [...:] a deeply satisfying sense of all-round, well-balanced well-being and progress in our life, a sense that our life is going in the right direction, no matter the pains we might be suffering as stepping stones en route."
The main theme that is repeated throughout the book is the importance of following our passions, at all costs. It benefits ourselves and those around us; it makes our lives honest and satisfying. The human brain has evolved to be a problem-solver, and since our current environment is relatively danger-free, our brains have a lot of spare room. Using that spare brain on activities about which we are passionate allows us to remain active. The idle brain tends to focus on past regrets and worries about the future.
Baylis devotes a chapter to the subconscious because it has a huge influence on our behavior. Patterns are often difficult to consciously change because the subconscious is actually running the show. "The irony is that what's profoundly healthy for us will probably feel damned awkward for a while, and we'll kick against it. Our progress will rely on our willingness to tough it out when feeling deeply uncomfortable with such unfamiliar ways of relating to the world."
Vigorous physical activity is the only way to lose weight without our body having to compensate for food shortages. Full body, natural activities are best, and dancing with a partner provides physical as well as profound psychological benefits. Relationships with other people are a major factor in our being well. If we have a significant other, reminding them on a daily basis that we treasure their love more than anything and regularly taking quality time together should be a priority. Your marriage should take precedence over even your children, because "children are like evolving planets that thrive best when basking in the warmth created by the loving adults whose profound partnership creates the sunshine at the center of their life."
Numerous polls have asked successful people the reason for their success, and it usually comes down to having had a mentor.
A few more notes:
-It is very important to get 8-10 hours of sleep every night. To start out your sleep on a pleasant note, ask yourself each ight what three things happened that day that you can be grateful for.
-Having a sense of progress is pleasurable, and perfectionism is an enemy of progress.
-Regarding depression, a major problem in the field is that focusing on prevention is not lucrative.
-Read biographies of people who had good lives.
-The internet has made us all more connected and efficient, but it hasn't improved our well-being because "life needs to be savored, not gulped."
Finally, a personal note: As much as I would like to be able to learn everything from books and theory, human nature demands that we explore and create things for ourselves.
"Happiness" is much harder to define than you might think. Dr. Baylis begins by defining "happiness" for the purposes of this book: "Happiness is [...:] a deeply satisfying sense of all-round, well-balanced well-being and progress in our life, a sense that our life is going in the right direction, no matter the pains we might be suffering as stepping stones en route."
The main theme that is repeated throughout the book is the importance of following our passions, at all costs. It benefits ourselves and those around us; it makes our lives honest and satisfying. The human brain has evolved to be a problem-solver, and since our current environment is relatively danger-free, our brains have a lot of spare room. Using that spare brain on activities about which we are passionate allows us to remain active. The idle brain tends to focus on past regrets and worries about the future.
Baylis devotes a chapter to the subconscious because it has a huge influence on our behavior. Patterns are often difficult to consciously change because the subconscious is actually running the show. "The irony is that what's profoundly healthy for us will probably feel damned awkward for a while, and we'll kick against it. Our progress will rely on our willingness to tough it out when feeling deeply uncomfortable with such unfamiliar ways of relating to the world."
Vigorous physical activity is the only way to lose weight without our body having to compensate for food shortages. Full body, natural activities are best, and dancing with a partner provides physical as well as profound psychological benefits. Relationships with other people are a major factor in our being well. If we have a significant other, reminding them on a daily basis that we treasure their love more than anything and regularly taking quality time together should be a priority. Your marriage should take precedence over even your children, because "children are like evolving planets that thrive best when basking in the warmth created by the loving adults whose profound partnership creates the sunshine at the center of their life."
Numerous polls have asked successful people the reason for their success, and it usually comes down to having had a mentor.
A few more notes:
-It is very important to get 8-10 hours of sleep every night. To start out your sleep on a pleasant note, ask yourself each ight what three things happened that day that you can be grateful for.
-Having a sense of progress is pleasurable, and perfectionism is an enemy of progress.
-Regarding depression, a major problem in the field is that focusing on prevention is not lucrative.
-Read biographies of people who had good lives.
-The internet has made us all more connected and efficient, but it hasn't improved our well-being because "life needs to be savored, not gulped."
Finally, a personal note: As much as I would like to be able to learn everything from books and theory, human nature demands that we explore and create things for ourselves.
July 30, 2012
Let's be frank... I reserved this eBook to have something on my iPhone against the ghastly risk of Finding Myself Without a Book and I then a) didn't Find Myself Without a Book and b) the format of this particular volume didn't seem to work readably on my phone. Thus I found myself with a potential challenge - read the thing in the 2 hours before it expired, or let it go (as I had always told myself was an acceptable option)
I went for the 'read it inside 2 hours' option and don't feel this did it an injustice. It's not a bad book but nor did I find it inspiring. I found the information on some therapies interesting, with the right level of detail. I felt it fell victim to its own kind of celebrity worship by its constant reference to the lives of the famous. I found it slightly bizarre that there are numerous references to the achievements of Winston Churchill yet no mention of his depression. There are too many references to the frequency with which eminent, successful people have had difficult childhoods - the implication being that adversity is good for us. Well, fair enough but it does rather ignore the possibility that actually more or at least as many perfectly ordinary people, or those whose 'achievements' have been profoundly negative have had similarly less than desirable childhoods.
I went for the 'read it inside 2 hours' option and don't feel this did it an injustice. It's not a bad book but nor did I find it inspiring. I found the information on some therapies interesting, with the right level of detail. I felt it fell victim to its own kind of celebrity worship by its constant reference to the lives of the famous. I found it slightly bizarre that there are numerous references to the achievements of Winston Churchill yet no mention of his depression. There are too many references to the frequency with which eminent, successful people have had difficult childhoods - the implication being that adversity is good for us. Well, fair enough but it does rather ignore the possibility that actually more or at least as many perfectly ordinary people, or those whose 'achievements' have been profoundly negative have had similarly less than desirable childhoods.
November 18, 2013
I skimmed through this and found it very simplistic and anodyne. It's possible that if you know diddly squat about psychology you might find some of this material interesting, and enlightening, but apart from a fairly well-informed section on CBT/positive psychology (rightly criticising the many corners of the psyche which these therapies choose to ignore) I found it of no help at all. Thankfully a library book as I would have been very cheesed off to pay good money for this. The section on defence mechanisms, to give one more example, was so dangerously compresssed that I shudder to think what a naive, depressed person might make of it. Avoid!
July 18, 2014
Thus far twaddle but I'll give it more of a chance... After finishing I can't really take anyone who says reading doesn't make you happy seriously.
gave-up
December 17, 2014Read: 18 May-. Finished most of this. Free from LibraryThing via their monthly publisher review copy program.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews