How to Instantly Feel Better

Rob Bell:
Hello, and welcome to Sketchplanations The Podcast.

We're back after a lovely long summer break, and we're raring to go headstrong into the autumn.

With more fortnightly conversations on the hows, whys and wherefores of the world, all inspired by the intriguing collection of sketches at sketchplanations.com.

I'm engineer and broadcaster, Rob Bell, and joining me as designer and creator of Sketchplanations Jono Hey and entrepreneur and past winner of The Apprentice, Tom Pellereau.

Tom Pellereau:
Hello.

Hello.

Rob Bell:
It's been a little while, chaps.

Tom Pellereau:
Yes.

You're looking well, Rob.

Rob Bell:
Thanks, Pete.

The summer's been a gone.

We've all got our summer glows, our summer tans.

Tom Pellereau:
It's not gone yet, is it?

Rob Bell:
It's winter in September.

It is autumn, isn't it?

Jono Hey:
It feels like it already, but it's good to be back, definitely.

Rob Bell:
It is lovely to be back.

So let's crack straight on.

This time, we're talking about Ways to Instantly Feel Better.

Now, you should be able to see Jono's sketch for this up on your podcast player screens now as the artwork for the episode.

But I definitely urge you to follow the link in the show notes to see the sketch in a larger format at sketchplanations.com as you listen, if you can, at least.

So that's a pretty compelling opening line, right?

Listen to this episode to find out ways to instantly feel better in yourself.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, the Daily Mail would love that.

Rob Bell:
It is a proper clickbait title, it's a little feels like that.

But Jono, can you kick us off and just make sure we all feel better than we do now?

Jono Hey:
I don't know if I can guarantee that, but...

Rob Bell:
Can you give us a flavour of what this Sketchplanation is about and why you wanted to draw it?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I will agree with you that it's a well-named meme, I would probably call it.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
So this is not a wholly original creation by any means.

It's something I saw.

It was shared by an account I follow called Information Is Beautiful, which is run by David McCandless and he's run a few amazing books of displaying information in beautiful ways.

Anyway, he shared a version of this, which is How Do We Instantly Feel Better, which I want to read just from that title.

But it was sort of lacking quite a lot and I just I could relate a lot to the different things in it and I could just imagine and I wanted to sort of create my own version of it, which had a bit more personality than just words.

And so How Do We Instantly Feel Better is a set of eight emotions, I'd say somewhat negative emotions that you might be feeling and ways that you can sort those out straight away and so you'll see hopefully 16 little people on your screen that we can work our way through.

Rob Bell:
And there is a lot of character in it Jono as well, which is what you do so brilliantly in all of your Sketchplanations, explaining things through the power of simple sketches.

So I think mission accomplished for you in that sense.

But should we just go through each one then?

Each of these suggested proactive positive responses to, as you said Jono, negative emotions one by one and see see what we think of them as cures.

Tom Pellereau:
Before anyone gets angry and then we have to start singing.

Rob Bell:
Well, Tommy, thank you very much for teeing us up with the first one.

So the first one suggests that if you are feeling the emotion of anger, if you are angry, a way to instantly feel better is to sing.

What do we think about that?

Jono Hey:
I mean, it's nice, isn't it?

It's an, what a lovely way to dispel anger.

And I was trying to think through my mind, at the times that I've done that, or if I've done that.

Yeah.

And I think, I think there are times where I might have like really gone for a song.

If you're by yourself, when you can really go for it, and it's the right song.

But I can't, I wasn't totally sure if my anger disappears, but I think I do feel better.

But I might still be suitably angry if I'm belting out a song.

But anyway, nobody else has seen this because I would never do this by myself.

Tom Pellereau:
Jono has never been angry in his life, as far as I'm concerned after 25 years.

Jono Hey:
It's a good one for the car, this one, isn't it?

Tom Pellereau:
Right, exactly that.

Rob Bell:
Perfect.

Great.

Here we go.

Let's pile in, Tommy.

Tom Pellereau:
So I get irrationally angry in the car, quite a lot, actually.

And I drive the kids to school, to and from, and it's not a good look, you know, like yelling at someone with anger when you've got your own kids in the car.

So I try hard not to, and regularly I find myself kind of going into a hum or a song or...

And because of you now, Jono, I actually know that that is my body's kind of reaction and it is helping me because I do regularly find myself singing to dispel that anger or just to try and not show that anger in front of my kids in the car.

And maybe that's also why so many of us enjoy singing in the car because it stops us getting angry when someone carves up or does something idiotic at the lights.

Rob Bell:
Well, this was going to be my kind of test and my train of thought along this was, what are the times when I regularly get angry?

What are the triggers for me that makes me angry?

Tommy driving I think is one that's very, very common.

I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that.

And so the singing, I don't think I do sing when I feel angry.

So this is a really good one for me.

Jono Hey:
Give it a try.

Rob Bell:
Give it, I will give it a try.

Tom Pellereau:
Or just hum a few bars.

I think just the sort of starting of air, just la la la la la, it just sort of makes you feel more joyful, I think sometimes.

Rob Bell:
You sound drunk.

Jono Hey:
Drunks can be very joyful.

Rob Bell:
Drunks is good as well.

Jono Hey:
I guess that's not one of the options.

Rob Bell:
When I was thinking about my life, the thing that I tend to get angry at, I was going to say regularly, frequently, it's tech.

It's when tech doesn't do what I want it to do.

Because I'm not interested enough to understand how tech work.

I'm not that interested in tech.

I'm not interested in how it works.

I am so curious and love understanding how so many things in this world work.

But when it comes to tech, I just don't care.

I just need it to work.

And occasionally idiots on the road.

But my release for that, again, if I'm on my own, if I know I'm in the house on my own, is I just let out this guttural, really loud scream.

And it's really short.

It's about a second long, but it's so loud sometimes it scares me.

So I'm going to try and replace that with singing now, whenever that happens.

Tom Pellereau:
Because you're a good singer as well, right?

You can sing well.

Rob Bell:
Oh, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
I've seen you, I've seen you play.

You know, you weren't there.

Rob Bell:
You've seen me play.

You haven't heard me sing.

Tom Pellereau:
You were also like a backing singer.

You don't, you know, I've never seen you as like the lead singer in a band, but you're always like the backing singer.

You can hold the chin.

Rob Bell:
He builds you up.

He builds you up.

I've never been a lead singer, but I will, I will try that.

But I was thinking that I do do quite a lot of nonsensical singing at the moment, the kind of la-di-da-di-da type stuff, because I've got a really, really young daughter.

And so you just end up singing everything.

You know, we're going down the shop.

And what do you want to buy?

It makes them smile, right?

Tom Pellereau:
Doesn't it?

It really does.

Rob Bell:
Exactly.

Well, and so there's, maybe there's a link there, right?

So if you could make yourself smile when you're angry, maybe that's it.

Tom Pellereau:
I'm not sure it necessarily has to be singing.

It could just be any form of kind of music, you know, strumming along or humming or kind of making some kind of tune.

I think it works possibly just as well.

Rob Bell:
But what is it?

What's going on when you introduce some form of music or singing that relieves that anger?

Tom Pellereau:
Dr.

Hey, I'm sure can explain.

Jono Hey:
Oh, I don't know.

But I would say that the singing is very close to you just laying out that screen, right?

It's the same kind of reaction, isn't it?

But maybe channeled in a slightly nice way.

Maybe we need to pick the right song.

Pick the right song, which puts our anger back in place, gives us perspective.

Rob Bell:
There is, I think, a Belgian pretty heavy metal band called, I think they're called Gorefest.

And a lot of their singing is basically screaming.

So arguably, I am doing it.

Jono Hey:
You are singing.

That's lovely.

Rob Bell:
Look up Gorefest.

You'll see what I mean.

Or maybe not.

Let's move on to the second emotion.

I went down the left hand side, then down the right hand column, Jono.

So I've gone to, if you're feeling burned out, the suggestion is to go for a walk.

Jono Hey:
I mean, going for a walk, it just comes up again and again, doesn't it?

It's pretty much cure for so much stuff.

I was thinking that if you're burned out, you should probably also have sleep here.

That's probably not a bad one to have, if you're burned out.

But certainly going for a walk outside is a fantastic cure, I would say, for me to help me feel better if I'm feeling burned out.

Even if you've had a long day at work and you're on your commute back or something and there's a walking stretch, there's something about that little bit of walking that really helps, which is actually, I think you miss out if you drive door to door.

It's actually quite nice to stop, get out of the train station and have that 10-minute walk and you're sort of reset when you come back in the door somewhat.

Rob Bell:
With commutes especially?

Jono Hey:
I think so, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
I drive pretty much door to door, but fortunately my work is on a farm effectively, so I do go for quite a lot of walks at lunchtime or in the afternoon.

I try to make sure I get out every day for at least a five-minute walk.

There's something about the cadence of walking that really relaxes you, isn't it?

Jono Hey:
Apparently.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, especially on a farm, going out to milk the cows, feed the chickens.

Tom Pellereau:
I don't actually work on the farm.

Rob Bell:
I was being flippant, Tommy.

Sorry.

When I looked at this one, I'm not sure I'd recognize if I was feeling burned out, over feeling a bit tired, a bit sleepy.

I'm not sure I've experienced feeling burnt out, or maybe I just don't really know what it means.

But how does feeling tired and feeling burned out differ?

Tom Pellereau:
I quit all being stressed.

Sometimes quite difficult to tell the difference between those.

Jono Hey:
Burning out is a combination of everything, isn't it?

You're being down throughout the day.

You're refusing to take on more inputs.

You can't make progress on stuff.

You're not actually doing anything useful anymore.

And I think you're right.

You don't always necessarily notice it in yourself.

You might just be carrying on.

But actually, if you go for a walk, you feel better.

But you might not think to go for a walk, if you know what I mean.

You might just be pressing on.

Rob Bell:
Yes, which I definitely will come on to later as well.

But you've got another sketch as well, haven't you, Jono, that relates to this a little bit.

Was it solved through walking?

There's a Latin phrase for it.

Was it like, penteas promenades or something?

Jono Hey:
It's a good try.

It's, yeah, there's one called solvitu ambulando.

Rob Bell:
Oh, that's nice.

Jono Hey:
I don't really want to just work on my pronunciation.

But yeah, it basically means it's solved by walking, which is that you go out for a walk and your mind churns through a problem or works on something and that helps you come to a solution rather than sitting at your desk or something and trying to work through it.

Actually having that external stimulus and getting your body moving and everything helps your mind work on it.

Rob Bell:
I love that.

I totally subscribe to that.

I think the tip here, perhaps, is, or the practical tip here is possibly about that commute then after a really tough day at work, perhaps, on the way home, make sure you can build in some form of walking in that maybe.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, or even just out in the evening.

Just, yeah, I mean, I think everybody would benefit from a bit of walking each day.

If you can make time for it.

Like Tom says about five minutes even at lunch, you know, just get out away from your desk.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, let's move on.

The third one, if you feel like you're overthinking something, get a flipping pen out, piece of paper and write.

Now, this works for me, but very specifically around to do lists.

To do lists and breaking down larger problems into much more manageable tasks.

If that is just too big a thing, I can't figure this whole thing out.

Or if I've got loads of things that I know I need to do, I find writing those down, either breaking down a big problem into manageable tasks or getting a to do list down means that I can stop trying to think about everything.

Or probably it's actually trying not to forget something that is in that little whirlwind of thoughts.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I think half the time we're like trying to balance and hold all of these things in our heads.

And so you can't get on with something else because you're trying, as you say, to not forget this other important thing that's going on.

And so I remember for quite a period of my life, I start every day not at the desk, but with a notebook and a pen and just sit there for 20 minutes.

It was a brilliant practice.

I kind of wish I did it now again.

I don't know why I don't.

Tom Pellereau:
Really good idea.

Rob Bell:
Doing what?

Is that to do a to do list or could it be journaling of some form?

Because I know that is something that is believed can really help clear up some productive thinking brain capacity to just sit down and write whatever it might be.

Just let stuff flow out from you.

I've been advised to do that by a coach I've worked with.

Jono Hey:
There's a really well-known book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and she recommends something called Morning Pages.

Morning Pages is you start each day with three pages of long handwriting just first thing in the morning.

Rob Bell:
Anything.

Jono Hey:
That is anything.

It's actually at the beginning at least, you're not even supposed, first of all, nobody else is supposed to read this.

You're not even necessarily supposed to read it.

It's just about getting your hand moving and getting things out of your head and freeing the space for the rest of the day.

And I can't say that I've done it.

I mean, actually in a writing group on a regular basis, and a lot of people do it there.

And so clearly, people get a lot of value from it.

So I mean, I'd hardly recommend giving it a go, because clearly it works for a lot of people, I think.

When I talked about sitting down with my notebook, I'm not necessarily just writing a to-do list for the day.

Sometimes there's stuff, you know, you write something and then you think something else around it.

And it's just about not forgetting things.

It doesn't necessarily have to be, this is what you have to do that day.

But I think, you know, the morning pages is even more general than that.

Just write, just write.

Three pages.

Don't stop.

Start to finish.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Get the brain lubricated and fluent.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

We should try it.

Are you overthinking much these days?

Rob Bell:
I have.

No, but I have tried a little bit of journaling, just sitting down and writing.

I think I probably started laughing to myself as I had no idea.

I'm just letting my hand just write.

I ended up writing the kind of thing I do when I'm having a fake phone conversation when I'm trying to ignore somebody.

It's just absolute nonsense.

Jono Hey:
I have done an exercise once where you literally, you're not supposed to stop writing.

You can't lift your pen or paper.

It's got to keep moving.

And you end up doing things like, I'm still writing this sentence, even though it's going on and on, that kind of junk.

But you get past that and other stuff comes out.

And if you keep doing it.

Tom Pellereau:
I've got a thought for you.

It's one of my new favorite things to use AI with, in the fact that I don't find I can write down stuff quick enough, and I also don't find I can type.

So I've started to dictate to an AI quite regularly when I've just got so much on my mind of various different things to get done.

And what I love is the fact that I can just dribble on it.

I can say, oh yeah, I've got to do this.

And can you remind me, I've got to talk to Sarah about this.

And I've got to do that for the school.

And I've got to work on it and da, da, da, da.

And AI is amazing at taking completely unrelated sort of blurge of information and then reordering it into, okay, you wanted to talk to Brandon about these five things.

You wanted to do these for home.

You wanted to do.

And it is really powerful way.

And you can get so much information out so quickly.

They're like, okay, breathe.

And now I can look at that, that list or that text that it's created, which is usually much nicer than I could have written.

I've found it really quite useful.

They're now written down so I can be more relaxed.

Rob Bell:
Very good.

Right.

The next one, if you're feeling anxious, a way to instantly make yourself feel better is to breathe.

Now, I used to think this was a little bit hippy-dippy.

I'm going to say, you know, just breathe, just breathe.

But boy, it works.

I fully subscribed to this one.

But also, I now know there's science, right?

There's physiology to it as well.

Jono Hey:
One of the articles I found a version of this list on talked about these science-backed ways to instantly feel better.

And of all of these, certainly breathing as a way of controlling your body signal, bringing your heart rate down and bringing your breathing rate down and allowing you to focus and concentrate properly again, is undoubtedly effective.

Rob Bell:
You do some of this in anti-natal classes, right?

You do, you know, the breathing to get your body away from the fight-and-flight mode that it might be feeling and to get it back into calm, relaxed mode.

And you just, you breathing sends very different messages to your brain by the chemicals that you're releasing or not releasing in that way.

I won't go into all the physiology of it, but it is good hard, bloody good hard science behind this one.

And I do it, I actively do it if I'm about to go on stage for a live gig.

You know, if I'm doing something live, like, I don't know, an after dinner or hosting events or something, I will backstage do some deep breaths before I go on, which I find is very calming because I've always got a few little nerves before I get started.

And before I go to sleep, when I'm in bed sometimes, if I've had a busy day, like we were talking about earlier, I find some just deep, controlled breathing really helps just, okay, everything's good, everything's fine.

We're nice and relaxed.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I think even a minute of it is remarkably effective.

Yeah, the little person sat on the chair.

Rob Bell:
Yes, on the sketch, we should talk about the sketching as well because they're very fun.

Jono Hey:
Anyway, yeah, so they've got their hand on their belly and their hand on their chest.

And they've got four little dots because in my mind they were doing, what's called, box breathing, very good, which I have a sketch on also.

And it's called box breathing because you breathe in and you imagine going up one side of a box for the count of four, and then you hold along the top of the box for four, and then you breathe out slowly for four, and then you hold with your breath out for four and you come back round for the square.

And I just imagine this little person doing that and everything suddenly feeling calm.

Look how calm they look.

Rob Bell:
Oh gosh, they look calm, especially compared to the anxious lad who's...

Jono Hey:
Yeah, struggling.

Rob Bell:
I don't know.

I don't know what he's going to do with that chair.

Tommy, do you use or have you used breathing techniques in the past to help alleviate anxiety in a situation?

Tom Pellereau:
Not enough.

I think would be the honest answer to that.

I think it's a very good idea.

As you say before, getting on stage is a really good plan.

I've got a couple of big events next week, so I'll make sure I do do that.

Rob Bell:
I know whenever I do go on stage, my first 30 seconds can be quite quick in terms of the delivery of what I'm saying, the adrenaline's going, and so I'm banging through it.

Whereas as an audience member, I would feel more reassured by whoever it was who was up on stage if there was an element of calmness about them.

Jono Hey:
We did a really fun episode on something called The Awkwardness Vortex, which was exactly this kind of thing where you might be in that sort of situation, and then you start focusing on your body and you start sweating, and you're wondering what people are thinking about it, and breathing is just the right sort of technique to help get out of that vortex of downward spiral of anxiety and awkwardness.

Rob Bell:
Do you know the lovely thing about this is we have to breathe anyway.

Jono Hey:
That's true, isn't it?

Rob Bell:
All you have to do is just do it a bit harder.

Jono Hey:
Well, you say that, but actually one of the things I thought about when I was doing this is sometimes when I'm feeling anxious or if I'm trying to do something really hard, I've had coaches or an instructor tell me, don't forget to breathe.

And you realize that you're sat there and you're like, you're actually holding your breath because you're concentrating so hard on something that you forgot to breathe.

And of course, breathing, as you say, is quite useful.

And it helps our body function properly.

So just yeah, you say we have to do it anyway, but it's easy to forget if you're feeling really anxious.

Rob Bell:
Right, let's move on.

If you're feeling stressed, exercise.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the number one really, isn't it?

Tom Pellereau:
I would say that the two of you are incredibly consciously competent that when you're stressed, that exercise is the solution.

Whereas I would say a lot of us think that drinking or watching telly or eating foods are kind of the best thing for this.

Which I noticed that drinking alcohol, stuffing chocolate in your face, eating sweets are nowhere to be seen on this list, which is what a lot of us would normally turn to.

Like, for example, eating Haribo, one of my best how to instantly feel better, doesn't seem to appear on Jono's list.

Neither does coffee, alcohol.

It's a very different list, or I think what many might feel should be on here.

But in terms of stressed, I've had a very stressful couple of days, and I knew I was coming on this, and I saw this before I went stressed.

Exercise, okay.

Just set up a stationary bike.

So I did a 30-minute stationary bike, and I feel as a result, much better.

I was also-

Just now, before you came on.

Yeah, that's why I was late, because I was doing a stationary bike.

Is that why you're in a sports top?

That's why I'm wearing a sports top.

I have at least cooled down from the sweating that I had going on earlier.

It's so obvious, but I think to many of us it's not, and the two of you are brilliant at it.

Rob Bell:
Well, having just done that, Tommy, then, how do you feel about what you were feeling stressed about beforehand?

If I can ask that.

Tom Pellereau:
That's a very good question.

I think certainly exercise does seem to reduce the kind of importance of stressful things, maybe.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, okay.

Tom Pellereau:
Your physical body feels like it's doing something, whereas often when you're stressed, your physical body actually has no say in it.

Jono Hey:
One of the things that exercise, particularly if you go outside, I think, gives me is it gives me perspective on something, especially if you do just a jog around the streets or in a park or something, puts a problem in its place.

It doesn't mean that it's not a serious thing that you still got to deal with, but it just reconnects you with the rest of the world, is what I find.

Rob Bell:
I wondered if, Tommy, you might mention urgency, because I find that a lot of the time I'm feeling stressed because I feel like there's a lot of stuff that feels urgent that needs to be done.

I don't have the time to do this.

I'm getting stressed about it.

And so I wondered if after having done exercise, it was feeling like what did feel urgent feels less urgent now.

Jono Hey:
Sometimes if I'm stressed about something and I go do some exercise, I come back and I've now got the less time to do the thing that is stressing me out.

So perhaps that's an exception, but maybe I do a better job when I come back to it.

I don't know.

Rob Bell:
Well, so, Tommy, and I will take your compliment earlier about, but I'm afraid to say that's not the case for me.

I exercise not because I feel stressed.

I exercise for other reasons.

But when I'm stressed about stuff, I actively don't exercise because I feel like, no, my time right now needs to be dedicated to this.

And I know through experience that going down the gym or going for a run or going for a ride or whatever it might be will help me deal with this better.

But in the moment, I rarely make the decision to go and do exercise and just keep plowing on, come on, I will get there, come on.

Whereas I know through experience that if I stopped, go and do some exercise, as Jono said, without even less time to do it, I will be much more effective.

So yeah, but that's good to talk that out.

And I'd really love to be better at that.

I'd really love to just say, no, come on, do it, stop.

Tom Pellereau:
One of the things that irritates me about exercise is how hot and sweaty you get.

You then have to have a shower or you then have to cool down and that can double the amount of time that the exercise takes, which does slightly irritate me.

And I look forward to sorting that out.

I really at work want to set up like a highly air conditioned room with a standing bike inside that I can fire fans at myself when I'm doing it, put some effort in, but not actually get any hotter.

I think I'll do that one day.

I'll set it up like, you know, create like a fridge where basically you have a really loud, windy fridge.

Rob Bell:
It sounds like quite a stressful environment to walk into to me.

Tom Pellereau:
Exactly.

Anyway, one day.

These are genuinely things that I think about quite a lot.

Rob Bell:
I know they are, Tommy.

And I love that you come on here and voice them.

They're brilliant.

Tom Pellereau:
If someone else could solve it for me, that would be also great.

Rob Bell:
I know you're the problem solver.

All right, let's move on.

If you're feeling sad, how do I word this?

If you're feeling sad, remember gratitude.

Be grateful.

Thank you.

Yes.

The old wordsmith here, doing his job.

If you're feeling sad, be grateful.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I think this is a tricky one, but a good one.

And being grateful, I think, is just a practice in your life, which will help you out.

Just having always an...

I can't bring myself to say it, but an attitude of gratitude.

Rob Bell:
Oh, I said it.

Jono Hey:
I do think that it's true, but I was thinking, you know, when you're feeling sad, it's hard if you've lost somebody, or if you think back to something that was great, and now you don't have it anymore.

It's hard to do that reframe.

Instead of going, like, what if I lost?

You start to go, well, what did I have?

And what brilliant times, how much I got out of that?

And I do think that that does work.

And you see people who are, they seem sort of naturally happy, but they have that kind of attitude all the time about, you know, it's like all the good things.

They focus on the good things.

But I think when you're feeling sad, that's difficult.

Rob Bell:
It is.

And yeah, you mentioned it, the example, the one example I came up with here, you know, God, we've got a massive downer in the middle of the podcast.

It is when you've lost someone.

That's the saddest I think I've been in my life.

But then absolutely, as is laid out here, by reflecting on the times that you've had with them and being grateful for them being part of your life in some way and focusing on the memories that you've made with them.

That is a means of trying to deal with that sadness for sure.

Yep, absolutely.

Jono Hey:
You don't have to be sad to get the benefits of gratitude.

There are other practices a bit like the morning pages where it's, you know, sit down and write one thing you're grateful for every morning.

And that kind of practice can help tune yourself to look for the positive in things and think about the goodness in your situation and everything you do have as opposed to everything you don't have.

Not something I do all the time deliberately.

And I wish I did, you know, you hear about these practices and you're like, oh, I should do that.

Why don't I do that?

It'd take me 10 seconds.

Rob Bell:
That would have worked.

Tom Pellereau:
One of the biggest benefits of daily praying, which many people do, and I had periods of my life where when I did, is often you're encouraged when you pray to start with sort of things that have gone well today, or things that are going well.

So, you know, the classic one is, thank you, God, for my daily bread.

Certainly, I was sort of taught to start praying by saying what you were happy for.

Rob Bell:
I mean, that's probably a gales where you live as well, isn't it, Tommy?

So, you're well aware of your daily bread.

Tom Pellereau:
How much for a croissant?

Rob Bell:
Just as an aside, I went to Audi for an almond croissant this morning, 64p, I think it was.

Tom Pellereau:
I went to Audi this evening, love it.

Rob Bell:
That, gratitude.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, gratitude.

Rob Bell:
Right, let's move on.

We've got two left.

So, if you're feeling impatient.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, let's get on with this.

Rob Bell:
The suggestion is, come on.

Tom Pellereau:
Come on.

Rob Bell:
If you're feeling impatient, reflect on progress.

Tom Pellereau:
Seven down, on to go.

Rob Bell:
Now, see, I don't know, I found this one slightly difficult because when I'm most feeling impatient, it's when I'm running short of time, normally because I haven't left enough time.

And so the example that comes up almost every episode, at least for me and Tommy, I'm running late for a train or a plane, but I've made time somehow to pick up some food or coffee from somewhere and the person in front of me is taking forever.

That's when I start to feel really impatient and I don't know how I'd reflect on progress in that situation.

Maybe it's not relevant there.

I feel that this applies much more to a longer term impatience that you might have for something, getting a promotion, buying a house, getting funding for your idea that you want to develop.

I don't know, something like that.

Tom Pellereau:
So for me, impatience often slips into angry and then sing.

I am very impatient in many different things.

And sometimes actually when I reflect, it makes me even more impatient because I'm like, yes, you look back and you go, oh, this has been going on for months now.

Rob Bell:
This is why you're a very good inventor.

Jono Hey:
You're reflecting on how little progress you've made.

Rob Bell:
Your impatience that leads to anger, leads to a solution and a new product on the market.

Is this another one then that relates quite a bit to giving perspective?

Jono Hey:
It is for me.

So I know your situation about standing in line and somebody's taking ages.

I don't know if reflecting on progress is going to solve that one.

But I know that I'm not always a great teammate because I'm always on to the next target, the next goal, the next project.

And I want to keep making progress.

And so in my mind, when I think about this, the times where people have encouraged me or forced me to stop and say, look at what you have done so far up to here.

It doesn't all have to happen in a month, six months, a year or whatever.

These things take time, like maybe selling a house or buying a house or whatever.

But like if you're working on a project or you want to achieve something, I can tend to be hard on myself because I will be patient to keep moving on.

And I think reflecting on progress seems a really good thing.

And I need that prompt in order to do that.

Rob Bell:
Good.

Well, before Tommy gets angry, let's move on to the last one.

If you're feeling lazy, lazy slash lethargic, I would put in there, here we go.

Instantly feel better by taking a cold shower.

Oh, it takes a lot to convince me to have a cold shower.

Jono Hey:
Wow.

Yeah.

I mean, honestly, I think of all of them here, this is probably the hardest one to actually go do.

Rob Bell:
But actually, quite an easy one to do but hard to force yourself to do.

Tom Pellereau:
I don't know many people who get out of a couch that looks as comfy as that and go have a cold shower.

Jono Hey:
I mean, it's not common and not many people who are in fact lethargic and stuck on the sofa are going to get up and have a cold shower.

However, if you do think if you did, yes, it would be incredibly effective.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I am not debating how effective it is.

I know it works just like I do it very rarely.

Jono Hey:
It's one of the hardest things to do in the world, I think, just get into a cold shower, force yourself to have a cold shower when you don't have to have a cold shower.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
I think, you know, that whole like wild swimming and swimming in lakes and stuff, it has this kind of effect.

It's kind of hard to be really lazy after you've come out of some cold water.

Rob Bell:
It's always totally energizing.

I always feel absolutely amazing.

Jono Hey:
What am I going to do today?

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
I'd say what I did get into was icing my legs after lots of marathon training.

So lots of long runs.

I get in.

I wouldn't ice, to be fair.

I'd just run a cold bath and I'd get my legs into the cold bath.

And that even that is great.

It's brilliant.

You come out like, right, I'm knackered from having just run 30 kilometers, but I am so fired up.

Let's go and do some stuff.

Jono Hey:
Just putting your feet in cold water can also do a similar thing.

Rob Bell:
Well, now we're talking.

Jono Hey:
So you can just do that.

You're not making any progress at your desk.

Just get a bucket of cold water, stick your feet in, see what you pump out next hour.

Rob Bell:
And there's physiology, right?

There's science behind this one as well.

It's the opposite of the breath effect really in many senses.

It kicks in the fight or flight type reaction and response.

Right.

We've got all your good hormones, your dopamine, your endorphins are all flying, like shock to the system.

Let's go.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, no, absolutely.

I should say the chap struggling with the shower there is the one I had in mind.

I don't know if you've ever seen Groundhog Day, but there's like a few just random scenes of Bill Murray struggling to get the shower, which is either scalding hot or freezing cold.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
And it doesn't really bear on the story at all, except that he just hates being stuck in this place.

But it's very funny watching him struggle with the freezing shower or the scalding shower.

Rob Bell:
It's the repetition of the gag that makes it so good right in Groundhog Day.

Tom Pellereau:
And does that way he starts every day as well?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, exactly.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, he wakes up in bed and then yeah.

I got you, babe.

Jono Hey:
Good for you if you're feeling lazy and you go have a cold shower, let us know because I'm impressed.

Rob Bell:
My wife's very good at it.

Yeah.

Well, there they are.

Eight suggestions of how to instantly feel better from negative emotions by taking proactive action to move forward.

Tom Pellereau:
I don't think you're going to be one of those headline writers in hurry.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I'll just describe it again.

Tom Pellereau:
Pity comments and heckling.

Rob Bell:
Is there anything else anyone would like to add apart from the heckles, Toby?

Jono Hey:
I've got two quick things.

One is that this list is about how to instantly feel better.

And I think it's a bare point to make that these are short term things rather than feeling better in the long term.

Rob Bell:
You're right.

Jono Hey:
And we've covered a bunch of other things about feeling good in the long term.

Things like the 5 Ways to Wellbeing one.

Yes.

Rob Bell:
Very good.

Jono Hey:
Which we spoke about.

Which I think if you did a lot of these in the short term, overall that will help in the long term.

But these are not about the long term happiness.

These are about instantly feeling better.

And the other thing I was going to say was, when we talk about the walk, I think it was a little butterfly there, because I was imagining walking in nature.

And as I was doing this, I just kept thinking, like, if I'm angry, going to walk in nature, if I'm burned out, walk in nature, if I'm overthinking, walk in nature, anxious, walk in nature.

Basically, I was thinking, walking in nature is pretty much the miracle cure that we have for so many things.

And I learned the word as I was doing this and looking into it, for something called green prescriptions, which is basically if your doctor prescribes that you go spend time out in nature as part of your treatment, which is a lovely, essentially free, medicine and tonic for the soul.

Rob Bell:
I should say as well, you did a sketch for that as well, didn't you?

Which you can see from the How to Instantly Feel Better sketch.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it's somewhere down the bottom.

It basically has all of these with one simple solution.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, but it's a lovely picture as well about a guy walking in nature.

I will link to it in the show notes.

Any overarching takeaways from this episode?

Anything we've learned?

I feel that this is a good reminder about how sometimes, or even a lot of the time, our immediate mood and emotions can be at least partially controlled by our actions, which is a nice reminder, I feel.

Jono Hey:
For me, like that discussion you mentioned about being burned out, and the fact that you can't always tell if you're burned out straight away, you might need somebody else to point it out for you.

Actually, maybe I should get a little printout of this next to my desk as a prompt, just for each of these, you know.

Like you should for getting out for a run when you're stressed about stuff, or if you're just going round and round in your head to just write some stuff down, or as you're feeling a bit sad, actually, as little prompts could be quite handy.

Rob Bell:
Jono, that is lovely, because we go through all these, and we've all basically said, yes, that's right.

That's not obvious, but yes, that definitely works.

Yet, I don't do all of these all the time when I feel some of these negative emotions, especially that stressed go and exercise one.

But I know it works.

But if there was a reminder there, that is a reminder to me saying, you know this works, so do it.

That's good.

Tom Pellereau:
What I think you probably need is a printed mouse mat with it on, available via Jono's website, with a little link to Redbubble by the way, for £18.67.

Jono Hey:
Good point.

Rob Bell:
There you go.

Jono Hey:
Quite right.

Rob Bell:
There you go.

Jono Hey:
Lovely.

Tom Pellereau:
Laptops and the framed art.

Rob Bell:
All of Jono's sketches are available in a number of different merchandise products.

So do have a look at those as well because they make great gifts.

Well, as our first episode back for a wee while at least, I'm delighted that we've started there with that.

I mean, I was feeling good at the start of the episode, as I said, but now I am feeling even better.

I just am.

As a reminder, listeners, you can expect new episodes to be out every other Thursday, and there's a whole load of episodes in our back catalogue as well.

So if you're a newcomer, then you're firstly welcome, but also please do have a look back at previous episodes.

There's something in there for everyone.

And I feel like the only instantly feel better advice I can follow now is down to the anger I'm feeling of coming to the end of this wonderful conversation.

So that can only mean one thing.

It's time to sing.

Thanks for listening, until next time, go well, stay well, goodbye.

Tom Pellereau:
You're an amazing singer.

Jono Hey:
See you everyone.

Rob Bell:
All music on this podcast series is provided by the very talented Franc Cinelli.

And you can find many more tracks at franccinelli.com.