Surprising tips to improve wellbeing
Some surprising techniques to improve wellbeing, such as directing your attention to a smiling face, are the subject of a new book by Charles Darwin University psychologist Associate Professor Simon Moss.
The book, “Emotional Intelligence: A journey to the source”, aims to provide people with strategies to improve their wellbeing and emotional intelligence, and debunks some of the theories found in many self-help books.
“It presents a suite of exercises and interventions that people can apply to improve their wellbeing and discover the importance of emotional intelligence,” Dr Moss said.
“All these activities have been validated scientifically and most are surprising rather than obvious.”
Dr Moss said the book was unique in clarifying the four key sets of strategies that promoted emotional intelligence, while debunking theories such as simply focusing on positive outcomes.
“We might strive to shift our attention from upsetting memories to inspiring possibilities, to address conflicts, we might decide to shun the people we do not trust, and to achieve our goals, we might strive to outperform our colleagues,” he said.
“But as research shows many of the practices that people assume improve wellbeing can actually damage our mood, relationships, or performance and actually impair wellbeing.”
He said the book was one part factual and one part fictional with the recommendations embedded within a tale of mystery and intrigue.
“It does not merely inundate you with a catalogue of recommendations, but aims to help people with tips to improving trust, making better decisions, increasing confidence, achieve goals and even improve the wellbeing of others,” Dr Moss said.
His primary research interest at CDU concerns how characteristics of organisations and societies, such as inequality of income or instability of jobs, influence the neural functioning and ultimately the mood, creativity, intuition, engagement, honesty, and altruism of individuals.
He has published a range of books and articles in the fields of leadership, personality, motivation, integrity, perception, attention and stress.
“Emotional Intelligence: A journey to the source” will be launched at the CDU Library Beagle Deck, building Red 8.3.01 Casuarina campus on Thursday, 25 August at 4pm. RSVP to Kaitlyn.Obryan@cdu.edu.au.