Chances are that you or friend have thought about going on a food diet, but have you ever thought of going on a fun diet? I am sure you’ve heard before, “you are what you eat.” Personally, I remember it best from this little gem from my childhood…
After a bit of digging, I found the expression’s origins date back to the 1800s when Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French lawyer and politician, wrote in his book The Physiology of Taste:
“Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es.”
[Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.]
Although this sentiment has been made popular by relating diet to food consumption, the message certainly holds true for all consumption.
In short, we are the product of what we consume. To varying degrees:
- We are what we think
- We are what we do
- We are what we watch
- We are what we read
- We are a product of the friends we keep
Science confirms the notion that our daily “diet” is not just made up of what we put in our mouth. We are what we let in with our eyes, our ears, and our mind, too. Since fun is an integral component of our well-being, the notion of a fun diet becomes less whimsical.
Grocery list for a fun diet
- Healthy servings of Living and Pleasing activities
The first step is looking at how you are currently spending the hours in your week to make sure you are maximizing your opportunities for activities that fit into the pleasing or living quadrants of the PLAY Model. Pleasing activities are activities that you consider fun and are easy to do. Living activities might be tougher to accomplish, but along with being really fun … they leave you feeling fulfilled as well.
- A dash of optimism
It appears that for many of us, a healthy attitude can affect our well-being in similar ways as healthy food. Dr. Laura Kubzansky from Harvard University has been researching the effect optimism has on our longevity. Dr. Kubzansky and her team are investigating a hypothesis that optimism correlates with a slower rate of cellular aging, thereby postponing or reducing age-related deterioration. It appears that when we are optimistic, we increase the likelihood that we will age well (Kim et al., 2018; Trudel-Fitzgerald et al., 2018).
For instance, several studies have found that people with a good attitude benefit from better heart health when compared to their pessimistic counterparts (e.g., Hernandez et al., 2015). Therefore, being cheerful is something worth investing in; joyfulness and a positive outlook are an antidote to negative moods and thoughts. Unfortunately, these thoughts are all too common when we follow the standard American diet of stress, shitty media, unhealthy food, and compromised sleep.
- A pinch of funny
If you are not familiar with Norman Cousins’ book Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration, let me give you the short version. In the 1960s, Cousins — an established Saturday Review editor — developed a debilitating disease and was only given a few months to live. However, Cousins questioned the established concept of healing (which he observed did not really support his recovery), checked himself out of the hospital, and checked himself into a hotel. What did Cousins do? He put himself on a fun diet and started watching a ton of funny movies.
Ultimately, Cousins’ individualized treatment approach, which included humor as an important component, proved effective. Cousins lived for more than 25 years after his initial diagnosis and became famous for advocating a positive and fun approach to life (Cousins, 1979).
- A dollop of laughter
Cousins’ case attracted a lot of attention from medical circles, psychologists, and scientists; it’s not uncommon anymore for doctors to advocate a dose of humor as a part of the treatment regimen. In fact, a study published in the International Journal of Obesity found that belly laughing boosts energy consumption and our heart rate by 10 to 20 percent. Laughing isn’t just good for the soul but can help you burn calories, too. Ten to 15 minutes of genuine laughter burns between 10 and 40 calories (Buchowski et al., 2007). In fact, find the time to laugh like that every day and you’ll lose one to four pounds a year.
Ingredients to avoid
- Checking your phone first thing in the morning
From eating junk food to wasting time on things that don’t bring us joy, we all have our vices and bad habits. If you start your day by checking your phone, you are not alone. According to an IDC research report (2013), 80 percent of us check our device within 15 minutes of waking up. The activities within that first 15 minutes range from looking at work email to checking social media. That means that for four out of five of us, the cycle of comparison, anxiety, and bad mood that is inherent with these tasks begins before we let anything else into our day.
- FOMO (fear of missing out)
We’ve talked about FOMO before. Research suggests FOMO often degrades our well-being and happiness. In one of his studies on the pervasive use of social media, experimental psychologist Dr. Andrew Przybylski of the University of Essex in the United Kingdom showed that FOMO is linked to lower mood and lower life satisfaction (Przybylski et al., 2013). When we feed our appetite for validation by consuming the curated lives of others, we tend to second guess our own choices. Instead of wallowing, we are left with desire and envy — but all too often we just keep scrolling because it is easier to be an unhappy observer than figure out how to break our own inertia by being a participant in life.
Unsurprisingly, researchers from the University of British Columbia found we feel less stressed the less we are on email. When their study participants were instructed to check email no more than three times a day for a week, the participants’ stress levels reduced significantly when compared to a group that checked their emails more frequently. Lower stress 🠪 higher well-being (Kushlev & Dunn, 2015).
A large study conducted by a research team from the United Kingdom’s Future Work Center also found that people who leave their email on all day are much more likely to experience “email pressure”. Examples of email pressure include:
- Pressure from colleagues or clients to check email outside of working hours
- Pressure from family or friends to stop checking email when in their company
- Work-related emails causing arguments or friction in your personal life
- Life constantly being interrupted by the flow of messages, resulting in decreased productivity and stress
Those checking their email early in the morning and late at night seem to be affected the most (Future Work Center, 2015).
- Toxic people and situations
Our daily “fun diet” of interactions and activities should be balanced (just like eating a balanced diet) so that at the end of the day, the scale tips in our favor. If you spend a considerable amount of time socializing with people who always complain and bring you down, you might actually “catch” their negativity. This concept is linked with the concept of emotional contagion, first described by Dr. Elaine Hatfield, one of the pioneers of relationship science. Dr. Hatfield and her colleagues (Hatfield et al., 1993) work show that we can get emotionally “infected” hanging out with certain people and/or observing their experience.
The good news is contagion can be benevolent when we expose ourselves to positivity. However, when the influence is negative, other people’s bad moods, sadness, and negativity stick to us. As such, selecting who you spend your time with will certainly impact the amount of fun you have. It will most likely impact your well-being one way or the other (in the long-term) as well.
Bon appétit
Making space for fun can be viewed as a mediator, helping us in so many ways. Fun helps us reduce perceived pressures and positively influences our perception of life satisfaction.
One thing is clear, we are wired to enjoy things, to play, and be creative — screens and email are not part of how we evolved. Crowd out the things that are not feeding your soul with the things that are. One way to do that might just be a fun diet.
Sources & further reading:
Buchowski, M. S., Majchrzak, K. M., Blomquist, K., Chen, K. Y., Byrne, D. W., & Bachorowski, J.-A. (2007). Energy expenditure of genuine laughter. International Journal of Obesity, 31(1), 131–137.
Cousins N., 1979. Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York.
Future Work Center (2015). You’ve got mail. Research report 2015. Retrieved from: www.futureworkcentre.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/FWC-Youve-got-mail-research-report.pdf
Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J.T., Rapson, R.L.(1993). Emotional contagion. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2(3), 96–99.
Hernandez, R., Kershaw, K. N., Siddique, J., Boehm, J. K., Kubzansky, L. D., Diez-Roux, A., … Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (2015). Optimism and Cardiovascular Health: Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). Health Behavior & Policy Review, 2(1), 62-73.
IDC research report. Always Connected – How smartphones and social keep us engaged. Retrieved from: https://www.nu.nl/files/IDC-Facebook%20Always%20Connected%20%281%29.pdf
Kim, E., DeMeo, D.L., Fong, K.C., Lewina, L., Grodstein, F & Kubzansky, L. (2018). Optimism and biological aging. Innovation in Aging. 2. 842-842.
Kushlev, K., & Dunn, E. W. (2015). Checking email less frequently reduces stress. Computers in Human Behavior, 43, 220–228.
Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 291841-1848. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.014
Trudel-Fitzgerald, C., Huang, T., Tworoger S., Kubzansky, L. (2018). From head to toe: Associations of emotional functioning with age-related biological processes. Innovation in Aging. 2. 842-842
University of South California. (2017). Surveying the digital future. Retrieved from: www.digitalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2017-Digital-Future-Report.pdf