HAPPY PLACE

anticipatory benefit a forthcoming event may have on our well being.

The anticipation of failure when we have placed such great importance on something – like a perfect holiday turning out to be a worst nightmare – can overwhelm the positive impact it may have.

But by developing the anticipatory experiences – the planning, knowing where we will eat, how we will travel, the history of the place we will visit – we can counter any of these concerns.

For me at least, the resulting feeling of well being also appears to offset some of the anxieties that jobs and events in the news seem to bring.

But this anticipation of failure is not the same as dreading something. The negative anxiousness that some have over Brexit, for example, is different from an anticipation of it.

Planning for Brexit, in whatever format it may come, can actually help offset the downward emotional spiral many of us have found ourselves in recently.

Planning for the change, carefully working out what might be and how we will cope develops the anticipation and so can generate some feelings of well

being.

The trick is to try not to let those who seem intent on bursting your anticipation bubble get their way. The summer theatre tickets are pinned to the cork board, the festival passes are on their way.

It should be noted that the benefits of anticipation can be felt without such expense. Plan a night in with a loved one or your family. Order a takeaway and pick a film to watch together.

Plan it carefully, anticipate it, savour the excitement and feel the benefits to your well being. Give yourself things to look forward to and the world will seem a brighter place.

Holt is professor of psychology at Aberystwyth University in the

UK. This article was first published on The Conversation.