The 52 Project Encourages All To Make Positive Change

If you were told that a 30-second cold shower at the end of your nice warm one had proven scientific benefits and would enhance your mood and physical wellbeing, what would you be more likely to do?

• Play along and try it?
• Pass it on to a friend?
• Pay £1 to avoid trying it?!

That’s exactly what supporters of The 52 Project are being challenged to do!

The 52 Project is a collaborative wellbeing project set up by Dulcie Swanston, author ofIt’s Not Bloody Rocket Science and Dr Iain Price, neuroscientist, mental health champion and founding director of Think it Out.

The 52 Project uses an Instagram Live at 10am every Friday aiming to bring its followers a small, simple, but scientifically-evidenced, well-being ‘top-tip’each week. Viewers are asked to test or share the tips to see how well they work in real life for real people….and share which they will happily pay to avoid!

The great news for the Big Issue Foundation is that when their followers Pay £1 to avoid tips like The 30 Second Cold Shower, The Plank Challenge – or even nicer-sounding tips like A Warm Afternoon Bath or Morning Sunshine – The Big Issue Foundation gets the benefit of tester being reluctant to try the tip!

Iain explains,

The last thing we wanted was for our followers to feel bad for not trying a tip. We know from the science that feeling guilty and negative self-talk makes it much harder to positively change and take on healthier habits. So we created the ’Pay’ option: if followers don’t fancy trying a tip and don’t know any friends or family who might, then no problem, they Pay £1 to feel good that they’ve done some good anyway! This also means these followers can still be in a positive frame of mind the following week, helping them better take on the next top tip suggestion. It’s a real win-win!

Dulcie added

We know from research we commissioned in 2020 that when faced with trying to take up a new habit – even one that is scientifically proven to do you good – only around 5% of us are likely to make that habit permanent. It’s a real Catch 22. 2020 was tough on all of our mental health, but ironically, coming out of lockdown strong and ready to face the future will require us to be as mentally fit as we can. We wanted to help by using our combined experience to explain the science behind some hugely beneficial top-tips, adapt them to take minutes, not hours and provide people with a community for moral support to test them out – and more importantly – to keep them up!

If you would like to join The52Project, Iain and Dulcie promise a warm welcome! To join the project, follow @The52Tips and tune in each Friday at 10am on Instagram live or watch back at your leisure. Find out more about the tips that have been shared already at The52Project.com.

So, do you think you might Play, Pass or Pay on that cold shower…?!