As featured in Cosmo

Earlier this week, at 6:30 a.m. I had a call from an australian journalist who wanted to talk to me about choice agoraphobia. Yesterday, I turned up for a Happystance session that I was running for a carers' group in Ealing. I was taken aback when the organiser introduced me by saying, "Tony Plant, as featured in Cosmopolitan".

Now, I've long since given up any thought that I might be featured in Cosmo as aspirational beefcake. But I was definitely in there, quoted alongside Robert Holden and Ilona Boniwell, in Can you make over your mood?

One of my quick fix suggestions was that people with MP3 players should put together a mood lifting playlist - pieces that always make your feet tap or get you moving. With the growing sophistication of mobile phones and MP3 players, I advise people to put together a slideshow of images that make them smile, give them a fond memory etc. When I ran a session for young carers recently, the photo of the young cottontail rabbit was very popular with the girls. There are lots of photographs available for download from Flickr and it can be mood-lifting just to look through them.

It's given my mum bragging rights. Getting a paper accepted to a good academic journal? Big yawn. Having a son who is mentioned in Cosmo? Definitely a big deal.

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project