In the hustle and bustle of our hectic daily lives, we often don’t find time for ourselves to just be, to de-stress and take some time off for much-needed self-care. But it’s very important we do that – both, for our mental well-being and our physical health – especially in times of lockdown and added anxieties. 

Here are five easy ways you can de-stress, chill and rejuvenate. 

Image Credit: Pixabay

Meditation 

People often associate meditation with religious practice or spirituality; but meditation is a great tool to centre oneself, calm one’s mind and regain focus. You don’t have to meditate for long – sometimes even 10-15 minutes can help you de-stress. Don’t worry about technique either – just find a quiet spot in your house, close your eyes and don’t think about your to-do list or chores. It’s ok if a stream of thoughts keep coming; just let them pass and soon you will get the hang of distilling out unwanted thoughts and focussing on just being. Beginners can also take the aid of guided meditation audios that help you to focus, or just put on some soothing meditation music to set the mood.

Paint

Painting is a great therapeutic tool. Again, you don’t need to be a trained artist or know a particular style of painting. Just put your brush to paper or canvas and let your creativity just flow. The calmness and therapeutic effect comes about through the brush strokes and the creation itself. All you need are a few art supplies, a room or corner to paint and you’re good to go!

Help Other People

Often, the act of altruism or helping other people without any ulterior motive or expecting a reward in return, instills in us a feeling of joy and contentment that aids the overall well-being of our mental, psychological and spiritual state. It’s similar to the ‘feel-good factor’ we all crave. Of course helping others in times of need and impromptu situations is also important, but if you’re looking at helping others as a methodological way to de-stress and regain balance in your life, then joining a charity of your liking and choice is a great way to go about this. Spending an evening a week teaching a child to read, or giving your time and company to a lonely, old person can do wonders for your own well-being too!

Doing Nothing 

Yes, sometimes actually doing nothing accounts for a lot, especially when your diary is packed with places to go and things to do, and your mind is always on auto-pilot. The act of doing nothing – or at least nothing that requires concentration or effort – can be very soothing. Of course I don’t mean you just sit on a sofa and stare into space for an hour! Read a book. Watch a movie. Go for a stroll. Sit in your garden. Let your mind be free of work-related thoughts. 

Have A Positive Mindset

One of the best ways to reduce stress and anxiety is to stop over-thinking and worrying about things not in our control, and to have a positive mindset. 

Personally, I believe having a positive mindset is the most important of the five.

This is a collaborative post.

Melinda

IDEAS.TED.COM

Jul 15, 2019 / Daryl Chen

Justin Tran

Procrastination isn’t shameful or a character flaw. Instead it’s rooted in a very human need: the need to feel competent and worthy, says educator Nic Voge.

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

“It’s 11 o’clock. You’re in your dorm room, and you have a paper due in a day or so. You sit down at your desk, you open up your laptop to get started, and then you think, ‘I’m gonna check my email just for a minute; get that out of the way.’ Forty-five minutes later, you’ve checked a lot of email,” says Nic Voge, senior associate director of Princeton University’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning in New Jersey, in a TEDxPrinceton talk. “You’ve done a really good job of that, but now you realize, ‘You know what? I’m pretty tired. I’m kind of exhausted, and that’s not conducive to writing a good paper. What do I need? I need to go to sleep.” And you do — only to wake up and go through the whole cycle of delays-and-excuses the next day.

Is this you? Rather than a college paper, maybe it was a report for work, graduate program application, peer review, or some other important thing that you kept kicking down the road until the road ran out and you had to deliver.

You probably scolded yourself for your behavior. And wondered, “Why am I so lazy /weak-willed /disorganized /unmotivated /hopeless /[fill in other belittling adjective]?”

Well, Voge has good news for you. “Procrastination isn’t shameful. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s not a flaw,” he says. “It’s actually pretty predictable; it’s something we can really expect if we understand the dynamics of motivation,” At Princeton, Voge develops, designs and directs academic support programs for undergraduates. He’s seen procrastination in all its forms, and he has also, he confesses, “mastered the craft and art of procrastination — the mind games, the rationalizations, the justifications.”

There are many theories about why we procrastinate. Some have said it’s about the inability to cope with difficult emotions; others, that it’s connected to faulty time management or perfectionism. Voge, however, believes it is rooted in our self-worth. He explains, “The paramount psychological need that all of us have is to be seen by ourselves and others as capable and competent and able … and we will actually sacrifice or trade off other needs to meet that need.”

To be clear, the need to be seen as worthy or worthwhile is not the problem. Where things go wrong is that some of us depend heavily on external feedback — in the form of good grades, praise from bosses, parents, in-laws or other authority figures, or the acceptance of prestigious organizations — for those feelings of worthiness. Voge says, “People who procrastinate a lot have a kind of simplistic equation in their mind: their performance is equal or equivalent to their ability, which is equal or equivalent to their self-worth as a person.” Or, as he puts it: performance = ability = self-worth. The reason we’re so terrified about performing poorly on that paper, application, analysis, etc. is because we feel our ability rests on it — and our value as a person.

In the performance = ability = self-worth equation, the only variable we can control is how much effort we put into our performance. When we procrastinate and put in less effort, we’re doing it as a form of self-protection, according to Voge. That way, if we earn a bad result, it doesn’t mean we’re not talented, able or worthy; we were just too busy or distracted to do our best.

Think about the murmurs you inevitably heard before exams in high school or college. Voge asks, “What are people saying? ‘I only studied three hours.’ ‘I only studied two hours; my computer froze.’ Everyone’s explaining how they’re not ready. Why? Because if they don’t achieve, then they have this built-in excuse not only for themselves but for others.”

Anyone who has ever procrastinated has experienced that feeling of stuckness. “Many people describe procrastination as being stuck at or against a wall or an obstacle they can’t get over,” says Voge. “We are often agitated, we can’t sleep — but we [also] can’t work.” At those times, we find ourselves pulled between two equally strong and compelling forces: the drive to achieve and the fear of failure. We come unstuck only when the fear of not getting things done overrides our fear of failure.

How do we break the cycle? Voge highlights three strategies:

1. Be aware of what you’re doing and why.

“We know from the research on procrastination and overcoming it that gaining knowledge and being aware of self-worth theory in these dynamics helps people over these things,” says Voge. “To understand the roots of procrastination helps us weaken it.” Your procrastination is probably not coming from a place of self-loathing or self-sabotage but from a need to protect yourself.

Know when you’re procrastinating. Sometimes it’s obvious; there is absolutely no reason for us to do the laundry before we write that grant application. At other times, it’s more subtle, so you may need to check in with yourself: “Yes, removing old files from my computer desktop will give me a less distracting workspace, but is it essential that I do it right now? Or am I just postponing writing the application?” Pro-tip: If you have to ask yourself whether you’re procrastinating or not, chances are you are.

Get familiar with your “greatest hits” of wasting time. Most of us have specific fall-back activities that we do when we’re playing the delaying game. What’s yours — house-cleaning, napping, shopping, reading email, catching up on Netflix? Learn to recognize it so you can nip it in the bud; it’s much easier to prevent falling down the cleaning /napping /shopping rabbit hole rather than pulling yourself out. Voge says, “The greater awareness we have of our tendencies and our motivations, we’re more likely to overcome them.”

2. Tip the balance.

Our progress towards completing any activity is affected by “approach” motives (reasons why we want to do this thing) and “avoid” motives (reasons we don’t want to do this thing). With activities that we have no hesitations doing — let’s say, eating something that’s delicious and healthy — it’s because we have many “approach” motives and very few “avoid” motives.

Many procrastinators have the mistaken belief that the reason they’re putting off a task is because there’s an underlying reason they don’t want to do it. “Often, that’s not the case. It’s simply that their fears dominate or overwhelm their ‘approach’ motives,” says Voge. When you’re playing solitaire instead of performing a competitive market analysis for your boss, it could be because your “avoid” motives — in particular, you’re avoiding the project because you’re terrified you’ll fail — outweigh your “approach” motives.

When this happens, think of all the reasons why you want to do this activity. It might help to remind yourself of how completing it fits into your larger goals, objectives or mission. Then, if it seems especially big or intimidating, break it down into manageable pieces. When Voge found himself procrastinating writing his TEDx talk because it seemed so daunting, he decided to create an outline so he could write his script section by section. Warning: Just resist turning that outline or to-do list into an invitation to procrastinate further.

3. Challenge your beliefs.

We need to undermine the ideas that brought us to procrastinate in the first place, says Voge. “The equation that we carry around in our head is flawed … your ability is not equivalent to your worth.” He adds, “Our worth derives from our human qualities of kindness and thoughtfulness and our vulnerabilities.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daryl Chen is the Ideas Editor at TED.

IDEAS.TED.COM

Mar 17, 2021 / Morra Aarons-Mele

Krystal Quiles

When I first began working at home, I couldn’t believe I was getting away with such a racket.

No one told me what to do or where to be! I could work in my bed, go to the grocery store in the middle of the day, and my clients were none the wiser. Even though I was a freelancer, I was constantly looking over my shoulder and expecting to be reprimanded by someone.

But my elation wore away when I realized I wasn’t quite alone at home: My anxiety was there, too.

Now, I’m an anxious person, even in the best of times. But these days, it seems like we’re all anxious. And anxiety is another ingredient — like Zoom calls, overloaded wifi or howling children or pets — that needs to be factored into your days, your productivity and your time management.

Some days my anxiety drives me to perform at an Olympic level, with no task undone and no email unanswered even if I have to work until midnight. That is overwork — a common way that many of us anxious people deal with our feelings — and I’ll return to it later.

Other days, anxiety creates a background buzz in the form of intrusive thoughts and fears about the future. It can also make us distracted and unable to focus, so another common way of dealing with anxiety is avoidance (more later on this one too). For example, while I was writing this piece, I baked banana bread, made a half-hearted attempt at the exercise bike, fed the cats their pre-lunch snack and wandered around my house looking for things that needed my attention.

Working from home can be wonderful, but when you’re anxious, it can be difficult to concentrate and stay on task. How do you stay accountable to yourself and get work done without driving yourself to exhaustion?

Here are some tips based on what I have learned from 15 years of managing my anxiety while also working from home:

1. Call off the mental fire drill that occurs whenever you get a Slack or email notification

I know I’m not the only one whose heart rate accelerates when I see a new email in my inbox (or a Slack message). It could be a client, a staffer, my accountant or my mother. My anxiety drives me to want to quickly fix what they’re writing me about so I’ll feel better. But before I do, I often spend time worrying and trying to suss out the “true” meaning of their message (a fool’s errand, since emotional nuance is lost in almost any digital communication). Then I’ll force myself to respond no matter what — even if I’m finally eating lunch at 3PM or doing time-sensitive work.

Don’t blame yourself for leaping to reply to every message — much of modern knowledge work is built on this Pavlovian system of instant feedback and urgent response. With so many of us working from home and without the normal in-person interaction, this past year we’ve gotten trained to crave the feedback of a “ping” or a visual notification.

To start to de-program ourselves from the need to always be on, we need to practice being disconnected for small amounts of time. Begin with a time limit. Pick an after-hours moment when you don’t need to be online, and then turn off or hide your devices for an hour. Gradually work towards doing this during a workday. For that, select an hour when you can purposefully avoid checking updates (set up an “away” or “in a meeting” notification so people won’t wonder why you’re not getting back to them).

See how you feel when you can take a break from checking. When I avoid my phone for an hour, I notice that my neck is looser and so are my shoulders! Immediate benefit.

2. Stop waiting to get permission to log off

When work isn’t a place you leave at the end of the day, it can be incredibly difficult to stop. And let’s face it, when the option is to keep working and feel in control or spend more time on the sofa doom-scrolling or with whining kids, overworking might seem even more attractive. But learning to stop work is a discipline that creates good habits and a necessary step to keeping your energy tank filled.

I am an accomplished professional, but unconsciously I still want someone to tell me, “You did a good job today — you’re done.” Well, you need to learn to give yourself that permission.

Psychologist Alice Boyes changed my life when she suggested setting concrete limits around the amount of time I spend on the tasks that make me anxious and tend to overdo. Such shortcuts and hacks that help calm anxiety are called heuristics.

Here’s how you could come up with a heuristic to set boundaries on your work hours. At the beginning of your day (or the day before), create a reasonable to-do list. The key word is reasonable — no writing up a list based upon an imaginary 240-hour day — and based on experience, you’ll probably know how long most of your tasks will take. And if you have to guess time for any, guess upwards. Structure your day based around this list, and when you’re finished, close your computer. You did good.

3. When you get stuck in a worry spiral, ask: “What’s making me anxious right now?”

The flip side of overwork is avoidance — avoiding deadlines and tasks because you’re anxious. Everyone has their greatest hits of coping mechanisms, from trying to worry the fear away to working it away to diving into a bag of cheese doodles. Our brain does this because it’s trying to help us avoid our bad feelings. To understand the motivations and causes behind your anxiety, it helps to take a pause to feel your feelings and monitor how you react to those feelings.

Start by looking at what’s making you anxious right now and how the anxiety is making you react. Here’s an example from my life. Thinking about money makes me anxious. When the economic news is frightening, I might act out when I’m faced with a work task that has anything to do with money. So if I need to prepare a financial report for my small business, I assume it’s going to reveal negative results, which sends me into a spiral of fear. Cognitive behavioral therapists call this kind of reaction an anxious automatic thought. Consequently, instead of facing the spreadsheet and doing my work, I might avoid it entirely. I might eat that bag of cheese doodles or buy something online that makes me feel good. I’m reacting to my anxiety.

It’s better if I can learn to move from reacting on auto-pilot to knowing what sets me off and then managing how I will respond. I can say to myself: “Looking at my company’s finances is going to set me off right now. Maybe I should ask my business partner to do it. Or maybe I should build in a reward if I face the challenge head on? I could let myself have an extra hour of Netflix if I complete the spreadsheet.” I find that most of the time, doing the work doesn’t feel nearly as bad as what my anxiety anticipates.

4. Follow it up by finding a super-achievable work task and doing it

As you can see from my example above, when you feel anxious, it’s easy to turn a relatively straightforward task into an overwhelming thought exercise that sends your brain into catastrophe mode. When you are mired in anxiety and avoiding your work, the important thing is to do something. Jonathan Baxter, a family therapist, gave me this advice:

“The experience of stress has to do with your body wanting to take action. If there are actions you can take — whether getting some exercise or cleaning the bathroom or teaching your kids something — go ahead and take them. When you take action, give yourself a moment to let yourself feel good about taking a step. Use your mind to give your body the signal that you have agency and are doing what you can. (“There, I did it!”) The goal is to feel active and effective rather than scrambling from one thing to the next.”

I like to take a page from positive psychology and choose a small, meaningful action that will build my motivation for work and to tackle bigger tasks ahead. Have you ever organized a messy spreadsheet and just felt so good? Pick an activity that connects you to your larger purpose and allows you to see yourself as an effective and competent individual, which will ultimately help you move towards doing the thing you’re avoiding.

5. If that seems impossible, pick a non-work task

If tackling work just feels like too much when you’re toiling from home and staring at a messy house or out-of-control kids, pick a non-work action that’s physical and helpful. Since I hunch and clench in my desk chair when I’m stuck, I like to pick a task that gets my body moving and my shoulders open. I might pick a household chore (I like to scrub the bathtub because it’s quick but physically demanding), cook, do some yard work or even run up my stairs a few times. I find that it helps me to get off my screen and into motion.

Notice how you feel after you do your tiny non-work task and whether you’re able to begin the thing you have been avoiding. Then notice: How long can you continue until anxiety hits again? Is there a specific activity that almost always gets you in the mood to tackle a task?

6. Keep adding to your anxiety-taming bag of tricks

Anxiety feels different for everyone. We all have different triggers, and we all react differently. Money, as I mentioned before, is a big anxiety trap for me. When I get unwelcome financial news, my brain immediately goes to a gloomy place: My business will fail, we will go broke, we will lose everything.

As you continue in your career, it’s crucial that you understand specifically what sets you off and how it affects your workday. Once you understand that, you can try to avoid these triggers and — when you can’t avoid them — use specific strategies or tools that can help you move out of anxiety.

Many people I talk to for my podcast “The Anxious Achiever” tell me that they find making to-do lists and detailed schedules helpful, because they help them cut down on ruminating and overwork. Others know that they need to sweat, get outside or run around with their dog to dissolve that knot of anxiety. I like to cook. When I’m anxious and unfocused, I make giant stockpots of broth or chili. Hey … it works for me.

It’s possible for you to create a remote workday that minimizes your anxiety, creates real connection and engagement with your coworkers, allows you to get your work done, and lets you feel OK about unplugging at night. But like all skills, learning how to manage your workday anxiety takes practice, time, and above all compassion for yourself. We all succumb to the cheese doodles at times, and that’s OK too.

Watch her The Way We Work video here: 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Morra Aarons-Mele is a (mostly) happy, successful person. She also identifies as an extremely anxious overachiever. To normalize anxiety and help others manage theirs, Aarons-Mele launched and hosts The Anxious Achiever podcast for HBR Presents, which was a 2020 Webby Awards Honoree and is a top 10 management podcast. She’s passionate about helping people rethink the relationship between their mental health and their leadership. Aarons-Mele is also the founder of the award-winning social impact agency Women Online, which created a database of female influencers, the Mission List. She was named 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year at the Iris Awards, recognizing excellence in digital parenting media. Aarons-Mele is also a prolific writer. Since 2004 she has covered the campaign trail, the White House, the lactation room and the office cubicle. Her book, Hiding in the Bathroom: How To Get Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home), was published in 2017, and she has written for the New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Slate, InStyle, O, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and the Guardian. 

IDEAS.TED.COM

May 16, 2019 / Daniella Balarezo

Rose Wong

By examining our actions and attitude, we can start to break the cycle, says psychology researcher Raquel Peel.

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Before she met the love of her life, psychology researcher Raquel Peel says that she was a “romantic self-saboteur.” Her early experiences had affected her attitude and behavior towards love. In her TEDxJCUCairns talk, she recalls, “I assumed that people in my relationships would eventually leave me; I also assumed that all my relationships would fail.” Driven by these feelings of impending doom, Peel — a graduate student at James Cook University in Australia — would invariably “pull the plug” on romances whenever things got the least bit difficult.

Sound familiar?

She knew many other people who acted in deliberately self-destructive ways in relationships, so she decided to learn more about this behavior.She did it in two ways: by interviewing Australian psychologists who specialize in relationship counseling “to understand what self-sabotage looks like in practice” and by surveying more than 600 self-confessed saboteurs worldwide to find out what they did and why they did it.

“My participants varied in age, cultural background, and sexual orientation,” Peel says, “Yet they answered in very similar ways.” They exhibited one or more of what US psychologist and researcher John Gottman (watch his TEDx talk) calls “the four horsemen of the apocalypse,” or what he has identified as the primary behaviors that can lead to the end of a relationship: criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. And while the particular form that these take are as unique as the people surveyed, the people surveyed, according to Peel, “sabotage relationships for one main reason: to protect themselves.”

Of course, while self-protection is the reason given by most of her participants, the actual causes of sabotaging behaviors are complex, varied and deep-rooted. Still, Peel has this advice to share with any self-identified romantic saboteurs out there:

Stop entering relationships that you know are doomed. 

One form of romantic self-sabotage is choosing partners that are just plain wrong for you. “We should not be pursuing every relationship that comes our way,” says Peel. “Pursue those relationships that have the potential to work.”

Get curious about how you act when you’re in a relationship.

Peel suggests: “Take a really good look at yourself and your behaviors in relationships and ask yourself, Are you someone who needs a lot of reassurance from your partner? Are you someone who gets nervous when things get too close?”

Think about those four horsemen — criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. How often do you exhibit any of them? Which are your go-tos? And what are the beliefs you hold about yourself or your partner when you act in these ways? Try to observe your actions — or think back to what you’ve done in the past — and strive to understand the reasons behind them.

View your relationship as a partnership.

“We need to figure out how to collaborate with our partners, and how, even, to be vulnerable together,” says Peel. “Are you and your partner on the same team? Do you talk to your partner about your relationship goals?”

Obviously, this isn’t appropriate in the early days when you’re getting to know each other. But when you’re in a committed relationship, writer Mandy Len Catron (watch her TED talk about the reality of love) says — borrowing from linguists Mark Johnson and George Lakoff — it helps to view it as a “work of art” that you two are co-creating together, in real time. Adopting this attitude can make you more excited about the future you’re both building, rather than seeing love, and therefore your relationship, as something that is happening to you beyond your control or input and likely to end in heartbreak.

Many romantic saboteurs mention the dispiriting sensation they have when they’re in a relationship knowing it’s just a matter of time before it will end. As Peel puts it, “it’s like staring into a crystal ball knowing exactly what’s going to happen.” However, the work-of-art mindset can help counter that pessimistic self-narrative. Instead, “you get to stop thinking about yourself and what you’re gaining or losing in your relationship, and you get to start thinking about what you have to offer,” says Catron.

Be kind to yourself.

Your reasons for developing self-sabotaging behaviors most likely spring from an understandable and human place. “It’s natural to want to protect yourself,” says Peel, “but the way out of it is to have insight into who you are in a relationship … and how best to collaborate with them. After all, if you know who you are in a relationship, your partner will also have a chance to get to know you, and together you can break the pattern to sabotage.” She adds, “Love will never be easy, but without self-sabotage, it is a lot more reachable.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniella Balarezo is a Media Fellow at TEDx. She is also a writer and comedian based in NYC. 

Healthline.com

• A new study recently publishedTrusted Source in JAMA Psychiatry found that a layperson-delivered phone call program could reduce feelings of loneliness, depression, and anxiety.
• These calls also improved the general mental health of study participants within 4 weeks.
• Each caller contacted between 6 and 9 participants daily for the first 5 days.

Over the past year, many of us have struggled through feelings of isolation and loneliness because of COVID-19 restrictions and enforced physical distancing to prevent virus transmission.

This has resulted in accompanying feelings of loneliness and anxiety for many.

A new study recently publishedTrusted Source in JAMA Psychiatry found that a layperson-delivered, empathy-oriented telephone call program could reduce feelings of depression, and anxiety, while improving the general mental health of study participants, within 4 weeks.

“We were partnering with Meals on Wheels of Central Texas already, and when COVID-19 struck we realized the increased mental health concerns of their members,” corresponding author Maninder K. Kahlon, PhD, associate professor in the department of population health at the University of Texas at Austin, told Healthline.

Kahlon said her team quickly designed a program and tested it rigorously to confirm that they could see improvements on “clinically-relevant scales.”

“We needed to prove to ourselves that the intervention had the effects we hypothesized,” she emphasized.

Study included participants who were homebound and faced food insecurity

From July 6 to September 24, 2020, researchers recruited and followed up with 240 adults assigned to receive calls or no calls (the control group). They were between ages 27 to 101, with more than half 65 years or older.

Loneliness, depression, and anxiety were measured at the beginning of the study and then after 4 weeks.

Intention-to-treat analyses were conducted. Participants received calls in their homes or wherever they might be when the call was made.

The study included Meals on Wheels clients in Central Texas who matched their service criteria, which included being homebound and expressing a need for food.

The callers were between 17 and 23 years old and trained in empathetic conversational techniques prior to the study.

Each caller contacted between 6 and 8 participants daily for the first 5 days, after which participants could choose to reduce the frequency, but to no fewer than 2 calls per week.

‘Sunshine calls’

Known as “Sunshine Calls,” the program was a randomized control trial (RCT) developed by Factor Health, a collaborative initiative at the University of Texas at Austin.

About half of participants lived alone, and all reported having one or more chronic health conditions.

According to the findings, compared to those who weren’t called, call recipients reported average improvements of over 1 point on a 7-point standard scale in feelings of loneliness, for a 16 percent difference.

The number of participants who felt at least mildly anxious at the beginning of the study also dropped 37 percent by the end of the study, and those at least mildly depressed dropped by 25 percent.

“We trained callers to prioritize the person at the other end of the phone call. Listen to them, and to listen to the clues they provided in their conversation about their interests,” Kahlon said. “If the person mentioned their aunt in passing, the caller would go back to that and pull on the thread, and usually there’s a story there that they’re just waiting to share!”

Calls are a promising way to improve health

Kahlon said she was surprised by the study’s findings.

“We hypothesized we’d affect loneliness by having people connect, meaningfully, to participants. We were pleased by the degree of improvement,” she said.

“But what we were surprised by were the significant effects on depression and anxiety,” she added.

Kahlon explained that these are two major health concerns, especially considering the effects that both mental states have on “broader mental health scales.”

She also believes this program is a particularly promising way to improve health across the board.

However, according to the study, a major limitation of this research is that it’s unclear whether benefits can be sustained for longer than 4 weeks.

The study also noted that future work should address whether improvements are not only sustainable, but also enhanced with longer implementation.

Reaching out can help relieve anxiety and loneliness 

“I think the relationship between loneliness and health — I think it’s a very complicated relationship and any number of factors… could be involved,” said Dr. David Roane, chair of psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

He pointed out that people who aren’t attached to others have less motivation to take care of themselves, have no one to assist them or look after them to make sure they’re eating or sleeping properly, and “don’t necessarily have standardized routines.”

Roane explained that isolation itself can have a direct effect on physiology, and can affect aspects of medical health directly.

Kahlon thinks programs like ‘Sunshine Calls’ can remedy a shortage of mental health professionals.

“We can address mental health, at scale,” she said. “Loneliness need not remain unaddressed, and depression and anxiety can be tackled without being constrained by our lack of mental health professionals.”

She concluded that, “The health system should pay for whatever delivers results, including programs such as this one.”

Reaching out can be rewarding

“Well, I think the study here is really focused on some interesting ideas,” said Roane. “The focus on reaching out to people through technology through the phone, through Zoom, and reuniting with friends and relatives that you haven’t been in touch with recently.”

He emphasized that people are very open to hearing from others, “so reaching out can often be very rewarding.”

Roane added that long distance contact must be regular for the most benefit.

“So if you have a friend or relative who is particularly isolated it might actually be a great idea to have a regular scheduled call,” he said. “That might not be every single day, it might be on a Saturday or Sunday or whatever works for the person who’s trying to reach out.”

According to Roane, setting and maintaining a routine of scheduled calls is key.

“I think that for the isolated individual to know that they can expect social contact could be very helpful,” he said.

The bottom line

New research finds that making regularly scheduled ‘empathetic calls’ to isolated individuals can significantly reduce loneliness and anxiety — and possibly improve overall health.

Experts agree that reaching out electronically to friends and relatives isolated by physical distancing measures is a good idea, but contact should be regular for the greatest benefit. 

Experts also say that calling programs can help address a shortage of mental health providers to help people experiencing loneliness and anxiety in their homes.

Popculture.com

By DANIEL S. LEVINE – March 8, 2021 

Former America’s Got Talent judge Gabrielle Union opened up about her mental health struggles during an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow at the In Goop Health virtual summit on Sunday. The 48-year-old said she has faced “so many rock bottom moments” throughout her life, from her experience with sexual assault to divorce to career setbacks. She felt like she was “losing my mind” at one point last fall and has short “depressive episodes.” She also discussed a shocking moment when she considered suicide.

“I’ve had so many rock bottom moments as an adult, starting with being raped at 19 at gunpoint at my job,” the Bring It On star told Paltrow via video conferencing, reports E! News. “It just felt like every so many years, there was some major catastrophic event that was happening in my life. You know, divorce, career setbacks, relationship issues. There’s always something that just lands you on your a— and you’re like ‘There’s no way I can move on from this, I’ll never recover, I’ll never be the same.'”

Union said each challenge she faced has helped her grow as a person. She called them “mini deaths” and you have to “grieve the person” you were before each of them. “There have been times I’ve felt like I had to be reborn out of success because that comes with its own challenges,” she said. The L.A.’s Finest star then explained her latest challenge, perimenopause. This marks the end of a woman’s reproductive years before menopause. The symptoms “reached a fever pitch” in September 2020, she said.

“I thought I was losing my mind,” Union said. “I thought I had early-onset dementia, Alzheimer’s. I gained 20 pounds overnight of water retention, inflammation, bizarre. I couldn’t think. Now, when I have to public speak in the last few months, I’m so anxious, because I’m like, ‘Am I going to remember words?'” The scariest symptom was a suicidal thought that came during a “stupid argument” with her husband, retired NBA star, Dwyane Wade. “Only because I’ve been in therapy for half my life that I was like ‘No, I don’t know who is talking now, it’s not my intuition,'” she said, adding that the thought was “fleeting.”

“I was able to get through it with talk therapy and diving into how I can regulate my hormones,” Union said. “Luckily I was at home and I alerted everyone.” She later added, “Separating the symptoms from who you really are…to say that it’s a challenge, I don’t think I really have the words, or I lost them, to describe what these last few months have been.”0COMMENTS

Union has spoken out about her mental health in the past. In 2018, she said she was diagnosed with PTSD after she was raped as a teenager. “I’m here to tell you that I am PTSD survivor, thriver, bada— motherf— I was diagnosed with PTSD at 19 after I was raped at gunpoint — and I didn’t let it stop me,” Union said in a video for The Child Mind Institute, reports PEOPLE. “I didn’t want it to define my whole life, and it doesn’t have to. Asking for help, needing help doesn’t make you weak or less worthy of love or support or success.”

If you or someone you know are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741-741.

There’s a lot you can do, in the day-to-day alone, to try and make yourself feel better. For both your mental and physical health’s sake, knowing you can keep your house clean and tidy is a big thing. As a result, you can feel happier, and you can feel healthier (or even alleviate your pain symptoms), and that can really improve your quality of life. But why does a clean house make you feel so much better? Well, here are the main reasons. 

Pexels Image – CC0 Licence

A Light Form of Exercise

Cleaning can help to keep you on your feet, and make sure you’re moving on a daily basis – even if you don’t consider it a form of exercise, it’s definitely a good way to keep your legs and arms moving, and your muscles supple, if you’re someone who can’t exercise in a traditional manner. 

Being active in a manner like this is also very productive; you’ll be killing two birds with one stone! You could burn almost 200 calories per hour while cleaning, and also make your space look a lot more organized, which is good for your mental health too. 

Better Air Quality

The air quality in your home needs to be of good quality, to make sure you’re not coughing on a daily basis, and you’re not feeling stuffy in your nose or your throat. Poor air quality can make any and all chronic conditions you’re already living with worse, especially if you have a respiratory issue. 

When the house is clean and tidy, there are far fewer dust particles in the air. Even getting a proper airflow through your home, by opening windows and turning on the AC, is a great idea. Fresh air is very good for you! 

Indeed, if your central air and heating systems don’t seem to be able to crank it up to high enough levels, it’s a good idea to look into HVAC Repair for your home. There’s a good chance you have a blockage or a breakage somewhere, and that’s going to be hard to fix on your own. 

You’ll Sleep Much Better

For anyone who lives with insomnia, or has a lot of trouble falling asleep thanks to chronic pain, even just making your bed in the morning can mean you get some much better sleep during the night. 

Regularly changing your bedding, and making sure you have a new mattress every 8 years at the least, can help to lower your pain levels and make you feel more comfortable when you climb into bed at night. 

And sleeping better makes taking care of yourself a lot easier too. If you’re rested, and you’re not feeling tired on a permanent basis, you’ll feel a lot more secure and comfortable in yourself. Getting more, better sleep really is a life-changer, and a lot of it is due to a clean house. 

A clean house really can make you feel better, in a variety of ways! 

This is a collaborative post.

Melinda

I was kindly gifted The Joy of Selfish by Michelle Elman from WelBeck Publishing Group for an honest review. The book was released earlier this month and the timing is perfect. This is a must-read for everyone.

When I saw the press release for the book I knew this book was going to be a great seller. Most people know that taking care of themselves is important but they don’t look at it as critical to their health. Well, it is. If you keep putting yourself behind others and the daily task you have, you’ll never get around to yourself. You have to plan and make yourself a priority, and most importantly is you have to buy in 100%.

It doesn’t matter if you’re chronically ill, a mother of five, just retired or a college student you need this book. It’s never too late to set boudoirs for your life and create the life you want and envision.

About the Author

Michelle Elman is a five-board accredited life coach, award-winning activist, author and podcaster. In 2020 she was named one of the Top 50 most inspirational women in the UK and is respected globally for her work as a body positivity influencer, best known for her ‘Scarred not Scared’ campaign.

Michelle has over 300k followers across Instagram and Tik Tok and has been a guest on media outlets including Sky News, Channel 5 News, Loose Women and BBC Radio London. She’s written for publications including HuffPost, Grazia, Metro and Stylist. Recently she coached Emily Atack on her series ‘Adulting’ and appeared on Geordie OGs to discuss online bullying and its impact on mental health. She also featured in the BBC3 documentary Being East Asian which aired earlier this year. Michelle’s podcast, In All Honesty, is available on Acast. Her first book, Am I Ugly?, was published in 2018.

Blurb

The Joy of Being Selfish redefines selfishness as a positive act, allowing us to love ourselves and those around us authentically without apology, It explores the different types of boundaries, offers tip on how to start setting them, and helps with the quilt of felt after boundaries are put into place.

Learn how to deal with her of being disliked, common responses to boundaries, dealing invitations, block/mute/delete-how to limit information, learning to express yourself-and most importantly using you inane power to start a new life.

My Thoughts

The idea of taking care of ourselves is being selfish is outdated and ridiculous. If we do nothing but give until we are depleted who is going to take care of us let alone our loved ones. I can’t agree with Michelle more on this message. Self-care is not selfish and if so then get selfish. 

In 2015 Michelle was a Life Coach at crossroads in the direction of her career focus. She decided to see a Business Coach. Little did she know this chance meeting would make her future very clear and she set out on a mission to accomplish her new goals.

The Joy of Selfish is a tool for anyone who needs guidance in setting boundaries. dealing with guilt, self-sabotage, and help with dealing with the outside influences that try to throw you off track.

The Joy of Selfish is a book for everyone, every age, every gender. We can’t be our best selves for others if we don’t take care of ourselves first.

WelBeck Publishing Group

We are Welbeck Publishing Group – a globally recognized, independent publisher based in London. Our mission is to deliver talent-driven publishing with leading authors and brands worldwide. Our books and products span a variety of categories including, fiction, non-fiction and stationery and gift. We are renowned for our innovative ideas, production values, and developing long-lasting content.

Welbeck’s amazing product comes to life for adults, children, and families in over 30 languages in more than 60 countries around the world. We have collaborated with many of the world’s leading institutions and licensors including – Disney, Universal, Paramount, HBO, Queen Productions, FIFA, International Mensa, Roald Dahl Literary Estate, the Science, Natural History and Imperial War Museums, and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Melinda Sandor

www.lookingforthelight.blog

The Columbian

By JUWON PARK, Associated PressPublished: February 16, 2021, 6:11am

They work to raise awareness about mental health issues

SEOUL — K-pop star Eric Nam was having a meeting in New York when he suddenly felt a pain in his chest.

“I thought I was going to have to call 911,” he said, recounting the experience from 2019. But instead he remained sitting and “had to quietly breathe my way” through the meeting, he said.

Similarly, Jae-hyung Park, better known as Jae from K-pop band Day6, was in a cab returning from a music video shoot in Seoul last year when he experienced what felt like a heart attack.

At first, he put it down to stress, saying that for years he had dealt with “out of place” and “weird” feelings. But he realized he couldn’t ignore the symptoms, and in the “calmest voice” asked the driver to take him to a nearby hospital.

“I’m … feeling like I am going to die, I am going to die, I am going to die,” he recounted.

Park and Nam said they later found out they had suffered panic attacks.

Many recording artists struggle to cope with the trappings of fame. In South Korea, as in many cultures, talking about mental health issues is seen as taboo, causing K-pop stars to grapple with depression and mental illness on their own.

Nam and Park have joined other Korean American K-pop artists in raising awareness about mental health beyond the K-pop community by publicly sharing their personal journeys.

Nam moved from his hometown, Atlanta, to Seoul in 2011 and launched his music career after competing on a Korean music television show. A Boston College graduate, Nam said the racism he endured growing up in suburban Georgia left deep scars on him.

He explains he was bullied and even spat on by a classmate. “It was one of the most degrading, embarrassing, infuriating moments of my life up until that point,” Nam recounts on the first episode of MINDSET, a paid podcast series he’s just launched to promote conversations about mental health and wellness. “And I think still to this day that is a topic that I never feel comfortable speaking out about.”

Nam said he also struggled with an identity crisis as a Korean American, being treated as an outsider in both South Korea and the U.S.

“It felt like I didn’t belong anywhere,” he said.

Park, born and raised in California, said he had difficulty navigating between two vastly different cultures. And the intense competition in the industry also affected his mental health.

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” Park said of K-pop.

Park was offered counseling from his record label, but said he found it difficult to connect with his therapist and eventually took a break from his career last year, when his band went on a hiatus.

He took part in Nam’s podcast series as a celebrity speaker.

Nam is hoping the shows can address stereotypes and stigmas surrounding mental illness.

“I never thought that I would need, I would want to talk to somebody about my mental health,” Nam said. “But once you’re in that position, I just didn’t know really how to deal with it. And so I remember those very isolating kinds of moments that I had had earlier on in my career.”