Tips for staying emotionally healthy during the Coronavirus
The following is an excerpt from an article entitled, “Psychologist’s 10 Tips for Staying Emotionally Healthy During the Coronavirus,” by Michelle Pearce:
Be Kind. The saying, “In a world where you can be anything, be kind,” is so applicable right now. More than ever, we need to be kind to ourselves and kind to others. Being kind to yourself might look like going to bed earlier to ensure your body is recovering optimally. It might look like ceasing to judge yourself for being afraid. Being kind to each other might look like not buying more food or toilet paper than you need for yourself and your family and sharing what you have with others. It might mean moving six feet off the sidewalk when someone approaches, but still making eye contact and smiling at them. There are countless ways to practice kindness, which leaves us all feeling better.
Nourish your spirit
You may or may not identify as a spiritual or religious person, but we can all benefit from nourishing our spirit. There is a lot of research showing that people who practice their spirituality or religion have better physical and emotional health. This might look like reflecting on what creates meaning and purpose in your life and focusing your attention and activities on these things. It might look like meditating or practicing yoga or taking a walk in the woods. For those who have a religious faith, it might look like praying or virtually attending a religious service.
Collective vulnerability
“The pandemic experience is a massive experiment in collective vulnerability. We can be our worst selves when we’re afraid, or our very best, bravest selves. In the context of fear and vulnerability, there is often very little in between because when we are uncertain and afraid, our default is self-protection. We don’t have to be scary when we’re scared. Let’s choose awkward, brave, and kind.”
– Brene Brown
A few thoughtful quotes
When you go deeply in the present, gratitude arises spontaneously, even if it’s just gratitude for breathing, gratitude for the aliveness that you feel in your body. Gratitude is there when you acknowledge the aliveness of the present moment.
– Ekhart Tolle
Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand.
– Oprah Winfrey
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
– Maya Angelou
Stay safe and healthy!
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.
Mindfulness improves well-being. Increasing your capacity for mindfulness supports many attitudes that contribute to a satisfied life. Being mindful makes it easier to savor the pleasures in life as they occur, helps you become fully engaged in activities, and creates a greater capacity to deal with adverse events. By focusing on the here and now, many people who practice mindfulness find that they are less likely to get caught up in worries about the future or regrets over the past, are less preoccupied with concerns about success and self-esteem, and are better able to form deep connections with others.
Mindfulness improves physical health. If greater well-being isn’t enough of an incentive, scientists have discovered that mindfulness techniques help improve physical health in a number of ways. Mindfulness can help relieve stress, treat heart disease, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, and alleviate gastrointestinal difficulties.
Assess your energy
Be mindful of the energy you are bringing to work and watch for energy depleting behaviors. Assess your energy at the beginning of the day and the beginning of your shift. Are you tired, worn-out, pessimistic, or energized, hopeful and optimistic? Do you have a tendency to be drawn into conversations that lead to more worries, anger, concern or those that are realistic yet reassuring? Carefully consider the connection between your feelings, thoughts and behaviors throughout the day. If you are negatively affected by the news cycle, social media posts or water cooler conversations, consider ways to limit your exposure. Seek conversations with individuals you know are optimistic. Limit your social media engagement to only once or twice a day with a maximum time of 30 minutes. Consider watching only the local evening news.
Green spaces
Remember when Mom and Dad yelled, “Go outside and play!”? Turns out they were right. Researchers have confirmed what we all probably already knew intuitively – green spaces are good for your health. In one study, for instance, people who spent at least 2 hours/week outside, surrounded by green space, were more likely to report good physical and mental health. Researchers recently showed that exercising outdoors was more calming simply because we perceive the outdoors to be more calming.
Choose to bloom
When we are plunged into dark and scary times in life, one of three things can happen next: the darkness can destroy us; it can leave us relatively unchanged; or it can help to transform us.
The science of resilience and post-traumatic growth has begun exploring what makes us more likely to experience the latter: positive growth and transformation. It takes conscious work and determination to choose to be transformed in the midst of loss and suffering. We call people who require the dark times in life to become all they were meant to be Night Bloomers. When we see ourselves as Night Bloomers, we shift our perspective from one of fear and despair to one of growth and hope.
Blooming in the dark doesn’t happen automatically. The darkness is an opportunity for transformation, not a guarantee. This challenging time we’re in right now can be that opportunity. Here are some important questions we can be asking ourselves: Who do I want to be during this time? How do I want to show up in the world? Who do I want to have become once we’re back to a sense of normalcy?
Read for pleasure
Lots of us have been devouring just two kinds of reading material lately: work emails and never-ending news reports. Your brain deserves a break! Whether you are pulling old favorites from your bookshelves, ordering hardcovers online, or reading e-books through your local library, opt for selections you find immersive and pleasurable. Try a novel, a funny memoir to help get your mind off current events, or a riveting mystery novel you just can’t put down. Even better: Start a virtual book club with friends.
Manage your expectations
With disruptions to our routine: teaching classes, research activities, administrative responsibilities and, of course, clinical care, many of us desire to super-achieve and use this time to be super-productive. However, the emotional toll and the cognitive strain that is present with this pandemic should not be underestimated. We worry not only about our work, but the health and safety of family, friends, and colleagues, as well as ourselves. So, be easy on yourself and manage expectations for yourself and especially for others in your team, division, or department. We need to be realistic in the goals we set, both for ourselves and others in our charge.
Be optimistic, in a realistic way
Balance the realistic view of the world, with a general positive outlook on the future. Yes, these are serious times. However, in each person’s day there is something that is a source of joy. Find a way to recognize it and ask others about theirs. Consider having students, trainees and peers take a moment to share one thing that provided them with joy in the previous day. Gratitude, even in adversity, promotes a sense of balance. Positivity heals.
Resilience
Resilience is the ability to adapt to difficult situations. When stress, adversity or trauma strikes, you still experience anger, grief, and pain, but you’re able to keep functioning – both physically and psychologically. However, resilience isn’t about putting up with something difficult, being stoic or figuring it out on your own. In fact, being able to reach out to others for support is a key part of being resilient.
When it comes to building your emotional resilience, nothing does more good than maintaining a positive outlook and regularly expressing gratitude. These two actions have been shown to decrease anxiety, reduce symptoms of illness, and improve the quality of your sleep. But it’s not enough to be optimistic and say “thank you” a lot. You can increase the effect of these activities by keeping a record of your positive interactions, events, and memories. Maintain a simple list of things you’re grateful for or are looking forward to in a paper notebook or enter them into a spreadsheet. There are even digital gratitude journals you can download and use. Find a regular time – say, first thing in the morning or at the end of the workday – to review and add to these records. Studies have shown that doing so builds your resilience.
How health care workers can take care of themselves
Today’s wellness tip is a link to an excellent article in the Harvard Business Journal, “How Health Care Workers Can Take Care of Themselves.” It discusses four major areas of emotional intelligence: self-awareness; self-management; social awareness; and relationship management.
Also found at: https://hbr.org/2020/05/how-health-care-workers-can-take-care-of-themselves
Containing anxiety with mindfulness
The wellness tips for this week are each excerpts from “Anxiety Is Contagious. Here’s How to Contain It” by Jud Brewer, which appeared in the Harvard Business Journal on March 18, 2020.
“Mindfulness: In medical school, when I learned how to “run a code” – our code for resuscitating someone who’s heart had just stopped – I was taught to first stop and take my own pulse. This reminded me to pause and take a deep breath (or three) before proceeding. Taking a mindful pause works by keeping the thinking parts of our brains “online” so we can help rather than hinder. Taking a moment to pause in stressful situations, whether that means you take three deep breaths or simply pay attention to the feeling in not-anxious parts of your body (like your feet or your hands), helps ground you in calmer emotions. Especially for people who haven’t practiced mindfulness before, focusing on the parts of your body where you typically feel anxiety, such as your chest or stomach, only heightens your awareness of the negative feeling, and often makes it worse. That’s why grounding yourself in more neutral areas can help you stay connected to yourself in the present moment without triggering more anxiety. Another way to do this is to anchor your awareness in an external object (e.g. look out a window at trees or nature, or listen to the sounds around you). These are simple, ten second practices that anyone can do. Practice them when you feel your heart beginning to race as a sign of a social sniffle, so that you don’t sneeze and spread social contagion.”
Get in touch with your ‘calm’
The wellness tips for this week are each excerpts from “Anxiety Is Contagious. Here’s How to Contain It” by Jud Brewer, which appeared in the Harvard Business Journal on March 18, 2020.
“Get in touch with your ‘calm.’ On top of simple mindfulness practices, you can also take a moment to pause and notice what it feels like when you are calm among the storm of people unknowingly spreading social contagion. When you do, you will notice that calm feels a lot better than anxiety. Use this to hack your brains’ reward centers. When given a choice, our brains will learn to perform the action that is most rewarding. Calm is the obvious, more rewarding choice when compared to anxiety. The more you practice it, the more it will become your norm rather than your exception. You can also look around to see if your calm catches. It might not be as contagious as fear, but done over and over, it can go a surprisingly long way to not only disinfect your brain, but spread that natural immunity that comes when you step back and see that we are all in this together.”
Take it one day at a time
The wellness tips for this week are each excerpts from “Anxiety Is Contagious. Here’s How to Contain It” by Jud Brewer, which appeared in the Harvard Business Journal on March 18, 2020.
“Take it one day at a time. Our brains are hardwired to plan for the future. We don’t have enough information right now about how this pandemic is going to play out to plan 6 months down the road. If/when you notice that your brain is starting to spin out into future thinking and worry, take a mindful pause and remind yourself to take it one day at a time. Do what needs to get done today, and then take care of tomorrow, when it comes: tomorrow. When it comes to information, the closer to now you stay, the more clearly you will be able to think. For example, you can check in with yourself right now to see if you are hungry or thirsty. Based on that information, you can decide whether you need to eat or drink something. You cannot only remind yourself to take it one day at a time, but if needed, to help you stay calm, use an even smaller timescale. Ask: What do I need to do this hour? Take on the day hour by hour, minute by minute, and even moment by moment if that’s what it takes to stay grounded in the present moment.”
Doing what matters in times of stress
Our wellness tip today is from Doing What Matters in Times of Stress: An Illustrated Guide by the World Health Organization (WHO).
First, NOTICE how you are feeling and what you are thinking.
Then, SLOW DOWN and CONNECT with your body.
Slowly breathe out. Slowly stretch. Slowly push your feet into the floor.
Now REFOCUS on the world around you.
Pay attention with curiosity to what you can … SEE HEAR TASTE SMELL TOUCH.
Unhook yourself from difficult thoughts and feelings
Our wellness tip today is from Doing What Matters in Times of Stress: An Illustrated Guide by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“There are many kinds of difficult thoughts and feelings that can hook us….
When we get hooked, our behavior changes. We often start doing things that make our lives worse….
UNHOOK YOURSELF with these three steps:
- NOTICE that a difficult thought or feeling has hooked you. Realize that you are distracted by a difficult thought or feeling, and notice it with curiosity.
- Then silently NAME the difficult thought or feeling; for example: “Here is a difficult feeling”
“Here is tightness in my chest”
“Here is a feeling of anger”
“Here is a difficult thought about the past” “I notice here is a difficult thought”
“I notice here are fears about the future”
- Then, REFOCUS on what you are doing. Pay full attention to whoever is with you and whatever you are doing.”
Be kind
Our wellness tip today is from Doing What Matters in Times of Stress: An Illustrated Guide by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“BE KIND. Notice pain in yourself and others and respond with kindness. Unhook from unkind thoughts by NOTICING and NAMING them. Then, try speaking to yourself kindly. If you are kind to yourself you will have more energy to help others and more motivation to be kind to others, so everyone benefits.
You can also take one of your hands and imagine filling it with kindness. Place this hand gently somewhere on your body where you feel pain. Feel the warmth flowing from your hand into your body. See if you can be kind to yourself through this hand.”
Make room for difficult thoughts and feelings
Our wellness tip today is from Doing What Matters in Times of Stress: An Illustrated Guide by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Trying to push away difficult thoughts and feelings often does not work very well. So instead, MAKE ROOM for them:
- NOTICE the difficult thought or feeling with curiosity. Focus your attention on it. Imagine the painful feeling as an object, and notice its size, shape, colour and temperature.
- NAME the difficult thought or feeling. For example: “Here is a difficult feeling”
“Here is a difficult thought about the past”
“I notice here is sadness”
“I notice here is a thought that I am weak”
- Allow the painful feeling or thought to come and go like the weather. As you breathe, imagine your breath flowing into and around your pain to make room for it. Instead of fighting with the thought or feeling, allow it to move through you, just like the weather moves through the sky. If you are not fighting with the weather, then you will have more time and energy to engage with the world around you and do things that are important to you.”
Acting on your values
Our wellness tip today is from Doing What Matters in Times of Stress by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“ACTING ON YOUR VALUES: Choose the values that are most important to you. For example:
- being kind and caring
- being helpful
- being brave
- being hardworking.
You get to decide which values are most important to you!
Then pick one small way that you can act according to these values in the next week. What will you do? What will you say? Even tiny actions matter!”
How to build resilience
Today’s wellness tip is about resilience: What Makes Some People More Resilient Than Others?
Interviews with large numbers of highly resilient individuals – those who have experienced a great deal of adversity and have come through it successfully – show they share the following characteristics:
- They have a positive, realistic outlook. They don’t dwell on negative information and instead look for opportunities in bleak situations, striving to find the positive within the negative.
- They have a moral compass. Highly resilient people have a solid sense of what they consider right and wrong, and it tends to guide their decisions.
- They have a belief in something greater than themselves. This is often found through religious or spiritual practices. The community support that comes from being part of a religion also enhances resilience.
- They are altruistic; they have a concern for others and a degree of selflessness. They are often dedicated to causes they find meaningful and that give them a sense of purpose.
- They accept what they cannot change and focus energy on what they can change. Resilient people reappraise a difficult situation and look for meaningful opportunities within it.
- They have a mission, a meaning, a purpose. Feeling committed to a meaningful mission in life gives them courage and strength.
- They have a social support system, and they support others.
Coping with stress and building resilience
Providing care to others during the COVID-19 pandemic can lead to stress, anxiety, fear, and other strong emotions. How you cope with these emotions can affect your well-being, the care you give to others while doing your job, and the well-being of the people you care about outside of work. During this pandemic, it is critical that you recognize what stress looks like, take steps to build your resilience and cope with stress, and know where to go if you need help.
Recognize the symptoms of stress you may be experiencing:
- Feeling irritation, anger, or denial
- Feeling uncertain, nervous, or anxious
- Feeling helpless or powerless
- Lacking motivation
- Feeling tired, overwhelmed, or burned out
- Feeling sad or depressed
- Having trouble sleeping
- Having trouble concentrating
Know about stress-related disorders, compassion fatigue, and burnout:
Experiencing or witnessing life-threatening or traumatic events impacts everyone differently. In some circumstances, the distress can be managed successfully to reduce associated negative health and behavioral outcomes. In other cases, some people may experience clinically significant distress or impairment, such as acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or secondary traumatic stress (also known as vicarious traumatization). Compassion fatigue and burnout may also result from chronic workplace stress and exposure to traumatic events during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tips to cope and enhance your resilience:
- Communicate with your coworkers, supervisors, and employees about job stress.
- Talk openly about how the pandemic is affecting your work.
- Identify factors that cause stress and work together to identify solutions.
- Ask about how to access mental health resources in your workplace.
- Remind yourself that everyone is in an unusual situation with limited resources.
- Identify and accept those things which you do not have control over.
- Recognize that you are performing a crucial role in fighting this pandemic and that you are doing the best you can with the resources available.
- Increase your sense of control by keeping a consistent daily routine when possible — ideally one that is similar to your schedule before the pandemic.
- Try to get adequate sleep.
- Make time to eat healthy meals.
- Take breaks during your shift to rest, stretch, or check in with supportive colleagues, coworkers, friends and family.
- When away from work, get exercise when you can. Spend time outdoors either being physically activity or relaxing. Do things you enjoy during non-work hours.
- Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including social media. Hearing about the pandemic repeatedly can be upsetting and mentally exhausting, especially since you work with people directly affected by the virus.
- If you feel you may be misusing alcohol or other drugs (including prescriptions), ask for help.
- Engage in mindfulness techniques, such as breathing exercises and meditation.
- If you are being treated for a mental health condition, continue with your treatment, and talk to your provider if you experience new or worsening symptoms.
Turning bad into good
Today’s wellness tip is an excerpt from an article by Dr. Srikumar Rao that originally appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 2017.
Think back in your life. Has anything happened to you that, at the time, you thought was a “bad thing”? Looking back at it today, can you see clearly that it was not so bad, and perhaps was even a “good thing”? Most of us can recall many such instances. So, is it possible that what you are about to label a bad thing today could, at some point in the future, turn out to have been a good thing? Just asking yourself the question “Is there any possible way in which this could actually turn out to be good?” presents a realm of possibility. And if you take the question one more step and ask “What can I do to make this happen?” you will find avenues opening up that you may never have conceived of before.
Here is a three-step process to help you cultivate this new mode of thinking:
- Be clear regarding what you are about to classify as a bad thing and why.
- Ask yourself this question: “Is there any possible scenario by which this could actually turn out to be a good thing someday?” Simply pondering this question will take you to a different emotional domain, one rich with possibility rather than foreboding.
- Ask yourself the next question: “What can I do to make this scenario come about? How can we turn this event into a good thing that we can all celebrate someday in the future?”
It sounds simple, and it is. You will discover how powerful it is when you try it.
Cultivating compassion
By Dr. Brian Rissmiler
Cultivating Compassion with Wisdom: The Continuum of Moral Distress to Moral Resilience in a Pandemic
On Friday, July 17, 2020, Dr. Tessy Thomas, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Bioethics Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine Center for Translational Bioethics and Health Care Policy Janet Weis Children’s Hospital Danville, PA, delivered a thought provoking and engaging lecture to members of our community. As part of our Grand Rounds, her lecture, entitled Cultivating Compassion with Wisdom: The Continuum of Moral Distress to Moral Resilience in a Pandemic, was heard virtually by hundreds of our faculty and staff.
Dr. Thomas is a nationally recognized expert in bioethics who explores the impact of moral distress within clinical medicine. Her timely message on moral resilience during the current pandemic included reminders that rituals build resilience and that gratitude and self-compassion are key to meaning in one’s work. During the presentation, the audience was invited to share strategies they have used to address moral distress. A summary of these strategies is below.
Doomscrolling and the anxiety it breeds
Today wellness tip is an excerpt from “Your ‘Doomscrolling’ Breeds Anxiety. Here’s How To Stop The Cycle” by Lulu Garcia-Navarro
So many of us do it: You get into bed, turn off the lights, and look at your phone one more time. You see that coronavirus infections are up. Maybe your kids can’t go back to school. The economy is cratering. Still, you incessantly scroll though bottomless doom-and-gloom news for hours as you sink into a pool of despair. This self-destructive behavior has become so common that a new word for it has entered our lexicon: “doomscrolling.”
Clinical psychologist Dr. Amelia Aldao, an expert in cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety, warns that doomscrolling traps us in a “vicious cycle of negativity” that fuels our anxiety. “Our minds are wired to look out for threats,” she says. “The more time we spend scrolling, the more we find those dangers, the more we get sucked into them, the more anxious we get. Now you look around yourself, and everything feels gloomy, everything makes you anxious. So you go back to look for more information.”
The cycle continues.
Here’s some of Dr. Aldao’s advice on how to temper the doom:
Set a timer
You do want to know what’s happening in the world, so the solution isn’t to never go online again, but it’s finding boundaries.
Stay cognizant
Going into it, opening up your phone, reminding yourself why you’re there, what are you looking for, what information are you trying to find. And then periodically checking in with yourself – have I found what I needed?
Swap ‘vicious cycles’ for ‘virtuous cycles’
Whether it’s ice cream, connecting with friends, sending something funny to a friend – those are the things we should spend more time doing just to build positive emotions in our lives.
Five finger breathing exercise
Today’s wellness tip is an excerpt from Mind going a million miles a minute? Slow down with this breathing exercise by Judson Brewer, MD, PhD
When you’re anxious, one of the best things you can do is slow down and focus on your breath. But what can you do when this feels impossible to do? There’s a part of your prefrontal cortex – the thinking and planning part of your brain – that is called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, or dlPFC for short. The dlPFC is important for working memory; basically, it holds information for you to use right now. You rely on it when someone tells you a phone number and you repeat it to yourself as you prepare to dial.
If you’re really worried about something, that worry thinking takes up space in your working memory. You can compare your dlPFC to the RAM of your computer. If your computer has a lot of RAM, you can run a bunch of programs at the same time. If it doesn’t have that much, it gets slower as you use up the space. Eventually, it crashes if you keep pushing.
Mindfulness practices can get your thinking brain back online but doing them can sometimes be really challenging. So here’s a little exercise to use to reboot that RAM in your brain: It’s called five finger breathing.
Step 1: Place the index finger of one hand on the outside of the pinky finger on your other hand. As you breathe in, trace up to the tip of your pinky, and as you breathe out, trace down the inside of your pinky.
Step 2: On your next inhale, trace up the outside of your ring finger, and on the exhale, trace down the inside of your ring finger.
Step 3: Inhale and trace up the outside of your middle finger; exhale and trace down the inside of your middle finger.
Step 4: Continue finger by finger until you’ve traced your entire hand.
Step 5: Reverse the process and trace from your thumb back to your pinky.
Five finger breathing is great, because it brings several of your senses together at the same time. You’re watching and feeling your fingers while you’re paying attention to your breath. This not only requires awareness of multiple senses (seeing and feeling) but an awareness of multiple locations in your body (your two fingers, your two hands and your lungs). When you’re able to use up your RAM with multi-sensory and multi-location awareness, you can forget what you’re worrying about, even if it’s for a few moments. As you do this, you’re also calming your physiology down, so if those thoughts come back, they won’t be as convincing because they won’t have the same emotional tone.
If you have children in your life, I encourage you to teach them five finger breathing. Then, practice together. If you don’t have kids or live alone, no worries. Just let your inner child help and guide you.
Taking Care of our Caregivers
Today’s wellness tips is an excerpt from “Taking Care of Our Caregivers” by Jessica Dudley, MD
For front-line caregivers, emotions have run high during the pandemic: anxiety about getting the virus and then exposing their families; fear of being re-deployed to jobs they had not previously done to treat a disease they’ve never seen; grief about the loss of patients, family members or colleagues; sadness about those who have lost their jobs or been furloughed.
Here is a “caregiver going home checklist” (created by Intermountain) that invites doctors, nurses and other caregivers to reflect on their important work and prepare for the transition to home:
- Acknowledge one thing that was difficult.
- Consider three things that went well today: Be proud of the care you gave.
- Check on your colleagues before you leave: Are they okay?
- Check on yourself before you leave: Am I okay?
- Now switch your attention to home: Rest and recharge.
Consider Your Mind Set
Today’s wellness tip is an excerpt from “Feel Like You’re Going Out of Your Mind? Consider Your Mind-Set“ by Alina Tugend.
Dr. Carol Dweck is one of the foremost researchers on how we think about mistakes and failure. Her work focuses on mind-sets — that is, how we view our own abilities. She distinguishes between fixed mind-sets and growth mind-sets. Those with a fixed mind-set don’t believe their abilities, intelligence and personalities can really change and evolve. They see mistakes, challenges and setbacks simply as signs of stupidity or incompetence and give up. Those with a growth mind-set understand that intelligence and capabilities are malleable. Even if we all won’t become world-class mathematicians, for example, we can get better at math. They are more likely to be resilient in the face of obstacles and failure, seeing them as necessary to becoming better at just about anything.
Professor Dweck says that if children, starting as young as possible, were taught about these mind-sets and could genuinely adopt a growth mind-set, they would become adults who were more willing to experiment even in the face of possible failure, to move out of their comfort zone. They will embrace the process of learning, not just the grades.
Professor Dweck’s research caught fire around the world. Her 2014 TED Talk has had almost 11 million views. As the ideas spread, however, efforts to replicate a few of her studies failed. Some wondered whether the ideas on growth and fixed mind-set — and particularly how they were defined and taught — “overpromised and underdelivered.”
So, where does the issue stand now? Professor Dweck said she and other mind-set researchers did want to see if they could learn anything during this [pandemic] time that could be useful in the future, and began interviewing teachers and administrators on the front lines.
High school teachers in cities around Texas, including Houston, El Paso and Fort Worth, who had studied in a growth mind-set program, said students with more of that mind-set were able to adapt faster to online learning. And the teachers themselves are using what they learned to guide students; as one teacher said in an Education Week article, he tried to make sure his students were comfortable enough to discuss their struggles. “That’s the big thing from growth mind-set. What do you do when you have that struggle? I try to push onto them, ‘you use it as a learning opportunity.”
Criticisms of her work have spurred her to do more and deeper research on mind-sets. But she also acknowledges things change when theory becomes practice. One thing she and other researchers didn’t anticipate was the many nuances that could be lost when practiced in the classroom. For example, one major part of developing a growth mind-set is focusing on effort, rather than results. But in the classroom, too often that translated into a teacher simply praising a student’s efforts without offering new approaches to solve the problem or overcome the obstacles.
So, how should we try to develop a growth mind-set?
Beware of assuming that because something doesn’t come easily, you won’t ever be good at it and then quit. Focus on the process – what you’re learning – rather than the final product.
Just trying the same thing over and over isn’t enough. When you run up against a brick wall, you have to come up with new strategies, skills and input from others to figure out the right approach.
Be aware of what triggers you from a growth to a fixed mind-set – when do you feel vulnerable? Anxious? Stressed? When those emotions surface, don’t get annoyed with yourself; just try to bring yourself back to a growth mind-set.
Mommy burnout
Today’s wellness tip comes from “Mommy Burnout: How to Reclaim Your Life and Raise Healthier Children in the Process,” by Sheryl G. Ziegler, PsyD, adapted from Harvard Business Review.
You wonder if every other mom feels the elusive work-life balance stress the same way you do. You feel time running out to achieve your career aspirations while your kids are growing up so quickly. No matter where you are, at home or work, you feel like you should be elsewhere, getting something productive done. Secretly, you dream of a weekend away but come up with excuses as to why you can’t do it.
Because of this, women feel guilty — guilty for working and guilty for not. Blurred boundaries of work time spill into family time, and half listening to your children’s stories from their day or missing out on meaningful time with them can lead moms to feel like they are failing.
Working moms are chasing the balance of working a job that they want or need and being the mom that they envisioned. You don’t just feel bad about letting your kids, team, or boss down; you also feel guilty about practicing self-care, remorse for not helping aging parents enough, or embarrassment about telling a friend how stressed out you are — as if you don’t have a right to feel this way.
What’s more, the Covid-19 pandemic has left working parents, and in particular mothers, having to find solutions for education and child care. The windows into their world have been opened for all to see as women still disproportionately take care of the housework and children while working. As a result, guilt is permeating everywhere as kids spend more time on screens and moms spend more time on Zoom.
Working on letting go of this guilt should be at the top of your long to-do list. It eats away at you, disrupts your sleep, affects your mood, and gets in the way of being present. My experience counseling working mothers has shown me that, while they do still feel stressors, they also experience significant relief when they are mindful and intentional about their mindset and behaviors. Here are some strategies to start freeing yourself of guilt, starting today.
Forgive yourself.
Letting go of guilt has to start with a commitment to stop beating yourself up over your choices and circumstances. Guilt gone awry turns into shame, and it is emotionally painful to constantly feel like you are a bad mom, a bad employee, or a bad friend. Instead, remember the reasons behind your choices. Every time you think to yourself, “I feel bad about __” replace that with, “I made that decision because ___” and then move forward.
Revisit your values.
For instance, if family time is at the top of your list but you don’t feel like you get enough of it, rid yourself of guilt by consciously finding ways to spend more time with your family. Practice saying “no” to unnecessary commitments, like volunteering at every school fund-raiser, going to a regular happy hour with coworkers (even virtually), or sitting on your neighborhood HOA board. Involve your children in tasks you already do, like completing chores, making meals, or taking the dog for a walk. Or use your weekends intentionally, dedicating blocks of time for family, rather than errands. This will likely entail setting clear boundaries in other areas of your life and constantly revisiting (and updating) your family values statement so that you are in integrity with what you want.
Ask for help.
One of the hardest things for many women to do is to ask for help. Instead of asking for help, a working mom may just be fueling her stress by trying to do it all herself — then realizing that it is just impossible. Asking for help takes practice, but once you take a vulnerable step in doing so, others around you will start doing the same. Reach out to neighbors, personal friends, parents of your kids’ friends, your own parents, your in-laws, the aftercare program at school, or carpool parents. Before you know it, no one has to feel bad for asking, and it becomes a reciprocal relationship in which everyone benefits.
Be “good enough” at home.
The idea of the “good enough parent” goes back decades. Attachment researchers, such as John Bowlby, discovered that parents need to be emotionally present, to comfort their child, attune to their child’s feelings, show delight when seeing their child, and support their child in order to have a healthy and secure parent-child attachment. In other words, they are caring for and connected with their child, without sacrificing their personal needs and health. We need to follow this example and lower the bar from the perfect mom who can do it all, who does everything she “should” be doing, and is praised for her selflessness to the mother who reclaims her own life and takes care of herself. Rather than putting additional pressure on yourself, remember the basics. Realize the connection you can still have with your children by simply being “good enough.”
Unfollow those that bring you down.
Watching other people vacation, share their family photos, or publicize their latest promotion on social platforms like Facebook and Instagram is enough to drive a working mom to tears. The time you take to scroll on social media for connection is a time that needs to lift you up. If you find that a person or group’s posts consistently bring you down, unfollow them.
Last, remember that guilt is inherently tied to empathy. Feeling guilty means you have compassion, care, and concern for those around you. Getting rid of your guilt does not mean that you are not a loving or kind mother. It means that the empathy behind the guilt will be realized. Instead of feeling stuck, the power of compassion can motivate you to connect with your work as well as find the joy in being a mom.
Laughter
Today’s wellness tip is an excerpt from “Laughter May Be Effective Medicine for These Trying Times“ by Richard Schiffman
Perhaps most relevant today, possessing a sense of humor helps people remain resilient in the face of adverse circumstances, said George Bonanno, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University. Humor and tragedy may be more intimately connected than one would think. Dr. Peter Viccellio, a professor of emergency medicine has seen many Covid-19 patients during his hours in the emergency room. A touch of playfulness and kindly humor, he said, has helped to ease an enormously painful situation for both his patients and members of the overburdened hospital staff.
Some hospitals have initiated formal humor programs, making funny books and videos available and inviting clowns in to interact with their younger patients. Some caregivers are also innovating ways to bring humor into their own practice. The culture is beginning to shift — injecting humor and humanity back into medicine,” he said. “If you can’t change what you are dealing with, you can at least change how you view it. Humor gives us the power to do that.”
An Awe Walk
Today’s wellness tip is an excerpt from the New York Times Sept. 30, 2020 “An Awe Walk Might Do Wonders for Your Well-Being“
Consciously watching for small wonders in the world around you during an otherwise ordinary walk could amplify the mental health benefits of the stroll, according to an interesting new psychological study of what the study’s authors call “awe walks.” In the study, people who took a fresh look at the objects, moments and vistas that surrounded them during brief, weekly walks felt more upbeat and hopeful in general than walkers who did not. The findings are subjective but indicate that awe walks could be a simple way to combat malaise and worry. Feeling a sense of awe also seems to up our overall feelings of gladness and improve health. A somewhat nebulous emotion, awe generally is defined as the sense that you are in the presence of something larger and more consequential than yourself and that this something is mysterious and ineffable.