Tag: health and welfare issues

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Kindness and Gratitude = Health and Happiness

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have found that regularly practicing a phenomenon they call "loving kindness” can profoundly change your attitude, outlook, and health[1].

Even better, regular practice rewires the brain to be more present and kinder to yourself and others, giving your focus and mood an added daily boost.

Here are three simple practices to get you started.

1. Loving-kindness meditation (LKM)

LKM is a quiet, solo reflective practice that focuses thought on the heart region and encourages warm, tender thoughts about a loved one or cherished others. In one study, one hour of LKM a week led people to report greater positive emotions – love, contentment, joy, satisfaction – during their social exchanges with others.

The researchers also documented health benefits from regular practice of LKM that include:

  • Reduced pain and tension from migraines
  • Reduced symptoms of depression
  • Possibly slowing the aging process. Studies have found that women who practice LKM have longer telomeres, which are like little end-caps on your DNA. Shorter telomeres have been associated with faster aging.

Even small periods of practice can help. One study found a 10-minute session of LKM increased feelings of social connection and positive feelings toward others.

2. Acts of kindness

This one is exactly what you’d imagine. Intentionally set a goal to be kinder to others.

Strategies can be as simple as doing something nice or unexpected for a loved one or even a stranger. Hold a door open for the person behind you. Offer a warm greeting or smile when unexpected. Make a special effort to extend kind words to someone. Send a friend or family member a simple text or email message – or forward an article you think they might enjoy – to tell them you are thinking about them. Take a few extra minutes to help or listen more closely to another.

Regular acts of kindness make you feel good – and beget more kindness.

Neuroscientists have confirmed that thinking or acting kindly toward others activates the part of your brain that makes you feel pleasure. It also releases the hormone oxytocin that increases interpersonal bonding and feelings of enjoyment from social interactions — the higher your oxytocin levels, the kinder and more generous you may become.

3. Gratitude

Everyone has something good in life for which to feel grateful. What’s on your list? If the answer does not come easy, it’s time to start building your list, literally. One way to increase feelings of gratitude is to write them down in a hand-written or virtual journal.

Researchers have found that feeling thankful for life’s little blessings can improve sleep, diminish fatigue, increase confidence, and even lessen depression.

And keeping some form of a gratitude journal — writing down happy moments, beautiful observations, or people or things you’re grateful for in your life — has been found to improve biological markers of heart health.

Like any other skill set, expressing kindness and gratitude gets easier with practice – and the benefits multiply. Start slow and simple with activities such as

  • Spend a few minutes each day thinking positive thoughts about the important people in your life.
  • Reflect on your week and write down a few things you’re most grateful for. Why not keep some slips of paper and a gratitude jar on your bedside table: end your day by writing down one special something from your day and putting it into the jar. You’ll drift off to sleep with positive feelings about a special someone or something – and have a wealth of reminders for those times when you feel down or alone.
  • Set aside 10 minutes to sit quietly, meditate, or simply think warm tender feelings about a loved one  that comes straight from your heart.

The world – and your relationships – will be better for your efforts. And you just might become a happier and healthier you.

[1] HOUSECALL, Vol. 19, Issue 24, March 22, 2018. Accessed online March 22, 2018 at https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/how-sharing-kindness-can-make-you-healthier-happier/art-20390060/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=housecall

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Leaders, be thankful! You’ll thank me for the reminder– and help yourself along the way

This week in the U.S., many gather with family and friends to give thanks for our many blessings.

In today’s rough-and-tumble work world, it can be easy to lose sight of things for which we can be thankful. The global economic downturn has made work and life tougher – no doubt about it. The bottom-line matters more when there is less margin for error. And everyone is being asked to do more with less.

Leaders can balance the strain with a conscious focus on positive sentiments, like hope, enjoyment, compassion, and thankfulness.

Health and wellness research consistently confirms the physiological benefits: immediate positive changes in heart rhythms, as well as neural, hormonal and biochemical reactions that drop blood pressure, muscle tension, and stress hormones. Scientists at UCLA found that optimism strengthened immune functioning. And, forgiveness – letting go of resentment for a perceived offense (including forgiving yourself for not being perfect or where you thought you’d be at this point in your life) – decreases blood pressure, cortisol, and other hormones associated with heart disease, immunity disorders, and more.

Feeling good helps you weather the storms you face – and make progress on things important to you.

Need a little help given where things are in your life?  Try the following reasons to be thankful:

Take time and celebrate:  Yes, 80 is the new fifty!  U.S. Census figures have confirmed that the number of people living to age 90 and beyond has tripled in the past three decades and will quadruple by 2050. Stay healthy – and the odds are with you to have plenty of time to accomplish what you want to accomplish. Take pressure off yourself to have and do it all now, and celebrate where you are.

Let legendary pop singer Tony Bennett be your model. His new album "Duets II" – which is darn good, I might add – soared to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, a first for Bennett in his career and making him at 85 the oldest living act to reach No. 1. [Click on the album title and listen to a sample.]   

Get moving and be smarter:  The literature on exercise is conclusive: moderate amounts of regular aerobic exercise produce chemical changes that promote new brain cells in the part of the brain essential for learning and memory. Yahoo, positive news for aging brains!  Anyone can get smarter!  

Indulge and avoid guilt: Analysis of seven studies (with more than 100,000 subjects) found chocolate consumption associated with lower rates of stroke, coronary heart disease, blood pressure, and other cardiovascular conditions. The British Medical Journal reported chocolate eaters had decreases of 37% in risk of cardiovascular disorders and 29% in risk for stroke, but warned chocolate’s benefits come when eaten in moderation.  A prescription to eat chocolate – thank you, doctor!   

Relax and enjoy: NPR has a super series of Tiny Desk Concerts for a quick break in a long day. Last week they posted their best ever. Take a few minutes, click on the link, and enjoy. Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile And Stuart Duncan: Tiny Desk Concert Notice the musicians’ joy and passion for their work. May you find yours! 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 

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Depression and Executive Overload: We’re In Over Our Heads So We Better Learn to Cope Better

Andrew Weil has been making the media rounds with his new best seller, Spontaneous Happiness. His exploration of depression as a rising global phenomenon caught my attention.

Weil, an M.D. with an interest in wellness, points to the growing body of research on links between rising global wealth – and the adoption of the modern Western lifestyle (sedentary, solitary, stimulus-overloaded, indoors, technology-filled) and diet (processed and engineered) that goes with it – and higher global rates of depression.

I look at Leslie Chang’s award-winning Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China and see a case study of what he means (and one way to understand China’s distinction in having the highest female suicide rate in the world).

Closer to home, 1 in 10 people in the U.S. today are on depression medication. This includes millions of children. The World Health Organization projects by 2030, more people world-wide will be treated for depression than any other health condition.

Plain and simple, countries with the least developed lifestyles have the lowest rates of depression. “There seems to be something about modern life that creates fertile soil for depression,” says Martin Seligman, father of the field of positive psychology (and author of Flourish, discussed in an earlier post).[1]

Concludes Weil: our “ancient brains” just aren’t equipped for 21st century life (and we’d better start doing something to keep them and the bodies that fuel them in good working order).  Amen. 

So are you going to do anything different in your life for knowing this?  I ask because Weil’s message isn’t really new.

Fourteen years ago, Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan warned us[2] that modern living is just too darn hard – that over an increasing portion of our lives, there’s a mismatch between the complexity of what we need to know and understand to function productively and the human capacity to grasp it all. The result: increasing stress and a struggle to develop more sophisticated ways of thinking and learning to respond.  The flattening of the world has only magnified that.

Seven years later, psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell offered a different slant in Harvard Business Review in “Overloaded Circuits: Why Smart People Underperform” – an article that remains one of the most read HBR reprints today. Hallowell spoke of an increasing number of patients reporting symptoms similar to those of attention deficit disorder without having that disorder. Their symptoms were merely the brain’s natural response to stress, stimulus, and overload: impatience, as well as diminished capacities for problem-solving, resilience, focus, memory, and creativity. Talented executives became “frenzied underachievers.” 

We can all do better than that – and have to, given today’s fast-paced world. Suggestions for how from my most recent book, Reframing Academic Leadership.[3]

Learning to Cope in a World on Over-drive

Healthy leaders care for themselves and build vitality by attending to five key areas: boundaries, biology, balance, beauty, and bounce.

Boundaries: Got to have ’em, got to maintain ’em. Human are programmed to take in the emotions of others. That’s why we feel better around positive, high energy people. Negative emotions hamper brain functioning. Don’t dwell on them. Hallowell suggests interacting with folks you like every 4 to 6 hours, especially during stressful periods, to promote positive feelings. 

Biology: Take better care of your body, and it will take better care of your brain. Increase aerobic exercise, eat better (more fruits, vegetables, lean proteins; less sugar, white flour, processed foods), stay hydrated, limit caffeine and alcohol, improve sleep patterns. The evidence for these is overwhelming, and neuroscience confirms that healthy brains develop new circuitry to compensate for the normal loss with aging.

Balance:  Balance flows from willingness to attend to the diverse needs of mind, body, and soul. Try mindfulness to train the brain to focus amid distraction. Stress is eased with learned relaxation. Negativity is countered by conscious focus on positive sentiments (empowerment, love, care, appreciation, forgiveness, compassion). Deal with fears of overload by remembering you can handle it – and you will. Weil suggests cultivating times of silence and limiting email, television, disturbing noise, and internet use.

Beauty: Find it for yourself: it feeds the soul. Nature and the arts are obvious choices. “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable,” said playwright George Bernard Shaw. Weil touts the added physical benefits of time spent outside, including Vitamin D (which is vital for brain health).

Bounce: Resilience comes from recognizing that we always have choice in interpreting and responding to events, keeping things in perspective, trusting one’s instincts, practicing new behaviors and responses, and reflecting on the consequences. It is helped by learning to “wear life loosely” and by reaching out to others for social connections. Weil reminds us that social interactions are a powerful safeguard of emotional well-being. 

[1] Andrew Weil (2011). “Don’t Let Chaos Get You Down.” Newsweek. Double Issue (November 7 and 14), pp. 9-10.

[2] Robert Kegan (1994). In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[3] Based on materials in Lee G. Bolman and Joan V. Gallos (2011). Reframing Academic Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Chapter 12.

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Predictions for the World in 2050: Top Ten Opportunities and Challenges – Are You Ready?

A colleague sent me U.S. Census Bureau projections of the world in the year 2050. For those of us building institutions, communities, and businesses, this is important stuff.

Too often, leaders plan for the present based on the past while ignoring the future. What do the demographic shifts mean for your current work? What do they mean for new products, policies, and services for the global marketplace?

Population shifts in a nutshell: India will be the most populous nation, surpassing China around 2025. The U.S. will remain in third place, despite its projected growth of 115 million people.

Declining birth rates for two current economic and political powers, Japan and Russia, will lead to a fall from current spots as the 9th and 10th most populous nations, respectively, to 16th and 17th.

Russia will suffer most: the nation has been undergoing steady depopulation since 1992, not only from declining birth rates but low life expectancy due to alcoholism and poor diet. Russia’s population will drop another 21% by 2050.

Western Europe’s long-declining birth rate is reversing, and Spain and Italy are on track for a population “uptick" thanks to that and to immigration.

Africa’s poised for a boom, with Nigeria and Ethiopia on track for the biggest gains. Nigeria’s population will jump from 166 million to 402 million by 2050. Ethiopia’s is predicted to triple from 91 million to 278 million, placing it on the list of the top 10 most populous countries in the world.

Most of the changes for the U.S. will be internal. More than half of children under age 2 currently are ethnic minorities. That percentage will grow; and the aging of the non-Hispanic white population, immigration, and differing birth rates among races and cultures will lead to big shifts in the country’s ethnic composition.

So what does all this mean for you? You’ll need to figure the specifics for your work. My crystal ball sees things like:

1.  An increasing need for and use of clean, affordable alternative energies 

2.  The need for new ways to make sustainability everyone’s responsibility – we learned from China that managing the impact on the planet of population booms like those predicted for India and Africa will not be easy

3.  Attention to global water policies and usage 

4.  Rising markets in the U.S. and abroad for more diverse and ethno-centric products and services

5.  New national and global policies that anticipate shifts in world power and economic dominance – and deep diplomacy skills and negotiation-based strategies to handle strife, manage diversity, and deal with the realities of increasing competition for the world’s resources and markets

6.  Global attention to health and welfare issues and the need for new ways to understand diet, nutrition, mental health, addiction, the spread or eradication of disease, healthcare, and more

7. Advances in food production, transportation, and storage: Africa’s expected population growth, for example, significantly compounds current food-supply issues in many of its nations

8. Increases in global travel with all its ramifications

9. The internationalization of higher education

10. More internet-based businesses and services to respond to the realities of an increasingly global marketplace.