Healthy for a Happy Life

In our stressful world, where we seem to be surrounded by chaos and conflict, we can take comfort in the wisdom of Richard Sima, an accomplished neuroscientist turned science journalist, who provides seven brain tips for a healthier, happier life covid (“7 recommendations for a healthier and happier mind,” the Washington Post, 2 January 2024).. 

1. Stop and listen to the birds.  The evidence behind brain science shows that interaction with nature directly correlates with improved health.  One of the reasons Sima highlights the benefits of bird bonding in particular, is because they are ubiquitous and provide a direct connection to nature.  Even listening to a short audio clip of birdsong has been proven to reduce anxiety, depression, and paranoia in study participants.
2. Take care of your teeth and gyms.  According to Sima, studies suggest that oral health has a direct correlation to our mental health.  In particular, while continued research is needed, good oral health practices suggest a reduction to the risk of dementia. 
3. Channel your inner Betty White.  Our exemplary “SuperAgers,” including Betty White, have shown us that exercising, a fiber-rich diet, being socially connected, and doing “hard things” can help keep us healthy and happy.  “SuperAgers” are the “Betty Whites of the world,” according to Emily Rogalski, a cognitive neuroscientist at Northwestern University’s Feinbert School of Medicine.  Rogalski’s research team determined that people older than 80 had memory as good as those who were more than 20 to 30 years younger, thanks to their lifestyle choices, which includes food, exercise, social connections, and taking on new challenges, which can positively impact our mental health span and our overall happiness levels.
4. Do a five-minute breathing exercise.  Research shows that breathwork allows us to slow down our breathing, creating positive conditions for our mood as well as for our physical state.  To incorporate this tip, take five minutes a day to first slowly inhale through the nose to expand the lungs and then inhale a second time to fill the lungs more completely.  Then, slowly and fully exhale the breath from your mouth.  According to recent studies, these types of breathing exercises can be even more impactful to mental health than mindful meditation. 
5. Take steps to reduce inflammation.  Inflammatory agents in the blood can cause inflammation in the brain, negatively impacting neural circuits.  In addition, those of us who are at risk of depression may experience triggers from inflammation.  To remediate this risk, eat plenty of vegetables, reduce carb intake, get regular exercise, and talk to your doctor if you’re having trouble sleeping, since disturbed sleep increases the risk of inflammation and depression.
6. Hugh or hold hands.  Sima reminds us that social touch is so important for our well-being, that we have specific cells in our skin to help our bodies detect it.  Social touch is essential to our well-being, reducing pain, remediating stress, and helping us bond with each other.
7. Let your mind wander.  Recent studies, including one from psychologists from the University of California San Digo, indicate that we are the most creative when we are dreaming in REM sleep, in the shower, on a walk, or lying bed.  Wherever you are, let your mind wander and embrace your creative spirit. 

In a report about the economic effects of the government shutdown, Andrew Taylor makes several misleading statements, underestimating the losses at “just $3 billion” and dismissing them as “slight.”

In case you missed my letter to the editor letter to the editor in The Capital Gazette, here it is:

In his deceiving article, “Shutdown projected to cause $3B permanent hit to economy,” Associated Press reporter Andrew Taylor cherry-picks data from Monday’s Congressional Budget Office report in an apparent attempt to downplay the damage from the longest government shutdown in history (The Capital, Jan. 29).

The CBO estimates that the shutdown cost the U.S. economy $11 billion. While $8 billion may eventually be recovered through faster economic growth, the CBO states that the negative effects are “much more significant on individual businesses and workers” and that some “will never recoup that lost income.”

Adding these losses to the additional $2 billion in decreased tax revenues in fiscal year 2019 amounts to a total loss of $5 billion. $5 billion could probably pay for most of a border wall.

Or, according to the National Priorities Project, it could provide Medicaid for 1.4 million people, increase federal spending on energy efficiency and renewable energy by more than twofold, expand federal aid to public schools by 30 percent, double funding for substance use and mental health, fund the National Endowment for the Arts through 2051, double heating assistance for low-income households, resettle 11 times more refugees than we did in 2018, or increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by 60 percent.

Considering these lost opportunities, the economic losses caused by the government shutdown are not nearly as insignificant as Mr. Taylor would like us to believe.

SHELBY BELL

Millersville

As kids return to school, parents would be wise to plan in advance on how they plan to motivate their children. If you typically reward your children for good grades, you are not alone. Consider this excerpt by Jessica Lahey from the Washington Post.

“When I’m in schools talking to kids about resilience and learning through failure, I usually begin with a quick survey. First, I ask teachers and staff in the auditorium to close their eyes. I then ask the students to raise their hands if they get paid cash money for good grades. Depending on the socio-economic makeup of the district, about 15 to 20 percent of hands go up.

Sometimes it takes a while, hands creeping up slowly, hesitantly, for kids seem to intuit that getting paid for grades may not be the best approach to learning. I then ask them to raise their hands if they get any material thing in exchange for grades; a new iPod or some other shiny enticement. In response, about 20 to 25 percent of the hands go up. The noise in the auditorium tends to amp up with each new question as students begin to compare notes. When the clamor dies down, I remind the staff of the rules: eyes closed, no peeking. And I warn the students that this last question is a little harder to answer, and I want them to think and search their hearts for an honest answer before they respond.

“Raise your hand if you truly believe your parents love you more when you bring home high grades, and love you less when you make low ones.”

Over the past five years, I’ve asked this question to thousands of kids, ages 12 to 18, and the percentages still surprise me. Among middle-school children, about 80 percent believe that, yes, their parents truly love them more when they deliver high grades and less when they make low ones. In high school, the average is a little higher — about 90 percent.

After the poll is over, we debrief, and I reassure them that for the most part, their perceptions are incorrect, that they are loved no matter what, but parenting is hard, and we parents often need a moment to come up with the right response to an unexpectedly low grade. Sure, we are disappointed, but that silence they encounter when they bring home a report card littered with B-minuses (B-minus is the new F, haven’t you heard?) does not mean we love them any less. I promise, we’re just pausing to find the best, most appropriate words to support their hearts, their minds and their intellectual growth.

I’m a parent, however, and I understand the truth behind that pause, even if I don’t want to admit it. That silence in response to a low grade? That’s withdrawal of love based on performance, and our kids hear us loud and clear.”

Based on Lahey’s account, the vast majority of parents should reconsider the use of extrinsic rewards and revise their motivational strategies. According to recent studies, this practice of “outcome love” may impede a child’s happiness by sending the wrong message. The concept of outcome love was presented by Dr. Jim Taylor, an internationally recognized authority on the psychology of sport and parenting. According to Dr. Taylor, outcome love is an arrangement in which parents give love in exchange for their children’s success and withdraw love as a punishment for failures. This may sound like a harsh assessment at first, but think about it. A parent may say “we love you the same no matter what grades you bring home,” and then offer cash when the grades are good and grimaces when the grades are poor. Despite what you may say to your children about your unconditional love, they learn much more from your actions then from words.

As Dr. Taylor elaborated, “If parents send frequent messages of love, happiness, and excitement when children are successful and frequent messages of withdrawal of love or anger, frustration, and disappointment when their children fail to live up to their parents’ expectations, the kids will make that connection.”

Not only does this misguided technique affect children’s short-term happiness, but it can also have long-term, detrimental effects on mental health that extend into adulthood. In an interview with Washington Post reporter Jessica Lahey, Dr. Taylor indicated, “Sadly, these messages fuel mental health problems including perfectionism, fear of failure, low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety, not to mention the reactions of resentment, anger, and rejection from the children towards their parents. Even more painfully, this attitude of outcome love becomes internalized and children grow up to be adults who berate themselves for failure and only give self-love when they succeed.”

In addition, when love is offered in exchange for performance, it becomes an extrinsic reward, an incentive that is external to the work itself, controlled by people outside of the work stream. In a classic meta-analysis by Edward Deci, researchers synthesized the results from 128 controlled experiments. The results highlighted consistent negative effects of incentives, from marshmallows to dollars, on intrinsic motivation. These effects were even greater when the tasks were interesting or enjoyable rather than boring or meaningless. The data on extrinsic rewards and their effects on motivation are clear. If we want children to succeed in any activity, including academics, sports, or playing an instrument, the fastest way to undermine their success is to offer material or emotional rewards.

The most effective way to motivate children and help them become internally motivated by teaching them about purpose. As Dr. Kate Roberts explains in Psychology Today, humans are naturally curious. Therefore, making the connection between the intrinsic value of learning and purpose is relatively easy, especially when learning is seen as the ultimate goal and grades and performance are not overemphasized. By helping children become more engaged in the learning process, parents help them become better students and facilitate a deeper understanding of how and why learning is important. Here are four tips Dr. Roberts offers:

1. Exemplify purposefulness. Parents who want to motivate children through internal purpose can demonstrate this principle through their own actions. Show that you are committed to a purposeful life where hard work and effort result in positive feelings even if the goals take time or are difficult to achieve.
2. Communicate purposefulness. Have your child define who they want to be and how they want to live, and help them identify how they can achieve this through their daily actions.
3. Help connect behavior with results. Some children are unable to quickly make the connection between geometry homework and obtaining their goal of being an effective thinker or getting into college. Parents can help children make the connection by explaining why and how certain activities are essential to achieving goals.
4. Facilitate internal reflection. When a child demonstrates hard work, reflect this back to them in a way that helps them see their skills and abilities. A statement like, “Those boxes are heavy and I am impressed that you were able to carry them all upstairs.” This allows the child to make the attribution internally between their behavior and their physical strength, resulting in thoughts like “I am strong” that come from within and not from external forces.

As difficult as it is to confront underachievement, treat these moments as opportunities to focus on character and help develop internal motivation that will serve your child beyond the school year and into all aspects of life. As Lahey suggests, if we want our children to truly believe that we value learning more than grades or scores, we need to put our money where our mouths are.

 

Did you know that rudeness is contagious?  A study from the University of Maryland shows that rudeness is as contagious as the common cold.  A researcher in organization behavior, Trevor Foulk, stated, “When it comes to incivility, there’s often a snowballing effect. The more you see rudeness, the more likely you are to perceive it from others and the more likely you are to be rude yourself to others.”

Rows over rudeness accelerated after White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was asked to leave a restaurant because employees did not want to serve her and the owner disapproved of her work in the Trump administration.  This incident fell on the heels of the heckling of Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, while she tried to finish her dinner at a Mexican restaurant near the White House.  Fueling the tension, some politicians, including Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), have called for increased confrontations with Trump administration officials.  And recently, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus urged everyone who works for the administration to quit their jobs and avoid further complicity.

So, how do we successfully survive in today’s workplace?  Do we fight fire with fire or take the moral high ground?  Surprisingly, there is considerable research on the topic, as highlighted in a recent article by William Wan in the Washington Post.  In the case of the eatery expulsion, President Trump chose to insult the restaurant owner, Waters and others.  Such cycles, repeated on a daily basis and rapidly spreading online, are created in part by our unconscious reactions, experts say.

In a 2016 study, Christopher Rosen, an organizational scientist at the University of Arkansas, tracked employees over the course of their work days. He and fellow researchers found that those who experienced a perceived insult earlier in the day would later strike back at their coworkers.  Using psychological tests, the researchers linked this reaction to lowered levels of self-control.

“When someone is uncivil to you, it forces you to spend a lot of mental energy trying to figure out what’s going on, what caused the rudeness, what it means,” Rosen said in a recent interview. “All that thinking lessens your capacity for impulse control. So you become more prone to be rude to others. … People, in a way, ‘pay it forward.’”

The recent rise in incivility has led to increasing research on the topic by social scientists and psychologists.  In a series of experiments, for example, Foulk and others showed that the more that people witness and experience rudeness, the more likely they are to interpret an action as rude and then subsequently treat others rudely.  “Rudeness is interesting in that it’s often ambiguous and open to interpretation,” said Foulk. “If someone punches you, for example, we would all agree that it’s abusive. But if someone comes up to you and says in a neutral voice ‘nice shoes,’ is that an insult? Is it sarcasm or something else?” The more someone has witnessed rudeness, “the more likely you are to interpret ‘nice shoes’ as deliberately rude.”  In a recent study from the Journal of Applied Psychology, for example, workers viewed videos every morning before work. On the mornings when the videos included an uncivil interaction, the workers were more likely to interpret subsequent workplace interactions as rude.

In another study that focused on workplace negotiations, Foulk found that if someone experiences rudeness from a person on the opposing side, they are highly likely to be perceived as rude in their next negotiation.   Even when the two negotiations took place several days apart, the toxic effect was just as intense.  “What is so scary about this effect is that it’s an automatic process — it takes place in a part of your brain that you are not aware of, can’t stop, and can’t control,” Foulk states.

Other studies also suggest incivility by senior executives has a tremendous influence on the rest of the organization, feeding insolence throughout the ranks.  Perhaps the most troublesome issue surrounding this growing incivility is the effect it has on the workforce.  Increasing studies confirm that rudeness significantly hampers attentiveness, decreases productivity and impedes creativity. These studies also indicate that incivility lowers trust, fuels anger, stokes fear, stimulates sadness, and causes depression. A study in the Journal of Organizational Behavior  found that incivility in the workplace also has profound implications at home, including a decline in marital satisfaction.

Other recent studies found that doctors and nurses in neonatal intensive care units who were admonished by an actress playing the mother of a sick infant performed much more poorly than those who were not scolded and that they even misdiagnosed the baby’s condition.  “The results were scary,” one of the authors reported to the Wall Street Journal. “The teams exposed to rudeness gave the wrong diagnosis, didn’t resuscitate or ventilate appropriately, didn’t communicate well, gave the wrong medications and made other serious mistakes.”

Researchers have struggled in vain to come up with ways to stop the spreading effects of rudeness. Those who studied the hospital neonatal staffs, for example, tried having the doctors and nurses write about their interaction from the perspective of the rude mother. Doing so made no difference.

So, what can we do to survive in these times of incivility and why should we care?  According to the research, the best way to survive in today’s toxic workforce is to avoid incivility as much as possible.  “When you experience incivility, it’s important to take a step back and not act on your impulses. Do things that help you recover your ability to self-regulate, like exercise or taking a break,” Rosen says.  This advice may not be entirely realistic, given the fact that the ripple effects of rudeness are largely unconscious.  That said, it is important to maintain self-awareness and restraint.  For example, if you are hosting a meeting that starts going down an uncivil path, try to steer the group back to civility.  If that does not work, consider ending the engagement and resuming the work after tempers die.

According to P.M. Forni, the co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project and author of Choosing Civility, “Encouraging civility in the workplace is becoming one of the fundamental corporate goals in our diverse, hurried, stressed and litigation-prone society.  A civil workplace is good for workers, since the quality of service they receive from happier and more relaxed service providers is improved.”  We should all be concerned about this disturbing trend and do our part to bring civility back to the workplace.  After all, it is right and civil thing to do.