Creating Balanced Relationships with Social Media

How to craft online safeguards:
1. Prune your social media garden by deleting who and what provokes anxiety
2. Protect yourself by blocking
3. Remove toxic apps that focus on negativity. Counter these with daily positives, such as Nice News
4. Moderate exposure by taking periodic breaks to gain perspective and create balance in online activities
5. Turn off notifications that eat up time and create distractions that keep you from main goals
6. Remove blue-light screens to improve your sleep
7. Look at computer tracking that informs about the actual length of your screen time

Social Media News and Mental Health

Excess emersion in social media is unwise. We become overwhelmed when spending hours online seeking answers. The mind is not constructed to process an oversaturation of discouraging material and millions of digital comparisons. When people become flooded with too much data, one response is to ‘give up,’ which can lead to learned helplessness. This manifestation of learned helplessness is related to a person’s belief in their ability to reach a goal. In this case, finding the correct piece of information that satisfies a sense of safety in what we perceive to be an unsafe world. An impression of powerlessness that comes with a perceived lack of control over a particular outcome can lead to depression. It is important to proactively take control over our wellbeing and lessen the effect of learned helplessness.

On Creative Problem Solving

“The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there.
The answers are there in the morning.”
– Alain de Botton

What is Default Mode Network (DMN)? DMN is an empirically supported phenomena when one develops their best ideas during times in which they are otherwise mentally unoccupied. Examples may be when in the shower, walking your dog or raking fall leaves. Some may term this daydreaming, an activity we engage in almost 50% of time.

World Mental Health Day - 10/10/2022

The World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) announced the theme for World Mental Health Day 2022, which is 'Make mental health for all a global priority”.

Fitting Work into your Life

We know work can be taxing in two ways:
Time Pressure – The perception one has of uncompleted tasks and that
time is running out to accomplish those responsibilities.
Emotional Labor – The management of one's emotions in order to present oneself and interact with other people in a certain way while doing a job. An example of emotional labor may be working daily with customers and coworkers, while making a good effort to appear cheerful and friendly, can be especially draining when one is under time pressure on tasks.

Resiliency in Challenging Times

Resilience is necessary now. Trying to be toughly impervious to our serious changes is not rational, as change is the only thing we can really expect in life. With a rigidly resistant attitude, one could become unnaturally inflexible and be unable to adapt to life’s sudden twists and turns. Realistically, we must honor what is taking a real toll on us all. It may be better to think of the tree that bends and flexes with a strong gale so as not to ultimately collapse.