Welcome to the new normal of social distancing. A month ago, it seemed surreal to be doing the six-feet apart dance and seeing no one, but it is becoming eerily status quo. My personal life has changed in that I am reaching back in time when I was the mother of two tiny tots living in the middle of nowhere Western Pennsylvania. Now I am…
How quickly life can change. Got to admit, I never expected life to change all across the globe so abruptly. Not so abruptly perhaps if you are a scientist paying attention to the signals from China or a self-serving politician who figured the stock market would tank because he had been forewarned of an imminent pandemic. Now that we are quarantined en masse, how will…
How about some fireside non-fiction reading for winter hibernation? When Antidepressants Aren’t Enough: Harnessing the Power of Mindfulness to Alleviate Depression by Stuart J. Eisendrath, M.D., would be a good start. This psychiatrist’s antidote to depression taps into the benefits of meditation and mindfulness. Depression may be fleeting unhappiness or a temporary sadness, but it can also be debilitating, impairing cognitive functioning, concentration, sleep, and…
I sit at a college in Massachusetts, staring out the window at a stand of lodgepole pines. Students, staff, tread the paved walkways cleared of snow. I am here because a young woman athlete named Grace died in a car crash. Some of her rowing crewmates are still in a Florida hospital, hopefully healing from their injuries. The local Boston papers have reported sudden deaths…
Have you made any New Year’s resolutions for 2020? Perhaps if you share your goals with a “higher status” individual, you will be more committed in reaching them. According to research summarized in the American Psychological Association Monitor’s In Brief column (January, February 2020), people appear more committed to achieving their goals when they share them with someone they perceive as having more authority. The…
The word empathy gets bandied about a lot these days, becoming yet another platitude. If we slap the word in a “PR” paragraph, it must mean a corporation cares. If we use it in conversation, it must mean we really own it. Well, no, on both counts. True empathy is the unsung hero of the quotidian lives we live. What is empathy anyway? It is…
Sure, sure, sure, I have written about holiday stressors many times before. However, just as holidays return every year, it can’t hurt to revisit some of the stresses they conjure and also what might help to allay those stresses. It’s sort of like old recipes — we know them, but we forget them and so we need to go back to the cookbook or the…
From family dinners to telecommuting, psychologists have done their homework, according to research summarized in the October, 2019, issue of the APA Monitor on Psychology. According to family therapist Anne Fishel, research on the importance of family meals notes that “regular family dinners are associated with less depression and anxiety, lower rates of substance and tobacco use, lower rates of teenage pregnancy, and fewer behavioral problems…
Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the world for those aged 15 to 24. “Beneath the Surface: A Teen’s Guide to Reaching Out When You or a Friend Is in Crisis,” by Kristi Hugstad, offers a prescriptive for averting teen suicide. After her husband completed suicide, Hugstad wanted to find effective ways to help others on the same path. While the highest suicide…
Every hero and heroine in every fairy tale is beset with obstacles. In meeting challenges with persistence, the protagonist of the story achieves a happy end. And so it is with real life people too. A recent study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology describes how goal persistence “and a positive approach to challenges was … associated with lower rates of disorders” such as…
Ever get on a subway? Or any mode of public transit, especially in a city? Recently, I rode the T, the subway system of Boston and wondered about how we conjure up the “fear of others.” Encapsulated in a tunneled tube, people mostly are respectful of this anonymous intimacy of bodies without intrusion into another’s tiny piece of personal space. Jostled next to one another,…