How To Help Protect Your Kids From ‘Online Luring’

Kids are spending more time online than ever.

Keeping your children safe online seems to get more difficult by the day. Children as young as five are getting tablets and smartphones. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and other apps have become essential to how kids and teens communicate with each other.

And yet, in the decades since children have been using the internet, a host of parental controls and devices have been developed to make it easier to monitor online use. And the new crop of parents are more familiar with the inner workings of the internet than ever before.

One of the most fearsome threats to kids is online luring – the act where a predator attempts to coerce or trick a child from the safety of their homes or schools, with the intention of committing sexual offenses or abducting them.

Parents should use what technology is available to protect their kids, but the most important thing parents can do, experts told Business Insider, is talk to their children about being safe online.

“The best parental control out there is talking to your kid,” said Stephen Balkam, the founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute.

Every child and teen is different. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to keeping your kids safe.

“It has to be a really complicated and layered approach. It really is different for every family, every parent and every kid,” said Paige Hanson, chief of identity education at Symantec.

Here’s what you need to know about protecting your kids from online predators – including online luring.

What is online luring?

Online luring is the act of coercing or tricking a child into leaving the safety of their homes or schools, with the intention of committing sexual offenses or abducting them.

The most effective way to protect against predators is to keep tabs of what your children are doing online, say experts.

Don’t let your child sign up for social media if they’re under 13

A screenshot from Facebook’s Messenger Kids app

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act already makes it illegal for children under 13 to sign up for websites that gather data about users, which notably includes most social media sites.

Parents should stick to this rule, or even wait until their child is older, Balkam said. But sometimes it’s easier said than done to enforce.

Parents who help their children under 13 make Facebook accounts “to talk with Grandma” should instead consider downloading Facebook Messenger Kids, the social media giant’s dedicated app for children between the ages of 6-12. The app lets parents see their child’s messages, control their contact list, and set time limits.

But Messenger Kids is controversial and has been met with backlash from health experts and child advocates, who have called on the app to be shut down completely, on the basis that the app could push children towards smartphone addiction in their earliest stages.

Another problem parents may have to contend with: Kids can simply lie about their age. In these cases, it may be difficult to stop them from making an account entirely, especially if they have their own tablet or smartphone. But experts recommend having a conversation with children who want social media accounts before they open one.

iOS and Android parental controls

Parents can set restrictions on any iPhone, iPad, or Android device.

In an iPhone or iPad’s settings, go to “General” and find “Restrictions.” Once there, parents can restrict access to certain apps or games, including the Safari web browser and the camera. Parents can also prevent children from making any purchases or downloads in the app store.

On Android, parents can download the Family Link app, which lets users set restrictions on what apps and videos can be downloaded from the Google Play store. Without the Family Link app, parents can set content restrictions directly in the Google Play app by going to the “parental controls” option in the app’s settings.

“Dumb” phones

For children as young as five, parents may want them to have a way to contact them, especially in the case of an emergency.

“I grew up in small town Iowa. We didn’t need a phone. We just said we were at our friend’s house and I could be trusted to be home before dinner. It’s not the same thing now. You need to be able to be reached in case of an emergency,” Hanson said.

Here are some popular phones and smartwatches with only basic capabilities for children:

Jitterbug Flip: The Jitterbug Flip only lets children call and text. The phone is made for seniors, but it can also be useful for children as well.

LG GizmoGadget: The Gizmo Gadget smart watch lets parents track their kid’s location as well as keep in touch with them. Kids can make and receive calls with up to 10 contacts and send texts, either in the form of a preset message or an emoji.

Kid-friendly tablets

On average, children between the ages of 0-8 spend 48 minutes on a tablet per day, according to a 2017 study from Common Sense Media. For many young children, tablets are the most common, accessible, and easy-to-use devices.

But with a tablet comes unfettered access to the internet, which may be concerning for parents with young children. With an iPad, you’d have to download third party parental control software or manually change which apps children can and can’t visit. Some parents may find it easier to buy a pared down version of a tablet that has built-in parental controls.

“If you are going to get a younger child a tablet, go after one of the ones that is built and designed specifically for them,” Balkam said. “These are specifically developed hardware and software with parental controls with little kids in mind.”

Balkam’s recommendations:

Fire Kids Edition Tablet: The kid version of the popular Amazon device gives children access to over 15,000 age appropriate books, movies, TV shows, and games. Parents can control what content is available, and how much time they can spend on the device.

Verizon GizmoTab: Instead of a home screen with rows of apps, Verizon’s tablet has 300 preloaded apps that children can view by visiting different “islands.” Children can’t browse the internet, unless a parent allows it.

Third party monitoring apps can help…

If a child has a device that allows them to surf the web, it may a good idea to install a third-party parental control app that can lets you set screen-time limits and block certain websites and apps.

These apps allow for more control than the default iOS and Android settings, but they require more work to set up. And parents should consider privacy, especially for older children, before installing some of the more invasive parental control measures, the experts we spoke to said.

Here are some of the most popular parental control apps:

Qustodio: The free version of the app lets parents block certain websites or apps or limit how much time is spent on them. Plans starting at $54.95 per year allow parents to monitor, social media, calls, and even the content of a child’s text messages. Additionally, the paid plan lets parents enable location tracking and panic alerts.

Net Nanny: Net Nanny is a powerful filtering tool that can block websites entirely, profanity, or give a warning before a child accesses a website instead of blocking it altogether. The app also lets parents monitor social media and set time limits. Plans start at $59.99 for five devices.

FamilyTime Premium: For $1.15 per month for up to five devices, FamilyTime lets parents block apps and websites, set time limits, create a “contact watchlist” that notifies the parent each time a contact on the list calls or texts, track locations, and monitor texts.

…but overstepping can erode trust



Third-party parental apps can allow for some serious snooping, such as monitoring calls and texts. While for parents, these measures are a way to keep children safe, it can also erode trust in a relationship – especially with teens who are older.

“If you found out everything you were doing was being monitored, you’d probably feel pretty violated,” Hanson said.

That’s why it’s important, Hason said, that parents at least be up front and have a conversation about what they’re monitoring and why. It may be satisfactory to be friends with or follow your teen on social media as a condition of having the account.

Be careful of how your child shares location data

When teens post anything publicly online, there’s a good chance they’ll be able to use a geolocation feature, which lets followers know exactly where the child is located. But for young teens, broadcasting exactly where they are and what they’re doing might make them targets.

“It’s a cool feature, it’s a convenience thing,” Hanson said. “But then on the other hand you have the security aspect, that you’re posting publicly where they’re at and what they’re doing and not realizing the consequences of being targeted now because they’re in that specific area.”

Signing a contract

Hanson suggests using a tool like Smart Talk, a website with resources about online safety and an agreement where parents and kids can set guidelines for how kids use the internet.

“It’s cool because it’s not just a parent telling a kid what to do, you’re actually having a conversation about it together, which has proven to be more successful.”

Make sure any device has a passcode

In the event a child’s device is lost or stolen, it’s important that it have a passcode on it, Hanson said. That way, sensitive information will be protected from any would-be predator who wanted to scour it for personal details.

Above all, have a conversation

Kids are going to be online no matter what. Making sure they know how to be careful and they know how to deal with talking to strangers and having social media is important, experts said.

Especially as kids get older, talking to strangers online is increasingly normal and it’s not always sinister. Sometimes, it happens during a video game, or on a social media site. It’s up to parents to set ground rules early on, engage with children about being socially responsible online, and discuss how to respond healthily to being in online communities.

“We want to make sure they aren’t being warped into basing their self esteem off of the number of likes and comments they get because that’s really where it might go wrong,” Hanson said. “Teens may be looking for a positive influence on online, but then all of the sudden it could turn into a bad situation.”

Origin : https://www.businessinsider.my/protect-kids-online-luring-2018-5/

Relationship Experts Say These Are The 8 Red Flags To Look Out For When You Start Dating Someone — And Some Are Surprisingly Common

Any new relationship is full of challenges. You’re getting to know someone, and there’s no telling when something might happen to burst the bubble of your new romance.

In general, it’s fun learning all there is to know about someone who used to be a stranger. But sometimes, there will be signs that you shouldn’t take things further.

Everyone has their own quirks and opinions, and someone who’s a bit different isn’t a reason to run for the hills. But it’s a major red flag if you find yourself compromising on yourself or feeling uncomfortable.

Business Insider asked eight relationship experts, many who specialise in helping people who have been in abusive relationships, about what they think are the major red flags.

Here’s what they said:

1. You justify their bad behaviour.


“If you find yourself justifying away what he does or says, even though these feel wrong in your gut, then that’s a surefire red flag.

“The mind is the most skilled Photoshopper – it can rationalise anything and paint any picture of anyone, depending on our initial perspective. There is a psychological phenomenon known as the ‘confirmation bias,’ where we are inclined to discard all evidence that does not align with our views and only keep those that do. And with a potentially toxic person, they have worked to create a false positive impression to worm their way into your heart.

“So even if they do something bad or say something that’s off, you may think, ‘He’s only this way because he went through X.’ This is when ticking boxes of ‘Is he rude to the waiter?’ ‘Is he nice to his family members?’ doesn’t work. He could be all that – the sleekest toxic people are.

“But underlying it, if he says things like, ‘So they’ll treat us better the next time,’ or he has a mean mouth towards some people, and if you find yourself justifying his transactional mindset or meanness, then it’s time to pause and step back. Our brains work overtime to convince us of someone who’s not good for us, even when our guts know it.”

– Perpetua Neo, a psychologist and expert in toxic relationships who created the Detox Your Heart program

2. They don’t talk through issues.


“I’d say the one major red flag in a person’s behavior that may indicate that the relationship won’t work is the unwillingness to talk through issues, big or small.

“All couples have disagreements. That’s perfectly normal and healthy. But it’s how you handle those disagreements that can really make or break things. Does your partner walk away? Shut down? Place all the blame on you? Throw a tantrum? These are all red flags.

“In a good relationship, a couple can and will talk through issues, listening to the other person’s point of view and expressing his or her own. No one needs to win or lose. It’s about expressing how something makes you feel and being heard. Communication is key.”

– Erika Ettin, a dating coach who founded the dating site A Little Nudge

3. They’re constantly testing your boundaries.

“Run from anyone who attempts to cross a boundary that you have set.”

Examples:

• “You have said you do not want to go further sexually and they insist.”

• “You say you are not available on Sunday, but they push you to see them.”

• “You are not ready to have them meet your family members or friends, but they push you.”

• “They push you to date exclusively before you are ready.”

• “They want to move in or get married or set up a bank account before you want.”

• “They try to change the way you wear your hair or your clothes or anything else about you that feels like ‘you,’ and it makes you uncomfortable.”

– Lisa Aronson Fontes, a psychologist who wrote the book “Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship“

4. They have a massive sense of entitlement.

“When we see that somebody feels entitled to us doing more for them than what is equal in a relationship, that’s a huge red flag that they are someone who uses people. Are they comfortable with using us? Because it just shows a real clear lack of care.

“I think [it shows] when we ask somebody for help because we’re tired, or we’re overwhelmed, or our plate is too full, and that person says, ‘Yeah, I’ll get to that,’ and never does. Or the person says, ‘Well, I can’t right now,’ when they’re not really that busy.

“I see this a lot in marriages and dating relationships, where there’s always one person who’s feeding the needs of the other person. One person is giving and giving and giving, and the other person gives one back. There’s an imbalance. And the other selfish person is typically fine with their needs being met.

“If you use somebody, you don’t really care about them, or their well-being, or their overall happiness in life. It’s a habitual pattern. It’s almost like life is there to meet their needs and people are just commodities to get that done.”

– Shannon Thomas, a therapist who wrote the book “Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse“

5. Something in your gut feels wrong.

“Since red flags happen along the way road of abuse, victims see different behaviors as time and abuse goes on.

“The first thing to look for is your own intuition and listening to your gut – if you have the feeling something is wrong, things aren’t adding up, then trust that. Past relationship history is key to understanding their behaviors, as is the way they talk about past partners. If everyone in their past was ‘crazy,’ that is a huge red flag.

“Actions speak louder than words. If the date says one thing and does another, look deep into yourself and tell yourself it will only get worse and walk away. If you are dating someone who tries to rush a relationship without giving you time to get to know them properly, slow it down yourself and take control. If they are not patient with this request, you get out.

“Never be rushed, even if it feels good. A soulmate will be kind and patient, while abusers rush to confuse victims and to control. If you prove hard to control quickly, an abuser will back off, and you will save yourself heartache.”

– Tracy Malone, a relationship expert on YouTube

6. Everything is about them.

“One major red flag in relationships is when everyday life, events, conversations, and basic interactions are frequently about that person – where there’s constant manipulation and abuse of power over you.

“For instance, you could confront the person you’re dating about something they did or said that hurt you. Rather than listening to your concern and apologising, they will manipulate and flip the conversation, telling you all the things you’ve done to hurt and upset them.

“This scenario shows signs of narcissism, and things only get worse the more time you spend together. They don’t care about you and your concerns; they only care about themselves. Narcissists are void of empathy. They don’t believe they are wrong about anything, and they will constantly feel victimised, accusing you of attacking them when you’re just expressing your feelings in a situation.

“Over time, you may will feel alone, constantly guilty, and you’ll even doubt your own self-confidence and self-worth. This is definitely a reason to distance yourself from the person you’re dating. Narcissistic abuse is emotionally and psychologically damaging to their partners and most everyone they interact with.”

– Catenya McHenry, a journalist who wrote the book “Married to a Narcissist“

7. They are overly critical about their previous partners.

“I find that people are very predictable. Whatever they have done in previous relationships they are likely to do again.

“This means that if you listen carefully to how your new lover describes his or her important previous relationships and how he or she speaks about their exes, you can learn a lot about how this person is likely to treat you.

“When people describe all of their exes as terrible people and put all the blame on them for the relationship’s failure, this is a red flag for me. It practically shouts: ‘I cannot take any responsibility for whatever went wrong. I have not learned anything from these relationships. It is totally up to you to make our relationship work.’

“It is also likely to mean that they are unable to see people in an integrated and realistic way. When they started dating these other people, they probably saw them as highly desirable and all good. Now that these relationships are over, these same people are all bad. Either they have a knack for picking the absolutely worst people with whom to be in a relationship, or they are seeing all of these people in a very distorted way.

“If they could not see anyone before you realistically or make any of these relationships work, they are unlikely to be able to do it with you.”

– Elinor Greenberg, a psychologist who wrote the book “Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration, and Safety“

8. They constantly deny, criticise, or dismiss you.

“You may be in a relationship with an emotional manipulator if you see an emotional double standard in the relationship, experience your feelings being denied, criticised, or dismissed, find yourself ‘giving in’ to keep the peace, and see your self-esteem diminishing.

“You may get a feeling that there is something not right – e.g., secrets, unexplained behaviors, unexpected reactions, or are increasingly criticised, blamed, put down, or discounted (often done jokingly at first), and feel confused by ‘explanations’ given about hurtful behaviors.”

– Margalis Fjelstad, a therapist who wrote the book “Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On with Life“

Origin : https://www.businessinsider.my/relationship-red-flags-you-should-look-out-for-2018-1/

This Is How Your Grocery Store Is Tricking You Into Spending More Money

And how to deal with these sneaky traps.

We’re breaking down five ways your grocery store might be persuading you to buy more. 

If you’ve ever entered a grocery store thinking you’ll “just grab a few things” only to exit with a foot-long receipt in your hands, wondering, “What just happened?” we totally get it. It’s easy to fall victim to the sales, the samples and the bulk options at the supermarket. The truth is, as a consumer you’re often being tricked into your purchases.

We broke down the subtle ways grocery stores persuade buyers to purchase more ― and to help combat them, we’ve got tips on how to navigate the supermarket better.

From playing specific music to offering free samples, here are five ways your grocery store might be pulling one over on you.

The music

Many articles about the influence of music at the grocery store reference a study published in 1982 in the Journal of Marketing. Researcher Ronald E. Milliman found that the average gross sales at the U.S. grocery store chosen for the study were higher when the store played slow-tempo music compared to when it played fast-tempo music. Milliman clarified at the end of the study that more research should be done before reaching a more definitive conclusion, and said the specific numbers matter less than the idea that music can influence behavior.

Bauer Media Group’s Life Hacks magazine encouraged readers this spring to wear headphones and listen to “up-tempo music” while shopping to cut down on spontaneous purchases. However, based on a 2014 field experiment, researchers in Norway and Germany found that in six grocery convenience stores, music with “an up-tempo beat” actually “spurred spending” ― when the stores were crowded.

How to deal: The important part is to recognize how the music affects you. If having headphones on distracts you from the free samples and the displays with sales signs, that might be better for you. If you’re into the signature slow music at your local store and it keeps you on track, go with that.

Tali Sharot, associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and author of The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others, put it best: “Once you’re aware of these tricks, you’re more likely to think of it when making the purchases.”

The products near the checkout

When you’re done shopping, waiting in line to buy your items usually means also coming face-to-face with several more products to purchase. In many cases, those checkout lane options include unhealthy picks like candy and sodas. It’s hard not to get sabotaged when your patience is already thin.

“Grocery stores place the candy, soda, chips, etc. near the checkout line,” said Elana Paddock, a registered dietitian nutritionist at Cooper Clinic in Dallas. “It’s in your face (and your kids’ faces) for a quick grab, a mindless choice at the end of your shopping trip. Beware of this trap!”

How to deal: Paddock suggested reading a magazine to distract yourself. You can even involve the kids, too.

We chatted with a registered dietitian nutritionist who said pricier items are often stocked at eye level in grocery stores. 

The prices

Paddock pointed out that the pricier items are often stocked at eye level or at the end of the aisles.

“Grocery stores make these foods more visible to make more money,” she said.

You’ll also likely run into products that are “on sale” or that can be bought in bulk, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting a better deal. It’s worth keeping in mind what you’ll actually use and paying attention to which products might go bad quickly.

How to deal: Paddock put it simply: “Check prices.” Another pro tip is to avoid large shopping carts if you can, opting for a smaller cart or a hand basket.

“Bigger shopping carts influence how much you buy,” Paddock said.

The samples

In 2017, researchers from three universities confirmed that in-store product samplings led to both immediate sales as well as loyalty, and therefore long-term sales.

“Retailers prefer sampling events to price-based promotions, such as coupons or temporary price reductions, because these events encourage consumers to try a product and build loyalty that won’t disappear once the price goes back up,” said Qing Liu, an associate professor in marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who contributed to the study.

In 2014, The Atlantic suggested in a piece on Costco samples that the free offerings can trigger cravings and lead to better sales.

How to deal: Don’t shop hungry.

“Always go to the store after a meal or grab a quick snack, such as almonds, even if it’s right before you walk through the front door,” Paddock said. “If you’re hungry, chances are you will buy more food and be more tempted to buy fewer healthy items.”

The store setup

Paddock noted that many grocery stores have their meat and dairy products in the back, forcing you to walk through the rest of the store to get them.

“This may mean you put more in your cart (items you may or may not need) and spend more money overall,” she said.

How to deal: Sharot suggested knowing what you want to buy (and what you want to avoid!) ahead of time so you’re not aimlessly looking at other products ― and probably purchasing them. 

Origin : https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/grocery-store-tips-tricks_us_5afdc517e4b0a59b4e01ceb3

4 Red Flags That a Relationship Is Headed for a Breakup

Do you want the same things?

As you and your partner begin to edge toward coupling up, or even marrying, keep your eye on these key areas. They are important. While your relationship doesn’t need to be perfect, you do need to watch for some troubling patterns and trends over time. It is not unusual for people to spend months or even years with someone, all along sensing that the match is not a good one. It is not productive or pleasant to be in a situation where you are always second-guessing yourself about the long-term viability of a relationship. Some people also simply fall into love too easily, getting swept up in a rush of excitement and expectation and never considering whether they may be traveling down a dead-end road.

Generally these four factors cause people to eventually break up, divorce, or stay miserably together.

1. Do you want the same things?

Love is, of course, powerfully seductive. However, a boatload of seduction won’t stop deep frustration from setting in if you and your partner do not want the same things over the long term. Notice if you are able to talk about what you want in the future, and if your partner is also able to do so as well. Then see how similar or dissimilar your visions are. You do not need to be identical — variance keeps life interesting. But look for how you are alike or different in big ways. Do you both want to live in the same geographic area, or type of community? Do you both want children (or do you both not want children)? Are you both homebodies, or does one of you prefer a high level of social stimulation while the other is more introverted? Do you both aspire to demanding careers or to a more relaxed lifestyle?

Believe what your partner tells you about himself or herself. If he says he doesn’t want kids, don’t tell yourself you can eventually get him onboard. Do you really want to have children with someone you have to manipulate into such a massive undertaking? If she says she doesn’t like being around lots of people, and she avoids high-risk activities, don’t tell yourself that you can persuade her of the fun in these pursuits. People are who they are. And over time, differences of this kind can become huge stumbling blocks to happiness.

2. Can your partner speak openly?

When talking about your days, your sexual desires, your future hopes, or even your vacation desires, can you and your partner mutually express yourselves? Does your partner shut down when you bring up emotional material? When you ask questions and try to get to know the other in a closer or deeper manner, do they distract you with another topic? Take note if they do: If you and your partner can’t openly express yourselves, and feel safe doing so, emotional closeness will move out of reach. Many people tell themselves they have to give it more time and be patient. I find that when it’s a good match, couples find it easy to be open early on. You may not share your darkest secrets right away, but it should feel exciting and enticing to both share and to learn about your partner.

3. Do conflicts inevitably turn toxic?

Of course, early on, conflict may be quite minimal — everyone is on their best behavior. But over time, do you find that when you and your partner disagree, one or both of you goes to a mean place? When people call each other names, engage in character assassination, blame the other for their problems, or become verbally or physically abusive, their thought processes are impaired. When that is the case, people stop growing, and couples stop developing. Instead of enjoying your time with your partner, you become consumed by how to protect yourself from an argument, or rehearsing what to say the next time they upset you. It’s a good sign for the longevity and health of your relationship if you are able to have conflicts and resolve them while making each other feel better in the process.

4. Can you be your real self with your partner?
The best thing about long-term commitment is having someone who knows you inside and out — and loves you anyway. Notice if you are putting on an act with your partner, or if you find yourself consumed with saying the right thing or doing the right thing in their presence. Also, notice if your partner is able to let his or her guard down with you. When one or the other member of a couple has a perfectionistic underpinning, the other member may feel a need to rise to this impossible expectation. Over time, being perfect becomes exhausting, and you may start to wonder why you are in this relationship at all. People stay with friends and romantic partners for the long term when they feel comfortable being themselves in the presence of the other person. This kind of ease makes it possible for couples to be silly, spontaneous, sexual, and more comfortable taking on new risks and challenges. There are specific strategies that will help you to take a clear-eyed look at the health of your relationship. (If you are in a relationship but can’t quite accept that it’s not working, consider reading my workbook, Breaking Up and Divorce-5 Steps). Often when you examine a situation from a new angle, breaking up becomes slightly less painful because you learn to trust that you are doing the right thing for yourself.

Origin : https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/having-sex-wanting-intimacy/201707/4-signs-relationship-heading-breakup?utm_source=FacebookPost&utm_medium=FBPost&utm_campaign=FBPost

How to Help a Grieving Friend

11 things to do when you're not sure what to do.

Many of us want to be there to help a friend or family member who is experiencing a severe loss. Words often fail us at times like these. Some of us are so afraid to say or do the wrong thing, we end up doing nothing at all. Doing nothing is certainly an option, but it’s not generally a good one. There is no one perfect way to respond to or to support someone you care about, but here are some good ground rules:

1. Grief belongs to the griever.

You have a supporting role, not the central role, in your friend’s grief. So many of the suggestions, advice, and “help” given to the griever tells them they should do this differently, or otherwise feel differently than they do. Grief is a very personal experience, and it belongs entirely to the person experiencing it. This grief belongs to your friend; follow his or her lead.

2. Stay present and state the truth.

It’s tempting to make statements about the past or the future when your friend’s present life holds so much pain. You cannot know what the future will be, for yourself or your friend. It may or may not be better “later.” That your friend’s life was good in the past is not a fair trade for the pain of now. Stay present with them, even when the present is full of pain.

It’s also tempting to make generalizing statements about the situation in an attempt to soothe a friend. You cannot know that his or her loved one “finished their work here,” or that they are in a “better place.” These future-based, omniscient, generalized platitudes aren’t helpful. Stick with the truth: This hurts. I love you. I’m here.

3. Do not try to fix the unfixable.

Your friend’s loss cannot be fixed or repaired or solved. The pain itself cannot be made better. (See #2.) Do not say anything that tries to fix the unfixable, and you will do just fine. It is an unfathomable relief to have a friend who does not try to take the pain away.

4. Be willing to witness searing, unbearable pain.

To do this while also practicing #3 is very, very hard.

5. This is not about you.

Being with someone in pain is not easy. You will have things come up — stresses, questions, anger, fear, guilt. Your feelings will likely be hurt. You may feel ignored and unappreciated. Your friend cannot show up for their part of the relationship very well. Try not to take it personally, and don’t take it out on them. Find your own people to lean on; it’s important that you be supported while you support your friend.

6. Anticipate, don’t ask.

Do not say, “Call me if you need anything,” because your friend will not call — not because they do not have needs, but because identifying a need, figuring out who might fill it, and then making a phone call to ask is light years beyond their energy, capacity, or interest right now. Instead, make concrete offers: “I will be there at 4 p.m. on Thursday to bring your recycling to the curb.”

7. Do the recurring things.

The actual, heavy, real work of grieving is not something you can do for your friend, but you can lessen the burden of “normal” life requirements. Are there recurring tasks or chores that you might do, like walking the dog or refilling prescriptions. Support your friend in small, ordinary ways; this is tangible evidence of love.

But please try not to do anything that is irreversible, like doing laundry or cleaning up the house, unless you check with your friend first. That empty soda bottle beside the couch may look like trash but may have been left there by their husband just the other day. The dirty laundry may be the last thing that smells like his wife. Tiny little things can become precious. Ask first.

8. Tackle projects together.

Depending on the circumstance, there may be difficult tasks that need tending — things like casket shopping, mortuary visits, the packing and sorting of rooms or houses. Offer your assistance and follow through with your offers. Follow your friend’s lead in these tasks. Your presence alongside them is powerful and important; words are often unnecessary.

9. Run interference.

To the new griever, the influx of people who want to show their support can be seriously overwhelming. What is an intensely personal and private time can begin to feel like living in a fishbowl. There might be ways you can shield and shelter your friend by setting yourself up as the designated point person — the one who relays information to the outside world or organizes well-wishers. Gatekeepers are really helpful.

10. Educate and advocate.

You may find that other friends, family members, and casual acquaintances ask you for information about your friend. You can, in this capacity, be a great educator, albeit subtly. You can normalize grief with responses like, “She has better moments and worse moments, and will for quite some time. An intense loss changes every detail of your life.”

11. Love.

Above all, show your love. Show up, say something, do something. Be willing to stand beside the gaping hole that has opened in your friend’s life, without flinching or turning away. Be willing to not have any answers. Listen. Be there. Be present. Be a friend. Love is the thing that lasts.

Origin : https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/its-ok-youre-not-ok/201709/how-help-grieving-friend?utm_source=FacebookPost&utm_medium=FBPost&utm_campaign=FBPost

How to Actually Get Some Rest for Once

The thing about scrolling through social media is that it often feels like it should be a restful activity. It even looks like one. You’re barely moving, after all; you might even be lying down. And yet when is the last time you closed Twitter feeling refreshed?

In case you haven’t yet heard, rest is important. It’s when our bodies repair and grow; our brains become smarter and more creative; and our minds replenish willpower and gain emotional control. Rest is so important to working in a happy, healthy, and sustainable manner that we’d be wise to think of it not as something separate from doing good work, but rather, as an integral part of doing good work; sometimes, not working is the work.

But there is a science — and art — to resting well, and not all forms of kicking back are created equal. It turns out that lots of the activities we think are restful may actually leave us feeling more tired and stressed.

Before we get into the best ways to rest, it’s instructive to agree on a common definition of what rest even is. Most researchers agree that rest is a physiological state during which your innate fight-or-flight stress response, or sympathetic nervous system, subsides in favor of a more relaxed condition. Your heart rate and blood pressure come down, and your shoulders usually follow. Psychologically, rest is considered a shift from deliberate and effortful thinking — for example, straining to solve a problem or trying to figure out the best way to communicate a complex topic — to a more passive state, sometimes characterized by mind-wandering or zoning out.

While both “stress” and “rest” are somewhat subjective — a five-mile run might be a restful activity for one person and a stressful one for another — there are a few ingredients that are essential to any truly restful activity.

You aren’t exerting self-control. At first, it might take some willpower to resist worrying about work or other seemingly pressing issues, but once you’re in the midst of a nice bout of rest, it should feel pretty easy. Trying really hard to rest — for example, forcing yourself to listen to music and breathe deeply when all you really want to do is respond to emails — defeats its purpose. Either find an activity that more easily lets your mind drift away (more on that below), or just respond to the dumb emails and try relaxing afterwards.

You aren’t consciously thinking about your work or other issues that may be weighing on you. Perhaps your subconscious mind is still connecting dots and problem solving in the background, but your conscious awareness is not on your work — instead, it’s floating freely. Likewise, a restful activity can’t be one that’s triggering anxiety. (See: cable news or a polarizing, doomsday Twitter feed.)

You aren’t disrupting your ability to fall and remain asleep, which is the ultimate form of rest. As for two of the developed world’s favorite evening activities: If watching television (though not the news) allows you to check out, and doesn’t interfere with your falling asleep, then by all means go for it. Same goes for a glass of wine. But beware: Studies show that if consumed within a few hours prior to bed, both can interfere with sleep — the culprits being blue light from the former and alcohol from the latter. If you are struggling to fall or stay asleep, it’s probably best to eliminate late-night TV and your nightcap.

Plenty of activities meet the above criteria for rest, but a few in particular come with strong evidence of benefits.

Walking: In a study aptly titled “Give Your Ideas Some Legs,” researchers from Stanford University found that individuals who took a short (6 to 15 minute) walking break increased creative thinking by 40 to 60 percent, as compared to those who remained seated at a desk. At first, they speculated that increased blood flow to the brain was the primary reason for walking’s benefits. But it appears the benefits might also emerge from the interplay between walking and attention: mainly, walking requires just enough coordination to occupy the parts of the brain responsible for effortful thinking, allowing us to more easily zone out and mind-wander, both of which are associated with creativity and insight.

Hanging out with friends. The ratio of the hormones testosterone to cortisol acts as a good indicator of stress and recovery. Testosterone is associated with growth and rejuvenation whereas cortisol is associated with stress and degradation — so the higher the ratio, the better. Studies have found that following stressful periods — like a competitive sporting event, for example — individuals who kick back and relax with friends experience a much quicker rebound in their testosterone to cortisol ratio. Other research shows that social connection helps to shift the nervous system into a restful state and releases hormones that have anti-inflammatory properties, like oxytocin and vasopressin.

Experiencing nature. Time spent in nature is associated with more relaxed physiological and psychological states — even just looking at pictures of natural settings for a few minutes has been shown to increase creative thinking. Writing in her book The Nature Fix, Florence Williams suggests that “nature lulls us with soft fascination, helping to rest our top-down, direct attention faculties.”

Hiking. Combine the above three strategies! Group forest walks have been found to decrease stress hormones and attenuate virtually every part of the fight-or-flight stress response. For the full effect, leave your smartphone behind (or at least keep it turned off if you feel the need to bring it). I’ve never met anyone who regretted a digital-device-free hike with friends.

Open-monitoring meditation. Pay close attention to the sensations you are experiencing in various parts of your body. You might close your eyes and focus deeply on the feeling of your feet against the ground, your hamstrings contracting and then relaxing, your stomach rising and falling with each breath, your heart beating, etc. Studies show that beginning at just ten-minutes open-monitoring meditation is effective in promoting psychological recovery.

Sleeping! The obvious one, but still: No form of rest is as powerful. During sleep, your body repairs and grows and your mind retains, consolidates, and connects the information that you were exposed to during the day. Short naps (10 to 30 minutes) can give you a boost in energy and creativity, but nothing can replace the massive importance of sleeping seven to nine hours every night. Put simply: Sleep is one of the most productive things you can do.

When it comes to how much you should rest, though there are no straightforward guidelines, a good rule of thumb is to balance stress with rest. The more stress in your life, the more you should offset it with rest. Another good way to think about rest is to mimic “interval” training throughout your days, by alternating between bursts of intense, deep-focus work and short breaks.

If you want to prioritize rest (and you should!), be careful not to fall for a common trap, one that leaves many well-intentioned people believing they’re resting but never feeling too well-rested. The activities that may seem like rest are often far from it. Trade in couch time and screens for walking, nature, mind-wandering, and hanging out with friends. Doing so may seem hard at first, but once you get going, you’ll feel a lot better.

Origin : https://www.thecut.com/2017/10/how-to-actually-get-some-rest-for-once.html?utm_campaign=sou&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1

Your Smartphone Is Hijacking Your Brain. Here’s How To Stop It.

A sort of self-satisfied rage sets in whenever I see someone struggling to navigate typical life—and inconveniencing me in the process—because they simply cannot look up from their phone. I recently found myself stuck behind a woman gamely attempting to maneuver through a narrow bus aisle while keeping her gaze firmly attached to her screen. When she almost tripped over a broad step (which, in addition to slip-resistant traction, sported a wide, bright yellow streak designed to make the stair highly visible—no match for the glare of a smartphone, apparently) I had to hold back a snicker. I don’t think Manoush Zomorodi, the author of the recent book Bored and Brilliant: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Spacing Out, intended for the text to turn me into such a jerk. That’s just a side benefit.

In the book, which is an outgrowth of her WNYC podcast Note to Self, Zomorodi’s isn’t trying to turn readers into smug luddites who only own flip phones. Instead, the book’s seven challenges (one for each day in a week) are designed to help readers reclaim their time from digital distractions—without giving up smartphone usage—and to give them the mental space to be bored. Bored? Yes, bored.

“When we let ourselves space out and let our minds wander,” Zomordoi writes, “we do our most original thinking and problem solving; without distraction, your mind goes to some interesting and unexpected places. Creativity—no matter how you define or apply it— needs a push, and boredom, which allows new and different connections to form in our brain, is a most effective muse.”

So if your best idea for a new business is a start-up that replaces bodegas with vending machines, you might not be bored enough.

The book, which was released last month, emerges in an interesting time in terms of public discussion around the role of technology in our lives. More and more research suggests that constant access to information is changing our brains, and not necessarily in ways that we want. In the past, a lot of that attention focused on how technology could harm or help children. But increasingly, those of us well past the age of puberty are noticing how the internet has altered our behaviors. Book lovers find that they struggle to make their way through a novel; parents find that only half their attention is on their children. I picked up Zomorodi’s book because I’d developed the bad habit of never doing one thing a time, yet my to-do list never seemed to dwindle. And I’d find myself watching YouTube videos on double speed—the normal pace was far too slow.

Even some of the people who develop the technology we’re tethered to have noticed a disconnect between what these devices were supposed to do—make it easier for us to do the things we want to do—and the reality. Ex-Google strategist James Williamsrecently told a reporter that he left the company in part because he realized technology was stopping him from concentrating on the things that he wanted to focus on. “It was that kind of individual, existential realization: what’s going on?” he told The Guardian. “Isn’t technology supposed to be doing the complete opposite of this?”

Williams launched an organization, called Time Well Spent, that argues these tools are hijacking our minds. The website details how certain behaviors, like YouTube’s autoplay and Snapchat’s streaks, are designed to override our deeper desires and tap into our monkey brains to keep us watching, scrolling, and clicking.

Adrian Ward, a researcher at the University of Austin, has found that in many ways the internet is a lot like junk food. Just as snacks play on a deep biological need for sugar and fat, which tricks us into overeating these unhealthy foods, the internet messes with our cognitive functions to increase our dependence on it. Just being around a smartphone drives many to distraction, while heavy Googling has us increasingly outsourcing the task of remembering things to the cloud. That in turn means that we have to Google more and more things that we used to just have to commit to memory. Similarly, we may be taking more photos of things than ever, but we remember them less.

Of course, knowing all of this isn’t especially helpful unless we can do something about it, which is where Zomorodi’s book comes in handy. She outlines a seven-day program but each day’s activity—“keep your phone out of your hand when you’re in motion,” for instance—is a stand-alone activity; you don’t have to snowball it. While the idea can seem a bit trite, the book was most useful in helping to quantify just how much I was using my smartphone (and social media) in general (on my worst day I racked up 155 minutes that I’d probably like back; and my average was around 75 minutes per day). It also helped me figure out which of those uses were the least beneficial. Here are some tips to help you cut down on your smartphone time.

• Track your usage. One of the most surprising things for me was how much I actually used my smartphone. Apps like offtime (iOS, Android), BreakFree (iOS, Android), and RescueTime track your usage in the background for you.

• Figure out your values. What is it that you actually want to be doing with your time?

• Eliminate notifications. The reason notifications exist is to get us to look at our phone. So, get rid of the notifications, especially on social media.

• Eliminate time suck apps. The one and only phone game I’ve ever played was 2048. Once I won I immediately deleted the app and have never installed a phone game since because I admit that I am weak and powerless before them.

• Pick your poison. You don’t have to be on every social media platform there is. Figure out which ones serve your needs and stick to those.

I would love to say that after going through the steps in Zomorodi’s program I emerged fully in control of my smartphone and internet usage. Ha. Nope. I still tweet way too much, and the number of times I unlock my phone in a day is shameful. But using my phone less does mean that I am noticing more—like New York City’s homeless crisis, which is playing out in the streets around our offices. When I see a young, pregnant homeless woman holding up a sign saying, “stressed and struggling,” I can’t help but wonder if the reason we spend so much time staring at our screens is that it’s easier than looking up and staring at problems we feel powerless to fix. But that same day, I saw an absolutely stunner of a sunset while riding the subway home. If I’d been on Twitter, I wouldn’t have seen that either. So whether or not you go through a formal smartphone detox, consider looking up once in a while.

Origin : https://www.popsci.com/smartphone-hijacking-brain?con=TrueAnthem&dom=tw&src=SOC&utm_campaign=&utm_content=59e58e5904d30158fc3af617&utm_medium=&utm_source=#page-3

The Best Way to Manage Your Social Anxiety Is to Accept It

Anyone who’s experienced social anxiety has been told “calm down, it’ll be fine” thousands of times over, and has probably tried saying it twice that many times to themselves. Has it ever worked even once? No! Not one time. Never. However badly we might want to believe that anxiety can be rationalized away, some research suggests the best way to combat anxiety might instead be to just … accept it.

As part of a study on social anxiety, spotted by Psychology Today, Meagan MacKenzie, a psychology professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, established an eight-item scale which can be used to assess someone’s social anxiety, but which also measures how that person responds to their social anxiety. Respondents are asked to rate the accuracy of the following statements, as applied to themselves, between 1 (never true) and 7 (always true):

1. Being socially anxious makes it difficult for me to live a life I value.

2. I tell myself I shouldn’t have certain thoughts about social anxiety.

3. I would gladly sacrifice important things in my life to be able to stop being socially anxious.

4. I criticize myself for having irrational or inappropriate social anxiety.

5. My social anxiety must decrease before I can take important steps in my life.

6. I make judgments about whether my thoughts about my social anxiety are good or bad.

7. My social anxiety does not interfere with the way I want to live my life.

8. I disapprove of myself when I feel socially anxious.

Thus, the odd-numbered items assess one’s level of social anxiety, while the even-numbered items assess one’s level of acceptance of that anxiety. Higher ratings (four and above) indicate that a person feels relatively capable of handling their social anxiety, while lower ratings indicate a lower level of acceptance. Studies suggest that those with lower levels of acceptance might benefit from ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy — a form of cognitive behavioral therapy that encourages patients to accept their feelings of anxiety, which may in fact make it easier to change or alleviate them. It’s the same basic principle behind exposure therapy: If something scares you, do it, and it’ll scare you less. So the next time you feel anxious in a social setting, don’t fight it — try just letting it happen.

Origin : https://www.thecut.com/2017/06/the-best-way-to-manage-your-social-anxiety-is-to-accept-it.html?utm_campaign=sou&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1

What It Actually Means to Get a Good Night’s Sleep, by the Numbers

“Get a good night’s sleep” is one of those pieces of health advice that falls into the same category as “everything in moderation” or “get enough exercise” — you know in a vague, general sense that it’s a good idea, but it’s too low on specifics to actually be an action item. Is there a certain number of hours that separates a good night’s sleep from a bad one? Or is it more about how much you toss and turn, or what time you go to bed, or something else altogether?

“In the past, we defined sleep by its negative outcomes including sleep dissatisfaction,” Maurice Ohayon, the director of Stanford Sleep Epidemiology Research Center, explained in a recent statement — that is, a good night’s sleep was just one that didn’t inspire any complaints. But “clearly, this is not the whole story.”

So Ohayon, along with several other sleep experts, reviewed more than 200 previously published sleep studies in an attempt to define more concretely what sort of sleep people should aspire to each night. In a new paper in Sleep Health, a journal run by the National Sleep Foundation, they outlined the four criteria they landed on. Here, according to the report, is how to know if the shut-eye you’re getting is actually quality sleep:

1. You take half an hour or less to fall asleep.

2. You wake up no more than once per night.

3. If you do wake up in the middle of the night, you fall back asleep within 20 minutes.

4. You’re asleep for at least 85 percent of the time you spend in bed.

Importantly, these only apply to long-haul, overnight sleep — “there was less or no consensus,” the authors noted, about “nap-related variables as elements of good sleep quality.” In the absence of more official recommendations, though, we’ve got your guide to better napping right here.

Origin : http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/what-a-good-nights-sleep-looks-like-by-the-numbers.html?mid=facebook_scienceofus

To Get Better at Reading People’s Feelings, Pay Attention to Your Own Body

Even if you’re too busy — or too skeptical, or too fidgety — to be a person who’s into meditation, there’s a lot to be said for taking a few moments now and then to pause and focus on the rhythms of your body: the rise and fall of your chest, the air rushing in and out of your nose, the beat of your heart. Interoception, or a sense of the inner workings of your body, has been linked to better decision-making skills and a more finely tuned understanding of your own emotions. And according to a study recently published in the journal Cortex and highlighted in New Scientist, the benefits extend beyond your own little bubble of one: Interoception can also make us better at understanding other people.

For the first part of the study, the authors asked participants to mentally count out their heartbeats using a strictly hands-off approach (no touching their wrist to take their pulse). As a next step, the subjects watched short videos of people speaking to one another, then filled out survey questions about what they imagined those people were thinking and feeling.

The better people were at measuring their heartbeats — in other words, the more interoception they demonstrated — the better they were at reading the emotions of the characters they saw onscreen. (although, as New Scientist noted, the same didn’t hold true for reading thoughts that didn’t have to do with emotions, like guessing intent). “It’s not yet been shown whether training your interoception also improves your empathy, but it’s an experiment we’d like to try,” study co-author Geoff Bird, a psychologist at the University of Oxford, told New Scientist. At the very least, it can’t hurt. Find a few minutes to focus, really focus, on your physical self, and, if nothing else, you’ll walk away feeling a little more Zen.

Origin : https://www.thecut.com/2017/05/to-be-more-empathetic-pay-attention-to-your-own-body.html?mid=facebook_scienceofus

Here’s What to Do After a Jellyfish Sting (Hint: It Doesn’t Involve Pee)

Hey, planning on spending some time by the ocean at any point in the next few months? Here’s a reassuring piece of news for you: You will never, ever be in a situation this summer where you find yourself feeling obligated to pee on someone. At least at the beach. I don’t know what else you do with your time.

Anyway, I’m talking about jellyfish, and the old wisdom that urinating on a sting will help ease the pain. According to a study published earlier this year in the journal Toxins and recently highlighted by writer Ilima Loomis at Hakai magazine, we’ve gotten it all wrong. The study authors tested the effect of various folk treatments on the amount of venom present at the site of a sting, concluding that pee as a remedy ranged from ineffective to downright counterproductive. “Urine doesn’t have a consistent chemical makeup,” Loomis explained, and “[d]epending on various factors, such as whether a person is dehydrated and what they’ve eaten that day, urine might actually contain chemical compounds that trigger stinging cells to fire.”

Rinsing with seawater, for example, only spreads the sting to a larger area. Scraping off the tentacles with a credit card — a method recommended even by well-respected healthcare organizations — is an equally bad strategy. Scraping the wound applies pressure that causes stingers to release more venom.

Here, according to lead study author Christie Wilcox, a researcher at the University of Hawaii, is a better strategy: Lift the tentacles away from the skin, rather than attempting to push or scrape them off, which can just spread the sting around. If you gave vinegar on hand, pour some on the irritated area, which helps neutralize the venom. Heat has a similar effect, if hot water is more easily accessible than vinegar (though if you’re going to an area where jellyfish are known to pop up, maybe it couldn’t hurt to toss a bottle in your beach bag?). And if you want to cheer yourself up, consider that at least it wasn’t one of those jellyfish whose sting causes a sense of impending doom. Also, you didn’t get peed on today. Things could be worse.

Origin : https://www.thecut.com/2017/06/what-to-do-after-a-jellyfish-sting-dont-pee.html?utm_campaign=sou&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1

How to Make Yourself Work When You Really Don’t Feel Like It

Do you want to be working right now? Me neither. Who can concentrate on spreadsheets — I don’t know what it is you do but I imagine it involves spreadsheets — when the country seems to be collapsing around us? And yet you still have things to do, even if it seems sometimes like a patriotic duty to stare in mute horror at the news all day.

Everyone likely has their own ways of bossing themselves around, but here are three things that reliably work for me.

Procrastinate, but be smart about it.

Sometimes I think the only times I’ve ever gotten any work done has been when I’m supposed to be doing something else. Oh, that project is due by the end of this week? Then this sounds like a great time to start working on this other, easier assignment that isn’t due till the end of the month. Psychologists call this “structured procrastination,” a term for the way we tend to turn to smaller tasks that we can finish more quickly, even (or especially) if that means ignoring the messier, more difficult thing that really needs our attention. It is maybe the only reason I’ve ever felt moved to deep-clean my apartment.

Dan Ariely, the best-selling author and Duke University behavioral scientist, tends to be pretty pessimistic about certain forms of structured procrastination, particularly those that involve your in-box. Replying immediately to emails, or chasing the In-box Zero dream, are not the best ways to spend your time, he has argued. “How many people are going to die happy knowing they got to email zero?” Ariely recently said on the Bloomberg podcast Game Plan. “This is not the stuff that makes for long-term happiness, but because it’s present and immediate and beeps and someone’s waiting, it takes precedence over the things that are important to us.”

So don’t do that. But you can use the spirit of structured procrastination more wisely. If you really don’t feel like working, sometimes it’s fine to just follow that feeling, and do something else that’s mindless, but still important, for a while. Most of the stories I write tend to involve a description of some psych study, which tends to be the easiest part of the piece because it doesn’t involve much creativity; there are only so many ways of stating the results of a survey or experiment. Sometimes it’s fine to start at the easy part. It’ll have to get done eventually, so it’s still a good use of my time — while having the added benefit of letting me feel vaguely like I’m getting away with something.

Just tell yourself you’ll work for 45 minutes.
One day, the work will do itself, when the efficient band of office-robots finally comes for all the jobs we now entrust unreliable humans to do. But for now, you can’t put the difficult tasks off forever. When there’s no time left for structured procrastination and you still don’t feel like working on the thing you’re supposed to be working on, try this: Set the timer on your phone for 45 minutes, and ignore social media and email and just workuntil it goes off.

This turns out not to be something I made up, as I had assumed — it’s similar to something called the Pomodoro Technique. Here’s how Quartzrecently described it:

To get started, all you need is a timer that can count down from 25 minutes. Then you just follow the next few steps:

1. Choose a task (or a batch of tasks, like answering emails) to work on.

2. Set the timer for 25 minutes and start working.

3. Keep working on your task until the timer goes off. Do your best to avoid switching tasks or getting distracted.

4. When the timer goes off, take a five-minute break to stretch or grab a drink. This built-in break helps ensure that you don’t get burned out on a particular task.

5. Repeat.

Each 25-minute block of work is a pomodoro. Once you’ve completed four pomodoros, take a longer break of around 20 to 30 minutes. This will help you brain relax and refocus before your next session.

The official advice, then, is to take a break after the timer goes off, but I often find that something weird happens when I do this: When the alarm rings, I shut it off, and keep working. It’s like the spell of inertia has been broken. I can kickstart an hours-long block of actual work this way, but onlyif I trick myself into it.

The real secret to motivation is that you don’t need it.

You don’t need to feel like working in order to work, a fact that is at once obvious and so easy to forget. It’s possible to acknowledge your reluctance and your apathy, and then set them aside and get down to work regardless. Psychology writer Oliver Burkeman notes this in his 2012 book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking:

Who says you need to wait until you ‘feel like’ doing something in order to start doing it? The problem, from this perspective, isn’t that you don’t feel motivated; it’s that you imagine you need to feel motivated. … If you can regard your thoughts and emotions about whatever you’re procrastinating on as passing weather, you’ll realise that your reluctance about working isn’t something that needs to be eradicated or transformed into positivity. You can coexist with it. You can note the procrastinatory feelings and work anyway.

Good snacks help, too, though.

Origin : https://www.thecut.com/2017/06/how-to-make-yourself-work-when-you-really-dont-feel-like-it.html?utm_campaign=sou&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1

6 Certain Signs of Being in Love

Science-based ways to know if you're in love.

Is this love or is it something else?

People talk about being "in" or "out" of love, but this clear, categorical distinction isn't always reflective of reality. The puzzle of whether you're actually in love is further complicated, because different people define love differently. Some think of it as peaceful, quiet companionship; others view it as an intense physiological experience marked by longing and passion. Still others (e.g., Sternberg, 1986) recognize that some love — consum
Is this love or is it something else?

People talk about being “in” or “out” of love, but this clear, categorical distinction isn’t always reflective of reality. The puzzle of whether you’re actually in love is further complicated, because different people define love differently. Some think of it as peaceful, quiet companionship; others view it as an intense physiological experience marked by longing and passion. Still others (e.g., Sternberg, 1986) recognize that some love — consummate love — has intimacy andpassion, as well as commitment.

Relationships characterized by consummate love, the kind of mutual love that will last, often share certain features. Turning to the research, here are six central signs of being in love:

1. You’re authentic with this person. Showing the real you is part of the experience of finding the kind of love that can last. Couples that prioritize honest conversation and true self-disclosure, rather than habits of deception, tend to be more satisfied (Lopez & Rice, 2006) and to have the kind of open exchanges that allow for deeper connection.

2. Your eyes really are only for each other. People in love tend to focus in on each other. Indeed, one strong predictor of relationships ending is how attentive people are to other potential dating partners. Research shows that looking at and paying attention to desirable alternative partners predicts less commitment, investment, and satisfaction (Miller, 1997), all factors that tend to be found in loving, lasting relationships (Rusbult, 1980).

3. Your physical relationship leaves you with an afterglow. Often, for people in love, sex is more than just sex. New research suggests that it’s the positive affect and affection that many couples experience through sexual activity — not sex itself — that drive positive outcomes for individuals and their relationships (Debrot et al., 2017).

4. You’re motivated to make your partner’s life easier. Passion is important, but so too is concern for your partner, and his or her concern for you. People’s relationships benefit when each partner gives and receives the kind of generous caring designed to promote each other’s well-being, termed compassionate love (Fehr, Harasymchuk, & Sprecher, 2014). While this alone won’t define being “in love,” it is a structural component that distinguishes short-term lust from the kind of long-term love you might be looking for.

5. You take risks with your partner. Sometimes it’s easier to gloss over your past or tell a difficult story without the real emotion, but intimate risk taking appears to be a positive factor in satisfying relationships (Lopez & Rice, 2006). Love provides the safety and trust that enables people to engage in uninhibited self-disclosure.

6. You intrinsically enjoy your partner’s company. You’re attracted to your partner, but how much do you like him or her? Liking is distinct from passion, but a component of the kind of “in love” that tends to translate into long-term relationship happiness (Ault & Lee, 2016). Liking your partner signals a high degree of reward in a relationship, and the kind of interpersonal pleasure helpful in sustaining a relationship.

While research psychologists search for more elements of the ever-elusive equation that defines love and being in love, findings to date suggest that both emotional and cognitivefactors play a part. In other words, affective reactions matter, but so too do decisions, such as commitment decisions, in determining if you’ve found lasting love.

References

Ault, L. K., & Lee, A. (2016). Affective and interpersonal correlates of relationship satisfaction. Philosophy, 6, 115-130.

Debrot, A., Meuwly, N., Muise, A., Impett, E. A., & Schoebi, D. (2017). More than just sex: Affection mediates the association between sexual activity and well-being.Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Advanced online publication.

Fehr, B., Harasymchuk, C., & Sprecher, S. (2014). Compassionate love in romantic relationships: A review and some new findings. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 31, 575-600.

Lopez, F. G., & Rice, K. G. (2006). Preliminary development and validation of a measure of relationship authenticity. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53, 362-371.
Miller, R. S. (1997). Inattentive and contented: relationship commitment and attention to alternatives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(4), 758-766.

Rusbult, C. E. (1980). Commitment and satisfaction in romantic associations: A test of the investment model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 172-186.

Origin : https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/201706/6-certain-signs-being-in-love?utm_source=FacebookPost&utm_medium=FBPost&utm_campaign=FBPost

Caught Between Two Loves?

Here are three questions you can ask yourself to help get unstuck.

Consider these scenarios:

• Madeline has been married to Ron for 7 years, and she’s having an affair with Quinton. The chemistry with Quinton is amazing, and he says that he’s ready for Madeline to end her marriage and build a life with him. Ron is a good man, but she feels a million miles away from him. She feels stuck and alone.

• Jorge has been seeing two guys for several months — Paul and Erik. Jorge adores Paul’s intellectual curiosity, and he feels close to Paul’s family and network of friends. However, Jorge finds Paul to be socially awkward and “low energy.” Jorge is drawn to Erik’s adventurous spirit and unpredictability. At the same time, Jorge worries about Erik’s drinking and history of relationship turmoil. Jorge worries that his inability to commit puts him at risk of losing them both.

These snapshots of people caught in love triangles are pulled from situations I have seen over the years with therapy clients, students, and friends. Although Maddie and Jorge’s situations are clearly different — an affair versus dating — there is a common thread: Both are at a crossroads in their love lives, needing to make a difficult choice between two partners.

Being caught in a love triangle is painful. Feeling stuck and unsure how to proceed can create ruminative thoughts and emotional suffering. And the longer a person is stuck, the more opportunities they have to behave in ways that are deceitful or that otherwise increase their chances of losing both partners. Further, watching yourself behave deceitfully erodes your sense of your own integrity.

What should you do if you find yourself caught in a love triangle, unable to figure out your next move? As Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” So here are three questions you can use to help get unstuck. These questions invite you into a new stance vis a vis the love triangle, and a shift in perspective can open up a new pathway toward insight and clarity.

1. “In which relationship do I feel most able to bring in my fullest and most wholehearted expression of myself?”

People caught in a love triangle often make side-by-side comparisons of their two love options. We can easily imagine Madeline and Jorge making pro-and-con lists, weighing the positive and negative qualities of each partner and making a decision from there. It’s not that this approach is bad or wrong, per se, but it’s limited, as it leaves a huge variable out of the equation — you. It ignores the fact that YOU plus ME equals WE.

We are so much more than static and contained sets of personality traits and qualities that can be listed and compared. Intimate relationships are wrought in the dynamic space between partners. How you “show up” to the relationship changes how the other person “shows up” for the relationship. And vice versa. Intimate partners create dances of interaction made up of choreography that profoundly affects each of the dancers. Therefore, a far braver question is: “In which relationship do I feel most able to bring in my fullest and most wholehearted self?” This is a question that invites introspection, and the ability to introspect — to turn your attention inward in order to examine your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs — is essential for the creation of a healthy and happy intimate relationship.

2. “What keeps me from making a choice?”

Notice the subtle but meaningful difference in these two ways of asking the same question:

• “Why can’t I choose?”
• “What keeps me from making a choice?”

The first version (“Why can’t I choose?”) invites an explanation (“I can’t choose because…”), and explanations tend to involve one of two things — shame or blame.

• Shame: “I can’t choose because I’m afraid/broken/stupid/neurotic/selfish/lazy.” Great; you already felt stuck. Now you feel stuck and damaged.

• Blame: “Maybe I can’t choose because my stuckness proves that neither one of them is my soulmate”; “I can’t choose because of how they are acting”; “I can’t choose because the institution of marriage is flawed”; etc. Pointing the finger at some external factor keeps you passive and disempowered.

The second version of the question (“What keeps me from making a choice?”) is what people in the field of marriage and family therapy call a constraint question. Constraint questions invite reflection and curiosity, opening up the possibility for growth and insight. For those caught in a love triangle, asking yourself what keeps you from making a choice grants you direct access to what may be the very heart of the matter — the hidden payoff.

When we avoid making a choice, it may be because we are earning a hidden payoff, and by turning your attention inward, you can identify what your hidden payoff is. One possible hidden payoff is that the love triangle protects you from something that scares you. And when it comes to love, there’s plenty of stuff that can feel pretty darned scary — fear of heartbreak, fear of disappointment, fear of boredom. Those fears are legitimate, and at the same time, limiting. Here are two things to remember about fears:

• When we take the risk of confronting them, we reap the reward of experiencing our own resilience.

• Our fears tend to stem from messages and experiences that go way back, usually to childhood, and tools (like books and therapy) can help you move through old fears so you can feel empowered in love.

3. “If my best friend was in this spot and asked me for guidance, what would I say to them?”

People who know us well can talk with us in a way that is simultaneously compassionate and honest. They can love us, while inviting us to step into the best versions of ourselves. They can offer us their gentleness, while insisting upon our accountability. This third question gives you the opportunity to do for yourself what a good friend would do for you, and it may help shine light on what your next steps need to be.

Intimate relationships are messy. They are full of complexities and uncertainties that can bring out the best (and the worst) in us. If you are caught in a love triangle, you are wrestling with the very essences of attraction, love, commitment, and integrity. These three questions are pathways designed to help you access your internal world and find there the answers that you need.

Origin : https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/loving-bravely/201709/caught-between-two-loves?utm_source=FacebookPost&utm_medium=FBPost&utm_campaign=FBPost

The Problems With the Advice to ‘Eat Less, Move More’

You’ve heard it a million times. To lose weight, you have to eat less and move more, and if it doesn’t work — well, that’s on you. Failure suggests a lack of willpower, and perhaps a spotty attendance record at the gym. The advice is so familiar that it hardly seems worth questioning, but in truth, it tacitly promotes two outdated, unhelpful ideas about weight loss, presuming that self-control and exercise are the most important factors. The research, however, suggests that it’s much more complicated than that.

Obesity and weight loss are extremely complex, and further muddled by an individual’s psychological, physiological, and environmental factors. “Generally speaking, obesity isn’t something a person strives for, and those with obesity, society ensures that they don’t ever lack for feelings of guilt or shame,” said Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, a Canada-based obesity doctor and assistant professor of family medicine at University of Ottawa. “So here we have a situation where people often have tremendous desire to lose [weight], coupled with huge social pressure, and yet they still struggle.”

It’s simply not accurate to assume that all of the 155 million Americans who are overweight, according to the American Heart Association, are not “trying” hard enough. “Trying to eat less” ignores the fact that we don’t eat purely out of logic, said Brian St. Pierre, a registered dietitian and director of performance nutrition at Precision Nutrition. “We aren’t robots,” he added. “We eat for nearly innumerable reasons.”

For some, one of those reasons is calories. It’s true that counting calories can be a helpful strategy to manage your weight, but eating purely based on how many calories are in your burrito (for instance) poses another issue: accuracy. Calorie information on food packages can deviate from their true value by plus or minus 25 percent. What’s more, all calories don’t interact in your body the same way: 200 calories of potato chips is clearly not the same as 200 calories of chicken breast, in terms of nutritional value and satiety.

But while overdoing it on calories is clearly a problem for many Americans, relying on willpower alone is a likely not an adequate way to fix the issue, said Traci Mann, a health psychologist at University of Minnesota and author of Secrets From the Eating Lab. In her book, she cites research that tested the common assumption that people with higher self-control are better able to resist eating junk food, and found that individual levels of self-control didn’t make much of a difference one way or another. “It is almost impossible to have enough [willpower] because there are so many foods we have to resist every day, and it takes many acts of willpower to resist something,” Mann explained in a recent interview with Science of Us. “It’s not like resisting the cookie on your kitchen counter is just one quick act of resistance. As long as it’s there, it will keep requiring new acts of resistance over and over again.” Besides, in the long term, no amount of willpower will help you continue to choke down kale smoothies and wake up for dreadfully early runs if you hate doing both.

And that brings us to exercise. We’ve been conditioned to believe that exercise plays a bigger role in weight loss than it really does. Writing recently for Vox, Julia Belluz and Christophe Haubursin note that “while your food intake accounts for 100 percent of the energy that goes into your body, exercise only burns off less than 10 to 30 percent of it.” In fact, findings from a 2013 review of studies suggest that people tend to overestimate how many calories they burn via exercise, and make up those calories and then some with yummy foods (read: doughnuts). Exercise does wonders for your mood and your brain and has a host of other health benefits, but it’s not (and shouldn’t be) the main driver of weight loss.

But even if the advice to “eat less, move more,” weren’t rooted in these misperceptions about weight loss, it would still be maddeningly vague. Eat how much less? Move how much more? These are huge, complicated questions that need to focus on the individual, but the experts interviewed for this post suggested some simple ways to get started:

• Write down everything you eat. The research suggests that people who keep food journals are more likely to lose weight than those who don’t.

• Emphasize more protein, like chicken, fish, eggs, low-fat dairy, and tempeh, in your diet.

• Make restaurant meals special occasions rather than just because it’s a Thursday.

• Put more emphasis on getting adequate sleep (at least seven hours, for most people).

• Reframe exercise in terms of health, not weight.

• Make sure you enjoy the exercise you do.

More importantly, realize that you’re not perfect. Losing weight is not easy, and you’re going to mess up and fail. It’s better to recognize that you will encounter setbacks, and that weight loss is a lot slower than a simplistic piece of advice would have you believe.

Origin : https://www.thecut.com/2017/07/eat-less-move-more-perpetuates-myths-about-weight-loss.html?utm_campaign=sou&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1