How to Handle Major Change

The old adage, “the only constant in life is change,” may be trite but it’s true. One of the greatest gifts one can receive while going through major change is the gift of perspective. Perspective isn’t just “maintain a positive attitude.” Perspective can be achieved by acknowledging what is going well in your life even while things are in upheaval. Daily gratitude has also been proven to change the chemistry of the brain for the better, and is another tool to give perspective. Perspective can also be achieved when we're in the constant pursuit of knowledge, self-education, and learning new skills. Sometimes when major change or even multiple major changes come our way, it’s tempting to think “why is this happening to me?” But I would challenge you to reframe and choose the mindset that everything is not happening for me and not to me. You might not get to choose what life throws your way but you can choose how you respond, search for a lesson to be learned, and work to make meaning from the difficult change or changes you are going through.

Serving Others is Self-Serving…and That’s a Good Thing

In 2016, a study was published in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine that found that giving had greater benefits than receiving (yes, The Office fans; that’s what she said). The results from participants in the study showed that giving (and not receiving) reduced stress related activities in the brain and reduced vulnerability for negative psychosocial outcomes. Put simply, the study showed that when you help others you’re also helping yourself.

Outside the context of the study and from my own research as well as through lived experience, I’ve found that helping others is a great way to boost self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth. Helping others is a useful way to create connectivity, to find purpose in your life, and if you choose, to make meaning of the mundane or of something difficult or traumatic.

It almost seems counterintuitive to help someone else when you need help but even the seemingly smallest action can have a massive positive affect on the person being helped as well as on your state of mind. By getting our of your own head (temporarily) and shifting focus away from your difficulty or problem you’re facing, you’re distracting yourself from the potential of a self-inflicted negative feedback loop. You do something nice for someone and that feels good but you also gain a little perspective as well (the mountain you thought you were dealing with is actually an obnoxious mole hill).

There are lots of ways you can help people or groups of people. One overlooked method of help is to show another person compassion—for their mistakes, their slights (whether intentional or unintentional) toward you, for their uniqueness and vulnerability that might not line up with your own values or preferences. Compassion brings understanding, which then brings about connectivity (with varying degrees of elasticity, of course).

Another overlooked form of helping others is actually practicing self-love and self-care. By loving yourself, treating yourself well, and setting healthy boundaries, you’re ensuring that when you decide to begin or resume helping others you’re doing so as close to peak performance as possible.

By looking after others, you’re actually looking after your mental health and nutrition.

How Social Support Nourishes the Brain and Helps You Live Longer

“I’ll just take care of it myself.” 

“I’ll figure out how to get through it on my own.” 

“I’m ashamed, I’ll keep it to myself.” 

“If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” 

“I’ll just pick myself up by the bootstraps.” 

“No one will understand, so I won’t say anything about it.” 

“No one else is talking about it, why should I?” 

These are some phrases I hear a lot of, and for a good portion of my life I let this “lone wolf” mindset dictate my actions. However, as I gain more life experience and get longer in the tooth (you’re old if you know “long in the tooth” is a reference to getting old), I’ve come to realize that the lone-wolf mindset is a way to get nowhere fast. I, and all of us, need social support.

Even if I can do something well on my own, I’ll need some amount of help with it. There is no such thing as a self-made man or woman; human beings are meant to work as a collective (of varying degrees).

Social support is tremendously important and provides much-needed nourishment, contributing to a healthy or healthier brain.

Studies have shown that without social support or with minimal social support, there is an increased risk of depression, alcohol use, suicide ideation and attempts, cardiovascular disease, and diminished brain function.

Social support can improve motivation and can help in rational and healthy decision making. We typically think of peer pressure as a bad thing and something to be avoided. But peers and social groups can influence you in a more positive way and help you engage in healthier behaviors. You want to quit an unhealthy habit? It’s much easier when you have the support of the people around you. You want to improve a skill or personal attribute? Spend more time with someone whose skill you can learn from or someone whom you admire for the attribute you want to improve upon. You are the company you keep.

Finding support is crucial but the support you provide to others is not to be overlooked either.

Helping others provides a sense of meaning. In one sociological study, Americans who described themselves as “very happy” volunteered at least 5.8 hours per month. Another study showed that seniors who volunteered 200 hours per year decreased their risk for hypertension by 40 percent. You can help people in a variety of ways and for many different reasons. Help a kid tie their shoe, you can provide meals to the homeless, or work as an elected public servant. You can offer support for love, to build your skillset and expertise, or with the expectation of some reciprocal action.

Take time to check in with your support system on a regular basis, giving and taking without keeping score.

What is Mental Nutrition?

Put simply it’s the fuel we feed our brains in order to have a well-adjusted and healthy life. Paying attention to our mental nutrition helps us manage our emotions, deepen our empathy, create a toolkit to handle adversity and unplanned crisis, as well as to deepen our fulfillment of the day to day.

Mental nutrition is partly interchangeable for mental health; and we as a society are so afraid to mention it or even say the words mental health, as if they’re dirty words and someone else’s problem or for those “unhinged” and seemingly unproductive members of society. The hell it is.

The functioning of your brain, healthy or unhealthy, isn’t “all in your head,” as if you’re making things up, just like if you have lung cancer, it’s not just “all in your lungs.” Mental health is a brain event and very real just like lung cancer is a lung event and very real.

We must not bury our heads in the sand or be fearful of opening Pandora’s Box if we start learning about and taking care of our mental nutrition. The healthier our brain, the more fulfilling and productive and happy our life will be. We must be intentional about taking care of our mental nutrition.

Mental nutrition is important for the individual. For the team leader. For the manager. For the corporation. For the system and for the collective.

It starts with me. It starts with you. It starts with us…together.

How to Support a Colleague Going through a Difficult Time

Helping and holding space with a colleague while going through a difficult time can be incredibly confusing. People are often reticent to be around someone going through a difficult time because they don’t know what to say or are afraid to say the wrong thing. 

But the best way to help a person going through a difficult time is to simply go to that person, in a private and respectful place, of course, and first acknowledge that they are going through a difficult time. Then validate what they are going through by saying things like: 

• “that must be difficult,” 
• “I feel for you,” or 
• “you’re brave…” 

…as long as it comes from a genuine and caring place. 

Then ask them if they want to talk about it or if they want advice or if they want to scream or cry or take a walk to let off steam. You don’t have to have all the answers and you won’t be able to fix their problem. 

Try not to say things like: 

• “I feel bad for you.” No one wants pity. People would much rather have empathy; so the phrase “I feel bad for you,” becomes, “I feel for you.” 
• “It's going to get better,” because you can’t keep that promise nor can you actually predict when it’s going to get better. Instead, you can say, “it’ll get different,” because that is a promise you can keep. Life is full of ups and downs; it will get better, not so good, and then better again. 
• “I know how you feel” because you don’t. Just be there and be present.

Simply giving them the space to express themselves goes a long way in helping that colleague going through a hard time.