We all know people, either in the public eye or personally, who just “succeed.” They may come from difficult backgrounds and have fought an uphill battle to get to where they are now. Somehow they have this mysterious quality, some intangible way about them that seems to just catapult them into success in unexpected ways. I have studied many successful people through my work over the years and I have...
Our brains are like sponges when we’re young, and most of us are eager to take in and process new information as it comes. The ability (and desire) to learn new information remains with us in most cases, but some issues may slow that drive down as we reach middle age. One of those issues could be our motivation to tackle new info, which may take a heavy hit upon reaching our 50s. Here's why. We're...
Most people have at least one friend or family member who suffers from a mental health disorder. Or maybe they are that person who has a mental illness. And if we love them, or are them, it's hard to think about the stigma that follows them around. Those who live with the stigma often have lives hard hit by misinformation, apathy and sometimes even downright cruelty. People with mental illnesses may...
Times have changed. Where home offices weren’t terribly common even a few years ago, 2020 saw -42% of US workers- making their living from home. The situation might work well for many of us. What's not to love? Attending meetings in pajama pants and having your dog as your new office assistant. But it also creates some issues that may affect our mental health. Spending too much time between the same...
We’ve been at this for over a year now, and many of us have begun to feel defeated. We miss our loved ones and we miss the human connection of being around friends and family. But the vaccine is here and many of us are wondering if this means we can soon get back to hugging the vulnerable elderly in our lives. There have been a lot of questions surrounding the changes we can expect with vaccine rollouts,...
Remember the days of playing dodgeball or jumping rope on the school playground? That was probably many years ago. But what if we told you that play should still be an essential part of your life? Let's look at why it's important and also how to bring it back. Play Boosts Brain Function - Playing a game or roleplaying forces your brain to think differently than it's used to. As an adult, we slip into...
When it comes to health and wellbeing, most of us strive to be in a stable place. But this effort can fall into the trap of denial or spiritual bypassing as we try to avoid discomfort, reality and troubling truths. What does that -mean-, exactly? Spiritual bypassing is the tendency to use spirituality to avoid facing psychological issues. Here's how to identify the signs and resolve the issue. Signs...
Alone time has benefits but seniors who spend too much time alone are likely to experience loneliness and declining health as a result. The latest trend to combat this is home-sharing and though it has some interesting logistical challenges, the results are hard to deny. What is Senior Home-Sharing? - Home-sharing is, essentially, having a roommate. It may sound like a back-to-college movement, but...
Some see gratitude as a way to focus on the positive. Others see gratitude as a path to showing appreciation for what we have in our lives and therefore a way to expand those things. But regardless of how we view the end result in terms of our outlook, many fail to realize that gratitude can improve not just our mental health, but also our physical, and spiritual health. In fact, gratitude is one of...
This pandemic has thrown the entire world for a loop with its broad base of symptoms and unpredictable illness course. The more experts learn about it, the more incentive we all have to avoid catching it. But now we have people who have been struggling with COVID for many months, the so-called "long haulers" and as we work to help these people, we're learning a lot. Recent studies have uncovered a...