Compassion isn’t always soft and gentle; sometimes it means being forceful and fierce.

In the recent Senate confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford stood up to tell the world about her memories of the humiliating and sexually aggressive way that she said Judge Brett Kavanaugh violated her as a teenager.

Her act took incredible bravery. What really struck me, however, was the demeanor of Dr. Blasey Ford herself. While she spoke with confidence when discussing her area of expertise—the psychology of trauma—at other times she spoke like a young girl who needed to placate all the powerful men around her so they would like her. This doesn’t undercut the courage she showed for being there—it was tremendous—but she clearly felt she had to be soft and sweet to be heard.

And she was probably right. If she had shown her righteous indignation at Kavanaugh for derailing her life, she probably would have been discredited. While Kavanaugh’s anger at being “wrongly” accused was celebrated by many male senators and arguably led to his confirmation, Ford was allowed to show her pain at being victimized, but no more than that.

The fact is that women are not allowed to show anger in order to stand up for themselves. When women encounter pain and suffering—in others and in ourselves—we are expected to respond with gentleness, tenderness, and warmth. But today, we need a different response: fierce self-compassion.

Compassion is aimed at alleviating suffering and can be ferocious as well as tender, “yin” as well as “yang”—the mother gently comforting her crying child or the mother bear fiercely protecting her cubs. Feminine ideals need to include anger and resolve if we want to successfully care for ourselves and each other, move beyond male dominance, and make a difference in the issues facing our world today.

The yin and yang of self-compassion

According to my work, the three core components of self-compassion are self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness of suffering. These manifest in “yin” self-compassion as loving, connected presence. Self-kindness means we tenderly care for ourselves when in pain. Common humanity involves recognizing that suffering is part of the shared human condition. Mindfulness allows us to be with and validate our pain in an open, accepting manner. When we hold our pain in this way, we start to transform and heal.

When most people think of self-compassion, they imagine the yin version. But self-compassion also has a “yang” form. With yang self-compassion, the three components show up as fierce, empowered truth. Self-kindness means we fiercely protect ourselves. We stand up and say, “NO! You cannot harm me in this way.” Common humanity helps us to recognize that we are not alone; we don’t need to hang our heads in shame. We can stand together with our brothers and sisters in the experience of being harmed and become empowered as a result. Me too! And mindfulness manifests as clearly seeing the truth. We no longer choose to avoid seeing or telling in order to not rock the boat. The boat needs to be rocked.

When we hold our pain with fierce, empowered truth, we can speak up and tell our stories, to protect ourselves and others from being harmed.

In yin self-compassion, we hold ourselves with love—validating, soothing, and comforting our pain so that we can “be” with it without being consumed by it. In yang self-compassion, we act in the world in order to protect ourselves, provide what we need, and motivate change to reach our full potential.

Research indicates that both aspects of self-compassion lead to well-being. Self-compassion allows us to “be” with ourselves tenderly (yin) but also to take action (yang), so that we can support ourselves and thrive. For instance, yin self-compassion reduces depression and anxiety by replacing self-judgment with self-acceptance. When we soothe and comfort ourselves in the midst of difficult emotions, we no longer get lost in the rabbit hole of shame and inadequacy, but take refuge in the safety of our own warmth and care. We become happier and more satisfied with our lives as a result.

At the same time, yang self-compassion allows us to actively cope with life challenges. Whether it’s combat, divorce, cancer, or parenting a special-needs child, self-compassion provides us with the resilience needed to stand strong without becoming overwhelmed. Yang self-compassion motivates us to keep going even after failure and setbacks, providing grit and perseverance in the face of adversity.
Balancing tenderness and fierceness

Traditional gender roles allow women to be yin, but if a woman is too yang—if she gets angry or fierce—people often get scared and call her names (the b-word comes to mind). Men are allowed to be yang, but if a man shows too much vulnerability, he risks being kicked out of the boys’ club of power. In many ways, the #MeToo movement can be seen as the collective arising of female yang. We are finally speaking up to protect ourselves, our sisters, our daughters, and our sons.

If we are yin without yang, we will continue to be silenced, to be abused, to be disregarded and disempowered. If we are yang without yin, however, we are at risk of becoming self-righteous, of forgetting the humanity of others, of demonizing men. Like a tree with a solid trunk and flexible branches, we can stand strong while still embracing others as part of an interdependent whole. We need love in our hearts so we don’t perpetuate a cycle of hate, but we need fierceness so that we don’t let things continue on their current harmful path.

It is challenging to hold loving, connected presence together with fierce, empowered truth because their energies feel so different, but we need to do so if we are going to effectively stand up to patriarchy, racism, and the people in power who are destroying our planet. We need both simultaneously, as advocated by great leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

How do we do this? I’m just figuring it out for myself. In the past, I’ve tended to be yin in some moments and yang in others, but I have found integration difficult. My self-compassion practice helps me to not care what other people think of me, because I can provide myself with the validation and support I need. But when my yang is in full force, sometimes I don’t think enough about other people and the effects of my behavior on them. I’m working hard to honor and integrate both energies.

I find it’s helpful to recognize which is being activated in the moment, then take the time to make sure the other energy is also present. When I’m being tender toward myself or others in a yin way, for instance, I consciously ask whether the force of yang is needed. And when I feel yang energy arising, it try to make sure that I have enough yin, to remind myself that the use of force is more effective when it is combined with tenderness. I make a lot of mistakes and often don’t get it right, but I know that this is the only way forward.

I hope that soon women such as Dr. Blasey Ford are allowed to be fully empowered, to temper their sweetness with steel. I hope that we are all able to call upon the tenderness and fierceness that is our birthright. If we are going to have any chance of achieving equality, women will have to wake up, say no, and give up on receiving the approval of men. We will need to embody fierce, empowered truth. Many won’t like it, but that’s okay. We can heal our wounds with the salve of loving, connected presence, giving ourselves what we need.

While it is crucial that we take action to change the political system, the first place to start is with ourselves. The next time we are at the grocery store with a rude checkout person, or in a conflict at work, or confronted with a difficult life challenge, we need to turn inward and call up both yin and yang self-compassion in a balanced manner. We need to learn to use caring force to change ourselves and our world. The time is now.

By Kristin Neff

Paige Thesing has struggled with insomnia since high school. “It takes me a really long time to fall asleep — about four hours,” she says. For years, her mornings were groggy and involved a “lot of coffee.”

After a year of trying sleep medication prescribed by her doctor, she turned to the internet for alternate solutions. About four months ago, she settled on a mobile phone meditation app called INSCAPE.

“It’s about a 30-minute soundtrack, and it starts with a woman kind of telling you to relax and instructing your breathing,” explains Thesing. “Then it goes into sounds — relaxing noises. There’s wind chimes, some atmospheric music playing…”

She uses the app every night and falls asleep within 15 or 20 minutes. “So, definitely a big improvement from four hours,” she says.

Thesing is not alone. Chronic insomnia affects an estimated 10-15 percent of adults, and another 25-35 percent struggle with sleep issues occasionally. And like Thesing, a growing number of insomniacs are turning to mobile phone apps to lull them to sleep.

On Twitter and Facebook, NPR asked its audience if they have used a mobile phone app to help manage insomnia. Nearly 100 people wrote back suggesting a range of apps, including podcasts created to put a listener to sleep.

“These are usually relaxation strategies, white noise, meditation,” Jason Ong, an associate professor of neurology specializing in sleep at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He studies non-pharmacological treatments for various sleep disorders and treats patients at the university’s Sleep Medicine clinic. “It’s not that there’s something wrong with those apps. It’s a reasonable first thing to try.”

But, he adds, these kinds of apps aren’t based on scientifically-proven solutions, and they don’t really fix the problem of why someone is not sleeping.

Ong wanted to do something about that, so a few years ago, he consulted for a team that developed an app that uses a science-based approach to address insomnia called Sleepio. (However, he doesn’t have any ongoing financial interest in the product, he says.)

Sleepio and a few other apps like SHUT-i and a free one developed by the Veterans Administration use the most sustainable and evidence-based solution for insomnia. It’s a kind of therapy called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia — CBT-I for short, he says. It helps the patient understand the biology of sleep and gives them a bag of tools and tricks to change their own thought patterns and behaviors to treat their underlying sleep issues.

“CBT for insomnia is a specific package … [that] includes different techniques like spending less time in bed [and] what to do if you are in bed and can’t sleep,” says Ong. “It’s teaching you how to change your behavior to better work with your brain to give you confidence that you’re going to be able to sleep on a regular basis.”

It may be surprising to us, but our own thought patterns and sleep habits affect our biology, in this case how our brains regulate sleep. “If you modify some of your behaviors, you can work better with how your brain regulates sleep and wake,” he says.

The American College of Physicians first recommended Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia as the first-line treatment for insomnia in 2016. “The evidence is quite strong to support the effectiveness of CBT-I treatment and there really aren’t a lot of side effects,” says Ong. And, because it changes behavior, “in the long run CBT-I tends to perform quite well in maintaining the benefits.”

In the past the only way for people to get Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia was to see a therapist, now they can access the therapy on their mobile phones.

“In Sleepio, it’s like an avatar of a real therapist that’s walking the patient through that process,” explains Ong. Sleepio also allows users to keep a sleep diary so the app can use its algorithm to suggest a better bedtime schedule. It also reminds people to get up when they’ve spent too much time in bed trying to fall asleep, for example.

Like a real therapist, the apps that use Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia also provide practical tools to help the user worry less about their sleep and over time, be less anxious and more confident about their ability get a good night’s rest. “It’s very similar to what we do face-to-face with patients,” adds Ong.

Studies show that CBT-I delivered digitally through mobile phone apps is effective in treating insomnia. And a recent study of Sleepio by Ong and the team that developed the product found that participants who used the product reported an improvement in insomnia symptoms and overall wellbeing.

“It’s an impressive study in size and scope,” says John Torous, the director of digital psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “But like any study, we have to interpret it within reason.”

The participants in the study were mostly white and female, he notes, and so it’s hard to generalize the findings to the larger population. And, he adds that the study was designed and funded by Big Health, the company that created the app and is now marketing it.

Also, Sleepio is only available on a limited basis. You can get it through employers, health insurance and national health systems at the moment, says Mike Radocchia, the marketing and business development lead at Big Health. Although the company does give it to researchers and charities for free.

And while apps that use Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia cost less than in-person therapy, they can be pricey. A 26-week subscription of SHUTi costs $149.

That’s why Torous often directs his patients with insomnia to a free app developed by the Veterans Health Administration called CBT-I Coach.

“Anyone can access it. You don’t have to be a veteran,” Torous says.

Jake Hanks, a mental health counselor based in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, agrees. “CBT-I Coach would be my absolute favorite,” he says. “It includes a lot of the cognitive restructuring, the true things about sleep that we want patients to keep in mind.” And so, he too, recommends the free app to his patients.

However, Torous notes that these apps don’t work for everyone. The recent study by Ong and his colleagues hints at why.

“Even in this clinical study, less than 50 percent [of people who were assigned to use the app in a randomized controlled trial] are able to make it through the entire course of CBT delivered through digital platforms,” he notes. “For some people it may be hard to make it through all the sessions of CBT.”

This is true of most health and wellness apps, he says. Torous has studied this and found that of the 10,000 mental health apps out there, very few are actually being used. “I don’t think we really understand how people are using technology towards their health and recovery,” he notes.

But in some ways, he says, people with insomnia may be ahead of scientists in figuring out what works well for them.

“If you find something that works [for you], I think that’s always a good first step,” he says. “Quick fixes or simple solutions may get you feeling better right away.”

But, he notes, insomnia is a complex disorder with many underlying causes. Sometimes it can be caused by a medical condition that’s easily treatable, like a thyroid problem, he adds.

So, no matter what app you are considering, always talk to your doctor about your sleep issues, he advises. “Until you know the diagnosis or what you’re working with, you don’t want to start treating something that’s not what you think it is.”

BY RHITU CHATTERJEE

Let’s try a little experiment. Using your right index finger, point to your brain. Now using the same finger, point to your mind. Not so easy. We don’t necessarily think of our brain and mind as being exactly the same thing. One is not as easy to pinpoint, and this has led to two distinct ways we have of talking about mental activity: mind talk and brain talk.

To those of us without a degree in neurobiology, it seems completely natural to refer to the mind. We talk about feeling this way and thinking of that, of remembering one thing and dreaming of another. Those verbs are examples of mind talk. Using mind talk, we would say, “I recognized my first-grade teacher in the crowd because she was wearing the necklace with the beetle scarab, which was so unusual I still remembered it after all these years.”

We would not say, “A barrage of photons landed on my retina, exciting the optic nerve so that it carried an electrical signal to my lateral geniculate body and thence to my primary visual cortex, from which signals raced to my striate cortex to determine the image’s color and orientation, and to my prefrontal cortex and inferotemporal cortex for object recognition and memory retrieval—causing me to recognize Mrs. McKelvey.”

That’s brain talk. That there is an interplay between mind and brain may seem unremarkable. The mind, after all, is generally regarded as synonymous with our thoughts, feelings, memories, and beliefs, and as the source of our behaviors. It’s not made of material, but we think of it as quite powerful, or even as who we are.

The brain, the three-pound slab of tofu-textured tissue inside our skull, is recognized (by scientists, at least) as the physical source of all that we call mind. If you are having a thought or experiencing an emotion, it’s because your brain has done something—specifically, electrical signals crackled along a whole bunch of neurons and those neurons handed off droplets of neurochemicals, like runners handing off a baton in a relay race.

Neuroscientists don’t object to mind talk for casual conversation. But most insist that we not invoke the mind as if it is real, or distinct from the brain. They reject the notion that the mind has an existence independent of the brain (often called Cartesian dualism, after René Descartes of “I think, therefore I am” fame). Obviously, avoiding mind talk would be a problem for a column about the science of the mind in a magazine called Mindful.

I fell afoul of the no-mind rule last year during a talk I gave in Salt Lake City on neuroplasticity—the ability of the adult brain to change its structure and function in response to outside stimuli as well as internal activity. I was talking about mind changing brain, a possibility that intrigues scientists who have investigated the power and effects of mental training, including mindfulness. I used examples such as people with obsessive-compulsive disorder practicing mindfulness to approach their thoughts differently, with the result that the brain region whose overactivity caused their disorder quieted down. Ta da: mind changing brain.

Not so fast, said one audience member. Why talk about something so imprecise, even spooky, as mind? Why can’t the explanation for the OCD patients be that one form of brain activity (that taking place during mindfulness) affected another (the OCD-causing activity)? Why do we need mind talk?

Well, we need mind talk because although most neuroscientists reject the idea of a mind different from brain, most civilians embrace the distinction. This competing view of things gets expressed in the real world in stark and startling ways. Take, for example, how the mind-brain dichotomy can play out in the criminal justice system. Neuroscience holds that the brain is the organ of the mind. If something goes wrong with behavior, then it’s because something has gone wrong with the brain (in the same way that if something has gone wrong with, say, insulin secretion, it’s because something has gone wrong with the pancreas). We can probably all agree that criminal assault and downloading child pornography both count as something “going wrong” with behavior. Yet in these and other cases, judges presented with evidence that the behavior had a biological basis have meted out more lenient sentences than in cases where no such evidence was presented.

To which neuroscientists reply, are you out of your mind? Why are you relying on such a distinction? What else is behavior but the result of brain biology? Yet the fact that criminals are treated more harshly if their mind (motives, anger, antisocial feelings…) made them do it than if their brain (aberrant activity patterns, pathological circuitry…) did shows just how deeply average folks believe that mind and brain are distinct.

This dualism gets at a profound philosophical issue that has divided scholars for decades: what is the most productive and helpful level of explanation for mental activity? When do we go too far in reducing mental matters to physically observable activity? Is it more illuminating, for instance, to explain why Teresa loves Dave by invoking their personalities and histories and tastes, or their brain neurons? Consider trying to explain confirmation bias, in which people remember examples that support their point of view—“You never take out the garbage!”—and forget counterexamples. Is it more illuminating to explain it as the result of the human need to shore up our beliefs or by invoking synapses and neurochemicals?

One case for mind talk is that we have access to our mind. We can recognize and describe what we know, remember, and think. We do not have access to our brain: we cannot tell which regions (my hippocampus? my anterior cingulate?) are active during particular activities.

But many neuroscientists say mind talk is just hand waving. As a result, you can hardly call yourself a psychologist or neuroscientist (cognitive, affective, social, or otherwise) unless your research uses brain imaging. In a 2012 study, researchers performed fMRI scans on volunteers playing a made-up game in which they had to decide how much money (given to them by the scientists) they wanted to share with others—a test of their altruism. (fMRI pinpoints areas of the brain that are more active, or less, than the baseline during a particular mental function.) The researchers found that a region involved in perspective taking—allowing us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes—is more active in the most altruistic individuals.

I don’t know about you, but learning that people who are good at understanding things from someone else’s perspective tend to be more altruistic doesn’t tell me much about altruism that I didn’t already suspect. I mean, did anyone think altruistic people would turn out to be bad at perspective taking?

The mind–brain debate is not about to go away anytime soon, so in this column I will be keeping an eye on the dialogue between brain talkers and mind talkers and to keep exploring what the latest science has to teach us about our minds and our brains. For example, can brain biology alone “define, predict, or explain the emergence of mental phenomena,” as Alan Wallace, a pioneer in the scientific study of the effects of meditation on cognition, behavior, and physiology, has asked? What kind of scientists are willing to talk about mind, and to what extent? What qualifies as “proof” that a practice like mindfulness is improving our lives? Are scientists finding ways to make mind talk like “thought” and “emotion” more rigorous, so we don’t have to be embarrassed around them when we talk that way? And above all, how can what scientists are learning about both mind and brain help us make our way a little better in a challenging world with the tools we have available, whatever names we choose to call them?

BY SHARON BEGLEY

Research reveals the steps you can take toward greater well-being, health, and productivity at work.

Where I grew up, work sucked. My parents were always drained and exasperated, and never felt financially secure enough to relax. Overwhelmed by unreasonable demands and terrible toilets (my dad was the local school district plumber) and hardened by a sense that nobody else was pulling their weight, they felt defeated by work. To top it all off, people never seemed to acknowledge or appreciate the great lengths they would go through to do things just right.

I know they’re not alone. For somewhere between 55 to 80 percent of us, it’s normal to see work as something to be endured, not enjoyed. We toil all day, then come home to a drink or some HGTV, trying to find the right “work-life balance”—with the assumption that work is about stress (and sustenance) while the rest of our life is where we derive true meaning and happiness.

But that perspective does not survive scientific scrutiny. In fact, evidence from psychology, leadership and management studies, and even neuroscience supports a different view: that not only is it possible to find happiness at work, but that doing so is unambiguously good. Happier employees do better on all fronts, from day-to-day health to productivity to career advancement, and this consistently perks up the bottom line for the organization as a whole.

So how do we shift our thinking about happiness at work? And how can we make our work lives feel more satisfying—like something that meaningfully contributes to our happiness in life?

I’ve been exploring these questions in depth while developing a new series of online courses for the Greater Good Science Center, called The Science of Happiness at Work, hosted on edX.org (and launching on September 4, 2018). The courses cover insights from research that are eye-opening and sometimes surprising—and provide practical lessons for anyone who wants to find more happiness at work or across their organization.

What does happiness at work mean?

Since 2014, my colleague Dacher Keltner and I have been teaching a course called The Science of Happiness on edX.org. In it, we offer the following science-backed portrait of people who are happy in life: They have an easy time feeling good and recovering from adversity; they have close, supportive social connections; and they believe that their presence in the world matters.

We do not consider happiness to be a momentary emotional state like amusement or pleasure or heart-swelling pride, and we don’t think you can arrive at happiness by stringing together a stream of positive experiences. Rather, we define happiness as an overarching quality of life that is rich in a variety of emotions, even including episodes of anger, sadness, and stress. While it’s not ideal for these more challenging emotions to last too long or have too much influence on how we think, the situations in which they occur are often the ones that fuel our deeper sense of purpose, and draw us into meaningful contact with others.

In our first course of the series, The Foundations of Happiness at Work, we define happiness at work in similar terms: feeling an overall sense of enjoyment at work; being able to gracefully handle setbacks; connecting amicably with colleagues, coworkers, clients, and customers; and knowing that your work matters to yourself, your organization, and beyond.

With that definition in mind, happiness at work has been tied to just about every desirable outcome that individuals, workplaces, and organizations could hope for. For instance:

Being happier at work is tied to better health and well-being, more creative and effective problem solving, more productivity and innovation, and faster career advancement.

People who are happier at work are more authentic, more committed and driven to work, and more willing to contribute beyond their job descriptions; they also find more flow and meaning in their work.

In the face of adversity and setbacks, people in happier workplaces tend to see the bigger picture, making them less stressed; better at coping with and recovering from work strain; and also better at reconciling conflict.

Socially, people who are happier at work are rated by others as more likable, more trustworthy, more deserving of respect and attention, and more effective leaders; at happier workplaces, people are also more helpful to each other and more supportive of one another during difficult times.

Happier workplaces report less turnover, lower health care costs, fewer mistakes and accidents, more efficiency, greater shareholder value, and quicker rebounds in the wake of adverse events or failures; they also earn higher customer loyalty, commitment, and business growth via word-of-mouth endorsement.

How to work toward happiness at work

So now that we know the essence and benefits of happiness at work, how can we foster, support, and build it?

There’s no single, simple answer to this question. However, in developing our course, we have identified four key pillars of happiness at work: Purpose, Engagement, Resilience, and Kindness—or PERK, as in to PERK up your happiness at work, or make happiness your company’s best PERK.

Studies report multiple ways to strengthen each pillar of PERK on personal, social, and structural levels at work—through individual exercises and activities, the development of key social skills, shifts in leadership style, organization-wide initiatives, or changes to company policy. While this field is young and ideas overlap, we offer PERK as a flexible, integrated framework to help guide thinking about how to increase happiness at work.

Below, we summarize some of the highlights from science and industry behind each of the four pillars of PERK.

1. Purpose

UC Berkeley management professor Morten Hansen, in his 2018 book Great at Work, defines purpose this way: “You have a sense of purpose when you make valuable contributions to others (individuals and organizations) or to society that you find personally meaningful and that don’t harm anyone.”

Our purpose is a reflection of our core values, and we feel more purposeful at work when our everyday behaviors and decisions are aligned with those values. As individuals, bringing more passion and purpose to work can mean asserting ourselves in formulating and conducting our day-to-day tasks—connecting what we do to what we believe in and care about—rather than passively embracing the status quo. For example, if you value equality and diversity, you can make a point of collaborating with people of different backgrounds from yours.

For leaders, you may be tempted to use financial incentives to try to instill more purpose in your employees, but it probably won’t work. In his book Payoff, behavioral economist Dan Ariely reveals that cash bonuses only go so far; his studies suggest that what we really crave are intrinsic incentives like appreciation and making meaningful progress. As Swarthmore professor Barry Schwartz explains, we want to see how our progress is tied to meaningful, important, and self-transcendent impact in the world.

At the level of the organization, the Patagonia outdoor retail company instills core values of conservation and family into their workplace culture by sourcing environmentally sound materials for their products, discouraging excessive purchases in their marketing campaigns, and providing on-site child care and flexible return-to-work schedules for new parents. If you are in a position of influence, you can promote purpose by making core values explicit at the workplace, and implementing policies that align people’s day-to-day experiences with core values.

2. Engagement

Do you generally enjoy your work? Are you part of the decisions about what, when, and how you do things at work? How often do you feel curious or deeply immersed and lose track of time while working? Do you feel like you can be effective and get things done?

According to recent reports, a majority of working people around the world say no to questions like these, indicating that engagement at work is troublingly low.

There are three main ways to increase engagement at work. First, fold in some playfulness, creativity, and levity—like Southwest Airlines does. The company has earned a reputation for prioritizing fun; for example, employees are invited to infuse humor and zeal into routine flight announcements.

Second, give people more ownership over their day-to-day schedule, tasks, and professional development, and build in opportunities to learn and grow. New employees at Logitech, Zappos, and Davita participate in multi-day onboarding events that include fun social activities and “job crafting”—an exercise in reflecting on your personal strengths and the collaborative dimensions of your job, and envisioning the most fitting, appropriately challenging, collegial, and growth-focused work experience. For example, an employee who scores high in zest might take on organizing employee team-building activities.

Finally, adopt a less draconian, hectic schedule and make space for the immersive, lose-track-of-time experience of flow at work. To do this, some companies are shifting away from the typical hyperbusy, multitasking, always-available, device-notification-laden, meeting-clogged schedule—and at the same time encouraging off-work downtime. Some are even barring work-related emails after-hours to help people relax and recover, and to leave them refreshed for uninterrupted periods of “deep work” at work.

3. Resilience

The ability to handle, adapt to, and productively learn from setbacks, failures, and disappointments is critical to overall happiness at work. Resilience doesn’t mean trying to prevent difficulties, stifle stress, or avoid confrontation; it means being able to manage challenges at work with authenticity and grace.

To strengthen your own resilience at work, perhaps the most promising technique is to get better at real-time, in-the-moment awareness, or mindfulness. Mindfulness can be a starting point for revising our learned habits of self-criticizing or blaming others, or getting preoccupied about past or future upsets, that make it hard to manage difficult moments at work. Companies can weave mindfulness into their overall climate, as Adobe has done with Project Breathe.

Another way to bolster resilience at work is to be authentic—that is, bring your whole and best self to work—as evidenced by pioneering work by Tina Opie at Babson College and research at Google. Being true to ourselves at work eliminates the stress of surface acting or pretending to feel emotions you don’t feel.

Resilience at work is also tied to successfully detaching from work. That means taking time away to recover and pursue restorative, non-work-related wellness, social, creative, and perhaps charitable activities, both on a daily basis and through restful vacations.

4. Kindness

Finally, we’re happier at work when we tap into our innate tendency towards kindness—orienting our thoughts, feelings, and actions towards care for others and genuinely supportive social bonds. Being kind at work involves treating others with dignity and respect, extending empathy and compassion, practicing gratitude, and constructively managing conflicts.

Kindness at work begins with civility, as profiled in Georgetown professor Christine Porath’s book Mastering Civility; being civil means building trust; sharing resources, feedback, and credit; and being a good listener. For leaders, civility skills are critical to avoiding the corruptive influence of gaining power.

A next step to kindness at work is practicing “prosocial” states like empathy, compassion, and gratitude. Empathy is the basis for understanding other people, and guides cooperative choices and effective teamwork. According to Northeastern professor David DeSteno, not only do compassion and gratitude increase kindness, they also help people succeed at their goals at work.

What happens when workplace relationships run into trouble? Research shows that apologizing, often considered a sign of weakness, is good for trust and, in turn, happiness at work. Apologies inspire greater respect and commitment in the people around you, and make organizations better at rebounding from setbacks.

Today, we still face surprisingly high levels of boredom, disengagement, chronic stress, turnover, and even cynicism—a reality that my parents knew all too well. But I believe in a different kind of work life, and I am not alone. Millennials agree that happiness at work, like happiness in life, is a basic human aspiration and, thus, the most attractive perk a workplace can offer. And research shows that happiness at work is essential to organizational success, entirely possible to foster, and well worth the investment and effort.

BY EMILIANA R. SIMON-THOMAS

When a relationship ends but love remains, it can be both frustrating and embarrassing.

Dessa, a well-known rapper, singer and writer from Minneapolis, knows the feeling well. She’d spent years trying to get over an ex-boyfriend, but she was still stuck on him.

“You’re not only suffering,” she says, “you’re just sort of ridiculous. Discipline and dedication are my strong suits — it really bothered me that, no matter how much effort I tried to expend in trying to solve this problem, I was stuck.”

But things changed when Dessa turned to the frontiers of neuroscience for help. She came across a TED Talk by Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and visiting research associate at Rutgers University. Using a type of brain scan called functional MRI, or fMRI, Fisher had looked into the brains of love-struck people and noticed that certain parts of their brains were unusually active.

“That you could objectively measure and observe ‘love’ — that had never occurred to me before,” Dessa says.

She wondered: If science could map the sources of love in her brain, could it somehow make that love go away?

The question led her to a controversial therapy technique called neurofeedback.

The idea is simple: If you want to learn to lower your heart rate, it helps to be able to hear your pulse. And if you want to change patterns of brain activity, it might be helpful to be able to see what your brain is up to. To read more from Adam Cole & Ryan Kellman, click here.

A new study investigates four types of kindness practices to see which one has the greatest benefit.

By now, you may have heard the news that helping others is good for your well-being, too. For example, studies suggest that people who spend money on others become happier and actually reduce their blood pressure. Other research has found that people who volunteer improve their mental health over time.

But if we decide to practice more kindness, are all types of kind acts equally rewarding? Would helping out a family member boost our happiness more or less than volunteering among strangers?

A new study published in The Journal of Social Psychology sought to test out this question by investigating how different types of kind acts affect our happiness. Ultimately, the researchers found that a wide range of kind activities are good for us—and we don’t have to be Mother Teresa to tap into the benefits.

Researchers asked 683 adults from over two dozen countries—from the United States and Brazil to the United Kingdom and South Africa—to complete at least one act of kindness daily for a week, such as helping a neighbor, writing a thank you card, or paying for someone’s movie ticket. People were encouraged to carry out more kind acts—or different types of kind acts—than they normally would. One group was asked to direct their kindness towards people they were close to (i.e., friends and family), while another group was kind towards people they were less close to (i.e., acquaintances and people they didn’t know as well).

Other participants were asked to make an effort to practice self-kindness—for example, by meditating, going on a walk, or dancing to a favorite song. A fourth group didn’t engage in kind acts themselves, but they tried to observe acts of goodness carried out by other people—for example, when someone volunteered, bought coffee for someone else, or simply stopped to pick up litter. The researchers compared all these groups to a control group of people who went about their lives as usual.

According to a survey question administered before and after the experiment, participants who performed any of these kindness activities became happier compared to the control group. Somewhat surprisingly, the four types of kindness tasks didn’t have different effects on happiness.

The researchers had initially predicted that participants who were kind to others would become happier than participants who practiced self-kindness or merely observed kind acts. They had also predicted (as some prior research suggests) that being kind toward close friends and family would be more beneficial than being kind to strangers.

But this wasn’t the case; kindness in any form made people feel equally good. Why? To read more from ELIZABETH HOPPER, click here.

We can prepare ourselves for stress with coping techniques, we can eliminate stressors from our lives whenever possible, and we can surround ourselves with social support–we absolutely should do these things, in fact, as they can help us to build resilience to stress and improve our physical and emotional health in the long run. But sometimes we feel stressed despite our best efforts, and at these times, maintaining a sense of humor about the stress can be an amazing line of defense. Developing a sense of humor about life’s challenges is an effective coping technique that can actually lead to better overall health as well as simple stress management. That’s because, aside from the health benefits of laughter (which are numerous and significant), having a sense of humor about life’s difficulties can provide a way to bond with others, look at things in a different way, normalize your experience, and keep things from appearing too overwhelming or scary. Properly developed, a good sense of humor can keep people and relationships strong.

Start With a Smile.

Studies show that having a smile on your face can release endorphins, which make you feel better, and can lead you to actually feeling more happy (rather than just looking happier). Even if the smile is fake, the benefits you will experience are real! Also, a fake smile leads readily to a genuine one. If you are able to put a smile on your face, the laughter will come more easily, and the stress will melt more readily.

Take A Step Back.

When you’re in the middle of a difficult situation, it can seem overwhelming. If you try to see your situation as an observer would, it’s often easier to recognize what’s funny. For example, Lucy Ricardo (of the television classic, I Love Lucy) may have found nothing funny in getting locked in a freezer, having a fight with a fellow grape-squasher in a vineyard, or getting drunk while filming a television commercial for Vitamedaveggemin, but watching these scenarios can be hilarious. Trying to see your current situation through a new lens is known as reframing, and it works! (Read more about how reframing works.) Sometimes imagining how you would look in a sitcom can be the secret key to finding the humor in a situation.

Value The Extremes.

If your situation seems ridiculously frustrating, recognize the potential humor in just how ridiculously frustrating and annoying it is. In your imagination, take the situation to an extreme that becomes even more ridiculous until you find yourself amused. For example, when you’re waiting in a long line at the store, you can imagine that hours pass, then days, visualizing yourself accepting visits from loved ones from your new home in this ultra-long line, holding your children’s birthday parties in aisle seven so you can be there to enjoy them…you get the picture.

Have A Funny Buddy.

Find a friend with whom you can laugh, and let the relationship work for you! You can each share your frustrations, and laugh about them in the process. Even when your friend isn’t there, you can lighten your mood in a dark situation by thinking about the retelling that will come later.

Make It A Game.

You can have a ‘most annoying boss’ contest with your friends, or try to count how many times the same potentially frustrating event happens in a day. (“I was cut off in traffic 7 times today—I’m almost up to 10!”) This works well for predictable or repetitive annoying situations that you can’t control; you can begin to value them in their own special way instead of letting them upset you.

Watch Funny Shows and Movies.

One of the factors that drive the popularity of shows like Modern Family or movies like the classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is that they take somewhat universal situations that many people find frustrating and push them a little further, pointing out the silliness of it all. Realizing that some universally annoying situations are actually funny, can help you endure them with a smile—even if it’s a wry or ironic smile.

Read Funny Books.

Read humorous essays like those of Dave Barry or David Sedaris, both of whom are able to take events, ranging from annoying to upsetting to even tragic, and find the humor—each in his own unique way. Also recommended are the humorous tidbits in Reader’s Digest, as well as classic humor books like Jerry Seinfeld’s SeinLanguage. Reading others’ humorous interpretations of life can help you find your own style of seeing the world in a different light.

Join Funny Clubs.

Years ago, when Oprah had a show rather than a network, she did a segment on Laughter Yoga that intrigued me, and I researched a club on my own, finding it to be a terrific place to enjoy a good laugh. Whether you’re taking the laughing seriously or laughing at the silliness of it all, taking part in the exercises of laughter yoga with other humor-participants can be a very effective way to get back in the practice of getting some more giggles into your day.

Getting your friends on board with laughter

can be an excellent way to make the laughs come more easily. They can help you find the humor in life, and you can help them. Share your thoughts, share your jokes, and share this article–you’ll all be laughing in no time!

By Elizabeth Scott, MS

In March 2011, Kim Brooks did something that many parents have either done or thought about doing — and it led to a warrant being issued for her arrest. Brooks was rushing to get herself and her two kids to the airport to catch a flight. As she pulled into the Target parking lot to run one last errand, her 4-year-old asked if he could wait in the car. It was a cool day, and so she cracked the windows, child-locked the doors, and ran inside.

“It wasn’t something I had done before,” Brooks says, but “I had all these memories from my own childhood of waiting in the car for a couple minutes while my parents ran errands.”

She returned promptly to her son — still happily playing on an iPad — but Brooks later learned that a bystander had filmed her leaving the car, and sent that recording to the police. She was charged with “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

The ordeal prompted Brooks to write Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear, in which she grapples with the expectation that children must be under adult supervision at all times.

“There’s now the expectation that to be a good parent in this country you have to have your eyes on your children every second — or you have to pay another adult to have eyes on your children every second,” Brooks says. “The consequences are that either one of the parents gives up their work … or you pay someone else … which is harder and harder.”

Brooks says that in a country where the cost of childcare can be prohibitive, parents are faced with impossible choices.

“I was trying to understand how it was possible that something I had grown up doing so often — waiting in a car in a safe parking lot — how this had become a crime,” she says. To read more from MARY LOUISE KELLY, click here.

The rise of the new “attention economy.”

It was the big tech equivalent of “drink responsibly” or the gambling industry’s “safer play”; the latest milestone in Silicon Valley’s year of apology. Earlier this month, Facebook and Instagram announced new tools for users to set time limits on their platforms, and a dashboard to monitor one’s daily use, following Google’s introduction of Digital Well Being features.

In doing so the companies seemed to suggest that spending time on the internet is not a desirable, healthy habit, but a pleasurable vice: one that if left uncontrolled may slip into unappealing addiction.

Having secured our attention more completely than ever dreamed, they now are carefully admitting it’s time to give some of it back, so we can meet our children’s eyes unfiltered by Clarendon or Lark; go see a movie in a theater; or contra Apple’s ad for its watch, even go surfing without — heaven forfend — “checking in.”

“The liberation of human attention may be the defining moral and political struggle of our time,” writes James Williams, a technologist turned philosopher and the author of a new book, “Stand Out of Our Light.”

Mr. Williams, 36, should know. During a decade-long tenure at Google, he worked on search advertising, helping perfect a powerful, data-driven advertising model. Gradually, he began to feel that his life story as he knew it was coming unglued, “as though the floor was crumbling under my feet,” he writes.

Increasingly public incidents of attention failure, like Pablo Sandoval, when he was the third baseman for the Red Sox, getting busted checking Instagram in the middle of a game (and getting suspended), or Patti LuPone taking away an audience member’s phone, both in 2015, would likely come as no surprise to him.

Mr. Williams compares the current design of our technology to “an entire army of jets and tanks” aimed at capturing and keeping our attention. And the army is winning. We spend the day transfixed by our screens, thumb twitching in the subways and elevators, glancing at traffic lights.

We flaunt and then regret the habit of so-called second screening, when just one at a time isn’t enough, scrolling through our phones’ latest dispatches while watching TV, say.

One study, commissioned by Nokia, found that, as of 2013, we were checking our phones on average 150 times a day. But we touch our phones about 2,617 times, according to a separate 2016 study, conducted by Dscout, a research firm.

Apple has confirmed that users unlock their iPhones an average of 80 times per day. Screens have been inserted where no screens ever were before: over individual tables at McDonald’s; in dressing rooms when one is most exposed; on the backs of taxi seats. For only $12.99, one can purchase an iPhone holster for one’s baby stroller … or (shudder) two.

This is us: eyes glazed, mouth open, neck crooked, trapped in dopamine loops and filter bubbles. Our attention is sold to advertisers, along with our data, and handed back to us tattered and piecemeal.

You’ve Got Chaos

Mr. Williams, 36, was speaking on Skype from his home in Moscow, where his wife, who works for the United Nations, has been posted for the year.

Originally from Abilene, Tex., he had arrived to work at Google in what could still be called the early days, when the company, in its idealism, was resistant to the age-old advertising model. He left Google in 2013 to conduct doctoral research at Oxford on the philosophy and ethics of attention persuasion in design.

Mr. Williams is now concerned with overwired individuals losing their life purpose.

“In the same way that you pull out a phone to do something and you get distracted, and 30 minutes later you find that you’ve done 10 other things except the thing that you pulled out the phone to do — there’s fragmentation and distraction at that level,” he said. “But I felt like there’s something on a longer-term level that’s harder to keep in view: that longitudinal sense of what you’re about.”

He knew that among that his colleagues, he wasn’t the only one feeling this way. Speaking at a technology conference in Amsterdam last year, Mr. Williams asked the designers in the room, some 250 of them, “How many of you guys want to live in the world that you’re creating? In a world where technology is competing for our attention?”

“Not a single hand went up,” he said.

Mr. Williams is also far from the only example of a former soldier of big tech (to continue the army metaphor) now working to expose its cultural dangers.

By Casey Schwartz

Psychological Strategies to Get Unstuck

We all go through periods where we feel like we might be stuck in a rut. It can seem like you are just going through the motions, treading water, or jogging in place. You’re doing the same old things, but it doesn’t seem like you are actually getting anywhere. Things that used to excite you may start to feel less interesting. Instead of moving forward toward your goals, you’re just digging yourself deeper and deeper into the same spot.

Feeling like you are in a rut can be frustrating, but there are things that you can do to figure out why you are experiencing this and to get motivated and excited again. Learn more about how you can get out of a rut.

Signs That You Are Stuck in a Rut

Being “stuck” is something that you may not even notice at first. These feelings often build slowly over time. Day after day, you might follow your same routines. Eventually, it feels less like you are working toward something in the future and more like you are just killing time. It may only be once your emotions seem to become almost unbearable that you are finally able to identify the cause of your malaise.

So what are some of the signs that you are feeling stuck?

Every day seems the same. You might even have trouble remembering what day of the week it is. Is it Monday, or is it Friday? It doesn’t matter because your days feel indistinguishable from one another.

You feel like you’re just trying to get through another day. Your goal is just to keep putting one foot ahead of the other until the day is done.

You feel unmotivated. You might want to take on new projects or engage in creative tasks, but even when you try to do so, it feels like your well of ideas and motivation has run dry.

You feel unfulfilled. You want to try new things, but you just aren’t sure what they are or how you would do them. Just finding the motivation to get started seems impossible.

You want to change, but fear the temporary discomfort that may come with it. You know that changing things up will make you happier in the long run, but you keep sticking with the status quo because it means you won’t have to risk any pain or failure.

One thing to remember is that sometimes these feelings may be more than just being stuck in a rut. Such feelings may actually be symptoms of something more serious, such as persistent depressive disorder (PDD). This mild but chronic mood disorder is characterized by symptoms that are less severe than depression but can often be longer-lasting.

People often experience these symptoms for years without recognizing that what they are feeling is actually a form of depression. Low mood, decreased energy, loss of interest, and loss of pleasure are all common symptoms of this condition. If you suspect that you may be experiencing PDD, be sure to talk to your physician or therapist about what you have been feeling.

Finding the Source of Your Rut

While you might recognize that you are stuck in a rut, you might not be sure of what the next step should be. One thing to remember is that not all ruts are the same. It is important to figure out what is causing your feelings of discontentment before you make any drastic changes in your life.

You might feel like you are in a rut with your romantic partner. Or perhaps your job is the source of your feelings. Your health, your family situation, your friendships, your hobbies, and even your home can be sources of such feelings of unhappiness.

Once you understand a little better why you are feeling such things, don’t criticize or berate yourself. It’s easy to minimize the problem and try to make your feeling seem trivial. “I have a great life, I don’t have a right to feel this way,” you might think. Such thoughts can be counterproductive and keep you trapped in your rut for even longer. Things may be just fine as they are, but if you are not satisfied with the status quo, it’s time to look for ways to change things up and regain your spark.

The first step toward improving your state of mind is to acknowledge what you are feeling and then start looking for steps you can take to get unstuck.

How to Get Out of a Rut

So what are some things you can do to break the negative cycle and move forward? Here are just a few different ways to get out of a rut.

Take Care of Yourself

When you feel like you might be stuck in a rut, one of the first steps you should take is to make sure that you are taking care of yourself. Self-compassion can be critical to mental wellness, so start by doing a quick assessment of how well you’ve been taking care of you. Have you been eating well? Sleeping enough? Are you spending enough time with people who care about and support you?

If something seems to be lacking in the self-care department, now is the time to address it. Healthy food, adequate sleep, daily exercise, and social support are all essential components of both physical and emotional health. If some of these areas need to be improved upon, start looking for ways that you treat yourself a little better. Taking care of yourself helps ensure that you have the energy you need to stay focused and excited about your life.

Change Your Routines

It can be difficult to move forward or branch out in a new direction if you just keep following the same routines day in and day out. People tend to be creatures of habit, and sometimes that feeling of being stuck in a rut can stem from a sense of boredom. Look for ways that you can change things up and add some different experiences to each and every day.

Some things you might try:

Strike up a conversation. This can be a great way to expand your social connections and learn interesting things about the people around you.

Have some fun. Spend some time engaged in an activity you truly love, whether it’s hanging out with friends or pursuing a hobby you are passionate about. Set aside time during the week where you can focus your energy on having a good time.

Try something new. Whether it’s taking a new route to work, watching a new show, or signing up for some sort of class. Exploring the world around you in new and different ways can help add some zest to your life.

Be spontaneous. If you are bored with some aspect of your life, start trying to live in the moment. Do things that are not carefully pre-planned. Say yes to new experiences and don’t be afraid to do the unexpected.

Try Heading Outdoors

Researchers have found evidence that being in nature can have a positive impact on the brain. For example, one study found that taking a walk in nature reduced self-referential rumination, a behavior that can increase the risk of depression. Another study found that nature walks were associated with decreased depression, lowered stress, and increased mental well-being.

Not only can being out in nature increase your sense of mental wellness, studies have shown that it can help enhance creativity as well. So the next time you are feeling bogged down, try heading outdoors for a walk. Let go of the thoughts that have been circling around in your brain, and pay attention to the world around you. Allow yourself to relax, think of new things, and enjoy the beauty you see. If nothing else, it is a great way to get some exercise and return to your everyday life with a renewed sense of wonder.

Find Your Purpose

It can be easy to fall into a rut when it feels like you are not really working toward anything. Having things to look forward to and a sense of purpose are key ingredients for motivation. This can small things like having plans for Friday night to look forward to all week. It can also involve much larger life goals related to your relationships and career.

Research has also found that having things to look forward to in the future can help people better cope with troubles in the here and now. Psychologists have long recognized the importance of the ability to delay gratification. By holding out for larger rewards in the future, people are able to build better self-control and stronger willpower.

In one study, chronic gamblers were asked to think about upcoming events such as a future vacation. As a result, these participants were better able to curb their impulse to gamble. By thinking about the future, they were able to focus on their long-term goals rather than simply getting carried away by a desire for immediate gratification.

So what can you do to give yourself something to look forward to?

Make plans. There is a great deal of power in anticipation. Sometimes you might find yourself looking forward to existing events, such as the release of a movie or your favorite holiday. But you can also create these moments intentionally. Plan a vacation, even if it’s just taking a day trip to a local spot. Call up some friends and make plans for Friday night. Give yourself things to look forward to and get excited about.

Don’t overlook the little things. Even small daily and weekly rewards such as being able to go to your favorite place for lunch or tuning into your favorite TV show once a week are great ways to build a sense of anticipation for the future.

Volunteer to serve others. Having a sense of purpose can also come from helping others. This can mean helping the people in your life such as your friends or loved ones, or by looking for ways that you can contribute to your community. Participating in your church, volunteering with a local organization, or even engaging in political activism are ways of contributing something useful to the world. Such activities can help give you a sense of greater purpose and meaning.

Work On Boosting Your Motivation

Sometimes getting out of a rut seems to happen spontaneously. For example, you might feel stuck in a rut for a while when something suddenly click into place and the feelings just vanish.

In other cases, you might need to take a more active approach. If you’ve been trying some of the previously mentioned strategies but still feel like you are just going through the motions, it may be time to focus on your motivation.

Some things you can do to actively get yourself motivated, even when you don’t feel particularly interested or excited about what you are doing:

Take small steps.

Pick something that you think you might like to pursue, such as a new hobby or workout program. Start small with something that you know you can accomplish, yet is just outside of your current skill level. Don’t wait for motivation or inspiration to strike, however. Just get going. Even if you really do not want to, force yourself to get through the first step. Once you have mastered it, pick another small step that is just outside your current skill level. Master it. Keep going, and eventually what you may find is that you are no longer just going through the motions, you are actually feeling involved, excited, and interested in learning more.

Reward yourself. Positive reinforcement can be helpful in the early stages when you are really struggling to find the motivation. Promise yourself some sort of reward for starting the task and continue to reward yourself after completing each step for a time. After a while, pull back on the rewards, but promise yourself a larger reward once you have finally reached your goals. These rewards can get you started and help generate greater interest in what you are working on.

By Kendra Cherry