Maintaining control over our lives

Make a contract with your partner, family, and friends allowing them to catch you in the throes of verbal diarrhea when you were unfairly treated.

Work out three or four different activities that will distract you and turn your attention to something productive. 

 ... you expose yourself to.

We all have a different threshold of the amount of rejection we can handle. Wisely considering how much more you can handle is essential. 

Before you take another step forward, ask yourself if you have the right resources and support in place to catch you.

Emotions can help us handle complex issues, and are an essential part of rational thinking; they are helping us envision future scenarios and this is called pragmatic prospection.

An 'emotionally healthy' mindset can be developed by the self-transcendent emotions like empathy, gratitude and wonder, which are focused on others.

The world's problems like global warming, air and plastic pollution, and terrorism cannot be solved without empathy. A lack of empathy makes us focus on short-term goals, and our greed, ignoring the larger, more difficult problems that need to be tackled. 

Even if someone does have empathy, it is limited to one's inner circle, and not towards humanity in general. Our empathy needs to be towards the entire planet and its inhabitants. The current age should harness humanity's emotional side if our future generations want to remember us as 'good' ancestors.

Pessimism, or having a bias towards a negative outcome, has a fan base too, as it seems that pessimists are immune to disappointment.

Their view of life already considers the worst possible outcome as the default one, and anything better than that can only improve it.

Losing something we already have is twice as much pain than gaining the same. This skewed feelings towards loss is known as loss aversion.

Expectations always dampen the feelings of happiness, always setting us up in advance for a dose of disappointment.

• Eat. Our brains need fuel to run properly, and when that fuel runs low, the brain has difficulty regulating our emotions. Eat high protein foods.
• Meditate. Devote a few minutes a day to simply focusing on your breath and your senses. You will be calmer and your decision making will be sounder.
• Sleep. Your brain’s ability to absorb glucose is significantly diminished without rest. Stay consistent with your sleep every night.
• Exercise.
• Force Yourself until a new habit is formed.
• Get Others Involved. Find a support system.
• Do Your Research. Whatever your struggle, make it your priority to be the master of it.

Thomas Edison said that sleep is "a bad habit." Like Edison, we seem to think of sleep as an adversary and try to fight it at every turn. The average American sleeps less than the recommended seven hours per night, mostly due to electric lights, television, computers, and smartphones. 

However, we are ignoring the intricate journey we're designed to take when we sleep.

When we fall asleep, the nearly 86 billion neurons in our brain starts to fire evenly and rhythmically. Our sensory receptors become muffled at the same time.

The first stage of shallow sleep lasts for about 5 minutes.

In history, marriage was a pragmatic institution. A sense of identity was more embedded in community, and not solely in marriage.

The shift to individualism and choice has meant that we feel the need to find our identity in an all-encompassing romantic partnership. We are asking from one person what once an entire village used to provide.

Recognising that one person can't be your everything can help you find a broader definition of love.

Sharing your experiences with others is an essential ingredient to feeling connected.

This conncection doesn't have to come in the form of a partner or having friends around you all the time. Rather, it is the quality of your close relationships that has an impact on your well being.

Carpool to work if you can to significantly reduce wear and tear on your car, save on gas, and take advantage of carpool lanes that might make it easier to get to work.

Check at least once a month to keep the tires on your vehicle properly inflated. Doing so can improve your gas mileage.

Refinance your home or automobile at a lower rate to save money over the life of the loan and lower your monthly payment.

If your student loans are locked in at a high-interest rate, figure out whether it makes sense to consolidate all or some of them.

We worry because our pre-conditioned mind cannot be left alone. Like a motor that cannot be switched off, the mind keeps running, performing background thinking at all times.

Studies show people would rather prefer to be electrocuted with mild electric shocks than to just sit in a room doing nothing.

Mindfulness is a practice of observing our mind's activity and is the antidote to worry.

Mindfulness results in increased attention, better working memory, and an awareness of mind while enriching the neural connections of the brain.

Traits we will not tolerate within ourselves, we will not tolerate in others. It is a choice we make. We should make those choices consciously and not without thinking.

It’s why corrupt officials choose to be corrupt: because they assume everyone else is as corrupt as they are. It’s why cheaters choose to cheat. It’s why those who can’t trust are the ones who can’t be trusted.

Recognize how you measure yourself and consciously choose your metric. Also, realize that everyone has their own criteria that will not be the same as yours. 

Anticipatory grief is feeling unsure of what the future holds. It is that same feeling when someone gets a grave diagnosis. 

We know there is a storm brewing, and it breaks our sense of safety on a micro and a macro level.

Understand the stages of grief and realize that the stages are not linear.

Denial: The virus won't affect us.
Anger: You're taking away my freedom.
Bargaining: So, if I social distance for two weeks, will everything will be better?
Sadness: I don't know how this will end.
Acceptance: This is happening, and I have to figure out how to move forward.

Acceptance is where power lies. We find control in acceptance. "I can..."