You can’t escape cause and effect, but there is a way of viewing human agency that is motivating, plausible and humane.We feel that we are free, the originators of our own choices, not just conduits through which the chain of cause and effect flows. But think about it a little more and this ‘voluntarist’ conception of free will starts to look untenable.

Thinking About Free Will

A lot of the time, you might feel as though you have freedom to act as you wish (a view known as ‘voluntarism’), but taking into account your history, personality, mood and other factors, there is in fact an inevitability to everything you do.

All Your Choices Are in A Sense Inevitable

Even quantum physics and the randomness of quantum causation cannot offer us an escape because the ability to act randomly is not the same as having free will.

There’s No Escaping the Chain of Cause and Effect

To act free of causes would be to act without reason. Such a freedom would be gratuitous, since the only grounds for our choice would be the power to choose itself.

Having Voluntarist Free Will Would Mean Being Entirely Capricious

We would have no moral character if we did not strongly feel that there were things we simply could not do, and others we felt we must.

The Constraints upon Our Choices Allow for The Concept of Character

To accept that one has done wrong and take responsibility for it is to resolve to try not to do it again and to put right anything that went wrong. We evidently do have the capacity to do this, and that is all that matters.

Praise and Blame Don’t Depend on Absolute Freedom

It is only because we reflect on the things that could so easily have been done differently if conditions or our frame of mind had been slightly different that we learn to take responsibility and do better next time.

It’s Useful to Feel You Could Have Done Things Differently, Even if It’s a Fiction

The ‘compatibilist’ conception of free will acknowledges the causal necessity of the physical world, but it also recognises that, if no one ‘made me do it’, I acted freely.

Don’t Reject the Concept of Free Will, Rethink It

First-order desires include wanting cake or sex or to scratch yourself; second-order desires are your desires about these desires, such as wishing to resist the desire for cake. Free beings are ones who can act on their desires about their desires, and not just automatically on their desires.

Achieve a Free Will Worth Having by Aligning Your First- and Second-Order Desires

You can’t escape cause and effect, but there is a way of viewing human agency that is motivating, plausible and humane

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

How to think about free will | Psyche Guides

<ul><li>Recent studies have shown that events and forces at work today are making happiness less likely for many people, and widening "happiness gaps" between the most privileged and everyone else.</li><li>People who study happiness and promote ways to get more of it keep emphasizing the same cluster of individual-level tips and tools.</li><li>There's something dishonest in minimizing the role of social forces-and that this dishonestly can be rooted in discounting the experiences of people who are hurt or marginalized by those forces.</li></ul>

Social Conditions and Inequality Affect Well-Being

<ul><li>Structural forces affect happiness.</li><li>Slavery was a structural force, setting a pattern of social, cultural, economic, and interpersonal relationships between Black and white Americans that persists to this day.</li><li>The family is a force structured by laws about marriage, divorce, taxes, reproductive health, and the power men historically had over those laws.</li><li>Your social network is a structure shaped by interactions with other structures.</li></ul>

Structures And Our Feelings

Positive psychology was once revolutionary for the way it turned away from studying and treating dysfunction in individuals toward examining the practices and traits that helped people to flourishUnfortunately, this focus on the individual led many researchers and teachers to consciously reject structural explanations for individual misfortune and unhappiness

Reckoning with Positivity

<ul><li>The evidence for how social forces can undermine or enhance happiness goes well beyond America's determination to marginalize and oppress racial minorities, revealing that any inequality hurts well-being.</li><li>Groups (and often countries) with less power, income, or wealth just aren't as happy as those who have more.</li><li>Only people in the lower half of the income range felt less happy; people who made more money seemed fine as inequality rose.</li><li>A 2011 study found that Americans became less happy as income inequality grew-but not all Americans.</li></ul>

Happiness And Socio-Economic Conditions

<ul><li>Happiness inequality was already rising alongside income and wealth inequality in the years before COVID-19.</li><li>During the pandemic, it appears that well-being became even more difficult for some than others.</li><li>We have created institutions and policies to mitigate the impact of disease.</li><li>The more stringent a country’s policies in restricting citizens’ movements and behavior, the worse they felt.</li><li>These policies were situational, meaning that the circumstances made happiness seemingly impossible for the majority of people.</li></ul>

Happiness And The Pandemic

Many organizations continue to emphasize "easy steps" and "quick fixes" that will make you as an individual happier.These companies discount or underestimate the power of social forces in shaping our happiness and life satisfaction.We need to look beyond tips and tools for individual improvement, toward the ways we can create a social tide that will lift as many boats as possible.

The Limits of Individual Solutions

Social conditions and inequality affect well-being. So, why do we keep insisting 

mindfulness

Mindfulness

How Much Control Do You Have Over Your Own Happiness?

To grow a meaningful audience online, it's critical that you give people a reason to follow you.One of the main reasons is that they don't make a compelling case for why someone should follow them. There is no objectively "right" way to design your social profiles.Here's a 4-step checklist below to make sure you're giving your readers a reason to hit the "follow" button:1. Banner image to achieve an outcome2. Headshot to evoke a specific type of emotion3. Tagline to clearly state what you do and who you help4. Show off your deeper expertise through pinned Tweet & featured section.

The Secret To Making People Follow You

The very first thing people see when they hit your Twitter or LinkedIn profile is your "banner" image.This is prime real estate. Use it to achieve a specific outcome:<ul><li>Build brand awareness</li><li>Drive newsletter sign-ups</li><li>Send people to your website</li><li>Sell a digital product or service</li><li>Get them to follow you on social media</li></ul>

Use Your Banner Real Estate Wisely

When you first look at someone's profile, you make an assumption about what type of person they are just by looking at their headshot.Is this the best way to judge someone? Of course not. Do we do it anyway? Absolutely. It's human nature.Headshots are meant to evoke a feeling:<ul><li>Kind</li><li>Tough</li><li>Playful</li><li>Powerful</li><li>Empathetic</li><li>Professional</li></ul>Your headshot should align with your brand.

Your Headshot Is the First Trust Builder

If you have a clear banner and a great headshot, you're ahead of about 50% of the profiles I see on social media.But, your "tagline" is often a make-or-break moment.The goal of the tagline is three-fold:<ul><li>Tell people who you are</li><li>Tell people what you do/who you help</li><li>Tell people what they should expect if they follow you</li></ul>

Your Tagline Is the "Why", Not the "What"

Nobody needs to know that you're a "Director of Marketing" or "Account Executive" or "Software Developer". None of those things is helpful to the reader. <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexAndBooks_">Alex & Books</a> is clear and to the point. He helps you "find amazing books & develop a reading habit."

What You Do and Who You Help

This is your opportunity to spell out precisely what people should expect if they hit the follow button. So, again, be clear. I tell people exactly what to expect when they follow me.

Tell People What They Should Expect if They Follow You

If you have a smart banner, a solid headshot, and a clear tagline, you'll probably earn a lot of followers from your content.But one of the most overlooked ways to increase your chances is through showing off your expertise at a deeper level.On Twitter, you can do this with your pinned Tweet. On LinkedIn, you do this through the Featured Section of your profile.This is a great place to tell your story (pinned Tweet) or show off your newsletter or projects (featured section on LinkedIn).

Show People How You Think at A Deeper Level

Our profiles: What we overlook on Twitter and Linkedin.

career

Career

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

Fix Your Social Profile And Make People Follow You

You can write articles and create content for years without any success. But this doesn’t mean you are not good at it. You need to learn to share your work.How do you expect people to find your content if you keep it to yourself?Not promoting content is one of the worst errors of new content creators. I have seen some of my fellow writers gaining traction faster than me and getting job offers. But I ignored the reason behind their success. Until, one day, I made a Twitter account and found them all there, sharing their work with a large audience.

Why should you promote your ideas?

<ol><li>It is an idea generator.</li><li>It shows you successful content.</li><li>It helps you build loyalty.</li><li>It gives you new opportunities.</li></ol>

The Benefits of a 30-Day Twitter Challenge

1 — It is an idea generator.Growing an audience on Twitter doesn’t only mean gathering followers. It is much more than that.Publishing posts that highlight your expertise and credibility will be your first goal. But you also need to follow other creators to build professional relationships, or you will never test your content.So using Twitter every day exposes you to many ideas in short time lapses. And this constant exposure tickles your creativity and improves your content daily.

1 — It is an idea generator.

2 — It shows you successful content.As soon as you start growing and your tweets get more views, you will also have more people commenting on them and sharing their opinions. And you can use those comments to understand if a topic gets more shares or is ignored by your audience.So if you want to test your content, you can follow a simple pattern:<ul><li>Share your core idea on Twitter.</li><li>See how the community responds.</li><li>With positive feedback, create content.</li><li>With negative or missing feedback, search for other ideas.</li></ul>

2 — It shows you successful content.

3 — It helps you build loyalty.Social networks are the perfect tool for building a close relationship with your audience and converting them from casual consumers to fans. So use them to interact with the community and increase their loyalty to your brand by:<ul><li>Clarifying their doubts.</li><li>Answering other curiosities.</li><li>Sharing your content creation patterns and sources.</li></ul>And the more you interact, the closer they will get.

3 — It helps you build loyalty.

4 — It gives you new opportunities.You never know where the next offer will come from or who your next customer will be. So keep following people, interacting with them, and sharing your work.Someday, someone will engage and make you an offer. And building an audience on Twitter will be the best choice of your life.Also, nowadays, every public figure is on Twitter. And if anybody finds your work over the Internet and wants to contact with, they will probably search you on Twitter first. So make sure to be there.

4 — It gives you new opportunities.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.

<ol><li>Create a schedule.</li><li>Pick hashtags and weekly formats.</li><li>Build a content buffer.</li><li>Construct a catchy profile.</li></ol>Continue reading the <a href="https://www.cosmopolitanmindset.com/30-day-twitter-challenge-the-best-guide-on-how-to-make-short-content/">30-Day Twitter Challenge</a>.

How to Prepare for a 30-Day Twitter Challenge

You can write articles and create content for years without any success. But this doesn’t mean you are not good at it. You need to learn to share your work.

Promoting your content requires building an audience on at least one social network. So here is a 30-Day Twitter Challenge to build one.

30-Day Twitter Challenge: The Best Guide on How To Make Short Content

The misinformation effect is when information received after an event interferes with one's memory of the actual happenings. Research shows that subtle details later on can dramatically change how people remember. This effect shows how easily memories are influenced. It then questions the reliability of the memories of eyewitnesses to determine criminal guilt.

The misinformation effect

In a famous experiment, participants were shown video footage of a traffic accident. Then participants were asked several questions about what they had seen. <ul><li>Some participants were asked, "How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?"</li><li>Others had a subtle word change introduced, "How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?"</li></ul> When participants were asked a week later if they saw broken glass, the first group correctly answered no. The second group were more likely to believe they had seen broken glass.

Misinformation effect example

There are different theories why the misinformation effect happens, potentially leading to false memories.<ol><li>The original facts and information after the fact get blended together in a person's memory.</li><li>Misleading information replaces the original memory.</li><li>Since misleading information is more recent, it's easier to retrieve.</li><li>The original details may not have been encoded into memory. Misleading information is then mixed into the mental narrative to fill the memory gaps.</li></ol>

Misinformation effect theories

Factors that make it more likely that event happenings will be distorted and lead to false memories:<ul><li>Discussing the event with other witnesses. Conflicting reports might reshape or distort a witness's original memory of the event.</li><li>Reading or watching news reports. People often forget the original source of information and believe they observed something personally when they really heard it in a news report.</li><li>Repeated exposure to misinformation.</li><li>The passage of time.</li></ul>

Factors influencing the misinformation effect

<ul><li>One strategy is to write down your memory of an important event immediately after it happens. Keep in mind that subtle errors can still slip in and further cement them in your memory.</li><li>Another is to be aware that your memory can be influenced and that everyone is susceptible to the misinformation effect.</li></ul> If everyone is saying the same thing and it is different to what you remember, the misinformation effect may be at play.

How to reduce the misinformation effect

The things we learn after an event can interfere with our original memories and lead to false memories. This is called the misinformation effect.

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

How Does Misinformation Influence Our Memories of Events?

There are two literary dystopian visions:<ul><li>George Orwell, who in “1984” warned about a tyrannical state that would ban information to keep the public powerless</li><li>Aldous Huxley, who in “Brave New World” depicted a population too amused by distractions – entertainment, leisure, and laughter – to realize that they had been made powerless</li></ul>

The Two Classics

<ul><li>Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.</li><li>Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.</li><li>Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.</li><li> In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.</li></ul>

How George Orwell Of 1984 Differs From Aldous Huxley's Vision

Politics, religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business. America favors all those who possess both a talent and a format to amuse. As a result, we as people are on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.

The Medium Is the Metaphor

Although culture is a creation of speech, it is recreated anew by every medium of communication. Each medium creates a unique mode of communication by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility. Communication on television is largely done in images, not words. The medium is the message. We do not see nature or intelligence or human motivation or ideology as “it” is but only as our languages are. Languages are our media, the metaphors that create the content of our culture.

The Medium Is The Message

The concept of truth is intimately linked to the biases of forms of expression. The truth must be presented in a certain clothing or it’s not acknowledged. Each culture conceives of it as being most authentically expressed in certain symbolic forms that another culture may regard as trivial or irrelevant. Truth is a product of a conversation man has with himself about and through the techniques of communication he has invented.

Junk TV Is Okay, It's The Serious TV That Is The Problem

Since intelligence is primarily defined as one’s capacity to grasp the truth of things, it follows that what a culture means by intelligence is derived from the character of its important forms of communication. A major new medium changes the structure of communication by creating new forms of truth-telling. While some old media do, in fact, disappear, other forms of conversation – speech and writing, for example – will always remain. Thus the epistemology of new forms such as television does not have an entirely unchallenged influence.

The Medium Keeps Changing

The influence of the printed word in every area of public communication was insistent and powerful not merely because of the quantity of printed matter but because of its monopoly. If you wanted to exchange ideas, you did so in a pamphlet, a debate forum, or a lecture. These were all places where the form of printed language lent itself to a more sophisticated and elegant content. Lectures and debates didn’t sound like idle conversation—they sounded like writing.

The Power Of The Written Word

In a culture dominated by print, communication follows a coherent, orderly arrangement of facts and ideas. The definition of intelligence gives priority to the objective, rational use of the mind. At the same time, it encourages forms of public discourse with serious, logically ordered content. The printed word had a monopoly on both attention and intellect, as there were no other means to have access to public knowledge.

The Printed Word

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, print began to show the early signs of its replacement. Its replacement was to be the Age of Show Business.In the middle of the 19th century, two ideas laid the foundation for the Age of Show Business:<ul><li>Transportation and communication are disengaged from each other</li><li>Space was not an inevitable constraint on the movement of information</li></ul>The solution to these problems was electricity. The telegraph wrapped the continent in an information grid and created the possibility of a unified American discourse.

It's Showtime!

The value of information need not be tied to any function it might serve in social and political decision-making and action but may attach merely to its novelty, interest, and curiosity. The telegraph made information into a commodity, a “thing” that could be bought and sold irrespective of its uses or meaning.Daily news give us something to talk about but do not lead to any meaningful action. With the abundance of irrelevant information, the information-action ratio/signal to noise ratio is dramatically altered.

Characteristics Of The New Type Of Communication: Irrelevance

Before telegraphy, the information-action ratio was sufficiently close so that most people had a sense of being able to control some of the contingencies in their lives. What people knew about had action-value. However, this sense of potency was lost with telegraphy, precisely because the whole world became the context for news. Everything became everyone’s business. We were sent information which answered questions we didn’t ask and that did not allow the right of reply.

Characteristics Of The New Type Of Communication: Impotence

Telegraphy brought into being a world of broken time attention. Its main strength was the capacity to move information, not collect it, explain it or analyze it.The telegraph introduced the language of headlines—sensational, fragmented, impersonal. Its language was discontinuous: one message had no connection another, each “headline” stood alone as its own context. “Knowing” the facts took on a new meaning: intelligence meant knowing of lots of things, not knowing about them.Telegraphic communication permitted no time for historical perspectives and gave no priority to the qualitative.

Characteristics Of The New Type Of Communication: Incoherence

Pseudo-context: a structure invented to give fragmented and irrelevant information a seeming use. The use it provides is not action, or problem-solving, or change, only information with no genuine connection to our livesThe Peek-a-Boo World: all new media that entered the electronic conversation followed the lead of the telegraph and the photograph, amplifying their biases. It is a world without much coherence or sense but also endlessly entertaining. There is no subject of public interest—politics, news, education, religion, science, sports—that does not find its way to television.

The Peek-A-Boo World

The television is devoted entirely to supplying its audience with entertainment. The average length of a shot on network television is only 3.5 seconds. The eye never rests and has always something new to see. It offers a variety of subjects that require minimal skills to understand and is aimed at emotional gratification. Even commercials are exquisitely crafted, always pleasing to the eye and accompanied by exciting music.

The Age of Show Business

People no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. We do not exchange ideas, we exchange images. We do not argue with propositions but with good looks, celebrities, and commercials.A news show is a format for entertainment, not for education, reflection or catharsis. Thinking does not play well on television, as there is not much to see in it. It’s not a performing art.

The World Is On TV

On television, nearly every half hour is a discrete event, separated in content, context, and emotional texture from what precedes and follows it. News are fragmented and without context, consequences, value, or seriousness; they are pure entertainment. The average length of any news story is forty-five seconds, which is not enough time to explore the whole depth of a story. And no matter how grave the news, it’s followed by a series of short commercials.

News Is Pure Entertainment

Television alters the meaning of “being informed” by creating misleading information: misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information that creates the illusion of knowing something. We lose the sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?

Being Misinformed

Changing the form of expression also change its meaning, texture or value. Being present and talking to a friend who just lost a loved one has a different meaning than a condolence card. What is televised is transformed from what it was to something else, which may or may not preserve its former essence.

Being Present Vs Seeing On TV

Show business main business is to please the crowd. With the switch to television, politics became show business. The idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty, but to appear as if you are. The television is the main vehicle to present political ideas, used in political campaigns and through commercials. Commercials are on average 15 seconds and use visual symbols that help us learn the lessons being taught. Being sold solutions is better than being confronted with questions about problems.

Politics And Show Business

A book is all history. As no other medium before or since, the book promotes a sense of a coherent and usable past. Television is a speed-of-light medium that permits no access to the past. Everything presented in moving pictures is experienced as happening “now”. Its purpose is to move fragments of information, not to collect and organize them. Television does not ban books, it simply displaces them.

A Book Is Better Than TV

The new education is based on the speed-of-light electronic image, with new conceptions of knowledge and how it is acquired. There are three commandments that form the philosophy of the education which television offers:No prerequisites: every television program must be a complete package in itself with no previous knowledge required. No perplexity: perplexity means low ratings. There must be nothing that has to be remembered, studied, applied or endured.  No exposition: television-teaching always takes the form of story-telling, conducted through dynamic images and supported by music

The Three Commandments Of TV

When people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility. The problem, in any case, does not reside in what people watch. The problem is in that we watch. The solution must be found in how we watch. No medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are

The Bottom Line

Examines the effects of television culture on how we conduct our public affairs and how "entertainment values" corrupt the way we think.

movies

Movies & Shows

books

Books

entertainment

Entertainment

Neil Postman

Amusing Ourselves to Death

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Anything that's vaguely popular online must be defined or decoded - and ultimately, reduced to a bundle of marketable vibes with a kitschy label.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Trend brain encourages us to simplify everything online into something either buyable, understandable, or moral (and therefore worthy of consumption).</li><li class="ql-align-justify">There is a devout certainty to the speed at which they're cycled through.</li></ul>

Our 'Trend' Brain

<ul><li>Modern consumers are bombarded with a stream of inconsequential trends to take note of - marketing vessels for products that fit into a paradigm devoid of meaning</li><li>Trends, or the illusion of a trend, benefit the fast-fashion companies and direct-to-consumer brands making products that aesthetically align with fleeting fancies</li><li>The effects of trend-induced brain rot have trickled into online discourse</li><li>Topics and figures deemed most important on the internet are based on where they fall along the spectrum of trendiness, depending on the scale of attention they command</li></ul>

Irrelevant and Inconsequential Trends

Recuperation: the process by which subcultural ideas and images become commodified and reincorporated into mainstream societyToday, recuperation is achieved through micro-aesthetics, memes, and online communities they stem fromUnlike the radical subcultures of yore, which had their own visual schema, language, and aesthetics, these digital scenes aren’t exactly subcultural.They often promote a sort of political weakening.

Recuperation

<ul><li>Even a whimsical aesthetic can become a commodified status signal - a way to demonstrate that you're a distinct individual who is in the know.</li><li>With the mass decentralization of culture, even while platforms are becoming increasingly centralized, there's no way for a sane person to keep up, but still we are expected to.</li><li>We're told we must evolve or our digital personas will wither into irrelevance as our style grows stale.</li></ul>

Keeping Up With Trends One After The Other

Coastal grandmother, night luxe, that girl. Anything can be a trend on the internet. Why are we so determined to name them?

Trends are dead

The digital nomad lifestyle is often characterized as one that offers a better balance between work and leisure. Many people assume that it will be better for their mental health than remaining trapped in the mousetrap of a corporate 9-5 existence.While the digital nomad lifestyle can certainly help you lift yourself out of some negative routines and situations, and put you in a position to make more of your life, it also presents a whole range of new issues that can be just as challenging to your mental health.

Digital Nomads And The Challenges Faced In Remote Work + Travelling

Unlike the problems of burnout, stress, and disconnection in the corporate world, which are now relatively well understood, the mental health crises of digital nomads are relatively unexplored territory.Digital nomad lifestyle is where you can escape the boring and pointless routine or commute, work, commute, sleep. No routine feels good, but but things get out of control easily.While you don’t want to fall into the trap of over-scheduling your life, introducing some routine can help you feel like you are more in control of your time. A <a href="https://andysto.com/10-proven-morning-routine-ways-to-boost-your-productivity-as-a-digital-nomad/">consistent morning ritual</a> can be a great place to start.

Mental Health Of Digital Nomads: Lack Of Routine

Self-care routines are notoriously difficult to maintain when you are on the road, and you are living in environments over which you have little control.Without steady access to a gym, your fitness routine might fall by the wayside. Same with your food intake and sleep.Digital nomads need to realize the importance of self-care and choose to make them a priority among the many things vying for their time and attention. We have written several articles focussed on the various areas of self-care that might be helpful including: <a href="https://andysto.com/staying-fit-on-the-road-exercise-solutions-for-digital-nomads/">staying fit on the road</a> and <a href="https://andysto.com/how-and-why-to-get-a-good-nights-sleep-as-a-digital-nomad/">how to get a good night’s sleep</a>.

Loss of Self-Care Routines

Living in “borrowed environments” in which many things are out of our control can leave us feeling like we don’t really have a safe haven when we need to escape from the world and be on our own. It can also work to rob us of a sense of agency within our own lives.Digital nomads often need to learn techniques for shutting out their environment and entering their own “mental” safe space, through practices such as meditation.It can also be a good idea to take more control over the things that are within your control, like the positioning of your laptop and bags.

Lack of Control

One of the biggest mistakes that digital nomads make is to try and squeeze in too much. Many will try and cover twelve cities in the space of a month, while maintaining a full workload.This exacerbates all the problems as you are never in one place long enough to establish new routines and start to feel comfortable.Many travellers suggest that this type of rapid travel also makes them feel disconnected from the world that they are moving through, as they are only ever in one place long enough to dip a toe in the water. They never get to dive deep and truly understand where they are.

Travel Burnout

One of the biggest causes of mental health issues in the modern world is constant, low-level anxiety caused by the pressures to “do it all”. These days we are all expected to excel professionally, to be perfect parents, and also play sports, be artistic, and much more.These pressures trigger our stress hormones. But we evolved to experience stress for short periods of time in response to immediate forms of danger. The stress hormones release into our body for a limited period of time to give us the energy and focus to do what needs to be done to avoid the danger.

Constant, Low-Level Anxiety

<ul><li>Digital nomads often work as freelancers. This means an insecure income and a lack of safety net which can be an extreme stressor.</li><li>Digital nomads are also under incredible pressure to do well both professionally and personally. </li><li>There are constant worries over things such as visas being denied, and not being able to access medical treatment when needed.</li><li>For digital nomads, even when you can afford to pay for it, good medical help is not always available.</li></ul>

All Kinds Of Pressure

There is no easy way to avoid these inevitable stressors that accompany the digital nomad lifestyle, but proper planning can make a big difference. Good health insurance, investing for the future, and creating a financial safety net in case something does go wrong can all help to lift some of this pressure.Self-care activities such as meditation and exercise can also help you to better manage the stress hormones that are flooding your body.

The Way Out Of Stress

One of the biggest challenges for digital nomads can be loneliness. While you make friends on the road, these ephemeral friendships don’t tend to “fill the void” in the same way as being physically close to your nearest and dearest.Moreover, depending on where you are in the world, you may just feel generally isolated. Language barriers and distance might mean that you lack some of the passing daily interactions which help make all of use feel connected.

Loneliness 

It is important that digital nomads put effort into maintaining their long-term relationships back home to continue accessing that support network, and that they become more open to speaking out when they are struggling, rather than waiting to be asked.Spending more time in individual places and letting yourself create deeper local friendships can also help significantly.

Loss of Support Network

Many digital nomads don’t talk about what is challenging them and assume that they are the only ones facing this challenge. It is not uncommon to think that there is something wrong with you that you can’t just be happy with your amazing life.There is a bit of a stigma against digital nomads talking about the challenges of their lifestyle. When you are jet setting from one beautiful location to the next and sharing photos in some of the most beautiful and inspiring places in the world, few people want to hear you complain.

We Don’t Talk About Mental Health

If anything, mental health can be even more challenging for digital nomads because it is not an area that is yet well understood, and there is also a stigma against digital nomads complaining about their mental health when they have such an apparently charmed lifestyle.This is a challenge that we need to tackle as a community. All digital nomads need to be more open to talking about mental health challenges and normalizing the discussion within the community.

The Challenge That We Need To Tackle

Dreaming of working from anywhere? Here are the key things you need to know about starting your digital nomad journey

remotework

Remote Work

mentalhealth

Mental Health

travel

Travel

How To Become A Digital Nomad

The Mental Health Challenges of Digital Nomadism

The digital nomad lifestyle is often one characterized by freedom. We have the freedom to manage our time in the way that we wish, and we have the freedom to build our lives wherever we wish.The digital nomad lifestyle is often characterized by throwing off the time and place restrictions associated with most typical jobs until recent years.There is no need to commute in to work to arrive at a certain hour and stay until the end of the day watching the clock run down even if there is nothing to do.

The Digital Nomad Lifestyle

The digital nomad lifestyle is often characterized by freedom. It offers some freedoms that are virtually impossible in traditional 9-5, location-based jobs.  No need to struggle to find decent and affordable housing within reasonable commute distance of where you want to work or be subject to the high cost of living.However, for digital nomads, the lines between work and leisure disappear, as they tend to work hard, play hard and earn more.This combination can lead to burnout.

The Allure Of Freedom

Digital nomads are people who attempt to gain freedom by travelling while working. This clearly distinguishes between them from business travellers who travel for work and tourists.Many digital nomads work for clients or companies in a way that is very similar to other more sedentary workers. However, digital nomads are more likely to have an entrepreneurial attitude.Digital nomads tend to think that they need to be “switched on” to work opportunities all the time.

Defining A Digital Nomad

To make a success of a digital nomad lifestyle, and not fall into this trap, digital nomads have to develop a variety of disciplines.It takes a minimum of three days to find healthy routines again when relocating to a new place.The most successful digital nomads have practices in place that help them to kickstart their preferred routine when they arrive at a new location, and rituals to help them delineate their new space and time.

With Great Freedom Comes Die-Hard Discipline: Mobile Adaptability

A vast majority of digital nomads rely on two devices, a laptop and a smartphone.But many digital nomads choose to differentiate between these devices, using their laptop for work, and their smartphone for leisure.Most digital nomads say that they do this because their smartphone has too many social apps on it which can be a major distraction from their work.This choice of device also helps delineate work and leisure space, much like remote workers do with a home office.

Discipline: Device Choice

With great freedom comes die-hard discipline.

Freedom & Discipline: The Digital Nomad Conundrum

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