Workplace stress is increasingly becoming a larger part of the conversation since the pandemic.Reports indicate that the number of people seeking help with stress or anxiety has increased by 55%, according to a study by a mental health services provider in the United Kingdom.In 2021, 822,000 workers in the U.K. suffered from work-related stress, depression, or anxiety.

Workplace Stress

Stress is our body's response to pressureOften a sign you've pushed yourself too far without making time to consider whether what you're doing is sustainableAs ambitious high achievers, we ultimately want to go the distance, but going the distance is impossible when struck with migraines, low moods, anxiety, and irritability

The Root Cause Of Stress

<ul><li>Stress is unique to each person. For some, stress is incapacitating, while others actually need a bit of stress to keep them motivated.</li><li>It's easy to slip into the idea that if you take your foot off the pedal, even for one second, everything will come crashing down.</li><li>The issue with this thinking is that you are denying yourself an opportunity to refuel, despite being on a marathon of the mind for years on end.</li></ul>

Take A Break: Things Will Work Without You

<ul><li>Dealing with strain becomes significantly easier when we are fulfilled as people.</li><li>Managing stress becomes a possibility when we've invested the time to become bigger versions of who we are.</li><li>Life as a high achiever comes with challenges, greet those challenges as someone who has been given every possible opportunity to cope with it.</li></ul>

A Bigger Version Of Ourselves

<ul><li>Leaders need to address the responsibility of leaders in the fight against work-related stress</li><li>Creating an environment that prioritizes flexibility, mental and physical well-being, personal growth, and open channels of communication are steps toward combating stress for high achievers.</li></ul>

What Leaders Can Do

For high-achieving professionals working in competitive fields, it’s important to find the best way to preserve your mental resilience.

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Career

mentalhealth

Mental Health

How to deal with stress while working in a demanding industry

Cognitive immobility is a stressful mental entrapment that leads to a conscious or unconscious effort to recreate past incidents in one or more locations that one lived in or visited in the past. By doing so, we are hoping to retrieve what is missing or left behind.

Cognitive Immobility

When people cannot remain in locations because of conditions beyond their control, such as a war or family or work commitments, their bodies may physically move to a new world, while their minds are left behind – trapped in the previous location.Thus, these people might be described as being “cognitively immobilised”. During this time, such individuals may seek consolation through the reconstruction of events or physical movement to the locations that they migrated or departed from.

Present In Body, Absent In Mind

Cognitive immobility may be related to homesickness, but it is actually different. Homesickness is a feeling of longing for a previous home, whereas cognitive immobility is a cognitive mechanic that works on our attention and memory to mentally trap us in a place – whether it is a previous home or just a place we’ve visited.

Cognitive Immobility And Homesickness

Our conscious memory (made up of semantic and episodic memories) allows us to remember not just what happened in the past, but also basic knowledge of things around us. Specifically, episodic memory helps us remember or reconstruct events we experienced or events that could have happened in the past but didn’t.Indeed, research shows that recalling memory is a process of imagination – we often recreate past events in a way that isn’t necessarily accurate, but rather affected by our current beliefs and emotional state. This can make our past look even better than it was.

The Entrapped Mind

Due to cognitive immobility, some people who have moved from their homes to new locations perpetually long to visit their old homes. But cognitive immobility still applies – when they do visit their old home, they immediately long to return to their new homeland. So, according to research, a person who has migrated may have a “homeless mind” while experiencing a situation where no home is truly a home; even the previous home – the ancestral home – has lost its distinguishing features and allure in the real world.

The Homeless Mind

The implications of cognitive immobility are serious. For example, it could lead to problems integrating into a new place and making new friends — potentially making us even more trapped in the past as we don’t have an engaging present to distract us. Constantly being stuck in the past could also get in the way of thinking ahead. This can have knock on effects for our wellbeing – we need to focus on the past and present as well as the future to feel good.

The Implications Of Cognitive Immobility

According to research, there are three stages of cognitive immobility. The first entails becoming aware of the stress and anxiety caused by leaving the location where the mind is entrapped. During this stage, most migrants experience a lot of uncertainty, which hinders their efforts in many aspects of their lives, including resettling, acquiring new skills such as language and making new acquaintances.

The Three Stages Of Cognitive Immobility

The second stage of cognitive immobility involves deliberate efforts to reclaim the lost or abandoned object, creating more tension than the first stage. Here, the person might engage in activities such as travelling to their ancestral land, reconstructing their memories and reading about the lost location. Although physical visits to sites could alleviate the stress, this could be a temporary solution.

The third stage of cognitive immobility consists of deliberate efforts to retain values and seek goals that will alleviate the loss. This approach might consist of using artefacts to symbolise the lost home, such as art or images. It has also been argued that migrants could “make new homes”, but also represent their memories and aspirations – for example by making friends with people who come from the same place, or have the same religion. This is in fact one way to ultimately reduce the anxiety.

For now, it is evident that cognitive immobility has no perfect cure. But psychology offers some solutions which may prove to be useful, although they are yet to be investigated in the specific context of cognitive immobility.

Is There A Cure For Cognitive Immobility?

There are psychological interventions that can help us balance our mental focus on the past, present and future. To avoid being stuck in the past and become more present focused, we can write down something we are grateful for every day. And to become more future focused, we could imagine our “best possible self” five years from now – it worked for many people during the COVID lockdowns.

What Could Be Done?

We may associate cognitive immobility with people who migrate and indeed it may be very common for them, but cognitive immobility can affect anyone who is willingly or unwillingly moving away from something – be it a relationship, a home, a job, a feeling of safety or a sense of belonging – and consequently leaving something behind.It is easy to see why. Ultimately, there is no place without self and no self without place. Who we are is greatly influenced by the “places” we live or go and where we desire to be in the present and future.

The Takeaway

If you have moved from one country to another, you may have left something behind – be it a relationship, a home, a job, a feeling of safety or a sense of belonging. Because of this, you will continually reconstruct mental simulations of scenes, smells, sounds and sights from those places – sometimes causing stressful feelings and anxiety.

Ex-pats continually reconstruct mental simulations of scenes, smells, sounds and sights from those places – sometimes causing stressful feelings and anxiety.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

mindfulness

Mindfulness

problemsolving

Problem Solving

“Cognitive Immobility”: When We’re Mentally Trapped In A Place From Our Past

Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage and identify your emotions, expressing them in respectful and helpful ways. In the workplace, this aids in responding with supportive feedback and may help you understand your coworkers better.Emotional intelligence is a necessary skill for navigating the important relationships in your life. When you develop the ability to be aware of your emotions and express them in a healthy way, you’ll have a greater chance of success, both professionally and personally.

9 Tips To Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

<ul><li>Self-awareness</li><li>Ability to manage your own emotional responses</li><li>Empathy for others</li><li>Ability to maintain healthy relationships</li></ul>

Characteristics of emotional intelligence

Being aware of your emotions and emotional responses to those around you can greatly improve your emotional intelligence. Knowing when you’re feeling anxious or angry can help you process and communicate those feelings in a way that promotes healthy results.

1. Be more self-aware

Emotional intelligence may start with self-reflection, but it’s also important to gauge how others perceive your behavior and communication. Knowing how to adjust your own message based on how you’re being received is an important part of being emotionally intelligent.

2. Recognize how others feel

People communicate via both verbal and nonverbal communication, so it’s important to listen and watch for potentially positive and negative reactions. Taking the time to listen to others also indicates a level of respect that can form the foundation for healthy relationships.

3. Practice active listening

Strong communication skills are essential for emotional intelligence. Knowing what to say or write and when to deliver information is crucial for building strong relationships. For example, as a manager in a work environment, communicating expectations and goals is necessary to keep everyone on the same page.

4. Communicate clearly

Nothing is more contagious than a positive attitude. Emotionally intelligent people understand the power of a positive word, an encouraging email and a kind gesture. When you’re able to also stay positive in a stressful situation, you can help others around you remain calm. This attitude also can encourage further problem-solving and teamwork.

5. Stay positive

Considering how others might be feeling is an important quality of emotional intelligence. It means you can empathize with feelings that you may not be feeling yourself and respond in a way that’s respectful and comforting to others.

6. Empathize

Emotionally intelligent people are easy to approach because they’re good listeners and able to consider and understand other perspectives. They’re also open to learning new things and embracing new ideas.

7. Be open-minded

It’s important to be the kind of person who can hear feedback, whether it’s positive feedback on a recent presentation or more critical recommendations on how you should delegate tasks more efficiently. Being open to feedback means you can take responsibility for your actions and are willing to improve how you communicate with others.

8. Listen to feedback

It’s important to be able to approach stressful situations with a calm and positive attitude. Tensions can easily escalate, especially when people are working under deadlines, so keeping steady and focusing on finding a solution will help everyone meet their goals.

9. Stay calm under pressure

“When awareness is brought to an emotion, power is brought to your life.”-Tara Meyer Robson

Quote

9 Tips to improve Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is a necessary skill, especially at work. Discover nine ways to develop this trait.

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Communication

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Teamwork

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Leadership & Management

You must be yourself. This means asking for what you want, setting boundaries, having your own beliefs and opinions, standing up for your values, wearing the clothes you want to wear, eating the food you want to eat, saying the things you want to say, and in a hundred other ways being you and not somebody small or false.

1. Be yourself

You come with attributes, capacities and proclivities and you are molded in a certain environment. But at some point you must say, “Okay, this is what is original to me and this is how I have been formed but now who do I want to be?” You reduce your emotional distress by deciding to become a person who will experience less emotional distress: a calmer person, a less critical person, a less egoistic person, a more productive person, a less self-abusive person, and so on.

2. Invent yourself

Part of our nature requires solitude, alone time, and a substantial rugged individualism. But this isn’t the whole story of our nature. We feel happier, warmer and better, live longer, and experience life as more meaningful if we love and let ourselves be loved. We must be individuals (see tips 1 and 2) but we must also relate. To do both, to both be ourselves and relate, requires that we acknowledge the reality of others, include others in our plans, not only speak but listen, and makes ourselves fit by eliminating our more egregious faults and by growing up.

3. Love and be loved

Nothing causes more emotional distress than the thoughts we think. We must do a better job than we usually do of identifying the thoughts that don’t serve us, disputing them and demanding that they go away, and substituting more useful thoughts. Thinking thoughts that do not serve you is the equivalent of serving yourself up emotional distress. Only you can get a grip on your own mind; if you won’t do that work, you will live in distress.

4. Get a grip on your mind

We are not so completely in control of our being that we can prevent past sore points from returning. They have a way of pestering us as anxious sweats, nightmares, sudden sadness, and waves of anger or defeat. But we can nevertheless try to exorcise the past by not playing along with our human tendency to wallow there. We must tell ourselves to move on and mean it. If you have a secret attachment to misery, you will feel miserable. As best you can, imperfectly but with real energy, let go of the past and forget the past.

5. Forget the past

Rampant anxiety ruins our equilibrium, colors our mood, and makes all the already hard tasks of living that much harder. There are many anxiety management strategies you might want to try—breathing techniques, cognitive techniques, relaxation techniques, and so on—but what will make all the difference is if you can locate that “inner switch” that controls your anxious nature and, deciding that you prefer to live more calmly. No longer over-dramatize, that you will no longer catastrophize, that you will no longer live a fearful life or create unnecessary anxiety for yourself.

6. Flip the anxiety switch off

Meaning is nothing more arcane than a certain sort of subjective psychological experience. We can have much more meaning in our life if we stop looking for it, as if it were lost or as if someone else knew more about it than we did, and realize that it is in our power to influence meaning and even make it. By making daily meaning investments and by seizing daily meaning opportunities we hold meaning crises at bay and experience life as meaningful. Meaning problems produce severe emotional distress and learning the art of value-based meaning-making dramatically reduces that distress.

7. Make meaning

You can decide that the meaning you make is more important to you than the mood you find yourself in. You start each day by announcing to yourself exactly how you intend to make meaning on that day, how you intend to deal with routine chores and tasks, how you intend to relax—how, in short, you mean to spend your day—and you consider all of that, the rich and the mundane alike, as the project of your life, one that you are living with grace and in good spirits. You reduce your emotional distress by checking in more on your intentions and less on your mood.

8. Let meaning trump mood

You may not be the person you would like to be. You may be angrier than you would like to be, more impulsive, more scattered, more self-sabotaging, more undisciplined, more frightened. If so, you require a personality upgrade, which of course only you can supply. You choose a feature of your personality you would like to upgrade and then you ask yourself, what thoughts align with this intention and what actions align with this intention? Then you think the appropriate thoughts and take the necessary action. In this way, you become the person capable of reducing your emotional distress.

9. Upgrade your personality

Circumstances matter. Our economic circumstances matter; our relationships matter; our work conditions matter; our health matters; whether our nation is at peace or occupied by invaders matters. Many circumstances are completely out of our control and many are within our control. We can change jobs or careers, we can divorce, we can reduce our calorie intake, we can stand up or keep quiet, we can do exactly as much as we can do to improve our circumstances. As a result of those improvements, we feel emotionally better. Emotional healing requires that you take real action in the real world.

10. Deal with circumstances

“Emotion is created by a cause, whether that cause is factual or imaginary does not matter, as longer as the believer holds it as true.”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

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Books

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Health

Trauma: The Journey to Healing

What really helps us reduce our sadness, anxiety, and other emotional distress?

10 Tips for Emotional Healing

Communication with the world is a beautiful feeling. Communicating and finding your old classmate is also a life turning experience. Social media has made it easier. Each day new platforms are emerging for easing and sharing your moments. However, do you have any idea about your spending time on such social apps?

How Social-media Takes Your Refreshing Hobbies Away?

We can use social media for developing ourselves. Here are the issues everyone faces with the overuse of social media. *Loses the family relationship tune. When you are always spending time on social media scrolling, your mind starts taking a distance from family time.* Gets a wrong notion about life. Social media isn't a sacred place where only reliable information and knowledge get. * Your creativity grows slowly. When you read a book or observe nature, your creativity gets light. However, social media can't support your creativity in that way.* Constant concentration and attention issues.

Issues With The Overuse Of Social Media

Meditate at least 10-15 minutes a day. Meditation will calm your mind to give a clear focus on your goals. * Set a timer before logging into the social media accounts and use them within that specific period.* Have my soul time. Spending some minutes with yourself easily converts your feelings into actions. That means your productivity level goes high. Make sure you sit with yourself, talk and plan the future.* Engage yourself with other creative activities like writing, reading, drawing and clicking nature. * Turn off all the notifications from unwanted applications.

Easy Solutions to Get Back the Real YOU

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Time Management

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

How Social-media Takes Your Refreshing Hobbies Away?


An exploration of the intersection of neurodivergence, obsession and disorderObsessive was, still is, my natural state, and I never wondered why. I didn’t mind, didn’t know that other people could feel at peace. I always felt like a raw nerve, but then, I thought that everyone did.Writer and journalist Marianne Eloise was born obsessive. What that means changes day to day, depending on what her brain latches on to: fixations with certain topics, intrusive violent thoughts, looping phrases. Some obsessions have lasted a lifetime, while others will be intense but only last a week or two.

The Book

Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking is a culmination of a life spend obsessing, offering a glimpse into Marianne’s brain, but also an insight into the lives of others like her. From death to Medusa, to Disneyland to fire, to LA to her dog, the essays explore the intersection of neurodivergence, obsession and disorder, telling the story of one life underpinned and ultimately made whole by obsession.

Marianne’s Brain

Marianne Eloise’s brain operates differently from those of “neurotypicals”. Once the “weird” child both at school and at home, she has lived in an embattled emotional state for as long as she can remember, with repeated episodes of debilitating anxiety and depression. She has also suffered from anorexia nervosa. When she was a child, few adults cared to understand what was behind her distress. Her difficulties remain complex, but her memoir rallies hope.

Her Difficulties

“Without obsession, I have nothing. It’s taken me on journeys across the world in pursuit of things that interest me, and it always wins against the things that I find hard about being alive.”Eloise, a culture writer and journalist, describes a mind that never switches off. Her looping, repetitive thoughts make for tenacious worries and all-consuming interests – as adolescence unfolds, Jim Carrey and The Twilight Zone are replaced by Noughties pop-punk.

A Culture Writer and Journalist

She divides her book into three sections, on “obsessive”, “intrusive” and “magical” thought, drawing on extensive research and interweaving personal reflections and amusing asides. Making order out of the chaos of her mind is important to her fragile sense of safety in the world, but she describes paradoxical impulses along the way: to swim in seas despite a terror of drowning, to dance at gigs despite often feeling threatened by people, lights and noise.

Order Out Of Chaos

Her ruminations cluster around specific themes: time, water, fire, nightmares, the city of Los Angeles. Through her fascination with Walt Disney it is revealed that, as a child, Disney stamped an owl to death. His life’s work perhaps sprang from the associated guilt, but Eloise – as an adult – considers Disneyland “the one place on earth everything ceased to be complicated, difficult, grown-up; everything was taken care of”. As she finds stable love with her fiancé, Karl, she also gets more respite from other fears: of her dog dying, of her body fleshing out.

Her Rumination

She processes trauma. Her mother, a mental health nurse, suffered too, with a gaze wandering far from her two daughters.Eloise made sporadic efforts to get help in the form of therapy. “It turns out, though, that if there is an irresponsible adult in your home leaving the gate open or the gas on, then it is not possible to do CBT.” It wasn’t until recently that Eloise received an autism diagnosis.

She Processes Trauma

In her late twenties now, she has also been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, nightmare disorder, dyspraxia and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which affects the body’s connective tissues. “Diagnosis is a lifeline”, she writes. “It empowers me to live the way I need to, to ask for help and space.”

“Diagnosis is a lifeline”

Marianne Eloise’s brain operates differently from those of “neurotypicals”. Once the “weird” child both at school and at home, she has lived in an

movies

Movies & Shows

A memoir of a neurologically atypical life

Make an effort to remember that you live today; not ancient times.In earlier ages, people had to make more split, life or death decisions about whether to engage with or avoid the unknown. Thus, their brains evolved to pay a lot more natural attention to negative and dangerous stimuli.Individuals have a degree of control over their thoughts. Make a conscious effort to spend time contemplating the positive.

1. Remember that your brain was built for an earlier era.

Make a constant and concerted effort to experience gratitude, instead of allowing less happy moments to dominate your perception.Creating positive feelings of appreciation, helps to smooth out the peaks and troughs that naturally occur between happy experiences. Reducing how often you find yourself feeling that you're no longer happy, in turn reduces the stress that results from feeling that you should be.

2. Train yourself to focus on gratitude

Two key components of happiness (or subjective well-being) are:The balance of emotions: Everyone experiences both positive and negative emotions, feelings, and moods. Happiness is generally linked to experiencing more positive feelings than negative.Life satisfaction: This relates to how satisfied you feel with different areas of your life including your relationships, work, achievements, and other things that you consider important.Understanding this simple quirk in how our brains work can make it a bit more likely that we'll actually achieve happiness in our lifetimes. (Kendra Cherry)

3. Think about what happiness actually means

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But what if the pursuit itself makes happiness less likely?

Neuroscience Says These 3 Simple Mental Habits Make People Much Happier

Am I Normal? It's common to wonder whether we're normal, but we might want to use caution.But what does normal even mean, anyway?Well, I guess that depends on how you define it. Since the 1500s, we’ve attached a host of other meanings to the term. Here are a few:“Conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural”“Serving to establish a standard”“Approximately average in any psychological trait, as intelligence, personality, or emotional adjustment”“Free from any mental disorder; sane”

Are You Normal?

That’s an admirable attempt to define normal. And it probably does the job if we’re talking about it in a value-free way. But we generally don’t use "normal" in this manner, do we? I don’t know about you, but when I hear folks talk about what’s normal, it often translates into an underlying question or idea that’s much more profound. For example:“Am I normal?” Read: “Are most people like me?”“Is this normal?” Read: “Do most other people do, feel, or think what I do, feel, or think?”"That’s normal, right?" Read: “Please reassure me that I’m not alone in what I do, feel, or think.”

Normality

Now let’s do one more translation to get at what we’re really talking about: “Am I okay? Is what I’m doing, thinking, or feeling acceptable?”“This is quite normal. A lot of people have the same sort of experience.” This reply generally brings a wave of comfort, as a burden is lifted off someone’s shoulders. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the original concern the person was asking about just vanishes. Yet, the relief that comes when people realize they’re not as different as they feared illustrates what I like to think of as the layer cake of our personal experience.

What We Are Really Talking About

Layer one contains what happens to us in life, from the heart-wrenching to the intensely sublime, and everything in between.Layer two comprises of our actions, emotions, and thoughts, including our reactions to life’s moments and circumstances from layer one.Now, layer three is made up of how we brand the other two layers. If we tag a situation, an action, a feeling, or a thought as “normal,” we often take this to mean that even if it's unpleasant, it’s pretty typical, and we’re not alone.

Layers

We can at least weather the storm we’re dealing with in layers one or two without having a burden on layer three to contend with. For example, the self-consciousness that arises when meeting new people can become a little easier to bear with and accept when someone knows that many others face this too.On the other hand, the stamp “abnormal” just stacks more distress upon us, sometimes even more than our original experience in layers one or two.

Abnormal

For instance, if a person believes intense sadness is something that only “weak” or “weird” people feel, then the shame and fear that there’s something wrong with them get heaped on top of the sadness. In other words, now there’s a whole new problem, and it may feel so real that we don’t even realize it’s unintentionally self-created.We gauge being whole and healthy based on how most (or many) people are. We reach conclusions about whether there’s something wrong with how we behave, feel, and think based on the degree to which we are different from, or similar to, other people.

How We Behave

On the one hand, it’s understandable that we look to others for hints on how to act and feel, for clues on how to think about ourselves, people, and the world. Social influence is powerful and pervasive, and most of us are highly motivated to fit in. We are deeply social, relational creatures. In line with this, research shows that when we are lonely, our health and quality of life take a major hit. So it makes sense that we determine whether we’re "normal" by taking our cues from others. At the same time, there are a few reasons why we might want to do this judiciously.

Social Influence

Reason 1: It might not always be so healthy to be “normal” by the group’s standards.For example, in the recent past, it would have been entirely normal to smoke cigarettes anywhere, including hospitals and airplanes.Reason 2: “Normal” can be a moving, biased target.Have you ever heard of “drapetomania?” In 1851, Dr. Samuel Adolphus Cartwright created this term to refer to a psychological condition. And how would you know whether you had it? Well, if you tried to escape slavery, you’d qualify.

Reasons for Being Normal

That’s right. If you were a slave and endeavored to be free, this would have been a symptom of a psychological problem and labeled abnormal. In a more recent example, up until 1973, if you were gay, bisexual, or lesbian, you also would have been diagnosed as having a psychological disorder.Reason 3: What you might think of as abnormal is actually quite typical.Do you beat yourself up because you don’t feel a high level of enthusiasm or investment in your work? Eighty-five percent of people around the world are right there with you.

Psychological Problems

Do you find that you don’t feel all that gratified and content with your life, and you’re hard on yourself for feeling this way? Do you wonder what’s the matter with you, and why you can’t be more happy-go-lucky like other folks seem to be? You might want to check that assumption because a poll reveals that only 33 percent of people consider themselves “happy.”As a psychologist, I’m keenly aware of the stigma many individuals associate with being diagnosed with a psychological condition, convinced it makes them abnormal.

The Stigma

And yet, when we look at the statistics, approximately 46 percent of the population will meet the diagnostic criteria for a psychological disorder at some point in their lifetime. That’s practically the equivalent of a coin toss. Does this mean that people shouldn’t seek help or support if they’re suffering? Of course not. But it does mean it’s time to re-examine the idea that having a psychological condition means a person is different from everyone else.

Statistics

Reason 4: Abnormal can be wonderful.Think about the people you admire most. Are they normal? Probably not. They likely have some remarkable characteristics, abilities, and skills, such as immense degrees of kindness, courage, compassion, intelligence, comedic ability, adventurousness, creativity, or athletic ability.Reason 5: Trying too hard to be “normal” can get in the way of living your life.Do you have a hobby, an interest, a habit, a personal quirk, or a way of life that is a bit off the well-trodden path, but doesn’t hurt you or anyone else? Does it bring you happiness and fulfillment?

Normal vs Abnormal

Good for you. Abnormal can mean we’re walking to the beat of our own drum and living life authentically. Life is priceless and fleeting, so let’s live it on our terms and embrace our own inner weirdness, our eccentricities, and oddities. Rest assured, everybody has them.

Life Is Priceless

Colman, A. (2008). Drapetomania. In A Dictionary of Psychology (3rd ed.). doi: 10.1093/acref/9780199534067.001.0001Cummings, K., & Proctor, R. (2014). The changing public image of smoking in the United States: 1964-2014. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention : A Publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, Cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology, 23, 32-36.

References

It's common to wonder whether we're normal, but we might want to use caution.

Am I Normal?

When we think of an addict, we often imagine a homeless person in the park sniffing glue or a gaunt person with a heroin needle in their arm. However, addiction doesn’t have anything to do with what one is addicted to. Addiction simply means leaning on something. The addict relies on their chosen pursuit to block unwelcome emotions from entering their consciousness. The particular object of their addiction may be whisky or marijuana, but it could also be their mobile phone, buckets of a specific snack, cleaning cupboards, or tracking birds.

How we imagine addicts

The popular misunderstanding of addiction allows people to claim they are merely going to the office again, checking the news or working out at the gym. Yet, addicts are not weak or evil. They are, first and foremost, scared. The solution shouldn’t, therefore, involve censorship and lectures but love and reassurance. We should make moves to allow people to feel safe about facing their emotions and confident they can handle what is going on in their minds.

The addict fears being left alone

When we think of an ‘addict’, certain stock images come to mind: a homeless person sniffing glue, a gaunt figure with a heroin needle in their arm. But this masks what is in reality a far more universal phenomenon. We are all addicts. Sign up to our new newsletter and get 10% off your first online order of a book, product or class: https://bit.ly/3HpVdSa For books and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://bit.ly/3NWKnGj Our website has classes, articles and products to help you lead a more fulfilled life: https://bit.ly/3NSIFpj Join this channel to get access to exclusive members perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7IcJI8PUf5Z3zKxnZvTBog/join FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://bit.ly/3xOMHts “When we think of an ‘addict’, certain stock images come to mind: a homeless person in the park sniffing glue, a gaunt figure with a heroin needle in their arm, a breakfast-time vodka drinker… But such gothic characterisations mask what is in reality a far more universal and less overtly dramatic - though still pernicious - phenomenon. Addiction doesn’t have anything to do with what one is addicted to: it can’t be neatly circumscribed to those who rely on hard drugs or alcohol. In its essence, addiction simply means leaning on something - it could be anything - because it prevents particular ideas from coming into our minds. The addict relies on their chosen pursuit to block unwelcome emotions from storming the theatre of their consciousness…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Aaron Sampson https://aaronsampson.co.uk Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/

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When we think of an ‘addict’, certain stock images come to mind: a homeless person sniffing glue, a gaunt figure with a heroin needle in their arm.  But this masks what is in reality a far more universal phenomenon. We are all addicts.
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FURTHER READING

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“When we think of an ‘addict’, certain stock images come to mind: a homeless person in the park sniffing glue, a gaunt figure with a heroin needle in their arm, a breakfast-time vodka drinker…
But such gothic characterisations mask what is in reality a far more universal and less overtly dramatic - though still pernicious - phenomenon. Addiction doesn’t have anything to do with what one is addicted to: it can’t be neatly circumscribed to those who rely on hard drugs or alcohol. In its essence, addiction simply means leaning on something - it could be anything - because it prevents particular ideas from coming into our minds. The addict relies on their chosen pursuit to block unwelcome emotions from storming the theatre of their consciousness…”


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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:

Aaron Sampson
https://www.motionmaverick.com
https://www.instagram.com/motionmaverick/

 
Title animation produced in collaboration with

Vale Productions
https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/

We're interested in self-understanding, calm and emotional maturity.

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The School of Life

Why We Are All Addicts

If you are not happy now there is no amount of followers, likes or positive social media comments that will make you happy. External vadidarion isn't happiness it's an hamster's wheel.Valdiation is an inside job. If you are truly happy you won't feel the need to shoe the world that you are.

Your Self Love Must Be Stronger Than Your Desire To Be Loved

If you get angry and say “X thing made me angry”, you will get angry often.If you get angry and say: “I made myself angry because of X thing” you will get angry less often. If you realize that, you’ll have the power to control it. If you don’t, you’ll spend your life triggered easily and unhappy often.

You are always responsible for your emotional reactions:

If you want to feed a problem, keep thinking about it. If you want to starve a problem, take action. Most of the harm starts in your mind, with you and your thoughts. Most of the solutions start with a decision, courage, and action.

Don’t feed your problems with thoughts, starve them with action 

“Finding yourself” is a pop culture lie. “Finding your passion” is a pop culture lie. “Finding your soulmate” is a pop culture lie. These pop culture lies, and the perfection they promise us, if we would only keep searching, stop us from working through the natural challenges within our careers, relationships, and within ourselves. There is no perfection, only room for improvement.

You have nothing to “find”:

Just like social media has algorithms to give you more of what you’re interested in, life has an algorithm that gives you more of what you’re thinking about and focusing on. You can train your algorithm to make you more anxious, worried, or insecure by focusing on negative things. You can train your algorithm for happiness, success, and growth by focusing on positive things. Your thoughts become your decisions and then your actions your focus becomes your future. Comfort eating on negativity will make you unhealthy, and mental weight is the hardest to lose. Like fast food, negativity often tastes good in the short term, but will make you unhealthy in the long term. Your mental diet consists of what you watch, what you read, who you follow, who you spend time with, what you say, and what you think. If your goal is to have a healthier mind this year, start by removing all the junk food in your diet.

04 Life has an algorithm too:

These are the things i learnt from someone that changed my life. I believe so can you.

If you’re not happy now, there’s no amount of followers, positive social media comments, or Instagram likes that will change that. External validation isn’t happiness — it’s a
hamster wheel…

5 Uncomfortable lessons that we all need to learn

Find 100+ Mental Health Tips & Facts - Curated from sources like Books, Podcasts, Articles - Insights by Real Users looking to share Insights on Mental Health

How to deal with stress while working in a demanding industry

“Cognitive Immobility”: When We’re Mentally Trapped In A Place From Our Past

9 Tips To Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

10 Tips for Emotional Healing

How Social-media Takes Your Refreshing Hobbies Away?

A memoir of a neurologically atypical life

Neuroscience Says These 3 Simple Mental Habits Make People Much Happier

Am I Normal?

Why We Are All Addicts

5 Uncomfortable lessons that we all need to learn

It's time to Read like a Pro.

It's time to
Read like a Pro.