Tag: mental health

behavior · environment · happiness · health · Me · mental health

Special Project: Me

Beth Kelley
"Running with the seagulls", Galvest...
This is an example of a personally enriching environment. The question is how do I get there (figuratively), without running away and becoming beach bum (literally)?

This blog explores the integration of environment and wellness, both emotional and physical. So far I’ve looked at positive psychology, museums, education, urban farming, neurology, environmental sciences, architecture, play, exercise, and almost everything in between. The whole point of starting this blog was to explore the science behind what it takes to make us happy, healthy, wholly-functioning humans. What does it take to be happy? How does one’s home, job, family, dog, car, bicycle, clothing, toys, i.e. their environment, their world, fit into that? I was, and AM, curious about what it takes to be holistically happy?

But with all the quick posts, longer posts, and cool news snippets, one subject on this blog that has only hinted at: me. What does it take in my environment to make me happy?  What do I need surrounding for mental wellness?

To be perfectly honest, I haven’t been doing a good job of exploring that. In the past nine months I’ve changed residences twice, changed jobs numerous times, lost sleep, gained an injury, lost mobility, changed exercise plans so many times I’ve lost count, gained weight, lost friends, gained a gray hair or two (I’m 28!),  lost family, gained furniture, lost some dreams, had my dreams change, lost hope, changed my commute mode, and gained even more patience. But I haven’t really looked at what it would take to make me happy. What I need to do to put myself in a healthy, fulfilling, sustainable environment.

At first I thought discussing myself and my quest for happiness, wellness, and all around goodness would take away from this blog, and my focus on research, ideas, and theoretical rather than the actual doing. But the truth is I am in this blog already, whether actively or not. So why not be in all the way? It’s supposed to make you happier if you can fully commit to something, anyway.

So, just as a heads up to my few readers; you will be seeing a bit more of me, the actual me, around this place. As of today, March 3rd, 2011, I am making it my overarching goal to become happier, healthier, and a better version of me. I am going to make my environment an enriching place; that includes what I put in, on, and around my body, and what I use to feed my mind. And I plan to hold myself accountable by writing about it here. My accomplishments, slip-ups, and epiphanies.

All the studies and research and cool enriching stuff I find will not go away, not by any stretch. It’s just that now you get ME as an added bonus. Lucky y’all!

This is a very dangerous place for me, BTW, out in the open (The irony is I was called M.E. as a child (those are my initials), but I chose another name when I was six because I didn’t like being called “me.” Maybe I should have stuck with it). I’m definitely not in my most comfortable surroundings exposing myself in this way to the entire blogosphere. But it’s a much-needed shake out of my comfort zone in order to be ready to take on new challenges.

Are you also exploring your wellness, what you find enriching? I’d be interested in hearing your story or you sharing your blog with me; strength in numbers and all that.

Signed,

M.E.

Other Interesting Ideas:
behavior · brain · happiness · health · Uncategorized

Note to self: the universe says go easier on yourself

Beth Kelley

After going, going, going, I need a break, and research agrees; from the New York Times’ Well Blog:

Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family?

That simple question is the basis for a burgeoning new area of psychological research called self-compassion — how kindly people view themselves. People who find it easy to be supportive and understanding to others, it turns out, often score surprisingly low on self-compassion tests, berating themselves for perceived failures like being overweight or not exercising.

The research suggests that giving ourselves a break and accepting our imperfections may be the first step toward better health. People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic. Preliminary data suggest that self-compassion can even influence how much we eat and may help some people lose weight.

This idea does seem at odds with the advice dispensed by many doctors and self-help books, which suggest that willpower and self-discipline are the keys to better health…

More at NYT’s Well Blog.

Now I’m off to go breath, eat a banana, and get a good night’s sleep.

behavior · mental health · psychology

The New Science of Happiness — PsyBlog

Beth Kelley
Many 18th c. treatments for psychological dist...
Image via Wikipedia

This is a field I’ve skirted around in my blog, but now I’m interested in diving in and taking a deeper look at: Positive Psychology.

A new and blossoming field of psychology – positive psychology – has begun to uncover fascinating, evidence-based answers to many questions about happiness. I’ve been sizing up the most recent findings to reveal the emerging science of happiness.

What are the everyday sources of happiness?

Because happiness is something most of us aim for, how we define it has important implications for how we conduct our lives. To see why, compare these two competing definitions of happiness.

Excerpt from the article The New Science of Happiness — PsyBlog.

Many have argued that traditional psychology only explores what makes people sad, but Positive Psychology specifically focuses on what makes us happy. Do you agree/disagree? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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anthropology · behavior · community · culture · happiness · health · mental health

What Makes People Happy? The Economics of Happiness | The Art of Manliness

Beth Kelley
dad July 26 1936
Image by liberalmind1012 via Flickr

 

A very nice essay about what it takes to be a happy, healthy man, woman, or general human being:

Men have a certain innate restlessness. We’re always looking for a new adventure, wanting to feel like we’re progressing in life, and wondering if the grass might be greener somewhere else.Our ever-searching nature can be a good thing if it’s channeled into pursuits that really lead to greater happiness and satisfaction. But restlessness can also get us terribly off track if we expend our energy journeying down avenues that are really dead ends.

…the key to finding the truly greener pastures is to concentrate on going after the right things-the things that really will make you happier-instead of expending your energy in pursuit of a happiness mirage.

This is where the economics of happiness comes in. Numerous studies have revealed what factors in life are correlated with greater happiness. Now granted, these things correlate to greater happiness; they don’t necessarily cause happiness. But I always say it’s at least worth checking out where the happy people congregate. Below we highlight eight areas of a man’s life that we often associate with increasing or decreasing our happiness and analyze if the grass really is greener in those pastures.

 

Read the best ways to be happy (or unhappy) at What Makes People Happy? The Economics of Happiness | The Art of Manliness.

Other Related Articles
anthropology · architecture · community · creativity · culture · design · environment · happiness

The Most Colorful Cities In The World

Beth Kelley

Living in the Pacific Northwest I can definitely appreciate the idea of adding more color to one’s life! Interestingly, it tends to be warmer climates that have the more colorful buildings, although Denmark and Finland has some of the most colorful interiors (and now exteriors) I’ve seen. Color has an amazing effect on human mental health and mood. People often talk about getting back into nature to see all the colors. Now, the colors can come to you (unless you live in a community with a rule against bright colors).

Urban life doesn’t have to be bleak and gray — in fact, many of the world’s cities pride themselves upon the bright palettes used to liven up their architecture. From the garish blue-walled buildings of Jodhpur, India, to the gentler pastels of Charleston, S.C., these cities are far from monotonous.

Charleston, SC
Charleston, SC
Nyhavn, Denmark
Buenos Aires, Argentina

More of The Most Colorful Cities In The World: Pics, Videos, Links, News.

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brain · community · creativity · happiness · mental health · play · psychology

Grandma the superhero

Beth Kelley

Mental health is important throughout the entire human lifespan, from infancy (see previous post) to old age.

Courtesy of Boing Boing, I ran across this great story about actively pursuing good mental health, helping out a fellow human being, and using creativity and silliness to accomplish it.

“Sacha Goldberger found his 91-year-old Hungarian grandmother Frederika, a WWII survivor, feeling lonely and depressed. To cheer her up, he photographed her dressed up as a fictional superhero. To his surprise, she loved it. The photos are a bit comical, but there’s an underlying sense of hope, strength and courage in them.”

View Grandma’s Superhero Therapy (18 photos). From the blog: 

Frederika was born in Budapest 20 years before World War II. During the war, at the peril of her own life, she courageously saved the lives of ten people. When asked how, he tells us “she hid the Jewish people she knew, moving them around to different places everyday.” As a survivor of Nazism and Communism, she then immigrated away from Hungary to France, forced by the Communist regime to leave her homeland illegally or face death.

Aside from great strength, Frederika has an incredible sense of humor, one that defies time and misfortune. She is funny and cynical, always mocking people that she loves.

With the unexpected success of this series, titled “Mamika,” Goldberger created a MySpace page for his grandmother. She now has over 2,200 friends and receives messages like: “You’re the grandmother that I have dreamed of, would you adopt me?” and ” You made my day, I hope to be like you at your age.”

People often forget just how much fun, funny, and spunky people can be after living on this Earth for a few decades. My grandmas were and are unstoppable forces of nature.

There have been a few photographic projects with older folks, in retirement homes or elsewhere, but the artist in me definitely feels like this demographic is an important part of humanity to explore that has been relatively neglected.

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Mental · Nature

Study: Common Pesticides Linked to ADHD | Discover Magazine

Beth Kelley
Exploring
Image via Wikipedia

Pesticides used in industrial farming, lawns, and other urban greenery have been linked to all sorts of child development health issues, and now a study is suggesting one more. A study released in the May issue of Pediatrics Journal argues that there’s a connection between high exposure to common pesticides and increased risk for children developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

Maryse Bouchard and colleagues looked at more than 1,100 children aged between 8 and 15. All of them had been sampled by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2000 and 2004, and 119 had been diagnosed with ADHD. Bouchard’s team studied their urine samples for chemicals called dialkyl phosphates, which result from the breakdown of organophosphate pesticides used to protect fruits and vegetables.

For a 10-fold increase in one class of those compounds, the odds of ADHD increased by more than half. And for the most common breakdown product, called dimethyl triophosphate, the odds of ADHD almost doubled in kids with above-average levels compared to those without detectable levels [Reuters].

more at via Study: Common Pesticides Linked to Attention Deficit Disorder | 80beats | Discover Magazine.

Mental · Nature

The importance of healthy sound

Beth Kelley

I posted this on my other blog, Art of Science, because it concerns the science behind pretty sounds, but it’s also important from an environmental enrichment perspective – in fact that’s what Julian Treasure does for a living – so I wanted to also post it here:

From Art of Science –

Listen to Julian Treasure’s TED talk about sound. [And really listen! Close your other computer screens, turn off the email “ping”s and listen.]

Treasure says our increasingly noisy world is gnawing away at our mental health — even costing lives. He lays out an 8-step plan to soften this sonic assault (starting with those cheap earbuds) and restore our relationship with sound.

Julian Treasure is the chair of Sound Agency, “a firm that advises worldwide businesses — offices, retailers, hotels — on how to use sound. He asks us to pay attention to the sounds that surround us. How do they make us feel: productive, stressed, energized, acquisitive?

Treasure is the author of the book Sound Business and keeps a blog by the same name that ruminates on aural matters (and offers a nice day-by-day writeup of TEDGlobal 2009). In the early 1980s, Treasure was the drummer for the Fall-influenced band Transmitters.” (Source: TED)

Mental · Nature

Happiness is Right Outside (PsyBlog)

Beth Kelley1 Comment

As anyone living in the gray, wet Pacific Northwest knows, there is something mentally stimulating and rejuvenating to being able to step outside and get a whiff of fresh air, even if it means getting a bit soggy in the process. Now, research has proven just how beneficial it is for mental health:

Hartig and colleagues suggest that being stuck indoors on vacation can limit mental recuperation. On the other hand, when able to roam outdoors, we can exert ourselves at a favourite sport or simply linger in the park. Psychologically, beautiful scenery can distract us from our troubles, help us forget our normal stressful environments and reconnect us to nature.

more via Happiness is Right Outside — PsyBlog.

health · mental health

Worshiping what’s wrong with us

Beth Kelley

A baby girl was born in India with two faces, and is not only surprisingly healthy, but is being worshiped as a Hindu deity.
Another little girl from India who had been born with multiple limbs is doing well after surgery to remove the extra limbs and repair internal organs.
And then just because my Professor Joan Stevenson has resparked my interest in this subject, I wanted to post a couple of articles about having a “disorder”
The benefits of ADD
Some good characteristics associated with dyslexia
Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle with depression