The Top 10 Insights from the “Science of a Meaningful Life” in 2024

Our team names the most provocative and influential findings published during this past year.BY KIRA M. NEWMAN, JILL SUTTIE, EMILIANA R. SIMON-THOMAS, MARYAM ABDULLAH, ELIZABETH HOPPER, EDWARD LEMPINEN, JEREMY ADAM SMITH | DECEMBER 19, 2024

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After a year that feels like it has pushed many of us apart, our selection of the top scientific insights of 2024 are nearly all about how we come together and how we’re interconnected—across time, distance, and difference. 

Some insights speak to the ways we can connect with people with disagree with, and how this process isn’t as painful as we imagine. Others look at the effects parents have on children, teachers have on students, and plant and animal life have on all of us. One insight is simply about an easy way you can reconnect with someone, today.  

The final insights were selected by experts on our staff, after soliciting nominations from our network of nearly 400 researchers. We hope they inspire you to reach out to others and model the kind of goodness you hope to see in the world. 

1. We’re missing out on important happiness insights by overlooking Indigenous cultures

Does having more money make you happier?Research findings on this question have been mixed, with some studies suggesting it doesn’tand others suggesting it does—and the more money, the better. 

But a 2024 study by Eric Galbraith of McGill University and his colleagues, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers a new perspective on this debate. And their research—based on smaller, rural, often Indigenous communities—is also a reminder of the people who are often left out of world happiness surveys and other psychological research, and what we can learn from them about well-being.

In the study, Galbraith and his colleagues surveyed almost 3,000 people in 19 small communities (mostly in Asia, Africa, and South America) about their life satisfaction, then compared their answers to their level of wealth. Since most didn’t live in a cash-based economy, their income was calculated based on the value of their assets.

Galbraith and his team found that people from these communities were very satisfied with their lives—6.8 on a scale up to 10—even though most of them lived on less than the equivalent of $1,000 per year. To put that in perspective, people in the 2022 Gallup Poll (used to create the 2022 World Happiness Report) weren’t generally that happy until they made at least $25,000 a year.

The researchers also found that living in a particular village mattered for life satisfaction, and it had nothing to do with the wealth of that village. This means other, non-economic factors likely contributed to the villagers’ happiness—like, perhaps, living in a more interdependent community, being closer to nature, or experiencing lower inequality.

Whatever the reason, these findings add more evidence to the debate about the role of money in life satisfaction—and hint at other lessons happiness researchers (and all of us) could learn if psychological research were more inclusive.


“Small-scale societies living in close contact with nature, on the fringes of globalized mainstream society, offer distinctly valuable perspectives [on the link between wealth and satisfaction],” the researchers write.

2. Old friends are an untapped source of connection and well-being

Given the pain of loneliness and the meaning we derive from relationships, you would think we’d be doing all we can to stay connected to others in life. But a 2024 paper reveals a big missed opportunity for connection: old friends. 

How big is that missed opportunity? Across six studies with over 2,500 participants from the U.S., U.K., and Canada, Lara B. Aknin and Gillian M. Sandstrom found that fewer than one-third of people sent a message to an old friend when given time to do so—even though they said they would be happy to reconnect and thought their friend would appreciate it, too. 

Why? According to surveys, the biggest barriers are worries that our friends won’t want to hear from us or that it would be awkward. These barriers are hard to overcome. Aknin and Sandstrom tried and failed to ease people’s hesitations by reminding them how much they’d appreciate such a note themselves, encouraging them not to listen to their second thoughts, and framing the message as an act of kindness. It turns out that old friends feel like strangers to us, potentially activating all our misgivings about talking to someone we don’t know. 

“People are generally interested in connecting, but prefer that the other person initiate,” the researchers explain. At the same time, their research suggests, we overestimate how willing other people are to be the ones to initiate, putting us in a bind. 

However, one tactic did work. If people started by sending a few messages to currentfriends and acquaintances—basically, practicing the act of reaching out—they were more likely to contact an old friend. 

This paper adds to research suggesting that our assumptions get in the way of our connections in life. For example, we overestimate the discomfort of expressing gratitude, and we underestimate how much much compliments and small kindnesses mean to other people and how willing they are to help us. 

If you find it strangely hard to get in touch with someone after time has passed, you’re certainly not alone. But old friends might just be the low-hanging fruit of more connection in life—and they’re only a short “hello” away.  

3. A simple 20-second practice can have lasting benefits for stress and mental health

Many of us lead busy, stressful lives that put us at risk for burnout. Though different well-being practices could help—like mindfulness meditation or gratitude journaling, for example—we may think we don’t have time for them.

But what if you could feel significantly better from just 20 seconds of a simple practice? Findings from a new study published in Behavior Research and Therapy suggest you can. Just 20 seconds of self-compassionate touch daily can calm your nerves and improve your mental health.

In this study, led by Eli Susman (a former Greater Good Science Center research fellow) and his colleagues, 135 young adults were randomly assigned to practice either self-compassionate touch or a dexterity exercise 20 seconds a day for a month. Self-compassionate touch involved placing a hand over your heart and the opposite hand over your belly—though people were told they could try other self-soothing touch. The dexterity exercise involved touching various fingers to your thumb in a particular pattern. Participants were also encouraged to pick a “cue” to help support their practice—something they did every day that might prompt them to do it.

Before and after they began practicing, participants filled out questionnaires measuring their self-compassion, positive feelings, anxiety and depression symptoms, and stress. The researchers also measured how much people adhered to their practice over time.

When analyzing the results, they found that among people who practiced at least 28 days of the month, those in the self-compassionate touch group had greater self-compassion, and they experienced less stress, anxiety, and depression, in comparison to the tapping group.

As the researchers concluded, “Daily micropractices have the potential for augmenting single-session interventions and for offering help when more time-intensive approaches may be less accessible.” In other words, you don’t need an hour a day to make a difference in your well-being. Even 20 seconds of self-compassionate touch—and perhaps other brief practices, as well—may do the trick.

4. We feel better emotionally when we’re in biodiverse places—not just basic “green spaces”

Spending time in “green spaces” or natural settings increases our well-being and may be especially important for urban dwellers. For example, people feel less anxious, stressed, and depressed walking in a forest versus a cityscape, and people who live near “green spaces” within a city have better mental health.

But what elements of “green space” promote well-being the most? A new study published this year in Scientific Reports suggests one possible answer: biodiversity.

In the study, led by researcher Ryan Hammoud of King’s College, London, almost 2,000 people around the world used the Urban Mind App to record their physical surroundings and assess their well-being in real time over two weeks. Three times a day, they reported on where they were and if they could see any trees or plants, or see or hear any birds or water—indicating how diverse the environment was. They also reported how confident, relaxed, happy, connected to others, and energetic—and how stressed, down, anxious, lonely, and tired—they felt in that moment.

After analyzing the data, researchers found that people had greater mental well-being in spaces where they could see or hear natural elements, and this effect lasted up to eight hours. This was true regardless of a person’s age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, or education, pointing to the everyday benefits of being exposed to nature, even briefly.

But people who experienced more biodiversity in natural environments had even greaterwell-being, above and beyond the effects of being in nature alone. In fact, for every additional natural element in someone’s environment, like a duck or a stream, researchers found an average 0.91-point increase in mental health scores (on a scale up to 50 points). 

This suggests that ecological diversity within urban spaces is important for people living there. City planners should take note if they want to promote better mental health, say Hammoud and his team:

“[Our] study highlights the importance of protecting and promoting natural diversity in our cities,” they write. “This means moving away from monocultural pockets and parks of mown grass . . . towards polycultural spaces which mimic the biodiversity of natural ecosystems.”

5. Learning to be more forgiving improves your mental health, no matter where you live

Forgiveness can be a difficult concept to get behind. Holding a grudge sometimes feels easier or more empowering—like a form of revenge, or even vindication. But studies consistently report that grudge holding takes a toll on well-being, while forgiveness builds resilience, reduces stress and ill will, and helps us move on constructively.

Two large studies in 2024 contribute to current research by finding that forgiveness has mental health benefits for people across the globe, and can be taught through community programs as well as individual practices.

The first study recruited almost 4,600 people living in places where there had been civil conflict or unrest in the recent past: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ukraine, Colombia, and South Africa. Study participants were given a forgiveness training workbook on the REACH framework developed by Everett Worthington. Based on surveys before and after, the researchers found that practicing forgiveness reduced people’s unforgiveness, as well as their symptoms of depression and anxiety.

The second study found that forgiveness practices can also be effective when deployed at the community level. Researchers tested a community-wide forgiveness campaign at the Universidad de Sinú, a private, nonreligious university in Monteria, Colombia. Professors incorporated forgiveness-related content into their course materials, and the entire campus community was invited to engage in voluntary forgiveness-promoting activities for four weeks. The campaign included lectures, online discussions, videos, webinars, and physical installations, like a “forgiveness tree.”  

Survey responses from nearly 2,900 students from before and after the campaign showed that they were more willing to forgive family, friends, roommates, and teachers afterward. Students also reported a deeper understanding of the meaning and impact of forgiveness, and, again, decreased symptoms of depression and anxiety. 

While these are not the first findings that illustrate the advantages of forgiving over holding on to animosity, they suggest that learning to forgive can help people from all different backgrounds. Keeping in mind that forgiveness does not imply that you endorse someone’s harmful behavior or want to reconcile with them, forgiving past harms is a learnable way to buffer against the risk of feeling depressed and anxious—wherever you live in the world. 

6. Empathy is passed down across at least three generations

Parents play such a meaningful role in their children’s well-being and the people their children become. In particular, a 25-year study published in Child Development this year showed how empathy can be passed down through three generations: from parent to child to that child’s future children. 

First, researcher Jessica Stern and her colleagues measured mothers’ empathy for their 13 year olds during a conversation. Next, when the teens were 13 to 19 years old, they measured teens’ empathy for their closest friends during another conversation. Later, the researchers followed the teens into parenthood up until their own children were three to eight years old. At that point, they surveyed the second generation’s empathy for their children, asking about how they provided supportive responses when their children were distressed. Finally, the second-generation parents completed questionnaires about their own young children’s empathy.

The results? Teens who received greater empathy from their moms tended to show greater empathy to their close friends. In turn, those teens went on to have greater empathy for their children after becoming parents—and, in turn, their children tended to have greater empathy for others.

These findings suggest that empathy is “paid forward” across relationships and over time. Teens whose moms are sensitive, emotionally engaged, and supportive learn how to be the same for their close friends. What’s more, the researchers say, caring for a close friend as a teenager may act as a “training ground” to help strengthen teens’ empathy muscle into adulthood when they become parents. And from there, the cycle continues. 

This study focused on mothers, but another 2024 study reminds us that fathers matter, too—in particular, that fathers’ sensitivity to their children’s needs seems just as important to children developing a healthy attachment style as their mothers’ sensitivity. 

Empathy is key to cultivating and sustaining social connection across the lifespan. While it might be more common to hear about trauma passed down through generations, this research sheds light on the opposite phenomenon, where positive qualities like empathy can pass from parent to child to grandchildren—and likely beyond. 

7. Humble teachers help students learn and feel accepted 

“Classrooms are meant to promote learning, but often students feel reluctant to reveal what they do not understand in school, to the detriment of learning,” write Tenelle Porter, Mark R. Leary, and Andrei Cimpian in a 2024 paper. This is especially true for girls, who tend to be more reluctant than boys to show their confusion and ask questions at school. 

How do we help all students admit what they don’t know—in other words, show “intellectual humility”—so they can learn better? The paper by Porter and her colleagues found that one powerful way to do that is for teachers to model intellectual humility themselves. 

In a study at two high schools in the Midwestern United States, the researchers surveyed around 300 students about four of their classes. Specifically, they wanted to know if the students thought their teachers were intellectually humble: owned up to their mistakes, acknowledged they had more to learn, and were open to different ways of doing things. 

The results suggested that when students saw a teacher as more intellectually humble, they were more comfortable expressing intellectual humility in that class themselves, felt more accepted by the teacher, and were more interested in the class overall. Not only that, the more humble they thought their teacher was, the more their grades improved from the first to the second semester. 

Across four other studies, surveying both high school and college students about hypothetical teachers, the sense of acceptance students felt from humble teachers seemed to be key in inspiring their own humility. 

Importantly, these benefits were stronger when teachers were showing rather than telling—modeling humble behavior rather than just reminding students to engage in it. 

Doubt, confusion, questions, and mistakes are all an important part of the learning process, and anything that helps students tolerate them better is valuable. This study also serves as a reminder that who teachers are, and how they act around their students, matters a great deal—sometimes even more than the explicit lessons they teach. 

8. Exposure to inaccuracies can “inoculate” kids against future misinformation

In our era of misinformation, what’s the best way to prevent children from picking up inaccurate information online? Is it smart to try to limit kids’ access to spaces where they could read fake news and other potentially misleading information? 

A new paper, published this fall in Nature Human Behaviour, suggests it may be better to help children learn to think critically about the information they see.

Across two studies, researchers asked children ages four to seven to listen to a variety of animal facts, which were paired with pictures (to allow kids to determine whether the fact was true). Some of the children heard only statements that were true, but the other half heard incorrect information mixed in with real facts—such as “Zebras have red and green stripes.” 

Next, children heard a sentence describing an alien species called a “zorpie.” They were told that every zorpie has three eyes and were given 20 pictures of zorpies they could click on to lift their glasses and reveal their eyes.

Children who had heard some incorrect facts earlier were also more skeptical of this new fact about the aliens—they clicked on more pictures to essentially fact-check the statement they heard.

The more inaccuracies they had heard in the original set of animal facts, the more extensively children tended to engage in fact-checking the new information about aliens. There was some (but not conclusive) evidence that children’s age made a difference—older children were especially likely to do more fact-checking if they had previously seen more incorrect information.

This study builds on prior work aiming to help teens and young adults detect misinformation, suggesting that we could start teaching this skill as early as elementary school. The researchers point out that learning to identify incorrect information may be more productive than stopping children from having any exposure to incorrect information, which would be difficult or impossible anyway. They write that efforts to prevent children from believing misinformation “should focus on helping children develop a broad skill set for evaluating information, rather than attempting to control their information diets.”

9. Having a conversation with someone we disagree with isn’t as awful as we think

We need to communicate with each other if we are to solve society’s pressing problems. But 2024 research suggests that we imagine disagreement to be more unpleasant than it actually is—which might contribute to us feeling confrontational and preferring to stay in silos with like-minded peers.

Three studies led by Kristina Wald found that people underestimate how positive conversations that include disagreement can be. She and her team asked people to imagine a conversation with a stranger who disagreed with them on a controversial topic like gun control or climate change, and then had a different group of people actually engage in those kinds of conversations. 

The researchers found that people predict conversations with a stranger will be far less pleasant when they disagree rather than agree—but they actually end up enjoying their conversations quite a bit, and more than anticipated, whether they agree or not. People also like, feel liked by, and feel more connected with conversation partners than expected, regardless of agreement.

Why do we overestimate how unpleasant disagreements are? Another 2024 study led by Erica Bailey suggests that the internet may be to blame. 

When her team asked people to recall a recent online debate, roughly half referred to a contentious one and characterized it as negative. But when university students were describing their own debate experiences in general in the past year, they primarily remembered in-person conversations with family and friends. They characterized these interactions in more emotionally nuanced ways, including feeling positive afterward. Surveys also found that we believe other people have more conflict in their lives than we do—suggesting that disagreement is also less rampant than we think.

“Three forces—the salience of online debates, the amplification of negative content online, and a negativity bias in human information processing—have together warped perceptions of how debate actually occurs among everyday Americans,” the researchers write. 

In sum, these two papers provide important insight into “false polarization,” the widespread perception that society is gripped by contentious ideological conflict. If we have the courage to get past our assumptions, we might find that engaging in these dialogues is more constructive and enjoyable than avoiding them—and society may benefit.

10. There are research-tested ways to preserve democracy

During this presidential election year, U.S. political divisions were bitter and deep. But a mega-study published in October by the journal Science points to a way forward.

The study’s two primary authors—sociologists Jan G. Voelkel of Cornell University and Robb Willer of Stanford University—collected more than 250 proposed solutions “designed to decrease American partisan animosity and antidemocratic attitudes” from 400-plus scholars and activists.

A panel of experts narrowed the field to the 25 most promising contenders, spanning a wide range: Some involve hearing the message that all voters share common economic interests or common moral values. Others involve watching a video of two people bonding despite their political differences, or an animation about how democracy allows politically diverse people to work together. In one activity, people play a trivia game that encourages bipartisan teams to cooperate.

The researchers then engaged more than 32,000 participants to test how these activities and messages could change attitudes in three important areas: partisan animosity, support for undemocratic practices like lying or vote suppression, and support for political violence. Of the 25 solutions, 23 reduced partisan animosity. But only six reduced support for undemocratic practices, and only five cut support for partisan violence. 

The one that stood out as most effective was developed by researchers at UC Berkeley and MIT. Theirs used a simple question-and-answer format, with text and images only. They asked participants to what extent most people on the other side of the divide support undemocratic actions. Many people believed that their opponents were strongly hostile to democracy. But then they were given recent public opinion data that showed opponents’ support for democratic values and practices actually was much higher. 

That one turned out to be the top-ranked solution for reducing anti-democratic attitudes. It ranked third in reducing support for political violence, and seventh in easing attitudes of partisan animosity. It also was among the most effective in reducing support for undemocratic candidates.

“People should be very happy to hear that voters on all sides really do support democracy,” says UC Berkeley political scientist Gabriel Lenz. “They think it’s important. And that’s really reassuring.”

Who’s Afraid of ADHD Stimulants?

First-line medications used to treat ADHD are among the most rigorously studied, with decades of supporting evidence. So why do fears about their use persist?

By William Dodson, M.D., LF-APAVerifiedUpdated on August 19, 2024Click to Add CommentsSAVE

“To deplore the use of a tool that can not only relieve suffering, but actually turn it into success, health, and joy, well, that’s just plain ignorant, as well as cruel to the people who it scares away from ever trying medication.”This quote perfectly sums up the pervasive fear among adults and caregivers of children diagnosed with ADHD. And it remains as detrimental now as it was when authors Edward Hallowell, M.D., and John Ratey, M.D., first published it in their book ADHD 2.0 (#CommissionsEarned).The first-line medications for ADHD are some of the most effective, best studied, most scrutinized, longest known, and safest drugs in all of medicine. They have been safely prescribed to children for decades. Nonetheless, no other class of medications in virtually all of medicine inspires more baseless fears, intentional disinformation, and wild beliefs as do the stimulants used to treat ADHD. Interestingly, these fears are almost entirely an American phenomenon that hardly exists elsewhere in the world.

ADHD and Stimulants: A Disinformation Campaign Begins

In the late 1970s, a public backlash against treating ADHD with stimulant medication began after groups launched nationally organized, and extraordinarily effective, disinformation campaigns. This instilled a climate of fear among physicians, parents, and educators, and sowed anxiety and confusion among the public. Moreover, it planted in the minds of Americans the otherwise nonsensical idea that it was the treatment of ADHD that was dangerous — not the untreated medical condition itself.It is also important to make a distinction between side effects due to stimulant medications and those unpleasant experiences caused by poor clinician training and experience. Finding a good clinician is much more difficult than it should be. Establishment medical education has failed miserably to prepare clinicians to diagnose and treat ADHD at all ages.[Free Download: The Caregiver’s Guide to ADHD Treatment]The goals of medication treatment include:Rule #1: The right medication and dosage matched to the right person should be dramatically beneficial and have virtually no side effects.Rule #2: Finely tuned ADHD medication should help you be “the best version of you.”

The Dangers of Untreated ADHD

Clinical neuropsychologist Russell Barkley, Ph.D., has demonstrated that untreated ADHD is not just highly impairing, it can be deadly. In fact, having ADHD lowers a person’s estimated life expectancy by 12.7 years.¹ Barkley has noted that most of the contributors to this mortality are lifestyle-related and can be reversed with treatment.Research shows that untreated ADHD, with its impulsivity and inattention, raises the risks for serious traffic accidents, addiction, unsafe sexual practices, and self-harm, as well as challenges with academic performance, relationship difficulties, financial struggles, and chronic stress for children, teens, and adults.

ADHD and Stimulants: Facts Over Fears

Baseless fears about stimulant medication have scared caregivers away from seeking proper treatment for their children diagnosed with ADHD. The benefits of ADHD medication, based on decades of research and medical practice, used in conjunction with cognitive behavioral therapy, are profound for many people. The risks stemming from untreated ADHD are equally profound.[Read: What Are the Long-Term Effects of ADHD Medication on the Brain?]These are the fears I hear most from caregivers about ADHD medication, and my responses:

Fear #1: Will medication change my child’s personality?

The first-line stimulant medications affect a person with ADHD differently than they do a neurotypical person. Stimulant medications calm and soothe the hyperarousal and loss of emotional control associated with ADHD. A neurotypical person on an ADHD stimulant, by contrast, becomes more agitated, jittery, irritable, and unable to slow down.

Fear #2: Are stimulants addictive?

Having ADHD increases a person’s risk of substance use disorder, regardless of whether they take medication. However, one large study of adolescents found that “current pharmacotherapy for ADHD is associated with lower risk for substance use problems as long as medication treatment is maintained, indicating that pharmacotherapy is likely to be a key part of efforts to reduce substance use risk in those with ADHD.²

Fear #3: What if my child loses weight on a stimulant and doesn’t grow?

Appetite suppression is a common side effect of stimulant medications that goes away when the medicine is taken consistently enough to develop a tolerance to it. Most children ultimately gain weight and grow just as they did before taking medication.For a small portion of elementary school-age children, most of whom were already picky eaters, the side effect of appetite suppression does create a problem. If a child is losing weight, or just not gaining weight for more than one month, the protocol for reversing this is to:Lower the dose of stimulant.If that does not work, switch stimulant moleculesIf this is ineffective, use the lowest dose of a gentle antihistamine that is FDA-approved for children 3 years of age and older. While this is an off-label use, it often helps to maintain a very beneficial ADHD treatment until the child becomes tolerant of the medication. Antihistamines like cyproheptadine, for example, return appetite to previous levels for about six hours. They are usually taken 30 minutes before lunch and dinner.

Fear #4: What if a stimulant worsens my child’s anxiety?

ADHD shares a high comorbidity with anxiety disorder. Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 23 studies of children diagnosed with anxiety who had started on ADHD stimulants and found that anxiety decreased significantly in almost all cases.³Arm yourself with knowledge. Read about the findings from research studies that have investigated ADHD medication. Then you can make a rational, informed decision about what is best for your child and/or yourself.

ADHD and Stimulants: Next Steps

Free Download: Reader Scorecard of ADHD TreatmentsRead: Treating a Child with ADHD Medication Diminishes His Future Risk of Substance AbuseRead: ADHD Medication Side Effects No One Should TolerateWilliam W. Dodson, M.D., is a board-certified adult psychiatrist. He was named a Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association in 2012 in recognition of his contributions to the field of adult ADHD.SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.#CommissionsEarned As an Amazon Associate, ADDitude earns a commission from qualifying purchases made by ADDitude readers on the affiliate links we share. However, all products linked in the ADDitude Store have been independently selected by our editors and/or recommended by our readers. Prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

Sources

¹ Barkley, R. A., & Fischer, M. (2019). Hyperactive child syndrome and estimated life expectancy at young adult follow-up: the role of ADHD persistence and other potential predictors. Journal of Attention Disorders, 23(9), 907–923. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054718816164² Schepis, T. S., Werner, K. S., Figueroa, O., McCabe, V. V., Schulenberg, J. E., Veliz, P. T., Wilens, T. E., & McCabe, S. E. (2023). Type of medication therapy for ADHD and stimulant misuse during adolescence: a cross-sectional multi-cohort national study. EClinicalMedicine, 58, 101902. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.101902³ Coughlin, C. G., Cohen, S. C., Mulqueen, J. M., Ferracioli-Oda, E., Stuckelman, Z. D., & Bloch, M. H. (2015). Meta-Analysis: Reduced risk of anxiety with psychostimulant treatment in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 25(8), 611–617.

Emma Young digests the research.12

September 2024By Emma Young

No end of studies show that loneliness is bad for us, and the BPS has urged action from the government to tackle this ‘scourge’ in the UK population.

But while loneliness entails feeling that a need for social connection is going unmet, solitude is different. Most of us are able to spend periods of time alone, and not feel lonely or unhappy at all. In fact, research is showing that time in solitude can even be beneficial.

Unwind and destress

Time alone can calm us down. This is the message from studies by Thuy-Vy T Nguyen, now at the University of Durham, and colleagues. In one study, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the team found that just 15 minutes of solitude had an emotional ‘deactivation’ effect – lowering ‘high arousal’ emotions, including excitement and anxiety, and increasing ‘low arousal’ feelings, such as calmness. This effect did not happen when the participants were with another person.

Find your personal freedom

By taking the social pressure off, solitude can leave us free us to be who we ‘are’, according to a 2023 study in Scientific Reports by Netta Weinstein at the University of Reading and colleagues. The team asked 175 British and American adults aged over 35 to record what they did and how they felt for 21 days, then analysed these diary entries. 

They found that on days when participants chose to spend more time alone, they felt not only less stressed, but also less ‘controlled’ or pressured to behave in a certain way. These benefits were cumulative – those who spent more time alone over the course of the 21 days were less stressed and scored higher on the ‘autonomy’ measures at the end. This work shows that solitude can help certain aspects of well-being, the team concluded.

Take the time to get creative

Some people don’t feel especially anxious in social situations, but also don’t necessarily go looking for opportunities to socialise, either. Research on 295 undergraduate students in Personality and Individual Differences, led by Julie Bowker at the University at Buffalo, found that for such ‘unsociable’ people, solitude not only did not harm their wellbeing, but allowed them to be more creative.

Studies conducted since support this idea. For example, a 2021 study of more than 1,200 French adults, led by Maxence Mercier at the University of Paris, focused on changes during a strict 55-day COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 in France. The team found a significant increase in ‘everyday’ creativity (measured by levels of agreement with statements such as ‘I come up with new and practical ideas’) during this lockdown. 

Their results also suggested that people who were less creative beforehand enjoyed the biggest boosts to their creativity during lockdown. While the team certainly acknowledges that the lockdown had some negative consequences for physical and mental health, and that other factors were at play, this isolated time’s effect on creativity appears to have been positive.

Frame it correctly

Younger people tend to feel differently than older people during periods of solitude, according to a 2023 study of 426 American adults. This work by Alexander Danvers and colleagues, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, found that for younger people, there was no link between feelings of loneliness and time spent alone; they were just as likely to feel lonely – or not lonely – while with other people as while by themselves. 

For participants aged over 67, though, it was a different story: they were more likely to feel lonely when they were by themselves, suggesting that solitude is more likely to have a negative impact on older people’s wellbeing.

However, a study published last year in the Journal of Personality did find that lonely people could “more readily reap the emotional benefits” of solitude when they were encouraged to view it as an experience that could enhance their wellbeing. Encouraging older people to view time spent alone in a not entirely dim light may, then, help them to cope with being by themselves.

Acknowledge your ‘aloneliness’

Though feeling that you’re not getting enough social contact is harmful for wellbeing, research suggests that feeling that you’re not spending enough time in solitude can also be damaging. Robert Caplan at Carleton University, US, and colleagues coined the term ‘aloneliness’ for negative feelings arising from insufficiency of desired solitude. 

In their work on almost 1,000 US undergraduates, published in Personality and Individual Differences in 2019, they found that some people preferred solitude more than others, and that aloneliness was associated with higher levels of stress and depressive symptoms.

A particularly busy period at work or school, for example, could mean that people who crave periods of solitude don’t get them, and this could increase feelings of life dissatisfaction, causing stress and an increase in negative emotions, the team writes. They argue that their results mean the potential implications of too little solitude for our wellbeing and mental health should be considered.

Exactly why some people are happier alone than others is still being explored. But, unsurprisingly, research suggests that extraverts are more likely to choose to spend time doing activities with other people than by themselves, so solitude could be tougher on them. There’s also evidence from a study in the British Journal of Psychology by Norman P Li and Satoshi Kanazaq that, for more intelligent people, more time spent with friends is associated with lower levels of satisfaction with life. 

Though the researchers don’t experimentally explore why this might be, it’s possible that smart people with long-term goals to pursue feel more satisfied when they can spend plenty of time pursuing these goals, even if that means less time spent seeing friends.

Do as you please

What should you do while alone, to ensure you get the biggest improvements to your wellbeing? To some extent, of course, the answer will vary from person to person – someone working on a creative project, for example, will likely benefit from time spent on that. Broader research suggests, however, that it doesn’t seem to matter too much what you do while alone, as long as you have chosen this activity, rather than having it forced upon you. 

Certainly, this was the finding from a 2021 study led by Dwight C.K. Tse at Strathclyde University, in Social Psychological and Personality Science. In this study, the team also found that more time spent on unchosen solitary activities was linked to lower scores both on a measure of life satisfaction and on questions assessing whether their lives felt meaningful. So, the general answer seems to be: do whatever you want.

But don’t spend ‘too much’ time alone

Though different people seem to benefit more or less from shorter or longer periods of solitude, Danvers and colleagues’ 2023 study also found that, regardless of age, participants who were alone for more than three-quarters of their time felt the most lonely. The team concluded that, whoever we are, when the amount of time we spend alone passes this point, feelings of loneliness become difficult to avoid.

On the whole, the research suggests that solitude can have its benefits, though for some people more than others. And, for those who crave plenty of time alone, not getting it could potentially threaten their wellbeing in the same way that loneliness harms those more averse to solitude.

Find more Research Digest.

A collection of postings on a range of issues is available on our website (www.mjacksongroup.ca).  This month’s post is from the Greater Good Magazine.

Eight Ways You Can Feel More Hopeful—Even in Dark Times

A new book makes the case that hope is the right response when we are facing difficulties in our lives.
BY JILL SUTTIE | AUGUST 21, 2024FacebookXEmailSharePrint BookmarkShould we maintain hope in uncertain times? These days, this question is at the forefront of my mind—and probably many other people’s. Especially when we face political polarization, humanitarian crises at our borders, and the prospect of a warming planet, it’s easy to despair rather than hope.But, according to William Miller, professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico, this is the wrong approach to what ails us. In his new book, 8 Ways to Hope, he explains why we should hope and how to cultivate a hopeful outlook. “The essence of hope is envisioned betterment, and it serves us well,” writes Miller. “It comes hardwired in human nature to dream a better future, helping us to carry on and survive.”

Why we need hope

As Miller defines it, hope is not a naive approach to seeing the world, where we ignore problems and engage in “wishful thinking.” Instead, hope is a complex response, involving “feeling, thought, action, vision, a life force, and a way of seeing or being.” Having hope, as opposed to living in fear or being cynical, he argues, helps us to see possibility in present-day circumstances and not become overwhelmed. People who feel hopeful are good problem-solvers, more resilient and persistent, more engaged and productive at work, more creative and adaptable, and better at recovering from adversity. For these reasons and others, inculcating more hope in ourselves means we’re better equipped to handle problems and enjoy life more. “Given the plethora of positive characteristics with which it is associated, hope might be considered a master virtue,” writes Miller. “It is a positive orientation of mind and heart toward your own future or that of the world at large.”Being hopeful can be contagious, too, affecting how others look at what’s possible. For example, Miller recounts a study where staff at an in-patient alcohol treatment center were given the hopeful message that certain patients in their care were more likely to improve. After treatment was over, those patients did, indeed, have fewer drinking episodes, longer periods of abstinence, and higher rates of employment than other patients. But it turns out the staff had been duped—those patients actually had no better chance of improvement than any others. Just infusing hope changed the course of treatment.While some may doubt the benefits of hope, Miller suggests that a dour view of the future often becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, he says, believing that people are against you may cause you to act subtly (or not-so-subtly) more hostile toward them, and your behavior can actually cause them to react negatively toward you. Unfortunately, writes Miller, “[These negative] expectations, like a virus, can replicate themselves in an individual or group, often without awareness, and mightily resist effort to remove them.”

How to hope

Since there are good reasons to hope, it’s helpful to understand the many facets of hope, writes Miller. Each of these can play a role in creating or maintaining hope in ourselves and others.Desire. Hope involves wanting a future outcome that could potentially manifest (even if it seems unlikely). Miller, who spent much of his career helping people overcome alcoholism, found hope for success to be an important element of recovery—and desire to be an important precursor for hope. If his patients didn’t think it was that important to quit drinking—if they really didn’t desire sobriety—it was harder to get them to take the necessary steps to change. “Desire can create hope, and hope encourages us to take action,” he writes.In that sense, getting clear about what you desire may be an important starting point. One way to do that is to try the Magic Wand or Best Possible Self exercises.

Magic Wand

To find your purpose, imagine a better worldProbability. Since we can’t know what the future holds, there is always uncertainty. But, to some extent, believing that a positive outcome has a good probability of coming to pass can make us more hopeful about it.However, probability can also be deceiving. We’re all different in our need for certainty, which affects when we will allow ourselves to be hopeful—and it may vary depending on the situation, too. For example, if we’re entering a risky surgery, we may research every corner of the internet seeking reassurance before being hopeful or just trust our surgeon’s expertise.When it comes to assessing the probability of a hoped-for outcome, we should keep in mind our biases, such as the tendency to only seek information that confirms our views (like ignoring the science around vaccine safety) and our prejudices (like assuming our surgeon’s race or gender is a sign of their competence).We also shouldn’t assume what’s probable based only on past experiences. For example, women gained the right to vote in the U.S., and Northern Ireland brokered a peace agreement, despite past failures. Having hope can change our odds, he says, so we needn’t let probability determine it.“Hope not only anticipates but also shapes the future,” he writes.8 Ways to Hope: Charting a Path through Uncertain Times (The Guilford Press, 2024, 196 pages)Possibility. Hope is not just about what’s probable, but also what’s possible. Being willing to keep hope alive can affect everything from your health to a peace treaty, says Miller.For example, myriad research finds that keeping hope alive in medical situations can affect how much pain a patient feels and whether or not they’ll be “cured.” In fact, Miller cites an interesting review of many placebo studies that found people can experience significant pain relief on placebos if they’re hopeful about them, even though the placebo isn’t active.“In perceiving and pursuing possibilities, the seemingly improbable can happen because, at least in part, what you see is what you get,” writes Miller. “Seeing a possible pathway forward is both a source and a product of hope.” Optimism. While hope can be situational, optimism is a facet of being hopeful that is more like a personality trait, writes Miller. Optimistic people seem to experience a lot of benefits, including greater well-being and resilience, and better health and work performance. When optimists face negative news, they still look for hopeful information surrounding it, and that can inspire them not to lose hope. Pessimists, in contrast, can get lost in negative news and feel hopeless or helpless. But all of us might do well to not overly focus on negative news, as it can affect our mental health and discourage optimism in others, too.“Collective optimism can rise or fall within a group or population, affecting people’s willingness to invest in the future,” writes Miller. To practice more optimism, you can try the Finding Silver Linings exercise.

Finding Silver Linings

Change your outlook on a negative event—and enjoy less stressTrust. Trust might look like seeing people around you as generally trustworthy or believing that things will generally work out, even if sometimes they don’t. In that way, it requires something different from other facets of hope.“Probability is a calculation, possibility a vision, desire a wish, and optimism a predisposition,” writes Miller. “Trust is more like a decision, a risky choice to entrust your well-being to the safekeeping of another.”Trust can build relationships and encourage cooperation, which is good for collective action. While not everyone or everything is necessarily trustworthy, we often get better results if we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and accept the uncertainty that comes with trust, writes Miller. Giving into fear, in contrast, may keep us stuck and unhappy. “Mutual trust is closely related to happiness in personal relationships, organizations, and nations,” he writes. “You [can] choose to trust despite doubts and fear. If the risk is rewarded, trusting can open the door to further trust just as fear begets more fear.”Meaning and purpose. Having a sense of meaning or purpose in life can also foster hope, writes Miller. While different in tenor, they both help affect how we see ourselves in relationship to the world around us.“Perceiving meaning in life can provide a sense of coherence, recognition, and comprehension in whatever is happening,” writes Miller, while “purpose in life includes a personal role in the present and future.”When people have a strong sense of meaning or purpose, it helps them see a bigger picture and avoid giving up after facing obstacles or setbacks. For example, if you are a woman who’s faced discrimination, you may find meaning and purpose in the fight for equality and be less inclined to step away from that fight—even if you become discouraged. As with optimism, purposeful people seem to experience many benefits, including less chance of developing dementia and better mental and physical health. Purpose can give us the fuel to hope (and work toward) something better, as can meaning. “Meaning draws on your deeply held beliefs and values, painting a larger picture than the particulars of the present,” says Miller. “It provides a larger context within which to understand current adversity, a bit like zooming up to a certain altitude that affords a broader view.”For cultivating a sense of purpose, you can try the Affirming Important Values or Life Crafting practices.

Life Crafting

Sharpen your sense of purpose by defining and committing to your goalsPerseverance. While other facets of hope are more about how we think and feel, perseverance is more about action, writes Miller. “To persevere is to continue trying despite obstacles or opposition, to pursue what is difficult even after many optimists and realists have long since lost hope,” he writes.While hope can spark action, action can also spark hope. For example, when people are depressed (and feeling hopeless), one of the treatment approaches is simply to activate them—to get them to move or engage in pleasant activities, whether or not they feel like it. Doing those activities can provide hope, as people see that their mood is not permanent but can fluctuate. When we persevere, we are more likely to succeed, because we are willing to consider alternate paths if the path we’d hoped to take was blocked, writes Miller.Hope beyond hope. While all entryways into hopefulness can be good, there is something to be gained from having hope even when the cause seems lost, writes Miller.“The core characteristic of hope beyond hope is a refusal, regardless of current reality, to give up and succumb to hopelessness, cynicism, or despair,” he writes.While it may be hard sometimes to imagine hoping when things are so rough, one can look to exemplars from history who overcame the odds by keeping hope alive, writes Miller—for example, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, or Mother Teresa. Not only did these people keep hope alive, they worked in community to help bring about the changes they wanted to see. Practicing hope is particularly important when we face difficulties that seem insurmountable, writes Miller. Visioning what we want, collaborating with others, practicing patience, and being dogged in our actions can make all the difference in what happens in our future.“Ultimately hope seeks to keep faith with deeply held values and without regard to attachment to immediate outcomes,” he writes. “It is a conviction that something better is ultimately possible for us collectively.”

How to Get Things Done Without Getting Bogged Down 

What’s keeping you from crossing things off your to-do list? Learn how to get things done with these solutions to everyday productivity problems that slow down people with ADHD.

By Judith KolbergVerified Updated on January 17, 2024 Click to Read 11 Comments ???? SAVEEvery day we are confronted with endless information, interruptions, distractions, work, and social media updates that feel impossible to ignore. All of this butts up against the one thing that remains finite — time. Getting things done with ADHD, therefore, is problematic.Here are some of the biggest challenges that people with ADHD struggle with daily, and my solutions for not letting them prevent you from getting things done.

How to Get Things Done: 13 ADHD Problem Areas and Solutions

Productivity Problem #1: Too Much Information

Information comes at us all the time; capturing it is essential — and difficult. We used to say, “Write it down, write it down,” but in the era of too much information, there are better ways to write things down — besides writing on your hand.[Get This Free Download: How to Break the Procrastination Habit]If you need to save verbal information, little bits of advice, websites people throw at you, or things you want to remember, call it into your voicemail and leave yourself messages. You can also use the recorder on your smartphone. Another option is to convert verbal information into text, using an app like Dragon Dictation.

Productivity Problem #2: Too Distracted To Finish

Distractibility and executive function challenges prevent individuals with ADHD from completing chores and tasks. I recommend that you finish something — a small task or even something larger that you were working on yesterday — early in the day. The truth is that there will be seven new tasks for every one task you finish. To keep yourself in balance, strive for a realistic ratio between closings and openings. When you get closure on something, it makes the rest of the day meaningful. You can say, no matter how the rest of the day goes, that you finished a task.If interruptions — a phone call or a request from your spouse or child — distract you from a task, hold on to a physical artifact (or keep one in your line of sight) to remind you of what you were doing. It will focus your attention more quickly, when you return to the task. An unopened envelope may remind you that you were opening mail before you got interrupted. A Post-It note, even if it’s blank, will remind you to return to what you were doing before.

Productivity Problem #3: Too Boring to Bother With

If you’re putting off cleaning out a closet — is there anything more boring? — think about what you’ll gain. Better yet, write the gains down – reclaiming money you left in those handbags, making the space to see what you actually own, getting a tax deduction for donating clothes to charity are all ways to invest yourself in the outcome.[Take This Quiz: How Seriously Do You Procrastinate?]

Productivity Problem #4: Ignoring a To-Do List

An old organizational standby is to schedule tasks. You have your to-do list, but you have to link getting things done to committing a time to do them. It’s important to make a list of things to do, but it’s equally important to enter your to-do list into your calendar.If you make a to-do list only, you have about a 40 to 50 percent chance of doing the tasks, but if you schedule a task, the chance increases to 70 percent or so.

Productivity Problem #5: All Chores Seem the Same — Boring

Do different kinds of things in different kinds of places. It’s an ADHD-friendly way to optimize your focus and attention. My client, Marsha, gave up doing her taxes at home. It was a setup for failure. From April 1 through April 3, she moves to a local hotel. She hauls all of her records into the room with her, logs on to her laptop, and spreads the receipts and papers on the bed and on the floor. She stays there until her taxes are done. She breaks for exercise and to relax in the pool. Changing the environment made a big difference to her.I know some people with ADHD who go nuts in the quiet of a library. They would be more productive at a place like Starbucks, with some background noise. Brainstorming a new marketing plan requires a different environment from a hotel room or a conference hall. You might need a lot of windows, a place to pace, space to put stuff up on the wall. Entering your data into Quicken could be done in a small, tight, quiet spot with no windows. Different tasks need different levels of focus.

Productivity Problem #6: “It’s Me Versus The Clutter”

It’s important to organize a support team. Sari Solden, author of Women with Attention Deficit Disorder (#CommissionsEarned), says, “Expand your idea of organizational help to include other people.” Stop trying to be an ordinary person who keeps it together in the same way that people without ADHD do. Support might mean another set of hands, someone to keep your morale up, or someone to function as a passive body double.A body double is somebody who is physically present as you do a task but doesn’t do the task with you. The body double is the person to whom you say, “Here’s what I’m doing now. This is what I’m concentrating on.” Your body double anchors you to the task at hand. This has to be somebody who is non-judgmental, somebody who is not going to say, “Throw it all away.”

Productivity Problem #7: Troubles Beginning a Task

It often doesn’t matter where you start a decluttering task. Begin at any spot in a room. After you start, though, continue in some kind of logical order. If you start on the left side of the room, keep going to the left, in a circle. If you start on the top shelf of a cabinet, work your way down. Have a process that is orderly, but don’t worry about where or when you start, because there is no ideal time to tackle clutter.

Productivity Problem #8: “I Schedule a Task, But Ignore It”

There are many reasons why organizing systems break down. Sometimes, people with ADHD get bored with their system. They need more variety. Have a system that you will stick with for three months. If you revise it every month, it will drive you crazy. You may not have to overhaul it completely. You might just have to tweak it. It’s not unusual for individuals with ADHD to revamp their systems more frequently than other people do.

Productivity Problem #9: When Worry Prevents Things From Getting Done

As you start your day, do the first three things that worry you the most, to get them off your plate. The internal distraction of worry plays more on people with ADHD than on other people and prevents them from getting things done.If you do any part of what is worrying you, you’ll break the anxiety. Say, you have a report to do, and it’s hard to get started, and it’s causing you anxiety. Start the footnotes, do a little research, speak to one expert. If you break the inertia caused by your anxiety, you can keep moving forward.

Productivity Problem #10: Not Being Able to Prioritize a To-Do List

Just take a shot at doing it. If you use 1s, 2s, and 3s, and that’s too narrow, add 4s. If you use A, B, and C, and that’s too narrow, add a D. Adding colors is good for setting the priorities of your to-do list. Don’t use more than four colors because that will make you nuts. Use yellow, green, and red because we know what those mean.I like having a three-column to-do list. One for “now,” another for “soon,” and a third labeled “fat chance.” “Now” could be this week or within the next two days. Making “now” mean “today” to finish a task is too rigid. “Soon” could mean the end of the week. “Fat chance” could mean “whenever.”

Productivity Problem #11: Never Meeting Deadlines

Schedule extra time to finish a task by default. Rather than trying to precisely estimate how long a task will take, just say, “Screw it. I’m going to need 30 percent more time for everything I plan, no matter what.” Just pick a number. Twenty percent more, 50 percent more, and allot that. The worst that could happen is that you finish it early.

Productivity Problem #12: Mail Mismanagement

To cut off junk mail at its source, log on to catalogchoice.org and have them alert marketers to stop sending you stuff.Have only one place for the day’s mail to land, maybe the dining room table. Yes, it piles up quickly, but at least you know where it will be when you decide to tackle it.Don’t open junk mail. It can contain four to seven pieces of paper. Junk mail goes, unopened, right into the recycling bin.

Productivity Problem #13: Project Impossible? Blow it up, break it down.

If you have a project to do — planning a wedding, say — instead of breaking down the tasks, try blowing things up first. Place different sticky notes randomly on a wall or bulletin board. It doesn’t matter what categories they’re in, the sequence, or the priority. Get it out of your head and onto paper. If you don’t have a wall, do it on your computer.Now look for things that have a deadline. If you’re planning a wedding, you have to book the venue first. You want to first deal with things that could screw up the event if you miss a due date.Look for different ways to break things down. There will be stuff you have to delegate, things that have to happen in sequence, or things that are related by function.Now that you’ve broken things down, you need to see the big picture again. Organizers advise their clients to break things down, but people with ADHD lose the big picture while doing this. You need to visualize the whole project again.This article corresponds to the ADHD Experts Webinar, “ADHD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life!” with Judith Kolberg, which is available for purchase.

How to Get Things Done: Next Steps

Read: A Get-Things-Done Guide for the Overwhelmed and OverloadedDownload: Finish Your To-Do List TODAYWatch: Productivity Strategies for Adults with ADHD

Five Keys to Managing Intrusive Thoughts

Stuck in rumination? Here are some ways to break the cycle and move forward.BY JILL SUTTIE | MAY 28, 2024

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Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with upsetting thoughts spinning through your head? Maybe you argued with your partner and you’re reliving the fight in agonizing detail. Perhaps you can’t stop worrying about all the things that could go wrong in an upcoming job interview. Or maybe you’re perseverating about the state of the world.

Rehashing the past or imagining the future isn’t unusual. That’s how we humans figure out how to navigate our lives. But sometimes this system goes haywire, and we get stuck, like a needle stuck on a record album that plays the same riff over and over again. 

Repetitive, ruminative thinking can make it hard to see reality as it is, keeping us locked into negative thinking patterns that don’t serve us. When that happens, our mental health may be compromised; we may lose sleep, have trouble concentrating, or feel lethargic and depressed.

What can we do instead? There are many tips for transforming rumination into something less toxic and even useful. Here are a few tools I’ve found helpful in my own life—and that research suggests can work for those of us prone to rumination.

Practice mindful awareness

Creating a little separation from your spinning thoughts can help transform them into something more manageable. 

By becoming an observer of your present experience using mindfulness techniques, you can learn to let go a bit of the past and future (where thoughts reign supreme) and stay more grounded in the moment, accepting “what is.” Practicing mindfulness has the added benefit of revealing the transient nature of your thoughts, helping to defang them somewhat and make it easier to let them go. 

There are many mindfulness practices that might help with this. For example, a simple breath meditation, where you practice focusing on your breath and paying gentle, accepting attention to its changing patterns, may do the trick. Thoughts can (and likely will) still come into your head as you practice this. But they can be named gently before returning your focus to your breath, giving them less power. 

Trying out a mindful body scan may also reduce intrusive thoughts. By focusing on sensations in your body—tension or pain, differences in temperature, points of contact with the ground, etc.—you can bring yourself into the present in a way that will make thoughts of the past or the future less salient, allowing them to drift away.

I definitely find that using mindfulness can make tricky, persistent thoughts less problematic. Plus, I get the added bonus of feeling calmer and less stressed—a win-win.

Gain some perspective

Sometimes our thoughts are persistent because there is something we need to learn from them before we can let them go. Taking the time to examine our intrusive thoughts and gain perspective on them may help shift them from troubling and distracting to something more useful.

Self-compassion—a combination of mindfully becoming aware of your thoughts, offering yourself words of kindness, and acknowledging that you aren’t alone in your suffering—may help. By not pushing away your thoughts, but accepting them with a compassionate attitude, you may be able to examine them with more openness, perhaps reframing what’s bothering you in a new way and considering steps you can take to improve things.

Research finds that having a self-compassionate mindset is tied to less rumination, even in patients with major depression (where rumination is often severe). However, people without depression can also benefit. In one study, young adults who wrote about a negative experience in a self-compassionate way ruminated less afterward than those instructed to write in an emotionally expressive way.

You can also gain perspective through what researchers call “self-distancing”—considering your internal state as if you were someone looking in from the outside. One clever way to do this is to write about your experience in the third person, using pronouns like “you” “he,” or “she” instead of “I”—a technique that has been found to reduce rumination.

• Gaining Perspective on Negative EventsTake a step back and analyze your feelings without ruminating

How might this look in real life? Let’s say my friend tells me she doesn’t want to talk to me right now, and I’m agonizing about the end of our friendship. I can talk to myself (or write out an imaginary dialogue) like this: Jill, what your friend said hurt your feelings, but it doesn’t mean your friendship is over. Think of the many times you yourself had to withdraw or didn’t have the energy to engage because you were tired, stressed, or depressed. You need to give her some space and not assume the worst. Looking at my thoughts in this light makes everything seem less dire and helps loosen sticky perseverating.

Move—preferably outside

Rumination, by definition, means getting lost in your thoughts to the point where you feel stuck or immobile. Sometimes what you really need is to take yourself out of your head and into your body in a way that can break the rumination cycle. Getting some exercise might do the trick.

Hundreds of studies show how physical exercise, in general, can be helpful for reducing rumination—one of the key features of a depressed mind. Even engaging in a single session of moderate exercise has been found to reduce rumination (among other symptoms) in depressed patients.

But being outside in nature may help above and beyond physical exercise. As another study found, walking in the woods reduced rumination more than walking along a road for the same amount of time.

If you go out walking, it may help to keep your attention on your surroundings and prevent troubling thoughts from cropping up—perhaps by doing an awe walk, enjoying the company of a friend, or taking pictures along the way—giving your overactive mind a much-needed break.

This is my personal go-to activity for ruminative thinking, and it never ceases to surprise me how a good walk in the woods puts everything in a better light.

Stop feeding the fire and redirect your attention

Sometimes, we get lost in repetitive thoughts because we keep getting re-stimulated by listening to the same stories over and over again. If we are ruminating over things beyond our control—like wars abroad, presidential elections, or climate change—we may need to take a break from our 24/7 (bad) news cycle and let our minds focus on other, better things.

Too much negative news consumption does no one any good; it blinds us to the good things going on in life, giving us a skewed view of the world and making us feel helpless. While we shouldn’t put our heads in the sand, either, we need to balance our over-attention to negative stories with a deliberate focus on what’s going right. That may include taking a break from social media or TV news, practicing gratitude for the good in our lives, or taking action with like-minded people on an issue of concern to us. These can help reduce the fuel for our worried minds, while pointing us in a healthier direction.

Likewise, if we’re ruminating about other people in our lives—perhaps an ex-boyfriend—we may want to disengage from news of them for a while. If we can’t stop replaying negative interactions with loved ones in our minds, we may want to recall past positive interactions or assertively communicate our needs to them, rather than letting our minds spin. Too often, our relationship ruminations create a toxic brew that keeps us stuck. That does no one any good.

Talk to a trusted person—or maybe a therapist

It’s always a gift when someone knows you well enough that they can listen and help you get unstuck. Whether they do it with humor or by offering sage wisdom, sometimes getting an outsider’s perspective and not sitting alone with your thoughts can move you into a better headspace.

However, there’s a difference between someone who can cheer you up momentarily and someone who can have a more lasting impact on your ruminating tendencies. If your trusted friend distracts you by making you laugh, great; it may offer you some relief, and that’s good. But that may not solve your overall problem, and rumination may return. Likewise, if someone supports you by sharing your repetitive thoughts—maybe even egging you on, without offering insight or advice for getting unstuck—this probably won’t be helpful, either (and may even make things worse). So, you should tread carefully to find the right person who can listen well and offer empathy, but also provide a helpful perspective. 

I’m lucky to have friends like that who’ve helped “unstick” me at times. If you don’t have people like that in your life or want someone more emotionally neutral, seeing a therapist might be your best option—and, in some cases, probably necessary. 

If intrusive thoughts are so problematic that they’re hurting your health, relationships, or ability to engage with life, it may be a sign of a more serious condition, like anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or even post-traumatic stress disorder. In that case, you’ll want a professional, like a therapist who can provide guidance for letting go of troubling thoughts and moving into healthier thinking patterns. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, for example, has a proven track record for helping people with rumination and is the go-to therapy for those suffering from many mental health disorders. 

Of course, we can’t simply push away all troubling thoughts all the time, nor should we. Persistent thoughts can be signals to ourselves about underlying life issues that need resolution. But by drawing upon mindfulness, a self-distanced perspective, physical exercise, redirection, and social support, you can perhaps find a path forward. While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, these tools may help—and, at the very least, they are unlikely to do harm. Plus, who knows? You might even get yourself that good night’s sleep you’ve been missing.

A collection of postings on a range of issues is available on our website (www.mjacksongroup.ca).  This month’s post is again from Ken Pope’s listserv, where he kindly provides daily summaries of current articles in the field.Tomorrow’s new issue of The Lancet includes an article: “Music for health” by Phillip Ball.

Here are some excerpts:

Many people (including me) will have experienced a family member or loved one who, rendered essentially non-verbal by dementia, will nonetheless sing along to the lyrics of a well-known song, often with evident delight at this reawakened ability to commune with others. Distressed babies can be soothed by gentle song when words do not work. People who stammer might find fluency in singing their speech. Some people with Parkinson’s disease can discover an otherwise unattainable ease of movement when they dance. Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, edited by acclaimed American singer Renée Fleming, reports all of these benefits, and many others, that music can bring, whether through listening or active participation. The book’s contributors come from a broad range of disciplines and include neuroscientists of music such as Aniruddh Patel, Daniel Levitin, and Robert Zatorre, novelists Ann Patchett (author of the 2001 novel Bel Canto) and Richard Powers, virtuoso cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and leading figures in the arts such as Deborah Rutter, President of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts inWashington, DC, USA….

As an illustrative primer on the potential of music to enhance our health, wellbeing,and societies, the book makes a compelling case and has plenty to recommend it. Music represents one of the richest resources available for probing how our brains work. It “appears to activate nearly every region of the brain that has so far been mapped”, writes Levitin: there is not just a single “music center”. Specialised neural circuits handle rhythm, pitch, melody, tempo, contour, and syntax, the last showing a strong overlap with the corresponding function in language processing. 

Remarkably, all of these functions are synthesised into a coherent whole that not only sounds meaningful but can move us enormously. Much of the basic cognitive processing involved is innate, and even some of music’s perceived emotional content seems to be universal. But our musical appreciation and tastes are filtered and shaped by cultural learning, as well as by individual personality. That imbues music with the potential for personal expression: whether as performers or listeners, we feel that “our music” says something important about who we are.

Music also raises tantalising evolutionary questions. We know of no human culture without some form of music—in this sense music is more universal than writing. Thus, music seems to be intrinsically connected to what it is to be human. But no compelling case exists for music perception per se being an adaptive trait…. As Patel suggests in the book, the identification of some aspect of brain circuitry that is specialised solely for music would offer strong (albeit notconclusive support for an adaptive function. None has yet been seen, however.

What seems less in doubt is that humans have an inherent musicality: our cognitive functions make us predisposed to be music-makers. Above all, we are pattern-seekers, looking for regularities in our experiential environment that will facilitate prediction and anticipation. Humans are uniquely adept at entraining to a rhythm, although other species such as parrots can do this to some degree. We probably hear a quality of sameness in tones an octave apart-just about all musical systems recognise the octave division of frequencies-as a by-product of the typical overtone structure of natural sounds. This helps us to automatically assign related frequencies to a single source. In such ways, the concept of musicality provides continuity between our own music-making and the music-like aspects of animal communication and perception. Interestingly, “musical aptitude” tests that assess these innate features of cognitive musicality show little correlation with real-world musical achievement.

Most importantly, the anticipatory impulse that music engages-and that musicians and composers skilfully manipulate—is linked to our neural reward circuit. As Zatorre explains, music can trigger the same dopamine-mediated pleasureresponse as sex and food. The common description of such responses as “hedonic” seems to imply a rather shallow thrill-seeking, but the emotional power of music can evidently connect to more profound feelings:  transcendence, joy, communality, grief, and catharsis.

Given the richness of our cognitive apparatus for music perception, it is understandable that music can sometimes reach where words cannot to offer a powerful channel of communication in therapies. Concetta Tomaino, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the New York-based Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, gives a moving account in the book of how music awakened responses among people living in a nursing facility for late-stage dementia, many of whom were typically either minimally responsive or highly distressed. “Don’t expect anything from these people”, she was told as a trainee music therapist. But when Tomaino began singing a well-known song, many of the residents joined in with the lyrics. Tomaino collaborated for a time with neurologist Oliver Sacks (1933-2015), whose deep interest in music as a window on (and perhaps a salve for) brain dysfunctions is documented in his 2007 book Musicophilia. As Zatorre says, it could be precisely because music connects “our most basic biology” (the reward circuits involve regions of the subcortical basal ganglia) to “our most highly developed cognition” that it can unlock mental functions in this way.

Music and Mind describes the diverse benefits of music for the brain and body. Musical training has been reported to improve memory, executive function, and neuroplasticity. Music therapy has been shown to help withchronic pain and anxiety management, emotional health in hospital settings, attention focus in children, and more. Singing in a choir or group offers a sense of community and enhances self-esteem. One of the tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic (to which many of the contributions in this book allude) was that, because of the dangers of aerosol dispersal of the virus, such shared activities were curtailed as a high-risk activity. Even then, music remained a vehicle for virtual or socially distanced connection in the pandemic, from the free online concerts given by many musicians to the collaborative harmonising on Shanty Tok. Italian citizens serenading one another from their balconies during the first lockdown in Europe was one of the most poignant scenes of the early pandemic.

That our brains are changed by musical activity is nothing unusual in itself, but they seem to do so in ways that are particularly valuable. The interhemispheric communication music encourages can boost the connectivity of the corpus callosum. Musical training in children can improve coordination skills, memory, and sociality. Here the claims can easily slide into hype: the notorious “Mozart effect” on infant cognition reported in 1993 led to a veritable industry of CDs promising to make your baby a genius using Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, even though the cognitive effects proved to be small, short-lived, and not even specific to music, let alone to Mozart. Yet this phenomenon probably gained so much traction precisely because of our valid intuition that engaging with music is good for the brain.

Quite how to turn all this into effective health-care interventions is another matter. Fleming points out that for a long time there was “a perceived lack of seriousness to the notion that arts can contribute to health care” and a sense that it was “soft”, if not indeed woolly, science. Yet as the book makes clear, we have moved beyond such dismissals, thanks partly to the “hard” evidence from neuroscience. Music and Mind gives a sense of the scope of current efforts and the different populations involved. Research and interventions include studies of the effects of singing on the cardiovascular function of older patients; the value of music in boosting the performance of “failing” schools and pupils through the Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts programme and the Philadelphia-based music education scheme Play On Philly; dance classes for people with Parkinson’s disease; and music therapy for cancer patients, people with mental health issues, learning disabilities, and age-related memory impairment. Since 2017 the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has run a trans-NIH Music and Health Working Group involving its institutes for neurological disorders, mental health, drug and alcohol misuse,biomedical imaging, child health and development, ageing, and more.

Yet still, meaningful relationships between music and wellbeing can be hard to quantify. “There is still much research needed to understand the effects of music on the brain to establish effective music-based treatments for age-related illnesses[such as dementias]”, a team at the NIH’s National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, MD, USA, caution. “Researchers must be aware of what questions they are answering and, importantly, what questions they are not.” Music, writes neurobiologist Nina Kraus, “doesn’t lend itself easily to the clinical trial blueprintappropriate for drug studies”. Inconvenient for researchers, perhaps, but as Kraus says, that in itself reflects on the multifaceted nature of music. To the book’s final, timely recommendations to “strengthen the research foundation of neuroarts” and “honor and support the many arts practices that promote health and well-being”, I would add the broader objective to make music in all its diversity widely accessible to all, and—in contrast to the unfortunate trend of regarding music as an optional extra—to secure it as an essential component of the school curriculum to support the flourishing of children and young people.

Ken Pope

Speaking the Unspoken: Breaking the Silence, Myths, and Taboos That HurtTherapists and Patients by Ken Pope, Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, Hector Y.Adames, Janet L. Sonne, and Beverly A. Greene (APA, 2023) Succeeding as a Therapist: How to Create a Thriving Practice in a Changing World by Hector Y. Adames, Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, Melba J.T. Vasquez, & KenPope (APA, 2022) Ethics in Psychotherapy & Counseling: A Practical Guide, 6th Edition by Ken Pope,Melba J.T. Vasquez, Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, & Hector Y. Adames (Wiley,2021)

“Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.”—Charlie Parker

A collection of postings on a range of issues is available on our website (www.mjacksongroup.ca).  This month’s post is again from Ken Pope’s listserv, where he kindly provides daily summaries of current articles in the field.

The British Medical Journal includes a study: “Effect of exercise for depression: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials” byMichael Noetel, et al.

Here’s how it opens:

“Major depressive disorder is a leading cause of disability worldwide 1 and has been found to lower life satisfaction more than debt, divorce, and diabetes2 and to exacerbate comorbidities, including heart disease, 3 anxiety,4 and cancer.5 Although people with major depressive disorder often respond well to drug treatments and psychotherapy,67 many are resistant to treatment.8 In addition, access to treatment for many people with depression is limited, with only 51% treatment coverage for high income countries and 20% for low and lower-middle income countries. More evidence based treatments aretherefore needed.”

Here’s how the Discussion opens:

In this systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials, exercise showed moderate effects on depression compared with active controls, either alone or in combination with other established treatments such as cognitivebehaviour therapy.

In isolation, the most effective exercise modalities were walking or jogging, yoga, strength training, and dancing. Although walking or jogging were effective for both men and women, strength training was more effective for women, and yoga or qigong was more effective for men. Yoga was somewhat more effective among older adults, and strength training was more effective among younger people.
The benefits from exercise tended to be proportional to the intensity prescribed, with vigorous activity being better. Benefits were equally effective for different weekly doses, for people with different comorbidities, or for different baseline levels of depression. Although confidence in many of the results was low, treatment guidelines may be overly conservative by conditionally recommending exercise as complementary or alternative treatment for patients in whom psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy is either ineffective or unacceptable. Instead, guidelines for depression ought to include prescriptions for exercise and consider adapting the modality to participants’ characteristics and recommending more vigorous intensity exercises. 

Our review did not uncover clear causal mechanisms, but the trends in the data are useful for generating hypotheses. It is unlikely that any single causal mechanism explains all the findings in the review. Instead, we hypothesisethat a combination of social interaction,61 mindfulness or experiential acceptance, 62 increased self-efficacy,33 immersion in green spaces, 63 neurobiological mechanisms,64 and acute positive affect65 combine to generate outcomes. Meta-analyses have found each of these factors to be associated with decreases in depressive symptoms, but no single treatment covers all mechanisms. Some may more directly promote mindfulness (eg, yoga), be more social (eg, group exercise), be conducted in green spaces (eg, walking), provide a more positive affect (eg, “runner’s high'”), or be more conducive to acute adaptations that may increase self-efficacy (eg, strength).66 Exercise modalities such as running may satisfy many of the mechanisms, but they are unlikely to directly promote the mindful self-awareness provided by yoga and qigong. Both these forms of exercise are often practised in groups with explicit mindfulness but seldom have fast and objective feedback loops that improve self-efficacy. Adequately powered studies testing multiple mediators may help to focus more on understanding why exercise helps depression and less on whether exercise helps.We argue that understanding these mechanisms of action is important forpersonalising prescriptions and better understanding effective treatments.
Here are the “Clinical and Policy Implications”:

Our findings support the inclusion of exercise as part of clinical practice guidelines for depression, particularly vigorous intensity exercise. Doing so may help bridge the gap in treatment coverage by increasing the range of first line options for patients and health systems.9 Globally there has been an attempt to reduce stigma associated with seeking treatment for depression.74 Exercise may support this effort by providing patients with treatment options that carry less stigma.

In low resource or funding constrained settings, group exercise interventions may provide relatively low cost alternatives for patients with depression and for health systems. When possible, ideal treatment may involve individualised care with a multidisciplinary team, where exercise professionals could take responsibility forensuring the prescription is safe, personalised, challenging, and supported.

In addition, those delivering psychotherapy may want to direct some time towards tackling cognitive and behavioural barriers to exercise. Exercise professionals might need to be trained in the management of depression (eg, managing risk) and to be mindful of the scope of their practice while providing support to deal withthis major cause of disability.

Ken Pope

A collection of postings on a range of issues is available on our website (www.mjacksongroup.ca).  This month’s post is again from Ken Pope’s listserv, where he kindly provides daily summaries of current articles in the field.

A collection of postings on a range of issues is available on our website (www.mjacksongroup.ca).  This month’s post is from the Greater Good Magazine.

Five Ways Mindfulness Helps You Age Better

Research suggests that being more mindful in our everyday lives can protect our health as we age—and even help us live longer.

BY JILL SUTTIE | DECEMBER 4, 2023

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As I get older, I notice that my peers and I are starting to lose some of the abilities we once took for granted. Aging brings unwelcome changes in our physical fitness, joint health, cognition, and more. And, of course, our pending mortality looms larger for us than it did in our youth. 

What can we do to have more health and happiness in that later part of life? One possibility is to become more mindful.

For those who haven’t heard about this yet, mindfulness is a skill that involves paying attention to the present moment—your current thoughts, feelings, and sensations—and practicing acceptance (or non-judgmental awareness) of your experience. Mindfulness can be nurtured informally in your daily life, by focusing your attention on the changing nature of experience, or through deliberate meditation practices. Either way, it could be a boon for aging well.

While research is ongoing in this area, some recent experimental studies and reviews point to the many benefits of becoming more mindful in your elder years. Here is a summary of some of that research and what it has to teach us.

Mindfulness helps prevent depression and anxiety

Luckily, as we age, many of us actually find more happiness in life. There’s something about aging that helps us to let go of some of the trivial things that don’t matter so much, and we tend to experience less stress, pessimism, and regret (at least when compared to middle-aged adults).

But that doesn’t mean some of us don’t fall prey to depression or remain anxious about our future. That can be especially true if we face post-retirement financial constraints or failing health, in ourselves or a partner. This is where mindfulness can help. 

In one study, older adults with mild to moderate levels of depression were randomly assigned to either an eight-week health education program coupled with physical exercise or a mindfulness-based therapy program. Before and after, the seniors reported on their depressive symptoms and how much they ruminated, and were tested on how well they could recall specifics from past memories (which someone with depression has trouble doing). 

While both groups had fewer depressive symptoms after the program, only the mindfulness group reported significantly less rumination and better memory specificity, suggesting that mindfulness can help reduce symptoms associated with depression in older adults. 

In a 2021 analysis of several studies (a meta-analysis), researchers found that mindfulness meditation significantly decreased depression in older adults, with guided meditations being even more effective than unguided meditations. 

Similarly, another meta-analysis found that mindfulness programs reduced both depression and anxiety in older adults. Put together, these studies suggest that mindfulness meditation could be good for the mental health of elderly people.

Mindfulness can improve cognition

As we age, some of us experience problems with memory and other cognitive abilities. While some lost mental acuity is normal, there is the worrisome possibility of dementia. While there are many ways to maintain healthy cognition—including regular exercise, social contact, and mental stimulation—you can add mindfulness to your box of tools.

In a recent neuroscience study, researchers randomly assigned adults ages 65 to 80 to either a mindfulness training or a cognitive fitness program that involved solving puzzles, like Sudoku, word jumbles, and crossword puzzles. Within two weeks before and after the programs, people were tested on their episodic memory, executive function (which includes working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control needed for attaining goals), and overall cognition to see if they had any preclinical signs of Alzheimer’s, and their brains were scanned using fMRI to note any changes in neural activity. 

• Mindful Breathing A way to build resilience to stress, anxiety, and anger

The researchers found that people in the mindfulness group scored better on the pre-Alzheimer’s tests, and in turn had increases in neural activity in the default network of the brain, as well as between the hippocampus (memory center) and cortical parts of the brain. 

In a meta-analysis, researchers found that mindfulness-based programs help adults, overall, have better executive functioning and memory, and that these findings hold even for older adults. Another, even more recent, meta-analysis found similar results. This suggests mindfulness could play a role in helping protect our cognition as we age—maybe more so than those puzzles we’re so fond of doing.

Mindfulness might help fight disease

Though no one wants to suffer illness, those of us who are older are more susceptible to it, as we saw so clearly during the COVID-19 pandemic. And, of course, we become more prone to life-threatening illnesses, like heart disease and cancer. So, anything we can do to keep up our immune systems and improve our health is useful. Here, too, mindfulness may help.

Several studies have found that mindfulness improves our immune function. For example, one recent study found that older people with mild cognitive impairment randomly assigned to a mindful awareness training had better immune profiles afterward than a similar group who’d gone through a health education program. In fact, two meta-analyses of several studies found that mindfulness-based practices seem to affect our immune system in several positive ways—by reducing C-reactive protein (implicated in inflammation) and by increasing CD4+ (helpful for our immune response) and telomere length and activity (suggesting better chromosome protection and, hence, greater longevity and health).

Other studies have found that being more mindful improves one’s heart health. For example, one study with older adults found that people on medication for congestive heart failure who went through an eight-week mindfulness program experienced less anxiety and depression, but also had better clinical scores than other heart patients who’d simply received medication (and normal treatment). 

Though it’s unclear exactly how mindfulness might improve heart health, a recent review of several fMRI studies suggests mindfulness meditation may increase cerebral blood flow when the brain is at rest, stimulate an anti-neuroinflammatory response, and allow better deliberate control over our neurovascular system (for example, turning on our parasympathetic nervous system through breathing exercises). 

For all of those reasons, practicing more mindfulness could help protect us from heart disease.

Mindfulness can help us manage pain

Who doesn’t suffer from aches and pains as we age? It’s a time of life when our joints may give out and need replacing or we may have an accident and now our back won’t stop hurting. 

Fortunately, we can better monitor and manage pain through mindful attention—in part because mindfulness helps us see that pain isn’t monolithic, but shifts depending on our reaction to it. That insight can help us to better manage it.

There are myriad studies showing how mindfulness programs (especially Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction or MBSR) can relieve pain, and many of those studies include older participants. 

• Body Scan MeditationFeeling tense? Feel your body relax as you try this practice

For example, in one study, older adults with physical limitations due to chronic back pain were randomly assigned to either an eight-week MBSR or a health education program. By comparing functionality and pain levels right after and six months after the programs were over, the researchers found those who’d received MBSR functioned better afterward and had reduced pain up to half a year later. 

Why mindfulness helps with our pain may have to do mostly with how practicing it can reduce stress. But it may also be due to how mindfulness seems to work on our brains, deactivating regions of the brain associated with painful experiences.

Another benefit of mindfulness is that it can help us to avoid unnecessary accidents that may lead to pain or disability. There’s nothing like paying close attention to the present moment for being able to notice hazards ahead and steer clear of them. 

Mindfulness leads to better overall quality of life

What most of us want out of our elder years is a better quality of life—and there is ample evidence that being more mindful can help. 

For example, one 2023 study measured “trait mindfulness” (how mindful people were in everyday life) within a group of individuals who were mostly over 80 years old, and then followed their trajectory for a year. Those higher in trait mindfulness initially had less disability and negative emotion—and a year later, they were more likely to be alive—than those who were less mindful. As another study found, mindfulness helps us improve our sleep, too, something that’s bound to improve our health and bring more joy to our lives.

Recent meta-analyses suggest multiple benefits to older folks who practice mindfulness. One found that it helps with everything from pain to sleep quality to cognition to happiness. Another found that elderly people who are more mindful have better cognitive control and feel less stressed. 

Though not everyone is mindful by nature, we can still increase our mindfulness through practice. We can try mindful breathing, mindful body scans, mindful eating, mindful walking, and more to improve our own attention to our present moment experience. By doing so, we not only help ourselves to be more resilient to the challenges of aging—we may make our lives more joyful in the process.