News Summary
How To Be Resilient: Four Steps to Success When Life Gets Hard
A must-follow blog for positive well-being is from Eric Barker. In this blog, he talks about Icelandic life and how it has made them more resilient. Taking material from the book "Comfort Crisis" Barker outlines four steps. 1. Too much...
Friendship in the USA: Current Status, Change, Challenges, and Loss
The survey center of American life recently published a survey result on friendship. The pandemic has placed significant challenges on making or maintaining a friendship. -Our number of close friends has declined considerably from 30 years ago, when 33% of U.S. adults...
Is Unrealistic Optimism a Positive Delusion and Hard to Change?
Optimism is viewed by many as an indication of mental health, associated with higher levels of subjective well-being, better physical health, and more success. Unrealistic optimism or optimism bias is the "tendency for people to believe that they are...
Bedside Manners are Essential for your Patients, Yourself and Good Outcomes
The bedside manner is the way a healthcare professional communicates with patients. It includes verbal and nonverbal communication, which can significantly impact the patient's experience. Bedside manner is one of the most important things about the healthcare...
Openness to Experience: The Gates of the Mind
Some of you may have taken the Big Five-factor personality test at work or school. These consist of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion/Introversion, Neuroticism, and Openness to experiences. Open people tend to be intellectually curious, creative, and...
Gardening can improve Mental Health, even for Novices
The physical and mental health benefits of being in nature have been long-established, especially for those with existing medical conditions. Now, a new pilot study found gardening can yield mental health benefits, even among those who have never...
Top Causes of Death Among Doctors
Despite an increased risk of death from specific causes, physicians still tend to live longer than those in other professions. A nationwide study published in year 2020 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers pulled data on nearly 4...
The Power of Knowing your Neighbors
Erica Pandey at Axios writes a column called "Axios finish line". In a recent article, she writes about the importance of good neighborhood connections. It is believed that air-conditioning and comfort of our home made us more distant from our neighbors. Later on, TV,...
Stress First Aid for Health Care Professionals 7 steps to Recognize and Respond Early to Stress Injuries
AMA has developed an excellent resource for busy physicians. AMA STEPS Forward® offers a collection of engaging and interactive educational toolkits that are practical, actionable "how-to" guides to transform and improve your practice. Please visit their website...
Suicide among physicians: Major risk for women physicians
The medical practice has undergone numerous and important changes since its beginnings. In some way, doctors have experienced a reduction in their autonomy by the increase in administrative tasks and health care pressure. Classic studies from the United States,...
Why Social Media Makes People Unhappy—And Simple Ways to Fix It
In 2021, 4.3 billion people—more than half of the world population—had a social media account, and the average user spent around two and a half hours per day on social media platforms. Increased depression and suicide in teenagers, disrupted...
Raising Great Kids: Developing the 24 Character Strengths
Recent pandemics, war, and mass shootings have stressed our kids more. We want to raise good kids, and these tough times have made us wonder how to do the job right. I came across an old article by Steinburg-Kunts. She took it from Marin Seligman's work...
Why Getting Along in Preschool Is So Important
Covid 19 pandemic has isolated our kids, and one cannot stop wondering about the effects on their mental health and development of navigating a social maze. A recent study published by Zhao and colleagues discusses kids' ability to play well with their peers. Early...
This Is How to Make Emotionally Intelligent Friendships: 6 Secrets: By Eric Barker
The antidote to loneliness is to have great friends. The recent pandemic has made it harder to maintain that friendship, let alone make new friends. What is the secret of making and maintaining friends? 1. Stay in touch: Friendship is not an arena...
Cognitive Bias in Life
While people like to believe that they are rational and logical, the fact is that people are continually under the influence of cognitive biases. These biases distort thinking, influence beliefs, and sway the decisions and judgments that people make each and...
A Fast Way to See If You’re Wise or have Wisdom
My mentor Dr. Jeste recently came out with his book "Wiser", describing what Wisdom is and how it plays a role in our happiness. He posits that Wisdom is a potentially modifiable trait with seven primary components: acceptance of diverse perspectives,...
The Paradox of Choice: Do More Options Really make you happy?
Economists and business leaders tell us that more choice is better. But the truth is that if you had unlimited access to all the goodies in the world, you'd probably be miserable. Why? Because according to research, endless choice opens the door to regret, self-doubt...
Two years of pandemic followed by war and inflation! This Year, Try Spring Cleaning Your Brain
A recent AmericaTM poll, fielded in March 2022 by The Harris Poll on behalf of APA, revealed striking findings. More adults rated inflation and invasion of Ukraine as stressors than any other issue asked about in the 15-year history of the Stress. These stressors are...
Spirituality and Medicine: A Surprising Pairing
I did not think of the importance of religion or spirituality in my early years of practice. Moving to Alabama and working with religious-minded patients made me realize that faith and spirituality are essential in healing. The word religion is from the Latin...
Physician Compensation Report 2022: Incomes Gain, Pay Gaps Remain
Medscape just published its 2022 report for physician’s compensation. There is the same usual stuff like surgical specialists and male physicians making more money, but I was looking for something else. Here is my take: We made more money due robust 4th...
The Seven Habits that Lead to Happiness in the Old Age
We see so many unhappy, lonely, and downright miserable in our medical practice in their old age. In a recent book, Arthur C Brooks talks about creating habits earlier in your life to bring and maintain happiness in late life. Happiness usually increases as...
Keep Forgetting Things? It Might Be a Hidden Brain Advantage
Forgetting things can be annoying and worrying. As you grow older, those trends make us wonder if we are getting dementia. According to a new theory in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, there are several key points: · First, we have to remember that, at...
Why People Deceive Themselves?
Who do we deceive the most? If you know the answer, you are not fooling yourself. We deceive ourselves to self-preserve from falling apart and shield our positive image. In the journal philosophical psychology, Marchi & Newen have analyzed four common strategies...
Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2022
Medscape's annual survey on burnout in physicians was just released recently. Thirteen thousand physicians from 29 specialties participated. Just in last year self-reported burnout rate for all jumped from 42% to 47%. ER, Critical care, and Ob-Gyn were at the highest...