I’ve been thinking more about burnout lately, as several people from my private practice show signs of this, and as I hear from friends who work in agencies that fail to consider the health of employees.  What IS burnout?  Is it a real thing, or simply a buzzword that has come to have little meaning?

The experience we call “Burnout” has been described by Elliott Aronson and Ayala Pines in their classic book, Burnout: Causes and Cures.  I often recommend this book to those struggling with a sense of hurry and worry about their work life.  In short, burnout might be described as the experience of mental and physical exhaustion, accompanied often by negative attitudes and a sense of hopelessness.  Of course, physical symptoms may be present, making it harder for the person to sort out the causes of distress.  In general, we’re talking about burnout related to (more…)

“[Sleep is] the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” – Thomas Dekker (1572 – 1632)

You sometimes hear hard-driving individuals remark, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead!” as they burn the candle at both ends.  Regrettably, this can be prophetic, as sleep deprivation is correlated with serious medical conditions that actually do shorten life.  But how should we think about sleep if not as a waste of precious time?

William Dement, M.D., in his book The Promise of Sleep describes the benefits of adequate sleep for people of all ages from infants to the most elderly, and describes how sleep needs fluctuate according to many variables.  It is clear that Americans are not getting enough shut-eye at any age.

Today, more medications are sold for insomnia than ever before, indicating that a good share of people know they are sleep-deprived,  Dement, among others, offers strategies for reducing the nation’s sleep debt, and here I will suggest two of them: (more…)

“Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” – Helen Keller (1880 – 1968)

In recent months articles on happiness are everywhere.  We see optimism and happiness, and life satisfaction mentioned in every publication from those on psychology to the magazines on gardening.  The tone of these articles suggests that we should be pursuing happiness full time, and that anyone experiencing sadness or grief is simply not trying hard enough.

A life of happiness and satisfaction is one built upon meaning, not pie-in-the-sky Pollyanna thoughts, and we should expect that some life experiences will be challenging, difficult, even sad or very hurtful.  At no time should it be imagined that a life of happiness and satisfaction would carry no grief or sadness, because that would be completely untrue.  To have meaning, life must be valued; I think we would all agree to that.  So it follows that in times of loss of life, loss of treasured relationships or when devastation (earthquake, fire, floods) strikes us, we may very well experience shock, sadness or grief.  If we have practiced the skills of optimism and resilience will know that these are not permanent emotions, but we will be sad, and feel grief at our losses.  The impermanence of life, and our happiness is part of why we treasure it. (more…)

“Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge” – Carl Sagan

Isn’t psychology more about feelings than about facts? And, even if facts are a focus, don’t we have to really get into the feelings in order to make lasting changes?

In a word–no.  I rely on scientific evidence of what works for several reasons, but let me explain just a few:  There are individuals doing research in universities around the world, to find evidence of what will make human change possible.  I read the journal articles as they come out, to learn what these investigative minds are exploring, and then I combine the information from many of these articles, to be sure that I am not “falling in love with my hunches” or the hunches of anyone else.  I want to know that what I suggest to my patients is the material based on sound research. (more…)

“Simplicity is the peak of civilization.” – Jessie Sampter

To be alive in America today is to be bombarded by messages and information.  Nearly every surface, from the newspaper to the sides of downtown buses carry messages and information entitled “must see”!  If you don’t believe me, take conscious notice of the room you sit in right now—look around at the book titles, the magazine covers, the sticky notes and the television.  All vie for a limited commodity: your attention.

Is it a wonder that we all feel as if we have some degree of Attention Deficit Disorder?  After a certain age, we begin to think it is the onset of dementia when names escape us, or words will not come to mind, but it is likely this is the effect of over-stimulation.  The brain is wired up to pay conscious attention to only one or two things at a time.  At a lowered level of consciousness, we can also monitor a number of other things (the song now playing on a radio in the background, the increasing noise from our neighbor’s back yard), but we cannot give conscious attention to all that is happening in our environment at any moment, unless of course we’re in a windowless room alone, with no distractions.  I haven’t had that experience, so I shouldn’t really say that it would be possible to pay attention more closely in that environment! (more…)

“Speak when you are angry–and you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret.” – Laurence J. Peter (1919 – 1988)

Years ago, it was thought that anger must be “let out” or it would somehow “bottle up” until it exploded.  Not true, thankfully, but the misperception lingers in our popular culture as well as in some therapy offices.  More current research into the cause and effects of angry emotions tells us that venting may feel good in the moment of anger, but it does not reduce the underlying emotion much, if at all.

The best research we have today—2008—is that anger does not bottle up and gather steam awaiting an inevitable blow-up.  In fact, some kinds of “venting” actually serve as a rehearsal for additional angry outbursts in the future.  Encouraging children to act out their anger by punching a doll or pillow appears to increase the likelihood that they will behave aggressively in other situations.  The same is true of us adults: having a verbal rant about our complaints can simply add to the “reasons” we have for being angry, not to a reduction in that emotion. (more…)

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” – Norman Vincent Peale (1898 – 1993)

A behavior change that lasts is everyone’s hope, whether it is to quit smoking, lose weight or change vocabulary around the children.  Too many diet books, stop smoking articles and other behavior changing materials run short on the most important portion of the process, in my opinion.

They say “becoming aware of the problem” is the crucial step in behavior change, but I’d argue that the nearly forgotten aspect of planning is the key to making changes last.  While I don’t advocate remaining in the planning stage for a long time, it is a step that marshals resources and builds the flexible skills needed when the action begins.

One example of planning for behavior change is simply finding something else to do instead.  One patient came in to a session bubbling with the happy news that she had lost six pounds by stopping smoking.  “I had always feared that quitting cigarettes would bring a weight gain, but I actually lost!”  It turns out that her plan to quit smoking included a morning walk with her neighbor during the time when she’d normally be smoking her first cigarette of the day.  Their three-mile walk got her home just in time to shower and be out the door to work, leaving no time to pause for a cigarette break.  She knew she’d miss breakfast and be hungry after walking, so she began preparing a morning snack that could be taken with her to the office, and she did this in the evening when her usual pattern would be to have a cigarette after dinner.  Over the course of a single month, she saw progress in two areas instead of just one.  Her planning paid off in ways that happily surprised her. (more…)

“Men willingly believe what they wish.” – Julius Caesar (100 BC – 44 BC), De Bello Gallico

“They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness.” – Louise Erdrich

During the political season it’s easy to observe that people see only what they are looking for.  Of course, we all do this—there’s even a specialized name for the phenomenon: confirmation bias.  Maybe you recall the study done with teachers a number of decades ago where ordinary, normal students were randomly divided among the three third grade teachers in an elementary school.  These students were not tested for abilities, they were simply assigned randomly to one teacher or another, however the teachers were told that the students had been selected by intellectual ability, and that Teacher A was getting “the really bright ones—the high achievers” and Teacher B was getting the bottom of the barrel, intellectually speaking.  Teacher C was getting the middle of the pack.  By the end of the first grading period, Teacher A DID have all the really bright ones, but not because they were in some way different than the students in the other two classes.  It was because their teacher was seeing what she believed.  Likewise, the other teachers saw poor performance, or mediocre performance, just as they were expecting.  At the beginning of the school year, these classrooms full of children were about equal, but they performed in accordance with their teachers’ expectations.  The teachers had been “taught” a bias about the children in their classes, and they found it in their students’ performances!  They saw what they were looking for! (more…)

All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that. – Baltasar Gracian

Who hasn’t been approached by a friend, a colleague or family member with the question, “Hey, do you have a minute?”  If your experience is anything like mine, you know that this interruption is unlikely to last just sixty seconds, but you also want to be helpful so you say, “Yeah, sure, what’s up?”

So often we agree to give our attention, but loan it only for an instant.  I know that when I’m interrupted, or simply sidetracked, from something I’m pursuing at the moment, whether it is my class preparations or a ball game on television, I will agree to that “minute” of distraction, but I continue to think about the task or activity I’ve left behind.  We all do this to some degree, of course, but as I’ve thought more about gratitude, mindfulness, and the values of positive psychology, I’ve come to realize that what we have to give one another is the gift of our time.  Sometimes I don’t want to be interrupted, which is a little like saying,  “I am the center of my universe and I’m not giving up my hold on that!”  Seriously, it seems that actually paying attention to another person is, in some way, recognition that I am NOT the center of the universe, and that someone else may have something of importance to share, or do, or contribute.  Novel idea, eh? (more…)

“Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.” – Carl Sagan

I ask this question of students in my classes, and they often laugh, “Of course we care what’s true!”  But inevitably, I find that as I talk about the best information we have in psychology today, several students will want to assert a belief that has long-since been left behind by researchers.  This is not so damaging in a classroom where debate and questioning are part of the learning process, but in real life, such reliance on old information can be dangerous.  A good example would be that of so-called “eyewitness testimony,” the foundation of the evidentiary process for years and years, and yet it was shown to be wildly inaccurate in research done more than two decades ago.  Reliance on eyewitness testimony has been reduced because of the research showing it is unreliable, but most people still believe that their brains are working much like a movie camera, recording accurately all that is seen.  Collectively, we had a hunch that we remember exactly what we see, but methodical investigation of that idea shows otherwise.  Every year as I teach this information, a student will be unable to accept that we are all susceptible to inaccurate recall, or reconstructed memory for an event.  They have fallen in love with a belief and are unwilling to give it up in the face of scientific fact.  In other words, they no longer care what is true, but want to continue believing the thing that feels most comfortable, or that confirms what they’ve “always thought.”

I care deeply about what is true, and that often means I must revise my ideas about something I have relied upon, even something I have thought to be true for a long while.  Rather than thinking of this as a betrayal of my former ideas, I regard these moments as exciting and interesting.  In fact, doesn’t it seem arrogant to imagine that my hunches and beliefs would all be correct, all of the time? (more…)