November 2020 - Half Full - The Network of Care

Your Happiness Calendar for December 2020

Our monthly Happiness Calendar is a day-by-day guide to well-being. This month, we hope it helps you protect your mental health at work, at home, and in community. To open the clickable calendar, click on the image below. (Please note: If you are having...

Published Mon, Nov 30 2020 2:37 PM by Greater Good Articles

Why Is the Pandemic So Hard on Young People?

Hello, it’s me, a college graduate representing the class of 2020! During the pandemic, I had my last semester of college partially online, then searched for jobs in a struggling economy, all from the comfort yet social isolation of my childhood home...

Published Mon, Nov 30 2020 5:30 AM by Greater Good Articles

How to Find Some Gratitude During the Pandemic Holidays

When Americans sit down at our Thanksgiving tables this Thursday—perhaps on Zoom with our extended family, across from just a partner, or in distanced outdoor gatherings—will we find anything to be thankful for? Gratitude is complicated when we’re struggling...

Published Wed, Nov 25 2020 4:45 AM by Greater Good Articles

For Hard Conversations, Families Fall into Four Categories

“My brother voted for Trump,” said one patient of ours. “I dread hearing him tell me why he thinks the election was rigged. He always takes over the conversation, which makes it hard for me to share my views.” Many families will gather over Zoom for the...

Published Tue, Nov 24 2020 5:00 AM by Greater Good Articles

How Do We Celebrate Thanksgiving in a Pandemic?

This year’s Thanksgiving dinner is going to look a bit different for me and my family. In the past, we’d travel to the East Coast to feast on turkey with my husband’s brothers and extended family. If we couldn’t do that, we’d gather with local friends...

Published Mon, Nov 23 2020 9:41 AM by Greater Good Articles

What Happens When Grandparents Help Raise Children

About 1 billion people in the world today are grandparents. Because humans are living longer, we are spending more time in the grandparenting role compared to past generations. What’s more, people are having fewer children overall, which means that grandparents...

Published Fri, Nov 20 2020 7:24 AM by Greater Good Articles

How to Feel Like You Have More Time

There’s an old adage, “Time is money.” It implies that being idle is a waste of time and will lead to less success in life. But researcher Ashley Whillans of the Harvard Business School suggests that this is the wrong way of thinking. In her new book...

Published Thu, Nov 19 2020 4:16 AM by Greater Good Articles

How Kindness Spreads in a Community

When we see someone being kind or generous, it gives us a warm glow feeling inside. Researchers call this “moral elevation,” and it not only feels good but inspires us to want to do good ourselves. But how much does witnessing good affect us—and why?...

Published Wed, Nov 18 2020 7:03 AM by Greater Good Articles

How Mindfulness Can Help Bridge Political Divides

I first explored mindfulness intellectually, as an alternative to the predominant make-it-go-away narrative of depression treatment I explored in my dissertation research. But the first time I attended a mindfulness-based health interventions conference...

Published Tue, Nov 17 2020 9:20 AM by Greater Good Articles

How to Overcome Your Reluctance to Ask for Help at Work

Jessica was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do. She is a generous person by nature who had volunteered, as she often does, to help a stressed-out colleague. . . . But what started out as a simple favor for a colleague in distress soon grew into a...

Published Mon, Nov 16 2020 4:10 AM by Greater Good Articles

10 Ways Your Brain Reacts to Uncertain Times

Volatility. Uncertainty. Complexity. Ambiguity. In my lab at the University of Miami, these four words (shorthanded to “VUCA”) describe the type of high-stress, high-demand scenarios that can rapidly degrade one of our most powerful and influential brain...

Published Fri, Nov 13 2020 4:37 AM by Greater Good Articles

For a More Empathic World, People Have to Choose Empathy

In the late 1990s, Najah Bazzy, a nurse in Dearborn, Michigan, made a house call to an Iraqi refugee family to check on their premature baby. When she arrived, she was shocked by how barren their home looked. The family had almost nothing: no stove, no...

Published Wed, Nov 11 2020 8:23 AM by Greater Good Articles

Is the Way You Breathe Making You Anxious?

Scrolling social media, amid frantic election-related posts and news of escalating COVID-19 cases, you may have come across a friend reminding everyone to just breathe. In Greater Good’s advice for Americans post-election, UC Berkeley professor john a...

Published Tue, Nov 10 2020 7:24 AM by Greater Good Articles

Six Ways to Help Your Students Make Sense of a Divisive Election

On the morning after the election, I joined a high school history class that was meeting virtually on Zoom. After a few minutes of quiet journal reflection, the teacher asked students to share any questions or reflections they had about the election....

Published Sun, Nov 08 2020 5:38 PM by Greater Good Articles

Can Marijuana Help My Teen Manage Anxiety?

Dear Christine, Please don’t judge me for asking this question, but is it OK if my 17-year-old son uses a little marijuana now and then? We just found out that he has been using it (probably more than a little) to manage anxiety. He has several learning...

Published Fri, Nov 06 2020 4:18 AM by Greater Good Articles

November 2020 - Half Full

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