Stress is No Laughing Matter… Or is it?
While stress affects the whole person negatively, laughter affects the whole person positively! The old saying really is true, laughter is the best medicine!
Image from the New York Post
Depending on the study, kids laughs somewhere between 300-400 times per day. In stark contrast, the average adult laughs only 4-17 times per day! How sad is that?! This is especially sad because laughter has seriously awesome (and scientifically documented) short- and long-term benefits for the mind, body and spirit!
To help put some chuckles back in your life, here is a link to a video that will guided you in a short but effective yoga session.
However, this is not the kind of yoga you are used to!
Please take a minute to click on the link and follow along. Don’t just watch the clip…participate and follow along! I promise you it is worth it! Who knows, you just may find yourself smiling, or even better, laughing! Feel free to share with your students, family, and friends. When groups or families complete the session together, it really gets the laughter juices flowing!
-Dr. Katen
©2023 Individual Matters. All rights reserved. Feel free to republish so long as credit is given.
Individual Matters® is a registered trademark of Individual Matters, LLC.
- Published in Dr. Katen's Blog, Healthy Living, Parenting, Successful Living
Stress
Stress is the body’s response to the demands of a situation. More accurately, stress is the body’s response to one’s thoughts and perceptions about the demands of a situation.
Stress is the body’s response to the demands of a situation.
Stress can be beneficial or harmful. A beneficial stress is the kind that we experience when excited. Beneficial stress can help improve performance and allow us to quickly and effectively react to a real threat.
But what if the threat is not real? What if it exists only in our minds as a result of faulty thinking patterns? Known as automatic fear thoughts, these may arise unconsciously in response to certain situations or stimuli, even when a true threat does not exist. This type of stress is harmful.
Most automatic fear thoughts, which result in harmful stress, actually boil down to one inner belief: “I am not enough.” This one, little but powerful, statement from the inner critic is often out of our awareness and so automatic that we do not even know it’s there. Over time, its influence grows. It is responsible for causing chronic stress responses even when there is no real danger. This chronic stress response then reeks havoc on our entire bodies, including our musculoskeletal system (aches, pains, tension, headaches, etc.), respiratory system (shortness of breath, panic attacks, asthma, etc.), endocrine system (immunity, illness, mood swings, weight gain/loss), nervous system (sleep, mood, headache, anxiety, depression), cardiovascular system (high blood pressure, heart health, etc.), and GI system (nausea, ulcers, stomach aches, eating problems, constipation, etc.).
In addition to affecting the physical body, prolonged stress—even when mild, and based on false beliefs – can also wreak havoc on our work performance, school performance, relationships, spiritual connection, and nearly every aspect of our lives.
Given that stress is caused by thoughts, impacts every system of the physical body, and seeps into social, emotional, and spiritual living, it makes sense that combating the effects requires a whole-person approach. To effectively deal with stress, we must give intention to our thoughts, our beliefs, our bodies, our relationships, and our spirituality.
Here is a challenge for you. Over the next week, when you notice that you are feeling stress, take a moment to check in with your whole self. What do you notice about your physical body? About your feelings and automatic negative self-talk? What are your needs for spiritual and social connection? How are you treating others in that moment of stress?
In my next post (“Stress is no laughing matter…Or is it?”), I’ll share some tips and strategies for managing stress.
-Dr. Katen
©2023 Individual Matters. All rights reserved. Feel free to republish so long as credit is given.
Individual Matters® is a registered trademark of Individual Matters, LLC.
- Published in Dr. Katen's Blog, Healthy Living, Managing Stress, Successful Living
The Power of Boredom
“I’m bored.” We’ve all heard this complaint from children. What do these words mean, and what’s a helpful response?
The causes of boredom in children are many and diverse, ranging from low interest in a particular activity or subject, high energy (without knowing where to direct it), perceived lack of control in an adult-driven world, desire for novelty, anxiety, feeling under/over challenged, and attention and learning problems. While it’s no surprise that under-stimulation can lead to boredom, so can schedules that are too full and busy. Another factor may be “screentime,” which has been linked to sleep deprivation, “trimming” of unused neural connections, and compulsive behavior driven by variable reinforcement (aka the “Vegas effect”).
Occasional boredom is not a bad thing.
But regardless of its cause, occasional boredom is not a bad thing. In fact, for children whose minds are developing, it may be especially healthy and rewarding.
For one thing, taking a break from an information-overloaded world may be beneficial to mental health. Also, being bored provides an opportunity to wonder and daydream – a sort of “call to adventure” that fosters curiosity and inspires new ideas. Studies have shown that daydreaming can lead to increased creativity by stimulating divergent or “outside the box” thinking. Finally, managing boredom may help children develop important executive functioning skills (planning, organization, focus, self-control). Rather than relying upon external stimuli to keep them occupied, they get an opportunity to explore their own interests, set personal “goals”, and experiment with ways to pursue them.
So, the next time your child says, “I’m bored,” just roll with it! Allow the child to be bored and see what happens. Yes, there may be a period of adjustment…but give them a chance to learn how to self-direct, to create, to daydream, and to explore possibilities!
-Dr. Katen
©2023 Individual Matters. All rights reserved. Feel free to republish so long as credit is given.
The Power of Suggestion
Words have power! The messages transmitted from a parent or teacher to a child become deeply embedded in the child’s beliefs. Essentially, words are hypnotic.
Words are hypnotic.
Hypnosis has a mysterious reputation, and one popular belief about it is entirely false: that it involves someone taking control over another’s mind. The reality is that hypnosis works only by the power of suggestion, and at no time does a hypnotized individual lose their free will. During hypnosis, an individual is eased into a state of mental receptiveness or suggestibility, and then a transformative verbal message is repeated. The goal is to program new ideas into the subconsciousness to change behavior.
The words we tell our children are hypnotic. Given their early development and the great trust they place in us as parents and teachers, children are already in a highly suggestive state. Therefore, we must be intentional with our messages. Do our words convey belief that they are good, smart, loving and capable? Or do we feed their subconscious minds with notions of naughtiness, laziness, and incompetence?
For example, halfway to school in the morning, a child says, “Oh no, I forgot my book!” As parents, we may reply: “Why are you always forgetting things? You don’t remember anything.” Or we can reply, “Well done, you remembered your book. You always remember.” Both are transformative messages conveyed in a vulnerable (suggestive) mental state. Which message would we like our children to encode?
The point to be made is simply the power of our words… As parents and teachers, we are like hypnotists, and with every statement to our children we are feeding their self-images and molding their subconscious. So be intentional with your message. Suggest only what you want the child to believe!
-Dr. Katen
©2023 Individual Matters. All rights reserved. Feel free to republish so long as credit is given.
- Published in Behavior Management, Development, Dr. Katen's Blog, Healthy Living, Parenting, Relationships, Successful Living, Teaching
Three Things You “Own”
Lessons from “The Ownership Yard”
This post is taken from my book “The Ownership Yard.” http://www.amazon.com/The-Ownership-Y…Read an excerpt from Chapter 1
There are three things in your life that you have total control over and, thus, “own.”
You own your:
1. Thoughts
2. Feelings
3. Actions
You do not (and cannot) own others’:
1. Thoughts
2. Feelings
3. Actions
Makes sense, right? Easy enough.
At the beginning of this chapter is a drawing of a house. Imagine you are the house.
Only what you can control is in your yard. In your yard are your thoughts, feelings, and actions. These are the three things in life that you truly own. No one can steal them. No one can use them. No one can borrow, destroy, or control them. Because you own your thoughts, feelings, and actions, you also own the consequences – both good and bad.
Outside your yard are other people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. Who owns other people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions? You got it! They do.
Everyone owns their thoughts, feelings, and actions, as well as the consequences – both good and bad. You cannot own other people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. You cannot steal them. You cannot borrow them. You cannot destroy them. And, you cannot control them.”
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Check out Amazon to see more of the book!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ownership-Y…
Thanks for reading and let your garden grow!
–Dr. Katen
©2014 Katrina Katen. All rights reserved. Feel free to republish so long as credit is given.
- Published in Dr. Katen's Blog, Successful Living