Matters to practice for mental health during pandemic

1. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of "Eat, Love, and Pray", in TEDConnects

On Mindfulness: "These are hard times, and it might take you a minute in your nervous system and your mind to adjust to the new reality. But the second thing I would say is that when people are saying they're having trouble with their creativity because they're in isolation, I might daringly suggest that perhaps you're not in enough isolation. And by that I mean, are you monitoring how much external stimulus you're bringing of this disaster into your home? So if you're sitting watching the news all day, what you're doing is you're bringing the disaster into your work space. You're bringing it into your soul. You're bringing it into your mind. And you're going to create the opposite of a creative environment, an environment of fear, panic and urgency. So I think if you're going to be a good steward of your creativity right now, you have to isolate a little bit from the news. And that doesn't mean disconnecting, it means I get up every morning and after I've meditated, I read the New York Times and I give myself 40 minutes with it, and then that's it for the day, because I know that if I bring in any more, I'm going to go into a traumatized state and then I won't be able to follow my intuition, I won't be able to help people, because I myself will be suffering, and I won't be able to be present for this very interesting moment in my life and in history, and I want to remain present for it as much as I can. So there's a discipline of being a good steward of your senses and deciding what you're going to put your senses in front of."

On Grief: "...there's this universal collapse where the person will just be -- it is the tidal wave that comes and just takes you down and you lose all civilization, you lose all your attainments, all your wisdom. Nothing can stand up to that. You literally go to the floor. And you sob and you grieve, and she holds them through that. And then she said that what she's learned is the most astonishing thing, that that never lasts more than a half an hour, that first wave. It can't. You actually physiologically can't sustain that, and if you let it break over you and you just allow it, then within a half an hour, usually sooner -- and she said this has happened every single time she's been with somebody with a loved one's death -- the very next thing that happens is that that person calms down...If you can remember that in the moment of emergency, there will be an intuitive, deep sense that will tell you there's going to be some next steps and it's time for us to take those next steps. And if you can also remember that resilience is our shared genetic and psychological inheritance -- we are, each and every one of us, no matter how anxious you feel you are, no matter how ridden by fear you feel you are, every single one of us is the genetic survivor of hundreds of thousands of years of survivors. Each one of us came from a line of people who made the next correct intuitive move, survived incredibly difficult things, and were able to pass their genes on. So almost to the biological level, you can relax into a trust that when the moment comes where you will be faced with the biggest challenge, you will be able to draw on a deep reservoir of shared human consciousness that will say, "Now it's time to make the next move, and we can do this.
We're in a kind of crucible moment right now, and I wouldn't begin to have the hubris to predict what sort of creativity will come, but look, if history is any measure, what we'll probably see is people at their best and people at their worst. But I think we'll see more of people at their best, because that's typically how it works.

On Compassion: There's such a thing, too, that I just want to touch on if I can, for a minute, about empathetic overload and empathetic meltdown. We're taught that empathy is a good thing. I would suggest that in a case this traumatic, what you want to talk about replacing empathy with is compassion, and the difference is extremely important. So compassion means "I'm actually not suffering right now, you are, I see your suffering, and I want to help you." That's what compassion is. Empathy is "You're suffering, and now I'm suffering because you're suffering." So now we have two people suffering and nobody who can serve, and nobody who can be of help, and if you knew how your empathetic suffering actually makes you into another patient who needs assistance, you would be more willing to dip into compassion. And what underlies compassion is the virtual courage, the courage to be able to sit with and witness somebody else's pain without inhabiting it yourself so much that you become another person who is suffering and now, there are no helpers. And it takes an enormous amount of courage to be able to watch that without diving into it and joining it and becoming sick yourself."

On Myth of Control: Control was a myth to begin with. And that may not be comforting, except that I find it very comforting. You know, control is an illusion, and there are times where we're able to fool ourselves because we're so good at technology, we're so good at creating safe worlds where we're able to trick ourselves into believing that we're in control of any of this. But we're not, and the paradox, for me, of surrender is how relaxing it is. Nobody ever wants to surrender, because nobody wants to lose control, but if you recognize that you never had control, all you ever had was anxiety, and then you let go of the myth of control, you'll find that, I find that if I even say that sentence, "I'm losing control," and then I remind myself, "You never had control, all you had was anxiety, and that's what you're having right now." So you're not letting go of anything. Surrender means letting go of something you never even had. So there's an awakening that's happening right now, where what's happening is not that you're losing control. What's happening is that, for the first time, you're noticing that you never had it. And the world is doing its job. The job of the world is to change, constantly, and sometimes radically, and sometimes immediately, and it's doing its job, and that is also the norm of things. And again, we are adaptive and we're resilient and we can handle it. But I don't kid myself for a minute to think that I'm in control of anything that's ever happening. My realm of control is extremely small. It's usually about, like, might be able to go get a glass of water right now."

2. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks in TedConnects

On Moral Imperatives: "There are two powerful avenues of competition. The market and the state. There is competition of wealth in the market and competition of power in the state. We are losing the arena of cooperation e.g. charity and volunteers, for common good and not for self-interest. This has weakened in several decades. Society has become more abrasive.
There's a difference between optimism and hope. Optimism is a view that things will get better. Hope is working together to get things better. It needs no courage to be optimistic. It needs a great deal of courage to hope in working together.
The moral imperative for religious order is to pray. Prayer helps. Faith gives you strength to go through this ordeal. However, religion must study the science to medicate. This is the rebirth of respect to scientific experience. Those who say that religion is a substitute to science is outrageous.
Poety and music. These are finest expression of human spirit. Read...."

3. Matt Walker, Sleep Scientist of Berkeley, on Why Sleep Matters Now More Than Ever in TedConnects and Dr. Roger Seheult, a pulmonologist, internal medicine practitioner, expert on critical care and sleep science, and co-founder of Medcram.com

On Sleep: Science asserts the relationship of sleep and immunity. Under-sleeping change the mood, food preference, and the brain's response to food or to any stimulants. Walker explored on the role of good sleep in memory alchemy, in the integration of memory, and in producing creative insights. Walker expounded that "good sleep change human's emotional state as an overnight therapy and as a nocturnal soothing balm. Sleep contributes issues on post trauma disorder (PTSD) and depression. A raffled mind on a restless pillow can find sleep as the best bridge of despair to hope. Practice correct bed hour and develop winding down routine. Sleep 7-9 hours a day. Decline from communication technology whenever necessary and choose not to wake up with anxiety.
Sleep is an investment for physical and mental health."

Dr. Roger Seheult of Medcram, a pulmonologist, internist, and sleep expert, discussed sleep's primordial role in helping boost human immunity that could help fight virus infection. This is scientifically explicated in his MedCram lecture on immunity in correlation to Covid19.



================================================================================================================================================= ADVERTISEMENT: EARN BY WATCHING TUBES.Wintub is the most popular spot online to earn cash for watching videos for the everyday thing you already do online. Earn Money when watch entertaining videos, finally you can get cash from Paypal, WebMoney, Bitcoin and more options. Put cash in your wallet. Join for free today. Add more income at $1 if you are able to persuade a friend to sign up. https://wintub.com/?r=1979375 

https://wintub.com/?r=1979375 ==================================================================================================================================================