The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

YOUR MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

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The Pandemic hasn’t been all BAD. . .
BECAUSE IT HAS GIVEN ME MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO
R E A D
A voracious reader
from the even before I could read
I have loved books
and have loved passing on my
LOVE OF BOOKS
from the very first one
I can ever remember
having

To the one
I just started last night

And the
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
so many in between. . .
which brings me to the opening pages of:

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm:
One of the reasons I’ve always loved reading
is because it
has inspired
WRITING
SPEAKING
FREE-THINKING
that I have no
ON/OFF
Switch
(and one I’m not seeking or ever hoping to find). . .
It’s made my
EYES, HEAR
NOSE, TASTE
EARS, SEE
IMAGINATION, FANTASIZE
IT HAS MADE ME
M E
and my idea of a perfect death
is having
FAMILY
FRIENDS
BOOKS
surrounding me. . .
It allows me
WONDER
as I
WANDER
and to
P O N D E R
even now
AM I MORE
IF/BUT
or
CAN/WILL
KIND OF A PERSON. . .
Y O U ?

So here’s the
D E A L
We have a Pen in our hands
with Blank pages before us
waiting not just for a written word
or a secret message
but that one single sentence
that can only come from
Y O U
THE WORLD
desperately needs to not have written
but
specifically
intentionally
purposely
intimately
R E A D
(NO PANDEMIC NECESSARY)

IS HAPPINESS A PLACE?

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Wouldn’t we all do it. . .
Book a Trip
Go to a Destination
Make a Pilgrimage
Escape on a Excursion
if we knew that the final landing spot was the
U N I V E R S E
of
HAPPINESS

W E L L . . . Which Values Make You Happy? It Might Depend on Where You Live

Different cultures value different things—and that matters for happiness. . .

 KIRA M. NEWMAN a journalist with The Greater Good Magazine did a little exploring on this HAPPINESS PLACE issue with some interesting findings. . .

When a new psychology study comes out, its findings—gratitude makes people happy! meditating can boost your mood!—are often taken as truth about humanity as a whole. But in recent years, researchers have pointed out that much of psychology research involves participants who are WEIRD: Western, Educated, and from Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries. 

Why is that a problem? Because it could be the case that the insights we’re learning about how to live happy, meaningful lives privilege one group’s experiences—and they may not be as useful to people from other cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds.

A new study surveyed people in five regions around the world to see if the factors that influenced their happiness might be different. The discrepancies that the researchers found lend support to concerns that our current knowledge about well-being isn’t as universal as we might think. 

“The implicit claim in previous research that ‘one size fits all’ is probably incorrect,” write Bruce Headey and his colleagues at the DIW Berlin research institute. 

Values and Happiness

The study was based on the World Values Survey, which surveyed hundreds of thousands of people around the world from 1999 to 2014. The researchers decided to focus on five regions: 

  • Western countries, including the United States, Britain, Australia, Spain, and others;
  • Latin America;
  • Asian-Confucian countries: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan;
  • Ex-communist countries: Russia and Eastern Europe; and
  • Communist countries: China and Vietnam.

People in each region reported on their values and priorities in life—the things that matter most to them. These included:

  • Traditional family values: The importance of family, as well as helping people who live nearby and caring for their needs.
  • Friendship and leisure values: The importance of friendship and leisure.
  • Materialistic values: Believing it’s important to be rich, successful, and recognized for your achievements. 
  • Political values: The importance of politics. 
  • Prosocial values: Believing it’s important to do something for the good of society and look after the environment. 
  • Religious values: The importance of religion and God. 

The researchers then compared how people rated the importance of these values to how satisfied they felt about their lives. 

The results suggest that some values may be more universally important to well-being than others. In all five regions, people who highly valued family, friendship/leisure, and prosociality tended to be more satisfied with life. But the results for materialism, politics, and religion were more complicated. 

People with stronger political values were more satisfied with life in communist countries, where “good citizens are supposed to be politically active” within the limits laid out by the state, explains Headey. This was also true to a lesser extent in the West. Meanwhile, in ex-communist Russia and Eastern Europe, people who cared more deeply about politics were less happy. This may be due to the “disillusionment with politics” in those countries, after the fall of communism.

People who placed more importance on religion tended to be happier in the West, Latin America, and the Asian-Confucian countries. But they were less satisfied with life if they were living in the communist and ex-communist regions. As the researchers speculate, this may be because communist governments tend to be hostile to religion, and people in ex-communist countries may still be suffering the long-term effects of that. 

Materialism, a value that’s long been assumed to make us unhappy, actually went hand in hand with life satisfaction in Eastern Europe. It was only in the wealthier Western and Asian-Confucian countries where materialists tended to be less satisfied. In Latin America and the Communist countries, being materialistic didn’t seem to matter to life satisfaction. 

Happiness and Conformity

Why might some values be beneficial everywhere, whereas others only seem helpful in certain cultures? 

The researchers suggest that people may be happier when their personal values align with the societal and governmental norms in their country. In other words, some values may benefit us not in and of themselves, but because they give us a sense of belonging and make it easier for us to navigate the world. 

These findings also help make sense of a paradox in happiness research—the fact that some regions (like Latin America) are much happier than their gross domestic product (GDP) would predict, while others (like Eastern Europe) are much less happy. 

Examining the values people hold could help explain these discrepancies. In Eastern Europe, for example, the researchers found that many people rated all the different values as relatively unimportant, a recipe for unhappiness. In Latin America, people’s strong family and religious ties seemed to bring them a great deal of satisfaction. 

Though they aimed to be more inclusive, the researchers didn’t have access to surveys from sub-Saharan Africa or Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia—which means this picture of well-being is still incomplete. But it does point to a provocative idea: that the path to happiness isn’t the same everywhere, and what works for you may depend on the society and culture in which you live.

Amazing, stuff, huh. . .
To think that HAPPINESS IN A PLACE
instead of a PERSON
but then again, maybe that’s when it get’s really
W E I R D
(Western, Educated, and from Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries)
and it gets WEIRDER still
when Your WEIRD
gets my WEIRD
. . .now that’s some kind of
P L A C E
(to be)

The Seeds We DON’T SOW

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Sometimes the most important
S E E D S
there are
ARE THE ONES WE DON’T SOW. . .
It’s one of my favorite parables by
Megan McKenna
and by
SOWING
ITS
SEED
hopefully it’ll take root in you, too. . .

“There was a woman who wanted peace in the world and peace in her heart and all sorts of good things, but she was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart. She would read the newspapers and get depressed. One day she decided to go shopping, and she went into a mall and picked a store at random. She walked in and was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter. She knew it was Jesus because he looked just like the pictures she’d seen on holy cards and devotional pictures. She looked again and again at him, and finally she got up enough nerve and asked, ‘Excuse me, are you Jesus?’ ‘I am.’ ‘Do you work here?’ ‘No,’ Jesus said, ‘I own the store.’ ‘Oh, what do you sell in here?’ ‘Oh, just about anything!’ ‘Anything?’ ‘Yeah, anything you want. What do you want?’ She said, ‘I don’t know.’ Well,’ Jesus said, ‘feel free, walk up and down the aisles, make a list, see what it is that you want, and then come back and we’ll see what we can do for you.’

“She did just that, walked up and down the aisles. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drugs, harmony, clean air, careful use of resources. She wrote furiously. By the time she got back to the counter, she had a long list. Jesus took the list, skimmed through it, looked up and smiled, ‘No problem.’ And then he bent down behind the counter and picked out all sorts of things, stood up, and laid out the packets. She asked, ‘What are these?’ Jesus replied, ‘Seed packets. This is a catalog store.’ She said, ‘You mean I don’t get the finished product?’ ‘No, this is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. You plant the seeds. You go home and nurture them and help them to grow and someone else reaps the benefits.’ ‘Oh,’ she said. And she left the store without buying anything.”

Maybe we all need a trip to the
SEED STORE
where DREAMS COME TRUE
with the biggest question not being
WHAT SEEDS ARE YOU SOWING
or
WHERE ARE YOU SOWING YOUR SEEDS
so much as
WHICH SEEDS ARE YOU REFUSING TO
SOW
WATER
FERTILIZE
NOURISH
but expect just the same to
R E A P
It’s kind of like
making applesauce
with bananas
or a pineapple
and expecting it to taste like
Brownies. . .

A Dirty Hand
is no proof of a
SEED
SEWN
and most certainly
of one
grown or harvested. . .
Q U E S T I O N
How’s your Garden
(g r o w i n g)

Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
See you at the
SEED STORE
. . .I hear there’s a
S A L E
(if you’re interested)

A HAPPINESS DISPENSER

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The problem with
H A P P I N E S S
isn’t that we don’t have it to give
so much as that we just often
D O N ‘ T
. . .after nearly fifteen months of
social distancing
we almost shrug with an overdramatic sigh
WHAT’S THE USE. . .
WELL

If You Want to Be Happy,
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Dare Making Someone Else Happy

A new study shows that doing kind things for others is an important path to happiness. 

JILL SUTTIE, a journalist for Greater Good Magazine did a little more than pulling back the Happiness Curtain to show us what’s not so much hidden but in plain sight for us to SEE. BE. FREE in ourselves and others.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he assured Americans of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This idea seems to lead many Americans to chase after new gadgets and hedonistic pleasures. But what if that approach is wrong? What if happiness comes from aiming to make others happy, instead of doing nice things for yourself? 

That is exactly what a recent study found.

In the experiment, college students reported on their happiness and on their sense of autonomy, competence, and connection to others—all what researchers consider “basic psychological needs” for well-being. Then they were randomly tasked to do something to either make themselves happier, make another person happier, or socialize. (Assigning one group to socialize helped determine if seeking happiness for another had an effect above and beyond simply being in someone’s presence.)

Later that day, after doing their tasks, participants reported what they did, and then filled out their happiness and needs questionnaires again. Those who’d done something to make another person feel better were much happier themselves than participants in the other groups, and their greater happiness was tied to a stronger feeling of connection to that person.

This finding was not too surprising to lead researcher Milla Titova, who says that it fits in with prior research on happiness that found giving to others makes you happier than giving to yourself—and that pursuing happiness directly for yourself sometimes backfires.

“Making others happy is more meaningful for people than just socializing with them or doing something to improve our own happiness,” she says. “When we aim to make others happier, we feel connected to them—our relatedness needs are better met—which is important for us.”

In another part of the study, she and her colleague tried to rule out the possibility that making someone else happier makes you happier because of how emotions spread between people, which is known as the contagion effect. To do this, they repeated their experiment, but this time asked participants to identify the recipient of their kindness and to say how much happier that person appeared to be. Then, they contacted the recipient and measured their actual happiness levels.

The researchers found that a recipient’s happiness level did not seem to be related to the increased happiness of the person trying to make them happy, which suggests something beyond emotion contagion is going on. However, if the participant perceived that their efforts made a difference in another’s happiness, that made them happier.

“If we think another person is feeling pretty good, that’s enough for us to feel pretty good ourselves,” says Titova. “We’re just not always accurate about assessing other people’s feelings.” 

She and her colleague also looked at how this effect might play out between strangers. People parked on a city street were approached by researchers and given two quarters for filling out surveys about their well-being. In some cases, they were simply given the quarters to keep or were given the quarters to feed their own meter before filling out the surveys. In other cases, they were told to feed another person’s meter, with some being asked to leave a note on the dashboard of the stranger’s car explaining what they’d done.

Afterward, the researchers compared the four groups’ happiness and how much their needs felt fulfilled. Those who’d put money in someone else’s meter were significantly happier than those who’d put money in their own meter or just kept the quarters. Leaving a note increased a person’s happiness even more. 

Titova thinks this makes sense, given that making someone else happier makes us happier through increasing our relatedness to them. But it could also be that people like getting credit for a good deed, too—or that the note is actually another act of kindness, augmenting connection further.

Whatever the case, it appears that doing something kind for anyone is better for our happiness than getting something for ourselves.

“It doesn’t require you know the person you’re trying to make happy, nor does it require an actual physical interaction with that person,” she says. “It still works—even with a stranger.”

This is a preliminary study, mostly done with a limited population, and Titova cautions against applying the finding to other cultural contexts. This is wise, as studies have found not all happiness practices translate to other cultures.

Still, they do suggest that focusing on making others happy may be a key to happiness worth considering. 

“It’s counterintuitive for some people, but if you’re not having the best day, you should think about doing something nice for your significant other or your roommates instead of concentrating on yourself,” she says. “That may not be what comes to mind naturally, but it’s probably more effective.”

It’s a shame
isn’t it that
once again the
EMPHASIS
has to be on an
I F
but you being
A Caring Catalyst
HAPPINESS DISPENSER
just may depend on that
IF
u n l e s s. . .

A LOTTERY WINNER

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T H E Y
say you can’t win the
L O T T E R Y
if you don’t play. . .
I don’t let a lot of people know
in fact,
I believe this is the first time I
O U T T E D
this little tidbit about one,
CHUCK BEHRENS
I WON THE LOTTERY

It was Friday night
and I had to do some one stop shopping on the way home
and yes,
one of the items on my
TO GET LIST
was a Lottery Ticket
because it was creeping up to close to
$400,000.00
which like everyone knows
could do a lot of damage to debt
and a lot remedy for good
so after buying all of the
THIS’S
&
THAT’S
I was making my way up to the cashier
when I passed the CARD section
and a little guy and his dad were buying some
MOTHER’S DAY cards
and he played a little game of
PEEK-A-BOO with me
. . .of course, I forgot one other thing on the list and so
I snatched it and up to the Check Out line I went,
right behind my PEEK-A-BOO Buddy and his dad
who was getting to ready to pay for his cards
only to discover he had forgotten his wallet. . .
“Your dad is so dumb he forgot his wallet,” he was telling his son and then the he told the cashier he’d be right back. . .
It was my turn to enter the stage and repeat the only lines I never had the time to memorize:
“I’ve got this.”
“No, no sir you don’t have to do that. Really, I just live around the corner and I’ll be right back.”
“Sir, please do me a good. Let me do this for you. I’ve taken my kids ‘Card Shopping’ and forgotten my wallet and remember SomeOne doing me a good. Please, let me be selfish enough to do this. I guarantee you’re doing me a favor. I’ll feel way better for this than you.”
He thanked me
. . .yes, yes, with the words,
“THANK YOU”
but even more as he wheeled his son away in the cart
telling him just above a whisper,
“SEE, SON, I TOLD YOU THERE REALLY ARE GOOD PEOPLE IN THE WORLD YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO LOOK FOR BECAUSE THEY’LL ALWAYS FIND YOU”

For a mere $7.55 I won the
L O T T E R Y
that night
that covered more than a lot of debt
and remedied more than just a bit of good
and
T H E Y
say you can’t win the
L O T T E R Y
if you don’t play. . .
Wanna BET?

LIFE ITSELF

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https://youtu.be/VsjkWMBWpEo

It’s the last scene from the movie and it’s packed with wisdom, emotion and lots of life lessons
. . .ALL WHICH MEAN NOTHING
unless they are not so much
SEEN
HEARD
or even EXPERIENCED
so much as intimately and intentionally
A P P L I E D
(c o n t i n u o u s l y)
The quick synopsis
will tell you the
movie is about
College sweethearts Will and Abby who fall in love, get married and prepare to bring their first child into the world. As their story unfolds in New York, fate links them to a group of people in Seville, Spain, including a troubled young woman, a man and his granddaughter, a wealthy landowner and a plantation manager.
and yes,
EVEN US. . .
It’s more than about
Love and Loss
Grief
Relationships
Winning and Losing
Coming’s and Going’s
so much as how
we are more
i n t e r c o n n e c t e d
than we
realize
recognize
acknowledge
but ever proving
IT’S NOT SO MUCH AS SMALL WORLD
AS A BIG LIVING ROOM
and my thread
or your thread
are a part of the of the a
T A P E S T R Y
we each belong. . .
WE ARE CHAPTERS
in the Book
that just doesn’t merely tell our Story
but allows it to be experienced
by those
not yet here
sharing that
LIFE ITSELF
is the only
ALL
there is and ever
will be. . .

A FRESH BREATH

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They’re my new favorite:
COCA-COLA TIC TACS
especially the ones that
just don’t come in
a plastic container
but the ones
that tell a story
and better still. . .
BRING A FRESH BREATH
I eat them by the handful
and I do so unembarrassingly. . .
I even had just popped a handful of them
when he came up to my window. . .
We don’t go to SWENSONS often
. . .maybe 4 or 5 times a year
and it brings you back to the late 50’s, early 60’s when you’d pull your car up, not to a drive-thru but an actual parking lot with your head-lights on so that some energetic waiter would come running to take your order. . .
That’s exactly what Alex did,
with more pep in his step than at loose kangaroo escaped from the zoo. . .
and that’s when he noticed my container of Tic Tac’s, not when I was mumbling our order through a mouthful of them. He said his favorite were the ORANGE ones (YUCKO–My least favorite They taste like ASPERGUM). When I asked him if he had ever tried THESE Tic Tac’s, he said he never even heard of them, at which point I reached into the back seat where I literally had a bag full of 8 other containers and I gave him one. It was like I had given him the key to a secret vault or as if he had never received a gift, at least one from a stranger, one he had come running furiously over to serve. He literally said,
“Uhhhhhh, I don’t know what to say!”
And I told him don’t say anything yet, because you may hate them, but at that very moment we both know we were no longer talking about a $3.49 container of Coca-Cola flavored mints. . .
When he brought our order back out with an ‘ahhh-shucks-kind-of-smile’ on his face we both realized that in the end he took much more than our order and got delivered more than what was ever expected. . .
That happened over two weeks ago and I knew right then I would be blogging the incident that already has been more a part of either of us than a quickly digested GALLEY BOY or the bad breath of an old sigh. . .
FRESH BREATH
comes unexpectedly most of the time
with one small kind act
and though it rarely costs little
it produces priceless moments
which kind of says:

If a single Tic Tac
can bring a Fresh Breath
I M A G I N E
what a handful can yield

D A R E
to find out. . .

Better than JUST A Cookie

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When is a chocolate chip cookie more than a cookie or better yet when is a chocolate chip cookie not one?

Like a lot of funerals that I have done, I never had a chance to meet Margaret; I didn’t know her. I never shook her hand, heard the sound of her voice or listened to stories she could’ve shared about her family and friends. But one of the things that her family shared about her was the love that she had for all of them and she showed it most of the time in her cooking and especially in her baking. A lot of times, her baking was literally for JUST BECAUSE reasons without a birthday or an anniversary or some special occasion. Margaret would just make cookies and and then made sure they were delivered. She could never do them anonymously because her’s tasted better than any other cookie than any other family member could make or share. It was one of the things that family member after family member talked about doing her celebration of life services.

A chocolate chip cookie is at its best when it ISN’T. A few weeks after the celebration of her life I was asked if I could conduct her graveside services after she had been cremated and out-of-town family could  attend. Even though it was early April it felt like mid summer at 82° on a Saturday afternoon. 

I’ve conducted a lot of graveside services where people will pull out the Jack Daniels or the Jagermeister do to a final shot and they’ll toast or light up to celebrate the person and their memory. Uhhhhh, not Margaret’s family, No, they broke open up case of her chocolate chip cookies that had been frozen and now baked by family. After we talked about how her life continues to be celebrated and goes on in each and everyone of them, they took to heart most awesomely what I told him the few weeks prior: “Take Margaret’s best and make it a part of yourself because just by doing that one thing, Margaret not only remains with them, but they instantly become a much better person.

So, in good Margaret fashion, they passed out cookies and made sure that I actually got a carton of them to take on my way. 

When does a chocolate chip cookie not become a chocolate chip cookie?  When love takes a memory and bakes it; and then even more powerfully and intentionally when love takes that very memory and not only bakes it, but shares it. It simultaneously  brought an Ohhhhhhhhh to a Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

There are just some things mouths can’t taste but only experience. This batch of chocolate chip cookies did both. 

The best chocolate chip cookie isn’t made or baked or even eaten; it’s the one that’s shared; and with that one act of love~~it’s the one that’s experienced and not merely digested.

Zzzzzzzzzing Better

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How are you been sleeping?
It’s a pretty good question during the ever ongoing Pandemic
which has literally left us
at best
R E S T L E S S

Hey. . .
You want to sleep better?
(even if it doesn’t ever mean longer)
Here’s a few blinking hints:

Research suggests that practicing gratitude, forgiveness, mindfulness, and self-compassion may improve our sleep during these stressful times. . .

JILL SUTTIE a journalist for The Greater Good shares what it seems like we’ve been sharing with each other over these past 13 months.

A lot of us are suffering from lack of sleep these days. According the Centers for Disease Control, about 35% of adult Americans regularly get less than seven hours of sleep per night, with African Americans and other minority groups sleeping even less than that. 

With the pandemic still in full swing, we may have even more sleep problems than usual. Worries about our health and safety, jobs, kids’ disrupted education, and more are keeping many of us up at night, creating fatigue and stress the next day. This could also lead to more serious mental health issues, like depression and even suicide.

Improving “sleep hygiene” is a good remedy—including going to bed at the same time every night, making sure your room is dark and quiet at bedtime, forgoing afternoon caffeine, and creating sleep-time rituals (like putting on cozy pajamas and reading a book before bed). But many people still suffer from sleep problems even after making these adjustments. And, though turning to sleeping pills can be effective, they can also be addictive, or they can disrupt our dreaming, which leads to lower-quality sleep.  

Fortunately, there may be other things worth trying to help us sleep that have more to do with our minds than our bodies. Recent research suggests that many of the well-being practices we can do to be happier also have a positive effect on sleep. Here are some of those practices. 

Mindfulness meditation

For the record, I’m not a big Mindfulness Meditation (or any other kind of meditation) guy. BUT, a recent analysis of several high-quality studies (randomized controlled trials) concluded that mindfulness meditation programs help people fall asleep more easily and experience better-quality sleep overall. 

One study conducted in Wuhan, China, actually looked at how mindfulness might be useful for sleeping better during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the study, people spent 10 days using an app that either guided them through mindfulness meditation or induced mind-wandering (unfocused attention). They then reported how mindful they were and how much sleep they got the next day. 

After taking into account other factors influencing sleep (like how much caffeine people drank, their age, or prior anxiety levels), the researchers analyzed how long people slept as the virus spread and deaths proliferated in their community. Those who practiced mindfulness and became more mindful didn’t lose as much sleep as those in the other group, likely because mindfulness protected them some from worry and rumination. Mindfulness helps people recognize and accept negative thoughts and feelings without fighting them, reducing their intensity and preventing them from spiraling out of control.

If you’ve not already tried mindfulness meditation, you can find many online resources to give it a go—including apps, which seem to be at least somewhat effective. You can also go to Greater Good in Action and try our practices—including a body scan, mindful breathing, or common humanity meditation. These exercises, besides potentially helping with sleep, have been found to reduce stress and depression and increase happiness and satisfaction with life, too.

Self-compassion

Self-compassion is something all of us could use right now, especially as lockdowns drag on and we find ourselves feeling more tired, unhappy, and unproductive than usual. Getting down on ourselves for perceived mistakes and flaws could exacerbate low-grade depression, which many of us already feel.

Self-compassion helps us to be kinder to ourselves as we go through the ups and downs of life. According to researcher Kristin Neff, self-compassion involves paying attention to our internal and external experiences (mindfulness), recognizing when we are suffering and sending kind messages to ourselves, and keeping in mind our common humanity—that we are not alone in our imperfections or suffering.

Studies have found that more self-compassionate people have better sleep, including less trouble falling asleep after a stressful day. In that study, people who were more self-compassionate were also in a better mood and felt more alert upon awakening than those with little self-compassion.

Self-compassion can be strengthened with practice, and that improves sleep, too. In one study, participants were asked to think about personal mistakes they’d made before going to bed and assigned to do a self-compassion meditation, a self-compassion writing exercise, or neither of those (as a comparison). Based on their reports the next morning, those who did a self-compassion exercise slept significantly better and ruminated less than those who didn’t try self-compassion. These practices even helped people who started out more depressed, which is good to know, given how many of us are ruminating more these days.

A new paper analyzing the results of several studies found there was “a significant association between self-compassion and self-reported sleep quality.” Though more rigorous studies could be done to confirm this, we can always benefit from practices like writing ourselves a self-compassion letter or taking a self-compassion break.

Gratitude

Feeling grateful is a good way to feel happier and strengthen our relationships. Now, it appears to help with sleep, too.

In one study, 119 young women were randomly selected to write about people and things they were grateful for each day, things that happened each day, or nothing at all. After two weeks, people’s sleep quality improved significantly in the gratitude group, and this helped improve their well-being and optimism and reduce blood pressure, too. In a recent review of gratitude exercises and their effects on physical health, researchers found that one of the strongest impacts of gratitude was on sleep quality.

One reason gratitude may affect sleep is that a grateful mindset seems to help us embrace more positive thoughts and let go of more negative ones before we go to bed. This means that it doesn’t take as long for us to fall asleep at night.

To try gratitude practices yourself, you might consider keeping a gratitude journal (or use the GGSC’s Thnx4 online journal) or writing a gratitude letter. These are designed to increase your positive thoughts and feelings, which may be key to better sleep.

Forgiveness

For some people, forgiving others is hard—especially if you equate forgiveness with letting someone “off the hook” and condoning their harmful actions. But those who study forgiveness consider it to be not necessarily about healing relationships between people, but mostly important for ourselves, helping us to let go of grudges that decrease our personal well-being.

If what’s keeping you up at night is holding on to grudges—pandemic-related or not—it could be worth considering practicing forgiveness. Though there is little or no direct research on how forgiving someone affects sleep directly, there is at least one study that found forgiving types were more likely to sleep better at night than others. Additionally, those who were more self-forgiving in the study also slept better because they were able to let go of mistakes they’d made more easily.

Forgiving someone can make us feel happier, more hopeful, less depressed and anxious, and less vulnerable to stress. And it can improve our relationships with others, especially our closest ones, which is important when so many of us have limited ability to interact with others right now. Each of these benefits is also tied to better sleep, which is all the more reason to try practicing forgiveness.

The nice thing about all of these practices is that they can be used alone or in tandem, and they don’t have undesirable side effects. Not only that, practicing these keys to happiness can have the desirable side effect of helping you become a happier, healthier person. That’s something we can all cheer about in these dark times. Just don’t try cheering right before you want to fall asleep!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
(BIG YAWN)
Sleep Tight(er)

DESIDERATA

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DESIDERATA
. . .Latin for
THINGS TO BE DESIRED
is a 1920’s Max Ehrmann poem
brought back to Life
and Music in 1971
by Les Crane
and even though the
poem is over 101 years old
and the song is 50 years old
it could have not be more
r e l e v a n t
today than when it was first written
or brought to music
because
NOW
as
THEN
and most likely
FOREVER
we constantly need reminding
You matter.
You’re important.
You’re loved.
Your presence on this earth
at this very moment
makes a difference
whether you see it or not.
A N D
so does every single person
you know
or meet
hate
or love
. . .THE BIG QUESTION
“When are you going to act like it?”
isn’t as important as the
GREATER ANSWER
the World is desperately waiting to
E X P E R I E N C E. . .

YOU ARE A CHILD OF THE UNIVERSE
NO LESS THAN THE TREES OR STARS
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HERE
(and so does everyone else)

the next time 
you refuse to sing
because you’ll never 
fill a stadium
or decline the joy of dance
for fear of looking
ridiculous
or you resist risking
the new adventure
because you’re 
not entirely ready or
you dim your shine
because you’re not
completely healed and whole

the next time
you hold yourself suspect 
because you’re not
entirely qualified

just remember

a bird doesn’t sing 
because it’s talented
a bird sings because 
it has a song

the moon doesn’t only shine
when it’s whole
it can show up with 
a single sliver of itself
and still light an entire
night sky

show up. sing. shine.
the world needs you
as you are.

© Angi Sullins – www.AngiSullins.com

(Thank you, Lynne Maragliano)

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man