Center for Workplace Happiness

There’s a holiday today that’s only for women. Sorry guys – you’re left out of this one, and the silver lining is that you don’t have to remember today, buy flowers, a card, or take your lady out to a fancy dinner. Today, National Girlfriends Day, is a day for women to celebrate their women-friends, so guys, if your female significant other expects flowers, gifts, and an extravagant date night from you tonight, tell them they’re barking up the wrong tree. 

Historically, women are the care-givers, community-builders, and nurturers. From the time of early civilizations, women typically left their families to be with the new man’s family. The alliances they built with the women in their new circle were often very much like those they had with their biological families, and that deep, family-style bonding continues today. While men’s friendships are more transactional in nature and can be fairly easily disrupted by shifting...

Caution: cliché alert!!!

• You can’t pour from an empty vessel.
• Almost everything will work if you unplug it for a few minutes – even you.
• We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

Yes, you’re right – this edition of the newsletter is about self-care. July is Self-Care month and yesterday was International Self-Care Day. And if you’re like nearly everyone else, me included, self-care isn’t at the top of your to-do list each day, and it needs to be, for both of us.

Why? Don’t make me point you back up to those cliches, ok? The reason phrases become repeated so often that they become trite and clichéd is because – drum roll please – they’re true. They resonate, and have resonated for decades, if not hundreds of years. And yet here we are, talking about how we neglect our own self-care.

How can we make our own care a priority? First, give yourself credit for the things you already do for yourself:

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About 120 years ago a phrase came into being: “get out of the doghouse.” If a couple had a fight and one locked the other out of the house, unless there was a barn on the property, the only shelter was likely to be the family dog’s house. Hence, a bid for forgiveness was characterized as a bid to get out of the doghouse.

Humans have a difficult relationship with the concept of forgiveness. We get irritated by the behaviors of others every day in small ways, and sometimes even suffer hardship, hurt, or loss through the actions of others. Both the small slights and the larger ones spark a level of negative emotion pointed toward the perceived perpetrator. Behavioral scientists agree there are at least two components to forgiveness, emotional and behavioral, and while there’s not a lot of research on them, it’s likely that most acts of forgiveness include a blend of both. Let’s look at two examples where an offense is given, and forgiveness might be...

Do you know a lonely person? Especially since the pandemic isolation has ended, you might be surprised to learn that there are more people who say they’re lonely now than before the pandemic.

Just what is loneliness, anyway? Noted researcher Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad has been studying loneliness for over two decades and says it’s “often defined as being based on the discrepancy between our desired level of connection and actual level of connection.” Before the pandemic, levels of social isolation were rising, and post-pandemic that trend has continued. The worst thing is that social isolation is as bad for our physical and mental health as stress, increasing the risk for heart attack and stroke, and according to some research, increasing the chance of premature death by 15%.

Today is Cheer Up the Lonely Day, started in Detroit Michigan by Francis Pesek, a man who wanted to brighten the days of shut-ins, those who lived alone, and people in nursing homes....

Quick…what does “creativity” mean to you? If you automatically conjure thoughts of crayons and paste, of sculptures and works by Old Masters, and of pottery wheels and hit songs, you’re right…partially right, anyway.

Oxford Online defines creativity as, “the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.” That aligns with most peoples’ definition of creativity – more in the direction of art, music, and maybe even interior design and architecture. Creativity is SO much more than that and is a valuable skill that everyone can benefit from developing.

According to the American Psychological Association, writing about ongoing research studies around creativity, most scientists agree that there are two kinds of creativity – little “c” creativity and big “C” creativity. Little “c” creativity is used as an indicator of mental health and relates to...

This week let’s talk about some mental shortcuts many people take, and how harmful they can be to relationships of every kind.

• Republicans think Democrats are soft in the head. Democrats think Republicans have no heart.
• Minorities think authorities are out to get them. Authorities think minorities are the source of all the problems.
• Baby Boomers think Millennials are lazy. Millennials think Baby Boomers are greedy and wasteful.

If you’ve watched the news, scrolled through social media, or listened to conversations around you, you’ve probably been exposed to those common mental shortcuts, as well as many others. Our human brains are wired to see the things around us that support what we already believe, strengthening those beliefs and making the shortcuts feel valid.

In addition to being common, the shortcuts cited above are incorrect, unkind, and unloving. When we allow ourselves to rely on the shortcuts our brains want to take, we cut ourselves off from...

Whether there are kids in your home or not, you’re probably thinking about doing something this summer. Because of the rhythm of years in childhood, most of us associate the summer months with vacation time. What are your vacation plans?

Don’t have any? You’re in good company – nearly a third of Americans don’t have travel plans either. Inflation is pricing some of them out of travel, some don’t have anyone to go with them and don’t want to go it alone, and some of them are the same people who lose it every year.

Do you use it or do you lose it? Vacation time, I mean. On average, Americans give back nearly 10 vacation days a year to their employers. I won’t ask a nosy question like how much do you make per year – I’ll just ask you to do the math. Take your daily rate, multiply it by the number of vacation days you didn’t use last year, and think about whether you’d just give that much money away. Because you...

She is revered. She is vilified. She is someone that most of us took for granted, not realizing that she was a person with a life, hopes, and dreams before us, and plans for her own life that didn’t necessarily include us. She is Mother and this Sunday is her day.

Relationships are difficult at times, and many people have difficulties putting their “Mom relationship” into perspective. For those of us whose moms are no longer alive in a physical body, this week can be tough, and for those who resent or even hate their moms, this week can be even harder in many ways. All that serves to make this week before Mother’s Day a challenging one for many of us to find emotional peace and balance. It can be done, though – the same tools that help you put other things into perspective work for this, too.

Neuroplasticity came into being as a field of study when doctors watched patients re-acquire skills lost after a stroke. Researchers studied the process our brains...

This week’s topic might make you roll your eyes. That’s OK. This week’s topic may make you think, “I’ve tried and it doesn’t work for me.” That’s OK, too. Keep reading for the why’s and how’s about adding … gasp! … meditation to your daily routine.

There are a lot of reasons people give for not meditating – they don’t understand what it is, they don’t understand what it does for them, and maybe they think they don’t have time for meditation. Let’s take those reasons, one by one:

What is meditation? It’s simply quieting your mind for a few minutes while remaining awake. That’s all. Most major religions have meditative practices, though meditation itself isn’t a religious activity. You don’t need special clothes, music, flexibility, or space to meditate – comfy clothes, a comfy chair or couch, and a space you can be undisturbed for a short period of...

If April showers bring May flowers, you know it’s time for peek-toes, flip-flops, and bare feet very soon! That’s probably why today is National Mani-Pedi day – gotta get those foot-tootsies summer-ready. Yes, even if you’re a dude, the benefits of carving an hour or so out of your day for pampering is a highly recommended experience.

Taking care of yourself with things like manicures, pedicures, facials, and massages can sometimes feel self-indulgent and maybe even wasteful. It’s not – taking care of yourself is giving yourself permission to relax as you allow someone to help you look and feel your best. Making time and space in your life to do things to help you live well and be healthier is, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, the perfect way to manage your stress, increase your energy, and reduce your risk of illness.

There – did that get your attention? NIMH wants you to get a mani-pedi this week!

Self-care helps your...