A Change in Story

Here's a quick, three-minute tip where we break down a mental health or personal development topic in 180 seconds to help you shift or reframe your perspective.

Today's topic explores the word "should" and how using "should statements" can lead to things like anxiety, feeling down about ourselves and even feeling less motivated.

The use of should statements is pretty common and most of us tell ourselves that we "should" be doing one thing or another at some point, and these types of statements can have a pretty big impact on self-esteem and self-confidence.

Not only can these statements carry hints of self-criticism and judgement, but they're also vague and don't really provide that much information that would allow you to make a change.

The good thing is that if you do notice yourself using the word "should" a lot, one way to try and counteract the tendency and even the effects is to see if you can replace the word "should" with "could."

So instead of saying something like "I should eat healthier," you might say: "I could eat healthier."

The word "could" implies that you have a choice and when we give ourselves a choice, rather than shaming ourselves to do something, it's much more motivating and more likely that we will follow through.

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Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

*Disclaimer: The information contained in this episode is for the sole purpose of being informative and is not considered complete. It should not replace consultation with a qualified professional.

Here's a quick, three-minute tip where we break down a mental health or personal development topic in 180 seconds to help you shift or reframe your perspective.

Today's topic looks at the difference between self-care and coping and how both are beneficial but play different roles in helping to maintain wellbeing.

First off, self-care tends to be more proactive while coping is more reactive. Meaning self-care is typically more planned and routine, whereas coping skills are typically used in the moment to help manage stressors or intense emotions.

So self-care is more than just what you're turning to in the moment, and this distinction can be important for two reasons.

First, if we're only looking at self-care as an immediate fix then we can miss out on the benefits of a sustained self-care practice.

This can include things like reduced stress and lower chance of burnout, feeling more energized and productive, better immune functioning, and higher levels of happiness and contentment.

The second reason that distinguishing between coping and self-care can be helpful is because self-care has become an entire industry, and we're often marketed things like massages, vacations and even binging TV shows as forms of self-care.

And while all of those things can be helpful in the short term and provide temporary relief or even an escape, they don't always provide the same benefits as longer-term, sustained self-care practices.

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Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

*Disclaimer: The information contained in this episode is for the sole purpose of being informative and is not considered complete. It should not replace consultation with a qualified professional.

Here's a quick, three-minute tip where we break down a mental health or personal development topic in 180 seconds to help you shift or reframe your perspective.

Today's topic is a further exploration of multitasking but this time specifically looking at media multitasking and some of its effects on brain and mental health.

Media multitasking is the term that's used to describe the art of consuming media through multiple devices or streams at the same time. So scrolling through Instagram while watching TV or listening to a podcast while reading your email.

While multitasking in general can contribute to negative side effects like increased stress and lower productivity, research has shown that media multitasking can significantly affect our attention spans and memory.

For example, a 2022 study published in Front Psychiatry found that college students who engaged in media multitasking were more likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression because they were less able to control their attention.

An earlier study by Stanford University researchers also found that regular media multitaskers can struggle to filter out irrelevant information, meaning they can get easily distracted from what they're trying to focus on. The same study also found that regular media multitaskers were less successful at controlling their memory and switching between tasks than people who did not engage in as much media multitasking.

While the realities of modern life make it easier and may even encourage media multitasking, being aware of some of the side effects, including the fact that we become more susceptible to irrelevant and potentially even negative information, can be helpful.

Because even if you're going to media multitask, which most of us are at some point, if you start to notice yourself feeling more anxious or stressed than normal or having difficulty remembering what you have to do that day, you can always try putting down one of your devices or taking a brief break all together as a way to recalibrate.

Research cited: "Cognitive control in media multitaskers." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

"Media multitasking, depression, and anxiety of college students: Serial mediating effects of attention control and negative information attentional bias." Front. Psychiatry

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Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

*Disclaimer: The information contained in this episode is for the sole purpose of being informative and is not considered complete. It should not replace consultation with a qualified professional.

Here's a quick, three-minute tip where we break down a mental health or personal development topic in 180 seconds to help you shift or reframe your perspective.

Today's topic explores the truth behind multitasking and why it's not always providing the productivity rewards you might expect.

In today's world, most of us are multitasking some or even most of the time. With modern technology, we can take in a ton of information and get a lot of things done all at once.

But there's also a biological reason that we're prone to multitasking, and that's because our brains get a short-term "fix" from doing multiple things at the same time because it activates a dopamine-seeking feedback loop.

The downside, however, is that there's a fair amount of research that suggests multitasking has negative side effects on our brains, mental health and, ironically, even on our productivity.

For example, a 2001 study by a group of psychologists found that task switching could contribute to a roughly 40 percent loss in productivity. Research has shown that multitasking can have negative side effects on memory and decision-making ability and even increase stress levels.

So if you're prone to multitasking and find that it's not actually making you more productive, it can be helpful to try and focus on one task at a time or at least take a couple things off your plate.

Research cited: https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking

The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel Levitin

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Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

*Disclaimer: The information contained in this episode is for the sole purpose of being informative and is not considered complete. It should not replace consultation with a qualified professional.

Here's a three-minute, quick tip where we break down a mental health or personal development topic in 180 seconds to help you shift or reframe your perspective.

Today's topic explores what is sometimes called the negativity bias and how to challenge it.

This is the idea that as humans we are hardwired to look for the negative or for potential threats in order to survive.

Another aspect of the negativity bias is the idea that we tend to remember or pay more attention to negative experiences than positive ones. For example, we might remember and fixate on the one negative comment we receive on something we did compared to possibly the hundreds of positive comments we received.

As you can imagine, this type of thinking, while it might be trying to protect us, can have not so great side effects, like lowering our mood, increasing feelings of worry or stress, and it can even affect our outlook or perspective on things.

One step or strategy to try and overcome or challenge this tendency is to intentionally focus on the positive, or what is also going well in a situation.

This isn't a suggestion to ignore the negative of what's going on but rather to try and look at the mixture of what is happening–both the good and bad.

There's research that suggests a 3:1 positivity ratio can help us maintain a sense of wellbeing. In other words, for every negative emotional experience we're focused on, it can take focusing on and appreciating three positive emotional experiences to move our minds from a state of survival into a state of thriving.

So if you find yourself ruminating or fixating on something negative, you can try looking for at least three positive things that are also happening in order to help balance out the negative thoughts and emotions.

Research cited: Positivityratio.com

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Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

*Disclaimer: The information contained in this episode is for the sole purpose of being informative and is not considered complete. It should not replace consultation with a qualified professional.

Here's a three-minute, quick tip where we break down a mental health or personal development topic in 180 seconds to help you shift or reframe your perspective.

Today's topic explores the idea of postponing worry in order to help reduce the effects of stress on your day-to-day life.

This can be especially helpful in times when what we're worried about doesn't have an immediate or simple solution. Or maybe we're worried about something that we don't have a lot of control over, like someone else's wellbeing.

In these types of situations, it can be helpful to try and contain the worry so that it doesn't completely disrupt our ability to live our lives.

This is where using a technique like postponing worry or creating a worry container can come in handy.

The idea behind both of these strategies is to gain a sense of control over the worrisome thoughts and feelings as opposed to them having more of the control.

To do this:

• Try writing down what you're worried about as a way to get it out of your mind and to start creating some distance from the worries.
• Decide on a specific time when you'll return to those worries. This can be a 15-20 min. time period sometime during your day, typically best when you have a natural break, such as after school or after work and not right before you go to bed.
• During this alloted time, go back and reflect on what you've written down. You might try and come up with some solutions or journal or write about what's coming up for you or even talk about it with someone you trust.
• Once the time is up, write down anything that's continuing to bring up worry and then close the book on it until the next designated worry time, which might be the same 15-20 min. window the following day.

If it's helpful, you can also create a worry container, which can be literal like a shoebox or a jar where you can put the worries that you've written down, or it can be something you visualize in your mind.

Once you've contained the worries, though, it's important to try and focus on the present moment. You may need to do something to feel more grounded, like take a walk, drink some water, or listen to some music. Or maybe you find just jumping back into your routine the most helpful.

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Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

*Disclaimer: The information contained in this episode is for the sole purpose of being informative and is not considered complete. It should not replace consultation with a qualified professional.

Here's a three-minute, quick tip where we break down a mental health or personal development topic in 180 seconds to help you shift or reframe your perspective.

Today's topic is the relationship between anxiety and excitement and how you can actually sometimes use excitement to help counteract the effects of stress in situations where you need to perform.

Both anxiety and excitement can feel very similar. That's because they stimulate similar responses in your brain and overall nervous system.

However, while these two states can feel very similar, they're actually different in the types of thoughts that they generate.

Anxiety, for example, wants to keep you safe so it might tell you all the things that could go wrong, or how you could embarrass yourself or how you might fail.

Excitement on the other hand will frame the situation as something to look forward to or to move toward. For example, excitement can sound like "I've got this." "This is going to be so much fun." Or, "I'm excited to see how this will work out."

So the trick to using excitement to help counteract anxiety is to first notice whether your viewing the situation through a more fear-based lens or a more optimistic, excited lens, and if it happens to be the former, try and lean more into excitement by choosing thoughts that are more motivational and uplifting and by framing the situation as an opportunity.

Research cited: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035325

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Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

*Disclaimer: The information contained in this episode is for the sole purpose of being informative and is not considered complete. It should not replace consultation with a qualified professional.

In this episode, Mark Winters shares the unexpected journey that led him from a successful career as an aerospace engineer and businessman to becoming a Texas-based rock singer-songwriter.

Mark reflects on the moment he first discovered his passion for performing and how that experience reignited his creativity and love of writing poetry. He also shares the highs and challenges of starting over in a new field, teaching himself to play guitar and piano and how to sing as well as how to navigate the music industry.

After years of dedication, persistence and practice, Mark now travels across the country creating and sharing music with what he affectionately calls his fellow "nerdy proton lovers."

Tune in to hear how Mark's leap from science and business into music reshaped the way he sees himself, his work, and way he shows up in the world.

For more information on Mark, including his latest music and tour dates, check out his website markwintersmusic.com.

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Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

After decades of caring for family members, Debbie Weiss realized that she no longer wanted to live at the mercy of her circumstances, so she decided to prioritize herself.

Her mindset shift not only transformed how she approached life, but it also inspired her to begin writing a book about her experiences.

However, just as Debbie started working on her memoir, she found herself in another caregiving role when her husband became ill.

Take a listen to hear how Debbie navigated caregiving differently this time around, and how writing became an important part of her self-care during an incredibly challenging time.

To find out more about Debbie and her books, check out her website debbierweiss.com.

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For more information on the podcast, including past episodes, please visit achangeinstory.com.

Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

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Welcome to the first episode of A Change in Story, a podcast about the moments that reshape how we see ourselves and the world around us.

In this inaugural episode, you'll hear the story of Don Akchin, a career-long journalist and writer who is changing his view of what it means to be retired.

After realizing that this stage of life wasn't exactly what he thought it would be, Don began researching how the idea of retirement is changing as people are living longer lives.

He also interviewed other retirees about their experiences and found he wasn't alone in his discovery that the transition to a post-career life comes with more than just financial changes and considerations. It also comes with changes in things like routine, identity and social circles.

Don began compiling his findings into a weekly newsletter and eventually wrote, The After Work: Finding Fulfilling Alternatives to Retirement.

Not only does the book aim to help others think differently about a post-career life, it also helped Don achieve his lifelong dream of becoming an author.

To find out more about Don and his work, check out his website donakchin.com.

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For more information on the podcast, including past episodes, please visit achangeinstory.com.

Want to reach out, be a guest or have a question? Contact [email protected].

Stay up to date with new episodes by subscribing to the newsletter!