3 Ways to Shake Post-Election Funk
Strategies that you can employ right now to tamp down negative emotions
Welcome back to your weekly dose of wisdom and wellness, helping you make tomorrow a little better than today. Below you’ll find several in-depth, actionable stories by Wise & Well’s team of journalists, topical experts and practicing professionals. First, this week’s newsletter-only tidbits…
VITAL STAT: 8x8
An oft-cited “rule” for how much water you should drink each day, amounting to eight 8-ounce glasses. It’s pure myth. There is no formal, official guideline for how much water you need to drink, despite what all the misguided fitfluencers might tell you. We can say this, as I have before: “The average adult woman should consume about 11.4 cups of fluid per day (a cup equals 8 ounces) and men should consume 15.6.” But that fluid—meaning water—can be had in water-laden fruits and vegetables, soup, milk, coffee and anything else that packs H2O. [Learn more]
BIG WORDS: Electrolytes
Mineral salts called electrolytes are used by the body to carry electrical charges that allow you to do everything from thinking to using your muscles. The most common electrolytes you need are sodium, chloride, potassium, and magnesium, all of which are provided in ample supply by a healthy diet. Extra electrolytes may be required for athletes during endurance events, people working in high-heat environments, and anyone suffering frequent vomiting or diarrhea. [Learn more]
BRIEFLY: 3 Ways to Shake Post-Election Funk
This week has been an emotional one for many Americans. A lot of people are feeling the sudden onset of joy and satisfaction. A lot of others are struggling with sadness, anxiety and even anger. If you’re feeling negative emotions, psychologists suggest keeping in mind that feelings are not facts. They are real, absolutely real, and you should not try to “let them go,” but they represent our reactions to things, and we can manipulate some of the inputs and much of the processing, with strategies that can help us “let it be” and get on with life. Here are three helpful levers to pull:
GET TOGETHER: When you’re feeling lousy, you might tend to withdraw from others. Not good. A little time alone—solitude—can be invigorating, but not if it leads to loneliness, which exacerbates negative feelings.
Who you spend time with matters. Emotions are contagious, research has shown. Romantic partners are particularly vulnerable to the spread of negative emotions. Similarly, constant commiseration with friends, family or colleagues who are down can infect you with even more sadness or anxiety. “One of the effects of emotional contagion is that people’s degree of happiness tends to reflect that of their friends, family, and neighbors,” write’s physicist Leonard Mlodinow in his book Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking. “We are, in a sense, whom we hang out with.”
This might be a good time, then, to seek out those people in your life who always seem to be upbeat, or who are doing well right now. Maybe if you can avoid discussing politics, their positive vibe just might rub off.
GET PHYSICAL: If you’re feeling negative emotions, know that stewing on them won’t make them go away. You’re likely ruminating over some things that are out of your control. Better to put your energy into something you can control.
Active physical diversion is a great remedy.
Any sort of physical activity — deep breathing, yoga, running, weightlifting, biking and so on — can help reduce stress and anxiety by pumping feel-good hormones into your brain and body. (Here’s a no-excuses guide to get you started.)
SEEK JOY: You may wish you were happier right now, that the world didn’t seem so gloomy. But happiness isn’t directly pursuable. Wishing for it is doubly pointless. However, joy is all around, and bits of joy add up to… happiness. The thing is, whether we catch or miss moments of joy is on us. When you’re down, stopping to smell the roses is more important than ever.
“Joy is a lot more immediate and accessible than happiness,” the designer Ingrid Fetell Lee writes in her book Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness. “And ironically, it may actually be one of the most powerful routes to happiness.”
Think back to the most joyous things you’ve ever done. Whatever brings you joy, do a lot of that. If you can’t think of anything, go spend time in nature—one of the most uplifting activities known to humanity.
THIS WEEK’S FEATURES
A selection of this week’s informative, entertaining and actionable Wise & Well stories:
Psychiatric Diagnosis is Broken
Psychiatry often gets a bad rap in film. The motivations, methods and merits of its practitioners are often questioned. “Even within the medical field, psychiatry struggles to maintain respect,” our resident psychiatrist writes in this surprisingly candid insider’s view. While psychiatric therapy helps many people, there’s a big problem with how the initial mental health diagnoses are done. He’s got a fix. And here’s why it’s so important:
Accurate psychiatric diagnoses are important because they aid in selecting appropriate treatment and providing general predictions of future actions. In addition, psychiatric diagnoses often become an intrinsic, important aspect of how an individual understands themself. Diagnoses can become a part of one’s identity and a path to connecting with others.
— John Kruse MD, PhD
Can Drinking More Water Really Promote Weight Loss?
Water is vital to basic human survival. And we hear that we need to drink a lot of it. But advice on how much water we should drink, and why, is all over the place. One tidbit of advice—that drinking more water can help you lose weight—is surprisingly specious. It takes a scientist to sort through all the confusing research on this one.
The science of drinking water for weight loss is more complex than what many dieters know. And while certain strategies seem to work, other water-drinking approaches have been pretty useless in peer-reviewed testing.
—Sam Westreich, PhD
Doctors Diss, Dismiss, and Gaslight Female Chronic Pain Sufferers
Pain plays out differently in men and women. We know less about how it works in women, for several reasons: Historically, much of the research on pain has been led by men and conducted on men, and the majority of doctors who treat pain have been men. Despite improvements in the field, chronic pain in women remains poorly understood. What’s clear is that women are often simply not believed when they say they’re in pain. That’s gotta change.
Why do differences in the experience of pain between males and females occur? No one is exactly sure yet. Guesses are that it could have to do with hormones, genetics, and psychosocial factors such as trauma or stress. Pain and emotions are intimately related. The idea that women are mostly in pain because of psychological reasons, though, is a long-held myth that’s used to dismiss them.
—Randall H. Duckett
We Could Have Died… But We Didn’t So I’ll Tell You All About It
One time we were awoken around 4 a.m. by ear-splitting beeps from a combination smoke/carbon monoxide detector. We stumbled outside and called 911. The fire department came and checked the indoor air. False alarm. Something about the devices being sensitive to the change in seasons. But after reading this story, I’m checking the batteries and will never assume those devices are crying wolf.
… if left undetected, the deadly gas would have kept accumulating, and likely would have reached lethal levels within 48 hours. We would have felt flu-ey symptoms like fatigue, headache, and nausea which we might not have recognized as carbon monoxide poisoning…
—Dr. Monique Tello
5 Easy Ways to Ruin Your Health & Happiness
Health and wellness advice is everywhere. Easy to get sick of it. And the tips and tricks can seem so… time consuming, difficult and all around not fun. So rather than throw more healthy tactics at you, I’ve ferreted out five pillars of unwellness that you can lean into as part of a strategy to shorten your time on this planet and make yourself miserable along the way.
Embrace these foundational strategies and you can confidently join millions of others who’ve committed to pursuing a long list of debilitating conditions and a precipitous departure from this cruel world. The great news is these pillars of unwellness are proven to work and easy to adopt and habitualize, with each reinforcing the others to create a perfect downward spiral.
—Robert Roy Britt
Advice St. Augustine Might Give Americans Today
This oft-cited Catholic saint and theologian watched the Roman Empire collapse, and he argued that for a society to find political and religious unity, people need to learn how to listen and speak each others’ language instead of just trying to convince each other they are right. Imagine if we all leaned into this approach today!
Despite such violence — and even because of it — Augustine advocated for political and religious unity. In “City of God,” he offers a vision of the political community, or “commonwealth,” that emphasizes “peace” and “concord” among diverse citizens.
—Michael Lamb
Human Aging Happens in Spurts
In her periodic nutrition newsletter, Mandy Willig, PhD, RD, digs into the nuts and bolts of important and interesting new research, evaluating the veracity of the claims to help you better understand the latest science. In this issue:
- Human aging: a little bit, then all at once.
- People in outpatient clinics lose a lot of weight using GLP-1s only if they have access to them.
- Plus What I’m reading: How a Government Scientist is Pushing to Supersize Research into Ultra-Processed Foods.
I hope we’ve helped make your tomorrow a little better than today. If you like what you see, please follow Wise & Well and/or subscribe to this newsletter. If you’re interested in writing for us, see our quality standards and requirements.
Cheers,
Rob
