6 Ways to Banish Anxiety and Speak Up In Meetings at Work

-Melody Wilding, LMSW

Another meeting is coming up at work, and you’re dreading it.

Like so many professionals — probably many more than you realize — it’s not a comfortable environment for you. Maybe you’re shy, introverted, or you genuinely enjoy listening to others’ ideas. Perhaps it’s important to you to show respect by deferring to the leaders at the table.

Situational factors can play a part, too. Certain co-workers may dominate the discussion, not allowing you to get a word in edgewise.

Whatever the case, sitting frozen through yet another meeting can be a terrible feeling. By now you might even take it for granted that feeling self-conscious in meetings is part of the job. You may wonder if it’s really worth all of the effort to speak up, especially if it doesn’t come naturally to you.

Elevating your visibility at work is essential if you want your career to evolve and grow. You work hard and have great ideas to contribute — you should be making an impact and getting the recognition you deserve. If you want to get ahead, then it’s important that your voice is heard. It’s within your power to take control and ditch the habit of staying silent in favor of speaking up.

Here are some very simple strategies you can confidently implement at your very next meeting. With a little practice, you’ll finally feel like the integral team member you’ve always been.

1. Banish Pre-Meeting Jitters

Your hands are shaky. Your stomach is doing somersaults. You suddenly start second guessing if you spelled the client’s name correctly on the agenda. These are common pre-meeting anxieties. It’s normal to experience anticipatory stress when you feel as if your intelligence or contributions are being evaluated.

Instead of interpreting your jitters as a sign that you’re inadequate or otherwise not up to the task at hand, Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal suggests befriending your stress response, reframing it as a sign you’re ready for action and prepared to bring your best to the (conference) table.

2. Ease Into It

It may be tempting to arrive right before a meeting starts to appear prompt or avoid awkward small talk. But if you feel rushed or short on time, this will only exacerbate the existing stress you already feel during meetings.

Instead, build in a buffer and plan to settle in before things get underway. Give yourself the opportunity to ease into the physical meeting space. If it’s a virtual teleconference, get comfortable with the webinar controls, your mic, and webcam ahead of time.

As colleagues arrive, focus on making conversation with one or two people at a time, which can feel both socially fulfilling and less overwhelming. You’ll also already have an “in” of sorts as the meeting begins and conversation turns towards agenda items. This can help ease anxiety and make speaking up for the duration of the session seamless.

3. Commit To Speaking Early

Have you ever come to a meeting with ideas and plan for what you want to say, then left realizing you said nothing the entire time? While you’re not alone, staying quiet is doing yourself a disservice. It typically gets more difficult to enter the conversation as a meeting progresses. The longer you wait, the more your anxiety will build.

Growth often comes from discomfort, so push yourself to speak up early. Set a simple strategy to say something in the first 10 to 15 minutes of the session–whether it’s to welcome attendees, present your main argument, ask a question, or offer an opinion on a new business proposal. It’s a surefire way to ensure you contribute.

4. Use Your Strengths When Speaking Up

You don’t have to be the loudest in the room. Even the soft-spoken can still make an impact by backing up a coworker’s comment with a simple, “Great idea! I can see that working really well.”

You can also focus on asking powerful questions. Especially if you consider yourself an introvert, you’re likely very observant, which gives you an edge when it comes to posing the kind of thought-provoking questions that haven’t crossed your colleagues’ minds quite yet.

Another way powerful way to increase your impact and visibility even after the meeting wraps is by following up with an email to your boss summarizing key points raised, or better yet, providing a proposal for a new project sparked by the conversation. You’ll build up a reputation as someone who makes useful contributions and you’ll come to everyone’s mind more quickly when promotion time comes around. More importantly, you’ll gain confidence in yourself.

5. Be The One To Take Action on “Next Steps”

Did something come up in the meeting that could use more research? Commit to taking on something for the next meeting. It shows you have initiative and that you’re interested and invested in your organization.

This is a great example of employing a pre-commitment device, a habit formation technique you can use to nudge yourself towards behaviors you desire. You’ve committed yourself — now you’ll be more motivated and likely to follow through.

6. Challenge Your Beliefs About Contributing

Many people’s leadership instincts may not have been nurtured to their full potential in childhood, and subconscious insecurities can seep into our behavior to this day when it comes to speaking up. So how do you overcome old, outdated scripts holding you back from feeling confident about speaking up? It requires a deep-dive into your presumptions about self-worth and speaking up.

Growing up, what were you told about standing out? Were you given the message by your parents, teachers, and community that you could be whatever you wanted, or did you internalize concepts such as, “People won’t like you if you try to stand out”? If you find yourself easily devastated by real or imagined negative feedback when you express your ideas, consider that you may be reverting back to an immature identity when your self-esteem was more contingent on other people’s (especially that of authority figures’) opinions.

When you have a point to make yet find undermining thoughts creeping in, thank your inner-critic for trying to do it’s job by keeping you protected. Fear can signal you’re saying something of significance. Seize the moment. Stop playing small. Remember, you’re part of your organization because you’re qualified, you’re effective, and you matter.

You’ve got a lot to offer — now it’s time to let everyone know it.

27 Signs of Superficial Relationships

-Mike Bundrant

Warning: This post is one person’s opinion about the signs of superficial relationships: An opinion piece made up by the author. It’s not clinical, scientific, or based on research. It’s opinion, informed only by experience.

There is nothing wrong with superficial relationships. Not every connection in life can be deep and emotionally engaging. Superficial relationships have their place.

Some relationships are superficial for practical purposes. You don’t spend enough time together – and don’t have the goal of going deeper.

Other superficial relationships leave you wanting something more because you have an expectation of something deeper and are not being satisfied. This is where it gets interesting.

Are you in superficial relationships that you wish were more substantive?

You’ll need to be the judge of that. This post mentions 27 signs of superficial relationships that might help to understand.

But first, why does it matter?

Well, if you’re genuinely wondering whether or not your relationship is superficial, and especially if you’re willing to read up on the topic, chances are that you are not a superficial person.

Being a deeper person, however, doesn’t protect you from superficial relationships. It takes two to tango. Your relationship might be as shallow and superficial as a relationship can get if both of you aren’t engaged at a deeper level.

A deeper person in superficial relationships may not be very happy. Of course, being “deep” doesn’t mean you are a healthy person. Yet, communicating with people who understand you on a deeper level is probably more fulfilling in general.

So, if you’re a deeper person in a superficial relationship…

You need to adjust your expectations if your partner is not capable of – or interested in – going deeper with you. Some people don’t want to go deep with you. Some people lack the ability to go deep with you. Others are capable of going deep, just not in the way you go deep – in your specific area of interest.

If you’re lucky, the person you’re with wants to go deeper with you and can do just that, in the area of interest that suits you. If this is the case, you don’t need to hang out in a superficial relationship.

Here are the promised 27 signs of superficial relationships:

You don’t know what the other person wants out of life or is really interest in.
You don’t understand how your life-values compare.
You don’t know where you’re compatible vs. incompatible as people.
You can’t or don’t put yourself in the other person’s shoes.
You don’t communicate feelings.
There are lots of controlling/control issues in the relationship.
You don’t think about what the other person needs from you.
You don’t know what you need from the other person.
You argue on a regular basis about trivial things.
Your relationship centers around having fun (or just one thing).
You gossip behind each other’s back.
You don’t spend much time together.
You’re not invested in each other’s goals or behavior.
You fantasize about being with someone else, regularly.
You lie to each other.
You can’t disagree respectfully.
You’ve never had a discussion about boundaries.
Your sex is mechanical.
Your sex is one-sided.
Your sex life isn’t happening.
You don’t talk about sex.
You don’t know each other’s personal history.
You avoid eye contact.
You don’t touch each other.
You don’t think about the other person when he or she is absent.
You can’t connect about your life dreams.
There is a lot of manipulation in the relationship.

As I mentioned, this is a non-scientific list. If one or more of the above is going on in your relationship, that does not automatically mean it’s superficial. However, in deep and deeply respectful relationships where both parties are recognized and independent and emotional beings, the items on this list would be less common, in my opinion. And, yes, I may have left out many commonly accepted signs of superficial relationships.

Remember, superficial relationships are not bad or wrong. And deeper relationships develop in stages, often years in the making.

5 Little Known Hallmarks of A Psychologically Healthy Person

-Jonice Webb, PhD

We all have a general idea of what we think a psychologically healthy person looks like. Maybe it’s not being depressed or anxious, not suffering, or not having a diagnosis.

Maybe it’s being happy, or simply able to live a good life.

All of these things are important and have great merit, of course. But what are the specific factors that make a person psychologically healthy? Here are some very important ones that hardly anyone thinks about.

The Five Hallmarks

1. Being able to hold two opposites in your mind at the same time. Is she a good person or a bad person? Did you like the movie or not? Are you talented, yes or no? Who’s right, you or me?” This tendency for our minds to polarize things into opposites in order to settle on a clear solution applies to all areas of our lives. But it shows up especially starkly in very personal questions, such as how we view ourselves, how we think about our childhoods, and how we judge others.

The ability to see the gray areas is a skill that not everyone has, for sure. But here we’re talking about a step beyond that. The ability to say during a conflict with another person, “We are both right, and we are also both wrong.” To be able to conclude, in any situation, “This is both extremely good and extremely bad,” “This person is both well-intentioned and extremely harmful,” “I love you and hate you at the same time.” “My parents gave me a lot, but they also failed me terribly.” All are true.

Opposites go together far better than most people realize. And if you can hold the opposing sides in your mind together at the same time, it gives you a birds-eye view of yourself, a person, or a situation that is far more accurate and real than grasping for a one-dimensional answer.

2. The ability to manage your feelings while communicating. Managing your emotions is one thing, and communicating is another. Each is a difficult skill to master. Put them together, and you have a great challenge. Being able to manage the anger or hurt you are feeling so that you can explain to someone how you feel; being able to manage your anger in order to express the problem in a way that the other person can hear. These are two examples of strong psychological health.

3. Self-awareness. Everyone knows themselves. But the question is, how well? Do you understand your typical responses to things? Are you aware of what you feel, and why you’re feeling it? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Talents? Likes and dislikes? What do you need, and what do you enjoy? The better you understand yourself, the more resilient you are in challenging situations, the better you can forgive yourself for mistakes, and the better life choices you can make for yourself.

4. Feeling comfortable in your own skin. This involves being happy to simply be you. Think of it as spending time with yourself, happily and comfortably. Can you sit alone with no entertainment and be comfortable? Can you be in the moment right now, and not thinking ahead, thinking about the past, or thinking about something or someone else? Are you able to sit with a feeling, accept that feeling, and try to understand it? These are all examples of being comfortable in your own skin.

5. Being willing to take risks. Being able to stretch yourself, not only within your comfort zone but beyond it, takes a great deal of strength and resilience. Are you willing to put yourself out there? Can you rely on yourself to manage a failure, if it happens? Do you know yourself well enough to know what’s worth going out on a limb for? Can you forgive yourself if you don’t succeed? The strength required to take the risk of failure, and to survive a failure, is a great strength indeed.

If reading all of these qualities is somewhat intimidating, don’t worry. Few people possess all five. In fact, most of us would do well to simply be striving toward having each one.

3 Ways to Build the 5 Hallmarks

Become less invested in being right. When you give up some of your connection to being right, you open up a whole new world; the birds-eye world that is an important part of being wise. You rise above the right/wrong mentality, and you start to see yourself and others differently. Being able to see the polar opposites, the greater truths, makes it easier to understand your own feelings, (which often oppose each other) and to understand others. It aids your ability to see and understand yourself.
Learn and practice mindfulness. Mindfulness, or the ability to be in the moment, with your attention turned inward at yourself, what you’re doing and — I would add — what you’re feeling, is a key part of both self-awareness and being comfortable in your own skin. It has also been shown by scientific research to have multiple other psychological and health benefits.
Work on viewing failure differently. Failure is a sign of courage. Failure means that you pushed yourself outside your comfort zone and took a risk. Failure, done well, is a growth experience. We can learn more from our failures than we can from our successes. As you become more self-aware, more mindful, more emotionally communicative, and more comfortable in your own skin, you will be more free to take risks and learn from them. This will ultimately push you to experiences and successes far beyond what you ever thought you could achieve.

10 Areas of Self-Awareness You Should Understand

-Mike Bundrant

If you lack self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are won’t get very far.
~ Daniel Goleman

Why is self-awareness so vital? Because distressing emotions, limiting beliefs, and self-sabotage are a natural part of being born and growing up. If you aren’t self-aware, you cannot solve mental and emotional problems that can otherwise be resolved.

Lacking self-awareness, yet desiring inner peace, is like taking your broken-down car to a yogurt shop and expecting the staff to tell you what went wrong and then fix it. Nothing against yogurt shop staff:) They just aren’t trained as auto mechanics.

In this post, I’ll mention ten important areas of self-awareness, then refer you to a free online quiz that tests your level of self-awareness in each area.

FYI, the following self-awareness categories are of my own design, based on my 25 years working as a counselor and coach. These are not areas of clinical assessment or diagnostic in any way.

10 Areas of Self-Awareness You Should Understand

Self-awareness is taking an honest look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad.
~ Debbie Ford

1. Inner Self – Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic (VAK)

This is the seeing, hearing, and feeling model that comes from neuro-linguistic programming. The VAK model recognizes that we process information within, primarily through three of the five senses: seeing, hearing and feeling. Further, our processing is redundant. In other words, seeing an internal image will inspire feelings about the image and sounds either related to the image or our own inner commentary. Seeing, hearing and feeling all work together.

How self-aware are you of the inner images, sounds, and feelings in your mind and body? Most people have at least one area of the VAK model where they are not as strongly aware as others. Discovering where you are less aware can lead to an opportunity to expand your self-awareness.

2. Personal Paradigm: What’s Your Worldview?

A personal paradigm is a worldview. It typically answers questions about how life exists and why we’re here. Is there a God? Or not? Why are people on earth? What’s our nature: good, evil, spiritual, animal or what? And so forth.

What’s your personal paradigm? Knowing where you stand in relation to these questions brings clarity to your life and informs your life purpose. Of course, it is not necessary to claim to know the objective truth about the universe in order to hold a personal paradigm, which consists of beliefs.

3. Personal Beliefs Related to Yourself

Personal beliefs are perspectives about what is true (for you). In the self-awareness test at the iNLP Center, we focus on your beliefs related to who you are and what you’re capable of accomplishing in the world. Naturally, some of our self-related beliefs are positive and some are negative. We’re all a mixed bag. Still, your personal beliefs shape your world and often determine what you’re willing to do in life. This is an important area to explore.

4. Life Values: What is Most Important to You?

Life values are indications of what’s important to you in life. You can trust that a value is important to you (or congruent) when it successfully guides your choices and behavior. If health is important to you, then you will make healthy decisions. If success is important to you, then you’ll make decisions and spend your time in ways that lead to greater success.

Being aware of your life values is like having a reliable guide for every important decision. Making decisions in line with your values is a sure path toward fulfillment.

5. Inner Conflict: How Are You Divided?

Inner conflict may be universal. It can happen when our beliefs or values conflict with each other. For example, you may believe you are capable of healing your emotional issues. At the same time, you may harbor serious doubts. This is a sign of inner conflict.

You may also have values that conflict. You may value security because it helps you feel safe. At the same time, you may love freedom. These two values may lead to conflicting desires and difficult decisions.

Inner conflict is one of the more complex issues to diagnose, but when we’re aware, we can begin the internal negotiation process necessary to heal the divide. Self-awareness is the first step!

6. Stress and Negativity Triggers

Triggers are those things that automatically bring on a negative, frustrating state. A classic example is someone running their fingernails down a chalkboard (although chalkboards aren’t so common anymore:). This can automatically make you cringe.

Throughout each day, when you find yourself in a negative state, there is always a trigger – something (on the inside or outside) that prompted the bad emotional reaction. A particular tone of voice or seeing a specific object (dirty socks left on the floor) might trigger you, for example.

When you know your specific stress and negativity triggers, you can begin to deprogram them – to create a different response.

7. Inner Parents: How Are You a Reflection of Your Parents?

The influence of parents or primary caregivers is pervasive. Nobody leaves childhood without taking their parents with them in some form on the inside. Beliefs, values, behaviors and personal paradigms are all heavily influenced by parents during our formative years. How are you carrying your parental influence?

This may be a hard one to see or admit, especially if you’re resentful toward your parents. Who wants to know he acts like just his father when he hates his father? Still, this level of self-awareness will allow you to change how you act, which makes the most sense of all if you are resentful.

8. Personal Limitations or Abilities

We all have limitations. Some of these are self-imposed, usually due to limiting beliefs. Others are legitimate limitations to our intelligence and natural skills. For example, I know I do not have the intellectual capacity to formulate physics theories like Einstein. I know I can’t beat Roger Federer in tennis. In this case, the word can’t is not a negative term. It’s simply the truth about the limits of my skills or natural gifts.

Knowing your real-world limitations could be experienced as a huge relief. When you’re clear about what you can and can’t do, you no longer need to pretend otherwise or take on inappropriate commitments. Most of all, you can bring expectations of yourself in life with reality – another relief.

9. Self-Sabotage: How Do You Get in Your Own Way?

Getting in our own way is another universal tendency. Do you know why you sometimes sabotage your own success? And do you know how – or understand the intention behind doing so?

Self-sabotage may be the most perplexing issue of all. Why would anyone harm herself? Still, we all do in one way or another. Worse, self-sabotage is difficult to see because we tend to look outside ourselves and place blame instead of looking within for the cause of our angst.

Again, self-awareness is the solution. You’ve got to see a problem before you can take any proactive steps to resolve it.

10. Your Future: Got Goals?

Human beings are naturally goal-oriented. We move toward what we want. Consciously setting goals is one way to be intentional about your future. This section of the self-awareness test at the iNLP Center will help you learn where you stand in this area.

The Self-Awareness Test

The iNLP Center self-awareness test addresses the above ten areas of self-awareness. Again, this is not a clinical test – it’s a free, online quiz intended for educational purposes only. It’s a non-commercial, no-obligation exploration of self-awareness. No email address required. You will be forwarded to your results immediately.

Feeling Fat-Shamed Takes a Toll on Health

-Traci Pedersen

The pain of being the target of fat shaming may take a significant toll on one’s health, according to a new study led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings show that people with high levels of weight bias internalization are much more likely to develop cardiovascular and metabolic disease.

Weight bias internalization occurs when people apply negative weight stereotypes to themselves — such as believing they are lazy or unattractive — and devalue themselves because of their weight.

“There is a common misconception that stigma might help motivate individuals with obesity to lose weight and improve their health,” said Rebecca Pearl, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Psychology in Psychiatry.

“We are finding it has quite the opposite effect. When people feel shamed because of their weight, they are more likely to avoid exercise and consume more calories to cope with this stress. In this study, we identified a significant relationship between the internalization of weight bias and having a diagnosis of metabolic syndrome, which is a marker of poor health.”

For the study, the researchers examined 159 adults with obesity who were enrolled in a larger clinical trial testing the effects of a weight loss medication. Before any intervention was given, the participants completed baseline questionnaires measuring depression and weight bias internalization. A majority of the participants were African American women, a group typically underrepresented in weight bias research.

Participants were also given a medical exam to determine whether they had metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors — such as high triglycerides, blood pressure, and waist circumference — which are linked to heart disease, type II diabetes, and other obesity-related health problems.

Initially, no link was found between weight bias internalization and metabolic syndrome when controlling for participant demographics, such as age, gender, and race. However, when patients were separated into two groups, “high” and “low” levels of weight bias internalization, those with high internalization were three times more likely to have metabolic syndrome, and six times more likely to have high triglycerides as compared to participants with low internalization.

“Health care providers, the media, and the general public should be aware that blaming and shaming patients with obesity is not an effective tool for promoting weight loss, and it may in fact contribute to poor health if patients internalize these prejudicial messages,” said co-author Tom Wadden, Ph.D., a professor of Psychology in Psychiatry and director of Penn’s Center for Weight and Eating Disorders.

“Providers can play a critical role in decreasing this internalization by treating patients with respect, discussing weight with sensitivity and without judgment, and giving support and encouragement to patients who struggle with weight management — behaviors everyone should display when interacting with people with obesity.”

Previous research has shown that exposure to weight bias and stigma negatively affects mental and physical health, demonstrating that these experiences can lead to a physiological stress response such as increased inflammation and cortisol levels and can increase unhealthy habits such as overeating and avoiding physical activity.

Larger, longer-term studies are needed to explore which biological responses are responsible for putting a person with weight bias internalization at greater risk for cardio-metabolic disease.

“Disparagement of others due to their weight and messages that perpetuate blame and shame, if internalized, can cause harm to the physical and mental health of individuals with obesity,” added Pearl.

“As health care practitioners, we can help challenge negative, internalized stereotypes by educating patients about the complex biological and environmental factors that contribute to obesity, while providing concrete strategies to help patients manage their weight and improve their health.”

The findings are published in the journal Obesity.

Reading Books with Dad May Boost School Readiness, Parenting Skills

-Traci Pedersen

A parenting program in which fathers read to their preschoolers was found to boost the dads’ parenting skills while also improving the preschoolers’ school readiness and behavior, according to a new study led by New York University (NYU).

“Unlike earlier research, our study finds that it is possible to engage fathers from low-income communities in parenting interventions, which benefits both the fathers and their children,” said lead author Dr. Anil Chacko, associate professor of counseling psychology at NYU Steinhardt.

Fathers play a vital role in the social, emotional, and behavioral development of their children. However, few studies have focused on helping fathers improve their parenting skills — and, in turn, outcomes for their children — as most parenting research is conducted with mothers. Furthermore, previous research on parenting interventions for fathers have issues with high rates of fathers dropping out of the studies.

The new study evaluated the effects of the program called “Fathers Supporting Success in Preschoolers,” an intervention that focuses on integrating parent training with shared book reading to improve outcomes among fathers and their preschoolers.

Shared book reading is an interactive and dynamic activity in which an adult uses prompts and feedback to allow a child to become an active storyteller. It relies heavily on pictures and encourages parents to give their children praise and encouragement. Shared book reading fosters father-child interactions and also helps develop school readiness.

“Rather than a goal of increasing father involvement, which implies a deficit approach, a program that uses shared book reading targets a specific parenting skill set and represents a valued activity for parents and children,” said Chacko.

For the study, 126 low-income fathers and their preschool-aged children were recruited across three Head Start centers in New York City. The families, a majority of whom spoke Spanish, were randomly assigned to either participate in the eight-week program or were put on a waitlist (which acted as the control condition).

The short-term intervention included weekly sessions lasting 90 minutes each. In these sessions, small groups of dads watched videos showing fathers reading with children but with exaggerated errors.

The fathers then identified and, in small and large groups, discussed better approaches to these interactions. Fathers were then encouraged to practice the strategies they identified at home with their child during shared book reading.

The program was designed to help improve parenting strategies by establishing routines, encouraging child-centered time, using attention and incentives to promote good behavior, using distraction and ignoring to reduce attention-seeking behavior and resorting to time-outs sparingly.

The researchers then evaluated the program’s effects on parenting skills, child behavior and language, and outcomes for fathers, including stress and depression. The researchers measured these factors before and immediately after the program through direct observation, standardized assessments of language, and self-reported information. Attendance data was also collected as a measure of engagement.

The findings show that parenting behaviors, child behaviors, and language development of the children who participated in the program improved significantly compared to those on the wait-list.

In addition, fathers reported improved discipline approaches and promotion of their children’s psychological growth. The researchers also observed that fathers made fewer critical statements to their children and used more positive parenting behaviors like praise and affection.

The researchers also found a moderate effect on language outcomes among the children. Overall, the data suggest more than a 30 percent improvement in parenting and school readiness outcomes.

Importantly, the average attendance rate for the weekly sessions was 79 percent, which was substantially higher than past parenting programs for fathers.

“Unlike other parenting programs, fathers in this program were not recruited to work on parenting or reduce child behavior problems, but to learn — with other fathers — skills to support their children’s school readiness, which may remove stigma and support openness among fathers in supporting their children,” said Chacko. “The findings are particularly noteworthy given the study’s population of low-income, Spanish-speaking, immigrant fathers.”

The researchers added that shared book reading may not be the best approach for all fathers and children, so interventions should be tailored to the preferences of communities and parents in order to increase the chances of success.

“Ultimately, we believe that developing a program that is both focused on the parent and child, and one that is not deficit-driven or focused on improving problematic parenting but is focusing on skill development, would be appealing and engaging for fathers,” said Chacko.

The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology.

Can a Simple Psychological Trick Help You Fall Out of Love?

-Caithlin Pena

Yes, it’s possible.

After a devastating breakup, it’s normal to still feel in love with your ex — you wouldn’t have been with them if you didn’t. And it takes a lot of time to get over that and move on with someone new.

Founder of Relationship Psychology, John Alex Clark, shared some techniques in order to help the broken-hearted fall out of love with that someone. Yes, it’s possible to learn how to fall out of love with someone using a psychology concept called classical conditioning.

“Getting over a breakup can be a lot like quitting smoking,” writes Clark. “When a person chooses to give up a habit like smoking, the initial few days is always the hardest to overcome. Fortunately, it gets easier with time, patience, and practice.”

To start off, after a breakup, there is always something that will remind you of your ex. It can be a place, food, or even a certain time. The ex was a part of your life, so it’s normal to have these things remind you of them.

In order to fall out of love, Clark says that you must destroy these associations.

“People usually make mental bonds between two experiences, associating one with the other,” he says. “Certain situations or places can trigger an emotional response based on past incidents.”

In short, you must disassociate these places, food, or times from the memory of your ex. For example, if you and your ex always visited this one restaurant, going to that restaurant post-breakup is now painful because you see them everywhere. Instead of avoiding the restaurant like the plague, you could think about the good food and the friendly atmosphere.

“For each positive experience you connect to that once-painful place, the suffering declines,” explains Clark. “Your new, pleasant memories take its place and slowly you no longer make those identifications with your ex.”

Continue with this exercise each time and soon enough, the painful feeling associated with the place will decline, replaced instead with the positive feelings.

Clark is also aware that this classical conditioning technique will not be easy for everyone, nor will it have the same positive results on everyone. So, you must embrace the pain of the heartbreak, but eventually, try to move on by disassociating these things from your ex.

“The more you brood over your suffering, the deeper you push it into your subconscious, making it harder to uproot when you’re finally ready to move on,” he says.

So embrace the pain and allow yourself to feel sad for now. But eventually, you have to start moving on again. Before you know it, the love you felt for your ex will be but a distant memory.

Kids Who Believe They Can’t Sing Tend to Quit Music Education

-Traci Pedersen

Elementary school children who have confidence in their own musical abilities are more likely to continue their music education through middle school, while those with poor musical self-concept are more likely to opt out of music class — regardless of their true talent for singing or even their love of music, according to new research at Northwestern University.

For the study, the researchers took a close look at the attitudes and beliefs that help determine whether children will continue to take music classes in middle school and how these factors relate to their actual singing ability.

“The decisions people make as a child could have lifelong consequences for their relationship with music as an adult,” said Dr. Steven Demorest, a professor of music education at Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music. “We are talking about a major form of human expression that many people may be missing out on because they believe, falsely, that they do not have musical talent.”

Although music is a required subject in elementary school, only 34 percent of U.S. students go on to register for elective music instruction when they enter middle school, according to recent statistics.

To gain a better understanding of why so many students choose to opt out of music class, Demorest, with co-authors Jamey Kelley and Peter Pfordresher, surveyed 319 sixth-graders from five elementary schools. The students were asked about their family background, attitudes toward music, their beliefs about themselves as musicians, and questions relating to peer influence and other variables. Then they waited until those same students chose their classes in middle school.

The study found that a combination of family background, musical self-concept, and peer influence predicted with 74 percent accuracy which students choose to continue in elective music. Surprisingly, students’ attitude toward music, or how much they liked it, was not a predictor of whether they chose to continue.

“This decision seems to be rooted in our mistaken belief that musical ability is a talent rather than a skill,” Demorest said. “Children who believe themselves to be musically talented are more inclined to continue to participate in music, and subsequently they get better and better. Conversely, children with a poor musical self-concept were inclined to quit, a decision people often grow to regret as adults.”

In part two of the study, the researchers measured the singing accuracy of students drawn from the opt-in and opt-out groups. They found no significant differences in singing accuracy between the two groups. There was, however, a link between musical self-concept and accuracy.

“The data raises an alarming prospect that singing accuracy could be part of a self-fulfilling prophecy in the case of individuals with poor musical self-concept,” said co-author Dr. Peter Pfordresher, professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo SUNY. “If a child falsely believes he or she is a poor musician, for a variety of reasons that child may actually become one.”

This research builds on a previous study, published in the journal Music Perception, which suggested that the ability to sing accurately is more of a skill than a talent — meaning it gets better with practice. In that study, Demorest and Pfordresher compared the singing accuracy of three groups: kindergartners, sixth graders, and college-aged adults.

The researchers found considerable improvement in accuracy from kindergarten to late elementary school, when most children are receiving regular music instruction. But in the adult group, the gains were reversed — to the point that college students performed at the level of the kindergartners on two of the three tasks — suggesting the “use it or lose it” effect.

Demorest theorized that the children got better at singing because they practiced regularly while the adults may have stopped working on their singing skills altogether.

“The current study provides support for the interpretation of the previous study because the kids who chose to go on differed from those who did not in background and musical self-concept, but not in terms of ability,” Demorest said.

The new findings are published in the Journal of Research in Music Education.

Mind-Body Practices Can Ease Early Memory Loss

-Rick Nauert, PhD

A recent pilot study of adults with early memory loss suggests simple mind-body practices may help to mitigate or even reverse early memory loss in older adults.

The West Virginia University research team discovered the practice of meditation, or a music listening program, may have multiple benefits for older adults with preclinical memory loss.

In the study, 60 older adults with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) — a condition that may represent a preclinical stage of Alzheimer’s disease — were assigned to either a beginner meditation (Kirtan Kriya) or music listening program and asked to practice 12 minutes per day for 12 weeks.

Investigators discovered both the meditation and music groups showed marked and significant improvements in subjective memory function and objective cognitive performance at three months.

The study appears in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Researchers discovered the interventions influenced domains of cognitive functioning most likely to be affected in preclinical and early stages of dementia. That is, attention, executive function, processing speed, and subjective memory function.

Importantly, the substantial gains observed in memory and cognition were maintained or further increased at six months (three months post-intervention).

Researchers found that both intervention groups showed improvements in sleep, mood, stress, well-being, and quality of life. The meditation group showed the most pronounced improvements; however, all benefits were sustained or further enhanced at three month’s post-intervention.

The findings of this trial suggest that two simple mind-body practices may significantly improve quality of life.

Specifically, investigators discovered Kirtan Kriya meditation and music listening may not only improve mood, sleep, and quality of life, but also boost cognition and help reverse perceived memory loss in older adults with SCD.

Study Finds Workplace Peer Pressure Impacts Performance

-Janice Wood

A new study has found that the presence of high-performing co-workers can improve an individual’s performance, which boosts earnings.

Researchers from the University of York and the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration at University College London (UCL), found that in low-skilled occupations, an increase of 10 percent in the average performance of co-workers raises a worker’s wage by almost one percent.

This is most likely driven by increased productivity because of pressure to keep up with better co-workers, the researchers said.

For the study, researchers looked at the wage records from administrative social security data for millions of workers and all of their co-workers over a period of 15 years across 330 professions in a large metropolitan area of Germany.

“We would expect that some positive practices would ‘rub-off’ on co-workers, and in fact we knew from previous research that such effects exist for specific occupations,” said Dr. Thomas Cornelissen, a researcher in the Department of Economics at the University of York.

“For example, a U.S. study showed that supermarket cashiers scanned shopping items faster when they worked the same shifts as fast-working employees. Our research showed that this effect was not unique to shop workers, but is applicable across many low-skilled jobs, such as waiters, warehouse workers, and agricultural assistants.

‘Moreover, our results show that improvements in performance due to co-worker quality raise a worker’s wages, something that hadn’t previously been analyzed.”

It was not clearly understood whether improvements in performance were due to learning from colleagues or whether it was more to do with the pressure to keep up, the researchers noted. To get a better sense of this, they looked at what happened after a high-performing co-worker left the company.

If learning from colleagues was the explanation for the positive performance effects, it was expected that remaining workers would keep up their performance after a high-performing co-worker left the company, the researchers speculated.

However, the data suggested that the opposite was true. Researchers found that the remaining workers tended to slip backwards after a good worker left, suggesting the productivity boost is more closely aligned with peer pressure, which lessens when good workers leave, potentially causing productivity and wages to stagnate.

The same rule did not apply, however, to high skilled occupations such as lawyers, doctors, and architects, according to the researchers. A reason for this could be that it is not as easy to observe the working practices of other colleagues in high-skilled professions, the researchers hypothesized. This means workers might not always know what everyone is doing or what it takes to achieve the objectives of that particular role.

The findings suggest there is less social pressure in high-skilled occupations compared to low-skilled, the researchers said.

“There are many challenges to conducting this type of work, such as the structure of the company, how to accurately establish cause and effect between co-workers, and finding a measure of good and poor performance,” Cornelissen added. “The more work we can do analyzing data from across the labor market, the more likely we will start to see common trends.”

He noted the study’s findings could be applied to a number of areas within companies, such as working from home policies, the design of office spaces, and training.

“Working from home is generally considered a good thing, for example, but if co-workers are as important as we think, it might not be the best option for everyone,” he said.

The study was published in the journal American Economic Review.