Post Holiday Mental Health: The 'January Blues' Are Real

This week marks the return to work for many who have had the luxury of some time off over the festive season. Feeling relaxed and recharged we’re heading back to our usual routines, with sleep-ins and lazy beach days just a distant memory.

The post-holiday blues has likely set in for some of us. With feelings of sadness that the fun (and the anticipation of it) seemingly over. We’re now relegated to dreaming about holidays through our tropical island screensaver and visualising ourselves on our next break.

With most people having travel on their resolution as well as their bucket lists, it’s suffice to say most of us enjoy being on holidays. We don’t need a reminder that having them is extremely beneficial for both our physical and mental health.

A holiday always “is just what we needed”, and we plan to recreate it all soon. But however relaxing or adventurous our holidays were, most of us get back to our normal routines once the holidays are over, and forget all about what we promised ourselves. When people are out of their usual routine and without their important roles attached to their identity, is often when people feel most alive.

But surely we shouldn't be feeling at our best only on holidays. After all, that’s only a few weeks a year. To sustain that holiday feeling, we need to be incorporating some of our recent holiday behaviours into our daily lives.

We can learn a lot from our holiday selves. It’s likely that we’re more physically active during the day, something that us office workers tend not to do. Whether exploring new jaunts, hiking in the rainforest, paddle boarding it down the beach or swimming in hotel pools, we tend to just move our body more.

When we’re on holiday we spend time doing things just because we want to, rather than what we feel we have to. Whether it’s enjoying an out-of-the-ordinary late night, a sunset, a long beach or a nap in a hammock, we do it because we simply feel like it.

We are generally more open to new experiences and tend to be more spontaneous on holiday. Shooting down waterslides, going fishing or parasailing during the week is not out of the question.

We tend to relax more on holiday, on purpose. Perhaps lying by a pool or sunning ourselves on a beach. Sitting in a café sipping coffee and reading the paper without rushing off to do something that is deemed more important.

We’re also likely to sleep more, allowing our brain and body to get the appropriate replenishing rest it often craves. We’re less likely to stare out our phone late into the night, as we are often more exhausted from what we got up to during the day.

When we go away we tend to engage with people a little more than usual. We often feel more connected to those around us. They get more of our attention and we give them more of ours. We can purposefully do that at home.

Often when we are away we get out of our usual dinner routine and indulge in different types of cuisines that we would never try at home. Indulging in new flavours and eating more fresh and healthy meals.

The crazy thing about all of this, is all of this can be done at home. We just need to build it into our life as though it’s important as getting that report completed, vacuuming the house and making lasagne on a Wednesday.

We all need to think about what we get up to when we’re on holiday, and try to bring a little more of it into our life whilst we’re back in our weekly work routine.

That way we’ll not only be looking forward to our next holiday, but also just enjoying right now.

This article was originally written on www.bodyandsoul.com.au and was written by Dr Marny Lishman 

Self-regulation “control [of oneself] by oneself"

Why don’t we just do exactly what we feel like doing when we feel like doing it?

This is a question that you might hear from kids, and it perfectly encapsulates what they “just don’t get” about adults. As adults, we pretty much have free reign to do whatever we want, whenever we want. We won’t get arrested for not showing up to work (for the vast majority of jobs, anyway!), and no one will haul us off to jail for eating cake for breakfast.

So why do we show up for work? Why don’t we eat cake for breakfast?

Perhaps the better question is, how do we keep ourselves from shirking work when we don’t want to go? How do we refrain from eating cake for breakfast and eating healthy, less delicious food instead?

The answer is self-regulation. It’s a vital skill, but it’s also something we generally do without thinking much about.

If you want to learn more about self-regulation, how we make the decisions we make, and why we are more susceptible to temptation at times, then you’ve come to the right place!

This article contains:

• What is the Meaning of Self-Regulation?

• What is Self-Regulation Theory?

• The Psychology of Self-Regulation

• The Self-Regulatory Model

• Why Self-Regulation is Important for Well-Being

• Self-Regulation Test and Assessment

• Early Childhood and Child Development

• Self-Regulation in Adults

• Activities and Worksheets for Training Self-Regulation (PDF)

• Further Resources, Interventions, and Tools

• A Take Home Message

• References

What is the Meaning of Self-Regulation?

Andrea Bell from GoodTherapy.org has a simple, straightforward definition of self-regulation:

Self-regulation is “control [of oneself] by oneself” (2016).

It can refer to self-control by a wide range of organisms and organizations, but for our purposes, we’ll focus on the psychological concept of self-regulation.

As Bell also notes:

“[S]omeone who has good emotional self-regulation has the ability to keep their emotions in check. They can resist impulsive behaviors that might worsen their situation, and they can cheer themselves up when they’re feeling down. They have a flexible range of emotional and behavioral responses that are well matched to the demands of their environment” (2016).

The goal of most types of therapy is to improve an individual’s ability to self-regulate; to gain (or regain) a sense of control over their behavior and their lives. Psychologists generally refer to two specific types when they use the term “self-regulation”:

• Behavioral self-regulation

• Emotional self-regulation

What is Behavioral Self-Regulation?

Behavioral self-regulation is “the ability to act in your long-term best interest, consistent with your deepest values” (Stosny, 2011).

It is what allows us to feel one way but act another.

If you have ever dreaded getting up and going to work in the morning, but you remembered your goals (e.g., a raise, a promotion) or your basic needs (e.g., food, shelter) and got up and out the door all the same—you displayed effective behavioral self-regulation.

What is Emotional Self-Regulation?

On the other hand, emotional self-regulation involves control of—or at least influence over—your emotions.

If you had ever talked yourself out of a bad mood or calmed yourself down when you were angry, you were displaying effective emotional self-regulation.

 

What is Self-Regulation Theory?

Self-Regulation Theory (SRT) simply outlines the process and components involved when we decide what to think, feel, say, and do. It is particularly salient in the context of making a “good” choice when we actually have a strong desire to do the opposite (e.g., refraining from eating an entire pizza just because it tastes good).

According to modern SRT expert Roy Baumeister (2007), there are four components involved:

1. Standards of desirable behavior

2. Motivation to meet standards

3. Monitoring of situations and thoughts that precede breaking standards

4. Willpower internal strength to control urges

These four components interact to determine our self-regulatory activity at any given moment. According to SRT, our behavior is determined by our personal standards of good behavior, our motivation to meet those standards, the degree to which we are consciously aware of our circumstances and our actions, and the extent of our willpower to resist temptations and choose the “right” path.

 

The Psychology of Self-Regulation

According to Albert Bandura (1991), the expert on self-efficacy and leading researcher of SRT, self-regulation is a continuously active process in which we:

1. Monitor our own behavior, the influences on our behavior, and the consequences of our behavior

2. Judge our behavior in relation to our own personal standards and broader, more contextual standards

3. React to our own behavior (i.e., what we think and how we feel about our behavior)

Bandura also notes that self-efficacy plays a huge role in this process, as it exerts its influence on our thoughts, feelings, motivation, and action.

A quick thought experiment shows how significant a factor self-efficacy is; imagine two people who are highly motivated to lose weight. They are both actively monitoring their food intake and their exercise, and they have specific, measurable goals that they have set for themselves.

One of them has high self-efficacy and believes he can lose weight if he puts in the effort to do so. The other has low self-efficacy and feels that there’s no way he can hold to his prescribed weight loss plan.

Who do you think will be better able to say no to second helpings and decadent desserts? Which of them do you think will be more successful in getting up early to exercise each morning?

We can say with reasonable certainty that the man with higher self-efficacy is likely to be more effective, even if they start with the exact same standards, motivation, monitoring, and willpower.

Barry Zimmerman, another big name in the SRT literature, put forth his own theory founded on self-regulation: Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) theory.

We explore this further in The Science of Self-Acceptance Masterclass©

What is Self-Regulated Learning?

Self-regulated learning refers to the process a student engages in when she takes responsibility for her own learning and applies herself to academic success (Zimmerman, 2002).

This process happens in three steps:

1. Planning: the student plans her task, sets goals, outlines strategies to tackle it, and/or creates a schedule for the task

2. Monitoring: in this stage, the student puts her plans into action and closely monitors her performance and her experience with the methods she chose

3. Reflection: finally, after the task is complete and the results are in, the student reflects on how well she did and why she performed the way she did (Zimmerman, 2002)

When students take the initiative and regulate their own learning, they gain deeper insights into how they learn, what works best for them, and—ultimately—they perform at a higher level. This improvement springs from the many opportunities to learn:

1. In the planning phase, students have an opportunity to work on their self-assessment and learn how to pick the best strategies for success.

2. In the monitoring phase, students get experience implementing the strategies they chose and making real-time adjustments to their plans as needed.

3. In the reflection phase, students put everything they have learned together and reflect on their experience, learning what works for them, and what should be altered or replaced with a new strategy.

The Self-Regulatory Model

It can be useful to consider the self-regulatory model to better understand SRT. While the model below is specific to health and illness-related self-regulation, it is still a good representation of the complex processes at work during self-regulation of any kind.

The figure above shows how the model works:

1. Stimuli are presented (i.e., something happens that provokes a reaction, whether that’s a thought, something another person said, getting significant news, etc.)

2. The individual makes sense of the stimuli, cognitively (understanding it) and emotionally (feeling it)

3. The sense-making leads to the individual choosing coping responses (i.e., what the person does to influence their feelings about the stimuli or the actions they take to address the stimuli)

4. The sense-making and coping responses determine the outcomes (i.e., the individual’s overall response and how they choose to behave)

5. The individual evaluates his coping responses in light of these outcomes and determines whether to continue using the same coping responses or alter their formula

An Example of the Model in Action

If words like “stimuli” and “emotional representations” throw you off, perhaps an example of the model in action will help.

Let’s use Bob as our example.

Bob was just diagnosed with diabetes and is facing his new reality: checking his blood sugar, changing up his diet, and potentially LOTS of needles. The diagnosis is Bob’s stimulus.

Bob attempts to make sense of his diagnosis. He talks to his doctor, recalls a friend’s experience with diabetes, thinks about a character’s struggle with diabetes in his favorite TV show, and tries to remember what he learned about diabetes in his college health classes. All of this information feeds into his cognitive representation of his diagnosis.

It’s not all objective thoughts though; Bob also feels a little shocked about getting this diagnosis since he hadn’t even considered that he had diabetes. He is worried about how long he’ll be around for his kids and anxious about how much his life will change. He’s also scared about what will happen if his life doesn’t change. These feelings make up his emotional representation of his diagnosis.

Once Bob has a semi-firm grasp of his thoughts and feelings about the diagnosis, he makes some decisions about what comes next. Through discussion with his doctor, he decides on a new, healthier diet and also commits to taking more frequent walks. However, he also finds that it’s easy to put his diagnosis out of his mind when he’s not having an episode or being directly affected by it.

These decisions and actions are his coping responses.

Bob implements these responses for a few days, then reflects on how he’s been doing. He realizes that, although he is eating marginally healthier and he’s taken a short walk each day, he has mostly refrained from thinking about his diagnosis at all.

Bob reminds himself that if he keeps ignoring his diabetes, he will eventually get sick and may even suffer significant, long-term consequences. This is his evaluation of his representations and coping methods.

Bob commits to facing his diabetes head-on instead of denying or ignoring it and resolves to work on keeping the potential consequences of not staying healthy in mind. He also resolves to fully embrace the diet he and his doctor planned out and start going to the gym three times a week.

Bob is using his evaluation of his representations, coping responses, and outcomes to assess how well his actions align with his desired future: a happy and healthy Bob who is around to see his kids grow up; this is the feedback loop.

This short example is a good representation of what self-regulation looks like; it is essentially monitoring your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and comparing the outcomes against your goals, then deciding to maintain your current attitudes and behaviors or deciding to adjust them so you can more effectively meet your goals.

What is Self-Regulation Therapy?

As noted earlier, you could argue that ALL forms of therapy are centered on self-regulation—they all aim to help a client reach a level of equilibrium in which they are able to effectively regulate their own emotions and behavior (and sometimes thought patterns, in the case of therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy).

However, there is also a form of therapy that is designed around self-regulation theory and grounded in its principles.

Self-Regulation Therapy draws from findings in neuroscience and biology to help clients reduce “excess activation in the nervous system” (Canadian Foundation for Trauma Research & Education, n.d.). This excess activation (i.e., an off-balance or inappropriate “fight or flight [or freeze]” response) can be triggered by a traumatic event or any other event in life that is significant or overwhelming, throwing a monkey wrench into the normal self-regulation process.

SRT aims to help the client correct this problem, building new pathways in the brain to allow for more flexibility and more appropriate emotional and behavioral responses. The ultimate goal is to turn that emotional and/or behavioral dysregulation into effective self-regulation.

Self-Regulation vs. Self-Control

If you think that self-regulation and self-control have an awful lot in common, you’re right! They are similar concepts and deal with some of the same processes; however, they are two distinct constructs.

As psychologist Stuart Shanker (2016) puts it:

“Self-control is about inhibiting strong impulses; self-regulation, reducing the frequency and intensity of strong impulses by managing stress-load and recovery. In fact, self-regulation is what makes self-control possible, or, in many cases, unnecessary.”

Viewed in this light, we can think about self-regulation as a more automatic and subconscious process—unless the individual determines to purposefully monitor and alter their self-regulation—while self-control is a set of much more active and purposeful decisions and behaviors.

Understanding Ego Depletion

An important SRT concept to understand is that of self-regulatory depletion, also called ego depletion.

This is a state in which an individual’s willpower and control over their self-regulation processes have been used up, and their energy earmarked for inhibiting impulses is expended. It often results in poor decision-making and performance (Baumeister, 2014).

When a person has been faced with many temptations and especially strong temptations, they must then exert an equally large amount of energy when it comes to controlling their impulses. SRT argues that people have a limited amount of energy for this purpose and once it’s gone, two things happen:

1. Inhibitions and behavioral restraints are weaker, meaning that the individual has less motivation and willpower to refrain from the temptations

2. The temptations/desires/urges are felt much more strongly than when willpower is at a normal, non-depleted level (Baumeister, 2014)

This is a key idea in SRT; it explains why we struggle to avoid engaging in “bad behavior” when we are tempted by it over a long period of time. For example, it explains why many dieters can keep to their strict diet all day but give in after dinner when tempted by dessert.

It also explains why a married, or otherwise committed person, can rebuff an advance from someone who is not their partner for days or weeks but eventually give in and engage in an affair.

Recent findings in neuroscience back this idea of self-regulatory depletion; a study from 2013 (Wagner et al.) used functional neuroimaging to show that those who had depleted their self-regulatory energy experienced less connectivity between the regions of the brain involved in self-control and those involved in rewards. In other words, their brains were less accommodating in helping them resist temptation after sustained self-regulatory activity.

5 Examples of Self-Regulatory Behavior

Although self-regulatory depletion is a difficult hurdle, SRT does not imply that it is impossible to remain in control of your urges and behavior when your energy is depleted. It merely states that it becomes harder and harder as your energy level decreases.

However, there are many examples of successful self-regulatory behavior, even when the individual is fatigued from constant self-regulation.

Examples of successful behavior include:

• A cashier who stays polite and calm when an angry customer is berating him for something he has no control over

• A child who refrains from throwing a tantrum when he is told he cannot have the toy he so desperately wants

• A couple who are in a heated argument about something that is important to both of them deciding to take some time to cool off before continuing their discussion, instead of devolving into yelling, insults, and name-calling

• A student who is tempted to join her friends for a fun night out but decides to stay in to study for tomorrow’s exam instead

• A woman trying to lose weight meets a friend at a restaurant and sticks with the “healthy options” menu instead of ordering one of her favorite, high-calorie dishes

As you can see, self-regulation covers a wide range of behaviors from the minute-to-minute decisions we make to the larger, more significant decisions that can have a big impact on whether we meet our goals or not.

Why Self-Regulation is Important for Well-Being

Another outcome of effective self-regulation may not be as immediately obvious, but you’ll see why this concept is so vital to the outcome in a moment. Let’s take a closer look at enhancing and maintaining a healthy sense of well-being.

Overall, there is tons of evidence to suggest that those who successfully display self-regulation in their everyday behavior enjoy greater well-being. Researchers Skowron, Holmes, and Sabatelli (2003) found that greater self-regulation was positively associated with well-being for both men and women.

Findings are the same for young people as well; a study from 2016 showed that adolescents who regularly engage in self-regulatory behavior report greater well-being than their peers, including enhanced life satisfaction, perceived social support, and positive affect (i.e., good feelings).

On the other hand, those who suppressed their feelings instead of addressing them head-on experienced lower well-being, including greater loneliness, more negative affect (i.e., bad feelings), and worse psychological health overall (Verzeletti, Zammuner, Galli, Agnoli, & Duregger, 2016).

Emotional Intelligence and Well-Being

To get more specific, one of the ways in which self-regulation contributes to well-being is through emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence can be described as:

“the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth” (Mayer & Salovey, 1997).

According to emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman, there are five components of emotional intelligence:

1. Self-awareness

2. Self-regulation

3. Internal motivation

4. Empathy

5. Social skills

Self-regulation, or the extent of an individual’s ability to influence or control their own emotions and impulses, is a vital piece of emotional intelligence, and it’s easy to see why; can you imagine someone with high self-awareness, intrinsic motivation, empathy, and social skills who inexplicably has little to no control over their own impulses and is driven by emotion without inhibition?

There’s something off about that picture because self-regulation is an integral part of emotional intelligence. And, as researchers Di Fabio and Kenny (2016) found, emotional intelligence is strongly related to well-being.

The better able we are to understand and address our own emotions and the emotions of others, the better able we are to make sense of our environment, adjust to it, and pursue our goals.

Self-Regulation and the Motivation to Succeed

On the subject of pursuing our goals, self-regulation is also clearly entwined with motivation. As you might recall from earlier in this piece, motivation is one of the core components of self-regulation; it is one factor that determines how well we are able to regulate our emotions and behaviors.

An individual’s level of motivation to succeed in his endeavors is directly related to his performance. If he has the best of intentions, well-laid plans, and extraordinary willpower, he will still likely fail if he is not motivated to regulate his behavior and avoid the temptation to slack off or set his goals aside for another day.

The more motivated we are to achieve our goals, the greater our ability to strive toward them. This impacts our well-being by filling us with a sense of purpose, competence, and self-esteem, especially when we are able to meet our goals.

Self-Regulation in ADHD and Autism

As you might have guessed, self-regulation is also an important topic for those struggling with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

One of the hallmarks of ADHD is a limited ability to focus and regulate one’s attention. For example, ADDitude blogger Penny Williams (n.d.) describes her 11-year-old son Ricochet’s struggles with ADHD in terms of the struggle to self-regulate:

“At times, he has struggled with identifying his feelings. He is overwhelmed with emotion sometimes, and he has trouble labeling his feelings. You can’t deal with what you can’t define, so this often creates a troublesome situation for him and me. Now that Ricochet is old enough to start regulating his reactions, one of our current behavior goals is identifying, communicating, and regulating feelings and actions.”

Similarly, difficulty with emotional self-regulation is part and parcel of ASD. Those on the autism spectrum often have trouble identifying their emotions, and if they are able to identify their emotions, they generally have trouble modulating or regulating their emotions.

ASD-difficulty is well-understood as a common symptom, but effective methods for improving self-regulation in ASD is unfortunately not as well-known or implemented as one might wish.

The nonprofit advocacy group Autism Speaks suggests several strategies to help children with autism learn to better self-regulate. Many of these strategies can be applied to those with ADHD as well—including:

• Celebrate and build your child’s strengths and successes

• Respect and listen to your child

• Validate your child’s concerns and emotions

• Provide clear expectations of behavior (using visual aids if necessary)

• Set your child up for success (e.g., accepting a one-word answer, providing accommodations, using Velcro instead of shoelaces)

• Ignore the challenging behavior, like screaming or biting

• Alternate tasks; do something fun, then something challenging

• Teach and interact at your child’s current level rather than at what level you want him or her to be

• Give your child choices within strict parameters (e.g., allowing the child to choose what activity to do first)

• Provide access to breaks when needed—this will give him or her an opportunity to avoid bad behavior

• Promote the use of a safe calm-down place as a positive place, not a place of punishment

• Set up reinforcement systems to reward your child for desired behavior

• Allow times and places for your child to do what he or she wants (when not an inconvenience or intrusion on anyone else)

• Reward flexibility and self-control, verbally and with tangible rewards

• Use positive/proactive language to encourage good behavior rather than pointing out bad behavior (2012)

Helping your child learn to more effectively self-regulate will ultimately benefit you, your child, and everyone he or she interacts with, and improve his or her overall well-being.

The Art of Mindfulness

Self-regulation and mindfulness are two peas in a pod when it comes to contributing to well-being. As we learned earlier, self-regulation requires self-awareness and monitoring of one’s own emotional state and responses to stimuli.

Being conscious of your own thoughts, feelings, and behavior is the foundation of self-regulation; without it, there is no ability to reflect or choose a different path.

Teaching mindfulness is one great way to both improve the ability to self-regulate and enhance overall well-being. Mindfulness can be defined as the conscious effort to maintain a moment-to-moment awareness of what’s going on, both inside your head and around you. 

Mindfulness encourages active awareness of one’s own thoughts and feelings and promotes conscious decisions about how to behave over simply going along with whatever your feelings tell you.

There is good evidence that mindfulness is an effective tool for teaching self-regulation; researchers Razza, Bergen-Cico, and Raymond (2015) recently published a study on the effects of a mindfulness-based yoga intervention on preschool children.

The researchers found that those in the mindfulness group exhibited greater attention, better ability to delay gratification and more effective inhibitory control than those in the control group. Findings also suggested that those with the most inherent trouble self-regulating benefited the most from the mindfulness intervention, indicating that those at the lower end of the self-regulation continuum are not a “lost cause!”

Self-Regulation and Executive Function

Mindfulness is an excellent way to build certain attention skills, which are part of a larger set of vital skills that allow us to plan, focus, remember important things, and multitask effectively (or semi-effectively, at least).

These skills are known as executive function skills, and they involve three key types of brain functions:

1. Working Memory: our cache of short-term memories, or information we recently took in

2. Mental Flexibility: our ability to shift our focus from one stimulus to another and apply context-appropriate rules for attention and behavior

3. Self-Control: our ability to set priorities, regulate our emotions, and to resist our impulses (Center on the Developing Child, n.d.)

These skills are not inherent from birth but are rather learned and built upon over time. They are vital skills for navigating the complex world we live in and contribute to making good choices.

When we are able to successfully navigate our world and make good choices, we set ourselves up to meet our goals and enjoy greater well-being.

 Self-Regulation Test and Assessment 

If you’re interested in measuring your level of self-regulation (or using it in research), you have two good options in terms of a self-monitoring scale and self-regulation questionnaire:

• The Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ) for adults (Brown, Miller, & Lawendowski, 1999)

• The Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment (PSRA) for children (Smith-Donald, Raver, Hayes, & Richardson, 2007)

The SRQ is a 63-item assessment measured on a scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree). The items correspond to one of seven components:

1. Receiving relevant information

2. Evaluating the information and comparing it to norms

3. Triggering change

4. Searching for options

5. Formulating a plan

6. Implementing the plan

7. Assessing the plan’s effectiveness

If you’re interested in learning more about this scale or using it in your own work, click here (note: this link triggers the download of a PDF that includes information about the scale, references, and the scale itself).

If you’re more interested in working with young children on self-regulatory strategies, the PRSA will probably work best for you. It’s described as a “portable” direct assessment of self-regulation in young children based on a set of structured tasks, including activities like:

• Balance Beam

• Pencil Tap

• Tower Task

• Tower Cleanup

To see the script for this interactive assessment, click here. To learn more about this assessment or to inquire about using it for your research, click here.

 

Early Childhood and Child Development

As we noted earlier, the development of self-regulation begins very early on. As soon as children are able to access working memory, exhibit mental flexibility, and control their behavior, you can get started helping them develop their self-regulation.

How to Teach and Develop Self-Regulation in Toddlers

So, you’re probably convinced that self-regulation in children is a good thing, but you might be wondering, “where to begin?”

If that captures your thought process, fear not! We have some tips and suggestions to get you started.

Here’s a good list of suggestions from Day2Day Parenting for supporting very young children’s (e.g., toddlers and preschoolers) self-regulation:

• Provide a structured and predictable daily routine and schedule

• Change the environment by eliminating distractions: turn off the tv, dim lights, or provide a soothing object (like a teddy bear or photo of Mom) when you sense a child is becoming upset

• Role play with the child how to act or what to say in certain situations

• Teach and talk about feelings and review home/classroom rules regularly

• Allow children to let off steam by creating a quiet corner with a small tent or pile of pillows

• Encourage pretend play scenarios among preschoolers

• Stay calm and firm in your voice and actions even when a child is “out of control”

• Anticipate transitions and provide ample warning to the child or use picture schedules or a timer to warn of transitions

• Re-direct inappropriate words or actions when needed

• In the classroom or at playgroups pair children with limited self-regulatory skills with those who have good self-regulatory skills as a peer model

• Take a break yourself when needed, as children with limited self-regulatory skills can try an adult’s patience (Thrive Place, 2013)

15 Activities and Games for Kindergarten and Preschool Children

You can also use games and activities to help young children build their self-regulation skills. Check out the resources listed below for some fun and creative ideas for kindergarten and preschool children.

Classic Games

We titled these the “Classic Games” because they are popular, well-known games that you are probably already familiar with. Luckily, they can also be used to help your child develop self-regulation!

If you haven’t already, give these a try:

1. Duck Duck Goose

2. Hide and Seek

3. Freeze Tag

4. Musical Chairs

5. Mirror Mirror

Some further suggestions come from Your Therapy Source website, with descriptions of the games and activities as well (2017):

• Red Light, Green Light – kids move on the green light and stop on the red light. Don’t get caught moving on the red light

• Mother May I – one child is the leader. The rest of the children ask: “Mother May I take….” a certain number of steps, hops, jumps, or leaps to get to the leader. The leader approves or disapproves of the action

• Freeze Dance – turn on music. When the music stops, the children have to freeze

• Follow My Clap – The leader creates a clapping pattern. Children have to listen and repeat the pattern

• Loud or Quiet – Children have to perform an action that is either loud or quiet. First, pick an action, i.e., stomping feet. The leader says LOUD and the children stomp their feet loudly

• Simon Says – Children have to perform an action only when the leader says, “Simon Says do…”. For example, if the leader says, “Simon Says touch your toes” then and all the children should touch their toes. If the leader just says, “Touch your toes,” no one should touch their toes because Simon didn’t say so

• Body Part Mix Up – The leader will call out body parts for the children to touch. For example, the leader calls out “knees” and the children touch their knees. Create one rule to start. Each time the leader says “head” touch your toes instead of your head. This requires the children to stop and think about their actions and to not just react. The leader calls out “knees, head, elbow.” The children should touch their knees, TOES, and elbow. Continue practicing and adding other rules to change body parts

• Follow the Leader – The leader performs different actions and the children have to follow those actions exactly

• Ready, Set, Wiggle – The leader calls out Ready…Set…Wiggle and everyone wiggles their bodies. The leader calls out Ready…Set…Watermelon. No one should move. Leader calls out Ready…Set…Wigs. No one moves. Leader calls out Ready…Set…Wiggle. Everyone wiggles again. You can change this to whatever wording you want. The purpose is to have the children waiting to move until a certain word is said out loud

• Color Moves – Explain to the children that they will walk around the room. They are to move based on the color of the paper you are holding up. Green paper means walk fast, yellow paper means regular pace, and blue paper means slow-motion walking. Whenever you hold up a red paper, they stop. Try different locomotor skills like running in place, marching, jumping, etc.

1. This list from The Inspired Treehouse also includes some good suggestions for other games you can play to calm an emotional or overwhelmed child while you’re out and about. You can find the list here.

   Self-Regulation in Adolescence

   As your child grows, you will probably find it harder (and less fun) to encourage continuing self-regulation skills. However, adolescence is a vital time for further development of these skills, particularly:

• Persisting on complex, long-term projects (e.g., applying to college)

• Problem-solving to achieve goals (e.g., managing work and staying in school)

• Delaying gratification to achieve goals (e.g., saving money to buy a car)

• Self-monitoring and self- rewarding progress on goals

• Guiding behavior based on future goals and concern for others

• Making decisions with broad perspective and compassion for self and others

• Managing frustration and distress effectively

• Seeking help when stress is unmanageable or the situation is dangerous (Murray & Rosenbalm, 2017)

2. To ensure that you are supporting your adolescent in developing these vital skills, there are three important steps you can take:

1. Teaching self-regulation skills through modeling them, providing opportunities to practice these skills, monitoring and reinforcing their progress, and coaching them on how, why, and when to use their skills

2. Providing a warm, safe, and responsive relationship in which your adolescent is comfortable with making mistakes

3. Structure the environment to make our adolescent’s self-regulation easier and more manageable. Limit opportunities for risk-taking behavior, provide positive discipline and highlight natural consequences of poor decision-making, and reduce the emotional intensity of conflict situations (Murray & Rosenbalm, 2017)

3. The Role of Self-Regulation in Education

   This leads to an important point: children reach another important stage in their self-regulation development when they begin attending school—and especially as school gets more challenging.

   This is where Zimmerman’s Self-Regulated Learning Theory comes into play again. Recall that there are three times when self-regulation can aid the learning process:

1. Before the learning task is begun, when the student can consider the task, set goals, and develop a plan to tackle the task

2. During the task, when the student must monitor his own performance and see how well his strategies work

3. After the task, when the student can reflect back on their performance and determine what worked well, what didn’t, and what needs to change

4. Zimmerman encourages teachers to do the following three things at a minimum to help students continue to develop their self-regulation ability:

• Give students a choice in task, method, study partner, etc. as often as you can

• Give students the opportunity to assess their own work and learn from their mistakes

• Pay attention to the student’s beliefs about his or her own learning abilities and respond with encouragement and support when necessary (2002)

5. Strategies, Exercises, and Lesson Plans for Students in the Classroom

   If you’re a teacher who is interested in implementing more techniques and strategies for encouraging self-regulation in your classroom, consider the resources and methods outlined below.

   McGill Self-Regulation Lesson Plans

   This resource from Canada’s McGill University includes several helpful lesson plans for building self-regulatory skills in students, including lessons on:

• Cognitive Emotion Regulation

• Acceptance

• Self-Blame

• Positive Refocusing

• Rumination

• Refocus of Planning

• Catastrophizing

• Positive Reappraisal

• Blaming Others

• Putting into Perspective

6. College & Career Competency Framework and Lessons

   The self-regulation lesson plans from the College & Career Competency Framework detail nine separate lessons you can use to help your students continue to develop their skills. The lessons range from about 20 to 40 minutes each and can be modified or adapted as needed.

   The lessons include:

1. Define Self-Regulation

2. Understand Your Ability to Self-Regulate by Taking the Questionnaire

3. Make a Plan

4. Practice Making a Plan

5. Monitor Your Plan

6. Make Changes

7. Reflect

8. Find Missing Components

9. Practice Self-Regulation

7. Click here to download this handy PDF for your own use.

   This resource includes all the information you need to build effective strategies into your curriculum.

   Finally, for a treasure trove of lesson plans, activities, and readings you can implement in your classroom, click here.

   Access to this resource comes from Scott Carchedi at the School Social Work Network, and includes a student manual and four lesson plans:

1. Lesson on Emotional Regulation: “How Hot or Cold Does Your Emotional ‘Engine’ Run?”

2. Lesson on Self-Calming Methods: “Downshift to a Lower Gear, with Help From Your Body”

3. Lesson on Reframing Feelings Before Acting on Them: “Slow Down and Look Around You”

4. Lesson on Conflict Resolution: “Find the Best Route to Your Destination” (2013)

8. For each lesson, you can access the lesson plan and student activity (or activities) via Word and the student reading via PDF. Use these lessons to help your students boost their self-regulation skill development and adapt or modify them as needed.

Self-Regulation in Adults

Although much attention is paid to self-regulation in children and adolescents, as this is when those skills are developing, it’s also important to keep self-regulation in mind for adults as well.

Self-Regulation and Navigating the Workplace

For example, as you can imagine, self-regulation is extremely important in the workplace as well as in the classroom.

Self-regulation is what keeps you from yelling at your boss when he’s getting on your nerves, slapping a coworker who threw you under the bus, or more benign but still socially unacceptable behaviors like falling asleep at your desk or stealing someone’s lunch out of the fridge.

Those with high self-regulation skills are better able to navigate the workplace, which means they are better equipped to obtain and keep jobs and generally outperform their less-regulated peers.

To help you effectively manage your emotions at work (and build them up outside of work as well), try these tips:

1. Do breathing exercises (like mindful breathing)

2. Eat healthy, drink lots of water, and limit alcohol consumption

3. Use self-hypnosis to reduce your stress level and remain calm

4. Exercise regularly

5. Sleep for 7 to 8 hours a night

6. Make time for fun outside of work

7. Laugh more often

8. Spend time alone

9. Manage your work-life balance (Connelly, 2012)

I know—those are very general tips! But it’s true that living a generally healthy life is key to reducing your stress, allowing you to keep your energy reserves maintained for self-regulation.

For more specific tips on building your self-regulation skills, read on!

33 Skills and Techniques to Improve Self-Regulation

There are many tips and tricks you can use as self-regulated learners to enhance your self-regulation skills. If you want to give it a shot, read through these techniques and pick one that resonates with you—then put it to good use!

Mindfulness

Cultivating the skill of mindfulness will improve your ability to maintain your moment-to-moment awareness, which in turn helps you delay gratification and manage your emotions.

Mindfulness has proven to be very effective in boosting conscious control over your attention, helping you regulate your negative emotions, and improving your executive functioning (Cundic, 2018).

Cognitive Reappraisal

This strategy can be described as a conscious effort to change your thought patterns. This is one of the main goals of the cognitive-based therapies (e.g., CBT, MBCT).

To build your cognitive reappraisal skills, you will need to work on changing and reframing your thoughts when you encounter a difficult situation. Adopting a more adaptive perspective to your situation will help you find the silver lining and help you manage emotion regulation and keep negative emotions at bay (Cundic, 2018).

Cognitive self-regulation has been found to be positively correlated with social functioning as well. It involves the cognitive abilities we use to integrate different learning processes that will also help us support all our personal goals.

8 Ways to Improve Self-Regulation

This list comes from the Mind Tools website but can be found in this PDF from Satya Kline at CultivatingConnection.org. It outlines 8 methods and self-regulation strategies you can use to build your skills, including:

1. Leading and Living with Integrity: being a good role model, practicing what you preach, creating trusting environments, and living in alignment with your values

2. Being Open to Change: challenge yourself to deal with change in a straightforward and positive manner and work on improving your ability to adapt to different situations and stay positive through it all

3. Identifying Your Triggers: cultivating a sense of self-awareness will help you learn what your strengths and weaknesses are, and what can trigger you into a difficult state of mind

4. Practicing Self-Discipline: commit to taking initiative and staying persistent in working towards your goals, even when it’s the last thing you feel like doing

5. Reframing Negative Thoughts: work on your ability to take a step back from your own thoughts and feelings, analyze them, and come up with positive alternative thoughts

6. Keeping Calm Under Pressure: practice keeping your cool by removing yourself from the situation for the short-term—whether mentally or physically—and using relaxation techniques like deep breathing

7. Considering the Consequences: when you are faced with a strong temptation towards “bad” behavior, stop and think about the consequences (e.g., what happened in the past, what is likely to happen now, what this behavior could trigger in terms of longer-term consequences)

8. Believing in Yourself: boost your self-efficacy by working on your self-confidence; focus on the experiences in your life where you succeeded and keep your mistakes in perspective. Choose to believe in your own abilities and surround yourself with positive, supportive people (Kline, n.d.)

Self-Regulation Strategies: Methods for Managing Myself

This handy table from Jan Johnson at Learning in Action Technologies lists 23 positive strategies we use to self-regulate, both alone and in relationships.

They are categorized into two groups: “Positive or Neutral” and “Negative or Neutral.” Check out some examples in each column and think about where your most frequently-used self-regulating learning strategies fall on the chart.

For example, in the upper-left quadrant (“Alone Focus, Positive or Neutral”), strategies include:

• Consciously attend to breathing, relaxing

• Exercise

• Movement

• Awareness of body sensations

• Attending to care for my body, nutrition

• Meditation and prayer

• Self-expression: art, music, dance, writing, etc.

• Caring, nurturing self-talk

• Laughing, telling jokes

• Positive self-talk (“I can,” “I’m sufficient” messages)

• Go inside with intentional nurturing of self

Under the “Relationship – Focus on Other, Positive or Neutral” category, strategies include:

• Seeking dialogue and learning

• Playing with others

• Sharing humor

• Moving towards the relationship to learn (mutual inquiry)

• Desire and/or movement toward collaboration

• Intentionally honoring or celebrating the other/calling attention to the other

Finally, the strategies under the “Relationship – Focus on Self, Positive or Neutral” category include:

• Acknowledge what I said or did and any truth in it

• Humor

• Move towards the relationship to learn

• Desire for collaboration

• Inquire about impact

• Intentionally honor or celebrate me (throw myself a party)

To see the rest of these strategies, click here (clicking the link will trigger a download of the PDF).

 

Activities and Worksheets for Training Self-Regulation (PDF)

If you’re a teacher, parent, or adult who works with children, this section offers some great resources for helping you and/or the children in your care develop greater self-regulation.

Self-Regulation in the Classroom

This worksheet is a handy tool for teachers to implement in the classroom. It can be used to help students assess their level of self-regulation and find areas for improvement.

It lists 23 traits and tendencies for the students to rate as “Always”, “Sometimes”, or “Not So Much”:

• Ready and prepared for each activity (pencils, books?)

• Participate in small and large group activities

• Complete work on time

• Remain on task

• Follow the classroom rules and routines

• Ask for help at appropriate times

• Remain in the seat as requested

• Wait for your turn

• Refrain from speaking out of turn

• Complete tasks to the best of your ability

• Work consistently without warnings

• Put your hand up for questions and or answers

• Cooperate with others

• Accept feedback appropriately

• Review your work for completion and errors regularly

• Answer requests politely

• Use appropriate language

• Follow directions and comply with requests

• Ignore distractions

• Organize belongings

• Attempt to solve problems independently first

• Keep hands and feet to yourself

• Use appropriate voice tone

You can see this worksheet here.

Emotion Regulation Skills

This handout can be useful for both adults and older children and teens. It describes some of the main strategies and skills you can implement to keep your emotions under control.

The handout covers four main strategies:

1. Opposite Action: doing the opposite of what you feel like doing

2. Check the Facts: looking back over your experiences to learn the facts of what happened, like the event that triggered a reaction, any interpretations or assumptions made, and whether the response matched the intensity of the situation

3. P.L.E.A.S.E.: this acronym stands for treat physical illness (PL), eat healthy (E), avoid mood-altering drugs (A), sleep well (S), and exercise (E). All of these behaviors will help you maintain control of your emotions

4. Paying Attention to Positive Events: keeping your focus on the positive aspects of an experience instead of the negative; try engaging in a positive activity and keeping yourself open to the good things

You can download this handout here.

Handouts: Emotional Regulation, Social Sills, & Problem Solving

This entry on the list is really a bonus—it includes several worksheets and handouts you can use as a teacher, parent, or therapist with the children in your care.

It includes worksheets and handouts like:

• Wally’s Problem-Solving Steps, which helps children learn how to problem-solve

• Tiny’s Anger Management Steps, to help kids figure out how to deal with their anger

It also includes helpful worksheets for teachers to complete in order to enhance their ability to help students develop better self-regulation skills.

Click here to download this useful PDF.

 

Further Resources, Interventions, and Tools

If you’re still hungry for more information on self-regulation, there are tons of resources available on the subject. Check out the sources listed below.

Self-Regulation Chart and Checklist (PDF)

Aside from the worksheets and handouts noted earlier, there are two other handy tools to use with kids: the self-regulation chart and the self-regulation checklist.

This self-regulation chart is for the parents and/or teacher to complete, but it is focused on the child. It states 30 skills related to emotional regulation and instructs the adult to rate the child’s performance in each area on a 4-point scale from “Almost Always” to “Almost Never.”

All of these skills are important to keep in mind, but the skills specific to self-regulation include:

• Allows others to comfort him/her if upset or agitated

• Self-regulates when tense or upset

• Self-regulates when the energy level is high

• Deals with being teased in acceptable ways

• Deals with being left out of a group

• Accepts not being first at a game or activity

• Accepts losing at a game without becoming upset/angry

• Says “no” in an acceptable way to things he/she does not want to do

• Accepts being told “no” without becoming upset/angry

• Able to say “I don’t know”

• Able to end conversations appropriately

You can find the self-regulation chart and checklist at this link.

Another type of chart that can help students with their self-regulation development is the behavioral self-regulation chart.

This chart is intended for students to fill out themselves. It includes four columns with the following questions:

1. What happened?

2. How did others react?

3. What was your reason?

4. What else could you have done?

Now that we’re familiar with self-regulation, it’s easy to see the processes at work here. Completing this chart will encourage your child or student to monitor their feelings and behavior, identify the consequences, evaluate their response, and come up with modifications or brand-new strategies to try out next time.

Click here to find a sample of this chart.

A good self-regulation checklist will help your child or student assess their self-monitoring and keep their goal of self-regulation in mind.

This checklist from PediaStaff is a good example. It poses the following two Yes/No questions to students and leaves space for them to summarize their weekly performance and check it against their goal:

1. Was I paying attention to my assigned work?

2. Was I following the classroom rules?

For each school day, the students should evaluate their performance. At the end of the week, have them add up the “Yes” responses and compare it to their goal. This will get them in the habit of monitoring and assessing their own performance and reflect on their performance.

Book: The Zones of Self-Regulation

If you spend any time poking around the self-regulation literature or talking to others about it, you’re bound to run into mentions of The Zones of Regulation.

According to developer Leah Kuypers, The Zones of Regulation is a…

“…systematic, cognitive behavioral approach used to teach self-regulation by categorizing all the different ways we feel and states of alertness we experience into four concrete colored zones” (Kuypers, n.d.).

This book describes the Zones of Regulation curriculum, including lessons and activities you can use in the classroom, in your therapy office, or at home.

In this book, you will learn about the four zones:

• Red Zone – extremely heightened states of alertness and intense emotions (e.g., rage, anger, devastation, terror)

• Yellow Zone – a heightened state of alertness and elevated emotions (e.g., silliness, stress, frustration, “the wiggles”), but with more control than the Red Zone

• Green Zone – calm state of alertness and regulated emotion (e.g., happy, focused, content, ready to learn)

• Blue Zone – state of low alertness and down feelings (e.g., sad, sick, tired, bored)

In addition, you will learn how to apply the Zones model to help your children, students, or clients build their emotional regulation skills.

You can learn more about this book here.

Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory, and Applications

For a more academic-minded look at self-regulation, you might want to give this handbook a try.

This edited volume from researchers Kathleen D. Vohs and Roy F. Baumeister offers a comprehensive look at the theory of self-regulation, the research behind it, and how it can be applied to improve quality of life for all. It also covers how self-regulation is developed and shaped by experiences, and how it both influences and is influenced by social relationships.

Chapters on self-dysregulation (e.g., addiction, overeating, compulsive spending, ADHD) explore what happens when self-regulation skills are not developed to an adequate level.

If you’re a student, researcher, academic, a helping professional, or an aspiring helping professional, you won’t regret investing your time and energy into reading this book and familiarizing yourself with this important topic.

Click here to see the book on Amazon.

 

A Take Home Message

I hope you’ve enjoyed our journey through the theories, findings, and significance of self-regulation! It’s truly an important topic for everyone to consider, although parents and educators may find it to be even more vital than others.

The skills involved in self-regulation are necessary for achieving success in life and reaching our most important goals, as well as having a big impact on our overall well-being.

What do you think of self-regulation theory? Does it make sense to you? What are your strategies for boosting your own self-regulation? What about your strategies for building it in children?

Let us know in the comments section below or continue reading this piece on positive mindset.

Thanks for reading!

WE LOVE THIS ARTICLE and the self-regulation philosophy and method. We stand by our commitment to inspire and support you to have personal responsibility for your health, wellness and happiness. We offer a unique, integrative, therapeutic approach that takes in to account the WHOLE PERSON, and we listen to your needs, connecting you to resources and groups from around Edmonton and the health care community to help you develop a self-regulation plan that you love and appreciate.

This article originally appeared on positivepsychologyprogram.com and was written by Courtney Ackerman

'The lost summer’: the emotional and spiritual toll of the smoke apocalypse

Anxiety, fear and grief: what experts are learning about the mental health effects of wildfire haze.

Headlines declared it “terrifying.” Edmonton was dubbed an “apocalyptic ghost town.” The Star declared, “It’s not the end of the world. It just looks that way.”

As it turns out, there’s little disagreement when it comes to wildfire smoke: it’s alarming.

Residents of the western provinces have been choking on smoke in recent weeks, as smoke from the more than 550 wildfires burning in B.C. drifts around the country. Special air quality alerts have been issued in Vancouver, Victoria, Prince George, Salmon Arm, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, the Battlefords and even Manitoba — and the list goes on.

Air quality alerts are issued to warn residents about the dangers of fine particulate matter present in wildfire smoke, which can cause numerous health effects including everything from sinus irritation to heart attacks.  

But it’s not just breathing difficulties and watery eyes that impact people living in smoke-affected areas.

For many, it’s the unsettling feeling of living under a thick cloak of smoke, one that obscures the sun, wipes out the blue sky and hides the landscape in a disconcerting brown-grey veil.

Little research has been done to quantify the psychological effects of widespread and persistent wildfire smoke, though researchers have found ties to feelings of hopelessness, irritability, depression, fear, isolation, change of sleep patterns and lethargy. The research is scarce, in part because prolonged and widespread smoke is “a relatively new phenomenon in North America,” according to Dr. Sarah Henderson, senior environmental health scientist at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.

Increasingly though, experts are concerned about the mental health effects of our new reality: weeks of seemingly unending smoke wafting across the western provinces each summer.

“It’s very oppressive to live under smoky conditions,” Henderson said. “A couple of days of it is more tolerable than a couple of weeks of it.”

‘The Lost Summer’

One of the few studies examining the mental health effects of prolonged periods of wildfire smoke was published last year in the Canadian Journal of Public Health. It looked at the impact of wildfire smoke in the Yellowknife area during the 2014 fire season, which saw significant smoke. The study found “a direct connection between the wildfires and smoke and a decrease in [people’s] mental and emotional health.”

When widespread smoke moves into a community, residents are often advised to stay indoors and close their windows, or to spend more time indoors with air conditioning. The study found that this leads to significantly less time spent outside, or socializing.

When smoke persists, closing your windows is no longer enough for many people. If a person doesn’t have an air filtration system, indoor air quality can eventually mirror the dangerous air quality outside.

“There’s a sense of not being able to get away,” said Dr. Warren Dodd, assistant professor at the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo, and the lead researcher on the study. “Where do you go? There’s smoke everywhere.”

“One of the strongest emotions that people felt was isolation,” Dodd said. “This extended period of smoke meant that they weren’t able to leave their houses for the summer. People felt like they were isolated from the neighbours and from their community.”

First Nations participants reported an inability to take part in traditional activities, from hunting and fishing to berry harvesting. Other residents noted they were unable to work in their gardens, ride their bikes or take their kids outside to play.

Dr. Courtney Howard, board president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, was also a researcher on the Yellowknife study. She recalls the dangers of isolation and inactivity due to wildfire smoke.

“Physicians are increasingly giving prescriptions of exercise to people — whether it’s heart disease or anxiety or depression.” Howard said. “So not only do people have the smoke impacting their health, they’re losing the activity that was the treatment of their disease.”

“People don’t realize the health benefits they’re getting even from just walking to work, until they can’t do that anymore.”

This feeling of isolation and inactivity has resonated for many people this summer, too. Smoke has already forced people to re-evaluate their summer plans, from community events to outdoor activities.

In Edmonton, events at the annual marathon were postponed due to poor air quality. Flights were halted from parts of B.C.’s interior. Kamloops cancelled an annual celebration that typically draws 10,000 people, triathlons were cancelled in Penticton and Kelowna, and in Calgary, the annual Ride to Conquer Cancer was cancelled halfway through, with 1,900 cyclists picked up just a few hours into the event.

As one participant from Yellowknife told researchers for the summer of smoke study: “It was the lost summer… it takes a deep, emotional toll, if not a spiritual toll.”

‘Homesick when you’re still at home’

There’s something larger at play for many people when they wake up to dim, smoky skies.

Dodd points to the concept of solastalgia to explain the gloom people feel when the smoke rolls in — and sticks around for weeks or months.

“It’s basically the feeling of being homesick when you’re still at home,” he explained of the feeling people get when their community is shrouded in smoke. “It’s really this concept of stress and anxiety about environmental change that’s happening in a place that is very familiar or at home.”

For many people, Dodd said, wildfire smoke is particularly frightening because it feels emblematic of larger environmental issues. “It’s connected to things that might happen in the future.”

Howard echoes the theory. “Increasingly, people are having anxiety about what’s to come, sadness about what’s to come, and even depression around the climate-related state of the world,” she said. These feelings have come to be known as “ecological grief.”

Dr. Ashlee Cunsolo, director of the Labrador Institute of Memorial University, wrote about ecological grief in article published in the journal Nature earlier this year. She and her coauthor defined the concept of ecological grief as “the grief felt in relation to experienced or anticipated ecological losses, including the loss of species, ecosystems, and meaningful landscapes due to acute or chronic environmental change.”

“Once we published [the article] we were inundated with people from all over the world saying  ‘this is exactly how I feel but I never had a word for it,’ ” she told The Narwhal.

For many people, Cunsolo said, there is a close connection between people, place and identity. When the landscape changes — even if the change is temporary, like with wildfire smoke — people may begin to feel a sense of alienation.

“Land connection is so much a part of who people are, that when it’s disrupted through things like climate-induced wildfires, or loss of sea ice or severe storms that are increasing then people’s sense of identity shifts with that sense of place,” she said.

“People love the landscape and it’s a place of solace, so when that landscape changes, their sense of identity and connection also shifts.”

For many people, widespread wildfire smoke is off-putting to say the least. For others, there’s a sense of foreboding.

“People called it a smoke apocalypse and it felt like that,” said Howard of the particularly smoky summer in Yellowknife, where she works as an emergency physician. “It becomes a real marker of ‘whoa, nature is powerful and it can change and we are small and this is big.’”

“It reorders our sense of place in the world.”

Grief as a ‘motivating force’

Howard says part of the problem for many people is “the feeling that this might be the new norm.”

When the streetlights come on in the middle of the day, ash rains down from the sky and the smoke blocks out the midnight sun, people begin to wonder if this might become more common. Cunsolo calls this “anticipatory grief.”
“People are starting to think this is a permanent shift,” said Cunsolo. “With that permanent shift comes the potential for a permanent loss of things that are important to them.”

As wildfire smoke continues to blanket much of the West, Cunsolo is adamant that the feeling of ecological grief can also be a force for good.

“People use grief to come together, to support each other and to protest,” she said. “It becomes this really resistant form of mourning where you take it public and it mobilizes you.

“Grief can actually be a very motivating force.”

This article originally appeared on thenarwhal.ca and was written by Sharon J Riley

Why we owe it to ourselves to spend quiet time alone every day

By not giving ourselves the minutes — or hours — free of devices and distractions, we risk losing our ability to know who we are and what’s important to us, says physicist and writer Alan Lightman.

In 2016, the Harvard biologist emeritus and naturalist E.O. Wilson (TED Talk: Advice to a young scientist) published Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, in which he proposes that half the earth’s surface be designated and protected as conservation land. Just since 1970, human beings have destroyed more than 30 percent of forests and the marine ecosystem, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. The destruction has been an unintended consequence of population growth, the desire for increased material wealth and comfort, and the associated need for more energy. It’s also been driven by the inexorable imperative of capitalism and the powerful desire of certain individuals to increase their personal wealth. Wilson’s proposal might be difficult to achieve, but it represents a recognition of the importance of our natural environment and the forces that threaten it.

The destruction of our inner selves via the wired world is an even more recent, and more subtle, phenomenon. The loss of slowness, of time for reflection and contemplation, of privacy and solitude, of silence, of the ability to sit quietly in a chair for fifteen minutes without external stimulation — all have happened quickly and almost invisibly. A hundred and fifty years ago, the telephone didn’t exist. Fifty years ago, the Internet didn’t exist. Twenty-five years ago, Google didn’t exist.

The situation is dire. Just as with global warming, we may already be near the point of no return. Invisibly, almost without notice, we are losing ourselves. We are losing our ability to know who we are and what is important to us. We are creating a global machine in which each of us is a mindless and reflexive cog, relentlessly driven by the speed, noise, and artificial urgency of the wired world.

I would like to make a bold proposal: that half our waking minds be designated and saved for quiet reflection.

What can we do? Somehow, we need to create a new habit of mind, as individuals and as a society. We need a mental attitude that values and protects stillness, privacy, solitude, slowness, personal reflection; that honors the inner self; that allows each of us to wander about without schedule within our own minds.

Wilson’s proposal is bold, and I would like to make a similarly bold proposal: that half our waking minds be designated and saved for quiet reflection. Otherwise, we are destroying our inner selves and our creative capacities. Different moments throughout the day can be devoted to contemplation and stillness, free from the external world.

How do we cultivate a contemplative habit of mind? Twenty years ago, a friend who taught high school in Arlington, Massachusetts, started something new with her students. At the beginning of each class, she rang a bell and asked them to remain silent for four minutes. As she wrote later, “I explained [to my students] that I felt our school days were too fast-paced and filled with noise, that silence could help us leave behind the previous class, and prepare to be present for this one. That it was a time to clear our heads. I said we were aiming for internal and external stillness.” The results were miraculous, she told me. Both she and the students were calmer and more centered.

In recent years, numerous organizations — such as Mindful Schools and Mindful Education — have been created to introduce periods of quiet and meditation into primary and secondary schools. For example, in 2015, mind-body educator Stacy Sims started a program called Mindful Music Moments in which students listen to four minutes of classical music during the morning announcement period — similar to the idea of my friend in Massachusetts. Mindful Music Moments now operates in 65 K-12 schools, camps, and social service organizations, most of them in Cincinnati.

Perhaps there could be mandated screen-free zones in public spaces and labor laws that guarantee workers a half hour each day of quiet time at the workplace.

To develop new habits of mind, different groups must use different methods. I have some recommendations, which should be viewed as starting points rather than comprehensive solutions:

• For K-12 students, a ten-minute period of silence sometime during the school day. Students could quietly write down thoughts in a notebook during this time. Different schools have different cultures, and each school will know how best to institute this period of silence.

• For college students, “introspective intensive” courses created by each academic department. Each student would be required to take at least one such course each semester. Introspective courses, while based in the particular subject matter of the department — for example, history or chemistry — would have a reduced load of reading and assignments and encourage students to use the free time to reflect on what they are learning and relate it to their lives and life goals.

• In the workplace, a quiet room or similar space where employees are permitted and encouraged to spend a half hour each day meditating, reflecting, or simply being silent. Smartphones and computers would not be allowed in the quiet room. This period of quiet would not be part of the regular lunch break.

• For families, an unplugged hour during the evening, perhaps during dinner, in which all phones, smartphones, computers, and other devices are turned off. Dinner should be a time for quiet conversation.

• Individuals should think about how they spend their time each day and try to build in a half hour away from the wired world, such as taking a walk while unplugged, reading, or simply sitting quietly.

• For society as a whole, mandated screen-free zones in public spaces, where digital devices are forbidden, and labor laws in which workers are guaranteed a half hour each day of quiet time at the workplace.

Don’t we owe all of our children a world in which their contemplative lives are valued and supported? Don’t we owe it to ourselves?

I believe that we can develop a new habit of mind toward the wired world, but it will take time. We will first need to recognize the danger. Certainly, younger people should take some responsibility for their addiction to the wired world at the expense of their inner selves. But shouldn’t we who created that world take more responsibility? We are victims ourselves, but we are also the perpetrators. Don’t we owe all of our children a world in which their contemplative lives are valued and supported? Don’t we owe it to ourselves?

Although changing habits of mind is difficult, it can be done. With a little determination, each of us can find a half hour a day to waste time. And when we do so, we give ourselves a gift. It is a gift to our spirit. It is an honoring of that quiet, whispering voice. It is a liberation from the cage of the wired world. It is freedom. Decades ago, when I was that boy walking home from school through the woods, following turtles as they slowly lumbered down a dirt path, wasting hours as I watched tadpoles in the shallows or the sway of water grasses in the wind, I was free. We cannot return to that world, nor would we necessarily want to, but we can create some of that space within our world today. We can create a preserve within our own minds.

Excerpted from the new book In Praise of Wasting Time by Alan Lightman. Reprinted with permission from TED Books/Simon & Schuster. © 2018 Alan Lightman.

This article originally appeared on ideas.ted.com Alan Lightman