[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Addiction Recovery: Health Psychology ©2023]

While we heal the mind, we also heal the body. Our 4th key, then: body care.

Aka, healthy lifestyle. We know the basics: good nutrition, some exercise, hydration, sleep. Healthy advice of grandmothers everywhere – the best kind.

Addiction, if substance use, can do some damage to our bodies, and we need time for repair. Any addiction, whether substance or behavioral, is also overstimulating the neuroreceptors of the brain, and when we begin recovery, those centers are suddenly understimulated – and we can feel unwell.

In any case, regardless of the nature of our addiction, our body needs some care. What’s more: in supporting our physical body, we’re supporting our brains and thus our mental health, and vice versa; we’re not separate parts after all, but a whole person. This also connects to self-compassion, our 2nd key. In caring for our physical body, in giving ourselves good nutrition, exercise, and adequate sleep, we’re also nurturing ourselves. What our deep mind takes from this is, I’m worthy of care.

One reason that somatic approaches are especially useful in recovery is interoception – the body’s sensory ability. This is largely compromised in many types of addiction; the reward centers in the brain, that are continually overstimulated through behavioral or substance addictions, are directly related to both interoception and executive functioning, or cognitive capability including memory (Angioletti & Balconi, 2021).

Fortunately, our bodies are also filled with a range of homeostatic mechanisms to reestablish balance, and caring for our bodies will help us to heal. Exercise contributes to interoception, for example, as do mindfulness body awareness therapies. As one example, Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy has demonstrated significant increase in interoceptive awareness, emotion dysregulation, and abstinence duration, with reductions in cravings and depression (Price et al., 2019).

Somatic therapies can help quite a lot in your ongoing recovery of mind and body; in fact, they’re known to be helpful for mental health issues as well as addiction (Chandler et al., 2022). The tissues of our bodies store toxins far longer than the active detox stage we may have gone through – hence, post-acute withdrawal symptoms. If you can, get a massage or other body therapy as often as possible. Such therapies help to work those toxins out of the tissues and into the bloodstream, whereby they can be eliminated from your body; somatic therapies generally help to rebalance the body, including neurotransmitters compromised by addiction.

Let’s talk about exercise. In a review of 53 studies on exercise and addiction recovery, Patterson et al. (2022) found significant recovery outcomes such as decreased cravings and increased abstinence duration. This was stronger when in conjunction with treatment and/or other forms of self-care, as expected; we can presume that group exercise, as a form of social support, may be stronger still, though this hasn’t yet been adequately studied. If your addictive behavior was in fact exercise, naturally you’ll need to take caution with that part of your recovery body care plan. Avoiding exercise altogether isn’t healthy, though; perhaps you can consider an eastern form of moving meditation such as yoga, makko ho, or qigong including taiqi – all of which are both exercise and mental health care (Chandler, 2022).

As we saw in our previous key on social support, the study of Jia et al. (2023) found exercise self-efficacy, or capability, along with social support and quality of life to be correlated with relapse prevention. It’s worth noting that the study, conducted in the Chinese province south of Shanghai, mentions traditional Chinese exercise in particular – likely in the form of taiqi performed in an outdoor park (with added benefit of nature), customary in China. As this or other qigong forms also follow principles of traditional Chinese medicine, such as the balance of yinyang and flow of qi, there is a bit more going on – in both mind and body, as Chinese research participants would inherently understand – than in other more physically-oriented exercise alone.

Many in today’s modern world are also addicted to processed foods. In a nationwide sample of 95,074 adolescents in Brazil, Mesas et al. (2023) found the regular consumption of ultra-processed food to be associated with frequency of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use. Refined and processed foods aren’t only unhealthy; they’re filled with chemicals, and break down into sugars and starches, all of which may serve to trigger cravings (Drake, 2020). As well, replacing our former addiction with sugar and caffeine – as is so often the case – may soothe your body in the short-term, but there are very clear pathways toward increased cravings, beginning with pancreas and adrenal function and roller-coaster blood sugar levels (Drake). Caution. Don’t let this be you. Try to have as healthy a diet, based on whole foods, as you can. If you don’t cook, at least aim for a substantial percentage of fruits and vegetables.

Sleep is your friend, though of course, don’t overdo it. Focus on sleep hygiene; create an atmosphere as conducive to good sleep as possible, and get a sufficient amount. Sleep is healing to both brain and body. (Avoid LED – smartphone – in front of your eyes just before sleep; it stimulates the pineal gland into thinking it’s daytime, for low melatonin production and shallow sleep quality.)

You may have a chronic pain condition which perhaps even led to your addiction, as in the current US opioid epidemic. You’ll need to find nonchemical ways to manage pain, so it doesn’t act as a trigger for you – and of course, so you can live more comfortably. A regular stretching routine such as yoga or similar, or an energy-based gentle routine such as taiqi or qigong, can help; you may also want to consider regular meditation, and body therapies such as massage, or learn about acupressure, reflexology, or EFT, for pressure points which you can treat yourself.

Our bodies also carry memories of trauma (van der Kolk, 2014). If you have a history of trauma, you may find that such memories or emotions resurface during somatic therapies or physical exercise, for example. This may be uncomfortable – but it also provides you with a new opportunity to process your old trauma in a healthy way, and transform your unconscious response in order to avoid relapse in the future. Working with a trauma therapist is advisable. There are also therapies especially designed to support this experience. Somatic Experiencing, for example, is body-oriented trauma therapy, working directly on interoceptive and proprioceptive sensations to reorganize your body’s imprinted experience of the trauma. In a review of 16 studies, this therapy was found to have positive effects on PTSD symptoms (Kuhfuß et al., 2021). The Community Resiliency Model is another body-based approach meant to address long-term impacts of trauma, and includes a set of sensory awareness skills for improved interoception; in a recent study (Grabbe et al., 2021), participants demonstrated significantly decreased anger, anxiety, and somatic symptoms. Yoga is already commonly engaged for addiction recovery, with evidence for decreased cravings and improved mood (Greene, 2021), and trauma-informed yoga is particularly recommended (Esfeld et al., 2023).

Treat your physical body as your best friend. It isn’t only your mind’s home; it’s you, and anything you do to heal and help your body also heals your mind. Cherish your body now.

Exercises:

Let’s begin with the obvious ones. First, physical exercise: choose just one form that you feel you can engage in daily. Don’t begin with a full routine; start small, and add other components slowly over time. Commit to one form of exercise now, even if it’s just 15 minutes a day.

Add 1 form of energy exercise when you’re ready. Taiqi, qigong, yoga, or similar – something that’s meant to balance your body in addition to the physical aspects. This can be especially healing and supportive.

And: sleep. Set a fixed bedtime and waking time for yourself, and keep to it; consistency helps greatly in sleep quality. Consider your room, and how you can make it more conducive to good sleep: dark curtains? Steady noise such as a fan? And, put the phone/pad/other device down at a certain time, then do something else just before sleep – meditation, some stretching, reading – something that isn’t LED-oriented, which is sleep-disturbing.

Nutrition: reduce or, ideally, eliminate junk foods, and especially ultra-processed, including sugar and white flour. Really. These contribute strongly to craving potential. Lots of whole foods now. Limit the natural supplements, too, even though they all seem good for health; too many can still overwhelm the liver. If you’re not knowledgeable about nutrition, you may want to watch some videos or read a website or two, and be sure you know the basics. Your approach to food can support your recovery – or not. And don’t forget to hydrate!

Get a weekly body treatment, massage or similar as mentioned above, if you can; if not, then learn one system that you can use for self-treatment, such as acupressure points or reflexology, and treat yourself weekly.

Body scan meditation: sit or lie down and quiet your mind, minimizing distractions, breathing slowly and steadily. When peaceful, begin by focusing on your feet; stay with this for a minute, and see what comes up for you – do you have any pain in your feet? Do they feel strong, or tired? Is there anything you need to be aware of there? Do you feel supported? Then move to your calves, and do the same; then your thighs, and move slowly, area by area, up your body until you’ve scanned each part. This is for increased body awareness, and for whatever you can learn about and from your own body.

You may want to become more familiar with human anatomy and physiology – so that you can know your own body better. Find some good videos online.

Take long walks in nature whenever possible, if physically able. This is not only good for your body care, but also for mental health and healing.

Playing a sport, if so inclined, can be especially useful – for support of your body, and also for enhancing your social system.

References:

Angioletti L and Balconi M (2021). Interoception and Addiction: Etiological Mechanisms and a Root for Intervention. In: Balconi M and Campanella S (eds), Advances in Substance and Behavioral Addiction. Advances in Mental Health and Addiction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82408-2_9

Chandler TL, Shoemaker-Beal R, and Coker ML (2022). Creative Arts and Somatic Therapies: Psychodrama, Eye Movement Desensitization Regulation, and Body/Mind Therapies. In, Co-occurring Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorders (pp. 226-240). Routledge.

Drake CY (2020). Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Nutrition: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Journal of Mental Health and Social Behaviour 2:1, 117. https://doi.org/10.33790/jmhsb1100117

Esfeld J, Pennings K, Rooney A et al. (2023). Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Addiction Treatment. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health 18:2, 209-218. https://doi.org/10.1080/15401383.2021.1972067

Grabbe L, Higgins M. Jordan D et al. (2021). The Community Resiliency Model®: a Pilot of an Interoception Intervention to Increase the Emotional Self-Regulation of Women in Addiction Treatment. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction 19, 793-808. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-019-00189-9

Greene DS (2021). Yoga: A Holistic Approach to Addiction Treatment and Recovery. OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine 6:4, 047. https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.icm.2104047

Jia D, Zhang K, and Xu Y (2023). The Relationship Between Social Support and Relapse Tendency Among Those Who Struggle with Drug Addiction: Multiple Mediators of Exercise Self-Efficacy and Health-Related Quality of Life. Journal of Drug Issues. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220426231152912

Kuhfuß M, Maldei T, Hetmanek A et al. (2021). Somatic experiencing – effectiveness and key factors of a body-oriented trauma therapy: A scoping literature review. European Journal of Psychotraumatology 12:1. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2021.1929023

Mesas AE, Girotto E, Rodrigues R et al. (2023). Ultra-Processed Food Consumption is Associated with Alcoholic Beverage Drinking, Tobacco Smoking, and Illicit Drug Use in Adolescents: A Nationwide Population-Based Study. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-023-01038-6

Patterson MS, Spadine MN, Graves Boswell T, et al. (2022). Exercise in the Treatment of Addiction: A Systematic Literature Review. Health Education & Behavior 49:5, 801-819. https://doi.org/10.1177/10901981221090155

Price CJ, Thompson EA, Crowell SE et al. (2019). Immediate effects of interoceptive awareness training through Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT) for women in substance use disorder treatment. Substance Abuse 40:1, 102-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/08897077.2018.1488335

van der Kolk B (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.

Ireland: The Gaeltacht

[excerpted from, Latin America & Anglo: Stories across Cultures ©2023]

Bíonn siúlach scéalach. Travelers have tales to tell. [Irish proverb]

A month in Galway. What’s not to love? I’ve been to the Emerald Isle, properly known as Éire, on several occasions, my first visit in December 2006 demonstrating to me just how it got its green reputation: perpetual mist.

I spent the month of August 2016 in Galway, on the heels of a month in Reykjavik just to its north – a blissful summer indeed. That also meant … for a month in Iceland, I couldn’t sleep, as I reveled in the Land of the Midnight Sun. This month, while sleeping deeply in dark nights … I didn’t so often see the sun during daytime.

My own heritage is Celtic – Welsh, and Cornish, with a few distant Irish ancestors in the mix. I’ve a decades-long interest in Celtic culture, while my first visit to Ireland had introduced me to Dublin, Cork, West Bantry, and Galway … and pub life, music, poetry, storytelling, and Guinness. Among other cultural niceties.

In this extended stay, I was in search of the Gaeltacht, the Irish-speaking regions of the country, keepers of tradition (some of which are also in the southwest). What’s more: it was the centennial of the 1916 rebellion for independence, and my final week would be in Dublin – for Heritage Week and a host of events.

A social media post on day 1: First ‘dinner’ a picnic – of buttermilk soda bread and a mature Irish cheddar, while sitting alongside the River Corrib … a man nearby singing a folk song for his 2 mates … surrounded by old stone buildings and small boats, a large flock of swans and even a swimming seal, all under a dramatic sky. Yes – must be Galway.

Evidence, all along River Corrib and its canals, of Galway’s mill town past. My ‘hometown paper’, The New York Times, had recently called Galway “Ireland’s most charming city.”

The swell foams where they float and crawl, / A catherine-wheel of arm and hand; / Each head bobs curtly as a football. / The yelps are faint here on the strand. / No milk-limbed Venus ever rose / Miraculous on this western shore. / A pirate queen in battle clothes / Is our sterner myth. The breakers pour / Themselves into themselves, the years / Shuttle through space invisibly. / Where crests unfurl like creamy beer / the queen’s clothes melt into the sea / And generations sighing in / The salt suds where the wave has crashed / Labour in fear of flesh and sin / For the time has been accomplished / As through the shallows in swimsuits, / Bare-legged, smooth-shouldered and long-backed, / they wade ashore with skips and shouts. / So Venus comes, matter-of-fact. [Seamus Heaney, Girls Bathing, Galway, 1965; from Door into the Dark, published in 1969.]

While Galway City itself is simply delicious, to truly touch the Gaeltacht one goes to the Aran Islands, and up into Connemara.

The most delightful coincidence: I was there at the time of the annual Connemara Pony Show. (And in a quirky collision of my worlds: representatives from South Korea were there, my longtime former home, in a bid to buy Connemara pony stock in order to interbreed them with Korea’s own indigenous equine.)

Connemara Pony Show & Festival, in its 93rd year, in Clifden. Glorious. Competitions at the Pony Show included best-dressed woman and man, best dancers (traditional Irish), best baked goods, best homegrown vegetables, all with charm galore. A street fair in the middle of town complemented the Pony Show. Two mares were shown with their colts alongside, presumably to keep both calm – the colts were not being shown – or maybe to prepare the colts for showing next year?

Heard at the Pony Show: [4-year old boy to his 12-year old sister, gleam in his eye] “When I get my donkey, I’m going to name him ‘Bad’.” [One boy to another, upon hearing a rapid-fire sound] “Hey, fireworks!” “Nah,” replied his mate, “that’s just the Irish dancin’.”

I made several visits to various tiny towns throughout the peninsula – Oughterard, An Spiedal, Roundstone Village. Low stone walls, small cottages, sheep dotting the hills, tiny town centers with their little privately owned shops, always a centralized café wherein one catches up on the local gossip, all charming and reminiscent of an earlier era. Irish stone walls appear even in Galway suburbs, such as Renmore, on seaside farms and modern homes alike.

And then: off to Inis Mor (Inishmor), largest of the 3 Aran Islands, with numerous heritage sites and a living tradition. Naturally, once landed I set off walking, as one does, eyes and ears and senses wide open. Though ‘stepping back in time’ may seem cliché, it fits nowhere more aptly than these islands; despite their touristic element (especially Inis Mor), they are far removed from life as we know it. Small cottages, stone fences, lots of wind-swept land, few amenities, donkeys and goats and sheep – all as one might expect, and Irish language first.

In a new scheme published in just June of this year (2023), the Irish government offers cash to Galway residents willing to relocate to these islands (and another 17 nearby for a total of 20), off the country’s western coast and far-flung into the Atlantic. Apparently, the population is waning, the islands too challenging for year-round living. A local judge travels to Inis Mor just 3 times a year to hear cases of all 3 islands, which gives one a sense of how far into the mists of the Otherworld they are.

Over to another island, not one of the Aran: Inis Bo Finne (Inishbofin), off the Connemara coast. Quite similar to Inis Mor (though far smaller), its heritage museum in a tiny stone house the lifelong collection of one individual, a true labor of love. Sweet, so sweet. (Yet, year-round living would perhaps be mind-numbingly dull today.)

Near the mainland ferry dock in Cleggan was Letterfrak, site of the infamous St Joseph’s Industrial School (closed in 1974) … where 147 children died and countless suffered severe physical and sexual abuse and gross neglect, recently revealed. In one case, 4 brothers died in 2-year increments. The surrounding hills are dotted with the graves of these children. Not all cultural stories are pretty. But all are important – in some cases, to ensure that history is not allowed to repeat itself.

With my BPW sisters, dinner for 20 … and later in the month, brunch with 3 members – following a 12k early Sunday morning trek. Many good advancements for women of late; Ireland now ranks 7th in the EU for the status of its women, 11th in the world (per 2023 Global Gender Gap Report of WEF, down from 9th in 2022). At Galway City Museum, to my delight, I found a special exhibit commemorating remarkable women of Ireland.

Galway Cathedral is found in the center of town. My BPW colleagues informed me, however, that Catholicism in Ireland is recently and now swiftly on the decline. ‘Equality Emerging ~ The People’, sculpture of a woman emerging from a flat stone surface, is installed across from the cathedral – an apt if unintentional metaphor, I thought.

Galway Pride occurred during my stay, with rainbow flags everywhere. An Irish-born female member of a breakaway Catholic group, which welcomes female and lesbian priests, was to preside over a religious service in Dublin. Brave woman. Declining Catholicism.

A seaside children’s park stands as a memorial to local child Celia Griffin and all children who died in Ireland’s Great Famine of the 19th century. The country’s population declined from 8.2 million in 1841 to 6.6 million just a decade later, and in 1891 only 4.7 million remained. While many died, many more emigrated; between 1820 and 1930, 4.5 million Irish arrived in the US, my homeland. (In New York, second only to Boston, we are well familiar with Irish culture as a result.)

In a post to social media: Beautifully sunny day in Galway, a rarity. You see, autumn begins in Ireland on 01 August, at Lughnasa. [Photo of a large tree, leaves already half-changed.] Second sunny day in a row – what the Irish call “summer” – and a veritable heat wave at 25c. Rain tomorrow, back to 18c. Summer over.

Inebriated man with his mates on the street, to me: “Hey, love, when ya goin’ ta marry me?” I sang out: “Tomorrow!” [which never comes, of course.] “When shall I pick you up?” he inquired, my reply only a chuckle. “Cheeky!” he laughed.

What’s not to love, in a culture that places a high value on storytelling, music, literature, poetry? – my long-term love affair with Ireland (though it could be said, I do have several other such loves…).

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My final week in Dublin as mentioned – 3rd time in the capital, though it had been a few years, yet very quickly I remembered just how much I love the city. What’s more: it was Heritage Week all across Ireland, and I would be going to events every day.

My accommodation was a room in a Gregorian (18th century) mansion, very British – as Dublin was, then (central point of ‘the Pale’ and all that), undergoing loving restoration by the young – French – couple now its owners. Worlds collide. Prior to their ownership, it had been converted into a school, its below-ground kitchen the cafeteria. Fabulous.

This being Heritage Week, my first stop was naturally the National Library for a photo exhibit of the 1916 Uprising. Ireland gained its independence by 1921; there are many memorials to those who fought in the 1916 resistance that is often cited as the true beginning of the independence movement. The National History and Decorative Arts Museum, in a former military barracks, held a wonderfully comprehensive exhibition on the Easter Sunday revolt.

This was followed by a talk at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on how, in 1916, 3 prominent women, the Cooney sisters Anne, Lily, and Eileen, were influential in the independence movement. Inghínidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland) had been founded in 1900 and was both feminist and nationalist; 7 years later, the Sinn Féin political party began admitting women (even though women’s right to vote hadn’t yet been achieved), while in another 4 years, the Irish Women’s Workers Union was founded, as existing trade unions still excluded women. By 1914 Cumann na mBan, an Irish republican women’s paramilitary organization, had replaced Inghínidhe na hÉireann, and by the time of the Uprising, there were plenty of women revolutionaries alongside the men.

I like to think I’d have joined them.

Irish Museum of Modern Art. Sculptures on the bank of the Liffey in remembrance of victims to the Great Famine. Dublin City Gallery, in the beautiful and historic Charlemont House. Dublin Writers Museum. National Museum. National Gallery. Trinity College. All included exhibitions and events related to Heritage Week and those all-important 1916 events, and I immersed myself.

Most significantly, however, was a visit to the city’s main post office, where that 1916 Easter Week Rising began. Bullet holes can still be seen in its columns. One stands in the shadow of history there. And, in all things weird and wonderful, a Lego replica of the 1916 Rising was on display.

Daytrip to beyond-charming Howth, small seaside village on Dublin’s outskirts, to meet up with BPW members there for hiking, seafood, boats, and seals.

In a grand finale, I spent my last day touring several restored Georgian homes in Merrion Square and viewing relevant exhibitions at the Irish Traditional Music Archive, Royal Society of Antiquaries, and Irish Architectural Archive. Then I took in the annual People’s Photography Exhibit at St Stephen’s Green, and finally, an organ recital at St Patrick’s (one of the world’s finest organs) – complete with projection on a large screen of the organ and organist in action. Not all related to the Uprising, but surely to Dublin heritage, and Irish culture.

And in all these exhibitions and events, what did I learn? I already knew well the facts of the Easter Uprising of 1916, but I learned beyond any doubt what high value the Irish place on this event. Bloody as it was, resulting in nearly 500 deaths, countless wounds, imprisonments, executions, and the unconditional surrender of the revolutionaries, it nevertheless began a movement for freedom that could not be stopped.

Éirinn go Brách. Ireland forever.

[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Self-Esteem: Positive Psychology ©2023]

Our fourth key is kindness. And like gratitude, its power is enormous.

Kindness is situated in the ‘humanity’ virtue – those qualities (like love, which we’ll see next) that position us within the human family, our ability to form relationships and healthy interactions with other humans.

While gratitude is about transcendence, expanding beyond our basic self, kindness puts us squarely within our richest humanism, or connectedness with other human beings.

Kindness should come naturally – but in these days of technology, social media, and lack of direct human connection, we need a reminder. It’s all too common to attack ideas online, and forget there’s a live human behind them. And it’s all too common in online groups, even of the most benign sort (like some of my writers’ groups for mutual support), for people to post something and add “Please be kind. I’m genuinely asking for your advice” or similar. Sad, I think every time I see this, that in this still-new medium, we expect attack and have to ask for kindness.

The research is clear (more on that in a moment): our kind thoughts and acts toward others have a direct benefit on our physical and mental health, our subjective wellbeing and life satisfaction, and on our self-esteem.

In fact, it’s especially beneficial to the latter. When we engage in acts of kindness, we instantly and automatically feel better about ourselves. It’s even argued that there’s no such thing as true altruism – doing for others without benefit to ourselves, and perhaps a cost instead (like giving up your seat on the metro for someone in need, and now you have to stand), as there’s always an instant benefit in its boost to our self-esteem.

So our acts of kindness, particularly toward a stranger as there’s no real possibility of reciprocity, unlike being kind to someone we know, is like putting money directly into our self-esteem savings account – every single time. It’s one of the easiest and best ways to boost your self-esteem, and your general humanity.

And it is in fact easy. Say good morning to a stranger. Ask the shop owner if he’s well. Hold the door open for that person behind you. Let the person with just one item go ahead of you at the market checkout. Give your seat to that elderly person, or that pregnant woman.

And online, even easier. Like someone’s post, and share it. (These days, many say they feel they’re whistling in the dark when they post, and we talk about how many ‘impressions’ a post has – people who’ve scrolled on by – rather than how many likes, or even less, how many shares.) Responding kindly to posts, especially in groups where most are strangers to one another, is a boost not only to you but to the entire group.

We can also text someone to send words of encouragement, or just tell them we’re thinking about them or happy to have them as a friend. We can tell people when we think they’re good at something. We can turn to the person behind us at the café and say, “I’d like to do something kind today – can I buy your coffee for you?” They’ll be stunned, and hopefully, they’ll do the same for someone else, either that day or another.

In the introduction to his 2005 novel, The Zahir, Brazilian writer Paulo Coehlo speaks of the world ‘favor bank’. As you do favors, kindnesses, for others, you’re making a deposit in that intangible bank – and one day, you may need to make a withdrawal, when it’s your turn to be in need, asking for help from someone else. And that’s how humanity should function – and in fact, at its core, it does.

So, feed your self-esteem daily in the best possible way: by doing little acts of kindness for others, as often as possible.

And the research?

A study by Ahrnberg et al. (2021) found that positive mental health and self-esteem were strongly linked – and that the character strengths most closely associated included were hope and kindness, along with the quality of social inclusion. Kindness was also found to promote self-esteem in studies by Datu et al. (2021) and by Kennes et al. (2023). And in the study of Padilla-Walker et al. (2020), prosocial behavior inclusive of kindness was found to increase self-esteem and to be protective against depressive symptoms.

The connection between kindness and subjective wellbeing has been clearly demonstrated in a 2020 meta-analysis of prior studies conducted by Hui et al., and in even more recent research by Datu et al. (2022) and Gerghel et al. (2021). The study of Ko et al. (2021) indicated that the positive effects of kindness on our wellbeing are similar between acts of kindness and the recall of same – in other words, we get another boost to our self-esteem when we recall our previous kindnesses, a double benefit.

Kindness has also been associated with happiness (Rowland & Curry, 2019) and with life satisfaction (Datu et al., 2022). And in the biologically-based study of Regan et al. (2022), it was demonstrated that engaging in acts of kindness toward others enhanced immunity as measured by gene expression; interestingly, the same effect was not noted following acts of self-kindness.

That’s not to say that kindness and compassion toward oneself isn’t beneficial. One of the most powerful tools for boosting our physical and mental wellbeing is the Loving Kindness Meditation, known in Buddhism as Mettā, or meditation for universal compassion. In brief, one meditates in 5 stages of increasing emotional challenge: on loving kindness or compassion flowing first within and directed toward oneself, then outward toward a good friend, then toward a person about whom one is neutral, then to a person one finds difficult – and finally, outward to all sentient beings.

This meditation has been found to promote mental health (Sorensen et al., 2019; Totzeck et al., 2020), self-esteem (Lumma et al., 2020), self-compassion (Reilly & Stuyvenberg, 2022), social connectedness (Don et al., 2022) – our next key, and even to slow the biological processes of aging (Le Nguyen et al., 2019).

So how do we increase our kindness, and thereby, our self-esteem?

By letting go of judgment and embracing compassion. Easier said than done. But every time you find yourself criticizing someone, even if a stranger and you’re only thinking critical thoughts, ask yourself: is there perhaps another story here?

And – by acts of kindness, of course. Daily kindness, however simple, whether in person or online, many of which were already mentioned above. The more we act kindly, the more it becomes our norm, and the more our self-esteem grows.

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Exercises:

To grow our awareness of kindness, and to expand our compassion and decrease our tendency toward criticism, the Loving Kindness Meditation is an excellent method. If you regularly engage in meditation, this is simply a matter of framing your focus. If meditation is unfamiliar to you, or you think you’re not good at it, never fear: this is contemplative meditation, not the Eastern classic of ‘empty mind’, and so we sit quietly, minimize distraction, steady our breathing, and then contemplate those 5 areas above, one after the other. And afterward, we need some time for reflection on the experience and insight.

Take a few moments at the end of each day to consider your kindnesses – given and received – of that day. Summarize your day in terms of kindness. Did you have any pleasant exchanges with others? Did you share someone’s post online? Did you call or text anyone to say you’re happy to have them as a friend? Did you compliment a stranger? Were you kind to yourself when you made a mistake? Reflection on kindness, as we’ve seen, benefits again.

Invite a new coworker to lunch. Get to know them. Ask them about their hopes for their new position in the company. Help them to feel less of a stranger to everyone.

Volunteer. It could be for one hour a week. It could be online. It could be easy. But you’re giving up a bit of your time for the benefit of others, and that’s kindness.

Start a crowdfunding page for some worthy cause. Grow and maintain it, put some effort into it, and help out that NGO, animal shelter, person facing high medical bills, or anyone for whom that money could make a world of difference.

Help to share the news, online and in person, about someone else’s endeavor – their new business, a product or service they’re hoping to sell, their accomplishment. Contribute to their marketing by posting something about them.

Set a goal – perseverance, too! – to do one kind act each day for a week. And then reset that goal for the next week. And the next.

References:

Ahrnberg H, Appelqvist-Schmidlechner K, Mustonen P et al. (2021). Determinants of Positive Mental Health in Adolescents–A Cross-Sectional Study on Relationships between Positive Mental Health, Self-Esteem, Character Strengths and Social Inclusion. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion 23:3, 361-374. https://doi.org/10.32604/IJMHP.2021.016408

Datu JAD, Valdez JPM, McInerney DM et al. (2022). The effects of gratitude and kindness on life satisfaction, positive emotions, negative emotions, and COVID-19 anxiety: An online pilot experimental study. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being 14:2, 347- 361. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12306

Datu JAD, Wong GSP, and Rubie-Davies C (2021). Can kindness promote media literacy skills, self-esteem, and social self-efficacy among selected female secondary school students? An intervention study. Computers & Education 161:104062. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.104062

Don BP, Van Cappellen P, and Fredrickson BL (2022). Training in Mindfulness or Loving-kindness Meditation Is Associated with Lower Variability in Social Connectedness Across Time. Mindfulness 13, 1173-1184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-01856-0

Gherghel C, Nastas D, Hashimoto T et al. (2021). The relationship between frequency of performing acts of kindness and subjective well-being: A mediation model in three cultures. Current Psychology 40, 4446-4459. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00391-x

Hui BPH, Ng JCK, Berzaghi E et al. (2020). Rewards of kindness? A meta-analysis of the link between prosociality and well-being. Psychological Bulletin 146:12, 1084-1116. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000298

Kennes A, Lataster J, Janssens M et al. (2023). Efficacy of a School-Based Mental Health Intervention Based on Mindfulness and Character Strengths Use Among Adolescents: a Pilot Study of Think Happy-Be Happy Intervention. Journal of Happiness Studies 24, 677-697. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-022-00611-5

Ko K, Margolis S, Revord J et al. (2021). Comparing the effects of performing and recalling acts of kindness, Journal of Positive Psychology 16:1, 73-81.  https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1663252   

Le Nguyen KD, Lin J, Algoe SB et al. (2019). Loving-kindness meditation slows biological aging in novices: Evidence from a 12-week randomized controlled trial. Psychoneuroendocrinology 108, 20-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.05.020

Lumma AL, Heidenreich T, and Michalak J (2020). How Would the Buddha Rate on Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale?. Mindfulness 11, 521-526. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01281-w

Padilla-Walker LM, Millett MA, and Memmott-Elison MK (2020). Can helping others strengthen teens? Character strengths as mediators between prosocial behavior and adolescents’ internalizing symptoms. Journal of Adolescence 79, 70-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2020.01.001

Regan A, Fritz MM, Walsh LC et al. (2022). The genomic impact of kindness to self vs. others: A randomized controlled trial, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity 106, 40-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2022.07.159  

Reilly EB and Stuyvenberg CL (2022). A Meta-analysis of Loving-Kindness Meditations on Self-Compassion. Mindfulness 14, 2299-2310. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-01972-x

Rowland L and Curry OS (2019). A range of kindness activities boost happiness. Journal of Social Psychology 159:3, 340-343. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2018.1469461

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Totzeck C, Teismann T, Hofmann SG et al. (2020). Loving-Kindness Meditation Promotes Mental Health in University Students. Mindfulness 11, 1623-1631. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01375-w

[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Optimism: Positive Psychology ©2023]

Have you observed a toddler who’s just learned that everything has a name?

They often run around pointing at things and, barely in command of any language themselves, ask repeatedly, Name? Name? Name? It’s a game, but in reality, their thirst for knowledge has just burst into existence.

A few months later, when they begin to grasp that they can communicate with chunks of language, what linguists call the ‘grammar explosion’, they begin talking nonstop – much of it questions, or to share with you some new knowledge they’ve acquired.

Curiosity, at any age, is a very fine place to be.

‘Stay curious’ has become a popular mantra in recent years, words to live by indeed. We never stop learning or experiencing anyway – I find, well into my lifespan, that often I discover a new and better way to do something I’ve already been doing for many years, and I laugh with delight. I’ve traveled the world, more than 100 countries at the time of this writing, and in each one of them I’ve learned a countless number of things about a new place and culture, its history, its joys and sorrows.

The old phrase, ‘curiosity killed the cat’, seems a warning – and cats, innately curious, do get themselves into trouble sometimes. But ‘stay cautiously curious’ just doesn’t work. Curiosity is related to openness, a personality trait, and in order to learn and remain open to the world around us, we must continue to learn, and to experience. (Risk-taking, especially of the foolish variety, can be mitigated, however.) My own life plan is to learn every day until my last – or until my mind goes into the ether, if that happens first – though even in that case, I bet I’ll be learning and experiencing quite a lot, just not communicating it to those around me anymore. I’m okay with that, too.

Curiosity – the embracing of new knowledge, ideas, and experience – strengthens our optimism. A character strength in the virtue category of wisdom, it’s by our curiosity that we know ourselves to be increasingly wise, not merely by the acquisition of knowledge but by the expansion of our brains as we consider new ideas and possibilities. And in our experience of wisdom, we find optimism for our personal future. As we expand our cognitive and sensory abilities, we know ourselves to be increasingly capable of handling whatever may come, and our curiosity outpaces our fear.

It’s by curiosity that life becomes an adventure, which is also a key feature of zest, as we looked at earlier. If we have an enthusiasm and engagement with our lives, and with the world around us, then our life is one big adventure, even on the so-called ordinary days. When we remain curious, we also remain mindful, which will come later as our 9th and final key to optimism; it’s the curious person who notices everything: in their own lives, in other people via empathy, and in the surrounding world as engagement, And it’s the curious person who can also more easily detach from emotion, notice and experience but then let it go on its way, another key feature of mindfulness.

Curious people possess 2 primary features: an openness to novel experience and new ideas, and a self-efficacy in that, by acquiring the necessary wisdom (knowledge plus experience), they know themselves to be generally capable. There are also two types of curiosity: epistemic, or cognitive – the urge to acquire new knowledge, to figure out how things work – and perceptive, or sensory – the desire to experience new sights, sounds, tastes, sensations. Often, though not always, both are found in the same curious person – but some people are insatiable for knowledge while not overly interested in trying new experiences, and vice versa, so they can surely also exist in relative isolation from one another. Both are attributable to wellbeing, and to optimism.

Reio and Sanders-Reio (2020) demonstrated the benefit of curiosity on wellbeing in young adults, while Macaskill and Denovan (2014) showed that curiosity, along with hope and gratitude, contributed to mental health. In a study by Kachadourian et al. (2019), suicidal ideation among military veterans was found to be lower when curiosity, optimism, and meaning or purpose in life were present.

Curiosity is an understudied area in relation to optimism, but it holds promise. Curiosity is closely linked to openness (Peterson and Seligman, 2004; Tan et al., 2023), one of the 5 traits in the ‘Big Five’ personality model; it’s also connected to our self-efficacy (Li et al., 2019; Öztekin and Bayraktar, 2019), or innate belief in our own capability; and, it’s related to our creativity, innovation, imagination (Schutte and Malouff, 2019), both cognitive and sensory. All of these in turn bear relationship to optimism, as evidenced in several recent comprehensive reviews of the research (Burešová et al, 2020; Fino and Sun, 2022: Hong et al., 2020).

How to become more curious?

Like a scientist, or an explorer, or a journalist: we must carefully observe ourselves and the world around us, and ask questions – within our own minds, of others, of resources – whenever possible. We can cultivate a wide range of interests to varying degrees, take on new ones, explore new ideas and consider those which are counter to our own. In general: variety, range, depth, novelty. And a certain measure of risk. (Just short of that cat.)

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Exercises:

The classic brainstorming exercise, and the mind-mapping version in which relationships among topics and ideas are made, is a very good activity for engaging and developing our curiosity. By taking one original concept and stretching it as far as possible, we’re expanding our curiosity. As a regular exercise, we can do this with anything. Perhaps begin with the word ‘curiosity’ itself – and explore all its facets.

The exploratory style we all engage in online is a very modern form of curiosity and its expansion. Have you found yourself down an Internet wormhole…today, yet? By the medium’s ‘clickable’ nature, we find (Wikipedia is excellent for this) that we’ve followed a link from one article or site to another, and then it happens again, and again, until we find ourselves reading something that, until 20 minutes (or 2 hours) ago, we didn’t know existed. Each new place eventually leads us to something else that we’d like to know more about, rabbit warrens upon rabbit warrens, or turns in the labyrinth (we have at least 3 metaphors going now), and it’s all terribly fascinating.

Another activity for developing curiosity is dream analysis. We all dream, though some recall their dreams better than others, while the recall is simply a skill that we can develop – for example, by jotting down just a few key words about the dream upon waking, that will help us to recall it later when we’re fully alert. There are many books on dream analysis, but experts have always maintained that the symbols in a dream are specific to the subconscious that produced them – in other words, your dream images have meaning only to you, and you’re the one to decipher them. This is pure curiosity: we have the very sensate experience of the dream itself, and then we cognitively explore it when awake and alert.

Lucid dreaming, whereby you set a topic, consider it in detail, then take a nap, and consider it more upon waking (a simple version; there’s much more to lucid dreaming, a book in itself), is a more proactive way to engage your dream state for exploration, and to develop your curiosity. Let your mind also be that Wikipedia page, leading you into place after place that you didn’t know existed.

References:

Burešová I, Jelínek M, Dosedlová J et al. (2020). Predictors of Mental Health in Adolescence: The Role of Personality, Dispositional Optimism, and Social Support. SAGE Open 10:2. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020917963

Fino E and Sun S (2022). “Let us create!”: The mediating role of Creative Self-Efficacy between personality and Mental Well-Being in university students. Personality and Individual Differences 188:111444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111444

Hong M, Dyakov DG, and Zheng J (2020). Self-esteem and psychological capital: Their mediation of the relationship between Big Five personality traits and creativity in college students. Journal of Psychology in Africa 30:2, 119-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2020.1744286

Kachadourian LK, Tsai J, Harpaz-Rotem I et al. (2019). Protective correlates of suicidality among veterans with histories of posttraumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder: Results from the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study. Journal of Affective Disorders 246, 731-737. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.12.058

Li Y, Huo T, Zhuang K et al. (2019). Functional connectivity mediates the relationship between self-efficacy and curiosity. Neuroscience Letters 711:134442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2019.134442

Macaskill A and Denovan A (2014). Assessing psychological health: the contribution of psychological strengths. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling 42:3, 320-337. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2014.898739

Öztekin HR and Bayraktar F (2019). How Decisiveness, Self-Efficacy, Curiosity and Independent and Interdependent Self-Construals Are Related to Future Hopefulness among Senior Students. Behavioral Sciences 9:12. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs9120154

Peterson C and Seligman ME (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press; American Psychological Association.

Reio TG and Sanders-Reio J (2020). Curiosity and well-being in emerging adulthood. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development 32, 17-27. https://doi.org/10.1002/nha3.20270

Schutte NS and Malouff JM (2020). A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Curiosity and Creativity. Journal of Creative Behavior 54, 940-947. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.421

Tan CS, Hashim IHM, Pheh KS et al. (2023). The mediating role of openness to experience and curiosity in the relationship between mindfulness and meaning in life: evidence from four countries. Current Psychology 42, 327-337. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01430-2