Art therapy is an integrative treatment that uses artistic self-expression to improve mental health and well-being. The pandemic brought up many difficult-to-define feelings and emotions. Making art as a form of mental health treatment is a low-tech way to work through them. After World War II, this form of therapy was used with soldiers who suffered from "shell shock". Trauma is complicated to articulate into words, and art therapy can support and connect patients with nonverbal expression.

Art therapy

Therapists offer treatment in groups or one-on-one settings, and the therapy itself can take the form of unstructured doodling to more specific prompts and activities designed to help patients understand their emotions. Art therapy helps patients unlock their emotions and translate them into something real that they can share what they're going through. Art therapy is also a safer way to channel stress or other negative emotions.

The structure of art therapy

Research found that making art can:<ul><li>activate reward pathways in the brain,</li><li>reduce stress,</li><li>lower anxiety levels,</li><li>improve mood,</li><li>reduce pain,</li><li>improve patient's sense of control over their lives</li></ul> Making art is a hands-on process that requires total focus, which means it also offers a break from screentime while encouraging self-expression. But art therapy isn't a cure-all and may not be the right approach for everyone. Much of the research draws on the anecdotal experiences of clinicians and patients.

Benefits of art

With depression and anxiety on the rise during the pandemic, more professionals may adopt art therapy as a treatment

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

mentalhealth

Mental Health

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

How Making Art Helps Improve Mental Health

This line in Shakespeare's Hamlet is just as true today, for we live in a world where our perception of time is disconnected. Instead of considering the long-term problems such as climate change and ecological collapse, we focus on short-term mindsets and structures. While our minds might not be wired to deal with long-term threats and priorities, we are wired to control stories and emotions. Our fascination with stories, and the profound emotional nature of our decision-making, make art and culture key to ensuring our future as a species.

"Time is out of joint"

The Long Time Project supports art and culture as a way to help people think and act more long-term. This includes YouTube videos, adverts, art exhibitions, theatre, clothing and furniture. All these art forms and creative works are shaped by culture - the collective values, norms and narratives that guide our societies. This culture informs the kinds of laws we make, the technology we develop and the way we distribute wealth.

The Long Time Project

Art can stretch our timefulness - the ability to put ourselves within eras and aeons rather than in weeks and months. Deep time is about creating perspective and distinguishing between the short term timescales and the depth of cosmic timescales. It's meant to shift our perspective. Whether personal or societal, every problem can gain from long-term thinking.

How art and culture in a broad sense expand our perception of time

<ul><li>Artist-technologist Honor Harger has created a soundscape of the history of the Universe that enables you to hear the “oldest song you’ll ever hear” - the sounds of the cosmic rays left over from the Big Bang.</li><li>The Deep Time Walk is an app that enables people to walk 4.6km through 4.6 billion years of history.</li><li>The Long Now Foundation is building a clock designed to run for 10 millennia inside a mountain in Texas.</li><li>Artist Katie Paterson created Future Library, a forest planted in Norway which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in 100 years’ time.</li></ul>

How our time frames are stretched 

Questions about the long-term future can feel distant and difficult for people to translate into action. It's one thing to watch negative or positive views of the future, but another to know what it means to our own lives. Art and culture is a transformative and generative agent. It can help us experience the long view while providing reflective space to help us take action based on that understanding.

Experiencing the long term view

Acting in the interests of the long term will involve a radical change in the short term. It will involve questioning the norm and doing things very differently.<ul><li>Arts and culture can connect us with previous moments of change to make the radical seem more tangible.</li><li>Arts and culture can remind us that radical change has happened in the past and inspire us and remind us of the values and behaviours needed to make change happen. For example, 12 Years a Slave tells about civil rights.</li><li>Arts and culture can help us challenge the status quo and expose us to multiple possible futures.</li></ul>

Finding a long-term perspective

What do photographs of ancient organisms, blocks of ice in the centre of London and the blockbuster Black Panther have to do with the future of humanity?

philosophy

Philosophy

How art and culture can help us rethink time

When you meet someone for the first time, you probably ask, “What do you do?” Everyone assumes the question is about your career, but who you are and what you do should be more than just your working hours. In fact, having too great a focus on your professional life can be a factor that leads to burnout.One of the reasons our jobs become an obsession is because we have a greater sense of control over it.  Work is hard, but it still is far more likely to yield reliable gratifications in response to our efforts to control than either the relationships with others or with ourselves.

Too focused on work

<ul><li>Think about the “should” statements you tell yourself when it comes to work. For example, “I should always be accessible” or “I should be able to do it all.” Then ask yourself if that’s really reasonable.</li><li>Your workday is approximately one-third of your day, and you should strive to maintain a sense of balance by rethinking your priorities.</li><li>If your organization doesn’t support striving for balance, don’t be afraid to talk to your supervisor. Leaders should lead by example. Even taking simple measures like blocking out time for a quick walk will demonstrate the importance of unplugging.</li></ul>

How to let go of work

Having too great a focus on your professional life can lead to burnout. It can also mean you miss out on a lot.


career

Career

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

timemanagement

Time Management

Admit it: You’re obsessed with work. Here’s how to change that

Digitalization driven by the pandemic has accelerated and transformed management’s ability to track what and how workers are doing.
Many workers rationally fear that enhanced monitoring empowers management — and micromanagement — at their expense. When experienced as corporate surveillance, monitoring implies a lack of trust and an invasion of privacy, especially when people are working from home. That’s not sustainable; no one wants to feel spied on.

Tracking the way employees work

The ongoing digital transformation in employee monitoring effectively squeezes people between values-driven visibility and visibility-driven values.<ul><li>The former celebrates creating ever-greater visibility around core values and compliance.</li><li>The latter emerges as increased visibility lets more people see where, when, and how core values compete, complement, and conflict. </li></ul>Leaders are looking beyond legacy KPIs to assess how well people align with espoused values. In doing so, they will have no choice but to rethink how they balance principles and productivity.

When visibility clashes arise

The larger organizational call to action should be clear: Visibility is an enterprise asset that requires purpose, policies, and management. Return on visibility — the belief that measurable value can be had from ethically monitoring people and processes — is more than a provocative idea; it’s a credible key performance indicator.Greater visibility should make workers feel more empowered, not more vulnerable or exposed. Leaders can’t credibly hide its role as an instrument of managerial control. That means workforces should know where leaders unambiguously champion values-driven visibility and how they will reconcile visibility-driven values when clashes arise.

A new KPI

The visibility arising from digital employee monitoring requires purpose, policies, and management.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

humanresources

Human Resources

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

What’s Your Return on Visibility?

Men and women have different health needs. In the UK, women age 50 to 64 represent 50% of the UK workforce, and 80% of women going through menopause are working. Women bring various talents and skills to the table, and small interventions can help support women's health and make them feel safe and supported.

Supporting women's health with small interventions

Business leaders should educate themselves and their teams on issues that impact women's health, for example, miscarriage, IVF fertility treatment, endometriosis, postnatal depression, and menopause that can cause memory loss, insomnia, hot flushes, and lack of confidence. Line managers must be up to date and develop communication skills to talk to female colleagues. Internal campaigns can promote female health, and awareness days can help encourage active dialogue around these issues.

Knowledge and education

Encouraging conversations around women's health at work can increase awareness of the often taboo subjects.  For example, women often feel uncomfortable revealing genuine physical and psychological symptoms of what they're going through.

Open conversational culture

Employers have a social responsibility to formulate policies and develop a framework to adequately support female health issues, such as monthly menstruation, pregnancy and maternity leave, fertility, and menopause. Proper bathroom facilities, access to cold drinking water, a desk fan and ventilation can ease the symptoms of menstruating or menopausal women.

Policies and framework

A significant cause of stress for women is juggling work with childcare and domestic responsibilities. <ul><li>Offering flexible work instead of a 9 to 5 pattern can help women work around their other routines. </li><li>Employers need to set realistic deadlines, not expect immediate responses to email, internal messaging or other demands. </li><li>Gender pay gap issues should also be addressed.</li></ul>

Flexible working patterns

Women need access to contraception, antenatal and fertility care, menopause care, and routine screening. Women should feel that these types of appointments can be accommodated with their work timetable. A business can also put provisions in place to allow access to a virtual GP. Company funded health checks could include cervical and breast screening.

Access to healthcare services

Dr Ghazala Aziz-Scott, specialist in women’s health at The Marion Gluck Clinic explores how the menopause can affect working women and how they can go about discussing this problem with their employer and create a more open and caring workplace.

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

business

Business

startup

Startups

The Top 5 Female Policies you need to have in your business

Throughout history, games and sports have helped humanity to survive times of crisis by reducing anxieties and improving mental health.
While the pandemic has forced most gaming and sports activities to scale down, chess has demonstrated remarkable resilience, adaptability, and very strong convening power in times of a global crisis.

Chess for Recovering Better

Chess is one of the most ancient, intellectual and cultural games, with a combination of sport, scientific thinking and elements of art. As an affordable and inclusive activity, it can be exercised anywhere and played by all, across the barriers of language, age, gender, physical ability or social status.
Chess is a global game, which promotes fairness, inclusion and mutual respect, and noting in this regard that it can contribute to an atmosphere of tolerance and understanding among peoples and nations.

Chess for Sustainable Development

Chess is a two player strategy board game where the aim is to move different types of playing piece, each with a prescribed set of possible moves, around a chequered square board trying to capture the opponents ‘king’ piece.
Today there are over 2,000 identifiable variants of the game.

Chess: Background

<ul>
<li>One theory is that an early game similar to chess called Chaturanga originated in Northern Indian Subcontinent during the Gupta period (~ 319 – 543 CE) and spread along the Silk Roads west to Persia.</li>
<li>In 900 CE, Abbasid chess masters al-Suli and al-Lajlaj composed works on the techniques and strategy of the game, and by 1000 CE Chess was popular across Europe, and in Russia where it was introduced from the Eurasian Steppe. </li>
<li>The Alfonso manuscripts, also known as the Libro de los Juegos (Book of Games), a medieval collection of texts on three different types of popular game from the 13th century CE describe the game of Chess as very similar to Persian Shatranj in rules and gameplay.</li>
</ul>

Evolution Of Chess

<ul>
<li>On 12 December 2019, the General Assembly of UN proclaimed 20 July as World Chess Day to mark the date of the establishment of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in Paris in 1924.</li>
<li>Under initiative of FIDE, July 20 has been observed as International Chess Day by chess players around the world since 1966.</li>
<li>The designation of World Chess Day of the UN will not only recognize the important role of the FIDE in supporting international cooperation for chess activity and aiming to improve friendly harmony among all peoples of the world, but also to provide an important platform to foster, dialogue, solidarity and culture of peace.</li>
</ul>

20 July: World Chess Day

The designation of World Chess Day provides an important platform to foster, dialogue, solidarity and culture of peace.

entertainment

Entertainment

“We must give a lot of thought to the future, because that is where we are going to spend the rest of our lives.”

<ul>
<li>The first 20% of any task usually accounts for 80% of the value of that task.</li>
<li>Once you begin working on that task, the first 20% of the time that you spend planning and organizing the resources necessary to achieve the task usually accounts for 80% of your success.</li>
</ul>
In setting priorities, always focus on the first 20% of the task. Get on with it and get it done. The next 80% will tend to flow smoothly once the first 20% is complete.

Setting priorities

While setting priorities, never give in to the temptation to clear up small things first. Don’t allow yourself to get bogged down in low-priority activities.

Forget about the small things…

<ul><li>Why am I on the payroll? Ask yourself if what you are doing right now is the most important thing that you have been hired to do.</li><li>What are my highest value activities?</li><li>What are my key result areas? What are the specific results that you have to get in order to do your job in an excellent fashion.</li><li>What can I, and only I, do that if done well will make a real difference?</li><li>What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?</li></ul>

5 key questions for setting priorities

A key part of personal time management is for you to take the time to look into the future. Project forward five years and think about where you want to be. Create a mental picture of your ideal future- your best future - and then think about the steps that you would have to take, starting today, to make it a reality.

productivity

Productivity

habits

Habits

5 Key Questions for Setting Priorities

Toxic Productivity is an unhealthy need to always be productive, no matter what the cost. It is the desire to do something at all times and feeling guilty for all the things that one hasn’t done yet.
The pandemic made those still having a job a virtual work martyr, working extra hard just because having a job in these uncertain times was so precious in itself. Work becomes a reason to feel worthy, in control and fulfilled.

Toxic Productivity

For many people being constantly productive is a way to mask the stress and discomfort of a personal or global crisis, where we focus on our immediate environment and on the things that are in our control, not realizing that this can lead to burnout and bad relationships.
One can also become short-tempered and frustrated in general, lashing it out on their loved ones.

Productivity For the Sake Of It

Look for red flags in your thinking: Work-related guilt, a feeling of not doing enough, or feeling concerned if it seems like time has been wasted and could have been made productive. Fatigue and exhaustion also make the list of things that point towards being trapped in a ‘toxic productivity’ cycle.
We normally ask ourselves what best should be done to make the present moment productive. We should make ourselves at ease and ask what can be done to reduce stress.

Recognizing The Productivity Problem

Productivity exists more in our heads, and not so much in our work environments.
If you are extremely productive by toiling for hours, your boss does not care, even though he or she may be impressed by your accomplishments. Bosses want you to deliver quality work on time, not caring about how many hours and missed sleep went into it.

Productivity Is Personal

Self-care means different things to different people. Some like to jog in the morning or have a tea break in the afternoon. Some like to binge watch Netflix shows while eating their favourite junk food.
The pandemic has made everyone more anxious, and this is not good for the body, which needs rest, care and nurturing more than ever.

Self-Care Is Important

Most workers, blue-collar or white, wake up every day as workers, not as free human beings.
One needs to understand that our work isn’t our sole identity, and we need to detach ourselves emotionally from our profession. We can demonstrate our competence and work hard while making sure our individuality and personal life do not suffer.

Your Job Isn’t Your Sole Identity

Many workers have a hard time grasping the meaning of work-life balance, especially in the US. Vacation time is non-existent and most people are overworked during the pandemic. It is impossible to log off from work and see the world with fresh eyes when most of them are busy being busy.
Toxic productivity has its tentacles on many workplace employees who believe they should be doing something productive, instead of doing what is good for them.

Work-Life Balance Is A Myth

The pandemic has convinced us we have to be useful at all times. Here's what that mentality looks like, and how to deal with it.

health

Health

What Is Toxic Productivity? Here's How To Spot The Damaging Behavior.

We all are juggling life's important areas: work, office, home, health and fitness, our finances and relationships.
It is not easy to juggle so many things all at once, and some areas may get neglected.

Organizing our Lives

We all have habits ingrained in our lives. Most of our good habits (if any) take us to eventual long-term success, and our bad habits take our time, health, happiness and money. Make a list of what all you do as a habit daily and see which ones are good and which ones are not.
Habits like spending hours on social media, binge shopping, and lying on the couch are a few examples of bad habits.

Developing Habits

Life is unpredictable, but planning is still important. Use your phone's calendar and to-do list, or install an app to create daily and weekly plans:<ul><li>Plan even for small errands.</li><li>Keep in mind that things take longer than you expect.</li><li>Block chunks of time, or an entire day for a task.</li></ul>

Planning Ahead

“The best book is the one you can’t put down. The best exercise is the one you enjoy doing every day. The best health food is the one you find tasty. The best work is the work you’d do for free.”

Opt for actions and daily habits that naturally align with you, or are less of a challenge. Be realistic and commit for the long haul.If you regularly sleep at 1:00 AM then trying to wake up at 5:00 AM can be a self-defeating exercise.

Your Natural Instincts

You should choose your wardrobe, your exercise routine, and your recreational habits according to you.For example: If you don't like reading, opt for podcasts or watch informing documentaries.

Making Choices

We cannot keep self-sabotaging ourselves by failing at our unrealistic expectations.We can opt for consistency, understanding the impact of incremental progress. Opt for continuous effort towards a realistic, doable target.

Perfection is a Myth

In our pursuit of perfection, we neglect balance by doing what's urgent over what matters. This can lead to stress, burnout, and feeling drained and lethargic:<ul><li>Avoid spending too much time at work</li><li>Prioritize physical activity</li><li>Try meditation or just simple writing</li><li>Unwind on a good movie or spend time with friends</li><li>Get a good amount of sleep.</li></ul>

Finding Balance

To make time to accommodate what's important, we may have to say NO to certain commitments and remove certain areas from high priority.Deprioritize what is urgent but not important.

Letting It Drop

Too much stuff around you means too much to think about, too much to do, leading to chaos.Just like a to-do list takes care of our mental chaos, we should clean and declutter stuff around us, so that we are able to think better.

Declutter and Simplify

It is important to measure your progress, reviewing every aspect of planning and execution. Track your time and progress with a good app on your smartphone.  Minimize distracted and zero-productivity time.

Weekly Reviews

Not everything requires manual, hard and laborious work, even if you are habitual or accustomed to doing things that way.For example, writing a check for rent every month can be automated with online payment.

Automate, Delegate

Introduce some spice, some novelty in your daily routine: go with the uncharted route, explore life without a specific plan.You can find a new hobby, join a social group, even seek out some work in a different domain.

Do The New

Most of us keep doing seemingly urgent work (answering a phone, replying to an email, etc.) but this only gives an illusion of productivity.Real productivity is a distraction-free high-impact work that you must find time to do daily.

Dive Deep in Deep Work

Keeping life organized often feels like a juggling act. Just as swiftly as you move to catch one ball - say finances, family commitments, or fun with friends - the next one is hurtling towards you.

Organize Your Life: 10 Simple Rules to Stay Organized Every Day

The better you get at resting, the more energy and creativity you bring to your work.
Proper rest is not just a passive rest. Real rest that leaves you energized and inspired involves three essential elements:
<ol>
<li>Relaxing your mind</li>
<li>Relaxing your body</li>
<li>Relaxing your expectations.</li>
</ol>

Work and rest are partners

If you have ever gotten in bed but your mind race with all the unfinished tasks, to-dos, and scenarios you replay in your mind, then you will know the importance of relaxing your mind.
To relax your mind, close any open loops and follow a 'shut down' routine.
<ul>
<li>Open loops are all the tasks that you deem so important that you want to hold on to them.</li>
<li>Anticipatory stress. Another is the feeling that you constantly need to be on stand-by, such as responding to messages.</li>
</ul>

The racing mind

A master list can help you relax your mind. A master list is a document where you write down every task, email, to-do, and idea. For each item, write down a concrete next step, set a deadline, and categorise them as either working on now, waiting for someone else, or another time.
To truly relax your mind:
<ul>
<li>Record your progress in hours worked and tasks completed.</li>
<li>Glance at the day or week ahead to ensure there isn't anything you're forgetting about.</li>
<li>Acknowledge the day is over.</li>
</ul>

How to relax your racing mind

Use deep breathing exercises to relax your body:
<ul>
<li>Sit somewhere comfortable with a straight back</li>
<li>Close your eyes and begin breathing through your nose</li>
<li>Breathe in for a count of two.</li>
<li>Hold your breath for a count of one</li>
<li>Breathe out through your mouth for a count of four. The key is to exhale longer than you inhale.</li>
<li>Hold your breath for one second and then repeat.</li>
</ul>

Deep breathing exercises

This popular technique systematically relaxes your muscle groups one at a time.
<ul>
<li>Lie down and stretch out.</li>
<li>Breathe in and tense the first muscle group, for example, your hands. Tense hard, but not to the point of pain. Hold for 4-10 seconds.</li>
<li>Exhale and relax the muscle group all at once.</li>
<li>Relax for 10-20 seconds.</li>
<li>Move on to the next muscle group. Work through your whole body in this way.</li>
<li>When you're done, count backwards from 5 to bring your focus back to the present.</li>
</ul>

Progressive muscle relaxation technique

Eye strain is a common symptom of too much time on a screen. It can lead to headaches, tense shoulders and back, and potentially blurred vision.
A simple exercise to help with eye-strain: After every 20 minutes, look at an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

The 20-20-20 technique for eye strain

<ul>
<li>Meditation practices can help you relax and focus your energy on your body and breath.</li>
<li>A walk outside can calm your mind and body and help you further into a state of relaxation.</li>
</ul>

Meditation and nature

<ul>
<li>Have a conversation with your boss on expectations and boundaries. Be open about when you're available and when not.</li>
<li>Keep your phone in another room to resist the urge to check it.</li>
<li>Remove work apps from your phone or home devise to create a distinction between phone (personal) and computer (work time.)</li>
<li>Change your email signature that states how long you usually take to respond.</li>
<li>Use if/then statements to reduce the need to keep working. (If I get an email notification at 5 pm, then I will ....)</li>
</ul>

How to relax your expectations

Work and rest aren’t competitors. They’re partners. So why do so few of us really know how to relax and recharge at the end of the day?

How Making Art Helps Improve Mental Health

How art and culture can help us rethink time

Admit it: You’re obsessed with work. Here’s how to change that

What’s Your Return on Visibility?

The Top 5 Female Policies you need to have in your business

Kevin W.