I have a pet peeve. (Actually I have many pet peeves but will focus on just one for brevity’s sake.) It has become increasingly common to shorten the phrase “I love you” to “Love you.” Both in verbal and written communication, “love you” has hijacked the more labor intensive “I love you.” I suppose two syllables require less effort than three. Perhaps “Love you” is a little less cringy for a 13-year-old boy to hear his mom shout from the car when she drops him off at soccer practice than “I love you.”

According to the rules of basic grammar everyone learns in middle school, in the sentence “I love you” the “I” is the subjective pronoun, meaning it is the one doing the loving and the “you” is the objective pronoun, indicating the person who is loved. Dropping the “I” dilutes the verb. It says I care but not enough to take ownership of the action.

Eliminating the “I” makes it a little less personal but isn’t that the point of saying I love you? I cannot help but think that when we remove the “I” that we are also distancing ourselves from the sentiment. “Love you” is more casual but also less serious and heartfelt. It rolls off the tongue but I would argue that it also falls flat. Surely, hearing “I love you” from your partner or your friend means a lot more than the expedient “love you.” In my humble opinion, if you are going to say it, mean it.

Spell It Out

Along these lines, I was not surprised when I read a recent study that found that a sender who uses abbreviations in text messages is perceived to be less sincere and is also less likely to receive a reply than a sender who spells words out.

According to the researchers: “Texting abbreviations negatively affect interpersonal communication by decreasing perceived effort, which in turn leads to lower perceived sincerity and responsiveness.”

Writing “thx” instead of “thanks” leaves the impression that the sender cannot be bothered to communicate in a substantive way. Is writing those two extra letters really that time consuming and exhausting? The subtext of a heavily coded message is clear: I am too busy or too important to concern myself with such trivial matters. As the study highlights, if you want someone to show that you care and to receive a response, make the effort to write “Happy Birthday” instead of HBD.

LOL

In addition to communicating low effort, abbreviations can also lead to confusion. I heard a story about someone who used LOL assuming it meant “lots of love.” It was only after he sent a condolence text to a friend whose father had died and signed off with LOL that he learned it meant “laughing out loud.” Note to self: when in doubt, spell it out.

Not to be a hypocrite but I cannot help but think that the abbreviations below get a pass…

Happy Holidays to You and Yours (NOT HHTYAY)

Yes there is a lot to be stressed out about these days. Our collective bingo card of catastrophes and crises is full–climate change, the election, inflation, and the Middle East, to name a few. And that’s just the big bad stuff. Everyday hassles are a reservoir of anxiety and worry too–getting stuck in traffic, finding parking, standing in line, getting kids ready for school, going to the grocery store are among the microstressors that can feel pretty macro in the moment.

Molehills become mountains when we’re depleted. And what do most of us do when we feel strung out? We reach for our phones, naturally. The behavior is automatic. Whenever there is a hint of discomfort or downtime, we turn to our screens. No notifications necessary. Contrary to all that well meaning advice that we should turn off notifications if we want to spend less time on our phones, a study found that 89 percent of smartphone interactions are initiated by the user and only 11 percent are prompted by an alert. Instead of blaming the pings and vibrations, perhaps it’s time to take responsibility. Put simply, the issue is us, not our devices. As the one and only Taylor Swift sings, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me.”

Our phones are basically an all-you-can-eat buffet for our brains. No wonder Shiri Melumad, an associate professor at Wharton, calls our devices “adult pacifiers.” In the same way that a child totes around a security blanket or stuffed animal to self-soothe, we seek comfort from our phones. But our devices may be less calming than we think. There is plenty of evidence showing that checking social media makes us feel badly about ourselves and we all know that doomscrolling is not exactly a recipe for joy. New research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that scrolling through our phones actually increases boredom. Instead of pacifiers, they are more like exasperaters…

If we want to feel better, there are better options than reaching for our adult pacifiers. A recent analysis found that people who engaged in one of the following  “micro-acts” over the course of seven days experienced a 25% increase in emotional wellbeing:

Do something kind

Think of someone you care deeply about. What is one thing you could do to brighten their day?

Tune in to what matters

Consider your values. How do they manifest in your life?

Give thanks

Reflect on anyone or anything you are grateful for. What would your life be like without them?

Dwell in awe

Lose yourself in something bigger. Gaze at the stars. Watch the sunset. Find something that gives you goosebumps.

Celebrate another’s joy

Ask someone you know to tell you about a favorite moment in their life. What made it so special?

Shift your perspective

Recall a moment when you felt upset and frustrated. What did you learn from that experience?

In addition to reporting better emotional wellbeing, engaging in one of these micro-acts each day for a week generated a 23% increase in positive emotions and almost a third of participants reported feeling better about their relationships. What I found to be particularly interesting was how these small but meaningful actions made people feel more in control of their lives and emotions. After the seven days, participants were 27% more likely to agree with the statement “I have felt able to impact, influence, or play an active role in how happy I generally feel.” There was a 34% increase in agreement with the statement  “I am in control and on top of things.” Given how out of control life can feel, I thought this finding was especially noteworthy.  There is nothing empowering about scrolling through Instagram. As this research highlights, there is something empowering about deliberately adding uplifts to your everyday life.

“Part of this is intention setting,” explains Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of the Greater Good Science Center and leader of the project. “If you have a map to where you’re going to go, you’re much more likely to go there,” she says.

These micro-acts do not require a great deal of time or energy but what they do require is engagement. You must follow through. Thinking about uplifts won’t uplift you. The key is to practice and commit to them.

We all have so much going on in our lives, so let me distill the research on wellbeing for you. Think of these quick bits as a personal apothecary that you can read, refer back to, and even send to a friend or loved one who might need a dose of practical, actionable strategies that are life-enhancing and resilience-building.

Historically, public health campaigns have evoked negative emotions, such as fear, shame, and sadness to capture attention and motivate behavior change. But bombarding people with graphic images and alarming messages rarely has the desired effect. That’s because making people feel bad tends to lead to avoidance and denial of the risks involved in the behavior. Nobody I know has ever said, “Wow, that photo of a cancer riddled lung really inspires me to quit smoking.” Instead they rip off the image or ignore it all together. Results of a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggest a more effective approach: cultivating gratitude. Researchers found that experiencing gratitude reduced cravings to smoke and encouraged people to take the first step to quit. Of note, the role of other positive emotions such as happiness, hope, inspiration, and serenity were measured but only gratitude consistently predicted reduced smoking. Making people feel sad significantly increased cravings for a cigarette.

Gratitude uniquely makes people less focused on themselves and on immediate gratification and more focused on long term relationships and health. To cultivate gratitude, participants were shown short video clips similar to this.

With this research in mind, next time you want to nudge a loved one to make a positive behavior change, instead of nagging or “shoulding,” ask them what they are grateful for.

Blame the architect for bad grades?

In the real estate world, the expression “location, location, location” captures how a property’s address determines its value and desirability. According to a new study, location might also have relevance for test takers. New research from the University of South Australia and Deakin University has revealed a link between rooms with high ceilings and poorer examination results. The study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology explores the connection between building design and performance. The research team analyzed data from 15,400 undergraduate students between 2011-2019 at an Australian university, comparing students’ exam results with ceiling heights of the room in which they sat for an examination. After considering individual student differences and their prior performance in coursework, they found that students had lower scores than expected when sitting exams in rooms with an elevated ceiling. It is unclear whether this is due to the scale of the cavernous room itself or factors such as student density or poor insulation which can lead to fluctuating body temperatures and undesirable air quality. I always disliked taking a test in a gym—it was the unflattering lighting that bugged me.

A pawsome antidote for anxiety

New research published in JAMA found evidence confirming what dog lovers already know: that connecting with a dog is good for mental health.

Many people have pets but not every owner is attached to their pet. According to the findings, attachment is key. The more attached participants were to their furry friend, the lower their risk of depression and anxiety. Using several different measures for depression and for anxiety, the Harvard researchers found that there is an inverse association between pet attachment and negative mental health outcomes. For the record, Panda and Schnitzel did not fund this study but have been demanding extra treats as a result of the findings.

What if talking across the aisle isn’t as bad as you think?

It’s good manners and common sense to avoid discussing potentially divisive topics with others. The assumption, of course, is that such conversations will inevitably become hostile, heated, and unpleasant. But what if these assumptions are wrong? A new study published in Psychological Science found that people’s beliefs about discussing disagreements may be miscalibrated.

According to the research, we systematically overestimate how negatively these conversations will go and underestimate how enjoyable they might be. The result of avoiding these topics is that it deepens the divide that keeps people from accurately understanding others’ perspectives and it prevents us from finding common ground. Talking more, not less, about divisive topics has the potential to leave us better connected and better informed. As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said,

“…I am convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other, and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other. And God grant that something will happen to open channels of communication…”

Recognizing the extent to which our fears are overblown could be a critical first step to opening the channels of communication that enable us to connect with each other more wisely, to know each other better, and fear each other less.

Along with bell bottoms and feathered hair, mood rings were all the rage in the 1970s. A quick glance at the color of the ring would let you know if you were feeling good, bad or in between. Black signified nervousness, blue meant relaxed, and violet meant passionate. The rings were said to change color in response to the wearer’s body temperature which was supposedly associated with their emotional state. It didn’t take long for mood rings to be escorted to the halls of scientific eye rolls but the interest in mood awareness persists. Just last year Apple launched a State of Mind feature in the Health App to help users monitor their emotional state. The idea is to label your mood and then track it. As an aside, according to my daughter, mood rings have made a comeback and she tells me the color amber means her mom is annoying her but that is a discussion for another day.

In the same way that adults are guided to focus on their emotional state, children are too. Toys such as the Emotions Coin Drop are designed to help children better understand how they are feeling at a given moment. It features six colorful coins that each represent a feeling: happy, sad, angry, surprised, silly, and anxious. The idea is to help children identify and talk about  their inner state and to grow emotional self-awareness at a young age. In Pixar’s Inside Out movies, feelings are also a central theme and portrayed with main character energy. From behind a console inside a young girl’s mind, characters such as Joy, Anxiety, Ennui, Embarrassment and Fear control and sometimes upend her thinking and actions. Her internal landscape shapes her existence in the world. The message is clear: in order to be psychologically fit, it’s important to take time and energy to process and understand what is going on in your head. An awareness of how you are feeling, thinking about how you are feeling, and talking about how you are feeling, we are led to believe, are the building blocks of mental health.

“If you had diabetes, would you take insulin?” This was the question I was trained to ask any patient who was on the fence about taking prescription medication for a mental health issue. Equating a mental illness with a physical one was intended to persuade the person that there was a straightforward biological explanation for their symptoms and a simple remedy.

Looking back, I realize that the-brain-is-broken-and-medication-can-fix-it argument may not have been the most effective message. For starters, it completely ignores psychological and social factors such as homelessness, isolation, family dynamics, and poverty that can trigger mental illness. It also overlooks the role of lifestyle factors such as diet, sleep, and physical activity that buffer and boost mental health.

In his book Healing, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Tom Insel discusses what he believes to be the most important contributors to recovery: people, place, and purpose. In other words, having people who support you, having a sanctuary to heal, and discovering a purpose or mission. A psychiatrist friend summed it up this way: mental health is having someone to love, somewhere to live, and something to do. A woman who is depressed because she is in an abusive relationship doesn’t need Prozac, she needs a safe haven.

Happiness is not all in your head

When we talk about a mental disorder using the biological model and equate it with physical illness, we ignore context. We also overlook a key contributor to mental health: the role of personal agency. Having a sense of agency means that you feel like you are in the driver’s seat, that you have a say over your actions, that life is not just happening to you. Being told you are governed by neurochemical abnormalities is the opposite of empowering. Research shows it can also promote negative social attitudes. However well intended, the biological model may inadvertently promote a defeatist attitude and feelings of powerlessness:

“Biological explanations appear to lead to certain forms of so-called psychological essentialism in which mental disorders are seen as having unique, immutable essences—located in the brain or DNA—that produce the symptoms and behavior of patients. This view, in turn, can yield the belief that people with mental disorders are categorically dissimilar from so-called normal people, and the perception of such strict social boundaries between groups of people can lead to more negative intergroup attitudes. It can also exacerbate the perception that mental disorders are relatively permanent and difficult to overcome or treat effectively, which is known as prognostic pessimism.”

Messaging matters 

A few years ago, I remember a patient’s sense of relief when I told him he was in the midst of a major depressive episode. The word “episode” helped him see his symptoms as time limited, rather than permanent and pervasive. The problem with the biological model is that it promotes a fixed mindset about mental illness–that it’s stable and innate. Promoting a growth mindset–the belief that it is changeable and that the person has agency–is a healthier message.

A recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that when college students read messages on social media that promote a growth mindset about mental health challenges, they were more optimistic about getting better. Even subtle differences in wording was enough to sway people’s beliefs about depression and anxiety and their treatment.

Participants were divided into three groups. Some viewed a series of tweets on X that conveyed a fixed mindset. For instance, one tweet said, “I can’t wait for my seasonal depression to be over so that I can get back to my regular depression.”  A second group read tweets that emphasized a growth mindset. These messages emphasized the fluid nature of mental health and the ability to take control over it. For example, one of these tweets read, “I got this” to a meme that read “telling those anxious thoughts who’s really in control.” A third group read tweets that did not touch on mental health at all.

Participants who read the fixed mindset tweets had more pessimistic views about mental illness and saw it as more permanent and that there was little a person could do to manage it. Participants who read the growth mindset tweets were more likely to see depression and anxiety as temporary conditions that people can take steps to alleviate.

Bottom line

There are many reasons a person might experience mental distress, including biological, psychological, and social ones. If we only address the biological factors, we risk undermining optimism and key contributors to mental health: people, place, and purpose.

Why do so many smart people miss obvious warning signals that are right in front of their nose? Denial is a powerful motivator. Think of the parent who refuses to acknowledge that their child needs professional help or the spouse who ignores mounting evidence of a cheating partner or the individual with intermittent chest pain who postpones a visit to a doctor. Willful blindness goes hand in hand with wishful thinking. The problem with living in a bubble is that bubbles burst. As Ayn Rand observed, “You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”  

One might assume that denial is a problem faced by individuals, not groups. When people get together, the thinking goes, they get smarter. As the old saying goes, “none of us is as smart as all of us.” But plenty of evidence shows that this is not the case.  There is no safety in numbers when it comes to collective delusions. When great minds think alike, greatness evaporates.

Groupthink turns out to be a denial amplifier. First defined by Yale psychologist Irving Janis, groupthink explains how a group of intelligent people can fall prey to a shared form of willful blindness and overconfidence. From the Vietnam War to the Challenger disaster to the 2008 financial crisis, groupthink has led to poor and sometimes catastrophic decisions. Defined as “a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics,” groupthink promotes and reinforces reality avoidance.

According to Janis, it’s the reason we remain “color-blind in a sea of red flags.”

Janis identified 8 symptoms of groupthink

1. Self-Censorship

2. Stereotyping

3. Unanimity

4. An illusion of invulnerability

5. Rationalization

6. Self-appointed “mindguards”

7. Direct pressure on dissenters to conform

8. Belief in inherent morality

Groupthink may explain why so many were shocked by the president’s debate performance two weeks ago. Red flags were there for quite some time but warning signals were systematically cast aside or met with denial, evidence was avoided or selectively interpreted, and dissenters were shunned. It seems that the Biden family is also engaged in its own well-intentioned groupthink, insisting that everything is just fine when it clearly isn’t.  An inner circle that is supportive is as valuable as having an inner circle that is honest and clear-eyed.

To avoid reality avoidance, experts say every inner circle should have a designated dissenter-in-chief. Someone needs to be the skunk at the picnic to poke holes in the narrative, to offer constructive criticism, to voice unpopular ideas, and to float alternative options. As Adam Grant recently wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times, “service is not only about stepping up to lead. It’s also about having the courage to step aside.”  It’s invaluable to have an inner circle who believes in your light.  It’s also invaluable to have an inner circle who helps you see the light.