December 2007 Newsletter

Growing Better with
Family Get-Togethers

Holidays generally lead to increases of stress, especially between family members. A Psychology Today article (Sept/Oct 2007) has excellent suggestions for handling difficult parents which can be extended to difficult siblings and difficult in-laws:

• “Set firm boundaries.” Plan shorter visits if things typically get too aggravating or smothering.
• “Walk away [or simply go silent] when insults start to fly” whether it’s you hurling the insults or the other person.
• Stop trying to “fix” your difficult family members. Fix your own over-withdrawal or over-aggressiveness instead.
• “Don’t let past infractions poison your relationships now. Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting, but be open to healthy new developments in the relationship.”
• Restructure situations to reduce the likelihood of conflict. Invite people to your house and don’t serve alcohol, or party at a park or go on an outing instead of being at home where people are more likely let their behavior slide.
• Think about the value of relationships with family, no matter how troubled. Family troubles are mostly from habits begun in child-rearing years when parents didn’t know any better and children were helpless to correct them.
• Try to view your parents and siblings with empathy. Try to figure out how they might have been “trained” to be bullying or suffocating, moody or passive early in life. Wonder how you can behave more constructively with them, for everyone’s well-being.
• Take your negative reactions as clues that you need to handle things better. See the next article.

Finding Happiness Even
When Feeling Down

The holiday season accentuates life’s stresses because expectations are so much higher. Here are some thoughts to help you enjoy the upside of downs and find yourself up again afterward, sooner than later:

• Anyone’s sadness or depression contains large amounts of information about what truly matters to them.
• “What goes up must come down.” Tell yourself that every down—whether yours or another person’s—is just a normal part of life.
• Downs give you more time to digest what’s going on, rather like slowing down physically after a heavy meal.
• Avoid storing up your disappointments. Express them as they come so that you don’t get swamped in a flood or avalanche of feeling bad.
• Just breathe for a minute or more several times a day. Attending to your breathing engages your mind as observer of information you’ve missed.
• Empty your mind as you breathe. To make that easier, thank every thought for its message and imagine it drifting away as if happy that you appreciated its help.
• When you have a down moment, milk it. Taking time out or even time off for sadness or depression is not a bad thing.
• When you’re done being sad, wave your fingers and toes and smile and think of positive things in your moment. Just looking at the beauty around you or thinking of your love for another being can be enough.
• Much depression comes simply from fatigue. See the article on sleep.

Why Sleep More,
Even During the Holidays?

With the holidays approaching sleep issues are even more pressing because all manner of problems —from heart attacks and suicide attempts to permanent weight gains—increase between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. And every one of those problems could be partly prevented or reduced by getting more sleep.

• About 30 to 50% of U.S. adults admit to some insomnia.
• In the early 1900’s, the average of reported sleep was just over 9 hours a night.
• Now, the reported average is barely over 7 hours.
• New studies have implicated insomnia as a probable contributor to health problems from depression and anxiety to high blood pressure, susceptibility to infectious disease and even obesity.
• Prior studies have confirmed the connection of sleep loss to automobile accidents and decreased productivity in the workplace.
• And all that is not to mention the greater irritability, anxiety, lethargy and poorer concentration that accompany sleep loss.
• Yet, when people with extreme insomnia go in for sleep studies, the vast majority are found to be sleeping several hours more than they think.

OPINION

It pays to be more attentive to your sleep and to learn to give it a rest when you aren’t as “asleep” in bed as you think you should be. Whether you battle with insomnia regularly or just experience periodic bouts of it:

• Commit to staying in bed for a minimum of eight hours at a time no matter when you go to bed and get up.
• Staying “horizontal in the dark” for eight hours will probably give you about 85% of the rest you need.
• DO NOT GET UP if you can’t sleep: that only teaches bad sleep habits.
• Wakeful periods during the night are normal: they allow you to change positions after the physical paralysis that accompanies normal dreaming and deep sleep.
• Make sure your room is dark (or wear dark eye-covering), and quiet (or use ear plugs and/or white noise to mask distracting noise).
• If you do get up, keep your eyes at half mast, move slowly, and go back to bed ASAP.
• Don’t nap.
If you think that you really need less than 8 hours...
• Consider that you may be behaving like a young child who doesn’t want to miss anything.
• Admit that or learn more about how muscles and tendons need down time for repair
• Keep in mind that your immune system requires extended sleep in order to re-balance itself from the day’s onslaughts.
• Become conscious of how the majority of emotional processing for stress reduction takes place mostly during the prolonged dreaming that occurs late in the sleep cycle.
• Be a better parent to yourself by setting better standards.
• Sympathize with yourself over the inconvenience of having to consider adjusting your sleep beliefs and habits into something healthier.

Thoughts from Dr. Sharon’s upcoming book
“The Quest for Happily Ever After”
Your Journey Through Emotions In Love

Dr. Sharon has finally finished her first self-help psychology book to be published in 2008. Here are some points from Chapter 1:

• The fairy tale is true. Princess and knight in shining armor (or hero) really are the primary roles of lovers in love. Think about how young girls love to play princesses and little boys love to play heroes. It’s the same for adults. Wives really are their husbands’ princesses and husbands really are their wives’ heroes.”
• Every knight in shining armor must transform at times out of the role of hero and into other roles: prince; king; evil knight.
• Every princess must transform at times out of the role of princess into thorn-filled enchanted forest, flame-breathing dragon, and wicked witch.
So what does that all mean?
• The “princess” metaphor reminds women to behave toward their men with dignity and fairness befitting a princess.
• The “thorn-filled enchanted forest, fire-breathing dragon and wicked witch” metaphors encourage acceptance of the need for women in love to fully access their lost moments, furious moments and harmfully manipulative moments as part of the path to empowering their intuition.
• The “knight in shining armor” metaphor reminds men to behave toward their women with the respect and loyalty befitting a knight in shining armor.
• The “king, prince and evil knight” metaphors remind men to sometimes set their foot down with their princess, sometimes enjoy being waited on, and sometimes to protect their princess from themselves (in evil knight form) as part of the path to empowering their logic.
How can this be used in everyday relationships?
• A woman can learn to balance “princess” with her other roles so that her husband stays energized to quest on her behalf.
• A man can learn to balance “knight in shining armor” with his other roles so that his wife is happily won by him again and again and again, ever after.

You will learn the ‘how to’s’ in the book.