Resolutions I’d Like to See for 2019’s Top Newsmakers

Welcome to my Weekly Thoughts Newsletter, where you'll find my take on the week's news stories, my favorite pieces on how we can thrive even in our stressful world, and some fun and inspiring extras.

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’Tis the (Stress) Season: It's the most wonderful time of the year… unless, of course, you’re too stressed to truly enjoy it. If you’re looking for tips on how to infuse more joy and calm into an otherwise chaotic holiday week, Thrive’s Sleep Editor-at-Large Shelly Ibach’s latest column is for you. As she puts it, the answer to holiday stress comes down to three things: being grateful, staying present and sleeping well. In fact, they’re all connected — grateful thoughts and mindfulness can help you get a better night's sleep, and quality sleep can lead to more gratitude and presence. Shelly’s suggestion for bringing the power of gratitude into your life? “Keep a journal by your bed, and every night or morning, write down three things that you are grateful for. That simple act can shift your perspective.”

There’s No Place Like Home (for Burnout): We hear a lot about burnout in the workplace, but, as Kate Thayer writes in The Chicago Tribune, burnout at home, experienced by parents (usually mothers), is also very real. And very much on the rise, as expectations of parents have skyrocketed. “It has ramped up in the last 20 years,” Alexandra Solomon, a psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University, says. Parenthood has become “relating to your child as if they are an ongoing, unfolding 18-year project. And that takes away from the No. 1 thing kids want: to look at us and see our faces shining on them.” And unlike a job at an office, your day never ends. As one mother put it, “when you’re a mom, you don’t know when your next break is coming.” Much of the problem stems from the fact that parents don’t feel a sense of control. But there are Microsteps you can take to help ward off parental burnout. Here’s a few:

• Every day, say no to one thing that gets in the way of your sleep. It might mean letting the dishes pile up, or a home that’s in a state of less than perfect tidiness. Falling behind on things like these is inevitable — so make your peace with it! Instead, “invest” this time in a nap, or a walk, or a meditation or another way to recharge. Almost everything else can wait. 
• Unfollow any social accounts that make you feel guilty or stressed. In the social media age, when it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others and feeling like “you’re doing it wrong,” you have the power to unsubscribe, unfollow and say goodbye to anything that brings you stress. 
• Schedule a recurring walking date with another parent. Put the babies in strollers or carriers and go! 
• Use habit stacking to add meditation to your day. Habit stacking is an efficient way of building new habits by stacking a new behavior on top of an existing one. Pick one moment in your day and add just a minute of conscious breathing and meditation to something you already do anyway: taking a shower, washing baby bottles, feeding your baby or brushing your teeth. You’ll get the benefits without feeling like you’ve added something new to your to-do list.

To Do or Not to Do, That Is the Question: We all have overfilled to-do lists. But what should we tackle first? Should we start with the easiest items and get them out of the way? According to a new study by researchers from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, while starting with the simple tasks is tempting, it won’t pay off. That’s because easy wins don’t give us the chance to learn. “Short-term, the person could actually feel satisfied, less anxious,” co-author Maryam Kouchaki says. But “it’s not in the interests of the individual, the group, or the organization in the long run. That learning part is super critical.” So the better choice is to take on the big tasks — and break them down into Microsteps. This translates into small milestones that give us that same sense of completion while also giving us a chance to grow. Read More on Thrive: Is Your To-Do List Stressing You Out? Here’s How to Rethink Your Relationship With It

How Did It Get So Late So Soon?: We know our smartphones have changed our daily lives. But it’s hard to appreciate just how profoundly they’ve altered the way we experience the world — unless we do what The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern did, and go back in time and try living a single day with technology from 2010. That was before the widespread adoption of the smartphone, a device, Stern writes, that “changed what it means to be human.” She was shocked at how different it was navigating a day on a Blackberry — which seemed pretty cutting-edge at the time. But it wasn’t all bad. “I missed not being able to do so many things I now take for granted,” she writes. “And yet it was also strangely exhilarating. I felt more in control, more present and, maybe, more like myself.” Her account (and video) of what she lost and what she gained on that day is a vivid example of how the convenience of technology can distract from the costs. It’s also, as Stern concludes, a sobering reminder to ask ourselves some fundamental questions. “Have we learned from our experience with the smartphone over the past decade?” she asks. “Will we be more prepared and better able to guide how the gadgets of tomorrow will change us? Or will we be just as buffeted about by the coming decade’s big technological leaps, surprised yet again by how little control we have over these inanimate objects that have so much control over us?”

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 Courtesy of Thrive Global

My New Year’s Resolutions for 2019’s Top Newsmakers

Have you made your New Year’s resolutions yet? If you’re still drafting them, the key, to avoid being among the 92% of us who fail to keep our resolutions, is to start small. Another method, which might not have a higher success rate, but is less work, brings less guilt and is more fun, is to make resolutions for other people. So here are my resolutions for some of 2019’s top newsmakers.

Donald Trump: “When I get the urge to tweet, when I should be sleeping, I’ll think, ‘Covfefe,’ which is an ancient Greek word meaning, ‘put the phone down.’”

Instagram: “We will add our ‘take a breath’ alert before all captions and comments, not just bullying ones.”

All moderators of presidential debates in 2020: “Given the effects of burnout and sleep deprivation on decision-making, we will ask all candidates about how they plan to take care of themselves and recharge and refuel as president.”

Dwayne Johnson: “I will take a few days, or movies, off.”

Our phones: “I will only send my owner notifications if his or her attention is truly needed.” (You can help your phone keep this resolution with the Microsteps in this piece.)

Kumail Nanjiani: “I will allow myself to eat a few carbs.”

Elon Musk: “I’ll get enough sleep, not because it’s good for me (though it is), but because it’s good for Tesla.”

Joe Biden: “When I hear the words ‘Hunter,’ ‘Ukraine’ or ‘Burisma,’ I will do 10 seconds of deep breathing before responding.”

Billie Eilish: “I’ll remember to save a bit of my incredible success for my 18th year.”

Elizabeth Warren: “In addition to thinking about how to widen access to health insurance so people can get treated once they’re sick, I’ll widen the health care conversation to include changes we can make so fewer people get sick in the first place.”

Away: “We will remember that toxic company culture can make a company go away.”

Bernie Sanders: “I’ll use my own health scare to bring preventive care and well-being into the health care debate.”

Rudy Giuliani: “I’ll remember that one of the symptoms of sleep deprivation is magical thinking, put my passport in a drawer for a while and skip that next red-eye to Kiev.”

Apple: “We will cease all R&D on making the iPhone waterproof, so people can have a rare and welcome respite from screens in the shower.”

Read More on Thrive: My New Year’s Resolutions for 2019 Newsmakers

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Before You Go

Last-Minute Idea of the Week: Got any last-minute holiday shopping to do? Stumped for something to give a special someone in your life? How about the gift of well-being, which is the idea behind the Thrive Global Holiday Gift Guide. My favorite is the Oura Ring. It looks like a beautiful piece of jewelry — and it is — but it also beautifully monitors movement and well-being!

Suzanne Winckler

Moment of Wonder of the Week: These amazing cloud photos in The New York Times, courtesy of The Cloud Appreciation Society. The group, over 23,000 strong, posts daily photos of clouds, which they consider to be “nature’s poetry.” It’s a reminder of the power of wonder and awe that’s always available to us when we take a break from looking down at our screens. To paraphrase the Rolling Stones, “hey, you, look up at my cloud.”

Podcast of the Week: We’ve all learned lessons from watching Oprah Winfrey. But A.J. Jacobs learned a life lesson while on the show. When is the right time to take a risk? How do we truly connect with another person? In this week’s episode of our immersive podcast “Meditative Story,” the best-selling author takes us along with him for a pressure-filled, career-defining — and life-changing — moment of finding the answers to these questions while sitting on Oprah’s couch.

Stress-Reliever of the Week: Are you one of the many who feel stressed around the holidays? If so (or even if not — we all feel stress throughout the year), put yourself on your gift list and order an on-demand, in-home massage from Zeel. At Thrive we offer Zeel massages to our team members twice a week — the only problem is the mad rush that occurs the second the sign-up sheet is released! They also offer — one of my favorites — a sleep massage.

What Could Go Wrong: The new game app Photo Roulette, which is popular among teens, randomly selects photos from players’ phones and sends them to other players.