…all your christmases [DOT 25/12/22]

…so…merry christmas, folks

…hopefully you aren’t finding christmas too stressful…but the new year might be…looming a little

The American Psychiatric Association’s Healthy Minds poll surveyed more than 2,200 U.S. adults Dec. 7 and 8. The results were compared to those of a similar poll from the group that ran in December 2021.

Roughly 26% of the respondents reported that they expected to experience more stress in the New Year, up from 20% the previous year.

And about 37% of adults (nearly 2 out of 5) rated their mental health as “fair or poor” this month, up from 31% a year ago. Young adults, low-income adults and parents were most likely to rank their mental health as fair or poor.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/adults-say-expecting-stress-2023-survey-finds

…&…well…sure…there’s still news…& it ain’t all glad tidings & goodwill to all…& I know how these tend to go

…so…I thought about trying to find some better news for a special occasion

Such kindness might sound rare, even implausible, but I’ve since started wondering: what if it’s more common than we think?

It started with some research that showed people often underestimate the willingness of strangers to engage with, or even befriend them. Then I came across a study that suggested news coverage of current affairs tends to be more negative than positive because humans tend to give negative stimuli more attention.

From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense: because positive stimuli doesn’t pose a threat to our survival, it doesn’t warrant as much attention. But if negative news is more attention-grabbing news, it will receive more coverage, and if it receives more coverage, we might start to think of the world as a more negative place than it really is. This will affect us at an individual level and a collective one.
[…]
Negative stories can attract our attention and prepare us for disappointment. But if we don’t also engage with positive ones, they might lead us to be more cynical, more defensive and less hopeful than we need to be; they might close our minds to happier, and just as likely, possibilities.
[…]
And maybe there’s still hope for the planet. Maybe some leaders do care; maybe we can make a difference. Maybe even little things – realising we might often be wrong; paying more attention to good news; making a point of sharing it – will help.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/24/i-witnessed-an-extraordinary-act-of-kindness-what-if-altruism-is-more-common-than-we-think

…thing is…the pickings are maybe slimmer than you’d hope…so…we take what we can get, I guess

And yet while 2022 brought plenty to weigh down the heart, it also offered some unexpected lifts to the spirit. These past 12 months showed that, despite everything, there are reasons to be hopeful.
[…]
This autumn I had a conversation with the writer and renowned optimist Malcolm Gladwell. I told him that sometimes the news, about the climate crisis especially, could get me down, that it was hard to look at the world and not feel bleak. Recall, he replied, that if in 1945 you were black and lived in Los Angeles and tried to go to the beach, you got arrested. If in 1970 you were a woman who wanted to be a flight attendant, “you had to parade in front of a group of men who took your measurements, and if you didn’t have a perfect figure, and weren’t white and under the age of 32, you didn’t get the job”. That was not so long ago. In other words, change happens. Or as Gladwell put it, “Every time I pick up a history book, I feel better about the present day.”
[…]
You may call it sentimental, but I think it is hard-headed and rooted in evidence. As 2022 gives way to 2023, there are grounds for hope. In these final days of the year, as we draw breath, let that be the ground we stand on.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/23/reasons-to-be-cheerful-boris-johnson-donald-trump-vladimir-putin

…so…maybe I’ll just take the calvin way out…just this once?