week 14 post 2

      The ability to handle stress and adversity are very complex and important issues to discuss specifically in the modern world. Stress is an emotion that every human feels and in recent times people feel it much more often then ever naturally intended to. There is also a lack of research on children who live in particularly adverse, stressfull, situations and it is very important to understand how to help these individuals thrive. In the work world around 50 percent of people are burned out in industries like health care, non-profits, and banking which leades to the use $300 billion on workplace related stress. The non stop world has lead people to just pushing though this mental stress, which leads to burn out. Just drinking one more coffee to complete that one email adds up over time and exausts people. Outside of the work world, there is very little research on people who live in adverse situations and on how they thrive until recently when stanford did a study in pakistan to try and understand how different situations impact a childs ability to thrive.       Stress is not supposed to be an around the clock feeling and it in fact wears down the body, health, and energy and increases negaitve reactions and stunts the use of emotional intelligence and decision making. People have lost their creativity and relaxation right alongside of their happiness which is why using mindfulness practices can be very useful in the working and educational world. Some ways to decrease stress and increase mental health practices is to use breathing, self compassion, connection, and compassion for others to improve ones mental health. using breathing allows the engagement of the parasympathetic nervous system which is used to calm down humans and is very useful from a day to day basis. Self-compassion can be very useful because this world tells people to be self critical but this is not necessarily healthy and the little voices in ones head can be self destructive. Working on treating oneself how one would like to be treated is key to leading a healtheir life. The same thing goes for showing other people compassion. All people have hard, long days and helping others out signigicantly improves both individuals health. The last thing is connections because connections with other humans are necessary to human life because it helps release oxytocin which boosts happiness. This being said It is also important to take a look at people and children in adverse situations to help them thrive. Most research is done on affluent places so in a study by stanford taken place in pakistan they found some things that helped people flourish there which don't help people here. They found three simple things helped show how well a child would thrive there. these three things are early parenting intervention provided by government health workers, child’s physical growth status at age two, and the number of older siblings. This was particuarly important because this is different then affulent places and their indicators.