Aditi Nerurkar

I want to share some data on loneliness and why community is so important. We are seeing rampant, rampant rises like all over the world, really. There's a global epidemic of loneliness. 330 million people go two weeks before speaking to anyone. And this is

global statistic, we know that loneliness, when you don't feel a sense of connection and community, loneliness is the equivalent medically, physiologically, it's the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Isn't that wild? Meaning that it increases your risk of cardiovascular disease, strokes, heart disease, and also it shortens your lifespan.

Especially if you are elderly or if you're aging population. I mean, we're all aging, right? Like, who are we kidding? But particularly in the elderly, it is a predictor of longevity. And so really combating loneliness is so important. When you're thinking about how to build community, when you're feeling stressed, when you're burnt out, the last thing you want to do is engage in like deep conversation. You know, like you're like, just leave me alone. I just want to Netflix and chill or whatever it is that you want to do to just decompress and tune out.

But in fact, there is really compelling research to suggest something different. When you are feeling a sense of stress or if you are lonely and you're trying to figure out how do I build community and it feels so overwhelming to engage in deep conversation, instead focus on weak ties. So let me explain. There was a beautiful study done comparing how community is formed or like the sensation of belonging.

with strong ties and weak ties. Strong ties is what you and I can already think about. So family, friends, colleagues, like people that you feel a real sense of connection with, strong ties. And this study looked at like the way that influences our wellbeing. And yes, strong ties really does, it works, you know, but again, we don't necessarily have the energy for strong ties when you're feeling so stressed and burnt out and truly depleted.

But weak ties is like saying good morning to your barista at the coffee shop, when you're getting your groceries packed, saying hey, chatting with the grocery clerk, when you're picking up the mail, saying hello to your postman, when you're taking a walk in your neighborhood and you see your neighbor walking their dog, saying good morning. These short kind of exchanges that you can have throughout the day can have a profound effect on your sense of connection, community and well-being. So all to say,

Kyllä. Mielestäni viisi tärkeää strategiaa, kun mietitään tarkastelua, koska monet of us work in leadership roles, right? Like together here we are in a leadership capacity in various ways. And so think about there's kind of like I think of it as five key elements of a checklist for resilient leadership and how to like engage and really lean into a sense of true resilience.

The first is that you want to normalize the experience of stress and burnout, because I just shared that 70% of people are struggling. So your charges, your employees, in your family, in your community, 70% of people are really struggling. So over-communicating about mental health is really the way forward. Another thing that you could do is if you are in a leadership position, normalize

not being engaged, you know, normalize only working during working hours. So off duty expectations, minimize those. Off, you know, off hour phone calls, meetings, emails, etc. Next, cultivate a sense of psychological safety and connection in your workplaces, in your groups of, you know, social groups, etc. Next, if you are a leader and in a working environment, two things that you could add.

is create some sort of peer support group and have a formal counseling program. The key to both is that they are well advertised, free and confidential. And finally, really think about compassion and empathy. You know, compassion and empathy sound like soft metrics, but they have been shown to increase and influence the bottom line because engaged employees, when they feel a sense of connection and value, they are 20% more profitable than their counterparts.

The other thing I will say about compassion, and that's kind of like a blueprint for resilient leadership. Another thing I would say about compassion, particularly self-compassion, it is so important. Again, sounds like this woo-woo concept, but self-compassion, being gentle with yourself. As you're engaging in this world today, particularly now more than ever, perhaps self-compassion is so important. And self-compassion changes the brain. It dials down the volume of your amygdala.

rajoituksia. Meillä on rajoituksia, kun se liittyy yhteiskuntaan. Meillä on ystäviä, ystäviä, lapsia, kaikkia, ystäviä, ja silti meillä on zero rajoituksia, ja todennäköisesti erittäin rajoituksia, kun se liittyy yhteiskuntaan, jonka teillä on.

Ja luoda digitaalisia rajoja on erittäin tärkeää nyt. Kerroin, että yksi syy siitä, miksi on tällainen tunteehtoinen stressi tällä hetkellä, on se, että sinulla on, tiedät, maailma on sinun vihreäsi. Sinulla on amygdala, koska se on sinun reptiilinen rauha. Eikö se tiedä eroa, kun jotain tapahtuu 3000, 5000, 10000 kilometriä lähellä ja jotain tapahtuu taustalla?

It feels that sense of threat, danger, survival, self-preservation, and it activates your stress response, particularly when it comes to graphic images and videos. There's been a lot of data that shows that when you are engaging in this sort of content, and we all are, because we are all engaged and plugged in, and we want to be informed citizens, right? It actually can increase your firsthand personal risk of PTSD, believe it or not, without being engaged while things are happening very far.

I work in medicine and I also work in journalism. This is not about censorship. I have always, you know, before I became a doctor, I wanted to be a journalist. And I believe so much more than ever that we must be informed citizens. There is so much happening in the world, but not at the expense of your mental health. So there has to be some sort of boundary that you draw. And the science shows that it's not about abstaining. You know, this is not about becoming a digital monk and abstaining from technology.

technology and saying like, forget it, I'm throwing out all technology and I'm going to renounce technology. That in fact, the science shows that it doesn't have as much of an effect on your health and well-being. What truly makes a difference, like moves the needle when you're talking about stress, burnout, mental health with technology and creating digital boundaries is decreasing your reliance on your devices.

How can you create digital boundaries to protect your mental health while still being an informed citizen? There are several ways that you can do that. The first really quickly is grayscaling your phone. Grayscale is a really powerful tool. I typically set my phone to grayscale during periods of focus during the day and particularly at night to avoid a concept called revenge bedtime procrastination. We can talk about that in a second.

What grayscale does is it makes scrolling less enticing and, for lack of a better word, less addictive for your brain, less stimulating. And so you're more likely to decrease your engagement and go to bed early, for example. And so it has been shown, demonstrated effects on screen time and decreasing screen time. The other thing that you can do is keep your phone off your nightstand.

And that will help in engaging in scrolling and, you know, checking your email and headlines first thing in the morning, because none of this stuff, you know, there's no such thing as mindless scrolling. You think you're doing nothing. You're just doing this. What is that really doing? It actually is doing a lot. It's triggering. It's farming your brain for more stress. It's triggering a biochemical cascade. There is no such thing as mindless scrolling.

Joten todella miettiä sitä on erittäin hyvä ja todella tärkeää. Ja jatkuva määrä ja luoda, mitä minä tykkään kutsua, geograafista ristiriitaa. Laitan hieman nopeasti vastaan Revenge Bedtime Procrastinationin, mitä se tekee, kun sinulla on todella pysyvä päivä ja iltana on noin 8.30 iltana. Sanoisit itselleen, että minun täytyy mennä ylös.