What is Curiosity?

Curiosity sets us apart from other species. It allows us to develop our intellect and invent new tools that make our life easier. Curiosity is not only the engine for material progress, but also closely correlated to individual mental and physical health, intelligence, happiness, and positive outlook on life in general. Curiosity in us is innate and can anchor us in the present while we are deeply involved in investigating, researching, and exploring. It makes us feel more awake, more alive, more passionate and has a rejuvenating effect. Considering all these positive qualities that accompany curiosity, one can only wonder why we don't cultivate and harvest its positive energy much more. It seems that with age, curiosity is slipping away and with it a lot of fun, passion, empathy, happiness and a special connection to the world that we live in. Wouldn't our lives be a lot more interesting, if we regularly dared to try new things, never stopped challenging ourselves to learn new skills and pick up new interests? Wouldn't we feel much happier in our neighborhoods, communities, and towns, if people were a little more curious about their surroundings, each other, the world, big and small ideas, and all the infinite possibilities in our communities that we currently leave unexplored?

In babies and toddlers curiosity is the driving force. They rely on it to learn all skills necessary to survive in their habitat. Constant observation helps them to figure out how things work. Little children touch things to understand what they are, what they are made of, what they can do, and what they can be useful for. They play around with them in as many different ways as possible. Every object is worth discovering and exploring in the same meticulous way, because it will help with comparing all new things to these first ones and will allow them to make sense of their world. Parents and caregivers know that the acquisition of knowledge and curiosity are intrinsically connected and encourage their little ones actively to explore and discover. But as they master the basic skills of walking, talking, eating, and understanding of how human interaction works, they become integrated into a broader learning system, in which curiosity gradually becomes marginalized.

Once institutionalized learning takes place, children remain encouraged to explore, but in much more directed ways. As they gradually become part of institutionalized learning, students' curiosity is just one aspect among many that dictate the curriculum and prepare the students for important standardized assessments. Due to teachers' performance pressures, kids' curiosity often becomes discouraged as it can slow down or even disrupt teaching. Institutionalized learning at times backs away from hands-on investigation in favor of a reproduction of knowledge in pre-selected, pre-approved packages. As a well-known study of divergent thinking of 2011 showed, schooling actually has a negative effect on creative thinking and creativity in kids. One specific experiment asked Kindergarteners to come up with as many uses for a paper clip as possible and the average 5-year old could think of 200. When the experiment was repeated with kids a few years older, the results were sobering: on average these older kids were only able to imagine 5 uses for a paper clip in contrast to 200 imagined by 5-year-olds.

As adults with steady jobs and more static lives, curiosity and imagination recede even further. Unless we perform a diverse set of tasks or have jobs in creative fields like research, design or the arts, we generally do not have many chances to follow our curiosity or interests. Considering that 80% of adults in the U.S. admitted to "hating their jobs" in 2010 and spent endless hours on tasks without being positively emotionally engaged, they live a rather monotonous lives. While some individuals may manage well accepting this dull outlook thinking that it is part of being an adult, the majority of us becomes discontent, bored, and frustrated not only with work-life, but also with themselves, their relations, and their surroundings. Without taking the extra time or effort to make our lives more interesting by doing something different and incorporating curiosity into the little stretches of free time that we do have, we tend to become lazy and depressed. We accept the social expectations that adulthood means lots of responsibilities and obligations and don't expect much excitement.

Last year, research confirmed that the brain of curious individuals worked much better and enhanced the individual's ability to learn information easier than those of the less curious people. They found that when curiosity is piqued, new information can be best learned and turned it into useful facts. It will also be memorized for much more extended period of time than for those who are less curious. In addition, the investigators found that when curiosity is stimulated, there is increased activity in the brain circuit related to reward. When curiosity motivated learning, there was increased activity in the hippocampus, a brain region that is important for forming new memories, as well as increased interactions between the hippocampus and the reward circuit. So curiosity recruits the reward system, and interactions between the reward system and the hippocampus seem to put the brain in a state in which you are more likely to learn and retain information, even if that information is not of particular interest to you. This could be useful information in the classroom or the workplace, when learning what might be considered boring material could be enhanced if teachers or managers are able to harness the power of curiosity about something they are naturally motivated to learn.

Big market leaders like Google or Apple have long integrated this knowledge into their companies. They have elevated the role of curiosity, imagination, and creativity and allowed employee's to have a more flexible work schedule which leads to more free mental space that in turn encourages and embraces different, innovative ways of thinking that can lead to great inventions. Google for example has allowed employees to spend 20% of their work time on projects of personal interest. Giving employees control over their time and how they approach a project, the management gives up control, but gains loyalty, passion, and furthers the talent of their employees, who in turn engage with the project on a much deeper level than they otherwise would. Google understands not only that unstructured time, inspiring surroundings, and minimal supervision are necessary for more creative output, but also that monotony poses a main obstacles to innovation. In the last couple of years, many other business leaders have confirmed that the specific skills that the job market will require in the near future cannot be known for sure at this point, but the qualities that many companies will look for are creativity, adaptability, and critical thinking skills, which are most likely found in humanities or art majors.

Despite the popularity and wide distribution of these findings (also to be found in some great TED talks), the current trend unfortunately continues to favor the opposite. At universities more and more funding has been cut for the arts and humanities, where the instructional focus lies on the development of critical and free thinking skills, as well as creativity. Japan has taken this to the extreme as the recent announcement by Minister of Education Hakubun Shimomura shows in which he said that all Japanese universities will stop accept entering students into programs of social sciences, law, and humanities. In the U.S. and many other nations (like Britain) the government are partial to STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) over the arts, social sciences, and humanities, which resulted in massive budget cuts for the latter. While this decision is clearly driven by economic concerns, it may have a much larger impact. Not only will it further pre-select areas of interest to humanity and thus limit the direction in which curiosity and imagination are allowed to operate, but it will ultimately also create a world in which even more people favor a calculable reality. If the broad majority of higher educated people worked in STEM fields, it would alter our world significantly, but not in a positive way. In the end, it would be a less colorful and far less diverse place, where most of our interests center around similar things. It would become a static and grim world of decreasing tolerance for alternative ways of thinking, being, and approaching life.

The power of curiosity, which demands an open mind and is inherently connected to hope, can transform us and should not be sidelined in our lives no matter our age. Life is an adventure and can remain such in all stages of life, if we stay curious. If we dare to look at the world beyond our daily framework, we can only benefit from it. Acquiring new skills, challenging ourselves to learn, we view life from different perspectives, which helps us to remain energized and awake. When exposed to the new, we --like children-- reevaluate the old, the traditional and have the chance to create something new. Not only does it add to our basic sum of experiences, but it also allows us to rethink our own identity. This may be especially valuable in an age when many people are unhappy with their jobs and we are regularly confronted with horrible violence committed by individuals who struggle to find a place in this world. Engaging people, arousing and channeling their curiosity may create a way to transform their frustrations and anger into something positive and lead them to reconnect with their peers and their communities.

What is Vanity?

These days, it seems that a big part of our lives revolves around vanity. We are constantly connected to social media sources, where we share many instances or sequences of our lives. We keep others informed about what we are doing, with whom, and how much fun that was, etc by posting regular selfies. Last year, more than one million selfies are taken per day. The majority of them were shot by individuals in the age range from 18-24. So even mundane situations, like picking up fruit in a grocery store, buying a latte in a coffee shop or finding a rare creature while working in the yard, will be documented, shared, commented on. Since everyone desires positive feedback from their connections, friends or followers, we begin to imagine our next post long ahead of time: the situation/event that would lend itself; the interesting backdrop; the facial expression that would work with it; and not to forget a witty caption. Then, while posing and clicking the picture of ourselves, we use various slightly different angles to get the best shot, which we carefully select afterwards. And even after deciding which one to use, more than a third of selfie posters admitted to changing/editing their self portraits in some ways before publishing it on social media.

Vanity has become a constant companion and in our thoughts that creates and highly censors the self-image that we present to the world. As people engaged more and more with social media, individuals become their own brands intending to appeal to the broader audience. Approval ratings can be measured in likes, new friend requests, new followers, new connections or new additions to one's circles. While the spheres of the public and private become more blurry as the number of narcissistic individuals increases and life begins to revolve more and more around the intended effect of a post, some real life activities become far less spontaneous and more planned out than many of us would care to admit. The current narcissistic trend of constantly double-checking oneself reminds us of the Greek myth of Narcissus who drowned because he could not take his eyes off his own reflection in the water. Many of today's young adults who over-engage with social media experience similar psychological and social problems that may seem unexpected judging from the happy and confident images that they post. Their own vanity can isolate them, like Narcissus, and take them away from society. For the broader community this leads to a set of other, much deeper lying questions about young adult's identity: What is the real reason that leads them to crave the constant desire or even need of approval and specifically the approval of people they mostly don't even know or don't know well? Why and how have superficial perceptions become so important that they can trump other values that have a much more important effect on our communities?

The generation of my late grandmother would find this trend to document oneself tasteless and misplaced. She and her contemporaries would have wondered who would feel comfortable or rather important enough to record themselves throughout the day. She would have found this absurd. She would have wondered how anybody could think that their daily life could be of interest to others to such an extent that they document it, unless they people of interest in public life. Humbleness and willingness to work hard were the characteristics that people of her time and her context (rural Western Europe) adored. They believed that one should always do good, but not talk about it, because bragging was simply taboo. Showing or appearing arrogant or boastful were unforgivable sins. But individuals of her time made the utmost effort to appear appropriately dressed, even in the harshest economic times. They wanted to be regarded as respectable people in their community and display and guard their good reputation.

The generation of my parents who grew up in the postwar years experienced very harsh times in which hunger, losing loved ones, and poverty unfortunately were the norm. Interestingly enough, though, despite all the hardship vanity still survived and, as I was told, some teenage girls were so concerned with fashion trends that they slept with their hair in curlers made out of toilet paper rolls. Due to economics, fashion was simple those days in Western Europe. After the war, it consisted of patchwork styles (as seen on the skirt on the right) and of re-purposing military uniform jackets, because that was what was available. Since many men were gone after the war, women competed over the few that were there (and not wounded) and were extra careful with their bodies and looks, but life certainly did not revolve around vanity, but much more substantial things: money to buy the basic necessities, education, work, and rebuilding life in a very different way than the previous generations.

Today, vanity and selfies are not at all frowned upon, but instead they are acceptable, expected, and even encouraged among peers. And yes, there is social pressure to post more selfies, so that all the connections can get a better picture about what is going on in someone's life. This is a competitious enterprise and full of judgments. You don't only want to look as good as possible, but hopefully much even better than some of your connections, friends or ""frenemies." You want to come across as more fashionable, skinnier, outgoing, and brave. You also want to have the more interesting/diverse backdrop for your selfies. With the invention of the selfie-stick even better self-documentation can be achieved and a more realistic images of your surroundings can be captured while taking a self-portrait. Unfortunately, the competition over the most exclusive shots has led to a rising number of death in 2014. Not only do many people risk their lives by taking selfies hanging from walls or jumping off buildings, but also being in close proximity to dangerous animals or standing on the tip of the highest skyscrapers. It appears to be a highly disproportionate risk for the possibility of a great photo of oneself. Still, for many young people the possibility of short-lived fame on social media may justify it. This not only goes to show that we humans or a large portion of our species are not at all as intelligent as we could be. Self-protection and securing one's own survival should be highest on the list of priorities.

Taking selfies can not only leads to physical danger, injuries, and possible death, but also and more importantly to deep psychological problems. Narcissism does not only encompass revolving around yourself and needing constant reaffirmation of ones own importance from outside sources, but it is above all the result of a deep-rooted inner insecurity. There is the sad, unimaginable story of the British young man Danny Bowman (19), a so-called "selfie addict" who was aiming for a perfect selfie and attempted hundreds of times per day, but was never satisfied with the outcome. He skipped school and stayed inside his house for six month while he kept on trying. He lost a lot of weight and his whole life tilted out control with an attempted suicide attempt. It is taking long-winded treatment to make it possible for him to rejoin society and participate in normal life. This shows that the mental problems that accompany selfie addicts are serious and should not be underestimated. According to a medical professional selfie-takers have an "extremely high suicide rate."

Studies have shown though, that most of selfies are taken by young women. On the one hand it has to do with the stereotypes about women. Women are always expected to look gorgeous, even if they happen to have stressful lives (e.g. full-time jobs and a family to take care of) with little time to work out or focus on their eating habits. On the other hand, it has been argued that this is a way for women to reclaim their own bodies. Taking selfies, women are in total control of their own pictures and decide on the concrete composition of the image. This has been understood as a form of empowerment. If this is actually a way of cutting the chains of expectations that surround women is clearly debatable. In many ways, it seems to feed into the old stereotypes that women are only seen and not heard. As long as this doesn't lead to any further action that is relevant for a broader section of society, in my opinion, this has little to do with empowerment. The time spent on rotating around oneself and finding the perfect image of oneself could be spent with many more useful activities that would change the world (and the image and perception of women) in a more positive way. Maybe vanity and narcissism are used as a way of escaping reality and ignoring the larger problems that need to be addressed (like poverty, education, racism, violence, etc.)? Maybe some young people can avoid the world and their responsibility in it as long as they don't admit that they are actually part of it. If they live in vanity and rotate around themselves, they identify more with their online world than the real world, which leads to a whole new set of problems.

As parents, we have to wonder how we can protect our children from this growing trend of vanity. We have to make sure that we raise our kids with enough confidence that they don't need constant reassurance from third parties, that they grow up with a secure belief in themselves and the community around them. We have to let them know that as humans we have to accept ourselves and our bodies and that those images of seemingly perfect people that flood the media are highly edited and unnatural. We have to make sure that they are grounded in the real world, so that they grow up with a feeling of belonging. This will allow them to feel empathy and become active for people who need them and causes that they find worthy. We have to teach them that vanity is short-lived and the important things in life take time and a lot of effort to come to fruition. Real accomplishments through dedication and hard work will earn them respect, whereas even the greatest selfie will only give them fame for a very short time, should they even get there. We have to let them know that vanity leads to isolation and despair and cannot make anyone happy in the end.

What is Laziness?

We all have lazy days when we do not want to get up, drag taking a shower, getting dressed, and simply do not want to accomplish anything. Usually laziness occurs after we have completed a bigger project almost like a reward to ourselves, e.g. after acing a test, doing a good job at a major meeting, signing a big client, etc. We allow ourselves to relax and recover for a short period of time, recharge, and then get ready for the next challenge. However, for some people, laziness has turned from a temporary condition into a chronic condition or a life style. As obesity and physical inactivity are on the rise, laziness has also become an alarming health risk as it is responsible for about 5 million deaths a year that could be prevented.

Chronic laziness has nothing to do with recovery time. Instead, it happens when one would be expected to do something productive, but one cannot and doesn't even intend to do it. While procrastination and laziness share some commonalities since in both cases individuals do not do what they are expected to, psychologists have found that procrastinators intend to do them after a long period of avoiding them, whereas people with chronic laziness have no intention of achieving anything. In their world, the effort it takes to complete a task doesn't seem worth it, so they simply refuse to do it, without consciously deciding so. Laziness is the avoidance of physical and intellectual challenges, any kind of stimulation, change, or long-term goals. The only goal of the chronically lazy individual is the maintenance of status quo. A recent study by Vanderbilt University has detected that not only the minds, but also brain functions were altered in people with chronic laziness. They found that people with less motivation have a different brain activity from those that are highly motivated. Amounts of the chemical dopamine in three brain regions determine if a person is a go-getter or an avoider of work. The chemical does distinct things in different areas of the brain. So while high levels of dopamine in some brain regions were associated with a high work ethic, a spike in another brain region seemed to indicate just the opposite — a person more likely to slack off, even if it meant smaller monetary rewards.

Chronic laziness is like giving up. It is filling time in the most meaningless ways and refusing to live one's life. It is a life without direction, passion, purpose, and connection. Laziness is not only harmful for the body and the brain, but most of all to the self as it systematically reduces self-confidence, self-worth, happiness, and the individual loses the feeling of being connected to the world. As laziness cannot be conquered, the individual loses hope and stability and settles into the mindset of disappointment with himself/herself. This paralysis that chronically lazy individuals find themselves in leads to and is even further increased by lethargy. Psychologists have found that laziness is often connected to Dependent Personality Disorder. An individual affected by this has low self-confidence and doesn't believe in their skills at all so that they are more comfortable to ask others to do something for them, instead of doing it themselves. Laziness has also been linked to Avoidant Personality Disorder, in which an individual is afraid of others' judgment of their performance and thus would rather not do anything (and risk being perceived as ignorant or unskilled) than being judged. A non-psychological, medical condition that chronic laziness has been linked to is Upper Airway Resistance Problem (URAP). URAP is a condition where a patient has smaller than average airway openings that prevent them from getting enough oxygen while in deep sleep. Due to the obstruction of airways, they suffer from chronic sleep deprivation and consider themselves too tired to engage in any kind of effort and thus avoid it. 

An article in the medical journal The Lancet explained in 2012 that for lazy individuals, who get close to no physical activity, the health risk factor is comparable to that of a heavy smoker or someone who is obese. In fact, some current research shows that inactivity now kills more people than smoking, which means that chronic laziness has become even more alarming. It is estimated for the UK that only 7 our of 10 individuals aging 15 and up reach the recommended amount of physical daily exercise. For teenagers aged 13-15 years the numbers are even more dramatic: 4 out of 5 do not move enough. Lack of exercise causes an estimated six percent of coronary heart disease cases, seven percent of type 2 diabetes (the most common form) and 10 percent of breast and colon cancers. Reducing inactivity by a mere 10 percent could eliminate more than half a million deaths every year. In a global comparison, the levels of inactivity in adults were especially alarming in the UK: 63.3% of adults (with higher rates in women than in men) do not meet recommended amounts of activity, such as walking briskly for 30 minutes or more five times a week or taking more vigorous exercise for 20 minutes three times a week. Only the numbers for Serbia and Malta in Europe were worse than those of the UK. For the U.S., the numbers were only slightly better, but still alarmingly high: The Center for Disease Control found that in 2008 about 52% of U.S. adults were not getting the recommended amount of exercise, although these numbers differed greatly with regards to ethnicity, socio-economic status, and level of education. A study by the University of Missouri revealed that blood sugar went increasingly out of control, the longer individuals remained inactive, but if inactivity is the chosen way of life, this experiment showed that the knock-on effect is that the insulin loses its effect and individuals are on the slippery slope to ill health.

Here in the United States, a strong misperception persists about laziness. It is generally assumed that poverty is the direct result of laziness and refusing to work hard, but in most cases the opposite is true. Many poor people have to work extra hard, e.g. several jobs just to get by, some are single parents which adds even more to their plate. In the wrong argumentation people neglect to factor in that here in the United States the social system (although based on hard work) does not grant the same opportunities to all socio-economic classes and once you end up in poverty in a bad neighborhood and a poor school district, it is extremely difficult to ever experience social upward mobility. Historically speaking, it was always the rich people who were physically more inactive as they could afford to hire helpers for any possible physical jobs, like cooking, cleaning, gardening, child-rearing, washing clothes, etc. Throughout history, poor people worked the hardest as they had little or no education and thus had to work more for less money while still having to organize their own lives to keep their families alive and afloat. In social market economies, where the government has a more secure network in place to help people who cannot work (due to mental of physcial restraints), cannot find work (due to high unemployment rate) or cannot find the right kind of work, etc. you will find more cases in which poor people will reject to work for money and chose to solely rely on welfare. In that context, the common link between poor and lazy is a bit more adequate.

With our change to online-culture and increased time spent sitting, inactivity has become much more prominent in the last decade, even more socially acceptable. And although all major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism) condemn laziness, it is still on the rise. All of them admonish their believers in their own way to stay on the religious path and stick to religious habits as a means to fight inertia and don't fall prey to sloth. Buddhism for example even distinguishes between three forms of laziness: 1. not wanting to do anything, 2. discouragement with the task at hand; 3. being too engaged in the world to remain conscious and reflective of oneself and the world. Buddhism also understands only experiencing superficial things and nothing profound (e.g. to many fun activities, but no focus in the self) as a form of boredom. In Hinduism inertia is one of the three ganas: 1. Sattwa = purity; 2. Raja = activeness, and 3. Tamas = inertia. The three ganas, Hindus believe, compete with each other and bind the self to the body. Each individual faces the challenge to keep inertia at bay. They believe that Tamas is born out of ignorance, causes delusion and strongly blinds the affected individual with miscomprehension, laziness, and sleep. In Judaism, time is perceived as sanctified and believers are constantly reminded of the fleeting character of time. Wasting time is considered evil and everyone is encouraged to make the most of every single moment. Similarly, in the Christian realm sloth is perceived as one of the seven deadly sins. "Idleness is the beginning of all vice," people believe. Despite the condemnation of laziness in all major religious and most cultural contexts, still millions of individuals die every year from the effects of physical and mental inactivity.

While chronic laziness has always been negative for one's health and mental state, throughout history the ambition to avoid hard work has served as inspiration for new inventions. Smart people who wanted to avoid physical work, always sought of ways to make life more comfortable and less physically challenging. Bill Gates is quoted having said that he would always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job, because he/she will always find an easy way to do it. In today's modern world however, the necessities and discomforts of survival have become so little challenging and almost non-existent that there is no requirement of physical activity, unless we create it for ourselves. This development requires a far more conscious and responsible individual who is willing to accept the challenge posed by this oversimplified world and consciously reject the path of least resistance. In many industrialized nations a good part of the population has become well aware (some by the "Sitting is the new Smoking" campaign) and try to integrate physical activity more and more into their daily lives. Some walk, run, or otherwise exercise during lunch break, add standing desks to their office furniture or bike or run to work to make sure that they get the recommended amount of physical activity. Next to that we also have to remember to keep challenging ourselves not only physically, but also intellectually, so that we don't fall into the trap of overindulging in time spent in passive, meaningless behaviors. We don't want to be remembered as the ones who did nothing of importance, wasted a lot of time, and died young, but as those who created great memories and added meaning and purpose to their own lives as well as that of others. It is especially important for parents to be role models and to protect their children from the patterns of inactivity, so that they can have a more fulfilling, active, and healthy life. We have to use the limited chain of moments on earth to do good and achieve something worthwhile for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

What is Balance?

We all have busy lives. We have deadlines at work, family obligations and some days we barely manage to do everything we are supposed to do. We worry about traffic and commute. We have to rush to make our meetings on time, being prepared enough. As parents we rush to get everything done for our kids: sign and return permission slips for school, to pack a healthy, well-balanced lunch that they will actually eat;  to pick them up on time; to drop them off to their activities with all the supplies they need; to have a dinner available when the evening comes, of course we strive for home-made and healthy. Most of us don’t have paid helpers, so we have to manage on our own. On many days, we barely make it and compromise our high standards quite a bit. The kid may go to school with not such a healthy lunch after all and dinner may be take-out, some of the clothes may be semi-clean, etc. On most days we experience some kind of stress that comes from rushing all the time. With so busy lives, it seems strange to get up every morning rushing around all day and then go to bed again in order to perform the same dance the next day. It is hectic for most families, but it is so much harder for single parents who work full-time and have to get their kids organized and ready by themselves every day.

In a culture that is so focused on work, it is difficult to find balance. Between working full-time, commuting, and the kid’s activities, there is barely any time to spare. Many people do not even have the time to unwind after a busy day of work, because they are already stressed out about the next day. Living such a hectic life doesn’t seem healthy or sane. It not only makes you wonder how people can endure it in the long run, but you also start doubting the deeper meaning in life. In order to stay healthy, we all need to take time for ourselves. We need unstructured time to relax, recharge and to do “nothing”. We need this valuable time to process things, to remain sharp, but also in order to avoid serious health risks. It allows us to grow, to find what makes us happy, and to progress. 

Unstructured time allows you to figure out what you are really interested in. If you never have free time, how will you know what you like? You keep rushing from one appointment to the next and at the end of a busy day you fall into bed while watching TV without that healthy meal that you had originally promised yourself, you have no time to reflect. When you have some unstructured time, it gives you the chance to take a breather, you can ignore all your to-do-lists for a while and some stress will fall right off you. If instead you run away from the silence that accompanies unstructured time and switch on your TV or radio, you miss an opportunity to refresh your brain. Unstructured time makes you creative. If you have nothing specific to do, you have time to think about things that were on your mind, may get clarity or start to tinker with things. You may enjoy an intellectual challenge that you stumble upon and want to pursue and notice that you like applying your brain in new ways. As some studies have shown, you may have some really great ideas while you are not specifically trying to solve problems or focus on something. Subconsciously, you may be digesting the things that went on at work or in a group setting, but in your free time, you may be able to make sense of it all and find unexpected innovative solutions.

The most creative and innovative thinkers came up with their ideas, inventions or new ways to understand the world while being alone and experiencing unstructured time: Plato sat in his cave, Newton under a tree, Einstein on his bike, and Stephen Jobs in his garage when the innovative ideas hit them. Not that we all have to become geniuses like them or need to develop ideas that have the power to transform the world, but in order to find balance and to understand yourself and your surroundings, we have to spend some time alone in an unstructured environment.

Even for people who don’t work full-time it is hard to find balance. We have the tendency to overdo things that we perceive as important: e.g. if we want to lose weight, our whole life suddenly revolves around the gym, running, swimming, eating, etc. If we focus on being healthy, we tend to instantly devote most of our day to buying great ingredients, cooking and baking fresh foods and observing what we ear. If we want to learn a new skill, we suddenly dive into it, forgetting other things and sometimes people that are important to us. It must be part of human nature that we start obsessing about things. In order to live a healthy life, there needs to be a balance between all the different aspects that make up a good life: the social, intellectual, professional, spiritual, and individual dimensions. If you are not challenged enough in your daily routine, you tend to become lazy and unsatisfied. Even though you don’t have so many things to do, it may get harder and harder for you to do them all, because you are not challenged.

On the other hand, rushing all the time not only makes life less fun, but it also has serious health risks. Recent studies have shown that the levels of hormones that regulate appetite are profoundly influenced by sleep duration and sleep deprivation. Sleep loss is associated with an increase in appetite that is excessive in relation to the caloric demands of extended wakefulness. At the same time, when we feel under stress, we start producing a stress hormone that slows down our metabolism so that we can survive longer on less food. So, if we don’t sleep enough, the production of the appetite reducer is inhibited and we tend to eat more, even though we are not hungry. Due to the lack of sleep, we will not be able to control out food intake levels which necessarily leads to increased waistlines and an increased risk for diabetes. At the same time, gaining weight causes even more stress. Instead of sleeping more to counteract the process, we chose the opposite and make our life even more hectic: schedule more time for the gym and may end up getting even less sleep because of it, which again will increase our waistline.

Balance is not only a problem that parents and adults struggle with, but it also deeply affects children. Many children have lives that are far too busy and too structured. After school, they usually to go to after school care or have scheduled activities, like soccer, baseball, basketball, instrument lessons, etc. or they have planned playdates, visits to doctors, the library, museums or any other kind or activities organized by their well-meaning parents. Recent studies comparing child-raising in the United States with that of other nations have found that in order for children to grow up to be independent, well-rounded, creative, and smart, they need a larger amount of unstructured time, in which children can discover the world through role play. Extensive role play in young years, can free them from anxiety as they practice living through dangerous situations through play. It also allows them to figure out what they are good at and what they enjoy. Having more free or unstructured time as a child, these studies found, makes us smarter, braver, and much more creative. 

As long as the U.S. system doesn’t have the provisions for working parents to take better care of their children (e.g. paternity leave, extended maternity leave, reduced or more flexible work-week for parents) that already exist in many other countries, the weekly rush will probably not change. This means that finding balance is left up to us adults/parents. We have to make a more conscious effort to allow ourselves to rest and sleep enough and to raise our children in an environment that does not keep them busy all day. Instead, we have to allow them to experience plenty of unstructured time that challenges them to be creative and in which they can discover themselves and the world.

What Exactly is Time?

As we prepared and celebrated my older daughter’s birthday last week, I was thinking back to all the milestone moment in her life, wondering how we made it this far, and ELEVEN years passed by so quickly. Isn’t it strange? We have proof that it has been eleven years, but still it seemed so much shorter (even though some of the days felt that they would never end).  Why do we perceive time as expanding sometimes and standing still at others? What makes it go faster and what slows it down? Which factors play into changes in its perception? Time is never the same. It seems to be tied to emotions and it also has to do with one’s stage in life. Since Einstein we know that time is relative. It changes according to perception and according to the system that it is bound to. But what does that even mean? And how does perception of time change over the course of one’s life?

For children, time seems to consist of long periods of waiting for specific activities and events to occur. They focus on events and developments in the future. They get excited and try to figure out how long they have to wait before those events are finally there. As soon as they can, they ask e.g. if it is their birthday yet, how many days until their favorite holiday, and when will they see grandma again. Their focus on events in the future converts big chunks of the present into waiting time. The past is not at all interesting for them. There are lots of hope, dreams, and aspirations tied to their perception of they future.  They dream about what they want to be, where and how they want to live, who they may consider marrying, etc.

When we become parents, the focus shifts abruptly, as our lives suddenly get dominated not only by the needs of others, but also by the shift from the focus on the future (awaiting the day the baby will be born) to the present (baby needs to be fed and cleaned, etc.). Work has to be accomplished in the here and now so that the child has a bright, healthy, and promising future. The parents then await the child to reach their developmental milestones, but their own focus is the present. Events of the future have to be considered, planned, and executed. At work everything is about getting the task done that needs to be accomplished at that specific moment, deadlines haunt us. At home it is not much different. All the little things have to be prepared, breakfasts served, lunches and snacks packed, laundry cleaned, etc. If a birthday is approaching, like in our house recently, not only the gifts, the cupcakes, the birthday cake have to be organized and delivered to the appropriate places at the correct times, but most likely a party will be held to mark the milestone, which also entails careful preparation. While children probably only have an awareness of the upcoming party, parents are well aware of all the work that leads up to the special event. So in this stage of life we have to be focused on the present. Often we get overwhelmed because it seems that there is not enough time to accomplish everything that needs to be done. Lots of people feel that they are “running out of time” or “have no time.”

As we age and our kids leave us to live their own lives, we tend to live more and more in the past, remembering good and bad times in our childhood and thinking back to the memorable days when our own children reached their specific milestones. Focus shifts to the past and time starts to be measured by the time SINCE something happened: “five days since my daughter called me” or “two weeks since I saw them”. Time is measured in the intervals that are between the visits with family and friends and time spent together. Again, like in childhood, there are long stretches of waiting time that are not filled with so many aspirations for the future as memories of the past.

We all know well about the physical changes through which the passing of time manifests itself. For children, these signs are hopefully awaited (first lost tooth, first beard hair, first signs of development) as they signify the entering into a new phase in life. They want to grow and become full members of society. For parents, it is a dreaded shift, that people are determined to stall as long as possible or to fight head-on. Who wants to have grey hair, an increasing waistline, and wrinkles? There is a multi-billion dollar industry making profits from us all not willing to accept the process of aging, but that may be a good theme for a different blog post.

How we experience the passing of time is not only linked to our stage in life, but also to all kinds of emotions. When we are having a good time for example, time appears to pass very quickly, “it flies”. And when we are bored or waiting for something to happen is seems to drag endless or even “stands still.” But intense emotions seem to have an even more profound effect on our way of experiencing time. When we grieve the death of a loved one or suffer from a break-up of a long relationship, we only feel grief and sadness. It consumes us. There is no room for anything else. The same thing is true for the opposite emotions. When we are completely happy for example, laughing with our kids, rolling on the floor, we are consumed by happiness. We BECOME that emotion and time seems to stand still. We do not think about anything else, not the future, not the past, we just completely live in the moment. Similarly, when we immerse ourselves in an activity that we love to do (for some it may be their job, for others it may be a hobby), we tend to forget things around us and completely live in the moment. As if space and time become irrelevant. (Just think about new lovers who seem to forget time.) So, perception of time, it seems,  also has to do with our undivided attention, but it also has to do with how well we immerse ourselves in the activity that we are engaged in at the moment.

Studies have shown that meditation can alter the perception of time by changing mechanisms in the brain. While meditating, the outside world is systematically blocked out and the focus shifts to inside the body and the mind. As a result, influences that usually distract us, are contained before they even get to us. This not only improves our mental and physical health, but also can adjust our perception of time through relaxation and re-shifting focus. Time then “slows down” again. Buddhist monks for example are able to conduct so focused meditations (and slow their breaths) that sitting still and focusing on the inside, they believe, allows them to see a glimpse of the divine that may allow them to escape the everlasting cycle of rebirth and life. That means that focus, in a way, can help us escape the boundaries of time. The same mechanism is at work while practicing yoga. By remaining in yoga poses, slowing one's breaths and concentrating on the muscles used to remain still in the poses, focus can also be shifted and time perception can be altered subsequently.

So what do we get from this? Besides me finding it extremely interesting to think about, it may help us when we get caught up in daily rushes and worries. Maybe when we “run out of time” it is good to stop for a minute and consider the moment that we live in and refocus on the important things. In the end, time is all we have in life. The more memorable moments we create for us and for others, the more beautiful memories we can look back on and contemplate once we are old and have more time. 

Is a Hug Just a Hug?

Recently the hug between U.S. President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Modi has gained a lot of traction in the media. Apparently it was a signal that the U.S. entered into a special relationship with India. The NYT reported that Obama did not expect anything other than a firm handshake after leaving his plane in India, but instead he had been upgraded to a welcome with a big hug. 

So with all the talk about what that specific hug actually means for the U.S.-Indian relationship, I can’t help but remember the hugs between leaders of the Eastern Bloc nations during the Cold War. The most memorable one for me (as a Western German) is the one between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and Eastern German General Secretary Erich Honecker from 1979 (see below).

But hugs as political statement also lead to the more general question about the meaning of a tight squeeze. How much can one actually read into a hug? Does a hug always imply a silent message? And does a hug always mark the beginning of a special relationship? We all know that a hug is normally exchanged between close friends and family. Even between colleagues who celebrate special occasions such as birthdays, the birth of a new baby, getting married or engaged, for job promotions, baptisms, etc. But we also hug on sad occasions like funerals, after break-ups, after having failed. It always sends the message that one is not alone and can count on you, right?

But there are also lots of grey areas, where it is rather unclear whether a hug is appropriate or expected or the opposite. Have you ever had moments when you were not really sure? When you have no idea, if you should hug a person for hello and goodbye? I have experienced plenty or weirdness around hugs in different countries and distinct situations. First of all, there are cultural differences. When I lived in Denmark and slowly began to make new friends from a broad spectrum of religious, cultural, and national backgrounds, there was a lot of not knowing whether a hug would be appropriate. Yes, there seem to be cultural and social rules to hugging. The most culturally opposite with respect to hugging, if I remember correctly from my student days, were people from Latin America who were very inclusive with their hugs and those from China who were rather stiff and seemed to avoid all physical contact. 

"We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. 

We need 12 hugs a day for growth."

Medically, it is proven that hugs help people to stay healthy and stay connected. Every person needs 8 hugs per day to improve immunity, release tension, stress, and improve self-esteem and empathy. You may remember the image of a set of premature twin babies in a neonatal unit that was floating around the social media sites last year in which one of the twins was expected not to be able to survive.

Despite her orders, the supervising nurse placed the stronger twin into the bed with the weaker twin  and the most amazing thing happened: the stronger baby placed its arm around the sibling and thus helped her survive by embracing her. The hug helped to raise the sibling’s body temperature and stabilized her condition to that extent that she was able to survive.

This means that hugs have power. With every hug that is at least 10 seconds long the hormone oxytocin is released in our bodies. The result is not only improved self-esteem, the capability of fighting depression, it strengthens our immune system, lowers the risk of heart disease, and fights infections. Oxytocin also decreases the level of stress hormones (primarily cortisol) in our body and lowers our blood pressure response to anxiety-producing events. 

Medical evidence about the power of hugs goes even further: If parents hug their children every day and a hug lasts more than 10 seconds, the children will have a raised self-confidence and will walk through life much happier than those who don’t. One study of mothers affection towards their young children demonstrated that the brain volume of children with a nurturing and hugging mother was 10% larger than that of children with a mother that was not nurturing and didn't hug much. So there is a direct correlation between the development of a child’s brain and better memory and the amount of affection received from their primary care giver. Also another study showed that kids who did not get hugged enough have delayed development in walking, talking, and reading.

So what does it mean in the bigger picture? It means that we should stop worrying about those awkward seconds when we are about to greet a-not-so-close friend and embrace the moment. Carpe diem! Throw all those doubts overboard, denounce cultural, social taboos and lean in for the hug! Make sure to get your recommended 12 hugs a day to stay healthy and happy and form many special relationships.