How to Stop Feeling Guilty About Everything

Constantly feeling guilty gnaws at your emotional well-being and causes negativity to snowball. “It can make you feel defeated, anxious, or even depressed,” says Susan Krauss Whitbourne, PhD, professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. And we often beat ourselves up for no good reason, she adds: “Most of the time, we manufacture guilt in our minds simply because of the ridiculous expectations we set for ourselves.” Yank yourself out of the spiral with this three-week plan to being your own best friend. 

Week 1: ID your guilt triggers

“If you can learn to pause and recognize when you feel guilt coming on, you're halfway toward fixing the problem,” says Whitbourne. So right off the bat, get to the bottom of what makes you feel the most remorse. 

Pay attention: Notice any moments you feel guilty, as well as what prompted the pangs (you missed a deadline, you spent a lot of money). It may help to take some notes, either on paper or in your smartphone. 

Check the frequency: Did you get ticked at yourself each time you bought a $15 lunch this week? Do you lie in bed every night wishing you'd been more patient with your kids? Track how often specific subjects leave you regretful. 

Group the majors and minors: At the end of the week, pinpoint the issues that incited guilt more than once or weighed on you more heavily than others. (You'll deal with the lesser regrets in week three.) 

RELATED: 5 Reasons You Always Feel Guilty (and How to Stop Being So Hard on Yourself) 

Week 2: Change your perspective

"You don't want to try to just be 'over' a guilt that's coming up a lot for you," says Whitbourne. "Pull it out, look at it and come up with some alternative interpretations."

Envision a redo: Think (or even talk out loud) about what you wish you were doing differently-maybe you want to have a better attitude at work, or you think you should reel in your spending by creating a budget. “It doesn't mean you have to go out and make some drastic change right this minute, but you're talking about it, and that's productive,” says Susie Moore, a life coach in New York City and the author of What If It Does Work Out?. 

Pick a different emotion: "Guilt and sadness and anxiety are all on a continuum in a way,” says Whitbourne. “And when we're stressed, it's easy to be self-critical." Try asking, "Wait, does it really make sense to be feeling guilty at this moment? Or am I letting stress get to me?” 

Realize you're human: "Perfectionism is often what drives guilt," says Whitbourne. "At some point, you have to just accept your limitations." Moore adds that it can even help to tell yourself, "No mom or wife or employee is doing everything flawlessly."

RELATED: This Is What the Scary Side of Perfectionism Looks Like

Week 3: Shake off the small stuff

"To say you will never feel guilty again about something silly would be ridiculous," says Whitbourne. "But it's important to recognize when you may be blowing things out of proportion." Practice short-circuiting your regret when it's truly unnecessary. 

Reframe a fail: Look at it with a practical eye. Instead of "I shouldn't have left the office early today with my current workload," tell yourself, "I needed to cut out in order to attend this doctor's appointment that was long overdue." 

Laugh it off: "Humor is one of the greatest antidotes to guilt," says Whitbourne. Poke fun at yourself: You ran out of time to bake and brought a store-bought dessert to the holiday party? How dare you even show up! 

Find a silver lining: Let's say you're upset because you slapped together your gift wrapping this year. "Well, you also didn't go to the department store and have them wrap it for you," says Whitbourne. "You're showing the person that you love them enough to put in the effort."

Repealing The Affordable Care Act Could Be More Complicated Than It Looks

After six controversial years, the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, may be on the way out, thanks to the GOP sweep of the presidency and both houses of Congress Tuesday.

“There's no question Obamacare is dead,” said insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski. “The only question is whether it will be cremated or buried.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) confirmed Wednesday that repealing the law is something that's “pretty high on our agenda.”

But promising to make the law go away, as President-elect Donald Trump did repeatedly, and actually figuring out how to do it, are two very different things.

“Washington is much more complicated once you're here than it appears to be from the outside,” said William Pierce, a consultant who served in both the George W. Bush Department of Health and Human Services and on Capitol Hill for Republicans.

For example, a full repeal of the health law would require 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. Given the small GOP majority in the Senate, “they would have to convince six or eight Democrats to come with them to repeal. That seems highly unlikely,” Pierce said.

Republicans could-and likely would-be able to use a budget procedure to repeal broad swaths of the law. The “budget reconciliation” process would let Republicans pass a bill with only a majority vote and not allow opponents to use a filibuster to stop movement on the bill.

But that budget process has its own set of byzantine rules, including one that requires that any changes made under reconciliation directly affect the federal budget: in other words, the measure must either cost or save money. That means “they can only repeal parts” of the law, said Pierce.

Republicans have a ready-made plan if they want to use it. The budget bill they passed late last year would have repealed the expansions of Medicaid and subsidies that help low- and middle-income families purchase health insurance on the law's marketplaces, among other things. President Barack Obama vetoed the measure early this year.

That bill also included, as Vice President-Elect Mike Pence promised in a speech last week in Pennsylvania, “a transition period for those receiving subsidies to ensure that Americans don't face disruption or hardship in their coverage.” The bill passed by the GOP Congress at the end of 2015 set that date at Dec. 31, 2017.

Delaying the repeal date could work in Republicans' favor, said Laszewski. “Then they'll turn to the Democrats and say, 'Work with us to replace it or be responsible for the explosion,'” he said.

But Tim Westmoreland, a former House Democratic staffer who teaches at Georgetown Law School, said that strategy won't work. “I don't think people will see the Democrats as responsible if it all blows up,” he said.

Meanwhile, Republicans have only the broadest outlines of what could replace the law. Trump's campaign website has bullet-point proposals to allow health insurance sales across state lines and to expand health savings accounts-which allow consumers to save money, tax-free, that can be used only for health care expenses. House Republicans last summer offered up a slightly more detailed outline that includes creating “high-risk pools” for people with preexisting health conditions and turning the Medicaid program back to state control through a block-grant program.

Yet even Democrats are convinced that Obama's signature accomplishment is on the chopping block. “A lot of people say, 'Oh, they can't really mean it. They wouldn't really take health insurance away from 20 million people'” who have gained it under the law, John McDonough, a former Democratic Senate staffer, said at a Harvard School of Public Health Symposium last week. “How many times do [Republicans] have to say it before we take them seriously?”

One possibility, according to William Hoagland, a former GOP Senate budget expert now at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, is that Republicans could use the budget process to combine tax reform with health policy changes. “And a reconciliation bill that includes reforms in Obamacare and tax reform starts to become a negotiable package” that could attract both Republicans and potentially some Democrats, who are also interested in remaking tax policy.

But if Congress does pass the GOP's “repeal” before the “replace,” it needs to make sure that insurers will continue to offer coverage during the transition.

“Are [Republicans] going to invite insurers in and listen?” said Rodney Whitlock, a former House and Senate Republican health staffer. If there is no acceptable transition plan, “insurers can say the same thing to the Republicans that they've been saying to Democrats,” said Whitlock, which is that they are leaving the market.

That's something that concerns insurance consultant Laszewski, who says that already there are more sick than healthy people signing up for individual coverage under the law. With probable repeal on the horizon, he said, that's likely to get even worse. “A lot of [healthy] people will say, 'Why sign up now? I'm going to wait until they fix it.'”

And if that happens, he said, there might not be any insurers offering coverage for the transition.

 

This article originally appeared on KHN.org

This New Patch Can Monitor Patient's Vital Signs With High Accuracy

Hospital patients could have their vital signs tracked without cumbersome wires and complex monitors once a new startup's wearable monitoring patch hits the market.

VitalConnect is building a lightweight, disposable patch that can be affixed to a patient's chest and wirelessly sends vital signs including heart rate, ECG read out and rate of breathing to a mobile app. The patch has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and provides clinical grade accuracy in monitoring, the company said.

“It is very small, comfortable and fully disposable,” Dr. Nersi Nazari, VitalConnect's CEO, said on Wednesday during a demonstration at the Fortune Brainstorm Health conference. One patch can be worn for four to five days and can survive getting wet in the shower, he noted.

The patch, which could also be worn by patients at home, has the ability to detect if the wearer has fallen down. If a fall is detected, the patch can wirelessly notify a doctor or other party.

VitalConnect is also developing a cloud-based service to analyze the health data collected by the patches. The software ultimately could help physicians decide how to treat a patient or decide when the patient is ready to be discharged from the hospital, Nazari said.

For more about medical wearables, see: Can a Wearable Fitness Device Predict Your Heart Attack?

“The data is sliced and diced and analyzed to the condition that the doctor is looking at,” Nazari explained. “We do not want to bombard doctors with so much data that it's just not useful.”

VitalConnect, founded in 2011, is seeking to combine expertise in bioengineering and data analytics. Nazari previously worked on semiconductor chip design at Marvell Semiconductor. Joseph Roberson, the company's chief medical officer, was formerly chief of otology-neurotology-skull base surgery at Stanford University.

 

This article originally appeared on Fortune.com.

How to Start a Gratitude Habit in 21 Days

Why give thanks? Plain and simple, feeling grateful is good for us. Research shows that counting your blessings has many benefits, from better sleep to reduced depression. “It helps you connect to others and be more optimistic and less likely to ruminate over the negative,” says Emiliana Simon-Thomas, PhD, science director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Cementing the habit takes minimal effort. Follow this 21-day path to more appreciative living. 

Week 1: Notice the good

“Gratitude isn't one-size-fits-all,” says sociologist and happiness expert Christine Carter, PhD. These tips help you be thankful in a way that makes sense for you. 

Think in threes: Start off each morning by identifying three things you're grateful for (your kids, your comfy bedsheets, your cute toes-anything). Try not to repeat things, advises Carter, and get more specific and detailed as you go: “For a daily gratitude practice to really be effective, there needs to be novelty so you don't just get on autopilot,” she says. 

Choose your weapon: For some, journaling about the three good things works; others may prefer sharing them with a friend via text or using the voice recorder on their smartphone. 

Talk the talk: The most grateful people have learned to use language that emphasizes gifts, blessings, fortune, and abundance, says gratitude expert Robert Emmons, PhD. “Less grateful people are preoccupied with burdens, deprivations, entitlements, and complaints,” he explains. Instead of saying, “Ugh, I cannot believe I had to wait so long to get a day off,” try, “What an opportunity this free time is.”

RELATED: How You Answer This Question Says a Lot About Your Happiness

Week 2: Go beyond yourself

Improve how you dish out thanks toward your loved ones and community, still keeping in mind the gratitude guidelines from week one. 

Upgrade “thanks”: Express appreciation to someone every day this week, being super specific. "Thank you for taking care of the kids while I was away on business" is much more powerful than "Thanks for everything this weekend."

Pen a letter: Write a heartfelt note to a mentor, family member, or friend detailing how he or she has impacted your life in a positive way. If possible, read it aloud in person, or schedule a video chat session to share it.

Be of service: "Most people end up feeling extra grateful for their own blessings when they give back in some way," says Simon-Thomas. Find a volunteering opportunity that interests you and schedule time to participate.

RELATED: 22 Ways to Get Happy Now

Week 3: Think outside the box

Now it's all about seeing good fortune everywhere. 

Look for unexpected heroes: Don't journal just about people who've helped you, says Emmons, but also about those who've been there for your loved ones. When you list your three good things this week, call out these indirect joy bringers (like the caretaker who assists your ailing mom, the teacher who is endlessly patient with your child or the great guy about to marry your BFF).

Find silver linings: Write down three less-than-perfect experiences and consider how they actually benefited you. Perhaps quitting a bad job opened the door to a new opportunity. Or maybe you're thankful that an ex was brave enough to end your relationship when you both knew it wasn't working anymore.

Take it to the office: "The workplace is one of the places gratitude is lacking the most," says Simon-Thomas. Show a boss, peer, or intern some appreciation this week. Don't be surprised if the good vibes come back to you. Gratitude often has a boomerang effect.

7 Health Truths We Wish We Knew in Our 20s

Your 20s aren't exactly a breeze. Most quarter-lifers are just starting to live on their own, figure out a career path, and look for a life partner, all at the same time. As a result, good-for-you habits don't always feel like a top priority-but some really do matter. That's why we tapped our editors over 30 to share the health truths they wish they'd known in their younger years. Read on if you still think instant ramen is a well-balanced meal…

RELATED: How to Survive a Quarter-Life Crisis and Find Your True Purpose

Make friends with fat

"Fat is not the enemy. It's an essential nutrient, important for so many major functions in the body, and essential for brain health. Eat more fat!" -Beth Lipton, food director 

Listen to your body

"I wish I had known to take better care of my joints and not to ignore the signs something was wrong. I never thought about the importance of mobility exercises, stretching, foam rolling, or recovery, because I could easily go running or do CrossFit classes without feeling much pain or discomfort. It never occurred to me that maybe someday I wouldn't be so invincible. Then, at the ripe old age of 28, everything started to hurt all the time-especially my right hip. To make a long story short, I now have permanent damage to that joint because I had ignored a lot of warning signs that I was injured. These days, I am much more diligent about foam rolling before and after every workout, warming up and cooling down properly, and generally just treating my body in a way that will ensure I'll be able to stay active and fit for the rest of my life." -Christine Mattheis, deputy editor 

Lather up 

"Wear sunscreen every day. Seriously, every day. I apply SPF on my face and neck and whatever's left over, I put on the back of my hands. Also, self tanner is your bff." -Tomoko Takeda, acting beauty director

RELATED: What You Can Do in Your 20s and 30s to Prevent Physical Decline in Your 50s and 60s

Eat right

"One big thing I have learned since my 20s concerns nutrition/diet and basic eating sense. I had very little nutritional literacy in my 20s, very little idea about what made up a balanced, healthy diet, and very little consciousness about how food choices affected energy levels, mindset, and a general sense of well being. I might get a bad night's sleep, then eat a Big Mac or a giant Italian hoagie for lunch the next day, each loaded with refined carbs, and then be mystified about why I would hit a carb crash and slip into a food coma for the next two hours. It wasn't until years later (and in part by starting to work at Health!) that I picked up some basics about nutrition, cooking, creating balanced meals that gave me energy. Now my number one prerogative when I eat lunch is what will keep me feeling as energized and alert as possible, and I know the ingredients to put into the meal that will help me do this." -Michael Gollust, research editor

Strengthen, strengthen, strengthen

"I wish I had done more strength training in my 20s! I was all cardio, all the time, not realizing that you can strengthen your bones up to age 30, but after that it tends to decline. You might say I wished I stashed more in my 'bone bank' when I was younger. It's not impossible to 'save up' after age 30, but it's harder." -Theresa Tamkins, editor-in-chief, Health.com

Just do you

"Stick to what feels right for you, regardless of what a friend or a significant other is doing. At times I gave into eating or drinking in ways that didn't feel right for me because I didn't want to be different from friends, or to go along with what my partner wanted to do. You know, that social eating/drinking pressure. As I got older I realized that wasn't necessary. I can be with a friend and have a water during happy hour if I don't feel like drinking, or say no if my hubby wants to split an order of fries. It's not at all about depriving myself (in fact, looking back I felt like I was depriving myself of feeling good when I gave in); it's about knowing and honoring what feels right for you in that moment. Splurging sometimes is great, even important, but do so on your own terms." -Cynthia Sass, contributing nutrition editor

Love yourself

"This isn't really a health truth, but more a life truth: I wish every woman in her 20s knew how beautiful she was! I look at pictures of myself in my 20s, when I often felt gawky and unsure, and wish I'd realized that I was actually so lovely-not because I think I'm such hot stuff, but because there's this vibrant energy that you have when you're that age that's really wonderful and attractive. Everyone has it! Women in your 20s, own it!" -Jeannie Kim, executive deputy editor

How to Survive a Quarter-Life Crisis and Find Your True Purpose

During my quarter-life crisis, I felt paralyzed to make a change. I felt like I was at the intersection of hopeless, stuck, and FOMO (or fear of missing out).

I said to myself, “I hate my job and I want to do something else, but I don't know where to start. I'm interested in so many things, but none of them seem perfect. All my friends on Facebook are so happy and successful. My friend is a Forbes 30 Under 30. My buddy is traveling around Thailand. My friend just got engaged. I'm tired of being single. I'm a failure.”

Everything feels impossible during a quarter-life crisis, even small decisions like which shampoo to buy, or which show to watch on Netflix. 

But the five simple steps below helped me get through that period of intense confusion-and eventually, find my true purpose. I hope these tips will be helpful as you discover yours.

Stop the comparisons

Social media has made it all but impossible to avoid comparing yourself to others. We see only the coolest parts of our friends' lives, like when they get a new job, fall in love, or travel somewhere beautiful. We think, “Wow, I really need to get my act together.”  All of us are figuring it out, even our friends whose Instagram grass looks really green. All of us are on different paths, with no right or wrong answer. Comparing yourself to others is a waste of time. Stop worrying about what other people think and start figuring out what you want.

RELATED: Elizabeth Gilbert Shares Her Secrets to Living a More Creative Life

Pursue what's meaningful to you

If you want to turn your quarter-life crisis into a breakthrough, you have to stop focusing on everyone else's noise, and start asking yourself why you're here. What do you care most about? What do you want to do for the world? What are you really good at? What types of people do you want to surround yourself with? How much money do you need to live your desired lifestyle? I call this finding alignment between who you are and how you're spending your days.

Turn your doubt into action

When I was stuck in my old job, fear of the unknown often kept me up all night. This doubt never really goes away, but I've learned that we can turn our doubts into research, into positive energy that takes us closer to our next lily pad. If you write your doubts and fears on paper, you can begin to take tangible action steps toward figuring out what's next in your life. This might mean reading a book that interests you, signing up for a class, launching a crowdfunding campaign for a creative project, starting a blog, attending a cool conference or event, traveling somewhere you always wanted to go, having coffee with a mentor, or pursuing an apprenticeship or volunteer opportunity that excites you.

Find a community of people who believe in the beauty of your dreams

Surviving a quarter-life crisis is the result of both hard work and finding the right people to support your journey. You can't do it alone. Building a community of believers is the difference between your breakthrough being a dream and a dream come true. So, start finding people who make you better. People who inspire you; who are creative, who are living for others, who hold you accountable. Depending on where you live, believers might be easy or incredibly difficult to find. Attend conferences, ask your network for ideas, and use social media to find local meet-up groups based on your interests.

RELATED: 8 Promises Every Woman Should Make to Herself

Practice weekly self-care rituals

When I was stuck in my quarter-life crisis, overworked and stressed, I definitely wasn't taking care myself-and I got shingles! I didn't give myself time to eat well, see friends, meditate, write in my journal, or exercise. If you don't take care of your body, it's nearly impossible to reach your goals or help anyone else reach theirs. Finding your purpose doesn't translate to applying to as many to jobs online as you possibly can. Finding your purpose means spending time doing the things you love, with the people you love most. It also means learning how to be kind to yourself. So, what are three things you can do to be kind to yourself this week? Think about ways you can treat yourself, take care of yourself, and create yourself.

If you're lucky, practicing self-love might even bring you closer to the purpose you've been searching for.

Adapted from The Quarter-Life Breakthrough: Invent Your Own Path, Find Meaningful Work, and Build a Life That Matters by Adam Smiley Poswolsky, available from TarcherPerigee/Penguin Random House. Subscribe for more career resources at smileyposwolsky.com.

 

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