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HeartyPsych PsychWELLNESS

How to Maintain a Healthy Relationship with your Spouse During Coronavirus Lockdown

LockdownSince we all are under lockdown, we are spending a lot of time with our spouse. This can be a welcome change for some but for some it can be quite stressful too. There are plenty of data to suggest that divorce rates increase during natural disasters. On the other hand, these may also be times when a much stronger bond can be formed between a couple. Here are a few tips that can help you maintain a healthy relationship, especially during lockdown, and form an even stronger bond with your partner:

Share the load: Share the burden of domestic work and any other daily work as much as you can, and in whichever way you can. It will not only lower the physical burden of your spouse but it will also make him/her feel loved.

Spend gadget-free time: As we all are at home, we are spending too much time on gadgets, mobiles, tablets, TVs, etc. To maintain a healthy and sound relationship with your partner, it is important that both of you spend at least some quality time together without these gadgets around.

Communicate: During such difficult and stressful times, it becomes even more important that you keep communication open. Share your concerns and worries with each other. Communicating your worries and concerns with your spouse will not only make them feel wanted, but you may find a solution to them too. You may also find that many of your worries are not even valid.

Get alone time: This lockdown has caused major disturbances in our daily routines. We are getting very less or no time at all for ourselves. We are surrounded by our family members, all the time, which is not a bad thing though, but getting no alone time can also lead to stress. The stress, in turn, can cause sudden emotional outbursts which can spoil the harmony between the partners. So to maintain a healthy relationship, it is important that we spend some time with ourselves as well, by reading or listening to music of our own choice. It will help us stay energized and refreshed. Stay together but give each other some space as well.

Find common interests: Find things that are of interest to both of you. Maybe you both enjoy watching movies or you both love to cook. Find out things where you can work together as a team, play cards, solve puzzles, etc. Games not only help you stay mentally and physically active and healthy, but they also build team spirit. Find games that need collective efforts.

Appreciate: Appreciation is a way to convey to the other person that his or efforts are acknowledged and respected. During this COVID-19 situation, it is vital that you keep appreciating the efforts of your partner no matter how small they are. Thank your partner for doing laundry, preparing food, or going out to buy essentials with full conviction. Your appreciation will definitely increase their motivation.

Practice patience and compassion: This phase also requires that you maintain patience and show compassion toward your partner. Let go of his/her small mistakes and try to overlook such habits that you don’t like. Now is the time to be sensitive to the feelings of the other person. Be a little patient and take your partner’s perspective into consideration before reacting. Remember these are extraordinary circumstances, which require extraordinary efforts on our part.

Be creative: Find creative ideas to keep the love and affection alive in your relationship. Arrange a romantic candle-light dinner or a romantic movie date with your spouse at home. Bring in all the creativity that you can, to make your partner feel loved.

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HeartyPsych PsychLINKS

Why Communication Contains a Lot of Lies

Source link: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/peace-and-war/202002/why-communication-contains-lot-lies

Do you think communication is an effort to share truth? It ain’t necessarily so!

One of the most provocative insights of today’s evolutionary biology is that animal communication isn’t as simple—or as honest—as had been thought. And more provocatively yet, the same is almost certainly true of people, too.

Evolutionary biologists sometimes appear to be cynics, focusing on the self-serving motivations behind even pro-social behaviors, whether of animals or people. Thus, “altruism” is seen as resulting from the impact of genes that are basically selfish. Courtship is viewed through the lens of competitive male-vs-female strategies. As it happens, biologists such as myself probably are cynics, and for good reason: the evolutionary process rewards behavior that benefits whoever does the behaving (actually, his or her genes), not the recipient.

This is especially the case when it comes to communication, something that non-biologists typically see as a benevolent, shared effort, whose goal is to convey information as accurately as possible. But is there truth behind this cheery, positive perspective?

Let’s begin at the beginning: What is communication? It won’t do in this case to quote Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who, speaking of pornography, famously observed that he may not be able to define it, but he knows it when he sees it—because, in fact, people often do not know communication when they see it. Or rather, they are often deceived about it. And that is precisely the point.

The traditional understanding of “communication” is well captured by its Latin origin: Communist refers to sharing, the result being something that is held “in common.” Those who communicate are thus members of the same “community.” For a less pro-social and more stripped-down scientific definition, communication is simply the transfer of information from a sender to a receiver. It is widely assumed that during this transfer, the sender benefits by sending and the receiver by receiving. In the early days of so-called classical ethology, as pioneered by the biologists Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz, this optimistic and naïve view of communication held sway. Sender and receiver were thought to be “on the same page,” with senders indicating, for instance, their internal state (aggressive, defensive, sexually aroused, etc.) by various postures and behavior, and receivers concerned only with decoding the messages as accurately as possible.

What gets in the way, according to this perspective, is mostly the physical space between different individuals, plain old distance that must be crossed by all signals – whether visual, auditory, chemical, and so forth – and that accordingly introduces unavoidable confusion and error. There is also the simple fact that sender and receiver are distinct creatures, each with its own sense organs and nervous systems, which introduces yet more opportunities for miscommunication.

In this dance of mutual benefit, the undisputed champion has been a dance itself: The celebrated “dance of the bees,” by which a foraging honeybee, having discovered a good food source, communicates its location—with remarkable accuracy—to others within a darkened hive. (This research was conducted by Karl von Frisch, who joined Lorenz and Tinbergen in being awarded a Nobel Prize in 1973.)

There is no reason to suspect a dancing scout bee of dishonesty, No biological payoff has yet been identified whereby a bee, having discovered a bunch of yummy flowers, would misrepresent its location to her sisters. But as evolutionary theorists eventually realized, other cases are likely to be much darker. For most creatures other than bees, communication is no bed of roses. The problem basically is that senders do not necessarily have any commitment to conveying the truth as such. Rather, they—or rather, their genes—are simply interested in maximizing their own evolutionary success. And they can often achieve this by influencing the behavior of someone else: In such cases, whatever the recipient is receiving, it isn’t necessarily benevolence. Or truth.

We are accustomed to deceit in animal communication when it operates between different species. That’s what camouflage, for example, is all about: a ptarmigan, white against the winter snow, says “I’m not here.” A stick insect says “I’m a stick, not an insect.” Other potential prey items claim to be a leaf or some bird droppings. Bright yellow circles inscribed on the wings of a moth, which – when they suddenly pop open – and deceive a would-be moth-eater by revealing what seems to be the eyes of an owl that preys upon whatever might otherwise be trying to prey upon the moth.

These examples should italicize the important fact that when it comes to the underlying biology of communication, neither honesty nor dishonesty implies anything about consciousness or intentionality. A moth whose wings possess owl-mimicking eye-spots has no need to know that this is the case or that deception is under way. The overwhelming likelihood, in fact, is that he or she has no such knowledge. Many flowers resemble bees or wasps, thereby inducing a foraging insect to copulate with them, in the process pollinating the next flower to be sexually accosted. It is highly unlikely that the plants in question are aware of the deception; rather, flowers that did a good job seducing insects left more descendants than others that were less sexually appealing.

HeartyPsych PsychQUOTES

20 Communication Quotes

1. Communication is everyone’s panacea for everything.

—Tom Peters

2. Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

—Jim Rohn

3. To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.

—Tony Robbins

4. Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh

5. As long as there is communication, everything can be solved.

—Robert Trujillo

6. Honest communication is built on truth and integrity and upon respect of the one for the other.

—Benjamin E. Mays

7. It sounds so trite but in relationships, you have to communicate.

—Peter Krause

8. Lack of communication is the key to any successful relationship going wrong.

—Pepa

9. If what is communicated is false, it can hardly be called communication.

—Benjamin E. Mays

10. The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.

—Edward R. Murrow

11. A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

—James Madison

12. Without a possibility of change in meanings, human communication could not perform its present functions.

—Kenneth L. Pike

13. Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.

—Pearl S. Buck

14. Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

—Robert Frost

15. Civilization grew in the beginning from the minute that we had communication …

—Thor Heyerdahl

16. Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.

—Paul J. Meyer

17. Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.

—Brian Tracy

18. First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

—Epictetus

19. Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man.

—Louis Nizer

20. When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.

—Stephen R. Covey

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HeartyPsych PsychWELLNESS

How to Be an Effective Listener

One common misconception that many of us have about communication is that it is all about the ability to convey what one wants to tell. We often forget about or ignore one of the most important elements of communication, that is, LISTENING.

Listening is not only paying attention to what is being said but how it is said, the tone, the choice of words, and the body language. Believe it or not, listening is a skill, which you may or may not possess naturally but which you can definitely learn. In fact, effective listening skills are being taught these days at schools and at work settings to help ensure better understanding and better output—in short, to make communication meaningful and fruitful.

Most of us listen to respond, rather than to understand.  Listening carefully to comprehend the point of view of the speaker is called active-listening. Apparently, it refers to listening to the feelings of the speaker. Active-listening or effective listening skills can help maintain healthy relationships, avoid miscommunication or misunderstandings, resolve conflicts, and find solutions to problems.

Here are few tips that can help you become an effective listener:

1. Undivided attention: Whenever someone comes to talk to you listen with your undivided attention. Listening requires giving your complete attention to the speaker. Listening while you’re busy doing something else shows that you are not actually listening. So when your child comes to you to talk about what happened at his or her school or when your spouse is talking about his/her day at work, put aside whatever you are doing for some time and give your full attention to the speaker. It is quite possible that you are genuinely busy at that time and cannot talk. The best thing to do, in that case, is to the person that you will listen to them as soon as you finish the work. Giving undivided attention conveys respect and genuine interest to the speaker.

2. Make eye contact: Maintaining healthy eye contact is crucial to effective communication process, listening is no exception. Effective listening requires maintaining eye contact with the speaker. This does not, however, mean that you have to stare constantly at the speaker and that’s why the term ‘healthy eye contact.’ Therefore, once in a while, take break and blink you eyes, or look between the eyes. Staring continuously can make the speaker feel intimidated, whereas, wandering eyes indicates lack of interest or boredom.

3. Attend to the feelings: Try to listen to not only what is being said, but how it is said, notice the nonverbal cues as well, such as the body language. This can help you understand what is actually being conveyed by the speaker.

4. Don’t judge, criticize, or start telling your own stories: Active-listening involves listening without judging the speaker and being open to what is being said. When someone asks you to listen, that means you need to put aside your own stories. Do not interrupt or criticize the teller. An active listener needs to keep his or her opinions to oneself. Don’t try to finish sentences of the speaker. Let the speaker take his or her time to complete what he or she wants to say.

5. Check for comprehension: In order to ensure that you understand what is being said, occasionally rephrase the key points. But do so when the speaker takes a pause. Do not interrupt the flow. Rephrasing helps the speaker rehear what is being said, and gives speaker a chance to clarify if required.

6. Encourage: In order to encourage the speaker to keep talking, use questions like, “what happened next?” or you can simply repeat the last words said. Another simple way is to just say “hmmm” to keep the conversation going.

Also read:
How to Master the Art of Constructive Feedback

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HeartyPsych PsychWELLNESS

How to Master the Art of Constructive Feedback

There are instances when you genuinely want to help a person improve or give suggestions for his/her betterment while there are also times when you simply need to evaluate a person’s performance in an organizational set-up. However, very often you find that, instead of being taken in a positive light your feedback is either ignored altogether or not well received, making the target person rather angry or defensive. This could be because you have not yet realized that giving constructive feedback is an art which needs to be mastered.

Feedback forms an important part of communication process and serves to convey how a person is functioning or how his or her behavior is affecting us and others around him or her. This feedback can be positive or negative.

Positive feedback is generally used to point out to the person, what he/she has been doing right and encourage the person to continue with the behavior. Whereas, negative feedback is used to point out the shortcomings and bring about an improvement in that person’s behavior. Positive feedback is much easier to give, as it is readily accepted by the receiver; however, giving negative feedback requires special skills, so that the receiver doesn’t get defensive and remains open to your criticism or suggestions. Negative feedback should be helpful and so, merely pointing out the faults should not be the sole purpose of this feedback. We must bear in mind that the purpose of this feedback is much more crucial, that is, to help the receiver be better than before and make him/her work on his/her shortcomings. Therefore, we choose the word constructive feedback.

Having the ability to give constructive feedback can help managers enhance their team performance or can help teachers mold the behavior of their students. This skill can also come in handy in personal relationships where you want your spouse, children, friend, or loved ones, to correct a few things in order to  be a better version of themselves. After all, we all have some weaknesses and shortcomings, and constructive feedback, if given carefully, can be of great help in overcoming those. Following are some tips to make your feedback more constructive, helpful and receiver-friendly:

1. Descriptive: Try to make your feedback as descriptive as possible. It should also be clear and specific about the behavior you want to encourage or change. Saying “you are not doing well” is not enough. It is too vague and leaves the person wondering about what needs to be done. Therefore, describe completely what the concerned person should do or improved.

2. Appropriate time: Make sure you give your feedback at the earliest and at the most appropriate time. If you take too long to give your feedback, you may forget about the specifics of the situation and behavior and it is likely that the receiver too does not remember the situation. Moreover, taking too long to give feedback may give a wrong impression to the receiver that what he or she has been doing is acceptable, and then, when you finally give your feedback, he or she may not be as open to it.

3. Constructive ideas: Especially when feedback is negative, it is important to include constructive ideas about how to improve. Offer assistance in the process of improvement and betterment. Saying “your performance was terrible” connotes that the person already knows for sure what went wrong and how to correct it, whereas in reality, this might not be the case. Hence, for a constructive feedback, it is important that the person giving the feedback must also help the receiver in finding the solution.

4. Consistency: Be consistent with giving constructive feedback. Especially in the professional world, consistency in giving feedback has been found to be much more effective and credible. Make it a part of your regular interaction with your juniors and co-workers for maximum impact.

5. Don’t get personal: While giving negative feedback, never get personal and do not target the person. Rather, focus on the behavior or action that needs to be changed. Never criticize the person or make personal attacks. For example, while judging your friend’s singing skills, commenting upon his pitch, notes and song choice etc, can help him improve his performance as a singer, but telling that he has a bad voice quality is something that is not much helpful because, he can’t change his voice. Here, the former makes your criticism constructive, while the latter may just hurt the person and make him feel bad.

6. Never demean: Never use negative feedback as a tool to demean the other person. Never bring your personal agenda to the equation and refrain from using negative feedback as a means to make the other person feel inferior or to take revenge.

7. Positive feedback: Don’t use feedback for pointing out only the faults or shortcomings of a person. Instead focus on giving positive feedback as well. Point out the strengths of the person and appreciate his or her positives as well. Some people think that feedback is just to point out the negatives, but the fact is that a balanced feedback that focuses on positives as well as on negatives is much more readily accepted and considered credible.

8. Purpose: Never forget that the purpose of a feedback is to bring change and improvement and not to hurt the feelings of the person.

9. Listen: While giving your feedback, make sure you give the person a chance to respond too. Do listen to his or her viewpoint and interpretations patiently, and give them a chance to defend their view.

Also read:
8 Ways to Build a Positive and Healthy Body Image
8 Powerful Ways to Boost Your Self-Esteem

HeartyPsych PsychWELLNESS

How to be Assertive: Learn Standing Up for Yourself

Assertiveness is a skill that can be learned, and it is a communication that can help an individual express his or her thoughts, feelings, views, opinions, etc., without being inhibited or aggressive or without disregarding the thoughts, feelings, views, opinions, and ideas of others. The term assertiveness was introduced by Andrew Salter in 1949. Being assertive can help you in both personal as well as professional life. If you are an assertive person, it is likely that you are better able to cope with anger, stress, and other demanding circumstances.

So who is an assertive individual and how is he different from a nonassertive individual? To understand this we have to consider the behavior styles of people in relation to others along a continuum (Dennis Jaffe, 1984), where passive and aggressive behavior lie at each end of the continuum and assertive behavior is right in middle of the two. Passive individuals are too scared to express their thoughts and feelings. Such persons are often shy and surrender to the demands of others in order to feel accepted, especially they find it difficult to say ‘no’. Passive style of behavior is used by people with codependent personality. On the other hand, an aggressive individual often tries to intimidate others and try to gain control of their thoughts, needs, and feelings. Such individuals have complete disregard of others’ feelings. This type of behavior style is often employed by individuals who display Type A behaviors. Now comes assertive style of behavior, which is the preferable style where an individual is able to express his or her thoughts and feelings and protect his or her rights without belittling others’. Such people are more open, considerate, and are tolerant of the feelings of others; also, they have high self-esteem and confidence level.

Assertiveness recognizes that there are legitimate personal rights, which have been described by various therapists and include the following:

  • Being able to say no without feeling guilty.
  • Having the right to change one’s mind regarding anything
  • To ask for help with directions or instructions
  • To ask for what you want
  • Being able to express or experience feelings
  • Right to feel positive under any circumstance
  • Right to commit mistakes without feeling embarrassed
  • To have one’s own opinion and beliefs
  • To object to unfair criticism or treatment
  • Being recognized for one’s achievements or contributions
  • To be able to take time to develop a response to a question or comment

Not every individual is born assertive. We are often less than assertive in our conduct towards certain people especially of higher authority, such as parents and bosses. However, not being assertive can also occur when we deal with someone by whom we feel intimidated. These can be people of opposite sex, individuals who are perceived as more attractive than us, and every unfamiliar person. Since assertiveness is a skill it can be learned and with repeated practice it can become part of our personality. Following techniques help a great deal in developing assertiveness:

Woman-saying-noLearn to say ‘No’: Saying ‘no’ is perhaps the most difficult thing to do for some individuals so much so that they put other people’s need before their own. Saying ‘no’ is sometimes considered rude, which is a misconception. Saying ‘yes’ when it is impossible for you to say so can lead to feelings of bitterness and victimization. That is why being able to say ‘no’ when you don’t feel like saying ‘yes’ is a critical attribute if you want to be assertive in life. Equally important is to learn saying ‘no’ without letting the feeling of guilt creep in. Understand and accept your limits and don’t feel bad about them. In case of personal obligations, try to diplomatically refuse your help at that particular instant.

Learn to use ‘I’ statements: Being assertive means being able to express one’s feelings and emotions by using ‘I’ statements. Learn to own your thoughts, feelings, opinions, ideas etc. Also, using ‘I’ statements doesn’t make the other person defensive because ‘I’ seems less accusatory. For example, “you are wrong” seems more attacking than “I disagree.”

Use eye contact: Assertive people are comfortable maintaining eye contact while interacting or expressing their thoughts to others. Lack of eye contact makes a person appear as having less conviction in what he or she is saying. It also indicates dishonesty and insecurity. Start using eye-contact while interacting with a short time interval of about 1-2 seconds and then progress up to 8-10 seconds period. But, beware! just as lack of eye contact indicates lack of confidence continuous staring is often taken as violation of personal space. So try to avoid staring at people.

Improve body language: Being assertive without appropriate body language sends mixed message to the other person. The way you carry your body plays an important role. It is important to have an erect posture with body weight equally distributed between both legs along with good eye contact and tone of voice. The center of gravity should be directly above the feet.

couple-talkingBe open to criticism: Learn to accept criticism positively. You can disagree with the criticism and have the right to convey your difference of opinion but you must do it without getting angry or defensive. Take negative feedback as an opportunity to learn something new or improve yourself.

Disagree peacefully: This skill is employed when one has to express a differing view and want it to be acknowledged too. When ideas and opinions are expressed peacefully so that different viewpoints can be analyzed properly during a conflict or during the process of decision making, such disagreements are considered as healthy disagreements. Being able to remain comfortable during a confrontation is the hallmark of assertiveness.

Practice: Like any other skill, assertiveness too requires practice, a lot of practice, in fact. Stand in front of a mirror and imagine different scenarios where being assertive would be beneficial, and practice your response. Work on your body language, your tone of voice, eye contact, and communication. Use assertive communication like ‘I’ statements, and ‘No’ statements. And remember to start small. At first, try assertiveness skills in situations where the risk is low and then gradually apply them to tougher situations where the stakes are high. For instance, before applying those in work place with your boss, try them out first with your friends or spouse. Evaluate the results so that you can improve your skills. Remember it takes time and practice to learn a new skill whether it’s playing a guitar, or badminton or developing assertiveness.