Thursday Things: Coffee and Sadness Edition
17 October 2024. Vol 6 No 42. By Dan McGirt. #271
Thursday Things is here! This week we take on sadness with a hot cup of coffee.
She’s sad because all her friends have iPhones. Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash
How to be sad better
Sadness stalks all of us at one time or another. But this is the age of optimization, so don’t just wing it being sad! Up your sadness game with a few helpful tips from the always insightful Psyche:
Avoiding sadness can backfire, here’s how to turn towards it
Sadness flows from many sources.
Sadness is likely not a stranger to any of us. It is a normal human emotion that we experience in the face of loss or disconnection from something we care about. Sadness can arise from a range of experiences, including separation, such as when you’re unable to see family during holidays, or a friend moves away; big life transitions, such as leaving one’s home of 20 years; or losses, such as the breakup of a relationship or the death of a pet or a loved one. (Sadness, as I refer to it here, is different from depression – which can include feelings of sadness, but also other symptoms such as persistent low mood, diminished interest in most activities, and a lack of energy or motivation.)
So what’s the problem here beyond sadness itself?
Feeling sadness is not, in itself, a problem.
Ah! Go on…
It’s what you do with sadness that can be helpful or problematic. Many of us tend to avoid or suppress unpleasant emotional experiences. Unfortunately, this can come at a cost to physical and mental health in the long term.
Avoided or suppressed sadness, it seems, doesn’t get fully “digested” by the psyche and this can cause it to morph into increased anxiety or physical symptoms. People also tend to judge themselves for feeling sad and let their “inner critic” work themselves over. Which can’t be helpful.
So what’s a better way to be sad? The author of the piece, Beth Kurland, suggests six different perspective shifts that can help you process your sadness. The idea being that if you adopt a different vantage point than “what’s wrong with me?” or pushing your sad feelings under the rug, that you can let the sadness do its thing and then be on its way.
As a bonus, these perspective shifts can also be employed to deal with other negative feelings. I’ll give the topline description for the first three, but go read the article for the full details.
The anchor view: Anchor yourself with a safe, calming environment either physically (like wrapping up in your favorite blanket) or mentally (visualizing a calm place1)
The child view: Take the view of a curious child. Notice and describe what you’re experiencing
The audience view: Take a mental step back and observe your experience from “over there” as an audience member. Are you not entertained?
The other perspectives are the compassionate parent view, the mirror view, and the ocean view (which is more of a view from inside the ocean than from a beachfront villa. Did not see that coming!)
Bookmark the article for next time you’re feeling blue — or go one better and get Kurland’s book, You Don't Have to Change to Change Everything: Six Ways to Shift Your Vantage Point, Stop Striving for Happy, and Find True Well-Being ( Paperback | Kindle | Audiobook) which I imagine goes into even greater detail.
Happy sadding.
Coffee can do anything!
From the Thursday Things coffee desk, yet another article about the potential health benefits of drinking coffee. Pour yourself a fresh cup and let’s check it out!
Drinking Caffeine May Reduce Alzheimer's Clumps in The Brain, Study Finds
A new study has now confirmed a link between caffeine intake and spinal fluid markers for Alzheimer's disease.
Most previous research has focused on observational studies or meta-analyses on the consumption of tea and coffee, with comparatively little insight gathered on the biological changes caffeine delivers.
Well, let’s change that. Maybe a research team in France could help?
A team in France looked at data from a prospective study that evaluated patients with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's between 2010 and 2015.
The study participants were age 70 and older.
And what did they find?
The team found lower caffeine consumption correlated with a higher risk of mild cognitive decline with impaired memory, compared with higher caffeine consumption.
In fact, those in the low-caffeine consumption group were nearly 2.5 times more likely to have a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment with impaired memory or Alzheimer's.
Refill please!
This latest investigation is based on a mere snapshot of caffeine habits among a few hundred older individuals, so says little about how a morning coffee throughout your youth or middle age might affect the emergence of dementia later.
Better safe than sorry, I say.
Get all the science details in in Alzheimer's & Dementia.
Coffee, your best defense. Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash
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Unless you have aphantasia. Then you’ll probably need to stick with the blanket.