Behaviors

Recommendation to use community support systems and opportunities for interconnection, including social venues and religiously affiliated venues, to help in difficult situations and foster health more broadly.

When anxiety is affecting a relationship, first identify that you are anxious, use introspection to determine if it is too high for comfort, start by looking at yourself, ask why, and consider biological, psychological, environmental, and other-person contributors.

Recommendation to notice if low motivation or demoralization is being soothed by overusing something.

Recommendation to discern feeling states and intention states in self and others as a route to truth and healthier relationships. This includes learning about the other by putting yourself in their shoes, being aware of your own state first so your understanding has fidelity, using mentalization even when things are going well, and asking during conflict: is it me, is it you, is it us?

Recommendation to watch for rationalization, projection, and other defenses that distort your reading of another person.

Recommendation to postpone difficult conversations when you are too activated to think clearly and revisit them later when both people are calm, cool, and collected.

Be aware that sugar is added to savory products such as spaghetti sauces and salad dressings.

Suggested as part of school precautions during infectious disease periods.

Recommended in the context of school infectious disease precautions.

Recommended in the context of school infectious disease precautions.

Make environmental changes around food availability and quality because food environment affects health.

Physical activity was named as a key health behavior affecting overall health.

Create distance from devices and draw explicit boundaries around social media use, especially for young people.

Protect time for unstructured play so kids can negotiate situations, resolve conflict, collaborate, be creative, and have time to reflect and think rather than having every moment hyper-structured.

For kids already on social media, protect the hour before bedtime and the entire night as technology-free time to preserve sleep and create device boundaries.

Parents should model the same device boundaries they want children to follow by keeping their own devices away during sacred times like meals and bedtime.

Do behavior change with one or more other people for accountability and support rather than trying to do it alone.

Engage in physical movement as a baseline self-care practice.

Think through, discuss, or write your life story to identify when things changed, what influenced those changes, and what questions to ask next.

Write out your life history or narrative, including age ranges, places lived, and key events; organize notes by periods such as 0–5, 6–10, and revisit them over time to add newly remembered events.

If experiencing thoughts of self-harm, not wanting to be alive, despair, hopelessness, or feeling unsafe or unstable, get clinical help rather than relying on self-inquiry alone; advocate for yourself and push to get in front of a clinician.

During liminal states between sleep and wakefulness, block outside sensory input, especially social media and the news, to allow unconscious insights to surface.

If there is something you feel you cannot bring into consciousness because it might take over your mind, that is exactly what should be examined, provided it is done safely.

Use old pictures, talk to people who knew you at different stages of life, reflect on how you behaved and what you felt inside, and anchor yourself to memories in order to identify changes and extrapolate patterns.

Examine yourself with some dispassion or observational distance by mentally standing outside yourself and observing without excessive negative emotion.

Stop and ask why you do things automatically, such as going to work or staying busy, in order to uncover unconscious drivers.

If a habitual route leads to unwanted drinking, interrupt the chain by driving a different way home; if needed, have a friend ride with you or even put yourself in the back seat so you cannot drive there.

He rejects the advice 'never go to sleep angry'; instead, don't use exhaustion to force agreement because people feel differently after sleep.

During long, demanding operations, take time off or decompress rather than running yourself into the ground; sometimes that means stepping away, having a beer, kicking back, and blowing off steam.

Laughter, joking, and good-natured ribbing with supportive colleagues can help lighten emotional heaviness.