Following a gloomy report in December, the Mental Health Index revealed that the mental state of U.S. workers improved drastically in January. In fact, January was possibly the best month for mental health since the pandemic began. Stress and risk of General Anxiety Disorder returned to pre-COVID levels for the first time since February 2020. Multiple other mental capacities improved, particularly for women. These gains, which were largely unexpected after a dismal December, suggest workers may believe their lives and experiences are improving in 2021, and that is lifting their outlook and mental state.
Improvements across multiple mental capacities, stress included, may be a sign that workers are beginning to recover from 2020’s challenges, and 2021 will be a year of greater performance and productivity.
January’s positive mental health gains may have simply been a product of workers feeling overly hopeful and optimistic at the prospect of the new year.
Regardless of whether the boost workers experienced lasts, January offered at least some reprieve from the intense stress and strain that negatively impacted mental health at the end of 2020.
Risk of General Anxiety Disorder decreased in January, now matches pre-pandemic level
Stress dropped in January, returned to pre-COVID level for first time during pandemic
Women’s risk of General Anxiety Disorder decreased
Conscious negativity bias lessened among women
Only age group with Risk of Depressive Disorder higher than before COVID
Anxiety higher than pre-pandemic level only across 40-59 age group
Your brain’s 85 billion highly interconnected neurons self-organize into four core systems — emotion, feeling, cognition and self-control. Each of these systems is measured by 12 key capacities, and they fluctuate continuously along a performance continuum from well-being to risk of a mental health condition such as depression, addiction, and ADHD.
Listen to Total Brain Founder Dr. Evian Gordan and Professor Anthony Hannan, PhD, discuss how to rewire your brain to better manage emotions, stress and anxiety. Listen to learn more.
Total Brain measures the 12 brain capacities that define your mental health and screens for your risk of common mental conditions. Contact us to learn how Total Brain can help improve the mental health and wellness of your employees.
Our emotions greatly influence all other brain capacities, which can also be impaired by mental conditions like depression, anxiety, and ADHD. Watch to learn more.
Emotional awareness helps us build relationships and trust. It impacts how well we read emotional cues in others and informs our behavior in uncertain situations.
Nonconscious negativity bias is our natural intuition formed by life experiences. It strongly influences our feelings, motives and decisions. And, it determines how effectively we communicate and collaborate with others. Watch to learn more.
At the end of 2020, negativity was up and there was a drop in working Americans’ emotional awareness. However, January was a better month in terms of emotional wellness, thanks to a decline in non-conscious negativity bias among U.S. workers.
January was the twelfth month that we captured Mental Health Index data. Despite some setbacks, if you compare Americans’ emotional state in January 2021 vs. February 2020, the Mental Health Index shows that workers are in a better place emotionally now. In fact, workers were 6% less negative in January 2021 than in February 2020.
A lot of changes occurred in January that may have contributed to increased optimism. The holiday season — which is challenging for many people — ending, the transition to a new government, and the COVID vaccine rollout are possible factors. While it is difficult to predict if negativity will remain lower next month, the takeaway is that January was a good month for emotional wellness.
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Total Brain’s Founder, Dr. Evian Gordon, is joined by Dr. David Whitehouse for this podcast about the science behind emotions, feelings, and how they impact us all.
Listen as Total Brain’s Dr. Evian Gordon talks with Christopher Darwin and Dr. David Whitehouse about ways to successfully manage negativity during the pandemic.
Feelings are your conscious awareness of, and body’s response to, your unconscious emotions. For example, when you’re feeling stressed or anxious, your body will respond with changes in heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, and sweating. Feelings are triggered by emotions, and emotions are triggered by cues of threat or reward. Watch to learn more.
Stress is a response to an external “stressor” such as a work deadline, an argument with a loved one, the loss of a job, or a major life change. COVID-19’s impact on health and the economy is a substantial stressor right now. When external stressors are not resolved, stress becomes chronic and leads to anxiety and depression. Watch to learn more.
Anxiety is the internal reaction to stress. It is often accompanied by persistent worrying and fearing something bad will happen. Unlike stress, anxiety persists even after the stressor has been resolved. In severe cases, anxiety can lead to General Anxiety Disorder. Watch to learn more.
Feeling sadness, frustration, anger, loneliness, or grief often make up what is considered “depressive mood.” These feelings, however, lift after a few days or weeks. When these feelings persist over time, you can become clinically depressed. Watch to learn more.
All three of the brain’s feeling capacities improved in January vs. December. Of course, the biggest news in terms of workers’ feelings is the decline in stress that occurred in January. Stress impacts so many aspects of mental health, and American workers have been living and working under a constant state of elevated stress for nearly a year. Now, for the first time since the pandemic began, workers are getting some relief. Overall, stress dropped 16% in January, returning stress to its pre-COVID level.
January’s drop in stress wasn’t the only significant improvement — anxiety decreased 19% and depressed mood improved 21%. These changes reinforced that workers started 2021 feeling optimistic and hopeful, and likely led to other improvements across cognitive and self-control capacities.
Data showed major spikes in stress during the onset of COVID in the U.S. and also during the period around the U.S. elections. With the election and transition of power complete, and more Americans receiving COVID vaccinations, there is a degree of relief from two of the biggest stressors of the past year. This likely fueled some of January’s hope and optimism. We’ll be watching to see if those feelings extended into February, and also if anxiety and depressed mood follow stress and return to pre-COVID levels.
Listen to Total Brain Founder Dr. Evian Gordon’s podcast “The Role of Stress in Mental Health” with Dr David Whitehouse MD. PhD. Dr. Whitehouse shares how stress damages mental health and how you can reframe your reaction to stress.
Listen to Total Brain Founder Dr. Evian Gordon’s podcast “What Can People with Anxiety Teach Us?” with Dr. Heidi Hanna PhD. They discuss how feeling anxious is a normal part of a healthy life and how to practice stillness.
Your cognitive capacity determines how well you learn, remember, pay attention, and solve problems. It impacts how quickly you can complete tasks and how many mistakes you make while doing so. Chronic stress and anxiety can result in cognitive decline over time. Watch to learn more.
Stress and anxiety can hinder the way we form and retrieve memories. It can make you more forgetful. For example, you may find yourself forgetting where you left your phone, or have a hard time recalling names. Watch to learn more.
Increased levels of stress not only cause us to become more irritable, but also tend to impact our ability to focus. For example, it’s common for stress to cause people to make more mistakes. Watch to learn more.
Stress can negatively affect your ability to plan and complete tasks on time. When you’re stressed, concentration declines and the amount of time it takes you to complete tasks increases. Watch to learn more.
With stress returning to a pre-COVID level, areas of cognition improved in January. As stress decreased, workers’ ability to plan and complete tasks on time continued to improve, as did their ability to focus. This is consistent with research that has proven the direct relationship between stress and cognition.
There is no doubt that decreasing stress and increasing cognition improves workers’ performance. Workers’ focus improving 21% in January meant that they made fewer mistakes – good news for employers.
One trend to watch in the future is the trailing cognition in workers age 40-59. Both memory and focus are worse than they were in February 2020.
Listen to Total Brain Founder Dr. Evian Gordon’s podcast “The Brain — From Knowing to Doing,” with Chris Darwin, a great, great grandson of Charles Darwin. They discuss 5 concepts that impact how you process information and your ability to be a peak performer.
Chris Darwin joins Dr. Evian Gordon for another podcast, this time to discuss “Can Small Step Habits Change Your Life?” Chris shares three essentials for real behavior change.
Our ability to control our behavior enables us to achieve goals, resist temptation, avoid acting on impulse, and maintain our mental and physical health. When under high levels of stress, people tend to become more negative and less resilient. As a result, they may lose the ability to self-regulate their behavior, which leads to a myriad of problems, including obesity, addiction, poor financial decisions, sexual infidelity, and more. Watch to Learn More
Resilience allows us to bounce back when something bad happens. It’s the ability to adapt in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, or other significant sources of stress. Resilience can drop quickly after an emotionally distressing event or a particularly stressful period in life. Watch to learn more.
Conscious negativity bias – the tendency to see the “cup half empty” rather than the “cup half full” – can rise in times of uncertainty and discouragement. It’s a disproportionate focus on problems rather than opportunity. And, it’s highly contagious. That’s why one very negative person can disrupt an entire group or team.
Social connectivity reflects the extent to which people proactively seek and gain enjoyment from social interaction. Social connection plays a powerful role in supporting our mental and physical health. Watch to learn more.
In December, Mental Health Index findings showed resilience was decreasing and conscious negativity was increasing. However, the opposite occurred in January with resilience increasing 5% and negativity decreasing 12%.
January was a much better month vs. December in terms of workers’ self-control capacities. The improvement in conscious negativity offers some perspective on the change. When conscious negativity bias is high, it means individuals are focusing more on problems than on opportunities. The drop in conscious negativity in January suggests workers were focusing on opportunities more. This makes sense given the findings in other capacities that show workers were feeling more optimistic and hopeful in January.
Listen to Total Brain Founder Dr. Evian Gordon’s podcast “Social Connectivity in the COVID-19 Era,” with Dr. Shelley Carson PhD, a Harvard-trained psychologist. They discuss why social connectivity and social support is important for stress mastery, especially during these uncertain times.
COVID-19 is causing more Americans to screen at risk for certain mental disorders compared to before the pandemic.
When chemicals from drugs or alcohol hit the brain’s reward receptors in bursts, it triggers a response similar to a highly pleasurable event. As the person repeats and increases substance use, the receptors degrade to the point that they cannot respond to un-intoxicated pleasure in the same way as they once did. The brain gets re-mapped to seek pleasure through intoxication rather than healthier activities, and as this new mapping takes hold, addiction is born. Watch to learn more.
Depression is more than a bout with the blues. When feelings of sadness and hopelessness persist and worsen, you may be clinically depressed. Some people are predisposed to depression based on genetics and the brain’s chemical makeup. Chronic stressful life situations can also increase the risk of developing depression if you aren’t coping well. Watch to learn more.
Persistent and excessive worry are common indicators of General Anxiety Disorder. People with this condition have an inappropriate triggering of the fight-flight stress system that can make it difficult to control worrying or stop the worry cycle. As a result, they overthink, lose sleep, and agonize more than seems warranted for the situation. Stress is a common trigger for anxiety and if it becomes chronic it can lead to General Anxiety Disorder. Watch to learn more.
People who have Social Anxiety Disorder have intense fear of being judged negatively or rejected in social situations. They often worry about being perceived as stupid, awkward, or boring. It can significantly impact your ability to socialize and communicate with other people. Watch to learn more.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that’s triggered by a traumatic event. Most people who experience a distressing event may temporarily have trouble coping. However, they get through it with time and self-care. When symptoms persist for months and years, interfering with daily life, you may have PTSD. Watch to learn more.
Stress and anxiety may cause sleeping problems. Having a clinical condition compounds the problem. Sleep apnea is a condition in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts while sleeping. Watch to learn more.
January’s Mental Health Index highlighted some positive changes for mental health in American workers. For example, January was the first month since the beginning of the pandemic in which workers’ risk of General Anxiety Disorder was not elevated. Also, workers’ risk of Depressive Disorder and risk of PTSD decreased in January.
But along with the good news comes some bad. Even after a significant drop in workers’ risk of depression, the overall risk remains well above the pre-COVID level. This is true for PTSD as well.
Ultimately, the mix of some positive and negative changes is a good reminder of the volatility of mental health. On the mental health continuum, we can expect to see more highs and lows in the future — particularly as external stressors such as COVID continue to change and evolve.
Listen to Total Brain Founder Dr. Evian Gordon’s podcast “How Genetic Brain Information Can Empower You,” with Anu Acharya BSc MSc MS. The podcast touches on how our genes impact our disease disposition, and it explores why understanding our genetics and knowing ourselves better can lead to improved mental health and performance.
Listen to Total Brain Founder Dr. Evian Gordon’s podcast “What Can People with Depression Teach Us?” with Dr. David Whitehouse MD, PhD. Depression is excessively prevalent and growing in our society. They discuss how to maximize the functioning of our brain and minimize the threat of depression.
Listen to Total Brain Founder Dr. Evian Gordon’s podcast “The Hurricane of Addiction,” with Dr. David Whitehouse MD, PhD. They discuss how easy it is to fall under the power of addiction — especially during these uncertain times — while addressing how to restore and reconnect your brain pathways to survive.