By JUDD MATSUNAGA, ESQ.
This article is the third of a four-part series from a Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School titled: “Self-Care: A Step-by-Step Wellness Plan for Body, Mind and Spirit.”
Maintaining balance across all three areas is essential for overall health. In Part 2 (Rafu Shimpo, “Self-Care, Part 2: The Body,” Jan. 31, 2025), we explored how nutrition, physical activity, and proper sleep contribute to maintaining a healthy body. This article will focus on the mind: exploring attitude, resilience, and the importance of taking time-outs.
(1) Attitude. What kind of attitude do you have? Are you normally sunny and upbeat, or do you tend to view life pessimistically? Are you open to new ideas, or resistant to change? Do you believe you can make a difference in the world, or do you think that nothing you do matters?
Attitudes are formed by your values, past experiences, and influenced by your family, friends, community, work, environment, and social media.
A 2019 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at optimism and longevity. It turned out that women with the highest optimism levels were 50% more likely to reach age 85 compared with those with the lowest levels. The survival advantage was even more pronounced in men, with the most optimistic group having 70% greater odds of surviving to age 85 compared with men in the least optimistic group.
The more you can improve your attitude, the better off you are. In another study, researchers followed hundreds of residents of a small Ohio town for two decades and found that median survival was 7.5 years longer among people who had positive beliefs about aging, compared with those who had the most negative attitudes.
Your attitude not only affects your frame of mind, but it also affects your behavior in many ways, including whether you make the effort to eat well, exercise, get adequate sleep, or practice any of the other steps in this article. By influencing your behavior, they shape your health.
To cultivate a more positive attitude, try these 10 simple strategies for developing a healthier outlook:
- Focus on the people and things that bring you joy, no matter how small they are.
- Practice gratitude whenever possible. Say “thank you” more often.
- Have a sense of humor. Be ready to deploy it whenever things go south.
- Check negative thoughts as they start to bubble up.
- Be curious. View everything that happens to you with curiosity rather than value judgments.
- Start each day with an affirmation. Give yourself a pep talk. Remind yourself of all the good things you have to offer and inspire yourself to keep going.
- Turn mistakes into lessons, e.g., what went wrong and ways to improve your response the next time the same situation arises.
- Practice mindfulness. Focus on the present moment. Do not dwell on things that cause stress.
- Put more good out into the world. Volunteer, help friends you care about.
- Have a plan. Write down the steps you need to make good things happen.
If you’re someone who tends to see the glass as half empty, here are some common obstacles you might face and ways to overcome them:
“I have too many problems”
- Focus on one issue at a time rather than trying to tackle everything at once.
- Instead of thinking of your issues as “problems,” see them as challenges you can surmount.
- Confide in friends. A social support network can help lift you up.
“I don’t like myself”
- Find something you’re good at, e.g., dancing, bowling, etc. and focus on how well you do that.
- Surround yourself with people who do like you and can remind you of all your finest qualities.
- Talk to a therapist. You may need to let go of emotional baggage that needs to be aired out.
“I don’t think I can change”
- Deeply ingrained thought patterns can become habitual, but they are changeable. Start each day with a positive statement and end the day with one thing you’re grateful for.
- Live in the moment. Instead of worrying about the future, savor each moment for the good things it bestows, e.g., the air you breathe or the friends you have.
- Remember that happiness is a choice you make. It’s up to you.
(2) Resilience. The ability to cope — to recover from a setback or stressful situation — is called resilience. You may have little to no control over the stressful events in your life, but you have tremendous control over how your respond. And the more you can do to boost your coping power, the better off you will be. That’s why self-care has to include some effort to build buffers against the inevitable stresses of everyday life.
When you evoke the stress response — the so-called fight-or-flight response that evolved in distant evolutionary time as a survival mechanism — your heart rate and breathing speed up to deliver more oxygen to your muscles so you can sprint to safety or stand your ground and fight. Your body releases more glucose to power your muscles, and your immune system ramps up to fight infection from any potential wounds (and increases inflammation, which is part of the immune response).
Meanwhile, nonessential functions like digestion are temporarily put on hold.
But a drumbeat of daily hassles — a traffic jam, an argument, or a computer malfunction, for example — can evoke the same response. Over time, a steady barrage of this tension can lead to problems, including:
- High blood pressure, which increases your risk for a heart attack or stroke
- Headaches and back pain
- Gastrointestinal problems such as nausea, heart-burn, bloating, and diarrhea
- Metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity
- Frequent illnesses
- Loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, irregular menstrual cycles, infertility
- Difficulty sleeping, remembering, and concentrating.
In addition to physical effects, stress exacts an emotional toll. It can make you more irritable, anxious, angry, and depressed. You may attempt to buffer the stress with unhealthy substances such as junk food, alcohol, tobacco, or drugs, but these ultimately harm your health. What’s more, prolonged stress might actually speed up your biological clock and shorten your life by accelerating the cellular aging process.
Stress shortens telomeres, the caps at the end of each DNA strand that protect chromosomes from damage. Shortened telomeres are linked to premature aging.
Many barriers stand in the way of developing a resilient response to the stresses of everyday life. If you tend to worry about everything, try to reframe your perception of the situation. Look for the upside, even when things seem bleak. Stay off social media, which tends to be a hotbed of negativity. Connect with friends directly through texts, phone calls, emails, or personal visits.
When something bad happens to you, don’t panic or overreact. Instead, try to gather your thoughts. This method is called “Stop, breathe, reflect, choose.”
Stop. Halt the negative reaction in its tracks by literally saying “stop.”
Breathe. Take a few deep breaths to reduce physical tension and step back from the problem.
Reflect. Ask yourself how bad the situation really is. Is there another way to view it? What’s the worst that could happen?
Choose. Decide how to deal with the problem. Accept what you cannot change, and try to solve what you can. This is key to resilience.
(3) Time-out. If you truly want to embrace self-care, then you have to take some time-outs. To a child, the word “time-out” may indicate a form of punishment. But in adulthood, time-outs are essential. Not only do mental and physical breaks help you reduce stress, readjust your attitude, and gather energy, but they could even save your life.
The World Health Organization estimates that long working hours led to 745,000 deaths from stroke and heart attacks in 2016. The Japanese even have a word for the phenomenon — karoshi, or “death by overwork.”
Most of us aren’t in danger of keeling over from work. But planning for time-outs can still make us happier and more productive. Remember that your health is at stake. By working non-stop and never taking time for yourself, you are endangering your well-being.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re goofing off by taking a time-out. Instead, think of breaks as “empowerment moments,” when you can reset and recharge, so you can come back more productive.
Making time for yourself is not as easy as it sounds, especially if you are juggling multiple responsibilities. The competing needs of family and work can leave you stretched without a free moment to spare. The following are 10 ways to sneak more “me” time into your day:
- Make “me” time the first thing you do each day. Start every morning with a few minutes of meditation, deep breathing, reading, walking, or gratitude practice.
- Block out time in your calendar. Set aside 10- or 15-minute chunks of time during the week to use as you wish.
- Leave work on time. Stay focused with the goal of getting everything finished, and getting yourself out the door, by quitting time.
- Save one night a week for date night (with yourself). It does not matter what you do, only that you enjoy whatever it is you are doing.
- Buy tickets. Find a show, museum exhibition, or movie you would like to see, and buy tickets a few weeks in advance. Once you have spent the money, it will be harder for you to back out.
- Plan a trip. You don’t have to travel far. The goal is to take a break from work to do something you love, even if it’s just for a few hours or a few days.
- Sign up for a class. Think of something you have always wanted to try, such as painting, ballroom dancing, or learning a foreign language.
- Get a ride. Take public transportation to work instead of driving.
- Walk or bike to work instead of driving, so you get some exercise too.
- Start a habit. Get in the routine of taking a walk during lunch. Permanently reclaim that time for yourself, and don’t give it up.
Judd Matsunaga, Esq., is the founding partner of the Law Offices of Matsunaga & Associates, specializing in estate/Medi-Cal planning, probate, personal injury and real estate law. With offices in Torrance, Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Pasadena and Foun-tain Valley, he can be reached at (800) 411-0546. Opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Rafu Shimpo.