Home alone? Dealing with the solitude of self-employment

Working from home has plenty of perks – you can work in your underwear, go for a nap anytime you like and showering is optional. But the freedom of having only yourself to answer to and no one to see you all day, apart from maybe the cat, has downsides – the most pernicious to your health being the potential for loneliness to set in.

Debbie Clarke, a digital marketing consultant based in Nottingham, found it hard to adjust to working alone after leaving an office job to go freelance. “I’d had lots of opportunities to get feedback on what I was doing, go out for lunch with people and talk to people throughout the day,” she says. “Working in a box room in your house, the worst thing is not having anybody to bounce ideas off so you’re just left wondering if what you’re doing is actually any good or if it’s all rubbish.”

Emily Rockey had a similar experience when she moved from London to Sussex to set up her own marketing firm, Humm Media. “I’d been a very social person and suddenly everything switched, and I found myself in the house all day everyday,” she says. “I found it difficult to make myself take breaks or have anyone to talk to other than clients.”

Nearly 40% of self-employed people say they have felt lonely since becoming their own boss, according to a survey released in March by Aldermore.

The effect of loneliness on health can be wide-reaching; it is linked to depression, heart disease and even makes the symptoms of a common cold feel worse.

Dr Rebecca Nowland, a senior lecturer in psychology at Bolton University who has conducted research on the health impact of loneliness, warns that if you work alone you need to make socialising a priority.

“Someone who works in an office could be just as lonely as someone who doesn’t,” she says. “But if we choose to isolate ourselves, we need to make time for social interaction with other people. I don’t think we generally realise how important it is for our psychological and physical health to have good quality, meaningful connections with other people.”

In her quest for some company during her working day, Emily Rockey formed a social group on Facebook earlier this year. “I put a message out saying that I work from home and asking whether, if I set up a group, anyone would be interested. I got fifty responses.” The group now has 47 members who meet up regularly. “It’s not about work and it’s not a networking group. They are just people at home who want to get out have a coffee and a chat,” she says.

Debbie Clarke also took matters into her own hands after trying out a few business networking events. “[The networks] were full of men in grey suits just wanting to give you their business cards. They weren’t really about building relationships,” she says. As well as taking over a business network from her former boss, she launched the Blue Stockings Society, a group for professional women in Nottingham that holds regular gatherings and events. “It’s where people can be honest about running a business because a lot of times at networking events you have to pretend that everything’s brilliant,” Clarke says. “This wasn’t about trying to get business, it was a support network. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone.”

“A co-working space allows you to flourish much more than sitting at a kitchen table or in a coffee shop”

Danny Bulmer

Co-working is another option for freelancers missing the social interaction of a busy office. Danny Bulmer launched a co-working space, Co Up, in Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire, after finding it difficult to adjust to working alone in the early stages of setting up his design business. “A co-working space allows you to flourish much more than sitting at kitchen table or in a coffee shop,” he says. “There’s the social aspect of feeling part of a community but there’s also the professional aspect of it, with ideas flying around the room and connections being made.”

Katy Carlise, a web designer, set up a freelance community in Manchester two years ago after she left an office job with a charity. “After a few months [of being freelance] I felt the isolation creeping in,’’ she says. “It was surprising how much it affected me … I felt really stuck and uninspired.”

Initially she tried working from coffee shops in an effort to meet other freelancers. “I sat next to people and tried to catch their eye. But everyone was being very British about it. There was no way of getting into that conversation,” she says.

Carlisle had the idea of forming a pop up co-working space for freelancers after visiting a Ziferblat café in Manchester, where customers pay for the amount of time they spend there, rather than the food and drink they consume. She set up a freelance group through MeetUp, an online platform for organising gatherings around different interests and communities. Her group, called Freelance Folk, holds co-working sessions at Ziferblat and, with almost a thousand members signed up, it has just expanded to Sheffield.

“We work together every week and on the last Friday of every month we go out for drinks,” Carlisle says. “It feels like I’ve recreated the good bits of having a job, while still retaining the benefits of being freelance.”

Home alone? Dealing with the solitude of self-employment

Unhappily married? You’re not alone | Virginia Ironside

The marriage between Tini Owens and her multimillionaire mushroom farmer husband, Hugh, doesn’t sound like one that most of us would relish. She tried to divorce him last year, but was told by a judge that she couldn’t, because they hadn’t lived apart for five years. Now she has asked the court of appeal to overturn that ruling.

Hugh had, according to evidence supplied by Tini, constantly berated her about a year-long affair she’d had, rowed with her in an airport shop, criticised her to the housekeeper, avoided speaking to her during a meal in a pub – and asked her to pick up bits of cardboard from the garden.

But the accusation of “unreasonable behaviour” was thrown out because the judge decided the grounds were too flimsy. This is a very odd conclusion – the judge essentially told poor Mrs Owens she must stay married to a husband she no longer wants, until enough time has elapsed for his agreement to no longer be required. Yet I don’t entirely blame the judge; he was just upholding laws requiring a couple to have lived apart for at least five years if one party opposes the marriage’s dissolution.

The letters I received as an agony aunt showed me the vast range of behaviours in a marriage that some people are prepared to put up with – and not put up with. One reader and her husband hadn’t spoken to each other for five years – and used their son as an intermediary. But neither wanted to divorce. Another woman put up with her husband having countless affairs. Miserable as such marriages might seem to us, for those couples they were good enough.

On the other hand, one man wrote to say he wanted to leave his wife and children just because he’d spotted her kissing another man while drunk at an office party. No matter how she grovelled and apologised, he couldn’t accept it.

I would guess the problem in the Owens’ marriage is not so much that one behaved entirely unreasonably to the other; it is that they have different expectations of marriage. A man of Hugh’s age, 78, a man who’s done national service, a man who may have seen his own father behave in the same cavalier way to his mother as he behaved to Tini, just doesn’t see the problem. Marriage for him is for life, even if his wife did have an affair.

She, on the other hand, is looking for warmth and compatibility. She described to the court feeling “unloved”. And as she can’t get the warmth she needs from Hugh, at 65 she understandably wants to move on.

‘We’ve all witnessed married friends arguing and bickering so much that we wonder how they can stand each other.’ Photograph: Alamy

Tolstoy said: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” But he was wrong. Happy – or happyish – families can be very different. They range from being comfortable and loving to those in which both partners feel that the upside of being married only just outweighs the downside. Unless behaviour is intolerable by any person’s standards, how can a judge rule on it?

If one partner spends the night gambling away the family savings and yet the other can tolerate this behaviour, then the relationship could be regarded as OK. Not happy, but bearable. We’ve all witnessed married friends behaving in a way that we would find unacceptable. They argue and bicker so much that we wonder how they can stand each other. But we don’t know what each partner gets out of this. Who knows, perhaps it’s a weird kind of foreplay? After they’ve had a good public snipe, they may go back home for glorious sex. To outsiders it’s a mystery how the relationship works, but somehow it does.

And we’ve all seen relationships break up when one or other of the partners “reforms” their bad behaviour. A woman complains bitterly about her alcoholic husband but finds living with him sober too much to bear.

Sometimes dysfunctional relationships totter on because partners’ behaviour resembles what they each experienced as a child. Although the protagonists may not exactly enjoy it, at least it reminds them of the security of being at home.

As for Tini feeling “unloved, isolated and alone”, is this grounds for divorce? Who hasn’t had a row in an airport shop? A silent meal? I’ve sat through hundreds. In Tini’s position, another woman might tell Hugh to pick up his own cardboard and laugh at his grumpiness.

I don’t know what the appeal court will decide about the Owens’ marriage, but as judge James Munby pointed out this week: “It is not a ground for divorce if you find yourself in a wretchedly unhappy marriage – people may say it should be.”

I don’t – because it’s often too difficult to say whether the petitioner is being made unhappy by the other person, or whether she or he is the sort who finds insult and cruelty in every breath their partner takes.

I started off by saying the Owens’s marriage isn’t one that most people would relish. But on reflection, who am I to say? I’ve met too many people who can happily shrug off behaviour I find wretched, to judge.

Unhappily married? You’re not alone | Virginia Ironside

Tackling loneliness cannot rest with volunteers alone | Janet Morrison

Barely a day goes by without one story or another highlighting the crisis in social care, and flagging the contribution failures in the health service are making to the problem. Added to this are the pressures of an ageing population in which many of the people living for longer are doing so with complex conditions.

The government argues it has taken short term steps to address the crisis, but as yet has offered no suggestion of how it might solve the problem long term.

Independent Age, along with many other charities in the care sector, have long been calling for a cross-party solution to address the crisis in health and social care. We can’t kick this issue into the long grass yet again. As a society we need to ask ourselves, what kind of care we want in later life and how much we are we prepared to pay for it. But the costs involved also beg the question of what role volunteers should have in helping to tackle these issues.

Through our network of volunteers across the UK we offer friendship services to older people who are lonely. Our volunteers provide regular phone calls and visits, enabling older people to feel more connected to their local community and, crucially, helping to reduce loneliness.

A great example of how our work can help is Ron, who is nearly 90. Ron’s wife died a number of years ago, and following a fall at home in which he broke his hip, he very rarely gets out. Ron would go for days on end without speaking to anyone. He now has regular visits from one of our volunteers, Alison, whose employers so value the work she does with Ron that they let her work flexibly so she can visit him.

Crucially, we understand that volunteering is not a one-way street: our volunteers tell us they get as much out of the relationship as the person they visit or call. That might be through the pleasure of a joint interest, or through sharing life stories and experiences. There is evidence that volunteering can bring health benefits for the volunteer too.

Volunteers from across the health and social care sectors are already providing essential services.

There are, however, firm boundaries to the volunteer relationship. We’re clear that it is not the role of our friendship volunteers to offer advice on issues like benefits or accessing care and support (we have an expert helpline for that). And their role mustn’t be confused with the provision of statutory services that are the legal duties of bodies like councils and the NHS.

It’s essential that the boundaries of any volunteering role are clearly understood by the organisation arranging the service, the volunteer providing it and the person receiving it.

That doesn’t mean that volunteers have no role in health and social care though. Many volunteers from across the sector are already providing other essential services: from volunteer-delivered “home from hospital” schemes to lunch clubs and shopping services, driving people to GP and hospital visits, or acting as quality assessors for their local Healthwatch. And let’s not forget the 1.3 million older people who are providing unpaid care [pdf] for their loved ones – recent estimates put the value of informal care provided by older people at £11.4bn a year [pdf].

Up and down the UK, local people are volunteering to provide essential support for health and social care provision. Their contribution must be applauded and recognised as they continue to assist those who need it, now and in the future.

Talk to us on Twitter via @Gdnvoluntary and join our community for your free fortnightly Guardian Voluntary Sector newsletter, with analysis and opinion sent direct to you on the first and third Thursday of the month.

Tackling loneliness cannot rest with volunteers alone | Janet Morrison

Half a million older people spend every day alone, poll shows

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Scale of loneliness among over-60s revealed as Age UK develops scheme to provide support and companionship

Half a million people over the age of 60 usually spend each day alone, with no interaction with others, and nearly half a million more commonly do not see or speak to anyone for five or six days a week, a poll suggests.

Age UK, which commissioned the research, said the results highlighted a growing number of chronically lonely older people, which was placing increasing demand on health services.

Related: Jo Cox’s campaign to tackle loneliness lives on with help of friends

Related: Loneliness is a hazard of old age. A phone call can mean a lot | Michele Hanson

Continue reading…

Half a million older people spend every day alone, poll shows

The mental health college that"s a lifeline in "a sea of being alone"

The students gathered on a three-hour “five ways to improve your wellbeing” course in south London are about to have a powerful realisation.

One of the group is asked to think about how many hours a week she spends seeing healthcare professionals, such as health visitors or psychiatrists, about her mental health condition.

She tots up the amount of hours each week and multiplies it by 52. It comes to just under two full days. Stella Williams, the course’s peer trainer, points out that for 363 days she has managed her condition all by herself.

For the group of students, who are all either current or former patients at the South West London and St George’s mental health NHS trust and now taking courses at the onsite Recovery College, this realisation that they look after themselves for such a large part of the year, makes them smile with pride.

I can’t talk to my son or husband because they don’t know what I’m talking about but people here do

Clara Jones

Launched in 2010, there are now over 50 courses in the shiny prospectus belonging to the Recovery College situated in the grounds of Springfield University hospital that are attended by around 150 people a week. They range from providing information about specific diagnoses (for example, understanding personality disorder), to teaching coping tools such as journaling or mindfulness. There are also courses specifically for carers, families and friends.

Clara Jones, a mother of one, has severe anxiety and depression and admits that being at the college is the very last place she really wants to be. “If I had my way, I’d be at home in my bedroom with the curtains drawn and the door closed. But I make myself come because it gives me the feeling of not being alone and that helps. It took a lot of courage for me to come to the first class,” she says.

Each course is co-produced and co-facilitated by a peer trainer who is someone with lived experience of a mental health issue, and a practitioner trainer, who is a mental health professional.

For Jones, who is one of the 2,700 people to have attended since the Recovery College opened, one of the best things about coming to the college, is knowing she isn’t alone. “People say wise things without even knowing and no one cares if I’m not saying anything. I can’t talk to my son or husband because they don’t know what I’m talking about, but people here do.”

Last week the students learned about how staying active can improve their mental health. One student, Steph Bates, an artist who has obsessive compulsive disorder, tells the group about how she had braved going swimming for the first time in years and how much it had lifted her mood.

Peer trainer Peter Wilson says watching his students build confidence like this is the best thing about his job. “We were running a course about being assertive and in the second week a girl had had a conversation with her partner that she’d wanted to have for years but hadn’t been able to. It’s the nature of the college.”

Wilson has been a peer trainer for a year. “I was sitting on the other side of the table just two years ago, that’s how recent it is. I had my own business but I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and I lost it all. I then went through the learning curve and it took a while to get to where I am now.

“In class, I draw on my raw experiences of bipolar and how I manage it. I bring that to the room so hopefully students will be inspired.”

One of his colleagues is Kevin Howell, a practitioner trainer, whose background is in psychiatric nursing. Working so closely with peer trainers is one of the most unique things about his role. “I’ll be honest, I was nervous about what experience they’d have in a classroom environment,” he says. “It was quite daunting being involved in a new concept and realising that I couldn’t make any assumptions about my co-trainer’s experience.”

“We had some teething problems at first, one of which was realising we needed a formal process to bring peer trainers on board so that we had confidence in their training and ability.”

A trainee peer trainer programme was developed. Now, Howell says he knows that his co-trainers have both the training and the experience to be a true partner in the classroom. “What’s wonderful about working with a peer trainer is that student can relate directly to them, and this brings out information in the class that I would never hear otherwise.”

Howell believes the college is so successful because they put participants at the centre of what they do. He says: “Students don’t feel they’re on a conveyor belt and are valued for the whole person they are. When the focus is on the individual as a whole rather than their diagnosis you see a much fuller picture.”

For Bates, who enrolled just two weeks ago, the course is already helping her manage her OCD while she waits for a bed in a residential unit. She says: “It’s helpful in so many ways. For me it’s like a float in the sea of being alone.”

* Some names have been changed.

Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.

The mental health college that"s a lifeline in "a sea of being alone"

My father died alone in hospital. Our campaign is restoring people’s dignity

A little more than two years ago, I was in the kitchen with my friend, Julia Jones, in a state of helpless sorrow. My father, John, was still alive then, although he was in his desolating last stages. His slow-motion dying had gone on for months and would continue for several more. While it endured we half wanted him gone, and when it ended, of course we wanted him back – a living ghost rather than a dead man who might haunt us but would never return.

My father’s drawn-out death lasted nine months: he went into hospital as someone living well with dementia; he came out quite lost and broken, and all the love in the world couldn’t have found him or put him together again.

It was Julia who suggested (and why hadn’t I thought of this before; why hadn’t it been obvious?) that carers of people living with dementia should have the same right to accompany them in hospital as the parents of sick children: that they should be welcomed by the bedside, to feed them, talk to them, hold their hand, stroke their hair, meet their gaze, be their memory, keep them safe, take them home whole. And after my father died, it was the Observer – which had 50 years earlier championed the demand by parents to be able do just that for their children – which gave me a place where my voice could be heard, and where sorrow, guilt and regret could be redeemed into change and rescue.

My father was beyond all help, but there are thousands of men and women with dementia who go into hospital each year and who come out diminished, through no fault of nurses and doctors, but because hospital is a hazardous place for those who are frail.

It was nearly two years since I wrote the piece in the Observer that launched John’s Campaign. Founded and run by Julia and me, its aim is simply that carers should be made welcome in hospital. Its beginnings were in a kitchen, but it is now part of a great movement for more enlightened and compassionate care for those with dementia.

At a conference last Wednesday dedicated to the campaign, tribute was paid to the paper’s honourable tradition of giving a voice to the voiceless, power to the powerless, hope to those in despair. The hall was full of generous people who had helped us on our journey – people with influence and connections, NHS leaders, consultants, chief nurses, heads of charities – but at the heart of the conference were the people whose voices are not usually heard, whose sorrow and anger and passion get drowned out in the great noise of the world.

As James Munro, chief executive of Patient Opinion, said: “Listening is the beating heart of healthcare” and in the act of listening “both speaker and listener are changed”.

In a session entitled “Voices”, 10 people, many of whom had never spoken in public before, courageously told of their experiences and were listened to. Sometimes what they said was hard to hear. Their stories, both the ones of anguish and the ones of kindness and optimism, illustrated why we started the campaign.

Tommy Dunne, who lives with dementia, described what it feels like to be in hospital, a “strange place surrounded by strangers”, where something tight squeezes your arm and something cold is put into your mouth; where a chicken pie is placed in front of you and then taken away, a mug of tea loudly offered and then removed; where, startled and scared, “you become dehydrated and delirium sets in … and the quick decline in your health begins. Yet no one knows or understands why.”

Several carers – partners, children, grandchildren, people who, as one of them had it, were the “voice and the memory” of the person with dementia – spoke about their experiences of heartbreak.

Teresa Canale-Parola’s partner, John, was 60 when he died. The hospital in which he spent his final days was too far away for her and her daughters to visit regularly, and – in spite of their battle to get this reversed – there were strict visiting hours, so that for much of the time he was quite alone. In his dementia, John had become violent and was placed under a mental health order. He was medicated and, even when he was placid, he was restrained.

He stopped eating and drinking. Soon he could no longer walk. Thirty-five days after his admission, Teresa had a call to say his health had deteriorated: she and her daughters found John, by now starved and badly dehydrated, “restrained in a chair, dying” . It was a brutal way for a man to go.

The death of someone with advanced dementia can be a sad blessing for those who have loved them, restoring that person to all the selves they have ever been – but a bad or lonely death makes mourning painfully difficult, full of anger and regret and terrible failure, of almost unendurable memories of distress. Not to be with them, not to comfort them, not to rescue them from abandonment and fear, not to accompany them up to the threshold.

Alongside stories of anguish, there were ones of hope: a junior geriatrician (of whom I am the proud aunt) spoke about being part of a cultural change in hospitals. Liz Charalambous – a nurse who has been fighting to get unrestricted visiting for carers for years – said that “one day we will look back in astonishment” at the time when carers were not made welcome.

Rebecca Myers, a health professional whose mother had dementia at a cruelly young age, spoke movingly about the “pragmatic empathy” that lies at the heart of healthcare: “One human being connected to another, in the moment, in the environment, for a shared purpose – to take care, of and with, each other.”

And Theresa Clarke, a former nurse from Northern Ireland now living with dementia, spoke with clarity and spirit about how people with the condition “need to be part of the conversation … not just spoken about, like an object, but talked with and to”. She certainly did not like her diagnosis, she said, and being left in hospital was “deadly, like being in deep space”, but she urged us all to remember that “we can live well with dementia, we can still contribute to society, our family and the world beyond”.

Seeing Theresa, this diminutive firecracker of a woman, hearing her talk, hearing Tommy’s vivid account, was a forceful reminder that people with dementia – who we often reduce to statistics, to costs, to problems, even (horrible words) to “bed blockers”, are not “them” but “us”, valuable and human and precious, with stories to tell and voices to be listened to.

The session ended with Kate Kellaway, of the Observer, beautifully and tenderly describing her father’s last weeks. Her words, republished here, illustrate the ideals of our campaign and show how, up and down the country, nurses and doctors are bringing extraordinary compassion and empathy to the lives of people who are vulnerable, and to their deaths: to live as well as we possibly can; to have, as they say in Ireland, a gentle passing.

Kate Kellaway and her father on his 90th birthday, two months before he died. Photograph: Courtesy of Kate Kellaway

‘My dad’s care made us believe in the goodness of people’

My father died five months ago at Whittington hospital in Archway, north London – he’d had a fall, broken a hip, had an operation, recovered and been discharged. Then he had another fall and had to be readmitted and it turned out he’d had a silent heart attack. He was 90. He had for some time suffered from chronic kidney disease.

So – a medley of misfortunes, including, towards the end, dementia. He had an intermittent belief he was back in the war and that there was a soldier in the bed next to him – he was determined to know the soldier’s name. I helplessly selected “Jim”, which seemed to pacify Dad. But, of course there was no bed and no soldier other than Dad himself, gallantly fighting on.

When it was clear he was dying, the Whittington found him a room to himself. And that was just the first of the blessings of being in that hospital during Dad’s final three weeks.

The care was, in every way, exemplary. The staff were happy to waive visiting hours without question. We could come and go as we pleased and sit up all night with Dad if that was what we wanted to do. The number of visitors at any one time was left to our discretion.

My brother, sister and I were bowled over by one nurse in particular and the compassionate intelligence with which she grasped the emotional picture. Sam Hunt talked to Dad with warmth, respect and gentle humour. She tried to find out how he was feeling. At one point, he admitted he was frightened and she listened, smiled and reassured. And she reassured us too – she made us believe in the goodness of which people are capable.

The doctor, Dr Mitchell, was outstanding – a model of intelligence, sympathy and tact. She was exceptionally clear in her information – impressive, in particular, in telling us what she was not sure of as well as informing us about whatever she knew.

Towards the end of his life, Dad had given us instructions about not prolonging his life unnecessarily – we had power of attorney. The staff listened to us but as Dad became less and less able to speak, Dr Mitchell never neglected to address him first: “Mr Kellaway, I’m just talking to your daughters about how we can try to make you more comfortable…”

The palliative care team was first rate: educating us in the art, or science, of dying comfortably.

And when Dad gently breathed his last – it seemed to me that it resembled what a friend of mine once described as pushing your boat out – I was with him, and when he was gone, it was the nurse and doctor I embraced. They had retained the necessary professional distance and yet had allowed us to feel, if only for a moment, that they were – almost – family.

Kate Kellaway

My father died alone in hospital. Our campaign is restoring people’s dignity

Would You Rather Be Alone With Your Ideas Or Get Shocked?

Most folks genuinely don’t like being in their personal heads, new investigation suggests. Some would even rather give themselves an electrical shock instead of dealing with their thoughts.

Timothy Wilson, psychology professor at the University of Virginia (U.Va.), and colleagues from U.Va. and Harvard conducted 11 experiments to establish how properly men and women tolerate a number of minutes of quiet time. They examined a broad age variety, from school college students to folks pushing their 80s, and located a consistent end result: individuals have a tough time tolerating even a handful of minutes alone with practically nothing vying for their consideration.

The quantity of time varied from six to 15 minutes with definitely no distractions—no smartphones, laptops, TVs or tablets, or other individuals. And even though short, those handful of minutes proved difficult to take care of for most.

“Those of us who enjoy some down time to just feel likely discover the outcomes of this examine surprising – I definitely do – but our review participants regularly demonstrated that they would rather have anything to do than to have absolutely nothing other than their ideas for even a relatively short time period of time,” Wilson stated.

Frustrated 17/52 (Photograph credit score: Yashna M)

Obtaining established that alone time is usually unpleasant for young and previous, the investigation crew decided to discover out if examine participants would be inclined to do something unpleasant as an alternative of wrestling with their thoughts. So they yet again sequestered individuals for a number of minutes alone and gave them a button that, if pressed, would deliver a mild electrical shock.

And several men and women pressed it.

“Simply becoming alone with their own ideas for 15 minutes was apparently so aversive that it drove a lot of participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would shell out to steer clear of,” the researchers publish.

It is really worth noting that more men than females pressed the button (67% versus 25% of females), which Wilson attributes to males being a lot more zealous sensation seekers than ladies, in accordance to prior research.

So what are we to make of all this?  Have we become so enraptured with gadgets, social media and the boring roar of crowds that we cannot stomach dealing with ourselves? Perhaps, but Wilson thinks the chicken and egg of this equation might line up in the opposite course: the products and distractions we rely on to capture our focus exist because the human thoughts is much more comfortable focusing outwardly.

“The mind is designed to engage with the globe,” Wilson stated. “Even when we are by ourselves, our focus usually is on the outdoors globe. And with out instruction in meditation or thought-management strategies, which nonetheless are challenging, most men and women would favor to engage in external activities.”

In this see, all of our media technologies—old and new, from books to smartphones and beyond—have emerged from our minds’ want to get out of our heads.

This strikes me as a ideal subject for self-experimentation. Give it a try—find someplace in which you will not be distracted by anything for 15 minutes, just you and your thoughts, and report regardless of whether the respite was satisfying or unpleasant. Can you do the time without having cheating?

The research was published in the journal Science.

You can find David DiSalvo on Twitter @neuronarrative and at his website The Daily Brain. His latest book is Brain Changer: How Harnessing Your Brain’s Power To Adapt Can Change Your Existence.

Would You Rather Be Alone With Your Ideas Or Get Shocked?

The NHS is at breaking level challenging perform and commitment alone won"t conserve it

A occupied ward reception area in an NHS general hospital. Photograph: Pulse Picture Library/PA

The NHS has coped properly at a time of unprecedented monetary stress thanks to the hard function of one.three million staff across England. Physicians, nurses, therapists, managers and numerous others have ensured that most individuals most of the time acquire higher-good quality care without obtaining to wait longer than needed. They have also squeezed far more worth out of each and every offered pound to enhance care and stay within budget.

But speaking to these workers virtually each day, as I do in my occupation, I hear men and women wonder out loud how a lot longer they can proceed to work at this degree of intensity to safeguard and protect the service they know and adore.

More hospitals are in deficit or expecting to be so. Other people are struggling to hit waiting time targets and provide timely and practical appointments. Psychological overall health providers, community companies and GPs are also all affected. There is often scope to enhance efficiency in public solutions and the NHS is no exception. Smarter procurement of items and solutions, better use of staff to reduce the fees of high-priced company and locum workers, and greater coordination of care could all support the £100bn yearly well being budget go even more. Jeremy Hunt is also correct to argue that lowering errors and strengthening patient security will totally free up sources to assist deal with the pressures employees are beneath.

The snag is that time is running out. In April 2015, an further £2bn will be transferred from the NHS price range to the Far better Care Fund, to help councils perform more closely with the NHS to meet their population’s requirements. This is cash that would have been invested funding GPs, hospitals and psychological wellness providers and its transfer implies that employees in these companies will have to perform even more difficult to locate the efficiency financial savings necessary to balance the books and improve care.

NHS leaders speak openly of what will occur when they reach the edge of the fiscal cliff in 2015. Some hospitals are in the fortunate position of getting reserves to draw on to cover the shortfall in revenue they can see arriving. Other people will have to consider cutting their fees at the finish of this 12 months to have any chance of staying inside budget in 2015. Since most of their costs are accounted for by employees, this implies not filling vacancies and taking into consideration redundancies.

The difficulty is that the top quality of patient care will be compromised by there not getting sufficient physicians and nurses on the wards and in surgeries and clinics. The properly-publicised failures of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust had been brought on by precisely this sort of value-cutting, with tragic consequences for the families concerned.

The dilemma for the government is where to discover additional income to stay away from a repeat of this, given the parlous state of the public finances and the safety previously afforded to the NHS in contrast with other public companies that have experienced deep cuts. Navigating a safe route amongst the Scylla of added public spending and the Charybdis of public anger at failure to give sufficient sources for the NHS will demand skills of the highest purchase.

It is also the challenge for a Labour party at pains to stay away from getting accused of returning to the undesirable outdated days of tax and commit and as a result anxious about engaging with the reality that the NHS needs far more sources. The risk this creates is of collusion between the main events and a failure to have a debate that is turning out to be more and more urgent. The public and the NHS deserve greater.

Chris Ham is chief executive of the King’s Fund

The NHS is at breaking level challenging perform and commitment alone won"t conserve it

Are You A lot more Stressed At House Than At Perform? You happen to be Not Alone.

If, on your evening commute home, you start off stressing out about and somewhat dreading all the duties you will have to carry out after you’re there, it’s not just you. Numerous men and women find residence existence a lot more demanding than function, according to a new study from Pennsylvania State University. And this is real, the researchers found, when looking at how folks say they really feel and at the levels of their anxiety hormones at home vs. perform. So, if you have ever observed a slight sense of relief as you head back off to the workplace the subsequent morning, it must make you really feel a tiny far better to know that you’re not alone.

In the new study, researchers had 122 folks swab their cheeks three occasions a day, so they could measure the participants’ cortisol ranges. Cortisol is a key anxiety hormone, and rises when we’re in demanding circumstances. They also asked the men and women to fee their moods at home and at work.

The surprising obtaining was that people’s cortisol ranges were much lower when they have been at perform than when they have been at house. And this variation seemed to span all socioeconomic statuses.

When it came to people’s very own perceptions, there was an intriguing gender gap: Males mentioned they have been happier at residence than at perform, but women reported becoming happier at function. This might be partly due to the truth that, though it’s evened out a bit in latest years, there’s still somewhat of an imbalance in home responsibilities. Females are still taking on a lot more of the domestic duties – cooking, cleansing, and youngster-rearing – than guys, which could contribute to their emotions of pressure at house.

But there may also be one thing fundamentally therapeutic about function. Being aware of specifically what you have to do, focusing on a undertaking, and operating with a group of folks to get that done is clearer-lower and less harried than at-residence duties. As Damaske factors out, though we often say we’re stressed out by operate, earlier studies have really shown that complete-time function is also linked to greater mental and bodily properly-getting.

And as Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of The Time Bind, advised NPR, element of the reason that work looks significantly less demanding than property is the optimistic suggestions factor. She says if you request men and women exactly where they truly feel most capable and appreciated, they say, “’Well, gosh. Really, if I’m undertaking the right issue at function, probabilities are my supervisor’s clapping me on the back. But if I’m performing the correct issue at house, with my teenager who needs the automobile and is mad at me, I’m performing the proper issue but I’m not appreciated.’”

In the new review, mother and father, too, had been less stressed at perform than at residence. The previous handful of years have brought a flurry of studies on the “Are parents happier than non-mothers and fathers?” question, and the response appears to be both “yes” and “no.” The new research does not handle that directly, but it does inform us that regardless of the joys of possessing kids, even parents may uncover a sense of solace in the office.

What’s the resolution for people going through operate-home dilemmas? Damaske says that clearly cutting back on perform will not resolve work-family members conflicts. She factors out that on weekends, ladies have been no a lot more stressed than guys – just on weekdays. So it might be anything about the weekday juggling of both realms that’s especially nerve-racking to people, specifically girls. “If house had been a consistent source of strain, I consider we would assume to uncover a gender distinction on the weekend, but we really don’t.”

So maybe generating the transition amongst operate and home smoother is the key. Companies, she suggests, ought to offer much more loved ones-friendly policies, like flexible hours, a “results only work environment,” and the option to telecommute. This may well not cut the tension out totally, but it might reduce the stress of toggling back and forth in between the two worlds ample to feel a variation.

Comply with me @alicewalton or locate me on Facebook.

Are You A lot more Stressed At House Than At Perform? You happen to be Not Alone.

Males who reside alone at better skin cancer chance

The probability of getting diagnosed with stage III or IV cancer rather of stage I was 43 per cent increased, and the issue was 31 per cent much more most likely to show deadly in males who lived alone, the scientists reported.

The outcomes, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, showed that single males of all ages are a lot more probably to die from the ailment, and older females residing alone also had more sophisticated condition on common at their 1st diagnosis.

Even so, single girls were no a lot more probably to have late-stage cancer than those living with partners.

Researchers stated a single feasible explanation was that men and older women who live alone are both ill-informed about the ailment, or endure from not getting a companion to notice any suspect marks on their skin.

Dr Hanna Eriksson, initial author of the examine, mentioned: “The decreased survival among men is in component explained by far more superior phases at diagnosis, perhaps because no 1 can examine their skin at home.

“There might also be other differences in contrast to girls who usually have a much better prognosis in the condition.”

Males who reside alone at better skin cancer chance

No-makeup selfies on Facebook won"t beat cancer alone | Sali Hughes

‘The unique campaign also took a universal, gender non-distinct problem and turned it into a “women’s problem”.’ Photograph: Wavebreak Media Ltd/Alamy

About 48 hours ago, a number of self-portraits appeared on my Facebook feed. Each was of a lady ostensibly sporting no makeup, with the hashtag #beatcancer (not breast cancer, not ovarian or prostate or bone or lymph – just “cancer”). Nothing at all else. Merely a selfie, a slogan and a call to arms, imploring other girls to do the same.

I was perplexed as to how a seemingly incongruous gesture could influence the fight towards cancer in any way. I checked the Cancer Analysis Uk web site, and the charity was apparently uninvolved and at that stage seemingly unaware of however another hollow Facebook meme with as considerably relevance as “like this publish if you think youngster abuse / animal cruelty / rape is a poor thing”. As the morning wore on hundreds a lot more makeup-totally free selfies appeared. One instance of this kind of a post: “Here’s my no makeup selfie for cancer! It is a uncommon factor to see me without makeup but so essential for so many individuals! #beatcancer.”

As social media feeds filled up with these posts, I grew to become more and more irritated, but a swift search showed I was far from alone. Females (and males) had begun posting screengrabs of their donations to Cancer Study, minus the pictures that had kickstarted the viral fundraising, typically with disparaging remarks about the preliminary drive. Cancer Research United kingdom, realising that something massive was taking location, hijacked the meme and began posting details on how to really do some thing to assist.

Right now the charity announced it has had donations of much more than £2m in 48 hrs and the “makeup-free of charge selfie” brigade have claimed a enormous victory in the fight towards cancer. Even though it arguably is – a fortune has been raised that may not otherwise have been – did the outcome justify the signifies?

Like a lot of other folks, I had many problems with the natural campaign. First of all, as with a great deal of social networking campaigns, it asked for no helpful contribution, no meaningful action, just a kind of lazy, armchair reaction that tends to make us really feel good about ourselves. It implied that the most useful way a female (there was no suggestion that males must do anything at all at all) could contribute to the solving of a large difficulty, was to consider off their makeup and have their look scrutinised en masse, as even though this was some exceptionally meaningful sacrifice. The very same was asked of women in the course of Youngsters In Need’s BearFaced campaign.

Most women I know, myself integrated, are noticed without makeup an awful whole lot. To imply mascara and lipstick are like oxygen to ladies, as although anybody who wears makeup has no sense of point of view nor awareness as to what else may be going on in the planet, nor any capability for charity, is reductive, patronising and just plain stupid.

The unique campaign also took a universal, gender non-distinct concern and turned it into a “women’s situation” by generating it all about surface, vanity and emotion rather than about useful, useful action. No require to bake cakes for Macmillan, no use getting into a marathon or simply setting up a direct debit (and yes, like many women, I have accomplished all 3) – just present your close friends how excellent your skin looks without foundation. Only when these who disagreed with it showed their dissent by donating income, did it have any good final result.

There is, of course, one more question about the vanity of people taking portion. It was hours ahead of the selfie mob questioned what they had truly taken component in past a mass physical exercise in narcissism greeted by adoring comments saying “you even now seem scorching hun”. Whilst I’m in no place to understand the genuine motives of 1000′s of ladies (Facebook memes do have a habit of indirectly bullying people into appearing worthy), but the impact of this kind of mass and glib support was not greeted with enthusiasm by all people a lot more immediately affected by cancer. 1 buddy, in recovery from bone cancer, posted sarcastically: “Wow, you guys appear just as sh*t as I did when I had cancer! It really is the Same! #sobrave”. Yet another pointed out that makeup and the ability to make herself “search effectively” was hugely important to her even though she was undergoing chemotherapy.

I am glad that some thing great came out of this, but disappointed that this kind of meaningless social networking campaigns have been vindicated in the method. Certainly the floodgates are now broad open for a lot more reductive, sexist, self-congratulatory campaigns for ominous gain.

No-makeup selfies on Facebook won"t beat cancer alone | Sali Hughes

Electing when we die is the greatest choice. It have to be ours and ours alone | Jacky Davis

‘At the heart of the debate above assisted dying is respect for patient autonomy.’ Photograph: Joanne O’Brien/Alamy

Last year my brother killed himself. He was 60 and struggling from terminal cancer. He had been exceptionally match and powerful until the condition struck, but by the time of his death he was breathless and the spread of the cancer to his spine meant he could only crawl close to the home. He knew the end was near and, in spite of the help of an excellent palliative care staff, he felt he’d had adequate. He wanted manage over his death and, in the absence of assisted dying legislation, he knew he would have none. He took the only way out that he could see. He was located at the bottom of a flight of stairs, getting unsuccessfully tried to hang himself.

Soon Lord Falconer’s bill will come prior to the Property of Lords. With upfront safeguards, it would permit assisted dying for those of sound thoughts who are terminally ill, and have a settled wish to die, a modify that numerous come to feel is lengthy overdue. Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat care minister, is just the latest high-profile politician to say he will assistance this alter.

The law requirements to alter since not all suffering can be adequately relieved. Dying can even now be messy, unpleasant and undignified, despite what the palliative care physicians tell us. The availability of assisted dying is not just about relieving the unbearable physical suffering of some patients in their last days it will also handle the dread many will knowledge as they anticipate those ultimate days.

As the law stands, terminally unwell sufferers know they will have no manage above their own death and live with the very real worry of uncontrolled symptoms and reduction of dignity. Assisted dying would help by giving sufferers the prospect of management and selection when it genuinely mattered so that they could encounter death with greater equanimity. In Oregon, in which assisted dying is legal, only one in 200 of those who inquire about it avail themselves of it. The information that it is accessible is generally comfort sufficient.

Some reject the thought of legislation on assisted dying simply because they think the matter ought to be left in the hands of the patient’s GP, who will discreetly supply the essential dose of ache relief when the time comes. I know a GP who gave a terminally unwell patient an appropriate dose of morphine to get him by means of the evening. The patient died shortly thereafter and the family members accused the GP of killing him. He was arrested, taken to the police station and formally charged. The story was in the nearby papers, and it took him much more than a yr to clear his name. Numerous GPs are understandably afraid to give ample doses of pain relief, and it is not honest to fudge the concern by exposing them in this way.

But at the heart of the debate more than assisted dying is respect for patient autonomy. I have observed a profound adjust in the romantic relationship amongst individuals and medical doctors considering that I qualified. Benign paternalism has gone and doctors are taught to respect the appropriate of sufferers to select even when we will not agree with their choice. So why in the matter of death and dying do we revert back to that previous paternalism – the “physician knows ideal” frame of mind of my healthcare youth? We do something we by no means do otherwise – we presume we know greater than the patient. Why need to we doctors have the appropriate to deny patients their greatest patient decision?

My brother was exceptionally brave. He did not want to suffer as he had observed other people endure, and he found his personal escape from an intolerable predicament. But in performing so he died alone and afraid. He could have died at a time of his picking with his loved ones all around him but the law did not let him that option. That law is cruel and barbaric, and we now have an opportunity to alter it.

A poor death implies not only struggling for the patient but a cruel legacy for people left behind. Out of respect for my brother’s memory and for the sake of the many dealing with the exact same scenario, allow us legislate for assisted dying for the mentally competent, terminally ill patient. It may even be ourselves a single of these days.

Electing when we die is the greatest choice. It have to be ours and ours alone | Jacky Davis