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JOYELY: WHERE VISION, STRATEGY, AND JOY CONVERGE TO REDEFINE SUCCESS

Importance of Joy – Christopher Lee McElroy M.S. and Sheryl Lynn

Importance of Joy – Christopher Lee McElroy M.S. and Sheryl Lynn Abstract: The subsequent review over the mental health topic of joy, that can also be defined as well-being or having a positive affect, is aimed to discuss imperative points in positive psychology. It means to define what the benefits of joy is overall and how to obtain joy via several different methods, particularly utilizing positive psychology interventions. Joy is important for every aspect of life and it would be beneficial to have a simple means to practice gaining joy through a variety of meditative processes. Lastly, this review introduces a simple means of exercising and practicing one’s mind to obtain joy called the ‘Chair of Joy.’ Herein, this review will describe joy as type of happiness with meaning or inner well-being [eudaimonic].  Why is Joy Important to Us? Means to Attain Joy It seems obvious that joy is important for almost all of us in many ways. But why is joy important on a biological level? In the subsequent sections, importance of joy in our physical, mental, and social aspects of our lives.  Meditation: There are many types of meditation, but the overarching goal is to refresh the mind from and dismiss irrelevant thoughts such as depression, anxiety, and stress and allow for feelings or mood states such as joy to be the dominant affect and become attentive, or in tune, with what is important. Two types of meditation were employed by a study done by Fredrickson et al. [32]  [mindfulness and loving-kindness] to evaluate their correlation with positive emotion. Over a nine-week period of positive and negative emotions were tested using a Differential Emotions Scale on individuals practicing daily meditation [33]. It was concluded that there were significant increases in positive emotion during that time and more so with loving-kindness meditation than just mindfulness. In a previous study by Fredrickson and Branigan [10], a correlation was made between positive emotions and attention. Manly et al. described inattentiveness or being “absent minded” as this: Physically: Most would likely agree that positive people are considered healthier individuals. Although individual mental health circumstances vary, it has also been reported that having joy, or well-being, has a positive effect on the recovery of physically adverse events. One such study looked at the “undoing effect” of positivity of individuals that had recently experienced anxiety induced cardiovascular event [1]. Students were asked to do a speech preparation task to induce anxiety and actively increase heart rate. Afterwards, they were shown either a film with waves crashing [contentment], puppies playing [amusement], colored sticks [neutral], or a video of a child watching their father die [sadness]. It was found that the two positive emotion eliciting clips helped to progress cardiovascular recovery faster. Positive emotions are definitely not limited to just temporary induced states in a lab. Several studies have concluded that there was as significant correlation between individuals that have difficult to control asthma and previously untreated psychiatric illness that would include depression and anxiety [2-4]. This would make sense considering that when the onset of asthma occurs it is important to try to stay calm and breath. The healthy counterparts to these studies have a much easier time managing their asthma. Better management of type 1 and type 2 diabetes can also be helped through positive psychology, particularly in adolescence [5, 6]. On the other end of the age spectrum, positive psychology is well known to increase longevity. Those that have a general well-being, or good mental health, that could be describe as having joy in life have a greater will to live and generally, do live longer [7, 8].  “To be absent-minded is to be inattentive to the ongoing activity, to lose track of current aims and to become distracted from intended thought or action by salient but (currently) irrelevant stimuli.” [34] And attention can be defined as: “a continuous inhibition of task irrelevances” [35, 36]. This definition similarly correlates with meditation mentioned before. Attention can be expanded through the inhibition of irrelevant thoughts and negative emotions. In other words, a meditative mind is an attentive and joyous one.  Prayer: Like the good mental health practice of meditation, prayer is another mental exercise one can do to attain spiritual well-being and joy. Depending on the study, the results are somewhat mixed. One study found a negative correlation with religion and resilience and positive mental health [37]. An explanation could be provided in another study that found that only those that are highly religious reap the benefits of prayer and are able to inhibit ruminating thoughts which allow for better performance on a dual-task test, which tests for capacity of attention of a person [38].  Boelens et al. [39, 40] also found that prayer over a period of six weeks significantly reduced anxiety and depression and saw that the significance remained even a year later. This review describes joy as, not only having good mental health, positive affect, and well-being, but inhibiting negative and unnecessary thoughts, which is emulated in that study.    Frequency of prayer and an individual’s stage in Maslow’s hierarchy may play a role in the efficacy of prayer. Maslow’s hierarchy puts into place the importance of needs of a human starting with physiological needs like food and water and ending with self-actualization and transcendence [41]. It seems that prayer is a significant factor up until a person reaches self-esteem [42]. This may be because of the need for belonging at that stage, which religious entities tend to try to provide a safe group to belong to. Neuroanatomically, fMRI indicates that prayer from true believers who were Danish Christians had similar activation to individuals that practiced meditation, including the medial prefrontal cortex, temporo-parietal junction and precuneus [43]. As far as structural changes, Catholic nuns were found to have more gray matter in the “right lingual cortex, left isthmus-cingulate, posterior-cingulate, rostral-middle-frontal, superior-frontal, supramarginal, temporal-pole cortices, and bilateral pars-triangularis cortices” but reduced volume in the temporal and parietal areas that, oddly, in the fMRI showed greater

Mental Health Research in Children

Mental Health Research in Children Introduction: Mental health in children has worsened over the last decade, especially with the recent COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, a survey of over 1,000 parents by the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago taken around the United States had 71% of parents say that the pandemic had taken a toll on their children’s mental health, and 69% said that it was the worst thing to happen to the mental health of their child. In 2020, there was an increase in mental health hospital-related visits from 24% of children ages 5-11 and 31% ages 12-17.  The American Rescue Plan Act passed in March of 2021, addressed this issue by providing 170 billion dollars for schools to train and implement more psychiatrists in the school setting. This is especially helpful in states like Nevada, which was ranked last in providing services for mental health in the US. The allocation of this money is to be utilized to increase the workforce dedicated to the mental well-being of the youth in the US. This is an action that needs to be taken before the issue can be appropriately addressed [1].  The next step is more permanent funding. Although this addresses the crises exacerbated by the pandemic, this needs to be sustained long-term. Psychologists are also helping train teachers to deal with emotional and behavioral issues. Teachers are incorporating mental health lessons in the classroom to reduce the burden on school psychologists and increase mental health knowledge and awareness in students [1]. The current article looks at the mental well-being of children and adolescents over the past decade. It will explore the mental health issues related to children that have become a growing problem before and during the pandemic, interventions based at school, in the community, and at home, and using mental health promotion strategies to improve mental health in children.  This is by no means an exhaustive review of the literature but a sampling of research to give perspective on the current state of mental health of children and what can be done about the growing mental illness crisis. Hopefully, this provides needed information to many parents with children and the public on mental health research in the US and worldwide. Prevalence of Mental Health Issues of Children Before and During the Pandemic: A study evaluating the National Survey of Children’s Health from 2016 analyzed responses concerning mental health, particularly depression, anxiety disorders, and behavioral problems. During this period, pre-COVID, it was observed that approximately 7.1% (4.4 million) had anxiety issues, 7.4% (4.5 million) had behavioral problems, and 3.2% (1.9 million) suffered from depression. These results are for children in the US ages 3-17 years of age. Therapy was given to almost 80% of children that suffered from depression but only 60% and 50% for anxiety and behavioral problems, respectively [2]. During and after the pandemic, depression and anxiety increased to 9.4% and 4.4%, respectively, in children 3-17 years of age, and 20% of high-school students experienced persistent depression, with 7 in 100,000 committing suicide and only 1 in 4 children in this age group had received mental health services [3, 4]. The pandemic exacerbated the comorbidity of anxiety and depression but not individually [4]. Also, it has been reported that the severity of depression in children increased in a study of an inpatient care unit in an urban community compared to three years prior. In the same study, the intake of black adolescents in the psychiatric hospital doubled, and there was an increase of 17% in attempted suicide through all demographics [5]. A similar study at another urban children’s psychiatric hospital saw an increase over four-fold increase in the use of restraints in the middle of the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic conditions and a notable increase in the use of psychotropic drugs [6].  Children with more severe mental health issues like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) increasingly suffered during the COVID pandemic. A survey study of children ages 6-18 previously diagnosed with OCD reported that over 50% reported an increase in the severity of their symptoms, such as increased cleaning or washing, obsessive checking of previous activities, and fear of contamination during the pandemic as compared to before [7] There is still lack of evidence for the impact of COVID on the mental health of children with more severe psychotic disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and schizophrenia.  Mental Health Interventions at School, within the Community, and at Home: There have been many approaches to remedy or prevent children’s mental illness and protect their well-being. Which studies prove to be most effective, however? Which setting is most appropriate for providing mental healthcare to children of different age groups? The answer to these and many more questions are complex in nature. Rarely are studies in this field conducted similarly and comparably or analyzed the same. One review by Das et al. [8] attempts to provide some answers on the effectiveness of school, community, and home/family-based interventions that were aimed at providing help for mentally ill children. It rated 38 systemic reviews covering these approaches and that cover several mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.  In one review covering 15 studies, mental health promotion programs, which will be discussed further in the next section, significantly positively impacted younger children and adolescents [9]. Another review analysis found that school-based preventative mental health measures were also influential. Nurture groups in school that focus on the student’s social, behavioral, and emotional well-being had a direct and substantial impact on the well-being of the student participants [10]. This approach was practical because it dealt with the child’s well-being and should be considered further for future intervention studies. Short-term therapy that is solution based had mixed results in another review but overall showed promise in reducing negative emotions and correcting behavioral issues [11]. In low-income urban schools, mental health interventions were helpful but were age and gender-specific in their impact [12]. It is worth noting that no one method is