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  • 1.  NEW SERIES! Wellness Wednesday: Mental health hygiene

    Posted 05-25-2022 08:42:00 AM

    We’ve been thinking about starting a recurring discussion series here about wellness and well-being. A popular topic for this community. As May is Mental Health Awareness Month, the timing feels right. We encourage you all to contribute questions, articles, tips, comments, advice to your peers related to this topic: mental health, physical health, resilience, burnout, self-care, etc. 


    Thanks to our friends at Stanford Medicine and their (AAMC GIA-award winning) Scope blog, we are sharing this advice about maintaining good mental health hygiene:


    “Spending even 15 minutes on mental health hygiene each day can bring a host of benefits, from improved mood and better relationships to even deeper concentration and enhanced creativity.” And you can start with mindfulness practice as you brush your teeth! Bonus: good dental hygiene too. Read more from Scope for tips on mental health hygiene.

    What tips do you have for mental health hygiene?



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    Penny Schnarrs
    Virtual Communities Program Manager
    Association of American Medical Colleges
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  • 2.  RE: NEW SERIES! Wellness Wednesday: Mental health hygiene

    Posted 05-26-2022 08:37:00 PM
    Hi All- I recently read an HBR article titled Stop Framing Wellness Programs Around Self-Care that inspired me to write a micro-blog on the topic for our monthly newsletter. The authors' research found that most well-intentioned employer-provided wellness programs actually undermine personal wellness. I'm sure many of us can empathize with the guilt cycle of I should be doing more self-care but I can't find the time. Their solution is to reframe adversity as an experience belonging to the collective and to foster "relational pauses." If you're interested, you can find the full article here.

    I like the mindful teeth-brushing...it's something we are doing anyway and there's not much else you can do while brushing your teeth, so why not take a 2-minute mindfulness opportunity? Thanks for sharing!


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    Tera Lessard
    Learning Design Consultant
    Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
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