It’s a fact. In the COVID-19 reality we are all experiencing, a lot of us have lost a sense of purpose. It’s impacted our business and personal lives from undergoing general fatigue to a lack of energy and motivation - an emotional triple whammy.
That’s why is it important to know your goals. A sense of purpose improves both physical and mental health, makes us more confident, motivated, and happy. Equally important is how finding one’s sense of direction helps us to live with intention and clarity because we then know what we want.
In fact, we often feel lost and become trapped in our inner emotional turmoil without it. But, how do you get out of your own way? Many of us don’t know how to set our goals and deal with excessive emotions and anxiety in challenging situations. This is especially true after the turmoil of the past year. There’s even a term for it. Emotional exhaustion. It’s that feeling of your emotional tank being empty.
With the percentage of Americans, according to a Gallup Poll, who rate their mental health sinking to the lowest percentages recorded in the past two decades, Grig recently launched The Human Cosmos App after over 11 years of work and research to create it.
The timing couldn’t be more opportune. Designed as a mental wellness app that uses emotional AI-powered technology to create personalized recommendations for increasing energy, vitality, and finding purpose in life, it unites ancient traditions with modern knowledge, including neuroscience, neurophysiology, and psychology.
The core of the methodology is that one’s life purpose is determined by several factors: genetics, education, talents, situational factors, lifestyle, the location of cosmic bodies at the time of your birth, energy structures, and individual nuances of your consciousness.
It is difficult to understand this fine science on your own. The Artificial Intelligence system of the Human Cosmos App (called the AI Cosmic Guide) analyzes all the factors, provides a holistic diagnosis, and suggests your purpose. It creates a customized development plan for it. The neural network then selects content specific to your needs, goals, and level of motivation.
Grig also shared these seven how-to tips to maintain better mental health as well as that the app “is creating emotional AI that understands human emotions and provides empathic feedback to users when they need it the most. It allows a new way of communication where people learn more about themselves. Our goal is to encourage users to grow and develop mentally, physically, and find their sense of purpose.”
1. Listen For Signs From Your Body And Mind. Observe your state of health and feelings. Feel your body and do a self-examination. The body has many ways to signal an alarm that you need to make changes.
2. Spend More Time Outside But Don’t Forget To Wear Your Mask. Adopt the Japanese concept of 'forest baths': it means spending time in nature and walking among the trees. It helps to restore the natural balance of our body.
3. Practice Gratitude. Research shows that regularly reflecting and expressing gratitude improves your well-being and mood.
4. Limit Information Overload. Grig advised, “Our brain is constantly ‘overeating’ on information, you need to give it a break. For example, avoid engaging in tasks that increase the amount of information you consume (news feeds, social media, etc.) when you are practicing relaxation and recreation.”
5. Exercise. Any type of exercise not only improves your physical fitness and strengthens your immune system, but also improves your mood by releasing endorphins.
6. Meditate. This will allow you to enter a flow state in which the mind and body merge, dissolving into each other. In addition, meditation provides an opportunity to detach, allowing you to become aware of the build-up of stress and giving you the choice of how to respond to it.
7. Get Enough Sleep. In order to be productive, you don’t have to spend more time doing things. It’s better to get enough sleep to feel energized and refreshed to start a good day. Those individuals who spend nights and days working away, often feel exhausted. When your mind and body are drained, you are most likely in a bad mood and can’t get things done well.
According to Dr. Michael Breus, who is also known as The Sleep Doctor, “every person has a master biological clock ticking away inside of their brain, and dozens of smaller biological clocks throughout his or her body. But, unlike a normal clock, not every person’s biological clock keeps the same time or even at the same pace.”
This is why it is also helpful, using this quiz, to find out your sleep chronotype. Are you a Lion (the morning lark), Bear (the most common type with 55% of the U.S. population falling into this category), a Wolf (often also known as a night owl and I’m one or most likely a member of a new category recently created by a group of true outliers,“Dragons”, who are beyond Wolf status) or a Dolphin? Once you find out, it will give you even greater insights into how to “work with your body, not against it.”
Finally, Circles, founded by Irad Eichler, winner of the 2017 United Nations Project Zero Prize for impactful social enterprises and named Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the World Economic Forum, is also on a mission to combat loneliness. It all started when his mother was battling cancer while simultaneously also battling loneliness. Surrounded by loved ones, Eichler’s mother felt that anyone who wasn't facing the disease themselves couldn’t understand her issues.
Immunocompromised, Eichler’s mother could not leave the house to attend an in-person support group. After her passing, the Circles founder felt a responsibility to create a safe online space for people to connect to others who are dealing with similar struggles by creating Circles.
The app’s methodology includes small (with a maximum of 10 people), secure online groups led by a professional therapist. The groups have been found to provide the participants mutual relief and encouragement, developing coping skills, and building personal resilience.
Especially now, as the global pandemic has crippled the ability of people to connect with others physically, Circles is surrounding users with much needed care, the opportunity to find mutual relief, and encouragement, with 70% of participants feeling supported at the end of a session, 77% feeling satisfaction from the weekly meetings, and 86% acknowledging their group interaction makes them feel better.
With only around 25% of American adults, according to very well mind, citing that they feel as if they have a clear sense of purpose about what makes their lives meaningful, new emotional AI and technology may begin to deliver accessible, personalized solutions in a way we’ve never before envisioned.