It’s been 17 years since Tears for Fears have released new music but on Thursday, the English rockers confirmed they have a new album on the way. The “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” singers revealed that their seventh studio album, named The Tipping Point, is due out early next year.
“‘The Tipping Point.’ out feb 25, 2022,” the band tweeted, along with a link to a video for the title track, which is about the grief of watching someone you love lose a long battle with disease.
Tears for Fears, comprised of members Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, last released new music in 2004 with their sixth studio album, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, which fans waited nine years to hear following their 1995 album Raoul and the Kings of Spain.
Of their reunion, Curt Smith says, “When you’ve known each other as long as we have, and have worked together as long as we have, there’s a bond there that becomes familial…It’s the kind of bond that you can’t really break. It can fall apart at times. You separate for periods, which I also think is healthy, really. But in the end, we always seem to find each other again.”
You can pre-order The Tipping Point on the official Tears for Fears website.
(NEW YORK) — With COVID-19 vaccine mandates proliferating across the country in the public and private sectors as well as some school districts, the pushback from those unwilling or hesitant to get their shots is heating up.
The vaccination effort has raised new questions about exemptions because mandates for adults are generally rare outside of settings like healthcare facilities and the military, and the inoculations are relatively new.
While there is no overall data yet on exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines, a number of companies and state governments have seen interest in religious exemptions — a protection stemming from the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This leaves employers in the difficult and legally precarious position of determining whether the requests are valid. As such, some states have tried to do away with non-medical exemptions overall for their employees.
In school settings, where vaccines have long been recognized as crucial to preventing communicable diseases, state-level mandates are common and have been tested in the courts.
“One of the most important public health practices we have to alleviate outbreaks and things like measles and whooping cough are vaccines required for school or for daycare entry,” Dr. Joshua Williams, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, told ABC News.
In addition to California announcing that it is adopting a state-wide mandate, individual education boards in cities like Los Angeles have started adding the Pfizer vaccine, which was granted full FDA approval in September and is currently the only vaccine approved for children older than 12, to their list of immunization requirements.
Experts say other school districts are likely to follow suit and have strong legal ground to enforce the requirement set forth in the 1944 Supreme Court case Prince v. Massachusetts.
Here’s what to know about the debate over non-medical exemptions:
On the rise in schools
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that while requests for medical exemptions in schools remain low and fairly constant (around 0.3%), non-medical exemptions (including religious and personal belief exemptions) have risen from 1.4% in the 2011-’12 school year to 2.2% in the 2019-’20 school year (a 57% increase).
In Idaho, for instance, in the 2019-’20 school year, 7.2% of kindergarteners had non-medical exemptions, according to the CDC data. That contrasts with around 1% for states like Massachusetts, Louisiana and Alabama.
Ellen Wright Clayton, a professor of pediatrics, law and health policy at the Vanderbilt University Law School, believes that schools should take a stand against religious exemptions in the interest of protecting public health.
“The fact of the matter is, parents are not entitled, for any reason, to expose other people’s children or other people to [COVID-19] for religious reasons,” Clayton said.
Schools from all 50 states have historically required immunization starting in kindergarten level to curb the spread of contagious diseases such as measles.
Forty-four states and the District of Columbia currently offer religious exemptions to vaccines, of which 15 offer broader personal belief exemptions for personal, moral or spiritual ideologies. The remaining six states — California, Connecticut, Maine, Mississippi, New York and West Virginia — only offer medical exemptions.
More religious exemptions despite decreasing religiousness
Williams, from the University of Colorado, noted that despite a decrease in religiosity among Americans, there has been an increase in religious exemption requests for vaccination, implying that these exemptions are “no longer serving their original purpose.”
It has increased even as some religious leaders, including Pope Francis and Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, a leading authority in Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, have made clear that vaccines are necessary for the common good and take precedence over religious beliefs.
In his research, Williams also investigated the influence of the availability of personal belief exemptions in states on the rate of religious exemptions for childhood vaccinations. In 2016, Vermont eliminated its personal belief exemption policy which was followed by an increase in religious exemption applications from 0.5% to 3.7%.
This suggests that “perhaps people were increasingly using that religious exemption category, even though they might not necessarily have a religious objection to vaccines,” Williams said.
“One thing that people have done previously has shown that the harder it is to obtain an exemption, the lower the rate of exemptions becomes,” he added.
Unlike personal belief exemptions, which are relatively broad, religious exemptions have to be integrated into a holistic belief system, said Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at UC Hastings College of the Law.
“You can’t just grab onto a biblical verse when it’s convenient,” Reiss, who has written about the legality of vaccine mandates in law journals, said.
How the exemptions work
Individuals’ rights to claim a religious exemption from immunization is protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, as seen in some states, this right can be overruled in the interest of public health.
In the wake of the 2019 measles outbreak in the states of New York and Washington, where most cases were reported among the unvaccinated, the states eliminated religious exemptions.
In the face of a religious exemption application, employers or schools have the right to probe the exemption and question the applicant. In other words, it is on them to assess the sincerity of the belief, not the accuracy or validity.
Employers can require their employees to explain the basis of their belief in detail and don’t need to accept a cursory attestation to grant the exemption, Reiss said.
“You can’t try and assess if the belief is rational,” Reiss clarified. “You can ask them a tough question to gauge sincerity.”
However, employers cannot discriminate in favor of organized religions and hence aren’t allowed to request letters from clergy or priests as proof. Employees’ rights to challenge accommodations provided by their employer are also protected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with whom they can file an official complaint.
Employers can maintain high proportions of vaccinated individuals and still make accommodations for those with sincere religious beliefs as demonstrated by the Conway Regional Health System.
But allowing religious exemptions on the basis of how convincing the justification is, Reiss explained, is problematic because it opens the door for people who’ve attended anti-vaccine workshops or “people who are just better liars” to game the system.
Building trust for vaccinations
According to Williams, vaccine hesitancy and the misuse of religious exemptions can be attributed to not only a gap in knowledge caused due to vaccine misinformation and disinformation, but also due to a lack of trust between individuals and public health experts.
“It comes down to something scaring them of the vaccine and they’re using the religious exemption as a cover,” Reiss said.
A common concern among vaccine opponents is the use of fetal cell lines in vaccine research and development, although not an actual ingredient in the vaccine.
When asked about alternatives to curb the spread of misinformation regarding vaccine side effects and composition and the misuse of religious exemptions, Williams suggested a collaboration with religious and faith leaders whom individuals have already built trust with.
“All major faith traditions support vaccinations. And they all support COVID vaccines as well,” Williams said. Reverends and bishops across the country have started collaborating with governments to build trust in the COVID-19 vaccine. It then often comes down to individual interpretations of scripture that lead to religion-based anti-vaccine beliefs.
According to Williams, facilitating an ongoing conversation between faith leaders, public health experts and community members would provide for a safe space for individuals to voice their concerns and get answers in a comfortable environment.
With its relatively recent onset, experts agree that it might be too early to talk about the rate of religious exemptions on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate rollout.
It’s important to highlight how problematic it is to misuse religious exemptions is, Reiss pointed out. “Because in a real sense, it’s abusing religion. It’s making a mockery of real belief and encouraging people to lie about religion, which no religion I think supports.”
Rich Fury/Getty Images for U.N. World Food Programme
The Weeknd has an important new job.
The chart-topping star has been named a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations World Food Programme, which provides food assistance to over 100 million people in more than 80 countries annually. In his new role, the singer, born Abel Tesfaye, will use his platform to advocate for ending global hunger.
“The U.N. World Food Programme is doing urgent and important work to change and save lives on a daily basis and I feel passionately about addressing world hunger and helping people in need,” said the Canadian artist in a statement. “Our partnership is an authentic extension of all our efforts and intentions to help those in need and bring an end to so much suffering.”
The Weeknd has already been a huge supporter of the WFP. Not long ago, he donated $1 million to the organization’s relief efforts in Ethiopia, his parents’ home country.
The WFP’s executive director said in a statement that the Weeknd’s “compassion and commitment to helping the world’s hungriest people is truly inspirational.”
Maybe this is why The Weeknd’s been spotted with Angelina Jolie lately. The actress is a former U.N. goodwill ambassador and current U.N. special envoy.
(WASHINGTON) — Hiring in the U.S. fell far below expectations last month, with employers adding just 194,000 jobs versus the expected 500,000, the Department of Labor said Friday.
The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 4.8%, the DOL added, but the latest hiring data comes after dismal job growth seen in August as well. Some 366,000 jobs were added in August, according to revised data released on Friday, and over a million jobs were added in July.
The more-contagious delta variant’s impact on the recovery is likely reflected in the disappointing figures, as the labor market still finds itself at the mercy of the virus. The unemployment rate still remains elevated compared to the pre-pandemic 3.5% seen in February 2020.
Notable job gains last month occurred in the hard-hit leisure and hospitality industry, which added some 74,000 jobs. Employment in leisure and hospitality is still down by some 1.6 million jobs, or 9.4%, compared to data before the COVID-19 shock.
Job growth in September was also seen in professional and business services (where hiring rose by some 60,000), retail trade (which saw an increase of 56,000 jobs), and transportation and warehousing (which gained 47,000 jobs).
Some labor economists say that despite the disappointing top line numbers in the latest employment report, there is still reason to have optimism about the recovery going forward.
“Despite the weak growth in September, today’s report is a glimpse in the rearview mirror,” Daniel Zhao, a senior economist at hiring site Glassdoor, said in a commentary shared with ABC News on Friday. “With the Delta variant wave receding, the worst of the Delta wave may be behind us.”
Disparities in the pandemic’s impact is still reflected in the latest data. The unemployment rate for white workers was 4.2% last month compared to 7.9% for Black workers and 6.3% for Hispanic workers.
Zhao also noted that the latest report from the Labor Market is the first to reflect the expiration of federal enhanced unemployment benefits, yet the unemployment rate fell only slightly to 4.8%.
“The decelerating jobs growth in September is likely to disappoint employers and policymakers that hoped the expiration of enhanced UI benefits would push Americans back into the labor force,” he said. “Ultimately, the September report will not be the final word in the debate over the impact of UI benefits.”
“As we head into the fall, the resumption of school reopenings and expiration of UI benefits may push some workers back into the labor force, but red-hot labor demand is likely to keep labor shortages top of mind for employers,” Zhao added.
The demand for labor is reflected in part in the rise in wages seen in recent months. In September, hourly earnings for all employees rose by 19 cents to some $30.85, and average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 14 cents to $26.15.
Meanwhile, approximately 13.2% of workers teleworked last month due to the pandemic, the DOL said, reflecting a trend that economists predict is likely here to stay even when the virus threat recedes.
On the newest episode of their Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk, Gloria and Emilio Estefan shared their heartbreaking stories about fleeing Cuba as young children when FidelCastro‘s coup threatened their lives.
“I left Cuba when I was literally two and a half years old. In May of 1960 I was brought to the U.S. because my father was a police officer for the Cuban government,” Gloria explained. “The night of the coup… My father came home and he told my mother, ‘We’re in trouble.'”
The singer said her father and grandfather, the latter an army commander, were arrested for their ties to the previous government. Both were jailed, but after they were released a few months after, they arranged to flee the country.
“They knew who Fidel Castro was, what was coming,” Estefan recalled.
Gloria said she still has the round-trip Pan American air ticket she was given to fly from Cuba to the U.S.
Emilio then opened up about his memories of leaving the only country he’s ever known, saying, “I was 11 years old when they came to my house looking for dollars because Castro decided to change the money.”
Emilio said he cried himself to sleep that night because of the terrifying search, even though Castro’s forces found nothing. His family was able to escape four years later, when he was “almost military age.”
“My mom’s family was from Spain,” he explained. “One of the hardest things for me is when my grandfather and uncles gave me a photograph and said, ‘You better remember me because you will never see me again.’… I never saw them again.”
The couple also shed light on Cuba’s humanitarian crisis, where they said protests over shortages of food and medicine are being met with military force.
The season two finale of Ted Lasso drops today on Apple TV+, coming not long after the show’s first season dominated the Emmys a few weeks ago.
Brett Goldstein won an Emmy for playing the team’s gruff but lovable team captain, Roy Kent. He’s also a writer on the show, and he tells ABC Audio that if season two felt a little different, or there were some surprising choices, that was all part of the plan
“What people really like is to be surprised. And that’s what people liked about the first [season] is they weren’t expecting it,” says Goldstein, who also appeared alongside Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis in the films We’re the Millers and Horrible Bosses 2.
“They weren’t expecting the way any of the characters[or] any of the stories. And so really, what you have to do is keep surprising people. You shouldn’t do what people are expecting because inevitably they’ll feel slightly disappointed because they’re like, oh, yeah, I guess that’s what I wanted to happen,” he continues. “Whereas what you were impressed with the first time was the surprise. And I think that’s the trick is to keep people on their toes.
Juno Temple plays Keeley Jones, who works as the team’s public relations person. She says she’s excited that people are loving the series.
“[I]t meant a lot to us when we were making it, you know? And so the fact that people not just are enjoying it, they say like, ‘it really meant a lot to me and it made me feel good,” says the 32-year-old actress, who wholeheartedly agrees, noting, “I fully concur that it made me feel good making it.”
Kim Kardashian will make her anticipated Saturday Night Live hosting debut this weekend, with Halsey starring as musical guest.
To amp up the audience ahead of Saturday’s show, the two ladies, along with Cecily Strong, provided a taste of what’s to come in a series of promos while also preparing the reality star for her big debut.
“So, Kim are you nervous about doing sketch comedy?,” Strong asks in one promo. Kardashian replies by asking if she should be: “Why? I don’t have to write sketches do I?” She also wonders if she has to “memorize lines.”
Both answers are, of course, no. Halsey and Strong explain that the comedy has been handled by the pros and that all there is to do is keep an eye on the cue cards.
“Everyone else won’t look as good as me, will they?” Kim finally asks, resulting in her companions emphatically dispelling any doubts that she will be outdone.
That leads to the reality star flicking a wrist and grinning, “This is so easy!”
Strong’s smile wavers as she hesitantly agrees: “Yeah… I guess it is.”
We will see how Kim handles the pressure of a live studio audience when SNL returns Saturday night at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
Billboard reports the “Hurricane” rapper is expanding his empire to include a new private school in California called the Donda Academy, named after his late mother, Dr. Donda West, a former professor and English department chair at Chicago State University.
The K-12 school will focus on “equipping students with an education that will last in the ever-changing world” while seeking to find the “intersection between faith and the innovation of the future,” according the academy’s official website, donda.world.
Basketball also seems to be a focus of Donda Academy, which has reportedly recruited four elite basketball prospects — Zion Cruz, Jahki Howard, Robert Dillingham, and Jalen Hooks — among those committed to attending the academy.
“It’s just one of those things you can’t pass up,” Hooks told the Indianapolis Star during a recent interview. “It was more of a family decision, too. All of us just felt like it was a chance to reach my full potential and grow and get ready for the college level.”
Howard also shared the news on Instagram, writing, “I will be moving to California and I will be transferring to Donda academy, I want to THANK YOU NORCROSS and the whole BLUE DEVIL FAMILY STILL WILL BE MY FAMILY. #donda.”
West has previously dabbled in opening educational institutions. Last year, he posted footage from his Yeezy Christian Academy to his Twitter account, which featured its attendees sharing inspirational messages in a video titled, “Dear Future, I Still Believe in You.”
(OSLO, Norway) — Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is responsible for selecting the Nobel Peace Prize recipients each year, decided to award this year’s prize to both Ressa, of the Philippines, and Muratov, of Russia, “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”
Along with the notoriety, they will receive gold medals and share a cash award of 10 million Swedish krona, or about $1.14 million.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Ressa and Muratov for being “representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.”
“Maria Ressa uses freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines,” the committee said in a statement Friday. “Dmitry Muratov has for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions.”
Ressa, 58, co-founded the Philippines-based online news site Rappler in 2012. As a journalist and Rappler’s CEO, she “has focused critical attention” on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial policies, including his “murderous anti-drug campaign,” according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
“The number of deaths is so high that the campaign resembles a war waged against the country’s own population,” the committee said. “Ms. Ressa and Rappler have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse.”
Ressa has been the target of multiple arrests and an online hate campaign after publishing articles critical of the Duterte regime. She was named a 2018 Person of the Year by TIME magazine.
In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in 2019, Lebanese-British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney described Ressa, her client, as “a Filipino journalist who stands at 5 foot 2 but stands taller than so many of us in her courage and personal sacrifice for the cause of telling the truth.”
Muratov, 59, co-founded the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta in 1993. He has been the paper’s editor-in-chief since 1995. Novaya Gazeta, with Muratov at its helm, “is the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power,” according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
“The newspaper’s fact-based journalism and professional integrity have made it an important source of information on censurable aspects of Russian society rarely mentioned by other media,” the committee said. “Since its start-up in 1993, Novaja Gazeta has published critical articles on subjects ranging from corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests, electoral fraud and ‘troll factories’ to the use of Russian military forces both within and outside Russia.”
For years, Novaya Gazeta has been one of the few national news publications in Russia to report critically on Russian President Vladimir Putin, conducting in-depth and dangerous investigations into the regime’s alleged human rights abuses and corruption. In 2007, Muratov won an International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists for his work as the “driving force” behind Novaya Gazeta.
Both Muratov and his Novaya Gazeta are seen as bastions of Russia’s besieged free press. Since the newspaper’s founding, six of its journalists have been killed, including investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Putin’s birthday in 2006. Novaya Gazeta’s journalists continue to receive threats for their coverage.
“Despite the killings and threats, editor-in-chief Muratov has refused to abandon the newspaper’s independent policy,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. “He has consistently defended the right of journalists to write anything they want about whatever they want, as long as they comply with the professional and ethical standards of journalism.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov congratulated Muratov on winning the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
“He has consistently worked in accordance with his ideals, he has adhered to his ideals, he is talented and brave,” Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Friday. “It’s a high appraisal and we congratulate him.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said freedom of expression and freedom of information are “crucial prerequisites for democracy and protect against war and conflict,” and that the award of the prestigious prize this year to Ressa and Muratov “is intended to underscore the importance of protecting and defending these fundamental rights.”
“Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” the committee added. “Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time.”
Members of the press have been Nobel Peace Prize recipients since as early as 1907, when Italian journalist Ernesto Teodoro Moneta won “for his work in the press and in peace meetings, both public and private, for an understanding between France and Italy.” The prize that year was also given to French jurist Louis Renault “for his decisive influence upon the conduct and outcome of the Hague and Geneva Conferences.”
Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the World Food Program, the food-assistance branch of the United Nations, “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”
Peace was the fifth and final prize category that Swedish inventor and scholar Alfred Nobel mentioned in his last will and testament. He left most of his fortune to be dedicated to the series of awards, the Nobel Prizes.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded annually to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses,” as described in Nobel’s will.
All Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, except for the Nobel Peace Prize, which is presented in Oslo, Norway.
To date, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate is Malala Yousafzai, who was 17 years old when awarded the 2014 Peace Prize. Of the 107 individuals awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, just 17 are women.
Only one person has declined the Nobel Peace Prize: Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho, who was awarded the prize in 1973 with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for negotiating the Vietnam peace agreement.
(NEW YORK) — Shayla, a 22-year-old from Georgia, has had days during the coronavirus pandemic when she said it has been a struggle to get out of bed.
The part-time college student said she was out of work for a time due to restaurants being closed during the lockdown, and in addition to the financial stress, struggled with not being able to see friends and socialize.
As a person with an underlying health issue, she said she also struggled with fears about getting COVID-19 since she is at risk for complications from the virus.
“It has been very hard on my mental health,” said Shayla, who asked that her last name not be used. “I had a lot of things to think about already and then COVID just added to it, so it was a lot of pressure.”
Shayla turned to therapy to cope, the first time in her life she has sought professional help for her mental health.
“It was like I was just in this box and I didn’t know how to get out of it,” she said. “Mentally and physically, I was just exhausting myself.”
Shayla is not alone in her mental health struggles during the pandemic, research shows.
In the United States, rates of anxiety and depression remain higher than they were pre-pandemic, according to data released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mental health experts have described the pandemic as a kind of “perfect storm” in negatively impacting mental health.
In addition to the fear, grief and anxiety around the virus itself, for many people the pandemic has brought on financial instability, job loss, isolation, additional caregiving responsibilities, uncertainty around school and work and related political disagreements.
Now as the global community marks World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10, the pandemic has continued far beyond what people initially thought possible, for nearly two years.
“I’ve heard the pandemic described as a disaster of uncertainty because it seems like the finish line keeps moving,” said Dr. Erica Martin Richards, chair and medical director of the department of psychiatry and behavioral health at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. “And that makes it harder to come up with a plan [to cope].”
The pandemic has also proven to disproportionately impact women’s mental health.
One study, published by the Kaiser Family Foundation in April, found that 55% of women across all age groups said their mental health had declined during the pandemic, compared to 38% of men. Another, published last month in Lancet Regional Health-Americas, also found women were more likely than men to report higher psychological distress during the pandemic, especially anxiety.
Richards, also an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine, said women’s mental health has suffered disproportionately during the pandemic for a number of reasons.
First, even in non-pandemic times women are already two to three times more likely than men to experience a major depressive episode in their lifetime, according to Richards.
Then during the pandemic, women took on additional caregiving responsibilities and were hit disproportionately hard by job loss, data shows.
Women, and especially women of color, also faced more barriers to accessing support during the pandemic, according to Richards.
“The pandemic uncovered a lot of things that people are typically able to cope with because they’ve had years to develop those coping strategies,” she said. “When you don’t have that anymore, a lot of people felt more isolated and felt like there was a lack of overall support.”
For some women, their mental health struggles may have played out during the pandemic in an increasing dependence on alcohol, or increased control over their food, according to Dr. Jessi Gold, an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine.
Data shows that incidences of eating disorders and alcohol-related liver disease rose during the pandemic, particularly among young women.
“Those are easy coping mechanisms that people know work,” said Gold. “There are ways that people can deal. And there’s a lot of people who function to a point, until they can’t.”
Both Gold and Richards said they have seen an increasing need for professional mental health as the pandemic has continued on, at some points with seemingly no end in sight.
“Anxiety was the thing that emerged first for a lot of people because anxiety does not like uncertainty and that’s what we’ve been dealing with during the pandemic,” said Gold. “And the longer the anxiety goes on, the more people start to feel on the depressive side of things.”
Warning signs that it is time to seek professional help for mental health include everything from depressive and hopeless thoughts to undesired weight loss or weight gain, suicidal thoughts, excessive feelings of worry, irritability and changes to sleep patterns. They key is to notice if any of those things begin to affect your ability to function in your daily life, according to Richards.
“When stress is becoming overwhelming, ask for help from a professional,” she said. “That professional can come in a number of ways — religious leaders or groups, OB-GYNs, primary care doctors. Those people should be able to, if not help, point you in the right direction.”
There are also ways people can protect and strengthen their mental health on their own, tools that become even more critically important as the pandemic continues, according to Gold.
“There will be things that will continue to be frustrating about this experience,” she said. “Things will be up and down and we have to have some acceptance about that. Just think, ‘I’m just trying to do the best I can,’ and that’s where you have to land.”
Here are five mental health-boosting tips from Gold and Richards:
1. Get plenty of sleep: “It’s easier said than done but it makes a big difference,” said Gold. “Sleep is all about routine, which is why as a kid it worked that your parents gave you a bath, put you in your pajamas and read books. It works the same as an adult, we just don’t take time to do things like that.”
2. Take time for yourself, especially when you think there’s no time: “When you spend the majority of your life focused on other people, try to factor in time for yourself in some capacity,” said Gold. “Ask yourself how you’re doing and name the feelings and validate them and let them be something that you take the time to stop and acknowledge instead of powering through.”
“Doing self-assessments like that can make you stop and say, ‘I’m here, too. What am I feeling?'” added Gold. “Ask yourself, ‘Have I been sleeping? Have I been eating? What have I enjoyed about the day? What’s been hard?’ and listen to your body in moments like that, too.”
3: Keep the positives of the pandemic: “I think we have to embrace some of the changes that have come out of the pandemic,” said Richards. “For some people, it was I can stay home, I can bake more, I can take a walk with my loved ones twice a week, I can go check on my neighbor.”
“A lot of people have really made commitments to those sorts of things, and it’s important to continue that, but it is also important to understand what our social needs are as a community as well, and the importance of getting together, safely,” she said. “Everyone has to find their own balance, not only with what keeps them safe, but what really they find helps with their mental health as well.”
4. Say no when you need to: “It is sometimes important to really just say no and set limits,” said Richards. “Even though that might seem difficult, you’re actually able to help people more down the road if you’re able to really take time for your own mental health first.”
5. Do self-care you enjoy, not what you think you should do: “Look at self-care or coping skills as hobbies and things that you actually enjoy,” said Gold. “So do you like meditating or are you doing that because someone told you that’s the way to feel better? Do you like exercise, or do you want to watch a TV show instead? Figuring out what you like and what makes you feel better is more important than doing things you’re told you’re supposed to do.”
If you are in crisis or know someone in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. You can reach Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 (U.S.) or 877-330-6366 (Canada) and The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386.
