This piece was originally published in Newsweek and can be found here. Children ages 5 to 11 will soon be getting vaccinated against COVID-19. As we celebrate that milestone, we must also acknowledge our collective blindness to the problem of needle pain. Our health care system does not prioritize simple accommodations that research shows are…
Author: Dr. Jocelyn Sze
We need empathy to address needle phobia and reduce vaccine hesitancy
Let’s face it, just like people try to avoid getting stung by wasps, they also avoid getting shots. A large-scale study by the University of Oxford found that twenty-six percent of adults screened positive for injection phobia, with those in this group twice as likely to report hesitancy to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Rates of needle…
When the boys at school hit your son, what shield should he make?
“I need to make a shield to bring to school,” my 5-year-old son says in a matter-of-fact way as he drifts off to sleep at the end of a long weekend. “Why?” his dad asks. “The boys at school hit me, and I need to find a way to protect myself. I keep telling them…
Insomnia, my enemy
Sleep is one of life’s ultimate paradoxes. For those who have never had sleep problems, sleep is quite literally a dream. It arrives effortlessly, recharges the body, and replenishes the mind. After eight hours of sweet slumber, the mind can go from weary and haggard to refreshed and ready to dominate a new day. And…
How to Face Your Fears
The Problem: Avoidance is the natural response to anxiety. This worked great when running away from saber-tooth tigers; not so much for modern day challenges and stressors. The Science: Approaching things we’re afraid of trains our brains that this scary thing is actually OK to approach, thus reducing our anxiety about it and giving us…
Feeling lost? Here’s a map back to true north.
Last week I had a terrible flu, and it tipped me into some darkness. After I allowed myself some cozy time to mope around and despair, my feelings of exhaustion and overwhelm served as catalysts to get clearer on some things. My energy became a precious commodity, forcing me to think more intentionally about how…
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is for Hackers
Cognitive behavioral therapists mirror hackers in how they see the world and approach problems. They share the same core values: an emphasis on problem solving as efficiently and effectively as possible, using logic to debug a system, gathering data to test out what works and what doesn’t, and implementing transparent methods that others can understand and replicate as opposed to simply putting your faith in a “magic black box”. CBT and hackers are long lost kindred spirits, yearning to be reunited.