Focus and Habits

Blog Purpose

The purpose this blog is to illustrate my passion for all things biology while also showing off all of the programming skills I have learned and will learn throughout the course of this year. Although I know what the purpose of my blog is, I still wish to maintain some goals in order to keep on task and stay organized while building this blog. Some of the goals I have for this blog are:

  • maintain a minimalist, but aesthetic style for the entire blog formatting
  • make sure to have a realistic and maintainable organization to the blog
  • include projects and/or news that I find interesting that are going on in the biology field
  • have a separate place to keep all of my CSA projects and assignments

Psychology and the Good Life

In this video, Laura Santos talks about the affects that Covid-19 had on us as a society and how she could see the direct impacts of this based on her observations of the students she saw on campus.

Takeaways from the Video

  • Get Social
    • The Covid-19 hit many people hard because it stole one of the primary sources of happiness that we humans get our behavior from; a social and communicative environment. By engaging with more and more people, we are able to find more and more happiness as well. Afterall, the best coders are the happiest coders.
  • Give Thanks
    • In order to maintain a stable and more positive well-being, we must constantly remind ourselves about all of the things we are grateful for. Although it might seem cheesy or corny at first, stopping to consider the good things in our life brightens our mindset and relays a more positive outlook on our life in general. This also allows us to step away from frustrations (helping our problem-solving skills as well).
  • Be In The Moment
    • Focusing on the present is always able to make us feel better since it allows us to stop worrying about being so “busy” (something that is highly encourage in America and especially in our school). Even the simple practice of sitting with our more negative emotions puts into perspective that these feelings are temporary and don’t need to have so much control over our actions and behavior.
  • Rest And Move
    • Sleep has always been beneficial to our bodily functions, but even more so for our mental stability. In order to maintain a sense of happiness, it is important to have a healthy and consistent sleep schedule. Even eight hours of rest sets a foundation that all happy habits rely on.
  • Be Kind
    • Studies show that we get more happiness from doing nice things for other people than to ourselves. People who are more happy with their lives usually are the ones focusing more on bettering the lives of people less fortunate than themselves. The boost in mood that we get from random acts of kindness allows us to feel better without worrying about harming anyone else.