(This is an example of the weekly newsletters that go out to all users of The EdLogics Platform, a gamified space that improves employee engagement and health literacy. Contact us to learn how to get access for your organization.)

“Cheer up!”

Few comments are more grating — except maybe “Awww, somebody’s got a case of the Mondays!” — especially if you are in a bad mood.

“I’ll show you how to cheer up ...” [brandishes fist].

Grumpy, blue, stressed, mopey, sulky — whatever your brand of bad mood is, you probably do need to cheer up if it’s that noticeable.

But that, like so much else, is easier said than done.

“Case of the Mondays? ... Some days, I swear ...”

If you find yourself muttering under your breath more often than you’d like, remember that moods change. Feelings are fickle things.

The same circumstances that make you tear your hair out today might not even phase you tomorrow.

And you have a lot more control over your moods than you might think. Moods often have more to do with what’s going on inside your body than what’s happening out in the world.

It’s not about just looking on the bright side. Or ignoring the sadness, or explaining it away. You don’t have to see the silver lining for every cloud, or deny how overwhelming and exhausting life can be. We all have a right to our feelings. But you have to admit, it all seems even worse when you’re in a bad mood.

And you can take concrete steps to feel better than you do now.

Next time you’re down in the dumps, ask yourself these questions before you react to your coworkers, send that snide email, yell at your kids, or make any important decisions.

How to Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

👉 Did you sleep well last night?

Just try feeling good when you get up early for work after a late night of Netflix and noshing nachos. Just try maintaining a positive mental attitude when your 6 am alarm drags you kicking and screaming into hateful wakefulness. Even if the adrenaline and caffeine get you through the morning, the afternoon slump is gonna getcha. And when your weary brain is making you overreact to some mundane challenge, the last thing you need is for a coworker to snark, “Looks like somebody needs a nap ...”

👉 When’s the last time you ate (and what was it?)

Just as with sleep, what and when you eat has a huge impact on how you feel. Anyone with kids sees the direct relationship between junk food and temper tantrums, let alone inconsistent bedtimes (see above).

But the same is true for adults operating on too little sleep and unhealthy breakfasts come mid-afternoon. By the time we try to combat fatigue and low blood sugar with a sugary snack and extra coffee, the result is often irritability — or even an embarrassing tantrum — over little things.

Woe to the unfortunate soul who gets in the way of a hangry, over-caffeinated office worker.

👉 Have you been exercising? Like, at all?

When you move, sweat, and get your heart rate up, your body makes these feel-good chemicals called endorphins all by itself. It’s amazing! No other drug — not alcohol, caffeine, prescription meds, or herbal supplements — comes close to that natural high. There’s no shortcut. No substitute. You can’t fake it! You have to move. The bonus is that regular exercise helps you sleep better and feel more motivated to choose healthy foods, which in turn can help you avoid bad moods.

Move your body. There’s no better way to feel better.

👉 Are you taking care of yourself in other ways?

Find a daily practice that helps you keep things in perspective, regardless of your current mood. This can be your exercise — yoga, walking, hiking, yardwork, whatever you like. Or maybe it’s doing the day’s crossword, reading a novel at the coffeeshop, journaling, or playing a game. Or woodworking, building model airplanes, making art, or cooking delicious food. Or just sitting and meditating. Whatever gets you out of your own head and into that flow state, when you’re in the zone and fully focused on what you’re doing right now.

The trick is to make it a regular practice. Don’t wait till you feel like doing something — that moment might never come. Just do it because that’s what you do.

You might be surprised how a daily practice can recenter you and bring you back to a place of mindful self-awareness. It can help you keep things in context and take them in stride instead of overreacting because you’re feeling snappy.

Perspective is everything.

Not to sound callous, but sometimes you just have to get over yourself. The world is no worse of a place after 4 hours of sleep than it is after 8, but it can definitely feel that way. Recognize your own limits — and your own power — when it comes to letting your mood affect your day.

Before you try pinning the blame on work frustrations, personal problems, the state of the world, social injustice, climate change — or even the constant eye-rolling from your teen — cover the basics. Get your sleep. Eat good food. Get active. Don’t reach for booze or coffee or a doughnut every time you want to feel better.

It won’t solve all your problems. But it can make them feel a whole lot less daunting — and can do a lot to brighten a bad mood.

Log in now. Learn more about handling what gets you down — even if it’s your own state of mind.

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TAKE A BEAT

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Find Your Zen Again: Calming Countdown

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Easy Stress Busters: Simple Ways to Chill

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You Mad, Bro? Anger Management Basics

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Play Now! Stress: What Helps, What Hurts

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n April 3rd, Norfolk State University hosted a gathering of students, faculty, healthcare professionals, and community leaders to delve into the crucial topic of enhancing health literacy — the ability to understand and act on basic health information — within college campuses and communities. The event was supported by NSU's Office of Health & Wellness and the Center for African American Public Policy in collaboration with EdLogics, a Virginia Beach-based company dedicated to improving health literacy. The symposium guests were welcomed by Student Affairs Vice President Leonard Brown, Ph.D.

Dr. Brown embraced the university’s efforts to reduce health disparities on the campus of NSU in communities of color. Greetings were provided by Mr. Gilbert Bland, President/CEO of the Urban League of Hampton Roads, and member of the NSU Board of Visitors who commended NSU for launching the Healthier757 initiative to improve the health of students, faculty, and administrators on the campus of NSU and throughout the Hampton Roads region.

The program featured a panel discussion moderated by Craig Loper, Sports Director at WAVY TV 10/WVBT Fox 43, and included:

• Shaunice Johnson, NSU Student Health Ambassador
• Milton Brown, M.D., Ph.D., Vice Dean of Research, Eastern Virginia Medical School
• Cynthia B. Burwell, Ed.D., MCHES, Director, NSU Center of Excellence in Minority Health Disparities
• Thomas M. Chamberlain, Pharm.D., Founder & CEO, EdLogics
• Keith H. Newby, M.D., Market Director, Community Health Improvement & Engagement at Bon Secours Health
• Sheila A. Ward, Ph.D., MPH, Project Director, NSU Health & Wellness Initiative for Women

Together, they addressed the significant health disparities prevalent in communities, particularly among people of color. The panel shed light on how the 757 region trails behind in health metrics related to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, infant mortality, and life expectancy, compared to the rest of Virginia and the US. They emphasized how low health literacy leads to unhealthy choices and poorer healthcare decisions — so the disparities continue.

Dr. Olusoji Akomolafe, Executive Director of the NSU Center for African American Public Policy introduced NSU President Javaune Adams-Gaston, Ph.D., and applauded her commitment to improving the health of NSU students and acknowledged her accomplishment of receiving NSU’s largest philanthropic gift of $40 million dollars from the Mckenzie Scott Foundation. During the event, President Javaune Adams-Gaston, Ph.D., read a health literacy proclamation underscoring the university's dedication to combating health disparities through research and innovative programs on the campus of NSU.

One such initiative is Healthier757, a regional effort focused on boosting the health literacy of Hampton Roads residents. The partnership between NSU and Healthier757 signifies a significant step toward addressing chronic health conditions and disparities in vulnerable communities.

NSU's collaboration with Healthier757 has enabled the university to pioneer the launch of Rewards for Healthy Living, making NSU the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in the nation and the first university in Virginia to do so. The digital platform offers engaging games, videos, quizzes, and articles on hundreds of health topics — along with cash rewards — and is available free of charge to all NSU students, faculty, staff, and administrators.

A student raffle, facilitated by Alexus Ross, an EdLogics Community Coordinator and recent NSU graduate and Healthier757 intern, awarded four $25 gift cards to participating students.

Vanessa Jenkins, Ed.D., Executive Director, NSU Health & Wellness, closed the program by underscoring the importance of improving health literacy among NSU students, which in turn will empower them to make better informed healthcare decisions all their lives

ou can’t control many of the factors that contribute to high healthcare costs: expensive drugs, the cost of providers, rising insurance premiums. So, what can you do?

Improve health literacy, the ability to understand and act on health information.

Watch health literacy expert Russell Rothman, MD, MPP of Vanderbilt University and gamification guru Brian Primack, MD, PhD, then of the University of Pittsburgh (now at University of Oregon), outline problems with existing health education programs and describe real-life solutions.

Watch the entire webinar recording below.

Here's the skinny: 

Low Health Literacy Costs More, High Health Literacy Costs Less

EdLogics wants to improve low health literacy through education.

It’s not about avoiding medical care. It’s about getting the right care at the right time.

We want to empower people to make real changes in their day-to-day habits, so they can stay healthy and keep their families healthy, too.

We want to educate people to prevent sickness before it starts, to show them what to do and where to get care when they do get sick, and help them become well-informed, proactive healthcare consumers.

Ultimately, EdLogics wants to improve health outcomes, reduce the number of claims, and lower costs. For everyone.

Dr. Primack:
“In the US, 1 in 3 Americans can’t follow directions on a drug label. And I have to say, even with a medical degree, I sometimes get a prescription for one of my kids or something and I have to look at it pretty carefully with that small print and the code that it’s in. So it’s not surprising that it’s a challenge for many different people.”

Dr. Primack:
“When someone, for example, just has an ankle sprain — if they can access and follow good information that they have — then they very well might be the kind of person who will say, ‘You know, I don’t need to go the emergency room. I can wait.’

A couple days later, they’ve already improved with ice, elevation and rest — all things that are free.

Whereas another person who is having more difficulty understanding or accessing information might decide to go to the ER for the same condition, and the second they get through the ER door, already they’ve racked up very high costs. They’ve put themselves at risk for getting some kind of a hospital-acquired infection or some additional problem.

Even though this is one small example, when we start quoting issues like ‘90 million Americans have poor health literacy, and this costs an extra $150-200 a year,’ you can see how these numbers add up.”

Improving Health Literacy Makes a Difference

Knowing what to do to prevent chronic disease, how to take medications, and where to go when you’re sick — and acting on that knowledge — can have a huge impact on both personal health and the number of costly healthcare claims.

✅ Improved knowledge of health issues

✅ Improved behaviors

• Medication adherence
• Vaccines
• Childhood obesity prevention
• Diabetes self-management
• Asthma management

✅ Improved outcomes for:

• Diabetes
• Heart failure
• Obesity prevention
• Depression

Dr. Rothman:
“Even after you take into account a patient’s education level, their income, their insurance, and a host of other factors, we find that their literacy level is an independent predictor of how they do with their health.”

The Problem with Existing Health Education Programs

Of course, health education programs trying to raise people’s health literacy already exist.

But are they actually making a difference?

Pamphlets: Often don’t make it from the doctor’s office to the car.

Health websites: Too high-literacy, not personalized, and not always trustworthy.

Doctor visits: Patients may misunderstand, forget instructions, or feel too embarrassed to ask questions.

Dr. Rothman:
“And, unfortunately — and I say this as a primary care physician [laughing] — but there’s also a lot of variation in how well doctors communicate with their patients and their families. If you ask most clinicians we would, of course, tell you that we’re excellent communicators, and our patients all nod their heads and seem to understand everything that we say to them.  … Some studies suggest patients only recall about 20% of what’s said to them by the time they get home.

So we like to think we’re all good communicators as clinicians, but a lot of us struggle — using a lot of jargon that might be hard for patients to understand, maybe speaking at too high of a literacy level without enough plain language, and giving people too much information to try to take in during one single visit. We often don’t assess patient understanding before they leave.”

Poorly designed games: Many focus on the wrong goal.

Dr. Primack:
“So there would be hamburgers and pieces of pizza, and you are supposed to shoot those, but the salad you are supposed to let live. You can probably imagine the next step, which was that they studied this and they found that being exposed to this game and playing this game a lot didn’t actually make people change their diet in any way.

It’s just a caution that even though sometimes gamification is really valuable, if the game is poorly designed, that’s just not a magic quick fix.”

Improving Health Literacy: What Actually Works

It’s one thing to learn more health facts. It’s another thing to change your daily habits — the one thing that has more of an effect on health than any other single factor.

• Gamification and game-based learning
• Key principles:
• Competition, leaderboards, and peer comparisons
• Teamwork, shared goals
• Leveling up, increasing challenges, improving skill and knowledge
• Interactive content for better retention than passively-consumed content
• Unique incentives, cash drawings, charitable contributions, other benefits

Dr. Primack:
“The question is: Can we take principles of gamification and game based learning — the interactivity, the unique incentives — and can we use that to leverage for positive change? And what we have found is that, especially in the area of health literacy, there is a lot that we can do.”

• Multiple formats: words, pictures, videos
• Personalization: Content is tailored to the individual user based on age, gender, health conditions, interests, and family roles like caregiving
• Motivation and sustainability: Keep people engaged for real-life behavior changes
• Community resources: Further education and support

Dr. Rothman:
“What we really need to think about more is how to link people to other social support mechanisms to help them with their health. We have lots of studies now that really demonstrate that patients who have strong social support do much better with their health. There’s actually an epidemic of loneliness going on in a lot of countries.

And even when people are with their family, they may not have social support for disease that they’re dealing with.

So it can be really helpful to help a patient or employee and their family link to community resources — maybe to disease-specific organizations if they have a certain disease, or to a community organization that provides peer support. Or we can help them gain access to exercise or healthy food. Even to help them with getting additional support from their own family.”

Effective Health Literacy Education

• Personalized and engaging
• Addresses readiness for behavior change
• Applies principles of motivation for goal setting
• Activates participants
• Sets concrete, feasible goals
• Promotes follow-up for sustained behavior change
• Provides community resources for support

4 Things to Remember:

1. Health literacy is a major problem in the US.
2. Improving health literacy benefits everyone.
3. We need a multi-faceted approach.
4. There is no quick fix — but there IS hope.

Dr. Rothman:
“Health literacy is a major problem in the United States. We have at least 90 million Americans with only basic or below basic literacy skills. Even patients with good literacy skills can struggle to navigate what’s become a very complex healthcare system when trying to take care of their health or the health of their family.

We have found that by addressing health literacy issues, we can improve care for patients with low literacy. Studies have suggested that using good forms of health communication and addressing health literacy can even improve knowledge and behavior for people with high health literacy. So improving how we educate and communicate can be of great value to everyone.”

Dr. Primack:
“There are so many challenges here. If it were easy, we wouldn’t have 90 million Americans with low health literacy. But I think that it’s important to end on a positive note and say that we really are moving the needle. There have been studies that show that using the kind of principles that we talked about today really do help and change people’s lives. I think that that is what we need to hold up as we move forward.”

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A version of this article was first published 10/12/2018.