Arianna Huffington’s Word Of The Year And Why It Matters For Workplace Mental Health

Towards the end of December each year, it is tradition for leading wordsmiths to select one word that summarizes the shared experience of the previous year. In this age of dysfunctional workplace interactions—quit quietly, quiet firing, productivity paranoia, great regretWhen boomerang employee— It’s no surprise that wordsmiths obsessed with negative terms as they look back on 2022. So it’s no surprise that this “negative bias,” as neuroscientists call it, is reflected in the words chosen by leading language experts.

Merriam Webster’s Word of the Year for 2022,for example, gas lamp—a term that describes a strategy that deliberately undermines someone’s perspective so that their observation or experience of an event is questioned and undermines their mental health.

Oxford English Dictionary’s Choice teeth goblin mode—a slang term often used in the expressions “in goblin mode” or “going in goblin mode”. It refers to a type of behavior that is greedy or greedy.

Given the range of crises facing the world in 2022, perhaps not surprising. Chosen by Collins Dictionary words perma-crisis— a term for long-term instability and instability — as the word of the year. The term perfectly embodies the dizzying sensation of flying from one unprecedented event to another. thinking. Guardian Editor David ShariatmaderMe.

Arianna Huffington’s Word of the Year

At the end of each year, I like to consult Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO. prosper globally, Because of her choice of words. And there’s a reason for that. In contrast to other dictionary experts, Huffington chooses words that convey hope, optimism and potential as we face global obstacles and challenges. This is what the world and workplaces need for 2023. For the name of the year she chooses words that allude to the negative aspects of the past 12 months. For example, her Huffington word for 2021 is “Resilience+,” which she says is a prime candidate for her word of the decade.

Her 2022 Word of the Year is Are You Ready? drum roll. human energy“This year, moving human energy to the center of conversations about work, well-being, physical and mental health will bring awareness to the truth about how humans recharge and achieve peak performance.” It’s been a year of great progress in doing so,” she told me. “Over the decades, science has made it increasingly clear that humans are not machines, and that surviving exhaustion without taking time to recharge simply leads to burnout. will take time to catch up with science, and next year (2023) our collective challenge will be to turn awareness into action.”

What’s the big deal about words?

You might ask, “What’s the point of a word?” But words have tremendous power, and the words we use affect our mental health. When used to summarize a year, words can influence the future mood and mindset of a culture. They guide our thoughts and feelings and can bring hope and despair. Especially as billions of people around the world are trying to emerge from the grief and mental health decline of the pandemic and work through it.

Words create thoughts that influence employee engagement, productivity, and company bottom line. When American employees are hopeful, feel cared for by upper management, and are enthusiastic about their role in the workplace, the company’s bottom line automatically rises. A series of studies repeatedly show that optimism outweighs pessimism, and that optimists expand the career ladder faster and farther than naysayers. It’s similar to happiness, another quality we tend to idealize as our end state, but University of Wisconsin professor Richard Davidson suggests that there are ways to deal with life’s ups and downs. We have shown that by giving ourselves the resources to practice in a very specific and measurable way, we can actually train ourselves to be happier.

American Psychological Association Stress in America report Nearly 8 in 10 adults say the pandemic is their main source of stress, and 60% are overwhelmed by the challenges facing America today. According to a CDC report, 41% of Americans suffer from mental health issues such as anxiety., Pandemic-related depression or substance abuse. These are depressing numbers, but it’s important to remember that while our need for resilience is limitless, so is human capacity for it.

“In a way, we look back on the past year and look forward to the new year. We’re transitioning into adulthood as a culture,” Huffington said. “When we were kids, we thought that one day we would get what we wanted. Feeling calm and complete. But as we grow older, we realize that that day will never come and that life is a constant process of change and evolution.Similarly, we waited and then went A return to normalcy to understand that a static normal never exists, that maintenance can never be done in our lives.

Arianna Huffington speaks Resiliency 2023is the largest free resiliency conference on the planet on September 8, 2023.