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Love picking up new skills that can enrich your daily life? If so, TED Courses is for you — it was created with all you forever learners and self-improvers in mind and taught by some of your favorite TED speakers. Neuroscientist and bestselling author Lisa Genova is the instructor for a course called “How to boost your brain + memory.” Go here to find out about it, and also read her advice below on common types of forgetting. 

To be human is to forget things. But you’ve probably wondered: “When is forgetting normal, and when is it not?”

Here are four examples:

1. Forgetting where you parked

Not remembering where you parked because you didn’t pay attention is normal and different than what happens with Alzheimer’s.

If you have Alzheimer’s, let’s say you park in a mall garage and shop for an hour. When you return to the parking garage, you’re not wondering if you parked on level three or level four, you’re thinking, “I don’t remember how I got here.” Or you’re standing in front of your car, but you don’t recognize it as yours.

2. Forgetting a person’s name or movie title

Having a word stuck on the tip of your tongue — that oh-what’s-their-name phenomenon called blocking — is normal and does not mean you have Alzheimer’s.

This is one of the most common experiences of memory retrieval failure. You’re trying to come up with a word and most often a proper noun, such as a person’s name or a movie title. You know you know this word, but you cannot retrieve it on demand.

Yet with that said, failure to retrieve words can also be an early sign of Alzheimer’s. So how can you know whether it’s an ordinary tip-of-the-tongue moment or a symptom of dementia? If it’s Alzheimer’s, you’re blocking on dozens of words a day. And instead of blanking primarily on proper nouns, people with Alzheimer’s will regularly forget common nouns such as pen, spoon, bicycle.

3. Forgetting where you put your keys or other objects

Losing track of where you left your keys is normal, and it’s probably just a result of your not paying attention to them.

But losing your keys and finding them in a place that keys shouldn’t be (like the refrigerator or microwave), or finding them and wondering who they belong to or what they’re used for is not normal. These could be symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

4. Forgetting how to do an activity like making coffee

This one has to do with your muscle memory, which is remarkably stable over time — we tend to remember how to do what we’ve learned to do, especially when it’s an activity we perform routinely.

So if you go to make a cup of coffee and don’t remember how to work the machine or you’re doing laundry but can’t remember how to use the washer or you’re stumped by any other tasks you’ve long known how to do and regularly do, this may be a sign of Alzheimer’s.

However, forgetting doesn’t always have to be due to Alzheimer’s. It could be due to mild cognitive impairment (which doesn’t necessarily progress to Alzheimer’s), a B-12 deficiency or not enough sleep, to name a few causes. Just as you do with your heart health or reproductive health, I encourage you to be in conversation with your doctor about your memory and realize you have a lot of agency over your brain health.

Interested in finding out more about how your memory works (and when it doesn’t)? Sign up now for Lisa Genova’s on brain and memory. And while you’re at it, check out our other TED Courses from some of your most loved speakers and learn more skills to boost your life. Among them: Podcast host Manoush Zomorodi offers insights in “how to reimagine your career”; writers Charlie Jane Anders and Wanuri Kahiu teach “how to nurture your imagination”; and educator and author Julie Lythcott-Haims tells you “how to become your best adult self.” 

Watch her TED Talk now: 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O’Briens and Every Note Played. Still Alice was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart. She graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. Genova travels worldwide speaking about the neurological diseases that she writes about and has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, Today, PBS NewsHour, CNN and NPR. Her TED Talk — called “What You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s” — has been viewed more than five million times to date. Her newest book is a New York Times bestseller and her first work of nonfiction.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Pete Ryan

Motivation is not in high supply these days — but ensuring that we move a little bit every day is more important for us than ever, according to Wendy Suzuki PhD, a neuroscientist at New York University.

Dr. Suzuki studies the neurological impacts of exercise, and she says that just a walk around the block or a 10-minute online workout will not only improve your day but also benefit your brain in a lasting way.

“Exercising to increase your fitness literally builds brand new brain cells. It changes your brain’s anatomy, physiology and function,” she explains. “Every time you work out, you are giving your brain a neurochemical bubble bath, and these regular bubble baths can also help protect your brain in the long term from conditions like Alzheimer’s and dementia.”

This sounds great. But it’s hard to turn those long-term benefits into motivation to get up and do something every day.

Start by thinking of exercise — or any movement — as part of your daily routine for caring for your body, like brushing your teeth.

Since most of us are currently in staying-alive-and-keeping-other-people-alive mode, getting toned, losing weight or looking different might not be such useful goals to have right now. Instead, says Dr. Suzuki, the immediate benefits of exercise can serve as more relevant motivators: “It’s really the new way to bring wellness to your brain.” A single workout increases neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline, and these mood boosters can also improve your memory and focus for up to three hours afterwards.

Not only can this help us in our work but it’s also incredibly good for our mental health. In August 2020, Dr. Suzuki informally tested this out with a group of students in one of her NYU classes over Zoom. Participants took a quick five-minute anxiety assessment, and then she surprised them with a 10-minute IntenSati workout. After they exercised, the students took the assessment again.

“What we found is the first time they took that assessment, they were scoring at close to clinical anxiety levels,” she recalls. “After a 10-minute workout, their anxiety scores decreased to normal levels. That is why you need to incorporate these bursts of activity in your day; it helps your mental health and it also helps your cognition.”

So, how much do you need to exercise in order to feel those benefits?

That, says Dr. Suzuki, is the billion-dollar question. Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer: 5 pushups or 10 burpees don’t automatically release a set amount of dopamine. In her 2017 TED Talk, she recommends trying to fit in 30-minute sessions of exercise 3 to 4 times a week.

But the real answer — especially now — is to exercise for as long as you can, ideally doing a little bit every day. “Even a walk can start to give you those neurotransmitter and mood benefits,” she adds.

Many of the positive effects she mentions come from doing cardiovascular exercise — that is, any workout that gets your heart rate up. But even this can be more accessible than it feels. A vigorous session of power vacuuming will get your heart pumping, even if you can’t go for a run. If your building has stairs, take them instead of an elevator.

Even if you start with just a few minutes a day, it’s likely that you will end up increasing what you’re doing over time. That’s what research in Dr. Suzuki’s lab has shown. “The more exercise you do — if you are successful at regularly exercising — the more motivation you gain,” she says. “I don’t want to do it some mornings, but then I remember how good it really feels at the end.”

When is the best time to work out? Similarly, there’s no need to be too prescriptive with timing, according to Dr. Suzuki. As she puts it, “Anytime you feel like working out? Work out. That will be beneficial to you. So whenever you find time, just do it, especially if you’re a parent with young children.”

Her personal approach is to exercise in the mornings, so she can bring those cognitive benefits into her work day. But if you find you’re most productive in the evenings, it might be a good time for you. “Try to enhance the natural tendency you know you have,” advises Dr. Suzuki.

What if you live in a small apartment with two kids and your neighbors will complain if you do burpees at 10PM?

That’s where online fitness comes in. Embrace all the available options, and find the ones that work best for your situation, both in length and type of exercise. “It’s not weird to work out in your living room,” she says. “It’s great. It’s so convenient. I love it!”

One of the most prolific areas of online fitness is on TikTok, where many coaches and personal trainers are sharing workouts for all body types and living situations. Justin Agustin, a personal trainer based in Montreal, Canada, has been offering short workouts that don’t require special equipment or choreography.

Here are three great exercises to do at home. They’re perfect for people working out in small indoor spaces who want a short fitness break (and you can find dozens more on his TikTok):

1. Looking for an alternative to running? Try this cardio workout

2. Need a routine that doesn’t make too much noise? Try this low-impact workout

3. Don’t have exercise equipment — but have a couch? Try this couch potato workout

Watch Wendy Suzuki’s TED Talk here: 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Thoka Maer

We don’t know about you, but we’re ready to travel. And that typically means flying.

We have been thinking through this issue as mothers and as an infectious disease epidemiologist and an exposure scientist. While we’ve personally decided that we’re not going to fly right now, we’ll walk you through our thought process on what to consider and how to minimize your risks.

Why the fear of flying?

The primary concern with flying — or traveling by bus or train — is sitting within six feet of an infected person. Remember: Even asymptomatic people can transmit. Your risk of infection directly corresponds to your dose of exposure, which is determined by your duration of time exposed and the amount of virus-contaminated droplets in the air.

A secondary concern is contact with contaminated surfaces. When an infected person contaminates a shared armrest, airport restroom handle, seat tray or other item, the virus can survive for hours although it does degrade over time. If you touch that surface and then touch your mouth or nose, you put yourself at risk of infection.

Before you book, think

While there is no way to make air travel 100% safe, there are ways to make it safer. It’s important to think through the particulars for each trip.

One approach to your decision making is to use what occupational health experts call the hierarchy of controls. This approach does two things. It focuses on strategies to control exposures close to the source, and it minimizes how much you have to rely on individual human behavior to control exposure.

The best way to control exposure is to eliminate the hazard. Since we cannot eliminate the new coronavirus, ask yourself if you can eliminate the trip. Think extra hard about traveling if you are older or have preexisting conditions, or if you are going to visit someone in those categories.

If you are healthy and those you visit are healthy, think about ways to substitute the hazard. Is it possible to drive? This would allow you to have more control over minimizing your exposures, particularly if the distance requires less than a day of travel.

You’re going, now what?

If you do choose to fly, check out airlines’ policies on seating and boarding. Some are minimizing capacity and spacing passengers by not using middle seats and having empty rows. Others are boarding from the back of the plane. Some carriers that were criticized for filling their planes to capacity have announced plans to allow customers to cancel their flights if the flight goes over 70 percent passenger seating capacity.

Federal and state guidance is changing constantly, so make sure you look up the most recent guidance from government agencies and the airlines and airport you are using for additional advice and for current policies or restrictions.

While this may sound counterintuitive, consider booking multiple, shorter flights. This will decrease the likelihood of your having to use the lavatory and your duration of exposure to an infectious person or persons on the plane.

After you book, select a window seat if possible. If you consider the six-foot radius circle around you, having a wall on one side would directly reduce in half the number of people you are exposed to during the flight, not to mention all the people going up and down the aisle.

Also, check out your airline to see their engineering controls that are designed or put into practice to isolate hazards. These include ventilation systems, on-board barriers and electrostatic disinfectant sprays on flights.

When the ventilation system on planes is operating, planes have a very high ratio of outside fresh air to recirculated air — about 10 times higher than most commercial buildings. Plus, most planes’ ventilation systems have HEPA filters. These are at least 99.9 percent effective at removing particles that are 0.3 microns in diameter and more efficient at removing both smaller and larger particles.

How to stay safe from shuttle to seat

From checking in to going through security to boarding, you will be touching many surfaces. Here are some tips to minimize your risks of infection:

1. Bring hand wipes to disinfect surfaces such as your seat and seat belt and your personal belongings (like your passport). If you cannot find hand wipes, bring a small washcloth soaked in a bleach solution in a ziplock bag. This will probably freak out airport security less than carrying a personal spray bottle, and viruses are not likely to grow on a cloth with a bleach solution. But remember: More bleach is not better and it can be unsafe. You need only one tablespoon in four cups of water to make an effective solution.

2. Bring plastic ziplock bags for personal items that others may handle, such as your ID. Bring extra bags so you can put these objects in a new bag after you have the chance to disinfect them.

3. Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer as often as you can. While soap and water is most effective, using hand sanitizer is helpful after washing to get any parts you may have missed.

4. Once you get to your window seat, stay put.

5. Wear a mask. If you already have an N95 respirator, consider using it but other masks or coverings can also provide protection. We do not recommend purchasing N95 until health-care workers have an adequate supply. Technically, it should also be tested to make sure you have a good fit. We do not recommend that you use gloves, as those can lead to a false sense of security and have been associated with reduced hand hygiene practices.

If you are thinking about flying with children, there are special considerations to keep in mind. Getting a young child to adhere to wearing a mask and maintaining good hygiene behavior at home is hard enough; it may be impossible to do so when flying. Children under 2 should not wear a mask.

Each day, we are all constantly faced with decisions about our own personal comfort and risk. Arming yourself with specific knowledge about your airport and airline and maximizing your use of protective measures that you have control over can reduce your risk. A good analogy might be that every time you get in the car to drive somewhere there is risk of an accident, but there is a big difference between driving the speed limit with your seat belt on and driving blindfolded at 60 miles an hour through the middle of town.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Watch Kacey Ernst‘s TEDxTucson Talk about mosquitoes here:

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Kacey Ernst PhD MPH is an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Arizona. Her primary projects examine the environmental determinants of vector-borne disease transmission and control; primarily dengue and malaria. Current research projects include an examination of insecticide treated bednet use in western Kenya.

Paloma Beamer PhD is an associate professor in the College of Public Health at the University of Arizona. She holds joint appointments as an associate professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering and as a research scientist in the Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center. Her research focuses on understanding how individuals are exposed to environmental contaminants and the health risks of these exposures with a special focus on vulnerable populations.

Thoka Maer

One of the side effects of working from home full-time because of the pandemic is working with a less than ergonomically ideal setup.

Most of us didn’t have a home office space ready and waiting when we began to shelter in place, so if you’ve spent the past two months shifting around on a borrowed dining room chair with a cushion wedged behind you, you’re not alone.

But no matter our seating arrangements, there are some important things we can do to care for our backs, says Esther Gokhale, posture expert, acupuncturist and creator of the Gokhale Method. It doesn’t mean buying an expensive chair, either. “You don’t need anything fancy if you know what you’re doing to your own body,” she explains.

First of all, the problem isn’t with sitting itself, but how we’re doing it, says Gokhale. “It’s a cute soundbite to say ‘sitting is the new smoking’, but it’s very inaccurate to blame sitting. But no one in modern Western society is doing very well by their spinal discs, or vertebrae, or muscles or nerves.“

So what are we doing wrong?

It actually starts with something we were all taught — incorrectly, as it turns out — starting in childhood: sit up straight, shoulders back.

This advice, says Gokhale, sets us up in the wrong position. “What we end up doing is arching our backs by tensing up our muscles — the ropey ones that the massage therapist will tell you are tight. When we tighten them, we shorten them, and that arches the back, and what that does is it loads the discs [in the lower back] and jams the edges of the vertebrae against each other.”

When we keep trying to sit up straight, we can ultimately alter our anatomy, she explains. “If that becomes a habit — which it does for many people — then those tight, short muscles inhibit the blood supply in the area so now you have an anemic back and repair isn’t happening efficiently.”

This effort also takes an enormous amount of energy and it doesn’t actually last; we’re likely to slump again after a few minutes when we get tired.

If you have a tendency to slump — and most of us do — then you need to learn to lengthen your back. “You could [periodically] stop work to stretch your muscles for a few minutes and they’d get some relief, but a much smarter way is to use the time that you’re sitting to stretch yourself against the backrest,” explains Gohkale. She has created a technique called “stretch sitting” to help perfect this motion. The key? Don’t tuck in your tailbone, and use your muscles more.

As she describes in her TEDx Talk (and you can see her demonstrate this here):

“You are going to sit with your bottom well back in your chair, and then hinge away from the back rest. Place your fists on the lower border of your rib cage, and then gently push back so as to elongate your lower back. And now, grab some place of your chair maybe your arm rests or any other part of your chair, and gently push the top of you away form the bottom of you, like this; and now, hitch yourself to the back rest.

OK, now, ideally the chair would have some grippy thing mid-back to hold you, like you see here or you would have an implement like our stretch sit cushion or a folded towel — something with friction to meet your mid-back and actually hold you up. Since you don’t have any implement, you might try bunching up your fabric in the back of your clothing, creating a kind of ledge, then hooking yourself there, and totally relaxing.”

To have a healthier back, developing core strength is important — but avoid doing crunches. Gokhale believes that you should focus on what she calls the “inner corset”; the group of core muscles that support your spine. The problem, she says, is that people tend to focus on one muscle when developing core strength — the rectus abdominus — but this won’t support our spines.

In fact, the exercises we do to strengthen our back often end up hurting us. “Crunches are well named; they crunch your discs and they crunch your nerves,” says Gokhale. “Instead, you should engage particular muscles that are deep in the abdomen and back. Then, when you’re going to do something active, instead of letting your discs and your nerves take the brunt, you let your muscles do the job.” (Gohkale offers a free guide to caring for your inner corset on her website.)

Standing desks can be good, but it’s still about how you hold your body. When you stand, Gokhale recommends adopting a stance of “readiness”, maintaining a little bit of spring in your knees. “The average person stands parked in their joints, locking their knees back, locking the hips forward, and arching their back,” she explains. “However, the groin is where most of the circulation to and from the legs happens, so you’re blocking all of that. Then, you’re creating an extra curve [in the spine] but you’re distending the ligaments and damaging the discs.”

Here’s the adjustment you need to make. “So what I teach people is to have a little bit of a ready position, with a little spring,” says Gokhale. “That takes muscular effort, but it’s way sounder. If your muscles aren’t used to working this little bit, then the chair pose [in yoga] is something that I recommend as a way of strengthening the same muscles that you need for standing well. In general: Use your muscles, spare your joints.”

When you’re relaxing on the sofa, it’s important to think about your back. We don’t stop damaging — or taking care of — our backs when our working day ends; everything we do has an impact on our bodies. So we should consider stretch sitting while we’re on the sofa too, suggests Gokhale.

This doesn’t mean that you need to tense up there, or that you can’t have a nice, deep sofa to sink into. But you should add a few cushions if you feel you need more support. “The key thing is you want to be upright and relaxed, not upright and tense and not relaxed and slumped. The way you put your base — your pelvis — is key.” This means not tucking in our tailbones, as we often tend to do when we relax on the sofa.

How you sleep affects your back too. Unfortunately, Gokhale has bad news for front sleepers: Don’t. “When you lie down on your front, you have a tendency to arch your back, and your neck is being asked to turn 90 degrees, which it isn’t able to very well. So there’s a lot of squishing and squashing. It’s not good.” Instead, try sleeping on your side — with a pillow between your knees to balance your hips if you suffer from back pain — or on your back.

The good news, says Gokhale, is you don’t need a fancy mattress. “The most important thing to do is add length to your body. Whatever length you have when you plop yourself down onto the bed is the length you’re going to have for the rest of the night. If it’s your short, compressed, daytime, arched or slumped length, then that’s what you’re doing in your bed.”

She recommends stretching out a little bit when you first lie down, focusing on lengthening your back rather than stretching your front so that you don’t arch your spine. That way, you can relax and have a night of sleep that’s good for you and your back.

Watch her TEDxStanford talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

This field went from dirt to dense forest in just two years. Courtesy of Afforestt

When you look at a row of empty parking spots, what do you see?

Many of us would see it for what it is — a place that could be filled with cars and trucks.

But to eco-engineer Shubhendu Sharma, it’s a space to be planted with trees and turned into a compact yet mighty forest.

What’s more, he believes these tiny forests can thrive anywhere, including our most crowded and polluted cities where they can help maintain clean air and water and provide habitat for animals and insects. “A forest is not an isolated piece of land where animals live together,” says Sharma, a TED Fellow. “A forest can be an integral part of our urban existence.”

Most of us know just how essential trees are to our health and to the planet’s. Yet millions of hectares of forest are cleared every year due to farming, ranching, logging and construction, making deforestation one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. The World Wildlife Foundation estimates that 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest and surrounding ecosystems have already been lost, threatening a vital carbon sink, and Brazilian president Jair Bolsinaro is opening up previously protected parts to commercial development.

A before-and-after from Afforestt.

After two years, they achieved this inviting patch of greenery.

Inspired by the work of Japanese scientist Akira Miyawaki, Sharma built a forest in the backyard of his family’s home in northern India in 2010. An industrial engineer at the time, he planted 224 spindly young trees and shrubs In the 75-square-meter (or 807-square-foot) plot. They grew and flourished, and a dozen species of birds came to check them out. The plantings created welcome shade, and their roots were able to absorb even the abundant monsoon rains. After a year, he had his own forest.

Since then, Sharma has founded a company called Afforestt. Its top priority is to bring back natural forests to places where they no longer exist. This means restoring stable ecosystems of plants and animals that used to exist in these spaces. Such systems ordinarily take hundreds of years to evolve, grow and mature together, but Sharma believes it’s possible to do this in as little as 10 years — and he has plenty of examples to prove it. He’s shown you can take a space the size of six or seven parking spots — and create a lush, verdant forest with over 100 trees and shrubs. So far, Afforestt has planted 144 forests in 45 cities around the world.

So, how do you build a complete forest ASAP? By aiming for two things: Density and planting native species.

In terms of achieving density, it’s all about filling a space with trees and shrubs of varying heights. “By making a multi-layered forest, we can fill up an entire vertical space with greenery,” Sharma says. “That way, we can have 30 times more green surface area compared to a lawn or a garden in the same area.” A tiny forest provides a long-term, cost-effective alternative to a traditional lawn. Not only are trees beautiful and great at taking in carbon dioxide, they act as an effective noise buffer and a sponge for air pollution and particulate matter.

Planting trees that are native to your region has specific benefits. Since they’re already adapted to the climate, they require significantly less maintenance than many other non-native species. Native trees also create a welcoming environment for the indigenous wildlife — birds and insects — to thrive. Early studies indicate that these dense forests may actually be able to restore biodiversity at levels comparable to natural forests.

Ready to create your own tiny forest?

Shubhendu Sharma breaks it down into 5 steps:

1. Identify your native species

When beginning a project, Sharma and his team first go to the nearest national park, protected grove, or nature reserve to search for patches of conserved forest. Paying close attention to the number and types of trees in a natural ecosystem will allow you to build your own, he says — for instance, noting the relative proportion of native species will give you an idea of how many to plant. “If you can, collect the seeds, germinate seedlings out of them; that’s the start of the physical work,” he says. (Editor’s note: This is not legal in some places, so please check first.)

If you can’t collect seeds or aren’t legally permitted to do so, you can also ask someone knowledgeable at a local nursery, garden, or agricultural or county extension agent to recommend native species to plant.

This compost tea is for trees to drink, not humans.

2. Nurture the soil

Healthy soil is the basis of a healthy forest. “Find different types of biomass, or organic matter, that can make your soil moist, full of nutrition, and so soft that roots can penetrate into it easily,” Sharma says. His team often uses coco-peat (also known as coco coir; it’s the fibrous husks from the outer layer of a coconut) because it’s highly absorbent and improves water retention in dry soil.

“To loosen up compacted soil, we use pear tree husk or any biomass, which is crunchy in nature,” Sharma elaborates. Peanut shells are OK too. He adds, “It has to have a spring-like property. When you crush it, it should come back to its original shape.” These characteristics are important to help support the roots of your trees.

Instead of adding nutrients or artificial fertilizers, Afforestt adds microorganisms. “We take soil from a natural forest, so we can get the native colonies of microbes and fungi and we multiply their number in what we call compost tea,” Sharma says. Compost tea is a microbe-rich nutrient broth, which is diluted and added to the soil. These fungi and microbes grow and support the root network to allow trees to grow quickly and collectively. While more studies are needed to better understand compost tea, you can add regular compost, which is known to support soil health.

Make sure to fill a space with trees and shrubs of varying heights.

3. Plant your seedlings — but don’t forget the mulch

The key to achieving a dense forest is to arrange the landscape in a beneficial ratio of layers. “We divide our trees into four different layers: a shrub layer, sub-tree layer, a tree layer, and a canopy layer,” Sharma explains. The exact ratio of these layers depends on where you live. For example, a rainforest environment like São Paulo will have a denser canopy layer, while a region with a desert-like climate will have more shrubs. The most successful forests will mimic the composition of the natural environments found in your area.

What really sets the stage for rapid growth is the density of your layers. As trees grow, they communicate through fungal networks that protect against disease and provide nutrients to one another. Mulch plays a vital role in protecting the ecosystem below the soil against harsh environmental conditions — like a breathable, protective blanket over the soil for all seasons. Sharma’s team usually uses straw, but he says the right mulch can be “anything that doesn’t allow water to evaporate back into the atmosphere but is open enough to let the water seep through and reach the soil.” Not only does mulch protect the soil microbiome, it also traps moisture when it’s hot and protects against frost and ice when it’s cold.

4. Tend for a few years

Once your seedlings are planted, you’ll need to perform routine maintenance — watering and weeding — during the first couple of years. But there’s one thing the Afforestt team never does in this time period: They never prune or trim the trees themselves. Since the ultimate goal is to create a lush forest, pruning will counteract that growth process.

Plus, after you reach a certain stage of growth, you’ll be able to stop weeding. “Eventually, the forest becomes so dense that sunlight won’t reach the ground any more. Once sunlight cannot reach the ground anymore, weeds also can’t grow because they need sunlight,” Sharma explains.

5. Let it grow!

Humus is the organic material that naturally occurs in healthy environments. Once it begins to form, then you’ll know it’s time to let your forest be. “Humus is the food for the forest,” Sharma says. “It can only be made on the floor of a natural forest, because it’s a combination of biomass, fungi, dead bodies of insects, microorganisms, earthworms, etc.”

How do you know when humus has formed? “Initially, you will see just leaves on the forest floor, then twigs, and then you’ll see old branches fall, termites coming in to convert that branch into powder. It gets more and more complex and rich,” Sharma explains. “This is the stage when we say, ‘Ok, now no management is the best management.’” Forests can typically be left alone after three years.

If you don’t have the space or time to build your own forest, you can participate in other ways. “What I’d really urge people to do is to go to their local natural forest and learn about their native trees,” says Sharma. Most of us can name multiple dog or cat breeds or the names of numerous fruits and vegetables, so add to your knowledge by learning the names of 25 native tree species. Then look for them in your community.

To expand the Afforestt network, Sharma is partnering with collaborators in other countries and developed a crowdfunding app called Sugi. This allows people to donate and fund forest projects, building a global network around rewilding urban environments. Sharma hopes that by planting seeds of inspiration, the reforestation movement will spread so that more and more land is converted back into forests. While the Afforestt team started in India, it has consulted with groups from many countries, including Cameroon, Australia and Japan. They’ve developed an open-source database with best practices that anyone to use and maintain an up-to-date guide on reforestation.

By planting tiny forests all around the world, Sharma and his team hope to open up people’s eyes to the variety and splendor of native plants. “The biggest challenge is that our perception of beauty has to change,” he says. “There is no one-size-fits-all formula, because Earth is extremely biodiverse. If you go to Dubai and Spain, you see palm trees and if you go to California, you see the same palm trees. That’s a boring world, you know? The beauty of a natural forest is that it’s different everywhere and there is so much to learn. There is so much to enjoy.”

All images: Courtesy of Afforestt. 

Watch his TED Talk now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kara Newman is a science journalist currently based in New York City.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Patrick Blower

We thought it might be helpful to gather some of our resources that offer valuable insights on topics being circulated in the news in relation to the COVID-19 outbreak. For example, what defines a pandemic? How can viruses be transmitted from animals to humans? And exactly what is a virus?

How pandemics spread

Dig into the history of pandemics to learn how viruses and disease spreads and what we can do to stop future outbreaks.

In our increasingly globalized world, a single infected person can board a plane and spread a virus across continents. Mark Honigsbaum describes the history of pandemics and how that knowledge can help halt future outbreaks.

How do viruses jump from animals to humans

Discover the science of how viruses can jump from one species to another and the deadly epidemics that can result from these pathogens.

At a Maryland country fair in 2017, farmers reported feverish hogs with inflamed eyes and running snouts. While farmers worried about the pigs, the department of health was concerned about a group of sick fairgoers. Soon, 40 of these attendees would be diagnosed with swine flu. How can pathogens from one species infect another, and what makes this jump so dangerous? Ben Longdon explains.

 How vaccines work

Learn the science behind how vaccines trigger an immune response and teach our bodies to recognize dangerous pathogens.

The first ever vaccine was created when Edward Jenner, an English physician and scientist, successfully injected small amounts of a cowpox virus into a young boy to protect him from the related (and deadly) smallpox virus. But how does this seemingly counterintuitive process work? Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut details the science behind vaccines.

How does your immune system work?

Explore how your immune system’s vast network of cells, tissues, and organs coordinate your body’s defenses against bacteria, viruses and toxins.

The immune system is a vast network of cells, tissues, and organs that coordinate your body’s defenses against any threats to your health. Without it, you’d be exposed to billions of bacteria, viruses, and toxins that could make something as minor as a paper cut or a seasonal cold fatal. So how does it work? Emma Bryce takes you inside the body to find out.

Cell vs. Virus: A battle for health

How does your body fight a virus? Take a look inside your cells to witness how they produce antibodies and fight to keep you healthy.

All living things are made of cells. In the human body, these highly efficient units are protected by layer upon layer of defense against icky invaders like the cold virus. Shannon Stiles takes a journey into the cell, introducing the microscopic arsenal of weapons and warriors that play a role in the battle for your health.

Learning from smallpox: How to eradicate a disease

Find out how smallpox became the first (and only) disease to be permanently eradicated through the use of vaccination and isolation to prevent transmission.

For most of human history, we have sought to treat and cure diseases. But only in recent decades did it become possible to ensure that a particular disease never threatens humanity again. Julie Garon and Walter A. Orenstein detail how the story of smallpox – the first and only disease to be permanently eliminated – shows how disease eradication can happen, and why it is so difficult to achieve.

The surprising reason you feel awful when you’re sick

What actually makes you feel sick? Discover how your immune system and proteins called cytokines respond to infections.

It starts with a tickle in your throat that becomes a cough. Your muscles begin to ache, you grow irritable, and you lose your appetite. It’s official: you’ve got the flu. It’s logical to assume that this miserable medley of symptoms is the result of the infection coursing through your body — but is that really the case? Marco A. Sotomayor explains what’s actually making you feel sick.

Cari Vander Yacht

If we want the people in our lives to put down their steak knives and seriously consider changing their diets, we need to change the conversations we’re having with them, says food innovator Bruce Friedrich. Here’s what to say — and what not to say.

We can’t stop eating meat. Global consumption averages 94.8 pounds per person a year, and it’s expected to increase as much as 76 percent by 2050. In steak- and burger-loving countries such as Australia and the US, the average person eats between 220 and 240 pounds of meat and poultry a year.

Yet at the same time, researchers are increasingly aware of the serious consequences of our carnivorous diets. “In 2019 … 30 of the world’s leading scientists released the results of a massive three-year study into global agriculture and declared that meat production is destroying our planet and jeopardizing global health,” said Bruce Friedrich, cofounder and executive director of the Good Food Institute, an organization that supports the creation of plant-based and cell-based meat, in a TED Talk.

What’s more, eating meat has been shown to have a negative impact on personal health. A large-scale analysis found that a long-term diet of high amounts of red meat, particularly processed meat, is associated with an increased risk of mortality, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer, and type 2 diabetes. In fact, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified processed meat as a human carcinogen due to its association with colorectal cancer, and WHO has classified red meat as “probably” carcinogenic because of its links to colorectal cancer.

Despite all the evidence, people aren’t putting down their double cheeseburgers, something that Friedrich, a TED Fellow, knows all too well. “Lots of people oppose the harms of industrial animal agriculture, but when they sit down to eat, they put their ethics to the side and they eat what is delicious and orderable,” he says.

So if we want people’s habits to change, then perhaps we need to change the conversations that we’re having with our families and friends about meat. “For 50 years, environmentalists, global health experts and animal activists have been begging the public to eat less meat,” said Friedrich in his TED Talk. “And yet, per capita meat consumption is as high as it’s been in recorded history.” That means it’s time to stop pleading (“If you really loved me or the planet, you’d go vegan”), demanding (“If you want to eat meat, you’re cooking every meal for yourself from now on!”), bribing (“I’ll let you listen to Ed Sheeran in the car if you do this”), or cornering them (“Surprise! Instead of steak Sundays, I decided we’re doing tofu stir-fry Sundays!”).

Whether it’s your steak-loving partner or parent or your tween cousin who lives on chicken nuggets, here are 7 steps to take to persuade them to cut down on eating meat.

1. First things first: Have the conversation separate from the dinner table.

Let’s call the meat eater in your life “M.” The absolute worst time to engage M in a discussion like this is when they’ve got a forkful of roast beef or roast chicken en route to their mouths. Should you persist, your words will do nothing to kill their enthusiasm for meat — just you.

2. Avoid saying anything that might sound like you’re judging them.

M is no fool. They know it’s not good to eat too much meat, particularly red meat — and they should be eating more fruits and veggies, too. So when you broach this topic, they’ll immediately be on the defensive.

Often, meat eaters might feel like their whole life is being questioned when vegetarians and vegans speak to them about their habits. As vegan advocate Tobias Leenaert puts it in his blog The Vegan Strategist, “People will often feel that your behavior (i.e., your eating or being vegan) is an implicit condemnation of theirs (their eating meat).”

3. Instead of saying, “You should eat less meat” or “You need to stop eating meat,” focus on why you eat the way you do.

Start sentences with “I” statements to show you’re talking about your own decisions and the thinking behind them; you’re not criticizing them. Since you’re trying to have a conversation with them, pause and leave space for them to take in what you said, ask questions and make comments. Nobody, no matter what they eat, likes to be lectured.

You could say something like, “After I read about the connection between animal farming and climate change, I’ve started doing Meatless Mondays. It hasn’t been too hard, and I made the most delicious farro salad last week. I’ll make extra next time so you can try it too.”

4. Appeal to the values that drive them — not you.

In his research, Stanford University social psychologist Robb Willer has found it’s much more than political beliefs that are dividing liberals and conservatives — underneath their differences is a fundamental split in moral values. “Liberals tend to endorse values like equality, fairness and care and protection more than conservatives do,” he explained in a TED Talk. “And conservatives tend to endorse values like loyalty, patriotism, respect for authority, and purity more than liberals do.”

If M is conservative, you might touch upon values like purity and patriotism when you’re talking about a low- or no-meat diet. The animals raised on factory farms are a far and freakish cry from what people ate 20 or 50 years ago; they’ve been specially engineered to yield the maximum amount of meat. Friedrich says, “If you asked your average consumer, ‘Would you want to eat a chicken who grew six times as quickly as chickens would naturally grow, due to genetic manipulation?’ I would guess that just about everybody would say no.”

There’s another important way in which mass agriculture has resulted in unnatural animals: widespread antibiotic use. “Most of the antibiotics produced globally are fed to farm animals — not because they’re sick but because feeding them antibiotics makes them grow more quickly,” says Friedrich. “And because feeding them antibiotics will allow them to live through conditions which would otherwise cause massive numbers of them to die.”

And if M is a liberal, you can speak about the environmental toll of large-scale farms – deforestation, air and water pollution, a warmer planet – and how many of these impacts are felt most by people who are already financially and physically vulnerable.

5. Position meatless food products as an addition or alternative to what they’re eating, not a replacement.

Unless they’re primed for change, a confirmed carnivore like M won’t embrace a vegan lifestyle after a single conversation — or many conversations.  That’s completely OK, and make sure they know you don’t expect them to. But they could begin adding, say, quinoa burgers with avocado tzatziki to their regular meal rotation and see if they like it.

6. Tell them that a shift away from meat is a change that is here to stay — all the big meat companies are on board.

The meat industry is rapidly changing, and plant-based meat — such as the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat — is gaining popularity. Showing this is not a fleeting trend but a major shift, the world’s three biggest meat producers — JBS, Tyson, and Cargill — are rebranding as “protein” companies rather than “meat” companies. Both JBS and Tyson manufacture plant-based alternatives, and Tyson and Cargill are investing in cell-based meat (i.e., meat that’s cultured in a lab rather than raised on a farm) as well.

Many fast-food outlets provide meat-free alternatives, too. Burger King and White Castle have begun selling some form of the Impossible Burger; outlets of A&W, Carl’s, Tim Horton and Dunkin Donuts offer Beyond Meat products.

Although plant-based meat is currently pricier than conventional meat, the cost is expected to go down as demand and competition rise. Soon, according to Friedrich, plant-based meat will be cheaper than traditional meat.

7. On the horizon: Cell-based meat that’s just like the real thing.

And if M remains unconvinced, tell them that cell-based meat is coming soon. It’s made from actual meat cells, so it will look and taste just like the meat they currently eat. However, it will be produced in facilities in ways that avoid many of the problems associated with traditional meat farming and processing.

Friedrich predicts that cell-based meat should be available to consumers in limited quantities in two to three years. Its existence could be the game-changer that ends the need for any such conversations with M, once and for all. “We will produce products that people want to buy, and we will make it the default choice, a choice that is better for health, the environment and animals,” Friedrich says.

Watch Bruce Friedrich’s TED Talk now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caitlin Wolper is a writer based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vulture, Slate, MTV News and Vox, among others. Her first poetry chapbook, Ordering Coffee in Tel Aviv, was published in October by Finishing Line Press. She uses lots of exclamation points at @CaitlinWolper.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Jordan Awan

While asking this question won’t change your life, it can help pause your inner critic and create space for possibility, says therapist Susan Henkels.

Susan Henkels has worked as a psychotherapist for more than 45 years. That means she’s spent decades smiling and nodding, decades handing over tissues at the appropriate moment — and decades hearing people tell her all the things about themselves that need to be fixed.

One day, as she was listening to a patient take her through the “whole list of what was wrong with her,” says Henkels, “I thought in the middle of this litany, ‘What? There’s actually nothing wrong with her.’”

From that moment, she realized there is a surprising power to be found in prompting people to ask themselves, “What if there’s nothing wrong with me?”

“This question is about making a choice to let go of all the ways you’ve made yourself wrong.”

This does not mean we’re perfect. For instance, most of us could stand to eat better and sit up straighter. But we can stop spending so much time dwelling on our personal shortcomings and imagining how our lives will be better once we finally — finally! — vanquish them. “We create this whole list of what we think is wrong and then create an entire life around it,” says Henkels, who is based in Flagstaff, Arizona.

In fact, the attributes we think of as problems can be our strengths. Henkels tells this story: she once found herself chatting with a director after a screening at a film festival, and he asked her what she did for a living. She said she was working on a book called What If There Is Nothing Wrong With You?

Henkels recalls, “He looked at me and said, ‘I can tell you right now eight things that are wrong with me.’ So I said, ‘Name one,’ and he said very defiantly and certainly, ‘I have oppositional defiant disorder.’ I said to him, ‘What’s wrong with that?’ He said, ‘Well, I would always defy my parents and teachers.’ I asked, ‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ ‘I wouldn’t comply with any of the rules at school and I didn’t do anything I was told to do at home. ‘What’s wrong with that?’ He said, ‘Well, I was always in a bad temper, I argued with my parents all the time, I never had any friends, and I loved being alone.’ I said, ‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ We had several interactions like that, and at some point … he said to me, ‘Hmm, you know, actually I really liked being alone, and I was able to write stories, write film scripts in my head. Come to think of it, oppositional defiant disorder has made me who I am.’”

The next day, “he came up to me and told me: ‘I slept through the night for the first time in years. I wasn’t having to make myself wrong and decide what I should be doing and shouldn’t be doing,’” says Henkels. “He said, ‘You know, I’m going to look at those seven other things that I was so sure were wrong with me.’”

“What if there’s nothing wrong with you?” is about building the skill of acceptance. Acceptance is a core aspect of Buddhism (where it’s known as “equanimity”) and a quality that scientists are beginning to study. In one experiment, researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University found that a mindfulness app that featured acceptance as part of its training reduced the impact of stress on its subjects. In a more recent experiment from the same research team, subjects who used the app showed increased feelings of sociability and decreased feelings of loneliness.

Henkels says this question is about pressing pause on your inner critic and making “a choice to let go of all the ways you’ve made yourself wrong,” as she puts it. To be clear: “What if there’s nothing wrong with me?” is not a magic question. It will not all-caps CHANGE YOUR LIFE. But it can help you create a clearing in the busyness of your mind and life, a space of promise and possibility that is yours to plant and cultivate.

Watch her TEDxSedona talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daryl Chen is the Ideas Editor at TED.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Jenice Kim

If your self-worth seems to rise and fall according to what other people think, you’re not alone. But you can challenge this mindset and find a new way of valuing yourself, says psychologist Meag-gan O’Reilly.

“How often do you get asked ‘What do you do?’ and feel like that question is going to determine how much attention or respect you receive?” asks Meag-gan O’Reilly, staff psychologist at Stanford University’s Vaden Health Center in Palo Alto, California.

Perhaps you had the stomach-sinking experience of seeing your questioner’s face change or their eyes glaze over when they hear your response. It’s lousy. Instead of being seen and appreciated for all of your complicated individuality, you feel like your worth has been judged in a flash — and found wanting.

But getting a nod of approval is also unsettling, says O’Reilly. “Even those of us who seem to be winning at these conditions stand to lose because conditions change with time, age or unexpected hardships.”

O’Reilly recalls a vivid example from her own life. Once, at a party, she went up to the host — whom she’d never met before — to thank him for his hospitality. She smiled, stuck out her hand, and, she recalls, “I was met with the response of ‘Qualify yourself.’ ‘Huh,’ I said, arm still outstretched … That’s when his friend beside him reiterated the question with more clarity: ‘Qualify yourself; tell him why he should talk to you.’”

O’Reilly says, “Immediately my mind split into two paths. The first and more dominant voice got to work on the task … What are the bells and whistles of my existence that I can showcase to woo and persuade this person I’m worth his time?”

Meanwhile, the other part of her was stunned that, as she put it, “there was a litmus test for conversation. I’m happy to say that this part of me won out. I didn’t engage. I simply said, ‘Thanks again for hosting’ and walked away.”

This incident spurred O’Reilly to think about how small moments like these can chip away at our self-worth. “As a psychologist who’s heard and held hundreds of human stories, I have witnessed firsthand how this mentality of feeling like you are not enough has stolen dreams, ambitions, relationships, health and happiness away from people,” she says.

For some of us, these encounters echo earlier occasions in our lives when we felt like our value as a person was determined by other people — usually adults — and fluctuated depending on what they thought of our latest grade, game, performance or accomplishment. O’Reilly says, “Think to yourself for a moment: What were some of the early messages you received about who you needed to be to show up in the world as meaningful?”

No matter how deep-rooted these experiences and feelings are, we can free ourselves from thinking that we’re not enough. This undoing may take a while to happen so we should be patient, cautions O’Reilly. “It’s a process, and I call it lifespan work.”

Here are 4 ways we can start challenging the not-enough mindset:

1. Do what makes you — not other people — happy. Feeling like you’re not enough can sometimes lead you to take on certain friends, hobbies, projects or jobs that you think will make you look good in other people’s estimation. O’Reilly asks: “When was the last time you did something not because it’s going to show up on your resume, not because it meets that condition of worth you’re wrestling with, but just because you enjoyed it?”

It’s important to pursue the things that you genuinely enjoy because “it softens our stance toward ourselves,” says O’Reilly. “It allows us a zoomed-out perspective and gives us a chance to experience ourselves and others in a non-conditional way.” When you’re in the flow of doing what you love, you can shake off the weight of judgements and expectations.

2. Recognize that you have value … period. Believing you’re enough does not mean that you should lower the bar for what you’d like to accomplish in life, emphasizes O’Reilly; it’s just that your personal enoughness remains constant and isn’t affected by your actions. She says, “Please go and achieve much. But do it in such a way that you know there’s a floor or a baseline of worth that you cannot descend below.”

Contrary to what some people fear, recognizing our inherent self-worth does not mean that we’ll be full of our own self-importance. O’Reilly says, “An inflated sense of self-esteem sounds like … ‘I can do it, I’m the best,” whether or not that’s actually true.” Inherent value, she adds, “sounds like ‘This is important to me, and I’m going to do my best … but it doesn’t define me.’”

3. When you meet new people, go beyond your job, title or school. If we’d like to remove the judgment associated with the “So, what do you do?” question, we can also change how we respond to it. “The next time someone asks you what you do, don’t provide an occupation or field of study,” says O’Reilly. “Instead, share with them something that you cherish about yourself; try to break interpersonal ground with them and not start with labels.” (For more advice on the topic, read the TED Ideas article “How to introduce yourself so you’ll be unforgettable — in a good way.”)

4. Respond with love and acceptance to the successes and failures of your family, friends and colleagues. Similar to the previous point, we need to try to model a new way of being if we want to ease the not-enough mindset in the people around us. Given how achievement-oriented society can be, says O’Reilly, “this is difficult … but a person is not a product and we need a culture that delineates the two and helps us see that one does not define the other.”

Wouldn’t you like the most important people in your life — young or old — to feel like they are enough? By appreciating them and showing that your care for them is unconditional, you can create change that will ripple outwards. O’Reilly says, “Enough is enough with these worth wars we’re waging. Think about how radically different our world and relationships would be if each of us actually acted like we all had inherent value.”

Watch her TEDxSJSU talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Justin Tran

By adopting a take-charge approach towards living with depression, you can start to feel more in control and less powerless, says health activist Jessica Gimeno. She shares three helpful strategies.

“Depression takes practice,” says Chicago-based health activist and writer Jessica Gimeno in a TEDxPilsenWomen talk. Wait — that sounds unrealistic and unwise. Depression just happens to a person, and if you’ve ever been seriously depressed, it’s something that you sincerely hope will never happen again, right?

“What I’m saying is that living well with depression takes practice,” clarifies Gimeno. “Being productive every day despite depression takes practice. Being a student or an employee with depression takes practice.”

Knowing how to live with depression is important for many of us — with more than 300 million people across the globe living with chronic depression, it’s the leading cause of disability worldwide. “With a visible disability, we assume it will take practice to cope, including things like physical therapy,” says Gimeno, who has a blog called Fashionably Ill. “Yet when it comes to depression, we think that a label and medication are enough to cope. It’s time to go beyond getting a diagnosis, into giving people actual coping mechanisms. Without coping mechanisms, we’re trapped in a downward spiral. Being depressed leads to falling behind; falling behind leads to more depression.”

After she was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder when she was in college, Gimeno was helped by therapy and medication. However, she was eager to find out how to continue living her life and get things done while she was depressed. In the absence of existing resources and dealing with other challenges to her health including myasthenia gravis (a debilitating autoimmune neuromuscular disease) and polycystic ovarian syndrome, she created her own strategies. Note: This advice is not intended to cure or treat depression but to help you better manage the rest of your life while living with depression.

1. Be proactive.

It’s a cliche because it’s true — the best defense is a vigorous offense. Do you know what you’ll do the next time you’re depressed? “In order to make a plan, you need to know two things: your symptoms of depression and the strategies that work for you,” Gimeno explains.

While mental-health professionals and physicians have uncovered many common symptoms of depression — such as feelings of anxiety and hopelessness; changes in sleep, appetite and energy; inability to concentrate — Gimeno says it’s important for you to pinpoint your individual signs. It could be sleeping too much or barely sleeping at all, losing your appetite or wanting to eat all the time, excessive irritability or excessive apathy, or anything else. Your signs don’t have to be only physical, however — they may be specific behaviors. For example, writer Chris Dancy has noticed that when he’s feeling depressed he spends much more of his time using particular apps (in his case, Twitter, Fitbit and Facebook).

Next, you need to identify helpful actions that you can take as soon as these symptoms arise. Gimeno asks: “What do you need when you get depressed? Is it faith, is it family, is it friends, is it exercise, is it reading, is it listening to music?” Note: Your go-to activities should be ones that can truly make you feel better, not just cope, and also ones that won’t make you feel worse in the long run. While eating a pint of ice cream is one coping strategy, getting ice-cream with a friend or family member is a better tactic to take. Be prepared to act whenever you notice an episode of depression is beginning for you. As Gimeno says, “Know yourself, plan now, don’t wait.”

2. Zoom in on what’s most important for you to accomplish.

For Gimeno, this means prioritizing her to-do list. She says, “If something’s due today, it gets 4 stars; if it’s due tomorrow, 3 stars; sometime this week, 2 stars, next week [or later], 1 star. And when I’m depressed, I ignore anything that has less than 3 stars.”

Urgency isn’t only about getting things done, she says. It’s “also about being able to say no to non-essential tasks. So, meeting your work deadline is essential; the church bake sale is non-essential. When we say yes to everything, we amplify our stress.”

3. Figure out the difficulty of your tasks, and let this guide your actions.

Gimeno says, “When I’m depressed, I label all tasks as a 1, 2 or a 3. If it’s an easy task, it’s a 1; examples include eating breakfast or taking a shower. If it’s a moderately difficult task, it’s a 2, and a 3 is reserved for difficult tasks. For example, finishing a paper in college, scheduling an appointment with your child’s teacher, or meeting a difficult work deadline.”

If she’s in the midst of an episode of depression, she explains, “I focus on finishing all the 1 level tasks first. And every time I cross something off my list, even if it’s taking a shower, I feel empowered … And as I finish off all the 1 and 2 level tasks, I build the confidence to tackle the 3 level tasks.”

When it’s possible, she also tries to turn 3 tasks into 1s or 2s. For example, when she’s depressed, working out for 30 minutes is a 3. But working out for just 10 minutes makes it easier to accomplish, so that’s what she does.

Despite all her best efforts, plans and lists, Gimeno admits that there are still days when illness wins. Know that’s OK, and don’t add to your suffering by beating yourself up because you’re human. She says, “I want to share this with anyone who … fights depression or who loves someone that does. Yes, depression is real. But hope is real. Courage is real. Resilience is real.”

Watch her TEDxPilsenWomen Talk now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daryl Chen is the Ideas Editor at TED.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.