Flu vaccine requirement discarded ‘effective immediately,’ Hegseth says; Military Times, April 21, 2026

 Patricia Kime, Military Times ; Flu vaccine requirement discarded ‘effective immediately,’ Hegseth says

"The U.S. military will no longer require service members to get an annual flu shot according to a post Tuesday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the social media platform X. 

Hegseth said the mandatory flu vaccine requirement has been discarded “effective immediately.”

“The War Department is once again restoring freedom to our Joint Force,” the secretary wrote. 

The flu vaccine has been required annually for U.S. military personnel since the 1950s to preserve the health of the force, and generally, the Defense Department has aimed to inoculate more than 90% of active-duty personnel. 

The program has been a major factor in lower rates of hospitalizations among service members than national U.S. rates, according to an October 2025 Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division report."

Professional Development Is a Wellness Program; American Libraries, November 3, 2025

Donald W. Crankshaw , American Libraries; Professional Development Is a Wellness Program

"Traditional professional development plans in libraries may satisfy organizational or certification needs but do not necessarily satisfy employees’ needs, wants, and interests. What if we put employees’ needs and wants center stage by looking at professional development through the lens of an employee well-being program? A well-being program is an investment in the whole person, not just the part that is an employee, and therefore the concept of professional development can easily be built into a well-being program."

Your guide to coping with election anxiety; Vox, October 28, 2024

 Allie Volpe , Vox; Your guide to coping with election anxiety

"Feeling jittery and unsettled about the upcoming election? If you’re anything like the 69 percent of American adults who said the 2024 presidential election was a “significant” source of stress in their lives, per this year’s American Psychological Association’s Stress in America poll, you’re not alone. 

Elections are common wellsprings of anxiety because they’re rife with uncertainty, says David H. Rosmarin, the founder of the Center for Anxiety. You’re unsure of the outcome, and unsure of what life may look like for you under a new administration, especially when the difference between the two choices is undeniably vast. Some of the proposed policies may threaten people’s safety and freedoms, resulting in even more anxiety. Research shows political anxiety can impact people who aren’t generally anxious otherwise.

There are key differences between everyday anxiety and election-related anxiety. Sometimes, generalized anxiety is rooted in cognitive distortions, or inaccurate beliefs or fears about the world. But election-based distress isn’t necessarily based on hypotheticals or overreactions, says licensed clinical social worker Jneé Hill. “A lot of the concerns,” she says, “are very real and very valid based on people’s real lives and lived experiences.”

While election anxiety may feel large and existential, mental health experts agree it can be managed. In the lead-up to November 5 — and the uneasy days following — there are some strategies that can help quiet your mind."

Surgeon General: Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms; The New York Times, June 17, 2024

  Vivek H. Murthy, The New York Times; Surgeon General: Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms

"It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents. A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe. Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior. When asked if a warning from the surgeon general would prompt them to limit or monitor their children’s social media use, 76 percent of people in one recent survey of Latino parents said yes...

It’s no wonder that when it comes to managing social media for their kids, so many parents are feeling stress and anxiety — and even shame.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Faced with high levels of car-accident-related deaths in the mid- to late 20th century, lawmakers successfully demanded seatbelts, airbags, crash testing and a host of other measures that ultimately made cars safer. This January the F.A.A. grounded about 170 planes when a door plug came off one Boeing 737 Max 9 while the plane was in the air. And the following month, a massive recall of dairy products was conducted because of a listeria contamination that claimed two lives.

Why is it that we have failed to respond to the harms of social media when they are no less urgent or widespread than those posed by unsafe cars, planes or food? These harms are not a failure of willpower and parenting; they are the consequence of unleashing powerful technology without adequate safety measures, transparency or accountability."

Librarian’s Pet: Public libraries add robotic animals to their collections; American Libraries, May 1, 2024

 Rosie Newmark , American Libraries; Librarian’s Pet: Public libraries add robotic animals to their collections

"Liz Kristan wanted to bring four-legged friends to patrons who needed them the most.

Kristan, outreach services coordinator at Ela Area Public Library (EAPL) in Lake Zurich, Illinois, knew that the presence of pets has been associated with health benefits like reductions in stress and blood pressure. In 2022, she introduced robotic pets to the library’s collection, taking them on visits to assisted living and memory care facilities to entertain older adult residents.

“We’ve seen people with advanced dementia in near catatonic states actually light up, smile, and begin speaking when we place a pet in their lap,” Kristan says.

Libraries like EAPL have been adding these animatronics to their collections in recent years to bring companionship and health benefits to patrons, especially older adults. Compared with live animals, robotic pets require less upkeep and pose fewer allergy concerns. They are interactive and often lifelike, with some reacting to touch by purring, meowing, licking paws, barking, panting, and wagging tails."

The Restorative Library | Editorial; Library Journal, August 1, 2022

Meredith Schwartz , Library Journal ; The Restorative Library | Editorial

"Providing rest and rejuvenation in hard times

We all need a break...

So my wish for you, your colleagues, and your patrons today is that you make rest and respite an explicit priority in planning for your library, as well as addressing safety for patrons and staff. Can you host a nap pod in your academic library, as the University of Michigan and Wesleyan University did? Can you offer your employees an app that helps with stress and sleep, as Ozy Aloziem did at Denver Public Library? Can you bring therapy bunnies to visit, as the American Library Association did at its most recent conference? Nothing brings the blood pressure down like petting a chill tribble with a pink nose. And despite my example of self–guilt tripping above, offering yoga and meditation programs may help some patrons and staff too...

It’s important to recognize, and to acknowledge, that short-term spirit lifters are not a substitute for needed structural change. No one who doesn’t make a living wage is going to respond well to attempts to placate them with a pizza party instead of a raise. But that’s not to say that little pleasures have no role to play. Structural change is a long hard slog. Fun and rest along the way can contribute to maintaining energy and momentum, rather than distracting from it. And they can help build a supportive community in which each individual knows they can take a rest when they need it, while trusting that the whole will keep moving forward together."

How Understanding the Power of Empathy Makes You a Better Leader; Entrepreneur, August 9, 2022

Erik Bergman , Entrepreneur ; How Understanding the Power of Empathy Makes You a Better Leader

"The true goal of empathy is to focus on people's emotional experiences and build strong connections through this process. When someone shares their feelings or an experience that has impacted them, your goal as an empathetic person is to connect with that person's emotional experience and feel along with them. This can help you develop an understanding of why they act and react the way they do to various situations. But that shouldn't be your main focus when you have these vital interactions...

You can improve your empathy by implementing these practices into your everyday conversations with employees:

• Be curious: In order to connect with someone, you must be curious about their background, personal experiences, unique perspective and feelings. So, you have to ask questions. Spend less time focusing on what's going on in your life, and make room for others to tell you about their experiences or how they feel regarding a work conflict, a project or any personal issues they're facing outside of work. While you don't want to pry or invade their personal boundaries, you should check in with them regularly to open that door...

• Validate others' feelings: When your employee is telling you about a personal or professional experience that's affected them, you can let them know that you recognize and value how they feel. Verbally express this by saying "I would feel the same way" or a similar phrase. You can also use your body language to nod your acknowledgment or tilt your head to show that you're engaged in what they're saying. As you consciously practice these signals, they'll become more instinctive...

All of these steps show that you care about your employees and team members. Caring is a key element of empathy, because we can really only empathize with others when we also care about their well-being and success. But the goal of empathy is not to care performatively (caring for the sake of seeming like you care); the goal of empathy as a leader is to actually care for your team members, so you can connect with them and build strong relationships that help you reach goals together."

Bite-Sized Well-Being Can Help Reduce Burnout for Health Care Workers; Pharmacy Times, April 1, 2022

Ashley Gallagher, Pharmacy Times; Bite-Sized Well-Being Can Help Reduce Burnout for Health Care Workers

"Bite-sized well-being strategies can help reduce burnout for health care workers, according to the John G. Kuhn Keynote Address at the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association Annual Conference 2022.

“This time we’re in right now is not the time to tell people to start training for a triathlon, or to start with yoga, or to start with meditation. We just don’t have the initiation energy to do that right now,” J. Bryan Sexton, PhD, director of the Duke Center for Healthcare and Safety and Quality at Duke University Health System, said in the keynote address.

“If you were doing those things before the pandemic, maybe lean into those practices now, but what people need right now when there is so little gas in the tank is these bite-sized strategies.”...

Sexton said that colleagues can also affect an individual’s level of burnout. Approximately one-quarter of well-being is determined by who an individual works with, according to Sexton...

Sexton tested out a method called “3 Good Things,” which is just writing 3 good things that happened every day for 15 days. He said that in doing so, by day 15, there will be a significant improvement in emotional exhaustion."

You’ve Done Self Care. You’ve Languished. Now Try This.; The New York Times, February 13, 2022

Brad Stulberg, The New York Times; You’ve Done Self Care. You’ve Languished. Now Try This.

"If you don’t know where to begin, a good place to start is by reflecting on what matters to you most, what provides you with a sense of well-being and groundedness. Then ask yourself how to apply that activation energy strategically. What actions will give you the oomph you need? For example, if improving your fitness would make you feel better, you might start with 30 minutes of daily movement. If creativity is what you’re missing, writing for an hour three days per week could restart that engine. If you lack loving connection, try planning an adventure (that feels safe) with your family or friends, or even schedule time for physical intimacy with a partner. You may not feel like getting started, but get started anyway, then see what happens. Your doing influences your being.

This isn’t to suggest that you beat yourself up or give yourself a drill-sergeant lecture every morning. Indeed, a key step in the strategy is accepting its imperfections. Many of us are operating in less-than-ideal circumstances — dealing with illness, financial stress, work anxiety, a lack of child care. Overcoming the inertia of languishing requires fierce self-discipline — and a fierce compassion for oneself. You may think of these two qualities as opposites, but they are not. Research shows that being kind to yourself during hardships and challenges can increase resilience and strength.

A mantra I use in my own life is, “This is what’s happening right now. I’m doing the best that I can. Just get going, and see what happens.” I remind myself that sometimes the kindest thing I can do for myself is also the hardest thing to do — and that what seems hard today might just make tomorrow feel a bit easier."

There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing; The New York Times, April 19, 2021

Adam Grant, The New York Times ; There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing

The neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus — and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.

[Kip Currier: A military friend of mine who works in the Pentagon shared with me that their team's new leader sent a supportive message to the team this week and that the leader had also decided to share with the team this 4/19/21 New York Times article, excerpted here, because "if it helps one person on our team, or if you’re able to help someone out there, it’s worth it."

Let's pass this helpful information on to others too.] 

"A name for what you’re feeling

Psychologists find that one of the best strategies for managing emotions is to name them. Last spring, during the acute anguish of the pandemic, the most viral post in the history of Harvard Business Review was an article describing our collective discomfort as grief. Along with the loss of loved ones, we were mourning the loss of normalcy. “Grief.” It gave us a familiar vocabulary to understand what had felt like an unfamiliar experience. Although we hadn’t faced a pandemic before, most of us had faced loss. It helped us crystallize lessons from our own past resilience — and gain confidence in our ability to face present adversity.

We still have a lot to learn about what causes languishing and how to cure it, but naming it might be a first step. It could help to defog our vision, giving us a clearer window into what had been a blurry experience. It could remind us that we aren’t alone: languishing is common and shared.

And it could give us a socially acceptable response to “How are you?”

Instead of saying “Great!” or “Fine,” imagine if we answered, “Honestly, I’m languishing.” It would be a refreshing foil for toxic positivity — that quintessentially American pressure to be upbeat at all times.

When you add languishing to your lexicon, you start to notice it all around you. It shows up when you feel let down by your short afternoon walk. It’s in your kids’ voices when you ask how online school went. It’s in “The Simpsons” every time a character says, “Meh.”

Last summer, the journalist Daphne K. Lee tweeted about a Chinese expression that translates to “revenge bedtime procrastination.” She described it as staying up late at night to reclaim the freedom we’ve missed during the day. I’ve started to wonder if it’s not so much retaliation against a loss of control as an act of quiet defiance against languishing. It’s a search for bliss in a bleak day, connection in a lonely week, or purpose in a perpetual pandemic.

An antidote to languishing

So what can we do about it? A concept called “flow” may be an antidote to languishing. Flow is that elusive state of absorption in a meaningful challenge or a momentary bond, where your sense of time, place and self melts away. During the early days of the pandemic, the best predictor of well-being wasn’t optimism or mindfulness — it was flow. People who became more immersed in their projects managed to avoid languishing and maintained their prepandemic happiness."...

Give yourself some uninterrupted time

That means we need to set boundaries. Years ago, a Fortune 500 software company in India tested a simple policy: no interruptions Tuesday, Thursday and Friday before noon...

Focus on a small goal

The pandemic was a big loss. To transcend languishing, try starting with small wins, like the tiny triumph of figuring out a whodunit or the rush of playing a seven-letter word. One of the clearest paths to flow is a just-manageable difficulty: a challenge that stretches your skills and heightens your resolve. That means carving out daily time to focus on a challenge that matters to you — an interesting project, a worthwhile goal, a meaningful conversation. Sometimes it’s a small step toward rediscovering some of the energy and enthusiasm that you’ve missed during all these months.

Languishing is not merely in our heads — it’s in our circumstances. You can’t heal a sick culture with personal bandages. We still live in a world that normalizes physical health challenges but stigmatizes mental health challenges. As we head into a new post-pandemic reality, it’s time to rethink our understanding of mental health and well-being. “Not depressed” doesn’t mean you’re not struggling. “Not burned out” doesn’t mean you’re fired up. By acknowledging that so many of us are languishing, we can start giving voice to quiet despair and lighting a path out of the void.

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, the author of “Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know” and the host of the TED podcast WorkLife."