Latest news with #meaningfulconnections
Medscape
11 hours ago
- Health
- Medscape
Analyzing the Sacred Moments That Heal the Healers
Angela Hiefner, PhD, behavioral health specialist, was feeling especially exhausted when she was tapped by a primary care physician to evaluate a patient for behavioral health services. 'She shared about being evicted from her apartment, worrying about her son, and feeling fearful about the current immigration political climate,' Hiefner, the director of behavioral health in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said. 'We talked about how difficult these things have been for her and her family and were able to get her connected with one of the primary care clinic's mental health clinicians.' The interaction helped Hiefner slow down and reconnect with her purpose of work, she said. 'It's a perfect example of how meaningful connections and meaningful work can ease the burden of workdays that feel especially chaotic and difficult to keep up with,' she said. A study published online in JAMA Network asked internal medicine physicians about experiences similar to Hiefner's, using the term 'sacred moments' to describe these interactions. 'We defined these moments as deeply meaningful connections between two people that can sometimes have qualities of transcendence or boundlessness or spiritual qualities,' said Jessica Ameling, MPH, research area specialist lead at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and lead author of the study. The study surveyed 629 internal medicine physicians (59.2% White, 60.9% men) from June 2023 to May 2024, assessing burnout, coping strategies, and whether they had experienced sacred moments in practice. A little under two thirds of physicians said they had ever experienced a sacred moment with a patient (34.7% reported a few times each year, and 36.8% reported only a few times in their career). Physicians who experienced sacred moments several times or more throughout the year showed reduced odds of burnout than those with less frequent experiences (odds ratio, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.14-0.60; P = .001). Those who discussed these moments with their colleagues also showed lower odds of burnout, however, nearly three fourths reported either never or rarely doing so. Nearly 5% of physicians said they always or often discussed their sacred moments. 'I think in medicine, like in a lot of professional fields, it is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day nuts and bolts of the job, and sometimes we forget to have explicit conversations about why we do the work, what makes it meaningful,' Ameling said. 'I think this is one of the beautiful things about discussing sacred moments, the renewed focus on 'why I went into medicine' and the meaningfulness of human connection.'
Arab News
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: ‘You Will Find Your People'
Author: Lane Moore Most would agree adult friendship is hard. TV shows made us believe we would grow up with a tight-knit group of best friends, but real life often looks very different. In her 2023 book 'You Will Find Your People: How to Make Meaningful Friendships as an Adult,' Lane Moore walks us through this tough reality. It opens with the line: 'I really thought I would have friends by now.' Relatable, right? Moore reflects on how the ages of 18 to 22 years old are prime friendship years. After that, things get harder. As the author of 'How to Be Alone' (2018), Moore shifts from solitude to connection. She explores how making friends as adults — especially for those with trauma or rejection — is a messy, emotional process. Friendship, she says, can feel like a game of musical chairs that started before we noticed. The book is not a tidy guide. There are no checklists or guaranteed strategies. Instead, Moore offers her own stories — raw, funny, and deeply honest. She speaks to those who have felt left out or always been 'too much.' For the exhausted over-givers and the hopeful hearted, this book does not offer easy answers — but it does offer comfort. And sometimes, that is enough. Also, she dedicates it to her dog.
Forbes
12-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Next AI Revolution Isn't Technical, It's Emotional
Without emotion, intelligence is mechanical. With emotion, it becomes meaningful. Over the last few years, AI has been framed almost entirely through the lens of efficiency. Faster workflows. Smarter automation. Cheaper execution. The majority of AI hype, investment and transformation has organized itself around task completion at scale. The top use cases for generative AI in 2024 reflected exactly that: expediting tasks, drafting content, crunching information. Industries sprang up overnight to capitalize on this. RFPs, roadmaps and full-scale transformations all raced toward a singular idea: optimize everything. But something much more profound — and much less understood — is happening underneath all of this: the rise of emotional intelligence in AI. Too often, people still think "artificial intelligence" simply means the ability to generate words, images and videos faster and more impressively. But if we step back, it's clear: True intelligence isn't the ability to generate information. True intelligence is the ability to generate emotion. A real intelligence, whether human or artificial, doesn't just compute. It connects. It makes us feel. It understands nuance. It navigates the full range of human emotion: excitement, comfort, empathy and intimacy. Without emotion, intelligence is mechanical. With emotion, it becomes meaningful. The latest Harvard Business Review study on AI usage makes this shift impossible to ignore. Today, the top three reasons people turn to AI are emotional: In other words, emotional resonance is now surpassing executional efficiency. People aren't just using AI to get answers anymore. They're using it to feel connected. To be inspired. To feel human. The era of Information Technology (IT) is giving way to the era of Emotional Technology (ET). The past three decades have been spent building an internet that prioritizes speed, access and the volume of information. While this changed the world, it also hollowed out human experience in the process. Now, a second chance is emerging. AI can finish what the internet started — but this time, with the emotional depth we've been missing. Even the CMOs, who understand the need for emotion on some level, are still playing small. They know how to tell emotional stories through content and how to spark emotional moments through campaigns. But it stops there. Emotion isn't a campaign tactic anymore. It's becoming a system design principle. This isn't just about marketing. It's about experience. It's about infrastructure. It's about building brands and businesses that feel — at every touchpoint, every interaction, every scale. Yes, user experience, user interface and ultimately the entire customer experience can be designed to feel. And the businesses that don't make that leap? They'll be left behind, focusing only on what ultimately will become a commodity when the tools get easier and more connected with every business minute that goes by. The future of AI won't be about how fast it computes — but how deeply it connects. Brands that treat AI like a glorified taskmaster will fade. Brands that treat AI like a co-creator of human experience will win. The real use of AI isn't just to optimize workflows. It's to create emotional experiences at scale with moments that don't just solve problems but reshape lives. Because ultimately: There isn't a single industry today that isn't ripe for emotional differentiation. Healthcare remains famously unempathetic. Travel and hospitality struggle, loudly, to connect with people emotionally in moments of discovery. Education not only lacks personalized lesson plans, but often fails to teach in ways that truly engage and resonate. When people make decisions — especially purchase decisions — they are driven by needs, wants and desires. And at the core of all of it is one simple truth: it's all tied to emotion. Companies built technical stacks. Now they must build emotional stacks: systems that recognize, respond to and deepen human connection at scale.
