Dr. Shimi Kang’s Blog

Empower the future. Cultivate drive. Understand your mind.

Recent Articles

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The 12 Steps For Future-Ready Skills

In today's dopamine-driven world, it's easy to become addicted to the unhealthy aspects of a modern-day lifestyle. To develop future-ready skills that can combat the dopamine cycle of our modern world, we must focus on building resilience, collaboration, adaptability, and innovation.

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How AI Fuels the Spread of Misinformation: The Role of Group Polarization and Confirmation Bias

AI algorithms and human psychology can contribute to the spread of misinformation through confirmation bias and group polarization. Luckily, there are ways to reduce the impact of algorithms and biases. Learn more in this blog.

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Technology: A Blessing & a Curse During a Pandemic

Parallels have been drawn between the COVID-19 pandemic and the Spanish Flu that ran from 1918 to 1920. However, there’s one major difference that sets these two pandemics apart: technology. Modern technology has played a significant role during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s had both benefits and drawbacks.

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Internal Drive: The Art & Science of Human Motivation

We’ve all known that great teacher, boss, or coach. The one that motivated you to study harder, push farther, or perform more than you ever thought possible. These individuals are great motivators, but are they great at teaching you to motivate yourself intrinsically?

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Adaptability: The Key Ingredient to an Awesome Life

Navigating life’s challenges requires one key thing: adaptability. Stress is an inevitable part of life, but we wouldn’t grow or develop without a certain amount of discomfort. Yet, in our modern world, we’re under such extreme pressure that stress has become a chronic issue.

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Goal-Setting: Accomplishing Goals Through Brain Science

We’re well into a new year, and that means you’re either feeling good about taking steps to accomplish your goals for the year, or you’ve already defaulted back to your old habits and routines. Setting new year’s resolutions is simple. It’s accomplishing them that’s difficult.

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How is Technology Changing Your Brain?

For the first time, humans have the answers to nearly every question in the palm of their hand, limited only by their download speed. The question we need to be asking, however, is how technology is affecting our brains.

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The Science of Giving

The holidays are a time of giving. We not only give thanks but give our time as well as gifts. Giving back is a foundational part of being human, and it provides a sense of closeness and goodwill within a friendship, a family, or even a community. The science of giving shows that it’s not just those that receive benefit, either. Here are the ways giving to someone else could be beneficial for you.

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How to Stay Engaged & Productive While Remote Working/Learning

Staying engaged and productive while working or learning from home can be challenging for many. Microsoft has done research into this and found that the average attention span for most people is now a mere eight seconds.

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Technology & Modern Relationships: Helpful or Hindersome?

Technology affects our modern society in numerous ways, but none more essential than how we connect with others, both in-person and online. The question is, is technology’s involvement in our relationships helpful — or harmful?

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How a Play Mindset Can Help Us in Times of Uncertainty

There are times in life when we all face considerable uncertainty and change. These moments are typical and expected. No matter how change happens, it forces us to reevaluate some, or all, of what we know about ourselves and the world.

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The Power of Play

The modern day workplace is often not such a happy place. Research indicates concerning trends of burnout, anxiety, depression, absenteeism, presenteeism, and bullying among other common workplace-related issues.1 Thankfully, there is an increased appreciation for workplace wellness and an uptick in counseling and support programs for staff. However, there is a powerful, overlooked activity that can reduce all of these issues while also enhancing mental health, creativity, collaboration, and self-motivation. It is something everyone has access to, often free or low cost, and is inherently fun. What is this secret sauce for personal and professional success? Play!

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The Stages of Loss & How to Cope with Loss

Right now, many of us are experiencing a significant loss together. Our lifestyles have been altered to a near-unrecognizable degree. For many, this change has meant a loss of freedom and flexibility in our daily lives, loss of income, loss of security, or even loved ones. No matter how loss comes into our lives, there are certain stages that we all go through.

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Overcoming the Myth of Perfectionism

Is wanting to be perfect so bad? The short answer is yes. Self-motivation and working hard to achieve success are admirable traits. But, you don’t need to be a perfectionist to exhibit these traits. In fact, perfectionism reduces the likelihood of being self-motivated, adaptable, and resilient in the face of life’s ups and downs.

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Understanding Burnout & How to Avoid It

Research and studies show us that many people actually suffer from stress at higher rates than ever before. And the American Institute of Stress’ research says it’s from a variety of different causes: job pressure, money, health, and even media overload, to name a few. It’s this excess stress that can lead to burnout. So what can we do?

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Understanding Flow States & How to Achieve Them

Have you ever been so absorbed in an activity that you were able to tune out all distractions and lose track of time? Did your body and mind feel like you were in a special rhythm? Maybe you were running a race, and you were focused completely on your body. Or when you were writing or painting, all your creativity seemed to come out of nowhere.

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Social-Emotional Learning: a New Dimension of Education

“Mason” was a high achiever and a dream student in any school. By grade 10, Mason, whose name has been changed to protect his privacy, was consistently on the honor roll and a top athlete. He was known to be driven, hardworking and responsible. So it was shocking to all who knew him when he was caught plagiarizing an essay – submitting a paper he’d found online as his own work.

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Resiliency a Skill Being Touted as Taught at Youth Summer Camps

Summer camp has always meant facing a certain amount of challenges – mosquitos, making new friends, learning to play new sports and games. In other words, it’s an opportunity for kids to become more resilient. Over the past several years, resiliency – being able to withstand difficulties and rise to the occasion when necessary – has become one of the qualities parents want most for their children, as most of us have come to believe that the coddled children of helicopter parents won’t make it far in this world.

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How to Manage Technology Use in Your Home

As society has progressed, many of us have swapped physical interaction for online interaction and daylight for artificially emitted blue light – including our children. We’re seeing toddlers with faces glued to smartphones and tablets, and as kids reach school age, they’re often encouraged to spend time on iPads and other devices to do schoolwork.

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Stress and the Gender Gap

In honour of April’s Stress Awareness month, I wanted to take this time to touch upon a subject that many women of the 21st century are struggling with in silence, day after day, whether they are aware of it or not. During this month, many experts in all fields of health will come together in hopes of spreading awareness and increasing public understanding of this growing issue that is seemingly harmless and often overlooked. Because for many of us, we may not realize its creeping effects on our health until we fall extremely ill, or it is too late. And in an increasingly complex and competitive world where studies have shown that women are more affected by this today and in bigger numbers than ever before in history, we need to ask ourselves when is enough, enough? And what can we do about it?

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Workplace Bullying: A Real Issue That Needs a Real Solution

Tigertown is a pushing, demanding, and stifling workplace. The hours are long, the management is predatory, the employees are solitary, and there is little community — definitely no mentors, and no time for fun or collegial bonding. Tigertown is an incubator for an insidiously growing problem: workplace bullying.

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For the Sake of Our Kids’ Mental Health, We Must Teach Them to Innovate

“Sam” – whose real name I’m not using to protect his privacy – was a first-year college student when he was referred to me. He was taking English and music, and he had slashed his arms with the bow of his violin. He told me it was not a suicide attempt but rather a protest against his childhood.

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Why We Need Social and Emotional Learning in Schools

When “Tyler” was a child, he was anxious. He may have inherited his tendency to worry from his mom, who was obsessed with “what ifs” and what others thought. Or maybe it was his father, who pushed him hard in school and extracurricular activities. Whatever the case, his parents often tried to solve his problems for him, which greatly diminished his ability to cope with adversity as an adolescent.

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Why Parents Need to Talk to Their Kids About Porn

As a psychiatrist specializing in teens and young adults, I bear witness to an alarming and insidious toxin that has increased in potency over the 15 years of my practice: online pornography. Though often dismissed as harmless, pornography has had a devastating impact on the well-being of many of my patients, and it can affect a person’s mental, physical and social health.

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Anxiety and the Importance of Play

My personal mission is to spread the message that a balanced lifestyle with enough play, social connection, and downtime is vital for human health. My work as a psychiatrist and research in addiction and motivation combined with my experiences as a mom of three kids – ages six, nine, and 11 – led me to this goal. I’m the current medical director of child and youth mental health for the city of Vancouver, and clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia.

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How To Set, Achieve And Sustain Goals

Most of us have probably been there. You say to yourself “today is when I finally stop putting things off” or “this is when I shed those extra pounds.” Perhaps it was, “I’m going to stop buying those things I don’t need and climb out of debt” or “quit smoking” or even “wasting time on the Internet.” We start off with the best intentions and feel committed when we set these goals for an improved self, or else we probably wouldn’t bother.

Get in touch

As a best-selling author, international speaker, and expert contributor to prominent media outlets, Dr. Shimi Kang has influenced how millions of people approach self-development and mental health. Understand innovation and achievement, book Dr. Shimi Kang as a keynote speaker, a media appearance, or a medical consultation & empowerment coaching today!

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