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For most of us, leading a healthy and fulfilled life is impossible without proper interaction with people and the world around us. As we scroll through the latest news, day-by-day, we start to become socially conscious. 

We form opinions on important social issues of our time.

We may also want to act on the information we gather from various media and the people we come into contact with. 

However, with the vast amount of the information we’re presented with and its questionable sources, it’s sometimes difficult to know what is and what isn’t true. I will offer precious advice on how to boost the quality of your life through social awareness.

Content Provided by Code of Living.

1. Listen To People Closest To You, And To People Of Other Races

Whether it's your work colleagues, teammates, your children or extended family, one way to change hearts and minds is to listen. When we stop talking and start listening, we validate others' feelings and emotions. 

And, we may find opportunities to educate.

For instance, "People will say, my kids don't see color, and kind of wear that as a badge of honor," says psychologist Gipson. But if a white person says this to a black person, it can be offensive. And, though it may be well-intended, the idea that people are colorblind is false.

"All kids, even infants, discern differences in race," Gipson says. "It also invalidates people of color who have a 'lived experience' that is not like their white counterparts," she explains. People don't want important parts of their identity to be erased, they want to be recognized and respected for the entirety of their person.

2. Use Your Voice In Your Community And Work Place

We don't all have the audience that sports figures have when they speak out against racism, but we all have a voice.

For instance, millions of people signed a petition posted by Color of Change, one of the nation's leading racial justice organizations, demanding charges against the officers involved in the death of George Floyd.

At the local level, identify a policy that disproportionately affects people of color. Pick an issue in your community — whether it's access to healthy food, school boundaries, or bail reform.

Rian Finney, 17, grew up hearing gunshots from his bedroom window, and he witnessed the aftermath of the unrest following the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015.

"If I don't speak up and do something, who will?" Finney asks.

He's now involved with several youth organizations, including GoodKids MadCity and Baltimore Ceasefire, which recruits youth ambassadors to help raise awareness of gun violence. It has always been young people who push the civil rights movement forward, Finney points out.

Also,for adults, "look at your specific position and reflect on what power you might have to shift change to promote diversity and equity," Burnett-Zeigler says. If you're a manager, have you promoted or hired people of color? If you're a teacher, have you incorporated messages of racial diversity and civil rights into your curriculum?

3. Give Your Time

If you've thought about signing up to be a tutor or mentor, now's the time to do it.

"Tutoring is a great example, mentoring is a great example," Burnett-Zeigler says. "These are ways you can use your personal influence in private ways for good."

If you're looking for a way to get started, check out the many national civil rights organizations -- or find a local, grass-roots group, says Janet Murguia, president and CEO of UnidosUS, a group that aims to empower Latinos to make change.

"We've partnered with organizations like Color of Change, National Urban League, Black Lives Matter and Race Forward, [which] are all doing incredible work in this space," Murguia says.

For instance, Race Forward offers interactive racial justice training courses and classes. Also,she points to the race and healing collaborative supported by the Kellogg Foundation, which sponsors an annual National Day of Racial Healing event.

4. Speak Up By Using Your Creative Talents

"There are so many ways young people can use their talent and gifts," says Gipson. On social media, we see examples of artists, from painters to jewelry makers, selling their wares and giving proceeds to an organization pushing for change.

"I love that idea," says Wizdom Powell, a psychologist and associate professor who directs the Health Disparities Institute at the University of Connecticut.

"The idea here is to leverage your gifts and leverage your privilege, because we all have some of that," Powell says. She points to an art competition that her institute organizes around visualizing health disparities. Art can play a role in healing and activism for health equity and social justice, she says. 

"The arts have long been a vital and important way to process emotions, especially difficult ones, into something tangible," says Jeremy Nobel, a physician who founded the Foundation for Art and Healing. "Expressive artifacts that make sense of the moment, bear witness and catalyze change."

In times of distress, people can use art to access and communicate difficult thoughts and feelings, especially ones that are hard to talk about," Nobel says. "[Art] offers a unique and powerful way to speak up, be heard, and be witnessed."

5. Self-Care Is Important

For people who are reeling from the recent spate of deaths and racial trauma, it can feel overwhelming, says GiShawn Mance, a psychologist at Howard University. She says, she feels it personally.

She leads healing circles, which can help people connect and grieve. She also facilitates restorative justice circles — which aim to bring people who are trying to settle a conflict together.

But Mance says, in recent days she's needed to take some time for herself. "It's been hard to concentrate on work," she says. In addition to the national unrest and the COVID-19 epidemic, which has hit communities of color the hardest, she is pregnant and a close friend recently died. "It's a lot, and there have been tears," she says.

This is a traumatic and stressful time especially for African Americans and people of color. "People put a lot of pressure on themselves to act or do something in this moment," Mance says. So, her advice is this: "The fight for equity and justice is an ongoing effort; thus, do not put pressure on yourself to act or do something in this moment." And she says, "I'm particularly talking to people of color and black people who are experiencing this."

"It is difficult to help others when you are not OK," she says. So, though self-care strategies will vary, take care of yourself and your mental health first, she says. Then "you can move forward in action to help others."

Content Provided By NPR.org.