From & To Sathish #7 - Page 6

https://www.self.com/story/why-am-i-not-sore-after-a-workout?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-DAILY-SPONSORED&PAVED-2024_11_15=&sponsored=0&position=9&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=0ac6d309-8f26-4243-b6bf-533e9f6ae844&url=https://www.self.com/story/why-am-i-not-sore-after-a-workout

Experts break down what post-workout achy muscles really say about your routine.

How to make your life feel more meaningful

Existential psychology offers specific ways to find meaning, giving you a buffer against despair in these anxious times

by Steven Heine

Need to know

Everyone seems on edge these days. Turning on the news or scrolling through your social media feed provides a constant stream of things to worry about. Many countries have witnessed rapid growth in rates of anxiety, as well as depression and other psychopathologies. What can we do to help cope with these dark and anxious feelings?

One major source of protection from feelings of anxiety and despair is the sense that one is leading a meaningful life. If you feel that your life is lacking a sense of meaning, you might struggle with finding things that you truly care about, and may often feel bored, apathetic or alienated, living with a continuous sense of unease. In contrast, when people feel that their lives are meaningful, they feel that they have a purpose that guides them, and their life seems to make sense. They feel that what they are doing really matters, that they are capable of making a difference in the world. With a sense that life is meaningful, one can stand stronger in the face of the slings and arrows thrown at us by these uncertain times.

Ultimately, meaning is about connections – as I explain in my new book Start Making Sense (2025), a meaningful life is one that is deeply connected. Research has shown that some kinds of connections are especially important to leading a meaningful life. These include:

close relationships: people feel that their lives are more meaningful when they spend more time with their closest family and friends;

connection to a community that gives one a sense of belonging and identity;

connection to work that provides a sense of purpose and mastery; and

spiritual connections to a transcendent realm, ie, feeling that one’s life is part of something larger than the material world (whether this comes from one’s religion or other spiritual beliefs).

When people’s lives are sufficiently connected, they feel more existentially grounded. They feel that their lives really matter. Over the past several decades, however, these kinds of connections have been under threat. This threat is well documented in the United States, though similar trends have been identified throughout much of the world, as people in many cultures have become more individualistic and disconnected. Compared with past generations, most Americans have fewer close interpersonal relationships than they did before. The number who report that they have only three friends or fewer has increased by more than 80 per cent over the course of 30 years. Moreover, the percentage of people living alone has risen steadily, and many of those who live with their families are interacting with them less than before. Americans are also less engaged with their communities than in previous decades, when more people belonged to service clubs, community sports leagues and other local groups, or gathered for regular card games with neighbours.

Amid all this, numerous changes have weakened people’s connections to their work. It used to be common for people to feel that they belonged to their organisation, and that their relationships with their coworkers were important parts of their social networks. But more people have been working remotely from the solitude of their home, depriving them of this sense of community. People have also been changing jobs more than before and, with the rise of the gig economy, fewer have a clear sense of a work identity.

Finally, many people have been steadily losing their feelings of connection to a higher power. In the past 50 years, the US has changed from a country where only 5 per cent said that they didn’t follow any religion to one where 30 per cent have no religious affiliation, and in some countries religious involvement has declined to even lower levels.

In Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), the existential psychiatrist Viktor Frankl described the kind of society that many of us currently live in – one with fewer traditional bases of meaning – as an ‘existential vacuum’. Frankl, too, recognised that, when people struggle to find meaning in their lives, they are more vulnerable to developing anxiety and depression. Surrounded by an existential vacuum, it is all the more important to find new ways to make our lives feel more meaningful.

In this Guide, I will help you consider some ways to experience greater meaning in your own life. We’ll take a closer look at the foundations of meaning in life, as well as some existential exercises that you can turn to when you’re feeling particularly disconnected from sources of meaning. The guidance I’ll offer is derived from the field of existential psychology, which has sought to provide a scientific foundation for the pursuit of a meaningful life. I came to this field myself by way of my other research on how our cultures sculpt our ways of thinking – including how we make sense of our lives – and we’ll consider the relationship between meaning and culture, too.

What to do

Give yourself a meaning-in-life audit

Since meaningful lives are built upon a foundation of connections, it’s time to reflect: how well connected is your own life? I encourage you to conduct a brief audit, assessing how you’re doing in the domains of close relationships, community, work and spirituality. Are your connections in these areas providing a reliable source of meaning in your life? After considering your own experience with each domain below, assign a score for the domain on this scale: 1 – not very well connected, 2 – fairly well connected; 3 – richly connected.

Close relationships. We tend to feel that our lives are most meaningful when we’re spending time with the people we love, such as our closest friends. In particular, relationships with family are especially important for many of us, as they provide a sense of identity; they may extend across many decades or even a lifetime; and families tend to share many traditions, values and religious beliefs. Additionally, when someone takes on a caretaker role, such as by looking after children, the elderly or pets, they often feel a stronger sense of meaning. Take a minute to list your most important relationships and think about how connected you feel with these people. It’s not so much about the sheer number of close relationships that you have, but your feelings of connection in this domain overall.

Community. Being part of a community can give you a sense of collective identity that connects your individual self with something much larger. Do you feel that you belong to any communities? These could be based on social and recreational goals, such as a musical group or a sports team, or they might be directed towards an important value that you share with others, such as a group that’s focused on protecting the environment. Jot down any communities that you feel connected with, whether these are formal ones (such as an organisation you belong to), or more informal ones (such as an ethnic community, or a group of friends that meets regularly), and rate how strongly connected you feel to your community or communities, on the whole.

Work. People’s jobs play an underappreciated role in the foundation of a meaningful life as they often supply feelings of belonging and contribute to a sense of identity, purpose, mastery and self-worth. Research finds that some kinds of work are especially conducive to providing a sense of meaning, including jobs that offer some kind of service towards others – such as clergy, teachers and healthcare practitioners. Think about any aspects of your own work that give you a sense of purpose, self-worth or a feeling that you make a difference, and write down what those are. These can include aspects of a formal job that you hold, or aspects of any work that you do outside of that job (such as regular creative work or volunteer work that enlists your skills and effort). Then rate how strongly connected you feel to meaningful work, overall.

Spirituality. When people believe that there are forces that transcend their everyday physical reality, they often sense that they are part of something far more extensive than their own lives, and this can help them feel that their lives matter in the grand scheme of things. Our own research finds that these existential benefits are not exclusive to those who belong to a formal religion, but also emerge for those who view themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’. Nonreligious people might feel this sense of spiritual connection when, for example, they are out in nature or meditating. So, with all this in mind, ask yourself: how strongly do you feel that you are connected with something transcendent?

Use the audit to refocus on your connections

Consider what your existential audit reveals. Most likely, you have learned that in at least some of these domains you scored a 1, and have much room for improvement – few people would feel richly connected in all of these domains.

Encouragingly, though, one key insight from my research on meaning maintenance is that, like money, meaning is fungible. You can gain a greater sense of meaning by drawing on the connections from different domains of life. The meaning that you derive from one domain of connections, say, your family relationships, can help to make up for a shortfall of meaning in another domain, such as an uninspiring career. What matters is that your life is richly connected, not whether your life is well connected in all of the individual domains. That said, it is easier to build more meaning in life through a domain where one has opportunity for improvement.

So, having completed your audit, consider how you might shore up your foundation of meaning by working in the domains where you have room for growth. For instance:

If your sense of connection in your close relationships is flagging, your efforts might include reflecting on which close friends or family members you have not been seeing much lately, and making concrete plans to spend more time with them.

If your sense of connection to a community is low, you might consider trying to join a new community that aligns with your values. Again, this can include a variety of possible groups: anything from a recreational pickleball league to a hiking group. If your key personal values include compassion or justice for other people, you should know that volunteering for a cause that one believes in, or engaging in activities that help others – both of which can be part of participating in a community – are especially likely to provide a sense of meaning.

If you feel you lack a connection to your work, you might find that taking up some other purpose-driven activities in your free time – such as volunteering, or joining some other kind of organisation where you put your abilities to use – will bring some of the existential rewards that are lacking in your job. Or perhaps there are some additional tasks you could take on at your workplace that seem like they could give you greater feelings of purpose or mastery.

Finally, if your sense of spiritual connectedness is low, I would suggest exploring – or revisiting – any spiritual practices or traditions that largely fit with your way of viewing the world. I’ll have more to say about this below, but some relatively easy ways to boost this form of connection (and others) might be to join a friend in a spiritual practice that they find meaningful, or to attend a gathering of spiritual seekers if their quest resonates with you.

Try existential exercises when you need a boost

Feelings of meaning in life aren’t a constant – they ebb and flow. Some days you might feel rather alienated or disconnected from your usual sources of meaning. On such days it could help to augment your sense of meaning, and I’ll describe some examples of what I call ‘existential exercises’ that you can consider. I think of these as the existential equivalent to a shot of espresso: they can provide a much-needed boost to meaning during those times when you’re feeling a lack of it in your life.

Self-grounding

This simple exercise is built on the notion that people have greater wherewithal to confront the challenges of their lives when they’re feeling more existentially grounded. That is, when they feel that they have a clear understanding of who they are and what they stand for. Much research has found that people feel more grounded, and that their lives are more meaningful, after they have reflected upon their most important values. Dozens of psychology experiments in the tradition of self-affirmation theory have found that when people write a brief paragraph about their important values, they are then in a better position to respond with resilience to whatever challenges they face.

You might also benefit from writing about your values. Think about a value that is especially important to you – such as your loyalty to family or friends, your honesty, your creativity, your commitment to the environment, or whatever comes to mind for you. Then write a few sentences about why this value is important to you. Also describe some personal experience(s) you’ve had that demonstrate how this value is significant to you. You’ll likely feel more grounded and motivated, and these feelings could persist for some time.

Nostalgic reflections

Research points to another easy way to give yourself a boost in meaning, which is to engage in nostalgic reflections. Reflecting on past memories can help existentially ground you by giving you a greater sense of continuity across your life. It can remind you of the events and relationships that have made you who you are.

Not all memories are equally helpful for increasing a sense of meaning, however. Try to recall social events from your past – such as when you used to hang out with your best friends on the weekend when you were younger – since relationships are so important for feelings of meaning. Also think about some of your more significant life events, especially ones that revolve around cultural rituals (such as a graduation) or family traditions (such as a big holiday dinner). And try to remember times when you overcame some difficulty, as these memories highlight how you have the resilience to withstand challenges and can be especially meaningful.

You might make these memories more accessible to you by reaching out to someone who shared the experience with you; looking through a collection of photos or videos from your past; playing some music you associate with a previous part of your life; or visiting a neighbourhood where you used to live. You will be reminded of how your past experiences have shaped who you are now, and this should provide you with a boost to your sense of meaning.

Pursue self-transcendent experiences

Writing in The New Yorker in 2015, the author Ceridwen Dovey called a transcendent experience ‘that elusive state in which the distance between the self and the universe shrinks.’ When someone has a self-transcendent experience, they feel that they are connected to something much larger than themselves. In these states, people typically become less self-centred, and many of their concerns are temporarily diminished. These experiences commonly lead people to feel a sense of awe. Time seems to slow down and their attention becomes focused on the present. Self-transcendent experiences can provide powerful boosts to your sense of meaning and, although the experiences may be relatively brief, they can be highly memorable.

Some common gateways to self-transcendent experiences include:

Religious and spiritual rituals, which frequently combine symbolism with emotionally evocative music, chanting and communal participation to elicit a sense of sacredness and connection. You might step up your participation in any such rituals that have already been a part of your own religious or spiritual life, or seek out new opportunities to participate in such rituals.

Mindfulness meditation, in which you develop the ability to observe your thoughts and feelings as temporary experiences. Practising meditation enhances your awareness of the present moment, which distances you from events that are causing anxiety and stress, and helps you to achieve a state of self-transcendence. (See the Links & Books section below for some tools to help you get started.)

Psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin, LSD, MDMA or ayahuasca; there has been a sharp growth in interest in using these as a means to deliver transcendent experiences. While these drugs are illegal in most countries, and there is risk in using them without appropriate supervision, researchers are exploring the potential benefits of these substances, particularly for therapeutic purposes. Studies have also found that people who ingest these substances often report feeling greater authenticity, self-insight, connection to others, and meaning in life. Researchers strongly recommend that anyone who is using these substances do so under the watchful guidance of a well-qualified therapist or guide, to increase the likelihood that they will have a beneficial and safe experience.

Contact with nature often elicits feelings of awe, which can make your life feel more meaningful. You might find transcendent experiences in beholding a dramatic sunset, a vast mountain range or the crash of ocean waves. In an expansive natural environment, you are likely to have the sense that you are connected to something much larger than yourself. Even a short nature walk can increase wellbeing, especially if you pause to really appreciate the vastness of the world around you. But you can increase the chances of having an awe-inspiring experience if you visit a dramatic landscape of the sort that you rarely get to see.

Combine your pursuit of self-transcendent experiences and use of existential exercises with your efforts to shore up your foundation of meaning, working to deepen the connections in those domains where you feel you’re lacking. Together, these strategies can help you build a life that is richer in meaning than it was before – one that feels more purposeful, makes more sense, and provides the feeling that what you are doing really matters. With such an outlook, you’ll be better prepared to confront the trying times that so many of us are living through.

Key points – How to make your life feel more meaningful

A meaningful life is deeply connected. Strong links to friends and family, to a community, to your work or to a transcendent realm can help you feel that your life makes sense and that what you do matters.

Give yourself a meaning-in-life audit. Rate how well connected you feel to sources of meaning in each of the key domains (close relationships, community, work, spirituality) and see where you have room to grow.

Use the audit to refocus on your connections. Strengthening your connections in any one domain can help you build meaning overall – so focus on where your ratings are lower, such as by joining a group that aligns with your values (the community domain), or seeking new, purpose-driven challenges at your job or outside of it (the work domain).

Try existential exercises when you need a boost. Practice self-grounding by writing about an important personal value and what it means to you. Or reflect back nostalgically on personal milestones, important relationships, or challenges overcome to remind yourself of how the past has shaped you.

Pursue self-transcendent experiences. Explore new spiritual practices, novel encounters with nature, or other pathways to enhance your sense that you are connected to something greater than yourself.

Learn more

How is meaning in life pursued across cultures?

Psychological phenomena are shaped by the cultures that surround us, and meaning in life is no exception. From our cultures, we learn what is valued, what is frowned upon and what is seen as appropriate, and it is by these culturally learned standards that we come to evaluate our own lives. Still, though, across cultures the connections that underlie a meaningful life are similarly based on people’s close relationships, their sense of community, their work and their spiritual beliefs.

The ways that different cultures are organised means that meaningful lives can be harder to come by in some places. In particular, in individualistic cultures, such as the US, Australia or the Netherlands, where people tend to think of themselves as self-sufficient and autonomous agents, they tend to report having less meaningful lives, compared with those living in collectivistic cultures, such as Brazil, Senegal or India, where people tend to think of themselves as inextricably embedded in their social networks. It appears to be more challenging to pursue a meaningful life when individuals are responsible for creating and maintaining their interpersonal networks, as is typically the case in more individualistic cultures.

Another cross-cultural difference that seems to be related to feeling that one’s life is meaningful is the degree of wealth in a society. Research has found that people living in poorer societies are less likely to report being happy than those living in wealthier societies. But it’s important to note that happiness and meaning in life are not the same thing, even though they are correlated. The comfort enjoyed by people living in wealthier countries seems to come at a cost: strikingly, research finds that, on average, the poorer a country is, the more likely its citizens are to report that their lives are meaningful. The research suggests that a higher level of religiosity in less wealthy nations plays a key role in explaining this. It’s also possible that, for many people in these countries, the struggles that they face and overcome help them build a sense of meaning in their lives.

This points to something important about meaning in life: the endurance of suffering can be powerfully meaningful. As Frankl observed, in his descriptions of his horrific experiences at Auschwitz, ‘even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation … may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.’ Struggle often brings with it a sense of purpose, a need to turn to others for social support, and a deepening of people’s spiritual resolve. We cannot avoid suffering in our lives, but it is reassuring to know that, when the time comes, our most difficult challenges can help us feel that our lives are more meaningful.

https://19thnews.org/2024/11/pregnant-people-prepay-delivery-babies/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-DAILY-SPONSORED&PAVED-2024_11_16=&sponsored=0&position=1&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=8c567fe9-7018-41ed-b54a-202b168f44e8&url=https://19thnews.org/2024/11/pregnant-people-prepay-delivery-babies/

Pregnant people are being asked to make large cash payments months before they deliver their babies. Some patient advocates worry this billing practice allows providers to hold treatment hostage.

https://longreads.com/2024/11/12/hunger-belonging-pregnancy-surrogate-kristina-kasparian/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-DAILY-SPONSORED&PAVED-2024_11_16=&sponsored=0&position=3&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=51a9bc66-836a-46d6-805e-8a0de2dedb10&url=https://longreads.com/2024/11/12/hunger-belonging-pregnancy-surrogate-kristina-kasparian/

On the insatiable hunger for belonging.

by Kristina Kasparian

https://www.npr.org/2024/11/11/nx-s1-5172234/cancer-survivorship-young-patient-profile?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-DAILY-SPONSORED&PAVED-2024_11_17=&sponsored=0&position=3&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=022b53e5-0f85-4151-a2ea-d40860a3cb64&url=https://www.npr.org/2024/11/11/nx-s1-5172234/cancer-survivorship-young-patient-profile

More young people are surviving cancer. Then they face a life altered by it

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03675-w?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-DAILY-SPONSORED&PAVED-2024_11_17=&sponsored=0&position=8&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=623bdd58-9a27-4608-a505-1bc413d2cfa2&url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03675-w

Through brain implants, neural interfaces and skin grafts, researchers are starting to restore sensation for paralysed or amputated limbs.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-are-the-best-lucid-dreaming-techniques?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-DAILY-SPONSORED&PAVED-2024_11_17=&sponsored=0&position=9&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=bce2e98f-ed21-4218-a2f8-15ff49a517ab&url=https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-are-the-best-lucid-dreaming-techniques

Lucid dreaming holds a widespread appeal, but many people simply can’t do it. So what do studies show are the best techniques?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-is-altering-animals-colors/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-DAILY-SPONSORED&FINANCEBUZZ-2024_11_18=&sponsored=0&position=8&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=fb6a6937-7ca4-49eb-adf4-607b610c222b&url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-is-altering-animals-colors/

Lizards in France have grown lighter in color, and so have many insects and birds across the globe. The effects of a changing climate are plainly visible throughout the animal kingdom

Why the News Feels Overwhelming—And How to Cope

An explanation of the science behind news fatigue, plus expert advice to take control and protect your well-being while staying engaged

By Meghan Bartels

It’s February 2025. The world feels like complete chaos, and it’s hard to step away from the news. Maybe your body feels tight, and perhaps your mind is racing.

Take a deep breath, then keep reading.

It isn’t just you: lots of people have expressed that they have felt overwhelmed and burned out from the events of recent months. Disasters, including Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles–area wildfires, served as the backdrop to a frighteningly tense presidential election. And the new administration has acted loud and fast, often in ways that judges are already declaring unconstitutional.

To a degree, the result feels familiar. News overload is nothing new; major crises such as September 11 and the early months of the COVID pandemic delivered a similar onslaught of rapid-fire headlines that were laden with fear and uncertainty. But experts say the developments during these first weeks of President Donald Trump’s second administration are posing a very real mental health threat that people may need new skills to manage. Scientific American spoke with experts in psychology and beyond about what’s happening and how to stay calm and grounded through it.

What Is the ‘Flood the Zone’ Strategy?

Political strategist Steve Bannon, who advised Trump during his first term, has openly discussed overwhelming the media as a key priority to advance right-wing objectives. “All we have to do is flood the zone,” Bannon told Frontline in 2019. “Every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done: bang, bang, bang.”

This approach is reminiscent of the “Gish gallop” tactic that Trump has used during debates to barrage opponents and fact-checkers with so many lies and half-truths that it becomes impossible to adequately address them all. Away from the podium and inside the Oval Office, it’s a strategy that harkens back to a predigital Soviet practice of producing huge amounts of disinformation meant to make people question reality, as many experts have noted. The Trump administration’s version of this tactic uses volume to create paralysis among the opposition, says Dannagal Young, a professor of communication at the University of Delaware. “It’s the sense that you are being overwhelmed by a tidal wave,” she says. “How do you push back against a tidal wave? You can’t.”

In addition to the sheer number of actions coming from the administration, many are also entirely unprecedented. Without historical U.S. parallels to work from, our brain is less able to calculate what these developments might lead to, and that can make processing the news even more difficult. “The chaos that ensues is really hard to make sense of because we don’t know the consequences,” says Kristen Lee, a psychotherapist and a teaching professor of behavioral science at Northeastern University.

But it’s not just the volume of headlines and the intellectual difficulty of understanding what’s happening that make current news overwhelming. The key, psychologists say, is the emotional weight of those headlines’ content—especially for people who find what’s happening in the U.S. today to be genuinely frightening.

Fear in the Brain, Fear in Societies

For someone worried about the administration’s policies creating tangible harm, each new headline can create a spark of fear—and fear is a remarkably powerful emotion. “Threat and fear take the priority in our brains,” says Arash Javanbakht, a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist at Wayne State University. “When you’re afraid, all you’re thinking about is what you’re afraid of.”

Think of the effects of fear on the brain in two categories: cognitive and emotional. Cognitively, fear hijacks our ability to think well—and this makes us more likely to rely on other people’s reasoning than to think through our own opinions and values, Javanbakht says. Lee notes that fear can also interfere with attention, leaving people vulnerable to what psychologists call cognitive distortions. This term is often used in discussing conditions such as depression and anxiety, in which our brain can fixate on predicting the worst or ignoring small positives. Ultimately, cognitive distortions are convenient mental shortcuts that our brain can slip into. Such habits include jumping to conclusions and engaging in black-and-white thinking, and they bypass our critical thinking skills.

As an emotion, unaddressed fear can morph and grow. Fear often becomes anger, Javanbakht says. And as fear and anger build up, they turn into a state of feeling overwhelmed, as well as exhaustion and sadness. If someone doesn’t feel like they have any control over a situation, this emotional cocktail can create a sense of helplessness that can become paralyzing—like a caged lab animal that shuts down amid shocks it doesn’t believe it can stop, even if an avenue of escape finally does become available.

On top of this, feeling anxious about the news can drive people to follow current events even more closely. “Anxiety stimulates our need to search for information,” Young says. But in chaotic times, the next news story won’t actually resolve the anxiety—and neither will the second or third or 10th.

And if fear is difficult for someone to cognitively and emotionally manage, the effects are even more profound when that individual is surrounded by other people who are also afraid. That’s because humans are fundamentally social beings who are attuned to one another’s emotions; our connections within our local communities are how we have managed to survive as a species.

In today’s digitally connected world, however, our exposure goes far beyond perceived threats to us and our daily companions. We now have intimate access to the emotions of hundreds or thousands of people we’re connected to online. We feel scared and angry, we go online, we encounter other people being scared and angry, and that rubs off on us. “When people who we think of as on our team are outraged and upset and anxious, the natural and adaptive response is for us to have the contagion of their experience,” Young says.

And because our fear has already reduced our cognitive abilities, we’re also more likely to instantly take on someone else’s view of the world without examining it for ourselves—especially if we consider them a leader—Javanbakht says.

Moving Forward

We can better understand how people have been feeling over recent weeks by thinking about the experience of a car accident, says Fathali Moghaddam, a Georgetown University psychologist who has studied the psychology of democracy and dictatorship. “You’re in a state of shock, and you are just trying to adjust to what happened,” he says. “The car is damaged; you are hurt; everything is bewildering.”

In the moment, the shock can feel so intense that it’s difficult to imagine life ever feeling normal again. But psychologists know that humans adjust to their circumstances—and surprisingly quickly. What feels unbearable in the short term can become more manageable with time. “We have to adjust,” Moghaddam says.

It can be difficult advice to heed in the throes of fear and the feeling of being overwhelmed, but experts also encourage us to remember that people of many generations have encountered crises before. “We are not the first cohort in humanity to face existential threats,” Lee says.

Although some people in the U.S. are certainly in immediate risk, many, realistically, are not. And as unpleasant as 2025 may seem for people living today, the modern era is still an improvement over much of the past, Javanbakht notes. “At the end of the day, we are living in one of the safest, most prosperous times of humanity,” he says. “But we have lost sight of that.”

So know that, on both an individual and societal level, as difficult as you might find this time, things will become more manageable. All the experts interviewed for this article also shared recommendations on ways for emotionally struggling people to manage the current situation and stay healthy.

Coping Strategies to Stay Informed without Feeling Drained

Take a deep breath. Do so literally and figuratively. Breathing deeply will help your body recognize that, right now, you are safe, allowing your cognitive brain some room to come back online. And you may need a broader pause—an hour, a day, even a weekend away from the news—to evaluate where you are and what you need. “When our system is so taxed, we have to be mindful and step back,” Lee says.

See the bigger picture. To make the task of processing the Trump administration’s relentless flood of actions a little less daunting, Young recommends considering them within the larger narrative of the president’s goals and priorities. For example, staffing and funding cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are all aspects of Trump’s well-known lack of trust in science and scientists. This thought process can make individual news events feel less overwhelming, Young says. “Actually, that tidal wave is all coming from one place,” she says. “I think that that reframe is essential.”

Limit news consumption. Experts encourage people who are struggling with the news to manage their exposure—while still staying reasonably informed. There are plenty of options: People who usually watch news programs can consider reading articles instead. Those accustomed to checking the news all day long can establish one or two set times each day to catch up. And people who find themselves doomscrolling on social media can reduce their exposure.

Lee encourages people to use common behavioral-change tactics to make this process easier. For example, you can make doomscrolling more difficult by setting time limits for specific apps on your phone or by unplugging your router at a certain time, and you can make healthier habits easier by keeping a book or walking shoes close at hand. You can also manufacture a “fresh start” and recruit a friend to help you monitor your progress.

Stay with science. Moghaddam argues that, given Trump’s authoritarian leanings, standing up for science has become particularly important. “Science is the most democratic procedure that humans have invented,” he says—and he expects attacks on science to ramp up as the administration continues.

Even as the chaos surrounding scientific funding persists, Young encourages active researchers to resist the temptation to get distracted. “Not only do you still have work to do, but you have an obligation to get to work,” she says. “And do it without feeling guilt about what you’re doing. Because if you are in the scientific community, your work is the production of knowledge.”

Reach for something good. Javanbakht points out that it’s valuable to balance one’s political news intake with stories about science, the arts, sports, and more. These articles give your brain a break from fear and keep it cognitively active. Similarly, he and others encourage people to look for good things in life more generally as a way to stay even-keeled.

Connect with ourselves and other people. If current events are affecting your perception of yourself and your impact on the world, Young recommends picking up a pencil. Writing about what’s happening can help your brain look at your role in a new way. “There’s a lot of amazing work from the mental health literature on people writing their own narrative and how it can shape how we view ourselves and our own agency,” Young says. “Writing can help people construct an image of themselves anew.” Writing about your values or the ways you’re showing up for the people in your life might be steadying when things are difficult.

And connecting with other people—offline and not about politics—is also grounding. Good conversations not only help fortify our brain against a fear-induced shutdown; they also strengthen our community ties and remind us of the world beyond politics. “Rediscover the art of the dinner party, of the game night,” Young says.

Take action. Most of all, researchers recommended simply doing something—anything, really. Javanbakht recommends exercise, given that plentiful research shows its deep mental health benefits. Young emphasizes that reaching out to elected officials, building community and volunteering can all counteract the paralyzing effects of fear-inducing news. “Your local school board is still holding meetings,” she says. “Your town hall is still trying to figure out ‘Are you going to get the money to fill the potholes or not?’”

And for her, taking these actions are the real point of reading the news anyway. “News consumption is not an end in itself,” she says. “From a democratic theory standpoint, news consumption is a means to become informed to act.”

Meghan Bartels is a science journalist based in New York City. She joined Scientific American in 2023 and is now a senior news reporter there. Previously, she spent more than four years as a writer and editor at Space.com, as well as nearly a year as a science reporter at Newsweek, where she focused on space and Earth science. Her writing has also appeared in Audubon, Nautilus, Astronomy and Smithsonian, among other publications. She attended Georgetown University and earned a master’s degree in journalism at New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.

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