We've all been there: Someone asks if you're okay, and even though your world feels like it's crumbling, you manage a weak smile and say, "I'm just tired." It rolls off the tongue so easily, doesn't it? Like a reflex we've perfected over years of practice. I used to be the queen of this response. During my worst anxiety spirals in my twenties, when deadlines loomed and my chest felt tight,
When Justin Harrison got the call in 2022 telling him that his mother would likely die within the day, he didn't panic. He got on a plane to Singapore, where he was scheduled to present at a conference about his start-up, You, Only Virtual, a platform on which users can chat with AI versions of their dead loved ones, and which Justin believes can ultimately eliminate grief as a human experience. He learned about his mother's death while flying over the Pacific.
Over the 74,301 years he's been playing tennis, warming to Novak Djokovic hasn't always been easy. And the man himself knows it, frequently bristling at sleights perceived, imagined and real, his 24 grand slam titles unable to replace the basic need to feel loved. What we all learn from Djokovic, though what even Djokovic himself can learn from Djokovic is how to execute the perennially torturous business of loving yourself.
I've often asked patients why they're so preoccupied with becoming the best in some domain, why they need something so much that they're willing to organize their lives around it, sacrificing all types of pleasures for it. Most of the time, there isn't much of an answer. It's like a game, a distraction, and a fantasy; there's no rhyme or reason, no sense of why they do it or what's to come, and no understanding of how being the best generates long-standing happiness.
After 18 weeks of the NFL regular season, the moment is almost here. The Super Bowl represents the pinnacle of pressure. For the athletes that take the field, it's the moment they've been waiting for. The culmination of years of preparation for that one game. There is little margin for error and the moment is unforgiving. Yet, the psychological demands of Super Bowl game day aren't as unique as we think.
People may avoid romantic relationships for various reasons. Some genuinely prefer being single, others are focused on other life goals, and some may simply not feel drawn to dating at a certain stage in life. But for some, avoiding dating is not a free choice. Instead, it is driven by fear, doubt, and attempts to protect themselves from emotional distress. In these cases, relationship obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ROCD) may be operating quietly in the background, shaping decisions from behind the scenes.
One of my earliest cognitive therapy patients asked if we'd spend time exploring his past. He thought we might find patterns that would explain his depression. I was taken aback. I had just discovered a set of powerful, active techniques that helped people change how they felt in the here-and-now. As a psychiatric resident, I had seen that endless venting without specific techniques for change led to little or no relief.
The lawyers involved are explicitly using the tobacco playbook, comparing social media to cigarettes. But there's an important point here: "social media addiction" isn't actually a recognized clinical addiction. And a fascinating new study in Nature's Scientific Reports suggests that our collective insistence on using addiction language might actually be making things worse for users who want to change their behavior.
The Molly Rose Foundation (MRF) said online networks linked to a global ecosystem labelled the Com were carrying out extreme exploitation, cyberbullying, violence and abuse and called for a coordinated global response from governments, regulators, law enforcement and tech companies. The warning follows the publication of a report by the online risk consultancy Resolver in partnership with the MRF, which was founded by the family of Molly Russell, a British teenager who killed herself in 2017 after viewing harmful content online.
Jake's marriage to Louise is in trouble, and she has insisted he come and see me. If not for Louise, you wouldn't be here, would you? I enquire tentatively. He looks sheepish at first; then emboldened, he gives an emphatic No. As is almost always the case, Jake's wife has registered a problem that has passed him by, and prompted his visit.
Growing up outside Manchester, I remember watching my mum count out exact change at the supermarket checkout, keeping a running total in her head as she shopped. Meanwhile, my university roommate would just toss things in his trolley without a second thought. That's when it hit me: Financial security isn't just about having money. It's about the mental space that money creates.
That sounds impressive; however, the devil is in the details that the popular media completely ignored. For example, only 11 of those studies were focused on depression. The authors concluded that exercise had a medium effect on depression. It is impossible to know how a "medium" effect compares with drug therapy since the studies were not head-to-head comparisons. The study also reported that exercise benefited many other health conditions, including HIV or kidney disease, various mental disorders, and cancers.
Sometimes, you don't need to think about your brain. It just... runs. You wake up, remember your passwords (mostly), answer emails without crying (ideally), sleep at night instead of staring at the ceiling replaying a weird thing you said in 2016 (actually), and generally move through the day without feeling panicked, sluggish, or sad.
Most people will forget a name, misplace their phone, or lose track of a conversation at some point. Usually, those moments pass without much thought. But for many adults, especially as they age, small lapses can trigger a much deeper fear: Is this the beginning of cognitive decline? As a neurologist, I hear this concern often. And as a researcher, I have learned something important: Worry about cognition and cognitive disease are not the same thing.
You've just had a crummy day, and you wish you hadn't. Your first instinct is to pick up the phone, call your best friend, and complain. But you also know deep down that you want to be more positive. You know that complaining emphasizes the negative in your life, and you'd like to create a shift for yourself. You recall that you started a gratitude journal, and when you use it, you find you really enjoy noticing the good things more than the bad.
Almost two in three women over 50 in the UK struggle with their mental health as they deal with menopause, relationship breakdowns and changes to their appearance, a survey has found. Brain fog, parents dying, children leaving home and financial pressures can also trigger difficulties such as sleeping problems, feeling anxious or overwhelmed, and a loss of zest for life.
Every day, many thousands of parents across the U.S. face the difficult question of whether to place their child or teenager on a psychotropic medication. Receiving a diagnosis of a mental disorder can be scary and confusing, for the youth as well as their parents/caretakers. What is ADHD? Depression? Anxiety? OCD? Bipolar? What are the available treatments? Do we have to use medications to treat the symptoms?
Kintsugi 金継ぎ is known as the Japanese art of putting broken things back together, like broken pottery, using materials mixed with powdered gold and other elements. Instead of hiding damage, this technique celebrates the restoration of an object once viewed as broken, flawed, or imperfect. This same process can be seen as a metaphor for addiction recovery. Even for people with addiction who willingly choose recovery, there's an element of being remade that can't be ignored. Addicts often go through a period of denial.
Virtues such as compassion, patience, and self-control may be beneficial not only for others but also for oneself, according to new research my team and I published in the Journal of Personality in December 2025. Philosophers from Aristotle to al-Fārābī, a 10th-century scholar in what is now Iraq, have argued that virtue is vital for well-being. Yet others, such as Thomas Hobbes and Friedrich Nietzsche, have argued the opposite: Virtue offers no benefit to oneself and is good only for others.
Some of the most meaningful forms of growth an individual can experience happen beneath their conscious awareness. Typically, it registers first as discomfort, ambiguity, or even a sense of regression. When growth is happening at a person's core level, they're likely to underestimate it or misinterpret it entirely. As a psychologist, I often see individuals who assume they're "stuck" precisely when some of the most important internal shifts are underway. This is because the mind rarely announces these changes with clarity.
When I lost my best friend from college to a slow drift, I spent months analyzing what went wrong. Had I said something offensive? Not been supportive enough? The truth was simpler and more painful: I'd been so focused on fitting into my new work environment that I'd stopped showing up authentically in our friendship. This constant performance of trying to belong is utterly draining.
'They're dead.' In disbelief, my response was unfiltered. 'What?' Followed by the F word. A wave of emotion rushed through me. My chest tightened. My body went cold. I could not immediately find the words to offer condolences, not because I did not feel them deeply, but because inside, my many parts were experiencing a collective shock. When you live with dissociative identity disorder (DID), news like this does not land in one place. It ricochets across all parts within.
