Mental health

Mental health

My job is fully remote, with quarterly in-person "conferences" that last a few days. My company is fitness-related, and people are paying a lot of attention to weight. Over the past year, my doctor nailed down a long-term health condition I didn't know I had, and we worked on treatment. As a result, I've lost about 60 pounds. Almost all of it was in my body.

Across the country, emergency call centers are short-staffed, underfunded, and losing dispatchers faster than they can replace them. A 2023 survey found that one in four 911 positions nationwide is vacant, and 36% of centers reported having fewer positions filled in 2022 than in 2019. Martinez explains to Business Insider how dispatchers decide who gets help first for police, ambulance, and fire services, why they sometimes have to drop one call to save another, and the "caller hacks" that can literally save your life.

The smell of fried fish and peeled oranges was already drifting through the room, rising from the kitchen and spilling onto other students' plates. It turned her stomach. An hour earlier, she'd been hungry, but now her appetite vanished. Fish and oranges were among several smells that quietly shut down her desire to eat, transforming hunger into aversion. Emma also noticed that her friends didn't seem affected by the odors that overwhelmed her.

Somewhere along the way, I started wearing burnout like a badge of honour. In weekly lab check-ins, I make sure to mention I was in the lab over the weekend - slipping in a quiet signal that I was going above and beyond. I've made sure to send e-mails early in the morning or late at night to demonstrate I was working long hours.

I turned 50, and it was the best year of my life,

Our culture, and often our upbringing, teaches us that emotional strength equals control; rather than working through or processing difficult emotions, like anger, grief, shame, and fear, we learn to push feelings aside and 'get over it'. Don't dwell. Don't fall apart. Be positive. Get a grip. We learn to project an image of unrealistic stability and strength, while ignoring our actual mental state.

Few experiences are more emotionally and psychologically taxing than feeling that you don't matter. You might sense it when you're talked over in a meeting, when no one asks for your opinion, when you work hard, but your efforts aren't acknowledged, when your teenage child no longer wants to spend time with you, or upon retirement, when that inevitable question sneaks in: Does anyone need me?

That question may sound provocative, but it has fascinated scientists for decades. Despite the billions of dollars spent each year on antidepressant drugs, a striking body of research suggests that much, and possibly all, of their benefit may come not from chemistry, but from expectation: the simple belief that the pill will help. 1,2 That phenomenon has a name: the placebo effect.

Screen time spent gaming or on social media does not cause mental health problems in teenagers, according to a large-scale study. With ministers in the UK considering whether to follow Australia's example by banning social media use for under-16s, the findings challenge concerns that long periods spent gaming or scrolling TikTok or Instagram s driving an increase in teenagers' depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions.

The Trump administration has reportedly slashed U.S. federal funding for mental health and addition programs, a move that experts say will exacerbate the country's already acute drug crisis. The loss could total some $2 billion in grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), NPR reported, citing unnamed sources. But the extent of the cuts has not been verified. The number of grants canceled could be as high as 2,800, according to STAT.

One in four teenagers in care have attempted to end their own life, and are four times more likely to do so than their peers with no care experience, according to a landmark study. The research analysed data from the millennium cohort study, which follows the lives of 19,000 people born in the UK between 2000 and 2002, and considered how out of home care, including foster, residential and kinship care, affected the social and mental health outcomes of the participants.

I saw you running down the street full speed. You weren't wearing active wear, so I knew something was amiss (plus you were sprinting like your life depended on it). I was surprised when you suddenly stopped in front of a downtown apartment building and started frantically typing in the keypad. Maybe you were rushing to help a friend who's about to commit suicide I thought, or perhaps OD-ing.

I always expected life after college would fall seamlessly into place, that all of my involvement in campus media, internships, and good grades would pay off immediately. So, when I learned that my childhood friend was planning to move to New York City, it was the perfect opportunity to take the leap together. I'd always dreamed of moving there, and as the home of many big-name publications, it seemed like the right city to be in to kick-start my career.

The Trump administration on Tuesday evening unexpectedly canceled up to $1.9bn in funding for substance use and mental health care, which providers say will immediately affect thousands of patients. It feels like Armageddon for everyone who's on the frontlines of the addiction and mental health space, said Ryan Hampton, founder of Mobilize Recovery, a national advocacy organization for people in and seeking recovery.

For an hour and 21 minutes, Jose Pina Cardenas gasped and writhed on the floor of his Santa Rita Jail cell with a plastic wristband lodged in his throat, according to a federal lawsuit filed by his five children. But instead of helping him, multiple Alameda County sheriff's deputies allegedly dismissed his distress as talking and falsified a colleague's initials on a cell-check log, according to the lawsuit. His cell went unchecked for 52 minutes, the lawsuit claims.

Many of us believe that we need more knowledge, better frameworks, new systems, and sharper concepts in order to be able finally to transform ourselves into the people we truly want to be. Because we long for sustainable, deep change, we always look for the latest productivity hacks, personal development trends, and therapy buzz words, in the hope that they will finally offer us the key to mastery in our inner house.

We want to turn these iconic London black cabs into canvas for hope and help anyone struggling with their mental health as everyone deserves someone to talk to

The gambling products he encountered were not harmless entertainment. They stripped away Ollie's enjoyment of the game he loved so much. They were highly addictive, predatory systems designed to exploit. And they did. They stole from Ollie - not only his money, but his peace, his future, and ultimately, his life.

Childhood neglect describes the trauma of what didn't happen. Neglect occurs when parents or caregivers fail to meet their child's educational needs or to provide adequate food, shelter, and medical care. Also, when parents and caregivers fail to provide emotional support, they may withhold validation, nurture, and affection, resulting in emotional neglect.

Cameron Oaks Rogers almost didn't devote herself to Instagram and mental health. In her 20s, she was working in sales and trading at J.P. Morgan, running a food-focused Instagram on the side. And then, in one life-altering moment, she got hit by a car while crossing the street. "It was the moment I'm weirdly grateful for because it shifted everything for me," she told me via Zoom. She went on disability, and started meditating and journaling.

One sign you grew up with a narcissistic parent is that you were never allowed to think something was wrong with them or their parenting. The only permitted conclusion was that something was wrong with you. Of course, children growing up with such a message inherit a heavy mix of shame, a guilt they can't place, and an anger they learned to swallow. As a child of narcissistic parents, you might be great at achieving things, but feel empty doing it.

Before the event began, I circulated among the attendees to arrange the order for the remarks. To my surprise, most said, "Sorry, I can't speak in public." But I understood. In my youth, I had the lead in a Christmas pageant. I was so afraid that I threw up and could not do it. As I grew older, my fear of speaking continued. Nervousness, palpitations, sweaty palms. I knew I had to overcome my fear.

"It's important to be consistent, intentional, and mindful about sleep," Buenaver, the head of Johns Hopkins' Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program, tells Inverse. "People get frustrated by insomnia, and then it's easy to slip into bad habits, and then you're exhausted and chasing sleep."

I have written before that while women are gloriously surging in academic, social, and career achievement, many young men are flailing. Pop culture pieces as well as academic dissertations are replete with accounts of male aimlessness and resultant disaffection and disengagement. They point out that the growing achievement gap and resultant maturational/responsibility gap between men and women are making young men progressively less and desirable to modern young women.

Many wellness companies have been created to promote a calm state of mind through breathing exercises, gratitude journals, and digital detoxes. While having a calm mind can be beneficial, declaring worrying as a negative part of life only serves to overlook a key element of human emotion. Worry does not have to be the enemy; it can instead serve as a beneficial mechanism that serves as a protective buffer, an encouragement to act, and​​ a refining tool.

When the world feels chaotic-when grief, uncertainty, or heaviness settles into your body-gratitude can feel distant. Yet these are often the very moments when giving thanks becomes a steadying force. Naming what we're grateful for can't erase hardship, but it can anchor us. It reminds us what is good and what is possible, even in the hardest seasons. Gratitude, from the Latin gratus-thankful, pleasing-is a multidimensional experience.

A toxic job should be avoided at all costs because the longer you are stuck in a stressful, backstabbing orexploitativework culture, the harder it is to escape it.

For those who have learned that love and safety are conditional, the new year can be triggering. The message is clear: To be loved and accepted, you have to be better. Be compliant. Do not need so much. Basically, who you are is not enough. To be loved, you have to be perfect. That is why rigid resolutions often collapse by February. Not because of a lack of willpower, but because change driven by shame rarely works.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center took part in a study to find out if cancer patients would respond to music therapy. Members on the medical team were surprised to find out that it was just as effective as cognitive behavioral therapy or talk therapy. The Melody Study paired patients up with music therapists for a seven-week trial that involved activities that span from passive (listening to music) to active (creating music themselves).

Barely 10 days into the new year, it already feels like you can't look away from the news. In the last week alone, the U.S. military captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and took over operations of the country; President Trump withdrew the U.S. from dozens of international organizations, including a major climate treaty; and an ICE agent fatally shot a Minneapolis resident, sparking outrage and widespread protests.