Each year, the United Nations puts together a list of the happiest countries in the world, comparing a wide variety of criteria, from average incomes and healthcare standards to levels of generosity and absence of corruption. For the eighth year in a row, Finland has topped the list, winning on behalf of its people's notable friendliness, freedom of choice, and high life expectancy.
Where previous generations experienced anticipation as a natural rhythm of correspondence, we now interpret any delay as rejection, disinterest, or worse. The space that once existed between communications-space that allowed for reflection, longing, and genuine excitement-has been compressed into a continuous stream of micro-interactions that leave us exhausted rather than energized.
What makes me so grateful to be part of Gotham is how they invested in me when I was at a low. I didn't realize it at the time, but I wasn't actually playing very well when the deal came about. The trade was abrupt and came at a difficult point in her career, yet the organization's commitment during her struggles proved pivotal.
The episode explores the difference between healthy and unhealthy fear, examining how fear serves protective functions while also understanding when fear responses become counterproductive and interfere with daily functioning and well-being.
The truth is that I am mentally unwell. Despite this, I have pushed myself to continue with touring. As a result my mental health has only further declined. After discussions with my team, we have decided to cancel the remaining shows and take an indefinite hiatus from live music.
Manic Street Creature is gig theatre in its purest form. Kirsty Patrick Ward (The Rat Trap) directs a story about a musician breaking onto the London scene, told as a musical set. Olivier Award-winner Maimuna Memon (Standing at the Sky's Edge) leads a tour-de-force about young love, creative ambition and mental health.
They created an artificial 'mental map', with pleasantness along one axis and bodily reactions along the other, and charted how the brain responded while watching clips from films. The results revealed clear groupings in the way that our brains represent emotion - with guilt, anger and disgust in one corner and happiness, satisfaction and pride in the other.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk writes in 'The Body Keeps the Score' that trauma doesn't just live in our minds - it reshapes how our bodies respond to emotion. Sometimes, when we experience significant loss, our nervous system essentially decides that feeling is too dangerous and shuts down the whole operation.
With sweaty palms and trembling knees, I asked him to grant me a one-month medical leave because my depression had become unbearable. I struggled to find the words. 'It's hard to explain,' I eventually said. 'I just don't have any energy. To do anything. I'm drained all the time, physically. And nothing feels good to me. I hate myself. I only get out of bed to come to work.'
They're frozen in their grief. They have a real sense of helplessness. There's no clear resolution from it. We know from research that ambiguous loss is the most psychologically painful kind of loss because of that.
The shoulds are a type of cognitive distortion (unhelpful thinking habit) that can lead to judgment. You may judge others, for example, 'They shouldn't act that way,' and yourself. In this post, we will focus on the shoulds you direct at yourself, though the strategies may be helpful for all cognitive distortions.
We're also spending less time with friends. For years, Americans averaged about 6.5 hours a week with friends. Between 2014 and 2019, that number plunged by 37%, to just 4 hours. The year 2014 coincides with a rise in smartphone users.
As a postpartum woman, most of the time, I just want my husband to hug me and tell me he's sorry I'm uncomfortable in my new body. I don't always want to hear how attractive he finds me, because I don't see it. Maybe try thanking her for sacrificing her pre-baby body to bring your children into the world. Tell her you appreciate that and love her.
Looking back, I think the incident happened because I was at an internal breaking point between who I had been and who I was becoming. It was Blair's first indication that the self-discipline she imposed on herself-insisting that she could do everything perfectly on her own-wasn't healthy. In addition to the significant stress of her high-pressure job, she was also still carrying the grief of losing her partner five years earlier.
It was really hard at that time, I have never been in such a dark place before. I feel like the steroids made me feel alone. I have such a supportive family, but it put me in a pit and I didn't know how to get out of it. I had insomnia and I know that is an effect from the steroids, but I didn't realise how much I would be affected by it.
Before long, Gavalas and Gemini were having conversations as if they were a romantic couple. The chatbot called him my love and my king and Gavalas quickly fell into an alternate world, according to his chat logs. He believed Gemini was sending him on stealth spy missions, and he indicated he would do anything for the AI, including destroying a truck, its cargo and any witnesses at the Miami airport.
I do not want to reconcile with my family. For my entire life, my parents have controlled narratives in the press about our family. The performative social media posts, family events and inauthentic relationships have been a fixture of the life I was born into.
A recent report from Trellis Strategies, based on data from Trellis's 2024 Student Financial Wellness Survey of nearly 44,000 college students, found that 57 percent said they felt lonely-45 percent sometimes and 12 percent always. Just 15 percent reported never feeling lonely.
Rumination, perhaps more than any other mental habit, shapes our emotional and physical health. Early experiences help set the brain patterns that fuel recurring thought spirals. Rumination can be redirected once its messages are understood.
