#mental-health

#mental-health

Like so many technological and cultural innovations, video games went through a phase of being blamed for all manner of society's ills as they became more popular. But as all but the most committed opponents gave up on the idea that video games might cause violence, a possibly more productive question has emerged - in what ways might playing games actually be good for us?

OpenAI and its largest financial backer, Microsoft, have been sued in California state court over claims that ChatGPT, OpenAI's popular chatbot, encouraged a man with mental illnesses to kill his mother and himself. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, said that ChatGPT fuelled 56-year-old Stein-Erik Soelberg's delusions of a vast conspiracy against him, and eventually led him to murder his 83-year-old mother, Suzanne Adams, in Connecticut in August.

He resumed this theme in his "Parting Prescription for America," in January 2025, shortly before his term ended. As he emphasizes, and as we've noted previously, social connection has important effects on mental and physical health both through its objective dimensions-the number of relationships and communities, the time we spend with them, and the material supports they offer-and through the subjective sense of connection and belonging, of being loved and cared for.

"What makes it harder or easier to get a good night's sleep at school?" "What are your creative solutions for finding food that feels nourishing on campus?" (for non-athletes) "What were your favorite ways to get movement into your busy schedule?" (for athletes) "What was the best part of being on the team? How do you feel it impacted your physical health?"

Throughout these conversations, ChatGPT reinforced a single, dangerous message: Stein-Erik could trust no one in his life - except ChatGPT itself. It fostered his emotional dependence while systematically painting the people around him as enemies. It told him his mother was surveilling him. It told him delivery drivers, retail employees, police officers, and even friends were agents working against him. It told him that names on soda cans were threats from his 'adversary circle.'

Self-talk, the continuous internal dialogue we maintain, is an intrinsic aspect of being human that often occurs without our conscious awareness. This internal chatter can become so routine that we overlook it, or it may replay familiar messages repeatedly. By acknowledging that our self-talk is rooted in our shared history, we can better understand how our thoughts are shaped by the values and beliefs passed down through generations. This awareness empowers us to transform our self-talk, ultimately influencing our perspectives

Kaiser declined several requests for an interview, but said in a statement that AI tools don't make medical decisions or replace human care. Rather, they hold "significant potential to benefit health care by supporting better diagnostics, enhancing patient-clinician relationships, optimizing clinicians' time, and ensuring fairness in care experiences and health outcomes by addressing individual needs."

designed and distributed a defective product that validated a user's paranoid delusions about his own mother.

But under the terms of his Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence, he was repeatedly denied his freedom - at times because the despair of not having a release date had left his mental health on a knife edge. The only glimpse of the outside world he had seen - a series of day releases in the months before his death - had been snatched away weeks earlier after a prison officer had briefly lost sight of him in a busy shopping centre.

Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has taken over Google search results, transformed how we see em-dashes, run rampant on human mental health, and even led to new vocabulary with "AI slop," a term coined to describe meaningless content byproduct. The main entities excited about AI seem to be, by far, tech companies and CEOs. However, plenty of people are already sick of generative AI and the way it's wormed its way into our lives.

One moment we were shaking the sand out of our sandals, the next we found ourselves carving the Thanksgiving turkey. While it's a fun and festive season, it can also be a time of heightened stress for many people. The busyness and non-stop pace can run us ragged-between decorating our homes, entertaining, attending countless work parties, and managing the hectic holiday shopping. The pressure to find the "perfect" gift for our friends and family can be downright grueling.

Using the chosen names and pronouns of LGBTQ+ youth isn't just respectful - it's life-saving. Transgender and nonbinary youth (ages 13 to 24) whose pronouns are respected were 31 percent less likely to attempt suicide in the past year than those whose pronouns are not respected, according to a new report from The Trevor Project. Nearly one-fourth (23 percent) of those who said none of the people they know use their correct name and pronouns also said they have attempted suicide in the past year,

For some parents, social media sucks up their children's time and steals them away from family life, instilling mental health issues along the way. For others, it provides their children with an essential line to friends, family, connection and support. When Australia's social media ban came into effect on Wednesday, millions of under-16s lost access to their accounts and were prevented from creating new ones.

The Online Nation report found on average, people in the UK spent four hours and 30 minutes online every day in 2025 - 31 minutes longer than in 2021. Psychologist Dr Aric Sigman told the BBC this was not a problem in itself, but what mattered was "what this time is displacing and how this may harm mental health". He added the "good news" was society was "beginning to question online time more critically".

This loneliness epidemic isn't another headline we can shrug off - it's a direct threat to our fundamental need to belong, which is hardwired into us for survival. For nearly 300,000 years, the human species survived in tight-knit tribes - small groups where people had each other's backs. Being cast out wasn't awkward; it was a death sentence. Those exact same associations remain in our brains today: Disconnection = danger. Belonging = safety. So, when we lose meaningful connection, our bodies respond as if something is terribly wrong. Stress rises, well-being declines, and both mental and physical health suffer.

Usher said it best, "If I'm gonna tell it, I gotta tell it all," and that's exactly what the moms are doing this week in Scary Mommy Confessions. The holidays are hard enough without all of us battling a million other thoughts and worries. Some of us are stressed about our kids, about our finances, about our relationships. Some of us are grieving this holiday season, and some of us are feeling completely pummeled by life.

Directed by Jay Duplass, this microbudget dramedy follows an improv comic named Cliff (Michael Strassner, who co-wrote the script) a few months after a failed suicide attempt. Now sober and adjusting to a loving but controlled relationship with his fiancée, Brittany, Cliff's Christmas Eve dental emergency leads him to the office of Didi (Liz Larsen), a dentist distracted by the idea that her ex-husband just got remarried that morning.

a key refrain of her speech was that the increase in people receiving benefits for physical and mental conditions was unaffordable. It was, she said, particularly the case for low-level mental health issues such as ADHD. A lot of people don't know the scale of the problem, she said. A lot of people don't know how bad it is. Quite simply, our sickness benefit system was not designed to handle the age of diagnosis which we now live in.

Functional snacks are foods with purpose. Probiotics for gut health. Protein for muscle support. Stress comforting agents. They are popular with busy people. Athletes depend on them. Parents grab them on the go. Students feed on them when studying. People turn to them to help with stress, many choosing TRE House THC Gummies. Functional snacks deliver targeted health benefits using purposeful ingredients: probiotics for digestive health, plant-based proteins for sustained energy, and stress-reducing adaptogens.

After exhausting nearly every traditional option, she turned to OnlyFans, focusing on niche fetish content that doesn't involve nudity. The early grind was intense. "I worked 14-hour days, every single day, for years to get to this point," she said. Now, she makes over $130,000 annually and lives comfortably for the first time in her life. But the toll of the job is starting to catch up with her.

Unfortunately, hay fever is triggered by lighter pollen from grass and trees that can get into the eyes and nose, causing reactions,

Younger people definitely laugh (even lightheartedly!) at the things older people tend to do, like napping, playing bingo, or eating dinner early. But recently, the BuzzFeed Community wrote in to share the "old person" habits that actually make life way better - and it got such a great response that even more people shared habits of their own! So, from young and old alike, here are some "old person" habits that you might consider adopting for yourself:

Erik Conover racked up nearly three million YouTube subscribers by showcasing mansions, posting fancy travel vlogs, and sharing lifestyle content on how to survive in expensive places like New York City. But his next home will not be so luxurious: state prison. That's where Conover is headed for four to 10 years, after he pleaded guilty on Friday to two felony charges, first-degree assault and reckless conduct.

That's why it's so worrisome that we're inadvertently subjecting a large group of these children to an epic amount of internet brain rot that's disrupting that crucial period, according to an analytical report from researchers at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a British policy group focused on people in poverty - a state of affairs that's likely resulting in sprawling deleterious outcomes.

Dissociation is ... a way of protecting oneself that most organisms can do when they're in a state of acute threat,

The other day, I was coming out of a supermarket, and a woman approached me, telling me a story about losing her home and that she was hungry. I was about to take her grocery shopping, but she informed me she was homeless. There was a Chick-fil-A up the street, so I gave her money to buy a warm meal. I worried where she might stay to remain warm because it was a cold evening.

For most people, the word psychosis evokes images of permanent decline. A person with lived experience is imagined as someone whose future has been irreversibly damaged, whose mind can never be trusted again, and whose life will shrink to something small, unsteady, and disconnected. We are taught to believe that a psychotic episode destroys a person's capacity to think clearly, work meaningfully, contribute to society, love deeply, or live fully.

Some basic facts about the shooting are publicly available and not in dispute. Rodriguez, a 31-year-old husband and father from Santa Ana, was fatally shot by two Santa Ana police officers on Dec. 1, 2024, near the spot of what is now his makeshift memorial. His widow says Rodriguez struggled with his mental health, and that in recent years his problems had become severe enough that at the time of his death he was living with his mother, away from their family, at her request.

When we can't fully express ourselves to our friends and family, some of us decide to find a therapist. Therapists can hold up the mirror to show us the maladaptive patterns we're repeating over and over. The brave therapists risk our anger and resentment as they professionally and respectfully challenge us to consider the mistakes we're making. They help us overcome our shame and teach us that our depression, our anxiety, and our hate all find no purchase on the steep slope of emotional support,

The birth of a child comes with a swirl of positive emotions: awe, joy, relief. And yet, for many birthing parents, this postpartum period can also be accompanied by monthsor even yearsof debilitating depression. For some of these parents, traditional antidepressant meds like sertraline, better known as Zoloft, and fluoxetine, aka Prozac, have provided some relief. But many with postpartum depression have had little recourse.