Mental health
fromPsychology Today
56 minutes agoIs Too Much Information Fueling Your Anxiety?
Anxiety disorders have increased significantly, likely due to technology's impact on information overload and intolerance of uncertainty.
We tend to think of the five-day workweek as a law of nature, as certain as the rising of the sun. But it's nothing of the sort. The five-day workweek is a human invention that was introduced just over a century ago to solve the specific problems of the industrial age. By now it's so ingrained in our lives that we've forgotten we created it in the first place-but we did create it and we can also un-create it.
Human psychology is characterized by a paradoxical structure: The same species that wages war, destabilizes ecosystems, and creates collective threats also develops moral systems, empathic abilities, cultural innovations, and an increasing desire for internal harmony. In my previous post, I explored the possibility to transcend our paradoxical nature through learning. This contribution focuses on learning to see through the nature of our vulnerability.
Even when our own lives are relatively stable, constant exposure to war, political unrest, climate crises, and humanitarian suffering activates the brain's threat system. The nervous system is not designed to distinguish between danger that is physically nearby and danger that is emotionally vivid or repeatedly witnessed. Over time, this creates chronic vigilance. When people observe patterns of harm, exclusion, or dehumanization playing out publicly, the body registers risk.
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.