-
The Crybaby Olympics
Sports have always had sore losers. But based on this year’s Games, athletes seem to be getting worse at losing well. ... It’s not just in our head. In a 2017 survey of referees in the United States, 57 percent said that sportsmanship was getting worse. By 2023, that number had climbed to 69 percent, and half said they’d at some point feared for their safety. “I think society as a whole has moved away from good sportspersonship,” David Matsumoto, a former Olympic judo coach and a psychology professor at San Francisco State University, told me. ... Another possibility: People everywhere are becoming more selfish.
-
Do You Really Store Stress in Your Body?
If you get enough back aches, someone will eventually tell you that’s where your body stores stress. If your stomach hurts, you’ll hear the same thing: Your emotions are trapped in your belly. But what does that mean? Is your anxiety about work or money really coursing through your body and nestling into your organs and limbs? ... The idea that stress is stored in specific parts of the body likely comes from Sigmund Freud’s work more than 100 years ago.
-
The “Fight or Flight” Idea Misses the Beauty of what the Brain Really Does
Lisa Feldman Barrett is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University. She is the author of several books, including How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. When a person views a photograph of a hairy, looming spider or a slithering snake in a laboratory experiment, scientists usually see markers of increased electrical activity deep in that person’s brain, in a region called the periaqueductal gray (PAG). When a caged mouse smells a cat and freezes, scientists observe similar changes in the mouse’s PAG. What’s the obvious conclusion? The PAG controls fight-or-flight responses of mammals in threatening situations.
-
Americans’ Struggle with Mental Health
It is no mystery why rates of anxiety and depression in the United States climbed in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. But then life began a slow return to normal. Why haven’t rates of distress returned to normal, too? ... The share of young adults reporting anxiety and depression had been rising for about a decade before Covid struck. That continued throughout the pandemic — and did not ease as quickly when vaccines became available. This is likely because their symptoms were tied to problems other than the virus, like economic precarity, the housing crisis, social isolation and political turmoil, said Emma Adam, a psychologist at Northwestern.
-
Is Bed Rotting Bad for You?
Burnout is steadily rising worldwide—and people are coping in very different ways. Some deal with their stress and exhaustion by binge-watching Netflix shows, hitting the gym, meditating, or crafting. As for others? They try bed rotting. ... Resting regularly is good for you, but bed rotting for too long or too often can indicate a deeper mental-health issue. “It can be difficult to disentangle what is a self-care day from what is a low or major depression, and when should you seek help?” says Stephanie Preston, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.
-
The Benefits of Everyday Math for Kids
Podcast: APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum chats with Melissa Libertus from University of Pittsburgh about her new article about interventions to increase math learning in children.
