If You Struggle With Stress & Anxiety, This Will Change Your Life

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Stress is a brain state you can reset

  Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, a Harvard Medical School lecturer who was medical director of Beth Israel Deaconess's integrative medicine program and ran a large stress management clinic, describes stress as the thinking prefrontal cortex going offline while the almond-shaped amygdala takes over. She cites a recent study finding about 70% of Americans struggle with stress and a UK study finding over 90% experiencing burnout. In a room of 30 people, about 21 feel this way.

• 02

  'Horizonlessness': drawing a blank when you picture your future

  Nerurkar says the term was coined by a journalist, and she encountered it during the pandemic when interviewed for an Elle feature. It's not confusion about direction but a 'meh' absence of anticipation: nothing feels worth working toward. Anger or excitement about the future at least carry a charge; horizonlessness is a lack of emotion. She notes there isn't much research defining it yet.

• 03

  Anticipating a hopeful future is good for your brain

  Nerurkar cites an MRI study showing that anticipating the future activates the medial prefrontal cortex and correlates with well-being. When you're stuck in 'amygdala mode,' focused on survival, you biologically can't access that planning, forward-looking part of the brain, which is why people describe feeling stuck.

• 04

  The delayed stress response: the dam breaks once you feel safe

  During acute stress you hold it together at all costs. Once you feel psychologically safe, pent-up emotions flood out. Nerurkar ties widespread horizonlessness to the post-pandemic period: people held on through promised short lockdowns, and now feel worse than in 2020 while the world says to move on. She laughed at 'Roaring 20s' headlines because 'that is so not how the human brain works.'

• 05

  Step one: normalize, validate and practice self-compassion

  Your brain and body are doing what they should and aren't broken. She quotes her meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn: there is more right with you than wrong with you. Self-compassion isn't soft; she says it dials down the amygdala by changing neural circuitry, which helps you get out of your own way.

• 06

  Step two: start small, because this isn't the moment for big goals

  Telling someone in amygdala mode to plan six months ahead is asking the impossible; it's not mind over matter. Mel compares it to not playing pickleball on a broken leg. Nerurkar suggests something as small as looking forward to an afternoon coffee or a walk around the block tomorrow.

• 07

  Small actions work through agency, not fitness

  A walk around the block isn't about exercise but proving you have power to make a difference in your life. Mel admits she nearly rolled her eyes at 'coffee, walk, journal,' then realized the emotion itself makes you do nothing, which makes you feel worse; the action proves the emotion doesn't rule you. Nerurkar likens it to turning potential energy into kinetic energy.

• 08

  Habits take about eight weeks, but you feel better after one walk

  Nerurkar says it takes about eight weeks to build a habit like daily walking, and falling off and restarting is part of habit formation. You'll feel better by the end of the first walk. Doing something daily beats occasional workouts because it avoids decision fatigue; vowing to do hour-long gym sessions three times a week when you feel horrible tends to fail.

• 09

  Loneliness is a global epidemic with physical risks

  Nerurkar cites data that 330 million people globally go two weeks without speaking to a friend or family member. Per figures she attributes to the Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy (her college friend): about 50% of US adults are lonely, and 78% of 18-to-25-year-olds. In one study, loneliness carried a mortality risk comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, with about 30% higher risk of heart disease and stroke.

• 10

  Being alone isn't the same as being lonely

  Alone is a physical state; loneliness is an emotional experience, and you can feel it in a crowd. Mel describes loneliness while traveling constantly with thousand-person audiences, and during stretches of her marriage when life with young kids and Chris's struggling business became pure logistics.

• 11

  Parents are overwhelmed, and it affects kids

  In a Surgeon General snapshot Nerurkar cites, nearly 50% of parents say they're overwhelmed by stress most days, 65% are lonely, 77% of single parents are lonely, and prior data suggest 75% experience parenting burnout. She suspects underreporting because of guilt. One study found children of caregivers with poor mental health were four times more likely to have poor general health.