Emotion & stress
Anxiety and stress can be worked with through breathing, exercise and stepping back from thoughts, and resilience grows with practice.
Neighboring concepts: Exercise · Habits & willpower · Relationships & empathy · Full knowledge map
Posts on this concept 28
-
Why Does Envy Hurt? In Shakespeare's Othello, the Brain Felt Envy as Pain
The sting of envy is not just in your head. When people felt they had fallen behind someone else, a pain-related brain region, the anterior cingulate cortex, became active (Science, 2009). The same pain becomes benign envy that drives growth when it lifts you up, and malicious envy that leads to ruin when it pulls others down. Following Iago in Shakespeare's great tragedy Othello, we trace where the two split and offer three steps to turn envy into fuel for growth.
18 min read Read % read -
Are Longer, Unbroken Walks Better? 15-Minute Walkers Had a Third of the Heart Risk
We read two studies side by side: PLA2G2F, a brain enzyme that protects memory even when Alzheimer's pathology is present (Nature Neuroscience, 2026), and an observational study finding that people who took most of their steps in unbroken bouts of 15 minutes or more had a lower risk of death and cardiovascular disease (Annals of Internal Medicine, 2025). We separate what has been shown from what is still unknown, and lay out three evidence-based walking steps.
13 min read Read % read -
Can You Build Resilience? A Stressed Brain Recovered a Month Later
Resilience is not a personality you're born with but a strength of mind you can train. Drawing on the key ideas of Professor Kim Joo-hwan's Korean book Resilience and on studies in Nature, Cell, PNAS and Nature Neuroscience, we explain how resilience is built in the brain, how it shapes achievement and learning, and a three-step training plan you can start today.
15 min read Read % read -
Why Does Memory Hold Up in Some Aging Brains? An Enzyme Switches On With Age
In people whose memory stays sharp with age, a fat-breaking enzyme called PLA2G2F was more active. Drawing on an October 2026 Nature Neuroscience study, we explain how the hippocampus's 'backup generator' protects memory, and lay out a three-step habit for looking after your hippocampus starting today.
8 min read Read % read -
A Year of Walking Made the Hippocampus Grow
In a randomized trial of 120 older adults, those who did aerobic walking for a year saw the hippocampus, the brain's memory hub, grow by about 2%. How exercise changes the brain, and how to put it into practice after work.
7 min read Read % read -
Does It Really Take 21 Days to Build a New Habit?
Where did the "21-day rule" come from, and what does the research actually show? The time it took for a habit to become automatic ranged from 18 to 254 days. Here is what matters more than the number.
8 min read Read % read -
Can Breathing Ease Anxiety? Five Minutes of Sighing a Day Lifted Mood More Than Meditation
Breathing is one of the few handles we have on the brain's state of arousal. Drawing on studies in Science, Nature, the Journal of Neuroscience and Cell Reports Medicine, this essay explains how breath shapes anxiety and focus, and offers a three-step breathing habit you can start today.
11 min read Read % read -
Is a Walk in Nature Really Good for Your Brain? Stress Hormones Fell Within 20 Minutes
A walk in nature can genuinely restore attention and mood. When 36 city dwellers spent time in nature over eight weeks, the stress hormone cortisol fell most efficiently when they stayed 20–30 minutes (Frontiers in Psychology, 2019). People who walked in a park for about 50 minutes improved more on an attention test than people who walked downtown (Psychological Science, 2008). But claims like '15 minutes reboots the brain' and 'houseplants purify the air' had weak support, so I've corrected them.
10 min read Read % read -
Can You Beat Burnout with Willpower? Changing the Environment Worked Better Than Resolve
Burnout is hard to beat with willpower alone. In an analysis of studies involving 1,550 physicians, changing work schedules and structures reduced burnout more than twice as much as approaches aimed at the individual (JAMA Internal Medicine, 2017). Alongside the 'circuit switch' story of optogenetics, which won the 2026 Nobel Prize, here is how I got out of burnout by changing conditions instead of making resolutions.
11 min read Read % read -
Do Video Games Make Your Brain Better? Pro Gamers Made Half the Errors
Games can sharpen some kinds of attention, but playing longer doesn't make your brain better. 23 LCK pro gamers made less than half as many errors as non-gamers at moments when they shouldn't respond, and had stronger connections between the insula and anterior cingulate cortex, which catch attention (Scientific Reports, 2026). But the study compared people at a single point in time, so it can't tell us whether gaming caused this. Here is that study alongside game-training experiments and research on how practice is structured.
10 min read Read % read -
Hormesis: Can a Poison Be Medicine? In Dementia Mice, a Low-Dose Toxin Helped the Brain Clean Up
Hormesis is when a small amount of stress actually strengthens the body's defenses, and an example came from dementia mouse experiments. KIST researchers announced that quinolinic acid, known as a neurotoxin, boosted the cleanup ability of brain immune cells at low concentrations. But it was a mouse study, and in people there are results showing hormesis is more delicate than expected, like antioxidants blocking the benefits of exercise (PNAS, 2009).
8 min read Read % read -
Can Gut Health Protect the Brain? Gut-Trained IgA Cells Were Guarding the Brain's Membranes
The gut and the brain were linked through immunity too. IgA antibody cells trained by meeting gut bacteria settled beside the large veins in the membranes around the brain and blocked microbial invasion (Nature, 2020). In people, eating more fermented foods for 10 weeks increased gut microbial diversity and lowered inflammatory markers (Cell, 2021). But claims not confirmed in people, like 'leaky gut causes brain fog,' were corrected.
9 min read Read % read -
How to Stop Anxious Thoughts: Does Suppressing Them Backfire? Resisting a White Bear Made It Come Back
Anxious thoughts came back more often the harder people pushed them down. People told not to think of a white bear thought of it more once they stopped trying (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987). Instead, repeating a distressing word aloud quickly for 30 seconds made people believe the thought less and feel less uncomfortable (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 2004). I checked cognitive defusion from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) against research and corrected the unverifiable sources in the earlier version of this post.
8 min read Read % read -
Does Self-Talk Change If You Use Your Own Name? Emotional Reactions Dropped Within a Second
Using your own name instead of 'I' in self-talk made people less swept up in emotion. When people talked to themselves by name while viewing unpleasant images, the brain's emotional response dropped within a second, and the frontal areas used for effortful control didn't work harder (Scientific Reports, 2017). Words read aloud were remembered better than words read silently (JEP: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2010). I corrected the wrong citations and exaggerated explanations in the earlier version of this post.
8 min read Read % read -
Why Do You Get Sleepy After Lunch? Even Without Lunch, Afternoons Brought Drowsiness
Post-lunch sleepiness involved the body's daily rhythm, not just food. Even without lunch, drowsiness and lower focus appeared around 2–4 p.m. (Clinics in Sports Medicine, 2005). Sugary food actually increased fatigue within an hour, and a 10-minute nap cut afternoon sleepiness right away (Sleep, 2006). I kept my experience of clearer afternoons on a carnivore diet, but corrected exaggerated claims and celebrity examples.
8 min read Read % read -
Can a Late-Start Exercise Habit Change Your Brain? People in Their 60s and 70s Gained Brain Volume in 6 Months
Even a late-start exercise habit changed the brain. When inactive people in their 60s and 70s did aerobic exercise for six months, gray and white matter volume increased (Journal of Gerontology, 2006), and people around 60 gained gray matter after three months of juggling practice (Journal of Neuroscience, 2008). Small brain infarcts without symptoms turned up on MRI in a fair share of older adults. Summarized alongside my experience of running since my 20s.
10 min read Read % read -
How Often Should You Do 1-Minute Workouts? Three a Day Meant About 40% Lower Death Risk
Even among people who don't exercise, moving hard enough to get breathless for 1–2 minutes three times a day was linked to about 40% lower risk of death (observational study, Nature Medicine, 2022). People who did 10-minute workouts containing one minute of all-out effort for 12 weeks gained as much fitness as those who exercised for 50 minutes (PLoS ONE, 2016). But the evidence for a growing hippocampus came from a year of walking, not high intensity. Here's my experience of running three times in one day, alongside the research.
9 min read Read % read -
Will Exercise Make You More Tired? Light Exercise Cut Fatigue
Light exercise actually reduced fatigue. Six weeks of easy workouts lowered tiredness (2008), and 5-minute walks every hour raised energy all day (2016). Here is why, and a 3-step plan for office workers that starts with a 15-minute break.
10 min read Read % read -
Does Exercise Help Anxiety? Getting Used to Breathlessness Lowered Anxiety
Exercise was effective at reducing anxiety. An analysis pooling over 1,000 trials found that exercise lowered anxiety symptoms by a medium amount (British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2023), and people who ran six 20-minute sessions over two weeks became less afraid of a pounding heart and breathlessness (Depression and Anxiety, 2008). I checked the practices introduced in neuroscientist Jennifer Heisz's book against the original papers and organized exercise by situation.
9 min read Read % read -
Does Studying Five Minutes a Day Work? It Feels Like Less, but More of It Sticks
Spending the same time studying, you remember longer if you spread it over several days instead of cramming (a meta-analysis of 317 experiments, 2006). Yet people felt they learned more by cramming (Psychological Science, 2008). Along with a study in which three months of juggling increased gray matter that shrank again after stopping (Nature, 2004), this post explains why a five-minute daily habit works and offers a tool to plan your review dates.
8 min read Read % read -
How to Break a Speech Habit? The Trigger Was the Situation
Speech habits and habitual emotional reactions harden through repetition in the same situations, and those situations become the trigger. People who habitually ate popcorn at the movies ate stale popcorn as much as fresh there, but not in a meeting room (PSPB, 2011). Since habits are covered over by new responses rather than erased, habit reversal training, which means noticing the situation and swapping in an action you can't do at the same time, was effective.
9 min read Read % read -
Do Affirmations Work? With Low Self-Esteem, They Made People Feel Worse
When people with low self-esteem repeated 'I'm a lovable person,' they actually felt worse (Psychological Science, 2009). Hard-to-believe affirmations can provoke pushback, while self-talk that uses your own name, writing about your values, and pairing words with small actions were supported by research. This post also corrects the reticular activating system story and offers a tool to rework your own affirmation.
9 min read Read % read -
Why Do We Repeat Things We Regret? Does Naming the Feeling Help?
We repeat things we regret because brain circuits that value immediate rewards separately get in first, and hunger or anger widens that gap (Science, 2004). Simply naming the feeling in a word reduced amygdala responses (Psychological Science, 2007), and 'if X, then Y' plans and precommitment that narrows your options helped. Here's a summary, with a tool for practicing emotion labeling.
9 min read Read % read -
How to Focus While Reading: Is Returning From Mind-Wandering the Training?
Reading focus grows less from never letting your mind wander and more from practicing noticing it and coming back. At that moment, attention-related brain networks became active (NeuroImage, 2012); merely receiving a notification broke concentration (JEP: HPP, 2015); and informational texts were understood better on paper (a meta-analysis of 54 studies, 2018). Here's a summary, with a 10-minute reading timer you can try.
8 min read Read % read -
Which Foods Are Rich in BDNF? It Turns Out Food Contains No BDNF
Food doesn't actually contain BDNF. But some foods and eating patterns help your body make it. From sulforaphane in broccoli and flavonoids in cocoa and berries to omega-3, the Mediterranean diet, eating less and intermittent fasting, we sort the evidence into human and animal studies and suggest a three-step diet you can start today.
11 min read Read % read -
4 Causes of Low BDNF, and Why a Blood Test Can't Tell You
Research points to four causes of low BDNF: chronic stress, lack of exercise, sugary and fatty diets, and aging. But most BDNF in the blood is stored in platelets, so a blood test can't tell you how much BDNF is in your brain. Using studies from Cell, PNAS, and J Neurosci, this post sorts the causes by strength of evidence and offers three steps and a self-check you can use today.
10 min read Read % read -
What Is BDNF? Why "More Is Better" Is Only Half Right
BDNF is a protein that helps nerve cells survive and connect. Here is how it relates to memory, appetite, and exercise, why "more is better" is a myth, per Cell, NEJM, and PNAS studies, and 3 evidence-based steps to raise it.
11 min read Read % read -
How to Achieve Your Goals: Picturing Success Can Push It Further Away
Picturing only a great outcome actually drained energy (JESP, 2011). Drawing on research into mental contrasting with obstacles, if-then implementation intentions (a meta-analysis of 94 studies), progress tracking, and exercise, here are three ways to achieve your goals, plus a tool to build your own plan.
10 min read Read % read
No posts here yet.