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Ever wish you had a switch you could just turn whenever you needed to be focused and productive?

While getting in the zone is something we all hope and strive for — whether it’s at work, at home, at school — it’s critically important for athletes.

In episode three of TED’s podcast “Good Sport,” host Jody Avirgan speaks to NBA All-Star Steph Curry and sports psychologist Dr. Nicole Detling to find out about getting there. Read an excerpt below, and listen to the entire episode here.

Jody Avirgan, host of “Good Sport” podcast: In sports, there’s a lot of talk about a magical place called THE ZONE.

You probably know it. It’s that place where everything clicks, where no matter the weather or the crowd or the sweat in your eyes, nothing can break your focus. Where you just do everything perfectly, you sink every shot and nothing can stop you. Steph, do you believe in the zone?

Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors point guard and nine-time NBA All-Star: I do believe in the zone, because it’s the one time that everything kind of goes on autopilot. And there’s just synergy with everything that you’re trying to do. Even your intentions are then validated by the atmosphere around you. Where it seems like everything else is going right at the same time, you kind of get lost in that moment. But here’s the thing about “the zone” — almost by definition, it’s special and fleeting and you can’t force it.

You can’t control any of that. It’s just for me, when it goes away, it’s the reflection on the feeling you just had. I think it’s just a natural experience.

I don’t think you can train yourself to appreciate it more than just you naturally do. ‘Cause if you do, then you start to distract yourself from what’s actually happening.

Jody: So you heard it directly from Steph Curry. Nice as it is when you find yourself in the zone, obsessing over getting there — and listen, there’s a lot of obsessing about the zone — will get in the way of what you’re trying to do.

Enter Dr. Nicole Detling, an expert on the mental side of the game. She’s a sports psychologist who’s worked with Olympic skiers and skaters, pro baseball and football and soccer players, college gymnasts — athletes at the very top of their sports.

As she starts to work with athletes, she tries to shift their thinking. She tells them to not think about the feeling they’re trying to capture but instead to work on building a solid and reliable skill.

That skill is mental resilience, which means being able to find whatever version of calm and focus you can, even when things aren’t going your way. It’s not elusive or magical; it’s a habit.

Dr. Nicole Detling, sports psychologist: We have these thinking processes and patterns and skills that we’re teaching people to eventually get it to automate. So it’s an automatic process. Rather than having to turn on that mindset, you become that mindset.

Jody: So much of mental resilience is realizing that everything isn’t going to go perfectly. I’ve worked on that. I’ve worked on — and here’s one of my favorite cliches — getting comfortable being uncomfortable.

The good news, Dr. Detling says, is that you can train for that.

Nicole: Some of the things that we’ve done with some of the skiing Olympians that I’ve worked with is we’ve not waxed their skis and they’ve had to train with unwaxed skis. Same with speed skating — you know that your blades aren’t quite as sharp as you would want them to be. Train that way, train with forgetting there’s a little tiny little tear in your suit. Train without your goggles.

That’s why a lot of teams will pipe in crowd noise so they can’t hear during training sessions. Because at the end of the day, we all want to show up and feel great but yet there will be days — sometimes the biggest competition of your life — and you show up feeling like crap. If you’ve trained feeling like crap, then you know you can compete feeling like crap.

Everyone — yes, everyone, not just sports fans — can learn something from listening to the “Good Sport” podcast, from how to debate better (sportscaster-style!) to how stadiums could be built more equitably. Discover more about yourself and the world around you as host Jody Avirgan talks to star athletes and eye-opening experts, including psychologists, journalists, economists and more. Listen here, or wherever you stream your podcasts.

Watch Jody’s personal intro to the episode — and also catch the episode itself — in this YouTube video: 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hayley Caldwell is a copywriter on the Audience Development team at TED.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

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How do you deal with immense change?

Be honest with yourself: Are you someone who embraces it and evolves with it? Or, do you tend to retreat and stick with what you know?

In our tumultuous times, adaptability — defined as “how well a person reacts to the inevitability of change,” according to venture investor and writer Natalie Fratto in a TED Talk — is a must-have trait. Organizations want team members who can take on new responsibilities and acquire new skills as needed in an uncertain world. Not only is it a quality that you should learn to spot so you can hire and retain the right people, but it’s also one that you should build so you can remain indispensable and employable.

In a typical year, Fratto meets with hundreds of start-up founders and she must determine in the course of a brief conversation whether she wants to invest in them and their company. Adaptability is a characteristic that distinguishes many of those who go on to succeed, according to Fratto.

Adaptability is not just useful in the tech world, but for everyone else, too. “Each of us, as individuals, groups, corporations and even governments are being forced to grapple with more change than ever before in human history,” she points out. And there’s good news ahead: “Adaptability is not fixed,” she adds, noting that everyone has the capacity to measure, test, and improve their ability to adapt to new circumstances.

Here’s her advice on how to assess adaptability in others — and how you can boost it in yourself.

When interviewing people, try asking “what if” questions

Fratto says these force a person to picture multiple possible versions of the future and make their decisions accordingly. Some examples of these questions might be “What if your main revenue stream were to dry up overnight?” or “What if a heat wave prevented customers from visiting your store?” Fratto gets a sense of a candidate’s adaptability based on how many scenarios they’re able to come up with and how strong their vision is.

“People often ask too many questions in an interview,” says Fratto in an interview with TED, “but it’s better to ask four questions and then go deeper” with follow-up questions. One example of a question could be “Describe a difficult change that you’ve recently undergone at work” and a natural follow-up might be: “What would have happened if [different change X] had occurred instead?” This forces the interviewee to consider an alternative past and future.

“Tell me about a time when you were wrong” is another interview question that can yield insights. You can follow it up with “What is the most compelling argument of those who disagreed with you?” Fratto says you can often tell if people are willing to change their minds — and therefore are more adaptable — by asking them to honestly share a time when they believed they were wrong, not when others perceived they were wrong.

Instead of learning, look for signs of “unlearning”

“Unlearning” is another important sign of adaptability, according to Fratto. “Active unlearners seek to challenge what they presume to already know and instead override that data with new information,” she says.

One physical example of unlearning can be found on the ski slopes, where beginner downhill skiers are taught the “pizza” method. When you’re at the top of a hill, you point your skis toward one another — like the tip of a slice of pizza — and holding that shape will stop you from sliding down. But as you grow more comfortable, you can’t become a great skier with the pizza method; you must unlearn it. It’s necessary only to use for a short time until you get comfortable enough to take risks.

While it’s difficult to unlearn certain skills that have been drilled into our brains, it is possible to do so — and embrace change, too. “A person can also unlearn by taking a new vantage point or shifting to another perspective,” says Fratto. Layering on additional learnings can also show a person’s adaptability. “Playing at the intersection of areas where you’re not an expert can together build a new set of skills as a building block,” she adds.

This mindset is especially useful for people who are looking for a new job. If you’re seeking to switch industries, you can embrace unlearning or adjacent learning to find a new position in a different field. By looking at the individual components and pieces of your job — instead of the overall title or position — you can see where your skills might be applied in a different environment. Then, ask yourself, “In which industry is this one skill being underutilized?” and you can move forward, bringing your individual pieces of expertise with you.

Look for signs of exploration

An exploratory mindset can yield clear benefits. As an example, Fratto says after she moved to a new neighborhood, she needed to find a grocery store. She walked out of her apartment, arbitrarily turned left, and found a store a few blocks away which she began to frequent. A few months later, she turned right and stumbled into a grocery store not much further away with a better produce section. In an effort to be efficient, she had stuck with the same-old — and had missed out on something better.

How often do you do that in your own life?

“The path becomes so much more interesting when you wander,” says Fratto. “It’s better to explore and find ways to break habits that you already have, whether that’s trying to watch a movie in a different language, cooking a different cuisine, or walking an alternate route,” she says. These seemingly minor changes allow for crucial vantage point shifts and create the ability for unlearning to happen.

A person’s adaptability isn’t fixed — you can always improve it

“I believe all of us have a strong inherent capability to react to change differently,” says Fratto. “However, adaptability has to be proactive, not reactive. We have to seek it out, exercise it and flex it like a muscle.”

So how can we become more adaptable?

First, play at the intersections. Let’s say you’re an expert at marketing, for instance. If you can also make yourself knowledgeable about podcasts, you can become the translator between these teams. Seek out opportunities to bridge existing gaps at your organization.

Second, occasionally take a devil’s-advocate role at work. In some situations — stay away from high-stakes ones — you might adopt the position of respectful dissenter. This will allow you, your boss and your teammates see things from the other side. This strategy can also help you from getting too attached to your personal ideas and views.

Fratto says in the tech world, there’s an oft-repeated motto “I like leaders who have strong opinions, weakly held.” An important component of adaptability is having the ability to form a strong opinion but release it when new information becomes available and makes it obsolete.

Third, keep a failure resume or log. “It’s helpful to write down the times where you were wrong, changed your mind, or made mistakes,” says Fratto. While many of us view these things with shame or embarrassment, you can start to see them in a positive light — as steps you’ve taken on your professional journey — and learn from them instead.

Watch her TED Talk now: 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kara Cutruzzula is a journalist and playwright and writes Brass Ring Daily, a daily motivational newsletter about work, life and creativity.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

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Love picking up new skills that can enrich your daily life? If so, TED Courses is for you — it was created with all you forever learners and self-improvers in mind and taught by some of your favorite TED speakers. Neuroscientist and bestselling author Lisa Genova is the instructor for a course called “How to boost your brain + memory.” Go here to find out about it, and also read her advice below on common types of forgetting. 

To be human is to forget things. But you’ve probably wondered: “When is forgetting normal, and when is it not?”

Here are four examples:

1. Forgetting where you parked

Not remembering where you parked because you didn’t pay attention is normal and different than what happens with Alzheimer’s.

If you have Alzheimer’s, let’s say you park in a mall garage and shop for an hour. When you return to the parking garage, you’re not wondering if you parked on level three or level four, you’re thinking, “I don’t remember how I got here.” Or you’re standing in front of your car, but you don’t recognize it as yours.

2. Forgetting a person’s name or movie title

Having a word stuck on the tip of your tongue — that oh-what’s-their-name phenomenon called blocking — is normal and does not mean you have Alzheimer’s.

This is one of the most common experiences of memory retrieval failure. You’re trying to come up with a word and most often a proper noun, such as a person’s name or a movie title. You know you know this word, but you cannot retrieve it on demand.

Yet with that said, failure to retrieve words can also be an early sign of Alzheimer’s. So how can you know whether it’s an ordinary tip-of-the-tongue moment or a symptom of dementia? If it’s Alzheimer’s, you’re blocking on dozens of words a day. And instead of blanking primarily on proper nouns, people with Alzheimer’s will regularly forget common nouns such as pen, spoon, bicycle.

3. Forgetting where you put your keys or other objects

Losing track of where you left your keys is normal, and it’s probably just a result of your not paying attention to them.

But losing your keys and finding them in a place that keys shouldn’t be (like the refrigerator or microwave), or finding them and wondering who they belong to or what they’re used for is not normal. These could be symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

4. Forgetting how to do an activity like making coffee

This one has to do with your muscle memory, which is remarkably stable over time — we tend to remember how to do what we’ve learned to do, especially when it’s an activity we perform routinely.

So if you go to make a cup of coffee and don’t remember how to work the machine or you’re doing laundry but can’t remember how to use the washer or you’re stumped by any other tasks you’ve long known how to do and regularly do, this may be a sign of Alzheimer’s.

However, forgetting doesn’t always have to be due to Alzheimer’s. It could be due to mild cognitive impairment (which doesn’t necessarily progress to Alzheimer’s), a B-12 deficiency or not enough sleep, to name a few causes. Just as you do with your heart health or reproductive health, I encourage you to be in conversation with your doctor about your memory and realize you have a lot of agency over your brain health.

Interested in finding out more about how your memory works (and when it doesn’t)? Sign up now for Lisa Genova’s on brain and memory. And while you’re at it, check out our other TED Courses from some of your most loved speakers and learn more skills to boost your life. Among them: Podcast host Manoush Zomorodi offers insights in “how to reimagine your career”; writers Charlie Jane Anders and Wanuri Kahiu teach “how to nurture your imagination”; and educator and author Julie Lythcott-Haims tells you “how to become your best adult self.” 

Watch her TED Talk now: 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O’Briens and Every Note Played. Still Alice was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart. She graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. Genova travels worldwide speaking about the neurological diseases that she writes about and has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, Today, PBS NewsHour, CNN and NPR. Her TED Talk — called “What You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s” — has been viewed more than five million times to date. Her newest book is a New York Times bestseller and her first work of nonfiction.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Priya Mistry

Tough times are inevitable. Wellbeing and resilience expert Lucy Hone shares the three straightforward tactics that she used to get through her darkest days.

I’d like to start by asking you some questions.

Have you ever lost someone you loved? Had your heart broken? Struggled through an acrimonious divorce or been the victim of infidelity?

Have you ever lived through a natural disaster? Been bullied? Or made redundant from a job?

Ever had a miscarriage or an abortion, or struggled through infertility?

Finally, have you or anyone you loved had to cope with mental illness, dementia, some form of physical impairment, or suicide?

Chances are, you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, and that’s true for most people. Adversity doesn’t discriminate.

If you are alive, you are going to have to deal with some tough times.

I started studying resilience a decade ago at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It was an amazing time to be there, because the professors who trained me had just picked up a contract to train 1.1 million American soldiers to be mentally fit as a complement to their physical fitness. You don’t get a much more skeptical, discerning audience than American drill sergeants returning from Afghanistan. For someone like me whose main quest in life is trying to work out how we take the best of scientific findings out of academia and bring them to people in their everyday lives, it was a pretty inspiring place to be.

I finished my studies there and returned home to Christchurch, New Zealand, to start my doctoral research. I had just begun that study when the Christchurch earthquakes hit, so I put my research on hold and I started working with my community to help them through that terrible post-quake period. I worked with all sorts of organizations — from government departments to building companies and all sorts of community groups — teaching them the ways of thinking and acting that we know can boost resilience. I thought that was my calling, my moment to put all of that research to good use.

Sadly, I was wrong. My own true test came in 2014 on Queen’s Birthday weekend. We and two other families had decided to go down to Lake Ohau. At the last minute my beautiful 12-year-old daughter, Abi, decided to hop in the car with her best friend Ella, also 12, and Ella’s mom, Sally, a dear friend of mine.

On the way down, a car sped through a stop sign, crashed into them, and instantly killed all three of them. In the blink of an eye, I found myself flung to the other side of the equation, waking up with a whole new identity. Instead of being the resilience expert, I became the grieving mother, trying to wrap my head around unthinkable news with my world smashed to smithereens.

Suddenly, I was the one on the receiving end of all the expert advice — and I didn’t like what I heard one little bit. In the days after Abi died, my husband, Trevor, and I were told we were now prime candidates for family estrangement, we were likely to get divorced, and we were at high risk of mental illness. “Wow,” I remember thinking, “Thanks for that.”

Leaflets described the five stages of grief: anger, bargaining, denial, depression, and acceptance. Victim support services arrived at our doorstep and told us we could expect to write off the next five years to grief. I know the leaflets and the resources meant well but in all of that advice, they left us feeling like victims, totally overwhelmed by the journey ahead and powerless to exert any influence over our grieving whatsoever.

I didn’t need to be told how bad things were; I already knew things were truly terrible. What I needed most was hope. I needed a journey through all that anguish, pain and longing. Most of all, I wanted to be an active participant in my grief process.

I decided to turn my back on their advice and instead to conduct something of a self-experiment. I’d done the research, I had the tools, and I wanted to know how useful they were now in the face of such an enormous mountain to climb. But I have to confess: At this point I didn’t really know any of this was going to work. Parental bereavement is, after all, widely acknowledged as the hardest of losses to bear. But, five years on, I can tell you that you can rise up from adversity — that it is utterly possible to make yourself think and act in certain ways that help you navigate tough times.

The following are my go-to strategies that I relied upon and saved me in my darkest days. These three tactics underpin all of my work, and they’re readily available to all of us.

1. Know that suffering is part of life.

This doesn’t mean resilient people go so far as to welcome it in — they are not delusional. However, when the tough times come, they seem to know that suffering is part of every human existence. Knowing this stops you from feeling discriminated against when challenges arrive.

After Abi died, never once did I find myself thinking, “Why me?” In fact, I remember thinking, “Why not me? Terrible things happen to you just like they do everybody else. This is your life now — time to sink or swim.”

The real tragedy is that not enough of us seem to know this any longer. We live in an age where many of us feel entitled to perfect lives. Shiny, happy photos on Instagram are the norm when, as all of us know, the very opposite is true.

2. Carefully choose where you’re directing your attention.

I’ve found that resilient people have a habit of realistically appraising situations, and typically they manage to focus on the things they can change and learn to accept the things they can’t. This is a vital and learnable skill.

As humans, we are good at noticing threats and weaknesses. Being wired in this way is important for us and has served us well from an evolutionary perspective. When we were cave people, our ability to ignore a beautiful rainbow and to concentrate on an approaching tiger instead ensured our survival.

The problem is we now live in an era where we are bombarded by different kinds of threats — from unrealistic deadlines and toxic colleagues to mounting bills or just someone stealing a parking lot from us — all day long and our brains treat every single one of those as though they were a tiger. Our stress response is permanently dialed up.

Resilient people have worked out a way of tuning in to the good around them. One day, when doubts were threatening to overwhelm me, I distinctly remember thinking, “You cannot get swallowed up by this — you’ve got so much to live for. Don’t lose what you have to what you have lost.”

In psychology, we call this “benefit-finding.” In my new world, it involved trying to find things to be grateful for. At least, our dear girl hadn’t died from a terrible, long, drawn-out illness. She died suddenly, instantly, sparing us and her that pain. We also had a huge amount of social support from our family and friends to help us through. Most of all, we still had two beautiful boys who needed us and deserved to have as normal a life as we could possibly give them.

When you’re going through a difficult time, you might need a reminder or permission to feel grateful. In our kitchen, we’ve got a neon-pink poster that says “Accept the good.”

In their work with the US Army, psychologists framed it a little bit differently — they phrased it as “hunting the good stuff.” Find the language that best works for you. Whatever you do, make an intentional, deliberate, ongoing effort to tune in to what’s good in your world.

3. Ask yourself: “Is what I’m doing helping me or harming me?”

This immensely powerful question is used a lot in therapy, and it was my go-to question in the days after the girls died. I’d ask it again and again.

For example, I asked myself: “Should I go to the trial and see the driver? Would that help me, or would it harm me?” For me, the answer was a no-brainer; I chose to stay away. However, Trevor eventually decided to meet with the driver at a later time.

Late at night, I’d often find myself sometimes poring over old photos of Abi and getting more and more upset. At a certain point, I’d ask myself: “Is this helping you, or is it harming you?” I realized it was far kinder to myself to put away the photos and go to bed.

This question can be applied to so many different contexts. For example, you might ask yourself: “Is the way I’m thinking and acting helping me or harming me in my bid to get that promotion? To pass that exam? To recover from a heart attack?”

I write a lot about resilience, and this one strategy has prompted more positive feedback than any other. I’ve gotten scores of letters and emails from people saying what a huge impact it’s had on their lives. By asking yourself whether you really need to drink that extra glass of wine, spend another hour on social media, or rehash the same old argument with a family member, you’re putting yourself back in the driver’s seat. It gives you control over your decision making.

Contrary to what many of us think, resilience isn’t a fixed or elusive trait that some people have and some people don’t. In reality, it requires the willingness to try basic strategies like these.

We all have moments in life — when the path we thought we were taking veers off into some terrible direction that we never anticipated and certainly didn’t want. It happened to me, and it was awful beyond imagining.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you think “There’s no way out I’m coming back from this,” I urge you to lean into these strategies. Know that struggle is part of life, don’t let your attention get fixated exclusively on the negative, and consider if the way you are thinking and acting is helping you or harming you.

I won’t pretend that thinking like this is always easy and it also doesn’t remove all the pain. However, during the last five years, I’ve learned that thinking this way really does help. More than anything, it’s shown me that it is possible to live and grieve at the same time.

This piece was adapted from a TEDxChristchurch Talk. Watch it now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lucy Hone is a codirector at the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience and a research associate at AUT University in Auckland. She is also the author of the book Resilient Grieving.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Fernando Cobelo

As a psychologist who’s been in private practice for 25 years, I’ve seen that there are as many kinds of relationship problems as there are humans on this planet.

But one issue that keeps coming up is about irritability — or what to do when a close connection seems to be in a bad mood all the time.

Take this letter from a reader, for example:

Every day, my sister seems to wake up irritable and then stay that way. She has an edge to her voice and responds to friendly questions like, “How was your day?” or “Do you have plans for the weekend?” curtly and with a sharp tone. What can I do?

Indeed, there’s been a lot of irritability experienced these past couple of years, with the pandemic making it a stressful time for all. Irritability is defined as a mood or state in which one has a heightened propensity to respond to frustrations, even small ones, with anger that is excessive given what might be expected in the situation.

Of course, irritability is not abnormal in and of itself. Every one of us can be irritable at times and have irritable moods that may last for hours or even a few days. But when periods of irritability last for months on end and characterize a person’s mood more often than not, it could be associated with an underlying disorder such as clinical depression, anxiety or ADHD. In that case, it should be considered as a broader mental health issue that requires the advice of a mental health professional. Indeed, if the person in your life is being treated for one of these conditions and seems to be chronically irritable, you might consider suggesting they speak with a mental health provider about their mood.

However, regardless of whether a person’s irritability involves an underlying mental condition or not, it can still have a big impact on their quality of life and that of the people around them, and when that is the case it should be addressed.

Irritability impacts us psychologically in a number of ways. It makes us far more sensitive to small frustrations so we have a harder time shrugging them off or moving past them. This can make us distracted since our attention ends up being constantly redirected towards trivial incidents and remarks and away from important tasks or relationships. This constant churning or annoyance in the back of our mind also takes up intellectual resources, leaving us with less mental bandwidth with which to do our jobs and manage our lives.

Why does irritability sometimes linger?

Irritability can be a hard mood to break out of because it often creates a negative feedback loop that is self-reinforcing in ways that can deepen its hold on our state of mind. It works this way:

— Irritability reinforces our negative mood such that we’re much more likely to fixate on anything even mildly upsetting or annoying (we might even do so unconsciously as a way to validate our bad mood).

— Focusing on all these annoyances then fuels our irritability further, which in turn, focuses us even more intently on validating our irritable mood by continuing to scan our environment for external frustrations and overreacting to them.

— At the same time, we are less likely to notice the positive events and experiences that could have otherwise mitigated our frustrated state of mind and improved our mood.

— Indeed, the urge to indulge our irritability and give in to it can feel extremely compelling, and we can become resistant to any efforts from our nearest and dearest to break us out of our mood. This is why, when a close friend or family member suffers from irritability, you may often feel as though you can’t win.

— Any effort to engage with them is likely to garner an impatient, hostile or aggressive response, so you end up just keeping a distance.As a result, your relationship may become strained and distant and the irritable person become isolated, adding to their irritability and their feeling that no one else seems to understand what they’re going through.

Further, negative moods can sometimes be contagious and irritability is one that can be quite obvious to other people, making it harder for them to ignore or overlook and making it more likely for their own mood to be negatively impacted by it. Indeed, irritable bosses often create significant stress in their teams, and irritable household members often create significant stress for the people who are around them most.

So what can you do if someone you care about suffers from chronic irritability?

1: Bring it to their attention

Start by asking them to have a talk, so they know you want to discuss something serious (rather than say, doing it casually as you’re getting ready for work because you want their full attention so they can take your concerns seriously). Tell them you’re concerned because they seem to be in a bad mood more often than not, and they’ve been responding to you as if you’re constantly annoying them.

2. Let them know how their mood has been impacting you

They might be surprised to hear it — in which case they might try on their own to be more mindful going forward. If they seem receptive, the next time they respond irritably, you can simply remind them by saying something like “Please don’t respond with such a sharp edge in your tone, I’m just asking about your day because I care about you.”

If they’re aware they’ve been irritable but they feel their mood is justified because of the external stresses in their life (for example, “You know how hard it’s been at work!”), you can acknowledge their stress but let them know that as you sympathize with what they’re going through, their moods have a big impact on you as well (as your moods do on them). Then suggest you discuss ways to cope with their stress that might reduce their irritability, which would be best for them as well as for you.

3. Ask them to consider trying one of the following techniques that have been shown to lower irritability

Gratitude exercise: Spend 10 minutes each morning journaling about three things for which they’re grateful and why—what that thing means to them and why it makes them feel thankful

Mindfulness meditation: Focus on breathing, feeling the air flow in and out of your lungs—and when thoughts enter your mind—which they will—label them factually and without any judgment or emotionality (e.g., ‘A worry about work’ or ‘frustration with a friend’) and refocus on your breathing. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to lower emotional reactivity to upsetting and distressing thoughts.

Reframing: Also known as cognitive reappraisal, reframing is a form of emotional regulation in which one changes one’s perspective/story to take the sting out of an annoying/upsetting/frustrating situation. Reframing is an effective emotional regulation technique that’s been shown to lower emotional distress and irritability. By helping the person explore why they’re irritable and how they might reframe their story, you’re not only demonstrating concern and compassion for them, you could help them find a silver lining that can reframe their situation more positively.

What’s more, reframing, mindfulness and gratitude are techniques from which you too can benefit as they can help mitigate your own elevated stress and irritability when they’re affected by the moods of the people around you. As such, you could consider suggesting to the irritable person in your life that the two of you practice them together. Doing this may also make them feel less defensive and more open to considering your request.

4. Acknowledge that you’re asking them to do something that isn’t so easy

Irritability can feel very compelling and justified, and the urge to just lash out at someone can be strong. As such, let them know that if they were willing to work on minimizing the severity and or frequency of their irritability you would be very appreciative and be truly grateful for the work they would have to put forth to do so.

However, if you’ve attempted to address these issues with the other person and they are either uninterested or incapable of adopting them, you might consider, when possible, limiting your contact with them so you’re less impacted by their irritability. Moods come and go and even underlying conditions tend to manifest in cycles, so it might be wise to take a step back until the person is in a better place emotionally.

That said, by addressing the issue with the person directly, the hope is that they’ll take steps to improve their mood and irritability and that the next time you feel yourself becoming irritable, you can take these steps yourself before your partner or friend sits you down for a talk about your bad mood.

To read his “Dear Guy” columns, go here. Watch his TEDx Linnaeus University Talk now: 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Guy Winch is a licensed psychologist who is a leading advocate for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives. His three TED Talks have been viewed over 20 million times, and his science-based self-help books have been translated into 26 languages. He also writes the Squeaky Wheel blog for PsychologyToday.com and has a private practice in New York City.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Raúl Soria

Asking “so what?” can bring out your hidden beliefs and ideas, says career strategist Gail Tolstoi-Miller.

Six seconds.

That’s how long the typical recruiter is said to spend reviewing a resume.

In order to whiz through a dashboard full of applicants, recruiters rely not only on their years in the workplace but also on something not so admirable: their unconscious biases.

We all have biases, and without them, we might not function so effectively in the world. These mental shortcuts are formed from cultural conditioning and our life experiences, and they enable us to scan a crowded street and spot a police officer if trouble strikes, or scroll through a list of health-care providers and choose one without melting down.

Problems arise when important decisions — such as employment, school acceptance, mortgage approval — are shaped by unconscious biases. “Every single day we’re making hiring mistakes because we don’t see things as they are, but as who we are,” says Gail Tolstoi-Miller, a recruiter turned career strategist based in the New York area.

Age, ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation are factors known to cause people’s unconscious bias to kick in, but we can have implicit preferences and aversions in all sorts of areas.

“Every single detail of your resume, not including your skills, can be a deciding factor about whether you go in the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ pile,” says Tolstoi-Miller. “A mailing address that indicates a long commute or undesirable location could put you in the ‘no,’ an email address such as ‘crazymom666’ can put you in the ‘no.’ …. Even a reputable college such as Indiana University can be perceived as not a pedigreed school by some, and [if so] guess what? I just put Mark Cuban in the ‘no’ pile.”

And it’s not just recruiters whose work can be affected. Many of us are in positions — professional, volunteer, community, social media — where we need to evaluate and sort people.

Of course, the trickiest part about unconscious biases is that they’re unconscious. So how can we guard against the strange, hairpin turns that our subconscious minds may be making?

Tolstoi-Miller suggests we use these two words: “So what?”

Before you relegate a person to the “no” or “pass” pile, address your reasons for putting them there by asking “So what?”

So what — if you can’t quite tell what their gender is from their name, if they’re from a town in your state you’ve never heard of, if you know they’d have to take a ferry and 2 buses to get to the office, if they used a strange font on their cover letter, if they put a photo of themselves on their resume, if they’ve been out of work for six months?

“So what” is not a silver bullet. But it can be a preventive against your making the biggest mistake: missing out on a great person for an unimportant reason. You might not have the time to do this with every single candidate; you may just want to reserve it for your short lists. And of course, your “So what?” could reveal that you have a very valid reason to reject someone.

Says Tolstoi-Miller, “Asking yourself ‘so what?’ is a pause, it’s a self-check, and it helps you remove your emotional clutter … It also helps you focus on what is important by questioning the facts and judgments that you use to make decisions.”

Watch her TEDxLincolnSquare Talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Editor at TED Ideas, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. You can find her on Twitter at @maryhalton

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Ori Toor

Have you ever woken up in the morning — or even in the middle of the night — only to find that your body is already in full-blown, heart-racing fight-or-flight mode?

Panic attacks are surprisingly common; at least one-third of us will experience one at some point in our lives, according to Cindy Aaronson PhD, a clinical psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. While symptoms vary from person to person,  they can include a pounding heart, shortness of breath, light-headedness, sweating, trembling, nausea, tingling or numbness in the fingers and toes, and an overwhelming sense of impending doom.

Despite how terrifying and memorable panic attacks can be, they are not inherently dangerous.

For many people, these alarming sensations — which can mimic those of a heart attack or other serious medical condition — are accompanied by a conviction that they are about to die. For others, says Aaronson, there’s a sensation of “unreality,” where time and perception become scrambled. “Sounds sound different — you feel like you’re in a tunnel and things are far away; colors seem different. People sometimes describe it as an out-of-body experience,” she says. “They feel like they’re going to lose control and go crazy.”

It’s no surprise, then, that many people in the grips of a panic attack show up at the emergency room believing that they are having a heart attack or suffocating. But despite how terrifying and memorable these episodes can be, they are not inherently dangerous, says Justin Feinstein PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist and director of the Float Clinic and Research Center at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Instead, panic attacks are a manifestation of the brain and body being out of sync, he explains.“It’s a normal physiological fear response happening at a totally inappropriate time.”

Here’s what happens in your body during a panic attack

Even though psychiatrists have been investigating just what panic is since the mid-to-late 1800s, the term “panic disorder” didn’t appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1980. Experts still aren’t sure precisely what underlies this disordered brain-body connection.

“Sometimes panic might start in your body itself, and then create processes within your brain. Other times, your brain could initiate the entire onset of a panic attack, which then manifests itself in your body,” says Feinstein. In some cases, genetics or changes in brain function may be at play. In others, stress is a factor.

Panic attacks begin with something that causes your heart to race — it could even be caused by something as innocuous as a jolt of caffeine.

But once an attack is triggered, the cascade of physiological responses in the body is fairly universal. Typically, it begins with something that causes your heart to race. This might be a stimulus in the environment — perhaps a sound or a scent that you associate with a traumatic event — or even something as innocuous as a jolt of caffeine. In a panic attack, the racing heart sets off a danger alarm in your brain and sends your body’s fear response into overdrive.

Your amygdala — a pair of almond-sized nerve bundles buried in the deep brain that plays a key role in processing emotions — sends a distress signal to your hypothalamus — a tiny command center that sits atop the brainstem and coordinates involuntary bodily functions such as breathing, blood pressure and heartbeat. Your hypothalamus fires messages via the autonomic nervous system to the adrenal glands, prompting them to flood your bloodstream with hormones including adrenaline and cortisol. These chemical messengers engage your body’s survival reflexes and ready it to take defensive action.

Your pupils dilate, and your mind becomes laser focused. Your breathing rate increases, allowing your body to take in extra oxygen. Cellular metabolism shifts to maximize the amount of glucose available to the brain and muscles. Your blood is diverted away from non-essential regions like your fingers, toes and stomach and towards the major muscles of the arms and legs — steeling them to either fight off a threat or flee the scene.

Panic attacks typically peak and subside within 10 or 15 minutes, and there are a handful of solid techniques that can help you ride them out.

That, in a nutshell, captures the traditional scientific thinking about panic attack. “The amygdala has always sort of been viewed as the fear epicenter,” says Feinstein.

However, recent work from his lab suggests that other structures in the deep brain may also be involved. Specifically, the insular cortex and a part of the brain stem called the “nucleus of the solitary tract” — regions that together receive and map signals from the heart, lungs and bloodstream. Feinstein’s team found that these areas generate fear impulses even in people who have been missing an amygdala due to a rare brain injury, suggesting that panic may often begin here in other people, too.

So, how can we hit the brakes?

To be classed as a panic attack, symptoms must come on rapidly, or within a few minutes, says Aaronson. And there’s good news: Attacks typically peak and subside within 10 or 15 minutes, and there are a handful of solid techniques that can help you ride them out.

Chief among those is recognizing your experience as a panic attack and not a more serious medical crisis, and gently reminding yourself that there’s nothing physically unsafe about it. “Just knowing what it is helps people,” says Aaronson. Just to be sure, double-check that you’re not experiencing any heart-attack specific symptoms such as pressure in the chest or pain that builds or radiates into the arm or jaw.

Once you’ve ruled those out, remember: Panic always passes, and focusing on that belief can send it on its way.

Of course, this is easier said than done when you feel like you’re suffocating or losing control. “It takes practice,” says Aaronson. “But the more you do it, the better you get at doing it.”

You might tell yourself: “Everything my body is doing right now is designed to keep me safe and protect me.”

If you can, find a quiet spot where you can talk yourself through why you’re feeling what you’re feeling.

For example, you might tell yourself: “I’m feeling light-headed because my blood is being redirected to my limbs. I’m breathing hard because my body is responding in an evolutionarily honed way to adrenaline. Everything my body is doing right now is designed to keep me safe and protect me.”

When you do this, you’re inviting another region of the brain into the conversation — the frontal cortex. This area is positioned just behind the forehead, which is responsible for conscious thought, judgement and problem solving. Bringing a sense of curiosity and analysis to the way you observe these sensations can help you to underline that they are just transient physical processes moving through you.

The other major tool in your toolbox is your breath. “Most people breathe on average from 12 to 20 breaths a minute. And when you’re hyperventilating, you’re easily doubling that,” says Feinstein.

He recommends trying to gradually slow your breathing to between five and 10 breaths per minute, and aiming to make your exhales longer than your inhales. This simple technique engages a parasympathetic response — fight-or-flight’s calming cousin, also referred to as “rest-and-digest.” Try doing this simple exercise from Judson Brewer, psychiatrist, neuroscientist and director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

This kind of deep breathing stimulates the vagus nerve — the longest nerve in the body, which runs through regions including the digestive system and diaphragm, and feeds directly into the brainstem’s nucleus of the solitary tract. It carries signals and sensory information from and to the brain, and regulates functions including heart rate, breathing rate and digestion.

“Ultimately, panic attacks are just fear of fear,” says clinical psychiatrist Cindy Aaronson, PhD.

Interestingly, your vagus nerve is a two-way street. By breathing in a slow, controlled manner, you send a powerful signal to your brain that you are relaxed and there is nothing to fear. In turn, this stimulates certain parts of the heart muscle and helps to steady the pulse.

When practiced regularly, longer-term practices such as mindfulness meditation, which are usually built around a core of breathing techniques, can help people quash attacks before they take hold, says Feinstein. “[Mindfulness] teaches people a new association with their visceral experiences,” he explains. Focusing intently on your breath and heartbeat in a relaxed setting can help you shake off any reflexive jump to panic when they speed up in everyday life.

Therapy can help too. Aaronson’s group found that cognitive behavioral therapy, which is designed to gradually help you modify your behavioral responses to life events, can strengthen the neural connections between the frontal cortex and the amygdala. This makes panic sufferers more adept at talking themselves down off the ledge.

“Ultimately, panic attacks are just fear of fear,” says Aaronson. In the US alone, at least 1 in 10 Americans experiences a panic attack in any given year — the same number as fall ill during a bad flu season — so if you find yourself having one, know that you have plenty of company.

And just as your body responds to the flu virus by igniting a fever, it can sometimes respond to fear by firing up a panic attack. But with a little help and a few key techniques in your arsenal, you can take the wind out of panic’s sails. “If [you’re] not afraid of it, then who cares if it happens?” says Aaronson. “It passes.”

Watch Dr. Aaronson’s TED-Ed Animation on panic attacks now: 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ceri Perkins is an NYC-based writer and editor who covers the environment, science, nature and human behavior. Her work appears in BBC Earth, Physics World, The Guardian, How it Works and more. Find her on Twitter @pepperjayperk.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Mathilde Aubier

Since I started writing the “Dear Guy” column, I’ve received many letters from readers asking why some people in their lives just seem unable to apologize — even when they’re clearly in the wrong.

Are they just stubborn? Or is there something in their psychology that stops them from being able to take responsibility for their actions and simply say they’re sorry?

To be clear, even the most conscientious among us occasionally fails to apologize. When this happens, it’s usually for one of two reasons: (1) We don’t care enough about the other person or the relationship to take on the emotional discomfort of owning our mistake and apologizing for it; or (2) We believe our apology won’t matter.

For example, let’s say you snapped at a colleague who interrupted you while you were racing to meet a tight deadline. If you think the coworker already holds a grudge against you for an earlier incident, you may skip apologizing since you feel it really won’t help your relationship with them.

People who can’t apologize appear to be tough individuals who refuse to back down. But they don’t do this because they’re strong — it’s because they’re weak.

But what about the people who can never admit they’ve misstepped, no matter the circumstance? What makes them incapable of apologizing even when they’re obviously in the wrong? For these people, admitting wrongdoing and offering an apology is too psychologically threatening. Offering an apology implies that they’ve harmed another person in some way, which can elicit feelings of shame.

People who cannot apologize often have such deep feelings of low self-worth that their fragile egos cannot absorb the blow of admitting they were wrong. So their defense mechanisms kick in — at times, unconsciously —  and they may externalize any blame and even dispute basic facts to ward off the threat of having to lower themselves by offering an apology. When they double down on their wrongness by blaming circumstances, denying the facts, or attacking the other person or people involved, non-apologizers can make themselves feel empowered rather than diminished.

Unfortunately, many of us mistakenly interpret these people’s fragility-driven defensiveness as a sign of psychological strength. That’s because outwardly they appear to be tough individuals who refuse to back down. But they don’t do this because they’re strong — it’s because they’re weak.

Psychologically speaking, admitting that we’re wrong is emotionally uncomfortable and painful to our sense of self. In order to take responsibility and apologize, our self-esteem needs to be strong enough for us to absorb that discomfort. Indeed, if our self-esteem is higher and stable, we can tolerate the temporary ding that such an admission involves — without the walls around our ego crumbling.

But if our self-esteem is seemingly high but actually fragile, that ding can pierce through our defensive walls and score a direct hit to our ego. Indeed, as a rule of psychological thumb, the more rigid one’s defense mechanisms are, the more fragile the ego they’re protecting.

The mistake we often make when faced with someone incapable of apologizing is to become irate and try to win our argument with them. But the sad reality is: We’ll never win.

The mistake we often make when faced with someone who’s habitually incapable of apologizing is to become irate (for good reason, of course) and try to win our argument with them (because we’re right!). But the sad and frustrating reality is we can never win. Even if we demonstrated that they were wrong in stark, inarguable facts, they will either deny those inarguable facts or pivot to a personal attack by saying something like “Why do you always make things difficult and unpleasant?!?”.

In these situations, the best we can do is to make our points as calmly and as convincingly as we can and then disengage from the argument when it becomes unproductive — like when they dispute the facts, come up with ridiculous excuses or pivot to petty remarks. Once they calm down and once they no longer feel attacked, we can then look for signs of contrition. Are they extra kind or solicitous to us? This is their way of unconsciously trying to mend the relationship with us in ways that aren’t threatening to their sense of self. By going that extra mile in the aftermath of their misdoing, they can feel good about themselves rather than bad.

If the non-apologizer is a close connection, tap into your empathy and compassion. Remind yourself that beneath their stubborn exterior, they are incredibly vulnerable.

OK, so what can you do about the non-apologizers in your own life? Especially if they’re your family members, coworkers or friends? Well, if they are not people you interact with regularly, you can consider minimizing contact with them. But if they are close connections, you can try to make your peace with them.

The best way to do this is to accept their behavior — annoying as it is — and realize they’re simply psychologically incapable of apologizing. What’s more, they’re not going to change. Practicing acceptance can help you disengage from arguments with them and help you limit your feelings of frustration, anger and hurt.

Then, if the non-apologizer is a close connection of yours, you can also tap into your empathy and compassion. Remind yourself that beneath their stubborn-as-a-bull exterior, they are incredibly vulnerable.

The bottom line is this: We all have moments when we refuse to admit we’re wrong. But when someone never takes responsibility and is habitually incapable of apologizing, it’s a sign that they’re a person with a fragile ego and a weak sense of self.

Got an interpersonal problem that you can’t figure out on your own? Psychologist Guy Winch answers readers’ questions about life, love, work and what matters most. Please send them to dearguy@ted.com; for his previous columns, go here.

Watch his talk on emotional first aid now: 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Guy Winch is a licensed psychologist who is a leading advocate for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives. His three TED Talks have been viewed over 20 million times, and his science-based self-help books have been translated into 26 languages. He also writes the Squeaky Wheel blog for PsychologyToday.com and has a private practice in New York City.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Angus Greig

The problem of misinformation isn’t going away.

Internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken some steps to curb its spread and say they are working on doing more. But no method yet introduced has been completely successful at removing all misleading content from social media. The best defense, then, is self-defense.

Misleading or outright false information — broadly called “misinformation” — can come from websites pretending to be news outlets, political propaganda or “pseudo-profound” reports that seem meaningful but are not. Disinformation is a type of misinformation that is deliberately generated to maliciously mislead people. Disinformation is intentionally shared, knowing it is false, but misinformation can be shared by people who don’t know it’s not true, especially because people often share links online without thinking.

Emerging psychology research has revealed some tactics that can help protect our society from misinformation. Here are seven strategies you can use to avoid being misled, and to prevent yourself – and others – from spreading inaccuracies:

1. Educate yourself

The best inoculation against what the World Health Organization is calling the “infodemic” is to understand the tricks that agents of disinformation are using to try to manipulate you.

One strategy is called “prebunking” — a type of debunking that happens before you hear myths and lies. Research has shown that familiarizing yourself with the tricks of the disinformation trade can help you recognize false stories when you encounter them, making you less susceptible to those tricks.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed an online game called “Bad News,” which their studies have shown can improve players’ identification of falsehoods.

In addition to the game, you can also learn more about how internet and social media platforms work, so you better understand the tools available to people seeking to manipulate you. You can also learn more about scientific research and standards of evidence, which can help you be less susceptible to lies and misleading statements about health-related and scientific topics.

Playing the ‘Bad News’ online game illustrates different ways information warriors can prey on people’s psychological vulnerabilities.

2. Recognize your vulnerabilities

The prebunking approach works for people across the political spectrum, but it turns out that people who underestimate their biases are actually more vulnerable to being misled than people who acknowledge their biases.

Research has found people are more susceptible to misinformation that aligns with their preexisting views. This is called “confirmation bias,” because a person is biased toward believing information that confirms what they already believe.

The lesson is to be particularly critical of information from groups or people with whom you agree or find yourself aligned – whether politically, religiously, or by ethnicity or nationality. Remind yourself to look for other points of view, and other sources with information on the same topic.

It is especially important to be honest with yourself about what your biases are. Many people assume others are biased, but believe they themselves are not — and imagine that others are more likely to share misinformation than they themselves are.

3. Consider the source

Media outlets have a range of biases. The Media Bias Chart describes which outlets are most and least partisan as well as how reliable they are at reporting facts.

You can play an online game called “Fakey” to see how susceptible you are to different ways news is presented online.

When consuming news, make sure you know how trustworthy the source is or whether it’s not trustworthy at all. Double-check stories from other sources with low biases and high fact ratings to find out who — and what — you can actually trust, rather than just what your gut tells you.

Also, be aware that some disinformation agents make fake sites that look like real news sources – so make sure you’re conscious of which site you are actually visiting. Engaging in this level of thinking about your own thinking has been shown to improve your ability to tell fact from fiction.

4. Take a pause

When most people go online, especially on social media, they’re there for entertainment, connection or even distraction. Accuracy isn’t always high on the priority list. Yet few want to be a liar, and the costs of sharing misinformation can be high – to individuals, their relationships and society as a whole. Before you decide to share something, take a moment to remind yourself of the value you place on truth and accuracy.

Thinking “is what I am sharing true?” can help you stop the spread of misinformation and will encourage you to look beyond the headline and potentially fact-check before sharing.

Even if you don’t think specifically about accuracy, just taking a pause before sharing can give you a chance for your mind to catch up with your emotions. Ask yourself whether you really want to share it, and if so, why. Think about what the potential consequences of sharing it might be.

Research shows that most misinformation is shared quickly and without much thought. The impulse to share without thinking can even be more powerful than partisan sharing tendencies. Take your time. There is no hurry. You are not a breaking-news organization upon whom thousands depend for immediate information.

5. Be aware of your emotions

People often share things because of their gut reactions, rather than the conclusions of critical thinking. In a recent study, researchers found that people who viewed their social media feed while in an emotional mindset were significantly more likely to share misinformation than those who went in with a more rational state of mind.

Anger and anxiety, in particular, make people more vulnerable to falling for misinformation.

6. If you see something, say something

Stand up to misinformation publicly. It may feel uncomfortable to challenge your friends online, especially if you fear conflict. The person to whom you respond with a link to a Snopes post or other fact-checking site may not appreciate being called out.

But evidence shows that explicitly critiquing the specific reasoning in the post and providing counterevidence like a link about how it is fake is an effective technique.

Even short-format refutations — like “this isn’t true” — are more effective than saying nothing. Humor — though not ridicule of the person — can work, too. When actual people correct misinformation online, it can be as effective, if not more so, as when a social media company labels something as questionable.

People trust other humans more than algorithms and bots, especially those in our own social circles. That’s particularly true if you have expertise in the subject or are a close connection with the person who shared it.

An additional benefit is that public debunking notifies other viewers that they may want to look more closely before choosing to share it themselves. So even if you don’t discourage the original poster, you are discouraging others.

7. If you see someone else stand up, stand with them

If you see someone else has posted that a story is false, don’t say “well, they beat me to it so I don’t need to.” When more people chime in on a post as being false, it signals that sharing misinformation is frowned upon by the group more generally.

Stand with those who stand up. If you don’t and something gets shared over and over, that reinforces people’s beliefs that it is OK to share misinformation — because everyone else is doing it, and only a few, if any, are objecting.

Allowing misinformation to spread also makes it more likely that even more people will start to believe it — because people come to believe things they hear repeatedly, even if they know at first they’re not true.

There is no perfect solution. Some misinformation is harder to counter than others, and some countering tactics are more effective at different times or for different people. But you can go a long way toward protecting yourself and those in your social networks from confusion, deception and falsehood.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

Watch H. Colleen Sinclair‘s TEDxTU talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

H. Colleen Sinclair PhD is an Associate Professor of Social Psychology at Mississippi State University. Her research focuses on interpersonal relationships, social influence and misinformation.

Nadine Redlich

Our bodies are designed to respond to touch, and not just to sense the environment around us.

We actually have a network of dedicated nerve fibers in our skin that detect and emotionally respond to the touch of another person — affirming our relationships, our social connections and even our sense of self.

So, what happens when we don’t receive that?

This was one of the first questions that neuroscientist Helena Wasling PhD considered when social distancing restrictions were introduced to curb the spread of COVID-19. Based at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, she has studied these nerves — known as C tactile or CT afferents — and their importance to our emotions for over a decade.

“What struck me very early on, in the first week of being told that we were restricted from touch,  was that people no longer knew how to behave,” she says.

Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a tactile person, touch is — or was — embedded in the social structure of our lives. From meeting a new colleague and evaluating their handshake to giving a friend a long hug when we haven’t seen them in a while, it is one of the fundamental ways we have all learned to relate to one another. “To take it away is a very big intervention,” says Wasling.

New York based psychologist Guy Winch PhD agrees; “Touch is something we associate with emotional closeness, and we associate the absence of it with emotional distance. We may not fully appreciate it, but in pre-pandemic life there were literally dozens of small moments of touch throughout the day.”

This is significant not just in the landscape of our minds, but that of our bodies. Being emotionally and socially responsive to touch is so biologically fundamental to us that CT afferents are present over almost every inch of our skin, absent only from the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet.

These nerves are, Wasling explains in her TEDxGöteborg talk, particularly attuned to three things: a light touch, gently moving, and around 32 degrees Celsius (89F). Which just happens to be human skin temperature. So they are programmed to be most responsive to a gentle caress from another person.

Rather than simply telling our brains that this touch has happened — this is the role of other receptors in the skin that help the primary somatosensory cortex to processes physical sensations — CT afferents instead send signals to the insular cortex. “This is a deeper part of the cortex that deals more with your emotional equilibrium,” explains Wasling. “So you will get kind of a vague sensation. In the best of cases, it will be: ‘That was nice. I’m accepted. I feel safer now. Someone is counting on me.’ CT afferents also have pathways to parts of the brain that deal with who you are socially.”

For people who have now been living without that connection for a long time, it can be incredibly difficult, says Winch. “I have friends and patients that I work with who have not been touched in a year. At all. Not a handshake. And they are really suffering for it. There’s something that feels very distancing and cold about not having any kind of option for an embrace, and that can leave long lasting scars.”

Hugs, the form of touch we probably all miss the most, are particularly important and emotionally nourishing, says Winch. “When someone’s crying and we hold them, we’re doing it to comfort, but what it allows them to do is cry more. People usually will hold it together until somebody puts an arm around them, and then they’ll break down because that hug represents security and safety, and because of the closeness we feel when we know and trust that person.”

Moreover, the benefits of touch that we are missing out on are not just emotional and social but also physical; it can reduce pain and stress, as well as giving us a general feeling of wellbeing. These are the areas, says Wasling, where we may be able to support ourselves when we need to go for prolonged periods without social touch.

Here are some of the ways that we can ease the difficulty of living without this closeness — both for ourselves, and the people in our lives:

Take a shower or have a warm bath.

Although it doesn’t elicit quite the same physiological response as interpersonal touch, Wasling says the slow movement of the water on your skin is likely to generate a CT afferent response. Having a warm bath also relaxes your muscles, which can help to alleviate tension.

Cuddle a pet, or ask to walk someone else’s.

“Just being close to a furry animal has been shown to lower your stress, reduce your heart rate and your blood pressure,” says Wasling. You also have a social relationship with your pet — they rely on you and need you to show up for them.

There’s been a noted increase in people adopting pets during the pandemic, and at least one study has identified the potential therapeutic benefits of human-animal relationships when we are denied our normal level of human social interaction.

If you are able to see anyone in person, be wholly present — even if you can’t touch.

When we remove touch from our social interactions, we should consider what else we can emphasize instead. “Maybe we could be better at looking each other in the eyes, if we do have physical meetings,” suggests Wasling. “We can make sure that we see each other, because touching a person is a way of saying that ‘I see you, I acknowledge your existence.’”

Don’t be afraid to have deeper, more meaningful conversations where you really listen — especially if you know someone might be isolated or lonely. While these interactions don’t activate the same touch-based neural pathways, they still stimulate our social sense of belonging and intimacy, says Winch.

Don’t just “check in” on people who are alone — connect with them meaningfully.

It feels like everyone from our employers to the Twittersphere to US vice president Kamala Harris is reminding us to check in on our single friends. But are we going the right way about it?

“When we say ‘check in’ that’s like a checkbox. Tick; done,” says Winch. But that really isn’t enough. While the boredom and frustration of lockdowns are similar experiences for everyone, being isolated from the regular physical closeness of friends and family is uniquely difficult for people who are alone; the elderly, those who live by themselves, and those who are in high risk categories and cannot chance even one hug.

“If you just check in, that’s not going to be sufficient. You should be talking for at least 15 – 20 minutes for that to be a meaningful conversation. You have to really connect,” says Winch. If you’re both feeling Zoom fatigue, try each taking a walk while you talk on the phone.

If friends have described feeling ghostly or unreal, do your best to appreciate that the absence of touch has been a significant emotional loss for them during this time. One that you may never fully understand. Try not to say “I know how you feel,” if you are not in the same position.

“You know that when you touch things, they’re real to you,” says Wasling. “One of the reasons why I think touch is so important is that it makes you convinced you have a place in the social world of other people.”

As we look towards a vaccinated future, it is difficult to know right now how the pandemic will change our social attitudes towards touch in the long term. Will we still shake hands? Hug colleagues? A UK study conducted from January to March 2020, mostly before lockdown measures were introduced, found that 54 percent of people already felt they had too little touch in their lives. So we may well want this aspect of our lives to return as soon as possible.

But one facet that worries Winch is how the pandemic has actually reshaped our relationship with touch; “We took the thing that represents something so close, intimate and important, and now it represents something that’s actually dangerous and you should avoid. Even if we don’t fully register it, we are going to feel surges of anxiety at the idea of getting a hug. It’s going to take a while to bring us down from the danger alert of touch.”

Watch Helena Wasling’s TEDxGöteborg Talk here: 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.