If you notice friends or relatives using emotional cushioning, experts recommend respecting their approach. While it can be tempting to offer reassurance (“I’m sure everything will be fine!”) or point out silver linings (“At least you know you can get pregnant!”), these phrases can backfire. “I always felt like I could see this big cliff […]
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Michele Miller, of Bayside, N.Y., was infected with the coronavirus in March and hasn’t smelled anything since then. Recently, her husband and daughter rushed her out of their house, saying the kitchen was filling with gas. She had no idea. “It’s one thing not to smell and taste, but this is survival,” Ms. Miller said. […]
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archived recording Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi, Daily team. michael barbaro From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. archived recording You know, I don’t have to be the first one to say that 2020 was rough, but — 2020 has been a really crazy year for everybody. There’s been a […]
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Many boys and men I interviewed for my book assured me they didn’t need support networks, because they had a close friend or two in whom they confided. What these boys and men ultimately sought from male friends wasn’t emotional support; they used what I call “targeted transparency” for solutions to the few, carefully vetted […]
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I am not a private person — quite the opposite — but I do have two secrets. The first concerns some Bad Events that happened to me long ago (yes, it’s the sort of thing you are thinking of), and the second is an unrelated Fact about my neurological makeup. Let me be clear: I […]
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Anyone else dreading winter? Cases of Covid-19 are climbing, and winter weather is going to cut off many of the lifelines — picnics in the park, running outside, outdoor dining — so many people have depended on for sanity this year. Vaccines are on the horizon, but even the most optimistic timelines put them months […]
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We’ve all had one of those weeks: Your car breaks down, you get in trouble at work, you spill wine on an expensive dress, a family member gets sick. Sometimes those weeks turn into months or even years, and you begin to wonder if the universe is out to get you. This year has been […]
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Right now you probably feel like a spring that’s been tightly compressed under enormous weight. From the outside, it appears still. Inside it is coursing with intense potential (anxious!) energy just dying for release. All elections elicit this feeling to some degree. But the 2020 contest has raised the stakes, adding looming threats of disinformation […]
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With the election just a few days away, I have transformed into an absolute and terrible mess of a mother. My kids can sense that I’m vibrating with emotion, and I can sense that it’s freaking them out. Should I be talking to them about the election and about my hopes and fears? Or should […]
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On a recent morning, my family was assembled in our customary positions at the kitchen table: my husband, Tom, and I hunched over our computers, while our daughter, wearing headphones, did math problems for remote learning. Looking up to ask Tom a question, my view was blocked by a Jenga-like tower of clutter he had […]
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The pandemic has left no one untouched, even the most secure among us. The stress of the combined health, economic and racial inequality crises has illuminated and intensified even our seemingly insignificant woes and worries. We’re collectively experiencing a monumental life shift and actively leaning on our inner circle for support as a result. This […]
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Drew Kanevsky, a Jets season-ticket holder since 2002, misses the familiar game day rhythms when the team is at home: putting on his trusty No. 74 Nick Mangold jersey, tailgating at Lot K1 at MetLife Stadium, explaining nuances to his 10-year-old son, Anthony, that the television feed doesn’t show. But in this fraught N.F.L. season […]
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LeAnne Simpson’s 6-year-old daughter had thrown plenty of tantrums before the pandemic. But after a few weeks of lockdown, minor frustrations that used to lead to short-lived outbursts were now setting off writhing-on-the-floor freakouts. “First, she’d get so frustrated she couldn’t talk,” Simpson said. “Then she would start screaming, drop to the floor and roll […]
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Abby Guido is dreading the winter. The cold will force her family back into the same kind of lockdown they faced in the early days of the pandemic. “It’s constantly on my mind,” said Ms. Guido, 41, an assistant professor of graphic and interactive design at Temple University. Ms. Guido’s husband, Chris, has lymphoma, so […]
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The swarm of insects — sometimes gnats, sometimes wasps or flying ants — arrived early in this year of nightmares. With summer came equally unsettling dreams: of being caught in a crowd, naked and mask-less; of meeting men in white lab coats who declared, “We dispose of the elders.” Autumn has brought still other haunted-house […]
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“I want more intimacy, more vulnerability. That was a challenge in my marriage. For too long I felt sad and alone, and I just don’t want to feel alone anymore.” This has been the threadbare anthem for women of all ages in their romantic partnerships with far too many men for far too long. That’s […]
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Consciously watching for small wonders in the world around you during an otherwise ordinary walk could amplify the mental health benefits of the stroll, according to an interesting new psychological study of what the study’s authors call “awe walks.” In the study, people who took a fresh look at the objects, moments and vistas that […]
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Following my most recent column offering adults a 2020 back-to-school list for teens’ emotional well-being, several teenage commenters asked that I address them in the same way that I address their parents: “as intelligent people who have the tools to support themselves and their loved ones through this trying time.” Dear teenagers, you are right. […]
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It’s an unfortunate reality that even during the coronavirus pandemic, other large-scale disasters and crises are continuing to happen, adding to the suffering that families have already experienced. On the West Coast, the worst fire season on record has burned millions of acres and destroyed towns in California, Oregon and Washington, forcing hundreds of thousands […]
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When my daughter started remote kindergarten last month, the schedule sent to parents included more than reading, math, art and other traditional subjects. She’ll also have sessions devoted to “social and emotional learning.” Themes range from listening skills and reading nonverbal cues to how to spot and defuse bullying. As millions of students start the […]
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We’re all getting used to face masks, either wearing them or figuring out who we’re looking at. They can even trip up those of us who are experts in faces. “Actually, I just had an experience today,” said Marlene Behrmann, a cognitive neuroscientist at Carnegie Mellon University who has spent decades studying the science of […]
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Between travel restrictions and limits on visitors to hospitals, parents may get the news of a loved one’s death over the phone and find themselves having to tell children who may be unprepared. At the end of March, doctors in the child and adolescent psychiatry group at Oxford University, led by Alan Stein, published an […]
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How many times have you seen that line in an email this year and thought, “Well, no, this email does not find me well — I’m terrible, thanks.” None of us are well! There’s still a deadly virus raging across the country, more than 1,000 people are dying every day, millions of people have lost […]
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Aug. 17, 2020 ImageCredit…Daiana-Ruiz By Char Adams When the coronavirus pandemic began to spread, I expected it to upend my life. As a Black disabled woman living in New York, once the American epicenter of the crisis, I thought I would bear the brunt of whatever was about to come. I dreaded almost every work […]
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July 16, 2020 ImageCredit…Giacomo Gambineri Instead of just agreeing to a request while letting the disdain slowly build, make a well-informed decision. By Allie Volpe Until February of this year, doing a friend a favor was mostly a matter of logistics, timing and an honest conversation about whether, well, this friend was worth the effort. […]
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