TagAnxiety
Growing Up on the Internet is Like Growing Up on Mars
We need to come back to Earth
Inside Out 2: Anxiety Takes Over
New animated film explores the internal anxieties of a teenage girl
Helpful Video Maps Out Gen Z Mental Health Crisis
The glow of the screen is swallowing a generation, and it needs to stopSocial psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Anxious Generation topped the New York Times bestsellers’ chart two weeks in a row, and has been stirring up a lot of commentary in the meantime. Haidt’s basic thesis is that we have drastically overprotected children in the real world and woefully under-protected them in the virtual world. A new video helpfully lines out this argument, and shows why today’s generation, more than the Millennials who preceded them, struggle so intensely with anxiety, depression, and loneliness. In a recent interview, author and public intellectual Andy Crouch said that while he doesn’t know if it can be backed up neurologically, there is something about the “glow” of screens that wakens something primordial in the Read More ›
New Findings About Our Mysterious “Second Brain”
You Are Not Your Brain
Does the current discourse on mental health need to change?Mental health has been a “hot topic” for a number of years now, especially in relation to social media use and in light of rising suicide rates in the U.S. We recently covered General Surgeon Vivek Murthy’s comments on the dangers of children using social media. It’s increasingly apparent that excessive screen time is linked to poorer mental health, low self-esteem, and negative self-assessment among teenagers. More broadly, the terms “anxiety” and “depression” are used in common parlance. The mental language has become basically ubiquitous. While depression and anxiety are certainly rising, and the issue should be treated with great care and compassion, writer Lucy Foulkes thinks that some teens experience feelings of being left out if they don’t suffer Read More ›
Dealing with Social Anxiety: Set Some Goals
Without an overarching goal, we can't effectively practice the practical steps that can get us over social anxietyIt’s no secret that rates of anxiety and depression have risen drastically in the modern American context. A cacophony of factors is to blame–everything from the decline of faith, loss of community, and digital media addiction. And for many, even when the possibility of social interaction arrives, the anxiety kicks in and leaves them feeling immobile and paralyzed. So, what can we do to practice confidence and ease in public situations? A new article at Psyche goes into depth on practical steps people can take to overcome social anxiety. The first recommendation is goal-setting. What’s your vision? What are the goalposts you’re shooting for in life? Fallon Goodman writes, Without an overarching goal, we can’t effectively practice the steps that Read More ›
Is Fear the Same Thing for a Human Being as for an Animal?
Psychiatrist Joseph Ledoux has thought about that; it’s a complex problemRecently, we looked at consciousness from the perspective of Joseph LeDoux’s recent book, A Deep History of Ourselves (1919). Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett situates his work at Nature, offering an interesting qualification: LeDoux, an academic at New York University in New York City, is best known for his research on fear, and for carefully mapping the brain circuit centred on the amygdala — a knot of neurons in the medial temporal lobe. The amygdala, he showed, has a crucial role in non-conscious, defensive behaviour responses such as freezing or fleeing. His conclusion, based on the assumption that all mammalian amygdala circuits are structurally similar, was that all mammals (including humans) share these responses. He described this work in The Emotional Read More ›
Neuroscientist: Your Brain Isn’t for Thinking, Just Surviving
Lisa Feldman Barrett hopes that her materialist perspective will help us deal with our current anxietiesLast Sunday, we featured the views of philosopher Samir Chopra, who argues that anxiety, while distressing, is a normal outcome of our human ability to see the past and the future as well as the present. A pig gets anxious when he sees that his trough is empty. But he cannot, by nature, know that he is destined for the menu at a local fast food place, let alone that all his kin have gone that way. Knowing the past and sensing the future opens up both great powers and vast avenues of anxiety for a human mind. But, in an op-ed in the New York Times, psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett (pictured), the author of Seven and a Read More ›
A Philosopher Writes in Praise of Anxiety
It is part of the ability to think about life in a human wayYes, you read that right. Samir Chopra (pictured) thinks that anxiety is not a pathology but part of the ability to think about life in a human way. Chopra, author with Laurence White of A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents (2011), writes, Humans are philosophising animals precisely because we are the anxious animal: not a creature of the present, but regretful about the past and fearful of the future. We philosophise to understand our past, to make our future more comprehensible. The unknown produces a distinctive unease; enquiry and the material and psychic tools it yields provide relief. Where anxiety underwrites enquiry, we claim that the success of the enquiry removes anxiety and is pleasurably anticipated. Enquiry comes to Read More ›
Why Does “Evolution Theory” Trivialize Everything It Touches?
A pair of evolutionary anthropologists try their hand at dealing with existential grief, anxiety, and depressionA couple of evolutionary anthropologists tried their hand recently at illuminating the depths of human anxiety. They started by getting one thing clear right away: Researchers in our field are trained to think about humans in the same way that we think about chimpanzees, macaques and any other animal on the planet. We recognise that humans, like all other species, evolved in environments that posed many challenges, such as predation, starvation and disease. As such, human psychology is well-adapted to meet these challenges. Kristen Syme and Edward H. Hagen, “Most anguish isn’t an illness but an evolved response to adversity” at Psyche (September 29, 2020) So humans are just like other animals. Syme and Hagen oppose treating “the common mental Read More ›
If Thinking Can Heal, Why Do We Need Antidepressants?
J.P. Moreland, who struggles with anxiety disorders, likens medications to engine oil for the brain“If you’re driving your car and you’re low or don’t have any oil, parts of the engine are going to rub against one another and it’s going to cause a lot of friction and dysfunction.”
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Can fitter brains help us fight depression?
Philosopher J. P. Moreland continues his account of working his way through a devastating anxiety disorder"Anxiety and depression are largely—not entirely but largely—habit. And those habits are ingrained in the different members of our body," Moreland explains.
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Is Your Brain More a Muscle or a Cloud?
JP Moreland discusses the habits of anxiety and depression and how to defeat themWith guest host Mike Keas, JP Moreland discusses his new book, Finding Quiet. He addresses the relative evidence for the soul and the brain, the integration of faith with knowledge from the social and natural sciences, and biblical and practical ways to retrain your brain and body to defeat habits of anxiety and depression. Show Notes 01:15 | Knowledge of Read More ›
J. P. Moreland’s Model of the Human Self Survived the Ultimate Field Test
Could the Christian philosopher rely on his model to help himself heal from psychiatric disorder?
Theologian, Battling Depression, Reaffirms the Existence of the Soul
J. P. Moreland reasons his way to the evidence and captures his discoveries in a bookIt’s not often that a theologian admits to personal issues like anxiety and depression. But Biola University’s Moreland has written a book about how he coped by learning more about the nature of our immaterial minds.
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