Are Good News (Vaccines!) and Bad News (Variants!) Giving You Psychological Whiplash?
Why ‘uncertainty of safety’ is driving your brain bananas right now
After a year of terrifying news, we’re finally seeing some lights at the end of the tunnel: three(!) vaccines; almost 70 million doses already administered; a new administration that seems to actually listen to scientists. But it’s also clear that the scary times are far from over: New mutations of SARS-CoV-2 are circulating (not unusual for a virus but still concerning); folks in some of the most vulnerable groups aren’t getting nearly enough priority in the vaccine distribution process; and after promising declines, cases are rising again in the U.S. and around the world.
If this push-pull of good and bad news feels overwhelming, it’s because it is. Our brains crave stability and safety, and when we’re uncertain about whether the situation we’re in is safe, our brains basically assume it isn’t and go into stress-response mode.
As Andrea Bartz wrote in Elemental a few months ago:
As a brain pattern, the stress response is … always on. Your prefrontal cortex — the brain region associated with higher-level functions like problem-solving and decision-making — works like brakes, keeping the stress response quiet but…
