Patrick Carroll, a psychology professor at The Ohio State University at Lima, studies that turning point. Psychologists call it an “action crisis,” the moment when someone starts seriously weighing whether to keep going after a long-term identity goal or walk away. In his research, Carroll describes these moments as inevitable. Setbacks pile up, obstacles start to feel heavier, and doubt begins to frame the decision about whether continuing is worth it.

His new research suggests a move that sounds too simple. When that doubt starts narrating your life, try doubting the doubt. “What this study found is that inducing doubts in one’s doubts can provide a formula for confidence,” Carroll said.

Right When You Want to Quit Is Probably When You Should Pause and Reconsider

In one study, 267 people rated how uncertain they felt about their most important goal. Then researchers nudged them into either confidence or doubt about their own thinking by having them write about a past moment of certainty or uncertainty. When participants got pushed into confidence, more goal doubt predicted less commitment. When they got pushed into doubt about their own thinking, that pattern reversed. Carroll described the punchline bluntly: “Doubt plus doubt equaled less doubt.” 

A second study with 130 college students reached the same conclusion using a physical cue. Participants answered questions with their non-dominant hand, which made their writing feel awkward and uncertain. Previous research shows that this kind of shaky handwriting can make people doubt the validity of their own thoughts, and that uncertainty ended up weakening the power of their goal doubts.

Use it as a tool, not a permission slip to grind forever. Carroll notes that the effect weakens when people become overly focused on managing their own doubt. Outside perspective helps here. A therapist, teacher, or friend can help you sort out whether a doubt reflects real limits or temporary frustration. Push the idea too far, though, and it can tip into overconfidence, trading healthy uncertainty for bad judgment.

Still, for anyone stuck in the messy middle stretch of a goal, the point feels humane. Your doubt is just a thought. Question how valid it is, then decide your next move with a little more agency.

The post Don’t Doubt Yourself or Your Goals, Doubt Your Doubts appeared first on VICE.

Just last night, after spending all day baking various types of Christmas cookies for my loved ones, I began to spiral about missing my usual gym session. God forbid I have a busy afternoon! 

And as I tasted one (or five) of my masterpieces, I felt that all-too-familiar shame overcoming me. What should have been a festive, warm Sunday evening, with my balsam and cedar candles burning and a fireplace ambiance on my TV, turned into an episode of self-loathing. Instead of gazing lovingly at my gorgeous Christmas tree, I found myself standing in front of my mirror in the worst possible lighting, noting every crease and internally screaming at myself for not finding the time to hit the treadmill.

Body image issues have a way of creeping in during the worst possible times. They thrive off your vulnerabilities—your lack of control or even your precious freedom to slow down—seeking ways to guilt and bully you. They often don’t make any real sense, especially to those around you.

The holidays are a prime time for flare-ups, and navigating your body image can feel overwhelming this time of the year. But you’re not alone in this struggle.

Don’t Shame Yourself—But Do Check Yourself

Unfortunately, you can’t always rationalize your way out of mental health struggles. If you could, I’m convinced none of us would suffer. Mental health conditions don’t care about logic. They don’t care how “superficial” or “petty” an issue might seem from the outside.

Just like you wouldn’t tell someone with a physical illness to “suck it up” or that “people have it worse,” you shouldn’t tell someone with a mental illness to “stop being so self-centered” and to “get over yourself.” 

Just as importantly, you shouldn’t tell yourself these things. Trust me, it will only perpetuate shame, which is often what’s at the core of most body image issues to begin with.

It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that our value comes from our appearance, especially today. Social media has exposed new insecurities I’d never thought twice about, pushing ways to “fix” normal human features or even bullying individuals for the way they look. 

But it’s important to catch yourself when you feel this internal shift occur. Unfollow people who set you off, and remember it isn’t their responsibility to deliver a certain type of content. It’s on you to decide what makes you feel most grounded and confident. It’s not personal.

Recognize Your Blessings

With the holidays come plenty of triggers, yes—but they also bring deep reflection and presence. Sure, the dessert table might stir up equal parts desire and shame. Sure, you might spend more time on the couch with a full belly and loved ones around you than at the gym lifting weights or getting your steps in. 

We tend to view exercise as punishment and appearance as value. We do something similar with the holidays: we view them as this stressful, overwhelming time, when really it’s a blessing to celebrate another year with the people we love. To have food on the table and space to rest. 

Can you allow yourself to recognize the privilege in that—without shaming the part of you that feels unworthy of it?

The post An Open Letter to Anyone Struggling With Body Image This Holiday Season appeared first on VICE.

A new study published in American Psychologist adds to what is clearly a growing body of evidence that isn’t just suggesting, but is screaming like a foulmouthed sailor that swearing up a storm can measurably improve physical performance.

Psychologist Richard Stephens of Keele University and colleagues set out to understand why swearing is basically a performance-enhancing drug. Previous research had already shown that people perform better physically when they swear.

This time, the researchers wanted to know whether profanity helps people loosen psychological restraints that normally keep them from using their full strength. Is calling someone a motherf—ker the key to unlocking your inner Incredible Hulk? Will you be able to lift a car off a child by shouting “b—h” over and over?

Science Says Swearing Boosts Performance, Making the Gym Even Weirder

Across two experiments involving 182 adults aged 18 to 65, participants were asked to perform a chair push-up hold. Sitting in a chair, they lifted their entire body off the seat using only their arms and held the position as long as possible, or up to 60 seconds.

While doing it, participants repeatedly said either a swear word of their choosing or a neutral, randomly assigned word.

Participants who cussed held the position longer than those using the toothless words. They also reported higher levels of positive emotion, confidence, humor, and focus, along with greater feelings of novelty and enjoyment. Swearing made the pain and agony feel more manageable.

The researchers expected swearing to reduce inhibitions or anxiety, but the evidence was mixed. What the data did show clearly was that profanity helped people shift into a mental state more conducive to effort and persistence.

Stephens describes swearing as “calorie-neutral, drug-free, low-cost,” and readily available—a psychological tool everyone has at their disposal, all they have to do is open their mouth and shout something that could make a nun blush.

The post Swearing Might Actually Make You Stronger, Science Says appeared first on VICE.

It turns out psilocybin might be rewriting our brains to eliminate the toxic negative thought loops of depression that relentlessly hammer at us when were at our lowest.

Scientists used an engineered rabies virus to map how psilocybin changes brain circuitry in mice. The goal is to better understand how it might interrupt the repetitive, negative thought loops associated with depression. Or, as the researchers call it, “rumination.”

Speaking with the Cornell Chronicle, Cornell University biomedical engineer Alex Kwan said that “rumination is one of the main points for depression, where people have this unhealthy focus, and they keep dwelling on the same negative thoughts.”

Study Suggests Psilocybin Can Break Depressive Brain Loops

According to the research team, psilocybin appears to weaken the neural feedback loops that keep those thoughts running on repeat. You still feel them occasionally, but they don’t echo in your mind endlessly. Instead, they eventually fade out and allow you to move on with your day and your life.

The team gave mice a single dose of psilocybin, followed by a modified rabies virus that traces neural connections by spreading across synapses and lighting them up with fluorescent proteins. The differences were stark when the scientists compared psilocybin-treated mice to a placebo group.

Brain regions involved in sensory processing became more connected to areas responsible for action, suggesting a shift away from internal looping and toward engagement with the outside world. The cortex is where repetitive thought patterns usually form. The researchers found that those connections were reduced.

This goes hand-in-hand with other research coming out of Kawn’s lab that showed silicide causing long-lasting structural changes in the brain. This new study adds a little bit of vital detail to that. It’s rewiring the brain, and that rewiring isn’t random. The drug might strengthen or weaken brain circuits depending on how they are used at the time.

This means that one day we might be able to combine psychedelics with targeted brain stimulation techniques to manipulate where and how brain rewiring occurs, essentially physically. A psychedelic drug might one day create a world where you can take your ailing brain to a brain mechanic to get a tune-up.

Right now, the findings are limited to mice, so there’s a lot more work to be done to see if it’s transformable to humans, but it’s getting harder and harder to deny that a psychedelic drug still banned in much of the country might be exactly what we’ve long needed to help us all get out of these depressive feedback loops.

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According to a new survey shared by StudyFinds, only about 1 in 10 Americans described the year as great overall. Everyone else landed somewhere between “okay, I guess” and “please don’t make me relive it.”

The results come from a nationwide survey that asked Americans to reflect on how the year actually felt, not how it looked on Instagram. News stories talked about the economy improving and life returning to normal, but most people didn’t feel that way at all. They felt like they were scraping by. Barely.

Roughly 40 percent of respondents said 2025 was “good” or “very good,” which sounds fine until you realize how low the bar has dropped. A much larger group described the year as average or mediocre, while a significant chunk said it was outright bad. Only about 10 percent felt confident calling it great.

Nearly 90% of Americans Didn’t Have a Great Time in 2025

Money played a starring role in the disappointment. Rising costs, lingering debt, and the feeling that paychecks stretch less each year shaped how people judged their happiness. Even respondents who said they were financially stable often reported stress around housing, healthcare, and long-term security. The sense wasn’t panic. It was fatigue.

Mental health played a significant role in how people judged the year. A lot of people shared the feeling of exhaustion and being stuck in repetitive routines that made it hard to stay hopeful. The data often mentioned work frustrations, burnout, and an overall sense of unease. People weren’t falling apart, but they also weren’t finding much to feel excited about.

Interestingly, the small group who called 2025 “great” didn’t necessarily have wildly different lives. They were more likely to report strong personal relationships, manageable expectations, and a feeling of control over their time. Their optimism seemed tied less to external wins and more to stability and connection.

Age, of course, showed up in the answers. Younger adults were more likely to report frustration and disappointment, often tied to finances and career uncertainty. Older respondents were slightly more forgiving in their assessments, even when dealing with similar pressures. Perspective helps, but it doesn’t erase stress.

The survey didn’t uncover any dramatic national collapse. A lot of people are just freaking tired. They’re doing what they’re supposed to do, showing up to work, paying bills, trying to stay healthy, and wondering why that effort doesn’t translate into feeling good about the year.

Calling 2025 “great” turned out to be a luxury opinion. For most Americans, the year didn’t feel like a win or a loss. It felt like another stretch of time survived. And for a country that keeps being told things are improving, that gap between messaging and lived experience might be the most honest result of all.

The post 90% of Americans Didn’t Have a Great Time in 2025 appeared first on VICE.

A new review from researchers at the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford says that laughing gas, a.k.a. nitrous oxide, can offer quick and substantive relief for people with major depressive disorder. This is especially true for those who still suffer despite having tried every chemical and nonchemical remedy under the sun.

The team, to publish their findings in eBioMedicine, gathered together seven clinical trials totaling 247 participants, plus a handful of plans from upcoming studies. Volunteers inhaled either 25 percent or 50 percent nitrous oxide, while control groups breathed in placebos. Unsurprisingly, the beefier 50 percent dose worked better.

However, it also brought along a nasty set of side effects like nausea, headaches, and a weird out-of-body sensation that participants found uncomfortable. Side effects aside, depressive symptoms were gone within two hours. And while they didn’t stick around, it wasn’t for too long.

Laughing Gas Shows Real Promise As Treatment For Severe Depression

Relief typically faded within a week unless the treatments continued. But the real focus here is the speed at which it made a massive difference in the lives of study participants. That puts it in the same conversation as ketamine, another fast-acting depression fighter that can lead to several adverse effects if overused.

As for why it works, the leading theory proposed by the researchers is that next oxide turns down the volume on the brain’s glutamatergic system, which is the neural communication network that has long been identified as playing a key role in depression.

Some side benefits likely play a role, like how nitrous oxide increases blood flow, which could boost the brain’s nutrient cycling and help clear out some of the junk chemicals lingering there. It’s essentially giving your brain a good old-fashioned power wash and detailed scrub.

The researchers are, of course, exercising caution, reminding us that we are still in the very early stages of understanding nitrous oxide’s effect on depression. A lot more research is needed before therapists can start recommending laughing gas dosages to the most severe depression sufferers.

The post Could Your Depression Be Cured With Laughing Gas? appeared first on VICE.

While researching ways to reconnect with myself after a particularly stressful year, health-wise, I stumbled upon this Reddit post, titled simply: “How do you get your spark back?”

While losing your “spark” might be common, it’s an awful experience to endure. Thankfully, there are some ways to return home to yourself. Here are eight tips to get your spark back, from Redditors who’ve been there themselves.  

1. Set Achievable Goals 

“I find it fulfilling to be working towards something, even if it’s a personal goal such as learning how to bake cakes, as well as socializing with strangers.” — u/Fishy_Sezer

2. Feed Your Nostalgia

“Everyone has an inner key, usually something from childhood… A happy memory, no matter how small. A cake you ate and loved? Bake it. Music you heard on the record player? Listen to the vinyl or hear it live. If something meant enough to you for you to remember, feed it. Nostalgia? Yes, it seems tacky… but it’s the fastest path to a spark you thought you’d lost.” — u/TCNZ

3. Spend Time With Yourself and Your Hobbies

“I had lost my spark just by being worn out by life in general, and unexpectedly got it back during the pandemic lockdown, where I was forced to sit and do nothing for three months. I rediscovered my hobbies, and honestly, I was the happiest I had ever been in my adult life. 

“I think work, bills, responsibilities, and partaking in made-up systems created by society just drains you. I think taking a long break and focusing on things you love usually does the trick for me.” — u/sneezingfeathers 

4. Find Joy in the ‘Little Things’

“Try to see the overwhelming beauty behind it all. It’s like a hidden secret … there all the time, but hiding in plain sight. Once you find this, life can spring inside once more, as it’s the answer to the question of depression.” — u/Going_Solvent

5. Practice Gratitude

“Stop taking things for granted, appreciate and have gratitude for everything, stop draining your dopamine with substances, and spend more time in nature and exercise more. These actions will give you your spark back by changing your perspective and making you feel better.” — u/onceuponatime28

6. Learn and Create

“I find passion for life through learning. When life starts to lose its luster, I dig into something I don’t know much about and start to learn.

“Also, I found [that] creating things helps keep my brain ignited. Art, building stuff, painting stuff, music stuff. All of it.” ” — u/Iguessimnotcreative

7. Explore and Play

“Exploring new things has made me happy recently. I have been traveling to new places, socializing with new people at places like spas, playing video games with my husband that I’ve never played before, which seems to be a lot of fun.” — u/Vegetable-Two5164

8. Commit to Your Own Excitement and Happiness

“You have to choose to want it back and then take action to reengage it. Nothing will change if you just walk around wondering where it went. You are in a relationship, just like any other, with the universe and physical reality. If you are just wandering around asking why your partner isn’t exciting you anymore, it might be time to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why it is that YOU aren’t excited anymore. There is plenty to be excited about. You just have to pick something and try it. If that’s not the thing that excites you, pick something else and try it. Repeat until excitement sparks.” — u/Sammovt

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2026: The Year of the 10th Arcana

Next year, 2026, will be the year of the 10th arcana. In tarot, the 10th card of the Major Arcana is the Wheel of Fortune, which represents themes like “movement, progress, change, and the launch of a major new cycle,” says Karyna Diadiura, an astrologer and spiritual advisor at Nebula, a spiritual guidance platform.

“The 10th Arcana opens doors to opportunities, synchronicities, and unexpected chances,” she continues. “This year, destiny responds more quickly to your actions, and your intentions carry magnetic power.”

If you’re into manifesting at all, you likely know this will be a magical year.

“The end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026 is the perfect time to consciously program yourself, your space, and your energy field for success,” says Diadiura.

How to Energetically Cleanse and Manifest Going Into 2026

Here are three ways to prepare for 2026—so you can make it your best year yet.

1. Cleanse Your Space and Body

According to Diadiura, before the new year begins, you should perform some forms of energetic cleansing. This might look like decluttering and organizing your home, taking a salt bath, or practicing meditation to clear old energy.

2. Close Old Cycles

You don’t want to carry any negative, outdated habits or patterns into the new year.

“Old debts—emotional, financial, or practical—drain your luck,” says Diadiura. “The Wheel of Fortune loves clarity and openness.”

3. Set Your Intentions

Before embarking on a new cycle, whether it be a new lunar cycle or even just a new day or week, intention-setting is always a good idea.

“Intentions are inner commitments,” says Diadiura. She recommends writing down three main focuses for the new year, answering the following questions in the process:

• Where do you want to move forward?
• What do you want to feel more of?
• Who are you in your best version?

Rituals to Perform Before 2026

If you want a more specific and structured pre-2026 routine, here are some key dates to keep in mind.

1. Cleansing & Renewal Ritual – December 27–30

The last few days of the year are ideal for cleansing. 

“These are days when energy naturally slows down, preparing for the year’s closure,” says Diadiura. “Light a candle and write down what you want to release from 2025. Visualize these energies dissolving, [and] give thanks and close the ritual by extinguishing the candle.”

2. Gratitude Ritual – December 31

If you want to call in new manifestations, first master the art of gratitude. The last day of the year is perfect for this practice.

“Gratitude is a powerful magnet for your dreams,” says Diadiura. “Write down 26 things you are grateful for in 2025 (26 corresponds to the new year). This ritual enhances your energy of acceptance.”

3. Intention Ritual – Night of December 31 to January 1

No matter how you spend New Year’s Eve—whether at the club with all your friends or alone on your couch with your cat—remember to perform an intention ritual at midnight.

“Midnight marks the strongest energy for transition,” says Diadiura. “During this time, make wishes, meditate briefly on the year ahead, and repeat affirmations (3–5, short and in the present tense).” 

Even if you’re out celebrating, all it takes is a few focused moments to set your intentions. In fact, you can even make it a lighthearted group activity to strengthen its effects. 

Rituals to Manifest Your Desires in 2026

Once we’ve moved into the new year, it’s time to manifest with 2026’s strong energy. Here are some ways to do so.

1. Letter to Yourself in 2026

Letter-writing is one of the most powerful forms of manifestation—and it’s quite simple.

“Write a letter from your future self at the end of 2026: ‘I lived this year as… I received… I felt…’” Diadiura recommends. “Describe everything you want to achieve and experience.
This is a powerful quantum intention technique.”

Essentially, your letter will be written in the past tense, as though you’ve already lived through 2026. This tricks the brain into believing these manifestations have already come into fruition. 

2. Candle Ritual for Your Path

Working with candles can help supercharge your manifestations. 

“Take a white or gold candle, light it, and say: ‘I open my new path. I allow the Universe to guide me. My year is blessed,’” Diadiura advises.

3. Intention Jar Ritual

As you already learned above, setting intentions can be a powerful way to keep yourself on track and align yourself with your desires. 

To create an intention jar, Diadiura advises placing a list of your desires inside, along with “a dried rose petal (for love), lavender (for peace), a cinnamon stick (for luck), [and] a coin (for finances).” She recommends hiding the jar in a secret place, so no one else has access to it.

The post A Quick Guide to Cleansing and Manifesting for 2026 appeared first on VICE.

But does this viral trend trigger mental health reactions? According to Jordan Parmenter, LPC, M.A., a therapist at LifeStance Health, Spotify Wrapped can reveal some deep wounds and desires. Here are some of the psychological drivers behind the Spotify Wrapped hype.

Music As a Psychological Trigger

Our music preferences and listening habits tell us a lot about ourselves, and they can even elicit strong emotional reactions.

“Music, in itself, triggers a multi-sensory stimulus that can intensely engage both our mind and body—which explains why music can hit us so deeply,” says Parmenter. “It is activating so many parts of our mind that it is almost impossible to ignore the impact. To break it down a little bit further, listening to music stimulates our brain’s dopamine system (where we experience pleasure), our limbic system (emotion regulation center), and even our physiological responses. I would even argue that there is a cultural component to music that can have an even more emotional impact/reaction.”

That being said, shared music taste can actually provide emotional validation and a sense of community.

“It is in our human nature to want to connect with others, be seen, and [be] relatable,” Parmenter continues. “Because of this, it is not surprising that shared music taste can provide us with such emotional validation! It fills us with a sense of immense joy and content when we can share our music taste (or anything that someone can have in common!) with someone who just gets it.”

In fact, music can even contribute to our sense of identity.

“Sometimes in our lives, we can struggle with our sense of self, identity, [and] who we are. And sometimes, our music taste can take on that role of how we identify,” Parmenter explains. “A lot of people can define themselves by the music that they listen to, and when someone shares that same music taste, it feels like this person sees you and shares some alignment of interests.”

Spotify Wrapped and the Comparison Game

To say Spotify Wrapped has a “dark side” is a bit dramatic, but it can lead to some negative reactions, like comparison and envy. For example, if someone doesn’t find common ground with their listening patterns among friends, they might feel left out.

“While I feel that the intention of Spotify Wrapped is good, sometimes the impact can feel that there is this inherent comparison and, almost, [a] competitive level to it,” says Parmenter. “Comparison often triggers sociological terms around social evaluation and self-consciousness, which can lead to feelings of inadequacy or pressure to appear unique—here is where human nature needs to connect can hurt us.”

Especially when it comes to sharing our Spotify Wrapped results on social media, social comparison can run rampant. 

Benefits of Spotify Wrapped

While there might be some mental health triggers and comparisons involved with Spotify Wrapped, the campaign does have its wholesome benefits, too.

“I like to think of Spotify Wrapped as our year in music—in that, it takes us on a journey that has been our entire year,” Parmenter says. “This means the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between. It can show us how far we have come, identify patterns/themes that we may not have noticed before, and, in turn, growth areas for the present and future.”

Instead of harping on the negatives or feeling left out among the rest of your friends, use your listening data as an empowering and insightful tool.

“Remember that we are in charge of the meaning that we give (or don’t give) to things—we get to control that,” says Parmenter. “With that being said, I hope we can use our Spotify Wrapped to help us recognize our own resiliencies, amongst other strengths, to help us continue to grow, rather than use it to compare ourselves to others.”

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A new study out of Loughborough University and the University of Zurich, published in Biological Reviews, suggests that the modern world is wrecking our bodies and minds. Turns out, our tech and the world we’ve built with it have evolved so quickly that we’re struggling to keep up.  

Researchers Colin Shaw and Daniel Longman argue that for nearly all of human history, stress came in short bursts, mostly in the form of predators popping out of the bush to obliterate us. If you were fortunate enough to survive, that was generally the end of your peak stress levels for the foreseeable future.

Now, there are lions everywhere. The lions are traffic jams, constant notifications, smartphones, etc. Our bodies respond to all of this exactly the way they were programmed to—by panicking like you’re about to be pounced on by a beast. And since there’s no off switch, we’re just marinating in stress hormones that are firing off nearly 24/7.

The researchers argue that the chemical effects of constant stress show up everywhere. It’s in our rising inflammatory diseases, declining fertility, mental-health spikes, and the whole global “sperm counts are dropping” situation. The researchers say that this might be natural selection at work, just instead of the “strongest” surviving, it’s those who can best handle the constant barrage of madness that humans were in no way built to withstand, at least not in such high concentrations and for so long.

The core issue here is that evolution is slow and the world is fast. The minds that imagined and built our modern world weren’t built to survive it.

So…what now?

Shaw and his colleagues say we need to fundamentally rethink how we build and live in our environments. That means more green spaces, even in gray, unnatural cities — especially in cities. They’re calling for natural spaces to be treated like essential infrastructure, not just scenery.

The internet trolls were right all along. Maybe some of us, all of us, need to go touch grass.

The post Modern Life Is Too Stressful And Human Evolution Is Struggling To Keep Up appeared first on VICE.