Layoffs often follow increases in economic uncertainty. Executives and consultants pitch “reducing headcount” as necessary, and sometimes even responsible, steps to “protecting the business.” Cutting payroll costs appears, at least in theory, to improve efficiency and restore profitability.

While the term “reducing headcount” does seem to strip away the human reality of layoffs, what if the basic financial evidence behind the effectiveness of layoffs is flawed? What if it is an antiquated assumption that offers short-lived gains that ultimately cost more than they save?

A growing body of peer-reviewed research suggests that layoffs may not deliver the benefits leaders assume—and may, in fact, undermine both organizational health and long-term performance.

Do layoffs achieve their financial aims?

At first glance, the typical reasons for layoffs over the last 30 years seem to make sense.

Companies may need to adjust their operations and cut costs as technology and competition shifts. In the current landscape of layoffs, layoffs are usually justified by the rise of artificial intelligence. But many experts warn of “AI Washing,” the convenient blaming of AI for layoffs that may be driven by other factors—including simple imitative behavior.

“Tech industry layoffs are basically an instance of social contagion, in which companies imitate what others are doing,” writes Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of the 1998 book The Human Equation and a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “If you look for reasons for why companies do layoffs, the reason is that everybody else is doing it. Layoffs are the result of imitative behavior.”

In other words, the introduction of AI may be triggering a fad of layoffs that isn’t necessarily linked to financial performance. In fact, across decades of management research, one finding shows up again and again: layoffs rarely deliver sustained financial gains.

Some studies report short-term gains. For example, one 1998 study by Fayez Elayan and colleagues analyzed 349 layoff announcements and found that layoffs were followed by increases in profit margins and labor productivity. However, improved post-layoff profitability may partly reflect recovery from a low point, regression toward the mean, or accounting effects, rather than layoffs themselves creating long-term organizational strength. 

In a series of longitudinal studies, Wayne Cascio and colleagues compared large corporations that engaged in significant workforce reductions with those that did not. Their findings show that firms with large layoffs often underperformed their peers in profitability and stock price over subsequent years.

Similarly, a broader synthesis of downsizing research by Susan L. McKinley and colleagues concluded that performance effects are inconsistent at best, with many firms experiencing declines in long-term outcomes.

In a 2012 review of 20 studies on corporate layoffs, Deepak Datta of the University of Texas at Arlington found that layoffs tended to have either neutral or negative effects on stock prices immediately after they were announced. He also found that most companies experienced declines in profitability following layoffs—and related research suggested those financial setbacks often persisted for as long as three years.

“Layoffs often do not cut costs, as there are many instances of laid-off employees being hired back as contractors, with companies paying the contracting firm,” says Pfeffer in a 2022 interview. “Layoffs often do not increase stock prices, in part because layoffs can signal that a company is having difficulty…. Layoffs do not solve what is often the underlying problem, which is often an ineffective strategy, a loss of market share, or too little revenue.” 

How do humans experience layoffs?

Beyond measurable financial impact, layoffs are often very detrimental to organizational performance. According to results from a 2002 study by Magnus Sverke, Johnny Hellgren, and Katharina Näswall, employees who remained after layoffs experienced steep declines in morale and effectiveness, including a 41% drop in job satisfaction, a 36% decline in organizational commitment, and a 20% decrease in job performance.

Layoffs can also weaken the innovation, inventions, and relationships companies depend on to thrive. In one study of a Fortune 500 technology company, Teresa Amabile found that after reducing its workforce by 15%, new inventions fell by nearly a quarter.

And the damage can extend to customers, as well. Research by Paul Williams, M. Sajid Khan, and Earl Naumann found that customers are more likely to turn away from products or services after layoffs—suggesting that workforce reductions can erode not only internal trust, but brand loyalty, too.

While cutthroat employers might claim, “It’s not personal, it’s just business,” Pfeffer is unequivocal on the impact of layoffs, “Layoffs kill people, literally. They kill people in a number of ways. Layoffs increase the odds of suicide by two and a half times…. Layoffs increase mortality by 15-20% over the following 20 years.”

In addition, the effects of layoffs can persist for years. A 2009 Columbia University study found that workers who lost their jobs during the 1982 recession were still earning 20% less than peers who remained employed two decades later.

The harmful consequences extend far beyond income. Research by Kate Strully at the State University of New York found that laid-off employees were 83% more likely to develop a new health condition in the year following job loss and significantly more likely to engage in violent behavior.

Together, these studies suggest that layoffs aren’t just short-term episodes—they have lasting effects for people’s health, financial futures, personal well-being, and relationships.

What are the alternatives?

As Pfeffer cautions, “People don’t pay attention to the evidence against layoffs.” Perhaps it’s time that they do—and so consider the alternatives.

In a now-legendary story about the early days of Southwest Airlines in the 1970s, the leadership had a serious decision to make during a time of extreme financial pressure for the company.  With only three planes in its fleet during the crisis, the choice for cost savings ultimately came down to two options: layoff employees, or sell an airplane. 

To align with their values of trust, loyalty, and operational continuity, Southwest surprised the industry by deciding to sell an airplane, rather than lay off any of its workforce. What followed was an intense but uplifting period where people pulled together and figured out how to shrink the turnaround time between flights in order to fly more flights each day with only two airplanes. This turned into a sizable competitive advantage for Southwest for years to come, helping it become one of the most profitable airlines in the U.S. 

Southwest continued its long “no layoffs” streak for over 50 years, even after most airlines chose to institute layoffs after major shocks like the 9/11 tragedy and the COVID pandemic.  (Note: In 2025, Southwest did finally succumb to pressure from investors and layoff employees in combination with other service changes that made their brand less unique, like assigned seats and fees for checked luggage.)

During the 2008 financial crisis, industrial manufacturer Barry-Wehmiller faced severe declines in their revenue. Rather than laying people off, CEO Bob Chapman chose a combination of temporary furloughs, shared unpaid leave, and executive sacrifices (like temporarily cutting his own salary from $875,000 to $10,500). Employees came together and shared the downturn-related losses so that no one person had to lose their job. This path of coming together and sharing sacrifices for the good of the company may, in fact, have enhanced employees’ sense of purpose and organizational commitment. Barry-Wehmiller recovered successfully, became internationally known for its human-centered leadership model, and is now a multi-billion dollar company.

As these examples illustrate, forward-thinking companies and organizations often have more options than they originally believed—and they can consider alternatives to layoffs when times get tough:

• redeployment (moving people into more needed positions in the company);
• reskilling (teaching new skills that the company needs);
• temporary furloughs (having everyone take a bit of time off to save on payroll);
• reduced hours/pay sharing;
• hiring freezes; and
• natural attrition.

One example of reskilling had very positive effects. In 2008, AT&T had one of the world’s largest workforces—and the company realized it was facing a massive technological transition that would require new skills. Internal research showed that only about half of its 250,000 employees had the science, technology, engineering, and math capabilities the company would need going forward. At the same time, roughly 100,000 employees were working in hardware-related roles that leaders believed would likely disappear within the next decade as the company shifted toward software and digital services. 

Instead of laying off people and paying high labor prices for tech-focused workers, AT&T created a massive reskilling campaign, with thousands earning “learning badges” for their newfound skills, thereby helping the company make a digital transformation. Perhaps a similar program could work in the age of AI? 

Overall, these layoff-avoidant approaches preserve the human ingenuity and energy that powers organizational success, while maintaining trust between employees and their employer—and allowing companies to bounce back faster from future challenges.

This is what’s known as “anticipatory grief”—a reaction to loss that hasn’t yet occurred. While it’s fairly common to experience it for a loved one facing a terminal illness, you can also experience it in other potential loss situations, like retiring from a fulfilling career, a child going away to college, or divorce. It often involves a liminal state of being, like what I experienced, that can wreak havoc with your well-being and interfere with your ability to be present.

While similar to after-loss grief, anticipatory grief has its own issues and trajectories that can make it hard to manage, says Alan Wolfelt, director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition and an expert on the topic. While you may lean toward ignoring or pushing away these complex emotions, denying your grief and suffering silently will probably not help you or your loved ones cope better.

“Too often, people are trying to be happy at times when they should be sad, and that inhibits their ability to fully integrate a life transition into their world,” says Wolfelt. “We can better cope with realities we face by acknowledging them.”

Anticipatory grief, like after-loss grief, can be painful. But by understanding what it’s like and giving yourself permission to explore its many facets, you might be able to mitigate some of the pain and move through it with more intention.

Similar and different from regular grief

Like grief after a loss, anticipated grief can involve strong and varied emotions. You may feel happy, sad, angry, confused, worried, relieved, guilty, and more, and the feelings may arise at seemingly random moments, sometimes overwhelming you. Your feelings can be hard to explain even to yourself, let alone others.

For example, imagine your teenage son is applying to colleges. Suddenly, you’re hit with the reality that he’ll be leaving home soon and your life will change dramatically. You may feel sad anticipating losing your son’s everyday presence, look forward to a new, freer chapter in your life, or both. You may feel pride and joy for his bright future, but fear losing your close relationship and your role as his parent.

These myriad emotions can be disorienting—but it’s important to honor them, however they show up, says Wolfelt.

“The more open acknowledgement you can have of what your genuine, authentic emotions are, the better,” he says.

While grieving a death may seem natural and expected, anticipatory grief may come with some resistance, like telling yourself (or other people telling you) there’s no reason to feel what you’re feeling. However, according to Wolfelt, denying your pain only adds to it, negatively affecting your everyday well-being. A better way to handle anticipatory grief is to own it and process it through mourning.

“Grief is the internal response, the thoughts and feelings inside,” he says. “In contrast, mourning is the shared social response or grief gone public; it’s taking your grief and putting it into action. That creates change or movement.”

The importance of mourning

There are known, socially-acceptable ways to mourn someone who’s died, like funerals, sitting Shiva, Dia de los Muertos, and other rituals. While there may be fewer structured ways to manage anticipatory grief, we can help ourselves through the experience by understanding the importance of mourning in processing grief.

“Mourning helps you integrate loss and be transformed by your grief,” says Wolfelt. “You get stuck if you grieve but don’t mourn.”

The very nature of anticipatory grief (or any grief) is that it can feel different from one moment to the next, and from one person to another. That means our mourning needs may change over time. No one needs to follow a specific pattern, says Wolfelt, but we all need to pay attention and take our grief seriously.

This may be easier or harder, depending on several factors. How close you were to a person, your cultural or spiritual beliefs, and differences in your personality and gender can all influence how you mourn and how effective you are at managing grief versus staying stuck in it.

“If you have low social support, a history of anxiety, a history of a [strongly] dependent relationship with the person (for example, you haven’t expanded your social support system beyond the person who’s dying); those are risk factors that research clearly shows can make it more challenging for you,” he says.

A healthier way to mourn

While no one needs to mourn in the same way, Wolfelt suggests in his guidebook on the topic that people try to meet six specific needs to get through the experience:

1. Acknowledge that you are grieving and the reality of your loss. You may feel it’s too hard to acknowledge the impending loss, but denial doesn’t help. Instead, acknowledging all emotions is a better path toward well-being, even in the midst of grief. Facing your reality more squarely can help you figure out what you need.

“[T]hinking of yourself in this way will help you be both self-compassionate and honest about how challenging your current circumstances are,” he writes.

2. Embrace all of your emotions, pleasant and unpleasant. Anticipatory grief is marked by changing, intense emotions. Naming them can help to tame them, making them less overwhelming. You can also try reframing the meaning of your feelings to make them less problematic, such as recognizing grief as a facet of loving someone deeply.

If you’re feeling emotionally overwhelmed by grief, Wolfelt recommends dosing it—meaning, letting yourself fully experience your emotions, but limiting how long you do that. When not focusing on your grief, it’s fine to distract yourself, evade thoughts, or do whatever you want to keep your grief from being so dominant, he adds.

“There’s a balance to be had between doing the work of anticipating loss and in balancing that with the ability to stay present in the here and now,” he says.

This may be especially important when taking care of someone you will be losing, as caregiving often requires a more outward than inward focus. Having a way to care for your emotional needs outside of that role can be helpful.

3. Explore memories of the love or attachment you’re losing. This may seem like a step to avoid, but Wolfelt says it’s important for managing anticipatory grief. Reviewing past memories allows you to create a narrative around what is happening, something humans need to help make sense of their lives and feel congruency. Research suggests that allowing ourselves to feel nostalgia for the past has many benefits, including putting us in touch with our authentic selves and what matters in life.

“The more time and attention you devote to exploring memories and sharing and discussing them with others, the more your sense of peace will grow,” writes Wolfelt.

4. Develop a new self-identity. Often our relationships are part of our identity—we are a partner, a mother, a daughter, or a colleague. Our impending loss may make us question who we are in the world. It’s important to recognize that and address it.

For example, if you’re losing your wife of many years, through divorce or death, your friendships may be affected and your social circle may shrink; once-shared activities may no longer appeal or be possible. While you may grieve this transition and the changes it brings, it also opens up possibilities to embrace new roles in life.

“Change is often both a loss and an opportunity, even if it’s an opportunity you would never willingly have chosen,” writes Wolfelt.

5. Search for meaning in the experience. When facing loss, many of us begin to question the meaning of our lives. “It’s important to focus on meaning and purpose, both in the attachment that is ending and in your continued living,” writes Wolfelt. This might take you into spiritual territory, stimulating questions about why you exist, what it all means, and how you can go on.

Seeking meaning from your experience can help one cope in the present with difficult future losses as well as later on, after the loss has occurred. To help explore that, Wolfelt suggests reading inspiring texts, meditating or praying, talking with spiritual advisors, journaling, or spending more time in nature. Whatever puts you closer to your own sense of meaning will help you find peace, and more reasons to get up in the morning if you are feeling dragged down.

6. Reach out to others for support. As mourning is an outward experience of inner pain, finding other people who can listen as you grapple with your emotions, memories, and questions about life’s meaning can be soothing and helpful.

“You might feel undeserving of attention because the ultimate loss hasn’t really happened yet. But I’m here to tell you that your current grief is completely real, valid, and necessary. And there are others who will understand,” he writes.

Look for someone who can listen empathically without trying to guide you (or bully you) into feeling better, he says. No one experiencing anticipatory grief should ever be pushed into something that doesn’t feel right or given pat phrases that discount their pain.

“Cliches can be very painful to somebody who’s experiencing grief—trite comments like, ‘You’re holding up so well, time heals all wounds, think of what you still have to be thankful for,’” he says. “While well intended, they’re often misinformed and are a projection from the outside in.”

Choosing whom exactly to share with can be tricky. But you can look to family and close friends, support groups experiencing the same types of anticipated loss, spiritual advisors, or professional counselors, writes Wolfelt.

“Find people that can walk into the metaphorical wilderness of grief and honor that you’re in a liminal space, without feeling the need to pull you to the left or right or to pull you out,” he says. “Those are the genuine, compassionate people that we need in our lives.”

If approaching someone with your grief feels too daunting, you can still help yourself by just being around people more generally. We all need social connection for our health and happiness, and having a fun night out with friends, small interactions with neighbors, or a coffee at the local café can make you feel less alone, even if you don’t explicitly talk to anyone about your grief.

Dealing well with grief is a life skill

We will all face loss at some point in our lives—but we’ll only anticipate grief when the loss involves someone we love. Love and grief go hand in hand, says Wolfelt, making it central to a life well-lived.

“The capacity to give and receive love means we will likely mourn someday,” he says. But living in a “mourning-avoidant, emotion-phobic” culture, he adds, we don’t always have the right tools handy for guiding ourselves or others through it.

To be better prepared, it’s wise for us all to cultivate the skills that will serve us well in times of grief and loss. Having greater emotional intelligence, mindful attention, meaning and purpose, social connection, and hope can all help, says Wolfelt. Fortunately, these can all be deliberately practiced long before a loss comes along, helping us lead healthier, happier lives overall.

“These are central needs. The more you can befriend those needs, the more you integrate loss into your life,” he says.

You’d think, given my professional focus and personal interests, that I would fall into that 12% of self-aware people. But in some areas of my life, I’m not. For example, I think of myself as a healthy eater. But when I wear a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), which gives me clear data on how my body responds to sleep, stress, and food, I behave differently than when I’m not wearing one.

It’s not that I don’t know that a blackberry cream scone is going to shoot my blood sugar out of range; I do. But if I’m not wearing a CGM, I don’t think about it. I keep that truth conveniently outside of my awareness. If I am wearing a CGM, however, I know I won’t be able to avoid the alarm signaling that my blood sugar is too high, and, therefore, I won’t be able to avoid the truth. I will be aware of what is going on within me, and that awareness will motivate me to skip the scone—rather than avoid the truth.

For all our self-focus, it can be genuinely hard to keep reality in our range of vision. But when we do, we’re much more likely to follow through with our habits for health and happiness.

What self-awareness is not

Self-awareness requires more than navel-gazing. Psychologists draw a sharp line between helpful inward-looking and two unhealthy modes of self-focus. One is rumination—when we replay our failures, rehearse anxieties, and return repeatedly to the same bruising thoughts. Another is closer to narcissism: a preoccupation with our self-image that is mistaken for self-insight. Both feel like self-knowledge, but neither improves our health, habits, or happiness. (To the contrary, both increase depression and anxiety.)

Self-awareness is the capacity to non-judgmentally observe ourselves: what we’re doing, feeling, and thinking. Rumination is a loop of distress; self-awareness asks What is happening for me right now? What am I doing? What am I feeling? Reflective, curious, non-judgmental self-examination predicts personal growth, while rumination and self-consciousness actively undermine it.

There are many reasons we don’t turn inward to mindfully observe ourselves. The demands on our attention from the outside world are loud. It can be painful to look closely at ourselves, our lives, and our habits. We become so practiced at managing the external world that our internal worlds quietly go unexamined. This is unfortunate because people high in self-awareness tend to be happier, have higher self-esteem, and are more resilient.

Self-awareness is a superpower

When we want to get into a new habit, most of us approach it as a willpower problem, willing ourselves to change through sheer force. A more effective path starts with self-awareness. Here’s why:

Self-awareness can help you catch triggers before they catch you. Two-thirds of our daily behaviors happen on autopilot—like mindless snacking, sitting too long, and reaching for our phones. Self-monitoring (a direct application of self-awareness) can bring those automatic behaviors into conscious view. You can’t interrupt a pattern you can’t see, and so a critical first step in changing unwanted behavior is recognizing what sets it off.

As you notice patterns in your thoughts and emotions, you’ll better understand when and why you do certain things. Understanding that you reach for unhealthy snacks when you’re bored versus when you’re anxious opens the door to different solutions. Similarly, understanding that you are more likely to exercise when you do it with a friend can help you follow through more often.

It motivates you. Heightened self-awareness leads people to be more conscious of the gap between where they are and where they want to be—and more motivated to close that gap. This type of noticing isn’t about self-criticism; it’s about being clear-eyed.

Also, research consistently shows that intrinsic motivation—doing something because it aligns with your own values and interests, not because someone else told you to—produces more lasting change. Self-awareness is how you access that intrinsic drive, because you have to understand yourself to know what you genuinely care about.

It rewires your brain’s reward system. When self-awareness allows us to align our behaviors with our deeper values, those behaviors actually feel better to the brain. When a new behavior is encoded as more rewarding, we start doing it more effortlessly.

How to be more self-aware

Measure the behaviors and outcomes you care about. Like me with my CGM, in studies of people trying to change their eating habits, participants who tracked their food reported genuine surprise about their eating patterns, which motivated them to change. Simply tracking what you’re doing is one of the most consistently effective tools for behavior change we have. Wearables like Oura Rings allow us to see and improve dozens of behaviors within our control, and when we pair what we learn from a wearable with self-reflection about how we feel after doing something good for us, we give the brain the information it needs to update its reward system—making healthy choices feel better and easier to repeat.

Practice self-compassion when you fall short. One of the most surprising bridges to genuine self-awareness is self-compassion. BetterUp research shows that it is the single best predictor of a person’s ability to manage stress, with people high in self-compassion showing 26% lower stress, 33% more resilience, and 24% lower burnout. Why? Self-compassion lowers the psychological threat of looking honestly at yourself.

When we approach our struggles, failures, and blind spots with kindness rather than judgment, we no longer need to protect ourselves from our own criticism or embarrassment; a willingness to look without flinching makes hard truths bearable enough to learn from.

Ask yourself “what” questions, not “why” questions. When we want to understand ourselves better, the instinct is to ask why: Why did I do that? Why do I feel this way? But “why” is surprisingly ineffective as a self-awareness question. “Why” questions tend to produce stories and justifications rather than genuine insight, and often send us straight into rumination. “What” questions work differently. Instead of Why am I so stressed?, try What situations are making me feel stressed, and what do they have in common? Instead of Why can’t I stick to this habit?, try What is getting in the way, and what would make it easier? “What” keeps us curious, specific, and forward-facing—which is the posture self-awareness requires.

Ask a coach or trusted friend what they see. The path to self-knowledge is often interpersonal: Feedback from people who know us well and have our best interests at heart can reveal aspects of ourselves that introspection alone cannot. We all have blind spots, and no amount of looking inward will show us what we can’t see. Seeking honest observations from others is a reliable way to close the gap between how we see ourselves and how we actually are. It can be as simple as asking a friend or a spouse after a hard week: What do you notice about me right now that I might not be seeing?

Try meditation. Meditation has many cognitive benefits and can lead to brain changes that increase self-awareness. Even a few minutes of sitting quietly, noticing what you’re thinking and feeling without trying to change or suppress it, trains the helpful kind of inward attention needed to truly “know thyself.”

Self-awareness is a skill that improves with practice. But we don’t need to overhaul our lives or spend hours in meditation to develop it. We just need to be curious and nonjudgmental about what we’re doing, feeling, and thinking in any given moment.

In a world that rewards busyness and performance, turning inward can feel indulgent or even risky. But self-awareness isn’t a detour from your best life; it’s the fastest route to it.

I also knew that I wasn’t alone. In fact, one in four adults in their 40s and 50s are doing “sandwich generation caregiving.” By 2030, all Boomers will be over 65, and even more of us will be taking care of kids and aging parents simultaneously.

But here’s the thing—while it’s true that the time I’ve spent touring memory care facilities for my dad with dementia, driving my mom to orthopedic appointments for her knee replacement, and picking up prescriptions for them at the pharmacy (among so much else) has taken time and attention away from my kids, I honestly believe that caring for elders in this season of life has made me a better parent.

For starters, it’s made me so much less delusional and perfectionist about what I can get done in a day, which makes me a less anxious, hovering parent. Plus, it’s given my kids daily access to their grandparents, which is a win-win for everyone (if only my mom would stop letting the kids watch inappropriate SNL sketches!). 

And there are so many overlapping insights and strategies on care for both generations. Here are just a handful I’ve discovered.

1. Less words, more presence

When I first became a parent, I remember hearing that babies and toddlers should optimally hear about 20,000 words a day. I processed that factoid as gospel.

It wasn’t until I started taking care of my dad, who was suffering from advancing dementia and losing so many words every day, that I started to think in a more nuanced way about how my parenting had progressed. My eight- and 12-year-old daughters were far beyond the golden window of early childhood brain development, and while I loved talking with them both about everything under the sun, I think I was clinging to some idealistic notion of what our interactions were supposed to sound like. My 12 year old, in particular, is a more internal person; she has eruptions of sharing, almost like unpredictable geysers, but much of the time she is quieter.

As I learned to sit with my dad, watching the sunset, long minutes of silence and awe stretching easily between us, I realized that I could do the same with my kids, especially my more internal daughter. These days, we sit and make art side by side in silence or bake something in the kitchen while listening to our song, “All Too Well” (10-minute version), without much direct communication, and I know that’s not a sign that our relationship isn’t healthy or I’m not filling her brain with enough vocabulary.

I know its presence. It’s gentle. And it’s attuned. Taking care of my dad, learning how to spend more and more wordless time with him, taught me that.

2. Grace in public is holy

As my dad’s dementia advanced, it became harder and harder to know where I could take him in public. As I would check out the coffee counter, he might grab a day-old muffin and just start unwrapping it without paying for it. He had lost the circuitry that knew how to function in a capitalistic economy where everything was not up for grabs. The cashier might be horrified and I might be forced to explain what was going on. Some were kind, others acted inconvenienced.

And yes, sometimes our neurodiverse family, friends, and neighbors slow things down, surprise us, or get weird. But if I have learned anything from the way people responded to my dad in these moments, it is that there is a special place in heaven for people who have enough grace to know they can’t possibly know what’s going on with the quirky strangers they meet—whether they appear to be a three year old having a tantrum on the bus or an 83 year old stealing a muffin at the cafe.

Caring for my dad has made me want to teach and model for my kids what it looks like to be a compassionate and humble stranger, more concerned with our collective humanity than efficiency and “normal” expectations. When people “yes and…” neurodivergent people in public of any age, they are often rewarded with a delightful surprise, a laugh, a discovery, a great story. Resistance isn’t just futile and unkind, it’s boring.

3. Needing professionals isn’t a failure

When we decided to take my dad to memory care, our hearts broke a little. We really thought we could create a loving, imperfect village that would be able to handle his progressing dementia—if only we did enough pattern-keeping, communicating, and creative problem solving.

But ultimately it turned out to be too much for even our earnest and enterprising crew. My dad seemed to be suffering despite all of our best efforts. So, we found a community with a beautiful garden full of butterflies, an ethos of elder dignity, and a distinctly Buddhist feel—all of which seemed like a perfect fit for who he was. Once he was there, I learned so much from watching professional caregivers take care of him and honoring their labor with a fair wage and their wisdom with our eternal gratitude.

Family caregivers matter! And we often can’t do it alone. That’s not failure; it speaks to the magnitude of some of the diseases we face (like dementia, which neurologist Bruce Miller calls the “blackbelt of caregiving”) and the limitations of loved ones. Each professional caregiver that now works with my dad meets him as he is now, not lugging all the grief alongside like I do.

The same is true for our children when they go to daycare, school, and even sports. We need teachers, daycare providers, coaches, and others who come with their own expertise, but also who see our kids with new eyes, with more fresh energy, and with less projection.

4. Grief is inevitable

My kids were becoming themselves just as my dad was unbecoming himself—such a wild juxtaposition.

But the truth is, there has been grief in both. Of course I grieve the loss of who my dad was, the long conversations we’d have about faith and ethics, the hours we spent in dark movie theaters together watching films or hiking through the New Mexican desert. But I also grieve the tiny baby my daughter once was, who now has my shoe size and never needs me to hang her upside down to blow dry her neck so she doesn’t make breast milk cheese in her abundant folds. I will never wear my daughters in a baby carrier again, or watch them taste their first food, or take a nap where their entire body fits on my torso.

Even though my children’s trajectory is more “hopeful” than my dad’s, more additive, it is still a trajectory characterized by excitement and grief. And, weirdly, my dad’s trajectory isn’t without excitement if I look at it with enough equanimity. My dad is going to die soon—be released from this body that is no longer functioning the way he needs it to. He will be free, as free as one can get, really. I don’t know much, but I know that, and I’m excited for him.

And I will miss him forever and ever, just as I will miss my babies forever and ever. The evolution of our relationship is always both things—excitement and grief.

5. Shared awe is the whole thing

Some of my favorite recent memories with my dad have been moments when he was mystified by the natural world. We’d be walking around our neighborhood and he would point at a random tree and say, “I have no idea how this got here!” I would laugh, but then think, “Well, I don’t either. I mean I know it was a seed, but I don’t know who planted it. Was it intentional? How long ago was that? What kind of tree is it? How big is it now?”

When you see the world through dementia-colored eyes, there’s a season—at least there was for my dad—when its awe is more available. One time my dad looked out at a wildly bright sunset, streaked with orange and pink and black, and said, “Who did this?” Again, I chuckled, but then realized, that was the right question to be asking. Indeed, Dad, who? It was an extension of the conversations about sacred mysteries that he and I had been having my whole life, but in a less academic or cynical form.

These moments all reminded me of similar exchanges I’ve had with my daughters over the years. There is nothing more delightful than a slow walk with a toddler, who is noticing every little thing along the way and trying to fit it into her rapidly expanding schemas. Even more recently, my kids sometimes take my breath away with a random comment, like a recent car ride home from Target when my nine year old told me matter of factly about her religion, in which there are three gods—one male, one female, and one non-binary. Each has a role each day—one controls her body, one controls her language, and one makes sure the other two are making good choices. There is no boss. They switch roles every day, but one of them always makes sure the other two are making good decisions. Talk about check and balances!

The truth is that all of these lessons are really about reverence for how much is inside of those we care about, and how much it just keeps changing. The more we can evolve with them, not try to pin them down with words and egos and expectations, the more we can all enjoy the heartbreaking, heartbursting co-created adventure of it all.

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At the time, I was a mindfulness educator and was adapting the Mindful Self-Compassion course, developed by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, into a class for parents and children. Lessons in the Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Children and Caregivers course include kid-friendly messages and practices centering on anger. The program, along with the two-volume Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Workbooks for Kids that I wrote, helps children and caregivers notice anger, understand its messages, and use it as a bridge to connection rather than division.

I’ve since begun teaching Neff’s Fierce Self-Compassion program, which helps people transform emotions like anger into courage, strength, and protection. Fierce self-compassion invites us not only to comfort ourselves when we suffer, but also to stand up for ourselves and others in the face of harm and injustice. The energy that empowers adults to act with integrity can also help children to channel anger into clarity and caring force.

Through teaching mindfulness and self-compassion programs to caregivers and youth over the years, I’ve helped thousands of kids learn how to understand and work with anger. Here are five steps that can help kids (and us) channel the power of anger wisely.

1. Help kids understand that anger is human

Many children, especially girls, are socialized to believe that it’s not OK to express anger with peers and adults outside of the home. Chronic suppression of anger can lead to negative health outcomes for all genders, though for girls and women, suppression can sometimes turn inward as self-blame or sadness.

To help children open to the emotion of anger, it can be helpful to remind them that anger is neither good nor bad, but rather evidence of being human. While there are more and less helpful ways of expressing anger (we’ll touch on that more in later sections), the emotion itself is wired into humans. Remembering that others sometimes feel like us is part of practicing self-compassion, and this acceptance can help with emotional regulation.

Graduates of my parent-child mindfulness and self-compassion course have shared how remembering that challenging situations and emotions are human helped them feel calmer in the presence of anger. “I noticed I didn’t get so mad like I used to get,” said one child. “You’re not alone. I notice myself sometimes saying that in my brain.” Another child blew up less frequently at a sibling by remembering that “other people also have sisters who make them mad.”

Helping kids understand that everyone gets angry is critical in developing a healthy relationship with anger.

2. Notice how anger feels in the body

To respond to anger skillfully, kids first need to notice it arising. Paying attention to how anger feels in the body helps children recognize early signs of frustration.

We can start children on this path by modeling mindfulness of anger—sometimes easier said than done! We can share our own experiences with anger, not in the heat of the moment, but at other times that invite reflection. For example, a parent might say, “I felt angry earlier today when someone cut me off in traffic. My shoulders got tight and my heart was racing, so I took a few breaths before responding. Everyone feels angry sometimes.”

Our modeling can help kids learn to accept their anger and also be mindful of their sensations. In my workbook for kids, I invite children to share about how anger feels in their body. “[When I’m angry] my face gets tight and hot,” said River, age nine. “And my breath feels suffocating.”

Aarya, age 10, shared this story: “My sister messed with my game, and my hands tightened into fists.”

It can be challenging for kids to hold anger sensations in awareness during the heat of the moment. It usually works best to practice mindfulness of anger sensations during neutral times, intentionally calling up a frustration and helping kids narrate how the body responds.

We can also help kids notice neutral sensations, like feeling the soles of their feet. Drawing awareness into the feet can help us stay grounded in the presence of strong emotions. With repeated practice, mindfulness of these sensations can help create a pause between an angry impulse and a reaction.

3. Regulate the intensity of anger

Anger is a powerful emotion, and when it surges through the body, it can overwhelm kids whose prefrontal cortex is still developing. As Khalil, age eight, puts it: “When I get angry, my whole body gets tight and I feel red. Like a bomb that could explode.”

In volume 2 of my workbook, children decode this message: “Anger is like fire. Use it with care.” Kids intuitively understand this metaphor. Out-of-control anger can burn down houses and villages. But when tended wisely, the flame of anger can warm, protect, and even light the way for justice.

Anger can be a force for good or cause damage depending on our ability to regulate and channel it. When anger feels too intense to navigate skillfully, it can sometimes be helpful to move, distract ourselves, or breathe deeply.

For Josie, a child in my parent-child class, movement was helpful. “My favorite thing I learned was 7 Shakes.” she said. “It taught me how to shake away my anger.”

For other kids, stillness serves them better. Marcos offered this reflection:

If you let [anger] get too out of control, it gets bigger and then you can’t control it. . . . My breath gets quick but weak. My hands get really warm, and my body gets really tight. . . . I don’t think it would be helpful to shake it off because it will be too out of control.

Some studies suggest that males are more prone to aggression with anger than females, and physically releasing anger may be more helpful for some than others, regardless of gender. Rather than teaching kids a single “right” way to calm down, we can invite them to notice what helps them stay steady. Sometimes that’s movement—running, shaking, or scribbling hard with crayons. Other times it’s stillness, like feeling their feet on the ground or taking a slow breath. Another helpful strategy is a squeeze and release exercise, guided playfully in the book The Angry Octopus.

In the context of empowerment, the goal isn’t to get rid of anger but to let its intensity move through the body without causing harm. When kids learn how to regulate anger’s intensity, they begin to experience anger not as something to fear or fight, but rather as a power they can learn to use with wisdom.

4. Look under anger for softer feelings and needs

Expressing anger can be complicated for children of all genders, though the impacts can sometimes be different. When children aren’t taught how to work with anger skillfully, the emotion can explode outward, creating interpersonal conflict, or turn inward as self-criticism. Both anger expression and anger suppression have been linked to depression, especially in females.

We want our children to learn constructive ways to express their anger interpersonally. Non-Violent Communication (NVC) is an effective approach for teaching kids to express anger in healthy ways. One great resource, Giraffe Juice, takes children on a playful adventure while they learn the steps of NVC, which include communicating feelings and identifying unmet needs.

When I teach caregivers and kids mindful self-compassion, I explain that anger is a hard emotion that often hides softer feelings and needs. Learning to identify the feelings and needs under anger helps kids view anger as a helpful messenger. In volume 2 of my workbook, a wise chick helps children explore the layers under anger. In the comic below, a child who feels furious is invited to look beneath the surface and notice softer feelings and needs.

On the surface, the child was angry because his friend won’t work with him, but underneath he felt sad and wished for belonging. When children learn to look beneath anger, they discover that it’s often pointing to what they value most: friendship, fairness, belonging, or care. Helping kids identify and express these underlying needs is one of the most powerful ways to transform conflict into connection.

5. Teach repair and empowered action

Even with preparation and the best of intentions, anger can sometimes lead us to do and say hurtful things. This is why, in addition to teaching our children to express anger constructively, we can also help them learn to repair. Modeling is one way we can help kids learn to own anger mishaps.

While I was writing this article, my older daughter came into the office with a huge request that completely derailed my focus. I blew up and yelled, practicing destructive rather than constructive anger. I saw that my behavior impacted my daughter negatively, and I went for a walk to cool down.

As I walked, I thought about both my daughter’s and my own needs. I saw my daughter’s need for help with a big task, and I saw my own need for focusing on a project that I wanted to complete. Both mattered. While my anger expression was unskillful and required an apology, the need for boundaries was real. This is how anger’s energy can be helpful: It can motivate us to protect or provide for ourselves and set boundaries when needed.

When I came back from my walk, I sincerely apologized for my anger outburst. I also let my daughter know that I needed more time to work on this task before I helped her. I assured her that I genuinely cared, and we both agreed that in the future, she would ask if the timing was right before unpacking a big project.

When we as caregivers cause damage with our anger, we can model owning our mistake, reestablish connection, and also communicate about feelings and needs. Children need caregivers who model both tender care as well as confidence and strength.

When children mess up and their anger leads to hurtful words or actions, we can guide them towards making things right. We can also help them be curious about what their anger was trying to tell them. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean the anger was wrong; it means they’re learning to use it wisely.

As caregivers of children, we can help children understand that anger’s energy empowers us to…

• Notice what is not OK;
• Say no to bullying;
• Be motivated to stop harmful behavior;
• Set boundaries; and
• Learn about what we value.

When anger shows us what matters, it becomes a compass for positive action. Kids can learn to speak up, set boundaries, or advocate for themselves and others. We can let children know that we believe in their strength and will support them in using their anger wisely. This builds a foundation for them to rise and stand up for themselves and others.

My younger daughter Anjali, now 13 years old, is already using her anger to stand up to injustice. She does this through collective social action, as well as advocating for others who are being mistreated. Last year, when a friend of hers was being bullied, she stood up—unafraid of being displeasing—and the bullying stopped. This is what I had wished for Anjali, and it is what I wish for all children: the ability to turn fierce anger into strength, clarity, and a force for good.

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These interactions matter. They are where trust is built (or quietly eroded). They are also where school leaders’ nervous systems are most tested. Over time, the cumulative emotional weight of these moments can leave even experienced leaders feeling depleted, reactive, or disconnected. Many school leaders are left asking questions that rarely get named out loud: How do I stay grounded and compassionate in the moment, recover afterward, and continue leading well without burning out?

Research on mindfulness and self-compassion offers a surprisingly practical answer. Far from being a “soft” add-on, self-compassion is a skill that helps leaders regulate stress, stay present in hard moments, and model emotional steadiness for their communities. It allows leaders to stay present without hardening, to recover without withdrawing, and to model resilience without perfection. When leaders practice self-compassion in real time, they shape school cultures where care is embedded rather than added on. Where challenge is met with steadiness. Where humanity is not a liability, but a strength.

Here are three evidence-informed practices that school leaders can use to stay grounded during tough conversations, recover without carrying stress forward, and quietly cultivate a culture of care.

1. Staying grounded in the moment

When a conversation becomes tense, the body reacts instantly. The heart rate rises. The jaw tightens. Thoughts narrow. This is not a failure of leadership; it’s biology. The nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

The challenge is not eliminating this reaction, but responding to it with awareness rather than being swept away by it. Here’s a simple grounding practice that might help you to do that:

• Feel your feet on the floor. Bringing attention to physical contact helps orient the nervous system to the present moment.
• Take one slow breath, extending the exhale. A longer exhale activates the body’s calming response.
• Silently name the experience. Try phrases like, “This is a hard moment,” or “This is stress.” Research by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer shows that naming difficulty supports emotional regulation and reduces reactivity.
• Reconnect with your values. Before responding, ask yourself: What matters most here: being right, or being steady and kind?

This pause may take only a few seconds, but it can shift the tone of an entire interaction. Over time, these micro-moments of awareness become a leadership strength, allowing you to respond from intention rather than impulse.

2. Recovering without carrying it forward

Most leaders move directly from one emotionally charged interaction to the next, leaving no space for recovery. Yet recovery is where resilience is built.

Without it, stress accumulates. Conversations replay in the mind. Tension lingers in the body. Over weeks and months, this unprocessed strain contributes to exhaustion and burnout. Here’s a brief recovery practice:

• Notice what remains. Tight shoulders, shallow breath, looping thoughts.
• Acknowledge the difficulty with kindness. “That was hard.” “Anyone in my role would feel this.”
• Offer a gesture of care. Placing a hand on the heart or taking a few slow steps outside can help activate the body’s soothing system.
• Consciously release the moment. Imagine setting the conversation aside before moving on to the next task.

Research on emotional schemas suggests that how we interpret stress, whether as evidence of failure or as part of being human, shapes our resilience. These small rituals send a different message: Struggle is part of leadership, not a sign I’m doing it wrong.

3. Modeling compassionate leadership

Self-compassion doesn’t stay contained within the leader. It spreads.

Schools often mirror the emotional tone of their leadership. When leaders are reactive or overwhelmed, staff feel it. When leaders are grounded and self-aware, others can exhale.

Modeling compassionate leadership doesn’t require new initiatives or extra time. It shows up in small, visible choices:

• Opening staff meetings with a brief moment of grounding.
• Naming tension gently: “This feels like a charged conversation, let’s slow it down.”
• Sharing, without oversharing, that you use simple practices to reset after hard moments.

Research on compassionate leadership consistently links these behaviors to higher trust, lower burnout, and greater psychological safety. When leaders embody calm and care, they give others permission to do the same.

4. Learning from the moment

Self-compassion is not only soothing and supportive, but it’s also clarifying. After you’ve grounded and recovered, reflection becomes possible. That’s when you can ask questions like: What activated me in that conversation? or How did I respond, and how would I like to respond next time?

This kind of reflection transforms stress into insight. It builds emotional literacy and deepens self-trust: I can handle hard things and keep learning.

Leaders can extend this reflective stance to their teams by inviting gentle questions such as, “What did you learn about yourself this week?” These moments strengthen connection and normalize shared humanity.

So, the next time a difficult conversation tightens your chest or speeds your breath, try pausing. Feel your feet. Take one slow exhale. Remind yourself: This is hard, and I can meet it with care.

That quiet choice, to slow down and respond kindly, has the power to change not just how you lead, but how your entire community feels in your presence.

It seems like enlightenment might be slightly more attainable without the daily annoyances of traffic, parking tickets, taxes, and endless commercials. For most of us, however, the realities of living in a society will naturally disrupt our peace and our responsibilities come with real burdens. Thus, mindfulness and other contemplative practices must exist within the context of others—of a society.

However, the way mindfulness is taught and described today often seems to reinforce an individualistic and secular conception of contemplative practices. This makes sense when clinicians like me hope to empower the individual to see the profound agency in their lives to make healthier choices. If you want to control anxiety, it might be easier to teach an individual to practice mindfulness to promote adaptive responding, rather than try to control the endless variables that can cause anxious spiraling or hope for some far-off social transformation that will make inner peace inevitable. But is the point of mindfulness and other contemplative practices (as we teach them in medicine) really to benefit yourself only?

This question has ignited healthy debate across various disciplines. Even within psychology, the way we study and measure mindfulness tends to reduce it down to facets such as observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging and a non-reactivity of one’s own experiences. Notably, the five most popular mindfulness scales don’t exactly include compassion or other-orientation as a facet. But if mindfulness in the scientific-medical context is derived from the Buddhist philosophies, how did the scientists so clearly miss the relational aspects of mindfulness?

For instance, does it matter if an individual practices mindfulness but is a racist, xenophobe, or sexist? Is it possible to have a mindful society that hates its neighbors, chooses war over peace, and division over unity? The science of contemplative research has recently turned more toward exploring these kinds of questions about the relational aspects of mindfulness and other contemplative practices. The timing couldn’t be more important as society feels the intense burden of social division and an undeniable rise of authoritarianism.

Previous studies have shown that those who score high in social dominance orientation also have favorable views towards authoritarianism, sexism, racism, and xenophobia—to name a few—and less favorable views of traits like empathy. Indeed, empathy is an increasingly important societal topic and has even entered mainstream political discourse. For example, Charlie Kirk, an American conservative figure, once famously argued that “empathy is a made-up, New Age term that does a lot of damage.”

What is the relationship between these practices, traits, and orientations? Previous studies have routinely found that mindfulness and self-compassion appeared to be positively related to empathy. It seems intuitive that these intrapersonal practices could broaden to interpersonal attitudes. Could contemplative practices such as mindfulness or self-compassion not only affect empathy, but also broader social orientations?

This question motivated our latest study recently released in the journal of Mindfulness. Along with my talented collaborator Polina Beloboradova from the Virginia Commonwealth University, our exploratory study aimed to understand whether individualistic contemplative practices such as self-compassion were related to interpersonal or broader social attitudes, such as empathy and egalitarianism, or its opposite, authoritarianism.

Empathy and social dominance

Our exploratory study gathered two large groups of participants and asked them questions related to self-compassion, empathy, and a construct known as social dominance orientation, which measures the generalized belief that people are either equal or that some groups are inherently more dominant.

We understood the critical shortcomings of only studying mindfulness for its relational aspects, so we focused on self-compassion as a trait, which has only recently become a fascinating subject of psychology. More than “self-love,” self-compassion considers the relationship toward oneself. It includes aspects of mindfulness and self-kindness, as well as common humanity: the belief that experiencing suffering is normal in the human condition.

We used a statistical method known as network analysis. Think of a map that shows how major airports connect to smaller airports and how disruptions in one airport might affect the network of connections. The study grouped and visualized the variables based on the strengths of those associations. By doing so, we were able to reveal the complex network of influence of these variables. We ran the analysis across two samples, one before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the other after. We leveraged the once-in-a-lifetime unplanned timing of the pandemic to investigate whether the profound social disruption of COVID affected social beliefs. A strong body of evidence supports how threats and societal distress tends to negatively affect social attitudes.

Despite the differences of social contexts, our results indicated the same pattern where self-compassion was related to social dominance orientation, but only through empathy. Of the two components of empathy we studied, emotional concern appeared to have a stronger relationship to social dominance orientation than the cognitive component. The amount of emotional concern was a stronger predictor of how you perceive and care about other groups of people. The study found that higher levels of self-compassion and empathy predicted lower levels of authoritarianism, whereas low self-compassion and empathy predicted higher levels of authoritarianism.

Compassion and egalitarianism

These novel findings give theoretical support to how intrapersonal traits such as self-compassion are linked to broader social attitudes through empathy. Simply said, there is some relationship between the amount of self-compassion, empathy, and egalitarianism or belief that people are deserving of equality. Importantly, the study was unable to determine the direction of these influences, so it would be premature to claim that self-compassion definitively affects authoritarianism through empathy.

Our hope is that these insights inspire other researchers to test whether self-compassion interventions, such as the Mindful Self-Compassion program which teaches individuals to develop their capacity for self-compassion over an eight-week course, could be a fundamental aspect of social-emotional learning that could make individuals more tolerant to all groups of people. Researchers could examine whether self-compassion interventions incidentally affect empathy and egalitarian views over the course by including these measures before, during, and following the intervention. 

The potential impact of those follow-up studies could be profound. If self-compassion could be improved as a core element of therapy or social-emotional learning in schools, not only would the individual have increased self-compassion, which would mitigate the risk of some mental health challenges and promote well-being, but they might also develop greater empathy and egalitarian beliefs, effectively widening their aperture of concern for others.

By shifting toward a perspective that other people from different backgrounds are worthy of similar compassion and empathy as ourselves, we might be able to effectively address many of society’s ills such as racism, sexism, xenophobia, and the multiple forms of social division. As such, self-compassion as a focus may hold promise for fields like clinical and social psychology that support human flourishing across individual, interpersonal, and societal levels.

The Dalai Lama may have well understood this when he said in The Book of Joy, “It is clear that the only way to truly change our world is through teaching compassion. Our society is lacking an adequate sense of compassion, sense of kindness, and genuine regard for others’ well-being. So now many, many, people who seriously think about humanity all have the same view. We must promote basic human values, the inner values that lie at the heart of who we are as humans.”

This idea just might be something to sit with…not necessarily in a cave.

There’s good news and bad news on teen suicide rates.

Let’s have the good news first. According to one recent study by Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administration, rates of suicidal ideation among teens—thinking about suicide—dropped modestly from 12.9% in 2021 to 10.1% in 2024, and documented suicide attempts dropped from 3.6% in 2021 to 2.7% in 2024.

Now the bad news. This means that one in 10 teens aged 12 to 17, or 2.6 million teens, thought seriously about ending their life in 2024, and an additional 13.5% were unsure or didn’t want to report whether they were having thoughts of suicide, indicating that these estimates are likely much higher. In addition, teens who identify as LGBQ+ fare much worse; 41% of students identifying as LGBQ+, compared to 13% of those identifying as heterosexuals, seriously considered suicide.

Clearly, there’s much work still to be done to address the unacceptable reality that our youth are deeply in pain. So how does a teen find their way through? According to new research I conducted with colleagues, practicing self-compassion could be a promising source of strength and support.

Feeling less alone

Funded by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, my colleagues and I recently enrolled transgender teens who experienced suicidal ideation in an eight-session self-compassion course, called Mindful Self-Compassion for Teens (MSC-T). Teens learned tools for supporting and being kind to themselves when facing situations that were emotionally hard.

Importantly, the participants learned that they weren’t alone in what they were feeling—that experiencing sadness, loneliness, and anxiety, for example, was a normal part of being human. Certainly, the situations that prompt those feelings differ across teens, but, nonetheless, the teens came to understand that all humans experience feeling alone, sad, angry, and hurt. Most of all, they learned that there was something they could do—exercises and practices they could engage in—to support themselves when they felt this way.


For example, in one session of MSC-T, teens participated in an exercise called “How Would I Treat a Friend” that helped them realize that they were much kinder and more supportive to their friends than they were toward themselves when struggling with something difficult. This led them to recognize moments when they felt stressed or “less than,” ask themselves how they would treat a friend in this situation, and treat themselves in a similar way. They then learned specific tools to do this—to support themselves—such as using a comforting physical gesture like putting their hand on their heart, or grounding themselves by noticing the sensations of their feet on the floor.

Through learning these practices across the study, teens decreased in suicidal ideation from before to after taking MSC-T, and their thoughts about suicide continued to decrease over the next two months. Teens with greater increases in self-compassion experienced greater decreases in suicidal ideation.

Teen participants had the opportunity to share their thoughts about how the program unfolded for them. Our analyses yielded three themes: They felt accepted and safe within a supportive community, experienced self-growth, and experienced a sense of mattering.

First, many expressed that being with others with a similar identity in a safe space allowed them to feel a sense of connection and that they “belonged,” something that they often didn’t experience in other contexts. As one teen shared, “It was really wonderful to get to talk about our experiences without having to explain things again and again and have other people just understand and accept you and your experiences completely.” Here, the teen articulates a basic human need: to be seen, accepted for who you are, and integrally connected in a community.

The second theme described the self-growth that teens experienced through taking the class. Many voiced an appreciation for the coping and self-regulation skills that they gained. They shared that they valued the “toolkit” of skills that they now had in their back pocket to retrieve when feeling overwhelmed with emotion. One teen commented on the usefulness of grounding techniques when anxiety and depression were high, and another commented on the calming effect of the techniques and how these techniques helped them care for themselves.

Finally, the third theme reflected the sense of mattering—the teens wanted to be seen, heard, and understood as the complex and multifaceted individuals that they were. One commented that they appreciated that the facilitators were “open to feedback” and another valued the fact that “you didn’t have to do anything that didn’t work for you.” For some, contributing to the curriculum content was important. Mostly, having their voices heard and valued was critical.

Bringing self-compassion to teens

Previously, the teen years were thought of as a time of “storm and stress” and a stage where you simply hold tight until you make it through. Thinking about the teen years in this way is no longer considered accurate by adolescent researchers and psychologists.

In fact, the psychologist Daniel Siegel talks about these years as being a time of opportunity, growth, and exploration—a time to discover one’s own purpose and agency. Undeniably, it’s a time when a lot is changing and teens often find themselves on unsteady ground, but it doesn’t have to be a rabbit hole of despair.

Youth thinking about suicide does not have to be pervasive in our society. Self-compassion offers teens a way to understand their emotional pain and, more importantly, manage this pain and grow from it. A 2024 study found that when college students met the stressful experiences in their lives with self-compassion, they became more resilient over time.

Teens need self-compassion skills so that they, too, can become more resilient. If you want to incorporate self-compassion lessons into your school, I recently published a book detailing a 16-session in-school self-compassion curriculum for teens, including 15-minute “drop-in” sessions that school counselors can deliver in the classroom. We also launched a new website filled with self-compassion resources specifically for teens. Books and other resources are also available.

At the end of 2021, then–U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned us of the youth mental health epidemic in his Youth Mental Health advisory: “The challenges today’s generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate. And the effect these challenges have had on their mental health is devastating.”

We have the tools and the knowledge to help our youth navigate these challenges, including suicidal ideation. Now let’s work together to do everything we can to arm our children with what they need to contend with 21st-century society.

They seem rushed. A few questions, a quick exam, a glance at the clock and then a rapid-fire plan with little time for discussion – and you leave feeling unheard, hurried and frustrated.

And what if you’re hospitalized? You may face a similar experience.

More than half of U.S. adults say their doctors have ignored or dismissed their concerns, or not taken their symptoms seriously, according to a December 2022 national poll.

It’s easy to blame the doctor. But the reality is, most doctors would like to sit down and have an in-depth conversation with patients and their families. Instead, your unpleasant visit may be the result of productivity pressures and administrative burdens, often shaped by health care systems, payment models and policy decisions that influence how care is delivered.

Patients are increasingly experiencing what’s known as administrative harm – those unintended but very real consequences arising from administrative decisions, made far upstream, that directly influence how doctors practice. Ultimately, these types of interactions affect the care patients receive and their outcomes.

As a doctor and researcher who specializes in business and health care delivery, I’ve studied how organizational decisions have ripple effects, shaping patients’ relationships with their doctor and the quality of care they receive. Patients may be unaware of these upstream administrative decisions, but they affect everything from time allotted for an appointment to the number of patients the doctor has to see and whether a visit is covered by insurance.

A look behind the scenes

Increasingly, health care organizations and physician groups face intense financial pressures. Many doctors can no longer sustain their private practice due to declining reimbursements, rising costs and increasing administrative burdens; instead, they’ve become employees of larger health care systems. In some cases, their practices have been acquired by private equity groups.

With this shift, doctors have less control over their workloads and the time they get with their patients. More and more, payment models fail to cover the true cost of care. The default solution is often for doctors to see more patients with less time for each, and to squeeze in additional work after hours.

But that approach comes with costs, among them the time needed to build meaningful connections with patients. That negative, impolite tone you may have experienced might be because the doctor has many patients waiting and a full evening ahead just to catch up on writing visit notes, reviewing medical records and completing other required documentation. During the work day, they’re often fielding over 100 messages and alerts daily, including referrals and coordinating care, all while trying to focus on the patient in front of them.

But the consequences go beyond their bedside manner. Research makes clear that doctors’ performance and the quality of care patients receive are affected by their workload. A similar pattern is true with nurses: Their higher workloads are associated with higher death rates among hospitalized patients.

Suppose you’re hospitalized for pneumonia, but because your doctor is caring for too many patients, your hospital stay is longer, which increases your risks of infection, muscle loss and other adverse outcomes. In the doctor’s office, a rushed visit can mean delayed or missed diagnoses and even prescription errors. 

About half of U.S. doctors report feelings of burnout, and about one-third are considering leaving their current job, with 60% of those likely to leave clinical practice entirely. 

Long work hours also brings higher risks of heart disease, stroke and other health problems for health care professionals. In the U.S., 40% of doctors work 55 hours per week or more, compared with less than 10% of workers in other fields.

A better way

The administrative harms stemming from upstream decisions are not inevitable. In large part, they are preventable. Overhauling the health care system may seem daunting, but patients and doctors are not powerless.

Patients and their families must advocate for themselves. Ask questions and be direct. This phrase: “I am still really worried about … ” will quickly get your doctor’s attention. If your visit seems rushed, share it with patient representatives or through patient surveys. These insights help administrative leaders recognize when systems are falling short.

Doctors and care teams should not normalize unsustainable work conditions. Health systems need structured, transparent mechanisms that make it easy and safe for doctors and care team members to report when workloads, staffing or administrative decisions may be harming patients.

Even more powerful is when patients and their doctors speak up together. Collective voices can drive meaningful change – such as lobbying for adequate time, staffing or policies to support high-quality, patient-centered care. It is also important for administrative leaders and policymakers to take responsibility for how decisions affect both patients and the care team.

More research is needed to define what safe, realistic work standards look like and how care teams should be structured. For example, when does it make sense for a doctor to provide care, or a physician assistant or nurse practitioner? At the same time, health systems have the opportunity to think creatively about new care models that address clinician shortages.

But research shows that the medical profession can’t afford to wait for perfect data to act on what’s already clear. Overworked and understaffed teams hurt both patients and their doctors.

Yet when doctors do have enough time, the interactions feel different – warmer, more patient and more attentive. And as research shows, patient outcomes improve as well.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

I often heard this refrain growing up as an unlikely Hindu in a Black body in Cleveland, Ohio. While this idea may sound foreign to many in the Western world, it is foundational in several Eastern philosophies, which teach that attachment to the physical body as the self is a root cause of suffering.

Now, as a social theorist and epidemiologist studying population health, I often reflect on that early lesson. I see more clearly than ever that the supposed divide between science and spirituality is a false one. Our conceptions of self—fundamentally spiritual ideas about who and what we are—are not merely abstract philosophies. They are measurable, powerful determinants of health and well-being. And in this age of preventable crises—climate change, hunger, economic inequality, disease—they may be one of our most untapped resources for survival and flourishing.

I can’t say this realization surprised me. All my life, I watched my mother embody a belief in herself first as a soul connected to all other souls. This conviction guided her through a life defined by compassion, gratitude, advocacy, sacrifice, and countless other generosities of spirit—qualities consistently linked to better mental and physical health. And indeed, my mother was a model of both. While many of her family and community members developed chronic illnesses as they aged—diabetes, heart disease, premature cognitive decline, bipolar disorder—my mother, whom many called Mata, the Sanskrit word for “mother,” remained remarkably vital throughout her life.

Mata’s health thrived despite the immense challenges she faced: gendered abuse, poverty, racism, and other forms of trauma—stressors that weigh hardest upon marginalized populations in inequitable societies. Drawn to understanding health from a young age, I often pondered the nature of her resilience. What made her so strong? Was it her disidentification with the physical body that was so protective? And could others cultivate that same resilience?

For much of my youth, I wanted to be a physician. I entered college intent on majoring in biology and becoming a cardiologist. The heart somehow seemed at the center of every illness I saw in the Black and Brown communities where I grew up. But during my second year at Princeton, a medical anthropology course shifted my understanding of health entirely. I began to see that the diseases of the heart in my community weren’t simply biological—they were social, born from inequality, racism, and chronic exposure to toxic stress. I changed my major to Anthropology and African American Studies but stayed on the pre-med track, determined to bridge biology and society in my understanding of health.

Still, something kept tugging at me: Mata’s quiet, steady strength. Even as I came to understand how social structures shape health outcomes, I couldn’t stop thinking about the inner posture that had sustained her. What role did her spiritual sense of identity play in her resilience?

As an epidemiologist, I became fascinated by how self-identification might buffer people from the health impacts of chronic stress. While many health disparities scholars focus on structural determinants, I saw an opportunity to integrate insights from Eastern philosophy, social psychology, and population health to bring to light understudied sources of resilience. In the first year of my doctoral program, I began to formalize this integration into what I now call the Identity Vitality–PathologyTM (IVP) model.

The model was inspired directly by Mata’s example. I identified three key dimensions of her belief in the self as distinct from the physical body that I believed were central to its health-protective power: a sense of self that includes all living beings, a belief in the intrinsic and immutable worth of all life, and a natural compassion that flows from this recognition of shared value. Together, these qualities form what I call identity vitality—a loving state of being rooted in connection and compassion that is directed toward self and others.

By contrast, when a person defines selfhood narrowly—through physical characteristics, social status, or the exclusion of “others”—they fall into what I call identity pathology. This state, I argue, is inherently harmful, both to self and society, because it constrains compassion and ultimately reinforces inequity. We all exist somewhere along this spectrum. Those who orient toward identity vitality, I hypothesize, are more resilient to the health effects of chronic stress, while those oriented toward identity pathology are more vulnerable.

How does identity vitality protect health?

Stress, after all, is a curious companion to health. In brief doses, it helps us adapt and grow. But chronic, unrelenting stress—like the social burdens imposed upon marginalized people—erodes health across every system of the body. Over time, it accelerates aging and contributes to conditions from diabetes and heart disease to Alzheimer’s and cancer. Yet not everyone is equally affected. Some people, like Mata, seem buffered from many of its worst effects. Genetics play a role, yes—but perhaps so does how we see ourselves and the world. I theorize that identity vitality is a key factor that shapes whether stress becomes toxic or transformative.

To test this theory, I developed a questionnaire to measure identity vitality and pathology. In my lab—the Healthy Aging with Resilient Identities (HARI) Lab—our research explores whether cultivating a vitalized identity can promote healthier aging.

The empirical evidence, though early, is promising. In studies including more than 2,700 Black and white adults aged 18 to 81, we found that greater identity vitality was consistently linked with lower risk of depression, even after accounting for many other relevant factors. The relationship showed a striking “dose-response” effect: As identity vitality increased, the risk of depression declined by as much as 90%. In another study, Black women with higher identity vitality had a 50% lower risk of hypertension associated with neighborhood disadvantage. Among men experiencing severe financial strain, those with higher identity vitality also reported better overall health. These findings suggest that the way we understand who we are may literally shape how our bodies bear stress.

Can identity vitality really improve population health outcomes?

I use the terms vitalized and pathologized deliberately to emphasize that identity states are constructed—and, thus, potentially modifiable. We are all taught, implicitly or explicitly, what to believe about who we are and what gives us worth. But those lessons can be unlearned and relearned at any point in life. If identity vitality can be cultivated, then perhaps resilience itself is teachable.

My confidence in that idea was shaken when my mother was diagnosed with an aggressive uterine cancer at 65 during my final year of doctoral training. Less than two years later, she had physically departed. Her passing forced me to confront painful questions. How could someone so mindful of her health, whose deep and practical spiritual beliefs guided every aspect of her life—including her health behaviors—succumb to such an aggressive, merciless illness?

In grief, I found a new kind of clarity. In a certain way, my mother’s life and death mirrored an ongoing debate in public health: Can individual-level interventions—those targeting mindset, belief, or behavior—truly move the needle on population-level outcomes when the structures at the root of health disparities remain? My mother’s identity vitality had clearly buffered her from many stress-related diseases. Yet even her profound resilience couldn’t entirely protect her from the deeper structural inequities that shape who gets sick with what illness.

Non-Hispanic Black women are nearly twice as likely as women of other racial and ethnic groups to die from uterine cancers. Stressors stemming from structural inequities—rooted in racism, sexism, and economic inequality—accumulate in the body in ways that even the most resilient spirit may not overcome. Because my mother had largely avoided the chronic conditions so often tied to lifestyle and behavior, I began to wonder if I had been somewhat blinded to the constraints imposed by structural inequity.

Over time, however, I came to see that this harsh reality didn’t negate the promise of identity vitality—it offered a path for greater healing. I now see identity vitality as both a conduit for individual resilience and a catalyst for collective transformation. The same beliefs that protect us from stress on the personal level—seeing all beings as valuable, releasing attachment to hierarchy or status—may also dismantle the systems that create inequity and, with them, the need for resilience itself.

These systems persist because so many of us are taught to derive our worth from perceiving ourselves as superior to others. If more of us underwent what I call a vitalizing transformation—a shift from self-worth based on comparison to self-worth rooted in universal connection, intrinsic value, and compassion for ourselves and others—then the decision points that sustain inequity might begin to shift, as well.

Were we able to create an identity inoculant, perhaps we could begin to heal the social diseases of dominance the way we once eradicated polio and smallpox—through collective courage, compassion, and persistence. The turning points that sustain or undo systems of power are not abstract; they live within human choices. Each decision to reinforce hierarchy or to dismantle it is shaped by the identity state of the decision maker. The more people who see themselves as connected rather than separate—as part of a family of all living beings rather than a social ladder—the more our collective choices will tilt toward justice and care, for ourselves, for each other, and for the earth.

As those levers of power slowly shift, individuals, too, would feel the change ripple inward. Our values might evolve; our ideas about leadership might expand. We might begin to choose and elevate those whose sense of worth is grounded in the recognition that all living beings are inherently valuable, in inclusion rather than exclusion. And even as systems transform at their own pace, every person retains an immediate source of power—the ability to vitalize their own identity, to nurture health and compassion within themselves, and to model a way of being that quietly reshapes the world around them.

The next steps

This next phase of my work—understanding how identity states are transmitted and how they might be transformed at scale—is still in its early stages. But I find comfort and inspiration in knowing that the lesson my mother lived by was more than spiritual poetry. It was an early glimpse into a phenomenon that natural science is only beginning to quantify.

I’m not sure whether we are not our bodies—and perhaps the journey toward that answer extends beyond what any physical science can tell. My work does give me confidence, however, that what we believe about who we are matters profoundly for our capacity to sustain our health, even in the face of tremendous stress. More important, our decision to see all living beings as part of ourselves—to engage in this loving practice of extending our ego boundaries to include others, to accept the intrinsic worth of every being, and to offer compassion generously—may be among the most powerful public health interventions we could ever implement.

But self-love, on its own, not so much.

One of the few scholars who published a definition of self-love, Swiss psychologist Eva Henschke, was shocked when her initial literature review turned up little more than a handful of dissertations on self-love.

“I was surprised how little work was out there, compared to the amount of work in arts and philosophy, online, and in the bookshops in the genre of self-help,” says Henschke. “There are so many books on self-love.” Despite its popularity, however, scientists have largely avoided the topic.

Henschke used semi-structured interviews with a group of psychotherapists to develop a model of self-love, which the Humanistic Psychologist published in 2023. The framework includes three components:

• Self-contact, defined as giving attention to yourself;
• Self-acceptance, or being at peace with all of the parts of yourself; and
• Self-care, defined as being caring and protective of yourself.

Henschke and the few others studying self-love believe therapists and counselors need a clear definition, a scale for measuring self-love, and research that assesses how to strengthen self-love, which can fluctuate over time.

She’s optimistic that scholars will continue the work. Many in “the older generation had some kind of reluctance or they found it this pinky, girly, fairytale thing,” she says. “In the younger generation, I have found so much interest and openness.”

The journey to self-love includes challenges for all of us, depending on your personality, upbringing, brain chemistry, or other unique circumstances. For survivors of childhood trauma and those from marginalized communities, self-love can feel especially salient. It may take years or even decades to accept and love all the parts of yourself, in the face of messaging that you are unlovable. Given the dearth of research findings, new and relevant information may continue to emerge from artists, authors, activists, and therapists, instead of the scholarly community.

As a Black trangender man, Seattle-based filmmaker and artist Remy Styrk has worked over the years to overcome disconnection from his physical form, and to truly love his body. “It’s been the only consistent thing in my life. It’s been through so much, and yet it’s still kicking,” says Styrk, whose current project involves interviewing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people of color about self-love.

He encourages the young people he works with to define love for themselves, rather than letting societal pressures or other negative pressures keep them from self-love. “The United States was founded on the ownership of Black bodies, so that self-love looks a little different for us. We must feel all that we’ve been conditioned not to feel,” he says.

Wrestling with self-love over time

Discomfort with the concept of self-love stretches back millennia. The ancient Greek myth of Narscissus vividly established the perils of excessive self-love, as the hunter fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water, refusing to consider a relationship with another human.

Since then, the danger of self-love leading to narcissism is one reason researchers give for focusing on other frameworks, like self-compassion and self-acceptance.

“Self-love is great, but there’s a reason researchers haven’t looked at it that much, because it’s difficult to assess unless you’re really going to go out of your way to differentiate it from narcissism, or selfishness, or self-esteem,” says Kristin Neff, a psychologist at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.

Neff spent two years of postdoctoral research with a scholar who found self-esteem “is often conditional and comparative and actually can be damaging, especially in interpersonal relationships.”

The popular self-esteem movement of the 1990s has been criticized for leading a generation of parents and educators to blanket children with praise in a way that can promote narcissism and unrealistic expectations. Whereas self-esteem involves a judgement or evaluation, self-compassion brings relief from suffering and a more stable sense of self-worth.

Neff’s framework for self-compassion involves three elements: treating yourself kindly in times of distress, recognizing that your experience is connected to our common humanity, and mindfulness toward your thoughts and feelings without becoming too swept up in them.

Research has found that self-compassion can help high-performing athletes become more resilient and successful, reduce suicide risk in veterans, and improve caregivers’ well-being, among other benefits. Her self-compassion scale has been validated, studied, and built on by other researchers over the past two decades.

By contrast, self-love hasn’t even received a consensus definition.

Siying Li, a doctoral student at Flinders University in Australia, is seeking to establish a scale for self-love in her dissertation. Li defines self-love as a person’s capability to identify, understand, and manage their essential needs and harmful desires. According to Li, self-love is a skill that can be developed and strengthened. Building on a focus group of people from 16 different countries, she is developing a self-love scale comprising 25 items and a short-form scale with about 12 questions.

“If you haven’t gotten clear on your interests, your needs, and your desires, how can you manage interpersonal interests?” Li says. Based on the survey results, “I don’t think self-love should be promoted alone. We need to research loving others.”

A team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, published a self-report measure of how much someone feels loved, in Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing, in 2019. “We found that the degree to which someone loves themself correlates well with other indicators of mental health, not an unexpected finding,” says lead author Bruce Barrett, a professor and family medicine physician. He’d like to see future research on assessing self-love as a mental health screening and interventions to help people improve self-care and love of self.

Do you need to love yourself first?

A common debate in popular culture is whether you must develop self-love before you can truly love another person. In the 2003 Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology, a chapter by W. Keith Campbell and Roy F. Baumeister tackles this question and how it became such a commonly accepted idea without much basis in research.

Campbell and Baumeister note that psychologist Erik Erikson theorized that you must establish a sense of identity before achieving intimacy with another person. Indeed, longitudinal data show that successful establishment of identity in the teen years predicts stable intimate relationships and marital stability.

Humanistic psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow “may have also inadvertently played a role in focusing society on the importance of self-love,” write Campbell and Baumeister, by emphasizing “the importance of living up to one’s ideals, even becoming self-actualized.” However, Maslow felt that self-love wasn’t necessary to love another.

Ultimately, the pair conclude that insufficient evidence exists to support this claim. As they write:

Despite popular belief that loving oneself is a prerequisite for loving others, the actual connections between loving self and loving others are complex, inconsistent, and often weak. Although a healthy self-esteem may sometimes be advantageous to preserving relationships, self-esteem is often unrelated to relationship outcomes, and some forms of self-love (especially narcissism) seem largely detrimental.

Indeed, shifting popular opinion on self-esteem, self-confidence, narcissism, and related concepts complicates the study of self-love over time, as study participants in different eras will approach each construct differently. Because the term self-love conjures up a range of definitions that can be misunderstood, scholars have opted to study self-acceptance, self-compassion, or unconditional positive self-regard.

How to cultivate self-love

Despite the absence of research on self-love as a psychological construct, people are finding ways to understand and strengthen self-love, in all its complexities. Aware of the dangers of narcissism and being overly self-focused, they are building on therapeutic and mindfulness techniques to develop a healthy self-love.

After receiving her Ph.D. in psychology, Henschke decided to train as a psychotherapist in order to support individuals seeking mental health and self-love. “I’m much more interested in the practical aspect of self-love and how to cultivate it,” she says.

To develop self-love, you can practice meditation and mindfulness and seek to understand what sends you into a state of alarm—as well as the skills and strategies for self-regulation that work for you. In this way, you can address each of her components of self-love: self-contact, self-acceptance, and self-care.

“Develop a kind of map of your inner parts and your triggers,” she says. ““Be brave enough to have contact with the negative emotions like anger, sadness, or being left behind, or feeling lonely, but also the positive emotions, feeling pride, or joy. . . . It’s important to not judge them, but to know that they are there for a reason.”

According to Henschke, that means tuning into yourself and being open to what you find. Every part of yourself—even the messy feelings, beliefs, and behaviors—deserves a seat at the table. She says you should find ways to nourish and care for yourself in all dimensions—body, spirit, soul, socially, and environmentally—whether it’s a walk in the forest or sensory experience. Learn “to encounter yourself with this attitude of deep democracy, and this enables self-acceptance.”

“Self-love is never going to be a neat package,” filmmaker Styrk agrees. “Self-love is also about being able to fully express anger, fear, yearning, hurt, disappointment, confusion.”

For these experts, healing from trauma and loss isn’t enough—we all need and deserve self-love.