Health

The panic spiral is real, but a mental strength trainer has a plan

Turns out, your brain loves a plan. Even a super simple one.

Worry often leads to more worry. The feedback loop is real and can be debilitating. If this goes wrong, then this might go wrong, and if that goes wrong… lather, rinse, repeat.

Mental strength trainer* Amy Morin shared two words that can break the cycle. “If” and “then”. As Erik Barnes reports, the plan is as surprisingly effective as it is simple. Make simple if/then plans. If this happens, then I’ll do this. “If I didn’t get the position from the job interview, then I will ask my friends if their workplaces have any openings.”

Creating plans like this signals your mind that the situation is under control, which breaks the loop. If you’d like to know more, then click through to the full story, where a stat by Pennsylvania State University will go even further toward helping you breathe.

* - Another addition to the list of jobs I didn’t know existed.

Image of the day

And what did we learn?

Friday, we explored the liberating power of letting people simply be wrong about you.

I wanted to know how GOOD readers deal with the occasional typo, and I have to say, you’re a more laid-back crowd than I am. Almost 1 in 6 of you just let typos sit out there uncorrected! Madness.

• Call right away! I can't relax until I've cleared this up. (7.5%)

• Edit the message and hope they don't view the history. (31.3%)

• Let it go, I'm sure they'll get the gist. (58.2%)

• I'be nver had a typo im my live. (3.0%)

Culture

If, for some reason, you’re looking for more anxiety, then this is the article for you

Footage from beneath the great pyramids has some people ‘panicking.’

There are plenty of reasons not to go into the depths beneath the Great Pyramid of Giza: respect for cultural sites, an irrational fear of mummies from childhood, perhaps the cost of the plane ticket. Panic-inducing claustrophobia appears to be the reason that’s hitting hardest for viewers of the wildly viral TikTok video by Younes Zarou.

In the video, Younes braves cramped tunnels that are rarely wider than his shoulders. The passages in the footage were initially designed for securing the pharaoh’s burial chambers, not for guests, and the closeness of it all might bring out a deep-seated fear you might not even know you have.

If the claustrophobia wasn’t enough reason to pass, consider also that the passages appear to be about 4’ tall. My back hurts just thinking about it.

Culture

Her Hinge date asked if the NASA alum was the receptionist

When a guy couldn’t handle her job at NASA, Dr. Lauren McKeown hit him with a response that’s still orbiting the internet.

Dating isn’t rocket science, but there are similarities. Done right, sparks can fly, new heights can be reached, and if you screw up? Boom. That is exactly what happened when a Hinge match tried to shoot his shot with Dr. Lauren McKeown, a planetary scientist who literally worked at NASA. He started with awe. Then he fired off a dud that barely cleared the launchpad.

“So what are you, like the receptionist?”

Houston, we have a problem. As Adam Albright Hanna reports, he apologized, but she disengaged the docking procedures. Read her full response that has the internet cheering like it was watching a flawless booster landing.

On December 8, 1813, the world received a new symphony by one Ludwig van Beethoven. The Seventh, with its beloved Allegretto, was hyped in newspapers and on posters before its premiere. Tied to a charitable event for wounded soldiers, the event drew Vienna’s most celebrated and powerful people.

What was Beethoven’s celebrity like in modern terms? Think of Lin-Manuel Miranda at the height of the Hamilton craze in New York City, and you’ll be in the ballpark. Beethoven, already going but not quite deaf yet, conducted the premiere himself and was met with such rapturous praise that an encore was demanded and performed immediately.

Two centuries on, the Seventh is still packing halls. It was performed by the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer at the BBC Proms in London just last August.

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