Overwhelmed by what’s going on in the world? From breaking things into chunks to sharing with a friend, psychologists offer helpful tips for navigating turbulent times.
On a balmy January evening in 1991, my then boyfriend and I sat on the couch, elbows on knees and dread etched across youthful faces, watching a war on TV. The US military had started Operation Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait from Iraq, and CNN had all the action live from Baghdad where the sky was lit up with missiles that looked like fireworks, before the thud of explosions.
As privileged western kids not long out of our teens, we thought not of the innocent Iraqis who would pay in lives for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait – nor of the Kuwaitis whose country had been invaded – but of our future hopes and dreams, which were surely about to be dashed.
That’s when boyfriend’s mother, a force of gregarious nature, appeared, all teased blonde hair, silver hoop earrings and little black dress. She lent against the lounge doorway to do up the strap on a high heel.
“Where do you think you’re going?” boyfriend asked.
“Look, you two can sit around here all glum but I’m off to an end of the world party.”
“Well,” said Mr 22, “it’s alright for you, you’ve had your life; we haven’t.”
She was 43.
Some 34 years later, I reflect on that night and what kept us on the couch wringing our hands and shaking our heads for the entire evening while she lived life as, well, normal. Why can some people maintain cool heads when many around them appear to be losing theirs? When you’re facing challenges – both personal and global – and worry turns to anxiety or depression, how do you steady the course? For some answers, the Listener asked psychologists and counsellors for some advice on how to keep calm and carry on.
Oceans of woes
If the world seemed a delicate place in 1991, we had no idea what was coming. In 2025, wars in the Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan seem more vicious and brutal than before. Politics has become increasingly partisan and society less civil. Given the rise in authoritarianism, will our daughters come to see The Handmaid’s Tale as more documentary than fiction?
At a time when humanity might like to unite to combat the hellfire of climate change or new pandemics, we’re fighting culture wars on every front. (There’s even still a minority who don’t believe in climate change.)
There are fears artificial intelligence will take over the world of work and then the world. Even if AI doesn’t take over, will we still have a job in six months’ time?
When will the cost-of-living crisis end? Can we get the healthcare we need? What about all the plastic in the ocean?
And what does it all mean for our children’s futures? Come to think of it, what social media are they watching right now, especially boys, who may be getting drawn into misogynistic sites and forums known as the manosphere?
On top of all this, back came Donald Trump with a vengeance – determined to shake up the world order and lobbing tariff grenades at an already fragile global economy.
All these horrors, macro and micro, can be served up 24/7 on our phones.
Focusing on this laundry list of problems is an example of what Auckland psychologist Gwendoline Smith may see as worrisome overthinking. In The Book of Overthinking: How to stop the cycle of worry, Smith acknowledges that sometimes, overthinking isn’t necessarily bad.
Positive overthinking might, for example, include training for a swimming competition and constantly thinking about strokes and breathing techniques. Overthinking becomes problematic – negative – when it spills into worry and starts to impede day-to-day life. Smith defines this as worrisome overthinking and notes it’s a short step from this to anxiety, describing the combination as “a union of devilish partners”.
Worrisome overthinking is the first thing to be aware of if you want to keep calm. There is a strong genetic component to it, and to anxiety and depression. Constantly living life in a fight, flight or freeze state can turn into depression when mind and body simply can’t deal with it any more.
Smith specialises in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which focuses on managing problems by encouraging, through a variety of techniques, change in thinking and behaviour. Throughout her books – there are four in The Book Of series that deal with knowledge, angst, feeling blue and overthinking – she explores how thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviours are interconnected. One of her most useful mantras is that feelings and thoughts aren’t facts, and if you’re going to make rational decisions, it’s the facts you need.
One technique to stop worrisome overthinking, she advises, is to ask one or two basic questions rather than spiralling into an undending cycle of “what ifs”. “You need to ask yourself, ‘How is this thinking helping me?’ or ‘Where is this thinking taking me?’ The mistake some people make is to think, ‘I shouldn’t be worrying, I shouldn’t be thinking about this.’ But the moment you tell yourself to stop doing something, the harder it becomes.”
In Overthinking, Smith uses camels as an example: tell someone not to think about or visualise camels and that’s the one thing the person will see.
Asking the brain a question, she writes, short circuits the worrisome overthinking and sends the brain in a different direction. “So, when you ask the brain, ‘How is this thinking (worrying) helping you?’, the answer is spontaneously, ‘It’s not.’ The brain then concurs with the questioning. Therefore, the worrying is not suppressed or squashed, it is challenged. This is a big difference, and not such an internal battle.”
Slow down
In his book The Comeback Code, resilience educator Jake Bailey builds upon the idea of chunking, a concept used by psychologists to break down bigger goals, targets or adversities into more manageable parts so they can be dealt with one step at a time. He calls this Slow Down, and it’s one of the cornerstones of his Four S model:
∙ Slow Down: Don’t fall into the trap of facing adversity as one big challenge and becoming overwhelmed by it – instead, break the challenge into manageable chunks.
∙ Salvage: Deliberately seek out the good within the bad – no matter how creative you have to be.
∙ Streamline: Try to minimise and contain the everyday fears and anxieties we all have.
∙ Stand alongside: Draw on your community and other support to outlast and survive adversity.
Although Bailey’s book is ostensibly aimed at teenagers, the concepts apply to situations and setbacks anyone might find themselves in. “That includes significant life traumas and challenges, the day to day stuff, and managing the ongoing adversity of living in a turbulent, ever-changing world,” he says.
The then-Christchurch Boys High School head boy used Slow Down to deal with getting through cancer and chemotherapy a decade ago: breaking things down enabled him to take the next step forward and not be completely overwhelmed by his situation. “Just trying to focus on managing things in a timeframe – be it an hour, a day or a week – feels comfortable, instead of becoming overwhelmed by trying to think about and do everything at once.”
He also has techniques for “streamlining” when everyday fears, anxieties, frustrations and annoyances start to dominate your thinking. One is to think about writing your life story, asking yourself: ‘In my life story, how much will this current problem or adversity or worry take up?’
“In many ways, what defines adversity … is that you find yourself in a situation where you can’t exert a great deal of control. It’s about small steps that enable you to take back some control.”
What we can control is something Auckland-based psychologist Sophia Dawson suggests reflecting on. “If we try to control the uncontrollable, we end up struggling. So, we can ask, ‘Well, just what can I control here?’ What we can feel empowered about and take control of is how we show up in the world, because we get to choose how we respond, we get to choose our behaviour.
“A big part of what we can control is boundaries, and sometimes taking back some control means putting in place some boundaries.”
She focused, as did other experts interviewed, specifically on boundaries around social media and news consumption. All have worked with people, particularly teenagers, who are on phones seven or eight hours a day or, more likely, night. (See “The kids are alright?”, below.)
Dawson has removed breaking news alerts from her phone and unfollowed accounts; she knows of others who no longer sleep with their phones next to their beds so they’re not tempted to pick them up first thing in the morning and start scrolling. “We need to choose where we place our attention.”
She says boundaries need not be confined to media consumption; they can exist for people, too. “If you have a family member or friend who’s always telling you about the terrible things they’ve read, seen or heard, you might have to have a conversation that goes like this: ‘I know this really matters to you, but right now I’m taking a break from it.’”
It’s important to create opportunities to have these kinds of conversations. Going for a walk with a friend or meeting for coffee, as Dawson suggests, may be one way; making time to sit down with your partner at the end of the day to talk about what went well and what didn’t is another.
A Trouble Shared
During tough times, Dawson advises remembering the adage that a trouble shared is a trouble halved. Anxiety about what we’re living through is part of being human: it’s natural to worry, she says. “What kind of connects us is our suffering, and one of the solutions is to normalise our struggles … to admit it’s hard being a human in this day and age.”
This point is also made by Sarah Maindonald, president of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors and a team leader for youth mental health services at an Ōtautahi Christchurch-based kaupapa Māori health service. “I think normalising anxiety, trying not to pathologise it too much, and recognising it as a logical response when things go wrong or are tough is helpful,” says Maindonald. “But when it becomes problematic and it’s taken over your life, that’s when you need to reach out. Part of encouraging people to reach out is taking away the feeling that they’re somehow abnormal when they’re most certainly not.”
Maindonald also favours the idea of building a support team around young people, though a support team can be important at any age.
Bailey writes in The Comeback Code: “It’s so natural to want to only share the good with people, maybe out of a fear of burdening them with your struggles or being embarrassed about how you feel, but it’s just as important to have a core group of people around you who you can share the bad with. By sharing your own disasters as well as your triumphs, you encourage and demonstrate to those around you that it’s okay for them to do the same.”
Having these types of honest conversations means being brave enough to put your hand up and admit life isn’t all sunshine and roses. Sometimes, you might be the one who has to have the courage to go first. “Don’t climb mountains alone,” says Bailey. “We all need a climbing partner.”
Reaching out for help, whether with a friend, respected elder, mentor or a trained mental health professional, can help you see things from different perspectives. Counselling or therapy can provide valuable tools to help avoid it getting worse.
Power of distraction
You may have a “climbing partner” – even a climbing community – and you may be doing your utmost to break challenges into manageable chunks and manage your own behaviour and reactions. But there can be times when the worry still presses in. If that’s the case, says Gwendoline Smith, try distraction: “In the fields of both chronic pain management and worrisome overthinking, distraction is one of the most powerful techniques there is,” she writes. “If you can, think about something different or do something different.”
Sophia Dawson agrees, saying even when it doesn’t feel like it, there are things we can try to distract us from our worries and anxieties, and these actions might even propel us forward.
“There is a lot of terrible stuff in the world, but there are things we can do. If there’s something you’re concerned about in your community, can you write to your local council or MP? Can you join a group working to tackle this particular issue or challenge?
“If you’re worried about your health, for example, can you try harder to eat better? You can start some basic exercise even if it’s just walking around the block.”
She suggests thinking about your future self and what advice that person might give you for dealing with the here and now – and how they might look back on how they handled things. This, she says, is often about self-compassion. We need to motivate ourselves to take small steps towards positive changes, especially when we’re feeling low, anxious or just want to hunker down at home.
“Wanting to isolate and stay home … is really understandable. It might feel really nice short term, but longer term, it can actually be quite damaging. This is where your future self, and self-compassion, come in. “They might say, ‘I know this is really tricky but you will feel pleased you’ve done this, so how about going for a walk around the block or see a friend for coffee.’”
Bailey says adversity can stifle joy, positivity and make it difficult to recognise the “small wins”, but there are a range of reasons to try to find the good from a bad situation. There is always a silver lining, he writes. “Sometimes the bad thing can be turned into a good thing, such as me turning my cancer into an opportunity to teach people about resilience.”
Party on
Throughout history, there have always been those who, when the chips were down, opted to eat, drink and be merry while everyone else fretted. When Operation Desert Storm started and our parents carried on while we sat on the couch, they knew something we were perhaps too young to appreciate: the world had been here before. Often, we do grow stronger through adversity because it teaches us greater resilience and strength; new opportunities can emerge.
In 1991, many adults had been children during World War II; my own parents have childhood memories of days and nights spent in bomb shelters in London and elsewhere in England, the roof blown of one of their homes, a neighbour’s leg in the road. What they knew then, and still know, is the importance of focusing on what you can control, trying to find the silver linings, and sharing their concerns with others.
“I think showing up as the people we want to be in a world that’s always going to have horrific stuff going on is really important,” says Dawson. “There’s also strength in knowing that opposite things can be true at the same time. Yes, there’s a lot of horrific, painful things happening out there but also a lot of beautiful, miraculous, inspiring, empowering things happening as well.
“All this can exist together. We can say, ‘This is what I choose to do’, and show up as the people we want to be even if we’re feeling anxious or angry or scared or worried or afraid.”
Balancing act
Diet, exercise, sleep and contact with friends and family are foundations for coping.
If you want to keep calm and carry on, then taking care of your overall health is paramount.
Te Whare Tapa Whā was developed by Māori health advocate Sir Mason Durie in 1984, describing health and wellbeing as a wharenui/meeting house with four walls that stand on the whenua/your place of belonging.
The wharenui walls represent taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing), taha hinengaro (mental and emotional wellbeing), taha tinana (physical wellbeing) and taha whānau (family and social wellbeing).
Our connection with the whenua forms the foundation. When all these things are in balance, we thrive. When one or more of these is out of balance, our wellbeing is affected.
Having the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wherewithal to face challenges means nurturing these aspects of life: doing the things that help us to stay healthy and live long – eating well, exercising regularly, getting decent sleep, having purpose and meaning to our lives and connecting with others.
All the experts the Listener approached talk of the importance of staying healthy, emphasising in particular the consequences of poor sleep and the need to reduce social media usage and connect in real life.
Social media can make us feel we’re more connected to friends and family, whereas we may actually see one another far less. When we’re together in person, it’s likely we’ll better detect tone and nuance and respond to conversation and comments in real time.
Research has found that when we meet in person, we tend to hug or shake hands or touch someone on the hand or shoulder. This stimulates pressure receptors in the skin, lowering stress hormones.
The benefits of physical activity are well known. Recent research has highlighted how being in nature can help to reduce stress (Listener, January 25), so a walk in the park or along the beach could have dual benefits. Oxford University professor of biodiversity Kathy Willis found even viewing natural scenes on a computer screen can make us feel better.
Studies, including by the University of Auckland’s Centre for Arts and Social Transformation, have also highlighted the benefits of creativity in alleviating stresses and strains – be it participating in an artistic activity or visiting somewhere like a museum or art gallery.
But if none of this is working – if the stresses and worries simply feel too big – then ask for help. An appointment with your GP might be a good place to start.
The kids are alright?
The social media blowtorch is harshest on our young. It’s vital that we find ways to keep communication channels open.
Though there’s good reason for all of us to despair about the state of the world, experts the Listener contacted all point to the extra pressure the rise of social media is putting on the young – creating anxiety through comparison, fear of not fitting in or being ridiculed, judged and ultimately “cancelled”.
“You start to scroll and there’s someone wearing beautiful clothes,” says psychologist Sophia Dawson, “so the thoughts begin: ‘Do I have beautiful clothes like this? Does my body look as good in something like that?’ So, it’s breeding comparison but also fear of judgment for looking the wrong way or saying the wrong thing.
“We’re living in a cancel culture, which is so horrifically damaging. A lot of the teens I work with are genuinely so concerned about being ‘cancelled’ because we’re living in a culture where if people are offended, they make that offence widely known in a way that can feel very intimidating.
“More than ever, it feels like we’re all being watched. If we ‘mess up’ or say something, it can appear anywhere because it’s so easy to take a video, and for someone to post about it.
“It’s just awful. I see a lot of teens who are just shrinking as a result of it because they don’t feel empowered to be who they want to be.”
She urges parents to set responsible boundaries around phone use, a sentiment shared by Christchurch youth mental health worker Sarah Maindonald, who says parents shouldn’t be afraid of setting boundaries.
“Of course you’ll get pushback – ‘You’re wrong, I hate you’ – and all the rest of it, but you’re not there to be their friend; you’re there to create a safe space,” says Maindonald.
The fear of judgment can extend to asking for help, too. Maindonald notes although a school guidance counsellor’s office is private, going to the room is public – which can pose problems.
And although parents might do their best to encourage communication, young people sometimes fear talking will add to already difficult situations, she says. Parental issues such as job insecurity, money troubles and relationship breakdowns can cause children to bottle things up. It’s a delicate balance between being open with your kids and oversharing.
Dealing with what appears to be challenging behaviour is another issue, and it requires patience. “It’s not easy parenting teenagers because one moment they want to be your baby and the next they want to be completely independent; they don’t want to know you,” says Maindonald. “Rather than being judgmental, try to stay curious about what’s going on. I think young people need to be heard and understood before they can deal with what might be going on for them.”
That might initially involve what Maindonald calls “psychological first aid”, where the focus is on safety, connection and hope. “If they’re just at the edge of a traumatic incident, that might be about all they can cope with. You can get into the nitty-gritty when they’re not feeling overwhelmed 100% of the time.”
This can be followed by a strengths-focused approach where questions are asked about what a young person is good at, what brings them joy, what they need more of, and what the barriers are to achieving these things.
“Then we’re actually looking forward, doing some pretty concrete goalsetting and planning alongside them. We can then look at who they need on their support team, and try to [address] any isolation they might be feeling.”
Of course, nothing has made the world sit up and take notice of the perniciousness of social media and what kids – especially boys and young men – might be doing on their computers and phones more than the recent Netflix drama Adolescence. For more on how social media impacts young boys and how you can help them navigate the world, see here.
Where to get help:
If it’s an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor
Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
Lifeline – 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP)
Youthline – 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat
0800 What’s Up - 0800 942 8787
Samaritans – 0800 726 666
Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 or free text 4202 to talk to a trained counsellor, or visit depression.org.nz
Anxiety New Zealand - 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY)
Healthline – 0800 611 116
Additional specialist helpline links: https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/get-help/in-crisis/helplines/
