On a routine flight from Denver to Houston in early February, a passenger suddenly began pounding the seat in front of him. When flight attendants approached him, he began punching a window, cracking the glass and bloodying his hands. That's according to an FBI affidavit that also said he kept at it until a group of passengers managed to subdue him with shoelaces and zip ties. A month later, on a flight to Washington, DC, from Wichita, Kansas, a passenger shouted violent threats at a flight attendant, another FBI affidavit said, before turning on a fellow traveler, taking his hat and glasses and repeatedly hitting him in the face.

Airline crews have reported 12,900 unruly passenger incidents to the Federal Aviation Administration since 2021. That year kicked off a grim new era of air travel, with a record-smashing 5,973 in-flight outbursts ranging in severity from rude or disruptive behavior to outright violence — a more than 400% increase from 2019. Though 2021 remains a banner year for troublesome travelers, the blight of bad behavior hasn't let up. Last year saw double the number of unruly passenger incidents compared with 2019.

Recent news has left people even more on edge: In a March Harris Poll commissioned by The Points Guy, 65% of respondents said they were more nervous about flying because of recent airplane crashes, a known risk of passenger misconduct. In total, nearly 90% of respondents said they're now afraid of flying.

Air travel can often bring out people's worst tendencies thanks to how much of the experience is out of their control — from inconsistent TSA procedures to the sky-high cost of a sad airport lunch. Researchers have also argued that the modern airplane is a microcosm of society at large, with its divided passenger classes replicating the inequality that plays out on solid ground. On every front, flying demands a healthy reserve of patience and goodwill toward your fellow human beings. It's a pressure test on the social contract — the idea that for humans to coexist in harmony, we need to commit to a set of shared values and behaviors that put the well-being of the group first. Being a member of a well-functioning society means not always getting your way and sucking it up like an adult. Flight attendants have a front-row seat to the state of this unspoken pact in all its glory or disrepair. If society is in upheaval, then the skies will follow suit.

These days, the flight attendants I spoke with say Americans' behavior could use some serious help.

The boom in bad behavior has been decades in the making. In her 2001 book, "Air Rage," the aviation consultant Angela Dahlberg writes that throughout the '90s, the industry steadfastly worked to overhaul air travel in the name of business efficiency and "an economy of safety." These changes came at the cost of comfort and customer service. Economy cabins became more tightly packed, and passenger legroom and complimentary meals became a thing of the past. Between 1995 and 1999, the FAA reported a 58% increase in flight delays due to aviation infrastructure that couldn't keep up with booming passenger demand. It wasn't long before unruly passengers multiplied and their disruptions grew more severe.

In the aftermath of 9/11, as fear around air travel spiked — and airport security became exponentially more frustrating — air rage incidents were widely reported to have surged. Industry veterans say things got bad again in the early 2010s. Kathryn Voge, who worked as a TWA flight attendant from 1977 to 1992 before changing careers to become a crisis counselor, was just another ordinary airline customer when she came face-to-face with an unruly passenger on a 2011 flight from Paris to Philadelphia.

"He was an American, and he was being so obnoxious — he seemed to be inebriated," she says. She could tell that crew members were in over their heads and, as a mental health professional, stepped in to help. "I was able to have a conversation with him and bring him down. But he was just so combative," she says. When she talked to the flight attendants afterward, they told her that incidents like that were becoming more common. Industry analysts again blamed airlines, saying their continued cost-cutting measures had made the passenger experience even worse.

Sunny McLaren, who retired from American Airlines in 2020 after 34 years of cabin service, believes that the proliferation of personal screen devices in the early 2010s was also a factor. Passengers these days tend to sit down, pop on their headphones, and tune out. When a flight attendant approaches to ask whether they need anything, it isn't unusual for the passenger to appear startled or annoyed, or even to lash out.

It's a pattern that both Voge and McLaren see as an extension of broader cultural patterns. "We're a lot more short-fused," McLaren tells me from her home near Phoenix. "I mean the country as a whole but also flight attendants and passengers."

The stats certainly back her up. Gallup polling has found that Americans are more likely to cite stress as a part of their daily lives than at any other point in the past 30 years. And in a 2024 survey by the American Psychiatric Association, 43% of adults said they felt more anxious than they had the previous year. Amid snowballing national distrust of information and public institutions, Pew reported in March that nearly half of Americans in its survey said they believed people have gotten ruder since the pandemic. While violent crime overall has been declining across the country for years, data from the Gun Violence Archive shows that road rage-related gun violence more than doubled between 2018 and 2023.

A few years of being stuck at home, combined with compounding global crises, have done a number on Americans. People are angry, scared, and taking it out on each other. In the skies, the breakdown of the social contract is unavoidable.

"Everyone's just so rushed, and then they sit down to decompress. And it's like, 'Wait a minute, I have to listen to you' — the flight attendant — 'too?'" McLaren says. "These passengers go through so much."

Recent years have supercharged the bad behavior. Public outbursts over masking rules became so frequent that they've earned the name "mask rage." When mask mandates were eventually lifted, air rage incidents held strong. In a 2021 survey of 5,000 flight attendants by the Association of Flight Attendants, the profession's largest labor union, over 85% of respondents said they dealt with unruly passengers in the first half of 2021, while 58% reported facing at least five passenger incidents during that time. A whopping 17% said they'd experienced a "physical incident" while interacting with a passenger.

The disturbances left veteran crew members shaken. "In my 25 years as a flight attendant, I've had maybe five unruly passenger events and only one that you could call 'air rage,'" AFA's president, Sara Nelson, told me in 2021.

That year, the FAA pleaded with airports to crack down on the sale of to-go alcohol, a practice introduced during the pandemic that was widely thought to exacerbate passenger misconduct. Democratic members of Congress went on to introduce the Protection from Abusive Passengers Act in 2023, which would have required the FAA and Department of Justice to work in conjunction with the TSA to maintain a no-fly list of unruly passengers. But nothing has happened with the bill.

The increasing flight chaos — from extended airport security wait times, rampant flight delays, and cancellations to the first fatal airline crash in over 20 years — has only prolonged the issue. By the time Anissa Perales, 27, became a flight attendant for a major US airline in spring 2023, unpleasant and unpredictable customer interactions were understood to be part of a day's work. That impression seems to have also spread to civilians, who often ask Perales for horror stories when they learn what she does for a living. "Whenever the question comes up, you can't think of examples because that's just what happens every day," Perales says.

Most day-to-day infractions are relatively minor — passengers might be talking loudly or watching movies without headphones, disturbing fellow flyers. Many refuse to comply with safety protocols, such as stowing away their tray tables or wearing their seatbelts. Intoxication is often a factor.

Perales tells me that she noticed higher passenger safety compliance immediately following the January collision between an American Airlines flight and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River, which killed all 67 people in both vehicles.

When President Donald Trump blamed the crash on diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring efforts in the FAA, it rattled an already high-turnover workforce. "I know people who've taken leaves and who have quit," says another flight attendant, who was granted anonymity because of an airline policy prohibiting press interviews. "I personally am not thrilled about plane crashes or anything to do with the FAA being less safe. But also, a lot of us are tired of the noise." With the current political climate adding unknowns to flying, some flight attendants now feel the weight of their jobs even after they're off the clock.

Though the situation has improved since its pandemic-era peak, the problem is "by no means gone," Nelson tells me now, adding: "Flight attendants are still facing all-too-frequent — and violent — disruptive passengers attacking us while we are at work just trying to make sure everyone has a safe flight."

As international travel becomes more tense amid Trump's trade war and increased border scrutiny, flying remains at the uneasy center of major social questions. Every active flight attendant I spoke with says they can't imagine doing anything else, but they agree that flying isn't what it used to be.

Kelli María Korducki is a journalist whose work focuses on work, tech, and culture. She's based in New York City.

• Megan Gluth balances her CEO role with teaching yoga near her home at least once a week.
• Business leaders' routines for managing stress are even more important during times of uncertainty.
• Other CEOs told BI they turn to time outdoors, walking, and "purposeful scrolling."

Megan Gluth has something many other CEOs don't: a side gig.

While Gluth's day job is running Catalynt Solutions, a distributor and producer of chemicals used in everything from soft drinks to shampoo and paint, she teaches yoga at least once a week at a studio near her home outside Seattle.

"Everybody thinks it's kind of funny that I have a part-time job," she told Business Insider.

That side hustle is proving useful. Because of uncertainty over tariffs, she's had to pull back on some investments that Catalynt had planned. Gluth, 44, has also had to have difficult conversations with clients about price hikes resulting from import duties.

Those types of discussions, plus being a mother to kids ages 6 and 8, make her days stressful. To help endure it all, she relies on the yoga and is a "committed meditator."

Like Gluth, many CEOs have long found ways to deal with taxing days that often spill into evenings and weekends. Indeed, having bosses share self-care routines became popular during the pandemic as managers sought to discuss coping mechanisms with workers amid the Zooms and sourdough starter.

Now, as questions swirl about how tariffs might collide with the economy, wellness routines are again serving as important tools to help dial down stress, Gluth and other chiefs told BI.

Keeping a balanced life

Keith Lambert founded and runs Oxidizers, a company that sells pollution-control equipment and services to industrial sites around the US. He's also the CEO of InCheq, which helps organizations manage critical tasks. Running two companies keeps him busy.

Luckily, Lambert is a morning guy — some days he's out of bed by 3:30 a.m. "The moment I'm up, I'm moving," Lambert said.

That movement helps him remain calm, he said. Lambert has plenty of conference calls and, when he has to, sits in front of a camera. Otherwise, he's on his feet and, when the weather allows, is on his phone while walking through his neighborhood outside Chicago.

"When I can, I keep myself in motion," Lambert, 55, said.

Besides walking, he starts his days reading scripture. Lambert also makes time for friends and, especially, his wife, the couple's son, and their dog, a wheaten terrier-poodle mix known as a whoodle.

"I guess you could say I do my best to practice a balanced life," Lambert said.

Time in the woods

Michelle Volberg, founder and CEO of the startup Twill, often finds balance in the woods near her home outside New York City. She enjoys "forest bathing, " a practice that originated in Japan and involves being in nature to boost well-being.

Volberg told BI that once or twice a week, she'll try to find 45 minutes for a hike with her husband. Time beneath the canopy, where her phone often falls silent due to a lack of signal, means she can do some of her best strategic thinking, she said.

On the hikes, when Volberg does tap at her phone, it's mostly to collect ideas for her company, which pays tech workers to recommend peers for key jobs.

"That completely grounds me and calms me with all of the chaos that generally surrounds founders and CEOs," Volberg, 38, said, referring to time outside without distractions.

She also relies on a community of women who, like her, run venture-backed startups. Volberg is part of a group of about 500 women who belong to the organization VC Backed Moms. Its members often communicate through a Slack group to trade ideas and share information. It's generally all off the record, she said.

She said it's helpful to learn how others are handling various situations.

"The more perspectives you can get on a situation, the better off you are to make your own decision," Volberg said.

Starting with 'purposeful scrolling'

Technology also helps Kyle Hanslovan, cofounder and CEO of Huntress, a cybersecurity firm. Most mornings, he said, he'll spend about an hour in bed engaging in "purposeful scrolling."

Hanslovan, 39, tends to start with Instagram to catch up on his personal life, move to LinkedIn for insights on topics like business and history, and end on X, where he reads various news and finds diverse opinions.

"I need stuff that is still mentally stimulating that is not work," he told BI, referring to his use of social media.

While social media often gets a bad rap, he says, rather than ratcheting up his stress, he's pruned his feeds so they offer good insights. Hanslovan often texts himself links to some of his favorite nuggets.

Some, like quotes from famed boxer Muhammad Ali or Steve Jobs, make their way into the "Townhall Tuesday" companywide meetings he runs.

Hanslovan, an Air Force veteran, has a gym at his Jacksonville, Florida, home, so he makes a point to work out three to five times a week. Even though he said the gym isn't a time for thinking, finding time to get his heartbeat above 170 beats a minute — with his phone nowhere near him — is "so damn important."

Responding, not reacting

Each week, in her hatha yoga class, Gluth from Catalynt Solutions, guides participants on breath work and meditation.

Meditation and yoga help her maintain a mindset of "responding rather than reacting." Gluth sees that approach as a hallmark of leadership.

She takes staying focused seriously, in part because she has dozens of people working for her.

"I have 55 families, essentially, that depend on me every day to not lose my shit," Gluth said. "I need to be centered, and I need to be balanced."

A few months ago, I began noticing an unusual pattern across my digital feeds. Wherever I scrolled, people kept telling me to play Tetris.

Aspiring thought leaders on LinkedIn touted the game as a tool for honing strategic thinking. On TikTok, it was promoted as a salve for workday anxiety. Reddit users sang its praises, saying it may help prevent flashbacks from traumatizing experiences, such as witnessing a stabbing at Grand Central Terminal or watching a surfer swallowed up by a deadly swell. In the past six months alone, dozens of Reddit posts have suggested Tetris to help with PTSD, accumulating thousands of upvotes and hundreds of comments.

I was skeptical. But I quickly realized that I was late to the party. Studies on the game's potential to improve players' mental health and cognition date back to at least the early 2000s. Research on how the brain adapts to playing Tetris goes back even further. In recent years, amid the rise of social media and the modern cult of self-optimization, Tetris has gained new momentum as a better-living gambit. The game has shown up in enough personal development content that its self-help status has graduated from the ultrafringe to the almost mainstream. Somehow, while I was busy living my life, Tetris had become a life hack for business bros, wellness gurus, and plenty of others in between.

But how exactly does it work?

Tetris was created in 1984 as an arcade game in Soviet Moscow by the scientist Alexey Pajitnov. The concept was simple: Players pieced together descending multicolored puzzle blocks to form tidy rows that fell away to clear space for even more blocks, which tumbled from above at an ever-increasing speed — a hypnotic, quick-thinking race against a game-ending pileup. Players couldn't get enough. Within a few years, the video game creator Henk Rogers partnered with Pajitnov and secured a deal to bring Tetris to Nintendo's then new Game Boy devices, cementing the game as an international obsession and a staple of '90s childhoods.

It wasn't long before Tetris devotees began reporting a strange occurrence. The game's cascading blocks would follow them off their screens and show up against the walls of darkened rooms, when they closed their eyes to fall asleep, and even in their dreams. A 1991 study of Tetris players' brain scans found that their cognitive processing while playing the game became more energy-efficient the more they played, suggesting that as they grew their Tetris-playing skills, their brains became ever more primed toward solving the puzzle. Players were able to engage with the game so deeply that they stayed in the zone even after they'd finished playing, the study found, and without virtual Tetris blocks to maneuver, their brains conjured up imaginary ones. In 1994, Wired dubbed this the "Tetris effect."

Multiple studies went on to find that playing Tetris within a critical time window following a traumatic event might reduce the onset, intensity, and frequency of PTSD symptoms. A study published last year found that among 164 Swedish healthcare workers who faced work-related trauma during the pandemic, playing a single 20-minute round of Tetris immediately after focusing on the visual aspect of a traumatic memory led to an average 85.9% drop in intrusive memories five weeks after playing. Tetris players continued showing post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms at about half the rate of nonplayers in follow-ups three and six months later.

Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and mental health podcaster in the Florida Keys, says that the research on Tetris and PTSD aligns with a broader shift in the clinical understanding of how memory consolidation and trauma work together. Earlier in her career, Morin recalls, she was expected to coax patients "to process and debrief" in the aftermath of possibly trauma-inducing experiences, such as an act of violence in the workplace. Instead of helping people move past the event, this approach often made them feel worse, she says. She and her professional peers now recognize that diving headfirst into processing terrible moments right after the fact can exacerbate distress and give way to rumination, which is a known risk factor for developing PTSD.

Playing Tetris, on the other hand, has been found to have the opposite effect. "Tetris takes just enough brainpower that you have to be much more present and can't be worried about the future or rehashing something in the past," Morin says. "Your brain's kind of like a file cabinet, trying to decide which folder to put these memories into. And something about the way that Tetris works makes it so those things don't end up in the 'let's revisit this later' file." In other words, whether through neurocognitive trickery or the sheer force of distraction, playing Tetris may safeguard against locking in the kinds of memories that might become intrusive thoughts down the line. Morin is so enthusiastic about the therapeutic possibilities of Tetris that she recently devoted an entire episode of her podcast to the subject.

Other studies point to further applications for Tetris' magic. Richard Haier, the psychologist who first uncovered the mechanism behind the Tetris effect, found that the cerebral cortices of frequent Tetris players became thicker over time, which could lead to improvements in associated functions such as memory capacity and cognitive development. Another study, published in 2018, found that playing Tetris may help counteract anxiety by inducing a state of flow, or being able to focus deeply on a task. Further research has indicated that these brain changes aren't unique to Tetris, with gamers reporting Tetris effect-like hallucinations from other video games. Repetition and puzzle-solving alter your perception, whether you're fitting together a cascade of colorful blocks or mining for materials to slay the "Minecraft" dragon. But it's the simplicity and accessibility of Tetris that keep new generations of players discovering — and rediscovering — its hypnotic capabilities.

Will Padilla, a 28-year-old content creator and software-as-a-service sales rep in Scottsdale, Arizona, hadn't heard about any of this research when he discovered that playing Tetris helps him push through the trickiest parts of his workday. It was a happy fluke when Padilla decided, on a whim, to queue up the game to keep himself preoccupied one day during the first nerve-racking round of cold calls on the job.

"Cold calls make me really nervous — and everyone who has to make them — because you're calling someone out of the blue," Padilla tells me. "The person could be really rude to you. But it's part of the job." Padilla tried other means of distraction to ease the process, such as squeezing a stress ball, to no avail. With Tetris, he realized he'd found his ideal solution. "It helped me get over the initial 30 seconds of nerves," Padilla says. He went on to share the tip on TikTok with fellow SaaS sellers.

Padilla's explanation for why the game helped aligns with the research. "You're doing this stimulating thing that's not causing more anxiety but is making you think in a very calm and analytical way," he says.

Abhishek Shankar, the founder of a fertility-planning tech startup in Delaware, plays Tetris to clear his mind and sharpen his focus so he can code. "Its fast-paced decision-making gets me into a flow state that carries over to solving complex programming problems," Shankar, 39, tells me. He's even programmed a version of the game for personal use.

Katherine Yan, a 27-year-old engineering manager at Medium who's based in Los Angeles, similarly says that Tetris helps train her brain to quickly recognize patterns and make decisions under pressure. "It's a constant exercise in prioritization, spatial reasoning, and adapting to imperfect conditions — just like managing competing deadlines and priorities or untangling a legacy codebase." Yan, who began playing the game in high school, says she noticed over the years that after playing for even just a few minutes she would return to her work with more focus and faster decision-making capabilities.

Jamie Krenn, an adjunct associate professor of human development at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University's Teachers College, has students play Tetris in her classes every semester to demonstrate how some games can improve problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and working memory by forcing players to think fast and adapt on the fly. "The way Tetris makes you recognize patterns and plan ahead is basically a workout for your brain," Krenn says.

At least some of the surge in awareness over the science of playing Tetris comes down to simple SEO. In 2018, Rogers and a team of Japanese video game developers unveiled a spinoff of the game called "Tetris Effect" — a sly homage to the cognitive phenomenon. Google searches for the term predictably soared when the game came out, a process that repeated with subsequent releases for new gaming consoles over the next five years. It's all but certain that many of the gamers looking for news on the game stumbled upon the research behind the title.

But with growing interest comes expanded misunderstanding. Content creators and even journalists don't always have the scientific background to correctly interpret researchers' studies, which can lead to exaggerated or oversimplified claims, confusion, and backlash. "'Play Tetris' is the new 'Have you tried yoga?' for PTSD and I'm not having any of it," a frustrated Reddit user wrote a couple of years ago in a support channel for complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

It's a problem that spreads far beyond Tetris. "Once an idea that's overly simplistic takes root, it's really hard to challenge that, even if the broader research world knows that that's not true," says Peter Simons, a science journalist and the author of the online publication Mad in America who has written critically about this dynamic. "Once it's in the layperson's mind and culturally out there, everywhere we look, it's really hard for a researcher to say, 'Hey, actually, the literature doesn't support this at all.' Then it sounds like you, the researcher, are the person who has to prove an extreme point of view, even though it's the mainstream cultural view that's extreme and overblown." It's the same hive-mind instinct that feeds conspiracy theories and problematic health advice.

"We'll get interested in pop psychology, and we'll replicate the same error over and over again, spreading misinformation because we don't understand the complexity of what we're reading," he says. "But as we get more excited about it, we'll do it more and more. That, to me, is a societal ill, not a societal good."

Morin sees things differently. From where she stands, the calculus is simple: The research is promising, the game is fun, and, in many cases, it's free to download and play. There's little to lose in trying. "So many other treatments for PTSD come with risks, like medications and even therapy," she tells me. "But who hasn't played Tetris or some other, similar game? You're not out on anything by giving it a shot."

Kelli María Korducki is a journalist whose work focuses on work, tech, and culture. She's based in New York City.

When June came around last year, Sarah Wong was at the end of her rope. As a social media marketer, much of her day is spent on the phone keeping up with local news and events, and she'd hit a breaking point. "It's just very overwhelming to be bombarded with news every day," the 28-year-old tells me.

Wong and her husband, a software engineer, typically travel every couple of months from their hometown of Austin, spending a few days exploring cities like Las Vegas, San Diego, and Martha's Vineyard. But her regular vacation wasn't going to cut it this time. Wong decided to try a wellness retreat, hoping it would help her unplug and reset her nervous system. She booked a four-night stay at the nearby Miraval Austin Resort and Spa with her husband. "I think anyone who works in social media needs a reset where they don't have to be online," she says.

At the property, staff valeted her minivan and took her bags. Wong and her husband were given the choice between a backpack or tote bag containing a branded water bottle and a "cellphone sleeping bag" to hold their phones during their stay. (Miraval enforces a strict no-phone policy except in designated areas). "It's very 'White Lotus'," she tells me.

Between rope courses, sound bowl healing, and yoga, she and her husband would snag lunch from the build-your-own salad bar or off a menu where "each dish is designed with wellness in mind," per the resort, and lounge by the pool. She tried yoga nidra, a form of meditation that promotes relaxation, which she describes as feeling like "you woke up from the best nap of your life."

"It feels like an adult summer camp," she says.

Since the retreat, Wong says she is able to step away from her phone more easily and spends more time outside. "I've been trying to use our patio to just take in the fresh air, look at trees, look at the sky." She and her husband are planning to go again this year. "We want to hit all three properties," she tells me.

Ever since pandemic-era travel restrictions subsided, travel has boomed. More recently, "rest and relaxation" has jumped ahead of having "a fun time" as the main motivation for leisure travel, according to a nationally representative 2024 survey of 1,000 US travelers from the market research firm Longwoods International. A Deloitte survey produced similar results. More people are feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or just want to focus their PTO time on improving their health. A 2023 American Express travel survey found that 73% of respondents were planning vacations around improving their physical and emotional health, with millennials and Gen Z prioritizing wellness travel at a higher rate than older generations.

A growing obsession with wellness paired with mounting uncertainty about daily life is driving demand for relaxation. Welcome to the age of the self-care-cation.

As recently as five years ago, wellness could be classified as a "niche segment" in travel, associated primarily with weekend spa breaks and hippie yoga retreats. But since COVID, people have begun to get serious about their health. McKinsey estimated the US market for wellness — which it defined as including better health, fitness, sleep, mindfulness, appearance, and nutrition — is up almost 7% since 2022, reaching $480 billion. Nearly 60% of respondents to the McKinsey survey said they valued wellness more in 2024 than the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of health and wellness podcasts has grown by 50% in the past five years, Nielsen found, while self-help books are one of the fastest-growing nonfiction genres. Younger generations are now shunning alcohol and driving a boom in bougie wellness clubs.

"The tourism market looks a little bit at what's happening in people's leisure time, looks at the consumer trends and thinks, 'How can we capitalize on this?'" says Melanie Kay Smith, an associate professor of tourism management at Budapest Business University.

Hilton announced in January that it now offers guided meditations, sleep stories, and mindfulness exercises from the mental-health wellness company Calm via their hotel room TVs. It also partnered with Peloton to offer workouts from room TVs. Other brands are investing in new wellness-focused resorts, such as Hyatt's new "art and wellness house" in Panama that's set to open soon. Accor Group plans to open 18 new luxury hotels this year and touts the wellness amenities in five of them. It's also opening a wellness-focused resort in the Caribbean later this year.

The drive for wellness isn't coming out of nowhere. In 2023, nearly half of Americans reported they frequently experienced stress, more than any other point since Gallup started tracking it in 1994. People are also becoming more anxious: In 2024, 43% of adults surveyed by the American Psychiatric Association said they felt more anxious than they had the previous year. "As life speeds up, maybe our vacations need to be slower to compensate," says Smith.

Hotels, resorts, and retreats are stepping in to meet the need for a little TLC. In 2024, Miraval Resorts said it saw a nearly 80% increase in demand for stress management workshops over the previous year. It also said that group arrivals have increased 157% since 2021. "I think the luxury consumer realizes that instead of acquiring things, acquiring experiences is much more rich," says Dina Niekamp, the associate vice president of sales, marketing, and brand for Miraval.

Ella Dixon-Nuttall, a 28-year-old yoga teacher from London, was tired of taking trips that revolved around beach clubs and drinking. So last June, she went on her first yoga retreat in Sicily with a friend. It cost £1,600, or just over $2,000, for the week and included accommodations, three meals a day, and yoga classes in the morning and evening. "You got the benefit of an all-inclusive but then you also have the movement and wellness aspect," she tells me. "I get home and feel filled up and energized by the experience rather than needing another holiday to get over the holiday."

Dixon-Nuttall enjoyed it so much that in February she went on her second retreat, this time with her mother. In March, she went on a third retreat in France. "It's such a wonderful way to travel," she says. "I'm now a retreat convert to the point where if I want to go somewhere I'll look if there's a retreat there." She is looking to book another in India later this year.

Lili Paxton's mother is a similar convert. Growing up, Paxton recalls family ski trips and girls getaways to Palm Springs. But at the end of 2022, Paxton and her mother were looking to book a more relaxing trip. They ended up planning a weeklong stay at Rancho La Puerta, a wellness resort and spa just over the San Diego border in Baja California, Mexico, after a family member recommended it. Weeklong rates for one person start at $5,650. Neither Paxton nor her mother had done anything like it before.

Each day hikes were offered at 5:30 a.m. Classes were available each hour for everything from Pilates to pickleball. Paxton's mother tried Watsu — a type of water therapy that uses massage, stretching, and acupressure — for the first time. "She said it was the most spiritual experience," Paxton says. "She said that she saw my dead father under the water."

When Paxton wasn't hiking or exercising, she was at the spa or relaxing by the pool. "The whole time I was just really happy," she says. "It felt like an escape from reality."

Her mother left the trip transformed. "My mom is committed to going every year until she dies," says Paxton. "She even talked to her financial planner and was like, 'I need you to put this in the budget for the next 20 years.'" They spent another week at the retreat this past Christmas.

While many people are happy to pay a premium for a chance to indulge in simple things like walking in nature or taking a deep breath, for others, wellness is becoming increasingly high-tech. Since 2008, the wellness resort Sha has been at the forefront of holistic health, offering around 1,000 different treatments in nearly 40 different medical and health specialties at its locations in Spain and Mexico. Stays at the resort start at 550 euros a night, or roughly $600, while specialized four-day programs start at 2,500 euros, or about $2,700, with add-ons for treatments focused on sexual well-being, sleep recovery, stress management, gut health, quitting smoking, and more.

The "Leader's Performance" program, for example, starts with an advanced preventive diagnosis that tests body composition, cognitive abilities, and advanced glycation end-product accumulation — compounds that are linked with aging. Guests can also participate in clinical analyses, such as an oxidative stress test and a tailored meal plan with nutritional monitoring.

Almost every type of treatment imaginable is available at Sha: stem cell treatment, advanced plasma renewal, hormone replacement therapy, sleep diagnosis. All guests receive an alkalizing diet tailored to their individual nutritional needs. "Even if you go to see all these different experts in the city, first, it will take you months to see them all, then there will be no coordination between them," Alejandro Bataller, Sha's vice president, says. "We're probably the most comprehensive."

While Sha appeals to a range of health-conscious consumers, Bataller has noticed an increase over the past two or three years in customers he calls "biohackers." These are people who already have a longevity doctor, nutritionist, and functional medicine doctor on speed dial, who take 40-plus supplements a day and invest in the latest high-tech treatments. "They don't want a standard program," he says. "They come to Sha because they know that Sha is always cutting edge."

Bataller describes wellness as not just being healthy, but as an "active, ongoing pursuit" that focuses on improving yourself. "You can see someone with the best car, the best watch, the best suit," he says. "But if he doesn't look healthy, that doesn't seem like luxury."

While there's research backing up some of these treatments, Jessica DeFino, a beauty reporter and culture critic, questions how much is driven by health and how much is simply a medicalized beauty standard. "A better way to think about how we see looking healthy today is actually looking wealthy," she says. "It's looking as if you've funneled thousands and tens of thousands of dollars into your face and body. That's not health; that's products, that's procedures."

Of course, products and procedures are all the rage right now as people look for alternative approaches to well-being. "Our culture is largely unwell," DeFino explains. Only 36% of Americans have at least "quite a lot" of trust in the medical system, a 2024 Gallup survey found, and studies show that Americans are sicker than people in many parts of the world. Only about half of Americans focus on eating healthy and exercising, despite diet and physical inactivity being leading contributors to chronic disease. Wellness gurus have stepped in to fill the gap left by a flagging healthcare system. Across social platforms, they document macros consumed and hours spent in REM, while touting the benefits of cryotherapy, red-light therapy, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. "The draw of wellness for the average person is it offers an individualized solution to a collective issue," DeFino says, adding: "A lot of this is an attempt to intellectualize these arbitrary, oppressive beauty standards and make them seem like smart investments."

That doesn't mean the pursuit of chilling out isn't worth it. A 2023 study that reviewed 68 articles from 2002 to 2022 found that wellness tourism — defined as any tourism activities pursued with the goal of maintaining or improving health — could offer both psychological and quality-of-life benefits. However, these benefits vary from person to person, making it challenging to measure them.

It's easy to get carried away thinking we all need cutting-edge treatments to get by. "It's great to step out of your everyday life and relax," says DeFino. "Collectively, we also have to be focusing on how we create lives that we don't need to step out of all of the time."

Eve Upton-Clark is a features writer covering culture and society.

• Kelly Benthall saw work culture improve over her 30-year career, but the damage had already been done.
• Last year, she decided to retire early in order to improve her mental, physical, and emotional health.
• At her first post-retirement checkup, her doctor noted improvement.

My plan had always been to retire at 65 — grind it out, climb the ladder, and finally enjoy the freedom. But plans change, especially when your body starts flashing warnings you can't ignore.

Last year, at 53, I retired early with my husband — not because we had meticulously planned every detail, but because the cost of staying in the rat race — mentally, physically, and emotionally — had become too high. Work had always been a source of pride, but it was also a source of stress and, at times, serious health consequences.

For more than 30 years, I helped companies ranging from startups to giants such as Shell and Chevron navigate strategic change. I had spent those decades taking on more responsibility than was reasonable, absorbing the pressure, and expecting little in return. Over time, I internalized stress as a normal part of success — until my body forced me to stop.

The corporate fast lane and its toll

The workplace has changed a lot since the '90s and early 2000s, particularly in male-dominated industries like oil and gas. Back then, I was a minority as a woman, and those who made it to the top endured relentless pressure. Some became champions for equality. Others expected fellow women to tough it out, believing suffering was a rite of passage.

Some female leaders respected my work, but others saw it as a threat.

During an orientation at one of my first jobs, I mentioned my experience in speechwriting to a CEO. He asked me to write his sales conference talks, but my female boss told him I wasn't interested and offered to do it herself. I later reached back out to the CEO to clarify, and we ended up partnering for years.

And then there were #MeToo moments I can't believe I tolerated. One boss thought it was appropriate to share his appreciation for Playboy centerfolds during meetings.

The culture shifted over time as companies implemented stronger policies and accountability measures. By the time I reached my final years in corporate life, the culture had improved. But the damage had already been done.

Years of working in high-alert mode left me conditioned to expect the worst, even in safer environments.

The moment my body fought back

Despite disappointments, I kept my foot on the gas. I worked harder than ever, sometimes logging 90-hour weeks, believing that if I just worked smart enough and fast enough, I could outpace the stress.

I was wrong.

One day, I collapsed at work. My blood pressure spiked to 220/180, and I ended up in an ambulance. The EMTs gave me nitroglycerin, but nothing happened. I heard one of them say, "Uh-oh," before telling the driver to move faster.

That should have been my wake-up call. Instead, I doubled down — cycling through medications in a desperate attempt to keep going.

It wasn't sustainable.

A change coach who couldn't change

I had spent my career coaching others to accept change.

The advice I'd given countless others seemed easy when it was someone else's problem. "Do as I say, not as I do," I thought. Yet, as I struggled with burnout and my health deteriorated, I realized I wasn't taking my own lessons to heart. I had built a career around helping people, but I had been afraid to make the same leap myself.

It wasn't until I spoke with a coach — a free consultation, something I almost canceled because I "didn't have time" — that I saw my life from a different perspective.

She asked me one simple question: "When was the last time you did something that scared you?"

The question caught me off guard. I had spent so many years operating in a world of controlled risks, where I calculated every move and mitigated every possible failure. But fear? The kind that comes from stepping into the unknown, from daring to disrupt the status quo? It had been a long time since I'd felt that.

That moment unlocked something in me. I remembered who I was — someone who took chances. I had once thrived on new challenges, stepping into high-stakes projects where failure wasn't an option and leading teams through uncertainty. Yet, I had spent years trapped in a cycle of stress and obligation, mistaking endurance for achievement.

"Sometimes you have to break down to break through," the voice in my head whispered. That was the moment I decided to retire.

Retirement cured me

When I finally stepped away from my career, I didn't fully grasp the toll it had taken on my body. But retirement didn't just heal me — it gave me a new way of living. My husband and I embraced slow travel, trading deadlines and commutes for long walks in new cities, quiet mornings with coffee, and the freedom to explore at our own pace.

It wasn't until my first post-retirement checkup that I saw the difference. My blood pressure had dropped, and my stress markers were lower.

My doctor looked at my stats, then back at me, and said: "Your job was trying to kill you."

Escaping the hustle trap

Retirement didn't just save my health. It felt like finally pulling off the highway, realizing I'd been speeding toward a crash. It rewired my brain. What I had once called "drive" was really just a never-ending sprint toward exhaustion.

While work environments have improved in some ways, the effects of years spent enduring stress don't just disappear overnight. People like me, who became accustomed to overwork and constant pressure, struggle to recognize what a healthy pace actually looks like.

If you feel trapped in a high-stress career, ask yourself: When was the last time you did something that scared you? What are you really working for? At what point will you have enough? How long can your body sustain this stress? And most importantly, what's stopping you from making a change?

I wish I had asked myself these questions sooner. But the good news is that not everyone has to wait until their body forces them to stop.

Do you have a story to share about retirement? Contact the editor at [email protected].

• I learned early on that discipline was ineffective with my children and caused more harm than good.
• Now I try to put the focus on empathy, letting my children make choices without fear of judgment.
• Meditation and self-care improved the my parenting and the overall mood in our household.

Strolling the aisles of my grocery store, dwelling in the bliss of a mother that gets to shop alone, I heard the piercing cry of a toddler, followed by a caregiver, loudly admonishing, "If you drop that again, I'm not giving it back to you."

I didn't just hear that — I felt it, because I used to be that caregiver. Half-running behind my cart, wild-eyed, yelling at my children as I struggled to remember everything I needed to make dinner that night. Some days, usually when my plate is too full, I turn into her again.

Every mother knows this pattern. On a recent morning, getting the kids ready for school, my husband, sensing I was touched out, said he would take over. On the way out the door, our 10-year-old said to our 7-year-old, "When mom's not happy, no one is."

This is, unfortunately, correct. I am, overall, in a good place now, but it was an arduous road, full of missteps and switchbacks.

I learned early on that discipline caused more harm than good

Back when our daughter was 2, we tried to give her a time-out. We sat her in a little chair and told her to stay put. She did, bawling uncontrollably, while my husband and I exchanged nervous glances while still trying to look authoritative.

I can't even what we were disciplining her for, but I will never forget how I felt, which was ridiculous, for trying to instill a punishment on someone barely able to verbalize that they are sorry for something. Eventually, I picked her up and told her I was sorry. She cried for a long time in my arms, and I think it is safe to say, she had no idea why.

That was our first, and last, time-out. It was also the beginning of me realizing that it was awfully coincidental how much my children seemed to misbehave when I was in a terrible mood.

I aim for a house where children feel safe to make mistakes

It is difficult to unlearn that mistakes are bad, that it doesn't matter if you spill the milk on the couch, or forget to say thank you. I want to be clear that I am no zen master, drifting around my yard in flowing robes, lifting my hand for a hummingbird to land on it. What I do know is that the yelling, strict rules, and ultimatums didn't work. Instead, they caused fear, and I could sense, if I kept going with it, it would teach my children, a little earlier than I prefer, how to lie.

So I let my children be children. My house often looked like it had been robbed. When my kids had tantrums in public, I just waited until they stopped. I try to put the focus on empathy and understanding, letting my children make choices, odd as they might be, without the fear of the judgmental gaze of others, which is often the hardest thing to ignore.

When a situation does arise where I have to intervene, I lean heavily on the concepts of distraction and humor. I might say something like, "Hey, which one of your cousins do you think smells the worst?" If things get really bad, there is always tickling. If none of this works, I close my eyes, and imagine an elephant walking through the grasslands. Trust me, this is calming.

I had to learn to take care of myself

I taught myself to meditate, and it changed everything. When I am calmer, my children are happier. It sounds so simple, but it took me years to understand that a less stressful household also made my children relax.

In all of the preparation I undertook to have children, I didn't come across a syllable of advice that said perhaps, just maybe, consider the weight of motherhood on your mental health, but I sure did buy a ton of stuff. I could fill oil drums with all of the equipment I was told I needed in order to be a mother. Now I know, what I needed most was permission to care for myself. After all, when mom is happy, other people can be happy, too.

• Matthew McConaughey's mother, 93, says that a positive attitude helps her stay well at her age.
• Kay McConaughey told Austin Lifestyle that she tries to avoid stressful situations wherever possible.
• She also makes a conscious effort to keep her mind active by reading and keeping up with current affairs.

Matthew McConaughey's mother, Kay McConaughey, is 93, and she's still in great shape thanks to being stress-free.

In an interview with Austin Lifestyle, McConaughey — born Mary Kathlene McCabe — said that she's able to lead a vibrant life because she eats well, exercises regularly, and has a positive attitude.

"But, the biggest thing for me is I don't stress. Like, if you and I were really good friends and, and you were talking to me and you had a situation, I would listen to you and I would give you advice and if you didn't take it, then that's it, I wouldn't stress over it," McConaughey told Austin Lifestyle.

She also tries to avoid getting into stressful situations.

"If I see that's where I'm headed, I back off. I'm not going to let people do that to me," she said.

Not only that, McConaughey said that she "never really had any reason to" be stressed when she was younger either.

"I was really popular and I had a zest for life and stress is not a word I can apply to me, ever," she said.

Additionally, she does Pilates four times a week and eats a "very healthy breakfast" consisting of yogurt and "lots of different fruits."

"My father was very healthy and he taught my sister and I that you are what you eat, and you are what you think, and I've tried to live by those two things, really and truly, because if you think you're dumb, guess what? You're probably dumb. If you think you're smart, then you're probably smart," McConaughey said. "So, I have always thought I am what I think, and that's why I think positive."

While she says that her family doesn't have "any sweets in our house, ever," she enjoys drinking wine every day — one glass at 5 o'clock and another glass when she goes to bed.

She acknowledged that keeping her body and mind active at her age requires a conscious effort.

"I read a lot, I keep up with things, you have to work at it at my age. I keep up with current events on my iPad," she said. "I want to know what's happening in the world. I'm curious, very curious about life, still."

Research has shown that chronic stress can weaken the immune system and may also increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and gastrointestinal problems.

Just 30 minutes of low to moderate-intensity exercise each day, like walking, can stabilize mood and improve sleep.

Practicing "micro-meditations" that take less than a minute to complete daily can also help to lower stress levels and improve mental health, Dr. Kien Vuu, a physician who specializes in antiaging and regenerative medicine, told Business Insider previously.

One technique involves a simple exercise of focusing on your breath as you inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of seven, and exhale for a count of eight, he said.

Business Insider reached out to Kay McConaughey via a representative for her son, Matthew McConaughey. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular hours.

Stress isn’t just bad for you — it’s also bad for your employer. Factoring in absenteeism, diminished productivity, turnover, medical costs, and accidents, the nonprofit American Institute of Stress estimates that workplace stress costs U.S. businesses over $300 billion annually. One way to measure stress is by monitoring cortisol levels. Even influencers know this, with […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

• Over three-fifths of US workers have nightmares about work.
• Common nightmares include being late to work, job loss, and romantic dreams about coworkers.
• Dreams are often a reflection of the inner self, therapists say.

For many people, work extends well beyond the standard 9-to-5. The pressure from their jobs can disrupt sleep, leading to restless nights and stressful dreams.

In a survey of 1,750 working adults in the US conducted by Each Night, a sleep resource platform, more than three-fifths of workers reported having a nightmare about their jobs.

The most common workplace nightmare is being late to work, according to an analysis of global search data conducted by the job search platform JobLeads. Losing your job, getting a new job, and colleague romances were also commonly reported dreams.

Annie Wright, a psychotherapist who operates boutique trauma therapy centers in California and Florida, told Business Insider that dreams are worth analyzing.

The fear of being late to work can signify a sense of uncertainty, she said. "It doesn't terribly surprise me that that's showing up because, you know, we have that classic dream in college and high school of being late for a test," she said.

Through the lens of gestalt psychotherapy — a therapeutic approach that focuses on understanding a person's present experience — every element of a dream, from the setting to the people, places, and objects, can be viewed as a reflection of the dreamer's inner self.

Wright offered a hypothetical workplace dream in which the dreamer sees their boss, closest colleague, and a challenging client. The boss is yelling at the colleague about their interactions with the client.

Wright said she would ask the dreamer to describe the qualities they associate with their boss. "Critical, demanding, and hostile," they might say, she said. Then, they would describe their colleague. "Supportive, kind, but incompetent sometimes," she said.

She would ask the dreamer to think about all these aspects within their self.

"What does it say that the critical, angry part of you is attacking the, you know, supportive but kind part of you," she said. Perhaps the person would realize that the dream was about something else entirely.

"I cannot turn off this critical voice about my inability to get pregnant," she said, as an example. "When we unfold it from that lens, it can become less about the workplace itself or the workplace figure itself and more about what those different parts symbolized by the workplace or workplace figures represent."

Stressful dreams often reflect a person's sense of vulnerability in the wider world, she said. Whether it's the workplace or the middle school hallway — the most common setting for a stress dream — the setting of a dream is like a subject that our mental state seeks out. "In other words, the state of vulnerability seeks that out and gloms on to it," she said.

Here's a closer look at the top most searched workplace stress dreams, according to JobLeads data.

To outside observers, AI researchers are in an enviable position. They’re sought after by tech giants. They’re taking home eye-popping salaries. And they’re in the hottest industry of the moment. But all this comes with intense pressure. More than half a dozen researchers TechCrunch spoke with, some of whom requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

• Getting together with family over the holidays can be stressful.
• Afterward, you may feel similar to how you feel when hungover — even if you didn't drink.
• Here's how to deal with the effects of an "emotional hangover."

Whether you're disagreeing over politics or dodging questions about why you've gained or lost weight, getting through a family gathering can feel like you're dealing with a powder keg of emotions. Then you wake up the next day with nausea or a pounding headache.

All signs point to a hangover — except you didn't drink alcohol. Instead, your unpleasant symptoms might be due to an "emotional hangover," which refers to the "feeling of physical and emotional exhaustion that follows an intense emotional situation," Charlynn Ruan, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and founder of Thrive Psychology Group, told Business Insider.

When you have a conflict or negative interaction with someone, "your nervous system is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, and you may enter a state of fight, flight, or freeze, which helps you navigate threats and challenges," she added. Following an intense emotional experience, you may develop symptoms like exhaustion, headaches, and brain fog.

Although an emotional hangover isn't a clinical diagnosis, the nausea and fatigue can resemble the effects of consuming alcohol. Below, two psychologists explain what makes you vulnerable to an emotional hangover and how to recover after a tense family gathering.

What situations can trigger an emotional hangover?

Strong emotions like fear and anger can elicit the body's natural stress response. "Once the stress subsides, the body may experience a 'crash,' leading to fatigue, nausea, headaches, irritability, and muscle soreness," Harris Stratyner, Ph.D., a New York City-based psychologist, told Business Insider.

Ruan explained that any situation that triggers the fight, flight, or freeze response can lead to an emotional hangover. For instance, you might feel drained or disoriented after having a heated argument with your partner, mediating conflict between relatives, or returning to a home or town that reminds you of traumatic childhood events.

Accordingly, emotional hangover triggers may be connected to unresolved childhood traumas or present-day conflicts, Ruan said. "If you did something you regret, guilt can linger and create a sense of emotional depletion," Stratyner said.

Other reasons you might experience an emotional hangover include failing in front of others, receiving upsetting news, taking on too much responsibility at work or home, or ending a relationship, Stratyner said. The more you're invested in a relationship, the greater your emotional distress can be.

Besides uncomfortable family dynamics, noise, large crowds, and travel can heighten your distress. The holidays also carry additional pressures like overextending yourself financially or being around family members you might otherwise choose to avoid during the year.

What makes you vulnerable to an emotional hangover?

Certain tendencies and personality traits can make you susceptible to an emotional hangover. "People who are high on the personality trait of agreeableness may have difficulty saying no to activities that are draining or experience cortisol spikes, even if a conflict is between other people and doesn't concern them," Ruan said.

Stratyner said that being high in neuroticism can make you more reactive to emotional stressors, which makes it more difficult to recover from stressful experiences. The same goes for low self-esteem since you're more likely to internalize criticism and struggle with feeling inadequate.

Stratyner said people who describe themselves as introverted or highly sensitive may also experience deeper emotional fatigue after taxing social interactions. They might also be more prone to ruminating about past events and dwelling on negative feelings.

"People-pleasers often suppress their emotions to avoid conflict and keep others happy," Stratyner said. When you can't please everyone or need to be assertive, you might feel conflicted and drained, leading to an emotional hangover.

Like people-pleasers, perfectionists may experience disappointment or shame if they fail to meet their high standards. Additionally, "those with an anxious attachment style are more likely to agonize over social interactions and perceive threats to your relationships even when there aren't any," Ruan said.

How do you recover from an emotional hangover?

One way to prevent an emotional hangover is to engage in soothing activities. For example, you can write down what you're grateful for, spend time outdoors, or take a break from the news or social media, Stratyner said.

Before attending a family gathering that could be triggering or overwhelming, Ruan suggested making time to see friends, booking a session with your therapist, going for a run, or engaging in a relaxing hobby. She also recommended reaching out to supportive family members and discussing how you can help each other or intervene in case you get caught in a stressful conversation.

If you do get an emotional hangover, there are ways to speed up the recovery process. Since your nervous system is depleted, it's important to recharge by resting, catching up on sleep, having a bath, or listening to music.

"Be around friends and family who feel safe and loving, so your nervous system will stop releasing cortisol and adrenaline and start producing oxytocin and serotonin, which help regulate your mood," Ruan said. Additionally, Stratyner recommends small gestures like sending a thoughtful message or volunteering, which can make you feel a sense of purpose or positivity.

"If you feel antsy or agitated, you may need to engage in a high-energy activity to burn off built-up hormones and signal to your body that the threat is over," Ruan said. Activities like boxing, running, and weightlifting can provide a healthy outlet for releasing stress and help you recover from an emotional hangover.

• Regina Grogan is a tech exec who says high stress once impacted her mental health and relationships.
• Grogan has developed nine daily habits that help her reduce stress and increase productivity.
• Grogan's methods include cold plunges, meditation, and gratitude lists for better mood.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Regina Grogan, a Zillennial technology executive, AI founder, and former Google consultant based in Salt Lake City. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I worked in high-stress Silicon Valley for over 10 years, including as a Google consultant, before transitioning to being an associate security engineer at one of the largest banks.

Working in the tech industry is stressful — it has extreme volatility, which has led me to feel anxious and depressed in the past. I've seen tech startups shut down very suddenly with zero discussion. I've also worked in big companies undergoing layoffs and wondered, "Am I next?"

High stress also impacted my relationships. My work took up a lot of my personal time, so I wasn't able to build as many relationships as I wish I had.

Over the years, I've discovered hacks to mitigate stress, boost my mood, and increase productivity. These are my favorites.

1. Cold plunge

I take a 15 to 20-minute ice bath or cold shower every morning. The first five minutes are awful and shocking. Then I acclimate to it, and it actually feels really good.

During the plunge, I feel extremely alert, the world looks brighter, and when I emerge, everything feels like a new beginning.

2. Meditation

I was very addicted to my digital devices until I noticed it was severely affecting my mental clarity and focus. Now I try to stay off my phone as much as possible in the morning, and instead, meditate for 25 minutes.

Ever since I made the switch, my mind has become quieter and I feel reset from the attention obsession that my digital devices create.

3. Increase my bodily awareness

I've realized I have to create balance in life by tuning into my body and intuition for guidance. I now listen more to my instincts.

One time, I was working on a partnership and felt physically uneasy while reviewing the terms. Looking back, I realize I was sensing a subconscious resistance in my body about this partnership, which ended up going south.

4. Take a walk without my phone

I often use my phone as an anxiety and comfort tool. The only way I've had luck mitigating this anxiety is by leaving my phone at home, coming back, and seeing that nothing horrible has happened.

5. Think about what I can and can't control

Let's say a vendor messes up a project, or the intern accidentally gets spam-attacked and is freaked out. Instead of panicking, I use the psychological strategy of the "circle of control," asking myself, "What can I control in this stressful situation?"

If the answer is nothing, I have to let it go.

6. Ask myself, "How can I help others today?"

Doing small acts of kindness helps me take the focus off of myself and redirect my energy toward helping others. This can be helping someone at work, volunteering, or simply letting someone in front of me in traffic.

At the end of the day, I can say, "Today didn't go super well, but I did something in my control to improve things."

7. Make a list of what I'm grateful for

I live a privileged life, and it's easy to forget how hard life is for many other people. In my case, I used to have depression. I've seen bad days, but it's easier to forget when I make a gratitude list.

When I zoom out, I can see how lucky I am and that I have a lot to be thankful for.

8. Epsom salt bath

Every evening, around 9 p.m., I take a hot Epsom salt bath. Epsom salt regulates the nervous system and also staves off loneliness — or so they found in some studies.

I do this as a "day ender" to help me officially close out the day. Otherwise, I'll keep working into the night.

9. Write down my worries and wait to review them

Before I go to sleep at 10 p.m., I write down everything I'm worrying about as a "brain dump." I put it in a box and revisit it a week later to see how many of them came to pass.

Almost none of them do. Over time, I've gained more confidence and calmness.

Ever since I started using these hacks, I've been in a great mood and more productive than ever

My colleagues always talk about my energy and good mood. These hacks allow me to be creative and productive at work, even in a stressful environment.

If you work in Big Tech and have productivity hacks you'd like to share, please email Tess Martinelli at [email protected].

• A poor performance review at work led to significant stress and weight loss for the author.
• The review was unexpected, with unclear feedback from a new manager causing confusion.
• The experience taught the author valuable lessons in self-advocacy and career management.

During one particularly difficult fall, in the span of three months, I lost 15 pounds, and people around me quickly noticed. Some friends in passing exclaimed that I looked incredible (I was startlingly underweight). Others expressed concern, asking, as discreetly as possible, if something was wrong.

I'm certain my friends and family would've found it oddly comforting to diagnose this sudden and dramatic shift — maybe it was a devastating break-up or financial stress. How could I tell them that I was unwell because I was just really stressed out? Like, really, really stressed out, all because of a bad performance review.

My first poor performance review

After years of working in tech, I received my first poor performance review. I was deeply anxious about how that would affect my career trajectory and struggled to understand how I "didn't meet expectations" without knowing it.

I interpreted my hitting key milestones, conversations with my manager, and the feedback I received from my peers as positive signals — green lights to continue working as I always had, not red lights that obstructed my career growth.

I was exhausted and discouraged, and the poor performance review only increased my mental fatigue. I saw no escape route.

I didn't know what I did wrong

When I asked why I received a rating for not meeting expectations, which colloquially translates to "not doing your job," I was repeatedly given opaque answers. I continued to ask for supporting evidence for the poor performance review but never received a digestible answer. I struggled to understand my review rating and, as such, struggled to understand how to change it.

At many companies, a performance review is made distinctively by one single person (your manager), and even with the feedback of colleagues and peers, managers decide the final rating.

A bad performance review, which can obstruct impending promotions and team transfers at best and be job-threatening at worst, is often not standardized. Each manager can have a different process and subjective evaluation of employee work. In my case, this was problematic because I had such difficulty understanding how my work translated to the review I received.

A standardized performance process and clear communication would have significantly reduced my mental fatigue and increased my productivity in that specific role, which would've, in the long term, benefited my team and company.

Not understanding the reason for my bad review caused more stress than the bad review itself

To me, it felt like the sentiment from my manager was that this poor review was "just one quarter."

I teared up at how cavalier this seemed. It felt like my job security was being torn apart at the seams. I panicked at the thought of losing my salary, my progress in my career ladder, and my reputation in my role at the time. I often thought about how it must have been only a passing thought to my manager.

The worst part is that I had no idea how I arrived at this point in my career or how to fix it.

My judgment felt clouded, and I had difficulty separating fact from fiction. I didn't and couldn't understand why and how my performance was not meeting the expectations outlined for my role.

I was so poorly equipped to navigate this ambiguous terrain and so stressed at the thought of losing my job that, over the following weeks, eating and sleeping felt like impossible hurdles.

Shortly after, two friends shared their own experiences about damaging work environments, managers, and performance ratings. The surprise of these stories, in conjunction with my own, made me reconsider everything I knew about performance reviews.

The entire experience taught me a powerful lesson

I always avoided asking about my performance at work. I lived with a preconceived idea that my work should and would always speak for itself. If I didn't apply pressure to my performance trajectory — if I didn't ask, engage, or insist on understanding my work evaluation before it was delivered — I avoided what I then considered painfully awkward questions. I now consider those conversations necessary interactions for self-advocacy.

This experience taught me to directly ask the following questions before reviews:

• Do you have any feedback for me?
• What are areas in which my work can improve?
• Is there anything I should be aware of before my next performance review is delivered?
• Where do I stand?

One bad performance review doesn't need to signal the loss of a career. It can be a compelling signal that something isn't functioning as it should — an opportunity to repurpose your current approach to work, a nudge to take agency of your career trajectory (like in my case), or even to recognize that maybe it's time to move on from your current role or company.

The lessons I've learned in self-advocacy are more consequential than any exceeding expectations review could have ever given me. I've learned to speak up, disagree, and champion myself all because of one bad review.

I'm forever grateful for those lessons and where they've led me — to a job I love, a renewed self-confidence in myself and my work, and the excitement to share my story.

Sandra Milosevic works in engineering, product, and design enablement. She has been in the tech space for over eight years and is a former Uber and Snap employee passionate about people, learning, and development processes.