Tag: mental health

My Unlikely Ally Against Doomscrolling

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Whenever I think the world can’t get any worse, it proves me wrong in spectacular fashion.

The world has long been unstable, but the last few years have felt especially untenable. Between COVID, ongoing global conflicts, the rise of fascism, and the ongoing effects of climate change, the 2020s have easily become the most stressful years of my life.

During this time, I’ve been unable to stop constantly checking social media. Doomscrolling has been a known phenomenon for many years now, and I’ve been imprisoned since signing up to Twitter more than a decade ago. I initially joined to follow the news as part of my Journalism degree, and while it definitely had its uses it was all too easy to find accounts dedicated to spreading negativity. Since then, it’s been almost impossible to stop myself engaging with these kinds of accounts, which I can now see was my then-undiagnosed OCD forcing me into a repetitive loop.

Doomscrolling is a common problem for many people, especially as the world has become increasingly perilous in the last few years. The term came to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, with digital news and social media use increasing significantly during the early days of lockdown. Doomscrolling pulls us in through negativity bias, which refers to our brain’s tendency to focus more on bad news. Once exposed to bad news, I wanted to search more, either to understand the full picture or to find something hopeful.

News and social media sites know full well how addictive doomscrolling can be, which is why you’ll often find dramatic headlines and posts designed to get engagement, good or bad.

I hoped that leaving Twitter (now X) in 2024 and migrating to BlueSky would help me overcome this habit, but while BlueSky is less toxic, the never-ending 24-hour news cycle means that it’s still easy to be trapped online.

Doomscrolling is ruining my mental health, so why can’t I stop?

Unsurprisingly, the constant stream of bad news has had a damaging effect on my mental health. While I hoped that endlessly scrolling would eventually bring some relief, the reality is that doomscrolling only increased my anxiety and trapped me in a cycle of worrying.

As I’ve become more aware of the damaging effects of doomscrolling, I’ve tried many different ways to break this habit: installing time management apps, forcefully blocking social media on my phone, making the process of checking my phone as tedious and time-consuming as possible. Despite those, I still find myself unable to stop the habit, so I’ve been forced to do something drastic: go without my phone, a constant in my life for more than a decade. 

To force myself to go back to a time when I didn’t have the entirety of human knowledge at my fingertips.

This is much more difficult than it sounds. So much of modern life revolves around smartphones. I buy my bus and train tickets through my phone. I regularly send and receive important messages. I make liberal use of Google Maps whenever I’m lost.

For all the damage that smartphones can do, the annoying truth is that they’re essential for modern life. I’ll likely never be able to stop using my phone completely, but I have started to avoid it wherever possible.

The biggest problem is that I travel a lot, and am so used to whiling away the hours on my phone that suddenly going without it has been difficult. That is until I found the unlikely answer.

How a 20-year-old gaming console is helping me beat doomscrolling

During one of my regular visits to CeX, a second-hand tech shop in the UK, I found a PlayStation Portable, or PSP.

PSP was released by Sony in 2005 as a handheld version of the PlayStation. It apparently sold well, but while I was aware of it growing up, I never had one myself.

Seeing one in the wild got me thinking: would an internet-free handheld games console keep my attention when I’m without my phone? I decided to take a chance, buying the console and a handful of games.

I wasn’t expecting much, but the PSP has been revolutionary for my day-to-day life. There are times when I need to keep my phone on me, but alongside it, I’ve started taking my PSP. Instead of checking the news when on the train, I’ll fire up a quick game of FIFA. In the evenings, instead of mindlessly scrolling through Netflix, I’ll spend hours in an old Star Wars game.

The effect this 20-year-old bit of tech has had on my mental health has been incredible. Alongside the nostalgia inherent in a retro games console, the ability to unplug from the 24/7 news cycle, even just for a little time, has been a massive help. The PSP has no internet; the built-in browser hasn’t been updated in a long time, making it almost unusable for anything besides games. 

Deciding to use an offline device has helped me reshape my online habits. Whenever I feel the urge to waste hours on social media, I’ll pick up the PSP for a short while. 

Forcing myself to spend time away from my phone has also helped me manage unhealthy smartphone habits. No longer am I checking the news every five seconds; I only use my phone when I need to, happy to put it away when done. The more time you spend away from the internet, the easier your relationship with it gets.

It doesn’t have to be a games console. I’m just as happy to replace my phone with a book when I’m out and about, but the result is the same. My smartphone is an important tool in my everyday life and I’ll likely never be able to get rid of it entirely, but taking time away from an always-connected world has had an immediate impact on my mental health and helped me rework my mind to hopefully make doomscrolling a thing of the past.

When the World Stopped, I Kept Going

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I sat in my bedroom, recovering from the flu, not knowing what would happen later that day. It was March 12, 2020.

I had planned to return to school the next day. Two text messages received in the afternoon changed that plan. The first was from a classmate, sharing that our teacher said that we wouldn’t have school the next day or the following Monday. A bit confused, I guessed it was due to the flu going around. A few hours later, my boyfriend texted, informing me that he heard about school being canceled for the next two weeks. Later, he sent an update. School will be canceled for the rest of the school year due to the virus, COVID-19.

Anxiety kicked in, and I blamed myself for the school closing even though there had been no confirmed cases in my county. I was worried that others would hold me accountable, thinking that maybe they believed that I was the reason school was canceled. Based on my symptoms – a cold made worse by asthma – my tendency to internalize things led me to rumination. Would my peers suppose that my absence and being sick could be COVID? Would they think I caused our school to shut down?

A blue face mask next to a bottle of hand sanitizer.
(Image courtesy of Tai’s Captures via Unsplash.)

Unwelcome changes

I would soon have more things about which to worry.

A few days after the schools in our state closed, my grandmother’s assisted living facility stopped allowing any visitors per the state’s COVID guidelines. Two weeks later, the facility’s staff began allowing residents’ families to speak to them through the window. My mother, aunt, and I held up signs outside, showing our support to grandma Hud. In April, however, we lost Hud to an accident that occurred at the facility. My heart felt like it had been slowly ripped from my chest. Hud meant everything to me, a constant source of support in my life.

I was already mourning the loss of my grandfather, Grampy, when Hud passed away. Grampy had passed five months earlier from stage 4 brain cancer. Navigating this grief through a pandemic and as a high school student was agonizing, but I numbed myself to the pain. I was confined with my parents in our home, and the only way that I got through it was because of my friends, my boyfriend, and the Nintendo game Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It gave me something to focus on, as well as a sense of control. It distracted me and was calming. It was a temporary, and much needed, escape.

Depression, dissociation, and emotional survival

Around May, I was in a free cosmetology program. The instructor was a hair stylist who attempted to teach the class over Zoom, but it wasn’t the same as in-person schooling. My parents didn’t want to be used as models, so I resorted to practicing cutting hair on my Pug, Luna. She wasn’t a very good client. Focusing on the course became more challenging with all of the changes I faced.

Parisian-style braid on a woman with ginger hair.
(Image courtesy of jagadshd via Unsplash.)

A few months before the pandemic began, I had begun to have episodes in cosmetology classes where I would lose track of time and couldn’t focus. I didn’t think much of it at first. Maybe there was just too much of my mind, too many things to worry about. There were several times in class where I thought only a short time had passed, but it had actually been 20 minutes. I tried to snap out of it, but the dissociative spells consumed me. I wouldn’t measure out the right amount of heat protection spray to use with flat irons. I’d begin the task of flat ironing a mannequin’s hair and then dissociate in the middle of it. There were a few times where I ended up leaving the iron on the countertop and didn’t finish the task. 

Each time, I’d feel like I was on a lazy river, slowly swaying back and forth, feeling the ripples of reality touch my feet. My mind was blank, occasionally punctuated by sadness and grief. I didn’t understand what was going on, and it worried me.

There was no internal script during these moments, which was rare for me. For as long as I can recall, my mind has raced with thoughts that I cannot contain. My brain is a hamster that is spinning rapidly on a wheel to nowhere. I was unaware that I was dissociating in front of others, and what the cause of it was. I would later learn that I was developing PTSD from abuse (inflicted by an ex-partner). 

Being away from friends and others due to the pandemic worsened these experiences. Despite having my parents and dogs around, I longed for more social connection. The lack of social support led to more and more dissociative spells, and I withdrew myself from others even more as a result.

A difficult, but right, decision

Before COVID, I was already struggling to keep up with my classmates in terms of technique and efficiency. Because of how the virtual schooling and isolation impacted my ability to learn, I found it difficult to keep up with my peers. I hadn’t taken into consideration that my hand-eye coordination skills weren’t very strong, and the inability to practice in person with a teacher meant I fell behind even more. Several people in my class were able to perfect their techniques soon after it was demonstrated to them. A lot of them were being considered for internships for the following year, while I could barely get everything on my list accomplished in one class period. In a time when I should have been able to receive extra emotional support from my grandparents, I couldn’t. 

The grief consumed me, and I moved into survival mode. The lack of socialization and support gave me more time to reflect on whether cosmetology was right for me. As time went on, I became less convinced that it was. Eventually, I decided to drop out of the free program. 

It was a difficult decision, but I knew that it was the best outcome for me. That choice allowed me to spend more time with my boyfriend during our senior year, where hybrid learning meant that we attended school in person three out of five days a week. The additional social interaction supported my wellbeing and helped me feel better about the decision to drop the course. If I had chosen to remain in cosmetology, I would have had one or two days on the main campus and the rest at the technical center, and I wouldn’t have been able to interact with my friends or boyfriend as often. 

Feeling a sense of support and familiarity was essential, particularly when socialization was rare, and learning was mostly independent. Thinking back to this time, I cannot see myself staying in a field that I didn’t truly enjoy. Although my choice to drop the course led to attending college — and student loan debt — the knowledge I gained and the networking connections I built more than made up for what I might have gained had I continued with cosmetology.

These events, like everything in our lives, are all interconnected, a web expanding outward in hundreds of directions. Our trajectory changes as we adapt to different circumstances, events. I learned it was okay to not know what I wanted to pursue or to switch even though I didn’t know what the outcome would be. I reminded myself that I had an abundance of time to find the right answer for me, and that’s led me to where I am today. 

And from where I’m sitting, I’m pretty happy with those choices.

Living in the Age of Geopolitical Fatigue

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As a journalist, staying informed is my job. Lately, however, I find myself avoiding the news cycle. Each time I open my phone, another crisis demands attention. By the time I’ve absorbed one story, three more have displaced it. I closed the app. I look for something, anything, that offers a break.

Turns out, I’m far from alone. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s 2025 Digital News report found that 40% of respondents across 47 markets now say they sometimes or often avoid the news, up 11 percentage points from 29% in 2017. When researchers asked why, selective news avoiders cite feeling anxious and powerless, finding the news repetitive and boring, and feeling overwhelmed by its negative nature.

This exhaustion is different from just being tired of politics. It’s the feeling of living through an accelerating cascade of global crises, Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, economic instability, climate warnings, while having almost no capacity to influence any of it. Unlike previous eras where crises had beginnings, peaks, and some kind of resolution, today’s information environment presents them as simultaneous and never ending.

Psychologists are starting to document what many of us already feel. The American Psychological Association’s 2025 Stress in America survey found that 69% of adults now cite the spread of inaccurate or misleading information as a major source of stress, up from 62% in 2024. Another 57% reported stress about the rise of AI, up from 49% the previous year. What’s telling is that this anxiety isn’t tied to direct personal impact, but to what researchers call “ambient awareness,” the background cognitive load of navigating a reality where information itself feels unreliable and emerging technologies reshape daily life faster than we can process the implications.

When More Information Means Less Understanding

Here’s the strange part: we know more about global events than any generation in history, yet understanding those events hasn’t gotten any easier. If anything, it’s gotten harder.

Information overload researchers have long documented this paradox: our cognitive capacity for processing complex, multifaceted issues has limits. Beyond a certain threshold, additional information can decrease comprehension rather than improve it. We become paralyzed by choice, unable to synthesize competing narratives into coherent understanding.

Digital platforms worsen this dynamic. Research examining social media algorithms has found that emotionally charged political content receives substantially more amplification than neutral reporting. A study published in PNAS Nexus examining Twitter’s algorithm found that among tweets selected by engagement based ranking, 62% expressed anger compared to 52% in chronological feeds, and content expressing out-group animosity increased from 38% to 46%. Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci describes this phenomenon as “censorship through noise,” information isn’t blocked, it’s drowned in a flood of high emotion content designed to keep you scrolling.

In this environment, picking a side feels easier than trying to hold multiple competing explanations in your head. The mental shortcut is understandable. The cost is polarization.

Crises That Disappear Before We Understand Them

Think back to February 2023. A massive earthquake killed over 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. For about 10 days, it was everywhere. Then a Chinese surveillance balloon drifted across North America. Fighting intensified around Bakhmut. A train derailed in Ohio and people worried about chemical contamination. By March, the earthquake had essentially vanished from international news, not because the crisis ended, hundreds of thousands of people were still displaced, but because our collective attention had splintered and moved on.

This keeps happening. Research tracking humanitarian crisis coverage shows that media attention operates in dramatic spikes followed by rapid abandonment. A 2025 analysis of 78,667 news articles covering 10 major humanitarian crises found that coverage is highly event driven, with sustained engagement rare and dependent on sudden developments rather than ongoing need. The pattern suggests we’re moving from crisis to crisis without the time required to understand any of them fully.

When everything happens at once, it becomes almost impossible to maintain any sense of historical continuity. Social media turns into a marketplace where pre packaged interpretations compete for our clicks. And many of us, simply too exhausted to build our own understanding, just pick from what’s already there.

When Exhaustion Becomes the Point

Here’s an uncomfortable thought: fatigue can work as a kind of control, even when nobody’s deliberately engineering it. In authoritarian countries, it’s sometimes by design. Russia’s “firehose of falsehood” strategy intentionally floods information channels with contradictory claims. The goal isn’t to make you believe anything specific, just to make you too tired to figure out what’s true.

In democracies, it works differently but ends up in a similar place. When everything is presented as equally urgent, nothing gets the sustained attention it needs. Research on civic engagement suggests that constant exposure to crisis messaging can produce paralysis rather than mobilization. The perpetual state of emergency becomes normalized, and people retreat into managing their immediate circumstances rather than organizing for broader change.

A tired population doesn’t organize. It just tries to keep up. And when exhaustion turns into apathy, decisions get left to whoever already has the resources and the microphone.

Finding Our Way Back

I can’t solve the wars, the climate crisis, or the economic uncertainty that fills my news feed every morning. Neither can you. But I’m starting to think that understanding how all of this shapes what we pay attention to, and how we think, might be one of the few things we actually can control.

This exhaustion we’re feeling isn’t a personal failing. It’s a reasonable response to an information environment that’s moving faster than our minds were built to handle. We evolved to deal with immediate, local threats. Not a constant stream of global emergencies.

The answer isn’t to unplug completely. It’s to change how we relate to the flood. That’s admittedly an individual strategy for what’s really a structural problem. My personal discipline can’t fix how platforms are designed or how algorithms amplify outrage. But it can give me back something I’ve been missing: the ability to choose what gets my attention right now, and what can wait.

Some researchers are pushing for bigger fixes. Redesigning social media to stop rewarding engagement at all costs. Making algorithms transparent so we know why we’re seeing what we’re seeing. Funding public media that can provide slower, more thoughtful coverage instead of reactive feeds. Whether any of that can overcome the money and lobbying power behind the current system, I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is this: recognizing that my exhaustion makes sense, that it’s not weakness or apathy but a rational response to an overwhelming reality, feels like a small act of reclaiming something. In a world that demands constant reaction, the ability to slow down and actually think might be one of the most important things we have left.

That capacity is getting rarer. Which is exactly why it matters.

How Therapy Gave Me My Eureka Moment

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About nine years ago, I was convinced that my life was over.

I’d graduated from university about a year before that, securing a respectable degree in journalism with good grades. Despite that, I’d left without any real idea of what I wanted to do with my life. Seeing friends with high-profile jobs and their own houses and cars took a toll on me as I struggled to find my place in the world, a calling. Watching others move forward as I felt stagnant caused me to fall into a deep depression, feeling that I had little left to live for. It began insidiously, first pressing on my mind throughout the day – small taps of worthlessness. It only grew as the time from when I had graduated stretched further and further into the past.

I can remember distinctly when I realized that something was wrong with me; it was a cold February day, shortly after my birthday. After a particularly bad dream where I was back at university, I awoke with a near-unbearable sense of despair so severe that I struggled to get out of bed. Nothing would shake the feeling.

Around the same time, my mum and brother had recently completed a beginner’s therapist course with a professional psychologist. The sessions appeared to have helped both of them. Realizing I needed outside help and seeing this as my chance, I sat down with my mum and spoke with her about my depression, my loss of joy for life. She provided me with the contact information for this psychologist so I could begin therapy immediately.

The sessions were slow at first. Despite being open to the support, I didn’t notice any progress in the first few sessions. After the third or fourth session, however, something changed. My therapist said that I already knew it to be true, despite my brain’s refusal to acknowledge it: this belief that my life was over wasn’t correct. I was only 23. Of course my life wasn’t over! I had just needed someone, a stranger, to examine my life and my thoughts and confirm that yes, I still had so much to live for. Such a simple statement, and yet it changed so much in an instant. It was like someone had shone a light in the darker corners of my mind, chasing the shadows that lingered.

You often hear about something clicking inside a person’s head, or a lightbulb lighting up. A ‘eureka’ moment, if you will. I’d never experienced anything like it until that moment. The feeling of despair began to dissipate as a result of that conversation. I was almost euphoric as I told my therapist of this breakthrough at my next session. Once I’d realised that my life was far from over, I worked with my therapist to look for ways to get my life back on track, determining how I envisioned my own success. I continued for a few more sessions, and by the end, I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. A few months later, I went back to university, earned a master’s degree, and began my career as a writer. While my depression has never completely vanished – especially given the unprecedented nature of the last few years – I’ve become much better at identifying negative spirals and dismissing them.

Therapy saved my life


Writing about this a decade later feels weird. This belief I had held obviously wasn’t true, and it still isn’t today. I’m 32, I’ve worked as a freelance copywriter for five years now, and I recently started working with an international agency. There are still speed bumps here and there – the COVID-19 lockdown was rough, and I still have struggles with OCD and insomnia – but ultimately, I’m quite happy with my life. It’s strange to think back to a time when I was convinced that there was nothing left to look forward to.

Despite all this, I can’t help but wonder whether I would’ve experienced this eureka moment if I hadn’t gone to therapy. If I’d never seen that therapist, would I still be stuck in the depths of despair? Would I even still be here? I’d like to think that eventually, with the help of my friends and family, I would’ve been able to move past it, but I can’t know for sure. All I can be sure of is that I’m glad I got the help I needed.

It could help others like me

I’ve wondered about others who have suffered from similar thoughts. Are they able to see a therapist? Do they find the support they need? I was extremely lucky; I had money saved up to pay for visits, and my therapist provided me with a discount because he knew my parents. Even so, it was still expensive – upwards of £100 a session.

The price of therapy near me has only worsened as the cost of living crisis continues, and the NHS’s backlog means if you’re not willing to go private, you could wait years to see a therapist. There are so many people out there with the same problems that I had, but without any way to get past them. How many people are still waiting for their eureka moment? How long will it take them to chase away their shadows?

I can only hope that, as mental health awareness becomes more prevalent, the UK government will take steps to make therapy more accessible to the general public. It may not work for everyone, but it helped me understand my own brain, giving me the confidence to make connections, and kickstart my writing career. 

I just hope that other people in similar situations, with or without therapy, find a light to guide them forward.

Brazil enacts Felca Law to protect children from digital adultization

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After reports exposing cases of exploitation and the “adultification” of children on social media, Brazil has enacted new legislation aimed at protecting minors in the digital environment.

Law No. 15.211 was published in Brazil’s Official Gazette on September 18, 2025. Sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the legislation establishes the Digital Statue of the Child and Adolescent and seeks to curb serious violations against individuals under the age of 18 in online spaces.

According to the new law, digital platforms must adopt protective measures to prevent young users from accessing inappropriate content, including sexual exploitation, pornography, incitement to violence, and drug use, among harmful materials.

The so-called “Digital ECA” – a reference to Brazil’s landmark Child and Adolescent Statue (Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente, enacted in 1990) – originated from a bill introduced by Senator Alessandro Vieira of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), a Brazilian politician party. The legislation provides for penalties against violators, including warnings, fines, temporary suspensions, and even service bans.

Public debate over the exploitation of minors online gained significant momentum in early August 2025. Influencer Felipe Bressanim Pereira, known as Felca, published a video denouncing the exploitation and abuse of children and adolescents on the internet, intensifying national discussions about the frequent adultification and monetization of minors on digital platforms.

The law defines “adultification” as any practice or exposure that leads children to behave like adults, assuming responsibilities, appearances, or language inappropriate for their age. It also includes the promotion of affective-sexual relationships and advertising campaigns with sexual, erotic, or violence content.

Impacts of digital exposure on child development

For specialists, early exposure to the digital environment can have significant consequences for the emotional development of children and adolescents. According to clinical psychologist Joanna Netto, the developing brain – particularly areas responsible for impulse control, risk perception, and emotional regulation – is especially vulnerable during childhood and adolescence.

“When a child is exposed too early to social media, they begin dealing with situations for which they do not yet have emotional maturity”, she explains.

The constant search for validation on digital platforms also directly affects young people’s self-esteem. Likes, comments, and views often function as a “thermometer” of social acceptance. According to data from Brazil’s Unified Healthy System (Sistema Único de Saúde, SUS), there has been an increase of approximately 4,423% in anxiety-related treatments among adolescents aged 15 to 19 over the past decade. The study indicates that this surge has been driven by excessive screen time, social media use, comparison culture, and aesthetic pressures.

Risk of violation and abuse in online spaces

Beyond impacts on self-esteem and identity formation, digital environments can also intensify situations of violence and abuse involving minors. The ease of content sharing, combined with the permanence of material on the internet, can cause episodes of exposure or exploitations to have even deeper and longer-lasting consequences.

According to psychologist Joanna Netto, in cases of abuse, the circulation of images or threats on digital platforms can further intensify victims’ trauma.

“From a neuropsychological perspective, this keeps the brains alert system constantly activated, which may lead to symptoms such as severe anxiety, post-traumatic stress, dissociation, social withdrawal, depression, and suicidal ideation.”

Given this scenario, the specialist emphasizes the importance of parents and guardians closely monitoring children’s digital routines. Sudden behavioral changes may serve as warning signs. Mood swings, isolation, irritability, declining school performance, and fear of social interaction are among the symptoms that require attention.

More than strict supervision, however, she highlights the need for parents to build an environment of trust so that young people feel safe reporting situations of risk.

Archie and Riley and Me – Who Rescued Who?

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March 23 2020: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces a nationwide lockdown in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19.

We all remember the beginning, I think. I know I do. The initial lockdown in the UK was only due to last a few weeks when it was announced. It would turn out to be the first of multiple lockdowns throughout the year, heavily disrupting day-to-day life.

Non-essential businesses were ordered to close, and while I, like many others around the world, hoped that this would be a short-term measure, there was no way to know when things would return to normal — or if they ever would.

So that March 23rd will forever be etched into my brain. It’s not just because of the unprecedented announcement that would upend our lives, however. 

It’s because that day was also when I brought home two rescue lurcher hybrids from a local animal shelter.

Wanted: a new best friend

It wasn’t supposed to happen this quickly. 

I’d been looking for a new companion after losing my dog of 16 years the previous December. My family and I took a trip to the local shelter after hearing of eight lurchers — mixed-breed dogs of greyhound and collie or terrier descent — being brought in from Ireland. It took only a few minutes after our arrival before I completely fell in love with not one but two puppies: Archie and Riley.

One thing that became apparent quickly was that they were much more excitable than my previous dog, Mickey. He was a shy border collie, and an accident early on in his life meant he was always a slow walker. These two were Mickey’s opposite.

As soon as Archie and Riley were let out of their cage to run around, it became clear that they were different beasts entirely. There they were, chasing after each other, play-fighting and jumping up at us with abandon. They were wild, and I loved them instantly. We were all certain that we wanted to bring them home with us, but there were a few things to get sorted first. Namely, preparing for the two dogs’ arrival to our home, as well as ensuring our two cats were fully vaccinated. All of this would take a little while, but I was happy to wait for them. We were in no rush. 

Then the announcement came just a short time later.

Non-essential businesses, which included the animal shelter, had to close. We were left with a choice: adopt them now or wait for an indeterminate amount of time with no guarantee they’d still be there.

My family exchanged glances quickly, and it was settled. We brought Archie and Riley home with us that day. Dogs in tow, we drove back home, lurching into what would come to be a global pandemic.

Settling in

The first few weeks were chaotic. In addition to our new reality that Covid had sprung upon us all, my family had to learn how to handle two six-month-old lurchers. Not only that, they were used to running around big fields, and now they were suddenly confined to a house and garden with a full family and two cats, who quickly established their dominance via a paw to the face. Things were stressful (and expensive — we lost two smart TVs due to rampaging dogs). There was a point where I began to wonder whether we’d made the right decision bringing both of them into our home.

A few weeks later, however, that all changed.. It became apparent that the lockdown wasn’t going away anytime soon, and I was struggling to find a job after graduating from university. It was, looking back, the worst period of my life, and it came to a head one night in April when I had a panic attack. This was the first attack I’d ever suffered, and it was a genuinely scary experience — right up until Riley jumped up onto the sofa, sat down next to me, and rested her head on my lap. I’m convinced to this day that Riley recognized I was in distress and wanted to comfort me. Any doubts I had about adopting them vanished completely; Archie and Riley were my best friends and were going to be with me forever. That night confirmed it.

As the months went on, Archie and Riley kept me sane. About a year later, upon getting my Covid vaccines, I finally took them both on a big, long walk to thank them for how much they had done for me.

Fast forward to 2025

I’m writing this on their sixth birthday. Looking at Archie and Riley now, fast asleep on the sofa, it’s wild to think I struggled with them all those years ago. They’ve grown into well-behaved, loyal, and lovable companions, and they’ve continued supporting me in their own way. Whether in the middle of moving house, grappling with bereavement, or just stress about life, knowing that they’re there has helped me immensely.

I don’t know how I would have fared the pandemic and onward without Archie and Riley by my side. And I’m really glad I’ll never have to know.

Image of Archie and Riley, asleep on the couch. One is draped over the other.
Image courtesy of the writer.

Bombs Go “TikTok”

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Frank was a 24-year-old graphic designer hailing from Nairobi’s Eastlands, juggling freelance gigs and dreams of launching his own studio. His life was a combination of late-night Photoshop sessions, matatu commutes, and weekend football with friends in one of the Eastlands playing grounds. TikTok was his escape—a place to share skits and animations under the username of @hei.sfrankie. With 700 followers, mostly friends and a few fans he had gathered over time, he posted for fun, not fame. It all blew up one Saturday evening.

Burnt out from a client’s endless revisions on a recent project, Frank filmed a quick video in his cramped bedsitter. Wearing a faded Arsenal jersey, he parodied Nairobi’s hustle: “POV: You’re pitching a design to a client who wants to ‘make it pop’ but only pays in exposure.” He acted out a dramatic client call, complete with exaggerated eye-rolls and a mock faint, set to a trending TikTok beat. Frank captioned the short video, “#HustlerLifeKE #NairobiStruggles,” uploaded it, and crashed.

By morning, his phone was a mess. Likes surged past 3,000, then 30,000. Comments sped across the screen as viewers commiserated. “This is EVERY freelancer!” “Tag my boss!” Friends blasted it across WhatsApp; strangers dueted the clip with their own hustle stories. Views hit 250,000 by noon. A local blog ran a headline: “Nairobi Designer’s TikTok Nails Freelance Woes.” Influencers started reposting it, pushing views past three million. Frank’s followers soared from 15,000 to 150,000 in just a few days.

The rush was electric. Frank dove in, posting skits about matatu Wi-Fi scams, the mugging business within the dark corridors of the city, and animating Nairobi’s skyline with quirky effects. Each video exploded, with some reaching 20 million views. Brands flooded his DMs; a tech startup offered 60,000 Kenyan Shillings for a gadget ad, a streetwear brand sent free hoodies for corresponding promo videos. He quit freelancing and bought a ring light, a used MacBook, and a better phone. His bio changed from a mere content creator to a professional digital creator. Invites poured in—art events, influencer meetups at Two Rivers Mall. Strangers at Java House whispered, “That’s hei.sfrankie.” Fame felt like a rocket, but that high crashed hard. 

TikTok’s algorithm was a beast — post daily or fade into the crowded world of reels that were anything but real. Frank’s days became a grind; the professional world wasn’t going easy on him: brainstorm at dawn, film in borrowed spaces, sometimes on the streets, and edit till 3 AM. Sleep was a memory — he lived on cold coffee and buns. But Frank also wasn’t going to give up that easily. This was a far better profession than being in an environment where he was always watching out for his supervisor. Here, he could do his work without any other third-party pressuring him. It was only his clients and him.

However, when things seemed to be moving well, and the algorithm had really realized his craft, a very unfortunate event happened. One time, he had posted a video advertising a scammer company. Well, at least he did not know it was a fraudulent company until his clients, some of whom were his followers, raised an alarm of being conned by the very company he had posted a sponsored AD for in his latest TikTok video. Negative comments oozed, most of which blamed him for leading people into a con. Frank tried to laugh it off, but the hate clung like damp air. Privacy vanished. A fan spotted him while shopping at his estate’s shop and leaked his address. Brands stopped endorsing him. A phone company withdrew an endorsement worth a hundred grand for a promo of the newly launched model of an Android phone.

Then, engagement dipped. Frank hid his stress, publicly lying about his bank balance. Burnout consumed him. His appetite also seemed to be in jeopardy. His weight dropped; his dreads dulled. Endless insomnia kicked in hard as Frank was haunted by internet trolls and the rapid loss of followers. Clearly, things were getting out of hand, and he had to do something quickly before everything spiraled further. Like many influencers before him who had undergone the same ordeal, going live in a bid to try to explain the current situation to his loyal remaining fans was the only option.

Unlike the usual live broadcasts where a creator talks with their audience directly, Frank decided to do it differently. He wanted to resolve everything with a skit of how people were being taken advantage of on social media, especially upcoming artists and creators. Suddenly, in the middle of the skit, panic struck. Heart racing, hands trembling, he choked, “I’m drowning.” He cracked while filming. Tears fell. The chat was split in their support and venom: “Clout crying,” “Overrated,” alongside “We got you, Frankie.” Frank ended the live video, collapsing on set while his crew rescued him.

The moment of truth and realization had finally struck. Viral fame wasn’t a throne; it was a cage. The money, however vast and consistent, unlike an employer’s salary, bought only glaring ring lights and flashing cameras, not joy of any kind. Frank missed creating for passion, not likes. This is when he decided to start creating with his hands what he felt was burning inside him. He decided to start expressing for both his art and himself, not for unknown, insatiable consumers who would not appreciate his flaws whenever they occurred. Frank began focusing on his vision of having his own studio where he would create whatever he wanted and display it proudly.

He logged off for about two months, but of course, the spirit of digital creating hadn’t really left him. He planned a comeback, but this time he would do things differently — he shifted gears — posting three times weekly, blocking haters, and ignoring statistics. He started showcasing his talent for design on his platforms, which attracted new positive and passion-aligned followers. He even got a partnership with the city’s gallery center to help him showcase his art. Support started coming his way, and eventually, his vision of having his own art exhibition center materialized.

Sudden fame had thrust Frank into a storm of hype and pressure — doubt, isolation, and the grueling chase to remain relevant to strangers on the internet. But stepping back, reminding himself of who he was and what his art stood for, he found his spark once more. Fame wasn’t the goal; purpose was. In Nairobi’s pulsing streets, Frank created again—not for the algorithm, but for his art and the studio he had started, honestly and earnestly.

Custard Power!

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A couple years ago, I found myself in a London bar I knew was one of Camden’s primary independent music venues. And without trying to sound pretentious and cool, I had just come off stage after performing. 

Anyway, this isn’t about me. Well, it is, but not like that….

While waiting for my third overpriced margarita, I found myself in conversation with a stranger. I don’t know what got us onto it, but we were talking about imagery from childhood that stays with us. I don’t remember his; it must’ve been boring or unrelatable or, as I suspect, both. But I offered up two examples of my own: medicine and cake. 

The “spoonful of sugar” scene from the original film of Mary Poppins, 1964, is etched on my neural pathways like an engraving on a trophy. It’s the way the medicine looks on the spoon held out by Julie Andrews. The way the light catches its translucent red and reflects it off the silver. To this day, anytime I see a candle through a glass of cabernet or the evening sunshine through a church window, it takes me back to that formative cinematic moment. At some point in time, I drew a parallel between that scene and my other archetypal childhood image: school cake and custard. 

If you’re British, you’ll know — you know?

The custard in question

White sheet cake, sprinkles, hot pink custard. PINK CUSTARD. Custard that was PINK. Custard with the hue of the Pink Panther’s hindquarters. Custard the color of Mr. Potato Head’s ears. This pink custard was served to us by school cooks who looked like the cook from the Banks’s household in the aforementioned film — some time before school dinners were outsourced to a private third-party corporation, like everything else seems to be these days, and before Jamie Oliver intervened to save all of our cardiovascular systems.  

“How do you think they get the pink in this custard?”

“Dunno, red sugar? Like Mary Poppins?” 

That was our best guess. We were kids. It didn’t really matter anyway. As our little school ties flapped in the custardy and crumby remnants in the bottom of our bowls, we knew that we were being looked after, and being looked after tasted GOOD!

I wonder if, like many fond memories held in the fallible machine that is the human brain, my mind gives too much rose-tinted credit to those school cooks with their rose-tinted cheeks and their rose-tinted custard. I’ve reason to believe it was made using instant custard powder. And there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when cooking en masse. But, when I feel overwhelmed in adulthood — or indeed by it — be it with the state of the world or just my own being, I take great comfort in making custard from scratch. 

Dare I say it, I’m becoming known for it. 

Returning to the custard at hand

Woman cracking an egg into a bowl of sugar, surrounded by raspberries and blackberries on plates, as well as more eggs
(Image courtesy of Micheile Henderson on Unsplash)

Egg yolks. Sugar. Milk. Cream. Cornflour (Cornstarch). Vanilla. A couple of bowls, a whisk and spoon, a pan, and a flame. 

Which is my favorite part? It might be the way that beating the eggs with the sugar serves as a stress reliever for the modern man. It might be the test of patience as I await the milk and cream to warm one another in their enveloping embrace or the virtuous passivity in allowing it to happen, intervening only to prevent the full boiling point. Or the concentration of the pour — the hot liquid over the whisked yolks, gently enough not to scramble, confident enough not to spill. Or the absolute trust that tipping the whole affair back into the pan won’t scorch it to hell. Or the way the wooden spoon’s charted course through the steam is met with increasing resistance as the waves of mixture gradually thicken and settle to a horizon with every soothing figure-eight stir. 

In the pink

I don’t put the PINK in. As I say, I don’t know how. Some mysteries are best left unsolved. Just like a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, a spoonful of custard is a meditation as powerful as any experience I had in India. Time seems to stop, and I can’t help but be present. As I turn off the heat and transfer my newfound treasure to a jug, I feel like a prospector who’s struck gold, again.

Just not pink gold. Not this time.

The Eternal Quest For a Good Night’s Sleep

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I haven’t always had trouble sleeping. 

About a decade ago, whilst studying for my master’s degree, I lived in a cramped room in a student house in Sunderland. For a full year, I would spend hours intensely studying at my desk before taking about five steps across the room and getting into bed.

It wasn’t a particularly nice bed. It was quite small, and if it hadn’t been for a strategically placed pair of drawers stopping me from falling out I probably would have been on the floor more often than not. And yet despite this, I would always fall asleep within an hour.

Fast forward to 2025, and I’ve upgraded that small bed for a nice double in a reasonably-sized bedroom. I also no longer have the stress of multiple exams and essays hanging over me, so it stands to reason that I would have no trouble falling asleep.

But for multiple reasons, the last five or so years have proven to be challenging as I’ve grappled with insomnia. And despite reading countless self-help books and taking several steps towards creating a better sleeping environment, a good night’s sleep continues to elude me.

I’m quite lucky in that I can still function normally during the day – I get up at a reasonable time, I can still go out with friends and I’m still able to write for my day job – but my poor sleeping habits over the last few years have definitely taken their toll, and there will be some days where I’m too tired to do anything other than sit on my sofa and doomscroll.

It’s hard to pinpoint the main cause of my insomnia. While I’ve often had trouble falling asleep during my life, the issue has really exacerbated in the last five or so years since COVID-19 first reared its head. I don’t need to tell you that the last few years have been stressful for everyone, and there’s every reason to believe that this is the main factor. I also have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which can lead to intrusive thoughts keeping me awake at night.

Whatever the reason, insomnia has gone from an annoying, but manageable condition to something that was starting to have a real impact on my life. The time had finally come to do something about it.

Improving my sleep hygiene

Go onto any website or read any self-help book about insomnia and you’ll see the term ‘sleep hygiene.’

Essentially, sleep hygiene describes the healthy habits that can help you get a good night’s sleep. This can range from your sleeping environment to what you do during the day.

In the last year or so I’ve started taking these things more seriously, whether it’s creating a nicer sleeping environment (no screens in the bedroom) or thinking more about what I’m doing during the day (eating healthily, no social media in the evening).

There’s a long way to go before I’m getting into a consistent sleeping pattern, but the early signs are encouraging. Simple acts like leaving my phone downstairs or reading before bed are already starting to have an effect, and I’m finding it easier to fall asleep, although I still find myself waking up randomly during the night.

I’ve also found that taking time away from social media (and the internet in general) has had a big effect. With 24/7 news and constant scrolling on social media, it can be incredibly difficult to switch off, even when I can tell that it is having an adverse effect on my mental health. The trick is to put as many barriers between you and those things as possible, whether that’s deleting apps, setting a daily browsing limit, or leaving your phone somewhere else, gradually spending less time online has ultimately had a big impact on my mood and my sleep hygiene.

Still, there are some elements that I can’t control, namely the recent heatwaves in the UK making it impossible to cool down enough for sleep and my dog, who likes to take up most of the bed (and who am I to stop her?), but with a few simple steps I’ve managed to greatly improve my sleep hygiene, and I’m hopeful that as time goes on I’ll be able to say goodbye to my insomnia for good.

The (Not So) Hidden Toll of PhD Studies on Mental Health in Sweden

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“Are you thinking about a PhD?” The truth was, I had never imagined I would end up in Sweden, much less complete a graduate degree in a Nordic country. A PhD felt like a distant, unlikely idea. So I answered, “I’m not sure.”

An associate professor overheard us. She turned and said discreetly:
“You need to be 110% certain. There are happy doctors, but there are no happy doctoral students.” 

Recent data suggest she wasn’t wrong. 

A nationwide longitudinal research studying the impact of PhD studies on mental health, tracked over 20,000 PhD students in Sweden between 2006 and 2017, has shown that doctoral training itself is linked to declining mental health. Using health records, psychiatric medication prescriptions, specialist care visits, and hospitalizations, the study was able to avoid reliance on self-reported stress or even fear from judgement allegations, while capturing real care-seeking behavior.

These studies found that before starting a PhD, students used psychiatric medication at rates similar to graduates who stopped at the master’s level. Medication use rises sharply immediately after beginning the PhD. By the fifth year, prescriptions for psychiatric drugs are roughly 40% higher than pre-PhD levels. After graduation, medication use declines substantially. These patterns are consistent across disciplines, genders, and backgrounds, except for medical and health sciences students, whose clinical duties provide different support structures.

This is not new in Sweden

This is not the first study to report similar results. In 2022, the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) found in this study that roughly 7% of PhD students receive treatment or a diagnosis for depression, and 5% for anxiety, in any given year. While these numbers are lower than earlier survey-based estimates, they are still higher than those of peers not pursuing a PhD. IFN researchers concluded that this mental health decline develops during the PhD program, indicating a causal effect of doctoral studies on wellbeing. Factors such as high expectations, lack of formal training, social isolation, and financial insecurity contribute to the manifestation and diagnoses of mental health conditions.

Likewise, the Swedish Public Health Agency (Folkhälsomyndigheten), found that in 2023 mental health-related stress, burnout, and antidepressant use rose among young adults, with school-related stress particularly affecting girls. By that time, universities acknowledged gaps in mental health support, while national reports continued to show increasing rates of anxiety and depression among young people.

In the case of PhD students, they are particularly vulnerable because they are both students and full-time employees. Several studies have investigated how this impacts their mental health, revealing concerning patterns. These studies suggest that it is the doctoral program itself and not a preexisting vulnerability, that drives this deterioration in their mental health.

Add the immigration stress factor

There are other factors that can contribute to this diagnosis, as international students face additional hurdles. The SULF Doctoral Candidate Association (2025) reported in this other study that non-EU/EEA PhD students face structural obstacles that can amplify stress: long residence permit processing times, unclear criteria for permit assessment, and limited options for appeal. These rules often prevent students from traveling for conferences, fieldwork, or personal reasons, restricting mobility and professional development. The report highlights a double dependency: students rely on their supervisors and universities to maintain their legal status while simultaneously meeting strict thesis deadlines. Delays caused by migration procedures can reduce the time available for research, forcing compromises that other doctoral students do not face.

These findings resonate with broader media reporting in Sweden, which has increasingly highlighted unclear expectations, power imbalances with supervisors, academic isolation, and a culture of overwork within doctoral programs. For international students, these pressures are compounded by relocation challenges, cultural adaptation, and social isolation.

“So much depends on your supervisors,” said Amira Perez, a PhD candidate in Stockholm University. “When you’re an international student dealing with homesickness, cultural barriers, or even the death of someone back home, having supervisors who understand is crucial. In my case, I went through personal tough moments that led to a burnout. I’m grateful that my supervisors understood and recognized what burnout and depression looked like. But I know I was lucky, and that this isn’t the case for many international PhD students in Sweden.”

Both studies also indicate that non-EU and non-Swedish PhD students are particularly vulnerable, as they are often less familiar with their rights and may not always recognize when a supervisor’s behavior has crossed a professional boundary.

Taken together, the evidence paints a consistent picture: doctoral studies in Sweden carry a substantial mental health burden, particularly for international students navigating both academic and migration systems. These studies underscore the need for targeted mental health support, clear institutional guidance, and policy reforms to reduce the psychological toll of doctoral education while supporting Sweden’s goal of internationalizing its higher education system.

The thin line between endurance and resignation

The researchers of these studies note that these findings are not just descriptive but also a call to action. They argue that the mental health strain experienced by PhD students in Sweden needs to be recognized as a structural issue, not an individual failure of resilience. 

In other words, this is not a matter of students needing to “cope better,” but of universities and policymakers needing to provide clearer expectations, more stable funding, better supervisory support, and accessible mental health resources. 

If Sweden wants to continue attracting international researchers and developing high-quality academic work, the conditions under which doctoral students live and work must be taken seriously as a matter of policy, not personal endurance.

How to cope with the stress of a PhD

Annika Wappelhorst, a PhD student in Media and Communication Science at Jönköping University is in her third year, but from the beginning she was mindful that maintaining her well-being would be essential to succeeding in her studies. Outside academia, she teaches yoga, enjoys reading fiction and non-fiction novels, and takes long walks around the nearby lake. Based on her experience, she shared a few strategies that have helped her maintain a healthier balance during their studies such as establishing clear work hours, staying organized and planning ahead, among other things.

“I don’t want people to think that pursuing a PhD in Sweden is the worst decision you can make,” Annika says. “What’s important is that you know your rights, how to identify unkind behaviours in supervision, and understand where to turn for help if something doesn’t feel right.”

If you feel that your PhD studies are affecting your mental health, there are several resources you can turn to for support. In an emergency, contact a psychiatric emergency room or call 112. For guidance on where to seek care or advice about available services, you can call 1177. Most universities also offer support through a PhD student ombudsman or their occupational health service. Additionally, the Swedish union for doctoral students (SULF) offers support, advice, and advocacy to help PhD candidates have good working conditions at universities across Sweden. 

The evidence is clear: Swedish universities must treat doctoral mental health as an institutional responsibility, not an individual challenge. Until then, knowing your rights and where to find help isn’t optional—it’s survival.