Freaked out by the news? Tips for staying calm from ex-refugees, hostages and ‘uncertainty experts’

War in Iran. Sleeping cells. Soaring gas prices. A new virus. ICE arrests. The acceleration of AI. And a malicious food delivery robot. Is your heart racing yet?

In the midst of one of the highest-stakes and most chaotic news cycles in recent memory, it’s hard to keep calm while scrolling through the day’s disaster-saturated headlines.

Have no fear. A team of British scientists, two authors and a group of thought leaders once considered social outcasts are here to help. Sam Conniff and Katherine Templar-Lewis’ new book, “The Uncertainty Toolkit: Worry Less and Do More by Learning to Cope With the Unknown,” presents evidence-based strategies to help you not only tolerate uncertainty, but thrive in the face of it.

Conniff, a self-described author and “social entrepreneur,” and Templar-Lewis, a neuroscientist, teamed up with the Center for the Study of Decision Uncertainty at University College London and real-world “uncertainty experts” – former prisoners, drug addicts, hostages, refugees and others – to produce the most in-depth study to date on “uncertainty tolerance,” published in 2022. Their web project, “Uncertainty Experts”, is an interactive project. “personal development experience” which includes workshops and an online documentary produced by Netflix, through which viewers can test their own tolerance for uncertainty.

Their book “Uncertainty Toolkit,” released April 7, addresses the three emotional states that uncertainty puts us into – fear, fog and stasis – while blending the personal stories of the interview subjects with the latest science on uncertainty, interactive exercises and guided reflections.

“The Uncertainty Toolkit” aims to help you stay calm in the midst of chaos.

(Blue Bird / Pan Macmillan)

“We live in the most uncertain times scientifically,” says Templar-Lewis. “There is an index called the World Uncertainty Index, which measures uncertainty [globally]. And it’s climbing. People say that life has always been uncertain, and of course it is; but because of how we are connected and on digital platforms and our busy lives, we are interacting with more and more moments of uncertainty than ever before.

We asked the authors to share three strategies for staying calm during difficult times, as told to them by their uncertainty experts.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Advice from a former addict: BI am grateful: Morgan Godvin is a former drug addict and human rights activist from Oregon who served four years of a five-year sentence in federal prison, Conniff says.

“She developed a practice of “radical gratitude”. Even in a world that seems so overwhelming, we can all find something from which to draw a sense of gratitude,” he says. “As an emotion, gratitude provides a counterbalance to anxiety that is almost as powerful as breathwork or any of the others. [anti-anxiety] well-known interventions.

In prison, Godvin – who suffers from anxiety – created a daily practice to help him cope. “She started to be grateful for blankets, the only thing she had – and they were threadbare blankets,” Conniff says. “And by digging deep and really focusing on the warm feeling we call gratitude, it became a biological trick. When the body starts to feel grateful, the hormones it releases bring it back to what’s called homeostasis or a feeling of balance; this activates the parasympathetic nervous system. It’s a very humbling and very healthy practice when the world is just too busy.”

Advice from a suicidal depression survivor: Lean towards the unknown. Vivienne Ming is a leading neuroscientist based in the Bay Area who faced many personal challenges in her early 20s. Ming, who was assigned male at birth, dropped out of college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became homeless and “lived in his car with a gun on his dashboard,” Conniff says. “They faced homelessness and near-suicidal depression before finding a path that took them through gender transition to a place of true identity, marriage, family, and success as a scientist.”

How? They developed and cultivated an awareness of “negativity bias,” says Conniff. “We all have a predetermined negative bias. And in times of uncertainty, that negative bias disappears and we begin to limit ourselves and close ourselves off. By understanding this, we begin to be able to make a choice: Do I close myself off from life’s opportunities? Do I not return to people? Do I not take the risks that come my way?”

Moreover, uncertainty, Dr. Ming pointed out, is actually GOOD for you. This unblocks certain parts of your brain.

“Uncertainty is at the root of neuroplasticity and our ability to learn,” says Conniff. “SO [it’s about] resist negative biases – that this is all dangerous and difficult and that we are told not to trust ourselves – and instead, Dr. Ming’s response is to lean into the unknown. She says that “the best way to move forward is to all move slowly toward the depths of our own lives.”

Advice from a former refugee: A.effect on your intestine. Rez Gardi grew up in a refugee camp in Pakistan, before his family moved to New Zealand. She is now a lawyer and human rights activist in Iraq.

“Rez correctly identified the scientific explanation for what we all call ‘gut instinct,’” says Conniff. “This is called “embodied cognition.” The idea is that we have two brains: the gut instinct is an incredibly complex system of data points and it literally sits in our gut and is connected to our brain via the vagus nerve. What it does is it aligns your intuition with your intellect.

So how to tap into it? “Rez talked about reflecting on your gut,” Conniff says. “So when you feel like you’re right or wrong, go back to that feeling: What color was it? What shape was it? Where was it in your body? What temperature was it? Rez honed her instincts to become incredibly specific: should she trust this person? Was she safe? And this instinct has become a perfectly tuned instrument. When we try to solve problems, when we try to communicate, these signals are as accurate as the best of our cognitive problem-solving abilities.

Conniff and Templar-Lewis spoke with nearly 40 uncertainty experts in total. And with each of them, Conniff adds, “they kind of learned these techniques themselves, but the scientific evidence actually backs it up.”