A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Volunteers raise a wall for the framework of a new home during the first day of building at Habitat for Humanity’s 2025 Carter Work Project.
Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Marsha and her son pose for a photo while building their future home with Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity in Georgia.
Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.
Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:
Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60+ countries where we work around the globe
Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
To your left, the self-checkout area: a collection of blinking, beeping, whirring, computer-speaking machines with bright LED screens and audible prompts to “please select a payment type.” To your right, a single lane with a human cashier…and a line that snakes into the next aisle and out of sight.
You look down. You have six things; the math is obvious. The kiosks will be faster.
But somehow, you and your little basket find yourselves at the back of that winding line.
What’s going on here? If you have ever steered your cart away from self-checkout, even when it is the faster, more efficient option, you are not alone. It may seem like a simple preference on paper: You’re either a “kiosk person” or a “not-kiosk person.” Optimized or old-school. But for many shoppers, that choice is rooted in a human desire for connection and emotional safety, and a small, stubborn refusal to do more work under cameras.
A ritual quietly disappears
Within a single generation, grocery shopping moved from “you hand your stuff to a person” to “you become the person.” For most of the 20th century, buying groceries meant interacting with at least one other human: You chose the lane, loaded items onto the belt, and handed your entire life—cloves of garlic, wine that costs $2, strawberry ice cream, tissues infused with lotion and Vicks VapoRub—to another person. They scanned, bagged, and told you, “Have a good night.”
Today, 40% of checkout lanes at major U.S. grocery chains are self-checkout. They are everywhere: In 2026, 96% of grocery stores in the U.S. offered self-checkout technology, while 86% of consumers claim to use it. You scan. You bag. You look up codes for organic green onions. You do all this on camera, with a disembodied voice ready to tell you about an “unexpected item in the bagging area.”
There was a time when a “full-service checkout” meant that someone else—a trained professional—handled everything. They asked about your day, made sure that egg cartons never wound up at the bottom of your bag, and sometimes carried everything out to your car. It felt like being taken care of.
Self-checkout machines didn’t just replace a series of tasks. They erased the human at the end of a grocery trip.
The importance of “weak ties”
So, you avoid self-checkout lines. Psychologists say a few different things are going on here.
Researchers use the term “weak ties” for the small, casual relationships we maintain with people we don’t know well: the kind cashier who always smiles, the guy behind the fish counter who saves his best salmon for you, and the bus driver who recognizes your face even if they don’t know your name.
Weak-tie connections make you feel important in the world. Photo credit: Canva
Brief, ordinary, easy to overlook—and, for many people, irreplaceable. Toni Antonucci, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, explained the significance to the Daily Mail: Weak ties are “somebody who makes you feel important in their world—somebody who makes you feel human.”
When self-checkout replaces the cashier, it eliminates one of the last reliably recurring weak-tie interactions in many people’s daily lives.
Studies on social connectedness show that these fleeting moments play an important role in our day-to-day lives and measurably improve our mood and sense of belonging, particularly for people who otherwise move through their days in relative isolation.
Imagine the person who works from home or whose apartment falls quiet by 9 a.m. When that cashier remembers something they mentioned weeks ago, they experience the “weak-tie connection.” It’s not friendship. But on certain days, it’s the only exchange that reminds them they exist outside their apartment. It’s a microdose of belonging: proof that they still live in the minds of others.
When habits don’t meet expectations
Researchers who study checkout behavior note that many shoppers—particularly older ones—carry a strong expectation that being served by a person is simply part of what it means to be a customer. It is not entitlement in the pejorative sense. It is a social contract that made sense for decades: You bring items to the cashier, and they handle the transaction. When a kiosk breaks that contract and hands the transaction back to you, it is not just inconvenient; it feels like a small breach in the way the world works.
If you have spent 50 years handing your groceries to a human, your nervous system quietly codes that as “how this is supposed to work.” A touch screen, no matter how “user-friendly,” does not feel like a convenient feature. It makes many older shoppers ask, “Wait, why am I suddenly doing this part myself?”
“These systems aren’t really about innovation or collaboration between companies and consumers,” said Mathieu Lajante, a business management professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. “They’re about maximizing profits while weakening social norms of reciprocity and responsibility.”
Layer tech anxiety on top of that—worrying about “doing it wrong,” getting stuck in the bag selection menu, holding up the line—and the kiosk feels antagonistic. It is an intrusion into a ritual they have followed for decades.
“Am I supposed to be doing this? Really?”
People who do not like self-checkout often hold a strong sense of how labor should work. They remember when a grocery trip included a checker, a bagger, and sometimes even someone who walked your cart out. In their mental contract, paying for groceries includes paying for human help: people who do the things you’re bad at, like the game of Jenga happening in your brown paper bag.
Handing that job to a machine—and, by extension, back to them—can feel like a tiny erosion of what they’re owed as a customer.
When they say, “I’m not doing that—that’s not my job,” it’s not “self-entitlement” or brattiness: it’s a fairness instinct kicking in. They’re refusing to do unpaid work.
All the small stuff in between
Research shows that people who prefer human lanes are often at least partly extroverted: They get energy from small talk, feel safer in familiar social scripts, and like the feeling of being known in their regular spots. Even if they’re shy in other areas of life, the grocery line gives them a structured stage where they know their role and the beats.
And for some, there’s a softer motive: protection. They want to preserve human workers and, by extension, a way of life. They’ve watched their local supermarket cut hours, close lanes, and replace faces with screens. Choosing a cashier feels like a tiny act of solidarity: “If I keep standing here, maybe this job doesn’t disappear as fast.”
3 big reasons you might be right
Then there are the people who see that same setup—self-checkout kiosks to the left, a single checkout lane, and a long line to the right—and make the opposite call.
You know them: the person who snakes past the full‑service lanes and beelines for the one open machine. They move at their own pace, bag their groceries the way they like (frozen together, produce on top, no smashed bread), and skip the part where they talk to a stranger. They can buy late‑night junk food, an embarrassing product, or six cans of cat food and wine without bracing for a comment.
“When you’re at a cashier register, the cashier sees everything you purchase. When you’re at self-checkout, you can control what others see, so you might be more likely to buy embarrassing items.” – Becca Taylor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Plenty of introverts and people with social anxiety describe kiosks this way. They don’t hate people; they have a limited social battery, and they’d rather use it for work, friends, kids, or a long Lyft ride to the airport. A machine that lets them coast through in near‑silence feels like mercy.
1. You’re doing unpaid labor
Here’s where the research complicates the convenience story. Across four separate experiments, researchers found that shoppers using self-checkout felt less rewarded, less satisfied, and less likely to return compared to those who used a staffed lane.
According to these studies, when you do everything—scan, bag, troubleshoot—this extra effort can shrink the feeling of reward. That means dollars saved and loyalty points don’t hit the same when you’ve had to work for them. You feel like you’re owed something.
Santiago Gallino, a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, states this plainly: “For retailers, it’s a combination of cutting labor and adding flexibility. It’s not to make checkout more efficient. They are basically transferring the labor to the customer.”
Self-checkout didn’t show up because shoppers begged for more chores; it showed up because it lets stores shift paid labor onto us without lowering prices. We didn’t vote for fewer workers; we voted for the only thing the store put in front of us.
2. It’s possible you’re being watched while you work
Self-checkout stations rely on a kind of slightly menacing, almost dystopian level of ambient suspicion: overhead cameras, weight sensors that double-check every bag, pop-ups that demand an attendant’s key before you can move on. AI-based loss-prevention systems increasingly use computer vision and facial recognition to flag suspected shoplifting.
Retailers say this is necessary—theft occurs at a much higher rate at kiosks than traditional lanes—but the solution includes treating everyone like suspects. When you use a self-checkout kiosk, you can see yourself on a little security screen in the corner. So can their security team, and they’re watching closely.
Psychologists would call this a fairness gap: doing more work while being trusted less. Investigations have found that these cameras and the AI systems running them mis‑flag people of color more often, which makes every beep feel a little more loaded.
“AI technologies frequently mirror existing inequalities as they are developed by individuals in environments lacking diversity, which prevents the technology from being fair. If the same stereotypes that are used to profile Black individuals in daily interactions are integrated into algorithms, the resulting facial recognition systems will perpetuate those stereotypes as a human would.” – Shaun Harper, Forbes
3. The plight of the kiosk keeper
Meanwhile, the workers who once stood at a single lane are now sent to babysit the self-checkout kiosks, responsible for eight machines at once. They half‑jog from flashing light to flashing light while a walkie‑talkie crackles in their ear and apologize for errors they didn’t cause. Helper and hall monitor, all in one fluorescent vest. The employee who runs the self-checkout corral holds an impossible dual role: be warm, be helpful, and also watch for theft while fielding the frustration of kiosk users who all think their machine is broken.
Research from the Harvard Shift Project, which surveyed tens of thousands of service-sector employees, found that stores with self-checkouts were more likely to be chronically understaffed and that understaffing drove higher rates of customer hostility aimed at the employees who remained.
Let’s be clear: self-checkout lanes aren’t evil. But when we reduce everything to “convenience,” we miss what’s really at stake.
That little fork in the floor—screens on one side, a person on the other—has become one of the everyday places where we decide how much work, how much watching, and how little conversation we’re willing to accept in exchange for speed.
UnitedHealthcare (UHC) recently interviewed 100 centenarians, or people who have lived to the ripe age of 100.
Fascinatingly, 100-year-olds feel younger than ever. The report reveals that the average centenarian only “feels” about 68. It’s a number that’s dropping dramatically. In 2015, when UHC conducted a similar survey, the average respondent said they felt 79. That’s incredible.
What that ultimately means is that these folks can teach us an awful lot about how to live both a long and joyful life, how to feel decades younger, and how to keep living life to the fullest into our 100s and beyond. Here are some of their secrets:
1. Staying up-to-date on tech keeps you young
You might think of centenarians clinging to their rotary phones and the vinyl record players they had long before they were “cool.” You’d be wrong.
UHC found that 100-year-olds are experimenting with ChatGPT and other AI—around 27% of them. And a stunning 40% of them regularly play video games.
2. A strong body can go the distance
Centenarians have changed their approach to longevity in the past decade. Compared to 2015, far more respondents today are doing regular strength training and monitoring their diet.
Overall, they’re more active in almost every way. A higher percentage of 100-year-olds are doing cardio, gardening, and even meditating or practicing intentional stress relief. Meditation jumped from 29% of centenarians to 42% today.
“Staying active keeps my heart strong, mind sharp, body moving, spirit high, and health steady every day,” one said.
The only activity that declined was walking and hiking, and only by a small margin. But these busy seniors had to find the time to hit the gym somewhere.
3. Finding humor in daily life is the best medicine
It’s one thing when Joe Schmoe says “laughter is the best medicine.” It’s another when some of our oldest citizens are living proof that it’s true.
It might be reading between the lines, but the cranky and miserly don’t seem as likely to make it to 100. Eighty-five percent of respondents said they laugh often and find that having a sense of humor comes easily to them.
“A good belly laugh can make you feel better than any pill, I’ll tell you that,” one said.
4. There’s something to look forward to at every age
One of the most interesting questions asked of the participants was about their “best decade.”
The answers from the 100 centenarians, who’ve lived through and seen it all, reveal that there’s so much good to find in every season of life. Life doesn’t go downhill after a certain age; you just have to learn to appreciate what it has to offer.
Your 20s are for freedom and exploration. Your 30s and 40s are all about family. Your 50s and 60s are the best for community and friendship. Your 70s and beyond are about finding contentment and joy in the simple things.
Even in the harder decades, the centenarians now have the perspective to know there was always light at the end of the tunnel:
“I’d tell myself to embrace every messy moment because it all works out in the end. I really needed to hear that in my late teens when everything felt like such a big deal.”
5. “Feeling old” has nothing to do with age and is sometimes out of your control
Fascinatingly, the respondents were asked when they first started to “feel old.” Their answers had nothing to do with a specific age.
It came down to the moments: giving up driving, the death of a spouse, and moving out of a beloved home and into a smaller place where they could age.
There’s something peaceful about that. Some things may be in your control—keeping your body and mind sharp can delay certain events. Others are completely out of your control. But the overarching theme is that there’s no reason to fear a number.
6. Family and friends are key to survival
Being isolated and lonely is devastating for your health and longevity. Seventy-eight percent of the seniors in this report, thriving at the age of 100, credit a big part of their vigor to regularly spending time with friends and family.
“They are everything to me. I try to spend as much time with my family as I can,” one of the 100-year-olds said. “Life is short; you never know when it’ll be the last day.”
7. The advice they’d give their younger selves is what we all need to hear
Centenarians say the secret to happiness is really no secret at all. It’s mind-numbingly simple: Don’t worry so much. Spend time with your loved ones. Move your body. Be true to yourself.
The difference is that these 100-year-olds have the wisdom and urgency to really mean it. Don’t wait until you’re their age to start living like you know you should.
“If you don’t ask, you don’t get,” one said, referring to getting a promotion at work, but more generally, anything you truly want. In other words, go for it.
The overall trends identified in the report are surprising and hopeful.
In 10 years, our centenarians will likely be even more focused on their physical and mental health, finding even more joy in their lives as they age, and, through it all, feeling younger than ever. We can learn a lot from watching what they’re doing right.
The mom of two boys caught a sweet conversation between Hiren and their sons about menstruation as they brushed their teeth together. His understanding tone and explanation of what women experience during their periods is being celebrated by fellow moms and viewers.
“My husband reminding our boys that there is no shame (only empathy) in periods,” she captioned the video.
In the video, Hiren is chatting with his two sons as he begins to explain what periods are like for women.
“I cut my finger yesterday and I needed a Band-Aid. Imagine what…Mom can’t put a Band-Aid on her vagina,” he says.
One of the boys asks, “Isn’t that why there’s pads?”
Hiren responds, “The pads absorb the blood, but it doesn’t make the pain go away. I’m sorry, but my little cut is not like what happens to Mom. So that’s why we have more sympathy and empathy for Mom. Like, be nice to her.”
He then explains more about what is going on in a woman’s body during her period.
“Mom’s hormones are impacted from her period, then the pain in the body…all kinds of things. It’s not just, ‘Oh no, some blood came out’,” he adds.
Finally, Hiren tells the boys that it’s important to understand periods because one day they may have a partner who goes through menstruation, and that they need to be empathetic.
“You’re gonna have a partner, and if it’s a woman, you’re gonna have to deal with that. Or you’re gonna have friends that are girls, and they’re gonna go through this,” he says. “Or classmates or teammates or partners. There’s one week a month when Mom wakes up and her body is telling her, ‘This is painful.’”
Payal shares her thoughts
In an interview with Upworthy, Payal explained why the talk Hiren had with their boys is important.
“I’d want folks to know that in our home we aim to raise our boys with respect for themselves and deep empathy for others,” she says. “I wasn’t surprised to overhear my husband having this talk with them, which is part of ongoing conversations on how we can all show up for each other in times of need.”
She also explained that she hopes it will help encourage other boy dads and moms to talk with their sons about periods.
“On the topic of periods and menstruation, I think parents raising boys have a unique opportunity to help lift stigma that lead to misogyny and intolerance. We can raise boys to be a safe and understanding spaces for the women in their lives by being transparent—it’s biology after all!”
Viewers respond
Many viewers shared their support for Hiren’s chat with their sons, and shared their thoughts in the comments:
“That man was MEANT to be a father, especially to young men! 🥰😭.”
“This is the greenest flag of green flags that has ever flagged. You and those boys are very lucky.”
“Imagine…. if ALL boys were parented this way. Just imagine …….”
“THE INCLUSIVITY IN HIS LANGUAGE ♥️♥️♥️♥️”
“This is what secure masculinity looks like.”
“Now we all know why you married this man. No mansplaining just an actual conversation with his son. Your son’s are going to be able to feel comfortable and confident going to him for any advice without being made to feel ashamed. We need the Green flag guy.”
Since the beginning of time, it’s probably safe to say that many parents are simply exhausted as they navigate child-rearing. It’s a delicate dance between being a helicopter parent and being checked out. And for some, that anxiety and restlessness can linger for a good portion of their child’s life. A parenting concept from well over half a century ago might be changing that once more.
British pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott coined the phrase “good enough” parenting when he hypothesized that it was perhaps okay for parents to let their children, within healthy boundaries, learn important lessons on their own. The gist is that instead of attempting to oversee every single portion of a child’s life, a parent can step back and show up in ways that will ultimately guide them to a (hopefully) better outcome.
Kids learn from our mistakes
Dr. Ramani Durvasula (who simply goes by Dr. Ramani online) describes the notion succinctly in an interview clip with MedCircle. Here, she explains how vital it is for children to learn certain life lessons on their own. “We only need to be good enough. If we get it right every time… our kids learn from our mistakes. Every so often it takes us too long to soothe them. That’s when they learn to soothe themselves. We need to do ‘just enough’ mistakes so that they learn to do things by themselves.”
In a 2016 piece for Psychology Today, author Marilyn Wedge, P.h.D. explains the idea evolves after infancy. “In discussing the mother (or other caretaker’s) adaptation to the needs of the baby, Winnicott thought that the ‘good enough mother’ starts out with an almost complete adaptation to her baby’s needs. She is entirely devoted to the baby and quickly sees to his every need. She sacrifices her own sleep and her own needs to fulfill the needs of her infant.”
Not perfect but ‘good enough’
She notes that this can change as the baby gets older. “As time goes by, however, the mother allows the infant to experience small amounts of frustration. She is empathetic and caring but does not immediately rush to the baby’s every cry. Of course, at first the time limit to this frustration must be very short. She may allow the baby to cry for a few minutes before her nighttime feeding, but only for a few minutes. She is not “perfect,” but she is “good enough” in that the child only feels a slight amount of frustration.”
The “good enough parent” 👏 Seán Moncrieff joins his daughter Keelin as the first guest on Mother season 3. @kee_mon and her father discuss why letting go of parenting expectations can be one the hardest challenges faced by parents. Other themes explored include generational differences in parenting, the epiphany of first-time parental love, his role as a father in her life, and much more. This is one episode you won’t want to miss! Tune in wherever you get your podcasts 🎧️ #keelinmoncrieff#seanmoncrieff#parenting#mother
Fiona Yassin, family psychotherapist and founder and clinical director of The Wave Clinic, shared her view of the idea of attunement with Upworthy:
“For parents, it can be helpful to step away from the idea of getting parenting ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ In mental health, we often talk about ‘good enough’ parenting, which has attunement at its core. This means being present for our children, noticing their needs, and responding in a way that helps them feel seen and supported. Children don’t need flawless caregivers, but they do need caregivers who’re reliably responsive.”
She adds how important it is that parents give themselves some grace. “It’s impossible to attune 100% of the time, but as parents we want to be looking to attune to our child’s needs for a good chunk of time. It’s also really important for parents to understand that small ruptures, missed cues, or moments of misattunement are not failures; they’re part of being human. What matters for parents here is how we repair from those moments and model to a child that relationships can stretch and recover.”
Avoid passing down anxiety
Alli Spotts-DeLazzer (LMFT, LPCC, CEDS-C) was excited to speak to Upworthy about the concept. “So happy ‘good enough parenting’ is in the spotlight here! I’ve been preaching this ‘good enough’ concept and the mutual growth that can come from it for years now—as a marriage and family therapist and lead author of My Child Has an Eating Disorder.
In trying to do things perfectly, parents may unintentionally pass down more anxiety and lack of self-trust than they realize. The growth is in the ruptures, the repairs, and the role modeling of the messiness of life and how it gets handled—sometimes beautifully and other times in ways that feel poor. In a world where perfection narratives and images are pushed daily on social media, it takes courage to sit in the mess and make it meaningful. If you want to support resilience in kids, this seems like an empowering direction for parenting to move toward. Even more important, it can reduce polarization and allow more room for nuance, humanity, and growth.”
We’ve all been there: it’s 90 degrees outside, absolutely sweltering, and you’re walking home from a new smoothie shop less than a mile away from your apartment, and everything is melting. The smoothie in your right hand. The açaí bowl in your left. Your old, broken headphones slowly slip off your head as a song you’ve never heard before blares through the speakers. Your willpower is diminishing by the second, and no one is around to help you.
Okay, that might be a bit specific (and precisely what happened to me about an hour ago). Still, you’ve likely had a similar experience: an encounter that left you annoyed, frustrated, or feeling hopeless.
But what if I told you that, according to Mo Gawdat, a former Google executive who has spent the last 20 years researching the mechanics of happiness, you only need to endure that emotional roller coaster for precisely 90 seconds?
Meet the man behind the 90-second rule
It’s time to meet the man who is revolutionizing our understanding of our emotions by giving us all a science-backed way to hit the reset button on our worst days.
Mo Gawat isn’t your typical wellness guru peddling crystals and manifestation journals. This is a guy who spent years as Chief Business Officer at Google X, the company’s “Moonshot Factory,” where he pursued ambitious, high-risk but potentially world-changing projects that tackled large-scale global problems like climate change, healthcare, and communications. But his most profound discovery about human happiness stemmed from his darkest hour.
When Gawdat’s 21-year-old son Ali died from preventable medical negligence during what should have been a routine surgery in 2014, he faced a darkness that would define the rest of his career. A clear choice emerged. He could either let this grief consume him, or honor his son by dedicating his analytical mind to a path Ali had always encouraged him to pursue: spreading happiness to as many people as possible.
Seventeen days after losing his son, Gawdat sat down and began writing Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy. Through this book, he uncovered a revolutionary truth: our emotions aren’t permanent. They have expiration dates.
The fascinating brain science behind your emotional meltdowns
Here’s where things get fascinating. When developing what would later be known as the “90-second rule,” Gawdat stumbled upon the findings of Harvard-trained neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Similarly, her research was also formed in the pressure cooker of an unexpected, dramatic life experience: the moment when she underwent a massive stroke.
As Dr. Taylor’s left brain hemisphere shut down, she gained unprecedented real-time insight into how emotions function in the body.
What she discovered is that when something triggers you, be it a spilled smoothie or a coworker’s passive-aggressive “per my last email” message, your amygdala (think of it as your brain’s overly cautious security guard) floods your system with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Your heart starts to race as if you’ve just spotted a bear and begun to run, your muscles tense up, and that instinctual fight-or-flight response surges through your body.
However, this chemical cascade has a built-in timer. As Dr. Taylor discovered, it takes approximately 90 seconds for these stress hormones to be flushed from your bloodstream. Meaning that, after that initial surge, the physical component of your emotional reaction is over.
But why doesn’t it feel like that? Why do we marinate in our emotions (anger, sadness, confusion, delusion) for hours, days, or more? That’s because, after those 90 seconds, we make a choice, usually without realizing it, to keep those emotions going by mentally rewinding and replaying the triggering event.
Why do we keep choosing emotional suffering?
“What happens is, you run the thought in your head again, and you renew your 90 seconds,” Gawdat explains. It’s like poking a bruise that’s formed on your knee, or hitting refresh on your personal stress response button. Every time you mentally revisit a stressful event, analyzing what you should have said, reimagining confrontations, and crafting the perfect comeback, you’re essentially retriggering that same potent chemical reaction that occurred in the first place.
So, while that 90-second episode of emotions ends quickly, we end up ruminating about what happened: over and over and over and over again.
This is more than a mere annoyance. Ift’s rewiring our brains in a bad way. Research shows that rumination doesn’t just prolong our bad moods, it intensifies them and can lead to anxiety and depression. We’re thinking ourselves into extended mental states simply by focusing too much on the past.
The three questions that reality-check your brain
What happens when you’ve successfully coasted through those initial 90 seconds but still feel like the world is out to get you? Gawdat developed a handy three-question reality check that serves as an emotional fact-checker for your brain:
Question 1: Is it true?
Gawdat claims that “90% of the things that make us unhappy are not even true.” Think about it: your partner seems distracted during dinner, and suddenly your brain spins an entire narrative about how they’ve fallen out of love with you. But how much of that is real? And what percentage of your little daydream can be chalked up to your brain being its usual dramatic self?
At best, our brains are excellent storytellers. The problem is that they’re prone to writing fiction and presenting it as truth.
So, the next time you find yourself spinning up a stressful “what if?” situation in your head, take a beat, and ask yourself a different question: “Is it true?”
Question 2: Can I take action?
If the answer to question one is “Yes, it is true,” then move on to Gawdat’s second question. Are there steps you can take?
If you have a real problem on your hands, then perfect! Channel that energy into solving it rather than drowning in it.
Question 3: Can I accept it and still create a better life despite it?
Here’s where things get tricky. If you can’t do anything about the situation, the final question before you becomes about “committed acceptance.” No, not passive resignation, but actively choosing to move forward and build something better despite the circumstances.
This can be difficult (remember, this process began with Gawdat searching for a way to make sense of his son’s death) but these questions aren’t about forcing toxic positivity or pretending like problems don’t exist. They help your brain make sense of what’s happened, distinguishing between productive and unproductive emotional energy.
Your brain: the overprotective parent
To understand how this works, it helps to think of your brain as an overprotective, hovering parent who sees danger everywhere. “Your brain isn’t your source of truth,” Gawdat explains. “It’s just a survival machine. A search party. It throws thoughts at you, hoping something will protect you. But that doesn’t mean any of them are true.”
Your mammalian brain evolved to keep you alive, not happy. When modern life presents you with stressful situations like traffic jams, work pressures, and particularly hot and evil temperatures, your ancient survival systems register these “threats” with the same emotional urgency as a saber-toothed tiger attack.
Putting the 90-second rule into practice
So, what does this really look like in real life knowing the science is only half the battle?
Step 1: Notice the surge
When you feel that familiar rush of anger, frustration, or anxiety, create a mental note. “Okay, this is a chemically induced wave of emotion,” you might say to yourself without judgment.
Step 2: Set a timer, literally
For the first 90 seconds, your job is to observe. Feel every emotion to its fullest: your heart racing, your muscles tensing, your breath shortening. Acknowledge these physical sensations without trying to fix or stop them.
Step 3: Breathe and wait
Deep breathing can help calm your nervous system after an onslaught of chemical reactions and prevent your brain from fueling the emotional fire mentally.
Step 4: Choose your response
When those 90 seconds pass, you have what Gawdat calls a “buffer,” a moment of clarity when you can decide what to do next.
Step 5: Apply the three questions
If you’re still upset after the initial wave, run through Gawdat’s reality-check framework.
The 90-second rule offers a unique perspective on relating to your vitally essential emotions. Emotions provide information about the environment and motivate us to take action. The 90-second rule helps us experience our emotions fully without letting them hijack our entire day or our entire life.
The happiness equation connection
This framework connects to Gawdat’s broader “happiness equation,” which posits that happiness equals life events minus expectations. Much of our suffering comes not from what happens to us, but from the gap between the triggering event and what we think should happen.
As Gawdat puts it, “Life doesn’t give a damn about you. It’s your choice how you react to every one of [life’s challenges].” Which may sound harsh, but when put into practice, can prove quite liberating.
The next time you feel yourself crashing out, remember: you have 90 seconds to feel as irrational as humanly possible. After that? You get to decide how to spend the rest of your day.
This article originally appeared one year ago. It has been updated.
Ohio mom Rose Grady (@nps.in.a.pod) shared her “Boomer grandparent” experience in a funny and relatable video. “Just a millennial mom watching her boomer parents bring three full loads of ‘treasures’ into her home,” she wrote in the overlay.
One mom’s viral video hit a nerve
Grady can be seen looking out the window of her home at her Boomer mom and dad carrying bags and boxes up her driveway after several visits. The distressed and contemplative look on Grady’s face is speaking to plenty of Millennial moms.
Grady captioned the video, “Today’s ‘treasure’ highlight was the mobile that hung in my nursery…”
The humorous video resonated with fellow Millennial parents. “Straight to the trash when they leave,” one viewer commented. Another added, “I always say ‘if you don’t want it in yours, we don’t want it in ours’ .”
Even more Millennial parents have shared and discussed their situations with Boomer grandparents buying their kids too much stuff on Reddit. “Both my mother and my MIL love buying and sending toys, books, clothes, etc. I don’t want to be ungrateful but we just don’t need it and don’t have the space. I have brought this up politely in ‘we are all out of drawers for that’ but it hasn’t slowed things down,” one explained. “I think part of the issue is that the grandparents live in different cities and vacation a lot. They don’t get to see our daughter much so they buy stuff instead.”
Another Millennial parent shared, “While the intention is very kind behind these, all the grandparents are very aware that we do not need, nor wish to receive these gifts in such an excessive volume – as it creates a daily struggle to store and accommodate in our home. I struggle to keep on top of tidying as it is, and this is a massive added challenge.”
How to talk to Boomer grandparents about gifts
Millennial mom struggles to organize her son’s room. Photo credit: Canva/fotostorm
So, why are Boomer grandparents excessively gifting? “Boomer grandparents may be the first grandparent generation to have accumulated the substantial discretionary funds that enables them to spend money on their grandchildren,” Sari Goodman, a Certified Parent Educator and founder of Parental Edge, tells Upworthy. “These grandparents probably grew up with grandparents who didn’t have that kind of money and so they may be excited to give their grandchildren the things they didn’t get.”
Goodman suggests that Millennial parents first discuss with them the “why” behind the gifting. “What comes before setting a boundary to limit over-the-top gift-giving is delving into the reasons grandparents are buying so much,” she explains. “Coming from a place of compassion and understanding makes it possible to come up with mutually beneficial solutions.”
She adds that another reason may be that Boomer grandparents live far away and want their grandchildren to feel a connection with them. “Set up a regular FaceTime or Zoom meeting. Rehearse with the kids so they have something to say and suggest a topic for the grandparents,” says Goodman. “Or send snail mail. Kids love getting mail. The grandparents can send postcards from where they live and explain some of the special sites.”
Finally, Goodman adds that for some grandparents, this may be the only way they know how to show their love. Millennial parents could ask if they would be open to other ideas. “Parents can set up an activity for grandparents and kids to do when they come over: a jigsaw puzzle, art activity, board game, magic tricks,” she says. “Arrange for the grandchildren to teach the grandparents something their phones can do or introduce them to an app they might like.”
This article originally appeared one year ago. It has been updated.
Nadia Dubceac is known to many in social media circles as a fitness guru with an edgy twist. Her dark hair, Gothic eye makeup, black fingernails, and often dark attire (even while working out) exemplify a traditional “goth chick,” with extra impressive muscles.
But don’t let her tough-looking exterior fool you. On a recent social media post, she shared a clip of herself with a tiny bee resting gently on her finger. “If you’ve been following my stories, you know I have a pet bee. Her name is Beebee. I call her Bee Bug.”
She explains how they met. “I found her almost exactly two months ago, lying on her back outside, probably dying. And I’ve seen a lot of videos of people reviving bees by giving them sugar and water. And I was like, ‘ya know what? Maybe she just needs a little sugar.’” She then adds, perhaps referring to a slight buzzing from the bee, “She’s getting zoomies.”
Dubceac then shares the story of how the two become fast friends. “So, long story short, I bring her inside. I had a bouquet of flowers that I put her in. I kind of just gave her sugar and water, thinking I’ll help replenish her, and she can go about her day and live a long, happy life.”
This whole time, the bee has been walking around her hand. We then see Beebee crawling into the circle made between her fingers and her thumb. “She’s doing her favorite activity right now,” Dubceac explains. “I make a little cave for her to burrow in and she loves it in here. She can be in here all day.”
Dubceac’s love of creatures made it feel impossible to leave Beebee to fend for herself. “Obviously, as an empath, there was no way I could put her back outside, knowing she’s unable to fly. So here we are. It’s been two months and she has been spoiled rotten.” We then get a shot of Beebee prancing through white flowers with bright yellow pollen at their centers. “She gets everything she wants. It has been really fun getting to know her little personality. I know it’s crazy, but I swear she has one!”
As for the logistics, they have a firm routine. “I feed her around 12 and then again once I come home from the gym. And then again while I’m having dinner. So she does have an internal clock. She knows.”
We then see her buzzing around a small habitat, not unlike a playpen. “She is a carpenter bee, so she obviously loves wood. I bought her a little wood house. She has a bonsai tree. She has this little mushroom that her godmother has given to her. And yes, she has a godmother.”
In a scary moment, Beebee jumps off Dubceac’s hand, but she finds her safely on the ground. “Please,” she says directly to her. “You’re so little and fragile. Stop doing that!” The video cuts to Dubceac’s cat, so she adds, “I obviously do buy her flowers, as long as they’re cat safe. And yes, I do have a cat. He knows not to mess with her and obviously they’re separated.”
She then addresses a thought many viewers might have, saying, “Now you may be wondering, what do I feed her?” She pulls out a square of pollen. “She eats a big, fat block of pollen. All of this just for her. I just wet a little piece so it can be nice and soft for her. And bees also need water, so that’s my way of keeping her hydrated.”
Having spent the last couple of months with Beebee, she notes, “I think bees are a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for. They recognize faces. She will reach for me when she wants to be held. Oftentimes, I’ll find her running around in panic until I pick her up. And she finds a nice, little cozy spot on my hand to take a little nap. And it’s the cutest thing ever. I think she’s actually pretty cozy right now.
My favorite thing she does? When she naps, she will put her little antennas go down. And it’s the cutest f—ing thing ever. She also loves a good nap on this window sill, especially when I lay the blanket down for her. Watching her groom is so fascinating. I have studied her entire routine. So yeah, that’s my little Beebee. She’s sending you the best energy ever.”
There were tens of thousands of supporters in the comment section on Instagram. One person writes, “Dear universe, when I die, please let me come back as an alt girl’s pet bee.”
Another shares their personal experience, writing, “During Covid lockdown, there was a carpenter bee that visited me every day for months. He would hang outside with me for hours! And when I went inside, he would hover in the windows, following me around the house. One day, he came by with a girlfriend and I hope they lived happily ever after!”
A few had understandable questions. One asked, “They have a four-week lifespan. How is it 2 months?” Dubceac answered, “Female carpenter bees live up to 3 years.” To this, another commenter answers, in part: “Thank you for taking such care of her!”
In a ThoughtCo “profile” piece on carpenter bees, entomology expert Debbie Hadley writes that they are “quite harmless and excellent pollinators.” She also adds this tidbit: “Carpenter bees practice buzz pollination, an active method of collecting pollen grains. When it lands on a flower, the bee uses its thoracic muscles to produce sound waves that shake the pollen loose.”
As to whether sugar, water, or sugar water is safe to give to bees, some experts claim it depends on the situation. Beevive.com suggests first checking to see if the bee can fly, as Dubceac did. Then, if possible, offer a flower solution first. “If the flower method fails, sugar water is needed. The RSPB (a conservation charity) suggests getting a small container or spoon and offering two tablespoons of granulated white sugar to one tablespoon of water.”
She wouldn’t be the first to keep a bee as a pet. According to Apis Cera, a company that makes beeswax candles, a woman from the United Kingdom once had a special bee friendship. On their website, they shared, “Fiona Presly, a library assistant from Inverness, rescued a buff-tailed, or large earth, bumblebee queen that had been born without wings and was struggling to survive.
Over the next few months, the two appeared to develop a special bond. Bee, as Presly named the insect, would even ‘cuddle’ and seemed to be ‘house-trained.’ Indeed, caring for the bumblebee has had a profound impact on how Presly thinks of insects.”
Bees are a vital part of our ecosystem. It probably goes without saying that we shouldn’t just capture them or remove them from their natural habitat. But should a bee get hurt, as Beebee did, providing them a safe place to live out their time can be a wonderfully kind and rewarding thing to do for the bee and their human.
