You can try to reuse wrapping paper, of course, but have you ever seen a kid tear into a Christmas present? You can try wrapping with simple brown paper, which is recyclable, but doesn’t feel particularly festive. You could buy eco-friendly wrapping paper, shelling out a pretty penny for something that’s still going to have to be purchased again and again.
OR you can go a whole new route by ditching the paper altogether and going for the truly old-fashioned, easy peasy solution of cloth gift bags that you either purchase or make yourself. If you think that sounds like a bit of a stretch, hold the judgment until you see how utterly adorable these bags are.
Cloth bags save so much time and headache compared to paper wrapping. Weirdly shaped gifts no longer matter as long as they fit in the bag. They also save you money over time if you use them for your household’s gifts and store them away with your holiday decorations each year. If you make them yourself, you can choose any color or pattern theme you want, but there are plenty of readymade coordinated options out there now to go with any decor.
And no, kids don’t care—in fact, they will probably appreciate the fact that their gift wrap is eco-friendly and they may even get nostalgic about seeing the familiar wrappings each year. (Our family has used cloth to wrap for presents for years, and our kids have actually developed favorites.)
Here’s a simple example—a mix of classic red-and-white patterns in assorted sizes for a bright, classic look. How lovely would a stash of these look all gathered under the tree?
Red and white always works for Christmas. <a href="https://amzn.to/3v7H1fh">Amazon</a>
What if you went with a classy gold theme for this year’s decor and want the presents under the tree to match for a perfectly Instagrammable Christmas morning? Here’s a similar set in a gold-and-white pattern.Go for the gold with this set of Christmas gift bags. <a href="https://amzn.to/3RN1miF">Amazon</a>
Maybe you’re going for more of a cozy, casual, log cabin-y feel for your holiday. Plenty of plaid in Christmas colors right here.Cozy, cozy flannel bags with Christmas sayings on them <a href="https://amzn.to/41uzwuX">Amazon</a>
If you’re more drawn to the classic, Norman Rockwell, Christmases-of-yore vibe, check out these nostalgic Christmas prints:These gift bags look like a throwback to "It's a Wonderful Life." <a href="https://amzn.to/3GRMMjP">Amazon</a>
Maybe you’re a modern maven with monochromatic merry-making methodologies. Or perhaps you’d like to be able to reuse your bags at other times of the year, too. These black-and-white babies might just do the trick.
These black-and-white bags could be used for any occasion. <a href="https://amzn.to/3RNXj5O">Amazon</a>
How about a standard-Christmas-wrapping-paper look, only as cloth Christmas gift bags instead?
Get your colorful Christmas on. <a href="https://amzn.to/41wgTHa">Amazon</a>
Or maybe you don’t want a distinctively Christmas feel at all, but rather a mix of pretty, festive bags that could be used for the holidays or any time of year. There’s a whole assortment to choose from here to go with whatever your particular color theme might be.
Christmas bags don't have to be Christmas-themed.. <a href="https://amzn.to/3NABeVY">Amazon</a>
There’s just no shortage of options for cloth gift bags that are worth investing in to save time, money and the environment. Just be sure to check sizes so there are no surprises, grab a wide assortment and then revel in the fact that you’ll never get a paper cut or have to search for another roll of tape while wrapping presents for your family again.
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.
Having a healthy communication style isn’t just about how you speak. It’s how you listen and perceive the other person or people to whom you’re talking. Knowing the strengths (and sometimes more importantly, the weaknesses) they might bring to a conversation can often help produce a better outcome.
Licensed therapist Jason VanRuler developed an efficient quiz to help people determine their communication style. After answering a short series of questions, an individual can find out if they lean toward the “peacemaker, the advocate, the harbor, the thinker, or the spark.” Of course, most of us don’t fit neatly into one box or another. To account for that, each archetype (to borrow Carl Jung’s term) is given a number, so one can see how they relate to each style.
In an Instagram Reel posted by VanRuler, he explains how essential mere perception can be. “You may think great communication is about saying the right thing, but it’s actually about knowing how to read the room. When something doesn’t land, we often blame the other person for not understanding, instead of asking how our message may not have connected with them. Different people process information differently, and ignoring that creates disconnect.”
How to reframe
There are ways in which he says a person can reframe. “What to Do About It: Shift your focus from ‘Why didn’t they get it?’ to ‘How can I say this in a way that connects with them?’ Pay attention to how people respond and adjust your approach accordingly. Great communicators don’t just express well, they adapt well.”
In the clip, he describes a time when he was giving a conference to a room full of accountants. “So I got up and I talked a lot about feelings, and I went really deep and got really emotional. And it was really, really quiet. And I left thinking, ‘what was wrong with the audience? Why didn’t they resonate with what I just said?’ But what I didn’t really think about is, what is it about what I just said that didn’t resonate with them?”
Learning your “style” can help facilitate better relationships through stronger communication. On VanRuler’s website, he explains who he’s attempting to help, writing, “Whether it’s leadership coaching, relationship building, couples therapy, addiction, trauma, or something different, my goal is the same: to speak truth and grace into every life I work with.”
“Strength: Creates peace and eases tension in difficult or trying moments. Opportunity: Can avoid necessary conflict, which delays resolution and repair.”
Advocate
“Strength: Focused on justice, fairness, and upholding morals; advocates for their beliefs. Opportunity: Can present as intense or overpowering, or advocate when it’s not needed.”
Thinker
“Strength: Focused on logic, thoughts, facts, and getting things correct. Opportunity: Can miss cues for feelings and appear distant or emotionally unavailable.”
Harbor
“Strength: Creates a safe space for others to go deep and talk about feelings and emotions. Opportunity: May struggle to express their own needs, communicate boundaries, or be the focal point of a conversation.”
Spark
“Strength: Brings lots of energy, creativity, and momentum to conversations. Opportunity: Can struggle with consistency and initiating difficult conversations.”
He makes it clear that understanding these “paths” is a great start to elevating a relationship, saying, “Each path speaks a different ‘language,’ and the more fluent you become in other styles, the better you can bridge the gap between you and the people you care about.”
The loneliness epidemic has reached a critical mass, with the Surgeon General warning that social isolation can have dire health consequences. Tons of research backs it up: Being lonely can make us sick.
For many years, patients have been screened for loneliness and offered only a few limited options: Therapy and medications that treat symptoms of loneliness like insomnia, depression, or heart problems.
But recently, doctors have been taking a far more radical approach: What if they actually treated the loneliness itself?
“Social prescribing” trend takes off
Doctors cant befriend their patients, but more and more they’ve been leaning on a concept called “social prescribing.” It’s a way of treating the whole patient and not just the symptoms.
How? By writing prescriptions for things like nature walks, art classes, book clubs, singing lessons, and more. All of these activities are shown to boost mental health, decrease loneliness, and create a domino effect of positive health outcomes.
It’s not just loneliness that can be treated by social prescribing. Depression, anxiety, and chronic pain can all benefit from community-based, real-world activities.
How social prescribing works
A person dealing with loneliness might be asked to take part in a community class, volunteer, or even use a service that helps them make friends.
Depression patients might be asked to spend more time in nature through a birdwatching group or nature-walk group They may also be enrolled in art classes.
Doctors frequently tell people to exercise more, but social prescribing sees them direct chronic pain patients, for example, to specific group exercise classes.
Prescriptions for art classes can really make a difference. Photo Credit: Canva Photos
It can be even simpler than that, too. Someone who’s isolated because they’re a caretaker for a family member might be asked to simply go to a coffee shop a few times per week. A person who’s feeling down and disconnected due to remote work might get a social prescription for joining a group or social club. Someone who’s dealing with stress and anxiety related to finances might be assigned to meet with a debt management specialist.
How it works from a logistical standpoint depends on the doctor and where you live. In the UK, social prescribing has officially been adopted by the NHS. Patients in need will be referred by their doctor to a “link worker” whose sole job is to connect them to the right community resource.
In America, social prescribing is still in more of a fledgling state. Fortunately, though, more and more local pilot programs are popping up around the country to provide the same support. Experts believe that even in the United States’ heavily privatized model, it can still be effective.
Social prescribing actually works
Going for weekly nature walks to help depression and loneliness is a cute idea, but is it actually effective?
A majority of research says Yes. One study found that patients who received a social prescription were less likely to visit their doctor for other consultations or go to the emergency room. Participants showed not only reductions in anxiety and depression, but major boosts to self-confidence, self-esteem, and overall wellbeing.
Beyond what’s reflected in the numbers and studies, doctors who practice social prescribing say they’ve seen the impact it can have firsthand.
Scientific Americanwrites, “The most memorable gains from social prescribing come through in its before-and-after stories. Whether its patients sharing how social prescriptions have provided a ‘reason to wake up in the morning,’ or doctors sharing how it feels like ‘prescribing beauty in someone’s life,’ social prescribing just feels right.”
The practice is not without its critics, though. Some researchers say that the positive gains from social prescribing only last as long as a healthcare worker is facilitating the activities, but fade away quickly when patients are left to their own devices. They argue that the root causes of loneliness, depression, and anxiety run far deeper in our cultures and require more precise intervention.
Still, it’s hard to argue with the idea behind social prescribing. Therapy and medications have their place, but human beings have always needed community, connection, and time spent in nature. What’s most surprising about the trend is that it took us this long to give it a try.
Alex Lyons is on a mission to make sure no one else suffers in silence. The 21-year-old from Armagh, Northern Ireland, spent months hiding a secret that she feared was too “gross” or “humiliating” to share with her friends and family. But as the BBC reported, that silence nearly cost her everything.
Lyons first noticed she was having frequent, urgent bowel movements and spotted blood in her stool. Instead of seeking help, she ignored the signs, hoping they would simply go away. Her hesitation was rooted in a deep sense of embarrassment and a desire to protect her family. Her twin brother, Joe, had recently undergone bowel removal surgery due to a chronic condition, and Alex didn’t want to put her parents through that trauma a second time.
Unfortunately, the symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) do not wait for a convenient time to be addressed. By the time Alex finally disclosed her struggle, her condition had progressed to a life-threatening level. She was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a form of IBD that causes chronic inflammation and ulcers in the lining of the colon. According to the Cleveland Clinic, these symptoms are often caused by an overactive immune response, and as seen in the case of Alex and her brother, genetic factors often play a significant role.
The inflammation was so aggressive that standard treatments could no longer save her bowel. She was rushed into emergency surgery, a procedure that saved her life but changed it forever. “I think I would have gone a little longer without losing my bowel had I gone to the doctor earlier,” Alex told the BBC.
From ambulance to advocacy
Now, Alex is using her voice to dismantle the stigma that kept her silent. She has become a viral advocate on TikTok, documenting her life with a stoma bag and showing her followers that a medical diagnosis doesn’t mean the end of a vibrant life. She refuses to let her condition stop her from wearing her favorite clothes or going out with friends.
My first shower in 7 weeks!! Kinda crazy lol. When you’re on deaths door a shower is the least of your worries trust me! This disease has taken alot from me but it won’t take my pamper days! #stoma#ulcerativecolitis#recovery#pamper
The lesson Alex wants to share is simple but vital: speaking up sooner matters more than avoiding a few minutes of discomfort. What might seem like a minor, embarrassing issue can develop into a serious health crisis if left unaddressed. As Alex and her brother continue their healing journey together, they are proving that there is no room for shame when it comes to saving your own life.
Every time NASA releases a stunning image from space of something like the Earth glowing against blackness, or the Moon’s cratered surface in sharp detail, the same question follows: where are the stars?
It happened again when NASA’s Artemis II crew, which launched April 1, 2026 and flew around the Moon before splashing down in the Pacific on April 10, began beaming back photos from their historic 10-day mission. The images were breathtaking. The backgrounds were pitch black. And the conspiracy theories started almost immediately.
The camera can only do so much
NASA’s answer, as explained in an Instagram post, is straightforward: it’s just how cameras work.
A camera captures a limited range between the brightest and darkest parts of a scene. When you’re photographing the Moon or the Earth from space, you’re dealing with an enormous difference in brightness. The sunlit surface of the Moon is extraordinarily bright, while stars are extraordinarily dim. To expose correctly for the bright object in the foreground, the camera’s settings have to be adjusted in a way that makes the faint stars in the background vanish into black.
Three settings control this. Shutter speed determines how long the camera’s sensor is exposed to light. ISO controls how sensitive that sensor is to light. And aperture determines how wide the lens opens. Getting the Moon in sharp, detailed focus means tuning all three for brightness, which is the opposite of what you’d need to pick up the faint glow of distant stars. You could technically try to capture both, but the result would be a blurry, overexposed mess where neither looks right.
The same thing happens on Earth. Try taking a photo of the night sky next to a bright streetlight. The stars disappear. The light itself isn’t unusual. It’s physics.
The photo that proves both sides
The most remarkable image from the Artemis II mission accidentally became the perfect illustration of exactly this phenomenon. On April 6, during their seven-hour flyby of the Moon’s far side, the crew captured a total solar eclipse. The Moon completely blocked the Sun for nearly 54 minutes of totality, far longer than any eclipse visible from Earth’s surface.
In that image, stars are clearly visible. Dozens of them, scattered across the frame around the dark disk of the Moon with its glowing halo of light. Venus appears as a bright silver glint on the edge. It’s one of the most striking photographs ever taken by humans in deep space.
The reason the stars appear is the same reason they normally don’t: the object in the foreground is dark. With the Moon blocking the Sun, there’s no blinding bright surface to expose for. The camera settings could be adjusted to capture the dim light of distant stars, and they showed up exactly as they should.
As NASA noted in the image description, stars are “typically too faint to see when imaging the Moon, but with the Moon in darkness stars are readily imaged.”
A historic mission
The Artemis II mission marked humanity’s return to the Moon’s vicinity for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew included commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. They set multiple records. Koch became the first woman to travel beyond low Earth orbit. Glover became the first person of color to witness the lunar far side. Hansen became the first person from a nation other than the United States to go to the Moon. And the mission broke the all-time crewed distance record, reaching 406,771 kilometers from Earth, surpassing the mark set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
The crew also captured an Earthset, with Earth sinking below the Moon’s horizon, that deliberately echoed the iconic Earthrise photo from Apollo 8 in 1968. They photographed ancient lava flows, impact craters, and surface fractures on the far side. They witnessed six meteoroid impact flashes on the darkened lunar surface.
Koch described the experience with characteristic simplicity: “The Moon really is its own unique body in the Universe. It’s not just a poster in the sky that goes by. It’s a real place.”
And it turns out space is full of stars. You just need the right conditions and the right camera settings to see them.
Richard Bernstein walked around barefoot a lot at home, so when his right toe started hurting in 2017, he assumed he’d stubbed it. A visit to his podiatrist confirmed nothing was broken and nothing was wrong. He moved on.
Over the next few years it crept upward from his toe to his ankle, then to his knee. A sports medicine doctor suggested stenosis and recommended physical therapy. That didn’t help either. Walking became gradually harder. On a trip to Greece, Bernstein had to sit out while his friends climbed to hilltop monasteries. He took his dog to the park less and less.
In March 2022, his right leg swelled noticeably. His doctor ordered an abdominal scan. What it found changed everything.
What they found when they finally looked
Bernstein had a massive cancerous kidney tumor that had grown into his vena cava, the main vein that returns blood from the lower body to the heart. The tumor and tumor thrombus were a foot long and weighed around two and a half pounds. Because the vena cava was almost completely blocked, blood was backing up in his lower extremities, which explained the years of unexplained pain creeping up his right side. His two main coronary arteries had also been compromised, with 99 percent of their function lost.
He was referred to Dr. Michael Grasso, chair of urology at Phelps Hospital. Grasso’s assessment was direct. “He told me I had four days to live,” Bernstein said.
A 12-hour surgery, three specialists, one chance
The surgery required three specialists working simultaneously over 12 hours at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Dr. Grasso handled the kidney and tumor removal. Cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Jonathan Hemli performed a double bypass on the coronary arteries, which had been discovered only once Bernstein was already admitted, an unexpected complication that Hemli said they couldn’t ignore. “It would have been really disappointing to cure him of his kidney cancer only to learn in six months, nine months, a year that the poor man had a heart attack and didn’t survive,” Hemli told TODAY. Vascular surgeon Dr. Alfio Carroccio opened the vena cava to remove the tumor thrombus, which extended all the way into the heart.
To do the work safely, the team had to cool Bernstein’s body, stop his heart, and run him on a heart-lung bypass machine while they operated. Then they slowly warmed him back up and restarted his heart.
Bernstein spent three days sedated afterward, a week in intensive care, and nearly three weeks in cardiac rehab relearning to walk. He lost around 30 pounds. He gained it back.
He’s now on ongoing immunotherapy and doing twice-yearly scans. Dr. Grasso’s update: “The cancer hasn’t spread anywhere else, which is amazing, considering where he came from.”
Bernstein’s own assessment of how he got through it: “My attitude is ‘it is what it is, and there’s not much we can do about it.’ That got me through.” His advice for anyone else in a similar situation: “If something is wrong and they can’t find it, don’t give up looking. Trust your feelings about your own body.”
And on the swollen leg that finally triggered the scan that saved him: “If my whole leg hadn’t swollen up, I would have dropped dead.”
Death is a mystery in so many ways, despite the fact that we all know for sure it’s going to happen. We don’t know when we will go and can’t really be sure of what comes next, so whether we’re thinking about ourselves or a loved one, there’s understandably a lot of fear and uncertainty around death.
That’s why Julie McFadden’s work is so important. As a palliative care nurse in the Los Angeles area, who has seen over a hundred people die, her videos shed light on the process to make us all a bit more comfortable with the inevitable. McFadden is also the author of the bestseller, “Nothing to Fear.” The nurse’s experience helping people in their final stages has given her a unique perspective on the process.
In one video, she shared how she can see the first symptoms that someone is going to die a natural death about 6 months before they finally do. In other words, she can determine that someone only has half a year left to live when most of us have no idea they have entered the final stages of life.
What are the signs a person is dying at the 6-month mark?
McFadden says that people who are dying are usually placed in hospice care when the symptoms begin to appear around the 6-month mark.
“You will have very generalized symptoms. Those symptoms will usually be, one, you will be less social. So you’ll be more introverted than extroverted,” McFadden said. “Two, you will be sleeping a lot more. And three, you will be eating and drinking a lot less. Literally, everyone on hospice, I see this happen to.”
A heavenly view of the sky. Photo credit: PIxbay/Pexels
What are the signs a person is dying at the 3-month mark?
You are going to notice more debility,” McFadden continues. “They will be staying in their house most of the time. It’s going to be difficult getting up and just going to the bathroom. Again, sleeping a lot more and eating and drinking a lot less.”
What are the signs a person is dying at the 1-month mark?
Something usually begins to happen in the final month of someone’s life. They start to believe they are in contact with others they have lost. It’s like they are there to make the dying person feel comfortable with their final transition.
“Usually around the one month mark is when people will start seeing ‘the unseen’, they have the visioning. They’ll be seeing dead relatives, dead loved ones, dead pets, old friends who have died,” McFadden said. “Again, not everyone — but many, many people will start seeing these things at around one month.”
Angela Morrow, a registered nurse at Verywell Health, agrees that people in the final stage of life often hear from those who have passed before them. Morrow says we should refrain from correcting the patients when they share their stories of talking to people and pets who have died. “You might feel frustrated because you can’t know for sure whether they’re hallucinating, having a spiritual experience, or just getting confused. The uncertainty can be unsettling, but it’s part of the process,” Morrow writes.
At the end of the video, McFadden says that the most important factors palliative care nurses look at to determine the stage of death are eating, drinking and sleeping. “Most people, a few weeks out from death, will be sleeping more than they are awake. And they will be barely eating and barely drinking,” McFadden said.
In the end, hospice nurses “allow the body to be the guide” as they help their patients transition from life to death.
McFadden’s work has brought a lot of peace to her followers as they go through trying times. “My mom is in hospice right now and she’s currently, I think, hours or days from death. YourTikToks have helped me out tremendously,” Deb wrote. “My grandma passed away in February, and she experienced all of this. this page brings me peace knowing everything she went through was natural,” Jaida added.
“Thanks, Julie. I volunteer in a hospice end-of-life facility, and this helps educate the families. Your posts are wonderful,” Grandma Nita wrote.
One of the things that makes death so scary is the number of unknowns surrounding the process, so it’s important that McFadden shares her stories of helping people to the next side. She shows that death is a natural process and that hospice nurses are here to help make the transition as peaceful as possible.
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
There are just so many ways for important information held on your phone to be swiped—from subscription based apps that secretly send private customer data to Facebook to fake accounts that get your friends to invest in some kind of fake crypto.
And of course—this is more than a modern day inconvenience. It poses real threats to democracy and global human rights, which is why so many are calling for more regulations and safeguards. Of course, as with most regulations, change isn’t coming fast. Which isn’t good news, considering how rapidly technology evolves.
However, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow has an incredibly simple tip for preventing our phones from being hacked: Turn them off more often.
Why Ronan Farrow says we should all be ‘freaking out’
While appearing on the Daily Show to promote his new documentary, Surveilled, Farrow told host Desi Lydic that we as a society should be “freaking out” more about the lack of government restraints about spyware technology, saying that it could turn the country “into an Orwellian surveillance state,” affecting anyone who uses a device, essentially—not just political dissidents.
But, as Farrow noted, turning your phone off and on every day is an easy way to protect yourself, since most current forms of spyware “will be foiled by a reboot.” And even if you aren’t, say, a journalist or a political activist (i.e. common targets for malware), you’re thwarting apps from monitoring your activity or collecting your data. And better still, you’re making it more difficult for hackers to steal information from your phone. Privacy protection aside, it’s a great way of just keeping your device healthy. Basically, it seems like the age-old solution for virtually all tech issues still holds up.
More easy steps you can take right now
Remembering to turn it off…that’s a different challenge altogether. Photo credit: Canva
There are a few other things worth turning off now and then, such as bluetooth and location devices when you’re not using them, according to the NSA. In addition, Farrow also suggested keeping devices updated, and perhaps most important of all, actually writing to your representative about the issue.
However, when it comes to wrapping devices in tinfoil as a makeshift Faraday cage…that might not be the best use of one’s aluminum.
“Experts vary on exactly how effective that approach is,” Farrow told Lydic, just before quipping, “we need better policies. Not just better tinfoil.”
The documentary that started it all
Expanding on Farrow’s 2022 New Yorker investagative exposé on the notorious spyware Pegasus, Surveilled, which is available to stream on Max, delves into the multibillion-dollar industry of commercial spyware and its potential threats, making it evidently clear that this is not an issue for the elite few, or one to ignore until the future.
On a (slightly) brighter note, Farrow debuted another new work in 2025, this time a true crime investigative podcast, titled Not a Very Good Murderer, which he himself narrates. Find it on Audible.
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
In a culture obsessed with instant reactions, being a person who treads softly, asks pertinent questions, and is genuinely curious is an under-appreciated advantage. It can even feel like a flaw.
However, psychology keeps arriving at the same conclusion: the habits that make us feel awkward and out of place are actually signals of a sharper, more complex mind at work. Let’s walk through what that looks like in real life.
1. Hitting pause in a world that expects quick replies
You’re in an all-hands meeting. Someone asks a question, and the rest of the call quickly starts talking at once, voices overlapping. Everyone else seems to fire back instantly, and there you are, taking a visible beat that feels like an eternity. That pause can often be read as hesitation or timidness. Maybe even insecurity.
But here’s what’s actually happening: your brain is doing quality control.
In 2025, researchers found that people who paused briefly before answering were perceived as more confident, trustworthy, and competent than those who responded immediately. Instead of blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, you pause, scan the situation, and test your thinking. Psychologists call this dual-processing reasoning, a slower and more deliberate way of reasoning. Think of it as a strength, not a delay: a built-in review process that helps you catch mistakes, sharpen your judgment, and make more reliable choices. In effect, you are double-checking the math before showing your work.
2. Why you can’t just “go with it”
Maybe this situation feels familiar: someone proposes a plan, and everyone else seems ready to move forward. Yet you still sense that something is off. Perhaps a step has been overlooked, the conclusion came too quickly, or an important risk has not been fully acknowledged. So, it makes sense to start by asking questions. Isn’t it natural to want to understand the why before agreeing to the what?
Suddenly you’re “difficult.” Or “negative.” Or “not a team player.” Underneath the labels lies a simple truth: your brain has a low tolerance for fuzzy reasoning. It can’t stand incomplete information. Psychologists link this to high cognitive complexity; you’re acutely aware of how many things can go wrong when the math doesn’t add up.
Your brain has a low tolerance for fuzzy logic. Canva
3. You watch the room before joining in
In group settings, you tend to hover on the edges first, never leaping headfirst into the conversation. You hang back, tracking carefully who interrupts whom; who laughs at what. You pay attention.
In reality, your brain is collecting data. Your working memory is taking in large quantities of information, some verbal, many not: tone, timing, body language, and power dynamics, to name a few. You’re the furthest thing from checked out. You’re loading. And the moment your brain finishes mapping the room, your moment arrives. You’re ready to step into the conversation.
4. You ask questions that feel obvious
If you’ve read this far, you may know that uneasy feeling when you raise your hand and say, “Sorry, just to make sure I understand—what exactly do you mean?”
This can feel like a declaration of incompetence. But people who are truly competent are very aware of what they know—and what they don’t. Refusing to assume is one of the clearest markers of mental acuity, according to the Dunner-Kruger effect. In psychology, it’s described as a cognitive bias in which people with lower skills or knowledge in a specific domain vastly overestimate their competence. To recognize your own gaps, you need a minimum level of that same knowledge. In simpler terms, you really don’t know what you don’t know.
5. You rehearse conversations before they happen
As we’ve already discussed, you don’t like to feel unprepared. So, you rehearse pretty much everything, like you’re starring in a very meta, very tedious play.
This can feel neurotic or exhausting. But it’s also incredibly sophisticated: you’re predicting how another person might think, feel, and respond before you walk into the moment. This is called predictive social modeling. It’s the mind’s ability to simulate what another person is likely thinking, feeling, or about to do based on what is already known about their traits, current state, and past behavior. In plain English, it means mentally running a social forecast: “If I say this, they’ll probably react that way,” or “They seem stressed, so this joke may not land well.”
6. Why your brain refuses to leave the meeting you exited an hour ago
The conversation is long over. You left the meeting room an hour ago. You’re literally at your desk, eating rice crackers, and drinking your afternoon coffee. So why does it feel like you’re still in that room?
Although not physically, mentally, you’re stuck there: rewinding a slightly off-color (or was it?) comment you made, wondering how you came off to everyone, and whether you’ll ever be truly understood by another person. ‘Was I too assertive?,’ you may ask yourself. Too soft? Too quiet? Did I take up too much room?
You may not know it, but post-event processing like this is a sign of high-self awareness. Your brain is running a highlight reel in slow motion, replaying what happened and grading it against a complex internal standard most people don’t catch. The upside is that this inventive mental system also helps you learn quickly and improve at a rapid pace. The downside? It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Turns out, that same mental system has a hard time distinguishing between “actual mistake” and “totally fine moment that nobody else noticed.” A good rule of thumb? You’re usually harder on yourself than the situation calls for.
This is what happens when your brain is built for depth. Canva
7. Small talk makes you want to climb out of your own skin
The weather. Weekend plans. “What do you do for work?” The latest in local sports (spoiler alert: they’re doing badly).
But give you a real topic to work with—one with substance—and it’s off to the races. You could talk for hours. This is what happens when your brain is built for depth. Psychologists call this a high need for cognition: you like thinking about big ideas, and shallow exchanges are genuinely under-stimulating. You’re not anti-social. You’re just waiting for substance.
8. You thrive in one-on-one conversations
Parties and big groups feel like a sporting event, or something like social juggling:
Whose turn is it to talk? Who hasn’t spoken yet? Why? What did that facial expression mean? Can I change the subject now?
But in one-on-one situations, when you sit across from another person who’s really just there with you, it’s like a new gear unlocks. You become a completely different version of yourself. While group settings demand social multitasking, one-on-one hangouts allow space for depth, nuance, and actual connection. Science says that highly intelligent people prefer this sort of deliberate, high-impact communication, with Jean Granneman, author of The Secret Lives of Introverts, explaining: “Happiness and meaningful interactions go hand-in-hand.”
9. You over-explain when something excites you
When you start talking about something you love, you tend to keep going. The excitement is real, and so is the instinct to follow every interesting tangent: right up until you notice the other person’s polite nod and realize you may have gone a bit farther than necessary.
Messages are carefully crafted in your notes app, where the other side can’t see your typing bubbles. You read your words back, editing, snipping, and reworking, as if you’re publishing a novel. And this was all for a simple, “You free Thursday?” text.
It’s easy to call this anxiety. And yes, sometimes it is. But underneath that is something else: you care how your words land. You understand that tiny shifts in phrasing can completely change the feeling on the other side of the screen. You want the person receiving your words to feel what you actually meant, not some clumsy, half–translated version of it.
It’s not a big deal, but you often feel just a little…out of step. Like, there’s a script everyone else got, and you’re left to improvise. You’re not anxious, exactly, nor unfriendly or shy. It’s difficult to explain.
All of this—the pausing, the scanning, the rehearsing, the replaying, the extra explaining, the little movements that keep you grounded—is work. Mentally, you’re doing gymnastics, but from the outside, that can read as quiet. Or a bit awkward. Or a bit “too much.”
You’re doing your best to move through the world thoughtfully, carefully, and with compassion. That isn’t a flaw you need to fix. It’s something meaningful to recognize, honor, and, yes, hold on to.
