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Gen X women don’t have the bandwidth to figure out why they feel so terrible

At the end of last year, I started to see a cognitive behavioral therapist. My executive function, the set of mental processes that help order the day-to-day — like organization, working memory, time management and focus — was in shambles.…

October 30, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

GOP health care cuts will hurt kids like mine

Last week was an eventful week for my family. The week began for us at a Moral Monday press conference on Sept. 29 outside of GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office in Louisville, Kentucky. We were there as mourners, accompanied by…

October 30, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

Opioids ravaged Appalachia. I’m one of the survivors

I want to write about the first time I did a pill. It was a turning point, one of those things you’ll think you’ll never forget. But I can’t. I don’t remember. I don’t remember any of my first-time meetings…

October 30, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

Some birds will learn to dance without being taught: study

As a human, when a good song is on, it feels natural to want to move your body and dance. Dancing is one thing that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom — or so we thought. According…

October 24, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

How police are causing a public health crisis

“If a cop is going to kill you anyway, what’s a little bit of COVID?” Dr. Melody Goodman asks pointedly. Goodman is the Associate Dean of Research at New York University’s School of Global and Public Health, where she focuses…

October 24, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

How TikTok is helping spread diet culture myths

Six years ago, a popular reality TV show called “The Biggest Loser” suffered a public blow to its credibility. The premise of the show was that overweight and obese contestants would compete to see who could lose the most weight,…

October 24, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

The gospel according to Amanita muscaria, the world’s most charismatic mushroom

In a snow-covered village on the northern outskirts of Moscow, Russia’s most famous mycologist, Mikhail Vishnevsky, poured me a cup of light psychoactive mushroom tea. But it wasn’t psilocybin, the psychedelic drug in so-called “magic” mushrooms, but instead the world’s…

October 24, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

Decades on, SSRIs remain mired in mystery and debate

In 2006, a new study on antidepressants was making headlines with its promising results: Two-thirds of participants who tried various antidepressants recovered from their depression symptoms within less than a year. The findings seemed to offer hope to the tens…

October 24, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

Technology is breaking our concept of the self. It could help us heal the mind

When Arthur Tres put on the virtual reality headset, he became another person. The device was connected to a woman across the room, who inhabited his body in the swap. Their movements were synchronized with motion sensor technology, so that…

October 24, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

These plants smell like rotten meat — Now we know how they do it

Plants are vastly intelligent in ways many people may not understand or appreciate. They have to be, since most of them move very little (if at all), so they require complex chemistry to communicate and protect themselves, often adorning themselves…

October 24, 2025 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0