Then one evening, the restriction starts to feel unbearable. You’re standing in front of the fridge at 11 p.m., staring at tempting food. You ask yourself: “Why do I have to suffer like this?”

If you can’t lose weight, you’re not alone. The first week or two goes smoothly, but the longer you restrict, the harder it gets, the restlessness grows, and in the end many people give in.

Why Do Diets Fail? “You’re Lazy. You Lack Determination.”

When someone fails to lose weight, people have a label ready for you. You’re greedy. You lack discipline. You don’t want it badly enough. The usual advice: “Eat less, move more, that’s it.”

It sounds so simple that it makes you feel ashamed. If it’s that easy and you still can’t do it, surely something is wrong with your willpower. So you try another method. Keto, intermittent fasting, a celebrity trainer’s meal plan. Every failure adds another layer of self-blame.

But try asking a different question. Someone who has trained consistently, endured hunger, and tried a dozen methods: do they really lack willpower? Or are we looking for the answer in the wrong place?

Why Do You Regain Weight After Dieting? What’s Really Happening Inside

For many people, eating isn’t just eating.

Eating to Fill the Space Left by Hidden Anxiety

Imagine someone carrying a low-grade anxiety inside them: quiet, unnamed, but always present. One day, their body notices something: while they’re eating, the anxiety disappears. In its place comes a sense of comfort.

The body learns this fast. From then on, eating becomes a tool. The taste stimulation and the comfort of eating fill the gap that anxiety leaves behind. And anxiety doesn’t happen just once. It happens constantly, so this person eats often and continuously, too.

Food Becomes a “Drug” Against Anxiety

This pattern runs for decades. At some point, eating stops being a habit and becomes a form of addiction: food is the medicine against anxiety.

Why Does Dieting Bring the Cravings Back?

Now look back at the moment you started your diet. You ate less. The “medicine” was taken away. And the baseline anxiety that had always been there began to surface. Your body responded the way it knows best: cravings.

Anxiety and fear are survival emotions. They drive human behavior harder than any plan on paper. Add a habit etched in over decades, and it’s no surprise people give in. Back to eating. Weight loss failed.

That doesn’t mean you’re weak. You’re going head to head with a survival mechanism, armed with nothing but a meal plan.

Can’t Lose Weight? The Way Out Is Treating the Right Problem

If you’ve tried to lose weight many times, with many methods, and still haven’t succeeded, the problem may not be your weight at all, but the hidden anxiety simmering inside. Address the anxiety first.

When anxiety is no longer something you have to cover up with food, eating less stops being a battle. Cravings no longer have a reason to pull you back.

But to untangle anxiety, you need to understand it first: how it works, why it makes us do things we can’t explain ourselves, and why it clings so stubbornly.

Want to Understand Why You Can’t Lose Weight and Fix It at the Root?

I wrote a book that goes into exactly these questions: “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.” It won’t hand you another meal plan. It helps you understand what your body is trying to protect you from.

👉 Get the book here

Next time you’re standing in front of the fridge at midnight, ask yourself: “Am I hungry, or am I anxious and uneasy?”

Then it becomes a bubble tea. Then a pastry. That night, you open the fridge looking for something sweet. Afterward, the self-blame: “Why am I so weak? Why can’t I control myself?”

If you’re struggling with sugar addiction or constant sugar cravings, you’re not alone. So many people live in this loop every single day.

Why Are So Many People Addicted to Sugar? “You Just Lack Willpower”

Society has a ready-made answer for this. You’re greedy. You lack discipline. You don’t take care of your body. The usual advice: “Just cut out sugar.”

So you try. Three days, five days, and then you cave and eat double. You conclude that you’re hopeless.

But what if willpower isn’t the problem? What if your sugar craving is a signal, not a sin?

Why Does Your Body Crave Sugar? What’s Really Happening Inside

Anxiety Switches On Defense Mode and Drains Your Energy

When anxiety kicks in, your body switches to defense mode. Energy is pumped into the heart, the neck and shoulder muscles, and the stomach. Blood is pulled away from the cortex and other areas to support the main “front line.”

A brief bout of anxiety is no problem. But when anxiety stretches over weeks or months, these defense organs work overtime with no rest. The stomach takes the hardest hit: it keeps contracting in a constant state of overload, close to exhaustion.

Sugar Is the Body’s Shortcut to Fast Energy

Now your body faces a problem: it needs energy right away, but the stomach is too worn out to digest a full meal.

Your body isn’t dumb. It finds exactly what delivers high energy with almost no breakdown required: sugar. Sweet foods are absorbed quickly through the intestines and deliver instant energy, without asking the stomach to work any harder.

In other words, craving sweets isn’t weakness. It’s an exhausted body looking for a shortcut to keep going.

A Hard-to-Break Sugar Habit May Signal Underlying Anxiety

That’s why people with anxiety often love sweets. And if your sugar habit feels very hard to break, there may be a low-grade anxiety running inside you that you haven’t put a name to.

Does Quitting Sugar Cure Sugar Addiction?

This is where many people stumble. If sugar is only the symptom, then quitting sugar without touching the anxiety is like pulling the battery out of a smoke alarm while the fire is still burning. Your body still needs energy, is still exhausted, and will find another outlet: late-night eating, constant snacking, irritability, poor sleep.

To escape this loop, you first need to understand how anxiety works in your body: where it starts, what feeds it, and why it makes us do things we can’t explain ourselves.

Once you understand the mechanism, you no longer have to fight yourself every time you see a cake. You start to hear what your body has been trying to say.

Want to Understand Why You Crave Sugar and Fix It at the Root?

I wrote a book that goes deep into exactly this: “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.” It won’t teach you to just quit sugar. It helps you understand why your body reacts this way, so you can fix the root cause instead of patching the surface again and again.

👉 Get the book here

Next time your hand reaches for that cake, pause for a moment and ask: “Is something weighing on me lately that I haven’t noticed?”

If you’re sleeping a lot but still tired, this article is for you.

Why Do I Sleep So Much and Still Feel Tired? It’s Not Just “Loving Sleep”

Many people assume that sleeping a lot means being lazy, undisciplined, or simply fond of sleep. You may be thinking the same thing about yourself.

But chances are, being tired after sleeping so much is a sign of hidden anxiety: the quiet kind, without obvious panic attacks, which is why we often don’t realize we’re carrying it.

How Hidden Anxiety and Overthinking Drain Your Energy

Overthinking Creates a Loop With No Exit

Anxiety often brings overthinking: thinking in endless circles without reaching a solution. The more you overthink, the more anxious you feel, and the more anxious you feel, the more you overthink.

Your Body Stays in “Fight or Flight” All Day

Anxiety triggers the “fight or flight” response: a racing heart, tense muscles, a stomach churning out acid. These reactions burn a lot of energy. Because overthinking keeps you from stepping out of the loop, your body burns energy all day long and slowly runs on empty. This is why many people feel exhausted even after a full night’s sleep.

Sleeping a Lot Is How Your Body Compensates

If you’re anxious during the day, you’re usually wiped out by evening. Once the anxiety settles, your body sleeps heavily to recover the energy it lost. That’s why people with hidden anxiety can sleep a great deal and still feel tired.

How to Stop Needing to Catch Up on Sleep

To get there, you need to interrupt overthinking and prolonged anxiety during the day. And to interrupt them, your mind needs the ability to anchor its attention on a single point. Here are two simple ways to start:

1. Practice Walking Meditation to Train Your Focus

Walking meditation is the easiest place to begin. It’s just walking, with your attention placed on each step. Practice for 10 to 20 minutes at a time.

👉 Read the guide: Walking Meditation: An Exercise to Reduce Overthinking

2. Cut Back on Short-Form Videos to Help Your Mind Anchor

Scrolling short videos, or any activity where you watch, listen, or do things in very short bursts, trains your mind to jump around constantly and lose focus. When your mind can’t anchor, it gets pulled more easily into overthinking and anxiety.

Favor longer activities instead: watch a full movie, listen to an entire album, read a chapter of a book.

Sleeping a Lot Isn’t Always Anxiety: Ask Yourself This

Excessive sleep can have many causes, and one sign alone can’t confirm anything. But if you’re sleeping a lot and also feel irritable or find it hard to concentrate, try asking yourself:

Lately, have I been anxious on and off without noticing?

Want to Understand Anxiety So It Stops Disrupting Your Sleep?

Understanding the mechanism is the first step out of the loop of anxiety and overthinking. To learn how to deal with hidden anxiety without letting it affect your sleep, I invite you to read “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”

Most people notice it: every time the seasons shift, mood swings and minor health issues tend to follow. For those with a weaker baseline health, seasonal transitions can bring on real gloom, irritability, and a full health crash.

So what’s actually causing this?

During a seasonal transition, temperatures shift significantly — gradually rising, as in the move from winter to spring, or spring to summer; or gradually falling, as in the move from summer to fall, or fall to winter.

When temperatures rise: as the environment warms up, your body cuts back on energy production. It no longer needs to generate as much energy to maintain that stable 37°C (98.6°F) internal temperature, so that portion of energy is no longer necessary — and gets cut. As a result, your body’s total energy output drops.

So what happens once that “unlocked” energy total goes down? If you keep the same activity level as before, the share of energy allocated to your immune system drops right along with it. That makes your body more vulnerable to infection and illness.

Hospital data consistently shows a sharp rise in flu admissions during seasonal transitions — in some cases, admissions have doubled compared to the months before, according to pediatric hospital records tracking flu cases through these transition periods.

A drop in total energy also brings mood changes with it. With less energy available, you become more prone to sadness, anxiety, and fear. If you’ve read the article “Why Does Fall Weather Feel So Pleasant, Yet Leave Me Exhausted and Quietly Sad?”, you’ll already understand this: sadness is really just the expression of an energy shortfall, while happiness is the expression of an energy surplus.

And if you’ve read Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger, you also know that lower energy levels make it far easier for anxiety and fear to get triggered.

In short: seasonal transitions reduce your body’s total unlocked energy, which makes you more prone to sadness, anxiety, and fear than usual. People with a stable baseline of health tend to get through this stretch fairly easily. But for those with a weaker baseline — often people already dealing with a physical or psychological condition — the energy drop can be too much to absorb, and both their mood and their health collapse together.

When temperatures fall: as the environment cools down, your body generates more energy to make up the difference. But if the temperature drops too fast, too suddenly, your body’s ability to adapt can’t keep pace — meaning the extra energy it produces isn’t enough to cover the drop, forcing it to pull from your body’s overall energy reserves instead. That leaves less energy for daily activity and for your immune system. If you keep the same routine as before, you end up running an energy deficit — and the result is the same: more sadness, more anxiety, more fear. If your baseline health is already weak, this makes you even more prone to getting sick and to a mood crash.

How to Avoid a Mood and Health Crash During Seasonal Transitions

Immediate fix: The moment you notice your body reacting to the seasonal shift — fatigue, unusual warmth, mood swings, a runny or stuffy nose — apply these right away:

Rest more, work less. Instead of keeping your usual pace, scale back your workload and rest more — for example, sitting or lying down with your eyes closed for 30 to 60 minutes. Giving your body time to generate enough energy to compensate helps you avoid getting sick.

Regulate your temperature. If it’s turning cold, dress warmly to reduce the energy your body has to spend on generating heat, freeing that energy up for your immune system instead. If it’s getting hot, use air conditioning to help your body stay cool.

Long-term fix:

To stop every seasonal transition from feeling like an ordeal, work on raising your body’s baseline energy level: exercise or play sports regularly, at least 3 times a week. Over time, this raises your overall energy baseline.

When a seasonal transition hits, ease off your training for a bit — take 1 to 2 weeks off. The extra energy you’re not spending on exercise goes toward keeping your mood stable and protecting your health during this sensitive window.

In short, your body always needs a certain amount of energy to keep your temperature stable, support your immune system, and keep your mood balanced. Every seasonal transition — whether temperatures rise or fall — forces your body to reallocate that energy, and during that adjustment period, the share going to your immune system and your emotional balance is usually the first to get cut. That’s why you’re more prone to fatigue, sadness, anxiety, and even illness whenever the seasons change — not because your body is weak, but because it’s going through a completely natural adaptation process. Once you understand this, instead of forcing yourself to keep the same pace, you can rest more, regulate your temperature at the right moments, and build a stronger baseline of health ahead of time — so that each time the seasons change, your body has enough energy “in reserve” to get through it more gently.

Since the beginning of 2026, and peaking in May, I punched through a glass door, and things still haven’t gotten much better since then. During every argument, I become disrespectful toward everyone, even though I never used to be like that. I actually love talking, but when I’m angry I go almost silent. And every time I get angry, I start thinking about finding a way out through reincarnation, because I feel like my life has already gone so wrong. I first had this thought back in 8th grade, but at the time I thought about my parents growing old, so the thought gradually faded. After 10 years, it’s come back stronger because of the conflict with my family. I used to try hard to live up to my duty as a filial child, but ever since the family conflict started, I’ve felt deeply discouraged — both my job and my family life are unstable. Sometimes I just want it all to be over. The photo below is from when I punched through the glass door.

Answer

Hi, what you’re calling a “hot temper” isn’t actually a personality trait at all. It’s really a sign of anger that has been building up for a long time. Because of how your family raised you — possibly through control or imposed expectations — you developed a deep sense of unfairness and resentment. But you weren’t able to express it at the time, so you had to push it down inside. Day after day, year after year, it accumulated and grew, until at some point it reached a breaking point and needed to explode.

At first, that might show up as slamming a table or breaking a bowl, like you described. But if this continues and the anger keeps building, you may eventually move toward destroying property or hurting someone else. Anger is naturally wired to fight against an enemy — so in the moment you’re angry, you start treating the other person as an enemy. That’s why you become disrespectful, and in more severe cases, it can lead to actually hurting them.

There’s something important you need to pay attention to: the thoughts about “escaping” that you mentioned have stayed with you for years, and recently they’ve gotten heavier. That’s a sign you’ve been carrying far too much, alone, for far too long. Please see a doctor or a mental health professional soon, so you can get a full evaluation and the proper care.

If anger is never released — in one way or another — and just keeps getting suppressed, it can eventually turn into other forms of psychological distress, including psychosis.

So the first thing you need to do is get yourself out of the anger state itself. Every time you feel yourself about to explode, break something, or say something hurtful, stop and take 5 to 10 deep breaths. This will help you calm down almost immediately. The first few times, you might already have broken something before you even realize you were angry — that’s completely normal, forgive yourself for those early moments. As you get used to observing yourself, you’ll start noticing the anger the instant it appears, and you’ll be able to breathe through it in time. This is only a short-term tool — it helps you get out of the anger in the moment, avoid arguments, and stop resentment from building up further.

Long-term solution

Your anger comes from the way you’ve been treated within your family. So if it’s at all possible, try to become financially independent and move out on your own. This will stop you from accumulating more anger every single day — though it will take real effort on your part.

That said, the anger that has already built up over the past decade is still stored in your body. It can continue to show up as a short temper, irritability, or even rudeness toward other people. Underneath it is a deep sense of insecurity, which can make you more prone to stress at work and conflict in relationships. So if you’re able to, you should see a therapist to work through this long-suppressed psychological weight. If this goes well, you’ll feel calmer, safer, and healthier — and from there, your life can become genuinely happier.

You can also read “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger” to fully understand how these emotions work. If seeing a therapist isn’t an option for you right now, you can practice the exercises in the book to begin healing on your own.

I’m aware that many people will say my body can’t take it anymore, and I have noticed the effects do last longer now, even at my age. But my parents both binge-drank well into their 50s and always seemed to be just fine, even after a long night of it.

Just curious, thanks.

Answer:

Why Binge Drinking Every Weekend Hits Harder After 25

Perhaps you’re starting to see the real toll of alcohol. From age 25 onward, your physical strength starts to plateau, and your liver’s ability to metabolize alcohol gradually slows down. If you continue drinking like this, you’ll slowly feel it more clearly: you’ll become more exhausted, and your body will feel weaker.

Every time alcohol enters your system, your liver has to detoxify it, and its lifespan gradually decreases. When it can no longer handle it, neither will you.

What Your Parents’ High Alcohol Tolerance Doesn’t Tell You

The fact that your parents drank heavily well into their 50s and still seemed healthy is not the whole reality. Behind it were empty mornings, headaches, sleeping all day, being unable to get anything done, and a complete lack of joy. And it is precisely this state that triggers the next drinking session, as you try to find that feeling of pleasure again.

The Real Reason You’re Getting Drunk Every Weekend

But there is something more important here: your urge to get drunk at the bar every weekend stems from a lack of intrinsic joy and a lack of purpose in life.

When someone has a genuine passion, they experience joy, and their drinking naturally decreases. As your peers settled down, got married, or stabilized their lives, their goals of building a foundation gave them a sense of responsibility and their own sources of joy — so they drank less.

Choosing the single life is not wrong at all. But if you don’t fill that space with truly meaningful activities, your brain will have to face that emptiness every weekend.

Alcohol Is a Symptom, Not the Problem

Alcohol is simply the fastest and cheapest way to create temporary stimulation in a lifestyle that has otherwise become dull. Citing your parents’ high alcohol tolerance is merely your ego’s defense mechanism, trying to rationalize a habit that no longer brings you any real benefit.

The real problem isn’t whether your health can withstand drinking heavily like this — it’s why your current life has no more meaningful source of joy than sitting at a bar every weekend.

If you find your passion and your life goals, you’ll have far more joy without needing to get excessively drunk, and without having to worry about your health later on.

If you live somewhere with four distinct seasons, you’ve probably noticed this: autumn brings cool, pleasant weather — yet somehow you feel drained, and a quiet sadness creeps in.

So what’s actually causing this?

First, a quick recap: when the weather turns cool, your body “unlocks” more energy. Enough energy is generated to keep your internal temperature stable at 37°C (98.6°F) — and that surplus energy is exactly what makes you feel good.

But here’s the paradox: this doesn’t happen the same way in spring. In spring, the weather is just as cool and pleasant, yet you feel full of energy instead of drained. In fall, you feel exhausted. Why the difference?

Think back to what came right before each season. Before fall, you went through a hot summer. During summer, your body cut back on energy production to cope with the heat. Over those three months, your body grew used to running on that lower energy supply — so the amount of energy you use in a day never fully bounced back.

Imagine your body normally runs on 100 units of energy a day. In summer, because of the heat, your body cuts that down to about 70 units. Then fall arrives, and since your body hasn’t had time to readjust, it’s still only producing a little over 70 units — while now needing to spend about 20 of those units on generating warmth as the air turns cooler. That leaves you with roughly 50 units to cover both your body’s basic functions and your daily activities.

Compare that to spring: the weather is just as cool, and your body spends a similar 20 units on staying warm. But what comes before spring is winter — genuinely cold weather that forces your body to unlock much more energy just to stay warm through the whole season. Your daily energy budget during winter can climb as high as 120 units. So when spring arrives and the weather warms up, your body only needs to spend 20 units on temperature regulation, leaving around 100 units free — far more than the 50 units left over in fall. That’s why spring leaves you feeling energized, while fall leaves you drained, even though both seasons feel equally cool.

This lower energy baseline compared to spring is exactly why you’re prone to exhaustion in early-to-mid fall, especially if your work demands physical effort or heavy concentration.

The good news: your body gradually readjusts and unlocks more energy as fall progresses. Once it fully recovers back to that 100-unit baseline, the exhaustion fades on its own.

Why Does Fall Also Bring a Quiet Sense of Sadness?

We usually assume sadness comes from something psychological — a loss, a broken relationship, something taken from us. But in reality, that emotional experience is just the surface-level expression of something happening at a deeper, energetic level. When you experience a loss, your instinct interprets it as failure — so it cuts your body’s energy supply, on the assumption that you’re using energy inefficiently. Giving more energy to someone who’s “failing” would only risk pushing the whole system toward collapse. So cutting energy is actually a protective move, a safeguard for the system as a whole.

The opposite happens with success — a raise, a promotion. Your instinct interprets this as effective use of energy, so it grants you more of it. That surplus energy is precisely what shows up, at the emotional level, as happiness.

In other words, joy is simply the emotional signature of unlocked surplus energy, while sadness is the emotional signature of an energy shortfall.

You can actually test this yourself: when you’re extremely hungry, is it easy to feel happy? The answer is no — because at that moment, you have no energy surplus at all.

Now notice: while you’re eating, do you tend to feel happier, lighter? The answer is yes. Barring something seriously upsetting, just a few bites of food is often enough to visibly brighten your mood. That’s because your body registers that fuel is coming in, and unlocks energy so you have the strength to keep eating. With energy to spare, happiness comes easily — even something small is enough to make you laugh.

In short, the exhaustion and quiet sadness you feel in fall aren’t caused by the cool weather itself, and they’re not a sign that something is psychologically “wrong” with you. They’re the result of an energy transition: your body comes out of summer running on a reduced energy supply, and it hasn’t caught up yet as the weather turns colder. Less energy means you tire more easily during the day — and that same shortfall shows up, at the emotional level, as a quiet, unexplained sadness, with no specific loss required to trigger it.

Once you understand this mechanism, you can stop asking yourself “why do I feel sad for no reason every fall” — because this isn’t something abnormal. It’s simply your body’s natural rhythm, gradually recalibrating itself to the changing season.

Feeling uncomfortable, irritable, or even angry when the weather turns hot is something almost everyone can relate to.

So, what’s really going on?

Most experts today believe that the exhaustion you feel in hot weather comes from the energy your body burns cooling itself down — sweating to release heat, which leaves less energy for everything else.

That sounds logical at first, but it doesn’t quite hold up. Does sweating really cost that much energy? Is perspiration alone enough to exhaust a person? If so, what about runners or athletes? Their bodies sweat constantly, non-stop, throughout intense exercise — yet they still have the energy to keep running and playing. Meanwhile, someone drained by the heat is doing nothing but sitting or lying down, breathless and exhausted, while sweat runs down their skin.

Most people — including experts — fall into the same mistake: assuming the body can spend its energy however it likes. But that’s not how it actually works.

Your body’s energy isn’t available on demand. It follows its own internal mechanism — and when the conditions aren’t met, that energy gets locked away. You can’t simply “decide” to access it.

Here’s what’s actually happening

The human body has to maintain a stable internal temperature of 37°C (98.6°F) for its organs to function properly. When the outside temperature rises, your body temperature rises with it — and since every internal process that produces energy also generates heat, this pushes your body temperature up even further. To keep from crossing that 37°C threshold, your body cuts back on energy production.

That’s what leaves you feeling tired and depleted. The hotter it gets, the more energy production gets cut — and the more exhausted you feel.

You can actually verify this mechanism through your own everyday experience: on cool days, you feel comfortable, work more efficiently (which is exactly why offices are kept air-conditioned — to keep employees productive), and eat more. On hot days, it’s the opposite: you feel drained, get less done, and often don’t feel like eating much at all.

Here’s why: in cool weather, your body “unlocks” more energy, letting you do more — and since you’re burning more, you need more food to refuel. In hot weather, your body restricts that energy, leaving you tired and less productive — and since less energy is going out, your appetite naturally drops too.

Why Hot Weather Triggers Feelings of Insecurity, Anxiety, and Sleeplessness

When your internal organs suddenly have less energy to work with, their function becomes compromised — and this shortfall registers in your body as a state of insecurity (feeling unsafe).

If you’ve read Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger, you’ll know the formula behind anger: Insecurity + a position of strength.

Hot weather already puts you in a state of insecurity. All it takes is one more perceived threat — where you feel you have the upper hand, the winning position, or simply that the other person won’t push back — and anger is triggered. Irritability is just a milder form of that same anger.

For example, an offhand comment from a family member wouldn’t normally bother you. But on a scorching hot day, that same comment can suddenly make you raise your voice or snap.

Why Does Hot Weather Also Cause Anxiety?

The formula behind anxiety is: Insecurity + a position of weakness.

Hot weather already puts you in that same state of insecurity. All it takes is one more perceived threat — one where you feel you’re on the losing end — and anxiety kicks in. Risks at work or in a relationship, for instance, are far more likely to spiral into anxiety when the weather is oppressively hot.

Why Does Hot Weather Make It Harder to Sleep?

During 8 hours of sleep, you’re essentially defenseless — any threat could put your life at risk. So as a safeguard, your brain only allows you to fall asleep once it senses that you’re safe. Hot weather creates a sense of insecurity, making it harder to fall asleep in the first place. And even if you do manage to drift off, rising temperatures can still wake you up partway through the night.

In short, hot weather doesn’t directly cause irritability, anxiety, or sleeplessness. It does exactly one thing: it pushes your body into a state of insecurity by forcing it to cut back on energy production in order to keep your internal temperature stable. From that state of insecurity, depending on whether you perceive yourself as being in a position of strength or weakness in any given moment, it shows up as anger or as anxiety. And when your body can’t find enough safety to properly fall asleep, insomnia follows as an inevitable result.

Once you understand this mechanism, you can stop blaming yourself for “being so irritable lately” or “overthinking everything lately” every time the weather heats up — because it was never a change in your personality. It’s simply your body responding exactly the way it was built to, in order to survive.

I’m 40 years old. I don’t owe anyone money, I have a house (inherited from my grandparents), a car, and I run my own small business — enough to live comfortably, though not wealthy by any means. When I need money, I have my own resources and never have to ask anyone for a loan. Still, compared to people my age, I feel like I don’t measure up.

There’s a dream that keeps coming back to me every so often: I’m about to take my high school graduation exam, and for subjects like literature, math, chemistry — I don’t know a single thing. It feels like genuine failure, like I’m the problem student, sitting for an exam with a completely blank mind.

I don’t know what kind of psychological phenomenon this is, or if it’s some kind of condition. Does anyone else have this exact dream — showing up for an exam and drawing a total blank?

Answer:

What This Exam Dream Is Really Telling You About Midlife Pressure

The “showing up for an exam with a blank mind” dream is one of the most common recurring dreams among adults — and interestingly, it’s rarely actually about school. This isn’t a “condition” of any kind. It’s your unconscious mind encoding a completely different worry, dressed up in the most familiar disguise it could find: an exam.

You’ve actually named the real root of it yourself: despite having no debt, owning a home, a car, and a stable income — you still feel like you “don’t measure up” compared to your peers. That’s a form of status-based insecurity — not a lack of material safety, but the feeling of falling behind in an unspoken comparison you’re running against yourself. Maybe part of you feels your education or professional achievements fall short of your friends’, or maybe, deeper down, you feel less dynamic or adaptable than other people.

So why does your unconscious mind reach for “final exam” to represent this particular worry? Because a high school graduation exam is one of the first moments in life where society openly ranks, compares, and judges who’s “smart” and who’s “not” — scores, pass or fail, which school you get into. It’s the earliest, most deeply etched memory of what it feels like to be evaluated and risk falling short of the standard. So now, at 40, when the fear of “not measuring up to your peers” resurfaces, your unconscious mind reaches for that exact image — the exam, the blank mind, the feeling of being the “problem student” — because it’s the strongest, most familiar symbol it has to express the feeling of being about to be judged a failure.

This dream keeps repeating not because there’s anything wrong with your brain, but because that underlying worry about status is still unresolved in your waking life — so your unconscious keeps “replaying” it every chance it gets.

Kikazik — demystifying human psychology and behavior. Author of “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”

At school, when his teacher asks him to stop something he’s enjoying or follow the rules — study time, listening during lessons — if he doesn’t want to, he can refuse to cooperate, get angry, throw or break things, and sometimes even hit or scratch the teacher or other kids. I don’t think he’s afraid of her, because she mostly just gives gentle reminders — she’s not the type to yell.

At home, we’ve tried everything — calmly explaining things, gentle reminders, setting limits, even harsher measures like spanking or “the strict hand” method — but nothing has worked. What’s strange is, he never acts this way at home.

Our family is at a loss. We’ve already taken him to see a specialist and are still trying to figure this out. Has anyone dealt with a 5-year-old like this before? When a child wants their own way and won’t cooperate at school, what’s the right way to handle it? We’d really appreciate any shared experience.

Answer:

Why Is He Well-Behaved at Home But Defiant at School?

Hi there. Your son may have been raised using strong disciplinary measures — yelling or physical punishment (or, if not that, then possibly overindulgence, where he’s used to getting whatever he wants). Since he’s spent 5 years accustomed to strict discipline, when he encounters his teacher’s gentle approach at school, he simply doesn’t feel afraid of her.

Here’s the detail worth paying attention to: he’s shy and fearful in unfamiliar environments outside the home. That’s the visible sign of the fear that 5 years of strict discipline at home has built in him. Every time he’s yelled at or punished physically, he feels afraid and unsafe. That suppressed feeling doesn’t just disappear — it stays inside him. So when his teacher asks him to stop playing and focus on a lesson, he feels frustrated. And because he knows she won’t use the same strong measures he faces at home — she’s gentle, she just reminds him softly — that frustration, in a strong-willed child, can easily turn into anger directed straight at her. That anger isn’t just about being interrupted mid-play. It’s the release of everything he’s been suppressing from being yelled at and punished at home.

In truth, a child not cooperating at school isn’t really a serious problem in itself. Why? Because even if he doesn’t listen right away, he will within 5 or 15 minutes. If he doesn’t follow the teacher’s instructions, he can’t study or play with the other kids — and no child actually wants that. He’s simply absorbed in what he’s doing, so when the teacher shifts him to a different activity, he gets annoyed and isn’t ready to switch right away. This means more time and effort for the teacher to coax and persuade him — but in the end, he does listen. It’s only a matter of how fast.

It’s a lot like when you’re deeply absorbed in something you enjoy — or playing a game you love — and someone forces you to stop and do something else instead. You’d feel annoyed too, maybe even angry, if they didn’t give you a good reason. That’s the discomfort of being forced to switch contexts abruptly — adults and children experience this the exact same way. It’s important to understand that.

How to Handle a Strong-Willed, Uncooperative Child

What matters more right now isn’t forcing him to obey his teacher instantly — as explained above, he’ll come around sooner or later anyway. He’s simply stretching out his non-cooperation to release his anger. What genuinely needs to change is how he’s being disciplined at home. Your family should shift toward gentler, softer discipline, to avoid causing him harm and to stop him from accumulating anger that gets released onto others. Otherwise, once he’s old enough and strong enough, he’ll start releasing that anger onto the people closest to him — and at that point, he’ll become the child who’s difficult to manage, hard to raise, even seen as disrespectful.

Give Him Time to Transition Between Activities

Keep this in mind: when you ask him to do something, give him time to process the request afterward. Don’t demand he act on it instantly — leave room for him to come to terms with the change. For example, instead of telling him to stop playing and sit down to study right now, try: “It’s almost study time — you’ve got 5 more minutes to play, then it’s time to study.” When the time comes, remind him again: “It’s study time now,” and give him another 1-2 minutes to make the switch.

Use Positive Discipline, Not Physical Punishment

If he still doesn’t listen, increase the consequence without yelling or physical punishment. Every child loves to play, so simply putting away and locking up a favorite toy is already a heavy enough consequence. There’s no need to get angry, yell, or resort to spanking — that only releases your own frustration in the moment, while doing real harm to his mental well-being as he grows up. The fact that he’s taking his anger out on his teacher is clear evidence of that. He’s only 5 — start changing your approach now, so he can grow up with stable mental health.

Be Patient — and Manage Your Own Emotions Too

After a long, exhausting day at work, facing a child’s crying and whining can easily push any parent toward yelling or physical punishment. But reacting on impulse like that risks planting fear and anxiety in him throughout his childhood — and that can create psychological issues as he grows into adulthood. That’s why parents need to stay calm and patient throughout the process of raising a child. Parenting isn’t just a journey of shaping your child — it’s also a journey of mastering your own emotional regulation.

Kikazik — demystifying human psychology and behavior. Author of “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”

When my heart is pounding at 140bpm, trying to count to 4 and breathe slowly literally just makes me hyperventilate more. It feels impossible to focus on a slow rhythm when I’m spiraling.

Does anyone have a weird or specific trick that actually works instantly? I need something physical or tactile because the standard breathing stuff is just making it worse. What’s your immediate go-to move?

Answer:

Your heart racing is a product of fear taking over. The fastest way to slow it down and regain calm is to focus — but on the right thing.

Pick a single focal point on your body: your heart itself. At 140bpm, you can actually feel it pounding. Put your hand over your chest, and focus completely on each beat — the rhythm, the contraction, the raw physical sensation of it.

By anchoring your attention there, you pull yourself out of the fear spiral, and as that happens, your heart rate will naturally start to slow down. You’ll be able to feel it happening in real time, and that’s what pulls you out of the panic.

Breathing exercises work on the same principle — focusing your attention — but in your case, deep breathing can actually expand your chest and put pressure against a heart that’s already racing, adding more discomfort instead of relief. That’s likely why “just breathe” is backfiring on you. Placing your hand on your chest and focusing on the heartbeat itself skips that problem entirely, and tends to work better for exactly your situation.

Kikazik — demystifying human psychology and behavior. Author of “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”

Answer:

The fact that you’ve noticed this pattern yourself — that you only feel real emotion around people who hurt you, while stable people leave you cold — is a sharp observation. It’s also the first condition for actually changing it.

This isn’t because you’re choosing pain on purpose. It’s because your nervous system learned the wrong formula for love — and it learned it from the very first place you ever learned what love was: your parents.

For the first 20 years of your life, your parents were your only source of safety and survival — but they could also be a source of threat, whenever anger, yelling, or control showed up. To a child, these aren’t two separate things. They’re the same person, the only source of love you’ve ever known. So your brain recorded a rule: real love has to come with fear and instability — that’s simply what love is shaped like.

Growing up, when you meet someone stable — someone who creates no fear, no hurt — your brain doesn’t recognize it as love, because it doesn’t match the only formula you were ever taught. That “boredom” isn’t because the person is dull. It’s the absence of a signal your brain has been trained to associate with love since childhood.

With someone who hurts you — warm one moment, cold the next, keeping you on edge — that instability is the one signal your brain does translate as love, because it matches exactly what you lived through as a child. That’s why you only feel truly alive inside a relationship that hurts.

To change this, the first step isn’t forcing yourself to love someone stable right away. It’s recognizing that the formula “love = fear” you’ve been carrying isn’t the truth — it’s just a lesson your brain learned wrong, from what you went through. Give yourself time to teach your nervous system a new formula, one where calm can be real love too, not just the version that comes wrapped in fear.

Kikazik — demystifying human psychology and behavior. Author of “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”

Anyone know a way to make it less? I tried bromazepam 3mg and it didnt do much. I feel like i cant live anything at this point.

Answer:

Try abdominal breathing — it’s remarkably effective, and works better than chest breathing for this. It might feel a bit awkward the first few times, but you’ll get the hang of it fast.

Abdominal breathing can pull you out of that anxious feeling almost immediately. But to stop it from creeping back, add 10 minutes of daily meditation on top of it. You can also fill more of your time with calming audio — audiobooks, podcasts, or soft music can help keep your nervous system settled.

Here’s the breathing exercise:

Abdominal Breathing (Diaphragmatic Breathing)

Posture
Sit with a straight back, stand with a straight back, or lie on your back (if preparing for sleep). You can practice in any posture as long as your spine is relatively straight and your body is comfortable.

The 4-Step Process

Step 1: Inhale
Inhale slowly through your nose. When inhaling, the abdomen expands naturally. Do not try to lift your chest; focus solely on letting your abdomen swell. Inhale deeply until you feel you can no longer comfortably inhale more, then stop. There is no need to strain; just feel your abdomen comfortably full. Focus on the sensation of your abdomen expanding.

Step 2: Hold Breath
Pause breathing for about 1–2 seconds. Keep your attention fixed on the expanded abdominal area.

Step 3: Exhale
Exhale slowly through your mouth, as if gently blowing on a candle without putting out the flame. Feel your abdomen gradually flattening. The exhalation time should be longer than the inhalation time. Exhale completely so that your abdomen flattens visibly.

Step 4: Rest (Static State)
After exhaling completely, continue to pause breathing for about 2–4 seconds. The rest time in this step should be longer than in Step 2. Afterward, return to Step 1 and repeat a new cycle.

Kikazik — demystifying human psychology and behavior. Author of “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”

Answer:

What you’re describing sounds like a more intense form of anxiety. Whenever your mind is alert and has nothing to occupy it, anxiety tends to creep back in — that’s exactly why it hits the moment you wake up, when your mind is clear but still empty.

Start with 10–20 slow, deep abdominal breaths before you even get out of bed. Then find something to do with your hands — make breakfast, tend to your garden, take care of your fish, anything hands-on. Physical tasks like these help pull you out of that anxious state.

You can also put on some audio — music, an audiobook, or a spiritual podcast. Keeping your mind gently occupied like this helps you stay out of the anxiety loop.

When your mind has too much idle space, anxiety comes back. When you take on something mentally demanding or stressful, it can also resurface. The activities described above strike a good balance — engaging enough to hold your attention, but calming rather than stressful.

Here’s the abdominal breathing exercise — practice it before getting out of bed:

Abdominal Breathing (Diaphragmatic Breathing)

Posture
Sit with a straight back, stand with a straight back, or lie on your back (if preparing for sleep). You can practice in any posture as long as your spine is relatively straight and your body is comfortable.

The 4-Step Process

Step 1: Inhale
Inhale slowly through your nose. When inhaling, the abdomen expands naturally. Do not try to lift your chest; focus solely on letting your abdomen swell. Inhale deeply until you feel you can no longer comfortably inhale more, then stop. There is no need to strain; just feel your abdomen comfortably full. Focus on the sensation of your abdomen expanding.

Step 2: Hold Breath
Pause breathing for about 1–2 seconds. Keep your attention fixed on the expanded abdominal area.

Step 3: Exhale
Exhale slowly through your mouth, as if gently blowing on a candle without putting out the flame. Feel your abdomen gradually flattening. The exhalation time should be longer than the inhalation time. Exhale completely so that your abdomen flattens visibly.

Step 4: Rest (Static State)
After exhaling completely, continue to pause breathing for about 2–4 seconds. The rest time in this step should be longer than in Step 2. Afterward, return to Step 1 and repeat a new cycle.

Kikazik — demystifying human psychology and behavior. Author of “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”

Back when I was a student, I worked all kinds of jobs — waiting tables, making drinks, working in sales — but I kept forgetting things, and I was slow to pick things up. Most people need one to two months to get the hang of a job; I’m still struggling after three months. In class, my brain used to fire on all cylinders. At work, my mind just goes blank.

I still practice — reading books, talking with friends, messaging strangers to chat, going out and striking up conversations with people easily, even learning Chinese to train my memory. But somehow all of that works fine, and the moment I try to apply it at work, my mind goes blank. Please help — I want to work in service, and at this rate, I’m doomed.

Thanks for reading.

Answer:

The Problem Might Not Be Your Memory

Reading through what you shared, the issue is probably not your memory or a slow brain — it’s more likely about your psychological state at work.

Here’s the key detail: you said your brain fires fast in class, but goes blank at work. If your memory or thinking ability were genuinely poor, it’s unlikely it would only “slow down” specifically at work.

Why Does Work Create a Different Kind of Pressure Than School?

School and work create two very different levels of pressure. In school, giving a wrong answer mostly affects your grades or how a teacher sees you. At work, other people’s judgment of your competence affects your job, your job and your income. That makes it very easy for a fear of being judged to creep in.

When you’re asked something at work, instead of focusing purely on the question, you may be gripped by a fear of giving the wrong answer. That anxiety itself can impair your ability to process information and retrieve what you already know. The result: your mind goes blank, your mouth runs on habit, and your response slows down.

Then you look at that result and conclude, “I guess my memory is bad.” So you go looking for ways to train your memory — reading, learning Chinese — but those may not be addressing the real cause at all.

The Evidence Points Away From a Skills Problem

The fact that you actively read, keep learning, talk to strangers, exercise, and keep looking for ways to improve yourself shows you’re not someone lacking motivation or the ability to learn.

It’s also possible you’re simply better at learning through study than through hands-on experience — and that’s completely normal. Some people are naturally better at putting what they know into practice; others are stronger at absorbing information through reading and studying. You can still train and improve at the hands-on side.

What to Do When You’re Asked Something and Your Mind Goes Blank

To make work flow more smoothly, the goal is to reduce that fear of being judged.

When you’re asked something, try buying yourself a moment to think — say “let me think about that for a second,” repeat the question back, or use a simple filler like “hmm, well...” before answering. The point is to interrupt the automatic anxiety-then-autopilot-response loop.

If you can, try to anticipate the kinds of questions you might get asked, and prepare answers in advance. Going in already prepared will make you far less anxious when the real situation comes up.

The Long-Term Fix

You seem more sensitive to the feeling of being judged than some other people. Most people feel a bit of anxiety when asked something they don’t know, or when their answer could work against them — but what you’re describing suggests this anxiety may be strong enough to actively impair your ability to perform.

To address this long-term, try meditating daily. Just 10 minutes a day, done consistently over time, can help you build the ability to observe your emotions and stay calmer when anxiety shows up.

The Bottom Line

This isn’t a “slow brain” or “bad memory” problem. It’s that anxiety, when it shows up, stops your existing abilities from working the way they do when you feel safe.

Kikazik — demystifying human psychology and behavior. Author of “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”

Hi everyone. I’m currently a stay-at-home mom, taking care of my 3 kids and a coffee farm. I studied to be a teacher, but instead of teaching, I got married and have been at home for 13 years now.

Part of me has always wanted an outside job — something less exhausting than farm work, and with a paycheck. But I worry that working would mean I can’t fully care for my kids, and there’d be no one to manage our coffee farm.

For 13 years, my husband has covered our household expenses. The income from the coffee harvest only comes once a year, and we save all of it.

Now someone I know wants to hire me, and I’d really enjoy the work. The pay won’t be high, and after paying someone to help with the farm, I wouldn’t have much left over. But I’d feel like I have value again.

I really want to work, but I worry about my kids. My mind keeps going back and forth — work, or stay home…

Answer:

13 years raising 3 kids while managing a farm, and you still hold onto the desire to find your worth again — that alone shows you’ve never stopped trying, no matter which role you’re in.

Why Do You Feel Like You’ve “Lost Your Worth”?

You might feel this way because you’re comparing yourself to others, or unconsciously absorbing how some people around you judge things on the surface — or maybe it’s a quieter fear: what if something happened to your marriage, and you had nothing to fall back on?

But here’s something you may not have fully seen yet.

Raising 3 Kids Is a Job No One Else Can Do For You

Raising three children is far from simple. It’s demanding, deeply valuable work that no one can replace you in — not your husband, not anyone else who might step into that role. Only you, their mother, have the love and the drive to do whatever it takes for them.

Barring betrayal or a conflict severe enough to end the marriage, no husband walks away from the woman raising his three children — because he knows no one cares for them the way you do. With three kids, the household workload alone is enormous, and there’s no job, no salary out there that can match the value of raising children and running a home.

Many women who go back to full-time work end up hiring someone else to raise their kids — and those children don’t get the love and attention they need from their mother, and don’t get to experience the happiness they deserve. Growing up, they may crave that missing affection so deeply that it can later affect how they experience love and relationships, making them more vulnerable to emotional dependence and heartbreak.

That’s why raising three kids and running your household is the most valuable work there is — nothing replaces you in it.

Farm Work — Economic Value You Might Be Overlooking

The second thing is the farm. This is income-generating work too, and you doing it yourself is better than hiring someone else — it requires trust to ensure good yields and avoid losses, something an outsider can rarely match.

If it feels like too much, you could hire extra help for the heavier tasks while you take on a manager’s role — overseeing rather than doing all the physical labor. Being freed from the heaviest work will give you a clearer head to think about your next steps.

If You Still Want to Work — What’s a Path That Doesn’t Cost You Your Family?

If you have extra time, you could look into work you can do from home — freelance work, or teaching from home. You could start by teaching for free at a beginner level to rebuild your skills and your passion for teaching, then once you have more students wanting advanced lessons, you can start charging.

The idea is: find ways to create more value while still keeping your time at home. When your kids come home from school, when your husband comes home from work, having you there to welcome them with a smile, taking care of them — that’s real joy and happiness for the whole family. After a day out in the world, what people need most is to come home to care and rest.

If you were also working full-time, everyone would come home exhausted, less able to care for each other, more prone to snapping and conflict. The kids wouldn’t get the attention they need, and the family would lose some of its joy.

In the End — You Don’t Need to Prove Anything Else

So even without an outside job, you’re already doing something profoundly valuable. You don’t need to prove anything more.

Kikazik — Demystifying human psychology and behavior. Author of “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”

I’m a college student who works part-time while studying. I mainly work to stay busy and earn some money. But lately, I’ve been feeling really stressed about my KPIs. Even though the company isn’t putting any pressure on me, I still put a lot of pressure on myself. Sometimes I cry because I feel like I’m not hitting my numbers. I don’t even want to cry, and I’ve tried to hold it back, but I can only hold it in for a little while before the tears start flowing again. Sometimes, even when someone just says something gently to me, I start crying. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I hope someone can help me understand what’s going on.

The answer:

Hi there. Not being able to understand yourself — trying to hold back your tears but failing, and crying even when someone says something gently to you — must leave you feeling exhausted and confused. You might even be wondering if something is wrong with you. But don’t worry. This isn’t something strange or something you should be ashamed of. It’s a sign that you’re carrying a much heavier emotional burden inside than you realize.

Before we get into that mechanism, let’s take a closer look at you first.

You’re someone who thinks about the future and takes responsibility for yourself. Working part-time gives you practical experience and real-world skills.

But precisely because you’re always trying hard and setting high standards for yourself, you’re also more likely to get hurt when things don’t go the way you want them to.

You’re under pressure from your KPIs. Even though the company isn’t pressuring you about your KPIs, because you hold yourself to such high standards, you’ve created your own KPIs and put that pressure on yourself.

When you see that you’re not meeting the standards you’ve set for yourself, you become anxious and disappointed in yourself.

You’re anxious about being judged by other people. To avoid being judged, you’ve set high standards for yourself and tried hard to meet them.

But when you fail to meet those standards, anxiety starts to hit you. At the same time, you start becoming disappointed in yourself.

You’ve tried hard, but you still couldn’t reach your goal. So you feel helpless.

That’s why you cry.

This feeling of disappointment and helplessness isn’t happening for the first time. It’s something that has appeared repeatedly throughout your childhood.

It comes from harsh, belittling, and dismissive judgments from the people close to you.

They might have said things like:

“You’re useless. What are you ever going to amount to when you grow up?”

“You’re such a burden. All you do is waste our time and money.”

“Why don’t you try harder? Why can everyone else do it but you can’t?”

Words like these can feel like knives driven straight into your heart, leaving you hurt and disappointed in yourself.

Hearing these kinds of words over and over throughout childhood gradually created a strong neural pathway associated with the emotion of disappointment.

That’s why, now, you’re so easily pulled into that feeling of being disappointed in yourself.

That’s why even when you try to hold it back, the tears still come. That’s why even the gentlest words can make you cry.

In short, you’re dealing with anxiety about being judged and disappointment in yourself.

If this continues for several more years, these symptoms may gradually develop into an anxiety disorder or depression.

There’s something important you need to understand:

Anxiety is one of the major reasons you feel disappointed in yourself.

When anxiety appears, your intelligence declines, and your work performance declines along with it.

Not hitting your KPIs is a consequence of being in an anxious state.

Then, in turn, the feeling of disappointment — expressed through your crying — drains even more of your body’s energy, causing your work performance to drop even further.

In other words, anxiety creates disappointment.

Anxiety and disappointment together reduce your work performance.

So don’t be so quick to judge yourself as weak or useless.

What’s pulling you down isn’t your ability.

It’s prolonged anxiety.

I’m 22, and I just graduated with a degree in Business Administration from a university in a small city. After graduating, I feel completely lost about life, like I’m utterly useless. My job right now isn’t even that stressful, and my workplace is close to where I live — but for some reason, I still feel stressed every time I go to work. I’ve lived away from home for 4 years now, yet lately I miss home just as badly as I did the very first time I moved to the city for school.

I’m currently on probation at a company, earning about a third of the average starting salary, but I keep randomly missing home, missing my dad (my parents separated, and my siblings and I live with my mom). Every morning I cry, and I dread having to go to work. I feel useless, like I can’t accomplish anything — while my parents spent so much money putting me through school. That thought makes me even more disappointed in myself.

I’m torn between two options: staying in the city, even though I have no idea where this job is heading; or going back to my hometown — closer to family, but with far fewer job opportunities. If I can’t find something suitable there, my only option would be factory work, and I’m scared I wouldn’t be able to handle it — not to mention the neighbors talking about how someone who went to university ended up back home working in a factory.

Right now I feel completely lost about my life, terribly disappointed in myself, unsure of anything. Even though I get to go home every weekend, I still don’t understand what’s wrong with me.

The answer:

Hi there — you just graduated. Usually, at this stage, young people are excited to start working. But you’re feeling stressed and homesick instead, and that’s not random at all.

This feeling of homesickness is actually an avoidance response, born out of anxiety and fear. You said the job itself isn’t too demanding, yet you’re still stressed — and that stress keeps growing over time — because its source isn’t coming from the outside. It’s coming from within you.

You’re carrying a fear of being judged, and that fear is growing a little more each day. When anxiety takes hold, some part of you instinctively searches for a place that feels safe — that’s why you miss home, even though you already go back every weekend. You miss your dad more, not necessarily because he makes you feel safer than your mom does, but possibly because you’re currently living with your mom, and you may be carrying more pressure from being judged by her.

When someone is frequently judged by loved ones during childhood, their brain can grow into what’s essentially an “anxious brain.” Just having someone evaluate or comment on your work — like a manager giving feedback — can be enough to send you straight into anxiety. Sometimes even an ordinary, friendly question can make your heart race with fear.

Going back to your hometown is, in reality, a plan built on avoidance. You want to be near family to feel safer — but your family is also the very source that’s made you familiar with the feeling of being judged in the first place. So going home, which seems like it would bring safety, might not actually deliver on that. If your salary is low, if you can’t find a job, or if you’re not earning as much as others, you’ll likely face judgment all over again — this time inside your own home. A habit of judgment built over 20 years isn’t something that changes easily overnight.

The economy right now is difficult, and job opportunities are shrinking. Not landing a good job right after graduation is completely normal — don’t blame yourself for it. Plenty of people who’ve graduated, even those with experience, are still struggling to find work.

You’re currently being driven by a fear of judgment. It’s what’s pulling you toward the idea of going home, what’s fueling your disappointment in yourself, and what keeps dragging you into a spiral of negative thoughts. Don’t let that anxiety control your thinking and your actions.

Bring your body back to a state of safety by taking 10 deep belly breaths whenever you feel anxiety or fear rising. Whenever you need to make an important decision, take those same 10 deep breaths first — to make sure you’re thinking with a clear mind, not being driven by anxiety and fear.

Practice meditation for 10–20 minutes every day to bring your body back to a state of safety more consistently. If you stick with it for a few months, your anxiety will noticeably decrease.

When working or relaxing, try to stay fully focused on one thing at a time instead of constantly jumping between tasks — avoid scrolling your phone too fast, and steer clear of short videos under 60 seconds. Staying focused helps prevent anxiety from suddenly creeping in, and keeps your mind at peace for longer.

If you’d like to understand more deeply how these emotions actually work — and how to master them instead of being swept away by them — you can check out the book Demystifying Anxiety, Fear and Anger.

Don’t forget to subscribe to follow the Demystifying Psychology series, where you’ll learn how emotions really work and how to master them with practical, real-world methods.

Even though my mom always tries to be close to me, to connect with me, whenever we go out I don’t want to be seen with her — I especially don’t want her meeting my friends. One time we went to a doctor’s appointment together, and she suggested we grab a meal afterward. I refused outright, but she pulled into a restaurant anyway. While we were eating, I don’t know why, but looking at my own coldness toward her, I suddenly felt so much pity for her that tears just started falling — yet I’ve never once felt comfortable being out with her like that.

There are times I raise my voice and argue back at her, but right after, instead of feeling satisfied, I feel this twisting ache of guilt on her behalf. I just want her to stay safely inside the walls of our family, protected — I’m terrified of anyone out there hurting her, so I don’t want her mixing with anyone from my own world outside.

I’m only 17, and I honestly can’t make sense of what I’m feeling. Can anyone help me understand what this is?

The answer:

Hi there — at 17, this feeling really is confusing. Some days you catch yourself being cold, distant with your mom — someone you love. Other days you feel regret, even guilt, for having those thoughts at all.

So what is this feeling, really? It’s love and resentment, existing in the same person, at the same time.

Your mother gave birth to you, raised you, fed you, watched over your sleep, protected you. Your love for her grew naturally out of that process. You know she loves you — which is exactly why, looking back at your own coldness, you feel regret and pity for her. You love her, which is why guilt follows every time you raise your voice at her. You love her, which is why you can’t stand the thought of anyone hurting her.

But you’re also angry at her. She’s someone who gets hurt easily — and who, just as easily, unloads her anger onto you. In moments when she loses her composure, she’s gotten angry, controlling, has raised her voice, hurt you in ways you weren’t allowed to react to. Those were the times you wanted to cry but had to swallow it, wanted to speak but had to stay silent. The anger got pushed inward instead. Day after day, it built up, growing heavier. Anger is an emotion meant for enemies. Once it crosses a certain threshold, you no longer want to connect with her, no longer want to be close. You stop feeling proud to introduce her to people in your life — because she’s also the one who’s caused you pain.

When love rises up, you want good things for her. When anger rises up, you argue, pull away, disconnect.

Once you understand this, stop blaming yourself. Both are simply reactions — two opposing emotions existing at once.

Your mother is also someone who carries her own wounds, which is why she often falls into a state of insecurity. In those moments, she’s more prone to anger, to losing control — to saying things or acting in ways that hurt you. When that happens, don’t take those words to heart. Understand that in that moment, emotion and survival instinct had taken over, clouding her reasoning — that’s what made her say those things, or act with excessive control. It wasn’t an objective judgment or a thoughtful reflection of who you are. Don’t let words from someone who’s lost control of their emotions define your worth.

So, forgive yourself. The distance, the coldness, the moments of disconnecting from her — none of it means you’re a bad person. It’s simply the reaction of anger that’s been suppressed for too long, anger even you can’t fully control.

You don’t have to choose between loving her and resenting her. Both are real, and both exist at the same time. What you need isn’t to extinguish the anger — it’s to let yourself see it, feel it, so it stops quietly steering your behavior from the shadows.

Once you understand what’s really happening inside you, you’ll stop blaming yourself after every cold moment, every argument — and instead, you can slowly learn to care for both parts of yourself: the part that loves and wants to protect your mother, and the wounded part of you that still needs healing.

If you’d like to understand more deeply how these emotions actually work — and how to master them instead of being swept away by them — you can check out the book Demystifying Anxiety, Fear and Anger.

Want to Dive Deeper into First Principles?

1. Read the next article: Why Anxiety Turns into Anger: The Hidden Mechanism Behind Irritability

2. Read the other [Demystifying Psychology] article: Terrified of Starting Work — Why Do I Miss Home So Much After Graduating

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So, what is the cause behind this beginning of the month anxiety?

Internal and External Pressures at the Start of the Month

The start of a month marks the end of an old month and the beginning of a new one. It is also a reminder that time keeps passing by.

1. Internal Pressure from Unmet Goals

When time passes while your previous month’s goals remain unfinished, while new month goals are starting or piling up, your brain feels that the burden is growing heavier.

This is pressure coming directly from within yourself.

2. External Pressures Appearing All at Once

However, that is only one part of it. The beginning of the month is also when a lot of external pressures appear at the same time:

• Rent, utility bills, and bank loans

• Employee payroll or a series of bills that must be paid

If you overspent last month or face a account balance deficit, your brain instantly recognizes this as a risk to your safety.

For many businesses, the start of the month is also the time for inventory, audits, performance evaluations, or summarizing the previous month’s results. This continues to increase the pressure.

How the Brain Uses the Past to Predict the Future

When internal and external pressures appear together, the brain begins doing a very familiar thing: scanning for risks to predict the future.

• If you handled these pressures smoothly in the past: If you consistently achieved your goals and created good results, your brain registers that this is a familiar and safe situation. You step into the new month with confidence and calm.

• If you struggled to get through previous months: If you experienced failure, were reprimanded, lost face, or fell into a financial crisis, your brain will use those exact experiences to predict the future.

The more your brain recalls those past failures, the more unsafe it feels. When this unsafe state combines with a series of internal and external pressures that may exceed your capacity to process, an anxiety signal is triggered. The more pressure there is, the stronger the anxiety signal erupts, even turning into new month anxiety and fear.

In short, you find the start of the month scary because large pressures are combining with a past where you struggled or failed to overcome those pressures.

The True Root Cause: Overthinking and Avoidance

However, that is still not the root cause.

The reason you fail to overcome these pressures time and again usually revolves around just two behaviors: overthinking and avoidance.

• Overthinking drains your energy without creating any solution.

• Avoidance makes the problem bigger day by day because it is never addressed.

Want to Dive Deeper into First Principles?

1. Read the next article: Why Anxiety Turns into Anger: The Hidden Mechanism Behind Irritability

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