War in Iran. Sleeping cells. Increase in gas prices. A new virus. ICE arrests. The acceleration of AI. And a rebellious food delivery robot. Is your heart racing already?
In the midst of one of the most chaotic and high-stakes news cycles in recent memory, it's hard to stay calm while reading the day's doom-filled headlines.
Don't be afraid. A team of British scientists, two authors and a group of opinion leaders who were once considered outcasts of society are here to help. Sam Conniff and Katherine Templar-Lewis' new book, “The Uncertainty Toolkit: Worry Less and Do More by Learning to Cope With the Unknown,” presents evidence-based strategies to help you not only tolerate uncertainty, but also thrive in the face of it.
Conniff, a self-described author and “social entrepreneur,” and Templar-Lewis, a neuroscientist, teamed up with the Center for the Study of Uncertainty in Decision Making at University College London, as well as real-world “uncertainty experts” (former prisoners, drug addicts, hostages, refugees, and others) to run the largest study to date on “Tolerance of Uncertainty,” which was published in 2022. Her web project, “Incertainty Experts,” is an interactive “self-development experience” that includes workshops and an online documentary produced by Netflix, through which viewers can test their own tolerance for uncertainty.
His book “Uncertainty Toolkit,” out April 7, addresses the three emotional states uncertainty places us in (fear, fog, and stasis) while combining personal stories from interview subjects with the latest science on uncertainty, interactive exercises, and guided reflections.
“The Uncertainty Toolkit” aims to help you stay calm in the midst of chaos.
(Tile / Pan Macmillan)
“Scientifically we are in the most uncertain of times,” says Templar-Lewis. “There is something called the Global Uncertainty Index, which tracks the uncertainty [globally]. And it is increasing. People say that life has always been uncertain and of course it is; But because of the way we are connected and on digital platforms and our lives are so busy, we interact with more and more moments of uncertainty than ever before.”
We asked the authors to share three strategies for staying calm in difficult times, as told to them by their uncertainty experts.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Advice from a former addict: bI am grateful: Morgan Godvin is a former addict and human rights activist from Oregon who served four years of a five-year sentence in federal prison, Conniff says.
“She developed a practice of ‘Radical Gratitude.’ Even in a world that seems so overwhelming, we can all find an object from which to derive a feeling of gratitude,” he says. “As an emotion, gratitude provides a counterbalance to anxiety that is almost as powerful as breath work or any other [anti-anxiety] well-known interventions.
In prison, Godvin, who suffers from anxiety, created a daily practice to help her cope. “She started to be grateful for blankets, the only thing she had, and they were threadbare blankets,” Conniff says. “And by really deepening and emphasizing the warm feeling we know as gratitude, it became a biological trick. When the body starts to feel grateful, the hormones it releases bring it back to what's known as homeostasis or a sense of balance; it activates the parasympathetic nervous system. It's a very healthy practice and very humbling when the world is too much.”
Advice from a suicidal depression survivor: lean into the unknown. Vivienne Ming is a prominent Bay Area-based neuroscientist who faced a web of personal challenges in her early 20s. Ming, who was assigned male at birth, dropped out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became homeless and “lived in his car with a gun on the dashboard,” Conniff says. “They faced homelessness and near-suicidal depression before finding a path that would take them through gender transition to a place of true identity, marriage, family, and success as scientists.”
As? They developed and cultivated an awareness of “negativity bias,” Conniff says. “We all have a default negativity bias. And in times of uncertainty, that negativity bias goes out of bounds and we start to limit ourselves and shut down. By understanding this, we start to be able to make a decision: Am I closing myself off from life's opportunities? Am I not going to get back to people? Am I not taking the opportunities that come my way?”
What's more, uncertainty, Dr. Ming noted, is actually good for you. Unlock parts of your brain.
“Uncertainty drives neuroplasticity, our ability to learn,” Conniff says. “So [it’s about] resist the negativity bias (that this is all dangerous and difficult and that we are told not to trust each other) and instead Dr. Ming's response is to lean into the unknown. She says that 'the best way forward is to all walk slowly into the depths of our own lives.'”
Advice from a former refugee: RReflect your instinct. Rez Gardi grew up in a refugee camp in Pakistan, before his family moved to New Zealand. She is now a lawyer and human rights activist working in Iraq.
“Rez correctly identified the scientific explanation for what we all call 'instinct,'” Conniff says. “It's known as 'embodied cognition'. The idea is that we have two brains: gut instinct is an incredibly complex system of data points and it's literally in our gut and it's connected to our brain through the vagus nerve. What it does is it aligns your intuition with your intellect.”
So how to take advantage of it? “Rez talked about reflecting “Instinctively,” Conniff says. “So when you get the feeling that you're right or wrong, go back to that feeling: What color was it? What shape was it? Where was it in your body? What temperature was it? Rez honed her instincts to become incredibly precise: Should I trust this person? Was she safe? And that gut instinct became a very finely tuned instrument. When we're trying to solve problems, when we're trying to communicate, these signals are only as precise as the best of our cognitive problem-solving abilities.”
Conniff and Templar-Lewis spoke to nearly 40 uncertainty experts in total. And with all of them, Conniff adds, “they kind of learned these techniques themselves, but the scientific evidence really supports it.”
