The Atlantic Daily: Still Stuck in the Pandemic Blues? You’re Not Alone.
The pandemic blues are still here. Also: Here are some hot tips to find your hot streak at work.
If you’re not feeling 100 percent, you’re not alone: In a recent NPR poll, half of households reported that someone in the home was experiencing serious problems with depression, anxiety, stress, or sleep. One biweekly Census Bureau survey estimated that almost one in three Americans was experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety alone.
Even after all this time, after all that supposed adjusting to a “new normal,” Americans are still struggling with their mental health under the weight of a once-in-a-lifetime outbreak—and all the grief and hurting that’s coming with it.
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The pandemic is still making us feel bad. Humans aren’t huge fans of uncertainty, experts told me. The arrival of Delta variant introduced another round of it this summer.
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The American workplace isn’t built to handle this much grief. Or any grief at all: “Without federal protection in the form of a standard, paid bereavement policy, grieving American workers are subject to the whims of state legislatures and individual companies,” Chad Broughton reports.
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People are turning to best-selling self-help books on trauma. But those books, such as The Body Keeps the Score, might not be right for them. “The whole of human suffering is a lot of ground for one word to cover, and for trauma best sellers to heal,” Eleanor Cummins points out.
The news in three sentences:
(1) The White House set a January 4 deadline for large businesses to comply with its COVID-19 vaccine-mandate program. (2) The judge in the trial for Ahmaud Arbery’s killing said there appeared to be “intentional discrimination” in the selection of the nearly all-white jury. (3) Congress is still working on passing that big bill, and even thinking about voting on it soon.
Today’s Atlantic-approved activity:
Watch Girl Walk // All Day, a dance film from 2011. “I guarantee it will brighten your day,” our critic David Sims wrote last year. You can stream it for free online.
A break from the news: