THE EXCRUCIATING CRUSHING DAMACING POWER OF UNCERTAINTY

NOT KNOWING WHAT TO EXPECT BREEDS STRESS AND EXHAUSTION. BUT ALL THIS UNCERTAINTY WHEN YOU KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH IT-CAN ACTUALLY LEAVE YOU MORE RESILIENT. HERE'S HOW TO GET THERE.

- GINNY GRAVES

AFTER [TWO AND A HALF YEARS] of staying mostly at home, I've come to understand certain things about mice. Mice hate open spaces. That's why they hunker down inside walls and cabinets instead of lounging on the sofa. Exposed environments are unpredictable, which makes those spaces seem dangerous.

Unsurprisingly, when a team of researchers placed mice in an open portion of a maze, the rodents scurried for an exit, and neurons provoked by anxiety started popping off like fireworks. "The more anxious the mouse, the more the neurons were activated, and the more likely they were to try to flee," says Dr. Mazen Kheirbek, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco and one author of the study. I feel for those jittery mice. I have bolted on two occasions in the past month alone-once from the grocery store, when a woman in the produce section unleashed a voluminous sneeze, and again when I was hiking and heard yipping and rustling in some nearby brush. Hadeda? Caracal? Lion on the loose? Faced with uncertainty, I behaved like your average risk-averse rodent. I fled.

Uncertainty is one of the most insidious stressors humans (and other mammals) face. Studies of both people and rodents have shown that it's less stressful to know that you're about to receive an electric shock than to think you might get one. Uncertainty disrupts your ability to forecast what will happen in the future, making you anxious, hypervigilant and more likely to overreact to upsetting or worrisome news or events.