Group items tagged

Feedback loops are how we learn, whether we call it trial and error or course correction. In so many areas of life, we succeed when we have some sense of where we stand and some evaluation of our progress. Indeed, we tend to crave this sort of information; it's something we viscerally want to know, good or bad. As Stanford's Bandura put it, "People are proactive, aspiring organisms." Feedback taps into those aspirations. But maybe requiring people to do a little work-to stick accelerometers around their house or plug a device into a wall socket-is just enough of a nudge to get our brains engaged in the prospect for change.

Humans are pretty good at rolling with short bursts of pressure, but chronic uncertainty throws us for a loop. Anticipating a major stressful event can be worse than the actual occurrence itself, research shows.  When we fear the hatchet will fall, when the future is a fog, when we're paralyzed by powerlessness, we start to flip out. We pile on more work than we can handle. We don't take sick days when we need them. We start fueling up on coffee and cigarettes, and dropping the things that are good for us, like leisure activities and trips to the gym. Under chronic stress, our immune systems start to buckle from "overresponsivity."