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When we're feeling chronically stressed, it's hard to find hope.

We can recognize when we're stressed and practice stress relief.

We can then build our hope with a meaningful goal, pathways, and agency

If you’ve been feeling helpless and hopeless lately, you’re not alone. A few months ago, the World Health Organization reported a worldwide rise in anxiety and depression (WHO, Sept 2025), and our sense of security has been undermined by rapid changes in technology, economics, politics, and the aftereffects of the COVID pandemic (Kruglanski et al., 2025).

We’re experiencing chronic stress, which blocks our ability to hope. Here’s why: the amygdala, the brain’s alarm center, reacts with fight, flight, or freeze (Akil & Nestler, 2023; LeDoux, 1996). This reaction can save our lives in an emergency. When we’re in a crosswalk and see a car speeding toward us, we can react by stopping or jumping out of the way.

But when stress becomes chronic, it can compromise our health, weaken our immune system, lead to anxiety and depression, and keep us from thinking clearly (Akil & Nestler, 1023; Gouin, 2011).

Chronic stress keeps us stuck in dysfunction, unable to move forward with hope. The stress reaction compromises our higher brain centers, undermining our ability to think clearly, remember, relate to others, and solve our problems (Brackett, 2025; Öhman et al., 2007). We react defensively—“fight” someone who disagrees with us as the enemy, withdraw in fear (“flight”), or “freeze” in helplessness and hopelessness.

The first step in developing greater hope is to recognize when we’re feeling stressed and use a strategy to gain greater peace of mind (Goetzke, 2022). Many strategies are simple and accessible (Dreher, 2025; Geetanjali et al.,........

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