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Nearly half of untreated adults who felt they needed mental health care said they didn't have the time for it.

Research suggests that certain well-being practices lasting 30 seconds or less can improve mental health.

Across a range of well-being practices, practicing more often—not longer—is associated with better outcomes.

We need both policies to protect time for treatment and practices that fit into the moments we already have.

We tell people to make time for their mental health as if time were theirs to make.

For someone paid by the hour, a therapy appointment can cost wages as well as a copay. For a parent or caregiver, getting help may require arranging care for someone else first. Even when treatment is technically available, it may not be available when we can actually use it.

The World Health Organization is asking that people’s lived experiences shape mental health services. We could start by taking seriously an experience that is easy to mistake for an excuse: “I don’t have time.”

The latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released in July, found that 49.1 percent of American adults with mental illness received no mental health treatment in 2025. Among untreated adults who felt they needed care, 48.3 percent said they did not have enough time. Cost was an even more common barrier (61.4 percent).

We need policies that protect time for mental health care. But what are people supposed to do while those protections remain out of reach, or when care isn’t available?

My interest in that question began at Plum Village, a mindfulness practice center founded by Thích Nhất Hạnh. During a stay there, I proudly told a monk named Brother Treasure that I’d just meditated for........

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