It can feel as though the world is tilting towards chaos — political shocks, economic instability, technological upheaval, and a constant stream of bad news. Faced with so much uncertainty, many of us default to a sense of impending doom. But neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow asks a more useful question: is that reaction hardwired, or can we train ourselves to keep a more open mind?
The answer, backed by decades of neuroscience research, is that the brain is not fixed. It is plastic, adaptive, and — with the right habits — trainable. The ability to sit with uncertainty, hold multiple possibilities, and respond rather than react is not a personality trait you either have or don’t. It is a skill. And like any skill, it can be built.
My Take — Abhilash Gopinath
What strikes me most about this research is that the real enemy isn’t bad news — it’s the not knowing. Studies show people are actually calmer facing a guaranteed electric shock than a 50% chance of one. That’s remarkable. It means the anxiety you feel scrolling through news isn’t about the news itself — it’s about the uncertainty of what comes next. And that changes how you should respond to it.
Here’s what I took away practically. First — your perception is not reality, it’s a best guess. Your brain constructs what you see and feel from incomplete information, shaped by past experience and current mood. That means you can deliberately practise seeing things differently. The famous duck-rabbit illusion isn’t just a party trick — it’s a demonstration that the same situation can hold multiple valid interpretations, and you can train yourself to access them.
Second — your body is part of the equation. When uncertainty triggers stress, your judgment narrows and your thinking gets rigid. Before you analyse anything, regulate first. Breathe. Move. That’s not a soft suggestion — it’s neuroscience. A calm nervous system literally processes information better than an activated one.
Third — watch both ends. Your brain has two competing biases running simultaneously: negativity bias (overestimating threats) and optimism bias (overestimating positive outcomes for yourself). Neither serves you well. The goal isn’t to feel good about everything. It’s to see clearly — without catastrophising on one end or wishful thinking on the other.
And perhaps the most underrated finding in the whole article: the threat of losing a job is more damaging to health than actually losing it. That’s uncertainty at work, not reality. Which means a significant portion of the suffering we experience around hard situations is happening before they occur — in the waiting, not the outcome. Relating to uncertainty differently doesn’t just make you more creative and resilient. It may literally protect your health.
What the science says
From a neuroscientific perspective, unpredictability is costly. The brain is an energy-hungry organ that relies on following patterns and habits to conserve effort. When faced with ambiguity, it must work harder — analysing, predicting, recalibrating. This extra effort is not just tiring. It can feel actively unpleasant.
Research confirms this in striking ways. In one study, participants were calmer knowing they would definitely receive an electric shock than when there was only a 50% chance of one. The ambiguity — not the pain — proved harder to tolerate. Separately, long-term evidence shows that the threat of losing a job can be more harmful to health than unemployment itself. We are not built to sit with not knowing.
This is the evolutionary inheritance. Our ancestors survived by making rapid judgments with limited information. A rustle in the bushes was always safer assumed to be a predator. This negativity bias keeps us alive — but in modern life it causes us to overestimate threat and underestimate opportunity. The result is a cognitive trap: faced with uncertainty, we narrow our thinking, rush to conclusions, and cling to simple explanations. In extreme cases this manifests as anxiety, rigid beliefs, or susceptibility to conspiracy theories — frameworks that impose order on a confusing world.
John Keats knew something neuroscience would later prove
The poet John Keats described what he called “negative capability” — the ability to remain “in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” He wrote this in 1817. Modern neuroscience increasingly supports it. The capacity to tolerate ambiguity — to sit with not knowing — appears central to flexible, creative, and resilient thinking. Keats wasn’t being poetic about weakness. He was describing a cognitive superpower.
Five things you can actually do
1. Lead with curiosity, not judgment. When uncertainty hits, the instinct is to withdraw or reach for the nearest explanation. The more adaptive response is to ask: what do I not yet know? High-performing teams in Formula One operate exactly this way — knowing there are things they cannot control, and building adaptability into their approach rather than prediction. Thriving under uncertainty is less about forecasting and more about flexibility.
2. Be selective about information. In an era of misinformation, the brain’s urge to resolve uncertainty quickly leads it toward flawed conclusions. The speed at which we reach for an answer is not a virtue — it is a vulnerability. Actively engaging critical thinking — slowing down, questioning sources, tolerating open questions — is a genuine cognitive defence.
3. Regulate before you analyse. Uncertainty triggers stress responses that impair judgment and narrow attention. Techniques such as controlled breathing, mindfulness, and physical exercise help stabilise these responses at a physiological level — not as mood management, but as cognitive preparation. A regulated nervous system thinks more clearly than an activated one.
4. Watch both biases. Our brains run negativity bias and optimism bias simultaneously. Negativity bias makes us overestimate threats. Optimism bias makes us overestimate positive outcomes for ourselves personally. Neither is accurate. The goal is not to feel more positive — it is to see more clearly. Avoiding catastrophising on one end and wishful thinking on the other is what sound judgment actually looks like.
5. Choose your environment deliberately. Emotions are contagious — both in person and online. Spending time with open-minded, reflective people shapes how we respond to uncertainty just as environments dominated by fear amplify it. The people and feeds you consistently engage with are not just a comfort choice. They are shaping your cognitive defaults.
The bottom line
Uncertainty cannot be eliminated. Every generation has believed it faces uniquely turbulent times — and in a sense, every generation has been right. The question is never whether uncertainty will be present. The question is how you relate to it.
You can treat it as a threat — clinging to false certainties, narrowing your perspective, reaching for simple answers in a complex world. Or you can treat it as an inevitable and potentially generative feature of life — one that invites exploration, learning, and change.
In a rapidly changing world, the ability to tolerate uncertainty may be one of our most important cognitive skills. It protects against paralysis and delusion. It underpins sound decision-making. And — as the research on job threat and health shows — it may protect your wellbeing long before any difficult outcome actually arrives.
Sources: The Guardian — Hannah Critchlow · Journal of Neuroscience — uncertainty vs certainty study · PubMed — job threat and health
This article was originally published in The Guardian by Hannah Critchlow. If you found it valuable, I’d encourage you to support quality journalism — consider subscribing to The Guardian. Independent, ad-free reporting takes real effort to sustain.