Curiosity and Kindness: Soothing Balm and Social Glue for Your Stressed-Out Brain
April 3, 2025 By Caroline Adelman
One of my most influential mentors has often said to me, “never worry alone.” I can still feel the power of these words years after they were first spoken to me – the power of this invitation into community and care in the face of stress.
Humans are wired for social connection, and the experience of supportive connection in the face of overwhelm is a soothing balm for our nervous systems. In the midst of current socio-political upheaval, global threats, financial uncertainty, and eroding inter-group trust, our brains are working overtime to make sense of a world that no longer feels predictable. We are doing our best to stay grounded and connected in a world in which we sometimes struggle to recognize one another’s full humanity. None of us should carry this burden alone, and we cannot afford to let it tear us apart.
One of the most destabilizing features of our current socio-political moment is the loss of shared reality. During collective crises (for example, the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic), people often experience a sense of unity, coming together to confront a shared challenge. But now, deep disagreements about facts, values, and the nature of threats themselves have fractured many communities and relationships. This division is more than ideological discomfort; it is a trigger for social pain, which the brain processes much like physical pain. As human beings, we are highly social animals, and our survival has historically depended upon belonging to a tribe. Our need to belong is neurologically hardwired, and being misunderstood or excluded activates brain regions associated with pain, fear, and distress.
Fortunately, neuroscience also offers us insight and hope: even in periods of chronic stress, we can engage powerful strategies – curiosity and kindness – to regulate our nervous systems and reconnect with one another.
What Happens in the Brain During Stress Exposure?
When you experience heightened stress, whether from a physical, relational or psychological threat, activation of your brain’s stress response results in a well-known cascade of physical and cognitive changes, often called the “fight, flight, or freeze” response. This stress response system is often adaptive when facing short-term, acute threats, but in chronic stress situations, it can become maladaptive. The prefrontal cortex (responsible for planning, self-regulation, and perspective-taking) becomes less active under stress, while survival-oriented, reactive processes take over. Under heightened stress, we can easily default to short-term survival strategies that impact our capacity to connect to one another and think clearly about how to move forward: heightened vigilance, self-protection, all-or-nothing thinking, increased dependence on cognitive shortcuts or pre-existing beliefs, and a diminished ability to tolerate ambiguity.
The Power of Curiosity and Kindness
Think of the particular combination of curiosity and kindness (towards yourself and others) as a life raft in this sea of stress. When you practice staying curious, your brain switches gears and dampens the stress response. Instead of focusing on danger or activating your defenses, your brain says: “Wait… this is interesting. Let’s see what we can learn here.” Scientists have found that staying curious has multiple cognitive and psychological benefits. Curiosity helps you remember things better, makes you feel happier and more focused, and helps to regulate your stress response by keeping your prefrontal cortex online. This is hugely consequential for both our personal experience of stressful events, and for our relationships with others in the face of stress.
What happens when we fail to remain curious and connected under stress? Bias and disconnection. Bias is rooted in shutting down curiosity about other people before truly knowing them. It is about seeing others through the lens of what we expect to see, instead of seeing them for who they are. Bias and polarization are partially fueled by the brain’s tendency to categorize others into “in-groups” and “out-groups,” and to make a range of assumptions about others based on these categorizations. This cognitive sorting happens rapidly and unconsciously, based on cues like political identity, language, race, and even clothing. While this tendency to rapidly categorize and view others with suspicion was once useful for survival, it puts us at high risk of diminishing others’ humanity based on very limited information. In other words, if I have mentally sorted you into a known category, I think I know what you are about, so I no longer seek to understand you. This is an effective strategy for maximizing cognitive efficiency, and a terrible strategy for building meaningful relationships, especially across differences. The good news is that staying curious and holding space for others’ full humanity can help us to counteract these automatic biases. Research shows that these in-group/out-group boundaries are both flexible and context dependent. For example, studies have found that people can switch in-group affiliations quickly – even based on trivial shared characteristics, such as t-shirt color or team affiliation – when presented with shared goals or identities. If you have ever bonded with someone across political or social differences because of your shared love for a certain sports team, you may have noticed that your mental and emotional stance towards the other person was influenced by the context in which you first came to know one another.
So how do we stay curious in the face of stress? Next time you’re stuck in a disagreement or feeling upset, try asking a question (of yourself or the other person) and genuinely seek to understand more deeply, instead of making a snap judgment. Challenge yourself to deepen understanding of the other person’s position before you defend your own position. Staying curious helps your brain relax and think more clearly. Asking thoughtful questions and seeking to understand the nuances of others’ worldviews makes it much less likely that your brain will rely on the cognitive shortcut of faulty assumptions or stereotypes. It can also be helpful to remind yourself, as Brené Brown often says, “I’m not here to be right; I’m here to get it right.”
You can also practice curiosity towards yourself, especially in lieu of self-critical thinking. Next time you notice yourself starting to spiral, try asking yourself, “What am I feeling right now? What might help me to ground myself in what matters, and to move forward in service of my values? How can I be gentle with myself in this moment?”
Like curiosity, kindness and compassion produce measurable changes in the brain and body. Engaging in kind or prosocial behaviors activates regions of the brain linked with reward, affiliation, and self-regulation. Acts of kindness also stimulate the release of oxytocin, a hormone that reduces stress, supports bonding, and promotes a sense of safety. In past scientific studies, kindness has been associated with lower blood pressure and heart rate, better immune functioning, improved mood, and enhanced emotional resilience. Importantly, being kind doesn’t just help others and strengthen our social bonds; it creates a positive feedback loop in the brain, boosting mood and increasing one’s own capacity to cope with stress. When it comes to exercising kindness, even small gestures matter. Attention, generosity, and compassion are forms of neurobiological nourishment for both giver and receiver. And get this: even seeing someone else be kind helps your brain feel more relaxed and hopeful. Kindness is truly contagious!
Bottom Line
Even when the world feels heavy, you can choose to respond to yourself and others with kindness and curiosity. Curiosity opens your mind, promotes positive relationships across difference, and soothes your stress response. Kindness opens your heart, builds community, and causes a contagious, “virtuous cycle” in which everybody wins. Together, kindness and curiosity help our brains to feel safe, strong, and connected. These strategies will not take away the pain and uncertainty of the world in this moment, but they will help to ensure that we are bolstered by the power of meaningful connection and that we do not lose sight of our shared humanity as we move forward on this path together.
