It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher
In the 1960s, researchers discovered something fascinating: when dogs were repeatedly exposed to shocks they couldn’t escape, they later failed to escape even when they could.
This phenomenon is called learned helplessness.
The two conditions that create learned helplessness, resulting in animals ecoming passive and anxious are:
- A disconnection between effort and outcome, and
- Prolonged stressful conditions
Later studies confirmed these same behavioral patterns exist also in humans.
Interestingly, Maier and Seligman later observed the symptoms of learned helplessness mapped closely to 8 out of 9 diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder from DSM-III and DSM -IV.
Learned helplessness sparked decades of research into how we adapt to situations beyond our control. What they discovered tells us something profound about modern life, burnout, and despair in an increasingly overwhelming world.
Modern Life: A Perfect Storm
Around the world today, many of us live in conditions that trigger this response. Consider how often our efforts feel disconnected from outcomes:
- Workers put in longer hours but fall further behind economically
- Our productivity is at an all-time high while our sense of purpose plummets
- Individuals make eco-friendly choices while corporations engage in greenwashing and freely pollute
- Students follow prescribed paths to success only to find debt and dead ends
- We obsess over health more than ever, yet keep getting sicker
Add to this, the endless stream of crises beamed straight into our phones—pandemics, housing affordability, water scarcity, food security, climate disasters, political upheaval, social polarization, international conflict, and economic uncertainty.
All this creates the perfect conditions for collective despair and society-wide helplessness.
Under this sustained pressure, we begin to disconnect from our authentic selves. Like a plant bending away from harsh winds, we adapt by developing protective but ultimately limiting behaviors – choosing to conserve our energy over effort, opting for safe actions over genuine ones, and managing impressions rather than expressing true thoughts and feelings.
What We Now Know
The original theory of learned helplessness suggested that animals give up permanently when they learn that “nothing they do matters,” preventing them from helping themselves even when they could.
But 50 years of research revealed something important that we didn’t know before: we don’t learn to become passive and anxious when overwhelmed, our brains on their own adapt and become passive and anxious.
It’s a subtle but important differentiation to know that learned helplessness is not a conscious choice to learn but an automatic unconscious response to sustained adverse conditions. It shifts the narrative from “I choose to give up” to “My brain adapts to protect me.”
Knowing this might soften our self-blame or shame that often comes with experiencing depression or anxiety—possible symptoms of learned helplessness.
The Hope Circuit
Recent research by Maier and colleagues revealed something remarkable: our brains have what they call a “hope circuit”—a specific pathway between our prefrontal cortex and a region called the dorsal raphe nucleus. When we experience control over stressful situations, this circuit physically changes.
What’s fascinating is that after repeated experiences of control, which establishes the formation of new proteins, this circuit starts treating new stressful situations as if they’re controllable, even before we know if they are.
Like a muscle developing through exercise, this circuit strengthens with use. The effects can last for days, creating a biological buffer against future stress. This isn’t just positive thinking – it’s a physical rewiring of our brain’s response to challenge.
This biological understanding of hope gives us insight into how chronic stress and burnout can gradually disconnect us from our sense of agency. This circuit becomes underused when we’re overwhelmed, which weakens our natural resilience. But it also shows us the way forward: each small experience of agency helps rebuild these vital neural pathways.
Finding Our Way Forward
Understanding this biology of hope offers a path forward. While we can’t control many aspects of our complex society, we can:
Start Small
Create pockets of control in your daily life through routines, achievable goals, and conscious choices. Each experience of control literally helps build your brain’s hope circuit. Focus on authentic actions that align with your values, even in constrained circumstances.
Look Forward
Focus on future possibilities. Make plans, even small ones, that give you a sense of direction. Remember that burnout and helplessness aren’t permanent states – they’re adaptations that can be changed.
Build Together
Join communities where collective action creates visible change. What feels overwhelming alone often becomes manageable together. Authentic connections with others can help rebuild both agency and resilience.
Remember: The Door Is Open
Unlike those dogs in the original experiments, our cage doors are often open. We weren’t born feeling helpless – it’s an adaptation to abnormal circumstances.
This reframes our collective sense of helplessness. Rather than a character flaw or permanent state – it’s our brain adapting to broken systems.
While we can’t single-handedly fix toxic work culture, structural inequality, or climate change, understanding this helps us recognize when our environment is pushing us toward helplessness, and when we have more agency than we realize.
Although we didn’t consciously learn to be helpless, we can consciously rebuild our sense of agency.
Even in our complex world, small decisions matter – choosing where and how we work, what and when we eat, how and what we create, how and where we spend our time, and with whom and how we connect. These acts of personal agency don’t just help us cope; they physically build our brain’s ability to resist giving up when faced with future challenges.
Research Notes:
This article draws from neuroscience and psychology research, including: Maier and Seligman’s 2016 work on learned helplessness and the hope circuit; studies on chronic stress and brain function by McEwen, Sapolsky, and Arnsten; and research on burnout and authentic behavior by Maslach and Edmondson.
