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Research in recent years describes dozens of ways in which people waste psychic energy: endless news scrolling, procrastination, rumination.

But behind all these forms stands not laziness or addiction, but an attempt to cope with inner pain.

When a conversation becomes unpleasant, a hand reaches for the phone.
When work irritates us, we look for distraction.
When life loses its taste, inner noise switches on: thoughts, doubts, endless “I should have.”
These are unconscious ways of suppressing pain, not of understanding it.

We rarely ask where this pain comes from.
More often we simply look for a way not to feel.
Like a person with a toothache who, instead of seeing a dentist, applies a tincture just to feel better.
The body calms down for a minute, but the inflammation remains.

Modern culture nudges us toward this.
Pain has been normalized: “everyone’s struggling, get used to it.”
We live in a society where inner discomfort is considered a natural background, not a signal that something is wrong: in the system, in relationships, in our own beliefs.
And as long as pain is considered “normal,” a person looks not for the cause but for a painkiller.

The problem is not only in the ways we avoid pain.
The problem is in how we perceive pain itself.
Evolution created pain as a protective mechanism: acute pain helps us survive – we pull our hand away from a hot kettle.
But chronic, psychological pain – anxiety, guilt, tension, helplessness – works differently: it doesn’t save us, it slowly wears us down.
The organism lives in a mode of constant threat, cortisol levels rise, the body tenses, the mind grows tired.

The way out is not to suppress this pain, but to relate to it with awareness.
The ability to notice: I am hurting,
to understand: why exactly,
and to recognize that pain is not an enemy but a signal of disagreement between how I live and what I truly need.
Only from this does real healing begin, and the return of energy.