The one thing that actually lowers Jewish anxiety (science-backed)

It’s Friday and the sun will set in a few hours. So this feels timely.

What a week – and I seem to say that every week.

Being Jewish in 2026 is so many good things – intertwined with carrying a lot…

The news. Your inbox. The group chat that never sleeps. The low hum of something feels off that you can’t quite name but you feel it – in your shoulders, in the way you reach for your phone before you’ve even fully woken up.

You are not imagining it. And you are not alone.

Jewish anxiety is real. Historically, culturally, neurologically – we are a people wired for vigilance.

For thousands of years, staying alert kept us alive. But in 2026, that same wiring is running on overdrive, and there is nowhere to discharge it.

So what if I told you that our ancestors – long before neuroscience had a name for any of this – built the antidote into the week itself?

Enter: Shabbat. (stay with me.)

If that word feels like it belongs to a more religious version of you, a stricter household, a set of rules that was never quite yours, know this:

Shabbat was never meant to be a performance. It was meant to be a gift.

And here’s the thing about gifts. They’re yours. You get to decide what you do with them.

You don’t have to light candles the way your grandmother did. You don’t have to follow every law as others observe it. You are no less Jewish, no less worthy, no less loved – by your community, by tradition, by G-d for making this day look different from anyone else’s.

Shabbat, at its beating heart, is simply this: one day that feels different from every other day.

A day that belongs to you. Not to your productivity. Not to your notifications. Not to the endless scroll of the world’s demands.

What the science actually says

Here’s where it gets interesting — because it turns out our ancestors were onto something that neuroscience is only now catching up to.

Chronic low-level stress — the kind most of us are swimming in — keeps your nervous system in a near-constant state of activation. Your cortisol stays elevated. Your brain never fully shifts out of threat-detection mode. And over time? That’s the architecture of anxiety.

What brings it down isn’t a holiday twice a year. It’s regular, predictable rest.

Research on what psychologists call ultradian and circadian rhythms shows that the brain needs not just sleep, but socially anchored downtime — rest that is structured, anticipated, and separate from ordinary time — to properly regulate stress hormones and restore executive function.

In plain language: your brain needs to know that rest is coming, and that it is safe. A weekly anchor does that. It tells your nervous system: you can let go now. This time is protected.

Three thousand years ago, the rabbis called this menuha — a Hebrew word that doesn’t just mean rest. It means completeness. A sense that, for now, nothing is missing.

That feeling? That is not spiritual indulgence. That is neurological medicine.

So what could your Shabbat look like?

This is where I hand it back to you — because this is your life, not mine.

Maybe it’s putting your phone in a drawer from sundown to sundown (ie ‘going tech-no’, as my lovely next door neighbour calls it), or even just digitally detoxing for the afternoon.

Maybe it’s a long walk somewhere green. Maybe it’s cooking something comforting, with music on, for no one’s Instagram.

Maybe it’s reading an actual book — the kind with pages — with nowhere to be.

Maybe it’s calling a friend and talking properly, without half your brain somewhere else.

Maybe it’s lying on the sofa in the particular afternoon light and letting yourself feel, for once, like enough.

There is no Shabbat police. There is only you, and the radical act of choosing — once a week, as the sun sets on a Friday — to step out of the current and simply be.

Remember That You Are Still Part of the Jewish Story

One of the hardest things about being alone on a holiday can be the feeling of separation. But having a solo seder means you’re anything but disconnected to the Jewish people.

When you open your Haggadah, you are joining Jews across time and across the world who are telling this same story of liberation. You are part of that chain, and there is something deeply comforting in remembering that.

If you do find yourself craving more Jewish connection, Smashing Life, my community for Jewish women is full of the most welcoming, generous members from all over the world, who are living all kinds of Jewish lives.

The invitation

Today is Friday. The light will change in a few hours. The week will try to pull you back in — one more email, one more scroll, one more thing you should probably check.

And you can. Or.

You can try something 3,000 years in the making.

Not because it makes you a better Jew. Not because anyone is watching. But because you deserve one day — just one — that is fully, entirely, unhurriedly yours.

Shabbat Shalom. Whatever that looks like for you.