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That might have got me down if I’d bought full-price electronics in the past nine years (I’ve wanted to gift my partner a PS5 for ages), but I haven’t, so it didn’t.
I have relied on second-hand sites like refurbished electronics company Back Market for ages now.
Not only are they cheaper, but they’re kinder to the planet; and Back Market, my favourite since about 2022, allows you to trade in your old tech for their verified refurbished tech too.
I have previously traded in an unwanted old phone to help me cover the (already discounted) cost of a laptop, for instance.
After all, the company has rigorous rules for their Verified Refurbished products. In the case of gaming consoles, that means they’re given a full reset and data scrub, checked to make sure they’re not stolen or locked, and tested by industry pros.
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So it’s no wonder my partner (who’s a sterner judge than me on this front) wouldn’t have known the console was second-hand unless I’d told him; and if he had noticed something off, he’d have been covered by the company’s Verified Refurbished one-year warranty and free 30-day returns policy.
That’s only one impressive tech deal, though. I’ve bought phones, the aforementioned laptop, my smartwatch, and even a hot air styler and coffee machine from the site before; discounts can run as high as 50% compared to new.
I like the fact that I can choose the condition my tech’s in (I wanted an “excellent” laptop, but was more than happy with a “good” smartwatch, for which I don’t have many demands).
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As someone who’s been all over refurbished tech pretty much as soon as I started buying my own electronics, though, the thing that keeps bringing me back to Back Market is the quality. I simply haven’t found anywhere else whose refurbished products are as reliably good.
So, whether you’re after beauty or gaming tech or just fancy an upgraded phone, I reckon you can’t save much more for a professionally refurbished deal.
Newly published research from UNC Greensboro biology professor Dr. Bryan McLean and colleagues shows that the masked shrew, a small, mole-like mammal found in the Appalachian Mountains, shrinks its body and braincase to conserve energy during winter months.
The study, published in the May 2025 issue of The American Naturalist, found that the masked shrew (Sorex cinereus) reduces its body mass by 13 percent in the colder months; the creature then grows larger in spring when conditions improve. In addition to a shrinking body, the team also found seasonal changes in the height of the creature’s braincase (the portion of the skull that houses and protects the brain) and the length of the femur.
“Shrinking the body and its parts is in fact a clever survival strategy,” says McLean. “And it’s one that’s important for us to understand as mammals face a constantly changing planet.”
Known as Dehnel’s phenomenon, this seasonal shrinking has been observed in other mammals but most often in shrews, which are small, insect-eating animals unrelated to rodents. Dehnel’s phenomenon is an extreme example of “phenotypic plasticity” — the ability of an organism to alter its physical form in response to environmental changes.
“We don’t know how common Dehnel’s phenomenon is among mammals, but we know it is rarer in nature than other energy-saving strategies mammals use, like hibernation,” said McLean.
McLean and his team of graduate and undergraduate students analyzed 125 masked shews that were trapped in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest from 2021 to 2023. The team used “pitfall traps” buried in leaf litter to capture the shrews. The animals were weighed in the field, then brought to UNCG’s Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology for microCT scans to examine various skeletal dimensions. Specimens and associated data are archived in the UNCG Mammal Collection. Researchers from Georgia Southern University were also involved in the research.
“Our population of masked shrews is the southern-most yet studied for these multiple different traits,” said McLean, “and the femur measurements we made are the first to show the magnitude of seasonal change in the long bones of the skeleton. This shows that shrews rapidly remodel much of their skeleton.”
Most prior studies of the phenomenon come from Europe. To place their new results in context, the researchers also conducted a meta-analysis of 74 other studies from across the Northern Hemisphere, combining that research with their own findings to understand what factors drive Dehnel’s phenomenon. McLean and his team developed statistical models that accurately predicted the amount of body shrinkage they observed based solely on the climate at the North Carolina site.
“This analysis reveals the generality of Dehnel’s phenomenon in Sorex shrews,” explains McLean. “Across many populations of shrews on three continents, the degree of body mass and braincase height shrinkage is greatest in areas with the lowest cool-season temperatures. So, fall and winter temperatures predict Dehnel’s phenomenon in these animals.”
“Phenotypic plasticity is a key way that shrews and many other species respond to changes in temperature,” McLean notes. “By learning more about this process, we can start to understand how mammals buffer against rapidly changing climates.”
Tightly connected communities tend to be more resilient when facing extreme events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods or wildfires, says Jose Ramirez-Marquez, who develops metrics to analyze, quantify and ultimately improve performance of urban systems.
Ramirez-Marquez, associate professor and division director of Enterprise Science and Engineering at Stevens, who grew up in the earthquake-prone Mexico City knows this first-hand. “Whenever there’s an earthquake, a city-wide alarm goes off and everybody leaves wherever they are and stays in the middle of the street — that’s a prevention phase,” he says. “Then there’s a restoration phase when people engage with others in the community, whether it’s sharing food and water or helping rescue people from under the debris.” The community’s solidarity and togetherness — one for all and all for one, per a Latin proverb — are key to bouncing back.
In scientific terms, this togetherness is defined as community cohesion, which encapsulates the sense of belonging, mutual support among members and shared values or sentiments, all of which boost community’s ability to withstand disasters. But whether this cohesion directly influences how well a community recovers from extreme events is not known, explains Alexander Gilgur who had studied this subject with Ramirez-Marquez as a Ph.D. student. “Resilience is a measure of how quickly and/or effortlessly the system recovers from a disturbance,” says Gilgur. “The causal relationship between cohesion and resilience appears logical, but it has not been proven mathematically.”
To address that issue, Gilgur and Ramirez-Marquez developed mathematical techniques to measure community cohesion and its resilience, which they outlined in a recent paper, published in the journal of Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. They investigated two case studies of the same San Francisco Bay Area community during 2020 wildfires and during 2022-23 rainstorms.
In their work, they found that during the less intense adverse events such the rainstorms, the community performance improved despite the increasing stress levels. However, in high-stress disturbances such as the wildfires, the community’s performance suffered. “We found that there’s a negative correlation between the resilience of a community and the strength of disturbance,” says Ramirez-Marquez.
In fact, in some cases, the disturbance could be so strong that people may forsake their community. Ramirez-Marquez cites the recent Los Angeles fires example (which wasn’t part of the study, but is telling), where more affluent residents hired private firefighters to keep their houses safe. “So when the stress is very strong, some might say, ‘oh, well, I don’t care about the community, I care about myself.’ The stress can be so high that the concept of community cohesion no longer stands.”
The scientists also found that the emotion intensity has a strong effect on community cohesion. “For helping communities be more resilient, emotional engagement is a very important factor,” says Gulgur, adding that it doesn’t matter whether emotions are positive or negative. “Anger and fear are equally powerful as joy and love.” On the contrary, people’s economic level does not have a direct effect on the community cohesion, “because the disaster might affect everyone,” says Ramirez-Marquez.
He notes that developing metrics to assess community cohesiveness and resilience offers practical benefits. If we can establish the causal link between cohesiveness and resilience, we can then set thresholds, limits or targets — and use these metrics to implement policies that aim to reach the desired numbers to improve resilience.
“Community cohesiveness is essentially a social glue that holds people together,” Ramirez-Marquez says. Quantifying that glue is challenging, yet being able to do so can help indicate whether a given community is resilient or can be stronger. “These metrics can then be used by policymakers to implement policies that make communities more resilient.”
Young adults — particularly college students — are more likely than any other group in the U.S. to engage in heavy drinking and experience alcohol-related consequences.
The consequences of heavy drinking — which is defined as four or more drinks per occasion for women and five or more for men — are felt throughout the college community. These include blackouts, academic underperformance and interpersonal problems. Then there are the secondhand consequences for students who don’t drink, such as interrupted study, aggression, assault and having to care for intoxicated peers.
In a new study, researchers from the Brown University School of Public Health developed and tested an intervention called Counter-Attitudinal Advocacy (CAA). CAA involves advocating for a position that contradicts a personally held attitude or behavior. In this context, CAA targets positive perceptions of heavy drinking and the belief that alcohol is an essential part of college life.
In randomized controlled trials at two sites with 585 college students, researchers compared CAA to the well-established Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF) to evaluate their effectiveness in decreasing drinks per week, peak blood alcohol concentration and alcohol-related consequences relative to a control group. Researchers focused on drinks per week, a standard measure given the irregular drinking patterns of college students, who often veer between heavy drinking and alcohol-free days.
Ultimately, they worked on answering two main questions:
Does CAA effectively reduce alcohol-related risk compared to our control?
How does CAA compare to PNF, which has proven to be an effective low-cost way of reducing alcohol consumption among high-risk students?
Here’s what they found: Participants who received PNF reported significantly fewer drinks per week than the control group, while those who received CAA reported significantly fewer consequences. CAA had a harm reduction effect on consequences — its intended focus — but not on consumption of alcohol, which it did not target.
“Both interventions take just 5-10 minutes, making them ideal for broad prevention efforts,” said Kate Carey, co-lead investigator of the study and professor of behavioral and social sciences at Brown. “Our results showed that PNF did reduce alcohol consumption, as expected. But CAA specifically reduced the number of problems participants reported due to drinking. So, while they had different effects, they were complementary — giving us another useful tool for harm reduction.”
Carey explained that PNFs show participants how their drinking habits stack up against those of their peers, often exposing a common misconception that others drink more than they actually do: an insight that can help them adjust their own behavior. In contrast, CAA encourages participants to reflect on why it is a good idea to avoid alcohol-related problems, such as passing out or taking excessive risks, and to identify specific actions they can take to minimize these risks.
“Instead of directly telling students what to do, we prompt them to generate their own strategies,” Carey said. “This makes the intervention personalized and non-confrontational. Unlike some interventions that make people feel defensive about their drinking, CAA frames the discussion more broadly: ‘Why is it good for young people to avoid problems?’ rather than ‘You personally need to change.'”
As participants responded to these prompts, a research assistant or peer asked them to explain their written responses. Carey noted that this act of verbal reinforcement likely strengthened the intervention’s effect, since we tend to feel more committed to our viewpoints when we share them publicly.
It’s important to have a variety of brief interventions, since no single approach works for everyone, Carey stressed. Offering multiple evidence-based options increases the chances of reaching more people who are undergoing a period of heightened risk.
The research team, which includes co-primary investigators Angelo DiBello associate professor of applied and professional psychology at Rutgers University and Clayton Neighbors, professor of social psychology at the University of Houston, are encouraged that CAA provides another effective tool — especially for those who may not respond to PNF.
“Boy, you almost did something really dumb,” I chastised myself when I logged off my computer one day last week.
I thought of all the people I read or hear about who fall for the grandparent scams or the one that goes something like, “We’re the FBI, and your account has been hacked. Withdraw the rest of your money, put it in a shoebox, and we’ll come and get it and keep it safe for you.”
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How could anyone not have heard about these scams, I‘ve wondered. They’re all over the news. And then I, too, almost fell for one ― a fake job offer.
I hadn’t read much about employment scams because, stupidly, I never thought I’d run into one. I just wanted one or two more part-time clients for my freelance writing business, and the Indeed job board frequently had some possibilities. Also, I had just deleted two early career positions to shave a few years off my age after seeing the suggestion in a magazine. So when I skimmed the subject lines of my incoming email that morning and saw a positive-sounding email about a position, my only thought was that revising my resume had worked. And so quickly!
I received confirmation messages whenever I applied to gigs, so I didn’t pay much attention to the subject line until I realised — thought — an actual company was getting back to me. I had been looking at part-time copy editing and proofreading jobs, and voila! a health care company was interested in my qualifications and just wanted me to take a proofreading test.
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The business name used was that of an actual company, but I had applied to so many health systems over the previous months that I didn’t think to check further into job titles at the company or email addresses, for example. I was tired of hunting for work, so I was multitasking that morning and not paying enough attention.
When I opened the email for the job, I met “Caroline,” a woman from HR who gave me the test and said she wanted to meet over Teams. No alarm bells rang. I use Teams all the time. I took the test, and later that afternoon she got back to me and reported I passed with flying colours. I didn’t find it as difficult as one I had taken for another health system — which I didn’t pass. Most of the questions were general and easy, like, “Why is proofreading so important when it comes to health system material?” I convinced myself that was an OK question, like the company might have wanted to know if candidates realised patients may be reading life-threatening medical directions, for example.
The HR woman then launched into more information, including about the company culture and benefits, and even sent me information on the latter and asked me to sign the form to indicate I’d read it and then send it back. I did send it, but not before I questioned her on the statement about full-time work, reminding her I wanted the part-time role also advertised. I asked to see the job post again — I couldn’t find it on Indeed anymore — and she said it had been taken down. Much later, I realised there likely had been no job post for this scam position.
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“About the full-time reference … everyone has to work on staff for the first three months,’’ she said.
“After that you can request a different arrangement. You’ll also start with five days of training, paid, of course,” she added.
Then she returned to spouting information, such as how my skills fit the job perfectly and that she’d introduce me to the supervisor I’d report to before we were done. She praised my experience again, and I complained to my husband that the process was taking too long. He asked, “Are you sure it’s not a scam?” I shot him a look that meant I was too smart to fall for that.
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On the second day of my onboarding, the woman asked if I had a certain model Mac, with very specific specifications, and at least six types of software I’d be using.
“No,” I told her, and I levelled with her. “I don’t think the job is for me. I don’t use a Mac, I don’t know how, and I’m not familiar with any of the software you mentioned.”
“That’s OK,” she answered. “You’ll learn it all in training. You might want to look at some of the tools tonight before tomorrow’s training.”
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“Wow, it starts right away?” I wondered. I wasn’t crazy about that.
“Now, we’ll have our vendors send you all this, and we’ll send you a check to pay them,” Caroline wrote.
BINGO. That’s a hallmark of many scams.
Now it all fell into place. I went back and checked the email from which she had written me a few times: caroline@healthcarecompanyus.com. (I’ve changed the name of the actual company.) The “US” on the end was a big clue that this was a scam. Then I looked more closely at her name and the supposed supervisor’s name. Caroline Brown and Linda Smith. Another big mistake on their part, using such generic names (except if you were oblivious, like me). Their names hadn’t even registered initially. My stomach dropped. I checked LinkedIn.
“Uh, Caroline, neither you nor Linda are on LinkedIn,” I interrupted.
She took a minute to answer. “Oh, I wiped everything from LinkedIn when my husband died,” she said.
“No … any top HR person and a supervisor at a big health company are going to have a profile on LinkedIn,” I responded, letting her know I was on to her.I stopped communicating with her after that.
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At that point the grammar in her text messages changed and someone with poor English took over. The new scammer offered me a signing bonus of $600 and said I’d receive an email the next morning with information on the items I’d be receiving along with strict instructions on how to deposit the paycheque to pay for them. A “paycheque” to pay for items made no sense. I deleted everything related to the scam, starting with what they said was their Teams account.
I had broken some cardinal rules I would find on the internet about employment scams and some that I realised myself. A few of these are:
Do not meet on Teams or in a chat room or the like. Get a valid company phone number.
Make sure you see the hiring manager’s face and talk to the person and hear their voice.
Check the person’s profile on LinkedIn.
Do not give banking or other personal information until you are further along in the hiring process and it makes sense to do so.
Be wary of excessive praise.
Never accept a check to pay for items you need for a job.
If something feels odd, trust your gut.
I emailed media relations at the real health care company and also an executive there that I found on LinkedIn. I thought they might want to know about these people and take it further, if possible. No one wrote back. I contacted Indeed as well, and an employee there emailed me and offered suggestions. The one that stood out was to call the police if I had lost money. Thank goodness I hadn’t. For as much as my ego was bruised, I can take solace in that.
These scammers groomed me for the better part of two days. I can count even more red flags in our conversations, but I would rather not rehash everything else I overlooked. It’s embarrassing. For example, remember the “Indeed Job Invite” subject line I mentioned? I seem to recall an exclamation point at the end of “Invite.” What actual company would include an exclamation point in such a message or even use that phrase? I can’t believe I breezed past it. And any mail should have come from the actual health care company.
I try not to beat myself up too much over this incident. I’m a perfect example of how people can be vulnerable in this economy, especially if they’re in a rapidly shrinking field (such as journalism, mine) or if they’re at an age where they’re worried about age discrimination.
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Still, I admit it, I felt stupid after escaping the con artists. Initially I thought I could never tell anyone about what I had done, and I was sure I would not want to write about it. Then I threw caution to the wind and thought, “What the heck. It happened, and I learned several lessons (like pay more attention when it comes to job hunting — duh).”
Because of my experience, I’m a little more humble about the truism “everyone makes mistakes.” Now that I’ve walked in the shoes of job hunters caught, or almost caught, in a scammer’s web, I better understand how someone can go down this path, besides the reasons I’ve already listed. The desire to work at home — or to continue to work at home when companies are calling people back to the office — can be a big one. Or, surely there is a good number of people who’d give anything to own their own business or be their own boss, as some of the scammers advertise. People who find themselves in a situation like this are not stupid. They are human, with human desires that have a big pull. Maybe my story can help others recognise this, also.
When Seeley Lutz, a 26-year-old from Alexandria, Virginia, feels overwhelmed — either in a social situation or by all she has to get done — she said she feels like her body starts to shut down.
“I often feel like there’s something heavy sitting atop my chest or blocking my airways, leaving me unable to breathe,” Lutz said. “It truly feels like you’re suffocating even when there’s plenty of oxygen available.”
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What she’s experiencing — and what many people experience — is called “air hunger.” John Scott Haldane and James Lorrain Smith coined the term in a 1892 paper. And it’s a common symptom of anxiety, although people rarely talk about how it feels ― or even know that it has a name.
Simply put, air hunger is the feeling that you can’t get enough air. From a medical standpoint, it’s referred to as dyspnea. When anxiety causes it, it’s tied to the “fight or flight” response.
“When we perceive a threat, whether real or imagined, the brain signals the body to enter fight-or-flight mode,” explained Gayle Watts, a clinical psychologist with Turning Tides Psychology. “This activates the sympathetic nervous system, which increases heart rate, tenses muscles and alters breathing patterns.”
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To the body, a threat isn’t always as primal or life-threatening as being chased by a bear. It can also be giving a presentation, experiencing a trauma trigger or anything in between.
When your sympathetic nervous system is activated, you may hyperventilate or breathe too quickly or shallowly. That’s where the feeling like you can’t get enough air comes in.
And unfortunately, what may feel instinctual can make matters worse. “Paradoxically, the more we focus on our breathing and try to ‘fix’ it, the more we reinforce the cycle of anxiety and air hunger,” Watts added.
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Anxiety and air hunger can become cyclical: You feel anxious, so you experience air hunger, and then struggling to breathe triggers more anxiety. You may then become anxious about, well, feeling anxious, rather than the original threat.
Kyle Elliott, a tech career coach who has anxiety disorders and lives in Santa Barbara, California, has experienced this firsthand. “The stress of the situation caused further anxiety and panic, which only made it seemingly more difficult to breathe,” he said. “I’ve never experienced something so scary before.”
What exactly is behind that? “Anxiety can amplify the perception of breathing difficulties by increasing attention to respiratory sensations, sometimes even when there is no actual physiological distress,” said Harry Cohen, a psychologist and author of ”Be The Sun, Not The Salt.” “The bottom line is that it appears very real to us and feels bad.”
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The good news is it won’t last forever. “Air hunger typically subsides relatively quickly,” said Jenelle Thompson-Keene, a licensed professional counsellor with Thriveworks in Champaign, Illinois, specialising in anxiety, coping skills and stress.
If it happens frequently, is intense, or lasts longer than a couple of minutes, or is accompanied by chest pain or nausea, she encouraged seeking help from a professional. Otherwise, the coping skills below should do the trick.
Ekaterina Goncharova via Getty Images
There are a few therapist-backed ways to manage air hunger and your anxiety.
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How To Manage Air Hunger
Several physical and mental techniques can calm your body in mere moments. Here are some examples the mental health clinicians shared:
Expose yourself to cold temperatures.
Going outside on a colder day, washing your hands with cold water, taking a cold shower and even dunking your face in a bowl of ice water can calm your anxiety. Thompson-Keene explained it can slow your heart rate. Basically — and at least in the case of dunking your face — you’re triggering the “dive reflex.”
Ground yourself with your senses.
Another way to manage anxiety — and therefore air hunger — is by getting in touch with your five senses with the 5-4-3-2-1 technique.
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“Try naming five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste,” Watts said. “This brings your awareness back to the present moment and helps disrupt anxious thought patterns.”
Change your posture.
Even in comfortable positions and when air hunger isn’t an issue, you may not be able to breathe as well. So, it’s especially important to be mindful of how you’re sitting during an air hunger “attack.”
“Sitting hunched over can create a sense of restriction, making air hunger feel worse,” Watts said. “If you’re struggling with breathlessness, try sitting up straight or standing and rolling your shoulders back to open up your chest.”
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Do a breathing exercise or technique.
As Watts mentioned, people may try to take deeper breaths when they’re experiencing air hunger — it’s only instinctual. And it can make symptoms worse.
“Instead, slowing your breathing and focusing on a structured pattern can help rebalance oxygen and carbon dioxide levels,” she said.
Watts encouraged the 4-7-8 technique: Inhale through your nose for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, then exhale slowly through your mouth for eight seconds.
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“This helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which signals to your body that you are safe and can relax,” Watts added.
Cohen also suggested controlled breathing exercises, such as diaphragmatic breathing. Essentially, that technique is about taking deep breaths, feeling your stomach rise as you inhale and sink as you exhale.
“Studies show that focusing on breath patterns enhances respiratory stability and reduces the unpredictability that often fuels panic,” he said.
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Try cognitive reframing.
This cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) skill encourages changing your perspective to be more realistic and helpful.
In the case of air hunger, it might look like this: “Air hunger is a perception, not a true lack of oxygen.”
“By understanding the role of the brain in amplifying sensations, people can learn to reinterpret the experience as non-threatening, reducing the emotional distress associated with it,” Cohen explained.
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Repeat a positive mantra.
One Thompson-Keene suggested was “I’m safe and this will pass.”
She added, “It is a way to help ground your mind and body in the present moment.”
Practice mindfulness-based stress reduction.
This toolkit is similar to some of the other tips. In practice, it might look like breath awareness, body scans and mindful movement.
Its usefulness is research-backed, too. Cohen said it “has been shown to decrease anxiety by improving one’s ability to interpret bodily sensations accurately, reducing the tendency to catastrophise normal fluctuations in breathing.”
Further, a study in JAMA Psychiatry found it as effective as the gold-standard drug, escitalopram, for patients with anxiety disorders.
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Give yourself a ‘butterfly hug.’
This technique incorporates breathing and cross-body tapping, Thompson-Keene said, which many find helpful. She shared this YouTube video that explains how to do it. In short, put your left hand on your right arm and vice versa. Then, tap your arms, focus on breathing, and repeat positive mantras to yourself.
Lutz is a fan of this one. “I’ve found that butterfly hugs sometimes help with this feeling, which is great,” she said.
Whichever tip you use, and however long it takes to work, remember you will survive this, too.
“In a very short period of time, you should be feeling much better,” Cohen said. “Remember, what you’re feeling does feel unpleasant, but it will soon pass.”
Dealing with a narcissist, or even any kind of antagonistic person, can be challenging to say the least. It’s hard to communicate effectively with someone who actually isn’t committed to conflict resolution.
Enter the “grey rock method.” This strategy offers a helpful way to protect your peace while navigating interactions with difficult people, particularly narcissists.
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So what exactly is the grey rock method? Below, experts break it down.
What is the grey rock method?
“The grey rock method is a communication strategy intended to minimise conflict and drama from narcissists and other high-conflict people,” Virginia Gilbert, a licensed marriage and family therapist, told HuffPost. “Think of a simple grey rock that’s so nondescript-looking that it almost fades into the background. It doesn’t engender an emotional response from the viewer. Essentially, you want to ‘be’ that grey rock and communicate in a manner that’s as ‘boring’ as possible ― keeping things brief, sticking to facts and avoiding anything that comes across as emotional so you don’t unwittingly invite drama from your high-conflict person.”
People tend to try this method when they have to interact with someone who stirs up chaos and drama and blames them for things, whether it’s an ex-spouse, an emotionally immature parent or someone else in their life.
“Your responses include statements like ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ ‘That’s interesting,’ or ‘We’ll see,’” said Chelsey Brooke Cole, a psychotherapist specialising in narcissistic abuse. “You don’t share about your ups and downs, or highs and lows. You don’t talk about your emotions, goals, dreams, hopes or aspirations.”
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Basically, don’t give a manipulative person anything they can use against you in the future. Avoid providing “narcissistic supply” ― which is the attention, validation, emotional response, drama or anything that fuels their inflated sense of self and power. The goal is to be dull and unengaging.
“In some ways, it’s similar to how certain animals feign death to avoid being attacked by predators ― the predator loses interest when there’s no chase. Similarly, by presenting as unreactive and emotionally flat, the narcissist often becomes bored and may eventually stop engaging altogether,” said Hannah Alderete, a licensed mental health counsellor and the author of “Break Free From Narcissistic Mothers: A Step-by-Step Workbook for Ending Toxic Behaviour, Setting Boundaries, and Reclaiming Your Life.”
What are the benefits of using this method?
“If you’re in a relationship with a narcissistic person, you know how draining it can be,” said licensed marriage and family therapist Natalie Moore. “Implementing the grey rock method can help you take your personal power back in the relationship. If you’ve tried communicating your needs directly with the person or tried setting firm boundaries to no avail, the gray rock method can be a great last-ditch effort to create distance between yourself and the narcissist.”
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When you stop allowing yourself to be used as narcissistic supply, they will likely disengage from you. “Grey rocking” is also a great way to de-escalate conflict and protect yourself in toxic or abusive dynamics.
“It can be especially useful in short-term or unavoidable interactions ― like a phone call, family gathering, or any situation where you sense manipulation or baiting,” Alderete said.
Keeping your responses to them short, factual and limited to the scope of what you need to discuss with a narcissist is also a form of boundary-setting in itself. Going grey rock creates emotional distance and minimises the amount of personal information you give the other person.
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“This is important because narcissists use what they know about you to manipulate you more effectively,” Cole said. “For example, if a narcissist knows you’ve been betrayed in previous relationships, they’ll claim you have ‘trust issues’ when you call them out on their inconsistencies. Narcissists also love baiting you into long conversations because this is how they feel powerful and in control. Without grey rocking, you end up engaging, explaining and defending yourself a lot more than you wanted to, which only feeds their ego and feeling of superiority.”
Johnce / Getty Images
“Grey rocking” is also a great way to de-escalate conflict and protect yourself in toxic or abusive dynamics.
By refusing to take the bait or display an emotional reaction, you limit their ammunition and ability to hit your pain points. Cole compared the narcissist’s new situation to throwing a dart with a blindfold on ― they might hit the bullseye, but their odds are significantly lower.
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“The grey rock method is particularly useful in the early stages of separating from an abusive partner or during volatile exchanges. It can also be helpful with toxic coworkers or colleagues,” said Tina Swithin, author of “Divorcing a Narcissist: One Mom’s Battle.”
When you’re facing a conflict with someone at work or engaged in a legal dispute, the grey rock method can allow you to keep your correspondence civil ― which can be useful if it ends up in front of a judge or the HR department. You want to ensure you come across as reasonable.
“The other benefit is that, over time, it will relieve you of the toxic hope that anything you could ever say will give the high-conflict person in your life an epiphany, or get them to see your side of things,” Gilbert said. “Clinging to this hope can make you miserable, which can then lead you to fire off an overly dramatic email in a burst of frustration.”
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Even just one angry email from you gives them something to point to as “proof” that you’re the bad guy and they’re the true victim, she added.
“Initially, you might feel that you’re placating the high-conflict person in your life by using the grey rock method,” Gilbert said. “But if using it over time helps you detach from their craziness, feel calmer and focus on people who are good for you, that’s a huge win for you.”
Are there any downsides?
“Grey rocking is not a sustainable long-term strategy, as it can become emotionally and psychically draining to dull yourself down repeatedly,” Alderete said.
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She believes this temporary fix is best used sparingly, in time-limited interactions or as a last resort when you need to conserve your energy.
“Individuals who pride themselves in their own self-growth and healing journey may feel as though grey rocking is a Band-Aid solution versus actually addressing a deeper relationship issue,” Moore said. “You may need to consider a more complete plan to handle the narcissist, such as setting boundaries or disengagement.”
She added that implementing this method can also make some folks feel uncomfortable and inauthentic. People pleasers and fawners might experience guilt or anxiety.
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“If you’re the type of person who is generally an open book and enjoys sharing themselves with others, it might feel very awkward or unnatural to be so ‘blah.’” Moore said.
Keep in mind that some narcissists might actually escalate their harmful behaviour in response to the loss of attention, validation and control they feel. So you’ll ned to feel prepared to deal with the aftermath and have additional strategies in your arsenal.
“While gray rock is helpful in theory, it can backfire in certain real-world contexts, especially in family court or co-parenting situations,” Swithin noted. “When someone appears cold, detached or robotic in written or verbal communication, it may be misinterpreted by judges, mediators or professionals as combative, uncooperative or emotionally unstable.”
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Having seen how judges and other family court professionals view survivors who utilise grey rock, she developed a more adaptable, strategic communication style called “yellow rock.”
“Yellow rock helps individuals remain calm, polite and firm ― while also protecting their credibility in legal and professional settings,” Swithin said, adding that it combines “the emotional boundaries of grey rock” with a more pleasant and thoughtful tone.
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If the gray rock method isn’t right for a certain situation, you can also try the “yellow rock” approach.
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The goal is to bring a cordial, cooperative and more emotionally accessible vibe while still keeping engagement and unnecessary information minimal.
“This version allows for a bit more warmth, which can be helpful in contexts like co-parenting or social interactions where others are present,” Alderete said. “For example, instead of flat responses like ‘no’ or ‘oh,’ yellow rocking might sound like ‘no, thank you” or “oh, that’s interesting.’”
Cole similarly recommended pleasant yellow rock responses in co-parenting or work settings, with examples like “Thank you!” “The weather is great today!” “Yes, pickup is at 3 p.m. See you then!” or “I appreciate you getting that done.”
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“Because gray rock excludes pleasantries like ‘please’ or ‘thank you,’ narcissists twist your communication and claim you’re being uncommunicative, difficult, rigid or bitter,” she explained. ”And at work or in custody situations, you need to come across as the kind, considerate person you are. Yellow rock allows you to bring you to the conversation, while keeping personal information, emotional reactions or sensitive topics at the door.”
How can you implement the grey rock method effectively?
“To use the grey rock method effectively, keep in mind that the purpose is to protect your emotional energy ― not to punish or retaliate against the narcissist,” Alderete said. “The goal is psychological safety through disengagement.”
She recommended offering short, emotionally neutral responses such as “Yeah,” “OK,” or “Oh,” and avoiding any attempt to explain or defend yourself. Cole similarly suggested vague grey rock replies like, “I hear what you’re saying, let me think about that,” “I’m not able to talk about that right now,” or “That’s interesting.”
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These types of responses tend to extinguish a narcissist’s attempts to provoke or manipulate because they aren’t getting the reaction they crave.
“Avoid telling stories, sharing your emotional reactions to things or going into any detail,” Moore said. “Limit eye contact and keep your facial expressions as flat and neutral as possible.”
You can also adapt your gray rock approach based on the context. When composing an email or other correspondence, make sure you’re calm as you write and then as you send it.
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“Wait 24 hours and reread the draft before you send it, making sure it’s not inflammatory,” Gilbert said, adding that you might also consider working with a mental health professional if you’re struggling with the method and engaging with this person generally.
Once you decide to implement the grey rock method, expect things to get worse before they get better. Grey rocking shifts the power dynamic in relationships, so the other person might feel thrown off when they’re no longer able to bait, trigger or manipulate you to respond how they want.
“It’s likely that initially, the toxic person will lash out in anger or act contemptuously by calling you names, mocking you or upping the ante,” Cole said. “Or the more vulnerable a narcissist is, the more they respond to grey rock with victimhood rather than anger. They might say something like, ‘Do you not even care about me now?’ ‘What happened to you?’ ‘I can’t believe you’re treating me like this,’ or ‘I thought you had a kind heart.’”
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She compared the experience to setting a boundary with a child who hasn’t had any before.
“They push the limits until they see where the edge is,” Cole said. “Stay consistent, and stay boring. Eventually, the narcissist is likely to find a more interesting target.”
In the meantime, try to take deep breaths and remain committed, even if the method feels antithetical to your open, agreeable nature. Remember that grey rocking is reserved for antagonistic people looking to exploit and manipulate, not for those who genuinely want to connect with you. Don’t relent, or they’ll realise they can get the response they want if they push back enough.
“It’s like giving a toddler the toy they wanted after they throw a huge fit ― the next tantrum will be even bigger,” Cole said. “Keep using neutral responses, even if you don’t immediately get the results you want. Keep being consistent, and over time, they will likely lose interest and try to bait someone else instead.”
