Mandy Oaklander | November 12, 2026

Feeling stressed or annoyed? You've heard the advice before: just shake it off. But there's some truth behind the cliché, my colleague Angela Haupt learned. She asked experts why so-called "somatic shaking" works and exactly how to do it.

Also in today's edition, Alana Semuels looks into the new trend of using AI to fight back against health insurance denials. A doctor who founded a company that helps patients do this told Alana he's seen it change lives.

TODAY’S TOPICS

AI vs. the insurer
A “thinking couch”
Why shaking off stress works
The science exodus

THE QUOTE THAT STUCK

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Give patients the ability to argue articulately against the insurer, [and] you might actually change someone’s life.

Dr. Warris Bokhari

U.S. health insurers routinely deny care to patients despite doctors’ orders, jeopardizing patients’ health and well-being. But certain companies are helping patients use AI to fight back against insurance denials.

For my new story on the topic, I interviewed Dr. Warris Bokhari, co-founder and CEO of one such company, Claimable. He told me that wording an appeal with AI’s help can mean the difference between getting a life-saving treatment and going without. –Alana Semuels

Read the full story here.

AT HOME WITH AN EXPERT

A place to take time to think

Harriet Rumgay, a cancer epidemiologist at the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, sent us a photo of an inspiring spot in her home in France, overlooking a river. “I sit and have my coffee and breakfast”—typically Marmite on toast—“in that spot every morning” before getting ready for work.

“I like to think I can get some natural light next to the window to kick-start my circadian rhythm. I love watching the birds in the trees and the occasional boat chugging past,” she says. It’s the perfect place where she can step away from work and refresh her thoughts. —Veronique Greenwood

ONE SMALL CHANGE

How to try somatic shaking for stress relief

By Angela Haupt

Imagine you’ve just washed your hands, and there’s no towel. Give them a gentle shake, and then let your arms join in.

That’s the start of a stress-management exercise that may help loosen your tense muscles and give you a break from anxious thoughts, says Kim Penberthy, a clinical psychologist and professor of research in psychiatric medicine at the UVA School of Medicine. It’s a small movement experiment—sometimes called somatic shaking—that takes a minute or less, doesn’t require any equipment, and gives you something to try when telling yourself to calm down isn’t getting you anywhere.

Here’s why shaking things out might help, plus how to give it a try.

How does somatic shaking help with stress?

Think about what happens when you’re replaying an argument or worrying about tomorrow’s big work presentation. Your mind is busy, sure. But your jaw might be clenched, your shoulders raised, and your neck stiff enough to make turning your head unpleasant. Shaking your body gives you a chance to notice—and loosen—some of that tension. “If you try to tense your shoulder and shake your arm, it’s sort of hard,” Penberthy says. Letting your arm hang loosely and gently moving it encourages you to relax those muscles.

The movement also gives your mind something else to focus on. Instead of mentally rewriting the email you just sent, you’re noticing how your hands feel or concentrating on moving one leg at a time. That shift may briefly interrupt rumination—and remind you that you have a way to respond when you’re feeling stuck. Part of the relief, Penberthy says, is realizing: “I’ve got some ability to do something. I don’t have to just sit here and suffer.”

Penberthy sometimes shakes things out herself. “I often do it after a very stressful day,” she says, especially when she notices her neck aching. The image that comes to her mind is athletes shaking out their limbs before heading onto the field: a mental and physical move.

Read the full story here.

TIME100 Most Influential Companies is expanding

TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2027 entries are now open.

With new Exceptional Workplaces categories, the TIME100 Companies publication is expanding to recognize businesses pioneering new approaches to how people work, from flexible and hybrid work to technology integration and career development.

Because it’s no longer just what you do, but how you do it.

Submit your company.

WHAT WE’RE READING

The fallout of the Trump Administration’s gutting of science budgets continues, with young scientists increasingly deciding to leave the U.S. or science altogether, the New York Times reports.
About half of adults with Long COVID saw symptoms improve by the three-year mark in a new study, reports Laine Bergeson for CIDRAP.
A mobile crisis unit in Delaware was designed to keep people who were experiencing mental-health crises out of emergency rooms and inpatient facilities. But the opposite scenario happened, Nick Stonesifer writes for Spotlight Delaware.