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Daily English Pod
Daily English Pod is a space for learning English beyond grammar and textbooks.
During the week, you’ll learn practical vocabulary, expressions, idioms, and real-life English, the language people actually use in everyday conversations, emotions, and work.
On weekends, we slow down. Through ideas from psychology, philosophy, and real human experience, we explore language as a way to better understand life, emotions, identity, and growth.
This podcast is created by Jale, an English teacher with 13 years of teaching experience and a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from Canada, who teaches with patience, clarity, and care, and believes learning works best when students feel seen, respected, and safe to think aloud.
The goal is simple but meaningful: to help you understand English deeply, use it confidently, and connect it to your real life. English here is not just a skill. It’s a gentle companion for clearer thinking, honest expression, and deeper human connection.
Daily English Pod
Learned Helplessness
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Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/daily-english-pod/id1754079453
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Learned Helplessness
Helplessness is not the absence of solutions. It’s the absence of position.
When you don’t know who you are in a situation, the mind stays restless.
When you locate yourself — even briefly — tension begins to soften.
Hello and welcome to a weekend episode of Daily English — where we try to grow, in English and in life.
Yesterday I talked about responsibility, and Today I want to talk about something the human brain struggles with more than pain: Helplessness. Psychology shows something uncomfortable but true: The brain tolerates effort better than it tolerates helplessness.
In the 1960s, psychologists discovered a pattern called learned helplessness.When people are exposed to situations where their actions don’t change the outcome,
their brain slowly stops trying. Even when options return. Even when help becomes possible.
Not because they are weak — but because the brain learns one dangerous lesson: “Nothing I do matters.”
Here’s what’s surprising. The nervous system doesn’t calm down when life becomes easy.
It calms down when the brain senses agency — a feeling that some action still exists.
Even a small one.
This is why waiting often feels worse than doing something difficult. Waiting keeps the mind in alert mode. Scanning. Overthinking.Imagining.
Action — even small, imperfect action — gives the brain structure. It says:
“I’m not powerless.”
Agency doesn’t mean control. You don’t need to fix everything.
Agency means:choosing one next step, influencing one small part, responding instead of freezing
That’s enough to change how the brain feels.
The next step, the small one, is not to add pressure — but to give the mind a place to stand.
Let me leave you with this: Helplessness is not the absence of solutions.
It’s the absence of position.
When you don’t know who you are in a situation,
the mind stays restless.
When you locate yourself — even briefly —
tension begins to soften.
Thank you for being here today. Have a lovely day and see you tomorrow.