As autumn settles in and winter approaches, shorter days, reduced daylight, and the drop in temperature can affect our mood, sleep, and energy levels. For some Black people, particularly those living in places such as the United States, the United Kingdom, or Canada, those long stretches of early darkness can make winter feel less like a season and more like a weight.
The most revealing sentence on the Loveland Foundation’s therapy page is not about healing. It is the instruction for when the signup form is closed: add your email to a waitlist. The fund pays for therapy for Black women and nonbinary people across the United States. Its form opens quarterly, and applicants can expect a follow-up email within four to six weeks of signing up.
Ebony McGee, who studies how racism affects Black students in STEM, has spent years hearing students describe feeling excluded and unseen on their campuses, a condition that itself drives up their stress load before a single midterm is assigned. Students of color often feel excluded and ignored, and those feelings contribute to their heightened stress
As a Black person in 2026, navigating the corporate ladders of New York, the rural expanse of the American South, or the economic complexities of South Africa means carrying a unique and often invisible weight.
Today, mental health challenges are an increasingly urgent issue within Black communities, yet many individuals continue to suffer in isolation. The silence persists not because the pain is absent, but because it has been normalized.
Sleep medicine has moved from bedside science to public health argument, and new data through March 2026 show that for many Black communities in the United States and across Africa, the problem is not simply biology but access, policy and social context.
Lent is often misunderstood. Many reduce it to giving up sweets, social media, or small conveniences. While those practices have value, they are not the destination. The season asks a deeper question: What controls us? Comfort, habit, pride, distraction, resentment. These are often harder to surrender than food. Lent invites believers to examine their attachments and choose discipline over impulse.
As the calendar inches closer to February 14, some hearts around the world are beginning to beat a little faster, and singles are already having FOMO (fear of missing out). Just a month ago, in December, they had to deal with couples in matching Christmas-themed pajamas flooding social media with lovey-dovey photos.
This is the time to begin reviewing and setting strategies to ensure that one’s goals and objectives for the new year are clearly spelled out, with steps in place to achieve them.
“the liberation of the African mind, the empowerment of the African character, and the enlivenment and illumination of the African spirit.”
