Reading · The Nonlinear Life

Can rituals help your family? The Internet is lying about the research, but I have the truth. Which is even better!

But before digging into this topic, some breaking news as I sit down to write this week’s newsletter. The first review of my new book, A TIME TO GATHER: How Ritual Created the World—and How It Can Save Us, has just been published, a starred review from Kirkus.

And it’s official: I’m not just peppy or hopeful. I’m “peppy, hopeful, … and laced with humor!” Also, I’m the author of a brand-new book that’s “an inspiring and thought-provoking look at how ceremony helps us thrive.”

Here’s the full review:

How rituals old and new can ease life’s transitions.
The peppy, hopeful latest by journalist Feiler (The Search, 2023) finds the journalist hopscotching around the globe in search of both ancient rituals and newly created ones designed to help people weather changes, including birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. Among the ancient ones are the complicated, two-decade-long negotiation of how much a groom’s family should pay the bride’s in South Africa, a tooth-grinding ceremony in Bali, and a placental burial ceremony on Easter Island. Among the more recently created ones are Taylor Swift-themed divorce parties, gatherings to honor pregnancy loss, and ceremonies connecting parents with the children they have given up for adoption.
Ever game and ever entertaining, Feiler throws himself into experiences, including a sauna/cold plunge in Denmark that left him “blue and rueful”; an encounter with a shaman in Chile; and a ritual bath (mikveh) in Newton, Massachusetts. His accounts are detailed and respectful, though occasionally laced with humor: His evocation of a day spent running from one Las Vegas wedding to the next and another where he attended three Irish wakes are surprisingly giddy. But that humor, never mean-spirited, is more often directed to himself than his subjects. Feiler convincingly makes the case that “rituals are the single most effective tool in holding any community together” and that “every life ritual is invented, reinvented, improvised, plagiarized, forged in crisis, modified in real time.” Finally coming out in favor of “DIY, micro, third-space rituals,” rather than more formal, institutional ones, he gently encourages readers to join with others in creating rituals that will serve to get them through hard times.
An inspiring and thought-provoking look at how ceremony helps us thrive.

Wow. Thank you, Kirkus.

And now back to our regularly scheduled story.

Over the weekend, I saw a colorful, viral video with the tempting headline, “FRIDAY RITUAL CUTS TEEN ANXIETY BY 40%.” I clicked. The trail led to a post from December 2025 that included this caption:

A University of Michigan study followed 184 families with teens aged 13 to 17 and found something quietly powerful. Families with one repeating ritual a Friday dinner, a walk, a movie night saw 40% fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. Why? The brain loves predictability. When a teen knows “Friday means us,” their nervous system finally exhales. No constant scanning. No emotional fight or flight. Just safety.

“That’s odd,” I thought. I’ve spent the last three years reading what I thought was pretty much every one of the 600+ social science studies about ritual from the last 50 years. I was a little surprised that I hadn’t heard about this study, but figured, given the date, that maybe this was new.

I shared the video.

Still, something about this story nagged at me, so I went digging. And sure enough, there is no such study! I have no idea if a person made up these statistics, or an AI, or some ritual influencer tying to build their brand. [Yes, there are ritual influencers, some quite cool!]

But here’s the “peppy, hopeful” part of this story.

There is plenty of impressive data on the power of rituals to help families. From family dinner to holiday gatherings, backyard picnics to movie nights, rituals recharge family members, reaffirm traditions, reinforce values. They also reinvigorate relationships—parents and children, children and children, even parents and each other.

Here’s a sampling, with highlights of three actual academic studies that put data to these ideas:

In a review of 50 years of research on “naturally occurring family routines and rituals,” Barbara Fiese and colleagues at Syracuse concluded that everyday family practices such as shared meals, bedtime routines, and holiday traditions strengthen family cohesion, support children’s emotional development, and reinforce identity by fostering connections across generations.

Three Harvard Business School professors and a colleague at the University of Minnesota found that family gatherings can be stressful, with members “wondering why the turkey is not prepared the way Grandma always did to children complaining about giving up their bedroom for Grandpa.” Rituals reduce that stress; they “serve as a buffer to such potential downsides by increasing family closeness and involvement.”

A study of 248 adolescents in Europe found that meaningful family rituals—such as shared dinners and annual celebrations—strengthen adolescents’ sense of social connectedness, which in turn protects against depression and anxiety. Researchers in Lisbon discovered that teens who perceived stronger ritual meaning reported greater belonging and fewer depressive symptoms. The research suggests that family rituals help adolescents build emotional security and social skills, creating a protective pathway from family connection to broader well-being.

I have so many more unexpected details about the power of rituals—along with incredible adventures from Bangkok to Easter Island, Las Vegas to the Vatican—that I can’t wait for you to experience this spring. And we have a lot of real-time, in-person ritual experiences planned for you to join. So please stay tuned; pre-order A TIME TO GATHER, if you can; and reach out if you’d like to partner on an event.

In the meantime, plan a ritual with your loved ones! If nothing else, it will keep you away from all the doom and lies on the internet.

🌞

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