Waiting for news—be it medical test results, exam grades or the outcome of a job interview—can be agonizing. Kate Sweeny is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and one of her research topics is the mental impact of waiting for news: why it’s so distressing, whether anticipation serves a purpose and what we can do to make the waiting period more bearable. Sweeny’s advice is to distract yourself, stay grounded in the present moment and, above all, remember that you are not alone. She points out that she has “yet to meet a person who doesn’t struggle with facing uncertainty in some way.”

Why is waiting for news so unpleasant?
Like most emotions, worry has a function: to keep your attention on avoiding future harm. Sometimes—with biopsy re...