Blog

  • The Power of Habit

    NYT previews The Power of Habit–a look at the latest thinking about how habits are formed (and how that knowledge helps sell diapers and Fabreze). The process within our brains that creates habits is a three-step loop. First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit…

    Read more: The Power of Habit
  • Why Are Older People Happier?

    Science seeks answers.  A couple of possibilities: [S]tudies have discovered that as people age, they seek out situations that will lift their moods — for instance, pruning social circles of friends or acquaintances who might bring them down. Still other work finds that older adults learn to let go of loss and disappointment over unachieved…

    Read more: Why Are Older People Happier?
  • The Importance of Mind-Wandering

    A collection of boredom studies from Wired: The secret isn’t boredom per se: It’s how boredom makes us think. When people are immersed in monotony, they automatically lapse into a very special form of brain activity: mind-wandering. In a culture obsessed with efficiency, mind-wandering is often derided as a lazy habit, the kind of thinking we rely on…

    Read more: The Importance of Mind-Wandering
  • ACT Anxiety and Depression Workbooks

    From the Recommended Reading page, a couple of titles worth highlighting:  The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety and  The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression, a matching pair of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) workbooks. Instead of trying to take on and eliminate difficult thoughts and feelings, ACT encourages accepting them and getting on with what’s most…

    Read more: ACT Anxiety and Depression Workbooks
  • Mid-Life Crisis

    A history, from Scientific American: [Season’s of a Man’s Life author] Levinson felt that midlife crises were actually more common than not and appeared like clockwork between the ages of 40 to 45. For Levinson, such crises were characterized primarily by a stark, painful “de-illusionment” process stemming from the individual’s unavoidable comparison between his youthful…

    Read more: Mid-Life Crisis