Blog

  • Life Without Downtime

    Another NYT “Your Brain on Computers” dispatch:  Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime “Almost certainly, downtime lets the brain go over experiences it’s had, solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories,” said Loren Frank, assistant professor in the department of physiology at the university, where he specializes in learning and memory. He…

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  • New Maslow Pyramid

    Some ASU psychologists have taken it upon themselves to update the Maslow hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s pyramid describes human motivations from the most basic to the most advanced. According to experts, Maslow’s time-tested pyramid, first proposed in the 1940s, needed to be updated to reflect the last 50 years of research…The bottom four levels of…

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  • Stretch Your Mood

    Yoga, meditation, pets, nature, and 15 other mood helpers. Meditation Can Improve Brain Function (PsychCentral) 15 Ways to Help Treat Depression Naturally (WebMD) New study finds new connection between yoga and mood (ScienceDaily) Do Pets Help with Depression and Stress? (WebMD)

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  • “Emerging Adulthood”

    What is it About 20-Somethings? asks the NYT. We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent…

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  • For Friendship

    An essay from the Wilson Quarterly (via aldaily.com): [W]e live now in a climate in which friends appear dispensable. While most of us wouldn’t last long outside the intricate web of interdependence that supplies all our physical needs—imagine no electricity, money, or sewers—we’ve come to demand of ourselves truly radical levels of emotional self-sufficiency…

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