Blog
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Volunteering & Mental Health
Read more: Volunteering & Mental HealthOld article, good idea–volunteering in order to feel better. It’s generally understood that helping out others makes a person feel nice, but that experience goes beyond just the feel-good glow of altruism. Studies have found that helping others has tangible benefits, both mental and physical, from lowering your blood pressure to reducing feelings of depression. And research hasn’t…
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Phone Withdrawal
Read more: Phone WithdrawalOn dialing back from five hours of screen time a day (NYT): For two solid days, I basked in 19th-century leisure, feeling my nerves softening and my attention span stretching back out. I read books. I did the crossword puzzle. I lit a fire and looked at the stars. I felt like Thoreau, if Thoreau…
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How Are Emotions Made?
Read more: How Are Emotions Made?Psychologist-slash-neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett challenges the idea that emotions are innate and universal. Instead, she has shown that emotion is constructed in the moment, by core systems that interact across the whole brain, aided by a lifetime of learning…This new theory means that you play a much greater role in your emotional life than you…
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Tried Daydreaming?
Read more: Tried Daydreaming?Put down the phone for a minute. Daydreaming may make your more socially adept (Scientific American). When our brains are not otherwise occupied, a network of neural regions called the default mode network automatically comes online. It enables us to turn our attention inward and daydream, but it also helps us to project out and…
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Therapists v. Post-Election Stress
Read more: Therapists v. Post-Election StressAnother day, another stressful election. And they’ll keep on coming. Here’s an NYT roundup of therapist advice about just how exactly to cope. [T]herapists report that many of their patients are even more upset as they struggle to make sense of the direction in which the country is heading. And many can’t tear themselves away…