Faith, Hope, Love and Gratitude

Do you have the four qualities that determine the mindset of a survivor?

Published on November 22, 2012 by Dale Archer, M.D. in Reading Between The (Head)Lines

Resilience is defined in psychology as the capacity to cope with stress, traumatic events and adversity. There has been a tremendous amount of research on this subject with respect to Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami, Haitian earthquake and Chilean miners in terms of predicting who would thrive and who would struggle after these horrendous disasters.
My own experience when dealing with .....

Feeling Good Is a Learned Skill

Dwelling on your gifts wires in good feelings.

Published on May 29, 2011 by Loretta Graziano Breuning, Ph.D. in Your Neurochemical Self

"When I'm good no one remembers.  When I'm bad no one forgets."
This lament rings true for most people. What if you fed your brain with appreciation for yourself? It may sound like cheating, but it works. It won't win you a Nobel Prize, but it triggers brain chemistry akin to winning. Appreciating yourself is not like sending yourself flowers because it builds positive neural pathways that last longer than flowers.


Feeling good is no substitute for action, of course. They're two separate skills that are both essential. Acting good doesn't always make you feel good because........

How To Break a Bad Habit

Bad habits are strong, but also fragile—here's how to attack them at their weakest point.

Earnings and Yearnings: Get Out of the Groove

By Carlin Flora, published on March 13, 2012 - last reviewed on November 12, 2012

Confucius said, "Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them." The best technique for dropping detrimental routines and instilling commendable ones has long been a holy grail of sorts for philosophers and psychologists. In his new book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg, a New York Times writer and M.B.A., distills all we know of habits into a simple model that can help you defeat the person who might just be your worst enemy on the job—you.
Your primary insight into habits is that they are strong, but also fragile—if attacked at their weakest points. Are we finally ready to declare victory over bad habits?
In the last decade,......

Reading Bodies, Touching Minds

How eye contact, facial expressions, and body language are the key to connection

Published on October 1, 2012 by Emma M. Seppala, Ph.D. in Feeling It

Just by looking at someone, you experience them. Ever fallen in love at first sight or had a "gut feeling" about someone? You internally resonated with them. Ever seen someone trip and momentarily felt a twinge of pain for them? Observing them activates the "pain matrix" in your brain,research shows. Ever been moved by the sight of a person helping someone? You vicariously experienced it and thereby felt elevation

Cool Body Language

What cooling behaviors say about our emotions.

Published on February 7, 2012 by Joe Navarro, M.A. in Spycatcher

About thirty-five years ago when I first got into law enforcement I began to observe that suspects often ventilated themselves during interviews while the innocent did not. This served me well, not in detecting deception, but rather, in seeing which questions caused the suspects discomfort such as when I asked, "Where were you last night?" I used it to gauge psychological comfort and discomfort - invaluable in determining the thoughts and feelings of others.

Should I Talk to My Parents About Sex?

I am afraid of my parents' reaction to sex talk.

Published on November 14, 2012 by Dr. Barbara Greenberg, Ph.D. in The Teen Doctor

Dear Dr. G.,

You also answer questions by teenagers, yes? Well, I was wondering if you had any advice for me regarding trust—but among friends as well as between child and parent. First,I should probably tell you that I'm a 14-year-old female who is not sexually oriented as of yet, but happens to be panromantic. I have not told my parents this, although I'm sure they could guess. (My mother has asked me several times whether I am gay, although not in such explicit terms. She also points out attractive males wherever she sees one, watching me and gauging my reaction, thinking I'm not aware of what she's doing.)

12 Tips to Sleeping Like a Baby

Even losing an hour or two of sleep can interfere with decision making.

Published on November 8, 2012 by Rita Watson in With Love and Gratitude

 There is an advertising-fueled medicine myth in America that a little pill can cure you. Sleeping pills are one of the more widely used meds prescribed to approximately 60 million people in the United States. However, these began coming under scrutiny when a British Medical Journal Online article in Maytriggered sleepless nights after reporting the association with some common sleeping pills to a four-fold increased risk of death—even for those taking small doses. Nonetheless

Not All In the Mind

When food allergy meets mental health 

 

An interesting thing happened to me the other day. I had been asked, in my capacity as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, to give a talk for BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking Festival, a wonderful showcase for intellectual curiosity in Gatehead (just south of Newcastle on the banks of the River Tyne). The theme of the festival was ‘Them and Us.’ Now, if I had been smart, I would have given a talk about the history of ADHD, having two books out on the subject, but with that theme, I just had to go with another one of my research projects: the history of food allergy.

Live In The Moment

Value the Means, Not Just the End

Could the steps in achieving a goal, paradoxically, be goals, too?

Published on November 8, 2012 by Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. in Evolution of the Self

If you’re like most of us, you’re driven to accomplish certain goals—goals personally meaningful and valuable to you. It doesn’t much matter whether the end of your pursuits is completing a manuscript or a marathon. And your “payoff,” your “high,” revolves around your final achievement. It’s unlikely that you consider the actual doing—the specific activities engaged in to reach that goal—as particularly notable or sustaining. Yet if you’re to live life to the utmost—which is to say, live it mindfully—it’s essential that, independent of your aim, you fully immerse yourself in the moment-to-moment progression toward this aim.In a sense, this piece complements an earlier four-part post I wrote entitled “The Purpose of Purposelessness” (see parts 1, 2, 3, & 4), in which I advocated approaching life more playfully—without, that is, constantly focusing on the practical utility of your behavior. For if all your actions are goal-oriented, life becomes pretty much a “business”: more work than play. And it’s questionable whether living in such a purposeful, “directed” manner ultimately yields as much happiness, well-being, or peace of mind as might otherwise be attainable.

Your Sixth Sense

Perhaps you've lived this moment before. Perhaps you're seeing yourself at a distance, as never before. Anomalous experiences are real and life-changing. That doesn't mean they occur outside your own head.

By Matthew Hutson, published on July 03, 2012 - last reviewed on August 29, 2012