In case you missed in, here’s Daphne Merkin on the pitfalls of entertaining in therapy–Making My Therapist Laugh (NYT): One of the odder things about therapy, I’ve discovered, is that it comes with little in the way of a code of conduct as opposed to other situations you find yourself in…There is no one, in short, […]
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New studies continue to show that exercise is good for your brain. From the NYT: Until about 20 years ago, most scientists believed that the brain’s structure was fixed by adulthood, that you couldn’t create new brain cells, alter the shape of those that existed or in any other way change your mind physically after
Cheering news for lit snobs via the NYT. Empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence get a boost from reading–certain reading: [A] series of five experiments conducted by social psychologists at The New School for Social Research in New York City, people who read excerpts from literary fiction (Don DeLillo, Alice Munro, Wendell Berry) scored better
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Interesting study, by Dr. Carl Hart, written up in the New York Times: At the start of each day, as researchers watched behind a one-way mirror, a nurse would place a certain amount of crack in a pipe — the dose varied daily — and light it. While smoking, the participant was blindfolded so he couldn’t
Research says nostalgia is good for you (NYT). One study: First, the experimenters induced nostalgia by playing hit songs from the past for some people and letting them read lyrics to their favorite songs. Afterward, these people were more likely than a control group to say that they felt “loved” and that “life is worth living.” Then
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A survey of the latest in sleep science (and sleep science books) by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker. This is from The Slumbering Masses, by Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer: “Americans, like other people around the world, used to sleep in an unconsolidated fashion, that is, in two or more periods throughout the day.” They went to bed not long after the
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How expectations shape experience explored at book length in Mind Over Mind–and at interview length here (Scientific American): [P]lacebo effects in medicine are just one example of how our expectations can bend reality. For instance, brain scans reveal that expectations about a wine’s quality (based on price or a critic’s review) actually change the level of activity
In the New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert surveys a crop of “unparenting” books that take aim at parental overproviding and overprotecting: Madeline Levine, a psychologist who lives outside San Francisco, specializes in treating young adults. In “Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success” (HarperCollins), she argues that we do too much for our kids because we overestimate
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A self-help book for the self-help averse from Augusten Burroughs. Here’s a chunk, excerpted at TNB Nonfiction: Canadian researchers found those with low self-esteem actually felt worse after repeating positive statements about themselves. They said phrases such as “I am a lovable person” only helped people with high self-esteem. The study appears in the journal Psychological
Power of Habit author Charles Duhigg weighs in on Bloggingheads:
Procrastination and Other Habits Read More »