Slate asks, Is Facebook Making Us Sad? Facebook is, after all, characterized by the very public curation of one’s assets in the form of friends, photos, biographical data, accomplishments, pithy observations, even the books we say we like. Look, we have baked beautiful cookies. We are playing with a new puppy. We are smiling in […]
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How Meditation May Change the Brain (NYT): [S]cientists say that meditators…may be benefiting from changes in their brains. The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress.
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Good deals dept.–relayed by Lynn McFarr of the CBT Society of Southern California: Free marital therapy for couples over the age of 55 Hello all, We are providing free marital therapy for adults over the age of 55 as part of a research study at UCLA. Couples will receive up to 16 sessions of IBCT,
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Positive Vibes Really Do Protect Health (PsychCentral): An evidence-based review of published literature finds support for the premise that feeling good may be good for your health…“We all age. It is how we age, however, that determines the quality of our lives,” said Anthony Ong, Ph.D., of Cornell University, author of the review article. The
Helpful tips from Beth S. Patterson (GoodTherapy.org): I often suggest journal writing to my clients who are grieving the death of a loved one or dealing with a difficult life change as a useful way to deal with and befriend the intense emotions that often accompany these experiences. Some say, “oh, I’m not a good
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The question by the Edge Foundation: “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?” 163 answers are here. Here’s a sampling: – “Cognitive load” from Nicholas Carr: a limitation in how much information entering our consciousness we can process at any instant; – “The Pareto principle” from Clay Shirky: a reminder that the richest or busiest or
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David Brooks pays tribute to brain science in a big New Yorker piece. Help comes from the strangest places. We are living in the middle of a revolution in consciousness. Over the past few decades, geneticists, neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and others have made great strides in understanding the inner working of the human mind. Far
Latest by writing neuologist, Oliver Sacks is excerpted here, read from/discussed live here. A handful of Sacks’ New Yorker pieces are available in-full here. The excerpt begins like this: Dear Dr. Sacks, My (very unusual) problem, in one sentence, and in non-medical terms, is: I can’t read. I can’t read music, or anything else. In the
On Road to Recovery, Past Adversity Provides a Map (NYT) New research suggests that resilience may have at least as much to do with how often people have faced adversity in past as it does with who they are — their personality, their genes, for example — or what they’re facing now. That is, the