The One Essential Ingredient for Happiness and Well-Being

"Manifesting" is a powerful trend in the world of self-help that belongs to a much older tradition of "mind cure" writings. Manifesting massively overestimates our agency and ability to control the external world, advocating magical thinking. It also ignores socioeconomic and psychological reality and may leave people feeling ashamed and...

The impacts of narcissistic parenting can be unique to the individual who lives through it. An adult child of a narcissist may believe their worthiness depends on how they act and what they do, not on who they are. Learning what healthy boundaries are and how to set them with...

When our caring is overstretched, we can’t be part of the solution. We need an effective way to nurture our own vitality. Being present can help you change your approach to over-caring and stay energized. There is a common misconception in our society that martyrdom is heroic and to...

Gardening has a positive effect on well-being, and the results seem to be enhanced when the gardening is communal. Gardening may also be a therapeutic intervention for disorders such as cognitive impairment. Repetitive tasks like watering and weeding may help prevent people from focusing on their problems or sources of...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is considered the fourth most common mental illness in many Western countries. Patients or medics regularly fail to recognise the disorder's symptoms, especially in its very early stages. Individuals with OCD may often realise that their thinking and behaviour are not logical, but they still may find it...

Walking at a brisk pace for just 75 minutes every week could cut your risk of depression, a new study finds. The World Health Organization recommends everyone should exercise for at least two-and-a-half hours every seven days. But researchers at Cambridge University, England, found adults who got half as much...

Tragic events like wars, famines, earthquakes, and accidents create fearful memories in our brain. These memories continue to haunt us even after the actual event has passed. Luckily, researchers from Tokyo University of Science (TUS) have recently been able to understand the hidden biochemical mechanisms involved in the selective suppression of fearful memories, which is called fear extinction. The researchers, who had previously demonstrated fear extinction in mice using the chemically synthesized compound "KNT-127," have now identified the underlying mechanism of this compound's action. Their findings have been published recently in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Taking care of our dead in the home is a longstanding tradition in many parts of the world. When a baby dies, parents can benefit enormously from taking their baby home until burial or cremation. It is legally permitted to care for our dead loved ones at home until disposition;...

Self-actualization is not a one-time event, but goes on throughout life as one is faced with opportunities. Intention, intuition, and action are all required to move toward an actualized life, and that process is not linear. While navigating toward actualizing an intention, one needs to continuously do a gut check.

Technologies can worsen your work motivation. Psychology expertise should be used when designing and implementing technologies in work environments. Motivation that stems from meaning and enjoyment will be increasingly important in the future of work. Have you ever conducted a job interview through video?. Do you work remotely and mostly...

Antone Martinho-Truswell's analysis of birds' behaviors shows that, in many ways, a human is "the bird without feathers." Four key traits that are essential to what it is to be human are shared with parrots and other birds. When a species, even one totally different from us, falls into one...

Source: Cover of book reviewed here, authors (photo by Rob Ewing), and authors' children (photo by Doug Kenrick), all used with permission. If a family from a traditional hunter-gatherer society were transported into the modern urban world, they would think they’d landed in paradise: Self-driving cars, hand-held electronic devices that can prevent you from getting lost and even direct you to a nearby supermarket stocked with colorful, fresh blueberries, strawberries, and bananas, homes with air conditioning and plush mattresses, and refrigerators to store all that produce from the supermarket. Wow. Not to mention the ability to call in an order of fresh-baked pizza and some double-chocolate-fudge ice cream for dessert.

A study used machine learning to compare social, health, functional, and cognitive variables as risk or protective factors for depression. The strongest risk factors were self-reported social isolation and poor health. It may be valuable to screen for depression among older adults with those two risk factors. Depression is a...

Don’t assume that stiffer discipline always results in better behavior. When you have conflict with your child, empathy can help you better understand the situation and provide better discipline. Approaching kids with an empathic mindset can yield better outcomes. Today, I’ve asked Jason A. Okonofua to share his Tip...

Suicide has always been part of the human experience. Although suicide is believed to be a matter of pure choice, social and psychological factors suggest this might not always be the case. Motivations to suicide are typically lost to the ether. Of the eight billion people on our tiny blue...

Jean-Guy Beauvoir is a thirty-something Inspector in the Sûreté du Québec, once married, loyal to his boss Armand Gamache, shot in the line of duty, and addicted to OxyContin. Most importantly, Beauvoir is a fictional character in Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series. His character sounds initially like a cliché: the wounded police officer, heroically refusing therapy, becoming an addict. Except that Penny explores the cliché in a multi-novel story arc, through all her characters' thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and interactions. She creates a seemingly stable character in Beauvoir and then, through novel after novel, unravels him. Through Beauvoir, I enter the mind of an arrogant, paranoid, traumatized addict with a severe case of literal self-centeredness, beloved by Gamache.

Middle-aged women (age 40-55) have been found to be at higher risk for depression. Part of it stems from the natural hormonal alterations of perimenopause and menopause. However, it tends to be about more than just hormone changes: Midlife can be a time marked with greater losses, like empty-nest syndrome, ailing and/or deceased parents, career changes, and a loss of former friendships, marital and love partnerships. Additionally, women in midlife have reported higher rates of pain and physical ailments.

The notion of student burnout in higher education may be overblown. Accommodations and flexibility are critical to offering students support during the pandemic. College students are resilient and developing the skills to thrive and adapt during these challenging times. In a recent New York Times opinion piece aptly titled, “My...

The urgency of a crisis presents opportunities to think differently, breaking down structural, financial, and psychological barriers. Remarkable epidemiological insights can be gained from the genetic codes of pathogens as they mutate. Worldwide partnerships to expand genetic analyses of patient and wastewater samples must be a high priority. Americans have...

Almost 60 percent of children and adolescents, and nearly 40 percent of young adults ages 18 to 24, play sports. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 35. Talking about mental health reduces stigma and increases help-seeking behavior. There is no better time than Mental...