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Your Brain on Spiritual Experiences
We live in a time that seems increasingly close-minded and divisive—a world coming apart. However, if you look at religion (one of the most outwardly divisive forces of all) from inside the brain, the results can help you see the world from a very different perspective. A recent brain-imaging study…
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When the Person You’re Competing with is Your Friend
Research generally shows that having friends at work can increase productivity and engagement. However, a recent study by Wharton researchers Julianna Pillemer and Nancy Rothbard finds that there can be a dark side to having friends at work, especially if what’s best for the friendship conflicts with what’s best for…
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What to Do if You Have Work Addiction
Do you find yourself compulsively trying to achieve and be productive? You hardly finished one task before your mind is on to the next one. You work hard to clear things off your to-do list, and then immediately fill it up again. You might be working on a presentation or…
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Is Mindfulness Worth It?
A British author friend, Ruth Whipmann, author of America the Anxious, was shocked by something when she moved the US: everyone was so busy going to their mindfulness class and yoga class that they didn’t have time to spend with her — nor with their kids or their family. The…
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How to Say No Like a Boss
We have all said yes when we knew better, and mostly the impact is as meaningless as eating an hors d’oeuvre just to be polite. But sometimes the impact is life-changing: saying yes to a marriage, a job, or a home that doesn’t feel right. Eventually, those mistakes become glaringly…
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4 Foolproof Ways to Stay Intensely Focused
As children, we were one with each moment — crying one moment, laughing the next — always intensely present and going along with the flow. As a result, we had an abundance of energy and enthusiasm. As adults, we stand amazed before the energy of children and attribute it to…
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5 No-Nonsense Steps to Conquering Information Overload
A 2009 study found that the average American consumes 34 gigabytes of content and 100,000 words of information every day, certainly more than our ancestors ever handled—the iPhone had barely been out for 1 year, who knows how much information we take in today. We swim in an increasingly turbulent…
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Here’s What I Learned When I Gave Birth Without Meds, Twice
My first experience giving birth without meds was crazy. I cried, I swore, I yelled, I called for my mom. The second time, thanks to a hypnosis training, I went into a deep relaxation between contractions. To the point that my midwife thought I was sleeping and decided to take…
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Why Some People Always Look so Darn Young and How They Do It
I often hear 50-year-olds saying, “I’m getting old” and see some of them practically hobbling along, as if in time to their own script. But then I know 70-year-olds who say, “I keep forgetting I’m not 16!”—like my mom, who bikes around a big city for miles, takes adult professional…
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What I Learned When I Nearly Died, and the Science Behind It
My junior year of college a friend and I were driving back from a ski trip during a Vermont snowstorm when I shifted gears and lost control. We swerved across several highway lanes into a ditch, flipped, and rolled three times before landing upside down. Somehow, despite the airbags not…
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