How I Rewired My Brain To Become Fluent In Math
Having a basic, deep-seated fluency in math and science—not just an “understanding,” is critical. The “fluency” part of me that loved literature and language was also the same part of me that ultimately fell in love with math and science—and transformed and enriched my life.
The Healing Power Of Nature
River guides might know that nature is transformative for the human body and psyche; but the mechanism behind such profound change is less universally agreed upon and understood. The idea that immersing yourself in forests and nature has a healing effect is far more than just folk wisdom.
The Promise And Peril Of Space Tourism
The Overview Effect is a phenomenon chronicled by astronauts to describe a sudden sense of awe or divine recognition that they feel when they depart from the planet and then turn and look back at it. A space tourism industry is being built on the proposition of personal and existential transformation. But at what cost?
The Surprising Psychology Of Dieting And Plate Design
You’ve probably heard the idea that using smaller plates and bowls can affect your perception of how much you’re eating, thereby helping you eat less. But how well does it work? A new study sheds light on that popular theory, finding that if you’re really hungry, it doesn’t work.
How Tiny Changes In Words You Hear Impact Your Thinking
In a fascinating look at language, Professor George Lakoff lays out how political parties can sway supporters with tiny tweaks in word choice. When trying to get your point across, refrain from using the other side’s language. Doing so will activate and strengthen their frames and undermine your own views.
What Happened To American Childhood?
The percentage of 12-to-17-year-olds who had experienced a major depressive episode in the previous year shot up from 8 percent to 13 percent. Among girls, the rate was even higher; in 2017, one in five reported experiencing major depression. Here’s what we can do about it.
Hack Your Dreams: MIT Built A Wearable Glove To Encourage Lucid Dreaming
A team of scientists at MIT is building devices meant to monitor people’s sleep and influence their dreams. One device, called Dormio, is an “interactive social robot” designed to detect when the user is falling asleep and affect their dreams with audio cues.
A Banana Grown At Subzero Temps Also Has An Edible Peel
A Japanese farm introduced a new crop this winter: an organic banana with a peel that’s thin enough to eat. In a nod to this appealing outer covering, Setsuzo Tanaka, the banana’s inventor, has named his creation the Mongee (“mon-gay”) banana — which means “incredible banana” in Japanese.
The Link Between Self Compassion And Peak Performance
Research shows that individuals who react to failure with self-compassion get back on the bandwagon much more swiftly than those who judge themselves. That’s because if you judge yourself for messing up, you’re liable to feel guilt or shame, and it is often this very guilt or shame that drives more of the undesired behavior.
The Berwyn Incident
They made an improbable duo of UFO hunters— a plump Miss Marple and a gun-toting gamekeeper. The true story of their long-odds mission to solve the “Roswell of Wales” in Llandrillo, a small village built around a broad stream at the base of the Berwyn Mountains in North Wales.
Defeated Chess Champ Garry Kasparov Has Made Peace With AI
For almost two decades after becoming world champion in 1985, Garry Kasparov dominated the game with a ferocious style of play and an equally ferocious swagger. In 1997, at the height of his powers, Kasparov was crushed and cowed by an IBM supercomputer called Deep Blue.
How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation
We’re spoiled, entitled, lazy, and failures at what’s come to be known as “adulting,” a word invented by millennials as a catchall for the tasks of self-sufficient existence. I couldn’t figure out why small, straightforward tasks on my to-do list felt so impossible. The answer is both more complex and far simpler than I expected.
The Soul-Expanding Value Of Difficulty
You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any agitation, any pain, any melancholy, since you really do not know what these states are working upon you?
How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger
Back in the 1960s, a Harvard graduate student made a landmark discovery about the nature of human anger. There were no roads, no heating systems, no grocery stores. Winter temperatures could easily dip below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Briggs persuaded an Inuit family to “adopt” her and “try to keep her alive.”
The Psychology Of Time And How The Interplay Of Spontaneity And Self-control Mediates Our Capacity For Presence
Presence means becoming aware of a physical and psychic self that is temporally extended. To be self-conscious is to recognize oneself as something that persists through time and is embodied.
The Healing Power of Gardens
Oliver Sacks on the Psychological and Physiological Consolations of Nature: “In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.”
The Strongest Predictor Of Men’s Well-Being Isn’t Family Or Health
The strongest predictor of men’s happiness and well-being is their job satisfaction, by a large margin—and the strongest predictor of job satisfaction is whether men feel they are making an impact on their companies’ success.
Hunger Is Psychological — And Dieting Only Makes It Worse
We all feel hungry before dinner and full after a banquet, but those moments are the tip of the iceberg. Hunger is a process that’s always present, always running in the background, only occasionally rising into consciousness. It’s more like a mood.
The Age Of Envy: How To Be Happy When Everyone Else’s Life Looks Perfect
We live in the age of envy. Career envy, kitchen envy, children envy, food envy, upper arm envy, holiday envy. You name it, there’s an envy for it. Social media has created a world in which everyone seems ecstatic – apart from us. Is there any way for people to curb their resentment?
Grieving With Google Street View
One Twitter user recently posted that her family never got to say goodbye to her grandpa when he died a few years ago, but when she visited her grandpa’s farm through Street View, there he was, sitting at the end of the road. Thousands of people responded with their own Google Street View stories.
When Gravity Breaks Down
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity is more than a hundred years old, but still it gives physicists headaches. Not only are Einstein’s equations hideously difficult to solve, they also clash with physicists’ other most-cherished achievement, quantum theory.