Why So Many Americans Are Turning To Buddhism
There are now dozens of Buddhist podcasts, among many more apps and playlists geared specifically toward personal, non-Buddhist meditation. Four in 10 American adults now say they meditate at least weekly. The ancient Eastern religion is helping Westerners with very modern mental-health problems.

The Unexpected Benefits Of Being Weird
I went in search of outsiders who were thriving in communities where acceptance is hard to come by. It turns out, we might all learn from their approach to life.

The Great Fitness Scam
A new report found that Americans spent $264.6 billion dollars on physical activity in 2018, far more than any other nation. And yet, according to the academic journal The Lancet, for all of this spending, we rank 143rd globally for actual participation in physical activity.. How do we break the cycle?

Why You Shouldn’t Exercise To Lose Weight, Explained With 60+ Studies
We’ve been taught for years that as long as you hit the gym you can hit the buffet line and still lose weight. But there’s plenty of science out there to prove this statement false.

Inside My Nightmarish Quest For Screen Time Zero
Living a life free from screens. It’s something we all wish we could do, but, thanks to the now-ubiquitous nature of technology, can’t. I spent a week cutting my screen time in half each successive day: eight hours on Monday, four hours on Tuesday, and so on until I had less than 10 minutes on Sunday.

Success Comes From Affirming Your Potential
When people believe in their ability to grow, they make decisions that reflect this conviction, such as investing in their potential, focusing on their unique strengths, and discovering new paths to success and fulfillment that align with their core values and leadership goals.

Why You Spend So Much Money At IKEA
IKEA’s “aesthetic per dollar” ratio is very high, says neuromarketer and author of “The Buying Brain” Dr. A. K. Pradeep. Ikea’s affordable style is its “category-busting-metric,” or what makes it stand out from all the other brands in that space, he says.

Ladies In Waiting
In the most memorable scene of the 2002 film Secretary, nothing happens. For over ten minutes, a period that represents entire days in the movie’s internal timeline, protagonist Lee remains faithfully immobile, wetting herself in the process. Waiting, which renders everything provisional, which suspends progress or conclusion of any kind, is worse than clarity.

How Our Brains Distinguish Reality From Imagination — And What It Means For Schizophrenia
Perception and imagination trigger overlapping brain networks. A new study suggests that the brain distinguishes between them by measuring the strength of a signal within this network. Further understanding this “reality threshold” could have implications for the treatment of schizophrenia.

Extreme Athleticism Is The New Midlife Crisis
Increasingly, people are responding to the anxieties of middle age not by clinging to the last vestiges of expiring youth but to taking on challenges that seem to belong to the young alone: by pushing the limits of what they’re physically capable of through endurance athletics and extreme fitness.

Meet Emma, Your Work Colleague Of The Future
Say hello to Emma, a life-sized representation of how we could look in 20 years’ time if we continue working with poor posture and inadequately set-up workstations. If left unchecked, by 2040, workers’ will be left with permanently bent backs caused by sitting hunched over a desk with poor posture for prolonged periods of time.

Surprising Ways To Beat Anxiety And Become Mentally Strong – According To Science
The way you cope or handle things in life has a direct impact on how much anxiety you experience – tweak the way you’re coping, therefore, and you can lower your anxiety levels. Research shows that if it’s left untreated, anxiety can lead to depression, early death and suicide.

An Effortless Way to Improve Your Memory
New research suggests that we should aim for “minimal interference” during 10-15 minutes breaks – deliberately avoiding any activity that could tamper with the delicate task of memory formation. You really need to give your brain the chance for a complete recharge with no distractions.

Is Sunscreen The New Margarine?
A rogue band of researchers argues that what made the people with high vitamin D levels so healthy was not the vitamin itself. Their vitamin D levels were high because they were getting plenty of exposure to the thing that was really responsible for their good health—that big orange ball shining down from above.

Are Rich People Heartless?
According to Chris Ryan, the author of ‘Civilized to Death: the price of progress’, rich people have the tendency to distance themselves from people because of their wealth differential.

How To Explain Anything To Anyone
You were talking about something relatively complex and you could practically see the moment that your listener checked out. Not only is it uncomfortable but it’s also disheartening when what you’re saying is important, cool or valuable to the listener. Here are 4 steps to clearer communication.

Yoga With Adriene: How The YouTube Star Won Lockdown
Adriene Mishler was already huge before the pandemic – her channel, which has more than 7 million subscribers, is the first to pop up when you search for “yoga” on YouTube – but the lockdown has catapulted her to a new level of fame.

How Eating Alone Is Radically Changing Our Diets
Eating alone has become a defining feature of modern life: the breakfasting commuter; the household members with conflicting schedules; the widower who receives few visitors.

A Psychologist Explains How To Beat Social Anxiety
A nice analogy is that of mood and action. We often think we have to “feel” like doing something before doing it. We think we have to feel like going to the gym before going to work out. But if we lace up our shoes and go to the gym, often our mood catches up, and we’re glad we went. With confidence, it’s the same thing.

The Pitfalls And The Potential Of The New Minimalism
The new literature of minimalism is full of stressful advice. Pack up all your possessions, unpack things only as needed, give away everything that’s still packed after a month. Or wake up early, pick up every item you own, and consider whether or not it sparks joy.

People Born Blind Are Mysteriously Protected From Schizophrenia
It was something Tom Pollak had heard whispers about—an odd factoid, referred to now and again, usually with bewilderment: No person who was born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Over the past 60-some years, scientists around the world have been writing about this mystery.