The Joy of Less
"I left my comfortable job and life to live for a year in a temple on the backstreets of Kyoto. My high-minded year lasted all of a week, by which time I'd noticed that the depthless contemplation of the moon and composition of haiku I'd imagined from afar was really more a matter of cleaning, sweeping and then cleaning some more. But today, more than 21 years later, I still live in the vicinity o... posted on Jun 13 2009, 3,519 reads

A Whole New Mind
"The scales are tipping away from what it used to take for people to get ahead -- logical, linear, left-brain, and spreadsheet-type abilities -- in favor of abilities like artistry, empathy, and big-picture thinking, which are becoming more valuable. Left-brain skills are still absolutely necessary in our complex world. They're just not sufficient anymore." In this fascinating interview, author Da... posted on May 26 2009, 5,314 reads

How Much Sleep Do We Need?
"An amazing paradox exists in our educational system. We have learned that the consequences of pervasive sleep deprivation and undiagnosed sleep disorders are collectively one of our nation's biggest and most serious problems. Falling asleep at the wheel and in other hazardous situations is a leading cause of death and disability. [...] The paradox is that our society remains a vast reservoir of i... posted on May 21 2009, 8,533 reads

The Altruism of Children
This may hard to believe for those of you who have to bribe kids to do chores, but the latest scientific research indicates that children are born altruistic. Psychology researcher Felix Warneken, at Germany's Max Planck Institute, performed a series of ordinary chores in front of 18 month old toddlers like Using clothespins to hang up a towel or arranging books. Sometimes he "struggled" with the ... posted on May 07 2009, 3,886 reads

Leading A Happier Life
As a motivational speaker and executive coach, Caroline Adams Miller knows a few things about using mental exercises to achieve goals. But last year, one exercise she was asked to try took her by surprise. Every night, she was to think of three good things that happened that day and analyze why they occurred. That was supposed to increase her overall happiness. "I thought it was too simple to be e... posted on May 05 2009, 8,769 reads

How To Lead A Focused Life
With so many things now demanding our attention -- emails, Web sites, BlackBerry alerts, incoming text messages, Twitter tweets, Facebook updates, blogs, stock updates, and old-fashioned meetings and phone calls -- increasing numbers of us multitaskers are plagued by bad habits and technology overload, darting from one mental activity to the next. In her new book "Rapt", Winifred Gallagher concen... posted on Apr 30 2009, 9,314 reads

The Yoga Supergran
Yoga instructor Bette Calman may be 83, but she's still bending over backwards to spread the benefits of the ancient Indian discipline.The nimble grandmother can really pull some shapes and with her set hair and pearl earrings she looks as glamorous as Greta Garbo in a pink jumpsuit. With 40 years of teaching under her belt, the Australian wonder is living proof that a lifetime's dedication to yog... posted on Apr 28 2009, 24,696 reads

The Faces of Others
Dr. Yehonatan N. Turner was accepted to both film school and medical school. He was eventually drawn to radiology as the most visual field in medicine; when he began his residency in radiology, he was frustrated that the CT scans he analyzed revealed nothing about the patients behind them -- only their internal organs. So to make things personal, he imagined each patient was his father. But then h... posted on Apr 10 2009, 2,939 reads

How We Decide
"Over time, our rationality came to define us. It was, simply put, what made us human. There's only one problem with this assumption of human rationality: it's wrong." With this opening salvo, Jonah Lehrer dives into ever-expanding evidence underscoring the limits of reason. In his recent book, "How We Decide," Lehrer presents an excellent synthesis of how many leading mind scientists view decisio... posted on Mar 30 2009, 3,445 reads

Effects of Gratitude on the Body
Researchers have found that when we think about someone or something we really appreciate and experience the feeling that goes with the thought, the parasympathetic -- calming-branch of the autonomic nervous system -- is triggered. This pattern when repeated bestows a protective effect on the heart. The electromagnetic heart patterns of volunteers tested become more coherent and ordered when they ... posted on Mar 23 2009, 10,000 reads