Lessons from the World's Happiest Man
What is happiness, and how can we achieve it? Matthieu Ricard, declared by University of Wisconsin neuroscientists as the happiest man they have ever tested, says that happiness can't be reduced to a few agreeable sensations. Rather, it is a way of being and of experiencing the world -- a profound fulfillment that suffuses every moment and endures despite inevitable setbacks. Authentic happiness i... posted on Dec 29 2008, 12,765 reads

Eight Strategies for Healing
Illness is an unavoidable part of life, but our bodies want to heal. And we can help them do that, despite the obstacles. Each of us possesses a surprising capacity to bounce back from illness and injury, under the right conditions, and the body will work hard on its own to help the recovery -- even if we do little to help the process along. That said, there are specific steps to help the process... posted on Dec 20 2008, 8,376 reads

The Art of Creativity
Has this ever happened to you? You're out for a jog, completely relaxed, your mind a pleasant blank. Then all of a sudden the solution to a problem you've been mulling over for weeks pops into your head. You can't help but wonder why you didn't think of it before. In such moments you've made contact with the creative spirit, that elusive muse of good -- and sometimes great -- ideas. Yet it is more... posted on Dec 09 2008, 5,478 reads

Why Children Like to Share
Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, the grandfather of modern economic theory, referred to individual self-interest as "the first principle of pure economics." Until recently, economists routinely equated being rational with being selfish. The assumption was that, because humans are biological creatures, we'd been programmed by Darwinian evolution to put our own interests first-survival, after all, is a tou... posted on Dec 05 2008, 3,022 reads

6 Tips for Living in the Moment
We live in the age of distraction. Yet one of life's sharpest paradoxes is that our brightest future hinges on our ability to pay attention to the present. Living in the moment -- also called mindfulness -- is a state of active, open, intentional attention on the present. Mindfulness involves being with your thoughts as they are, neither grasping at them nor pushing them away. Instead of letting y... posted on Dec 02 2008, 15,243 reads

The Community Cure
It always seems to come down to who you know. The people we grew up with, now know, and will grow old with have a huge effect on our well-being and even our risk of future disease. Community is where we assimilate health believes, attitudes and behaviors. Community also encompasses our neighbourhoods and their attendant social factors, such as violent crime, unemployment and access to health-care ... posted on Nov 04 2008, 2,377 reads

The Link Between Memory & Imagination
While most children can easily imagine themselves as astronauts, athletes or superheroes, make-believe might not be so easy for older generations. Recent brain imaging studies have shown that people use the same mechanisms in the brain to imagine as they do to remember, suggesting that older adults may have as much trouble imagining as they do remembering. A new study, detailed in the January issu... posted on Oct 01 2008, 2,824 reads

Longevity Lessons From Around the World
If you are looking for a Fountain of Youth, forget pills and diet supplements. Adventurer Dan Buettner has visited four spots on the globe where people live into their 90s and 100s and outlines how they add years of good life in his new book, "The Blue Zones." Buettner identifies four hot spots of longevity: the mountainous Barbagia region of Sardinia, an island off the coast of Italy; the Japanes... posted on Sep 11 2008, 6,016 reads

Believing You're Right Even When You're Not
"What does it mean to be convinced?" Neurologist-turned-writer Robert Burton explores that question from the standpoint of modern biology which tells us, "despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of "knowing what we know" arise out of primary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of rationali... posted on Sep 09 2008, 4,403 reads

The Science of Boredom
Virtually everyone gets bored once in a while. Most of us chalk it up to a dull environment. "The most common way to define boredom in Western culture is 'having nothing to do'" says psychologist Stephen Vodanovich of the University of West Florida. And indeed, early research into the effects of boredom focused on people forced to perform monotonous tasks, such as working a factory assembly line. ... posted on Aug 30 2008, 3,589 reads