Research Backs Happiness as a Process
While books on happiness abound, very little research has been done on how people become happier. In fact, many researchers have considered that quest to be futile. But recent long-term studies have revealed that the happiness thermostat is more malleable than the popular theory maintained. One easy way that sounds almost trite but has actually been shown to work? Every night, think of three good ... posted on Dec 22 2006, 2,946 reads

The Challenges of Everyday Ethics
From our friendships to our jobs to our conduct in public, seemingly small decisions often pose tough ethical dilemmas, says Joshua Halberstam, author of "Everyday Ethics: Inspired Solutions to Moral Dilemmas". In his words, "While the usual moral evaluations of societies tend to focus on such broad issues as crime, economic equity, and foreign policy, just as important to consider is the moral he... posted on Dec 20 2006, 2,710 reads

Wired To Be Inspired
Most theories in social sciences say that people's actions and feelings are motivated by self-interest. So here's a puzzle: why do we care when a stranger does a good deed for another stranger? Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been pondering this question for years. Haidt uses the phrase "elevation" to describe the warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see unexpected acts of huma... posted on Dec 14 2006, 2,516 reads

Scientifically Shown Benefits of Touch
When neuroscientist Jim Coan scanned the brains of married women in pain, he spotted changes that may help to shed light on an age-old mystery. As soon as the women touched the hands of their husbands, there was an instant drop in activity in the areas of the brains involved in fear, danger, and threat. Touch, a key component of traditional healing, is being increasingly studied in mainstream medi... posted on Dec 05 2006, 2,096 reads

Scientific Foray into Consciousness
It wasn't that long ago that the study of consciousness was considered to be too abstract, too subjective or too difficult to study scientifically. But in recent years, it has emerged as one of the hottest new fields in biology, similar to string theory in physics or the search for extraterrestrial life in astronomy. No longer the sole purview of philosophers and mystics, consciousness is now attr... posted on Nov 26 2006, 1,729 reads

Linking Relationships and Physical Health
Research on the link between relationships and physical health has established that people with close interpersonal relationships recover more quickly from disease and live longer. And now the emerging field of social neuroscience, the study of how people’s brains entrain as they interact, adds a missing piece to that data. The most significant finding has been that of "mirror neurons," brain ce... posted on Nov 20 2006, 2,106 reads

Stumbling On Happiness
Dan Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard, and author of Stumbling on Happiness. In his book, Gilbert skillfully and humorously explores the challenges we humans have in understanding what will make us happy. Gilbert maintains that in trying to imagine the future we make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagi... posted on Nov 13 2006, 3,357 reads

Healing Through Acceptance of Pain
When he was 29, Steven Hayes had the first of a series of panic attacks. Today, at 57, he hasn't had a panic attack in a decade, and is a well-known psychologist and author of 27 books. "Get Out of Your Mind & Into Your Life", is his most recent work. Its first sentence is: "People suffer." But in a radical departure from traditional cognitive therapy, Hayes and other top researchers are focusing ... posted on Nov 07 2006, 3,618 reads

The Health Benefits of Faith
In a study comparing the associations between faith and health, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center physician has shown the improvements in life expectancy of those who attend religious services on a weekly basis to be comparable to those who participate in regular physical exercise! Dr. Daniel Hall compared the impact of regular exercise, statin therapy and religious attendance, and showed ... posted on Oct 30 2006, 2,404 reads

The Effect of Food on the Brain
Recent studies at the National Institute of Health (USA) are yielding astounding results about the effects of Omega-3 fatty acid supplements on the brain. Another study at Aylesbury Jail (UK) showed that when young men were fed multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, the number of violent offences they committed in the prison fell by 37%. Although no one is suggesting that poor diet alo... posted on Oct 26 2006, 2,356 reads