Recently while sitting in a physician’s waiting room, I picked up an issue of Newsweek magazine. The cover story was an article written by Sharon Begley about the things we can do to make our brains work better. The article covered the gamut of subjects like what vitamins, foods, drugs and mental exercises might possibly…
In 1921, Lewis Terman, a psychologist at Stanford University began a long-term study of 1,528 twelve year old American children. The goal of this project was to study their lives and habits until they died. Recently, Howard Friedman, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California Riverside and Leslie Martin, Professor of Psychology…
I grew up in an environment where daydreaming was considered loafing or a waste of time. The prevailing logic was simple: If you were daydreaming, you weren’t working. Recently, while reading Brian Clark’s blog on the web site Lateral Action, I found out that there is sound scientific evidence connecting daydreaming with creativity—people who daydream…
The pursuit of happiness is still alive and well according to an article written by Tammy Brodesser-Akner that appeared in a recent issue of Spirit Magazine. As it turns out, the benefits of happiness are well worth the pursuit. According to the article, there are at least 225 studies which tell us that once you…
Jen Weigel of the Chicago Tribune recently wrote an article about John Kralik, a Los Angeles attorney whose life was in the pits. His law firm was not doing well, he was going through a divorce, living and a cramped apartment and didn’t know how he was going to pay his staff. On January 1,…
A recent study at Brigham Young University, which was reported in journal PLoS Medicine, found that our personal relationships are among the “short list” of factors that predict our odds of living or dying. The study authored by BYU professors Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Timothy Smith found that “…social connections—friends, family, neighbors or colleagues—improve our odds…
More than 150 years ago, Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness….Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” If we spend all our life in the same place doing the same things with the same…
Jessica Guynn of the Los Angeles Times recently wrote a story about Marissa Mayer who, at age 35, is the youngest person to sit on Google’s operating committee and is also Google’s champion of innovation and design. When asked about her career philosophy, Ms. Mayer mentioned two things: Surround yourself…”with the smartest people who challenge…
In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Melinda Beck referred to a growing body of research which shows that feeling grateful for the good things that happened to us can improve our psychological, emotional and physical health. According to Ms. Beck, “Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social…
With all the good will that gets passed around during the holiday season, it’s the perfect time to repair any strained relationships you might have in your life. People are generally in a great mood, which makes them far more open to forgiving and accepting forgiveness. So, if you have any strained relationships, now is…