had been a wonderful day. Now he was going for his usual 4-mile walk. What made today special was his grown children had come home. They hadn’t all been together in six months. And there was even a new member of the family: his first grandchild. Three months old and adorable. He mused about how wonderful it all was… And that’s when the car hit him. He was thrown 14 feet and landed in a ditch. He was going…
e fact that they fell in love was, on the surface, ridiculous. She was a leading researcher on love. He was the leading researcher on loneliness. And yet it happened. Ironic? Poetic? Probably both. Steph was at a boring academic lecture. The guy next to her whispered in her ear: “If I start snoring, punch me.” She giggled. The man seated to her other side was already dozing. Steph whispered back: “He’s snoring. Do you want me to punch him,…
e old maxim says that with others you should just “be yourself.” But is that really true? In researching my new book, Plays Well With Others, I went down the rabbit hole to see whether it’s accurate -- and also what we can do to be our best selves. (Never be ashamed of who you are... that's your parents' job.) In the excerpt below we’re going to learn a dead simple way to become more of the person you want to…
ere’s a lot of pseudoscience out there offering fake answers on how to be healthier and happier. They’re like cubic zirconia; they only look real -- and typically have a Magic 8-Ball level of scientific effectiveness. On this blog I typically attack those things with Occam’s Razor – heck, I use all of Occam’s toilet kit. (I firmly believe the only time crystals heal you is when you’re sodium deficient.) But in researching my new book, Plays Well With Others,…
We always hear one thing about stress: it’s bad. I haven’t checked recently but I think that’s in the Constitution. Fortunately, stress is not that simple. Researchers asked 30,000 adults how much stress they felt in the past year – and whether or not they thought stress was a negative. Eight…
There’s a study you may have heard about. Researchers showed subjects videos of Olympic athletes standing on the podium being awarded their medals. The subjects didn’t see the actual competition, and they didn’t know who got gold, silver or bronze. They just saw the athletes’ faces -- and had to evaluate…
We all have social situations where we consistently stumble. At certain times, or in certain contexts, often while under stress -- we blow it. And we just don’t know why. We lash out, cling, blame, or withdraw and it hurts our relationships. We try to be better… but then it happens…
"Third year of the pandemic" used to be a phrase reserved for science fiction novels. Maddeningly, COVID may be going from historical “event” to “era.” I don’t blame you if your optimism has stretch marks and you’re feeling phantom pain where your hope used to be. We’re all wishing life would…
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