What do you need to do to live a long life?
all know that we're supposed to eat healthy and exercise. I'm not going to bang that drum any harder. And, yes, genetics may be the key to living past 100. But there are also a lot of myths out there. Being religious and being married don't extend your life. Worrying does not shorten it. What can we do to live a long life? Research is showing that our relationships matter more than we ever guessed. In fact, they might…
3 minutes
These Are The Top Six Books That Will Make You More Creative
you read What are the four principles that will lead you to breakthrough creativity? and want more information, look no further. Six of the best sources I came across are below, with links and descriptions: 1) Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention Drawing on 100 interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists to politicians and business leaders, poets and artists, as well as his 30 years of research on the subject, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous theory…
3 minutes
What are the best books about happiness?
you read Here are the things that are proven to make you happier and want more information, look no further. Five of the best sources I came across are below, with links and descriptions: Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth "Utilizing sophisticated methodology and three decades of research by the world's leading expert on happiness, Happiness challenges the present thinking of the causes and consequences of happiness and redefines our modern notions of happiness. Winner of the…
2 minutes
What are the two steps for beating procrastination right *now*?
bsp; Get the silly ideas out of your head: No, you won't do better work by procrastinating. And you will not have more time next week. In fact, leaving things unfinished makes you stupid. Reviewing the research on procrastination, there are two successful strategies that stand out: Dashes Commitment Devices What are those and how can you use them to get stuff done on time? Dashes "...a dash, which is simply a short burst of focused activity during which you…
4 minutes
What does it take to become an expert at anything?
t's round up the research so we can get to key actionable elements. In 95% of cases natural talent does not determine who will be an expert at something. So what does it take to become the best? 10,000 Hours Of Deliberate Practice It's quantity and quality. You need tons of time spent training but it has to be the right kind of practice. Just showing up is not enough, you need to continually challenge yourself with the right…
3 minutes
Does wanting a baby make a woman more likely to orgasm?
s. Other interesting study results about the female orgasm below. Via Jesse Bering's excellent book, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human: Clue #1: Twin-based evidence shows that orgasm frequency has a modest heritable component. Uncomfortable as it may be to think of your flush-faced grandmother moaning in ecstasy, there is a clear genetic contribution to female orgasm. Hereditary factors account for only a third of the population-level variance in female orgasm, however. Clue…
2 minutes
Underneath it all, do atheists believe things happen for a reason?
bsp; The difference between how often atheists and religious people ascribed an inherent reason to major life events was "statistically negligible." Via Jesse Bering's excellent The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life: In her unpublished doctoral dissertation, one of my PhD students, Bethany Heywood, found similar evidence of atheists’ covert believing tendencies when they were asked to think about the major turning points in their own lives. Throughout 2009, Heywood conducted a series of…
2 minutes
How has news changed over the past 300 years?
bsp; It hasn't. Via Jesse Bering's excellent The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life: In one clever archival study in a 2003 issue of Evolution and Human Behavior, University of Guelph psychologists Hank Davis and Lyndsay McLeod sampled a random selection of news stories from eight different cultures over the past three hundred years. What they discovered was that the “essence” of sensational news— what made something particularly alluring to a human readership— was…
1 min read
