How to make your own luck
When we say that someone is lucky, we tend to think that their success or failure is brought by chance rather than through their personal actions, but luck is actually more psychological than it is anything else. It’s related to how we view the world, our personality and how our brain is wired.
Daylight Saving and Sleep Awareness
This coming week, following the start of Daylight Saving Time, more than any other in the year, highlights how dangerous it is to lose sleep.
Does Luck Exist?
The exploration of the science of luck takes us on a journey from leprechaun socks to the neuroscience of pleasure. Is it possible to make our own luck?
Isolating While Sick
When you’re sick, you feel terrible and you really don’t want to interact with anyone. But you have obligations to work, school, family, community, and so on. You’re supposed to be places and do things, but you just don’t feel up to it. Why do you feel bad when you’re sick, why do you want to isolate, and how do you navigate those important decisions to do the right things when feeling ill?
Insomnia
While many people acknowledge a bit of missed sleep or tiredness, few realize how much sleep they are missing and how big a problem it may be. Insomnia may be affecting every part of your life, whether or not you know it.
Dark Chocolate Health Benefits
Between National Dark Chocolate Day and the Valentine candy displays, the temptation is real. Let’s indulge in a bit of science about the health benefits of chocolate, and then wrap up with a few thoughts on how to manage those chocolate cravings in a healthy way!
Stress Eating Science
Stress happens. Eating may be a coping mechanism you use regularly. But it can get in the way of your overall health and wellness goals. Why do we overeat, and make unhealthy choices, when stressed? How do we overcome this biological tendance?
How to sleep better: 5 unexpected tips
Sleep is critical to managing our stress and improving our daily lives. But getting more and better sleep can seem impossible. After years of teaching and researching sleep (and fighting my own battles with insomnia!), I’m sharing five unusual tips to improve your sleep.
The Ultimate Sleep Challenge
I love trying new things, experimenting, and I find the challenges to be a fun way to get me excited about new approaches. I know that these things are essentially “tricks” to get me to change my behavior. But frankly, I’m ok with that. I want to trick myself into doing the new behaviors. So how do we use neuroscience to sleep better? I present to you… a challenge.
Sleep as stress relief
While it’s not an active stress management strategy, sleep can actually be good for stress relief. After all, a lack of sleep leads to many stressful situations in the first place. Here we explore a bit of neuroscience behind how sleep deprivation results in increased stress.
Loneliness and the Stress of Being Alone
Winter is a time of increased social isolation and loneliness. Travel barriers from weather and illness increase our isolation this season. And even those of us who typically enjoy being alone feel the absence of others more acutely after the intense social connections of the holiday season. Why is isolation a stressor for us? What is loneliness?
Yoga for Stress Reduction- A Scientific Analysis
Thinking about stress management as part of your New Year’s resolutions? Curious about whether yoga might be for you? Yoga is fantastic for your mind and body, and there’s some great research that backs it up.