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How Spring Opens the Mind
The Atlantic: This time of year brings out humanity’s loosey-goosey side. For Easter, Czech people douse each other in cold water as part of an ancient fertility ritual. South Asians pelt each other with colored powered as a celebration of the triumph of good over evil. Washingtonians gawk at pink trees and listen to jazz while sitting on the grass in their pinstripes. This kind of thing can be cathartic after a winter's worth of suffering, but there's evidence that it might be good for you, too. We’ve long known that cold weather can dampen spirits.
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Longevity and Purpose, Starting Now
I have several close friends who are contemplating retirement, and a few have been teetering on that decision for a while. They are not hesitating over financial worries, but more over quality of life issues. They want to be sure that the next stage of life is at least as rich and purposeful as their working years have been. They want their days to be full. Who doesn’t? But there are other reasons for planning a meaningful retirement, most notably the health benefits. Our later years bring added health risks, but accumulating evidence shows that older people with goals and a clear sense of purpose live longer. But why focus on just the old?
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Ways to Say ‘No’ More Effectively
The Wall Street Journal: Lesley Ronson Brown knew the woman on the phone asking her to serve on the board of a nonprofit was making a good point, detailing how the group would benefit from her leadership skills. Ms. Brown politely explained that she was busy with other volunteer activities and wanted to spend more time with her family. The woman kept pleading. So Ms. Brown did the only thing she could think to do: She climbed up on the chair in her office—to feel bigger and more powerful, she says—and "practically growled" her answer. "I was trying to say 'no' in a lower-octave, tall brunette voice," says Ms. Brown, who is petite (and was blonde at the time).
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Can Gratitude Reduce Costly Impatience?
The human mind tends to devalue future rewards compared to immediate ones -- a phenomenon that often leads to favoring immediate gratification over long-term wellbeing. As a consequence, patience has long been recognized to be a virtue. And indeed, the inability to resist temptation underlies a host of problems ranging from credit card debt and inadequate savings to unhealthy eating and drug addiction. The prevailing view for reducing costly impatience has emphasized the use of willpower. That is, emotions are to be tamped down in order to avoid irrational impulses for immediate gain.
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Persons With Drug Addictions Who Live in the Moment May Benefit Most From Certain Treatments
Drug-dependent people who least take the future into account may, paradoxically, be the ones to benefit the most from certain treatments, a clinical study suggests.
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Making Room for Wonder in Children’s Lives
The Huffington Post: In her new book Thrive, Arianna Huffington writes of the importance of "making room" for wonder -- a change in how we measure success that would have an especially great impact on the lives of our children. Right now, parents and teachers expend a lot of energy getting kids to pay attention, concentrate, and focus on the task in front of them. What we adults don't do, according to University of Southern California education professor Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, is teach children the value of the more diffuse mental activity that characterizes our inner lives: wondering, remembering, reflecting.
