For so many, the period between Thanksgiving and New Years is fraught with challenges as families get together (or don’t) and old scores, unmet needs, unacknowledged concerns, simmering grievances, and cosmic clashes detract not only from the spirit of this time of year but from the ability of families and the individuals who comprise them to find a path to peace. For some simple but powerful ideas to guide you though this season, read on.
Traveling at the Speed of Mind
When we feel stressed, over-extended, anxious, worried, running behind, short on time, or any of a thousand other variations of this all-too-common feature of our harried days, it is so natural to assume that the world “out there” is the source of our distress. Too much to do and too little time in which to get it all done. Learn more about how to quiet and calm your mind, while gaining control and comfort in your life.
Giving Thanks
Why 10 + 9 Builds a Resilient Brain & a Beautiful Life
I recently gave a talk to a group of university alumni seeking to discover how to prepare for and enter their “post-career lives.” The lecture focused on ten faculties that reside in our brains throughout our lives. The faculties position us to make the most of our days at every stage of our lives – when we actively exercise them. that is. Otherwise, there they sit: an untapped potential that's never given the chance to transform our lives for the better. I also discussed nine life skills that serve as the bridge over which we cross from potential into action. Skills transform possibility into lived reality. Skills are the means through which we exercise our brain’s potential. Read on to learn the building blocks for a better life.
Why Resilience Requires Failing
Do you want to be described as resilient? Most people do. Resilient people are “winners,” it seems. They are people who can take what life dishes out and respond in ways that make them, wiser, stronger, more compassionate and loving, and able to live life to the fullest no matter what. There is certainly value to wisdom, strength, compassion, love, and tenacity. But, I find that resilience, from a neurobiological view, involves something different. Read on to learn about "neuro-resilience," and how pain and failure are necessary life experiences for developing it.
Thank you, Charles Darwin
Why I Mistrust Routines
In this blog, I explore the value and limitations of living with unexamined routines. I ask, "Why, then, if routines are so central to conducting our daily lives effectively, do I so mistrust them?Routines are subtly and powerfully seductive. Sometimes their seductive power leads to misery." Read more to discover an important practice for breaking out of stale and confining habits.
Dreams: Our Nightly Visitations
Dreams are nightly visitations that enchant our minds with their unpredictable plot twists. Dreams disregard the laws of physics making time travel natural shape shifting second nature. Myriad mythic creatures teleport from distant galaxies and mingle with the people that populate our lives. Dreams have fascinated us for thousands of years. We have come far in our understandings of why we dream but agreement about what dreams mean, if anything at all, continues to be mired in energetic scientific and mystical debate. Can we use our dreams to better our lives? Read on...
Sleepy Rhythms: Our Lives Depend on Them
30-40% of adults experience one of several types of sleep disorders. Much of the industrialized world toils away with an oppressive and mounting sleep debt that rivals the burden on people’s health and life expectancy that the national debt exacts on people’s livelihoods. Disturbances of sleep include insomnia, or the inability to fall asleep and stay asleep when you want and for as long as you need. Read on to learn NATURAL steps to restore sleep's rhythms and to revitalize your days...
Sleep is a Waste of Time, Right?
By the time we are 50, we will, on average, have devoted about 5,110 nights (7.5 hours nightly) to sleep, or at least attempting to get enough of it in a way that leaves us feeling rested, refreshed and with sufficient energy to engage our daily routines. In my last blog (http://bit.ly/SleepingTime), I introduced information that invites us to question conventional folk wisdom about what good sleep is “supposed” to look like. While it is clear that the form sleep takes each night can and often does vary from person to person, or even the same person over time. Still, despite this variability, there is little question of what happens when we don’t get what our body needs in the way of sufficient sleep.