Don’t view stress as a problem, but as a challenge. A skier on a mountaintop may interpret her pounding heart, fast breathing and sweaty palms as fear or excitement. Every stressful situation creates physiological symptoms — but you can decide how to play it.
Posts by Amy Klein
Why You Can’t “Just Say No”: An Interview With Dr. Joseph Frascella
Dr. Joseph Frascella, director of NIDA’s Clinical Neuroscience and Behavioral Research Division, heads a broad drug abuse and addiction program of translational research and research training in clinical neuroscience, human development and behavioral treatment. He discusses how drug addiction changes the brain
5 Reasons Your Brain Loves The Summer
For the first day of summer (at least if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere), here are five things your brain looks forward to in this time of year — without clueing you in on how important these activities are to your brain’s health.
Working For Happiness: 7 Principles of Positive Psychology
Did you know that most Americans actually find free time more difficult to enjoy than work? Although many people also find their work stressful, boring, or meaningless, success doesn’t make people happy, either. “More than a decade of groundbreaking research in the fields of positive psychology …”
What’s Telling About Telomeres (and the Aging Process)
Is aging a natural process that we simply have to accept as a fact of life? A philosopher would say yes. Many doctors would also agree: that our cells eventually reach a point where they can no longer divide and either die or reach senescence, a retirement phase. Many scientists believe in the “Hayflick limit”
I Just Can’t Quit You, Technology! 8 Things To Keep In Mind
Science fiction often predicts that robots and machines will take over our lives. Considering our reliance on our gadgets, that might not be too far from the truth. How many times a day do you check your cell phone? Your Facebook page? Your Twitter feed? How many texts do you send and receive each day?
Sweet Dreams Are Made of This: An Interview with J. Allan Hobson
An American psychiatrist and dream researcher, J. Allan Hobson is a professor of psychiatry, emeritus, at Harvard Medical School, and a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In “The Dreaming Brain” (and many of his books on dreaming, including
This Is Your Brain on Games
Do you love doing crossword puzzles or playing sudoku because you think it keeps your mind sharp? Well, think again. “Most of those things don’t have a measurable impact — if it makes people happy to play them that’s good, but it doesn’t make them smarter,” says Steven Aldrich
The Fight To End Epilepsy: An Interview with Dr. Orrin Devinsky
Two million people have it. 11 million will have it. It’s slightly more common in males than females, and although 70 percent of children will outgrow it, it can affect people of any age, starting in infancy or in middle age. It can be hereditary — even if no family members have it — or it can come from
Morality and the Brain: An Interview with Neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland
Although many philosophers used to dismiss the relevance of neuroscience on grounds that what mattered was the software not the hardware, they have increasingly come to recognize that understanding how the brain works is essential to understanding the mind. Patricia Smith Churchland
Helping War-Affected Children in Liberia
Growing up in a village in Grand Bassa County in the west-central portion of Liberia, Remongar Dennis was one of only seven children to survive infancy in what would have been a family of 13. He was the only child in his family to go to school. Now Liberia’s deputy permanent representative to the U.N.
The Brain Gene For Hangovers
Though “the hair of the dog” seems to relieve some of the hangover effects, the researchers warn that it could cause alcohol dependence.