I recently took my 10-year-old niece and her cousin shopping for new dresses. As they tried on clothes, my niece commented, “Nothing looks good on me; Sabrina looks good in everything.” It surprised me to observe such a young girl expressing such a poor body image and comparing herself unfavorably to her cousin. And yet,… Read more »
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Millions of Americans struggle with unhealthy levels of stress. Stress isn’t just destructive to our mental health but to our physical health as well. It weakens our immune systems and contributes to heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, and other illnesses. These facts are important, but reading about them, or even relaying them, admittedly makes… Read more »
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Some of the most destructive behaviors, commonplace in relationships, are those that people act out in an attempt to ward off loving responses from their partner. In The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, I wrote about the dynamics underlying this phenomenon, explaining why we often punish the very person who appreciates and acknowledges us for our positive… Read more »
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A friend of mine sent me a list of The Top 5 Regrets People Say on their Deathbed as compiled by Bronnie Ware, a woman who works closely with the dying, It wasn’t relevant that the list was not necessarily the result of stringent empirical research or that it could even be fictitious; what seemed relevant to… Read more »
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When we are triggered emotionally, it can all feel sort of choiceless; like we have lost control of ourselves. Even if we have the awareness of our reaction, it is difficult to stop our emotional response, because the nervous system, the brain, the memory centers are all interacting. Our learned style of relating Most often… Read more »
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The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Plata on May 23 ordering the state of California to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 (from more than 140,000 to 110,000 inmates) over the next two years has received headlines, editorials and letters to the editor in newspapers around the country, as it should have…. Read more »
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I scanned the sea of black-robed 20-somethings for my sister’s familiar face. As I glanced over each aisle, I noted the beaming expressions of the satisfied graduate students about to receive their Masters degrees in Journalism. When I finally caught a glimpse of my sister, I was glad to see that in spite of the… Read more »
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The age-old expression “Good things come to those who wait,” seems to hold true even in scientific research. However, “good things” may not merely be a present to those who are virtuously patient, as the expression posits, but may in fact be a result of an individual’s personality and behavioral traits correlated with patience. According… Read more »
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In the age of social media, one can hardly finish a conversation with another individual without the other or oneself indiscreetly checking their smartphone. This scenario has become commonplace in everyday interactions, even in older generations, and begs the question “Is checking your Facebook mid-conversation keeping you socially connected or disconnecting you from relationships?” While… Read more »
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Searching for ways to manage pain without the side-effects of pain medications? Hoping to quell the anxiety associated with chronic pain? Fadel Zeidan, a neuroscientist at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has found that ”just a little over an hour of training in meditation can dramatically reduce both the experience of pain and pain-related brain… Read more »
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