Psychology

Activities that take attention and demands away from the self can rest and refresh the mind. We use distraction, focus, and just “being” for this purpose automatically, whether we realize it or not. Binge watching a television series, playing a sport or a game of chess, and daydreaming are examples. But life is stressful. Having…

Learning goes best when people fail 15% of the time, according to a new study. Educators and educational scholars have long recognized that there is something of a “sweet spot” when it comes to learning. That is, we learn best when we aim to grasp something just outside the bounds of our existing knowledge. When…

The average human has an eight-second attention span–less than that of a goldfish, according to a 2015 study from Microsoft. That number has shrunk over the years due to our digital connectedness and the fact that the brain is always seeking out what’s new and what’s next. “No matter what environment humans are in, survival…

Resilience has become the hot topic of today. You can barely enter a parenting, business, or school conversation without hearing about it. Some resilience researchers worry that we’re asking narrow questions about individual behavior and overlooking social context. They’re working to elevate the conversation to include systems analysis so we can foster collective resilience. Using…

Let’s start by looking at the impact that stress can have on our well being. It can be easy to define stress as something trivial, however, it has been linked to both physical and emotional health problems when left unaddressed or untreated. While our bodies have incredible evolutionary abilities to manage small periods of stress…