Use Yale’s Mood Meter to increase your emotional self-awareness. — “Stop trying to manipulate me.” I’ll never forget those words. Someone — let’s call him Bob — said them to me when I was barely a teenager. After a fight with my friends, I’d started crying, believing it to be the most natural thing in the world. Bob disagreed. With…

According to a brain-health expert, this is the way to perform “whole-brain combination workouts”. — A decade ago, my father-in-law had a brain stroke. One day he was a gentle husband and father; the next, he changed. Though he survived — nothing short of a miracle — the region of his brain responsible for empathy was permanently damaged. His gentleness disappeared. When I met my…

How to live long and age well. — My grandfather is a SuperAger. Though he’s in his eighties, he’s still designing buildings (because he wants to), solving ninja-level sudokus, and dancing at every party. He’s an example of how aging doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. If anything, he says he’s enjoying his eighties way more…

7 dietary tips from one of America’s leading psychiatrists and brain health experts. — The brain is an energy-consuming organ. Since it uses twenty to thirty percent of the calories we eat, the dietary decisions we make affect it deeply. As Dr. Daniel G. Amen, a multiple New York Times Bestselling author and one of America’s leading psychiatrists and brain health experts, says, “If…

Non-fiction books that can teach you how to age well — Long-term health starts with the choices we make today. We either ignore that extra donut — or all donuts, for that matter — or risk developing diabetes. We either pay now or pay later. The problem is that most of us are unaware of what those choices are, or we…

Take advantage of the 700 neurons your brain produces every day. — Every single day, our brains produce up to 700 new neurons regardless of our age. Best of all, those cells can reinforce whatever mental capacity we want if we know how to train. Imagine the potential. This is called neuroplasticity. Put simply, it’s the brain’s ability to continue growing and…

Change your brain; change your mood. — According to a recent survey, Americans are the unhappiest they’ve been in the last 50 years. And they’re not alone. The latest World Happiness Report concluded that negative feelings are rising globally. The bottom line: Everyone is unhappy (except for the Finnish)— and it sucks. In a recent video, brain-health…

What happens in the brain when you experience gratitude. — We all know gratitude is important. We’ve all read at least one article or watched a video highlighting how it can make us happier and healthier. Then why do many of us struggle to make it a daily practice? Simple. To push ourselves out of our comfort zones, we need…

How to protect your mind beyond exercising and socializing. — It’s no secret that one of the easiest ways to have a better life is to control our minds. Emotional intelligence preaches that though we can’t control what we feel, we should control how we react, something ancient philosophers already figured out. …

According to a brain-health expert, this is how you can overcome self-doubt. — “You’re a fraud.” “Nobody really cares about what you have to say.” “You suck.” These phrases creep into my head whenever I write. In fact, as I work on this post, my fingers tremble almost imperceptibly. Like many writers, I suffer from imposter syndrome. Though I’ve had stories go viral…