4 Things to Avoid for a Good Night’s Sleep

Good sleep can mean the difference between crazy and sane the next day… Between crying between meetings at work or lashing out at your husband over laundry and a semi-functional person who can fake it enough to keep her marriage and her job intact.

It's one of the members of my holy trinity of good mental health (along with a good diet and regular exercise).

Over the ages, sleep and depression have proved to have a dysfunctional, angry relationship.

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Specific brain regions can be trained by means of video games

Video gaming causes increases in the brain regions responsible for spatial orientation, memory formation and strategic planning as well as fine motor skills. This has been shown in a new study conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Charite University Medicine St. Hedwig-Krankenhaus. The positive effects of video gaming may also prove relevant in therapeutic interventions targeting psychiatric disorders.

In order to investigate how video games affect the brain, scientists in Berlin have asked adults to play the video game "Super Mario 64" over a period of two months for 30 minutes a day. A control group did not play video games. Brain volume was quantified using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In comparison to the control group the video gaming group showed increases of grey matter, in which the cell bodies of the nerve cells of the brain are situated.

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The Mysteries of Sleep Explained

We know we need it. If we don't get it, we're cranky, have trouble concentrating, tend to overeat and are more likely to make mistakes.  Yet, with the crush of demanding schedules, bad habits, or sleep disturbances, we don't always get enough.

So what is happening during those precious hours when we're asleep?  Is it really a time of restoration for our brains?  And is it possible that it's more than that?

What happens in our brains while we're asleep is a question neuroscientist Penelope Lewis is trying to answer.

Lewis directs the Sleep and Memory Lab at the University of Manchester in England. In her new book, The Secret World of Sleep: The Surprising Science of the Mind at Rest, she discusses how sleep makes memory stronger, provides what she terms "spring cleaning" for the brain, and plays a role in depression.

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What Parents Need to Know about Childhood Depression

One of the biggest myths about childhood depression (also known as pediatric depression) is that it doesn't exist.

However, depression is a real illness that affects both adults and kids. In fact, kids as young as 3 years old can have depression.

Depression can even affect babies, who tend to exhibit symptoms such as unresponsiveness, lethargy, inconsolable crying and feeding problems, writes Deborah Serani, PsyD, a clinical psychologist who specializes in mood disorders, in her new book Depression and Your Child: A Guide for Parents and Caregivers.

Below, she revealed what pediatric depression looks like, along with what you can do if you spot these signs.

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Psychology (playlist)

Self-Sabotage When You Can't Sleep

It's 3 a.m. and I'm awake. Ordinarily I'd be asleep but right now I'm awake and I don't like it. Strangely this happens at least once every couple of weeks for me. I just wake up early. No real rhyme or reason, it just happens.

At one time in my life, this used to bug me. I would look at the clock and think, "oh no, I must get back to sleep or I'll be so tired in the morning." And then I'd spend the next hour or two willing myself to go back to sleep: tossing and turning, demanding that I slip back into unconsciousness; huffing and puffing that I wasn't sleeping. I'd even check the clock every 10 minutes to see if I'd slept.

But the reality was, and still is, the more that I demand something of myself, the less likely I am to achieve that goal — and that really is the principle of living an unhappy life.

Sure I want to go back to sleep. I would even really, really, really, prefer to be sleeping right now, but I'm not. So, instead of lying there, beating myself up for waking when I "absolutely shouldn't have," I get up. I grab a drink, get something to eat and power up my laptop.

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Five Ways To Turn Fear Into Fuel

Uncertainty. It's a terrifying word.

Living with it, dangling over your head like the sword of Damocles, day in day out, is enough to send anyone spiraling into a state of anxiety, fear and paralysis.

Like it or not, though, uncertainty is the new normal. We live in a time where the world is in a state of constant, long-term flux. And, that's not all. If you want to spend your time on the planet not just getting-by, but consistently creating art, experiences, businesses and lives that truly matter, you'll need to proactively seek out, invite and even deliberately amplify uncertainty. Because the other side of uncertainty is opportunity.

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Changing Your Brain By Changing Your Mind

When it comes to managing stress, the Eastern traditions may be especially effective. The Western health model is based on diagnosing the underlying cause of a problem and then finding an active medical or behavioral intervention to remove it. People with chronic illness are often urged to "stay strong," or to have "a fighting spirit." Eastern medicine has a more holistic view of disease as indicating a lack of balance or an energy blockage. The solution is to bring the body and mind back into balance using gentle, noninvasive techniques such as herbs, manipulative techniques, movement, or meditation.

How the Brain Processes Emotion

Our lower brain centers, such as the amygdala or hypothalamus, were made to detect and respond to threats, such as a tiger about to eat us. They generate an immediate "fight ot flight" response to increase the odds of survival, but they can become hypersensitive, interfering with our ability to experience the present moment in an open and relaxed way. Daily meditation practice can help to correct this imbalance and allow us to retrain our minds so we are less likely to overreact with intense anger or fear to psychological threats, such as rejection. Being less chronically stressed can also help our immune systems function more efficiently to fight off disease.

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Collective Consciousness

Introduction

Have you ever experienced a time when the collective enthusiasm of a large event seemed to rise to such a peak that you could almost feel a crackle in the air? Or felt a haunting sense in the air while visiting a place that caused sadness or suffering for thousands of people? 

Provocative evidence suggests that there are significant departures from chance expectation in the outputs of random number generators (electronic devices that produce truly random bits, or sequences of zeros and ones) during times of collective upheaval, global crises and major celebrations.

This year, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, along with several collaborators, conducted an exploratory experiment at Black Rock City, the temporary city created each year in the Nevada desert for the festival known as Burning Man. Burning Man is a week-long event that attracts upwards of 50,000 people. It is unique in its concentrated intensity, isolation, and collective intention, culminating with the burning of a large man-shaped effigy at the center of Black Rock City on Saturday night. See this article in the Atlantic magazine to get a feeling for the event, or these pictures in Rolling Stone magazine.

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