By practicing compassion we can open the heart to the universality of the human condition with clarity, allowing us to respond to difficulty with balance and care. Mindfulness involves several attitudes of mind that are pivotal to the transformation and liberation of the mind: befriending, compassion, joy and equanimity. These qualities are seen as the foundations of all our development …

They don’t seem to regret all that time they don’t spend actually riding waves. In 2013, at the age of 41, I decided to make a career change and become a nurse practitioner. At the time, an advanced case of reactive arthritis often left me unable to walk. The entire time that I was taking prerequisite classes, I was in …

“Bring yourself back to your awareness,” said Sara Auster, a self-proclaimed sound healer, after 45 minutes in a ballroom at a hotel in Chicago where she created vibrations using crystal bowls and tuning forks as well as a traditional Indian accordion, known as a shruti box. Seventy-five people got up like a gaggle of toddlers being shaken from a nap. …

Governmental psychologist Dóra Guðmundsdóttir explains what makes a society flourish. The World Happiness Report comes out every year, providing some data about how well-being varies from country to country and how it shifts within a country from one year to the next. But what makes some countries happier than others? Dóra Guðmundsdóttir is one of many researchers around the world …

Five years ago, Ella Risbridger found herself lying on the floor of her London apartment, staring at a bag of chicken hanging from the back of a kitchen chair. The poet and journalist, then 21, was deeply, suicidally depressed. But instead of ending her life, she ended up roasting that bird — and writing Midnight Chicken, an uplifting cookbook that …

Communicating through your thoughts alone is possible — with a little technical assistance. Scientists at the University of Washington’s Center for Neurotechnology have figured out how to network human minds together to collaborate to move Tetris-like shapes on a computer screen using only thoughts. It works like this: Three players, including one main player, sit in separate rooms and watch …

Don’t tell others what you think of their skills, instead describe your experience of their work. In their forthcoming book, Nine Lies About Work, Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall make a startling claim, with implications far beyond the workplace: they argue that giving people feedback – in the sense of telling them what you think they’re doing right or wrong, …

Despite the somewhat exotic name, box breathing is a very simple and even familiar type of stress management exercise. If you’ve ever found yourself inhaling and exhaling to a rhythm while you run or listen to music, you’ve taken the first steps. Box breathing is a type of paced breathing that follows a certain rhythm, and it can help you …

Hint: it’s neither suppression nor full disclosure Emotions are a fundamental part of who we are. As long as we have a brain, we will experience varying types of emotions. We want to enjoy them, but we also suffer from them. We try to conquer our emotions but, most of the times, we end being their slaves. As Oscar Wilde …

Research shows normalization of neurotransmitters in anxiety and depression. What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter — a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue. — Henri Matisse Anyone who has struggled with anxiety and depression, or knows someone …