1. In recent years, the field of psychology has witnessed the rise of personality neuroscience — a fascinating field
that explores how brain structures, networks, and neurochemical systems shape individual differences in personality traits, behaviour, and emotional experience (Canli, 2006; DeYoung, 2010). This is naturally of great interest to me as a clinician and a trainer and educator of approaches to mental well-being. While personality has traditionally been studied through questionnaires and behavioural observation, personality neuroscience digs deeper to examine how biological processes influence who we
are, and crucially; how we can harness this knowledge to improve our lives. That is, how can we practically apply the theory to become happier in our daily lives?
Happiness, long considered the ultimate goal of human life, is not evenly distributed. Some people seem naturally more optimistic and resilient, while others are more prone to anxiety or self-criticism. Personality neuroscience aims to help explain why this is the case and, importantly, how we can work with rather
than against our personality biology to cultivate greater well-being.
Here then, I'm exploring and sharing a range of evidence-based strategies that anyone can apply to use personality neuroscience to be happier, drawing on research into the brain, personality traits, and emotional regulation. Importantly, my aim is to focus on practical steps you can take in everyday life, supported by research and science...
Read full article: How to Use Personality Neuroscience to Be Happier.
2. This article is all about how to create more innovation, according to neuroscience. To be clear, innovation is the ability to generate novel, useful ideas and ideally then turn them into action — is not necessarily some magical, innate gift bestowed upon
just a few “creative types”. Rather, it can be seen as a set of cognitive skills and brain states that can be learned, practised and developed. Modern neuroscience offers insight into this and gives us practical, evidence-based levers you can pull to think more creatively, solve problems differently and feel better as a result.
Here then, I’m going to explain why certain practices help (short, accessible neuroscience), offer up evidence for each one, and offer up some actionable
steps you can implement right away. I also want to highlight the psychological and wellbeing benefits of becoming more innovative, because it can be really good for us to do so.
“Creativity is just connecting things.” — Steve Jobs
“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.” — Pablo Picasso
I really like these two quotes. Both of which capture a couple of truths that neuroscience supports: creative thinking stitches together distant ideas, and it often
requires letting go of old patterns. Below are practical, science-backed ways to encourage those processes...
Read full article: How To Use Neuroscience To Create More Innovation In Your Life.
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3.
Doomscrolling, also known as doomsurfing, is the trendy new buzzword that has been receiving a lot of attention lately. Doomscrolling is a relatively new phenomenon. It describes a person overindulging in social media usage or web surfing to absorb negative news. Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of it around at the moment. While a typical surfer reads a balanced mix of positive and negative news, a doomscroller tunes in to bad and depressing news. Although this concept has been around for some
time now, considering how incorporated into our lives the internet is today, doomscrolling really took off during the covid-19 pandemic when bad news became never-ending. According to Kaz Nelson, a professor at the University of Minnesota, our brains are wired to look out for possible threats to know what to expect and how to protect ourselves. She says<em>, “When we read upsetting news, the threat response is activated. This can be helpful if it helps us to be aware of true threats to our
safety and health and motivates us to work to address or respond to the threat. This is why it is so tempting to scroll page after page. Our brain perceives that we are doing something essential and productive.”
While there is a valid reason behind our compulsive need to check our phones to see the bad news every now and then, this constant need can be counterproductive. Not only does this habit of doomscrolling waste a huge chunk of our day, but the anxiety and depression
that comes with the news can also be harmful to both our mental and physical health.
If you have spent the last 2 hours searching the web for bad news, the chances are that you have become a victim of doomscrolling. However, just because you have fallen down the rabbit hole of doomscrolling doesn't mean you cannot put an end to it.
If doomscrolling were an Olympic sport, I suspect a couple of my clients would have got on the national team recently! I’ve
needed to work in strategies to help them wipe it out for their own well-being as it contributed to some of the therapeutic issues we were working on – here, I wanted to share some strategies; those with good evidence to support them in particular. Here are a bunch of tips that can help you get rid of this habit for good...
Read full article: How to stop Doomscrolling.
4. Plato was right when he said, “Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.” If you wish to excel academically, professionally, and personally, know that it is very important that you know how to think rationally and develop your own opinion on any particular subject matter. Not having your own opinion can lead to a lack of self-confidence and self-doubt. Thinking outside of the
box and having your own position on many matters can help you to ace your job interviews, produce high quality essays, and enjoy being effective in debates, and much more besides.
However, it is not always easy to form your own opinion, especially when you are swamped with other people's opinions, mainstream media and social media. And this is here where critical thinking comes into play. It is a very useful skill, luckily one in which we can train ourselves. Critical thinking
means collecting important information from a range of reliable sources and filtering through the relevant information to establish your own informed position. This helps us withstand other people's beliefs when they fight us on something. It will make you less likely to be influenced by others' lines of reasoning and more likely to inculcate in you the habit of rational thinking. However, having your opinion doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing that makes us stubborn and hesitant to
accept what other people have to say. Part of critical thinking is to form an opinion that you can logically back up. I have written about how to think critically and how to think scientifically before, here I’m sharing a number of tips that will train you to form your own opinion...
Read full article: How to Form Your
Own Opinion.
5. Why feel more awe? Matthew Fox once said, “Awe is the beginning of wisdom. Awe is the beginning of education”.
This quote by Fox highlights the importance of awe as it makes us think more critically, be humbler and lead to greater satisfaction in life. Before we start discussing the benefits of experiencing awe in our daily lives and how we can feel awe more often, let's begin by discussing what awe actually is.
Awe is a mysterious and complex but powerful emotion that is similar to wonder but less joyful than it. Awe can induce goosebumps, make you drop your jaw, cause tears to flood your eyes, and bring feelings of euphoria.
Recently, awe has become a focus of scientific research as more and more studies are showing that experiencing wonder can profoundly affect both your body and mind. Experiencing awe has a plethora of benefits ranging from alleviating stress to making you more
generous, from dampening the feelings of materialism to making you feel like you have all the time in the world.
When we are young, we experience moments of awe often. However, seeking awe becomes low on our priority list as we grow up. The reason behind this could be that we believe wonder to be rare and a sensation that you experience once in a blue moon. <em>'We talk about it as if it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but in fact, it's everywhere,' says Dacher Keltner,
who is a leading research scientist into the psychology of awe. So believing that awe is attainable and exist around every corner of life can help you feel more wonderment and amazement in your life.
Here, I’m sharing some ways for you to experience more awe-inspiring moments in your everyday life, enriching it as a result...
Read full article: How to Feel More Awe in Your Everyday Life.
