1 - 10 of 10 articles
category "Happiness & Well-being"

The Kids are Alright? An Interview with Well-Being Ambassador Will Williams and a Case for Bringing Mindfulness to Schools

The Kids are Alright? An Interview with Well-Being Ambassador Will Williams and a Case for Bringing Mindfulness to Schools

The No Good Terrible Very Bad Day Imagine the last bad day you had. Maybe you were jolted out of a pleasant snooze by a complaining alarm. You’re late. You’re groggy and in your haste, you spill half your breakfast on a freshly cleaned shirt—and the other half now lies in a puddle on the floor. You frantically try to clean it up as you scramble out the door to catch your ride. You look like a marathon runner at... / more

Demystifying Mental Health...On the Radio! An interview with podcast host Hillary McBride

Demystifying Mental Health...On the Radio! An interview with podcast host Hillary McBride

“I like to tell people when I start working with them that I’m a therapist because therapy has changed my life. As a therapist, I know what it’s like to be on both sides of the couch." Normally, therapy sessions are totally confidential — but a new podcast from the CBC opens the doors. Hillary McBride and her clients want to help demystify mental health. No actors. No auditions. No artifice. In-Mind sat down with Hillary, a therapist and Ph.D... / more

Time to unwind: When autonomy and motivation add weight to recovery

Time to unwind: When autonomy and motivation add weight to recovery

Extended working hours and off-job duties leave increasingly less time for a person to recover. Thus, the more important it becomes for a person to seek activities that really help to unwind from daily hassles. But is there anything such as the right or even wrong recovery activity? And what role does motivation play in this regard? In this blog post I will elaborate on these questions by reviewing recent research. / more

Becoming superhuman: Is it all in your mind?

Becoming superhuman: Is it all in your mind?

Everyone loves a good comic book hero, but what if superhuman feats were something you could learn to do in real life? In this post, we will share some recent scientific evidence that suggests that through mindfulness, people can learn to control their minds, bodies, pain tolerance and emotions in ways that seem almost superhuman. / more

The missing heritability problem

The missing heritability problem

In my last post I described the transition from candidate gene studies to genome -wide association studies, and argued that the corresponding change in the methods used, focusing on the whole genome rather than on a handful of genes of presumed biological relevance, has transformed our understanding of the genetic basis of complex traits. In this post I discuss the reasons why, despite this success, we still have not accounted for all the genetic influences we expect to find. / more

The reason that you need to feel good about yourself in order to be happy might not be what you think it is

The reason that you need to feel good about yourself in order to be happy might not be what you think it is

Do you feel the need to feel good about yourself in order to be happy? Research suggests that if you have a lot of opportunities to make new friends, it is more likely that you will answer this question with a ‘yes’ than when you have more of a set group of people you spend time with. In this blog, I will describe the recent research on the influence of relational mobility and how it relates to the way in which we develop our self-esteem and happiness. / more

Smartphones: A threat to well-being?

Smartphones: A threat to well-being?

Nowadays, smartphones appear to play an inevitable role both in our work and private life. However, when it comes to work-related use, smartphones can hamper recovery and thus, pose a threat to our well-being. In this blog-post, I review recent studies on how and when potential side-effects may occur. / more

From candidate genes to genome-wide association studies

From candidate genes to genome-wide association studies

In my last post I asked where the genes for psychological traits are, and argued that over the last two decades candidate gene studies have failed to identify genes that are reliably associated with complex behavioral phenotypes. In this post, I will discuss more recent whole genome methods, such as genome -wide association studies, and what we have learned from these. / more

Where are the genes for psychological traits?

Where are the genes for psychological traits?

In this blog post, I will discuss the methodologies available for identifying genetic influences on psychological traits, why it has proved so difficult to reliably identify specific genes, despite 20 years of effort, and what this tells us about the nature of these genetic influences. / more

Variety and motivation: The crux to lasting happiness

Variety and motivation: The crux to lasting happiness

Most people seek lasting happiness but only a few are aware of the fact that false expectations and a tedious lifestyle can speed up the disappearance of happiness. In this blog post, I explain how exciting activities and motivation may curb the dwindling of happiness. / more