According to Dr. William Fishbein, a cognitive neuroscientist at the City University of New York, “Not only do we need to remember to sleep, but most certainly we sleep to remember.” Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, randomly remembering that thing you were supposed to have done last week but totally forgot to do? Or have you ever woken up with a great idea for your next blog post/book/assignment or a great solution to a problem you have been trying to fix. Recent studies on how sleep helps the brain process memories may provide an answer to why these random thoughts come to us during our sleep.... Read More

Since the stockmarket began crashing and people starting stressing about the world financial crisis; it has made me think about the position of money in our lives and how it has become such a driving force for us all. But are we really striving for something that will end up making us happier? Or do we just keep on wanting more and more, waiting for it to make us more satisfied with our lives, only to find that it just never comes despite there being a considerable amount of money in our banks? So does money really make us happy or are we all just being fooled by this motivation to want more and more.... Read More

We all cringe at the skinny models we see parading the clothes at fashion displays. Is it because we can see the outline of their entire skeleton or is it because we are literally turned off by the lack of fat on their bodies? According to new research conducted at the University of Queensland, we cringe because we are literally turned off by seeing the skinny, size 0 models. ... Read More

At one stage, psychologists had come to the conclusion that there is nothing we can to do improve our happiness. According to this misleading research, our level of happiness is an immovable and stable trait that remains unchanged no matter how good or bad your experiences are. But recent research tells us a different story. According to Daniel Mochon and colleagues, our happiness can be bolstered by a cumulation of small positive events. If these small, positive events occur regularly, they have been shown to improve our long term happiness. ... Read More

I’d like to share with you an activity that was given to me last semester as part of a class activity. We were given three weeks to ‘break a social norm’. But what does this mean? Social norms are what society is governed by. Formally, they are the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. They are ’so called’ social laws that we abide by to avoid being socially punished by our peers. We adhere to social norms to avoid being different or doing something that others will think unfavourably of. So surely, it would be easy to break one within a three week period, right? WRONG!... Read More

Are you addicted to chocolate? New research conducted at the University of Exeter has found that cravings for chocolate can be literally walked off. Research has already established the benefits of exercise on cravings for nicotine and drugs, but now they have found that exercise can help reduce cravings for chocolcate.... Read More

Our physical health is always something that we are reminded of. We are always told that we need to keep our bodies physically active so that we have longer and healthier lives as we get older. But something that is never stressed is the importance of our mental/brain health.... Read More

I’d just like to share an article i found on Psychology Today, because it is highly relevant to a post I wrote about The Costs of Living in the Future. I truly believe that people will become much happier if they stop worrying about what has to be done tomorrow, or what they have on next week; and care more about what they have in the here and now. But how do you push all those thoughts and worries out of your mind? ... Read More

Everyone wants to be or aspires to be the best possible person they can be.  But when we get caught up trying to be perfect in everything we do, we only get disappointed when we don’t perform as well as we had hoped.  That is why it is important to know and understand who you are, so that you don’t have unrealistic expectations of yourself.... Read More

Without knowing it, you could be a subject in a psychological experiment. If you have a facebook account, then you very well could be the next person who is being tracked by psychological researchers.... Read More