The Science Behind How Nature Changes Your Brain
Talking a walk amongst plants is good for you in many ways, but why? This questions recently bothered some neuroscientists and they set out to answer it. It turns out…
Mind Space
White House Planning to Close Guantanamo Bay’s Infamous Torture Centre
Guantanamo Bay on the beautiful island of Cuba sounds like a great place if you don’t know anything about it. We do know what happens there and it’s immoral and…
Increase Your Happiness by Going on Vacation
Everybody loves going on vacation and here’s why: it makes for good conversations. Really. The short term gain of increased happiness from a vacation is very short indeed, just a…
Commute by Bike to Decrease Your Stress
Stanford University’s Calming Technology Lab has found evidence to support what most commuter cyclists already know: riding a bike to work instead of driving a car lowers one’s stress. Not…
Curiosity (and art) is Addictive
A new theory based on some old research is that our drive to figure things out can be as addictive as doing drugs. If you’ve ever had to deal with…
Rethinking Environmental Education Under Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is the current way of thinking about the economic state of the world. It’s the thinking that has led to the financialization of nearly everything in the world –…
A Competition and Journal Looking Into Philosophy and Games
Games are a very popular cultural medium with a reputation for not being very “deep”. Game Praxis is a new project I’ve co-founded to encourage game makers and players to…
Travel For a Better Brain
I just booked a flight to London and coincidentally came across an article that says that our brains can benefit greatly from exploring the world. A good way to start…
Violent Video Games can be Good
Violent video games get attacked a lot. Media and news companies are quick to blame the influence video games have on youth to be the reason that youth commit acts…
A Video Designed to Spread
This video has been making the online rounds for the last couple of weeks and I figured I’d post it here. The video looks at why some ideas spread faster…
Focus Less on Work to Improve Everything – Even Your Job
Stressed about not getting enough done at work? Don’t be. It turns out that you can improve how much you get things done at the office by not thinking about…
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Can Help Patients Cope with Schizophrenia
Cognitive behavioural therapy can be used by people dealing with schizophrenia to improve their lives. Just six sessions of the therapy can help people deal with worry which can lead…
Mindfulness Meditation Effective in Improving Sleep
Mindfulness meditation is already pretty great, and it keeps getting better! Not only can it help you go amongst your day in a more thoughtful, productive, focussed manner, it can…
Travel to Become a Better Person
When friends ask for life advice tell them to leave. Over at BBC Travel they have an article about how travelling can make you a better person. So what are…
A New Perspective on Depression
Depression seemed to be talked about more last year than in previous years thanks to celebrities revealing their troubles with the affliction. There’s also been more research into depression. With…
Painting Neighbourhoods
Artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn create community art by painting entire neighborhoods, and involving those who live there — from the favelas of Rio to the streets of North…
Keep Your Brain Healthy by Living in Walkable Neighbourhoods
Just when you think there couldn’t be more reasons to live in and build walkable communities another one pops up. We already know that walkable communities are safer, more environmentally…
Only Keep Things That Bring You Joy
Are you sick of tidying your place all the time? If you are, just stop. There’s no need to tidy if you go through all your items and only keep…
Talking About Mental Health
Smashing Magazine is best known for geek and design issues, recently they published an article out of the norm. It was part of {Geek} Mental Health Week. Christopher Murphy wrote…
Abandoned Walmart Becomes a Library
Walmart is best known for predatory corporate behaviour that damages communities and for the “interesting” people who shop there. One thing that Walmart does is pit one small town against…