A little boy with leukemia, a man who was born without a leg and who is missing several fingers, a woman with muscular dystrophy, what do they all have in common? They had to overcome significant challenges and they were inspired to do so by Batman.
Continue reading Legends of the Knight Part I: We are Batman
Review of the film, WARNING: contains spoilers
“her” is a powerful and unique film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly, a lonely professional letter writer and Scarlett Johansson as the voice of Samantha, Theodore’s operating system.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about gratitude. It seems that gratitude makes us happy and can also boost the immune system and build resilience.
Continue reading Practicing gratitude: The lessons from Groundhog Day
I’ll be honest with you, I suck at exercising. I do the minimum: I walk, I do some yoga, occasionally I still dance. I used to compete in Latin and ballroom dancing and was in the best shape of my life until I had an accident during one of the rehearsals and was forced to wave goodbye to my dancing career.
I often get asked about what a friend or family member can do if a loved one communicated that he or she is thinking about suicide. This issue is not addressed nearly as often as it should be, hence I wanted to provide some information for those who might notice signs of suicidal behavior in others and are unsure of what to do about it.
Continue reading What to do if someone you know is thinking about suicide
Have you ever had an experience like this: you’re surrounded by many people and yet you feel very alone. In fact, you might have even attempted to voice how you felt to someone else only to be shamed for feeling this way, “you shouldn’t feel lonely, look at all the people around you,” or better yet “other people have it much worse than you, you should be grateful for what you have.”
Continue reading Lonely in the crowd: the power of connection in fighting the depression blues
I’ve long been telling my patients that stress is dangerous for their health and that it can lead to a plethora of dangerous health hazards. However, some recent studies, in addition to a fantastic talk by Kelly McGonigal, a fellow compassion researcher and my mentor, made me rethink my stance on stress.
SQ (Shadow Quill): It is truly my honor to interview Jason Hough, a New York Times best-selling author of the Dire Earth Cycle science fiction trilogy. The following is a transcription of an audio file of my interview with Jason.
Continue reading Darwin Elevator: Psychology of Science-Fiction
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion” (The Dalai Lama)
Compassion is the ability to recognize the suffering of another being and the desire to alleviate that suffering. Compassion is different from empathy in that it does not only involve the ability to experience the physical or emotional pain felt by another being, but also the aspiration to alleviate that pain.
I am a big proponent that learning should be fun. After all, learning should be reinforcing rather than aversive, making the students want to learn more. Recently, there has been a great amount of research in using games (video games, board games, and computer games) in the classroom to facilitate learning.
