BEING CRAZY IS NOISY

John Sterns is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder (a co-diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder), chronic depression and chronic anxiety. He describes a lifetime of fighting demons …

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

I.  I hear voices (“auditory hallucinations”, technically). They come from all directions and fill my mind with [...]

How to Think About the Mind

Neuroscience shows that the ‘soul’ is the activity of the brain

By Steven Pinker Newsweek Sept. 27 issue – Every evening our eyes tell us that the sun sets, while we know that, in fact, the Earth is turning us away from it. Astronomy taught [...]

Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? By JOHN TIERNEY Published: August 17, 2011

Three men doing time in Israeli prisons recently appeared before a parole board consisting of a judge, a criminologist and a social worker. The three prisoners had completed at least two-thirds of their sentences, but the parole board granted freedom to only one [...]

People dread being bored and will do almost anything to keep busy, but does keeping busy really make us happy?

Much of modern civilisation can be credited to our very human habit of keeping busy.

Science, art, philosophy, technology, commerce and all the rest: it’s not just necessity that’s the mother of invention, [...]

Perhaps you think I’ve set myself an impossible challenge here?

Not so. The meaning of life is pretty straightforward to state. Your life has whatever meaning you give to it. So the question becomes: what do people say gives their lives meaning? That’s easy enough to measure and psychologists have [...]

Low self esteem, a cause and symptom of depression, anxiety and anger problems, has become the modern pariah.

Low self esteem, a rope that binds; preventing us pursuing our dreams and enjoying simple things that ‘other people enjoy’. We talk of ‘self esteem issues’ and nod sagely to one another.

We use the [...]

Jason was in despair. “I just can’t make a decision. I’ve written all the reasons for and against leaving my wife. But there are as many logical reasons for staying as for going. If I stay, I feel like I’m missing out the excitements of a single life. If I go I’ll feel [...]

Social media-minded millennials are the most narcissistic generation on record, but recent psychological research indicates that Facebook isn’t to blame for that image obsession.

Despite multiple media reports to the contrary, Facebook and social networking sites (SNS) aren’t fueling a narcissism epidemic among younger people.

“We do know that narcissism levels among millennials are higher than [...]

Depression in Command In times of crisis, mentally ill leaders can see what others don’t By NASSIR GHAEMI Getty ImagesWinston Churchill

When times are good and the ship of state only needs to sail straight, mentally healthy people function well as political leaders. But in times of crisis and tumult, those who are mentally abnormal, even [...]

Everyone gets anxious from time to time, for some reason when i stand in front of a large group of people and have to deliver a speech my mouth gets dry and my palms become clammy even though i feel quite calm inside. For about one in six of us, a low level of [...]