Psychology

A cold flash, like the strange, icy feeling after a burn, runs through his body with every breath. He feels his heart racing. It feels like it is counting down to the moment when it will explode—or, mercifully, to the moment when he will turn his pillow to the cooler side, and finally fall asleep.

Sunday afternoons were a sacrosanct time when I was growing up in Argentina. Everything seemed to quiet and slow down between 2:00 and 5:00 pm, during siesta. Even shops would shut. All you could hear was the sound of the cicadas as the whole neighbourhood took a nap. Young and old, rich and poor were unified by this wonderful tradition. At least, I...

Procrastination is self-harm, psychologist Piers Steel says. A kind of self-harm that we can become addicted to if we do not detect the reasons behind it and especially the effective strategies to counter it.

Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke

Fundamentalist movements, extremist and sectarian religious beliefs, manipulations of the mass of believers, conspiracy theories within religious sects, and other such threats, emphasise the need for critical thinking.

“Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you.” With this message, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, launched the telephone. The door had opened to distant, personal and instant contact.

Psychologists recommend all sort of things you should have to develop a healthy and strong mind, like tenacity, ambition or optimism. To achieve this objective, however, there are also some things you should avoid.

It is said that time makes us wiser. How wise have we become after a global pandemic with millions of deaths, a war on our borders, economic problems, and many personal tragedies in which we are caught as if in the grip of a great storm?

We live in a time in history when we seem to be connected in every way possible. It seems as if there are few, if any, who have no one to socialize with.

Things happen anyway, whether good or bad. Why put extra effort into trying to respond positively when certain things happen? Why be grateful?

The year 2022 was perhaps richer than previous years in events that affected the whole world.

Problem gambling in Australia and New Zealand is an issue seldom talked about, but we ignore it at our peril.

We are so familiar with complaining that we don't even recognise its presence in our interactions. It has become part of us—and, according to rumours on the internet, so have its consequences. The whining we are told we do every minute of every conversation has the power to destroy our neurons.

In 2004, Frank Warren, an American businessman, had "a crazy idea," as he himself describes it. He printed 3,000 postcards, wrote his address on them and a series of instructions, then left space on the back for the sender to write secrets they had never shared with anyone before.

What we think about ourselves, over time, becomes our reality. This is a good enough reason to identify thinking errors left running in the background and to seek out strategies for healthier thinking.