Researchers studied whether dancing was a good therapy for treating depression, and it is. Because dancing is all about moving your body and expressing emotions, it can help alleviate some of those symptoms, as well as reduce the levels of depression. 

People complain on social media, the news, etc. all day every day. Memes are created from complaining, people go viral ranting about something petty. We’ve been raised to complain. 

While women are born with it, it does need to be mastered. And once mastery is achieved, she is exalted into a different stratosphere among her peers. Some guys will argue they have similar skills, but the reality is they are just fooling themselves. 

Research is currently being conducted on what is referred to as “smartphone dependence” and one study reports that 60% of 2,097 American smartphone users cannot go one hour without checking their smartphones, a condition now called nomophobia (Hussain, et al., 2017).  

We can’t let fear decide our goals and dreams. We can’t let fear control the decisions we make. Fear is designed to keep us alive in a fight or flight moment, not as a governing principle for a lifetime. 

You might not like coffee, but you drink tea, or soda, or energy drinks. We all consume caffeine pretty regularly, so let’s talk about what it does to our brains - the good and the ugly.

I’m also not talking about the kind of breaks that involve eating a sugary snack or looking at Instagram or Facebook. A break that is going to help is completely shifting your focus from the subject you’re working on. This break should also involve something that will bring positive emotions.

I recently discovered something that I knew all along. I know what you’re thinking. That doesn’t make any sense. Let me explain. Have you ever believed something that you weren’t entirely sure was accurate until someone much more intelligent than you verified for you what you already thought to be the case? 

I remember being in a particular relationship where I refused to cry. I thought crying showed weakness, and I couldn’t be weak. So, when I would start to feel emotional, I would leave. Obviously, this wasn’t a healthy way to express myself.

Over the long haul, LOLing has even more benefits! It has the power to boost your immune system, help you feel more connected, and improve your mood (Mayo Clinic, 2021). There’s a yiddish proverb that says, “What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.” Nothing wipes the slate clean or gives us that feeling of a fresh start like a good, strong laugh.

The skit featured comedian and satirist, Al Franken. Stuart, played by Franken, was famous for his gaze in a mirror and repeating the phrase, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it people like me." So just imagine learning about the idea of self-affirmation while Stuart Smalley was gaining in popularity. 

It was never meant to exist apart from a relationship, but pornography doesn’t include any of that in it’s equation. Porn can’t teach us what good sex is because it can never be truly good itself. It’s a fake. It’s entertainment. It’s a money maker. It’s a relationship free turn-on which, we understand initially, might seem kinda like a dream come true. That’s its hook.

Basically, it can be used to treat all levels of stress: serious recent trauma, well-established stress patterns, unclear psychological issues, and proactive efforts to establish better health.

You don’t have to wait until you feel like you’re going to blow up. Just tap for a few minutes.

So what happens when there is too much sugar in your diet? Well, a lot. Too much sugar can affect your mood, weaken your body’s ability to cope with stress, and increase your risk for developing depression. Cutting back on sugar can trigger withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, irritability, confusion, and fatigue (Lindberg, 2020).

Here’s another perk from the page. When you read an actual book, it lowers your stress levels (one study shows that it might lower stress by as much as 68%) and helps you to sleep better. Using a screen to read late at night, especially right before you go to bed, can mess with your circadian rhythms and make it harder for you to fall asleep or stay asleep (Wise, 2019). 

The brain undergoes lots of development and change during the teen years. Introducing something like alcohol can lead to lasting consequences. When you drink, your hippocampus is immediately affected; however, drinking can have long-term effects too. Alcohol has the potential to damage or kill cells in the hippocampus, which helps with learning and memory.

Fact: For every good way of coping we might choose, there is an equally destructive or damaging way of coping we could turn to instead. We might turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the pain of a failed relationship instead of sitting with it and examining the part we played, or we might choose to cope with low self esteem by trying to be the best at everything instead of doing the hard inner work of changing what we believe about ourselves. Unfortunately, we can even use people as an unhealthy way of coping the same way that we can turn to people for healthy support, guidance, and love.

Using MRIs, researchers can figure out what part of our brain lights up when listening to music. What they’re seeing is that music is not just sent to one part of the brain. It actually affects most of our brain. Different parts of a song like rhythm and tone are analyzed in different parts of the brain. The part of our brain that processes emotions also lights up when listening to a song (McCollum 2019). 

What do all these songs have in common? Alcohol. I guarantee most of us hear someone talking or singing about drinking every day. It’s a huge part of American society. However, most of us also know that drinking is really not great for you, especially the kind of drinking these songs are talking about. What really happens in your brain while you drink alcohol? 

About 4 months later, we ran a half marathon. She had easily convinced me to join her in training. We’d found a training plan that didn’t look that bad, I had already been exercising so how hard could it be to add in running, and it gave us an excuse to spend more time together. I didn’t expect to fall in love with it, though. Who would want to run so much and so far?