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There is plen­ty of evi­dence to con­vince us that social con­nec­tion is key to well-being. But rela­tion­ships are com­pli­cat­ed, bring­ing good and bad into our lives. 

Let us share a few key insights from sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies pub­lished in 2018 on top­ics rel­e­vant to lead­ing a mean­ing­ful life. They won’t solve all of our social problems—but we hope they will help you to bet­ter under­stand your­self and the peo­ple around you.

Keep on read­ing!

– The Kumano Kodo trail in Japan

“Nature deficit dis­or­der” is a mod­ern afflic­tion. With more peo­ple liv­ing in cities, work­ing in high-rise office build­ings, and becom­ing addict­ed to their innu­mer­able elec­tron­ic devices, many of us are indeed expe­ri­enc­ing a nature deficit. This is true for chil­dren and adults alike.

In his new book, For­est Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Hap­pi­ness, Japan­ese med­ical doc­tor and researcher Qing Li presents some sober­ing sta­tis­tics: By 2050, accord­ing to the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Divi­sion, three quar­ters of the world’s peo­ple will live in cities. Even now, the aver­age Amer­i­can spends 93 per­cent of the time indoors, and Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Serin, what sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test?

It was great that at least one of the judges had already pur­chased and start­ed using our prod­uct so we could delve into the nuances of our tech­nol­o­gy quick­ly. And I was thrilled that all judges saw the pos­si­bil­i­ties to cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant glob­al impact.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind Touch­Points?

Too many peo­ple suf­fer too much stress, often lead­ing to sleep­less­ness, crav­ings, anger, poor focus, poor per­for­mance, and feel­ing over­whelmed. Touch­Points aim at reduc­ing stress by deliv­er­ing hap­tic microvi­bra­tions via wear­able devices worn on both sides of the body. The Read the rest of this entry »

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Since its release in June, Inside Out has been applaud­ed by crit­ics, adored by audi­ences, and has become the like­ly front-run­ner for the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Fea­ture.

But per­haps its great­est achieve­ment has been this: It has moved view­ers young and old to take a look inside their own minds. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gen­er­al Chiarelli’s Brain Cru­sade (Politi­co):

“Soon after Peter Chiarel­li became vice chief of staff of the Army in 2008, a sub­or­di­nate showed him a bar graph depict­ing the num­ber of sol­diers deter­mined by the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs to be at least 30 per­cent dis­abled. The tallest col­umn was on the far left. Read the rest of this entry »