Chard is a unique vegetable, its wide, watery stems resembling bok choy in taste and texture, while its leaves recall the taste and texture of spinach and beet greens (which belong to the same subspecies as chard). Some people don’t like chard, but often that’s because they’ve never cooked it the right way: paired with tangy ingredients and other strong flavors and textures to balance out chard’s distinct, earthy taste....

“Wow!” she said, “I was amazed this week. Instead of raising my voice, I tried taking a deep breath and calming myself down. I can’t believe how well this worked. The kids actually began to calm down too.” Over the past three years, I’d heard similar stories from teachers applying CARE to their interactions with their students. CARE, a federally-funded research project being conducted by the Pennsylvania State University, in collaboration with the Garrison Institute, couldn’t have come at a better time....

What lies at the root of every relationship problem is a core “wound of the heart” that affects not only our personal relations, but the quality of life in our world as a whole. This wounding shows up as a pervasive mood of unlove, a deep sense that we are not intrinsically lovable just as we are. We experience ourselves as separated from love, and this shuts down our capacity to trust....

This short animation from the London School of Life shows how an apology can make all the difference. Explaining you are sorry for how you acted and explaining how you felt is an important tool for keeping up a healthy relationship. A sincere and thoughtful apology is a meaningful message to our partners that we care, and an offhand “I’m sorry,” isn’t enough. “All apologies aren’t created equal,” says Christine Carter, a sociologist and happiness expert, “a good apology is something of an art....

Here, pasta points the way: it’s impossible to imagine a bowl of plain boiled spaghetti being set on the table, no matter what else is being served. And this is also true of rice. Consider the recipe for “Rice as a Side Dish” in Pellegrino Artusi’s classic Science in the Kitchen and The Art of Eating Well (1891): If you are serving the rice with a stew of milk-fed veal or veal chops, rather than with boiled chicken, in addition to the ingredients mentioned above, add two or three tablespoons of spinach which you have boiled and passed through a sieve....

Yet, there is a “rub”—a strange irony to our circumstances. Despite such remarkable prosperity, too many of us find ourselves increasingly depressed, anxious, and unhappy. And, in the midst of such anguish, we aren’t treating each other well. Nearly 90% of us feel that rudeness in everyday social encounters is getting worse. And on the job, 78% of us feel disrespected, bullied, or demeaned. In short, while those of us living and working in developed countries are profoundly prosperous with resources unimaginable to the billions of humans who came before us, we are, nonetheless, increasingly dissatisfied....

Some people worry that self-compassion will make them soft, but it actually gives us incredible power. Olivia Stevenson from the University of Northern Colorado and Ashley Batts Allen from the University of North Carolina examined how self-compassion and inner strength were linked in over 200 women. They found that participants with higher scores on the SCS (self-compassion scale) felt more empowered: They felt stronger and more competent, asserted themselves more, felt more comfortable expressing anger, were more aware of cultural discrimination and committed to social activism....

“I see a lot of products coming out based on an easy-to-measure metric,” says Jud Brewer, Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University. “Yet gadgets should be driven by science, not the other way around. And from a practice standpoint, I’d like to see tools that help hone our internal awareness rather than reliance on looking at a screen to tell us whether we are meditating “correctly....

Why should you care? It is hard to understate the role attention plays in your life. What you attend to is what your life becomes. Spend time giving attention to baseball statistics, and that becomes part of your life. Focus on the healthy development of children, and that becomes part of your life. The choices you make about how—and what—you invest attention in form your life’s structure and content. As demands for our attention become ever more seductive, it has become essential to be more conscious of how you’re using your attention....

On a mindful walk with my dog, taking nature in, observing, noticing! —Jennifer Squires I find happiness when I tap into my inner little girl. She finds delight in the simplest things; this transforms the entire world into a place of beauty! —Coach Cherise When I wake up without pain, see my lovely daughters, see my dog after work, and when my husband hugs me. —@inthismomentbox (Instagram) Do you believe money can buy happiness?...

By all rights I should’ve been terrified when the COVID-19 pandemic started. After all, I’m one of those vulnerable, immune-suppressed people that we’re all supposed to shield from illness, but over the last two years, I’ve found that I’ve had a more stable emotional experience than most of the people I’ve interacted with. Pandemics are a kind of chronic illness on a societal level. For many people, COVID was the first experience of a health threat that persisted over a long period of time....

By Daniel Goleman and Peter M. Senge More than three decades of research shows that telling our kids they are smart and praising achievement is not the way to get results. A new article in Scientific American, “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids,” suggests that “focusing on ‘process,’ rather than intelligence or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life.” This process consists of personal effort and effective strategies....

Tim Ryan: A Mindful Coalition from Mindful Direct. According to a recent Institute of Medicine report, mental health issues among the veteran population are rising. The number of active-duty service members diagnosed with a psychological condition has increased by over 60 percent between 2001 and 2011. An estimated 22 veterans commit suicide each day. An increasing number of veterans are turning to mindfulness to cope with combat-related PTSD. And if Rep....

Yet there is little evidence that emotions were treated with respect throughout much of history. Words that point to emotions in ancient languages are tinged with notions of irrationality or possession by spirits. In the West especially, it seems, emotions were considered irrational. Fortunately, artists came along with an interest in the actual psychological makeup of individuals—the full catastrophe, as it were. During the Renaissance, there was a concerted effort to represent affetti (movements of the soul) in the faces and gestures of the people depicted in works of art....

After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, journalist and filmmaker Shannon Harvey travelled the world in search of the missing link in healthcare. From interviewing world leading scientists to meeting people with remarkable stories of recovery from severe back pain, heart disease, infertility, cancer and multiple sclerosis, The Connection is a documentary that delves into the link between our mind and body. The film includes an internationally recognized line up of scientists including Dr....

In the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, communities surge with the pain of human loss, and the rage and suffering of people clashing against their government—in this case protesting actions of members of their police force, the men and women sworn to protect democracy, facilitate peace, and protect others when violence is imminent. For these communities, and others, trust in police officers has been gradually eroding for decades, perhaps longer, exacerbated by a complex set of social, political, and economic forces....

3 Guided Meditations to Open Up to Happiness 1) Cultivate Gratitude for Small Things with Steve Hickman Whether it’s the first bite of a fresh berry or feeling the sun beaming down on you, we can all find something to be grateful for when we take a moment to tap into the present. In this guided meditation practice, Steve Hickman invites us to let go of needing anything to be any different in this moment, and to open up to what’s actually here that may bring us joy....

Try these three simple approaches over the weekend and see if you can work on changing your relationship certain patterns of thinking. Let your experience be your guide. 3 Ways to Transform Negative Thoughts Recognize the Thought: If the thought is I’m not good enough, life is never going to get better, or some form of complaining or blaming or something like that, take a moment to recognize that the thought is forming in your brain....

And then, last year something changed, and it all clicked. Pushing my son’s stroller around the neighborhood last April, I suddenly saw it all. Maybe it was the oxytocin flowing as I strolled my son around the city, or the relief of meeting a work deadline, but suddenly all the pastels popped. Spring, I realized, has far more colors than autumn—the new buds on the branches of trees glow a pinkish hue when viewed from afar; purple crocus buds peek through the mud; the gray winter sky fades away to reveal a crisp pale blue....

World-renowned neuroscientist Richard Davidson has found evidence that mindfulness does increase resilience, and the more mindfulness meditation you practice, the more resilient your brain becomes. The emotional soup that follows a stressful event can whip up negative stories about yourself or others that goes on and on, beyond being useful. For example, if you have an argument with your partner before leaving for work, you can end up replaying that conversation all day, which continues to proliferate anxiety or low mood far more than is necessary....