The Best of Aeon+Psyche

When even everyday social situations make you feel self-conscious and afraid, it’s time to try these well-tested techniques

In the architecture of the mind, is imagination a built-in structural feature or a result of cognitive remodelling work?

Whether in a city or the wilderness, near or far, there’s joy to be had in a journey where the destination doesn’t matter

Perplexed? Embrace it! Confusion is a sign of learning, but the key is finding the sweet spot of productive confusion

How medieval thinkers foreshadowed modern physics in investigating the character of machines, devices and forces

Anger is the emotion that has come to saturate our politics and culture. Philosophy can help us out of this dark vortex

Anger is a complicated emotion, but one you can learn to control. Here’s how.

For people with depression, anxiety and other conditions, reaching high wellbeing – not just recovery – is a real possibility

«enhanced focus on wellbeing will spark a broader conversation that encourages providers to better align patient care with patient goals»

It’s not always easy to tell what’s a sensible safeguard, and what’s an anxiety-fuelling habit. A few questions can help

«bring a stick to hit shrubs along the path. Does the behaviour allow for engagement in valued activities?»

Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer

Adopt these lifestyle changes and you will not only sharpen your mind today but also reduce your risk of dementia later on

«Train your body Just as mental health and brain health are deeply entwined, so too are your overall physical health and your brain health»

Instead of a code encrypted in the wiring of our neurons, could consciousness reside in the brain’s electromagnetic field?

«Our non-conscious mind appears to be a parallel processor, whereas our conscious mind is a serial processor that can operate only one task at a time.»

The special trick of consciousness is being able to project action and time into a range of possible futures

After generations of ‘blackboard economics’, Berkeley and MIT are leading a return to economics that studies the real world

«a preponderance of research that has shown no meaningful disemployment effects of raising minimum wages.»

This is how Europe became the richest place on earth: by being politically fragmented, yet intellectually united

By using ‘distanced self-talk’, you can leverage the structure of language to take a step back and see the bigger picture

«Through adopting this more distanced self-perspective, Aurelius was able to recognise that his feelings of anguish were temporary»

A special class of vivid, textural words defy linguistic theory: could ‘ideophones’ unlock the secrets of humans’ first utterances?

The Stoics approached self-improvement as an athlete approaches sport: the key is to keep practising in the face of failure

«When we do not act upon what we think is right, we are acting like an athlete who trains but never competes. What is the point?»

Moral philosophy is bogus, a mere substitute for God that licenses ugly emotions. Here are five reasons to reject it

Whether divining ancient wisdoms or elevating the art of cold reading, tarot is a form of therapy, much like psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis explains how authoritarians energise the hatred, self-pity and delusion while promising heaven on Earth

The neuroscientific picture of addiction overlooks the psychological and social factors that make cravings so hard to resist

Self-compassion techniques aren’t self-indulgent – they’ll tame your inner critic while helping you change for the better

«So I dedicated 10 minutes to sit down and reflect on the same questions I ask my clients to help them clarify their values. These were my answers:»

In all its baroque and sometimes cruelly overbred forms, the dog is a paramount symbol of both human hopes and foibles

«As a rising middle class started to focus on their own family trees, creating an ‘elite’ from new money, so dogs started to be classified too.»

I am an unequivocal rationalist and yet I still want to see something strange and wonderful in life’s weird coincidences

From career choices to new purchases, use René Girard’s mimetic theory to resist the herd and forge your own path in life

«These are people whose desires are in some sense intertwined with your own – they can affect your desires, and you can in turn affect theirs»

These odd values were long dismissed as bookkeeping. Now physicists are proving that they describe the hidden shape of nature

Mischievousness requires humour, wit and a playful humaneness: qualities that make for a particular kind of virtue

By learning to question and clarify your thoughts, you’ll improve your self-knowledge and become a better communicator

«So far as possible, you should try to extract the maximum truthful and reasonable content from what others say, especially if they disagree with you»

Taking a break isn’t lazy – learning to recharge is a skill that will allow you to enjoy a more creative, sustainable life

«To Aristotle, work was drudgery and necessity; only in leisure could we cultivate our mental and moral abilities, and become better people.»