The Best Articles in Brain
The most useful articles and videos in Brain from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Brain Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Brain by Refind users.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
The Boltzmann brain paradox
How do you know you’re a person who has lived your life, rather than a just-formed brain full of artificial memories, momentarily hallucinating a reality that doesn’t actually exist? That may sound absurd, but it’s kept several generations of top cosmologists up at night. They call it: the Boltzmann brain paradox. Fabio Pacucci explores this mind-numbing thought experiment.
Mindfulness isn’t the only powerful mental state
This interview is an episode from The Well, our new publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.Subscr...
Inside Magnus Carlsen's mind: How he visualizes the chess board
Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZO28NtkwwQPlease support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:- Shopify: https://shop...
Don’t have 10,000 hours to learn something new? That’s fine — all you need is 20
Writer Josh Kaufman shares his own tried-and-tested technique to learn a new skill by putting in just 45 minutes a day for a month. We all have them — the lovelorn musical instruments, the dusty sp…
Christina Costa: How gratitude rewires your brain
When a psychologist who studies well-being ends up with a brain tumor, what happens when she puts her own research into practice? Christina Costa goes beyond the "fight" narrative of cancer -- or any…
What is ...?
New to Brain? These articles make an excellent introduction.
What is neurodiversity?
People think, learn, behave, and experience the world around them in many different ways. Neurodiversity refers to those variations in neurocognitive functioning.
What Is the Dissociative Mind?
When we face overwhelming stress, disconnecting can be a coping skill.
What is neurodiversity?
The term neurodiversity conveys the idea that there is no single right way of thinking, learning, or behaving, and is often used in the context of autism spectrum disorder. A growing self-ad...
How to ...?
How to maintain a healthy brain
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»
How to Think: The Skill You've Never Been Taught
No skill is more valuable than the ability to think. But how can we learn to think better? How can we avoid thinking poorly. Let's explore.
«Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful.»
How To Learn Stuff Quickly
As software developers, we're always learning new things; it's practically the whole gig! If we can learn to quickly pick up new languages/frameworks/tools, we'll become so much more effective at our…
«I have a terrible memory. This can be a bit problematic; it's hard to learn stuff if you can't remember things! Fortunately, I have a system: spaced repetition.»
How To Learn Faster And Smarter (Your Complete Guide)
If you stop learning, you'll stop progressing in life. It's never too late to learn how to learn, and this ultimate guide will show you how to learn faster.
How to Stop Overthinking and Start Trusting Your Gut
Five strategies to strengthen your sixth sense.
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Brain on Refind.
Change fatigue: When our brain’s adaptive capacity is depleted
We are experiencing change fatigue at an unprecedented scale. The cognitive system that allows us to deal with acute stressful situations has been drained. Our “mental surge capacity” is depleted.
«Instead of resisting change, adding to the load we put on our adaptive systems, we can strive to accept, embrace, and even foster change in a way that leads to personal growth.»
Why some people can't tell left from right
It can seem like an almost childish mistake, but a surprising number of adults confuse left from right and scientists are only just starting to understand why.
Want to improve your memory? Try these unexpected tips.
Your memory probably isn’t as bad as you think.
How Should We Think About Our Different Styles of Thinking?
Some people say their thought takes place in images, some in words. But our mental processes are more mysterious than we realize.
How old is your brain, really? Artificial intelligence knows
(Photo/Pexels) AI-powered analysis developed at USC accurately reflects risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease based on brain age. Contact: Nina Raffio, raffio@usc.edu, (213) 442-8464 NEWS…
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Brain—all under 10 minutes.
Brain experiment suggests that consciousness relies on quantum entanglement
New research indicates that consciousness may rely on quantum mechanics. Perhaps the brain does not operate in a "classical" way.
What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
It's like going off a drug.
«Ironically, the brain's evolution is what enables us to believe in religion at all.»
Scientists finally know why we get distracted — and how we can stay on track
More than just a distraction, mind-wandering (and its cousin, daydreaming) may help us prepare for the future
«the decoupling of attention from perception, which is what happens when our thoughts separate from our perception of the environment.»
How the Brain Distinguishes Memories From Perceptions
The neural representations of a perceived image and the memory of it are almost the same. New work shows how and why they are different.
Color is in the eye, and brain, of the beholder
The way we see and describe hues varies widely for many reasons: from our individual eye structure, to how our brain processes images, to what language we speak, or even if we live near a body of…
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Brain.
Forgetfulness: The benefits of when your mind goes blank
We've all had those frustrating moments when we struggle to recall someone's name. It turns out these momentary lapses may actually be good for your memory.
Ask Ethan: How do fundamental particles create consciousness?
At a fundamental level, only a few particles and forces govern all of reality. How do their combinations create human consciousness?
Old thinking will break your brain.
Why updating the way we look at the world is so critical now, and so hard, and how we can get better at doing it.
Why aren't smart people happier?
A new way to think about brainpower.
«Well-defined problems can be very difficult, but they aren’t mystical. You can write down instructions for solving them. And you can put them on a test.»
How might neuroergonomics help us deal with mental overload?
As tasks mount up, our brain’s ability to juggle goes down. Neuroergonomic tactics can relieve the cognitive burden
«Neuroergonomics researchers are looking at what can be done to break through the chaos.»
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Brain, including:

hardmaru
Prompt Engineering @StabilityAI 🚀 東京 Gaijin 🗼 Previous: Research Scientist at Google Brain 🧠 Fixed-Income Ape at Goldman Sachs 🦧
Andrew Ng
Co-Founder of Coursera; Stanford CS adjunct faculty. Former head of Baidu AI Group/Google Brain. #ai #machinelearning, #deeplearning #MOOCs
nature
Research, News, and Commentary from Nature, the international journal of science. For daily science news, get Nature Briefing: http://go.nature.com/naturebriefing
ADDitude
Resources for families touched by attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD). Tweets courtesy of the editors & bloggers you love!
Ness Labs
The learning community for ambitious knowledge workers. Join us to think better, learn faster, and work happier: http://nesslabs.com/membership 🧠✨
Publications
We monitor hundreds of publications, blogs, newsletters, and news sources in Brain, including:
Quanta Magazine
Big ideas in science and math. Because you want to know more. Launched by @SimonsFdn. 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. http://quantamagazine.org
Neuroscience News
Official Neuroscience News Twitter. Brain research news articles on neuroscience, psychology, AI, neurology, brain cancer, robotics, mental health & science.
Ness Labs
The learning community for ambitious knowledge workers. Join us to think better, learn faster, and work happier: http://nesslabs.com/membership 🧠✨
Aeon+Psyche
Aeon is a magazine of ideas and culture. Psyche is our sister magazine focused on the human condition. Visit http://aeon.co and http://psyche.co for more.
Big Think
Learn from the world’s greatest thinkers. Join us on https://www.youtube.com/c/bigthink.
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Which sources does Refind monitor in Brain?
We monitor hundreds of sources in Brain, including Quanta Magazine, Neuroscience News, Ness Labs, Aeon+Psyche, Big Think, and many more.
Who are the thought leaders in Brain?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Brain, including hardmaru, Andrew Ng, nature, ADDitude, Ness Labs.
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