Thomas Ramey Watson

Five Myths about Self-Love

From Sarah Lamb’s insightful essay: I hate self-help books. Well, I do now. I hate them because they tell us how we should be. They tell us, if we only did things this way—the author’s way—then we will be happy and truly understand what it means to love ourselves. The day I gave up reading …

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PTSD May Have A Physical, Not Just Psychological, Effect On The Brain

Post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental health condition triggered by witnessing or living through a traumatic event, is linked to a host of emotional side effects, including anxiety, flashbacks and nightmares. Now, new research indicates PTSD might physically change the brain, too. Researchers at University of California San Diego Health took brain scans of 89 former …

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The Brains Of Psychopaths May Be Wired Differently Than Yours Or Mine

Better understanding of how psychopaths’ brains work could pave the way for better treatments. In particular, approaches to addressing other disorders characterized by impulsive decision-making might be worth a look. For example, the ventral striatum is also overactive when people with substance use disorder are exposed to drug stimuli. Strategies aimed at changing their behavior …

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10 Weird Signs You’re Stressed Out

Stress manifests in a multitude of ways. Some of them are emotional symptoms, like moodiness and irritability, and others may mask themselves as physical issues. The problem with this physiological phenomenon is that you may simply chalk these issues up as something harmless. Not only that, data shows stress is continually on the rise, making …

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Religion Failed Us—but we Still Need It.

from Samuel Kronen’s excellent essay: To live a religious life, we must engage in a spiritual practice. I don’t think there is any way around this. To remain in contact with that what is beyond ourselves, beyond the domain of our individual thoughts, we must find some way of continually remembering that this connection exists …

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A Growing Movement Of ‘Death Doulas’ Is Rethinking How We Die

“All I can tell you is that from where I have sat there has been a calmness and a sense that I want to be nowhere else but by that person’s side,” Levine said in an interview with HuffPost. Levine is part of a growing movement of nurses, social workers and volunteers who are pushing …

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