Short Stuff: Does singing make you happy?

In I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, award-winning neuroscientist and musician Daniel J. Levitin discusses music’s history and potential as a form of medicine. Drawing from scientific research, he demonstrates how music therapy can effectively treat conditions ranging from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases to cognitive injuries, depression, and chronic pain—making a research-based case for music’s ability to restore health and ease suffering.

In this guide, we’ll explain how we process music and its impact on the brain, before exploring the everyday benefits of listening to and playing music. Then, we’ll discuss the specific therapeutic benefits of music for a variety of mental and physical health conditions. Throughout the guide, we’ll explore the neuroscience behind music’s therapeutic value and provide examples of music therapy in action.

Imagine there was a miracle cure that could help you feel less stressed, lose weight, sleep better, run farther without losing your breath, and live longer. According to breathing coach Patrick McKeown, not only does this cure exist, but it’s also free to anyone with a set of lungs—it’s practicing proper breathing. He says modern living conditions cause the average person to breathe too much, but by training yourself to breathe less, you can greatly improve your physical fitness and overall health.

In this guide, we’ll explain why excessive breathing results in less oxygen getting to your body, and you’ll learn specific exercises for training yourself to breathe less. We’ll supplement McKeown’s advice with other tips that may help you get more out of his Oxygen Advantage program. Additionally, we’ll compare McKeown’s breathing techniques to other popular breathing exercises from experts like Wim Hof and Andrew Huberman.

Although we live longer today and have more material wealth than ever, many people feel anxious rather than happy. In Flow, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi offers an antidote. People are happiest when they feel in control of their inner thoughts and feelings and experience a “flow state”: a sense of enjoyment, purpose, and meaning.

Csikszentmihalyi explains: how controlling and ordering your consciousness brings flow and enjoyment, which personality characteristics produce flow, and how to find flow in your work and relationships.

In I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, award-winning neuroscientist and musician Daniel J. Levitin discusses music’s history and potential as a form of medicine. Drawing from scientific research, he demonstrates how music therapy can effectively treat conditions ranging from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases to cognitive injuries, depression, and chronic pain—making a research-based case for music’s ability to restore health and ease suffering.

In this guide, we’ll explain how we process music and its impact on the brain, before exploring the everyday benefits of listening to and playing music. Then, we’ll discuss the specific therapeutic benefits of music for a variety of mental and physical health conditions. Throughout the guide, we’ll explore the neuroscience behind music’s therapeutic value and provide examples of music therapy in action.

If you want to heal your body, you have to cultivate a healthy mind. In Mind Over Medicine, Lissa Rankin explores the mind-body connection and reveals our innate ability to promote self-healing. By proliferating positive beliefs and designing a fulfilling lifestyle, she says you can create conditions for healing relaxation and whole-body health.

Rankin is a physician, author, and speaker. Using her own chronic illnesses as a catalyst, she expanded her modern, Western healing repertoire to include holistic medicine after researching mindset and lifestyle factors on spontaneous remissions. She now teaches that optimal health involves more than just prescription medicine and physical treatments—it also depends on the quality of our beliefs, our relationships, and our jobs.

In this guide, we examine Rankin’s principles for healing and compare them to similar books like When the Body Says No and The Upside of Stress.

Look around you right now: What’s the most beautiful thing in your surroundings? A painting? A song playing in your headphones? A tree or animal? A loved one’s face? Whatever it is, it has a direct impact on how you think and feel. In Your Brain on Art, Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross dive into neuroarts—how art and aesthetics affect the brain and body—tracing its influence from the moment we began to love art as a species to the concrete benefits it still provides us today.

In our guide, we’ll explore how art spurred humans’ development as a social species. Then we’ll discuss the principles of neuroarts, the benefits of art, and how you can use the arts to flourish. Finally, we’ll add historical and scientific context for Magsamen and Ross’s ideas, as well as perspectives and advice from other experts in neuroscience, psychology, and art.

In I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, award-winning neuroscientist and musician Daniel J. Levitin discusses music’s history and potential as a form of medicine. Drawing from scientific research, he demonstrates how music therapy can effectively treat conditions ranging from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases to cognitive injuries, depression, and chronic pain—making a research-based case for music’s ability to restore health and ease suffering.

In this guide, we’ll explain how we process music and its impact on the brain, before exploring the everyday benefits of listening to and playing music. Then, we’ll discuss the specific therapeutic benefits of music for a variety of mental and physical health conditions. Throughout the guide, we’ll explore the neuroscience behind music’s therapeutic value and provide examples of music therapy in action.

Our brains are uniquely complex information processors, yet most people know little about how they work. In Brain Rules, John Medina writes that when we understand how our brains have evolved, we can use their natural impulses and tendencies to our advantage, improving our thinking and learning in all aspects of our lives.

John Medina is a molecular biologist who focuses on psychiatric disorders. Medina wrote this book in order to help the general public understand in a simple, accessible way how brains work and how the functions of the brain affect how we interact with the world. In this guide, we discuss the 12 rules he’s identified that summarize the brain’s core functions, abilities, and limitations. We also offer ways to apply Medina’s principles in your daily life and discuss scientific and cultural ideas related to his brain rules.

For many of us, exercise feels like a chore—something we know we should do but dread. But in The Joy of Movement, psychologist Kelly McGonigal offers a different perspective: Movement is a natural source of joy we’re designed to crave. Rather than simply burning calories or building muscle, exercise fulfills essential human needs for connection, challenge, and growth. Drawing on neuroscience research, anthropological studies, and personal anecdotes, McGonigal shows how movement shapes our happiness, social connections, and sense of self.

In this guide, we’ll examine the evolutionary rewards that make movement naturally pleasurable, explore how these rewards develop into positive habits, and discuss the unique benefits of moving with other people. We’ll supplement McGonigal’s insights with scientific evidence that supports or challenges her ideas, and practical advice that will help you harness the power of movement to improve your resilience, mental health, and overall well-being.

People tend to strive for self-improvement and personal goals—but it’s the community you build that’s most important to your health and happiness.

Do you belong to a community you care about and want to improve? If not, have you ever wondered how to establish or join a new community? In either case, community expert Charles Vogl can help you achieve your goals with the advice in his 2016 book, The Art of Community. Vogl covers everything from the beginning stages of community development to the roles and responsibilities of community leaders.

In this guide, we’ll explain what a community is, explore some of the fundamental guidelines all communities should follow, and discuss Vogl’s advice for instituting a community meeting place and set of customs. Then, we’ll talk about how you can use lore, emblems, and mementos to enhance belonging within your community. Finally, we’ll discuss community growth, including best practices for incorporating new members and managing community ranks. In our commentary, we’ll explore other experts’ opinions about what makes a community worthwhile and how to make the most of your community experience.

In I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, award-winning neuroscientist and musician Daniel J. Levitin discusses music’s history and potential as a form of medicine. Drawing from scientific research, he demonstrates how music therapy can effectively treat conditions ranging from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases to cognitive injuries, depression, and chronic pain—making a research-based case for music’s ability to restore health and ease suffering.

In this guide, we’ll explain how we process music and its impact on the brain, before exploring the everyday benefits of listening to and playing music. Then, we’ll discuss the specific therapeutic benefits of music for a variety of mental and physical health conditions. Throughout the guide, we’ll explore the neuroscience behind music’s therapeutic value and provide examples of music therapy in action.

For many of us, exercise feels like a chore—something we know we should do but dread. But in The Joy of Movement, psychologist Kelly McGonigal offers a different perspective: Movement is a natural source of joy we’re designed to crave. Rather than simply burning calories or building muscle, exercise fulfills essential human needs for connection, challenge, and growth. Drawing on neuroscience research, anthropological studies, and personal anecdotes, McGonigal shows how movement shapes our happiness, social connections, and sense of self.

In this guide, we’ll examine the evolutionary rewards that make movement naturally pleasurable, explore how these rewards develop into positive habits, and discuss the unique benefits of moving with other people. We’ll supplement McGonigal’s insights with scientific evidence that supports or challenges her ideas, and practical advice that will help you harness the power of movement to improve your resilience, mental health, and overall well-being.

Released in 2010, The Gifts of Imperfection is a New York Times bestseller by researcher, speaker, and author Brené Brown. The book explores the theory and practices behind “Wholehearted living”: a concept Brown devised after years of research into shame, vulnerability, and self-worth. According to Brown, living Wholeheartedly will help you to cultivate worthiness: the conviction that you are good enough as you are and that you deserve to be loved.

In this guide, we’ll explore how Brown conceives worthiness and shame and how her approach to these topics compares to her contemporaries' work. Furthermore, we’ll discuss Brown’s 10 strategies for living Wholeheartedly and the research that underpins (and occasionally challenges) them.