Wellness Culture

In his groundbreaking book Predictably Irrational, social scientist Dan Ariely revealed the multiple biases that lead us into making unwise decisions. Now, in The Upside of Irrationality, he exposes the surprising negative and positive effects irrationality can have on our lives. Focusing on our behaviors at work and in relationships, he offers new insights and eye-opening truths about what really motivates us on the job.

Embracing the revival of psychedelic research and the discovery of new therapeutic uses, clinical psychologist Dr. Richard Louis Miller discusses what is happening today in psychedelic medicine - and what will happen in the future - with top researchers and thinkers in this field. Dr. Miller and his contributors cover the tumultuous history of early psychedelic research brought to a halt 50 years ago by the US government as well as offering non-technical summaries of the most recent studies with MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca.

In typical Caulfield manner, it isn't enough to simply interview experts and read the current studies (which he does). He tries celebrity-recommended beauty routines and diets. After attending a modeling competition, he enrolls in an assessment/audition for a modelling agency in Hollywood. In his quest to understand the relationship between celebrity and culture and our individual health choices, he follows celebrity Twitter feeds, scans gossip blogs, and forces himself to read every issue - cover to cover - of People magazine, for an entire year.

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

How would you like to be calmer, less distracted, more productive, and more content at your job? You might think it would take more hours in the day, a better boss, more support, less interference, a shorter commute - and the list goes on. Most of the things we think would help are either not in our control or simply not realistic. But there is one thing we can do to achieve the qualities we seek, and it can be done invisibly and often: meditation.

Mary Aiken is the world's leading expert in forensic cyberpsychology - a discipline that combines psychology, criminology, and technology to investigate the intersection where technology and human behavior meet. In this, her first book, Aiken has created a starting point for all future conversations about how the Internet is shaping development and behavior, societal norms and values, children, safety, security, and our perception of the world.

After a period of tremendous upheaval, it is necessary for organizations to transform alongside their employees and welcome new ways of working. While it is impossible to predict which changes will be successful, it is crucial for leaders to now ask: what should work look like to achieve productive, healthy, and safe organizations? In Brave New Workplace, Julian Barling argues that we should focus on creating environments in which employees can flourish, rather than relying on the resiliency of workers to withstand difficult working conditions.

Journalist Debbie Nathan reveals the true story behind the famous case of Sybil, the woman with sixteen different personalities.

What to listen to after What to Expect.... A badass, feminist, and personal deep-dive into the science and culture of pregnancy and early motherhood that debunks myths and dated assumptions, offering guidance and camaraderie to women navigating one of the biggest and most profound changes in their lives. Like most first-time mothers, Angela Garbes was filled with questions when she became pregnant. What exactly is a placenta? How does a body go into labor? Why is breast best? What are the signs and effects of postpartum depression?

Based on the popular research project Whores of Yore, and written with her distinctive humor and wit, A Curious History of Sex draws upon Dr. Kate Lister's extensive knowledge of sex history. From medieval impotence tests to 20th-century testicle thefts, from the erotic frescoes of Pompeii, to modern-day sex-doll brothels, Kate unashamedly roots around in the pants of history, debunking myths, challenging stereotypes, and generally getting her hands dirty.

O mito do normal faz uma investigação cuidadosa sobre o trauma, o papel da sociedade em nossas doenças e os caminhos possíveis para a saúde e a cura. Neste mundo em que as doenças físicas e mentais são cada vez mais frequentes, o que é realmente “normal” quando se trata de saúde? Em quatro décadas de experiência clínica, o renomado médico Gabor Maté compreendeu que o conceito de normalidade adotado pela medicina está equivocado, pois negligencia o papel que o trauma, o estresse e as pressões cotidianas exercem sobre nosso corpo e nossa mente.

When you tame your most impulsive, primitive reactions to the crazy situations you face every day, you'll help others do the same. Tame the Primitive Brain offers a new and simple system to understanding and controlling the behavior of others. Noted body language, behavior, and communication expert Mark Bowden explains the fastest and most effective ways to understand why someone acts toward you the way they do; why you react to their behavior in the way you do; and most important, what exactly to do to achieve the right outcomes.

Empowering, inclusive, smart, and a must-have, Good Food, Bad Diet will give you the tools to reject diets, repair your relationship with food, and lose weight so you can move on with your life.

From government to business, banks to media, trust in institutions is at an all-time low. But this isn't the age of distrust - far from it. Rachel Botsman reveals that we are at the tipping point of one of the biggest social transformations in human history. A new world order is emerging: We might have lost faith in institutions and leaders, but millions of people rent their homes to total strangers, exchange digital currencies, or find themselves trusting a bot. This is the age of "distributed trust", a paradigm shift driven by innovative technologies that are rewriting the rules....

In 2015 Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC's popular podcast and radio show Note to Self, led tens of thousands of listeners through an experiment to help them unplug from their devices, get bored, jump-start their creativity, and change their lives. Bored and Brilliant builds on that experiment to show us how to rethink our gadget use to live better and smarter in this new digital ecosystem. In this fascinating new audiobook, Manoush explains the connection between boredom and original thinking.

As a celebrated cultural critic and a writer for national publications like The Atlantic and Harper's, Alan Jacobs has spent his adult life belonging to communities that often clash in America's culture wars. And in his years of confronting the big issues that divide us - political, social, religious - Jacobs has learned that many of our fiercest disputes occur not because we're doomed to be divided, but because the people involved simply aren't thinking.

Much of what we know about the greatest medical disaster ever, the Black Plague of the fourteenth century, is wrong. The details of the Plague etched in the minds of terrified schoolchildren the hideous black welts, the high fever, and the final, awful end by respiratory failure are more or less accurate. But what the Plague really was, and how it made history, remain shrouded in a haze of myths.

Most of us spend a significant part of the day in front of a screen. Our work and social lives play out through our computers, tablets and phones: on email, social media, video conference calls and gaming servers. But what is all this screen time doing to our health, our sleep, and our relationships? Professor Pete Etchells studies the way we use screens, and how they can affect us. In UNLOCKED, he delves into the real science behind the panic about our alleged device addiction and withering attention spans.

Jen Lancaster is here to take a hard look at our elevating anxieties, and with self-deprecating wit and levelheaded wisdom, she charts a path out of the quagmire that keeps us frightened of the future and ashamed of our imperfectly perfect human lives. Take a deep breath, and her advice, and you just might get through a holiday dinner without wanting to disown your uncle.

“How are you feeling today?” We may think of emotions as universal responses, felt inside. Using decades-long, cutting-edge research, acclaimed psychologist Batja Mesquita asks us to reconsider emotions through the lens of what they do in our relationships, both one-on-one and within larger social networks.