I once worked for someone who offered me the opportunity to work on a new project nearly every day. These projects were not the quick ones, where you spend 15 minutes and crank out a solution. They were crap work. And there were strings: my boss wanted to be informed about everything, and there was…

Research findings suggesting that sleep loss and anxiety are closely linked were among those presented at Neuroscience 2018, the annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience, held in San Diego, California. The news isn’t all dire, however — this year’s event offered some science-based encouragement along with causes for concern. Neuroscience continues focusing on the mysteries of sleep (and…

In July 2018 (when we first published this piece), there was a minor uproar when Kardashian scion Kylie Jenner, who is all of 21, appeared on the cover of Forbes’s 60 richest self-made women issue. As many people pointed out, Jenner’s success would have been impossible if she hadn’t been born white, healthy, rich, and famous. She built…

This was originally going to be two separate pieces but part way through they seemed to become more and more related.They became more related because of the intertwined nature of fear and adaptation. Fear is often a failure to adapt to a given circumstance and often adaptation is forced upon through fear. What began me…

Trying really hard works—and then it gets in your way Peak performance happens as a result of trying really hard, and then not trying at all. It’s a paradox. I’ve never met someone who has described a breakthrough performance as effortful or straining or tight. It’s the opposite: when people are at their best—whether it’s on…

It’s said we judge the people around us within the first seven seconds of meeting them. I think something similar happens online. I don’t know what the scientific word is for this, but one image, video, or headline from a Twitter account can push us from 0 to 100 (real quick). This is not a…

In 2011, my parents gave me a sum of money that was both outrageous and, in the real estate terms of major cities, quite reasonable: 10 percent down on the 250-square-foot apartment I still own in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. While I was conflicted about taking it, there wasn’t much of a question about whether I’d…