Pleasure is its own principle – we seek it for its own good. Oftentimes, we’ll do things precisely for the pleasure. We only stop to think about the activity or issue if it becomes a problem: if despite its short-term pleasure it is detrimental to our overall happiness. “Happiness” has traditionally been understood as long-lived and useful, often attained in relationships, and typically doesn’t lead to addictions or dependence. In contrast, “pleasure” has been short-lived, fa

When I started my hypnosis practice it was kind of a joke to me. The two issues hypnosis is best known for are weight loss and smoking cessation. And those were two areas I had absolutely no interest working with. Then I had my first quit-smoking client. Wham! They quit, and both of us could see right away the drastic change and improvement in their life. They were happier, healthier, more positive, less stressed and less anxious. They were thrilled. Their spouse was thrilled

Can you take a compliment? I mean, really, hear something nice about your person or personality, and absorb it into your being, let it sink down deep into you and have it affect the way you think about yourself and your place in the world? I didn't think so. Honestly, neither can I. There always seems to be some barrier, some instinctual prejudice against myself, so that I can't easily accept positive observations about me or my character, and have that be meaningful. I doubt

Depression seems at record highs in recent years – and there is evidence to support that. Some point to social isolation with increasing divorce rates and social media. Some point to the increased anxiety in our culture and lifestyle over the past ten-to-fifteen years. But there is also evidence that depression has always been a part of human existence, in every culture around the world. Now, let me make a distinction between severe, clinical depression and what I call “healt

Have you ever overreacted? I mean, like out-of-the-blue lost it without even realizing why you were so upset? Sure, whatever happened sucked, but the level of anger, anxiety, fear, sadness or frustration you felt wasn't really appropriate to how sort-of-bad that one situation or "thing" was, right? Sure, we've all been there. Some of us live there. This happens all the time because when we are responding to something in our lives in the present or even in the future, we are r

Rituals, it turns out, can play an important role in changing our habits, attitudes and thoughts. In fact, that might be what they're designed for. At least according to Michael Puett, Professor of Chinese History at Harvard, and co-author of Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity. Ritual, Puett points out, gives us an opportunity for a moment to be a different person. We enter a ritual space, connect with someone, then break the space and move on. B

I am enthralled by the look at the historic mind, and am amazed by the ability of science to both confirm and quantify some of our best intuitions. We've known for a long time that how we say something matters just as much as what we are actually saying. Turns out, we are at the technological level now that we can electronically quantify how someone is feeling based on their word choice in social media. More importantly, though, we need to pay attention to the words our compa