Category Life and style

Auto Added by WPeMatico

Does ‘laziness’ start in the brain?

Understanding the surprising mechanism behind apathy can help unlock scientific ways to boost your motivation

We all know people with very different levels of motivation. Some will go the extra mile in any endeavour. Others just can’t be bothered to put the effort in. We might think of them as lazy – happiest on the sofa, rather than planning their latest project. What’s behind this variation? Most of us would probably attribute it to a mixture of temperament, circumstances, upbringing or even values.

But research in neuroscience and in patients with brain disorders is challenging these assumptions by revealing the brain mechanisms that underlie motivation. When these systems become dysfunctional, people who were once highly motivated can become pathologically apathetic. Whereas previously they might have been curious, highly engaged and productive – at work, in their social lives and in their creative thinking – they can suddenly seem like the opposite.

Continue reading...

Is there a dark side to gratitude?

Feeling thankful is increasingly touted as a cure-all, but sometimes there are reasons not to be grateful

The word “gratitude” is everywhere these days. On mental health leaflets and in magazine columns, emblazoned on mugs and motivational posters. All this is the result of more than two decades’ research in positive psychology which has found that having a “gratitude practice” (usually jotting down three to five things you are thankful for most days) brings a host of psychological and physical benefits.

I don’t want to seem, well, ungrateful. I’m a sceptical historian, but even I was persuaded to take up the gratitude habit, and when I remember to do it, I feel better: more cheerful and connected, inclined to see the good already in my life. Counting your blessings, whether that’s noticing a beautiful sunset or remembering how your neighbour went out of their way to help you earlier, is free and attractively simple. But there’s the problem. In our eagerness to embrace gratitude as a cure-all, have we lost sight of its complexity and its edge?

Continue reading...

How modern life makes us sick – and what to do about it

From depression to obesity, the concept of ‘evolutionary mismatch’ can help foster self-compassion and point the way to a more rewarding existence

One of the fascinating things about working as a psychotherapist is the opportunity to observe how many of our problems involve us getting in the way of ourselves. The difficulties we encounter are frequently the result of self-sabotage, and managing them often requires wrestling with our own drives, doing our best not to give in to every impulse. This is easier said than done, of course. To lose weight and keep it off, to successfully climb out of debt, to find meaningful work, to maintain long-term, happy relationships: all demand postponing our immediate desires in the service of a longer-term goal.

Delaying gratification, as it’s called, has been a useful tactic for aeons. But at a certain point it becomes reasonable to ask: why does so much of modern life seem to involve swimming upstream? Why is it that following our instincts often seems to land us in so much trouble?

Continue reading...

More sex please, we’re bookish: the rise of the x-rated novel

From the Women’s prize to the bestseller lists, authors are pushing the boundaries of how explicit the novel can be – and readers can’t get enough

When the judges awarded Yael van der Wouden’s brilliant debut, The Safekeep, the Women’s prize for fiction last month, they weren’t just garlanding a book that happens to have a few sexy scenes in it. They were responding to a work that engages with the current levels of literary excitement around sex and marries this with sweeping historical vistas and a distinctive sensibility. It was joined on the shortlist by Miranda July’s exuberant odyssey of midlife desire, All Fours, and Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis, a smart, quickfire account of a young academic’s work for a UN deradicalisation programme, which juxtaposes the world of Middle Eastern religious politics with a closeup relish for female sexuality.

While younger generations, at least, have said in recent years that they want to see more platonic friendship and less sex on screen, reading appetites appear to be going in the other direction, with a huge boom in romance and “romantasy” – the romance-fantasy hybrid driven by TikTok and the success of authors such as Rebecca Yarros and Sarah J Maas. We all have strong, mixed feelings about sex, and the cultural landscape reflects the whole spectrum of kinks and hangups. But that means that we have all the more need for writers like Van der Wouden, July and Sally Rooney, who push the boundaries of how explicit the literary novel can be while also giving us new ways of imagining how desire works within lives today.

Continue reading...

Choose comfort, ditch boring and prioritise pleasure – how to find the perfect beach read

It’s easy to dismiss holiday novels as pulpy, but relaxing with a book you enjoy has huge health benefits. Here’s how to read yourself happy this summer

Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina is a masterpiece. It has never been out of print. Luminaries from William Faulkner to Jilly Cooper have remarked on its brilliance. It is usually within the top 10 of any list of the “100 books you simply must read before you die”. However, I would argue that it’s a singularly poor choice of a book to bring with you for 10 days on the beach in Tenerife. Especially in hardback.

I really tried. Every day, I’d read two or three pages before realising I’d read the same pages the day before, and it simply hadn’t stuck. I kept drifting off during the more complex descriptions of 19th-century property law. I simply couldn’t see what Anna saw in Vronsky; he seemed dreadful, just a slightly different kind of dreadful from her husband, Karenin. My arms ached, the sand seemed unusually gritty, and on day four, as children shrieked and splashed around me, their parents read Jack Reacher books while I failed to understand the significance of Levin scything his fields, I thought, ‘No more!’ My luggage allowance was about 20kg. Tolstoy had taken up more than a tenth of it, and 100% of my headspace. I couldn’t relax. I wasn’t enjoying myself. When I found a Sophie Kinsella novel in the hotel gift shop, I almost wept with relief. It didn’t matter that I’d already read The Undomestic Goddess – my aching brain craved comfort and joy, and it simply wasn’t finding it on Russian railway lines.

Continue reading...