This is Joe's World

According to a new study, people who are more forgiving sleep better (and have better health).

By Sophie McMullen


Many of us have had the experience of tossing and turning at night, wishing we could sleep, watching the minutes tick by on the clock by our bedside. In fact, one-third of Americans say they lie awake at least a few nights a week.

You may have tried counting sheep or listening to a bedtime meditation to help you fall asleep, but according to a new study, there’s another practice you could consider instead: forgiveness.

Researchers asked 1,423 American adults to rate themselves on how likely they were to forgive themselves for the things they did wrong and forgive others for hurting them. The participants also answered survey questions about how they had slept in the past 30 days, how they would rate their health at the moment, and how satisfied they were with their life.

The results suggested that people who were more forgiving were more likely to sleep better and for longer, a…

When the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games organizers set out to design a logo for the event, they began in the traditional way of hiring a design firm. But in the process, they both realized something crucial was missing from the logo: the input of the athletes themselves!

by Liesl Ulrich-Verderber


Read Article

In an age when the fate of the world is unknown, George Prochnik makes a case for uncertainty as a form of faith and hope. Restoring a sense of the unknown requires unlearning, calling into question our way of life. In uncertainty, reason fails whereas love guides. This love can be exemplified by those who spend hours practicing arts and handicrafts with no concern for real-world application, but which may give the skills and imagination necessary to envision and resurrect what war and disease have destroyed. In dark times, hope can emerge from a religious sensibility that proclaims, "I do not know what happens next." Faith can emerge when we ask questions until the context deepens and evil is transformed. Faith, hope and love of service can be the beginning of creation.


Read Article

Where do compassion and empathy come from? What makes life sentient?
This summer, as they have the past several years, professors from across the United States and elsewhere are traveling to three major Tibetan monastic universities in Southern India to train monastics in the philosophy of science, physics, biology, and neuroscience. Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns have grappled with these questions for centuries but, for the first time in their history, they are using science to help find the answers.For monks and nuns, the program organized and operated by Emory University is the most far-reaching update to their curriculum in 600 years. And for scientists who usually reduce complex systems like the human body into smaller parts, the program is a window into a way of thinking that emphasizes the interconnectedness and cyclical aspects of nature.


Read Article

A psychiatrist explains that difficult emotions are natural in new motherhood—and how partners and society at large can be supportive.

By Jenara Nerenberg


You can find plenty of practical information out there about pregnancy and parenting, but what about the emotional rollercoaster and identity shift that occurs for many women and their partners when they have a child? We don’t talk much about it—and if we do, it’s usually in the context of postpartum depression.

We need a new model to think about the transition to motherhood. That’s the focus of the new book What No One Tells You: A Guide to Your Emotions from Pregnancy to Motherhood, co-authored by psychiatrists Alexandra Sacks and Catherine Birndorf.

In the book, Sacks and Birndorf seek to educate readers about the stage of life called “matrescence,” which is the developmental transition to motherhood. Just as a baby transitions to toddlerhood and a child transitions to adolescence, matrescence is a natural but distinct period of lif…

The transcendent artistry of Green Renaissance Films allows us to enter into the life of a young man who has journeyed through mental disorder and arrived at a place of wholeness with an openness to the chaos of life. He has come to realize that he does not need to hold fear at bay by trying to order his world, controlling everything. Rather he embraces the chaos and unpredictability of daily living as the magic of the real world, allowing more beautiful things to happen, a world full of possibilities. The beauty of the film's location in South Africa adds an even deeper dimension to this young man's profound insights.


View Video

A new study finds that kids who paint, draw, play music, or read more often feel better about themselves.

By Tom Jacobs


Middle school can be tough on an adolescent’s self-esteem. Social comparison often becomes fierce, leading to feelings of unworthiness that can have negative consequences in years to come.

How can a parent help? New research suggests that one great answer is to encourage your kids to participate in the arts—or, better yet, to join them in some creative pursuit.

“Initiatives to promote arts engagement in children may provide a practical and efficient way to improve children’s self-esteem,” report Hei Wan Mak and Daisy Fancourt of University College London. Importantly, they found that kids didn’t have to be good at their chosen creative activity for these positive effects to blossom.

The research, published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, features 6,209 youngsters from the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study. The kids were born in the U.K. around the …