What I’ve been reading this week…
Healing through writing is the theme of Writing Away The Demons: Stories of Creative Coping through Transformative Writing edited by Dr. Sherry Reiter. The book is a collection of stories written by those who took up a pen and paper during their crisis -  be it alcoholism, domestic violence, cancer, and addiction.  Informative, enlightening, and inspiring, each story offers encouragement and insight to readers who might be in similar circumstances.
Deborah King suggests that what you hide can hurt you in Truth Heals, a book that focuses on the relationship between the suppression of truth and …read more

Back in the 1970’s two research teams (Paul Costa and Robert McCrae (National Institutes of Health), and Warren Norman ( University of Michigan)/Lewis Goldberg ( University of Oregon))  discovered that most human personality traits can be boiled down to five broad dimensions of personality, regardless of language or culture. The ‘Big Five’ as they became known are…

Extroversion
Openness 
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Neuroticism

So, want to know where you sit on the Big Five Scale?
Then take this free personality test to find out.

I’ve always believed that strenuous exercise wasn’t good for the health. And now, with this new study, I have think I might just have the proof. 
According to the study, conducted by researcher Mary C. Tierney, PhD, of the University of Toronto,  long term strenuous activity such as running, swimming laps, or calisthenics may lead to memory loss.
The study looked at 90 recently menopausal women between the ages of 50 and 63. They were surveyed on their exercise regime – how frequently they did both strenuous and moderate recreational activities – from high school to menopause.
For this study, strenuous activities were …read more

Would I lie to you? Maybe, but the truth, according to David Matsumoto, Ph.D., a psychologist at San Francisco State University in San Francisco, Calif., will be written all over my face. It might not be easy to see, but it’s there.
Dr. Matsumoto, who has made a career out of focusing not on what people say but what the face itself says, works with police and experts around the world to find the truth by reading faces.
 It’s a fascinating topic that’s become even more interesting since the arrival of the television show Lie to Me, based on the work of Paul Ekman, …read more

Dream of writing the great American novel or become an acclaimed artist?
Then maybe you need to think about living abroad. 
According to a new research by the American Psychological Association, living abroad expands the mind.
This conclusion is based on 5 studies involving students at Sorbonne University, INSEAD and the Kellogg School of Management in the US. 
Of course, despite these findings, moving abroad does not guarantee a budding writer or artist will create the perfect masterpiece or manuscript.
But as an expat, it’s interesting to know that living overseas is possibly increasing my creativity.
One more reason to stay where I am!
(source and image source)
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1065698

How good are you at recognizing faces?
Would you be able to recognize, say for example, a waitress that served you once five years ago? Or  someone at the checkout counter at the grocery store you visited while on holiday in, say, California a decade ago?
If the answer is no, then you are like most of the population that sits in the middle of the face recognition spectrum.
But if the answer is yes, then you are probably a ’super-recognizer’.
It’s a term coined  by Harvard researchers  following a recent study they conducted on face recognition. They administered  standardized face recognition tests to a group of participants and discovered  that …read more

Antidepressants might ease the blues but a recent study indicates that they might also cause more wrinkles.
Apparently a study on identical twins, conducted by researchers at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center, found that the use of antidepressants can contribute to faster aging.
Of course, the reasons that people are on the antidepressants in the first place are also probably contributing to the faster aging as well.
But because antidepressants function as muscle relaxants, their continued use might well lead to decreased facial muscle tone, resulting in a face that sags.
Read the full study here…
(image from sxc.hu)

Have you heard about The Mensa Invitational ? It’s a ‘play on words’  list that’s been floating around the internet and emails for a few years now.
Each of the words that have had a single letter added, deleted, or to create a new word with a humorous meaning.
Here’s the list so far…
Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject
financially impotent for an indefinite period.
Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you
realize it was your money to start with.
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as …read more

Count every ‘F’ in the following text:
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS…
How many did you find?
I only found 4…
But there are 6 — seriously,
Read it again.
Can you find all 6?
Want to know why not?

Good news for those of us who discover at the end of a meeting or lecture that our notes are hidden by messy doodles, unintelligible to anyone but ourselves.
According to recent study carried out by UK researchers those who doodle have better memory recall than those who do not.
The study had the participants divided into two groups – one group was encouraged to color in shapes on a piece of paper while listening to a 2.5 minute telephone message and the other group was left to their own devices while listening.
Both groups, by the way, were told before the message …read more