 | Five excellent mind habits to develop |
| Want a more useful mind? Your mind is like a muscle, it can be trained to be stronger and more efficient. Here are some good ways to help you develop your brain into a better tool. I'm not saying they're easy, but they're definitely worthwhile. |
| How to give up smoking |
| I smoked for seven years, averaging a packet a day. I was completely addicted to nicotine and the cigarette habit for a time. It's now been fourteen years since I last had a cigarette. Here's how I did it. |
| How to get control of your body |
| The evidence that people in rich modern societies have lost control of their bodies is widespread. Poor eating, drug use, and lack of exercise are common habits. Why is it that we have such difficulty gaining power over our bodies, and what can we do about it? |
| Taking charge of your eating habits |
| Many people have trouble controlling their eating habits. You can see it in the rapidly expanding waistlines of the world's population. But what we decide to take into our bodies is something we can take charge of. |
| Seven rules for sharpening up your thinking skills |
| Every day we're flooded with information from all sorts of sources. Much of it is trying to sell us some kind of conclusion: “PMart is the cheapest”, “Global warming is the biggest problem facing humanity”, “Susan thinks you’re cute” and so on. |
| Be an explorer |
| I often get emails from readers asking me some variant of: "How do you manage to write about so many interesting topics?" Well, first of all, thanks for the compliment. |
| Find the right balance between improving your situation and enjoying it |
| There's a funny scene in the film "Thank you for smoking" where the main character, a public relations shill for the cigarette industry, is asked how he can do such an unethical job. "Everyone's got to pay the mortgage", he replies. |
| How to deal with information overload |
| A couple of people have sent emails asking me to write about information overload. It seems that a lot of you are drowning in data at the moment, and need some sort of direction about which way to swim. I've thought about it for a bit, and here's my conclusion. |
| Don't hate your body too much, it's the most amazing machine on the planet |
| We live in a society fixated on machines and gadgets. The media obsesses over iPods, BMWs, laptops and phones. And we consumers gobble up every titbit of information available on those topics. |
| A neat trick for dealing with anxiety |
| When I was younger, I used to get anxious a lot. I think this is partly to do with the fact that being a teenager is just a stressful time, but also because I hadn't learned to deal with anxiety. |
| How to get more exercise |
| I've never been a big person for doing organised exercise programs. That's not because I don't think such programs are important. I've just never been able to find the motivation to follow one through. |
| Don’t forget to keep your body happy |
| One of the problems with modern society is that many of us can completely ignore important needs of our bodies. The obsession with electronic entertainment means most of us are focused on feeding our minds. Modern workplaces and transportation let us spend most of our lives sitting in comfort. Convenience foods mean we don’t have to put much thought into what we our fuelling ourselves with. |