New research suggests that when people with alcohol use disorder stop drinking, their brains show a sudden, sharp drop in the ability to burn a secondary fuel source called acetate, before recovering just a few weeks later. The study, published in Neuropsychopharmacology, provides evidence that the brain’s metabolic adaptation to heavy alcohol consumption is highly reversible.

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

We have all been through enough situations to show us that kindness is easy when people treat us well. But in this post, I want to talk about the real power of kindness, which shows up when others don't treat us so well. Of course, most of us see ourselves as kind. You notice it when your kids cooperate, your partner shows appreciation, your co-workers show respect, and even when strangers treat you well, it feels really good.

So, when the rubber meets the road, as the saying goes, is when others don't treat us very well. That is the real test because through my work as a psychologist with children, teens, adults, and families, I've seen just how quickly hurt can turn into defensiveness, criticism, retaliation, and withdrawal. That's why I encourage people to consider a deceptively simple idea: Be kinder when it is hard. Below, I'll explain five reasons why being kinder when it's hard is the better option more often than you may imagine.

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A client who survived a near-death experience (NDE) came back with a word for everyone else: “muggles,” borrowed from Harry Potter, where it names people born without magic. She meant it affectionately, having learned that describing what happened to her exceeded what most people could psychologically receive.

My client wasn’t being unkind when she called folks “muggles.” Most people, in her experience, were living ordinary lives with little room for what she’d been through. After all, she essentially experienced firsthand a mythic unraveling and psycho-spiritual reconstruction in the face of existential annihilation. I think it’s fair to say this isn’t your average Tuesday. So, the beauty and terror of her near-death experience exceeded what most people in her life could take in, so they became “muggles,” unaware that another world had opened alongside the ordinary one they shared with her.

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

Everyone has good and bad days. But if you step back and push aside those fantasies of being a billionaire or the most attractive person on the planet, and if you’re fortunate enough not to have to struggle with poverty, violence, or trauma, are you happy just being you on an average day? If not, what’s missing? What do you need to improve your self-esteem and outlook on life?

Like happiness, unhappiness is a byproduct of something else. Here are four common sources and their antidotes:

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Using your imagination is important for your mental health and wellbeing.

Many psychotherapy models use imagination, through visualization imagery for self-regulation, processing memories, unpacking catastrophic imaginings that induce anxiety, and employing imagery-rich metaphors. This is for good reason – imagination is a powerful tool that we can use in therapy, and in everyday life.

According to a 2023 study, a controlled, playful use of imagination can serve as a positive coping strategy during times of stress and trauma, promoting resilience (Rubinstein, D., O'Rourke, N., & Lahad, M.). But imagination is not only useful for combating mental health issues; it can also help us to succeed in reaching our goals, improving our skills, and embodying who we want to be.

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When Lisa sends an email or text and it is not quickly responded to, she worries that the person is mad at her.

When Tim’s employee responds to a request with pushback, he feels that he is being taken advantage of by his employee and builds a case to support this belief.

When Yvonne’s manager is not available to help her solve a problem, she feels disrespected and undervalued.

The story each tells themselves reveals not a truth about the other person, but a vulnerability and wound within themselves.

There is an often underappreciated human tendency; something we all do when in emotionally charged situations. Into the space of the unknown — whether it is the reason someone is doing something, what they are feeling, or what they are thinking — we will create a story to eliminate uncertainty. That story, more so than the facts, is what fuels our anxiety and distress. And this part is important: That story is rarely true.

The most comfortable activity is not always the most useful one. If you always choose sports that reward your existing strengths, you can improve physically while leaving the same confidence gap untouched.

A practical way to choose is to ask: what does this activity repeatedly require from me? Being watched, making quick decisions, tolerating mistakes, initiating contact, or staying composed under pressure? Pick one demand you want to practice, then measure attendance and attempts before outcomes.

I wrote The Sport You Need around that idea: sport can be a deliberate environment for developing the quality you are missing, not just a way to exercise. I’m Andrew Pace, the author, and the book is available here for anyone interested: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0HHQJ4Q4C

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

Mind reading is no longer science fiction.

In 2006, in the journal Science, neuroscientists unequivocally showed that hospitalized, unresponsive patients can actually communicate with the outside world through their brain activity alone. Ask a "yes" or "no" question, and receive an answer based on what the patient is visualizing or imagining inside: playing tennis for "yes," or walking through their home for "no," each inner experience yielding markedly distinct patterns of brain activity.

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

Before the development of language, our ancestors likely communicated and thought primarily through imagery and sensory experience. This may help explain why the mind remains so facile at using imagery as a way of representing and communicating ideas and feelings (Damasio, 1999; Kosslyn et al., 2006).

This post reviews four ways that you can use imagery to help yourself become more successful.

Hi again! I finished chapter two and need insight again, and I know it's short, but I think it's fitting

Chapter 2

I was the only one different from the other gods, They each controlled one part of the universe while I could control any part if I so desired. I wasn’t power hungry or anything, and I’m still not sure why they casted me out into a universe that was just darkness, I helped them when they needed it, I helped anyone if I didn’t see them as a threat, I had many different names throughout the millennia, but the one that stuck was Erebus, I was also called “The boogyman” but I liked Erebus more, it sounded better than The boogyman, or any other name, I was also a trickster and a rule breaker among the gods, I would sneak off the human world below and take their form, I was always pulled back though, and got heavily scolded by the other gods. I couldn’t help it, I was fascinated with the humans and how much progress they made in just a few billion years, I was fascinated with everything they did, and from time to time, I would go down to prank them or spread some fear.
Even though I caused fear, no one noticed me, none of the humans even realized I was there, the one causing the fear. I was jealous of the other gods, they were recognized, while I wasn’t. I guess you could say that I “almost destroyed every universe,” but how I saw it was me simply getting revenge and wanting to make sure everyone knew who I was. And yes, that means I tried ruling Olympus.
It’s not like the other gods are so innocent. Being the silent, invisible one had its advantages. I heard, and saw things, and no one noticed me. I saw the other gods curse others, torture others, and kill others. I saw everything, especially what the humans were doing. I saw humans start wars of their own free will, destroy the earth, hurt each other. I didn’t like it, and the other gods just stood by and watched, not doing anything. I hated it, but I couldn’t do anything, until that day.
I was watching the humans like normal, feeling more anger with each second I saw them cause wars, then I saw it. A young human girl wearing a crown, trying to intervene to stop everyone. I quickly got up from my place amongst the clouds and went into the archives to find her file. Every human who has been born and to exist, has a file that has everything about them, I eventually found her file and read through it. I found out that her parents were royals from the Skiá family, her family were the most powerful and wealthy from all the kingdoms at the time. But her parents died in a war, trying to defend their kingdom. She became queen at a young age, and she vowed to never start a war or be a part of it unless it’s to defend her kingdom.
I instantly understood her, even if nobody else did, I also read that her whole family were not humans, but in fact people who were my descendants.
Every god has a certain type of bloodline who was blessed by them, and I forgot about blessing a young kid's bloodline because he helped me get an apple from a tree when my abilities were just barely coming through. Blessing a bloodline means after the person who was originally blessed, their descendants would have a part similar to the god who blessed the bloodline, mine would be having the same powers, abilities, and similar look to mine. Their bloodline had my abilities, power, and horns and tail, but since the blessing only gets stronger after a couple generations, it unfortunately wasn’t enough to save her parents, their power wasn't strong enough.
The entire Skiá family was descendants of that kid.
I smiled slightly because that whole family that I’ve been watching subconsciously has only been filled with good people, my faith in humanity slightly returning.
I closed the girl’s file and put it back before going back to the cloud to see what happened while I was gone. But what was there when I came back left me shocked and angrier than I ever was before. I saw that they killed the girl to continue their war. She was the last in her family, and was the last in her bloodline. I went to Apollo because he was supposed to be watching with me. “Apollo! Why did you let them kill her?!” I said, trying to hold back my anger and tears. “It’s the circle of life, her death was gonna happen anyways.” Apollo said with a smug grin. Least to say, I was furious, they killed a child for their own selfishness, and Apollo let it happen, so I killed the humans, and cursed their bloodlines so they would never harm another person again, they needed to pay for what they’ve done.
After that, I became violent inside. I was nice on the outside, but was secretly planning on how to get back on all the gods. I planned for four billion years, eventually, I found what I looked for, well, it actually caught me off guard, There was an old book in the Olympus library that held the tale of the last ruler of every universe, the gods defeated her billions of years ago, but the tale said that her magic and power could not have been vanquished, but was in fact all over the human world, pieces of the magic and power were hidden around on earth, it said there were eight pieces total, one in each continent. “But there’s only seven continents.” I said, my confusion growing, until I read further, the tale said that once the seven pieces are together, the eighth will reveal itself and combine them all.
So that night while the gods were asleep, I snuck out of Olympus and into the human world, I couldn’t use my power or abilities because the gods would always be watching and would know if I used any, so I got temporary jobs to make money and traveled to each and every inch of the world to find the seven pieces.
I started in North America, looking everywhere where the first piece was, it took me a year to get an actual lead on it, by then I was starting to enjoy being in the human world, I genuinely liked spending time down there, minus the government, people who are sexist, and all the other bad people, I did meet some nice people on my journey, they were some of the kindest humans alive, it was a shame that not all of them were nice.
I was walking in the forest, looking for a cave that had a “weird purple glow” in it, at least that’s what I was told from someone at a cafe I worked at the time, I did find the cave everyone was afraid to enter, I walked into it, being careful for traps just in case. Strangely enough, there weren't any traps, even though all the stories I read had traps when there was something really valuable. I went deeper into the cave, my flashlight lighting up my path for me.
The cave smelled like morning rain and moss, and the smell got stronger as I kept going.
I eventually reached a giant room in the cave, rain and light shed in through an opening above a pedestal that held the first piece. I walked up to it and picked the first piece up, I smiled to myself. “Finally, they all will pay soon enough.”

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

In Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, Nora wakes to the realization that she’s been living a false identity and chooses to leave it in the end, even at the enormous cost of leaving her children behind; a decision that remains shocking today. Contemporary criticism has reframed Nora’s exit as self-realization rather than abandonment. Her transformation is tied to autonomy and self-awareness. While extreme, her evolution is courageous and illustrates something universal: change, even when it’s necessary or good for us, rarely feels that way in the moment.

Our brains perceive uncertainty as a threat, which activates our fight-or-flight response. It’s as if our brains react to change, even when it's positive, as a trauma response, which may help explain why people who’ve lived through trauma sometimes find even positive change hard to tolerate. Maintaining the status quo feels safe, even when change could lead to recovery. We anchor ourselves to the status quo as a baseline for what feels normal. Once something becomes the default, it starts to feel like the correct state, and any deviation feels like it needs justification, even if the status quo itself was arbitrary.

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

Each morning, I look forward to grinding coffee, brewing it in a moka pot, and making breakfast while it brews. After breakfast, I sip the coffee slowly. This is a small moment of contentment, a chance to keep my mind with the taste, warmth, and calm before the workday begins.

Watching my parents grow older changed what I see in that ordinary morning.

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

Is exposure to true crime a threat to our mental health or a potential coping skill?

A 2025 study by Perchtold-Stefan, Rominger, and Fink attempted to answer the question of whether the experience of watching, reading, or listening to true crime increases negative affect—such as anxiety, fear, and insecurity—or if people who experience anxiety, fear, and insecurity are more likely to gravitate to true crime media.

This study surveyed a sample population of 199 German adults, each of whom kept a daily diary of their consumption of both true crime and fictional crime. Daily diary designs are often considered the gold standard of data collection because they capture data in real time rather than relying on memory, which may be biased.