Newsletter Items

From the March 9, 2022 issue of Further If there’s one thing I’ve learned through meditation, it’s that happiness is an inside job. This isn’t just a philosophical position; as Brian wrote last week, your brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN) comes wired to construct a story about you that often isn’t so pleasant. It’s on …

From the March 9, 2022 issue of Further Thanks to the pandemic, the idea of solitude might make you want to run for the hills (metaphorically speaking), especially if you live by yourself. However, there’s a big difference between isolation and solitude — namely, how you view your time alone. As developmental psychologist and solitude …

From the March 2, 2022 issue of Further Our new Further community, Well + Wealthy, may have launched with a fitness challenge, but I’ve been reading between the lines: we have a lot of bookworms in the house. This is good news for many reasons, not just because reading sets you up for success by …

From the February 23, 2022 issue of Further Thanks to the global pandemic shining a spotlight on how fed up we are with physical and psychological burnout in the workplace, it seems like things may finally be shifting towards a better life/work balance. “Seems” is the operative word. Just because 38% of middle-aged people have …

From the February 16, 2022 issue of Further Remember when “sleeping in” meant you got up at noon, not 7:00 am? That’s a sure sign of midlife, where things we once took for granted health-wise become challenging. Research shows a third of adults sleep less than seven hours a night, and up to 30% deal …

From the February 2, 2022 issue of Further Recently on a popular podcast for women over 40, one of the hosts, Jenn Romolini, said something that’s stuck with me: I don’t think that confidence is fixed. I think it comes and goes… you can’t count on it. This resonated because, more and more, I’m noticing …

From the January 26, 2022 issue of Further From the annals of life’s great ironies, in these days of COVID-19 being “negative” is a good thing. And the announcement, “I’m positive,” sends people fleeing. However, there’s a lesson wrapped up in there too. Almost two years into a devastating pandemic with mental health issues spiking, …

From the January 19, 2022 issue of Further In our lifetimes, we’ve seen countless fad diets: place-related (South Beach, Beverly Hills), founder-driven (Scarsdale, Atkins), restrictive (Zone, Paleo, cleanses), and even a cookie diet. (Not this, this.) I grew up with a fridge full of Cool Whip and Tab and a yo-yo dieting mom with a …

From the January 12, 2022 issue of Further I often think about us Gen Xers as the “scared straight” generation, imbued from childhood with terrifying analogies about the perils of not taking care of ourselves. So, in that tough-love tradition, here’s a new fact about stress from a recent study: psychological stress is as serious …

From the January 5, 2022 issue of Further If we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, it’s control is an illusion. During our first family vacation in two(+) years in Costa Rica, I’ve been vividly reminded of that. ¡Pura Vida! quickly became ¡Pura Covida!, as my vaccinated/boosted daughter tested positive a few days into the trip. …

From the December 14, 2021 issue of Further Last week, Brian reminded us it’s almost resolution time again. This reminded me of one of my favorite statistics: only 8% of American adults who plan a New Year’s fresh start achieve it. A SMART approach to goal-setting, as Brian pointed out, makes things quantifiable, timely, and …

From the December 7, 2021 issue of Further I’ve had many epiphanies since my mom died last summer. Among the most poignant is about the legacy of stuff. A bit of a hoarder, my mom’s drawers and closets were jam-packed with a lifetime of accumulation. About 95% were things I almost never saw her wear, …