At the beginning of the year, it’s easy to stumble upon thousands of different posts on the topic of resolutions and how to transform yourself in 2020. Not all of them are worth reading. To help you out, we’ve put together a handful of the most interesting articles and books we’ve enjoyed recently.
This is what we’re reading —
Why stress when you can see a wedding therapist?
NY Times
December 3, 2019
“Some clients are searching for broader emotional support. For many, seeing a therapist during their wedding planning becomes a practice they continue after the big day. After all, navigating stress and family doesn’t end after a wedding.”
5 minute read
Plants can improve your work life
ScienceMag
January 2, 2020
A study out of the University of Hyogo in Awaji, Japan, details the stress-reducing benefits to office workers that even a small plant situated within easy viewing can impart.
5 minute read
For healthy New Year’s habits, learn from the world’s longest-lived people
NPR
January 1, 2020
Unlike diagnostic medicine, the rules of preventative care are clear and finite. Sleep, exercise, eat well, and indulge in social interactions. Communities with the longest life-expectancies have these habits baked into their lives.
5 minute read
Christmas suicide surge is a myth, but what about the January rebound?
STAT
Contrary to some common mythology, suicides do not spike over the holidays. In fact, December is the month with the fewest suicides in the US. But the suicide rate jumps in January. This article explains why the mythology has been so persistent. (For more current research findings on suicide, check out our Suicide Prevention, Assessment, and Intervention course.)
6 minute read
How to find a culturally responsive therapist
Forge
December 2, 2019
In the US, the overwhelming majority of psychologists and psychiatrists are white, meaning a person of color looking for mental health care is likely to find it with someone who experiences the world different than they do.
7 minute read
52 things I learned in 2019
Medium
December 2, 2019
Did you know teenagers with acne get higher marks, are more likely to complete college and, if female, eventually get paid more than people without teenage acne? Read more from this slew of interesting facts
10 minute read
AIM was the killer app of 1997. It’s still shaping the internet today
FastCompany
December 10. 2019
AOL Instant Messenger invented the idea that you were always online—and if you weren’t, you’d set up an away message to let people know. It created a UX framework that nearly every other messaging app in the world has borrowed in the two decades since.
15 minute read
How to stop feeling productivity shame
Doist
Our inability to disconnect from work isn’t just tiring us out, it’s having a serious impact on our happiness, productivity, and even creativity. How can you stop the cycle of productivity shame and learn to do “enough”?
20 minute read
How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency
Book by Akiko Busch
It is time to reevaluate the merits of the inconspicuous life, to search out some antidote to continuous exposure, and to reconsider the value of going unseen, undetected, or overlooked in this new world. Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge, but as a condition with its own meaning and power? The impulse to escape notice is not about complacent isolation or senseless conformity, but about maintaining identity, autonomy, and voice.
224 pages
Like these suggestions? Check out what else we’ve been reading:
What We’re Reading – December
What We’re Reading – November
