Episodes

Are you anxious or are you depressed? In the world of mental health care, where exact diagnosis dictates treatment, anxiety and depression are regarded as two distinct disorders. But in the world of real people, many suffer from both conditions. In fact, most mood disorders present as a combination of anxiety and depression. Surveys show that 60-70% of those with depression also have anxiety. And half of those with chronic anxiety also have clinically significant symptoms of depression. Tune in ...

Though our need to connect is innate, many of us frequently feel alone. Even some people who are surrounded by others throughout the day—or are in a long-lasting marriage—still experience a deep and pervasive loneliness. Feelings of loneliness and isolation affect all types and ages of people. Tune in and learn how to improve your life!

In anticipation of an never-seen-before birth crisis after October 2020, a whole new set of zombies are about to inherit the earth. Robin LaCross is an absolute expert in birth control, women's health and the host of Holistic Sex Ed Radio on Voice America's Empowerment channel. I will interview her live about all topics SEX. Tune in and learn from Robin's dynamic expertise.

When a health problem like Ebola or coronavirus comes from abroad, we have poor information about it than we do about health problems in this country. Often foreign places have poorer surveillance capability, so they just gather poor information. Sometimes they have authoritarian regimes who suppress the information. We have greater uncertainty about things that come from places with poor information. Tune in and learn about the psychology of panic!

One thing is certain about coincidence. The phenomenon fascinates believers and skeptics alike. It's a porthole into one of the most interesting philosophical questions we can ask: Are the events of our lives ultimately objective or subjective? Is there a deeper order, an overarching purpose to the universe? Or are we the lucky accidents of evolution, living our precious but brief lives in a fundamentally random world that has only the meaning we choose to give it? Tune in and learn about coinci...

The awareness of death is the downside of human intelligence. Life must end for all living beings, but only humans may grasp its existential meaning. Intellectually we may acknowledge our mortality, but deep down, we deny it. The fear of death is so overwhelming that we keep this knowledge unconscious. The repression of information about mortality results in several cognitive strategies that people use to avoid existential fear of death. Tune in and learn more about coping with death anxiety!

Despite popular opinion, anger issues aren't only of the loud/screaming/throwing things variety. Sometimes the signs are a lot more subtle, and may even go mostly unnoticed. Recognizing them, however, can mean saving your relationships, having an easier time at work, and even improving your health. All anger is a problem or a sign there is an issue to be addressed. If you work through and recognize this anger it could be very useful and lead to resolution. Conversely, if unrecognized, the ongoin...

Ghosting means suddenly discontinuing all contact with another person to end a relationship. Ghosting can be failing to respond to a text exchange with someone you’ve never met, cutting off contact with someone you’ve dated a few times, or even refusing to return someone’s calls after a sexual involvement. Tune in and learn about how to work through the ghosting betrayal!

We all live a constant battle of pride vs humility, which is really just a war against two half’s of the same person. It’s you verses you. You are the only opponent against your inner greatness—against your humility. A person might consider their ego a great part of them, but the true greatness of a person is found in what motivates them and how they conduct themselves. Tune in and learn about pride and humility and how we shape ourselves!

Each of us tries to erect a boundary around the parts of ourself we want to keep private, or at least shielded from those with whom we’re not intimate. Some people are more vigilant about raising those firewalls than others, however, which can lead to discomfort, if not open conflict, because it’s harder to keep others’ revelations out than it is. In healthy relationships, romantic or otherwise we attune ourselves to others’ boundaries by making gradual “bids of trust.” For example, on a first d...

Although we might use the term in a different way in our everyday life (e.g., “Hey, he’s really got an attitude!”), social psychologists reserve the term attitude to refer to our relatively enduring evaluation of something, where the something is called the attitude object. The attitude object might be a person, a product, or a social group . Tune in and learn how attitude and behavior influence our lives!

No matter what their reasons or how they approach the question, agnostics and atheists are fundamentally different, but also non-exclusive. Many people who adopt the label of agnostic simultaneously reject the label of atheist, even if it technically applies to them. In addition, there's a common misconception that agnosticism is somehow a more “reasonable” position while atheism is more “dogmatic,” ultimately indistinguishable from theism except in the details. This is not a valid argument beca...

Political uncertainty can be challenging, regardless of your beliefs or where you might fall on the political spectrum. For many Americans, the transition of power and the rapid speed of change may cause stress and anxiety about the political environment and the future of our nation. APA’s Stress in America™ survey revealed that 69 percent of Americans say the future of our nation is a significant source of stress, and 62 percent say that they are stressed by the current political climate. Sympt...

Pornography, often colloquially referred to as porn, is any sexually explicit material—written, visual, or otherwise—that is intended to sexually arouse. While pornography has existed in some form for millennia, today it’s most readily available online—though it continues to be widely available in literature, audio, magazines, and more. The increasing presence of the Internet in daily life has led to a rapid spread of porn: The world’s largest such site claims that in 2018, it had a daily averag...

The ancient Greek philosophers were pretty much obsessed with the idea of a good life. Their whole way of life was organized around ideas about what makes a human life “good” or “noble” or “worthwhile.” While others pursued commerce, politics, or war, the philosophers tried to figure out why these things mattered. Each philosophical school had its own answers, but Aristotle’s was one of the most influential. His philosophy was successful in part because it showed the unity of all these pursuits:...

We’re constantly taking in information about our social world, and this can involve judging people. These judgments can be super quick and automatic. Some research has even shown that we can form pretty accurate impressions of people in just a few seconds.Tune in for a deep dive on why we judge and how to stop.

Borderline personality disorder is a chronic condition that may include mood instability, difficulty with interpersonal relationships, and high rates of self-injury and suicidal behavior. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and an individual's sense of identity.

The brains of children raised in violent families resemble the brains of soldiers exposed to combat, psychologists say. They're primed to perceive threat and anticipate pain, adaptations that may be helpful in abusive environments but produce long-term problems with stress and anxiety. Tune in and learn about the impact of abuse and how to heal!

When daylight hours start to decrease and it gets colder outside many people may find themselves experiencing symptoms resembling depression. For some the symptoms are relatively brief. Tempers may seem shorter for parents stuck inside with cranky or sick children and an increased sense of lethargy is not uncommon on a dreary winter day. For others, however, these symptoms can be quite disabling.

One of the biggest relationship challenges that people struggle with is emotional flooding. It’s something that happens to everyone sometimes, and if you don’t know how to respond to it, it can escalate conflict and create disconnection. Fortunately, many of the steps you can take to resolve it are pretty simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple. Think back on a time when you were surprised by bad news. Maybe your partner told you that they wanted to break up. Maybe you got fired from a job. May...

Adversity is a fact of life. Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back at least as strong as before. Rather than letting difficulties or failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes. Resilience is not some magical quality; it takes real mental work to transcend hardship. But even after misfortune, resilient people are able to change course and move toward achieving their goals. There's growing ev...

Although memories seem to be a solid, straightforward sum of who people are, strong evidence suggests that memories are actually quite complex, subject to change, and often unreliable. Memories can be reconstructed as people age and also as their worldview changes. They can falsely recall childhood events, and through effective suggestion, can even create new false memories. They can be tricked into remembering events that never happened, or change the details of things that really did happen. T...

You may have a pretty good idea about what it is you’re attracted to: hair color, eye color, height, smell… Smell? Believe it or not, your subconscious has quite the strong opinion when it comes to finding others attractive. From the depths of the human brain, here are 10 fascinating facts about the psychology of attraction. Tune in and learn how attraction operates!

Stupidity is in all of us. However, the degrees of stupid varies. . We are influenced by various cognitive biases that we are not aware of. The music we are listening to influences our opinion of the wine we drink, the weight of the spoon influences how creamy we find the yoghurt and our moral assessment of strangers depends on what movie we have just watched. Tune in for a wild ride examine stupid and it can run parts of our lives!