Sublime

You are already familiar with what we are doing when we listen to the angel—practicing good old-fashioned self-control. Scientists call this cognitive control: we use cognition to control our behavior. Treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy apply this kind of control to a range of disorders, including depression and addiction. Some people,

Allen’s superpower is that he’s a problem solver. And as long as he is intellectually challenged by the problem and is meeting interesting people and learning how things work, there’s almost no one better at turning chance into opportunity.

His seven-year-old brain fires and rewires, building arborized axons, dendrites, those tiny spreading trees.

Dennis went from zero to sixty on the MidAm in record time, and no one knew how he learned to do what he was doing. He knew that traders had a tendency to self-destruct. The battle with self was where he focused his energies: “I think it’s far more important to know what Freud thinks about death wishes than what Milton Friedman thinks about deficit

Of the many emerging descriptions of our social brain, for me the simplest and most elegant is the highly regarded Social Baseline Theory of Lane Beckes and James A. Coan, two researchers at the University of Virginia.

There’s a second plotline here: the well-intentioned and disastrous shift toward overprotecting children and restricting their autonomy in the real world. Children need a great deal of free play to thrive. It’s an imperative that’s evident across all mammal species. The small-scale challenges and setbacks that happen during play are like an

Ned tells every Hermione he encounters (and he comes across a lot of them) that the most important thing she can do is develop the brain she wants for the rest of her life.

Longer recess with little adult intervention. Opening the school playground for half an hour before school starts, to give students time to play before class. Offering a “Play Club.” Anywhere from one to five days a week, a school stays open for mixed-age, “loose parts” free play (featuring things like balls, chalk, jump ropes), usually on the

To survive in the world where bullies reign, our children must carefully cover all traces of vulnerability, erase all signs of caring. No doubt, that is why so many children suppress any feelings of empathy for the victims of bullying.