Your brain responds to game-like mechanics with focus, persistence, and engagement — the exact qualities you need to stay motivated.

Play isn’t frivolous — and by denying playful impulses, you could be holding yourself back.

Feedback only feels high-stakes when you've been saving it up.

When we see loneliness as a kind of failure, it becomes damaging. When we see it as information, it becomes actionable. A psychologist, a social health scientist, and a psychiatrist explain.

Vague predictions and post hoc revisions help astrology feel meaningful, even while it fails empirical testing.

Optimistic people don’t just “feel happier,” they literally process information differently, at a perceptual level. Three experts explain.

These initially sympathetic characters take readers down a dark path.

Your energy doesn’t work like a battery — and treating it that way may be why you still feel tired even after a break.

Neuroscientist David Linden sheds light on the biology behind phenomena that medicine has long struggled to explain, from voodoo death and broken heart syndrome to the placebo effect, and why grief shows up in autopsy results

When applied blindly, resilience can do real harm to our health and our ability to change broken systems.

Your inner voice significantly influences your quality of life, and while it can motivate you, psychologist Ethan Kross warns it can also lead to negative thought cycles, or "chatter," but his research offers tools to regain control and foster a positive mindset.

By better understanding how the brain constructs pain, we may transform how we treat chronic suffering.

Americans believe they can outthink suffering. Historian Kate Bowler explains how our obsession with self-help, optimization, and positivity became a kind of secular religion.

Toxic positivity isn’t optimism. It’s denial. Historian Kate Bowler explains why our obsession with “good vibes only” is making it harder to cope.

Alain de Botton argues that our romantic lives are shaped more by the emotional patterns we learned in childhood than by destiny.

Books don’t just stimulate the mind — they trigger physiological changes throughout the body.

The benefits of mathematical literacy reach far beyond the realm of numbers and equations.

In this excerpt from The Intimate Animal, Justin Garcia shows why curiosity and self-disclosure — not attraction alone — help build intimacy and sustain it over time.

Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit taught us how to separate good science from the work of charlatans. In 2026, that matters more than ever.

I'm definitely a Kitsune, but would a Kitsune actually say that?

Liz Tran makes the case for a new kind of intelligence that addresses our ability to handle today’s ever-fluctuating challenges: AQ.

In this excerpt from Flourish, Daniel Coyle shares how stillness, presence, and attention help people build meaningful connections.

For elite climbers, divers, and explorers, mastery can fuel an escalation loop in which identity and danger rise together.

Not all knowledge carries over.

Labels help your brain make sense of a complex world, but when self-attached, those same labels can convince you that you're unable to grow.

Today, nostalgia is somewhat kitsch. Back then, it was something to be feared.

Tara Narula shares how journalist Richard Cohen challenged conventional ideas about illness, identity, and strength while living with MS.

Emily Mendenhall traces the medical myths, gender bias, and neurological truths behind hysteria, one of history’s most damaging diagnoses.

Psychologist Chris Moore reveals why guilt and anxiety lead us to the compassion necessary to earn forgiveness.

Revisiting the year’s noteworthy nonfiction.