Are you a resolution-maker? Are you gearing up to lose those extra pounds you put on last year? Have you set new goals for your productivity, your work ethic, your family time or your compassion? Some statistics show that 40 – 45% of adult Americans make New Year’s resolutions; if you do so, you have lots of company. [...]
I don’t know about you, but I was born and raised in a city. I spent 21 years in New Orleans and then almost 20 years living in the never-ending urban/suburban environment of South Florida. I had not been camping until I was in college. While some childhood vacations included visits to national parks and natural wonders, we always stayed [...]
Over the course of the past few years, the book club to which I belong has read some interesting works. We have all been interested in understanding more how religion and religious culture affect the broader world, and following 9/11, we wanted to have a larger perspective than the U.S. version. The first book we [...]
Note: This is one of an occasional series of postings on how we can work to affect climate change. A couple of weeks ago we went to the home of friends in our book club planning to watch a movie together. When we arrived, we did not know what movie we would be watching, but I was [...]
Almost two months passed between my post last week and the last one before that. The combination of family illnesses followed by vacation and recovery from travel put me in a position of being so far behind in the reading I usually do that I could not possibly catch up. My personal inclination was to [...]
Note: This article is my once-in-a-while exploration of human behavior and climate change. While it is in no way related to health care, it may be directly related to health. Last weekend, we watched the critically unacclaimed remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves. While the movie left a great deal to be [...]
On Sunday night our book club met to discuss Richard Dawkins’ Greatest Show on Earth. While I had a bit of difficulty with his style of writing, the data Dawkins presents in explication and support of evolution is exhaustive. Even with such overwhelming evidence, he reports that a full 44% of Americans surveyed in 2008 do not believe that [...]
Note: This article is my once-in-a-while exploration of human behavior and climate change. While it is in no way related to health care, it may be directly related to health. The cold temperatures across the nation this week have had some individuals scoffing at the notion of global warming. On the other hand, most scientists explain [...]
I sat down Monday morning to write this week’s blog post. I was intent upon writing about American Psychological Association’s (APA) recent report on climate change and what the psychology community can do about it. I had previously glanced at the executive summary of the report and was excited to learn what the entire report recommended. Unfortunately, [...]
[Disclaimer: A few weeks ago I wrote about some of my concerns about climate change and indicated that I would write about this subject semi-regularly. As professionals in the field of behavior change, we have at our fingertips many resources that can affect the behavior of individuals and groups in many realms of life...responsible environmental [...]
I have never been quite sure why, but Fall has always felt like the beginning of the year to me. Perhaps its because I was born in September. Or maybe it has to do with the start of the new school year. My Jewish family and friends would say that it is the beginning of [...]
Last night we had the pleasure of meeting with the members of the book club to which we belong. This is a group of lively, energetic, intelligent, articulate folks who manage to bring varied and wonderful perspectives to everything we read and discuss. This time, we read Thomas L. Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need [...]
On Friday of this week, I get to start an 8 day vacation. Sometimes, I am not ready for vacation. I have often said that it is harder to get everything ready to leave (both work and home) than it is just to stay and keep on plugging away. I know that it is [...]
Last week I mentioned the scholarly book, The Rise of Homo Sapiens: The evolution of modern thinking, written by our friend Fred Coolidge and his colleague, Tom Wynn. This week’s read has been a popular book (also about the brain and cognition) titled How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. Both books focus on the executive functions of the brain. The [...]
We just returned from bicycling 125 miles over the course of a weekend to raise money for the Central Florida chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Seth has been doing this ride or one for the North Florida Chapter since 2001 and I have joined him for all or part of the weekend of riding on four [...]
A couple of weeks ago, I read with interest a discussion on a Psychology listserv about telephone and other remote consultations. Florida psychologists tend to be pretty conservative about telehealth and Internet psychotherapy; after all, it is difficult to apply the same standards to remote interventions as to face-to-face contacts when psychotherapy is the product. [...]
I have been struggling this week with getting a blog article written. Too many items keep coming across my desk that distract me from the task. I had a topic I was all set to write about; I even started jotting some notes. Then something else interrupted me. As I have gotten older and have [...]
I was very pleased to read David Pogue’s NY Times column on Friday morning. It was really a relief to find that someone as tech sophisticated at Pogue also struggles with the possible benefits of social networks like Twitter. Of course, I (and 1500 other people) started following him on Twitter immediately. His comments are most entertaining and I [...]
I have been thinking a great deal lately about the current financial crisis and how it is affecting our customers and their clients/patients/consumers. Every day, the top news stories are about some aspect of this recession. American Psychological Association (APA) reports in the Monitor on Psychology article Money is the top stressor for Americans that money and [...]
