Sustainability over speed: adopting asynchronous communication

With more people working from home, asynchronous communication will become key to being productive while keeping our sanity. What are its benefits? What strategies can you use to embrace asynchronous communication at work? I have a confession to make. I think Slack is awful. It’s distracting, noisy, and makes it hard to get the information … Read More

How to stay healthy and productive when working from home

Coronavirus is forcing many companies to send their employees home. While remote work has been on the rise in the past few years, the pandemic is undeniably giving it a boost, and people around the world are discovering the joys and challenges of working from home. The first few days, it feels like heaven: working … Read More

Beyond human consciousness

“What is it like to be a bat?” famously asked Thomas Nagel in 1974 in The Philosophical Review. It may sound like a silly question, but it has profound implications. We quite literally make sense of the world through our touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Our sense of space in particular is governed in … Read More

Embracing the discomfort of self-reflection with Buster Benson

Welcome to the first edition of Mindful Makers, an interview series where we ask highly creative people how they manage to do great things while taking care of their mental health. The first guest is Buster Benson, writer, entrepreneur, thinker, and overall wonderful human being. It’s a bit of a special interview, because I’ve known … Read More

Somewhere over the brainbow: a beautiful neuroimaging technique

In the late 1800s, researchers discovered a technique to stain neurons black. Called the Golgi’s method after its inventor Camillo Golgi, an Italian physician and scientist, it allowed us to discover a number of new facts about the organisation of the nervous system, and gave rise to the neuron doctrine—the concept that the nervous system … Read More

The genetics of happiness: does happiness really depend upon ourselves?

“Happiness depends upon ourselves” is a quote often attributed to Aristotle. It is supposedly up to the individual to create their own happiness. Throughout the centuries, people have spent lots of time, energy, and money in the quest for happiness. Today, billions are being spent on self-help books, aromatherapy, coaches, and even mood-enhancing crystals, all … Read More

Neuroeducation: exploring the potential of brain-based education

Most people are aware that learning and mental performance are a function of the brain. As such, neuroscientists spend a lot of time exploring the biology behind processes such as the formation of memories, creative processes, social and emotional cognition, and more. But how can these scientific findings be translated into the real world? That’s … Read More

Self-competition: only compete with your past self

Competition is stressful, but many regard it as a powerful driver of personal growth. Competitive fire has been praised for the success of political candidates, Olympic athletes, and champion chess players who reached the top by racing someone else. But what we rarely talk about are people who do great without competing against others. In … Read More