Six months ago, I found myself drowning in a flood of easy information. The internet—and all the lovely things on it, things like Wikipedia, Twitter, podcasts, the New Yorker, email, TED Talks, Facebook, Youtube, Buzzfeed occasionally, and yes, even the Harvard Business Review—provide unlimited sources of delight at the touch of a finger.

Need some creative, out-of-the box ideas? Try adding a little jolt to your next brainstorming session.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill have found that stimulating the brain with electrical impulses boosts creativity. The impulses, researchers say, activated specific brain waves associated with originative thinking, and people who were buzzed scored significantly higher on a test of creative thought.

Time to kiss writer’s block goodbye.

Are you really working hard and still finding it very hard to lose tummy fat? There are millions of people from all over the globe who wish to burn stomach fat. Nobody really likes to be overweight and have lots of excess pounds around their stomach. More and more studies show that packing on too much belly fat can harm your

All our lives, we’ve been told to “be organized.” Organization has always been pegged as a direct key to success.


Whether at home, school or in your bunk at camp, organization is something that has been instilled in everyone pretty much from birth. On the other hand, being messy has been equally condemned and made to be a quick path to failure. And, honestly, no rebuttal could say otherwise.

When a person chooses suicide, it’s hard to accept that choice.

Comedian and award-winning actor Robin Williams apparently made that choice earlier this morning. Robin Williams has long suspected to be a sufferer of either depression or bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is a mental illness where the person fluctuates between episodes of extreme energy, focus and productivity (mania) and severe depression. Apparently, he was in one of the episodes of depression when he took his own life.

Most people are familiar with the traditional uses for lemons to soothe sore throats and add some citrus flavor to our foods. However the diversity of applications for lemons far exceeds general knowledge and once you read the following list, you'll likely want to stock at least a few lemons in your kitchen 24-7.

I know a lot of people with commitment issues, and I'm not talking even talking about relationships. Many people have trouble committing to their own health.

A cancer diagnosis can be a devastating event but some may also be preventable. In fact, an estimated half of all cancer deaths are avoidable by practicing healthy lifestyle habits, according to the American Cancer Society.

One of the most potent cancer-fighting weapons is exercise. While the benefits of a regular fitness program include keeping the pounds off, improving blood pressure and mental outlook, exercise can also halt the onset of some diseases. Several studies have shown that physical activity is linked with decreased risk of some cancers, particularly breast and colon cancer.

Name: Christie Dougherty
Age: 21
Height: 5'2"
Before Weight: 230 pounds

How I Gained It: I grew up in a very healthy household. My parents have both run marathons and both were always very health conscious. But I rebelled against this lifestyle my parents tried to impose, for no reason except that I was a teenager and didn't want to be told what to do anymore.

In what position do you sleep most often? It turns out this is a very important question. Getting enough sleep is the most important thing – but did you know that how you sleep can also impact your health?
Sleeping on your back with your arms at your side is generally considered to be the best sleeping position for spine health and it’s good for your neck too, as long as you don’t use too many pillows.
That said, back sleepers tend to snore more than those in any other position and sleep apnea is strongly associated with sleeping on the back.

"Keep smiling" may not be the best piece of advice or coping strategy for some people after all, suggests new research.

The researchers found that smiling frequently may actually make people feel worse if they're sort of faking it — grinning even though they feel down. When people force themselves to smile because they hope to feel better or they do it just to hide their negative emotions, this strategy may backfire.

When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.

The older I get, the better I understand the paradoxes of friendship.

We need friends in our lives just as much as we should do our best to avoid them. Being the social creatures that we are, friendships play crucial roles, not only in our developing years, but also in our adult lives.

The world is naturally communal and, as such, it becomes impossible for any single person to flourish without closely interacting with countless others.

Humans experience an array of emotions, anything from happiness, to sadness to extreme joy and depression. Each one of these emotions creates a different feeling within the body. After all, our body releases different chemicals when we experience various things that make us happy and each chemical works to create a different environment within the body. For example if your brain releases serotonin, dopamine or oxytocin, you will feel good and happy. Convexly, if your body releases cortisol while you are stressed, you will have an entirely different feeling associated more with the body kicking into survival mode.

Have you ever had an epiphany? One of those “a-ha” moments where something just clicks for you? Maybe it’s something you’ve been struggling with for a long time, or maybe it was a piece of advice you learned from a friend. Whatever the source of our insight, it’s these moments that bring us to a deeper understanding of our world. The better understanding we have of life, the more we live in the truth.

Below are 33 of the most powerful lessons in my life. I encourage you to share yours with us by leaving a comment below.

“You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.”

The commencement address is a special kind of modern communication art, and its greatest masterpieces tend to either become a book — take, for instance, David Foster Wallace on the meaning of life, Neil Gaiman on the resilience of the creative spirit, Ann Patchett on storytelling and belonging, and Joseph Brodsky on winning the game of life — or have originated from a book, such as Debbie Millman on courage and the creative life. One of the greatest commencement speeches of all time, however, has an unusual story that flies in the face of both traditional trajectories.

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A couple weeks ago I turned 30. Leading up to my birthday I wrote a post on what I learned in my 20s.

But I did something else. I sent an email out to my subscribers (subscribe here) and asked readers age 37 and older what advice they would give their 30-year-old selves. The idea was that I would crowdsource the life experience from my older readership and create another article based on their collective wisdom.

The result was spectacular. I received over 600 responses, many of which were over a page in length. It took me a solid three days to read through them all and I was floored by the quality of insight people sent.

Everyone knows that athletes must plan and time their meals and snacks very carefully to reach their performance goals. But what about the rest of us? You try to squeeze in 30-60 minutes of exercise most days of the week. Do you have to be careful about what you eat before and after your workouts, too?

Creativity works in mysterious and often paradoxical ways. Creative thinking is a stable, defining characteristic in some personalities, but it may also change based on situation and context. Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them, and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process.