a daily blog on well-being and how to feel better by Mark Barger Elliott…

How do you turn a business around? One way James Daunt, CEO of Barnes and Noble, attempted to do this was to simply turn the store’s books from a traditional library display, where a customer only saw the spine and title of a book, to having the cover face forward. This meant, when you walked…

The painter Marcel Duchamp is quoted as saying an artist only does a part of the work, the rest is done by the one viewing the art.”  Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett points out this is often called “the beholder’s share.”  Whenever we are trying to communicate through our art; as we engage in a conversation with…

“When insecurity reaches a certain point, the fear of losing prevents us from enjoying what we possess already,” observed 19th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham. “The care of preserving condemns us to a thousand sad and painful precautions, which yet are always liable to fail of their end.”  Author Astra Taylor recently pointed me to Bentham’s…

I’ve been thinking about sleep. We know experts say that we’re supposed to get 7-8 hours a night. We know it helps to rest when we’re tired. But I learned this week that sleep is also when our brain’s “garbage truck” appears.  What does that mean? Harvard health explains it like this: “One of the…

“It may not be the oldest landmark in the historic Hawaiian port town of Lahaina. But it’s among the most beloved,” wrote Julia Flynn Siler.  “The town’s massive banyan tree — standing taller than 60 feet, with a canopy that has grown to cover more than half an acre [is] a striking symbol of endurance…

In 1926-1927, Henry Beston spent a year on Cape Cod in a small house he built two miles south of the Nauset Coast Guard station. He wrote about that time in his memoir, The Outermost House. Summing up his experience living beside the Atlantic Ocean, Beston wrote this: “During the months that have passed since that September…