Living in a society governed by technique conditions us to believe that in every way life is easier than it ever has been. Technique is the use of rational methods to maximize efficiency, and we...
As many theologians have helpfully described, there is a healthy place for doubting that is integral to faith. When approached thoughtfully and sincerely, these doubts can lead to a deepening understa...
Matthew 11:28-30, Luke 10:39-42, Colossians 3:1-2, Philippians 4:6-7, Matthew 6:19-21
People today hunger not for personal salvation, let alone for the restoration of an earlier golden age, but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic securit...
Isaiah 55:2, Philippians 4:8, Romans 12:2, Colossians 3:2, John 15:11
In an article for The Atlantic, social scientist Jean Twenge shares the results of a study on the activities of American teenagers and their impact on happiness. Some of these activities included scre...
While it might seem obvious in retrospect, one of the latest discoveries in the psychology of happiness has to do with gratitude. Multiple studies have shown a positive correlation between gratitude a...
Most people who live to old age do so not because they have beaten cancer, heart disease, depression or diabetes. Instead, the long-lived avoid serious ailments altogether through a series of steps th...
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Albert Camus Two events recently collided in my mind and coalesced into this short essay: The first was a relatively in...
Material success is no measure of spiritual health. Nor is apparent affluence any criterion of real godliness. And it is well for us that the Shepherd of our souls sees through this exterior and takes...
Population studies indicate that something is going terribly wrong: people ages twenty-four to sixty-five are dying eight to fifteen years younger than previous generations from preventable lifestyle ...
According to a 2018 CIGNA study, loneliness in America has reached “epidemic” levels. After surveying twenty thousand adults, researchers found that 46 percent felt alone either sometimes or always, 4...
Most alarming is the absence of peace among our youth. Research from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is showing an epidemic of mental health problems among eighteen- to twenty-four-year...
Depression takes so many forms. Here’s how it looked for me today: All day I felt like a failure. An unending loop played in my head telling me that I have failed everyone in my life who loves me. My ...
Get to know someone really well, and almost without fail, you will discover a person who routinely struggles to get out of bed in the morning. And not just because they’re tired. They can’t get out of...
Proverbs 18:21, Numbers 13:31-33, Deuteronomy 1:28, James 3:5-6, Exodus 14:12
Learned Helplessness can be easily seen in a research study when participants are given a math test. In this study, some participants are told, “men don’t tend to do well on this test,” or “Millennia...
In her compelling memoir Still Life , author Gillian Marchenko recounts her struggles with depression. In this excerpt, Marchenko describes one of the many paradoxes that come with depression: how ...
To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we...
The American Institute of Stress notes that 75 to 90 percent of visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related complaints . . . A Harvard study shows that people who live in a state of high ...
When we think about our health and safety, we tend to think first and foremost about our bodies. We may also consider our mental health. But have you ever considered how your relational health impacts...
We don’t know what we are doing, and I think this is especially true about the way our society deals with mental health. In just the past fifteen years, I have witnessed a massive shift in how evangel...
A people can be judged as better or worse according to what they love, and their nation can be assessed as healthy or unhealthy according to the condition of what they love.
On his hundredth birthday, a reporter asked the man the inevitable question: “What do you attribute your long life to?” The old man replied, “I haven’t decided yet. I’m still negotiating with a supple...
Researchers used data on 3,635 people over 50 participating in a larger health study who had answered questions about reading. The scientists divided the sample into three groups: those who read no b...
In a study conducted by Timothy Wilson, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, researchers discovered what most of us already know: people do not like to be left alone with their own tho...
In recent research by the National Geographic Society and the National Institute on Aging, scientists interviewed some of the oldest and healthiest people on earth and observed where they live. Many o...
We tend to think, 'Life should be fair because God is fair.' But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life - by expecting constant good health for example- then I...
Physical health doesn't exist apart from the health of other things. Health ultimately involves the community, and the community ultimately involves the place and natural life of that place, so th...
The saying used to be that the secret to a long, healthy life was to choose your parents well. But today we know that only about 20 percent of a person’s health is due to genetics, and about 20 percen...