Mind Hacks Features
How To: 5 Ways You're Making Yourself Dumber
No one wants to appear stupid. Whether you rely on lengthy, complicated vocabulary to show your smarts, or enjoy highlighting your speedy mental math skills, everyone prefers emphasizing intelligence over hiding it.
Sleep Hacks: 10 Ways to Take Back Control Over Your Sleeping Habits
Climbing into bed and shutting your eyes each night is heavenly—but waking up the next morning isn't. We all hate dragging ourselves out of the comfort of sleep and into the groggy, exhausting work day. Yet starting your day doesn't have to be awful if you know how to hack your sleep cycles and get the most out of your shut-eye.
How To: Spot a Heavy Drinker with Eye Contact
Did you know that your face shows others how much alcohol you drink? Whether you've never had a sip of booze with those around you or you're known as the party animal of the group, the genes that shape your appearance also show others just how much you enjoy liquor. Pinpointing the big drinker in any setting is easy to determine: you just need to make eye contact.
How To: Science Says You're Taking Too Many Showers (Are You?)
My morning just doesn't start without a cup of coffee and an incredibly hot shower. There's nothing better than sloughing off sleep with a dose of warm, cleansing water. Except, as scientists are pointing out, our habit of showering daily isn't exactly the healthiest choice. Though it feels great, if you have a shower-a-day habit like I do, you're showering all wrong.
How To: Recognize the Tricks of a Salesman (And Overcome Them)
Have you ever fallen victim to a clever Jedi mind trick? Don't worry. It happens. There are evolutionary reasons as to why our brains sometimes give into the oldest tricks in the book. Fortunately, the more you understand the tricks of a salesman, the easier it is to avoid their gripping psychological influence. Clue #1: Too Much Specificity
How To: 5 Ways Learning a New Language Benefits Your Brain
Though many students spend four years of high school learning a foreign language, most of us probably retained very little. Chalk it up to the carelessness of youth, but chances are you've since been in situations or places that left you wishing you paid more attention in class or had continued practicing long after you graduated.
How To: Reprogram Your Brain to Stop Phantom Phone Vibrations
Phantom phone vibrations. You might feel them in the pocket of your jeans, or when your handbag is on your shoulder—even when you're holding your phone in your hand. When you do, you immediately wake it up to see who texted or what app just had an update—but there are no alerts.
How To: Like the Way You Smell? You're Making Yourself More Attractive
Each morning, we spend a significant portion of our time staring into the mirror. From choosing clothes and accessories to perfecting our hair, we try to make ourselves attractive. Yet catching others' attention doesn't have to rely on preening and primping. There's some truth to the maxim of beauty in confidence—all you need to make yourself more attractive is spray on your favorite scent.
How To: 5 Reasons You Shouldn't Trust TV Doctors
With the countless daytime talk shows starring and featuring doctors, nurses, and other medical specialists, discovering new ways to live a healthy life is just a remote click away. Although their shows might draw you in with incredible facts and mind-blowing secrets to weight loss success, it's important to take each televised recommendation with a bit of suspicion—most of these familiar faces aren't exactly telling the truth.
Hack Your Brain: Improving Memory with Dirty Pictures
If you're interested in nabbing superhero memory strength, the secret behind training your brain is not necessarily what you might expect. Your standard G-rated brain strengthening exercises range from crossword puzzles to Sudoku to calculating fairly simple math problems to improve short term memory, but the real clincher used by some of the pros is essentially... porn. Yep, you read right.
How To: Use Scare Tactics to Increase Your Productivity & Accomplish More
Admit it: when nothing's at stake other than your boss's disapproval, you don't exactly feel the urge to get working. Finding the motivation to take on a task, whether at work or home, can be a constant struggle. Though working through your laziness might seem like the best course of action, a meaner method can make more of an impact on your productivity.
How To: 8 Reasons Why You Should Be Playing Even More Video Games
Although your friends might roll their eyes every time you talk about playing Clash of Clans, Call of Duty, or Candy Crush Saga, your excessive gaming habits might actually be making you healthier than everyone else.
How To: Change Your Sleeping Position to Control the Type of Dreams You Have
If you're someone who frequently awakes in the middle of the night trembling in terror, you might want to consider swapping sides. According to research done at Yüzüncü Yil University, those who sleep on their left side experience more nightmares than those who sleep on their right.
How To: Make Your Lies Undetectable in Email & Text Messages
Developing an imperceptible lie is difficult, especially when you're lying right to someone's face. Thanks to smartphones, getting people to trust you is now easier than ever. You can craft a lie in seconds and hit send, all without ever seeing their untrusting faces.
How To: Get People to Trust You with Their Secrets
Prying into people's lives without them putting up their guard can be difficult, unless you can convince them that you already know them very well. Most people don't have many friends they can be honest with, and this can be exploited. Once they're convinced you already know their secrets, they'll start to fill you in on the little details.
How To: The 15-Minute Trick That'll Stop Your Junk Food Cravings for Good
Who doesn't experience food cravings? Whether you're trying to adhere to a strict diet, or simply hoping to avoid sugary, fatty foods, curbing cravings can feel like a monumental task.
Expert Advice: Four Ways Doctors Keep Themselves Healthy
Staying healthy is a progressive challenge we all face throughout our lives, and figuring out just how to do that can be a challenge when it's not your job. For doctors, however, it is. Here's how they keep themselves healthy day to day.
How To: Fall Asleep in Less Than 1 Minute
It can be pretty tough to fall asleep when your brain is thinking nonstop or anxiety has gotten the best of you, and it seems to only get harder when you're lying in bed listening to yourself breathe. Yet paying attention to that breathing may be exactly what you need in order to find a calm, easy entry into a good night's rest.
How To: Earn Someone's Trust Without Ever Saying a Word
There's more to earning someone's trust than simply shaking their hand, especially if you're not particularly trustworthy. Your body language doesn't reveal your thoughts, it reveals your intentions, and sometimes intentions are better left unrevealed. Psychopaths, take note...
How To: The Scientific Methods for Boosting Your Willpower
Willpower is a pretty significant word. It's the difference between sticking with a clean eating diet and diving face-first into a plate of brownies. It's what drags you out of bed on Monday mornings and into work rather than letting you stay snuggled under the covers asleep. And, most importantly, it's the kick in the butt we all require to both accomplish goals and make changes.
How To: Spot an Undercover Narcissist
Humans in general are great at keeping things about themselves private, from feelings to personality traits. While smartphones and social networks are making these secrets more open, narcissists have and always will love being out in the open with everyone's attention on them.
How To: Improve Your Mood by Typing with Your Right Hand Only
I have an embarrassing habit: I type with six fingers. Just as your grandma pecks at the keyboard with her two index fingers, I rely solely on my index, middle, and thumb fingers only. But it's not as slow as you think, and I'm not the only one out there that does it.
How To: Work Less & Get More Accomplished
From our work life to our home life, we have an awful lot of projects, tasks, and activities that require more productivity than play. After working for an entire day in the office, no one wants to face even more that needs to be done at home.
How To: Want to Appear Smarter? Stop Using Impressive Vocabulary
We've all been there: facing a lengthy, complex word that ignores the phonics we were taught in elementary school, unsure of not only its pronunciation, but also its meaning. These words, from autochthonous to esquamulose, are both terrifying and impressive. After all, if someone knows how to use them—and even say them—they must be quite smart. Yet before you begin stuffing every email and presentation with verbose prose, you might want to reconsider what others perceive to be intelligent.
How To: Ask These Questions to Improve Your Next Job Interview
Job interview success can be a difficult thing to measure. Is confidence a job-winning trait? Or were the interviewer's questions not answered as fully as they had hoped? Maybe you weren't sure how your big, happy smile went over with such a formal setting.
How To: Hold in Your Pee to Avoid Making Impulsive Decisions
While you may look ridiculous doing the potty dance and crossing your legs back and forth, holding it in can be worth the discomfort when you've got an important decision to make.
How To: Attention All Neat Freaks—A Messy Desk Can Actually Make You More Productive at Work
When it's time to get down to work, a clean, organized workstation is key to accomplishing tasks and being more productive. Or, so we thought.
How To: Cheering Sad Friends Up Might Not Be the Best Way to Help
Contrary to popular belief, taking someone's mind off their sadness and telling them to "cheer up" doesn't do much good. Misery loves company, and while it may be a tiresome cliché, there's actually some science behind it.
How To: 5 Reasons You Should Stop Sleeping In
Are you someone who always struggles to wake up in the morning, no matter how much you've slept? For most, the thought of getting out of bed any earlier sounds horrific. Yet dragging yourself out of bed and towards the coffee maker a few hours earlier each day can have benefits you've never realized. Here are six reasons that make a compelling case for ending our bad habit of sleeping a little too long.
How To: Use Hand Gestures When You Talk to Appear Smarter Than You Really Are
Like most people, you probably use hand gestures when you talk, whether you wave your hands excitedly when discussing the latest episode of Game of Thrones or smack the back of your hand as you rattle off points during an argument. As your speech teacher probably told you, gesturing while talking is a great reinforcement tool—when used appropriately, of course.
Slow Down: Speed Reading Apps May Be Damaging Your Reading Skills
Reading is no longer a leisure activity—it's an on-the-go activity that requires speed and less attention. That's why speed reading apps are growing in popularity. As smartphones and tablets increasingly take over the traditional book market, reading skills need to be adjusted accordingly, so you can cram in 5 pages in-between texts and emails.
How To: Achieve Your Goals by Changing Your Password
Finding the motivation to make a change can be tricky. It's difficult to resist the urge to procrastinate, or even give up when goals seem distant and difficult. If you wish you could stick to your New Year's resolutions, or maybe even just commit to pursuing smaller goals, you might want to consider making a small change to start: just create a new password.
How To: Having Just One Plant in Your Workspace Can Boost Your Overall Productivity
There are a number of ways to give your productivity a kicktstart, from taking a break from your distracting smartphone to just taking a break, plain and simple. Yet finding the motivation to start working doesn't require any effort at all—just a little bit of green.
Wrong Isn't Always Bad: How to Trick Yourself into Pronouncing Difficult Words Correctly
Erudite. Barbiturate. Cacophony. Denouement. Okay, that last word is technically French, but words like these make the average person sweat, and it turns out that the key to learning how to pronounce them once and for all just might be getting them wrong.
How To: How Video Games Can Help You Increase Your Productivity at Work
Most days, getting through an eight-hour work shift is a struggle. There are a million places you'd rather be, and none of them include your desk. It's difficult to find the motivation to tackle the growing number of emails in your inbox when your mind is back at home, comfortable in front of your gaming system.
How To: Have a Drink or Two at Work to Boost Your Creativity & Be More Productive
Boozing it up at work might have been okay back in the days of Mad Men, but today, employers prefer that their workers stay sober. What you and your bosses probably don't know is that a little drinking on the job can actually increase your creative capacity and problem-solving skills. Alcohol Can Enhance Your Creativity at Work
Dating by Profession: Retailers Don't Say No; Students Can't Get a Date
Are you a lawyer who's married to a computer programmer? Chances are you might not have even dated if you first met online.
How To: Control Your Buying Impulses by Window Shopping
Shopping: you either love it or hate it. With a tight budget, shopping can become a huge headache for even the biggest shopaholic. We've all been there, and we've all given in to our impulses and bought something we probably shouldn't have. Yet strolling through the mall doesn't have to require a strong will to keep your credit card from entering a downward spiral. You just need to keep your hands to yourself.
Slow Down: Too Much Productivity Can Be a Bad Thing
Our workdays are typically filled with one thought: get as much completed as possible. Whether you face an inbox filled with tasks or just a project or two, both our bosses and our inner workhorses encourage us to knock out as many tasks as we can each day. But is being super-productive the best course of action for our minds and our employers?
How To: The Number One Way to Persuade Anyone to Do Practically Anything You Want
The art of persuasion is a very crucial characteristic that anyone can learn, and it has countless benefits. Whether it's at work, home, or in social situations, the ability to be veritably persuasive can have an unheralded impact on your daily life.