Relationships Can Help Us Grow: Changing Our Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response

When conflict and challenges come up in most relationships, people tend to react in one of three ways: Fight, Flight or Freeze to protect themselves against painful feelings that are difficult or impossible to experience at the time they are happening. But, the problem is many people get stuck in...

There is a certain rhythm to the swing of sibling relations. We resent our brothers and sisters in childhood. We support them in adulthood. We sue them after the reading of the will. The choreographer of this dance, as in so many others, is competition.

Argument and debate form the cornerstones of civilised society and intellectual life. Processes of argumentation run our governments, structure scientific endeavour and frame religious belief. So should we worry that new advances in artificial intelligence are taking steps towards equipping computers with these skills?

Research shows that students who engage in inquiry-based learning perform better on standardized tests than students in more traditional learning environments

Contrary to the belief we Aussies are a nature-loving outdoor nation, research suggests we’re spending less and less time outdoors. This worrying trend is also becoming increasingly apparent in our educational settings.

When you have a newborn baby, your waistline may be the last thing on your mind. Yet women often feel pressured to lose their “baby weight” as quickly as they can after pregnancy.

Very few people can resist smiling at a newborn baby – signalling positive emotions, such as joy and interest. Of course, this is especially true for new parents. One study found that new mothers looked at their 16-hour-old babies 80% of the time and smiled at them 34% of the time.

On Halloween, the cinemas and TV channels are filled with horror movies. But what should you do if you have a young child who wants to watch too?

Many families are deciding where to enrol their child in preschool or school. Preschools and schools offer various approaches to early education, all promoting the benefits of their particular programs.

Researchers have created an algorithm that analyzes social media posts to find linguistic markers for depression. In any given year, depression affects more than six percent of the adult population in the United States—some 16 million people—but fewer than half receive the treatment they need.

Times are changing, and for the most part, the word 'crone' is now accurately being used as a synonym for a woman who not only embodies postmenopausal wisdom, but shares it with the world. It is the time when the wisdom and healing of a woman's menopausal journey quickens in her heart, and her desire to share all that she has learned drives her back to the outer world.

The international research is clear. Stimulating and positive environments early in life provide optimal foundations for children’s ongoing development into adulthood. This in turn makes a difference to the productivity of society at large. Communities are important environments in which young children grow and develop. There is limited research, however, on how communities can best influence early childhood development.

Two men regularly meet at a sex club, so that one (‘the top’) can fist the other (‘the bottom’). One night, the fisting duo stay until the club closes. The lights click on in their sobering glory, exposing the prosthetic hand that the top has been inserting into the anus of the bottom.

In an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Jane Fonda revealed that it wasn’t until after she turned sixty that she realized one of life’s most important secrets: She had to give up her incessant desire to be perfect so that she could begin to experience herself as whole.

Adolescence is an amazing time, filled with countless opportunities and challenges for your daughter. She is facing many of the decisions that will shape her adult life. To successfully handle these potentially life-altering situations, she needs a strong internal decision-making center.

I pray that I no longer seek for the other one for I have found completion in me. And if in my solitary journey,  I happen to join with another soul, let our hearts merge because we have so much love to give... And if we find ourselves taking, let our receiving be based on...

The whole point of a soul mate turning up in your life is to show you to yourself. That is the purpose of all human relationships. You learn through viewing in the mirror. The Law of Attraction works in every aspect of your life, and therefore each person drawn into your life is there through vibration, and nothing else. They are present because your vibration and their vibration are matched in some way.

Nail-biting, nose-picking, mouth-chewing, skin-picking, hair-pulling – we all do some of them, some of the time. Some normal grooming behaviours help maintain good hygiene (such as picking at a dirty finger nail) and appearance (plucking that pesky grey hair).

Picture Morgan Freeman, Donald Trump or Margaret Thatcher. Most likely you can hear their voices in your mind, and the characteristic inflections that they put on certain words, as well as their tone and pitch.

There are several ways to restore most of one's sexual performance including a high tone of physical conditioning and mental attitude. The power of the mind to influence the relative efficiency of one's sexual performance cannot go unnoticed.

Weed, pot, grass, marijuana — or cannabis to use the proper terminology — is now legal in Canada, after 95 years of prohibition. Anyone over the age of 18, or 19 depending on the province, can now walk into a store and buy up to 30 grams (approx. 1 ounce) of regulated product.

There is less fighting among young people in countries where there is a complete ban on all corporal punishment of children, according to a new study of more than 400,000 youth in 88 countries.

Neurobiologically the single most important fact about, say, a 20 year old brain is the fact that almost all of it is already matured, fully wired up—myelinated, a jargon-y term for it. The reward dopamine system has been going full blast, and somewhere around like early puberty all of the brain is totally up to speed—except for the frontal cortex.

Consider how one should respond to a simple case of disagreement. Frank sees a bird in the garden and believes it’s a finch. Standing beside him, Gita sees the same bird, but she’s confident it’s a sparrow.

We may think that because of the development of the ability to see and hear into the far reaches of space that we must be quite advanced in the field of communication. But all this has little effect on our ability to listen with our heart...

English spelling has a reputation for being illogical and chaotic. What’s going on with yacht, and why the W in two? There are a thousand other “but why?” questions our children ask about English spelling.

Humans have been migrating since prehistoric times – moving within and beyond geographical borders – in search of food, for survival or for better prospects in life.

Love has to be understood, not as a biological infatuation — that is lust. That exists in all the animals; there is nothing special about it. Love is the fragrance of a silent, peaceful, meditative heart. Love has nothing to do with biology or chemistry or hormones...

Americans are deeply ambivalent about the solitary person in our midst. On the one hand, the lone hero is much admired in national folklore. On the other side of our ambivalence is the belief that to be alone, even temporarily, is to have been abandoned and to be sunk in a black misery of loneliness.

A lot of us suffer a great deal in our lives because our inner child has old wounds that have never been healed. It is important to know how to overcome our old wounds, because all too often they stand in the way of our ability to fully love ourselves, other people, and the children in our lives. Our old wounds often become our children's burden.

From crying in the toilet to leaving the house in a rage, many parents and carers don’t want their children to see them getting emotional. But is this the right thing to do, or should you come clean about your fear of spiders or how angry you are with your boss? While the topic is complex, some clear answers are beginning to emerge from the research.

For years, Facebook grew in size and influence at a staggering rate. But recent reports suggest its hold on users — particularly in the developed world — may be weakening.

Imagine your partner unexpectedly changes their Facebook status from “in a relationship” to “single” and then refuses to communicate with you. This sounds awfully cruel, completely robbing you of your right to find out why you have been dumped so that you can get some closure and move on.

When the King of Sweden asks Joan, the protagonist of the newly-released film The Wife, what she does for a living, she replies, ironically, “I am a king maker”. This poignant scene takes place towards the film’s end, as Joan (Glenn Close) takes part in the festive dinner celebrating her husband being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Your chances of forming online friendships depend mainly on the number of groups and organizations you join, not their types, according to a new analysis of six online social networks.

The family unit is a complex mixture of personalities who come together to learn, heal, and love. It is the first place we begin our Earthly journey. Family is instrumental in helping us fulfill our soul's purpose by helping us learn karmic lessons and providing an environment in which we can develop our gifts and talents.

Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has been waging war against the American press by dismissing unfavorable reports as “fake news” and calling the media “the enemy of the American people.”

Young people need a brand of sex education that is responsive to current realities, behaviours and pressures so they can get the most comprehensive and contemporary information about the issues that they will face and are facing in making decisions about relationships and sexual activity.

Social media sites can make us feel left out—and can actually inhibit intelligent thought, research shows. A new study takes a critical look not just at Facebook and other similar platforms, but at the peculiarities of the systems on which they operate.

Each year, more parents send their young child to elementary school equipped with a smartphone. For instance, the percentage of third-graders who reported having their own cellphone more than doubled from 19 percent in 2013 to 45 percent in 2017.

Fault finding serves as a means to justify an illusory sense of superiority. To become a love finder requires us to be vigilant and self-realized. Most of us are just regular, ordinary people; therefore, vigilance will be our primary tool for taking note of our blaming and fault finding.

For some teenagers, involvement in dating relationships can result in experiences of violence, which can have harmful effects on health and well-being, and are associated with higher levels of depression and suicidal thoughts and poorer educational outcomes.

More children in the United States than ever before live in multigenerational households, according to a new study. In 1996, about 5.7 percent of kids, or roughly 4 million, lived in multigenerational families. Twenty years later, the numbers are 9.8 percent, or about 7 million children.

The friends that adolescents select, the influence they have on each other, and gender may all play a role in establishing friendships that can help, or possibly hurt, teens, according to new research.

In 1971, when I was four years old, my brother died of a congenital heart condition. Writing about this experience has prompted more responses than anything else I’ve ever written or spoken about. Untold and unheard stories appear in comments sections, strangers tell me cross-culturally consistent tales in the soft corners of conference rooms and speak about the siblings they’ve lost and how present the memories of them still are in their minds and hearts.

In the wake of sexual assault and harassment allegations involving Brett Kavanaugh, Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly and others, Americans may be learning just how prevalent sexual violence is in our society. So, what can be done to prevent it?

For most parents, the phrase “I don’t want to brush my teeth” is rather familiar. While it may seem easiest to pry their mouth open and force them to brush, research suggests there are better ways that may positively influence children’s future dental health.

The idea that advertising, entertainment and news media are guilty of objectifying women is familiar enough to most of us. But recently the balance seems to have shifted, with concerns being expressed about the potential objectification of male actors in drama series such as Bodyguard and Poldark.

Parents may display more conservative attitudes, according to new research. Parental advice like “Look both ways before you cross the street,” or “Don’t run with scissors,” can be considered examples of a certain perspective that portrays the world as a dangerous place—a perspective parents might use to instill caution in their children.

If a man offers to help a woman with her heavy suitcase or to parallel park her car, what should she make of the offer? Is it an innocuous act of courtesy? Or is it a sexist insult to her strength and competence?

A new acquaintance needs to be reminded of your name while you are having a conversation. A colleague forgets your plan to meet for coffee and schedules a conflicting meeting. A friend books a table for the two of you at a restaurant but it slips her mind that you don’t like sushi.

One of the topics most frequently discussed “at the water-cooler” is how much we may, or may not, trust people — from employers and managers to co-workers, friends and lovers.

Trust, of course, is vital for individual relationships and for organizational effectiveness — within universities and businesses alike. It creates an atmosphere where work is well-managed. It smooths the way, serving as a lubricant for an effective — and efficient — work environment.

Encouraging children “to help,” rather than asking them to “be helpers,” can instill persistence as they work to fulfill daily tasks that are difficult to complete, according to a new study.

Everything we do in life is a relationship. We have a relationship with money, with our body, and with our car. We have a relationship with everything! Relationships are difficult and challenging spiritual practices. They give us the opportunity to test our skills of communication, intimacy, authenticity, and integrity.

Both men and women have to learn to speak up in order to take charge of their lives and cultivate meaningful relationships! This applies to school, work, business, family, and social events. As scary as it can seem at first, I guarantee that speaking up will bring copious rewards and breakthrough moments.

Survey the shelves of most supermarkets and you’ll no doubt be confronted with row upon row of food designed to appeal to children. Be it chicken nuggets or turkey twizzlers – many foods now bear little resemblance to their original ingredients – “junk foods” now line the supermarket shelves to appeal to young consumers.

Self-mutilation is a big problem facing teens today. This affliction is the result of fear instilled by trauma. It is as though the brain contains a computer chip, which has been programmed, because of trauma, to self-mutilate. It is a mental trap that has taken innumerable young people hostage...

Between 2005 and 2010, one in ten married couples in Indonesia got divorced, according to data from the Supreme Court. In 70% of the cases, the wife initiated the divorce. The trend has only increased since then, rising by 80% between 2010 and 2015.

A new model could help make college students working together in teams feel more included, according to a new paper.

Parents play a critical role in their children’s early math education. They not only can provide math-related toys and games, but serve as role models demonstrating how math is used in everyday activities.

We can only trace romantic love back to about a thousand years ago. Prior to that, there wasn't any romantic love. It's an idea that has been invented, like a philosophy or a religion. It has been made very special.

The image of the partner who is most attractive to you is buried deep within your unconscious mind. You began sketching this picture soon after your birth and before you were a teenager the composite was nearly complete. Your Imago has a dominant influence over the type of partner you seek, the way you relate to him, and how happy you will be together. The relationship script you wrote as a child is based on both the Imago you created and the childhood wounds you suffered.

When schools suspend kindergartners and first-graders, some find it a challenge to turn things around in their academic life, a new study shows.

Have you clicked through to this article from your news feed? Are you checking it on your phone? More of us are consuming news online, and increasingly we’re turning to social media for news. Social media platforms are now the main source of news for Australians aged 18 to 24.

Pregnancy loss can be an isolating experience for women and their families. The grief experienced may be intense, but the feelings of the bereaved may not be recognised – even by close friends and relatives – because pregnancy loss is not widely discussed. But why do so many people struggle to find the right words of comfort for a family member?

Acceptance is the hallmark of many Eastern teachings. The opposite of acceptance and validation is judgment and denial, which make us tense up, lose our center, criticize ourselves and others, and hold impossible standards for everyone. When we are being judgmental, we invalidate ourselves and others.

When I moved into a rented cottage on Maui, Hawaii, some years ago, I found a little Russian Blue cat with gray fur and yellow eyes sitting on the porch staring at me. I learned that she was feral and that my neighbor Koa called her Pepper, and that she came by around the same time every day.

You know how to find happiness: Just meet Prince Charming (or Cinderella), overcome all obstacles, get married. The end. Sure, we kind of know real life doesn’t work like that. And yet this “romantic” story remains right up there on its cultural pedestal. We measure ourselves against it when we “fail.”

A critical step in the embrace of silence and solitude is setting aside the notion that we have to be "doing something" throughout our waking hours. For most of us, this goes against what we have been taught since childhood...

Most of us long for relationships in which we are loved and accepted just the way we are. Our hearts' desire is to give and receive love in relationships that make us feel that even if others disagree with what we do or say, they still love us. They accept us.

Many of our "life lessons" come to us through what we might usually call a "negative" experience, or possibly a "negative" person in our life. However, the addition of the term negative to any person or situation is simply a perception, or a judgment, on our part.

Most children adjust well to parental separation and divorce, at least in the long term. A minority of children of separated parents have long-term problems, which can affect them through their childhood and into adult life. But it’s conflict between separated parents, and not the separation itself, which accounts for many of the problems children of separated parents experience.

Each of us has the opportunity to accept and welcome the gift of living fully in the present. When we awaken to the eternal here and now, we feel alive, mobilized, our senses quickened. Each moment fully experienced becomes an integral part of the sculpting of our future. As we live today, we create our tomorrows.

Supervised, awake tummy time is recommended to facilitate a baby’s development and minimise flat head syndrome. But some babies don’t like tummy time, and will kick up an almighty fuss to let you know. Luckily, tummy time is not all you can do to get your baby moving.

The real danger of separating children from parents is not the psychological stress – it’s the biological time bomb.. The screaming and crying, the anguish and desolation is gut-wrenching. But the fallout pales in comparison to the less visible long-term effects that are more sinister and dangerous.

We spend much of our time talking about trivial matters and practical ones -- the weather, plans for the day, routine office events, frivolous gossip, the next technological miracle, etc. So little of our conversation addresses our passions, loves, emotions, dreams, or our creative insights...

For a lecture course I teach at Brown University called “Love Stories,” we begin at the beginning, with love at first sight. To its detractors, love at first sight must be an illusion – the wrong term for what is simply infatuation, or a way to sugarcoat lust. Buy into it, they say, and you’re a fool.

It’s been said that whatever brings us to face the essential truth of our lives may be called “grace.” Frequently, grace assumes a form that feels more like a curse than a blessing. It can be a life-threatening illness, the loss of a family member, being fired from a job, the kids leaving home (or coming back), divorce, a serious accident, or any number of possible crises that can be encountered in one’s life.

A successful relationship has two very important components: learning to love yourself first, and then learning to love another person. Too many people ignore the first part, then wonder why it’s so hard to love another. It’s like expecting to water a plant with an empty water pitcher. Or trying to put on your child’s oxygen mask when the airplane cabin pressure drops, but passing out from lack of oxygen before you can get it on.

We know from new research that children whose mothers are depressed may respond differently to stress, have altered immunity and be at greater risk of psychological disorders. This work adds to the body of research showing children can be affected in negative and long-term ways by their mothers’ mental ill-health.

When talking about separation and divorce, media and personal stories often focus on relationships characterised by ongoing conflict or violence. In contrast, Australian research suggests low conflict or cooperative post-separation relationships are common. These are negotiated in contexts that require what British sociologist Carol Smart described as an “indelible” joint-parenting contract.

Children of divorce are less likely to earn a four-year or graduate degree, according to a new study. The study is one of the first to look specifically at divorce and graduate education. Susan Stewart, professor of sociology at Iowa State University, says it is important to understand this relationship as more jobs require a graduate or professional degree.

Worldwide, people are not eating enough fruit and vegetables. In Australia, less than 4% of us meet the Australian Dietary Guideline recommendations for vegetables by age group. Worryingly, children and teenagers are even less likely than adults to be eating enough vegetables.

Less than 1% of kids aged two to three are eating the recommended 2.5 serves of vegetables and legumes a day. Between ages four to eight, 0% of kids are meeting their minimum 4.5 serves of vegetables per day. Most children up to 13 are eating two or fewer serves per day when the aim is closer to five serves.

While some kids may be lucky enough to skate through their parents’ separation relatively unscathed, the majority are going to suffer at least some short term, if not longer term distress. As an adult, you’ve likely forgotten just how central your family was to your sense of stability and even identity. Children have yet to develop autonomy, independence or a secure sense of self; instead, their entire frame of reference is strongly centred around their family. When that framework is broken, their world can feel as though it has fallen apart.

A pattern of breaking up and getting back together can be bad for your mental health, according to a new study. While on-and-off-again couples like Sam and Diane from Cheers or Ross and Rachel from Friends may keep audiences watching, Kale Monk, assistant professor of human development and family science at the University of Missouri, suggests people in these kinds of relationships should make informed decisions about stabilizing or safely terminating their relationships.

Exposure to an acute stress in utero can have long-term consequences extending into childhood—but only among children in poor households, according to a new study. The study, which took place in Chile, did not find the same effect among children in upper- or middle-class families.

Dress code policies have always been prevalent in schools. Normally, what children can and cannot wear in schools is explicitly noted in school policies or implicitly implied by broader cultural and societal norms. The issue of the vast and sometimes exhaustive list of dress code policies of what cannot be worn has not had any resolution across localities and countries.

There is magic in stories. We all remember hearing them as children, and we loved them. Imaginary adventures set in faraway places. Tales about how the dishwasher isn’t working. It doesn’t matter! Whether made up by parents or read from books, kids love to hear stories. Our recent work showed reading to children positively impacts long term academic achievement more than many other activity (including playing music with them, or doing craft).

Imagine that someone you care about is procrastinating in advance of a vital exam. If he fails the test, he will not be able to go to university, an eventuality of major consequence in his life. If positive encouragement doesn’t work, you might reverse strategy, making your friend feel so bad, so worried, so scared, that the only strategy left is that he starts studying like mad.

The most common sexual problem is low desire, according to a research study we recently published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. Around 40 per cent of the women we asked, and 30 per cent of men, reported experiencing problems with low desire during the last six months.

Up to two-thirds of students experience ‘ninth grade shock,’ which can affect everything from grades to mental health.

One emotion holding many of us back is negative love: our tendency to repeat the behaviors we used to win our parents’ love, and to repeat our parents’ attitudes, behaviors, and treatment of us. Generation after generation pass on the same type of negative love...

A grey divorce is simply a divorce that occurs at or after the age of 50. Even though the divorce rate across all age groups has stabilised, the number of grey divorces in the United States has recently dramatically increased.

A relationship is something to appreciate. A relationship allows you to share experiences. It lets you see yourself through someone else's eyes, and if that can be annoying at times, it is also a wonderful opportunity for self-awareness and growth...

Research shows we think young people have a lot more sex than they do in reality – and men have a particularly skewed view of the sex lives of young women.

The majority of people who are online dating seek out partners who are more desirable than themselves, new research suggests.

What dads do online helps them navigate gender roles as society changes.

When people think of women freezing their eggs, it’s often seen as something to do if you want to get ahead in your career – a way of delaying motherhood.

Childhood bullying is so common that it may not seem like a big deal. Up to 35% per cent of people are estimated to have experienced it at some point.

When I tell people I’m studying women who like gay male porn I get some pretty mixed responses. Men tend to tilt their heads quizzically to one side. “Really?”