Key Takeaways ● Average attention on a single screen has fallen from two and a half minutes in 2004 to roughly 47 seconds today, according to research by Gloria Mark at UC Irvine. ● After an interruption, people take an average of 25 minutes and 26 seconds to get back to the original project. ● Part of your attention stays stuck on the previous task. Researcher Sophie Leroy named this attention residue. ● Writing a one minute note about where you s

Key Takeaways ● Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort you feel when your beliefs and your behaviour do not match. ● The term comes from Leon Festinger, who published A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance in 1957. ● Festinger treated the discomfort as a drive, similar to hunger or thirst. It pushes you to act until it goes away. ● People usually remove the discomfort the cheapest way available, which is changing the belief rather than the behavio

Key takeaways • Happiness is not one thing. Researchers separate how satisfied you are with your life, how you felt yesterday, and whether your life feels worthwhile. • Income raises happiness further than the famous $75,000 plateau suggested, with one exception covered below. • The Harvard Study of Adult Development has tracked the same families since 1938. The strongest predictor of health in later life was the quality of close relationships. • The tidy

In 1978 three psychologists tracked down 22 major lottery winners and a group of people recently paralysed in accidents, and asked both how happy they were. The winners were less delighted than anyone expected. The accident victims were far less miserable. That study has been picked apart for forty years, and its sample was small enough to deserve the scrutiny, but the question it raised has not gone away. If winning a fortune and losing the use of your legs both fade towards

A mother leaves a toddler in an unfamiliar room with a stranger, then comes back three minutes later. One child wails while she is gone, then settles within seconds of her return. Another barely reacts to the departure, and when she walks back in he carries on stacking bricks as though nobody had left. In a laboratory in Baltimore in the 1960s, Mary Ainsworth watched that scene play out hundreds of times. What interested her was never the crying. It was the reunion. Key Takea

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Limerence is an involuntary state of intense romantic obsession with another person, proposed by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in 1979 • It is different from love: it is characterised by intrusive thoughts, fear of rejection and an extreme emotional dependence on the other person's response • The limerent object does not need to reciprocate and often does not know the feelings exist • It typically peaks and fades within months to a few years, tho

KEY TAKEAWAYS • All relationships need active maintenance, not just attention when problems appear • Most relationship conflict is about the process, not the topic. How you disagree matters more than what you disagree about • Criticism attacks the person; a complaint addresses the behaviour. One is manageable, one is corrosive • Repair attempts during conflict are one of the strongest predictors of relationship health • Contempt is the most damaging patter

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Trying to fall asleep is often the problem. Sleep is a passive process that requires reduced arousal, not effort • The 4-7-8 breathing technique reduces physiological arousal and works for many people within minutes • A consistent wake time is the strongest single variable, more than bedtime • The bed should be for sleep and sex only. Using it for other activities trains the brain to be awake there • Lying awake for more than 20 minutes is.

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes, not just therapy • Most human behaviour is automatic, driven by habit, emotion and social context rather than deliberate reasoning • We consistently overestimate how rational we are, and a short list of biases explains most of the errors • Memory is reconstructive, meaning we edit and rebuild it each time we recall it • Behaviour follows reinforcement, not intentions •

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise, understand, manage and use emotions, in yourself and others • It is usually broken into four skills: self awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management • Self awareness comes first. The other three depend on it • The evidence is real but more modest than the popular claims. It predicts some outcomes, not all of success • It is learnable, unlike IQ, which is large

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Most headaches are primary, meaning the headache is the condition rather than a symptom of something else • Tension type headaches are the most common. Migraine is the most disabling • Location and character matter more than severity when working out the type • Painkillers taken more than about 10 to 15 days a month can cause medication overuse headache • A headache diary is the single most useful thing you can do before seeing a doctor •

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Humour is a recognised coping strategy, not just a distraction • Self deprecating humour differs from self critical humour, and only one of them helps • Most viral quotes are misattributed, usually to Mark Twain, Einstein or Oscar Wilde • Shared laughter builds connection faster than most deliberate attempts to bond • Humour used to avoid every difficult feeling stops being useful • Verify any quote before you print it on something Th

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Anxious attachment is a pattern of seeking closeness while fearing it will be withdrawn • It is not neediness. It is a nervous system that learned love was unpredictable • Protest behaviour is the technical name for the behaviours that push people away while trying to pull them closer • It commonly pairs with avoidant attachment, creating a pursue and withdraw cycle • Self soothing is the core skill, because the reassurance you seek from ot

KEY TAKEAWAYS • ADD is no longer an official diagnosis. It was replaced in 1994 and the current term is ADHD • What people mean by ADD is now called ADHD, predominantly inattentive presentation • There are three presentations: inattentive, hyperactive impulsive, and combined • Presentation can change over time, which is why the manual says presentation rather than type • Inattentive ADHD is missed far more often, particularly in girls and adults, because i

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Narcissistic personality disorder is a recognised mental health condition, not a word for someone who is selfish or vain • It is estimated to affect around 1 to 2 percent of people, more often men • The defining feature is a fragile sense of self hidden behind grandiosity or, in the covert form, behind sensitivity and resentment • Only a qualified professional can diagnose it. Labelling someone from the outside is unreliable and unhelpful •

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Avoidant attachment is a pattern of managing closeness by keeping emotional distance • It is not a lack of feeling. It is usually a learned strategy for coping with needs that were once unmet • There are two main forms: dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant • It often pairs with anxious attachment, creating a predictable pursue and withdraw cycle • Attachment style is not fixed. People can move toward security through relationships, refl