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Your memory probably isn't as good as you think it is. We rely on our memories not only for sharing stories with friends or learning from our past experiences, but we also use it for crucial things like creating a sense of personal identity. Yet evidence shows that our memory isn't as consistent as we'd like to believe. What's worse, we're often guilty of changing the facts and adding false details to our memories without even realising. To understand a bit about how remembering works, consider the "telephone game" (also known as "Chinese whispers"). In the game, one person quietly whispers a message to the person beside them, who then passes it on to the next person in line, and so on. Each time the message is relayed, some parts might be misheard or misunderstood, others might get innocently altered,...

I read an article yesterday that has me extremely excited about the implications. The article is called "Hacking the Nervous System" by Gaia Vince. In the article, the author describes the experience of a woman who suffered from severe, debilitating rheumatoid arthritis and her eventual treatment with a device which minimized inflammation by simply stimulating the vagus nerve. What this means is that by activating the vagus nerve which works through the parasympathetic nervous system we can greatly influence inflammation and the immune system. The role of the brain on body inflammation can be profound. If you suffer from digestive complaints, high blood pressure, depression or any inflammatory condition, please read on. Let me explain the possible implications step by step. ...

Christmas would be great if we just agreed not to talk at all Christmas holidays can be wonderful - time off work, eating yourself into a stupor, drinking for no reason - but it's also when you're most likely to run into awkward conversations about politics, your love life, or everything in between. "Everyone is tired, and it's the end of the year, and we're quite emotional," says clinical psychologist and columnist Linda Blair. "If you're spending the holidays with people you're related to - you know, you can love people without liking them - and it's busy and you're travelling, everything can just get aggravated." It may sound dire (and very familiar), and sometimes you just want to avoid the questions, but there are a couple of key tricks that you can use to keep conversation from going downhill...