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The Best Articles in Psychology and Self Improvement

The Emotion Machine has 500+ articles on many topics related to psychology and self improvement. Here are the most popular articles we’ve published over the past 8 years.

Each section is separated into categories by: happiness, emotions, thinking, habits, goals, relationships, creativity, meditation, and society.

Check them out and get started on your self improvement journey!

Happiness

3 Sources of Happiness that Aren’t Tied to People or Stuff

Why It’s Worth It to Pay the Costs of Being Yourself

How Perfectionism Destroys Happiness

Reframing Your Dark Side: Embracing Your Shadow Is Key to Genuine Mental Health

5 Attitudes Wired in Happy and Successful Brains

Radical Acceptance of Life’s Never-Ending Bullshit

Happy With Less: Trying Living With One Less Desire

Unconscious Positivity: 5 Ways to Ingrain Happiness Into Your Way of Life

Emotions

The 4 Fundamental Pillars of Emotional Intelligence

How to Communicate Your Feelings Without Becoming an Emotional Manipulator

The Complete Guide to Stress

How to Create Psychological Distance Between You and Your Past

How to Completely Forgive Yourself

5 Signs You’re a Slave to Your Emotions

Question Your Feelings

7 Ways to Connect More With Your Emotional Self

How We Use Music to Manage Our Stress and Emotions

Thinking

Accepting Your Bias

How to Be a Skeptical Thinker About Facts and Statistics You Find on the Internet

Be Careful of What You Let Enter Your Mind

The Healthy Challenge of Explaining Your Beliefs

3 Types of Exaggerated Thinking That Create Unnecessary Drama

Rewriting the Story of Your Life: A Process of Self-Exploration Through Writing

Metaphors We Live By: How Metaphors Frame Our Experiences in Different Ways

The 20 Most Common Logical Fallacies We Fall Victim to Everyday

The Pragmatic Thinker: Keeping Our Beliefs Grounded in What Matters

The “Five Whys” Exercise: How to Recalibrate Yourself During Periods of Turbulence

Habits

Identify Your Habit Loops

The Power of Nudges: Insights on How to Influence Human Behavior

Creating Boundaries Between You and Your Bad Habits

The Power of a Checklist: How to Stay Disciplined and Avoid Stupid Mistakes

Organized Home, Organized Mind: Why a Tidying Marathon Can Change Your Life

Make a Complete List of Your Daily Routine

How to Maximize Your Willpower

Why You Should Believe in Hard Work Over Genes

The “Everything Counts” Mindset for Exercise

7 Simple Principles Behind a Good Night’s Sleep

Relationships

How to Become a Master of Nonverbal Communication

How to Defuse Heated Arguments Before They Spiral Out of Control

3 Reasons to Give People the Benefit of the Doubt

5 Improvisation Exercises for Improving Your Communication Skills

Good Manners in the 21st Century (And Why It’s So Hard to Be Nice in Today’s World)

9 Tips on How to Be Honest With Someone Without Being Negative

Body Language Is More Revealing Than Words: How to Read People More Clearly

How to Learn From Guilt and Improve Your Relationships

The “Over-Sharing” Epidemic: How the Internet Makes Us Devalue Our Private Lives

How to Build Thick Skin and Stop Being So Sensitive

Goals

Start Living More as Your Future Self

What Stands in the Way Becomes the Way

How to Overcome Your Fear of Success

How to Overcome Awkward Phases of Self Improvement

What Do You Live For? A 5 Minute Exercise to Discover Your Most Important Values

How to Stop Being Jealous of Other People’s Success

Systems vs. Goals: Why Sustainability Is More Important Than Temporary Success

Grit and the Need for Achievement

Creativity

How to Build a Creative Mind That Will Never Run Out of New Ideas

3 Paths Revolutionary Thinkers Take Before They Arrive at Insights

The Psychology Behind What Makes Ideas Popular

The 5 Key Stages of the Creative Process

How to Improve Your Intuition

Mnemonics: The Forgotten Art of Memory

Practice Improvisation to Become a Faster and More Creative Thinker

How to Develop Your Own Creativity in a World of Conformity

Curiosity and the Advantages of a Hungry Mind

Meditation

Breathing Meditation

3 Common Problems When First Starting Meditation

Urge Surfing: How to Overcome Addictive Behaviors

Open Mind Meditation

The Wisdom of Body Awareness

Beginner’s Mind: How to Look at Old Problems in New Ways

STOP Meditation: Daily Injections of Mindfulness

Naked Meditation

Society and Culture

How Culture Influences Our Minds in Profound Ways We Don’t Even Realize

Effective Altruism vs. Feel Good Altruism: How to Make a Bigger Difference in the World

The Origin of Us: Campfires As The Bedrock of Human Civilization

The “Taste Buds” That Shape Our Morality: Why We Have Different Beliefs in Politics, Religion, and Morality

Circles of Empathy: Why We Care About People To Different Degrees

What Great Apes Teach Us About Emotions, Morality, and Civilization