We are trained from the time we emerge from our mothers’ wombs to look forward to vacations as a chance to relax, have fun, escape from the rigors of life. But for a small percentage of us, vacation is harder than work—it requires far more stamina than sitting in an office chair for eight hours...

For nearly 6,000 years essential oils have been used for therapeutic purposes. A number of ancient civilizations including the Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used them for cosmetics and perfumes as well as for rituals and spiritual reasons. Oils are documented by the Greek physician and botanist Pedanius Dioscorides in the first century in...

In 1996, psychologist Roy Baumeister, Ph.D. conducted a cruel experiment. With some of his former Case Western Reserve University colleagues, he studied the effect of tempting participants with scrumptious treats in order to see how much willpower human beings actually have. He kept the 67 participants in a room that smelled like freshly baked chocolate...

One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes is the one where Elaine snoops inside her medical chart and reads “patient is difficult.” The doctor takes a look at her rash and says, “Well, this doesn’t look serious,” and writes something in the chart. “What are you writing?” she asks. He sneers and walks out the door....

In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran writes: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. I thought of his words yesterday as I...