There are lonely people to help, rifts with friends to heal, family members to forgive. There are places to protect and defend and cherish. There are local issues where your voice could be an agent of calm and sanity. Your world is no different, no less worthy, no less needy than any other world you can imagine.

Not to worry. Certain "brain foods" can help nourish this precious organ by protecting it from degeneration, helping to boost mood, and sustaining cognitive function, even as we age. Here are some of the top brain foods and what research says about them.

My approach is different. It's about creating certain habits that address the issue so your body wants to be thin. Then it requires no discipline at all. I will go on record saying this, and I've said it many times: Once your body wants to be thin (though it can be easy or hard to get to that point), it is effortless to lose weight.

After becoming the first African-American to medal in ski racing, Bonnie St. John went on to graduate magna cum laude from Harvard, win the Rhodes Scholarship, earn a graduate degree from Oxford in economics, work in the White House, and become a best-selling author. In this interview she speaks about how to persevere and succeed while taking risks and building resilience.

Tara Brach talks about waking up to racism in our culture and how her Washington, DC, Insight Meditation community is doing something about it.

In our culture, men historically have been trained and expected to be aggressive, competitive and hierarchical. Male self-worth has been based on embodying those qualities and on being a successful breadwinner