Eric Barker's Blog, page 9

How To Stop Feeling Anxious And Live A Happy Life – 3 Expert Tips

Some days everything seems to be outside your comfort zone. A bit of anxiety is part of the modern world. Worry about that presentation at work, worry about the kids at home, worry about what’s on the news… worry, worry worry.

Worst-case scenarios ping pong around in the echo chamber of your skull. Your brain is like a close friend who keeps trying to kill you. You can try to think your way out of this but, if you’re an anxious person, well, thinking probably hasn’t worked out all that well fo...

Ancient Traditions Reveal 2 Rituals That Will Make You An Awesome Parent

We’re often presented with an image of parenting that is a bit too perfect. Like a Norman Rockwell scene preserved in a snowglobe.

But all too often parents wake up to realize they were cast in a reality show without their permission. The kids cause more problems in 4 minutes than I could get into in 4 years. You wonder if your genetics have spawned an unholy chimera of you and you partner’s worst traits. It gets to a point where you wake up to the sounds of screams. Not the kid’s screams. You...

How To Be Resilient: 5 Secrets To Success When Life Gets Impossible

You’re dropped off in the middle of a forest with nothing but the clothes on your back. You’re going to need to live off the land to survive. (Hope you paid attention during all those Bear Grylls episodes.)

Oh, and you’re being hunted. Dangerous people are trying to capture you. You know: your average Sunday.

And even if you do manage to survive this, the next phase is even worse. You’re caught, blindfolded, and locked in a cell. Music blasts 24-7 to disorient you. You’re deprived of sleep. Re...

New Neuroscience Reveals 5 Secrets That Will Make You Lose Weight

Sometimes it feels like all you do during adulthood is accumulate pounds and passwords. Inflation is so bad right now that quarters cost 50 cents but that’s not the only thing that’s inflating. Many of us have gained the COVID-19 pounds.

In 1960, one in seven US adults was obese. By 2010, that reached one in three. And childhood obesity has quintupled. We can contrive all sorts of unscientific voluptuous rationalizations for why this has occurred but the science is very simple and very clear: ...

This Is How To Have Emotionally Intelligent Relationships: 4 Secrets

Jamie was one of the nicest and warmest people I’d ever met. He was also one of the most dangerous people I’d ever met.

Jamie was two-time national champion in Kali. Kali is the martial art they taught Matt Damon for the Jason Bourne movies. And at this point Jamie was training for the world championships. Day in, day out, nothing else. The last thing you wanna do in a fight is think. You train until every technique is an instinctive reaction.

But after a few weeks of this, Mr. Deadly-Nice-Guy...

4 Rituals To Keep You Happy All The Time

It had been a wonderful day. Now he was going for his usual 4-mile walk.

What made today special was his grown children had come home. They hadn’t all been together in six months. And there was even a new member of the family: his first grandchild. Three months old and adorable.

He mused about how wonderful it all was…

And that’s when the car hit him.

He was thrown 14 feet and landed in a ditch. He was going in and out of consciousness. Wiping a handful of blood from his eyes, he looked down t...

How To Stop Being Lazy And Get More Done – 5 Expert Secrets

I remember a time when someone, possibly me, had a lot of trouble getting motivated. This was not fun.

Three years ago, I starred in a suspense film titled Oh Good God I Have To Write My Second Book. Some might be thinking: “That must have been easy, you’ve done it before.” Oh No No No No — that’s not how it works. First time out you have no idea what’s going on. It’s stressful but you can naively jump into the maelstrom. However, after you’ve been to war, you now know just how hard it’s all g...

New Neuroscience Reveals 5 Rituals That Will Make Your Life Awesome

The fact that they fell in love was, on the surface, ridiculous. She was a leading researcher on love. He was the leading researcher on loneliness. And yet it happened. Ironic? Poetic? Probably both.

Steph was at a boring academic lecture. The guy next to her whispered in her ear: “If I start snoring, punch me.”

She giggled. The man seated to her other side was already dozing. Steph whispered back: “He’s snoring. Do you want me to punch him, too?” They laughed.

“I’m John, by the way.”

But she ...

This Is How To Get People To Change: 5 Secrets From Research

Trying to help someone change can be sanity-straining. Even when people face serious health scares they often don’t do enough to alter their habits, like they’re stuck on some monorail track of doom.

That said, we often go about trying to help in all the wrong ways. We know that lectures probably don’t help — but we often find ourselves doing it anyway. It’s like the reasons we give them for changing have almost no effect at all…

And, actually, that’s close to true. So what’s the answer?

Hundr...

Thank You

Alain de Botton wrote: “Writing a book is like telling a joke and having to wait two years to know whether or not it was funny.”

And my circus brain has spent much of the past few weeks thinking of the eleventy billion ways the book launch could go wrong and whether or not my future career entailed selling doilies on Etsy. Like some sort of digital Freudian slip, my phone has been autocorrecting “publishing” to “punishing”. (Often, the most difficult part of being a grown up is keeping your sc...