Advice Goddess Radio: Amy Alkon

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio -- "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research.   *Show is an hour earlier this week -- 6-7pm Pacific Time, to accommodate my guest's schedule.    Very exciting show this week with Loren Cordain, Ph.D., a leading expert on the Paleolithic diet and a professor in the Department of Health & Exercise Science at Colorado State University.   Dr. Cordain will bust numerous myths about how to eat for optimal workouts and lay out what the science says about how to eat before, during, and after a workout and why.   This show will have essential information for intense athletes, the focus of Cordain's book featured below, and for people who work out regularly and want improve their performance and health.   Dr. Cordain's book, co-authored with endurance coach Joe Friel, MS, is The Paleo Diet For Athletes: The Ancient Nutritional Formula For Peak Athletic Performance.   Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday from 7-8 pm Pacific and 10-11 pm Eastern, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. Buy my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, at Amazon, and look for my award-winning, science-based advice column in a paper near you or ask editors to carry it.  

Nationally syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio -- "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research. This is an Easter Sunday "Best Of" Replay on procrastination: Are you a procrastinator? My guest this week is psychologist Lenora Yuen, Ph.D., here to help you cure your habit of procrastination. She’ll talk about why you procrastinate and how to stop NOW.  She’s co-creator of the first procrastination treatment group in the country, along with her co-author of her excellent, research-driven book, Procrastination. There’s much wisdom in this book -- just in prepping for the show, I’ve recognized some of my bad habits, and I’ve started taking small steps to change them. You can do the same (with your own bad habits!). You’re sure to get some very wise insight and tips for real and very positive change from the show.  Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday from 7-8 pm Pacific and 10-11 pm Eastern, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. Buy my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, at Amazon, and look for my award-winning, science-based advice column in a paper near you or ask editors to carry it.

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research.  On tonight's show, noted sociologist Dr. Eric Klinenberg will discuss why remaining unmarried and living alone have increasing appeal and what the problems of living solo tend to be -- and how we might solve them. We'll touch both on living solo as a younger person (whether romantically single or "living apart together" with a partner), and how we can live alone as we age.   Dr. Klineberg's book is Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.   Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday from 7-8 pm Pacific and 10-11 pm Eastern, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.   Buy my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, at Amazon, and look for my award-winning, nationally syndicated, science-based advice column in a paper near you, or ask the editor to carry it!

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.  Developmental psychologist Dr. Peter Gray will explain why our current educational system is actually counterproductive to educating kids. Our way of schooling kids ignores our evolved psychology and how children actually learn, and removes children’s natural joy of learning from them in the process.  It turns out that schooling based on the principles of a democracy -- applied to children -- is highly effective schooling for keeping kids engaged, helping them develop self-control, and helping them develop to their fullest and become highly productive adults living meaningful lives.   Peter’s fascinating book: Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life.    Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday from 7-8 pm Pacific and 10-11 pm Eastern, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.   Buy my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, at Amazon, and look for my award-winning, nationally syndicated, science-based advice column in a paper near you, or ask the editor to carry it!  

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.  On this week's show, University of Chicago psychologist and researcher Dr. Sian Beilock explains why we choke under pressure and how we can avoid doing it.  Her book is Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To. Join us tonight to find out how you can exhibit the sort of grace under pressure that makes for winning performances -- in  life, business, sports, public speaking, and the arts.  And join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday from 7-8 pm Pacific and 10-11 pm Eastern, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes.    Buy my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, at Amazon, and look for my award-winning, nationally syndicated, science-based advice column in a paper near you, or ask the editor to carry it!

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.  Psychology professor Dr. Gabrielle Principe notes that the panic-stricken parental race to raise tiny geniuses is actually bad parenting -- leading to overcontrolled childhoods that have negative effects on kids' development. This way of raising children is marketing-driven, not science-driven (though marketers typically claim their toys and learning tools are based in science). Take Baby Einstein videos. In 2007, UCLA's Department of Health Services chairman Frederick Zimmerman and his colleagues found that kids watching these had a 17 percent decrease in vocabulary acquisition for each hour they spent watching them per day.   Through looking at solid science on the human brain, Dr. Principe has figured out ways for parents to naturalize childhood again, so a child's environment gels with how the brain was designed to grow.   Her clearly written and dryly witty book: "Your Brain on Childhood: The Unexpected Side Effects of Classrooms, Ballparks, Family Rooms, and the Minivan."   Join us tonight as she busts countless myths about how to raise children and lays out simple, clear advice for how kids can thrive.   And join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday from 7-8 pm Pacific and 10-11 pm Eastern, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes.    Buy my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, at Amazon, and look for my award-winning, nationally syndicated, science-based advice column in a paper near you, or ask the editor to carry it!

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.  OSCARS NIGHT "BEST-OF" REPLAY: Addiction treatment specialist Dr. Stanton Peele will lay out his groundbreaking thinking on the personal responsibility approach to addiction and kicking everyday bad habits.   Peele will talk about how to fight addiction without a 12-step program. He'll also bust many of the myths many people hold about addiction -- as well as the excuses they cling to for why they can't overcome their self-defeating, destructive behaviors. He'll offer practical thinking and steps for change.    We'll be discussing unhealthy love and relationships as well as substance addiction and more minor and common bad habits.   Peele wrote a really fantastic book, co-authored with Archie Brodsky, called Love And Addiction, and more recently, and also very wise, the book, 7 Tools To Beat Addiction. He blogs at Psychology Today and The Huffington Post.    Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday from 7-8 pm Pacific and 10-11 pm Eastern, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes.    Buy my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, at Amazon, and look for my award-winning, nationally syndicated, science-based advice column in a paper near you, or ask the editor to carry it!

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.    Tonight's show on the power of logical thinking will help you improve your critical thinking skills so you can live more effectively -- and persuasively -- ever afer.    My guest tonight is bioethics and philosophy of science lecturer Dr. Christopher DiCarlo, and his book is How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass: A Critical Thinker's Guide to Asking the Right Questions.   This show is for anyone who wants to improve their critical thinking or anyone who needs to learn the basics. I absolutely loved prepping for it, because it always helps me to be reminded of what I need to do to ditch my biases and hone my reasoning skills.    Join me and my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.   Please buy my science-based but funny book about why people are rude and how to change things, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society.   And please ask a newspaper near you to carry my award-winning syndicated, science-based advice column...if they don't already!

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.    You can actually improve your mating intelligence -- and your ability to meet, date, and have sex and relationships with partners you want.    My guests tonight are evolutionary psychologists Dr. Glenn Geher and Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, discussing their book Mating Intelligence Unleashed: The Role of the Mind in Sex, Dating, and Love. It’s based on a vast body of research, and the book, like tonight’s show, will tell you, for example:   •What the research shows men and women really want (which is sometimes different from what they think they want).  •How a "nice guy" can make himself more appealing to women. •The physical traits of a guy who probably shouldn't waste his time trying to get casual sex. (**See comments below episode for this one)   Join me and my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.   Please buy my science-based but funny book about why people are rude and how to change things, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society.   And please ask a newspaper near you to carry my award-winning syndicated, science-based advice column...if they don't already!  

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.  Word has it there’s some big sporting event on tonight (aka The Superbowl), so I’m replaying one of my “best of” shows. My guest is social psychologist Dr. Carol Tavris, on how to admit mistakes instead of continuing to make them. She talks about common ways we make errors in reasoning and judgment that mess up our lives, and how to avoid them. Her terrific book, co-authored with Dr. Elliot Aronson, is one of my favorites: Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. Join me and my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. Please buy my science-based but funny book about why people are rude and how to change things, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society. And please ask a newspaper near you to carry my award-winning syndicated, science-based advice column...if they don't already!

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.  Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the most rigorous researchers whose work I follow, has a terrific new book out, The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't; What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does. It turns out that we are very poor predictors of what makes us happy or unhappy, and it doesn’t help that we’ve been stuck with a lot of cultural myths about what things and situations should and shouldn’t. On this show, which will focus mainly on relationships, Lyubomirsky will lay out the realities shown in the research and also give us simple, practical ways to be happier -- and practical thinking on how to assess when that’s just not possible and it’s time to get out.    Join me and my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.   Please buy my science-based but funny book about why people are rude and how to change things, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society.   And please ask a newspaper near you to carry my award-winning syndicated, science-based advice column...if they don't already!    

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.    *Slightly different time again this week to accommodate guest from the UK.   Psychologist Jeremy Dean, founder of the popular website PsyBlog, is the author of Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don't, and How To Make Any Change Stick -- which is the topic of today's show.   We are convinced that we are the boss of us -- that we do the things we do because they make sense, because we’ve got goals, because we make smart choices. Often, that’s far from the case. But, by understanding how habits are formed, why we develop them, and what our biases are, we can use habit-forming to our benefit and have some chance of stopping the habits holding us back.    Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.   Please buy my science-based but funny book about why people are rude and how to change things, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society.   And please ask a newspaper near you to carry my award-winning syndicated, science-based advice column...if they don't already!  

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.  *Slightly different time this week to accommodate a very special guest from the UK. Psychologist and researcher Dr. Richard Wiseman will be with us all the way from Britain for a not-to-be-missed show on his book, just published in America, "The As If Principle." He will lay out the science that shows that it is not thinking yourself into new behavior that helps you change but behaving as the person you want to be. In other words, "Behave as if..."   This will not only be a fascinating show, but an extremely valuable and practical one, laying out a simple principle, well-supported by research, that can easily be used to increase motivation, overcome depression, lose weight, stop smoking and even slow aging.   The research shows, for example, that you can measurably improve your mood by smiling and laughing, and that you can improve your relationship simply by acting loving. You can even cure phobias by practicing behaving, physically, as if you are not afraid -- not grimacing at a spider, for example.   Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.   Please buy my science-based but funny book about why people are rude and how to change things, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society.   And please ask a newspaper near you to carry my award-winning syndicated, science-based advice column...if they don't already!  

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research.    What do men want? In bed and out? What do women want? How does this all tie together? (And who’s getting tied up?)   These are just a few of the questions I’ll be asking and sex therapist Dr. Brandy Engler will be answering on tonight’s show.    Dr. Engler is unique in that she opened a sex therapy practice for women -- expecting to slowly get some clients -- and quickly amassed a full list of clients: all men.    Engler and New York Times best-selling biographer David Rensin have just published a fascinating book about her sessions and her insights, The Men On My Couch: True Stories of Sex, Love, and Psychotherapy.    This is your chance to go inside her sessions -- to see into the erotic minds of men. And not pervos or deviants, but regular guys. Men we all know.     Beyond the men, we will also see into the minds of the women having sex with these men -- or refusing to -- and find out why, and what it takes to balance love and eroticism in a relationship.   All this and more on tonight’s show. (Live, nude radio!)   Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.   Please also buy my science-based and funny book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE, and request my award-winning syndicated, science-based advice column in a newspaper near you.  

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.    Context is everything, Tufts psychology professor Dr. Sam Sommers explains. What we believe, how we behave, and even how we see ourselves shifts more than we understand, depending on the situation we find ourselves in at a particular moment.   For example, contrary to popular belief, context (like whether we're standing in a crowd), and not moral character, will often determine whether people will reach out and help someone in need.   On tonight's show, Dr. Sommers will lay out how understsanding the surprisingly powerful impact of context can help us combat our biases in seeing and decision-making -- in turn helping us be more effective at work, with our families, in our friendships and relationships, and out in the world.   Sam's book: Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World   Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.   Please buy my science-based but funny book about why people are rude and how to change things, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society.   And please ask a newspaper near you to carry my award-winning syndicated, science-based advice column...if they don't already!