TED resources
How stress affects your brain
Stress isn’t always a bad thing; it can be handy for a burst of extra energy and focus, like when you’re playing a competitive sport or have to speak in public. But when it’s continuous, it actually begins to change
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How drawing can set you free
Who are you? To answer this question, artist Shantell Martin followed her pen. In this brilliantly visual talk featuring her signature freestyle line work — drawn across everything from the screens of Times Square to the bodies of New York
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What causes insomnia?
What keeps you up at night? Pondering deep questions? Excitement about a big trip? Stress about unfinished work? What if the very thing keeping you awake was stress about losing sleep? This seemingly unsolvable loop is at the heart of
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What is obesity?
Mia Nacamulli Obesity is an escalating global epidemic. It substantially raises the probability of diseases like diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and cancer. But what is the distinction between being overweight and being obese? And how does a
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Why should you read Charles Dickens?
Iseult Gillespie The starving orphan seeking a second helping of gruel. The spinster wasting away in her tattered wedding dress. The stone-hearted miser plagued by the ghost of Christmas past. More than a century after his death, these remain recognizable
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What is depression?
Helen M. Farrell Depression is the leading cause of disability in the world. In the United States, nearly 10% of adults struggle with depression. But since this is a mental illness, it is more difficult to deal with it than,
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How to save a language from extinction
Daniel Bögre Udell As many as 3,000 languages could disappear within the next 80 years, all but silencing entire cultures. In this quick talk, language activist Daniel Bögre Udell shows how people around the world are finding new ways to
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The power of the placebo effect
Emma Bryce The placebo effect is an unexplained phenomenon in which drugs and treatments that shouldn’t work — and are often fake — miraculously improve people’s well-being. What’s going on? Emma Bryce delves into the mystery of the placebo’s bizarre
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The Dark Side of Happiness
June Gruber Yale psychologist June Gruber asks whether, in a culture obsessed with pursuing happiness, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.
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How language shapes the way we think
Lera Boroditsky There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world — and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language — from an
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