The School of Living · everyday skills for a whole life
Mental Health & Mindfulness
Plain instruction in attention, stress, sleep, and mood — skills with evidence behind them, not slogans.
What the stress response is, what chronic stress costs, and the handful of interventions that measurably help.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~8 hours
Unit I — The Stress Response
Adrenaline and cortisol: the alarm and the long burn · Acute stress versus chronic stress · What sustained stress does to sleep, memory, and immunity
Unit II — What Measurably Helps
Exercise: the best-evidenced intervention · Sleep, social contact, and time outdoors · Slow breathing and the vagal brake · What sells well but tests poorly
Unit III — A Personal Protocol
Mapping your own stress signature · Building an if-then plan for hard weeks · When stress is a symptom: knowing where help lives
A secular course in mindfulness: sitting practice, open awareness, and the honest limits of the evidence.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~10 hours
Unit I — What Mindfulness Is and Is Not
Attention regulation, not emptying the mind · The evidence base: real effects, modest sizes · Secular practice and its contemplative roots, acknowledged
Unit II — Sitting Practice
The breath as anchor: ten minutes, daily · Noticing, naming, and returning without scolding · Posture, timing, and making it stick
Unit III — Widening the Lens
The body scan · Open awareness: sounds, thoughts, and weather · Walking practice and single-tasked chores
Unit IV — Obstacles
Restlessness, drowsiness, and doubt · When practice surfaces difficult material · Who should proceed carefully, and adaptations that help
Sleep architecture, the habits that wreck it, and the CBT-I techniques that reliably rebuild a night.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~8 hours
Unit I — The Architecture of a Night
Stages and cycles: deep, light, and REM · Circadian rhythm and the two-process model · How much sleep, honestly, by age
Unit II — What Wrecks Sleep
Light, especially the late kind · Caffeine's half-life and alcohol's false bargain · Worry in bed and the racing 3 a.m. mind
Unit III — Rebuilding a Night
Stimulus control: the bed is for sleeping · Sleep restriction: counterintuitive and effective · Wind-down routines and consistent wake times · When to seek help: apnea, insomnia, and restless legs
Catch the thought, test it, act anyway — the core techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy, for self-use.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~12 hours
Unit I — The Model
Thoughts, feelings, and behavior: the triangle · Automatic thoughts and how to catch one · Common distortions: catastrophizing, mind-reading, all-or-nothing
Unit II — Working the Thought Record
Situation, thought, emotion, evidence · The balanced alternative: not positive, accurate · Practicing on low-stakes moments first
Unit III — Behavior First
Behavioral activation: action before motivation · Graded exposure for avoided things · Values, small experiments, and keeping score fairly
Unit IV — The Line
What self-help CBT can and cannot do · Signs it is time for a professional · Finding a therapist: modalities, questions, and cost