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The year 2013 is coming to an end – this article is a celebration of the top 10 best psychology and self improvement articles published this year at The Emotion Machine.

As of today there have been more than 500 articles posted here in the past 4 years. These are great places to start learning more about how your mind works and how to improve your life.



My Top 10 Psychology Articles of 2013



1. The Complete Guide to Daily Stress

If you want to master the stress in your life, know when it’s time to embrace stressful and challenging activities, and know when it’s time to take a step back and just relax for a little bit.



2. How to Create Psychological Distance Between You and Your Past

Learn these important tools for creating more psychological distance between you and your past, including 2 powerful visualization exercises.



3. The 4 Fundamental Pillars of Emotional Intelligence

A complete summary of everything you need to know about emotional intelligence and how to apply it to your life. This article teaches you all aspects of emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and social skills.



4. 3 Common Problems When First Starting Meditation

Meditation is simply a practice of developing inner awareness toward our experiences. It can be easy in theory, but difficult in practice. Here are 3 common problems people face when first starting out.



5. What Do You Live For? A 5 Minute Exercise to Discover Your Most Important Values

We all have different values in our lives that guide our actions and choices. Here is a quick 5 minute exercise to help discover what matters most to you.



6. How to Avoid Magical Thinking In Your Relationships

This article teaches you how magical thinking, the tendency to want extra meaning and purpose in our relationships that isn’t really there, can create unhealthy and impractical relationships.



7. 5 Signs You’re a Slave to Your Emotions

Our emotions have a huge amount of power over our choices and actions – we can either become a master or a slave to them. Here are some warning signs that you may be being overrun by your emotional mind.



8. The Benefits of Fasting for 24 Hours

Fasting for a short 24 hour period, where you consume nothing but water (and sometimes low calories drinks such as black coffee or green tea), has shown to have several important physical and mental health benefits. You may want to try it out for yourself!



9. The Problem with Being Too Nice

According to recent research in psychology, being too nice can sometimes backfire on us. People who compulsively say “yes” to everyone’s wants and needs often experience greater levels of stress and emotional burnout.



10. 5 Reasons to be Less Materialistic

New studies in psychology are showing some of the negative effects of being too materialistic in our beliefs and attitude. There’s much more to life than just wealth and money.



Honorable Mentions



– How to Savor the Moment: Scientific Ways to Increase Pleasure in Your Life

Scientific studies on the nature of pleasure are now revealing exactly how we can make the most of pleasure in our lives and its relationship to our overall happiness.



– The Unconscious Influence of Mirroring

How does mirroring another person’s posture, gestures, and words improve our connection with others? What role does mirroring play in our daily social relationships?



– Naked Meditation: How to Completely Accept Your Naked Self

Learn to be more comfortable with nudity by practicing this meditation on your body and self acceptance.



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