Brain Resources

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Self-Education and Improvement

Self-Improvement

How to Read
Advice on how to remember the books you read.
How to do everything
"The world is full of these ridiculous mundane pieces of insight, and even if you’re very on the ball and know 99% of the ones that would be life improving for you to know, that probably still means that there are thousands you are missing."
What If Emotions aren't Universal?
An article about how emotions may be cultural and learned in nature rather than hardwired; in other words, the concepts of happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust as clearly defined emotions everyone has may not be accurate, and named emotions may be a culturally learned experience.
Rat Park
A comic about the Rat Park drug addiction experiment.
Overthinking Everything
A blog with some excellent advice for thinking about things, helping yourself, and generally getting along better in the world.

Help Yourself

you feel like shit.
An interactive guide to taking care of yourself. Great if you feel bad, but aren't sure why.
What is Adult Grooming?
Information on the much-neglected topic of adult grooming. Would strongly recommend reading this to better protect yourself online. This page on the warning signs and process of grooming is also worth skimming.
Mental Health Resources
A large number of helpful resources for mental health, crisis resources included. Advice on coping skills, picking therapists, helping friends, and disclosing to others; also has condition-specific links for all sorts of diagnoses.
Find Unconscious Motivations
Some excellent advice on addressing the root causes of behavioral patterns by processing the emotions and beliefs behind them.
Cleaning up the fnords in your environment
Dealing with anxiety triggers that you've learned to consciously ignore or tune out.
Here and Now
A daily meditation.
Atlas of Emotions
Exploring emotions by type and intensity. Great if you need to find words for your feelings. Also includes sections on how emotions progress and responding to emotions.
No More Ramen
Quick, easy, and cheap recipes for folks with little time or energy to cook.
Nighttime 201
Tips for sleeping when you're a trauma survivor. Lots of little ideas here that add up to help a lot.
Notes on Shaking
Body movement as a tool for processing emotions and trauma.
SuperBetter
Play a game to build resilience and improve your life for free.
What Is Shadow Work?
An introduction to shadow work (the practice of acknowledging and embracing the sides of yourself that you repress or hide). Some journaling prompts can be found here.
The Little Things
Little tricks that help with mental health.
Anxiety Canada's PDF Resources
Free PDFs with coping skills for anxiety disorders (including general anxiety, social anxiety, specific phobia, OCD, and even PTSD).
Understood
For those with disorders that affect learning and those who want to understand them.
Pixel Thoughts
A quick 60-second meditation tool.
The Quiet Place
A place to breathe and relax. Good for taking a break from the world.
Stress Analyst
Calm yourself down by analyzing whether fight-or-flight is really necessary, then discharging leftover stress hormones.
Feeels
An interactive emotion wheel.
Grounding Techniques
A list of some grounding techniques.
DBT Distress Tolerance Skills
Exactly what it says on the tin: skills for handling discomfort and distress.
Succeed Socially
Learn social skills.
Emotional Codes
Tools for processing emotions and interpersonal issues.
The Nicest Place on the Internet
Hugs and positivity.
Poi's Comfort Pack
A carrd with self-care advice, distractions, and crisis resources.
The Theory of Structured Procrastination
A handy way of getting things done if you tend to procrastinate or avoid big tasks. Very useful for brainweird folks!
The SAVE YOURSELF Files
A file dump of several helpful resources for surviving tough situations.
The first hard choice
Temptation, addiction, cults, and how to handle it all.

Gender and Sexuality

Digital Transgender Archive
An archive of LGBTQ+ zines; it's not just transgender ones, though there are plenty of those!
Butch: Not Like the Other Girls
A photoset of butch women.
Please Come and Be Fat
An essay about modelling top surgery results as a fat trans man (which points out the need for more fat trans models).
Asexuality Handbook
Information about asexuality and aromanticism. In particular, I recommend their Experiences page that describes what different types of attraction feel like.
Pronoun Dressing Room
A site that lets you test out any set of pronouns and labels you'd like.
On Teaching (Trans) Gender
An intersex, trans male professor talks about issues with transphobia and privilege he's faced while teaching.
How Hyperpop Gives Trans Artists a Voice
It's what it says on the tin!
How I Learned to Hate Transgender People
An essay pointing out the damage done by mocking trans people in media, and a plea to stop.
Lesbian Herstory Archives
An internet archive of lesbian history.
The Bisexual History They Don’t Want You to Know
On how bisexual isn't necessarily a binary attraction (and hasn't been for a very long time).
Butch and Femme Education
Normally, I'm hesitant to link carrds. This one is an exception, as it's very well-sourced. TL;DR: butch and femme are not only open to non-lesbians, but didn't originate with lesbians in the first place!
the problem with flag redesign culture
Many of the recent flag redesigns have a core problem: they didn't need to happen, and they've split communities instead of representing them.
The Null HypotheCis
"Cis unless proven otherwise" is often the default assumption when questioning gender. Should that be the case, or would another framework be more helpful/accurate?

Journaling

A Life in Pocket Notebooks
On how the boring, daily entries can mean the world.
Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: How to Set Up a Table of Contents or an Index
An excellent guide to making an index or table of contents practical in a journal.
Fore-Edge Painting and Indexing
A clever approach to indexing a journal that doesn't require the use of an index page.
Please Print
That app won't be around in 20 years, and that data format won't have a program to read it anymore. Print out your digital journals from time to time if you'd like to keep them.
In Defense of Cheap
Cheaper can be better when it comes to journaling supplies.
One Book to Rule Them All
Consolidating three journals into one via bullet journaling.
The Cramped
A blog about the joys of analog writing.
Notebook Stories
Notebook reviews, examples/inspiration, and everything to do with journals.
From the Pen Cup
Another blog about journaling, notebooks, and pens.
Recording Thoughts
A blog about journaling and note-taking that focuses on the "how" more than most other blogs.
Therapist-Suggested Journaling Prompts for Better Mental Health and Well-Being
Some journaling ideas to get you started.
Self-Dialogue as a Journaling Strategy
Literally talking to yourself.
10 Ways to Use a Diary
Another cluster of ideas for journaling.
I always have to give to advice to people, so I might as well post it here
An alternative approach to journaling if the standard "write paragraphs" doesn't work for you.
Ratfactor's Notebook System
Another creative use of journals that's good inspiration for creating your own system.
Capturing the Wild Snippet
A short blog post about why one should carry a notebook.
Timex Expedition Scout Review (or Why Watches Are Kind of Like Paper)
"For decades tech enthusiasts have been trying to convince us that there’s something better than paper. I was once convinced, but now I’m not. And in the last few years, they’ve started trying to convince us there’s something better than a traditional watch. I was briefly convinced, but now I’m not."
The Importance of Keeping a Notebook
Notebooks as creative resovoirs.
My Holy Grail Pen and Paper
"If you focus on creative process and output, the equipment will usually figure itself out." Sometimes cheap supplies are the best supplies.
Unbundling Tools for Personal Thought
Some excellent insight on how all-in-one note database applications often aren't as useful as a bunch of separate applications.

Other

Spoon Theory
A way to explain disability and limited energy to people. It's a very useful metaphor if you tend to ration your energy.
Fork Theory
A corollary of spoon theory that works brilliantly for explaining overstimulation and overwhelm.
In Lagos
An essay about masks and identity that's helped me considerably through identity questioning. The rest of Awaeke Emezi's work is worth checking out as well.
Walking the Edge of Insanity
An essay about mental illness, psychiatry, and medications.