To Cohabitate, or Not to Cohabitate. That is The Question

Celebrity couples live together, regular couples live together, if everyone’s cohabiting, that means there has to be some benefit to it, right? Not so fast… A new study published by the Institute for Family Studies found that cohabitation is rapidly becoming more popular than marriage, even “shotgun cohabitations” are statically more common than “shotgun marriages.” However, research released by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and The Wheatley Institution at Brigham Young University has reveled that married... Read more

How to Cultivate Meaningful Family Prayer

March 25, 2019 By Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

Praying together as a family—at all—can seem intimidating. Life is busy, and because of this, most families are happy just to make prayer happen, much less make it meaningful. But there’s good news! You don’t have to be a saint or have perfect kids to have an awesome family prayer time. So how do we make our prayer time meaningful and teach our kids to have a personal relationship with God? First, make family prayer a regular part of your... Read more

You Can’t Judge Depression By Its Cover

March 18, 2019 By Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

“They seem/seemed so happy.” “They have everything together.” “I/They don’t have any reason to complain.” Chances are you’ve said at least one of these things about someone, or maybe you’ve even said them about yourself. Researchers are discovering a surge in this topic that many are calling “smiling depression,” or the more technical term, “atypical depression.” These terms describe individuals who seem to “have it all together,” who appear happy—but under their external facade or appearance are struggling with depression. ... Read more

Dealing With Others’ Emotions

March 11, 2019 By Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

We all know that when someone yawns, then we start yawning too. New research shows that our emotions cause the same chain reaction. A study out of Yale University—lead by sociologist Nicholas Christakis—documented a variety of interactions of approximately 5,000 people living in one town over the course of 32 years. When discussing the results of this study, Christakis says, “We were able to show that as one person became happy or sad, it rippled through the network.” The study... Read more

How to Make The Most Out of Lent

March 5, 2019 By Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

Lent is upon us and many of us are still praying and thinking about what Lenten sacrifice or practice we should implement over the next forty days. Sometimes it can be difficult to know what we should do for Lent. Of course there are the popular ideas of giving up social media or giving up chocolate, and while these can absolutely be helpful to our personal growth and relationship with God, these and other popular Lenten ideas can often be... Read more

How To Get Your Feelings Heard And Your Needs Met

February 18, 2019 By Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

“Hi! How are you?”, “I’m fine…” End of conversation. This type of exchange is very common, but has become entirely ineffective when it comes to actually getting to know and understand how someone is feeling. The greeting, “How are you?” has essentially become a closed ended (yes or no) question and leaves it entirely up to the person asking the question to decide how positive or negative we are feeling. A new Yale study published in the Journal of Pediatric... Read more

How to Build Sustainable Happiness in Our Every Day Lives

February 10, 2019 By Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

We live in a busy world. Our daily schedules are hectic enough, and with the currently popular push to prioritize self-care, it can often feel as though our own happiness is just another thing we have to schedule onto our to-do lists. But it shouldn’t be this way! So how do we find happiness in our every day lives, just based on what we are already doing? New research out of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Recovery Research Institute identified... Read more

How To Make Our Anger Result in Action

February 3, 2019 By Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

There are lots of things for us to be angry about, but new research shows we often don’t do anything about it. A new study out of Carnegie Mellon University reveals that we typically become angry about two types of injustices. First, when a bad thing happens to a good person and second when a good thing happens to a “bad” person despite their bad behavior. In the first instance—such as when a natural disaster devastates a town—the research shows... Read more

Cuomo Scandal: Excommunication Isn’t Only Way To Demand Justice

January 30, 2019 By Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

Like so many of my fellow Catholics, I have been truly sickened by the NY Legislature’s passage of the law allowing abortion up to birth. Worse, the bloodlust is spreading as other states are either passing or considering similar legislation. In light of the NY law’s passage, most of the public conversation has focused on whether Governor Cuomo could or should be excommunicated. I would absolutely support such a canonical response to Cuomo’s advocacy of what I believe are moral... Read more

Does Our Parenting Style Influence Our Child’s Empathy?

January 27, 2019 By Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

Parenting styles can come in many different shapes and sizes, but does how much warmth we show towards our children influence their ability to develop empathy and a positive moral compass? A new study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry evaluated the small differences in parenting practices among 227 identical twins. The researchers for this and subsequent studies included questions such as “I often lose my temper with my child” and “My child... Read more