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Lavena Xu-Johnson
Lavena Xu-Johnson

Brain snacks for founders who think too much, feel even more - and want science to make sense of it.

Oct 27, 2026

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4 min read

If it’s not stress, what are you really feeling?

According to neuroscience, emotional granularity changes how our body reacts

Oct 26, 2026

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5 min read

Why shaming yourself for stress makes it worse

What a study of 28,753 adults found about stress and premature mortality

Oct 21, 2026

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2 min read

4 psychology essays for founders

According to research: 7 questions to make strangers remember you, a 5-minute breath that beats meditation, and how to rehearse a crisis

Oct 20, 2026

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4 min read

Why we can’t always trust our first judgment

The cognitive bias that clouds our objectivity: Biased assimilation

Oct 12, 2026

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4 min read

What rats know about surviving a crisis

The hidden learning behind every dead end

Oct 8, 2026

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1 min read

She built multi-million-dollar boxing gyms backed by Anthony Joshua

What Olia taught me about getting back up

Oct 6, 2026

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3 min read

What founder psychology looks like in real life

Introducing the Insane Founder docu-pod. EP01 comes out this Thursday!

Sep 30, 2026

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5 min read

7 questions to make strangers remember you

How to turn ‘nice to meet you’ into real connections

Sep 22, 2026

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4 min read

The only 5 min technique that beats a month of meditation

The fastest way to calm the body, according to Stanford neuroscientists

Sep 16, 2026

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4 min read

How to get people to tell you the truth

The WWII interrogator's techniques on getting people to talk without asking a single question

Sep 1, 2026

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4 min read

Why 70% of us have betrayed ourselves at least once

The psychology of the deals we make with ourselves

Aug 19, 2026

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1 min read

4 essays on the founder's mind last month

Researches in defence mechanisms, difficult conversations, and the best method for behavioural change

Aug 12, 2026

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5 min read

The tug-of-war we keep losing to ourselves

What decades of behavioral research says about breaking a habit on our own

Jul 29, 2026

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3 min read

How to talk to someone who won't take responsibility

The communication science of difficult conversations

Jul 14, 2026

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5 min read

Aren't you tired of excuses?

The psychology of defence mechanisms

Jul 1, 2026

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5 min read

How to take productive holidays

The fade-out effect: What a meta-analysis of 1,428 employees tells us about time away

Jun 23, 2026

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2 min read

Four psychology essays for founders

ICYMI: Cognitive fatigue, certainty bias, AI companionship, and the neuroscience of vibes

Jun 17, 2026

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5 min read

AI won't get sick of you. That's the problem.

Research on human-AI relationships is catching up. Here's what it's finding.

Jun 9, 2026

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4 min read

The cognitive bias that keeps your business from growing

The certainty effect, and why we undervalue opportunities we can't guarantee

Jun 2, 2026

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5 min read

The science of running out of... brain...

Cognitive fatigue: A 2022 neuro-metabolic study revealed something unexpected about what happens to your prefrontal cortex after a full day of hard thinking

May 26, 2026

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5 min read

The neuroscience of vibes

The three principles that explain every great (and terrible) meeting you've ever been in

May 18, 2026

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5 min read

When being good frees us to be bad

Part 2: Why people betray – moral self-licensing & moral disengagement

May 12, 2026

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5 min read

The psychology behind betrayal

Part 1: What four decades of research says about why people in your team betray you

May 6, 2026

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5 min read

When everything becomes too much

Why 1 in 3 people experience sensory overload intensely, and the accidental experiment that helped me reset

Apr 29, 2026

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4 min read

Neuroscience behind your 'gut feeling'

How the brain simulates the future for better decisions: episodic future thinking

We’re all founders. If not of our businesses, we are of our life.
We try and fail on this never-ending journey of self-exploration and actualisation.
We thrive on giving makers a new perspective and a light-bulb moment, translating research findings into action-based insights.
Insane Media is a tribute to value-driven makers and those who are unstoppable.