Will Baum, LCSW

A collection of boredom studies from Wired:

The secret isn’t boredom per se: It’s how boredom makes us think. When people are immersed in monotony, they automatically lapse into a very special form of brain activity: mind-wandering. In a culture obsessed with efficiency, mind-wandering is often derided as a lazy habit, the kind of thinking we rely on when we don’t really want to think. (Freud regarded mind-wandering as an example of “infantile” thinking.) It’s a sign of procrastination, not productivity.

In recent years, however, neuroscience has dramatically revised our views…

Extra motivation for figuring out how to get along better?:   The way you relate to your partner can affect your long-term mental and physical health, study shows (Science Daily).

“We already know from prior research that people in stable, happy marriages experience better overall health than do those in more conflicted relationships,” said Professor Hicks. “We can now further conclude from our current research that individuals who are in insecure relationships are more vulnerable to longer-term health risks from conflict than are others.”

Study Links Empathy, Self-Esteem, and Autonomy with Increased Sexual Enjoyment (jhsph.edu):

Sexual pleasure among young adults (ages 18-26) is linked to healthy psychological and social development, according to a new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Social Rejection Hurts Like Physical Pain (PsychCentral):

“On the surface, spilling a hot cup of coffee on yourself and thinking about how rejected you feel when you look at the picture of a person that you recently experienced an unwanted break-up with may seem to elicit very different types of pain.  But this research shows that they may be even more similar than initially thought.”

Study:  Couples May Not Communicate Better Than Strangers (PsychCentral):

“Although speakers expected their spouse to understand them better than strangers, accuracy rates for spouses and strangers were statistically identical. This result is striking because speakers were more confident that they were understood by their spouse” [...]

“A wife who says to her husband, ‘it’s getting hot in here,’ as a hint for her husband to turn up the air conditioning a notch, may be surprised when he interprets her statement as a coy, amorous advance instead,” said Savitsky, who is lead author of the paper, published in the January issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

 

 

Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Urges (NYT):

[R]esearch suggests that giving ourselves a break and accepting our imperfections may be the first step toward better health. People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic. Preliminary data suggest that self-compassion can even influence how much we eat and may help some people lose weight.

The Claim: A Fake Smile Can be Bad for Your Health (NYT Really?)

[S]cientists examined what happened when the drivers engaged in fake smiling, known as “surface acting,” and its opposite, “deep acting,” where they generated authentic smiles through positive thoughts, said an author of the study, Brent Scott, an assistant professor of management at Michigan State University.

After following the drivers closely, the researchers found that on days when the smiles were forced, the subjects’ moods deteriorated and they tended to withdraw from work. Trying to suppress negative thoughts, it turns out, may have made those thoughts even more persistent.

Placebo Outperforms Drug in Oxford Study (PsychCentral):

Positive expectations of a treatment may be more powerful than the drug itself when it comes to getting well.  According to a brain imaging study at Oxford University, volunteers who believed their medication would help actually doubled the natural physiological or biochemical effects of an opioid drug.  On the other hand, it was found that negative expectations could actually override the effects of the powerful pain-relieving drug.

NPR Science Friday:  Growing A Bigger Brain Is A Walk In The Park

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that adults who walked for 40 minutes three times a week for a year had brain growth in the hippocampus — an area of the brain associated with spatial memory. Study author Arthur Kramer and psychologist Margaret Gatz discuss their research.

Inspiration from Brain Stimulation? (PsychCentral):

Are we on the verge of reality transcending science fiction with the use of brain electrodes to enhance individual creativity and expression? Doctoral student Richard Chi and Dr. Allan Snyder from the Centre for the Mind at the University of Sydney seem to think so.

They found that participants who received electrical stimulation of the anterior temporal lobes were three times as likely to reach the fresh insight necessary to solve a difficult, unfamiliar problem than those in the control group.

Also: Brain Pacemaker Holds Promise for Untreatable Depression