In never rains in California, but…
In a comprehensive new study of mental health status and the use of mental health services by Californians, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found that nearly one in five adults in the state — about 4.9 million people — said they needed help for a mental or emotional health problem…
PsyBlog posts the latest on how to win friends and influence people.
The art and science of persuasion is often discussed as though changing people’s minds is about using the right arguments, the right tone of voice or the right negotiation tactic. But effective influence and persuasion isn’t just about patter, body language or other techniques, it’s also about understanding people’s motivations…
NYT: A New Risk Factor: Your Social Life
Social relationships are just as important to health as other common risk factors like smoking, lack of exercise or obesity, new research shows…The researchers concluded that having few friends or weak social ties to the community is just as harmful to health as being an alcoholic or smoking nearly a pack of cigarettes a day. Weak social ties are more harmful than not exercising and twice as risky as being obese, the researchers found.
PsychCentral: Early Life Experiences Boost Adult Mental Health.
A new study suggests infants who receive strong affection from their mothers are well equipped to cope with life stressors as adults. Although the sample is small, the research is meaningful. Most prior studies have relied on recall; few have tracked participants from childhood to adult life, say the authors.
PsychCentral: Harmful Stereotypes Hinder Learning and Performance.
Through a series of experiments involving Chinese characters and color judgment tasks, the researchers were able to show that actual learning had not occurred in the group of women who had been reminded of the negative stereotypes involving women’s math and visual processing ability.
The Los Angeles Times looks at phone therapy (it works).
The therapist-patient relationship is crucial to people battling depression, addiction, weight gain and diabetes. But that relationship might not always have to be in person to be effective…
ScienceDaily: Anguish of romantic rejection may be linked to stimulation of areas of brain related to motivation, reward and addiction.
The study…helps to explain “why feelings and behaviors related to romantic rejection are difficult to control” and why extreme behaviors associated with romantic rejection such as stalking, homicide, suicide, and clinical depression occur in cultures all over the world, the researchers wrote.
PsychCentral relays a study about the Long-term Benefits from Musical Training.
New research may help parents when they write the monthly check for music lessons…The research strongly suggests that the neural connections made during musical training also prime the brain for other aspects of human communication.
A study looks at the different brain waves associated with three different types of meditation.
Focused attention, characterized by beta/gamma activity, included meditations from Tibetan Buddhist (loving kindness and compassion), Buddhist (Zen and Diamond Way), and Chinese (Qigong) traditions.
Open monitoring, characterized by theta activity, included meditations from Buddhist (Mindfulness, and ZaZen), Chinese (Qigong), and Vedic (Sahaja Yoga) traditions.
Automatic self-transcending, characterized by alpha1 activity, included meditations from Vedic (Transcendental Meditation) and Chinese (Qigong) traditions.
A study to put no one at ease: Relationship Insecurity Ups Health Risk.
Anxious attachment was positively associated with a wider range of health conditions, including some defined primarily by pain and several involving the cardiovascular system (e.g., stroke, heart attack or high blood pressure).