Blog
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Stress and Relapse
Read more: Stress and RelapseIgnored stress brings cravings, then relapse, says study. Researchers supplied Palm Pilots to 55 college students who were in recovery from substance abuse ranging from alcohol to cocaine and club drugs. The students were asked to record the their daily cravings for alcohol and other drugs, as well as the intensity of negative social experiences…
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Vacation Science
Read more: Vacation ScienceThe Boston Globe looks at the science of taking a good vacation. For psychologists and behavioral economists, vacations are a window into the still only dimly understood mystery of human pleasure, a field known as hedonic psychology. Their research, along with other work on prototypically pleasant (and unpleasant) experiences, has begun to yield a portrait…
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Benefits of Caretaking
Read more: Benefits of CaretakingTaking care of a spouse who is ill can increase anxiety and depression, however… [A study] found that when spouses were engaged in active caring tasks they had an increase in positive emotions, while time spent in passive care tended to provoke more negative emotions. Spouses who viewed themselves as sharing a mutually close relationship with their…
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Blame the Brain
Read more: Blame the BrainPsychCentral: Personality Reflects Size of Respective Brain Area. For example, conscientious people tend to have a bigger lateral prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain involved in planning and controlling behavior…
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Perceived Loneliness
Read more: Perceived LonelinessHow lonely you are has to do with how lonely you think you are, says a study. The team found that, above all, loneliness is a matter of perception. “Loneliness is the discrepancy between your achieved and desired level of social contact, and that has important implications,” Segrin said. “The portrait of a lonely person…