Source: ScienceDaily
Prescribed rest—both physical and mental—is the standard treatment for concussion. But a growing body of evidence suggests that a more active, targeted approach might provide better outcomes for some patients, reports a new article.Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Does Web-Based Cognitive Therapy Work for Insomnia?
http://ift.tt/2gnmkDv
Source: ScienceDaily
How well did a web-based cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia intervention work in a randomized clinical trial? A new article reports that adults assigned to receive the fully automated and interactive web-based Sleep Healthy Using the Internet (SHUTi) intervention had improved sleep compared with those adults just given access to a patient education website with information about insomnia.Tom Deluca puts 20 GV students under hypnosis during his annual show - Grand Valley Lanthorn
http://ift.tt/2fNBkGX
Tom Deluca puts 20 GV students under hypnosis during his annual show
Grand Valley Lanthorn Earning a master's degree in psychology at the University of Illinois, while working as a therapist he began to develop his hypnosis craft and performed before various civic groups before gaining national prominence as a corporate and college hypnotist. |
Q&A Wednesday: The Older I Get, the Less Motivated I Am!
http://ift.tt/2gMcKHj
November 30, 2016 at 10:35AM
Q: After hitting age 38 everything did not work the same as it did. So now my motivation is not as strong. YES...I want to lose weight but my motivation SUCKS!!!
The post Q&A Wednesday: The Older I Get, the Less Motivated I Am! appeared first on A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss.
November 30, 2016 at 10:35AM
Catching Up
http://ift.tt/2fSl8Y4
November 30, 2016 at 09:28AM
I was totally a lazy bum on Thanksgiving, I didn't cook a thing, I legit showed up at my Mom's and ate. I even tried to take a nap afterwards, but Oliver wanted to cuddle, then Aiden climbed on me, followed by both dogs who thought we were wrestling. For whatever reason I decided against any Black Friday shopping, I pretty much hate having to go to any store {except Home Goods}, I love the convince of ordering online.
My parents wanted to take the kids to the Homestead Fair in Waco, it's a local fair that has animals, crafts, and homemade foods. My oldest brother lives close by so he met them and Aunt Katie made the drive down smooshed between two car seats.
The kids had an absolute blast! Homemade donuts, pony rides, and crafts. Aiden sobbed on the way home, he really loved the pony rides.
I got a few text messages that has me concerned my parents were bringing home a baby goat or bunny. That's totally something they would do!
They made these wooden boats and weaved baskets, Madison now say's 'I can make that' every time we see a woven basket in Michaels or Hobby Lobby. Aiden cries every day to put that wooden boat in the bath tub with him, that's fun.
Sunday we went to pick out our first real Christmas tree, we decided to not cut our own - all the trees that grow in Texas are ugly. We had to buy a real import from North Carolina! I decided since I'd be vacuuming more anyways we might as well put that tinsel to good use, I have to say I kinda love it, it shimmers in person.
I debated getting all new ornaments, but that's a real investment so I think I'll wait for next year when we move into our new #whitehouse They did have the more gorgeous flocked tree at Pier One I was lusting over, maybe I can score a good deal after the holidays.
November 30, 2016 at 09:28AM
It Shines: Living with Bipolar II Disorder
http://ift.tt/2fScjgR
I’m quick to reflect on high school glory days. It’s pretty silly, seeing as how I’ve not even reached the 10-year reunion mark. Flipping through my old yearbook, I noticed one of my favorite teachers wrote “Dear Beth, calling you a delicate flower would not give justice to your violently cheerful exuberance. It’s been amazing to watch your shifts from scarily giddy to sleepy to gloomy then back again.” I didn’t learn until later that this was a much abbreviated but also decent description of someone with type two Bipolar Disorder. Even with the intensity of my demeanor back then, no one would have pegged that onto a cheerleading prom queen.
I had a hodgepodge of symptoms that I never wanted to complain about but always knew were a problem. It took me a while before I confided in my doctor. Individually, the ailments were nothing to be alarmed about but experiencing them all at the same time (nearly all the time) became too much. The fatigue was easier to notice because of the way it affected my academic performance. I could sleep twelve hours at night and still feel the need for a three hour nap later that day. I began having nightmares every night and eventually experienced recurring sleep paralysis. I was always underweight, prone to infections with poor circulation and constant ice pick headaches, etc. And an even stranger development was a tick-chronic hiccups. These symptoms concerned my doctor and after exploring several possibilities to no avail, he eventually gave me an MRI to rule out cancer. Because he knew me as that charismatic girl from high school, he didn’t even consider that these were all physical manifestations of depression/anxiety.
Starting college, I knew I had been depressed on and off. My closest friends began to avoid me. They admitted that they ran out of ways to be there for me. I was exhausting the friends who poured so much love into me. I can’t place a finger on a watershed moment in time that broke me, but I vividly remember the signs. Having to cross a busy highway every day to get to class, I would dare myself to stand dangerously close to the road. I always entertained the thought of taking a swift step in front of the 18-wheelers that barreled by. Driving my car gave me ideas of swerving into oncoming traffic. I spent so much time fantasizing about dying. After sabotaging some of my strongest relationships, I was determined not to burden anyone else so I stayed quiet. Many nights I can swear my heart would break though and not in a way that typical teenage hearts do but in a way that was excruciating, and I would end up begging God to please take my life away. The sadness was palpable, but I wouldn’t impose on my friends.
I used to think if a person was medicated for their mental health their condition must be outrageous. I especially thought of bipolar disorder as a series of violent mood swings. In addition to this stigma, I also thought too many people are given medicine they don’t need. I figured the world was full of hypochondriacs and theatric people who manipulate doctors into prescribing pills. I dodged this avenue for the longest time. Then there was one night when my only reservation of jumping from the top floor window of my dorm was the possibility of a failed attempt. I couldn’t tell if the fall would be enough or if I would end up paralyzed. I even went outside to judge it from the ground up. By some stroke of horror I had at my own actions, I called NC State’s on-call counselor who stayed with me until 2 a.m. I could no longer ignore the need to seek help.
When I went to see someone, the suggestion that I might have bipolar disorder seemed nonsensical. That was ignorance on my part. The assessment was that I have severe bouts of depression, but I had never considered the other times, the euphoria and the mountain top experiences. Most people were only familiar with my contagious joy and perpetual need to spread it. My teacher’s words come back to mind.
After finding the courage to seek help, I’m now equipped with the right combination of medicine and therapy. I have help that doesn’t take away from who I am. I am still dynamic. I am still exuberant. It shines.
Related Articles
The Type of Smile That Helps Start New Relationships
http://ift.tt/2fEAst8
The Type of Smile That Helps Start New Relationships
People feel emotionally close to others displaying this type of smile.
A ‘Duchenne smile’ is a powerful way of striking up a new relationship, a new study finds.
People are highly tuned to the Duchenne smile, which involves upturned lips and crinkly eyes.
And they can easily spot a fake smile, which tends to involve only the mouth and not the eyes.
The research tested how much people are aware of each other’s emotions, whether negative or positive.
It found that people were more aware of positive emotions in other people than negative.
It also found that a genuine smile was a strong sign of cooperation and affiliation.
People felt emotionally closer to strangers who showed positive emotions.
The positive emotion that was particularly attractive was awe.
Dr Belinda Campos, who led the research, said:
“Our findings provide new evidence of the significance of positive emotions in social settings and highlight the role that positive emotions display in the development of new social connections.
People are highly attuned to the positive emotions of others and can be more attuned to others’ positive emotions than negative emotions.”
The study was published in the journal Motivation and Emotion (Campos et al., 2015).
→ Read on: 10 Hidden Benefits of Smiling
Image credit: greekadman
The Daily Activities That Promote An Upward Spiral Of Flourishing
http://ift.tt/2gJm0NE
People reported more positive emotions, including more enthusiasm and joy.
Creative activities lead to a boost in positive emotion the next day, new research finds.
If repeated, engaging in creativity activities can lead to an upward spiral of positive emotions.
The conclusions come from a study of 658 students who kept daily diaries of their experience over 13 days.
The researchers found that people reported feeling more enthusiasm and greater positive emotion the day after engaging in creative activities.
The most common types of creative activities the students engaged in were:
- songwriting,
- creative writing (poetry, short fiction),
- knitting and crochet,
- making new recipes,
- painting,
- drawing,
- and sketching,
- graphic and digital design,
- and musical performance.
Dr Tamlin Conner, the study’s leader, said:
“There is growing recognition in psychology research that creativity is associated with emotional functioning.
However, most of this work focuses on how emotions benefit or hamper creativity, not whether creativity benefits or hampers emotional wellbeing.”
The positive emotions people felt included:
- happiness,
- joy,
- enthusiasm,
- excitement,
- and pleasurable engagement.
Dr Conner said:
“Our earlier research found that PA appears to increase creativity during the same day, but our latest findings show that there is no cross-day effect.
Rather, it is creative activity on the previous day that predicts wellbeing the next.”
The authors note that:
“This finding suggests a particular kind of upward spiral for wellbeing and creativity – engaging in creative behavior leads to increases in wellbeing the next day, and this increased wellbeing is likely to facilitate creative activity on the same day.
They conclude that “overall, these findings support the emerging emphasis on everyday creativity as a means of cultivating positive psychological functioning.”
The study was published in The Journal of Positive Psychology (Conner et al., 2016).
Drawing image from Shutterstock
Rubber Bands, Yoga Mats, and Trial Meeting Error
http://ift.tt/2gIWKqW
“Snap a rubber band,” a well-meaning counselor advises.
“Practice mindfulness. Don’t interfere with the intrusive thoughts when they strike,” a well-intentioned doctor counsels.
“If you expose yourself to the screaming thoughts, their intensity will slowly fade,” a seasoned practitioner recommends.
Feeling overwhelmed? That makes two of us.
As mental health consumers, we seek answers for the whirring madness in our minds. We limp to psychologists and psychiatrists, stockpile the latest self-help books, and embrace the latest diet fads. If I just follow the Atkins diet or Paleo diet or the Raw Food diet, the blaring thoughts will subside. Right?
But, I suspect, we are torturing ourselves–and our mental health. In our frenzied search for everlasting relief, we are muddling our already overtaxed minds. Our desperation is our biggest asset–and albatross.
A mental health consumer, my counselors have shepherded me through some of life’s biggest challenges. I am grateful for their friendships and wisdom. They have — and continue to be — mentors. But over my sixteen years of counseling, I have received divergent and, at times, contradictory advice.
My mind rattles; should I embrace mindfulness or challenge the pulverizing thoughts? Should I journal out the distressing thoughts, exposing them as bullying imposters? Maybe I should distract myself, burrowing into a favorite book? And the mind prattles on, brooding over counselors’ tips and tricks.
Information overload right?
As the latest self-help techniques whiplash through your mind, here is where I am supposed to provide sanguine advice for those spinnin’ heads. Yes, I may write a Psych Central column and, yes, I understand the paralyzing thoughts and feelings. But before dispensing any advice, I want to acknowledge your own wisdom and resilience against numbing depression and churning anxiety. You — yes you — are a skilled counselor, navigating your mind’s treacherous terrain with grace, vision, and perspicacity. But, in a cruel twist, that insatiable drive for more–treatment tips, counseling appointments, and medical diagnoses — results in less. As the thoughts flood your synapses, you cling to anything (Paleo diet? Oprah’s latest self-help book?) for mental tranquility. Your doggedness, though, reeks of desperation — not determination.
A serial overanalyzer and endless perfectionist, I understand your drive — and how it is driving you over the edge. Like you, I have questioned whether I am employing the “right strategy” or am really “getting” mindfulness. Second, or even, third-guessing your counselor, you feel besieged, even helpless, as the thoughts batter you into submission. “Mindfulness? But what about meditation? And my counselor keeps mentioning my diet. Well, maybe I will mindfully meditate about my diet,” you grumble — sarcasm dripping down your chin.
Here comes counsel, not another counselor. The advice: focus on what you do best–and sharpen that skill to a razor’s edge. If meditation foils the stomach-churning anxiety, embrace your inner yogi. Over and over again. After years of trial and more error, I now take an active role when the depressive thoughts plunge me into a blue abyss. I challenge their veracity, slowly unlocking the one-time stranglehold on me.
Yes, we all want a life raft when that inevitable blue wave threatens to topple us. But, first, we must build our own.
Related Articles
Experimental Treatments Aim to Prevent Brain Damage in Babies
http://ift.tt/2gK6XBV
Neuroscientists and physicians have embarked on what they hope will be a revolution in treatments to prevent brain damage in newborn babies.
As many as 800,000 babies die each year when blood and oxygen stop flowing to the brain around the time of birth. And thousands develop brain damage that causes long-lasting mental or physical disabilities, such as cerebral palsy. Physicians have few tools to prevent this, but they are optimistic that clinical trials now under way will change things.
The trials were sparked by neuroscientists’ realization in the 1990s that some brain injuries can be repaired. That discovery spurred a flurry of basic research that is just now coming to fruition in the clinic.
In January, a US study will start to test whether the hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, can prevent brain damage hours after birth when combined with hypothermia, in which babies are cooled to 33.5 °C. A trial in Australia is already testing this treatment. Physicians in countries including the United States, China and Switzerland are testing EPO in premature babies, as well as other treatments, such as melatonin, xenon, argon, magnesium, allopurinol and cord blood in full-term babies.
“The world has really changed for us,” says neurologist Janet Soul at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts.
Therapeutic hypothermia was the first success: clinical trials over the past decade have shown that it decreases the risk of death and of major brain-development disorders by as much as 60%. It is now standard treatment for babies in developed countries whose brains are deprived of blood and oxygen during birth.
“I can’t tell you how great it was to be able to do something for these babies rather than stand there and watch them have seizures,” Soul says.
But because hypothermia does not work for all babies, scientists decided to see whether combining it with other treatments would help. EPO was known to boost the production of red blood cells even before its discovery in mouse brain cells in 1993, and is regularly used by physicians to treat anaemia. Neuroscientist Sandra Juul at the University of Washington in Seattle wondered what a blood-boosting hormone was doing in the brain. In subsequent animal studies, she found that the hormone stopped brain cells from dying and helped the brain to repair itself. That led a few years later to the first clinical trials showing that EPO prevents brain damage in babies.
Moving on
In June, a study conducted by Juul and her colleagues reported the results of giving EPO or a placebo, along with inducing hypothermia, just after birth to dozens of babies at risk of brain injury. Those who received EPO were less likely than those given the placebo to show signs of brain damage on magnetic resonance imaging tests done five days later.
Those results led to the forthcoming clinical study. Co-led by Juul and Yvonne Wu, a paediatric neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, the trial will enrol 500 babies at risk of brain injury from 17 hospitals across the United States during their first 24 hours of life.
All the babies will be treated with hypothermia. Half will then receive five doses of EPO over seven days; the other half will get saline injections. The US$10-million trial will measure whether the hormone boosts the children’s mental and physical health at 2 years of age.
Researchers are also testing EPO in babies born as early as 23 weeks in the United States and Europe. Such premature babies are more likely to develop brain injury than are full-term babies, and smaller studies have produced conflicting results about the benefits of EPO in these very early cases.
But neonatologist Giancarlo Natalucci of the University of Zurich, who was part of a Swiss trial that found EPO didn’t improve the health of two-year-olds who had been treated as premature babies, says that factors such as dose may account for such results. He still thinks that the treatment merits study.
The trials are difficult to conduct because it’s hard to tell whether a symptom is a side effect of treatment or the result of a baby’s underlying injuries.
But despite the hurdles, Juul and other researchers press on, driven by their desire to aid the world’s smallest patients. “They’re in such desperate need of help,” Juul says.
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on November 30, 2016.
Depression vs. Sadness: How to Tell the Difference
http://ift.tt/2fLyAtq
What is sadness and what is depression? Learn how to tell the difference between the two and what treatments are available for depression.
What is sadness and what is depression? Learn how to tell the difference between the two and what treatments are available for depression.
Toddlers may know when you are not telling the truth, say Singapore and US experts
http://ift.tt/2gFVkjp
A new study has shown that toddlers as young as two-and-a-half years old can understand when others have different thoughts from them - much earlier than the age of four as traditionally thought.
A new study has shown that toddlers as young as two-and-a-half years old can understand when others have different thoughts from them - much earlier than the age of four as traditionally thought.
The American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (AACN) launches Disruptive Technology Initiative to shape the future of Neuropsychology
http://ift.tt/2fDhbIy
Technological breakthroughs are creating enormous potential for the future of neuropsychology and triggering opportunities to create novel strategies for both assessment and intervention. Cognitive fitness is growing into a multi-billion dollar industry. Targets have shifted from diagnosis and treatment of established diseases to early intervention, prevention, and cognitive enhancement. Ubiquitous mobile devices enable both active and passive sensing of our cognitive and emotional states, and “the Internet of things” promises to offer both assessment and intervention strategies previously unimaginable (“…my car/clock/refrigerator does that…”). In keeping with this trend, the AACN seeks to stimulate innovations capable of changing the landscape of clinical neuropsychology in fundamental ways…The pitch ideas need to focus on neuropsychological assessment and/or intervention, prevention, or improvement of cognitive functions, and be accessible to broad populations across the United States or the World.
To learn more:
- Check out AACN’s Request for Proposals Here
- Discuss the new program with Dr. Bob Bilder, who is spearheading the initiative, at the upcoming 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit: Reinventing Brain Health in the Digital Age (December 6-8th)
How to Conquer Your Fear of Driving
http://ift.tt/2fLuMbQ
This week, by request from Marilyn in Massachusetts, we’ll cover fear of driving. As fellow Bay Staters, Marilyn and I know that Massachusetts drivers are not called Massholes for nothing. Indeed, of the cities with the dubious distinction of having the worst drivers in the nation, 3 of the top 5 are in Massachusetts.
But no matter where you live, being scared to drive can really get in the way; indeed, if life is a highway, it’s easy for a phobia to push you into breakdown lane. Unless we’re lucky enough to live in a city with great public transportation, driving is necessary for basic freedom and independence.
But not all fear of driving looks the same: there are generally four reasons people are afraid to drive.
Spiritual Experiences Can Activate Brain Pleasure Centers
http://ift.tt/2fDcHBA
Profound new research suggests religious and spiritual experiences activate brain reward circuits in much the same way as love, sex, gambling, drugs and music.
Investigators at the University of Utah School of Medicine believe science is just beginning to understand how the brain participates in experiences that believers interpret as spiritual, divine or transcendent.
“In the last few years, brain imaging technologies have matured in ways that are letting us approach questions that have been around for millennia,” said senior author and neuroradiologist Jeff Anderson, M.D., Ph.D.
The findings appear in the journal Social Neuroscience.
In the study, the investigators set out to determine which brain networks are involved in representing spiritual feelings in one group — devout Mormons. They did this by creating an environment that triggered participants to “feel the Spirit.”
Identifying this feeling of peace and closeness with God in oneself and others is a critically important part of Mormons’ lives — they make decisions based on these feelings; treat them as confirmation of doctrinal principles; and view them as a primary means of communication with the divine.
During fMRI scans, 19 young-adult church members — including seven females and 12 males — performed four tasks in response to content meant to evoke spiritual feelings.
The hour-long exam included six minutes of rest; six minutes of audiovisual control (a video detailing their church’s membership statistics); eight minutes of quotations by Mormon and world religious leaders; eight minutes of reading familiar passages from the Book of Mormon; 12 minutes of audiovisual stimuli (church-produced video of family and Biblical scenes, and other religiously evocative content); and another eight minutes of quotations.
During the initial quotations portion of the exam, participants — each a former full-time missionary — were shown a series of quotes, each followed by the question “Are you feeling the spirit?” Participants responded with answers ranging from “not feeling” to “very strongly feeling.”
Researchers collected detailed assessments of the feelings of participants, who, almost universally, reported experiencing the kinds of feelings typical of an intense worship service.
They described feelings of peace and physical sensations of warmth. Many were in tears by the end of the scan. In one experiment, participants pushed a button when they felt a peak spiritual feeling while watching church-produced stimuli.
“When our study participants were instructed to think about a savior, about being with their families for eternity, about their heavenly rewards, their brains and bodies physically responded,” said lead author Michael Ferguson, Ph.D., who carried out the study as a bioengineering graduate student at the University of Utah.
Based on fMRI scans, the researchers found that powerful spiritual feelings were reproducibly associated with activation in the nucleus accumbens, a critical brain region for processing reward.
Peak activity occurred about 1-3 seconds before participants pushed the button and was replicated in each of the four tasks. As participants were experiencing peak feelings, their hearts beat faster and their breathing deepened.
In addition to the brain’s reward circuits, the researchers found that spiritual feelings were associated with the medial prefrontal cortex, which is a complex brain region that is activated by tasks involving valuation, judgment and moral reasoning. Spiritual feelings also activated brain regions associated with focused attention.
“Religious experience is perhaps the most influential part of how people make decisions that affect all of us, for good and for ill. Understanding what happens in the brain to contribute to those decisions is really important,” Anderson said.
Researchers note that they do not now as of yet if believers of other religions would respond the same way. Work by others suggests that the brain responds quite differently to meditative and contemplative practices characteristic of some eastern religions, but so far little is known about the neuroscience of western spiritual practices.
The study is the first initiative of the Religious Brain Project, launched by a group of University of Utah researchers in 2014, which aims to understand how the brain operates in people with deep spiritual and religious beliefs.
Source: University of Utah
Super-Recognizers Lurk Among Us
http://ift.tt/2gIwhtm
How often do you stare blankly into someone's face and think "why don't I know who this is?,” as the other person smiles widely and goes in for a familiar hug.
You desperately search your brain. From work? Through friends? Tinder? You want to avoid the awkwardness, but your brain still has no clue who this is.
Such moments seem to be part of daily life for me. You see, I'm as close to being a prosopagnosic as you can get, without actually being one. Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize faces, also referred to as face-blindness. Other people who have said they suffer from prosopagnosia include Oliver Sacks and Brad Pitt.
But there are also some rather enviable people who experience the opposite. They are the super-recognizers.
The creepy 1 percent
In 2009, psychological scientist Richard Russell and his colleagues first used the term super-recognizer to describe four participants in a study they conducted. According to the conclusions of the study, “our findings demonstrate the existence of people with exceptionally good face recognition ability and show that the range of face recognition and face perception ability is wider than has been previously acknowledged.”
More recently, Dr. Josh P Davis, a reader in applied psychology at the University of Greenwich in London, is advancing this work. I talked to Davis to find out more about this fascinating field of research. He is, by chance, also one of the most recognizable people I have ever met (a video about him and his work).
According to Davis, approximately 1% of us may be super-recognizers. That friend who recognizes actors across shows? Or the friend who always recognizes old friends after many years? Yup, they might have this memory superpower. Davis’ team has already identified well over 1000 super-recognizers from around the world.
But how do you know whether you are one of these gifted face rememberers? According to Davis “One of the problems is diagnosing super-recognition. Currently researchers have tended to use two main criteria. First, excellent performance on short term face memory tests using photos. Second, extraordinary subjective experiences of real person recognition.” However, it can be difficult to know from lab-based tests how good a particular person is at real-life face remembering, he concedes.
On top of this there seems to be another problem; Most people who think they are super-recognizers are not, and most people who are super-recognizers don’t know it.
And for those who have the superpower, it reportedly can seem like more of a problem than a gift. Bona fide super-recognizers often claim that they need to hide their skill to not seem creepy. Imagine having someone come up to you, saying they recognize you from a coffee shop you visited once, in May, five years ago. Stalker, much? Exactly.
Face pieces
Why do some people easily recognize faces while others frequently make mistakes? According to a team of cognitive neuroscientists from Beijing University, it has little to do with things like intelligence or attention, and more to do with how your brain processes faces.
The team, including Ruosi Wang and colleagues, published a study in 2012 which found that individuals who process faces more as a whole (“holistically”), rather than in pieces (“analytically”), are better at remembering them.
In other words, if you try to remember how someone’s nose, eyes, and ears look, it will be more difficult than taking in the whole face at once. Taking in things at once apparently means the brain registers it as a new object, rather than another nose, and another pair of eyes. However, the study by Wang and colleagues did not look specifically at super-recognizers, so it is unclear how much this explanation can help us understand the particularly gifted.
Davis has looked directly at the brain function of super-recognizers, “some have been tested in our laboratories using EEG and we have found that when make decisions to faces they exhibit different brain activity to controls possessing average-range ability,” but how this difference is relevant to their brain processing is yet unclear.
Davis says that “although super-recognizers all have excellent face memory, they do not necessarily display a consistent pattern of results on different types of cognitive test. They may be a heterogeneous group – not members of a single category. Our research is providing further insight into their capabilities.”
Super-police
On the downside this ability can make for creepy small talk, but on the upside this super-power can make for super-police.
“My team started testing super-recognizers in the Metropolitan Police just before the London Riots in 2011,” says Davis. He says that super-recognizers “can sometimes recognize suspects in disguise, in poor quality images and they do this after a surprisingly long delay. London super-recognizer police officers have identified thousands of suspects, with high proportions eventually convicted (although based on more than just identification evidence). If police forces worldwide identified their own super-recognizers, it is likely that similar successes would follow.
What’s next for the team? “One of our current lab-based studies is examining the ability of police super-recognizers and controls to identify people in crowded CCTV footage.” Increasing the complexity and realism of the tasks participants are asked to do in his studies, helps him fine-tune how to make this research most useful. Overall, he claims that “there is no doubt in my mind that this research can have a direct positive impact on homeland security, border control and policing.”
Want to know whether you are a super-recognizer? Over 2.9 million members of the public have taken Davis’ could you be a super-recognizer online test. A few were even based in Antarctica.
Maybe you’ll find that you belong to this elite group of super-humans. Or maybe, like me, you will remain part of the I-always-forget-people’s-faces-and-it’s-so-awkward group.
Marriage to Soul Mate May Reduce Altruism
http://ift.tt/2gJDacT
New research suggests wives who have a romantic view of marriage are less likely to do volunteer work, leading their husbands to volunteer less as well.
But husbands’ romantic view of marriage was associated with neither their own nor their wives’ volunteering, according to a Baylor University study.
Young-Il Kim, Ph.D., research assistant professor in Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, and co-researcher Jeffrey Dew, Ph.D., professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University, set out to test the claim of a classic study — “Greedy Institutions” — done more than 40 years ago.
In the paper, sociologist Lewis A. Coser argued that marriage is a greedy institution demanding exclusive commitment from married couples. This makes it harder for married couples to spread out their time and energy to other people and institutions, Coser said.
Kim and Dew decided to review the study in a current context. Interestingly, they found some similar results although they were surprised by gender differences.
“Wives who take a more romantic view of marriage appear to seek (emotional) satisfaction primarily through husbands, which might take couples’ time and energy away from their involvement in the community,” Kim and Dew wrote.
Previous studies exploring the “greedy marriage” concept typically focused on whether married people are less likely than unmarried people to maintain personal connections. One particular study found that the married are less likely than the never married and the divorced to stay in touch with their parents, giving or receiving less emotional, financial and practical help.
“Surprisingly, a large body of previous work has defined greediness as someone who spends little time with his or her personal network, paying no attention to other aspects of greediness: making little time for the wider community,” Kim said.
“I was even more surprised that no study has tackled the greedy marriage thesis by investigating the married couple as the unit of analysis. Coser’s argument is not based on the comparison between married and unmarried individuals. According to Coser, greedy characteristics in marriage stem from the couples themselves. It is the husband and the wife that characterize the nature of their marriage.”
In the current study, Kim and Dew investigated the dynamics inside marriages to see whether each spouse’s volunteering is predicted by each other’s marital beliefs and couple’s time spent together alone.
They analyzed data from the Survey of Marital Generosity, a recent United States national sample of 1,368 married couples ages 18 to 45. Participants were asked about their views of marriage, how often they volunteered, how much time they spent solely with each other and how often they attended religious services.
While allowing for such variables as work schedules, education and whether the couples had children, the researchers focused on these factors:
• Whether couples took a “soul mate” view of marriage, making it their top priority in life; or whether they held a more traditional view, placing additional values on other functions of marriage such as raising children and fulfilling financial needs.
• How much time they spent solely with each other.
Kim and Dew’ found that:
• Wives’ view of the marriage as “soul mates” was associated with less volunteering of both wife and husband, but a man’s having a soul mate view of marriage was not associated with volunteering by either spouse.
• Time spent alone with one’s spouse was positively associated with husbands’ reports of their own volunteering.
The fact that spousal time had a positive association with husbands’ volunteering was unexpected by Kim and Dew, who had hypothesized that time spent together would inhibit volunteering.
“I thought it was interesting to see the gender difference here,” Kim said.
“One possible explanation is that couples who invest more time in their marriage are more likely to have better relationships, and husbands in such marriages may be more likely to volunteer with their wives, who may push them to volunteer more.”
Responses to survey questions showed that:
• 53 percent of wives and 55 percent of husbands indicated that they viewed marriage as a relationship between soul mates; the rest placed additional values on other functions of marriage, such as raising children and fulfilling financial needs
• The average time participants volunteered was one to two hours monthly.
• Couples averaged spending quality time solely with each other about once a week.
• The average religious attendance was once or twice a month, with wives attending slightly more than husbands.
Source: Baylor University
Kids’ Appropriate Use of Words Improve Spatial Skills
http://ift.tt/2fQsTxW
As our world becomes more technical, preparing students for success often means improving their spatial skills. Paradoxically, new research suggests the training should begin with the way children use words.
Hilary Miller, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student studying child development, explains that it’s not how many words a kid knows, it’s how they choose them.
That is, how the words describe the child’s grasp of the layout of their physical word tells the most about their spatial skills. For example, using words to show that they understand where they are relative to a friend, explaining how to rotate puzzle pieces to fit them together, or conjuring a mental map of the park, can improve spatial skills.
“We know that better spatial abilities lead to better math skills in early childhood, and they are strong predictors of future interest in careers in science and technology and engineering,” says Miller. “So we’re targeting ways to enhance spatial skills at an early age.”
Working with UW-Madison psychology Professor Vanessa Simmering and educational psychology Professor Haley Vlach, Miller is studying the way 4-year-olds use words to describe spatial relationships.
“At that age, they may have learned words like ‘above’ and ‘below’ that adults use often to describe a location,” Miller says. “But simply knowing the words doesn’t necessarily help. They have to know when that kind of information is useful.”
In a study published in the journal Child Development, Miller shows preschool age kids often skip location words and lean on other relevant information to describe important spatial details.
Miller showed each child a series of pictures in which a mouse appeared in different spots — atop objects that shifted from picture to picture in location, size and color — and asked the kids to describe the mouse’s location.
She scored their answers based on how much relevant information they shared, weighing it against irrelevant cues (mentioning an attribute that all the objects share, for example).
While previous research has often judged children’s spatial skills based at least in part on the number of spatial words they know, Miller found her study subjects to have a range of descriptive abilities not limited by the size of their spatial vocabulary.
“They are describing where the mouse is by saying, ‘He’s on the big table,’ or ‘on the brown box,'” Miller says. “Those size and color words aren’t spatial terms in this context, but in the context of the picture they’re seeing they are really useful.”
The better the kids were at adapting to each image and supplying relevant information, the higher their scores tended to be on the tests of other spatial skills that predict future success in, say, math.
“We think it’s attention to relevant information that is propelling them to perform better, and not their ability to say particular words,” says Miller, whose work is supported by the National Institutes of Health and UW-Madison’s Waisman Center.
“We’re hoping focusing on this early in childhood will help children get to the levels of success later on that seem to promote STEM interests.”
Because children learn about language by listening to the way it is used, adults can find everyday opportunities to help them develop the tools to build their spatial skills.
“When you talk to your children, use different kinds of language,” Miller says. “Be more conscious of how useful your spatial language is.”
The more diverse and relevant the words kids hear, the more they will start to make the same useful connections with language.
“Pointing and saying, ‘There are your shoes,’ is the sort of thing parents are probably doing most often,” Miller says. “But saying something like, ‘Your shoes are on the red rug,’ focuses your child on relevant spatial information. It’s practice for them with a different way to approach a problem.”
Source: University of Washington – Madison
Ashley lost 117 pounds
http://ift.tt/2fCSBHB
Transformation of the Day: Ashley lost 117 pounds. After the loss of her father and grandfather to obesity related illnesses, this young lady decided that is was time to embrace healthy eating habits and consistent exercise. Check out how she did her research and took action to change her life. (PS: Today is her birthday!) What was […]
November 30, 2016 at 12:06AM
Transformation of the Day: Ashley lost 117 pounds. After the loss of her father and grandfather to obesity related illnesses, this young lady decided that is was time to embrace healthy eating habits and consistent exercise. Check out how she did her research and took action to change her life. (PS: Today is her birthday!) What was […]
Related posts:
November 30, 2016 at 12:06AM
Students with Disabilities More Likely to Be Bullied
http://ift.tt/2gFxrbp
Children and teens with disabilities are much more likely to be bullied in school, compared to their peers without disabilities, and this victimization tends to persist into high school, according to a new study led by a researcher at the University of Missouri (MU).
The findings suggest that youth with disabilities are not developing adequate social skills to help protect themselves from bullying as they get older.
“This study points out the necessity for special education programs to teach appropriate response skills to children with disabilities,” said Dr. Chad Rose, an assistant professor of special education in the MU College of Education.
“Schools need to further develop these programs by tailoring social development goals for each individual student to ensure they are learning the social skills that will help them prevent bullying from occurring.”
“Prior research has shown that children with disabilities, when bullied, may react aggressively when they lack appropriate response skills. Teaching these students how to communicate more effectively with their peers and with teachers can help them react to bullying in more positive ways, as well as prevent it from occurring at all.”
During the three-year study, more than 6,500 children from grades 3-12 were surveyed about their experiences with bullying. A total of 16 percent of the children surveyed had disabilities, specifically learning disabilities, emotional disabilities and autism spectrum disorders.
Rose and Dr. Nicholas Gage, an assistant professor from the University of Florida, discovered that bullying rates for all children peaked in third grade, were reduced significantly in middle school and then rose again during high school. However, while mirroring this trend, bullying rates for students with disabilities remained consistently higher than those without disabilities.
“Studying how individual children are victimized by bullying over time has revealed that children with disabilities are not learning how to effectively respond to victimization,” Rose said.
“As children continued to mature, we expected to see that they would slowly develop social skills that would help them combat victimization and close the gap with children without disabilities, but that was not the case.”
“Their rates of bullying victimization remained consistently higher, which shows that current intervention approaches are not effectively preparing these children who are most at-risk for bullying involvement,” said Rose.
Rose explains that since many schools have been devoting more and more time to common core subjects and standardized test preparation, there has been less available time to focus on teaching students important social skills. He believes that schools should put more emphasis on helping children develop better social skills, especially kids with disabilities.
The study was published in the journal Exceptional Children.
Source: University of Missouri-Columbia
Marriage Mentors Are Everywhere
http://ift.tt/2fCylFT
When it comes to marriage, I cannot overstate the value of mentoring. If you were blessed to have grown up with happily married parents who communicated well, you probably learned, as though by osmosis, how to become happily hitched. Your live-in mentors paved the way.
But what if you grew up with parents who stayed together unhappily or divorced? Or if you were raised by a single parent? Typically, couples who see me for therapy grew up without viewing a healthy marriage. For them and for others desiring a happy, lasting union, good mentoring can fill the gaps.
Even if your parents were relatively happy together, their way might not be your way. Societal changes in recent decades include most women’s ability to support themselves financially. Consequently, many more of us require a more egalitarian, collaborative relationship than was the norm while we were growing up.
Adopting Realistic Expectations
A good marriage mentor helps you develop realistic expectations. My parents, of blessed memory, were divorced when I was thirteen. Before then, my father wasn’t home much. When he left for good, my mother felt abandoned. Her friends were unhappily married, divorced, or single.
So what I learned about marriage was not to expect a man to stick around. What I learned elsewhere came from fairy tales and romantic novels, which implied all you have to do is find a perfect specimen of a man to fall in love with, marry, and live happily ever after with, but with absolutely no effort on your part as he’ll do everything you desire to please you without your having to say a word about what you want because he is so good at reading your mind.
When an imperfection surfaced in a man I was dating, he was out of the picture. I pined after men I thought were perfect because I thought it was love when, actually, I was loving a fantasy. These men never let me get to know them well enough to see them as real people with vulnerabilities as well as strengths. For years this worked out okay. I got to complain to my friends about how sad it was that the men I liked didn’t want to become serious. I got to avoid getting married and having it not work out and becoming unhappy.
I’ve benefited from many mentors before and after I married. Most of them may have no idea of their impact on me, because mentoring can be subtle. It can happen through an overheard off-hand remark. Someone might toss advice your way and not find out whether you took it. Here are examples of two of my very helpful mentors.
You might be surprised to learn that my first mentors were my therapy clients. Despite my own struggle to get past my obstacles to marrying, or perhaps, unconsciously, because of it, I trained in and developed expertise in couple and family therapy.
Finding Good Role Models
A couple I saw early in my career as a therapist made a profound impact on me. They came in initially because the husband’s binge drinking was affecting their relationship. The wife, at first, had difficulty expressing her feelings. After some time, she told me privately that she learned that the best time to talk to her husband about something important was when they were in bed after having sex, because both of them felt comfortable and receptive.
I learned two important things from this couple: First, that it’s important it is to continue to have sex regularly with a spouse in order to stay connected emotionally as well as physically. And also to communicate positively about anything that might be preventing either spouse from wanting physical intimacy.
My second lesson from them occurred one time when I saw them together and my eyes welled up in tears because I was moved by their strong connection. They were learning to support themselves and each other. They continued with therapy to keep improving their relationship. I never saw this kind of caring and devotion in my parents. I’m grateful to them for showing me that is possible for spouses to remain loving and loyal while living through the ups and downs of marriage and life.
Developing Realistic Expectations
Another role model for me was a board member I’ll call Linda, with whom I developed a friendship when I was executive director of a family service agency. Linda, a physician, was happily married with two small children. She told me how she met her husband at a party, they dated, and became serious. I’m not ‘in love’ with him,” she said; “I’m very fond of him.”
Wow! Fond? Not madly in love? That was a new concept for me, which took a while to grasp. I suppose that “in love” means different things to different people, so it may be a matter of semantics. But I learned that really liking someone and being comfortable being myself with him was much more important than having the “crazy in love feeling,” with the emphasis on crazy because confusing that condition with true love is a big mistake.
Although I was quite high and in a somewhat dazed state after getting engaged, but truly the basis of it all was that I really enjoyed David’s company in a way that I felt grounded in myself rather than swept off into a fantasy.
Mentors are Plentiful
In case you’re wondering where to find mentors, here are some ideas:
- at your synagogue, church or other place of worship;
- in groups or organizations;
- at work;
- among friends and acquaintances;
- in a therapist or other professional counselor.
By keeping your eyes and ears open, you can find mentors just about anywhere. Notice couples who laugh and speak kindly to each other. If you admire a trait or behavior in someone, you can try to emulate it. Maybe you’ll ask them questions; maybe not.
Here’s a simple example of how a therapist can also be a valued mentor who helps you replace marriage myths you might be holding onto with more realistic expectations:
A wife complains to me that her husband doesn’t talk about his feelings. When I tell her that while there are exceptions, men, in general, have a harder time doing this than women. I’m helping her to improve her outlook. She’s likely to start accepting him as a normal man, instead of judging him as “unfeeling.” This change in her can foster a better relationship in which her husband becomes more comfortable sharing more of himself with her than before.
Mentors Want What’s Best for You
Your mentors are on your team. They want you to succeed and be happy.
Still single when I left my job at the family service agency, I hadn’t seen Linda for many years, not until my husband and I attended the agency’s big seventy-fifth anniversary celebration. She was thrilled to meet my husband and learn that we’d become parents.
“I’m glad you found your prince,” she said.
First Impressions Are Important — They Last
http://ift.tt/2gwKOrv
The adage that “first impressions are the most lasting,” appears correct as new research finds that people tend to be influenced by another person’s initial appearance.
Cornell University researchers say that although people are often advised to “not judge a book by its cover,” people often to do just that.
Dr. Vivian Zayas, a professor of psychology at Cornell and her colleagues found that people continue to be influenced by another person’s appearance even after interacting with them face-to-face.
First impressions formed simply from looking at a photograph predicted how people felt and thought about the person after a live interaction that took place one month to six months later.
“Facial appearance colors how we feel about someone, and even how we think about who they are,” said Zayas, an expert in the cognitive and affective processes that regulate close relationships.
“These facial cues are very powerful in shaping interactions, even in the presence of other information.”
The researchers ran experiments in which 55 participants looked at photographs of four women who were smiling in one instance and had a neutral expression in another. For each photo, participants evaluated whether they would be friends with the woman, indicating likeability, and whether or not her personality was extroverted, agreeable, emotionally stable, conscientious and open to new experiences.
Between one month and six months later, the study participants met one of the photographed women — not realizing they had rated her photograph previously.
In this meeting they played a trivia game for 10 minutes then were instructed to get to know each other as well as possible for another 10 minutes. After each interaction, the study participants again evaluated the person’s likeability and personality traits.
The researchers found a strong consistency between how the participants evaluated the person based on the photograph and on the live interaction.
If study participants thought a person in a photograph was likeable and had an agreeable, emotionally stable, open-minded and conscientious personality, that impression carried through after the face-to-face meeting.
Conversely, participants who thought the person in the photograph was unlikeable and had a disagreeable, emotionally unstable, close-minded, and disagreeable personality kept that judgment after they met.
“What is remarkable is that despite differences in impressions, participants were interacting with the same person, but came away with drastically different impressions of her even after a 20-minute face-to-face interaction,” Zayas said.
Zayas has two explanations for the findings.
She believes a concept called behavioral confirmation, or self-fulfilling prophecy accounted for, at least in part, consistency in liking judgments. The study participants who had said they liked the person in the photograph tended to interact with them face to face in a friendlier, more engaged way, she said.
“They’re smiling a little bit more, they’re leaning forward a little bit more. Their nonverbal cues are warmer,” she said. “When someone is warmer, when someone is more engaged, people pick up on this. They respond in kind. And it’s reinforcing: The participant likes that person more.”
Regarding why participants showed consistency in judgments of personality, a halo effect could have come into play, she said. That is, participants who gave the photographed person a positive evaluation attributed other positive characteristics to them as well.
“We see an attractive person as also socially competent, and assume their marriages are stable and their kids are better off. We go way beyond that initial judgment and make a number of other positive attributions,” Zayas said.
In a related study, she and her colleagues found that people said they would revise their judgment of people in photographs if they had the chance to meet them in person, because they’d have more information on which to base their assessment.
“And people really think they would revise,” she said. “But in our study, people show a lot more consistency in their judgments, and little evidence of revision.”
The study appears in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Source: Cornell University
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Mazenod College stands down teacher over claims he hypnotised students - NEWS.com.au
http://ift.tt/2fBA91U
NEWS.com.au |
Mazenod College stands down teacher over claims he hypnotised students
NEWS.com.au “Any unprofessional conduct by a staff member is totally unacceptable.” “We are currently speaking with the students and families involved in year 10 and 11.” elissa.doherty@news.com.au. Originally published as Teacher accused of sick hypnosis stunt ... Mazenod College suspends teacher who hypnotised studentsThe Age all 5 news articles » |
Study Finds Difference in How Women and Men Look at Faces
http://ift.tt/2gEvCvt
A new study finds that women and men really do see some things differently: They look at faces and absorb visual information in different ways, which suggests a gender difference in understanding visual cues.
The findings stem from study performed by psychologists from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Investigators used an eye-tracking device on almost 500 participants over a five-week period to monitor and judge how much eye contact they felt comfortable with while looking at a face on a computer screen.
They found that women looked more at the left-hand side of faces and had a strong left eye bias, but that they also explored the face much more than men.
The team observed that it was possible to tell the gender of the participant based on the scanning pattern of how they looked at the face with nearly 80 percent accuracy. Given the very large sample size, the researchers suggested this is not due to chance.
Lead author Dr. Antoine Coutrot from QMUL’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences said, “This study is the first demonstration of a clear gender difference in how men and women look at faces.
“We are able to establish the gender of the participant based on how they scan the actors’ face, and can eliminate that it isn’t based on the culture of the participant as nearly 60 nationalities have been tested. We can also eliminate any other observable characteristics like perceived attractiveness or trustworthiness.”
The participants were asked to judge how comfortable the amount of eye contact they made with the actor in a Skype-like scenario.
Each participant saw the same actor (there were eight in total) during the testing period, which was around 15 minutes. At the end of the session the researchers collected personality information about the participants through questionnaires.
Co-author Dr. Isabelle Mareschal added, “There are numerous claims in popular culture that women and men look at things differently — this is the first demonstration, using eye tracking, to support this claim that they take in visual information in different ways.”
Researchers believe the discovery that genders scan visual information differently might impact many research fields. For example, determining an autism diagnosis, or even performance of everyday behaviors like watching a movie or looking at the road while driving, are significantly influenced by visual perceptions.
The study appears in the Journal of Vision.
Source: Queen Mary University of London/EurekAlert
Related Articles
How to Talk to Kids About Divorce
http://ift.tt/2fK8Hue
Divorce is often stressful for both parents and their children, and now a new report with some advice for parents encourages them to look to their children's pediatricians, therapists and others in their communities to help them manage this tough transition.
Research shows that children may experience a range of behavioral changes as a result of their parents' divorce, the authors of the report said. Children's reactions to their parents' separation may involve anxiety, self-blame for the divorce, or poor performance at school, depending on the children's age, circumstances of the divorce and parents' own psychological functioning, according to the new report, published today (Nov. 28) in the journal Pediatrics.
Because that last factor — the parents' own functioning — affects children's ability to cope with their parents' divorce, parents should make sure they can cope with their own emotions related to the separation in order to be able to offer stronger support to their children, said Dr. Carol C. Weitzman, a co-author of the report and a professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine.
Parents should "take the pulse on their own emotional state" and get psychological help for themselves if they realize they need it, Weitzman said. [25 Scientific Tips for Raising Happy Kids]
This help may involve talk therapy, support groups for divorced people or, if a parent is religious, talking to someone like a pastor, she said.
"The more a parent is feeling capable and OK, the more they are going to be able to meet their children's needs," Weitzman told Live Science. "The less in control they feel, the more overwhelmed they feel [and] the more difficult it will be to keep their children's needs front and center."
In recent years, there have been about 800,000 divorces in the United States per year, affecting about 1 million kids per year, the researchers said. Many children experience problems adjusting to the new situation in the first year of their parents' separation, but research shows that most of these problems typically resolve within two or three years after the parents' separation, the researchers said. However, kids' sense of loss may last for years, or may generally improve but still get worse on holidays, birthdays or special events, the researchers said.
The new report looked at previous research examining how children may react to divorce, and provided tips for pediatricians for how to assist children and families affected by divorce.
To help their children cope with parents' divorce, parents also may consider getting psychological help for their children if those children struggle with coping with the new situation, Weitzman said. [The Science of Breakups: 7 Facts About Splitsville]
Parents should also assure their kids that they will always love them even though the parents are not together anymore, Weitzman said.
In addition, parents should try to preserve their kids' normal routines — such as school, extracurricular activities, and contact with family and friends — as much as possible, study co-author Dr. Michael Yogman, a pediatrician in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in a statement. Moreover, "Children need to understand that they did not cause the divorce, and have their questions answered honestly, at their level of understanding," he said.
Originally published on Live Science.
Editor's Recommendations
Chrome Extension Changes "Alt-Right'" to '"White Supremacy"
http://ift.tt/2gEmtTQ
A group opposing what it called normalization of white nationalism under the term "alt-right" has created a Google Chrome extension that changes the phrase to "white supremacy."
The phrase "alt right" or "alternative right" came to the fore during the presidential election, and Donald Trump's chief strategist Steven Bannon has said he wanted the news site he once managed, Breitbart.com, to be "a platform for the alt-right."
"This gentle sounding name is the rebranding of White Supremacy and White Nationalism, and its normalization must be stopped," the group "Stop Normalizing" says on its website.
Trump has said he condemns and disavows the alt-right. Critics have accused Trump of using language on the campaign trail seen as a dog-whistle to white supremacists. The official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan endorsed Trump, and former KKK grand wizard David Duke has said he supported some of the GOP nominee's stated policies. Trump and his campaign have disavowed the support of both.
Related: White Nationalist Alt-Righter Claims 'Hail Trump' Comments Were 'Ironic'
Trump's transition team said in a statement last week that the president-elect "has continued to denounce racism of any kind."
"It is just a chrome extension — I don't think we're going to silence completely people that support white nationalist views. But with the reaction we've gotten I think there's a nerve to be hit," the creator of the app, who didn't want his real name used by gave the pseudonym George Zola, told NBC News.
The Chrome extension has been downloaded more than 2,100 times as of Tuesday afternoon. The extension went live Nov. 16, and took a "long evening" to create, its creator said. Links have been shared on Facebook around 63,000 times, he said.
An associated Twitter account has been "correcting" headlines of online news articles that use the term.
The extension comes as some news organizations reevaluate use of the term "alt-right." The Associated Press on Monday updated its standards and urged reporters and editors to use clarify that the "alt-right" is "an offshoot of conservatism mixing racism, white nationalism and populism" or similar definition.
Related: 'Stop It': Trump Calls Alleged Harassment By Supporters 'Terrible'
The creator of the program, who describes himself as a white man in his early 30s who works in advertising and technology and lives in New York, said the attention it's received shows many Americans don't support white nationalism.
He said the group doesn't want the term "alt-right" banned, but "we do think it should be responsibly reported on and with context, especially being that it's a new term that many are just now learning about."
"I took it upon myself to make some noise," the extension's creator said. "It made more noise than I thought it would, but that's a good thing."
An alternate extension automatically changes the term "alt-right" with "Neo Nazi." The group says the extension "is the first of many acts of digital defiance to come."
It isn't the first extension to challenge the use of the term "alt-right." A different extension launched earlier this month changes the words to "rebranded white nationalism."
Anxiety, Depression Tied to Teens’ Physical Problems
http://ift.tt/2fKbwvb
European researchers have identified patterns in youth linking mental problems to physical disorders such as arthritis and skin diseases.
Psychologists at the University of Basel and Ruhr University Bochum determined that arthritis and diseases of the digestive system are more common in youth who have suffered from depression. Moreover, when youth experience anxiety issues, they tend to be followed by skin diseases.
Physical diseases and mental disorders affect a person’s quality of life and present a huge challenge for the healthcare system. If physical and mental disorders systematically co-occur from an early age, there is a risk that the sick child or adolescent will suffer from untoward developments.
Dr. Marion Tegethoff, in collaboration with Professor Gunther Meinlschmidt from the University of Basel’s Faculty of Psychology, led a team of researchers to examine the temporal pattern and relationship between physical diseases and mental disorders in children and young people.
The researchers analyzed data from a representative sample of 6,483 teenagers from the US aged between 13 and 18. They discovered that some physical diseases tend to occur more frequently in children and adolescents if they have previously suffered from certain mental disorders.
Likewise, certain mental disorders tend to occur more frequently after the onset of particular physical diseases.
Affective disorders such as depression were frequently followed by arthritis and diseases of the digestive system, while the same relationship existed between anxiety disorders and skin diseases. Anxiety disorders were more common if the person had already suffered from heart disease. A close association was also established for the first time between epileptic disorders and subsequent eating disorders.
The research findings have been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Researchers believe the results offer important insights into the causal relationship between mental disorders and physical diseases. The newly identified temporal associations draw attention to processes that could be relevant both to the origins of physical diseases and mental disorders and to their treatment.
In an earlier study, the same authors had already provided evidence for the relationship between mental disorders and physical diseases in young people. In this study investigators determined that epilepsy is followed by an increased risk of eating disorders — a phenomenon that had previously been described only in single case reports.
“This suggests that approaches to epilepsy treatment could also have potential in the context of eating disorders,” said Tegethoff, the study’s lead author.
From a health policy perspective, the findings underscore that the treatment of mental disorders and physical diseases should be closely interlinked from an early age on.
Source: University of Basel/EurekAlert
Related Articles
Mazenod College suspends teacher who hypnotised students - The Age
http://ift.tt/2gHq2WZ
The Age |
Mazenod College suspends teacher who hypnotised students
The Age It's not the first time that a staff member at a Victorian school has used hypnosis techniques on students. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse heard last year that a chaplain at Geelong Grammar tried to hypnotise ... and more » |
Personal Change, Quick or Slow?
The post Personal Change, Quick or Slow? appeared first on Operation Self Reset.
Self Confidence Feeds
November 29, 2016 at 03:10PM
How Botox Can Keep Overactive Sweat Under Control And Why You Should Try Natural Remedies Instead - eMaxHealth
http://ift.tt/2fORIKF
How Botox Can Keep Overactive Sweat Under Control And Why You Should Try Natural Remedies Instead
eMaxHealth Hypnotherapy. According to hypnotherapist Cate Bradley, anxiety conditions can cause excessive sweating. Research has shown that hypnotherapy can alleviate anxiety, and if that's the underlying condition causing hyperhidrosis, it may also alleviate the ... |
Trader Joe's haul
http://ift.tt/2fOJvWM
Well, I'm still physically sick with a cold, but I feel a lot better about the vegan challenge, so I'm in a more positive place mentally (and not as crabby!).
Jerry was off work yesterday, and after we took the kids to school, we decided to go to Trader Joe's. I really wanted to get some of their black bean and corn enchiladas. I bought some the last time I went, and loved them! They also happen to be vegan. I had been feeling so frustrated about not having anything quick and easy to eat, so I just wanted to get some convenience items. I know that prepared foods aren't exactly the healthiest choices, but if I'm going to stick to this challenge through the end of December, I need the convenient option once in a while.
Read more »
November 29, 2016 at 01:00PM
Well, I'm still physically sick with a cold, but I feel a lot better about the vegan challenge, so I'm in a more positive place mentally (and not as crabby!).
Jerry was off work yesterday, and after we took the kids to school, we decided to go to Trader Joe's. I really wanted to get some of their black bean and corn enchiladas. I bought some the last time I went, and loved them! They also happen to be vegan. I had been feeling so frustrated about not having anything quick and easy to eat, so I just wanted to get some convenience items. I know that prepared foods aren't exactly the healthiest choices, but if I'm going to stick to this challenge through the end of December, I need the convenient option once in a while.
Read more »
November 29, 2016 at 01:00PM
Why are we afraid of things? (the neuroscience of fear)
http://ift.tt/2fAbOJW
A community for those who are interested in the mind, brain, language and artificial intelligence.
Want to know more? Take a look at our reading list here. If you have any suggestions for further inclusions, post them here.
8 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Manage Anxiety at Work
http://ift.tt/2fIVFNE
*Head desk*
I have an anxiety disorder.
I have always had one. My mom says when I was a baby I would freak out for no reason and just start wailing. Not a lot has changed since then, to be honest, except now I am medicated, have a good therapist, and no longer require someone else to see to my peeing and pooping needs.
What It Feels Like To Have Anxiety And Depression At The Same Time
I still have my moments, but for the most part, I have learned how to manage my anxiety.
Let us pause here and do a little dance of celebration — Done!
There are still times when my anxiety gets the best of me. Usually it involves large groups of people or other high stress situations. And there’s nothing more high stress than work, even if you have a job that you love (hi boss!).
I’d like to share with you some tips and tricks I have found helpful for those moments anxiety at work threatens to overtake you.
Let’s DO THIS.
- Get Away from Your Computer.
For most us, our workdays consist of sitting in front of our computers, barely blinking, let along getting up to move.I have found that it’s really helpful to set a timer for myself so that at least once an hour I get up and walk around. Go for a walk around the block, or, if your workspace doesn’t allow this, go for a walk around the building.
Even just getting up and walking around your office can be the physical and mental outlet you need to let some of that stress and anxiety burn off without sending you into a spiral.
- Try Gentle Stretching.
As awesome and getting up and moving is, sometimes we have days where this is almost impossible. We’ve got back-to-back conference calls or a deadline we have to meet. This is when doing stretching at your desk can be THE BEST for managing anxiety at work.My favorite exercise is this: look at the top left corner of your computer, look at the top right corner of your computer, look at the bottom right corner of your computer, look at the bottom left corner of your computer. Let your neck and head move slowly while you do this. It’s a gentle, easy stretch that immediately relieves that tension scowl we all get from staring at a screen for too long.
- Communicate with the People Around You.
As a person with an anxiety, sometimes it feels like if I don’t express what’s going on inside me verbally like I am going to implode.
If you feel this way at work it’s important that you have a work friend you can talk to. I’m not talking about someone you sit and bitch about work with (I think that’s negative and unhelpful for you both). Instead, what I mean, is don’t be afraid to communicate about whatever is giving you anxiety at work.
Sometimes just saying “I’m scared I won’t get this done by five,” out loud can relief just the amount of pressure needed to help you get through your day.
- Drink All of the Water.
This might sound hokey, but water and hydrating our bodies in general is so often the cure for what ails you. I’m not saying that water is going to magically heal you of your anxiety (because that is bullshit), but I do know that drinking a lot of water will keep you feeling centered, healthy, and make it easier for to concentrate on the task at hand without blowing your stack.
If you’re an anxious person, taking care of yourself can so easily go by the wayside. Evaluate what your body needs.
When did you drink water last? When did you eat last? Do you have a headache? Make sure you’re at your physical best and the mental best will follow suit.
- Check in with Your Breathing.
This one makes sense given number 4. Sometimes at work when I find myself on the verge of a total panic attack and I don’t know why, I realize that my mouth is pinched shut tight and that I’m taking rapid short breaths in and out like a furious little bull.
If you are feeling anxious, check in with your breathing. Try circular breathing (in through the nose out through the mouth). Imagine your body as an empty bottle, and that each breath you are taking is like water pouring in from the bottom of your belly all the way up. Man, I got all chilled out just writing that.
- Make Yourself a List.
This here is one of the oldest tricks in the book. If you are feeling overwhelmed and fearful, take the simple step of setting a list for yourself.
When you have the physical list, you’ll find managing one task, and crossing it off gives you back the feeling of control that anxiety strips from you. Sure, anxiety is a bitch, but it’s also pretty stupid and easy to fool if you have the right tools.
- Take a Five-Minute Meditation Break.
There’s taking a break to go to the bathroom, and taking a break to eat your lunch, why shouldn’t there be taking five minutes to reset yourself with meditation?
You don’t need to be a professional guru, you can just do the circular breathing we mentioned above. Taking time out to pro-actively send a message to your brain that it’s time to relax and refocus can work absolute wonders.
Of course it won’t always do the trick, but setting up the practice is another form of self-care that can be so beneficial in the long term.
- Remember That It’s a Cycle
When I’m in the thick of my worst anxiety, it feels like it’s never going to end. Here’s a thing to remember: it will, it’s going to end. You aren’t going to feel like you are dying forever.
Anxiety isn’t all of who you are, it doesn’t have you, you have it. You’re going to be okay, even when it feels like you won’t be. You just have to keep fighting, and keep treating yourself with respect. I believe in you, and so do all of the people who love and admire you.
You got this!
This guest article originally appeared on YourTango.com: 8 Low-Key, Totally Do-Able Ways To Manage Anxiety At Work.
Chub Rub: The Best Ways to Stop Chafing and Exercise Comfortably
http://ift.tt/2gGr5X0
November 29, 2016 at 08:05AM
It's bound to happen, sooner or later—chub rub, more 'officially' known as chafing, rears its ugly head and causes rash, irritation, or otherwise uncomfortable dry patches of skin in places it just doesn't belong.
The post Chub Rub: The Best Ways to Stop Chafing and Exercise Comfortably appeared first on A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss.
November 29, 2016 at 08:05AM
Religious experience activates same brain circuits as 'sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll'
http://ift.tt/2fNqcNj
Using neuroimaging technology, a new study examines what our brain activity looks like when we have an intense religious experience.
Using neuroimaging technology, a new study examines what our brain activity looks like when we have an intense religious experience.
Depression Rates Highest In These 17 Jobs
http://ift.tt/2gSsahc
There are four things about a job that are likely to make it have high depression rates.
Bus drivers top the list of occupations with the highest depression rates.
They are closely followed by real estate agents and social workers.
What do these — and the other jobs with the highest rates of depression — have in common?
It’s dealing with the public, as the study’s authors explain:
“…service industries which require frequent or complex interactions with the public or clients are disproportionately represented…
This supports the theory that the stress of emotional labor could contribute to depression.”
High emotional labour refers to the idea of frequently having to manage your emotions in a job.
For example, imagine a flight attendant smiling and saying “Good morning” to the 465th passenger of the day.
Here is the full list of the 17 jobs with the highest depression rates:
- Transportation driver
- Estate agent
- Social worker
- Manufacturer
- Personal services
- Legal services
- Housekeeper
- Membership organisations
- Security and commodities brokers
- Printing and publishing
- Agricultural services
- Retail
- Electric, gas, and sanitary
- Special trade contractors
- Petroleum and coal
- General merchandise retail
- Auto repair
This is far from the first time that depression has been linked to people working in public transportation.
The authors explain:
“The highest depression rates were found for Local and Suburban Transit and Interurban Highway Passenger Transportation
This industry contains bus drivers who have frequently been observed to have elevated rates of heart disease, hypertension, or stroke, often attributed in part to work stress.”
More than just dealing with the public, though, it is too much interpersonal conflict that is linked to high depression rates:
“…industries with the highest depression…tended to be industries that, on the national level, had more interpersonal conflict and encounters with difficult people than industries with the lowest depression rates.”
The other major factors for depressing jobs:
- Low levels of control over your work.
- Little physical activity during work.
- High levels of work/family conflict.
- Much effort for little reward.
The study was published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (Wulsin et al., 2014).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)