More than 500 people have undergone brain surgery for mental health disorders within the last decade.
These disorders included depression, anxiety, Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder and even obesity. Some people saw signs of improvement after the surgery; others felt nothing.
Newer psychosurgeries pinpoint specific areas of the brain. For example some neurosurgeons burn pea-sized holes in the overactive areas of a person’s brain. Other neurosurgeons use a machine to send cross-beams of radiation into the brain to burn out spots of tissue. The holes or spots create interference within the brain’s overactive circuit preventing obsessive compulsive circuits or other mental disorders from continuing. (more…)
More people are taking antidepressants, studies show, but the number of people seeking psychotherapy has decreased.
According to the Archives of General Psychiatry, about 27 million Americans were taking antidepressants in 2005. That’s twice as many as the number of people who were taking this type of medication in 1996.
Yet 80 percent of those using antidepressants were not receiving psychotherapy. Some cannot afford to see a psychiatrist even with health insurance. Others receive antidepressants from regular doctors for symptoms such as back pain, insomnia and other health problems, not necessarily related to mental health. (more…)
Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman studied what makes people happy. He asked thousands of subjects to keep a journal of moments in their day when they felt happy.
According to his studies, intimate relations along with socializing ranked high on the happiness chart, while watching television and spending time with children ranked low. Causes of unhappiness included commuting to work and lack of sleep.
It just goes to show the importance of human connection in maintaining one’s well being.
When psychologist Ben Sharar started teaching “Happiness 101” a course in positive psychology, 854 students enrolled. It was the largest enrollment of any course offered at Harvard in 2006.
Positive psychology focuses on resilience, on conditions that improve mental health as opposed to concentrating only on the causes of mental illness. Studies and experiments in positive psychology are designed to discover paths for developing love, forgiveness, creativity and other positive strengths to combat mental health disorders.
In a 1998 presidential address to the American Psychological Association, professor and psychologist Martin Seligman said psychology needs to “turn toward understanding and building the human strengths to complement our emphasis on healing damage.” Arguably, this speech caused a turning point in the history of psychology, the birth of positive psychology. (more…)
Are you low on energy? Are you worried about catching the flu? Then spread a little peanut butter on your whole wheat toast in the morning.
Foods rich in vitamin B6, such as peanut butter, help promote white blood cells that directly fight infection. Vitamin B6 also helps maintain normal blood sugar levels by converting carbohydrate and other nutrients to glucose. In other words, B6 regulates you energy levels.
Not only does B6 mediate your endurance, it balances your mood. Vitamin B6 is needed for the synthesis of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. Serotonin helps regulate sleep, moods and inhibit pain. Dopamine influences thought processes, possibly affecting motivation and reward. (more…)
Go to work, make multiple deadlines, read a hundred emails, exercise, make dinner and spend time with your loved ones. Sometimes your to-do list may seem overwhelming. But stress only deepens the problem, causing you to freeze when you should be moving.
What are some ways to manage stress and meet all your deadlines?
Time management equals stress management. If you have a lot to do, make a schedule and do what is important first.
Sometimes it’s easier to worry rather than work. If you need to finish something important, try tunnel vision, or focusing on one specific item at a time. (more…)
When you’re handling a lot of information, sometimes it’s easy to forget where your keys are or where you parked the car. Difficulty remembering small amounts of information in a short period of time, or problems with short-term memory, can be frustrating.
However, studies show exercising can improve short-term memory. Scientists at Duke University’s Department of Psychology and Neuroscience found that exercise improved the memory of rodents following brain radiation treatment. The treatment impaired the rodents’ cognitive abilities causing them to forget certain spatial capabilities such as how to exit a maze. Rodents that had more roaming and exercising room performed better at remembering the maze exit than rodents that did not have space to exercise. (more…)
Oftentimes grouchiness makes us think more clearly and make better decisions, according to research from the University of New South Wales.
Researcher and Professor Joe Forgas designed an experiment where participants watched different films and were asked to think about positive or negative events in their life. Then Forgas had the subjects perform a series of tasks. Those in a cheerful mood made more mistakes than those in a bad mood.
“Negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world,” Forgas said. (more…)
On a day when everything seems to go wrong—your boss yells at you, your best friend cancels on you and the commute takes twice as long—it’s not hard to get emotional. Even when you try to calm down, you’re still fuming about what happened. But what if there was a way to control your thoughts and emotions?
Eckhart Tolle, the author of “The Power of Now,” says we can. All it takes is becoming deeply conscious of the present moment. This requires listening to your thoughts, but not participating. Tolle says, “Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door.” In other words, observe your thoughts, but don’t react emotionally. Listen impartially.
When you separate yourself from your thoughts, when you become more aware of your internal and external world, you reach a level of enlightenment. Tolle says. “In the enlightened state, you still use your thinking mind when (more…)