NEWS OF MIND

Anxiety Treatment There are few things worse than not feeling like yourself because of mental health struggles. Some people will never live through this experience. But the reality is,  20 percent  of the population suffers from mental illness. I am in that 20 percent. There have been three distinct times in my life where I haven't felt like me: The first time it happened, my grandma had passed away, and I began experiencing OCD symptoms around the age of 10. Back then, therapy ended up helping me break the cycle. Then, when I was in a second semester sophomore in college, and I fell into a spiral of insomnia, anxiety, OCD, and depression caused by heartbreak. Family financial issues played a part in my turmoil too, and I felt like I was losing the joyful, calm, sleep-loving person I had been. I had disassociated from myself, and all I wanted to be was the person before the trauma. Luckily I went into therapy and (at first reluctantly) started on an antidepressant. For about...

From the way you move and sleep, to how you interact with people around you, depression changes just about everything. It is even noticeable in the way you speak and express yourself in writing. Sometimes this “language of depression” can have a powerful effect on others. Just consider the impact of the poetry and song lyrics of Sylvia Plath and Kurt Cobain, who both killed themselves after suffering from depression. Scientists have long tried to pin down the exact relationship between depression and language, and technology is helping us get closer to a full picture. Our new study,  published in Clinical Psychological Science , has now unveiled a class of words that can help accurately predict whether someone is suffering from depression. Traditionally, linguistic analyses in this field have been carried out by researchers reading and taking notes. Nowadays,  computerised text analysis methods  allow the processing of extremely large data banks in minutes. ...

A new study found that teenagers are increasingly depressed, feel hopeless and are more likely to consider suicide. Researchers found a sudden increase in teens' symptoms of depression, suicide risk factors and suicide rates in 2012 — around the time when smartphones became popular, says Jean Twenge, one of the authors of the study. Twenge's research found that teens who spend five or more hours per day on their devices are 71 percent more likely to have one risk factor for suicide. And that's regardless of the content consumed. Whether teens are watching cat videos or looking at something more serious, the amount of screen time — not the specific content — goes hand in hand with the higher instances of depression. "It's an excessive amount of time spent on the device. So half an hour, an hour a day, that seemed to be the sweet spot for teen mental health in terms of electronic devices," Twenge says. "At two hours a day there was only a slightly elevate...

Over 60 percent of adults who were diagnosed with depression by a clinician didn't meet the official criteria for the disorder upon re-evaluation By Lindsay Abrams PROBLEM:  Over the course of 20 years, according to the most recently available data, the U.S. saw a  400 percent increase  in antidepressant use, resulting in 11 percent of Americans over the age of 12 taking some form of depression medication by 2008. Debate rages between those who believe that increased diagnoses mean we are turning normal human experience into a disease, and those who push for increased awareness of a very real psychological illness. Depending on who's doing the arguing, people are either being  treated  or are  suffering  in excess. 'Type A' Personality Doubles Risk of Having a Stroke Countries That Use More High Fructose Corn Syrup Have More Diabetes Being Cold May Promote Longevity METHODOLOGY:  Ramin Mojtabai of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of P...

“Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.”  ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. The art of speaking wisely is one of the most difficult arts and for a very long time people have been trying to master it, so as to be able to better express themselves and hence better communicate their thoughts and emotions with other people. Here you will read three basic tips on how to speak more wisely. By following these tips, you will be able to engage in meaningful conversations, grab the attention of your audience and inspire those who are listening to you. 1. Think before you speak. This is one of the most important tips that you should follow, if you truly want to utter meaningful ideas that will make others take you seriously. Many of us are used to small talk and rarely pay attention to how many unimportant, sometimes even silly things we say. If you want people to pay close attention to what you say and listen d...

By Cesar Millan One of the most important things I teach people to do is always exhibit calm, assertive energy around their dogs — and it’s a good way to approach life in general. But I’m frequently asked, “How do I do that?” The good news is that once you’ve figured out how to achieve that state of calm, it becomes more instinctual and easier to do. The better news is that anyone can learn how to emit calm, assertive energy. Here are five tips to help you achieve it. Related:  Pack Leadership Technique 1: Project calm, assertive energy Relax. Your dog is not misbehaving on purpose No matter what it seems like, your dog is not peeing on the floor or tearing up your favorite shoes to get back at you. When dogs do things like this, it is because you are not fulfilling their needs — but they don’t know that. Bored dogs can become destructive and insecure dogs may urinate if they become fearful. It’s your job, as the pack lead...

“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.” Helen Keller “Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.” � Brian Tracy “Confidence is courage at ease.” Daniel Maher I believe that one of the most common wishes is simply to feel more confident in various situations in life. But how? Confident friends may say: “Well, just be confident, man!”�. However, to a person that doesn’t feel that confident this piece of advice may not be very helpful. At all. There are however some time-tested and timeless advice. And in this article I’ll explore some of those tips. You can learn much more about becoming more sure of yourself and building your inner strength and assertiveness in my 12-week  Self-Esteem Course . Now, I hope you will find something useful in this article to help you improve and maintain your own levels of confiden...

We all want to be more productive but getting motivated enough to actually get things done can seem impossible. Social scientists have been studying motivation for decades, trying to find out what motivates our behaviour, how and why. Dozens of theories of motivation have been proposed over the years. Here are 5 popular theories of motivation that can help you increase workplace productivity… 1. Hertzberg’s Two-Factor Theory The  Two-Factor Theory of motivation (otherwise known as dual-factor theory or motivation-hygiene theory) was developed by psychologist Frederick Herzberg in the 1950s. Analysing the responses of 200 accountants and engineers who were asked about their positive and negative feelings about their work, Herzberg found 2 factors that influence employee motivation and satisfaction… 1.  Motivator factors  – Simply put, these are factors that lead to satisfaction and motivate employees to work harder. Examples might include enj...

The brain function that underlies anxiety and depression is inherited, a new study finds — but there is still plenty of space for experience and environment to reduce the risk of a full-blown mental disorder. The research focused on rhesus monkeys. Like humans, some young rhesus monkeys have what's called an "anxious temperament." Expose them to a mildly stressful situation, like being in a room with a stranger, and the monkeys will stop moving and stop vocalizing while their stress hormones skyrocket.  Extremely shy children  do the same, said Dr. Ned Kalin, a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Kalin and his colleagues scanned the brains of young monkeys, anxious and not, and found three brain regions associated with  anxiety  that also showed evidence of heritability. About 30 percent of the variation in early anxiety is explained by family history, the researchers reported Monday (July 6) in the journal  Proceedings of the Nati...

By Janice Neumann (Reuters Health) - Moderate-intensity exercise, or even just walking, can improve quality of life for depressed middle-aged women, a large Australian study suggests . Women who averaged 150 minutes of moderate exercise (golf, tennis, aerobics classes, swimming, or line-dancing) or 200 minutes of walking every week had more energy, socialized more, felt better emotionally, and weren't as limited by their depression when researchers followed up after three years. They also had less pain and did better physically, although the psychological benefit was greater. With depression so prevalent, "there is an urgent need" to identify treatments, including non-medical options that people can do themselves, said Kristiann Heesch, who led the study. Heesch, senior lecturer at Queensland University of Technology, and her colleagues point out in a January 13 online article in the  American Journal of Preventive Medicine  that depression is expected to be the sec...

Study finds "strikingly high" rates of depression and anxiety, with many reporting little help or support from supervisors. By  Colleen Flaherty Several studies suggest that graduate students are at greater risk for mental health issues than those in the general population. This is largely due to social isolation, the often abstract nature of the work and feelings of inadequacy -- not to mention the slim tenure-track job market. But a new study in  Nature Biotechnology  warns, in no uncertain terms, of a mental health “crisis” in graduate education. “Our results show that graduate students are more than six times as likely to experience depression and anxiety as compared to the general population,” the study says, urging action on the part of institutions. “It is only with strong and validated interventions that academia will be able to provide help for those who are traveling through the bioscience workforce pipeline.” The paper ...

By Megan Rule | Staff Writer If you’re afraid of losing your job to a robot, you’re not alone, as shown by a Baylor researcher. Technophobes are much more likely to be afraid of losing their jobs due to technology and, as a result, suffer from anxiety and related mental health issues. “I found that people who were afraid of technology were also more likely to report having some anxiety symptoms,” said Paul McClure, a Ph.D. candidate in the sociology department at Baylor. “I also found that the people who were most afraid of technology were non-white minorities, people with less education and females.” McClure had seen economic projections that were discussing possible losses of employment due to automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. Using data from the Chapman Survey of American Fears, McClure found connections between people who were afraid of newer forms of technology and people who are afraid of losing their job and not having enough money in the future. He compil...