How our bodies and minds work together best
Prof Keith Petrie
How you think about your illness may play a bigger part in how well you recover (or whether you don’t) than the actual severity of the disease according to a new paper in Current Directions in Psychological Science.
You can see our story How you see your illness matters to recovery here
Hear what Prof Keith Petrie told Bob Hughes about patient expectations about their diseases here
What you think about your illness matters just as much, if not more, in determining your health outcomes, says a new report.Whenever we fall ill, there are many different factors that come together to influence the course of our illness. Additional medical conditions, stress levels, and social support all have an impact on our health and well-being, especially when we are ill. But our attitudes play a significant and under recognised part in recovery. In fact, some research suggests that how a person views his illness may play a bigger role in determining his health outcomes than the actual severity of his disease.
Shakespeare was a master at portraying profound emotional upset in the physical symptoms of his characters, and many modern day doctors would do well to study the Bard to better understand the mind-body connection, says the British Medical Journal
Experienced meditators seem to be able switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, according to a new brain imaging study by Yale researchers.
Meditation’s ability to help people stay focused on the moment has been associated with increased happiness levels, said Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Understanding how meditation works will aid investigation into a host of diseases, he said. “Meditation has been shown to help in variety of health problems, such as helping people quit smoking, cope with cancer, and even prevent psoriasis,” Brewer said.
The negative effects of depression in young people on the health of their hearts may be stronger than previously recognized. Depression or a history of suicide attempts in people younger than 40, especially young women, markedly increases their risk for dying from heart disease, results from a nationwide study have revealed.
As a fetus grows, it’s constantly getting messages from its mother. It’s not just hearing her heartbeat and whatever music she might play to her belly; it also gets chemical signals through the placenta. A new study, which will be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that this includes signals about the mother’s mental state. If the mother is depressed, that affects how the baby develops after it’s born.
Doctors should consider the use of narrative — in the form of patient stories and testimonials — as a powerful tool for translating and communicating evidence-based policies to the public to buoy buy-in on important health issues such as cancer screenings and vaccination mandates
Your ability to recognize emotional content in faces and texts is linked to your blood pressure, according to a Clemson University researcher. A recently published study by Clemson University psychology professor James A. McCubbin and colleagues has shown that people with higher blood pressure have reduced ability to recognize angry, fearful, sad and happy faces and text passages.
Bitterness can make you ill, say researchers looking at links between failure, bitterness and quality of life.
“Persistent bitterness may result in global feelings of anger and hostility that, when strong enough, could affect a person’s physical health,” says Carsten Wrosch.
Can you become addicted to tasty foods like you can be to alcohol or drugs? Yes, says Professor Caroline Davis, from York University in Canada. She used the substance dependence questionnaire from the American Psychiatric Association on a group of obese men and women. And some showed up as food addicts.
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