Posts tagged with 'prevention'
Strength training exercises improve both physical & psychological health
5th May 2019
Poor muscle strength predicts increased vulnerability to both physical & psychological health problems and earlier death, in addition to the contribution of poor aerobic, heart-lung fitness. This is true for both men & women and for all assessed age ranges. Mechanisms underlying these effects are probably multifactorial, including metabolic/biochemical, neurological …
Could increasing our compassion for others be even more "therapeutic" than increasing our self-compassion?
13th February 2013
"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." Ralph Waldo Emerson "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They …
Reducing risk of suicide: advice & resources for relatives, friends, health professionals & those at risk
5th January 2013
The "Connecting with People" website has the strapline "Promoting emotional resilience & suicide mitigation". On the site's "About us" page, they write "Open Minds Alliance CIC was formally established in 2010. The organisation emerged from a collaboration between Dr Alys Cole-King, liaison psychiatrist and specialist in suicide prevention and Gavin …
So what dietary advice should we be following - for psychological as well as physical health?
22nd September 2012
A couple of days ago I wrote a blog post that I think makes a very important point - "Emerging research on diet suggests it's startingly important in the prevention of anxiety & depression". Much of what the post said is downloadable in Powerpoint and can be printed out as …
Emerging research on diet suggests it's startlingly important in the prevention of anxiety & depression
20th September 2012
The key points of this blog post can be downloaded & printed out as a helpful 6-slide-miniatures-to-a-page Powerpoint handout. Back in December 2009 I wrote a blog post entitled "New research shows diet's importance for preventing depression" where I commented "You know how it is - no buses in sight, …
Recent research: 2 mindfulness studies, 2 on goal setting, 1 on wellbeing & reduction in risk of mental illness, 1 on compassion
23rd December 2010
So here are half a dozen recent research papers in the general fields of positive psychology and mindfulness (abstracts and links are given further down this post). They're mostly by "big hitters" on big topics. So there is the paper by Willem Kuyken & colleagues entitled "How does mindfulness-based cognitive …
Preventing cancer through life style choices
12th April 2009
In 2001 the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) WCRF/AICR set themselves the task of systematically assessing all good research on diet, physical activity and cancer and publishing a report that would be the largest study of its kind with conclusions that would …
Recent research: lifestyle - five papers on sleep, exercise & stress management
26th February 2009
Here are five papers on lifestyle and the benefits of making healthy choices. The first by Cohen et al on sleep habits and susceptibility to the common cold, showed increased risk of developing a cold after infection for those with shorter sleep duration. Interestingly the increased risk was even greater …
Recent research: a mixed bag of six papers on anxiety
19th February 2009
Here are half a dozen papers with anxiety relevance. The first couple are about the interaction between genetic vulnerability (or resilience) and childhood experience. The Stevens et al paper is an update on the large body of research looking at psychological genetic vulnerability/resilience in macaque monkeys and how this interacts …
Recent research: two papers on mindfulness & four on sleep
8th January 2009
Here are two papers on mindfulness and four on sleep. The Kuyken et al paper is important. It compares mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) with continuation antidepressants in the prevention of relapse in recurrent depression. The results are great - "Relapse/recurrence rates over 15-month follow-ups in MBCT were 47%, compared with …