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Houston —
Long-term space travel could lead to a spiral into mental health problems for astronauts mired in loneliness, according to research carried out on isolated workers in the Antarctic. The study shows that after long periods of time there was a lack of positive emotions and no "bounce-back" effect even when the workers were preparing to go home. Researchers say this could endanger future space missions, as positive emotions and hope are crucial to returning in a high-pressure environment like a spacecraft.
Scientists from the University of Houston came up with a checklist for detecting mental health changes in isolated, confined, and extreme (ICE) environments, and asked people working on two Antarctic stations to self-report their mental state. They found that positive emotions declined over the months and as time went on participants were less likely to use strategies
to boost their mood.
"The most marked alterations were observed for positive emotions such that we saw continuous declines from the start to the end of the mission, without evidence of a 'bounce-back effect' as participants were preparing to return home," explains Candice Alfano, a professor of psychology at Houston, whose team developed the Mental Health Checklist (MHCL) in a
statement.
"Previous research both in space and in polar environments has focused almost exclusively on negative emotional states including anxiety and depressive symptoms, but positive emotions such as satisfaction, enthusiasm, and awe are essential features for thriving in high-pressure settings," she continues. "Both the use of savoring — purposely noticing, appreciating, and/or intensifying positive experiences and emotions — and reappraisal — changing the way one thinks about a situation — decreased during later mission months compared to baseline. These changes likely help explain observed
declines in positive emotions over time."
Astronauts face a slew of challenges when it comes to mental healthLike the test subjects, astronauts
who spend extended time in space face stressors such as isolation, confinement, lack of privacy, altered light-dark cycles, monotony, and separation from their families. At coastal and inland Antarctic stations, Alfano and her team tracked mental health symptoms across nine months, including the harshest winter months, using the MHCL. A monthly assessment also examined changes in physical complaints, biomarkers of stress
such as cortisol, and the use of different emotion regulation strategies for increasing or decreasing certain emotions.
The researchers say that
negative emotions increased across the study, but changes were more variable and predicted by physical complaints. Participants tended to use fewer effective strategies for regulating their positive emotions as their time at the stations increased.
Collectively, these results might suggest that while changes in negative emotions are shaped by an interaction of individual, interpersonal, and situational factors, declines in positive emotions are a more universal experience in ICE environments.
"We observed significant changes in psychological functioning, but patterns of change for specific
aspects of mental health differed," adds Alfano. "Interventions and countermeasures aimed at enhancing positive emotions may, therefore, be critical in reducing psychological risk in extreme settings."
The findings are published in
Acta Astronautica.
Reader Comments
File this under "sitting in a comfy chair can really rest your legs".
Found details of this experiment instead ... Does it reflect of modern society and the prospective joys of UBI and electronic money?
The Mouse "Utopia" Experiment That Turned Into An Apocalypse - [Link] Sounds like our society has just reached the 2,200 equivalent of the mice population
So the conclusion I got from this is that any man made enclosed ideal society will not work. The only people who were better off, were the people conducting the experiment. I don't know, the whole experiment reminds of TPTB push for the NWO utopian society, where we are the mice and TPTB are the experimenters.
Reflecting on the above experiment, Incels, the Trans movement and mass abortions came to mind as our equivalent problems to the withdrawn men, the preening "beautiful ones" and "mothers would abandon their young or merely just forget about them entirely"
Do Polar bears 🐻❄️ 🐻❄️ bears live on the moon 🌙, no.
Do Polar bears 🐻❄️ 🐻❄ live in on Antarctica 😱 , no.
Why? Because both places are too remote, cold and hostile.
Mental health issues, you'd need to be verging on being Lady Gaga 🤪 to entertain going to these places in the first place.
Implying causality from such observations is pseudo-scientific.
Long periods of 'normal' life on present day earth can lead to declining mental health.
Particularly if you press a lot of fact- and information-filled idle buttons on your mobile device, steal a lot of things and then gab about how clever, scientific (and monumentally adaptive to change) we've all become.
Long periods of moral decay and persistent, guided psychosis.
Long periods.
Very long periods.
Quite long, in fact.
ned,
out
I would say we need a new surge in scientific productivity.
More lies to cover the current decay.
More idle buttons to enhance our knowledge of the Universe.
Happy New Year!
ned,
OUT
The vast amount of research on PEMF and peoples health is illuminating when considering the potential opposite of Being outside the field of the earth.. Large amounts of new information's is being brought forth regularly on space weather and its effects on our field strength which can be detrimental to health in all of us. I encourage all to take the 30 day suspiciousobservers YouTube channel. AS a scientist i was amazed on how much i was ig--- norant of when i began watching after a friend gave me the challenge. Our current state of the world can be at least in part be explained by wide spread disease as spreading disease is normally inhibited by electromagnetic charge to the cells. As our field strength decays into the reversal of the poles its only going to get worse.; rather then calling out theses ideas just take the challenge for intellectual curiosity and see if you agree. I receive nothing for this suggestion. I found it fascinating
SOTT too, as you say. Welcome!
RC
I wouldn't even say that "ignorance" is restricted to the sciences, it applies to most things in life
People, especially the intellectual class, are conditioned to believe that absolute knowledge of a dogma or a narrative is the opposite to ignorance - but when that dogma is restricted to such narrow parameters or that narrative is so dedicated to a specific agenda, then should we really put such knowledge above all other forms of knowledge?
RC