Science of the SpiritS


Hearts

Successful dying: researchers define the elements of a 'good death'

University of California - San Diego
eurekalert.org
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:06 UTC
Holding hands
© UCLan
For most people, the culmination of a good life is a "good death," though what that means exactly is a matter of considerable consternation. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine surveyed published, English-language, peer-reviewed reports of qualitative and quantitative studies defining a "good death," ultimately identifying 11 core themes associated with dying well.

The findings are published in the April 2016 issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

The research team, headed by senior author Dilip Jeste, MD, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences and director of the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at UC San Diego School of Medicine, focused on three groups of stakeholders: patients, family members (before or during bereavement) and health care providers.

"This is the first time that data from all of the involved parties have been put together," said Jeste, who is also associate dean for healthy aging and senior care at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "Death is obviously a controversial topic. People don't like to talk about it in detail, but we should. It's important to speak honestly and transparently about what kind of death each of us would prefer."

The literature search culled through 32 qualifying studies. It identified 11 core themes of good death: preferences for a specific dying process, pain-free status, religiosity/spirituality, emotional well-being, life completion, treatment preferences, dignity, family, quality of life, relationship with the health care provider and "other."
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Sun

The surprising ways weather affects our mood and behavior

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
child sunny weather, mood
Weather can be sunny, stormy, dreary or unpredictable but then so, too, can your mood. The way you feel on any given day may actually be intricately tied to the weather forecast in ways science is only beginning to understand.

Many people are now aware that spending time outdoors on a sunny day, and allowing the sun to shine on your bare skin, is necessary for your body to produce vitamin D, which also plays a role in serotonin production.

Serotonin, the brain hormone associated with mood elevation, rises with exposure to bright light and falls with decreased sun exposure. This is one reason why bright-light therapy is so effective for treating people with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which is sometimes referred to as 'winter depression.'

This is only the tip of the iceberg, however. A sunny day can make you feel inexplicably happy, but only if you can frolic outdoors. People who are stuck indoors on a sunny day may feel their mood plummet, and the weather also has significant (and often subconscious) effects on behavior and more.
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Family

Birds of a feather do flock together, according to latest study


Science Daily
Tue, 29 Mar 2016 18:31 UTC
group dynamics
© bst2012 / FotoliaA new study on group dynamics found that individuals were likely to join groups containing members with similar physical traits -- including levels of attractiveness. The researchers also discovered that attractive women were the most likely to be placed in the physical center of social groups.
New psychology research led out of New Zealand's University of Otago is backing up the old saying that "birds of a feather flock together." The findings emerged after researchers used high-definition video cameras on the roof of a large covered stadium to track and analyze how strangers formed groups.

They found that individuals were likely to join groups containing members with similar physical traits -- including levels of attractiveness. The researchers also discovered that attractive women were the most likely to be placed in the physical center of social groups.

These are the first findings from a unique social psychology experiment using Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin, New Zealand as a giant laboratory. The study appears in the journal PLOS ONE and involved researchers at the University of Otago; the University of Oxford, UK; the University of Maryland, USA; and Dunedin company Animation Research Ltd (ARL).

Comment: Opposites don't attract: We're hard-wired to seek out similarity in relationships

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TV

Television and the social and intellectual dumbing-down of young children

Phillip Schneider
Waking Times
Mon, 28 Mar 2016 17:50 UTC
baby watching tv
It is common for parents to feel that their children are spending too much time in front of the television set. According to a Canadian study, children who watch an excessive amount of television exhibit a multitude of negative side effects including poor language and social skills, and increased bullying.

The 2013 study was set out to determine whether or not viewing television at 29 months (about 2.5 years) was associated with school performance at 65 months (about 5.5 years).

The study, which was conducted on 991 girls and 1,006 boys with parent and teacher reported data, came to this conclusion:
"Increases in total time watching television at 29 months were associated with subsequent decreases in vocabulary and math skills, classroom engagement (which is largely determined by attention skills), victimization by classmates, and physical prowess at kindergarten. These prospective associations, independent of key potential co-founders, suggest the need for better parental awareness and compliance with existing viewing recommendations put forth by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)."

Comment: This information should be common sense, but alas....

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Family

The way we move our bodies is a signature of our inherent personality traits

Carolyn Gregoire
Huffington Post
Thu, 24 Mar 2016 05:04 UTC
body movement research
© Patrick Aventurier via Getty Images Infrared cameras are used to study body movements at Euromov research center at Montpellier University in France. A new study suggests that people who display similar behavioral characteristics tend to move their bodies in the same way.
The way we move can offer a surprising level of insight into our personalities, according to new research.

A team of European researchers recently found that each of us has an "individual motor signature" — and this signature forms a blueprint for mapping out subtle differences in our movements compared to others, Dr. Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova, a professor of mathematics for health care at the University of Exeter in England and a co-author of the research, told The Huffington Post.

While the mechanics of human movement on a broad level has been well-studied, scientists have paid less attention to individual differences in movement, until now.

"We show that different individuals have different motor signatures," she said. "In other words, individuals could be classified based on the way they move."

Namely, the extent to which your movements are similar to another person's can determine how easily you can coordinate with that person and how similar your behaviors are.
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Quenelle

Grammar Nazi, friend or foe? Why typos and spelling mistakes bug people

Robert Cormack
linkedin
Mon, 28 Mar 2016 16:06 UTC
grammar nazis
John F. Kennedy was a notoriously bad speller. His wife, Jackie, was a very good speller, and frequently pointed out his mistakes, something First Ladies are supposed to do when their husbands show signs of illiteracy.

John's tawdry writing was a constant source of embarrassment for Jackie. She was a stickler, he wasn't. They argued a lot about spelling and typos which, apparently, drove Kennedy into the arms of other notoriously bad spellers like Marilyn Monroe.

It's interesting that all of Monroe's lovers were bad spellers (except Arthur Miller, who was pretty good, but as Monroe's maid revealed, Miller spent more time writing than giving Marilyn the business, whereas, Kennedy spent more time giving Marilyn the business than writing).

Martha Gellhorn, third wife of Ernest Hemingway, wasn't crazy about Ernie's spelling and typos, either. She called him "Bug" which might suggest his spelling 'bugged' her.

Hemingway wasn't as bad as Kennedy, but he was still pretty sloppy. Editors frequently chastised him for his typos and spelling mistakes. He responded by telling them that's what they were paid to do.
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Smiley

Can happiness affect your cellular structure?

Dr. Marianna Pochelli
Prevent Disease
Fri, 25 Mar 2016 16:02 UTC
happiness
There is an irrefutable argument in favor of happiness: Happiness and good health go hand-in-hand and scientific studies have been finding that happiness can make our hearts healthier, our immune systems stronger, and our lives longer through enhancements of our cellular structure.

Dr Derek Cox, Director of Public Health at Dumfries and Galloway NHS, suspects that for decades health professionals have been missing a big trick in improving the health of the nation.

"We've spent years saying that giving up smoking could be the single most important thing that we could do for the health of the nation.

"And yet there is mounting evidence that happiness might be at least as powerful a predictor, if not a more powerful predictor than some of the other lifestyle factors that we talk about in terms of cigarette smoking, diet, physical activity and those kind of things."

The science of happiness is increasingly suggesting a link between happiness and health.

Comment: Our genes respond positively to the right kind of happiness

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Life Preserver

Study shows people are capable of changing multiple dimensions of their life simultaneously


Science Daily
Fri, 25 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
yoga
© puhhha / FotoliaUCSB students involved in a six-week study on multifaceted life changes did yoga on campus
Let's say you've decided to make some changes in your life. You're out of shape, your mind wanders, your self-esteem is wavering, and you have no idea what you just read. So you decide to focus on one thing -- losing weight, maybe -- and tackle the other issues later. You don't want to take on too much at once, right?

A new paper by researchers at UC Santa Barbara, however, suggests you're selling yourself short. "Pushing the Limits: Cognitive, Affective & Neural Plasticity Revealed by an Intensive Multifaceted Intervention," published this week in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, strongly suggests that we have seriously underestimated our ability to change our lives for the better.

Michael Mrazek, director of research at UCSB's Center for Mindfulness & Human Potential and lead author of the paper, said the six-week study from which the paper is drawn demonstrates that simultaneous, significant improvement across a broad range of mental and physical functions is possible. Participants in the intervention all showed dramatic improvements in more than a dozen different outcomes, including strength, endurance, flexibility, working memory, standardized test performance, focus, mood, self-esteem, mindfulness and life satisfaction.
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Laptop

New study finds frequent social media use linked to depression

Kayleigh Lewis
The Independent
Fri, 25 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
social media depression
© Sean Gallup/Getty Images Study highlights emotional risks associated with frequent social media use
The more time young adults spend on social media, the more likely they are to become depressed, a study has found.

Of the 19 to 32-year-olds who took part in the research, those who checked social media most frequently throughout the week were 2.7 times more likely to develop depression than those who checked least often.

The 1,787 US participants used social media for an average 61 minutes every day, visiting accounts 30 times per week. Of them a quarter were found to have high indicators of depression.

Dr Brian Primack, the director of Pitt's Centre for Research on Media, Technology and Health, led the study, and told The Independent: "It is important to explain that, because this was a cross-sectional study, directionality is not clear from these results.

"One strong possibility is that people who are already having depressive symptoms start to use social media more, perhaps because they do not feel the energy or drive to engage in as many direct social relationships."

Comment: Perhaps those frequent users of social media who become depressed are using technology as their primary way to connect with others. Researchers have found that all forms of socialisation aren't equal. Phone calls and digital communication, with friends or family members, do not have the same power as face-to-face social interactions in helping to stave off depression.

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Heart - Black

Study of thinking patterns and religious beliefs indicates non-believers report same personality traits as psychopaths

Susan Scutti
Medical Daily
Wed, 23 Mar 2016 16:03 UTC
psychopathy traits empathy
© Ryan McGuireNon-believers report higher levels of self-centered impulsivity and coldheartedness than their religious peers.
The neurons in your brain work in coordinated networks, with some mental webs enabling critical thinking, others encouraging empathy. Given a science problem, then, the brain's analytical network will activate as it simultaneously suppresses the social network. A new study, presented as a series of linked experiments, explores this fundamental conflict between thinking and feeling. The more empathetic you are, the more likely you will be religious, the researchers discovered, while on the flip side, if you tend to be analytic, you are more likely to find the concept of a higher power difficult to swallow.

"Analytic thinking and moral concern represent two cognitive modes which our neural architecture causes to be in competition with each other," conclude the Case Western Reserve University and Babson College researchers.


Comment: This idea of 'competing' neural networks makes it appear as an either/or situation. It's not (as the authors point out at the very end of this article). At the level of 'statistically average people', the trends may be real, but it is very possible to be both analytical and empathic.


However, their results also suggest a darker side to our thinking brains. In terms of a general personality profile, the non-religious are aligned with the psychopaths, reporting higher levels of self-centered impulsivity and coldheartedness than their faithful peers.


Comment: The authors of the study specify: "religious and spiritual beliefs".


Comment: There's an important point left unaddressed in the above study: while psychopaths may lack any real spirituality, they are probably just as likely to be found in religious communities. In fact, they may even be over-represented in certain groups, because leadership positions in religious organizations provide easy access to prey. Their religious beliefs and piety are simply a mask of sanity; they are wolves in sheep's clothing, surrounded by sheep. Just look at the Catholic Church. As is usually the case with psychological studies like this, they oversimplify matters, use vague definitions for what are really complex phenomena, and generally don't tell much. Studies of the following might help get closer to the heart of the matter:
  • Are psychopaths over-represented in religious leadership positions?
  • Are they under-represented in non-leadership positions?
  • Do psychopaths who are members of religious groups self-report that they are believers? Or do they tend to deny "belief" in an anonymous setting?
That said, it's probably true that psychopaths tend to be less "spiritual" than non-psychopaths. From Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology:
Individuals with the psychopathy referred to herein are virtually unfamiliar with the enduring emotions of love for another person, particularly the marriage partner; it constitutes a fairytale from that "other" human world. Love, for the psychopath, is an ephemeral phenomenon aimed at sexual adventure. Many psychopathic Don Juans are able to play the lover's role well enough for their partners to accept it in good faith. After the wedding, feelings which really never existed are replaced by egoism, egotism, and hedonism. Religion, which teaches love for one's neighbor, also strikes them as a similar fairytale good only for children and those different "others".
With the following caveat, regarding those who eventually align with a pathocratic system:
They came from all social groups, including aristocratic and fervently religious families, and caused a break in our student solidarity to the order of some 6%.


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