Science of the SpiritS


Bug

My husband convinced me I was insane

Carrie Borzillo
Dame Magazine
Thu, 19 Mar 2015 18:54 UTC
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Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in "Gaslight"
The writer didn't know what "gaslighting" was, until it happened to her. Here's how a loved one's lies and manipulation can make you believe you are crazy—and potentially drive you to the brink.

An envelope arrived at my house. My heart sank—I just knew what I was about to see: photos of one of my rock-star husband's groupies. I'd suspected for some time that something was up between the two of them. I tried to believe him when he insisted he was faithful. But, c'mon now, what constantly touring musician didn't indulge in extramarital affairs?

Naturally, I opened the package to find photos that indicated she'd spent five days with my husband. When I confronted him—and this wasn't the first time I had—he'd insisted he only saw her once, at a show.
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Hourglass

The art of developing patience

Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.
PsychCentral
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 00:00 UTC
patience
Many of us have a problem with patience. That is, we lack it. We might be impatient in all areas of our lives. Or we might get impatient in certain situations.

We might get impatient while waiting in line at the store, or sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Or waiting for an email to arrive in our inbox. Or hearing back from a potential employer.

Of course, the pace of our world doesn't help with cultivating patience. Our society's tempo is rapid-fire. We press "send" on an email, and it works in seconds (and how annoyed do you get if it takes a few seconds longer to actually send?). Our food comes with a time guarantee, or it's free.

We're able to walk into a grocery store, walk through any aisle and grab exactly what we need (without waiting hours in line only to find that the item sold out hours ago).

You probably know that being impatient isn't helpful or healthy. When we try to speed things up, we only get worked up and stress ourselves out. Which affects everything from ruining a good meal to pushing people away, said Casey Radle, LPC, a therapist who specializes in anxiety, depression and self-esteem at Eddins Counseling Group in Houston, Texas.
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Clock

Study finds depression distorts people's perception of time

Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 19:29 UTC
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© Likehacker.com
Most people experience differences in how time is perceived, with or without depression.

For example, 10 minutes in the dentist's waiting-room can seem like an hour.

While an enjoyable conversation with a good friend can pass in the blink of an eye.

What a new study finds, though, is that depressed people have a general feeling that time is passing more slowly, or even that it has stopped.

Dr. Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel, one of the study's authors, said:
"Psychiatrists and psychologists in hospitals and private practices repeatedly report that depressed patients feel that time only creeps forward slowly or is passing in slow motion.

The results of our analysis confirm that this is indeed the case."
The strange part is what happens when people with depression are asked to judge intervals of time.

For example, they are asked to watch a movie and estimate its length.

Or they are asked to press a button after five seconds has passed.

Comment: See also:

Distortion of time perception from emotions offset by sense of control

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Hearts

How the touch of others makes us who we are

Josh Richardon
Prevent Disease
Fri, 20 Mar 2015 17:26 UTC
group hug
© colormetwentysomthing
Not only does touch seem to signal trust and cooperation, it creates them. Our sense of touch does much more than help us navigate the world at our fingertips. It is becoming clear that touching each other plays a fundamental role in our lives. It isn't just a sentimental human indulgence, says Francis McGlone at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. "It is a biological necessity."

Touching gives the world an emotional context. It builds trust and promotes teamwork, wins friends and influences people. But that's not all. Beginning in the womb, it may guide the development of regions in our brain that govern social behaviour. It could even give us our sense of self. The touch of others makes us who we are.

Compared to the other senses, however, touch often gets a raw deal. It receives less attention than sight or hearing, say. And yet the skin -- our touch detector -- is our biggest organ. An average-sized man has some 5 or 6 kilograms of it -- roughly the weight of a bowling ball. As well as regulating our temperature and shielding us from infection and injury, our skin is a communication interface with the outside world. And just as we can lose our sight or hearing, we can go touch-blind.
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Butterfly

Those who achieve goals do so despite their self-doubt

Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.
PsychCentral
Sat, 21 Mar 2015 00:00 UTC
critic
We often assume that in order to achieve our goals, we need to become more confident. We need to work through our deep-seated self-doubts and then take action. Because then we'll be ready. Then we'll be able to achieve what we want to achieve. We'll feel more secure with ourselves. We'll actually believe in ourselves.

While learning ways to be more confident can be valuable, you don't need to put your goals on hold until you do.

In fact, according to Tara Mohr in Playing Big: Find Your Voice, Your Mission, Your Message, "Self-doubt will always be a part of what we each work with as we take steps to play bigger."

Successful people deal with self-doubt all the time. The people who write bestselling books, give brilliant talks, hold high positions and make breakthroughs in all sorts of ways still feel insecure. They still worry they don't measure up.

Comment: The raging inner critic will undermine us and keep us from achieving the things most important to us, unless we learn to talk back and silence the 'monster'. To learn more about self-critical thinking and perfectionism, listen to the interview with Dr. Aleta Edwards on SOTT Talk Radio. Dr. Edwards is the author of the best-selling e-book Fear of the Abyss: Healing the Wounds of Shame and Perfectionism.

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Bulb

It's not always depression

Hilary Jacobs Hendel
New York Times
Tue, 10 Mar 2015 17:33 UTC
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How can it be that a seemingly depressed person, one who shows clinical symptoms, doesn't respond to antidepressants or psychotherapy? Perhaps because the root of his anguish is something else.

Several years ago a patient named Brian was referred to me. He had suffered for years from an intractable depression for which he had been hospitalized. He had been through cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, supportive therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy. He had tried several medication "cocktails," each with a litany of side effects that made them virtually intolerable. They had been ineffective anyway. The next step was electroshock therapy, which Brian did not want.

Comment: Other possible solutions may be journaling and having a supportive network of people that one can feel safe expressing their emotions with.
Writing to Heal
Writing by hand benefits the brain: The lowdown on longhand
Building resilience helps us to recover from life's difficulties
The power of vulnerability
Study: Laughter among friends leads to self-disclosure which helps deepen relationships and create trust

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People 2

Study: Laughter among friends leads to self-disclosure which helps deepen relationships and create trust

Dr Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog
Thu, 19 Mar 2015 17:53 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
When people tell each other something intimate, it deepens the relationship. Laughter encourages people to open up and this is the secret to how to make friends, a new study finds. People in the study were more likely to disclose something personal about themselves after laughing together, although they didn't realise it.

Self-disclosure is usually critical to how to make friends, as the study's authors explain:
"Self-disclosure has long been regarded as critical to relationship development and is typically considered as an exchange, where intimacies are traded as a means of deepening and developing relationships.

Indeed, people tend to like those to whom they disclose as well as those who disclose to them, and disclosure intimacy typically increases as relationships develop."
So the study may explain one way that laughter can help people connect.
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Sherlock

Why liberals are happier than conservatives


PsyBlog
Tue, 17 Mar 2015 19:10 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
While conservative say they are happier, it's liberals who act and look happier, according to a new study.

The research questions the modern myth that conservatives are happier than liberals. The key difference in this study is in how happiness was measured.

Professor Peter Ditto, one of the study's authors, explained:
"If you want to know how happy someone is, one way to do it is to just ask them, and this logic has been relied upon heavily in research on subjective well-being.

But another way to think about it is that happy is as happy does, and looking at happiness-related behavior avoids the issue of someone striving to present him- or herself as a happy person."
Liberals look and sound happier

The researchers analysed huge amounts of data from all sorts of sources. They included millions of words from Congressional records of known conservatives and liberals.
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Info

'Return To Life': How some children have memories of reincarnation

Jake Whitman and Cynthia McFadden
Today
Mon, 16 Mar 2015 13:28 UTC
Ryan_1
© Jake Whitman/TODAY
It's not unusual for little boys to have vivid imaginations, but Ryan's stories were truly legendary.

His mother Cyndi said it all began with horrible nightmares when he was 4 years old. Then when he was 5 years old, he confided in her one evening before bed.

"He said mom, I have something I need to tell you," she told TODAY. "I used to be somebody else."

The preschooler would then talk about "going home" to Hollywood, and would cry for his mother to take him there. His mother said he would tell stories about meeting stars like Rita Hayworth, traveling overseas on lavish vacations, dancing on Broadway, and working for an agency where people would change their names.

She said her son even recalled that the street he lived on had the word "rock" in it.

"His stories were so detailed and they were so extensive, that it just wasn't like a child could have made it up," she said.

Cyndi said she was raised Baptist and had never really thought about reincarnation. So she decided to keep her son's "memories" a secret— even from her own husband.

Privately, she checked out books about Hollywood from the local library, hoping something inside would help her son make sense of his strange memories and help her son cope with his sometimes troubling "memories."

"Then we found the picture, and it changed everything," she said.

Comment:
Reincarnation: Its meaning and consequences

The science behind reincarnation - The research of Dr Jim Tucker

4-year-old girl claims to be reincarnation of shuttle astronaut

Remembrances of Lives Past

3-year-old remembers past life, identifies murderer and location of body

Out of the mouths of babes: Extensive research indicates that reincarnation is real

A mother believes her 4-year-old son is a reincarnated marine

SOTT Talk Radio #63 - Into the supernatural: Interview with parapsychologist Stephen Braude

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Bug

Why does gardening make people feel so good?

Joshua Krause
Ready Nutrition
Tue, 17 Mar 2015 00:07 UTC
gardening
© unknown
Have you ever noticed how satisfying it feels to get your hands dirty in the backyard? Does working in your garden make you feel like everything is right in the world? Perhaps you've chalked it up to the sunshine and the exercise. After all, everyone knows that a good workout and a job well done is great for your self-esteem. But is there more to it then that?

There just might be if science has anything to say about it. As all experienced gardeners know, soil doesn't just consist of dirt and minerals. It is teeming with so much bacteria that it could be considered an ecosystem all by itself. And apparently, some of that bacteria might have an effect on your sense of well-being.

Did you know that there's a natural antidepressant in soil? It's true. Mycobacterium vaccae is the substance under study and has indeed been found to mirror the effect on neurons that drugs like Prozac provide. The bacterium is found in soil and may stimulate serotonin production, which makes you relaxed and happier. Studies were conducted on cancer patients and they reported a better quality of life and less stress.

Comment: Get your hands in the dirt!

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