Science of the SpiritS


Books

Reducing test anxiety may help prevent more severe problems


Springer
Thu, 08 May 2014 13:05 UTC
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Reducing test anxiety has fewer stigmas, leads to potential prevention benefits.

Showing students how to cope with test anxiety might also help them to handle their built-up angst and fretfulness about other issues. The results of a new study by Carl Weems of the University of New Orleans show that anxiety intervention programs that focus on academic matters fit well into the demands of the school routine, and do not carry the same stigma among youth as general anxiety programs do. The research group was among the first to study the effects of Hurricane Katrina on community mental health and anxiety among youths, and the paper appears in Prevention Science, the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research, published by Springer.

Weems says that anxiety problems are among the most common emotional difficulties youths experience, and are often linked to exposure to disasters. If not addressed these feelings could lead to academic difficulties, the increased risk of developing depressive or anxiety disorders, and substance use problems in adulthood. It is, however, an issue that often falls under the radar in school settings. Therefore Weems and his team turned their attention to teaching students how to handle test anxiety, as such nervousness is one way in which anxieties commonly manifest among school-aged youth.
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Info

Brain zaps can trigger lucid dreams

Bahar Gholipour
Live Science
Sun, 11 May 2014 12:00 UTC
Lucid Dream
© Bruce Rolff/ShutterstockIn lucid dreams, people are aware of the fact that they are dreaming, and can control their dream plot.
Lucid dreams, in which people are aware of and can control their dreams, are rare. But now scientists have found they can induce this weird state of mind in people by zapping their brains with a specific frequency of electricity.

"I never thought this would work," said study researcher Dr. John Allan Hobson, a psychiatrist and longtime sleep researcher at Harvard University. "But it looks like it does."

The results showed that when the inexperienced dreamers were zapped with a current of 40 Hertz, 77 percent of the time these participants reported having what were described as lucid dreams.

"They were really excited," said study researcher Ursula Voss, of J.W. Goethe-University Frankfurt, who designed the experiments.

"The dream reports were short, but long enough for them to report, 'Wow, all of the sudden I knew this was a dream, while I was dreaming.'
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Laptop

Lower rates of depression found in older people who use the internet

Benjamin Plackett
The Connectivist
Thu, 08 May 2014 12:44 UTC
computer use
© unknown
A new study shows that Internet use among older adults correlates with lower depression rates.

It's a gloomy thing to say, but the older we get, the more likely we are to be unhappy.

So called "late-life depression" affects as many as 10 million Americans in their middle age and beyond. While it makes good old common sense that when the fun of a reckless youth is a mere memory, we might be more likely to be depressed, this hasn't stopped scientists in great numbers from studying the higher rate of clinical depression among the elderly. And that's a good thing, because every now and then one these studies points not just to the confirmation of the trend, but to potential means of keeping the blues at bay
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Hearts

7 reasons meditation isn't a waste of time


Times of India
Sun, 11 May 2014 10:30 UTC
Meditation
© Unknown
Think meditation is a waste of time? Here are seven reasons why you are wrong.

Reduces the pain: Certain studies suggest that the pain you experience in your body is suppressed rage. Meditation helps you cool down. Also, though your back or other body areas may be feeling the ache, part of that pain may actually be in your head. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience suggested just 80 minutes of meditation training could cut pain perception nearly in half. In the study, volunteers were given a pain test before and after the meditation training; brain scans using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of pain-reception regions revealed significant changes before and after meditation, too.

Comment: Learn more about Meditation and Its Benefits:

Meditation can help unclutter the mind
10 remarkable ways meditation helps your mind
Brain Scans Reveal Why Meditation Works
Meditation Reduces the Emotional Impact of Pain
Meditative breathing may help manage chronic pain
Finding Right Meditation Technique Key to User Satisfaction
Meditation Improves the Immune System, Research Shows
The fascinating ways meditation transforms your brain - and why it makes you feel better

The Éiriú Eolas Stress Control, Healing and Rejuvenation Program is an form of breathing and meditation techniques designed to be both informative, effective and life changing! Interested in learning more about the numerous benefits of a breathing and meditation program like Éiriú Eolas? Check out the program here and try it today!

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Info

Chimps and humans share similar personality traits

Elizabeth Palermo
Live Science
Sat, 10 May 2014 06:28 UTC
Human Ape
© DreamstimeWhile there are many differences between humans and chimps, it turns out, they share similar personality traits.
Ever heard of a conscientious chimp? An extroverted ape? New research suggests that chimpanzees, man's closest living relatives, have personality traits quite similar to their human cousins.

The study, conducted by researchers at Georgia State University, found that chimpanzees not only possess many of the same personality traits as humans - from agreeableness to extroversion - these traits are structured almost identically in both humans and chimps.

"Our work demonstrates the promise of using chimpanzee models to investigate the neurobiology of personality processes," said Robert Latzman, assistant professor of psychology at Georgia State University, who led the research team.

"We know that these processes are associated with a variety of emotional health outcomes. We're excited to continue investigating the links."

To analyze chimp personalities, researchers used a common tool called the Chimpanzee Personality Questionnaire. Think of it as a Myers-Briggs test for chimps. Caregivers are asked to rate chimps in 43 categories based on their observations of each animal's daily behavior. Is the chimp excitable? Does it demonstrate impulsive tendencies? Is it playful or timid?
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Bulb

Sophisticated analysis and mental calculation: Brain scans link concern for justice with reason, not emotion

Jann Ingmire
University of Chicago
Mon, 24 Mar 2014 15:32 UTC
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Neuroscience research demonstrates that the brain regions underpinning moral judgment share resources with circuits controlling other capacities such as emotional saliency, mental state understanding and decision-making.
People who care about justice are swayed more by reason than emotion, according to new brain scan research from the Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.

Psychologists have found that some individuals react more strongly than others to situations that invoke a sense of justice - for example, seeing a person being treated unfairly or mercifully. The new study used brain scans to analyze the thought processes of people with high "justice sensitivity."

"We were interested to examine how individual differences about justice and fairness are represented in the brain to better understand the contribution of emotion and cognition in moral judgment," explained lead author Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry.
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Arrow Up

What would a psychopath do? Here are five things

Rob Kall
OpedNews
Wed, 07 May 2014 16:36 UTC
Ayn Rand
© DonkeyHoteyAyn Rand

Psychopaths are predators without empathy. They don't care. Psychopaths have a pattern of meanness and manipulation.

They use their prodigious charisma, boldness and ability to stay calm in situations that would stress out or upset most people to manipulate, dominate, exploit and get over on their victims.

Psychopaths engage in predatory behavior for fun, because it gives their lives meaning-- they feel superior, which feeds into the narcissistic personality disorder that most psychopaths comorbidly experience.

Psychopaths win at all costs. Well, the successful ones win doing anything that they can get away with. And psychopaths tend to be loners, or to get into profoundly dysfunctional, abusive relationships. There are psychologists who specialize in helping victims of psychopathic relationships.

So, reading the rantings of one psychopath, I started wondering: if psychopaths could change the rules to their benefit, what would they do?

Here are a few ways that you might expect psychopaths to try to shape the culture, the narrative and the rules.
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Compass

War: The social consequence of child abuse

Alice Miller, PhD
Alice-Miller.com
Wed, 07 May 1997 16:17 UTC
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© PCADV.org
Since adolescence I have always wondered why people take pleasure in humiliating others. Clearly the fact that some people are sensitive to the suffering of others proves that the destructive urge is not a universal aspect of human nature. So why do some tend to solve their problems by violence while others don't?

Philosophy failed to answer my question, and the Freudian theory of the death wish has never convinced me. It was only by closely examining the childhood histories of murderers, especially mass murderers, that I began to comprehend the roots of good and evil: not in the genes, as commonly believed, but often in the earliest days of life. Today, it is inconceivable to me that a child who comes into the world among attentive, loving and protective parents could become a predatory monster. And in the childhood of the murderers who later became dictators, I have always found a nightmarish horror, a record of continual lies and humiliation, which upon the attainment of adulthood, impelled them to acts of merciless revenge on society. These vengeful acts were always garbed in hypocritical ideologies, purporting that the dictator's exclusive and overriding wish was the happiness of his people. In this way, he unconsciously emulated his own parents who, in earlier days, had also insisted that their blows were inflicted on the child for his own good. This belief was extremely widespread a century ago, particularly in Germany.
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Hourglass

Top five regrets of the dying

Susie Steiner
The Guardian
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:40 UTC
regrets of the dying
© Montgomery Martin/AlamyA palliative nurse has recorded the top five regrets of the dying.
A nurse has recorded the most common regrets of the dying, and among the top ones is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'. What would your biggest regret be if this was your last day of life?

There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'.

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

Comment: Read Gabor Maté's When the Body Says No, for a thorough understanding on the societal and familial programming that prevents us from living authentic lives, and how we can learn to be true to ourselves and the people close to our hearts.

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Life Preserver

Behavioural training reduces inflammation

Heidi Ledford
Nature
Mon, 05 May 2014 09:59 UTC
Research subjects suppress immune responses using physical conditioning.
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The effectiveness of meditation and other techniques helps explicate links between the immune and nervous systems.
Dutch celebrity daredevil Wim Hof has endured lengthy ice-water baths, hiked to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts and made his mark in Guinness World Records with his ability to withstand cold. Now he has made a mark on science as well.

Researchers have used Hof's methods of mental and physical conditioning to train 12 volunteers to fend off inflammation.

The results, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1, suggest that people can learn to modulate their immune responses - a finding that has raised hopes for patients who have chronic inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

Comment: Just do one session of Éiriú Eolas and you'll find out the impact of breathing exercises on our behavior and physiology: eebreathe.com

See also When the Body Says No: Caring for ourselves while caring for others - Dr. Gabor Maté

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