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For Mental Health Boost: Take Charge Of Your Personal Story
WBUR Radio: I have a friend who, from my perspective, has a great life: fabulous job, cool wife, close family. Still, this guy sees himself as perpetually at the mercy of life’s twists and turns. When work is hard, he feels like “a failure.” When his relationship gets complicated, he becomes “unloveable.” I’ve always wondered why he perceives such ugliness looking into the mirror. Well, it appears that the stories he — that we all — tell ourselves about our lives have a huge impact on our mental health.
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Which Direction Now? Just Ask the North-Facing Map in Your Head
You’re driving from work to pick up your kids at school. The drive is familiar; you’ve done it almost every day for years. But how do you know in which direction the school is from your home? Landmarks? The sun? Animal instinct? Now, a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, yields an alternative answer that surprised even its authors, Julia Frankenstein, Betty J. Mohler, Heinrich H. Bülthoff, and Tobias Meilinger, who collaborated at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, in Tübingen, Germany.
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Infants Possess Intermingled Senses
Scientific American: What if every visit to the museum was the equivalent of spending time at the philharmonic? For painter Wassily Kandinsky, that was the experience of painting: colors triggered sounds. Now a study from the University of California, San Diego, suggests that we are all born synesthetes like Kandinsky, with senses so joined that stimulating one reliably stimulates another. The work, published in the August issue of Psychological Science, has become the first experimental confirmation of the infant-synesthesia hypothesis—which has existed, unproved, for almost 20 years. Read the full story: Scientific American
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The surprising upside to hitting hard times
Today Show: It may be hard to look on the bright side when you’re mid-divorce or post-pink slip. But traumatic life events can actually benefit you in the long run, according to a new research review. Compared with people whose lives have been a cakewalk, you’re tougher if you’ve faced a few challenges, points out the study in Current Directions in Psychological Science. This resilience changes your body and mind so you’re less likely to be overwhelmed by the next stressful situation, says study author Mark D. Seery, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University at Buffalo.
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Writing the Pounds Away the Right Way
Shape Magazine: We all know that tracking your food and workouts is proven to help with weight loss , but what about journaling what's important to you? Can the simple act of writing down what matters to you most in life help you to live a healthier life? Values and weight may not seem related but they might just be, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study looked at 45 women with a body mass index (BMI) of 23 or higher, with a little more of half of them considered overweight or obese.
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Solving crosswords may come down to the subconscious mind
The Washington Post: Tackling a crossword can crowd the tip of your tongue. You know that you know the answers to 3 Down and 5 Across, but the words just won’t come out. Then, when you’ve given up and moved on to another clue, comes blessed relief. The elusive answer suddenly occurs to you, crystal clear. The processes leading to that flash of insight can illuminate many of the mind’s curious characteristics. Crosswords can reflect the nature of intuition, hint at the way we retrieve words from our memory and reveal a surprising connection between puzzle-solving and our ability to recognize a human face.
