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Stress, depression may affect cancer survival
CNN: "A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ," John Steinbeck once wrote. Now we are closer to understanding why. A disease like cancer can be a mortal battle, often fraught with overwhelming stress. Given that stress management can be difficult even under ordinary circumstances, elevated feelings of anxiety and depression in cancer patients are certainly understandable. Yet, several recent studies underscore how critically important it is for those fighting illness to learn how to combat stress.
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The Peak Time for Everything
The Wall Street Journal: Could you pack more into each day if you did everything at the optimal time? A growing body of research suggests that paying attention to the body clock, and its effects on energy and alertness, can help pinpoint the different times of day when most of us perform our best at specific tasks, from resolving conflicts to thinking creatively. Most people organize their time around everything but the body's natural rhythms. Workday demands, commuting, social events and kids' schedules frequently dominate—inevitably clashing with the body's circadian rhythms of waking and sleeping.
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What price spying?
Chicago Tribune: Using technology of any kind to keep tabs on older children can improve or damage the parent/child relationship. It depends how you use it, says Patrick Kelly, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. There's a good way to keep tabs on youngsters, and a bad way. The bad way: installing a keyboard tracker to steal your teen's facebook password and check without her knowing, Kelly says. A better way, for those parents who are anxious about online activity, is for parents and kids to agree beforehand that Facebook is allowed if parents have passwords, and the child knows they're monitoring it. Read the whole story: Chicago Tribune
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Inside the Mind of Worry
The New York Times: WE make all sorts of ostensibly conscious and seemingly rational choices when we are aware of a potential risk. We eat organic food, max out on multivitamins and quickly forswear some products (even whole technologies) at the slightest hint of danger. We carry guns and vote for the candidate we think will keep us safe. Yet these choices are far from carefully considered — and, surprisingly often, they contravene reason. What’s more, while our choices about risk invariably feel right when we make them, many of these decisions end up putting us in greater peril.
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Why we get bored
Fox News: Scientists are taking on boredom. No, they aren't working on a cure just yet, but they have written a new definition of boredom and outlined the mental processes behind ennui. The researchers, led by psychological scientist John Eastwood of York University in Ontario, Canada, define boredom as "an aversive state of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity," which springs from failures in one of the brain's attention networks. The findings, detailed in the September issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, may speak to many Americans: In a large survey of high-school students across 26 U.S.
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Detecting the ‘Artful Dodge’
NPR: Henry Kissinger once joked at a press conference: Does anyone have any questions for my answers? If politicians had their way, they might just write their own questions for the press, but, of course, politicians can't write all the questions. So instead, they're coached on the art of question-dodging, taught how to segue from the question they're asked to the question they wish they had been asked and are prepared to answer. Come October, how often will politicians pull that trick in their news conferences and debates? Will they be able to do it without us noticing it? And more importantly, is there a way to prevent this dodging and keep the debates honest?
