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Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
Last month, Britain appointed its first “minister for loneliness,” who is charged with tackling what Prime Minister Theresa May called the “sad reality of modern life.” Public-health leaders immediately praised the idea — and for good reason. In recent decades, researchers have discovered that loneliness left untreated is not just psychically painful; it also can have serious medical consequences. Rigorous epidemiological studies have linked loneliness and social isolation to heart disease, cancer, depression, diabetes and suicide.
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Cognitive Ability and Vulnerability to Fake News
“Fake news” is Donald Trump’s favorite catchphrase. Since the election, it has appeared in some 180 tweets by the President, decrying everything from accusations of sexual assault against him to the Russian collusion investigation to reports that he watches up to eight hours of television a day. Trump may just use “fake news” as a rhetorical device to discredit stories he doesn’t like, but there is evidence that real fake news is a serious problem. As one alarming example, an analysis by the internet media company Buzzfeed revealed that during the final three months of the 2016 U.S.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of articles exploring neuropsychological assessment, gender differences in stress reactivity and its relationship with depression, and social-support figures and fear extinction.
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The Surprising Secret to Breaking Through a Mental Block, According to Science
When you're wrestling with a tough decision or you're trying to solve a hard problem, you might assume you just need to think harder. But concentrating harder won't force a 'eureka moment' when you're experiencing a mental block. Instead, your best option might be to step away from your project and busy yourself with another task. Clean the house, pay some bills, or take a nap and you just might experience a spark of genius as the solution seems to magically come to you. --- In a 2010 study published in Psychological Science, researchers examined how an incubation period affects choices.
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Do This One Simple Thing to Fall Asleep Faster
If you lie awake at night because your mind won’t stop racing, taking five minutes before bed to write out a to-do list for the next day might help you get more shuteye. In a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, people who wrote down future tasks they wanted to accomplish fell asleep faster than those who wrote about things they’d done that day. Research has shown that writing down worries, in general, can reduce stress levels and help people perform tasks more efficiently. But psychologists at Baylor University wanted to see if writing down future-focused thoughts, specifically, could help people sleep.
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Darker Skies, Darker Behaviors
Air pollution costs the world approximately $5 trillion a year, or about 7 percent of global GDP, according to the World Bank. This cost is measured in a range of metrics, including lives lost and declines in health and productivity. Such pollution can be seen, felt, smelled, and even tasted. It stings and blurs the eyes, blackens the lungs, and shortens the breath. Even in the United States, about 142 million Americans still reside in counties with dangerously polluted air. Yet air pollution affects more than just our health and our natural environment: Our research shows that air pollution also has a moral cost.
