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Heart Rates and Step Counts: A Novel Approach to Eating Disorder Care
Podcast: In this episode, Under the Cortex explores how commonly used technology, such as heart rate monitors and step counters, can be used to understand binge-eating episodes.
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Exposure Therapy Challenges Patient Expectations
Exposure therapy can help patients conquer their fears, but it isn’t effective for everyone. Researchers are exploring how this powerful intervention works and how it could benefit a wider range of patients.
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A Winning Mix: High Standards, High Support
When Emma Hayes, the U.S. women’s national soccer team coach, kept the starters in the lineup over a grueling stretch of successive 90-minute Olympic soccer games in France, murmurs rose that the team was on its way to an exit, ousted by exhaustion. ... How we perceive discomfort and negative emotions affects our experience of them. Emotions, whether pleasant or unpleasant, typically last seconds to minutes, says Emily Willroth, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
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Facing the Holidays Without Family Ties or the Romantic Partner of Your Dreams?
While the holiday season is often a time rich with cheer, sentiment, love and family connections, it can also be a painful reminder of what once was or what many other people have but you don’t. ... In such a transition, there’s no requirement to have the holidays look or feel the same as they always have, said Dr. Adam Brown, clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at The New School for Social Research in New York.
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This 1 Tiny To-Do Can Boost Your Happiness Today
When a task isn’t urgent, it’s easy to keep procrastinating. Scheduling a doctor’s appointment or dusting your bookshelf can end up sitting on a to-do list for days, even weeks, despite taking only a few minutes to complete. ... Procrastinating on small responsibilities doesn’t mean you’re lazy, says Joseph Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University in Chicago and the author of “Still Procrastinating: The No-Regrets Guide to Getting it Done.” People are wired to avoid unpleasant experiences. “We are good at putting off things that we think could be aversive,” Ferrari says.
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Imagine a Drug That Feels Like Tylenol and Works Like OxyContin
Doctors have long taken for granted a devil’s bargain: Relieving intense pain, such as that caused by surgery and traumatic injury, risks inducing the sort of pleasure that could leave patients addicted. Opioids are among the most powerful, if not the most powerful, pain medications ever known, but for many years they have been a source of staggering morbidity and mortality. ... Neuroscientists I spoke with who were not involved in the study told me that the findings, if confirmed in future research, have the potential to meaningfully change pain medicine. Eric J.
