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Improving Memory for Specific Events Can Alleviate Symptoms of Depression
Hear the word "party" and memories of your 8th birthday sleepover or the big bash you attended last New Year’s may come rushing to mind. But it’s exactly these kinds of memories, embedded in a specific place and time, that people with depression have difficulty recalling. Research has shown that people who suffer from, or are at risk of, depression have difficulty tapping into specific memories from their own past, an impairment that affects their ability to solve problems and leads them to focus on feelings of distress.
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Can We Learn To Forget Our Memories?
NPR: Around 10 years ago, Malcolm MacLeod got interested in forgetting. For most people, the tendency to forget is something we spend our time cursing. Where are my keys? What am I looking for in the refrigerator again? What is that woman's name? But MacLeod, who works as a memory researcher at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, took a radically different view of forgetting. He wanted to know if it might be possible for people to do it better, to improve their ability to forget, specifically, their ability to intentionally forget their own personal memories.
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Door to Door in the Heartland, Preaching Healthy Living
The New York Times: Like a missionary, Michael Bailey, a county health worker, spends his days driving his beat-up Nissan around this city’s poorest neighborhood, spreading the word in barber shops and convenience stores about the benefits of healthy diet and exercise. “Look at the kids,” he said. “Overweight, huffing and wheezing. Their lives will be miserable if this doesn’t change.” Mr. Bailey believes that food is slowly killing his community here, and signing people up for a program to prevent heart disease is his way of saving souls. Local governments across the country are creating dozens of such experiments with money from the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act.
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Mindless tasks boost creative potential
The Globe and Mail: “Do you have a numbingly dull job, one so monotonous that you frequently find your mind wandering?” asks Pacific Standard magazine. “Well, congratulations: Without realizing it, you have boosted your creative potential. Mindless tasks that allow our thoughts to roam can be catalysts for innovation. That’s the conclusion of a research team led by Benjamin Baird and Jonathan Schooler of the University of California, Santa Barbara’s META Lab (which focuses on Memory, Emotion, Thought and Awareness). Their research, published in the journal Psychological Science, suggests putting a difficult problem in the back of your mind won’t, by itself, lead to creative thinking.
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Bang? Zeg wat je voelt. (Afraid? Say what you feel)
De Telegraaf: Dat blijkt uit een nieuwe studie van UCLA. Psychologen vroegen 88 vrijwilligers met angst voor spinnen, een tarantula in de buitenlucht onder ogen te komen. De vrijwilligers moesten stapje voor stapje dichterbij komen en uiteindelijk de spin aanraken. Gevoel omschrijven De proefpersonen werden vervolgens verdeeld in vier groepen en moesten in een kamer gaan zitten voor een bak met daarin een tarantula. De mensen uit de eerste groep beschreven hun emoties bij het zien van de spin. Bijvoorbeeld door te zeggen: ‘Ik ben bang voor die lelijke angstaanjagende harige spin’. Gevoelens onderdrukken De tweede groep moest hun gevoelens onderdrukken en de ervaring veranderen.
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Yes We Can Go Forward and Believe in America! When did US campaign slogans become self-help mantras?
New Statesman: Something's happened to US campaign slogans. Something affirmative. Inspiring. Motivational. Yes! They've become self-help mantras. Romney has his rather hectoring “Believe in America” and Obama the grammatically pointed “Forward.” – the much discussed full stop signifying, apparently, a mind set on its course. Last election, of course, we had the rabble-rousing chant “Yes, we can”. The tone now borrows from life coaches where it once borrowed from the advertising industry (“I like Ike”, “Keep cool and keep Coolidge”), and this time it’s much harder to oppose. Agreeing is not only right – it’s healthy!
