Category: Anxiety

Could the famous ‘10,000 hours’ rule be wrong?

For elite athletes, practice only accounts for 1% of the difference in how they perform, new research finds.

Outside sports, practice may have surprisingly little to do with performance.

It flies in the face of the old axiom that ‘practice makes perfect’.

The researchers also found that it didn’t matter how early in life the athletes started their sport.

Dr Brooke Macnamara, lead author of the study, said:

“While practice is necessary for elite athletes to reach a high level of competition, after a certain point, the amount of practice essentially stops differentiating who makes it far and who makes it to the very top.”

The results come from an analysis of 52 separate studies on the relationships between performance and practice.

Practice mattered more at levels below the elite, but still not as much as many might imagine.

Across all skill-levels studied, practice accounted for 18% of the difference in performance.

Dr Macnamara said:

“Human performance is incredibly complex.

Multiple factors need to be considered, only one of which is practice.”

The idea that 10,000 hours of practice is enough to create an expert or elite athlete could be mistaken, Dr Macnamara thinks:

“The concept of 10,000 hours taps into the American ideal of hard work and dedication leading naturally to excellence.

But it does not account for the inherent differences across people and across sports.”

Early specialisation in one particular sport was not an advantage, the researchers found.

“People and parents who buy into the 10,000-hour rule can push early specialization in a sport, leading to physical or mental burnout before it’s clear that a child even has a penchant for that sport.”

Other factors thought to be important over and above practice include:

• performance anxiety,
• working memory,
• confidence,
• fast-twitch muscles,
• and maximum blood-oxygenation.

Dr Macnamara said:

“As we look at multiple factors, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to–with 100 percent certainty–predict someone’s performance in any activity, not just sports.

But we can do better than we’re doing now.”

The study was published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science (Macnamara et al., 2016).

Image credit: Justin Smith

Workaholics are two or three times more likely to suffer these psychiatric disorders.

People who are workaholics are also more likely to experience other psychiatric disorders, new research finds.

Workaholism often co-occurs with OCD, ADHD, depression and anxiety.

The conclusions come from a very large study of 16,426 adults in Norway.

Dr Cecilie Schou Andreassen, the study’s first author, said:

“Workaholics scored higher on all the psychiatric symptoms than non-workaholics.

Thus, taking work to the extreme may be a sign of deeper psychological or emotional issues.

Whether this reflects overlapping genetic vulnerabilities, disorders leading to workaholism or, conversely, workaholism causing such disorders, remain uncertain.”

7 signs of workaholism

Rate of these on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (always).

• You think of how you can free up more time to work.
• You spend much more time working than initially intended.
• You work in order to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness or depression.
• You have been told by others to cut down on work without listening to them.
• You become stressed if you are prohibited from working.
• You deprioritize hobbies, leisure activities, and/or exercise because of your work.
• You work so much that it has negatively influenced your health.

Scoring a 4 (often) or 5 (always) on four or more of these statements indicates a workaholic.

Some of the highlights of the findings include:

• 32.7 per cent met ADHD criteria (12.7 per cent among non-workaholics).
• 25.6 per cent OCD criteria (8.7 per cent among non-workaholics).
• 33.8 per cent met anxiety criteria (11.9 per cent among non-workaholics).
• 8.9 per cent met depression criteria (2.6 per cent among non-workaholics).

Dr Andreassen concluded:

“In wait for more research, physicians should not take for granted that a seemingly successful workaholic does not have ADHD-related or other clinical features.

Their considerations affect both the identification and treatment of these disorders.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS One (Andreassen et al., 2016).

It may be possible to stop the transmission from mother to child.

Anxiety, a heightened response to stress and other psychiatric problems can be passed by non-genetic means, new research finds.

For example, it is well known that Holocaust survivors pass on an increased vulnerability to stress to their children.

Professor Miklos Toth, a senior author of the study, said:

“Genetic and nongenetic inheritance are different but complementary mechanisms to pass information from one generation to the next.

It will be necessary to develop tools to determine if the familial occurrence of a disease is based on a nongenetic, as opposed to genetic, mechanism.

On a positive note, nongenetic, in contrast to genetic, inheritance of disease is not inevitable and, if recognized in time, may be prevented.”

The conclusions come from a study of mice, in which it is possible to separate out genetic influences from others.

Professor Toth said:

“Our study helps explain why individuals, even within the same family, can display various combinations of anxiety, depression, bipolar disease and schizophrenia symptoms.

We found that, at least in mice, each symptom can be passed on by a distinct mechanism.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

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People do better when their environment fits their personality, study finds.

People prone to anxiety may recover from stress better in a busy urban environment.

The findings fly in the face of research finding that natural environments restore people’s cognitive abilities.

For more neurotic people, busy urban environments may beat quiet natural environments for helping them calm down.

Dr Kevin Newman, the study’s first author, said:

“Previous literature says that natural environments tend to restore cognitive abilities better than urban environments, but we questioned whether this one-sided perspective was accurate.”

For the research people were asked to perform tasks that exhausted them mentally.

For example, they had to write sentences without using the letters ‘A’ or ‘N’.

Afterwards they were given tasks that exposed them to words that either suggested an urban environment or a natural setting.

Surprisingly, those with more neurotic personalities did better when the test suggested a busy urban environment.

People lower on neuroticism, though, did better when peaceful natural settings were suggested.

Dr Newman said:

“People tended to do better in environments that fit with their personality.

Imagine someone with a neurotic personality like Woody Allen.

If you put him in a forest it could be very off-putting rather than rejuvenating.”

Neurotic people also showed better performance when exposed to words that were frenetic but related to nature, such as ‘cliff’ and ‘thunder’.

Similarly, non-neurotic people did better when exposed to calm words related to the city.

For the non-neurotic, seeking out a quiet place in the city like a library or bookstore could provide the required cognitive recovery.

The study was published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology (Newman & Brucks, 2016).

The two behaviours that make people seem the most creepy.

Clowns and taxidermists head the list of most creepy professions, new research finds.

In general, men are considered creepier than women, the study also found.

Particularly creepy behaviours include touching others too frequently, watching them too intently and steering the conversation towards sex.

Here are the top 10 list of creepiest professions, according to the research:

1. Clown
2. Taxidermist
3. Sex Shop Owner
4. Funeral Director
5. Taxi Driver
6. Unemployed
7. Clergy
8. Janitor
9. Garbage Collector
10. Guard

The study’s authors explain:

“It is our belief that creepiness is anxiety aroused by the ambiguity of whether there is something to fear or not and/or by the ambiguity of the precise nature of the threat (e.g. sexual, physical violence, contamination, etc) that might be present.”

The conclusions come from a survey of 1,341 people aged 18 to 77.

They were asked about a series of behaviours and which were considered most creepy.

The most creepy behaviour was watching someone too closely before starting a conversation.

The second most creepy behaviour was too frequent, unnecessary touching.

The authors write:

“Everything that we found in this study is consistent with the notion that the perception of creepiness is a response to the ambiguity of threat.

Males are more physically threatening to people of both sexes than are females and they were more likely to be perceived as creepy by males and females alike.

The link made by females between sexual threat and creepiness is also consistent with the fact that females are simply at greater risk of sexual assault and have potentially greater costs associated with it than males.”

They conclude:

“Interestingly, our results indicate that we do not necessarily assume ill intentions from people who are creepy, although we may still worry that they are dangerous.

Most of our subjects believed that creepy people cannot change, and only a small minority of our subjects [less than 10 per cent] believed that creepy people are aware that they are creepy.”

The study was published in the journal New Ideas in Psychology (McAndrew & Koehnke, 2016).

After combined therapy, people were five times more likely to be free of a severe anxiety disorder.

Using modern motivation techniques along with cognitive-behavioural therapy improves anxiety treatment, a new study finds.

People who are experiencing severe anxiety need more than just the tools for change.

They also need the motivation to use them.

Motivational interviewing is a way of asking questions that helps overcome ambivalence to change.

Professor Henny Westra, the study’s first author, said:

“Our research shows that therapists need to have two sets of skills — to help people become ready for change, and then to help them accomplish that change.

The study results suggest that integrating motivational interviewing (MI) with CBT is more effective than CBT alone for long-term improvement.”

It is perfectly normal to feel that change presents a frightening prospect — especially for someone who experiences a lot of anxiety.

Motivational interviewing is a way to work through this common road-block.

Professor Westra said:

“Because MI is focused on listening and drawing out client ideas, patients feel more confidence in coping with issues facing them even after therapy ends in contrast to having to rely on the therapist’s expertise.”

The study, which lasted five years, involved 85 people who all had severe generalised anxiety disorder.

Half were given 15 sessions of standard cognitive-behavioural treatment alone.

The other half received 4 sessions of motivational interviewing on top of 11 sessions of CBT.

Those who received both therapies were five times more likely to be free of a severe anxiety disorder diagnosis one year later.

Professor Martin Antony, one of the study’s co-authors, said:

“This study highlights the importance of studying the long term impact of our treatments, as the enhanced improvements seen in people who received the integrated MI and CBT treatment were greatest sometime after treatment had ended.”

The study was published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (Westra et al., 2016).

→ 10 Signs of Anxiety Everyone Should Know.

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Mood swings, weight change and shifts in everyday habits are just a few of the signs to look out for.

It can be difficult to spot the signs of anxiety and depression in young people.

Teenagers in particular experience moods swings as a natural part of puberty.

Although mood swings are normal in young people, one warning sign is if they become much more extreme than before.

Dr. Aaron Krasner, an adolescent psychiatrist, explains:

“Only 20 percent of children with mental disorders are identified and receive necessary mental health services.

As a society, we have to do a lot better than that.”

Here are 10 warning signs to look out for:

1. Self-injury or self-destructive behaviour.
2. Changes in physical health or appearance.
3. Frequent outbursts of aggression or anger.
4. A new group of friends.
5. Weight gain or loss.
6. Neglecting personal hygiene.
7. Difficulty coping with problems and daily activities.
8. Alcohol and/or drug abuse.
9. Threats of harm to themselves or others.
10. Persistent nightmares.

Similarly, large changes in performance at school or in everyday behaviour can also be important signs.

https://www.spring.org.uk/2013/11/depression-10-fascinating-insights-into-a-misunderstood-condition.php

Dr. Aaron Krasner said:

“Teen mental health issues are ‘family affairs’—they can have a devastating effect on families, and it’s essential that the entire family is involved in working through them.”

If you know someone who seems to be showing these signs, keep the lines of communication open.

They may need to talk.

https://www.spring.org.uk/2014/09/the-5-biggest-reasons-people-get-anxious-or-depressed.php

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