Mental Health - Page 17 of 17

Magic Mushrooms: How They Affect the Brain’s Emotion Centres

Could psilocybin one day be used as an effective anti-depressant?

Swiss researchers have shown that psilocybin, the bioactive component in ‘magic mushrooms’, influences the emotional centres of the brain, weakening the effect of negative emotions.

The hallucinogen has long been advocated by some as a treatment for various mental disorders, and this new study provides evidence of how it might work.

In the study, 25 healthy participants were given a moderate dose of psilocybin before having their brains scans (Krähenmann et al., 2014).

Inside the scanner, and with the hallucinogen acting on their brains, participants were shown pictures which are designed to elicit an emotional reaction.

The results of this test were compared with scans taken after a placebo was administered.

The study’s lead author, Rainer Krähenmann, said:

“Even a moderate dose of psilocybin weakens the processing of negative stimuli by modifying amygdala activity in the limbic system as well as in other associated brain regions.”

The limbic system is vital to how we process emotions as well as memories. The amygdala is part of the limbic system and has also been shown to be vital in how we process emotions.

In the study, people’s amygdalas were markedly less reactive to negative stimuli after they had taken psilocybin, compared with the placebo-control condition.

Not only that, but psilocybin put people in a much better mood.

This backs up recent evidence about the dual effects of the drug in decreasing negative emotions and increasing positive emotions:

“…support for the notion that psilocybin may have rapid antidepressant characteristics also comes from a recent clinical trial showing that in patients with depression and anxiety, a single dose of psilocybin improved mood and decreased anxiety for several months.” (Krähenmann et al., 2014).

That said, the effects of psilocybin on depression have not yet been clinically tested.

Image credit: Sasata

Rethinking The Stress Mindset: Can You Find The Upside of Pressure?

Is it true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or is stress always debilitating?

It’s striking how much of our emotional experience is down to interpretation.

Take the physical feelings you get when you’re about to talk in public: the sweaty palms, the churning stomach and the spinning room. Isn’t that much the same physical experience you get when you’ve fallen in love?

Yet one experience most would run a mile from and the other we enjoy. The difference is partly down to the meaning we give these events.

But how far does this go? What about the hassles of everyday life and stress in general? Is stress really a killer or can it be reinterpreted away?

Well, there’s certainly such a thing as the way that we habitually think about stress. One of the most common, which is frequently reinforced by the media, is the ‘stress-is-debilitating’ mindset.

What Crum et al. (2013) wonder in a new paper is: can we change this mindset and does thinking about stress in a positive way have any effect on how we react to it?

To conduct some preliminary tests, they recruited a group of investment bankers, who were split into three groups, each of which were shown a different 10-minute video. Some of them watched a video that suggested stress can be good for you.

The ‘stress-is-enhancing’ video suggested that some people do their best work under pressure: for example, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger landed his stricken airliner on the Hudson River and Winston Churchill successfully led Britain through WWII.

A second group watched a video reinforcing the idea that stress is debilitating, while a third acted as a control.

The bankers reported back over a few weeks on their stress mindset, how they were doing at work and their levels of stress. The results showed that those who’d seen the ‘stress-is-enhancing’ video did develop a more positive stress mindset. This led to them reporting better performance at work and fewer psychological problems over the subsequent two weeks.

This suggests something as simple as a short video can start to change how you think about stress, at least in the short-term.

Another study by Crum et al. examined one possible mechanism for how a changed mindset might be beneficial. This found that people who tended to think stress was enhancing were more likely to want feedback. So, people who think positively about stress are likely to use that to help them solve problems.

In addition, thinking that stress is enhancing was associated with lower levels of cortisol, a hormone closely associated with the stress response. In other words, people’s physiological reaction to stress was better when they endorsed the idea that stress is enhancing.

So, is stress good or bad for you? This evidence underlines the fact that, as so often, what you believe influences how both mind and body reacts.

Image credit: Truthout.org

Classifying Madness: Criticisms and Alternatives

Over the years, Vincent van Gogh’s mental illness has been classified in 30 different ways by over 150 different physicians, not just those who originally treated him. It is becoming clear that, in the classification of madness, this is far from an isolated example. Amongst the ranks of both psychiatrists and clinical psychologists are those who argue for a radical rethink.

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After Bombings Londoner’s Stress Levels Rise

A new survey published today in the British Medical Journal has found ‘substantial levels of stress’ amongst 31% of Londoners as a result of the London bombings. The survey questioned 1,010 people between 11 and 13 days after the London was rocked by terrorists bombings on the 7th July 2005.

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