Learning To Cook Boosts Mental And Physical Health (M)
After completing the course, people reported feeling stronger, more active and full of energy.
Category: Mental Health
The Signs of Mental Health Problems In Children (M)
Eating disorders have risen dramatically in the young since the pandemic.
How Microdosing LSD Affects Mental Health (M)
Microdosing LSD has reportedly become popular among Silicon Valley engineers, programmers, writers and artists.
The Secret To Emotional Control Most People Don’t Know (M)
Better emotional control is linked to lower levels of depression and anxiety.
The Best Type Of Jobs For Good Mental Health
How jobs can be adjusted to improve people’s mental and physical health.
How jobs can be adjusted to improve people’s mental and physical health.
Jobs that give employees control over their work are better for mental and physical health, research reveals.
When employees are given control over their work, even in the face of high demands, their health is improved.
Typical ways of giving employees control are to let them set their own schedules and allow them to decide how the work gets done.
However, jobs that put huge demands on employees without giving them control are damaging to mental health.
The study shows the importance of control at work for both mental and physical health.
Dr Erik Gonzalez-Mulé, the study’s first author, said:
“When job demands are greater than the control afforded by the job or an individual’s ability to deal with those demands, there is a deterioration of their mental health and, accordingly, an increased likelihood of death.”
The study included 3,148 people in Wisconsin who were tracked over 20 years.
Dr Gonzalez-Mulé explained the study’s aim:
“We examined how job control—or the amount of autonomy employees have at work—and cognitive ability—or people’s ability to learn and solve problems—influence how work stressors such as time pressure or workload affect mental and physical health and, ultimately, death.
We found that work stressors are more likely to cause depression and death as a result of jobs in which workers have little control or for people with lower cognitive ability.”
Being given control at work, though, improved physical and mental health.
Smarter people were also able to adapt to more stressful jobs without letting it affect them.
Dr Gonzalez-Mulé said:
“We believe that this is because job control and cognitive ability act as resources that help people cope with work stressors.
Job control allows people to set their own schedules and prioritize work in a way that helps them achieve their work goals, while people that are smarter are better able to adapt to the demands of a stressful job and figure out ways to deal with stress.”
Dr Gonzalez-Mulé has this advice for managers:
“Managers should provide employees working in demanding jobs more control, and in jobs where it is unfeasible to do so, a commensurate reduction in demands.
For example, allowing employees to set their own goals or decide how to do their work, or reducing employees’ work hours, could improve health.
Organizations should select people high on cognitive ability for demanding jobs.
By doing this, they will benefit from the increased job performance associated with more intelligent employees, while having a healthier workforce.
COVID-19 might be causing more mental health issues, so it’s particularly important that work not exacerbate those problems.
This includes managing and perhaps reducing employee demands, being aware of employees’ cognitive capability to handle demands and providing employees with autonomy are even more important than before the pandemic began.”
The study was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (Gonzalez-Mulé et al., 2020).
The Best Diet For Good Mental Health
People eating the right diet experience better mental health and a stronger sense of wellbeing.
People eating the right diet experience better mental health and a stronger sense of wellbeing.
Diet can have a very real effect on mental health, according to the latest review of the research.
People eating the right diet experience better mental health and a stronger sense of wellbeing.
For example, there is good evidence that the Mediterranean diet can improve depression and anxiety.
Here are ten typical ingredients of the Mediterranean diet:
- Green leafy vegetables,
- other vegetables,
- nuts,
- berries,
- beans,
- whole grains,
- fish,
- poultry,
- olive oil,
- and wine.
The Mediterranean diet is anti-inflammatory as it includes more vitamins, fibre and unsaturated fats.
Vitamin B12 has also been shown to help with depression, poor memory and fatigue.
For those with epilepsy, a ketogenic diet, which is high in fat and low in carbohydrates, can be helpful.
However, in other areas the effects of diet on mental health are less strong.
For example, the evidence that vitamin D supplements are beneficial for mental health is relatively weak.
Professor Suzanne Dickson, study co-author, said:
“We have found that there is increasing evidence of a link between a poor diet and the worsening of mood disorders, including anxiety and depression.
However, many common beliefs about the health effects of certain foods are not supported by solid evidence.”
The conclusions come from a review of the research in nutritional psychiatry.
For some conditions, the evidence was comparatively thin, said Professor Dickson:
“With individual conditions, we often found very mixed evidence.
With ADHD for example, we can see an increase in the quantity of refined sugar in the diet seems to increase ADHD and hyperactivity, whereas eating more fresh fruit and vegetables seems to protect against these conditions.
But there are comparatively few studies, and many of them don’t last long enough to show long-term effects.”
Nutrition during pregnancy is very important and can significantly affect brain function, the researchers found.
However, the effect of many diets on mental health is small, said Professor Dickson:
“In healthy adults dietary effects on mental health are fairly small, and that makes detecting these effects difficult: it may be that dietary supplementation only works if there are deficiencies due to a poor diet.
We also need to consider genetics: subtle differences in metabolism may mean that some people respond better to changes in diet that others.
There are also practical difficulties which need to be overcome in testing diets.
A food is not a drug, so it needs to be tested differently to a drug.
We can give someone a dummy pill to see if there is an improvement due to the placebo effect, but you can’t easily give people dummy food.
Nutritional psychiatry is a new field.
The message of this paper is that the effects of diet on mental health are real, but that we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions on the base of provisional evidence.
We need more studies on the long-term effects of everyday diets.”
The study was published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology (Adan et al., 2019).
These 3 Factors Predict Mental Health Problems With 90% Accuracy (M)
These three factors predict early onset mental health problems with 90 percent accuracy.
The Simplest Way To Recharge During Your Time Off, According To 100+ Studies
The results come from 140 studies on 290 million people.
The results come from 140 studies on 290 million people.
Spending time outside in green spaces reduces stress, improves sleep and has a host of health benefits, research finds.
On top of the psychological benefits, over one hundred studies have linked being closer to nature to health benefits like lower risk of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure.
Ms Caoimhe Twohig-Bennett, the study’s first author, said:
“Spending time in nature certainly makes us feel healthier, but until now the impact on our long-term wellbeing hasn’t been fully understood.
We gathered evidence from over 140 studies involving more than 290 million people to see whether nature really does provide a health boost.”
Ms Twohig-Bennett explained the study’s results:
“We found that spending time in, or living close to, natural green spaces is associated with diverse and significant health benefits.
It reduces the risk of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, premature death, and preterm birth, and increases sleep duration.
People living closer to nature also had reduced diastolic blood pressure, heart rate and stress. In fact, one of the really interesting things we found is that exposure to greenspace significantly reduces people’s levels of salivary cortisol — a physiological marker of stress.”
The Japanese have long enjoyed ‘Shinrin yoku,’ or the practice of ‘forest bathing‘.
Ms Twohig-Bennett said:
“Forest bathing is already really popular as a therapy in Japan — with participants spending time in the forest either sitting or lying down, or just walking around.
Our study shows that perhaps they have the right idea!”
It’s not clear exactly what causes the benefits, but Ms Twohig-Bennett speculates:
“People living near greenspace likely have more opportunities for physical activity and socialising.
Meanwhile, exposure to a diverse variety of bacteria present in natural areas may also have benefits for the immune system and reduce inflammation.
Much of the research from Japan suggests that phytoncides — organic compounds with antibacterial properties — released by trees could explain the health-boosting properties of forest bathing.”
The study was published in the journal Environmental Research (Twohig-Bennett & Jones, 2018).
These Vegetarian And Vegan Diets Are Linked To Depression (M)
Plant-based food diets are not inherently healthy: for body or mind.
How Sibling Bullying Affects Mental Health (M)
Around 30 percent of young people are thought to be victimised in one way or another.
