Month: April 2023

People with this skill had higher relationship satisfaction, along with lower stress.

Being mindful has a profound positive effect on relationships, research finds.

Partners who are able to remain mindful with each other are much less stressed and much happier than those who do not.

While some people have a natural tendency to be more mindful than others, the quality can be trained.

Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgemental way.

Even people who are generally mindful may find that they do not always pay full attention to their partner.

It is easy for the attention to wander to future worries and past events.

People low in relationship mindfulness tend to agree with statements such as:

• “I have conversations with my partner without being
  really attentive.”
• “When I’m with my partner, I find myself saying or doing things without paying attention.”

Dr Jonathan Kimmes, the study’s first author, said:

“Relationship mindfulness is that tendency to be present with your partner in a nonjudgmental way.

It’s one thing to be mindful when you are at the grocery store, but can you be mindful with the person you are most intimate with?”

The conclusions come from a study of 218 heterosexual couples who were given surveys of their happiness and relationship mindfulness.

The results showed an association between higher relationship mindfulness and better relationship satisfaction, along with lower stress.

Women with mindful partners were also less depressed.

Dr Kimmes said:

“To me as a therapist, these results suggest that this area could be a promising target for clinical interventions.

There are many mindfulness practices that could work with clients, so which ones should you choose?

We should look at practices specific to relationships for people seeking therapy in that area.”

The study was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy (Kimmes et al., 2019).

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This trait is a distinct part of human intelligence.

Intelligent people are more likely to trust others, research finds.

This may be because more intelligent people are better judges of character.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analysed data from the ‘General Social Survey’, which asks a nationally representative sample of Americans about their attitudes and characteristics (Carl & Billari, 2014).

The researchers focused on the idea of generalised trust: not trust of close friends and family, but of other unknown members of society.

People were asked:

“Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”

They found that people who were more trusting were also happier and had higher levels of physical health.

It also emerged that trust was not just a proxy for intelligence: in other words intelligence could not explain the links between either trust and health or trust and happiness.

The study’s lead author, Noah Carl of Oxford University, said:

“Intelligence is shown to be linked with trusting others, even after taking into account factors like marital status, education and income.

This finding supports what other researchers have argued, namely that being a good judge of character is a distinct part of human intelligence which evolved through natural selection.”

It’s smart to trust

The research chimes with a number of established findings about the link between trust at the individual and societal level.

Previous research has found that people who are more trusting are:

• More likely to start a business.
• More likely to do voluntary work.
• Happier with their lives.
• Have better physical health.

In addition, societies which have higher levels of generalised trust overall also have:

• Public institutions which are more efficient.
• Higher levels of social capital.
• Greater economic growth.

The study’s coauthor, Professor Francesco Billari, said:

“People who trust others seem to report better health and greater happiness.

The study of social trust therefore has wider implications in public health, governmental policy and private charity, and there are good reasons to think that governments, religious groups and other civic organizations should try to cultivate more trust in society.”

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A symptom of vitamin B12 deficiency that can be irritating.

Eye-twitching or facial pain can be signs of vitamin B12 deficiency.

While the symptom is not normally painful, it can be irritating.

The twitches normally occur in one eye at a time, or sometimes below them.

Eye twitching — known to doctors as myokymia — can also be caused by stress, tiredness, allergies or dry eyes, among other things.

Other common symptoms of a vitamin B12 deficiency include feeling faint, tired, experiencing muscle weakness and being constipated.

Vitamin B12 is used by the body to make red blood cells and to keep the nervous system healthy.

Certain types of people may have difficulties getting enough vitamin B12 in their diet: these include older people, those with Crohn’s disease and vegetarians.

Foods that contain good levels of vitamin B12 include liver, salmon, eggs and dairy, as well as breakfast cereals that have been fortified.

Vitamin B12 deficiency can also be treated by taking supplements.

If it remains uncorrected, vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to neuropathy, which is experienced as a tingling sensation in the legs, feet or hands.

Dr John D. England, a neurologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, said:

“People with suspected nerve problems should talk to their doctors about screening tests, especially blood glucose, vitamin B12 level and serum protein levels, since these tests can often point to common causes of neuropathy.”

Dr England continued:

“There are many people with a neuropathy who have been walking around for years without having been diagnosed and treated.

Both neurologists and people with neuropathy need to know that the appropriate choice of tests is critical to accurate diagnosis.”

The guidelines were published in the American Academy of Neurology.

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Conscientious people are systematic and dutiful and are more likely to follow through on their plans than their less conscientious peers.

Being more conscientious is simply a matter of faking it until you make it, a study suggests.

Far from being impossible to change, people can increase their conscientiousness by starting to behave in more hard-working and organised ways until it becomes second nature.

People in the study did things like make to-do lists and tidy up their homes.

Increased conscientiousness is one of the changes to personality that people desire the most, along with increased extraversion and emotional stability.

Conscientiousness is one of the five major aspects of personality.

Conscientious people are systematic and dutiful and are more likely to follow through on their plans than their less conscientious peers.

Conscientious people are also are more careful, efficient and self-disciplined — and they aim for achievement.

Personality change, though, is often seen as something that is very hard or even impossible.

Dr Nathan Hudson, the study’s author, begs to differ:

“The idea of personality trait change – especially other people trying to change an individual’s personality – can sound scary.

But whether we recognize it or not, society is filled with interventions designed to try to change our personality traits.

For instance, elementary school is a giant intervention designed to help children become more intelligent, yes, but also kinder and more sociable, responsible and hardworking.”

For the research, Dr Hudson tested college student’s ability to change two aspects of their personality: increase their conscientiousness and increase their emotional stability.

The results showed that conscientiousness could be increased through simple practice, whether or not the students were motivated to change.

Dr Hudson said:

“Motivation is largely irrelevant to interventions targeting conscientiousness, as long as participants adhere to the intervention.”

However, emotional stability could  not easily be increased when the students were not motivated.

Dr Hudson thinks it comes down to the nature of negative emotions:

“For many people, it can be difficult to ‘just stop feeling angry’ or ‘just stop being stressed.

My hunch is that indirect strategies for changing someone’s emotions, such as writing in a journal or thinking about positive things, can only really work when people want to use those techniques to change their emotions.”

Dr Hudson thinks organisations and schools could help people improve some personality traits:

“This provides promising evidence that schools, companies, or other organizations could ask people to make relatively minor changes that could help improve their lives by making them more organized and responsible over time.

In contrast, it appears that emotional stability might require a bit more investment from the people who partake in an intervention.”

→ Read on: How To Change Your Personality

The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Hudson, 2021).

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