Month: August 2023

Anxiety affects around one-third of adolescents in the US.

Biofeedback, mindfulness, yoga and hypnosis all provide promising mind-body approaches to treating anxiety, research finds.

The standard treatments for anxiety are cognitive-behavioural therapy and/or medication.

However, these treatments can be difficult to obtain, expensive and, in the case of medication, involving significant side-effects.

Mind-body approaches, though, are often cheaper, accessible and usually with no side-effects.

The researchers identified studies on adolescents that supported the use of:

• Mindfulness involves increasing self-awareness and using breathing techniques. Studies show it can benefit anxiety.
• Yoga is effective in reducing anxiety.
• Hypnosis involves relaxation and imagery techniques, which can be effective.
• Biofeedback helps control anxiety by increasing self-awareness through showing people their own physiological stress response.

Yoga in particular has seen a massive rise in popularity in recent years, the study’s authors write:

“Low in cost, easy to implement, and accessible to individuals of all physical fitness levels, yoga has become an increasingly popular anxiety management tool.”

Anxiety affects around one-third of adolescents in the US.

Almost one-in-ten adolescents experience anxiety severe enough to disrupt their lives.

The study’s authors write:

“Whereas anxiety and fear are typical reactions to the academic, social, and developmental challenges common during the adolescent years, clinical or pathological anxiety is excessive, persistent, and disruptive.”

Most adolescents do not receive any treatment.

Ms Fulweiler and Dr John write:

“A growing body of evidence supports the implementation of mind-body therapy as a low-risk and cost-effective strategy in the management of anxious teenagers.

[…]

Mind-body therapies encompass self-regulation and positive thinking…to help promote self-control, physical health, and emotional well-being.”

The study was published in the journal The Nurse Practitioner (Fulweiler & John, 2018).

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Three ways to tell if you have a high IQ.

People who can predict the behaviour of others have higher personal intelligence, research finds.

Two other signs of high personal intelligence are self-motivation and being able to anticipate desires.

The idea of personal intelligence is broader than IQ.

It involves using intelligence to predict people’s behaviour.

Someone high in personal intelligence is able to analyse correctly their own and other people’s personalities.

People high in personal IQ know how best to deal with other people and how they will react.

Professor John Mayer, the expert on personality and intelligence who came up with the theory, said:

“Think of all the ways we read and interpret the people around us each day: We notice body language and facial expressions to estimate one another’s moods.

We draw initial guesses about personalities based on how people dress and present themselves, and we adjust how we interact with them accordingly.

We run through scenarios in our heads, trying to anticipate how others will react, in order to choose the best course in dealing with a boss, a coworker, or a partner.”

Reviewing decades of research on personality and intelligence, Professor Mayer has found it comes more naturally to some:

“We pick up on small pieces of feedback about ourselves from others, which we incorporate into a fuller and more accurate perception of ourselves.

And we make all kinds of decisions–about work-life balance, the neighborhood we live in, or who we spend our time with–based on what we think will be the best fit for our personalities.”

Professor Mayer concludes:

“People who are high in personal intelligence are able to anticipate their own desires and actions, predict the behavior of others, motivate themselves over the long term, and make better life decisions.”

→ Discover 22 more signs of intelligence.

The book is called Personal Intelligence: The Power of Personality and How It Shapes Our Lives and is published by Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

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A study of hundreds of nuns and monks reveals which trait cuts Alzheimer’s risk in half.

Being conscientious cuts the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in half, research finds.

People who are conscientious tend to be more organised, responsible and in control of their impulses.

The study’s authors explain:

“Conscientiousness (eg, “I am a productive person who always gets the job done”) refers to a tendency to be self-disciplined, scrupulous, and purposeful.”

They are also more likely to follow through on their duties and obligations.

The study of hundreds of nuns and monks found that those who were more productive and reliable were less likely to be affected by Alzheimer’s.

People high on conscientiousness were also more likely to experience a slower cognitive decline with age and lower risk of mild cognitive impairment (a risk factor for Alzheimer’s).

The results come from a study of 997 elderly nuns, priests and monks, none of whom had dementia at the start of the study.

Many were followed up for more than a decade.

The brains of those that died were examined for markers of Alzheimer’s.

The study revealed that those with the highest levels of conscientiousness were at an 89% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s compared to those with the lowest levels.

Surprisingly, the results could not be explained by conscientious people living more healthily.

Instead, the authors write that it could be partly down to education:

“…conscientiousness is a consistent predictor of academic and occupational performance.

Both level of educational and occupational attainment and the nature of occupational experiences have been associated with risk of AD.

Highly conscientious people may have a more intensive exposure to these educational and occupational experiences than less conscientious individuals and thereby derive additional benefit.”

Being conscientious may also buffer against life stress, they write:

“Conscientiousness is associated with a higher level of resilience and greater reliance on task-oriented coping.

These factors might lessen the adverse consequences of negative life events and chronic psychological distress, which have been associated with risk of dementia in old age.”

The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry (Wilson et al., 2007).

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