Month: April 2024

Escape from worries about past and future and find it easier to focus on the present moment.

Escape from worries about past and future and find it easier to focus on the present moment.

Just ten minutes of mindfulness each day is effective against repetitive anxious thoughts, research reveals.

The practice can also help stop your mind from wandering.

People in the study who meditated for only a short period found it easier to focus on their present-moment external experience rather than their internal thoughts.

Mr Mengran Xu, the study’s first author, said:

“Our results indicate that mindfulness training may have protective effects on mind wandering for anxious individuals.

We also found that meditation practice appears to help anxious people to shift their attention from their own internal worries to the present-moment external world, which enables better focus on a task at hand.”

82 participants in the study either did 10 minutes meditation or listened to an audio story.

Those who meditated were better able to stay focused on a subsequent task they were given.

Mr Xu said:

“Mind wandering accounts for nearly half of any person’s daily stream of consciousness.

For people with anxiety, repetitive off-task thoughts can negatively affect their ability to learn, to complete tasks, or even function safely.

It would be interesting to see what the impacts would be if mindful meditation was practiced by anxious populations more widely.”

Studies have also found that mindfulness meditation has many benefits, including reducing depression and pain, accelerating cognition, increasing creativity, debiasing the mind and much more.

The study was published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition (Xu et al., 2017).

Author: Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book “Making Habits, Breaking Habits” (Da Capo, 2013) and several ebooks. View all posts by Jeremy Dean

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The chilling truth about how group pressure fuels violence in the mafia.

The chilling truth about how group pressure fuels violence in the mafia.

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Author: Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book “Making Habits, Breaking Habits” (Da Capo, 2013) and several ebooks. View all posts by Jeremy Dean

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The trait may encourage people to keep their mind active, which is a protective factor against dementia.

The trait may encourage people to keep their mind active, which is a protective factor against dementia.

People who are open to experience have a lower risk of developing dementia, research finds.

People who are open to experience are more likely to be imaginative, sensitive to their feelings, intellectually curious and seekers of variety.

Openness to experience is one of the five major aspects of personality.

Being more open to experience may encourage people to keep their mind active, which a protective factor against dementia.

People with higher openness to experience also tend to have higher levels of education, which also reduces dementia risk.

The second personality trait linked to dementia in the new study was neuroticism.

Being neurotic increased the risk of developing dementia by 6 percent, the researchers found.

The major personality trait of neuroticism involves a tendency towards worry and moodiness.

People who are neurotic are more likely to experience negative emotions like depression, anxiety, guilt and envy.

Other studies have found that being neurotic may double the risk of developing dementia later in life.

Neurotic people are particularly sensitive to chronic stress.

Personality, though, is not destiny, when it comes to dementia — good brain health is about nature and nurture.

Many factors can reduce the risk of developing dementia such as a healthy lifestyle, which includes eating properly and getting enough exercise.

Indeed, making four out of five critical lifestyle changes can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s by 60 percent.

Keeping the mind active is thought to be important for reducing the risk of dementia.

Learning new activities, travel and deepening social relationships may all be beneficial.

The present study included 524 people who were given tests of personality and symptoms of pre-dementia.

Ms Emmeline Ayers, the study’s first author, explained:

“While more studies are needed, our results provide evidence that personality traits play an independent role in the risk for or protection against specific pre-dementia syndromes.

From a clinical perspective, these findings emphasize the importance of accounting for aspects of personality when assessing for dementia risk.”

The study was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (Ayers et al., 2020).

Author: Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book “Making Habits, Breaking Habits” (Da Capo, 2013) and several ebooks. View all posts by Jeremy Dean

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Researchers tracked over 200,000 people to reveal the hidden impact of breakups on mental health.

Researchers tracked over 200,000 people to reveal the hidden impact of breakups on mental health.

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Author: Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book “Making Habits, Breaking Habits” (Da Capo, 2013) and several ebooks. View all posts by Jeremy Dean

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A pinch of this spice puts your immune system on guard.

A pinch of this spice puts your immune system on guard.

Consuming even a tiny amount of pungent ginger compounds could strengthen the immune system.

The spice is traditionally considered an anti-nausea and anti-inflammatory natural remedy.

Ginger contains natural compounds such as gingerol, paradol, zingerone, and shogaol, which are known for their antioxidant activities and boosting the immune system.

Recent laboratory tests carried out by Professor Veronika Somoza and colleagues at Leibniz Institute in Germany, confirms the stimulating effect of ginger on the immune system.

The results show that drinking ginger tea enhanced the white blood cell response against bacterial infection.

Apparently, within 30 to 60 minutes after drinking a litre of ginger tea, a considerable amounts of pungent compounds entered the bloodstream.

The highest levels belonged to [6]-gingerol (gingerol) with a concentration of seven to 17 micrograms per litre (µg/l) in the blood.

Gingerol is a compound responsible for the sharpness of taste and smell of ginger.

How gingerol works

To see how gingerol works, the researchers first identified key receptors on neutrophils.

Neutrophils make up the majority of white blood cells that fight bacteria entering the body.

Next the team discovered that even a small amount of gingerol (equivalent to 15 µg/l) was enough to increase the vigilance of white blood cells.

The results revealed that the cells stimulated with gingerol had a 30 percent stronger response to a bacterial infection.

Dr Gaby Andersen, the study’s first author, said:

“Thus, at least in experiments, very low [6]-gingerol concentrations are sufficient to affect the activity of immune cells via the TRPV1 receptor.

In blood, these concentrations could theoretically be achieved by consuming about one liter of ginger tea.”

Professor Veronika Somoza, study senior author, said:

“So, our results support the assumption that the intake of common amounts of ginger may be sufficient to modulate cellular responses of the immune system.

Nevertheless, there are still many unanswered questions at the molecular, epidemiological and medical levels that need to be addressed with the help of modern food and health research.”

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The study was published in the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research (Andersen et al., 2023).

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