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Greater Good Science Center

How the Arts transform our Brains, Bodies, and Minds

May 31, 2023 by Greater Good Science Center Leave a Comment

One of my favorite say­ings comes from David Thore­au: “My life has been the poem I would have writ / But I could not both live and utter it.” It speaks to the way that life and art are inter­twined, and how we gain so much from liv­ing life with a sense of beau­ty and aes­thet­ics in mind.

There are many ways art infus­es my own life—from singing and play­ing gui­tar to read­ing nov­els and attend­ing plays, which all help to improve my mood and enhance my sense of won­der with the world. Prob­a­bly, neu­roaes­thet­ics many of you feel the same way. Some of you may have felt you’ve even been saved by art.

[Read more…] about How the Arts trans­form our Brains, Bod­ies, and Minds

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: art, brain, heal, life, neuroaesthetics, Your Brain on Art

8‑week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course found to be as effective as Lexapro (escitalopram) to treat adults with anxiety disorders, and with far fewer side effects

April 19, 2023 by Greater Good Science Center Leave a Comment

Cred­it: Brain­Post, with data from Hoge et al (2022)

Anx­i­ety is the most com­mon psy­chi­atric dis­or­der, with over 301 mil­lion ?peo­ple affect­ed around the world. Whether extreme anx­i­ety aris­es in social sit­u­a­tions, is trig­gered by a par­tic­u­lar pho­bia, or man­i­fests as a gen­er­al unease in the world, it can severe­ly affect people’s every­day func­tion­ing and lead to high lev­els of distress.

Luck­i­ly, there are good treat­ments for anx­i­ety, includ­ing Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (or CBT) and var­i­ous phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drugs. Still, CBT takes a high­ly-trained ther­a­pist to admin­is­ter and can be lengthy and expen­sive, mak­ing it inac­ces­si­ble to many peo­ple who need it. And, while drug ther­a­pies can work well and are often cov­ered by insur­ers, they may not be accept­able for peo­ple who wor­ry about the poten­tial side effects of putting a drug in their body. [Read more…] about 8‑week Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) course found to be as effec­tive as Lexapro (esc­i­talo­pram) to treat adults with anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, and with far few­er side effects

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: anxiety, anxiety disorder, body scans, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, Lexapro, mbsr, medication, meditation, mindful breathing, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, psychiatric disorder, psychiatrist, psychologist, Psychotherapy, SSRI antidepressants, walking meditation

The 7 Habits of Highly Stress-Resilient Minds

March 7, 2023 by Greater Good Science Center Leave a Comment

Are you suf­fer­ing from chron­ic stress? Many of us are—whether we’re stressed out by our jobs, com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ships, care­giv­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties, or the gen­er­al state of the world.

That’s where Elis­sa Epel’s new book, The Stress Pre­scrip­tion, comes in. A health psy­chol­o­gist and direc­tor of the Aging, Metab­o­lism, and Emo­tions Cen­ter at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cis­co, Epel explains how stress affects our bod­ies and minds—including our health, hap­pi­ness, and longevity—and how to man­age it in the best way possible.

Too many of us are in a con­stant state of alert­ness, she argues, which makes us ill-pre­pared to nav­i­gate the every­day stres­sors and big­ger upsets that occur when liv­ing a full life. We may think we’re relaxed, but we’re actu­al­ly main­tain­ing a low-lev­el vig­i­lance that’s hard on our bod­ies. Con­stant phys­i­o­log­i­cal strain can short­en our telom­eres (the caps at the ends of our DNA that pro­tect it from aging)—a process she wrote about in her best­selling book, The Telom­ere Effect.

Epel empha­sizes that not all stress is inher­ent­ly bad—and that we shouldn’t aim for a stress-free life. We need our phys­i­o­log­i­cal stress response to sur­vive, as it can come in handy when we’re gear­ing up to per­form or fac­ing an actu­al life-or-death threat. [Read more…] about The 7 Habits of High­ly Stress-Resilient Minds

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: aging, chronic-stress, deep breathing, Gratitude, high-intensity interval training, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness-meditation, physiological stress, Stress Prescription, Stress Response

Thanksgiving works: Gratitude journaling seen to lower stress and negative cognitive processes

November 21, 2022 by Greater Good Science Center

Dur­ing the ear­ly days of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, many peo­ple suf­fered extreme stress. Peo­ple couldn’t work and faced finan­cial anx­i­ety, they felt lone­ly and iso­lat­ed, they wor­ried about catch­ing a dead­ly dis­ease or giv­ing it to some­one they loved, and their men­tal health suffered.

For researcher Erin Fekete, of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Indi­anapo­lis, the unfold­ing pan­dem­ic was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to answer a long­stand­ing ques­tion about the best way to cope in moments of suf­fer­ing. Do we get more relief by reflect­ing on our thoughts and feel­ings about what we’re going through, or from turn­ing our minds to the pos­i­tive things in our lives? [Read more…] about Thanks­giv­ing works: Grat­i­tude jour­nal­ing seen to low­er stress and neg­a­tive cog­ni­tive processes

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: anxiety, Covid-19 pandemic, depression, expressive writing, extreme stress, Gratitude, gratitude journaling, journaling, negative feelings, positive-feelings, psychological distress, Stress

Study: Practicing gratitude helps lower physiological stress levels of the “expresser” AND the “receiver”

September 7, 2022 by Greater Good Science Center

Express­ing grat­i­tude nur­tures our rela­tion­ships, help­ing us to feel clos­er to our friends and roman­tic part­ners. Some research sug­gests that grate­ful peo­ple seem to cope bet­ter with stress and enjoy supe­ri­or phys­i­cal health, per­haps because of those stronger social relationships.

What about expe­ri­enc­ing grat­i­tude with peo­ple we don’t know so well—like those we work with? Could show­ing appre­ci­a­tion towards them affect our stress lev­els on the job? [Read more…] about Study: Prac­tic­ing grat­i­tude helps low­er phys­i­o­log­i­cal stress lev­els of the “express­er” AND the “receiv­er”

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: bodies, brains, cardiovascular system, Gratitude, Stress

Q&A with researcher Robb Rutledge on mental health, expectations, decision-making and, yes, holiday planning!

July 25, 2022 by Greater Good Science Center

Have you ever looked for­ward to a con­cert, beach vaca­tion, or par­ty only to find your­self not enjoy­ing it as much as you thought you would?

You may be suf­fer­ing from over­ly high expec­ta­tions, says psy­chol­o­gist Robb Rut­ledge of Yale Uni­ver­si­ty. Rut­ledge and his col­leagues have been using smart­phone-based data col­lec­tion (via a free app called Hap­pi­ness Quest, where any­one can play short games and con­tribute to research) to see how our expec­ta­tions affect our future hap­pi­ness. Some of their find­ings point to nov­el approach­es for increas­ing our enjoy­ment of every­day life. [Read more…] about Q&A with researcher Robb Rut­ledge on men­tal health, expec­ta­tions, deci­sion-mak­ing and, yes, hol­i­day planning!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: brain, cognition, Decision-making, expectations, happiness, Happiness Quest, mental health, perception, Robb Rutledge

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