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anxiety

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

Voice biomarker platform Sonde Health raises $19.25M to spread access to mental health monitoring and beyond

January 5, 2023 by SharpBrains

Voice analy­sis plat­form Sonde Health rais­es $19.25M (Mobi­Health­News):

AI-enabled voice tech­nol­o­gy plat­form Sonde Health announced it raised $19.25 mil­lion in a Series B fund­ing round led by Part­ners Invest­ment, bring­ing its total raise to $35.25 mil­lion … Sonde Health uses patent­ed voice tech­nol­o­gy to detect var­i­ous health con­di­tions from bio­mark­ers in a per­son­’s voice, includ­ing ana­lyz­ing res­pi­ra­to­ry fit­ness and detect­ing depres­sion and anx­i­ety. [Read more…] about Voice bio­mark­er plat­form Sonde Health rais­es $19.25M to spread access to men­tal health mon­i­tor­ing and beyond

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, biomarkers, depression, health monitoring, mental-fitness, Sonde Health, vocal biomarkers

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

Digital mental health intervention by the World Health Organization (WHO) found to lower anxiety and depression, with improvements maintained at 3‑month follow-up

July 5, 2022 by SharpBrains

WHO dig­i­tal men­tal health inter­ven­tion effec­tive in reduc­ing depres­sion among Syr­i­an refugees in Lebanon (press release):

A new dig­i­tal men­tal health inter­ven­tion, Step-by-Step, devel­oped by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) with the Nation­al Men­tal Health Pro­gramme (NMHP) at the Min­istry of Pub­lic Health Lebanon and oth­er part­ners, was effec­tive in reduc­ing depres­sion among Syr­i­an refugees in Lebanon, accord­ing to a study pub­lished in PLOS Med­i­cine. [Read more…] about Dig­i­tal men­tal health inter­ven­tion by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) found to low­er anx­i­ety and depres­sion, with improve­ments main­tained at 3‑month follow-up

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, depression, digital mental health, gratitude exercise, mental-disorders, positive self-talk, post-traumatic stress, stress-management, well-being

Update: Playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial than other forms of screentime like social media, watching videos/ TV

June 30, 2022 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun brain teas­er to put your tem­po­ral lobes to good use 🙂

#1. Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV)

“Here, we esti­mat­ed the impact of dif­fer­ent types of screen time (watch­ing, social­iz­ing, or gam­ing) on children’s intel­li­gence while con­trol­ling for the con­found­ing effects of genet­ic dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tion and socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus … Broad­ly, our results are in line with research on the mal­leabil­i­ty of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties from envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, such as cog­ni­tive train­ing and the Fly­nn effect.”

Fas­ci­nat­ing! Hav­ing said that…

#2. Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

“Social inter­ac­tion is huge­ly impor­tant. One study found that the size of our social group is actu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the vol­ume of the orbitofrontal cor­tex (involved in social cog­ni­tion and emo­tion). But how many friends do we need? … It is hard to argue with the fact that humans are social ani­mals and gain enjoy­ment from con­nect­ing with oth­ers, what­ev­er age we are. But, as we are increas­ing­ly uncov­er­ing, it also cru­cial for the health of our cognition.”

#3. UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

“Some peo­ple do very well in train­ing, such as play­ing a video game, but they don’t show near trans­fer, per­haps because they are using high­ly spe­cif­ic strate­gies,” said first author Anja Pahor … “For these peo­ple, far trans­fer is unlike­ly. By bet­ter under­stand­ing why this type of mem­o­ry train­ing or ‘inter­ven­tion’ works for some peo­ple but not oth­ers, we can move for­ward with a new gen­er­a­tion of work­ing-mem­o­ry train­ing games or use approach­es that are more tai­lored to indi­vid­u­als’ needs”

#4. Please help us recruit 30,000 adults for a UC Cit­i­zen Sci­ence project on cog­ni­tive training

“In our ongo­ing large-scale study (note: the one right above) we aim to recruit 30,000 adults who are moti­vat­ed and will­ing to help us bet­ter under­stand the fac­tors that under­lie learn­ing out­comes using a vari­ety of train­ing par­a­digms and out­come mea­sures. Our endeav­or will ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to the per­son­al­iza­tion of cog­ni­tive train­ing so that, hope­ful­ly, any­one who would like to improve their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing will be able to choose the approach that may fit them best.” — researchers Susanne Jaeg­gi, Anja Pahor, Aaron Seitz @ UC Irvine/ Riverside

#5. Trend: Esports teams har­ness cog­ni­tive tests to bet­ter match play­er to task and to iden­ti­fy train­ing opportunities

Esports are bor­row­ing a page from Pro Sports’ book … we would­n’t be sur­prised to see the inverse tak­ing place too in just a few years.

#6. Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care

“For those with­out severe men­tal ill­ness, app-based ther­a­py may be help­ful in match­ing clients with a pro­fes­sion­al famil­iar with a range of prob­lems and stres­sors. This makes apps attrac­tive to those with anx­i­ety and mild to mod­er­ate depres­sion. They also appeal to peo­ple who wouldn’t ordi­nar­i­ly seek out office-based ther­a­py, but who want help with life issues such as mar­i­tal prob­lems and work-relat­ed stress.”

#7. AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

Let’s talk!

#8. And here’s the Brain Teas­er: Ready to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and fun summer!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, brain health, brain-teaser, chronic pain, cognition, cognitive, cognitive-functioning, Cognitive-tests, Cognitive-Training, depression, emotion, FDA, mental health, mental health care, neuroimaging, social isolation, videogames, work-related stress, working-memory-training, Wysa

AI-enabled chatbot Wysa receives FDA Breakthrough Device designation for patients with chronic pain, depression and anxiety

June 6, 2022 by SharpBrains

AI Behav­ior Health Chat­bot App Fast-Tracked by FDA (Psy­chol­o­gy Today):

Recent­ly the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) grant­ed break­through device des­ig­na­tion to Wysa’s AI-based dig­i­tal men­tal health con­ver­sa­tion­al agent that deliv­ers cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) via a smart­phone to adults suf­fer­ing from depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and chron­ic mus­cu­loskele­tal pain [Read more…] about AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, artificial intelligence, CBT, chronic musculoskeletal pain, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, depression, digital mental health, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, mental health industry, smartphone, Wysa

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