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

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…

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From forest bathing to urban parks: How nature helps protect our well-being during a pandemic

Liv­ing through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has had a severe impact on people’s men­tal health and well-being. Restrict­ed move­ment, loss, and iso­la­tion have led to increas­es in depres­sion, anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, stress, sleep dis­or­ders, and more. The effects have been even harsh­er for teens. How can we help pro­tect our well-being dur­ing this par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult time? Though a…

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Virtual-reality gaming + affordable biofeedback = Anxiety therapy for all?

Videogame Tech­nol­o­gy Could Bring Biofeed­back Ther­a­py to the Liv­ing Room (The Wall Street Jour­nal): For decades, use of biofeed­back to help suf­fer­ers of anx­i­ety, among oth­er psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tions, has large­ly been lim­it­ed to clin­i­cal set­tings with expensive—and some­what tedious—medical equip­ment. Now, with an assist from devel­op­ers of vir­­tu­al-real­i­­ty games, effec­tive ther­a­peu­tic biofeed­back is becom­ing more…

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