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medication

Major evidence review supports an “exercise prescription” for most adults to boost mental health and well-being

July 6, 2023 by Greater Good Science Center Leave a Comment

When you head to your week­ly yoga class or lift weights at the gym, you’re doing some­thing good for your phys­i­cal health: get­ting more fit today, and so pro­tect­ing your body into the future.

What you may not always think about, though, is that you’re also pro­tect­ing your­self from anx­i­ety and depression—about as much as you would be if you were going to ther­a­py or tak­ing med­ica­tion. At least that’s the con­clu­sion of a very large new study that syn­the­sizes decades of research on exer­cise and men­tal health.

The study doesn’t just pro­vide this key insight—in fact, the researchers were also able to iden­ti­fy what kind of exer­cise and how much of it is best for men­tal health. [Read more…] about Major evi­dence review sup­ports an “exer­cise pre­scrip­tion” for most adults to boost men­tal health and well-being

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance Tagged With: anxiety, depression, exercise, exercise prescription, gym, improve mental health, lift weights, medication, mental health, mental-health-treatment, physical-health, therapy, yoga class

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

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

How much should you trust BetterHelp, Talkspace, Cerebral and other mental health start-ups touted by celebrities?

July 11, 2022 by Kaiser Health News

When Pat Paulson’s son told her he was feel­ing anx­ious and depressed at col­lege, Paul­son went through her Blue Cross Blue Shield provider direc­to­ry and start­ed call­ing men­tal health ther­a­pists. No providers in the Wis­con­sin city where her son’s uni­ver­si­ty is locat­ed had open­ings. So she bought a month­ly sub­scrip­tion to Bet­ter­Help, a Moun­tain View, Cal­i­for­nia, com­pa­ny that links peo­ple to ther­a­pists online.

Her son felt uncom­fort­able with his first Bet­ter­Help ther­a­pist. After wait­ing sev­er­al weeks, he saw a sec­ond ther­a­pist, whom he liked. But she wasn’t avail­able the fol­low­ing week. [Read more…] about How much should you trust Bet­ter­Help, Talk­space, Cere­bral and oth­er men­tal health start-ups tout­ed by celebrities?

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: 8 billion minds, American-Psychological-Association, BetterHelp, cerebral, medication, mental health, mental health start-ups, mental healthcare, start-ups, talk-therapy, Talkspace, teletherapy

Debunking four myths about decision-making capacity to keep Britney Spears and others safe

August 9, 2021 by The Conversation

Brit­ney Spears’ impas­sioned remarks in court have raised many ques­tions about con­ser­va­tor­ships, includ­ing when they’re nec­es­sary and whether they effec­tive­ly pro­tect someone’s best interests.

When one los­es the capac­i­ty to make deci­sions for one­self the court appoints a guardian, or con­ser­va­tor, to make those deci­sions. Appoint­ing some­one to make deci­sions about per­son­al and finan­cial mat­ters on another’s behalf has been part of civ­il soci­ety since the ancient Greeks. Today, all juris­dic­tions in the U.S. have con­ser­va­tor­ship laws to pro­tect peo­ple who lack the abil­i­ty to make their own deci­sions. [Read more…] about Debunk­ing four myths about deci­sion-mak­ing capac­i­ty to keep Brit­ney Spears and oth­ers safe

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: Britney Spears, conservatorship, decision-making capacity, ethics, medication, mental health, psychiatric, psychiatric disorders, Psychotherapy, psychotic states, schizophrenia

Survey of 2500 families finds what ADHD treatments seem to work/ not work as applied in the real world

December 17, 2020 by Dr. David Rabiner

Cred­it: CDC Vital Signs

While care­ful­ly con­trolled clin­i­cal tri­als are essen­tial for estab­lish­ing sci­en­tif­ic sup­port for dif­fer­ent ADHD treat­ments, it is also impor­tant to exam­ine how par­ents feel about the treat­ments they actu­al­ly select for their child.

How par­ents feel about ADHD treat­ments they have tried for their child pro­vides an impor­tant com­ple­ment to pub­lished clin­i­cal tri­als data, and can also help guide par­ents’ treat­ment choic­es. [Read more…] about Sur­vey of 2500 fam­i­lies finds what ADHD treat­ments seem to work/ not work as applied in the real world

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Filed Under: Attention & ADD/ADHD Tagged With: AD/HD-treatments, ADHD coaching, alternative ADHD treatments, behavior-therapy, brain training, cognitive-abilities, diet, exercise, medication, mindfulness-meditation, minerals, Neurofeedback, parents, prescription, prescription medication, supplements, survey, Vitamins

On neurons, lifelong learning, meditation, humility, “empty brain calories” and more

October 30, 2020 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 12 fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and open questions–and the beau­ti­ful image above.

#1. “With this image I want to illus­trate the large advances made in imag­ing meth­ods over the past cen­tu­ry, allow­ing mod­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists to look at neu­rons in ways that Cajal could have only dreamed of.” – Sil­via Rodriguez-Roza­da, Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, Ham­burg. Award-win­ning image shows neu­roimag­ing progress in a century

#2. One more rea­son why life­long learn­ing mat­ters: Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neuropathology

#3. It’s Fri­day; per­fect time to make some fun and healthy week­end plans: How feel­ing awe in nature can spur men­tal well-being and per­son­al growth

#4. Not a bad idea either: On cut­ting “emp­ty brain calo­ries” by read­ing a book instead of social media

#5. “…humil­i­ty helps peo­ple let go of defen­sive­ness, take in infor­ma­tion that chal­lenges their polit­i­cal views, and see the human­i­ty in peo­ple on the oth­er side of the polit­i­cal spec­trum. Though it’s not always easy to embrace—especially for those who wrong­ful­ly equate it with weak­ness or a lack of conviction—humility may be what we des­per­ate­ly need right now in the Unit­ed States.” On per­cep­tion, cog­ni­tive bias and cul­ti­vat­ing humil­i­ty ahead of next week’s vote

#6. “When it feels like the world is crash­ing down around them, giv­ing young peo­ple a moment to feel, express, and receive grat­i­tude can help—and that in itself is some­thing to be grate­ful for.” Study: A com­bined teach­ing + app grat­i­tude pro­gram helps ado­les­cents address anx­i­ety and improve men­tal health

#7. To hon­or ADHD Aware­ness Month, let’s address this most impor­tant ques­tion: What should come first to treat ADHD in chil­dren, behav­ior ther­a­py or stim­u­lant medication?

#8. Debate: Can mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion be harm­ful? Two new stud­ies answer the ques­tion in appar­ent­ly oppo­site but actu­al­ly quite com­ple­men­tary ways.

#9. Study: Over-the-counter “brain enhance­ment” sup­ple­ments in the US found both to a) con­tain mul­ti­ple unap­proved drugs and b) lack some ingre­di­ents list­ed on the label. Your take?

#10. “…new study fund­ed by the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health that aims to recruit 30,000 vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate in a mem­o­ry train­ing study that com­pares mul­ti­ple approach­es to train work­ing mem­o­ry”: Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which conditions?

#11. “Vir­tu­al real­i­ty is a promis­ing skills-based behav­ioral med­i­cine that has been shown to have high patient engage­ment and sat­is­fac­tion,” said Beth Dar­nall, PhD, AppliedVR’s chief sci­ence advi­sor. “How­ev­er, chron­ic pain patients to date have had very lim­it­ed access to it, so we’re excit­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing with the FDA to devel­op our plat­form and get it into the mar­ket faster.” The FDA clears Applied­VR head­set to help treat fibromyal­gia and chron­ic pain

#12. “Hav­ing run a media com­pa­ny in a tough mar­ket with a young, mil­len­ni­al work­force, we wit­nessed first-hand how there was a com­plete lack of invest­ment in help­ing this gen­er­a­tion with their men­tal health in a way that they’re used to: a com­mu­ni­ty prod­uct that is mobile-first and video-led. We want to make the world a hap­pi­er place by mak­ing work­ing on your men­tal health as nor­mal as going to the gym.” — Adnan Ebrahim, co-founder and CEO of Mind­Labs. What will the ‘Pelo­ton for men­tal health’ look like five years from now? And, who will devel­op it?

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy November,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Tagged With: awe, behavior-therapy, brain-enhancement, cognitive-bias, FDA, humility, Lifelong-learning, medication, meditation, Memory-Training, mental health, mindfulness, Neurons, neuroscience, supplements, virtual-reality, Working-memory

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