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

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…

Read More

Study on the “ABCs of Mental Health” finds that simply believing you can improve mental wellbeing helps actually improve it

The num­ber of peo­ple strug­gling with poor men­tal health and men­tal dis­or­ders has been ris­ing around the world over the past few decades. Those who are strug­gling are increas­ing­ly fac­ing dif­fi­cul­ties access­ing the kind of sup­port they need – leav­ing many wait­ing months for help, if they even qual­i­fy for treat­ment. While it’s clear that…

Read More

Helping young brains fight off anxiety by training and raising cognitive control

Anx­i­ety is one of the most com­mon child­hood men­tal dis­or­ders. About 7% of chil­dren suf­fer from it at any giv­en time, with near­ly 1 in 3 ado­les­cents expe­ri­enc­ing it some­time dur­ing their teen years. For an anx­ious child, seem­ing­ly nor­mal activ­i­ties can be hard. Wor­ried kids have trou­ble adjust­ing to school, mak­ing friends, and learn­ing. They…

Read More

The way we approach Mental Health today is broken beyond repair. The question is, what comes next, and how fast can we get there?

The hid­den links between men­tal dis­or­ders (Nature): In 2018, psy­chi­a­trist Oleguer Plana-Ripoll was wrestling with a puz­zling fact about men­tal dis­or­ders. He knew that many indi­vid­u­als have mul­ti­ple con­di­tions — anx­i­ety and depres­sion, say, or schiz­o­phre­nia and bipo­lar dis­or­der. He want­ed to know how com­mon it was to have more than one diag­no­sis, so he…

Read More

Five Essential Guidelines to Improve Brain Health for All

Since 2010, the Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit has been bring­ing togeth­er neu­ro­sci­en­tists, entre­pre­neurs, and prac­ti­tion­ers with a mis­sion to improve men­tal health­care, brain per­for­mance and gen­er­al well-being. As we get ready to host our next col­lec­tive brain­storm­ing next week, let us share some key themes from our last Sum­mit, since they helped shape the Agen­da for…

Read More