Mental Health & Wellbeing

Can Foetus Sense Mother’s Psychological State?

As a foetus grows, it's constantly getting messages from its mother. It's not just hearing her heartbeat and whatever music she might play to her belly; it also gets chemical signals through the placenta. A new study, which will be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that this [...]

Beyond the Drinker: Alcohol Harms Unrelenting

A new study has revealed that almost two thirds of people identified as being harmed by the drinking of others in a 2008 survey, were still being harmed three years later. And it’s not your age, gender or the number of times that you go out that is most likely to determine whether you are [...]

Voices in People’s Heads More Complex than Previously Thought

One of the largest and most detailed studies to date on the experience of auditory hallucinations, commonly referred to as voice hearing, found that the majority of voice-hearers hear multiple voices with distinct character-like qualities, with many also experiencing physical effects on their bodies. The study also confirmed that both people with and without psychiatric [...]

The Nocebo Effect: Can Our Thoughts Kill Us?

The flipside of the placebo effect, the nocebo effect is where we experience negative symptoms because we expect them. Our minds are more powerful than most of us realise. The placebo effect accounts for as much as one third of symptom relief in sick people, according to the American Cancer Society. When we believe we will [...]

Stay Out of My Child’s Lunch Box

As a brand new school mum, I've recently discovered that schools have assumed the role of the Lunch Box Police. Every morning tea and lunch is a test to see if kids and their parents have faithfully followed the laws of healthy eating. It's a nice idea, but it's questionable whether this has anything to [...]

A Sense of Purpose May Help Your Heart

Living your life with a strong sense of purpose may lower your risk for early death, heart attack or stroke, new research suggests. The finding is based on a broad review of past research involving more than 137,000 people in all. "Psychosocial conditions such as depression, anxiety, chronic stress and social isolation have strong associations [...]

Just a Half Hour of Lost Sleep Linked Weight Gain

Think twice the next time you don't get as much sleep as you need: A new study suggests that missing just 30 minutes of shuteye during weeknights could boost your weight and disrupt your metabolism. Many people skimp on sleep during the week and try to make up for it on the weekend, wrote study [...]

Want to Be Appier? 7 Apps to Boost Wellbeing

Stock Photos Teens and their phones are almost inseparable. Most parents and teachers are troubled by this – and rightly so. Excessive or inappropriate device usage is shown to interfere with sleep, relationships, academic difficulties, and physical activity and health. These each influence wellbeing in important and positive ways, so when devices interfere, outcomes are sub-optimal. [...]

5 Tips for Constructive Conversations with Your Child About Weight

My mum has spent her life believing that she's fat and hating herself for it. Her dearest wish was to spare me that fate. With the very best intentions she closely monitored my developing body, talked constantly about the perils of weight gain and policed my appetite in a way that she never did with [...]

Do Sleepy Teens Need Later School Start Times?

If you thought trying to get a groggy teenager out of bed in time for school each morning was your own private struggle, you thought wrong. The American Academy of Pediatrics declared the chronic sleepiness of our nation's teenagers a public health issue in a policy statement Monday. And to help fix the problem, the [...]

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