A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Anyone who has ever experienced depression truly understands its devastating effects. For some people, depression is a debilitating illness. It robs a person of their energy, concentration and pleasure. People who are in a state of depression cannot find enjoyment in whatever they do. In some severe cases, people are known to lose their will [...]
Following the tragic death of Robin Williams, Lifeline Australia saw a 25% increase in calls. When faced with someone in crisis, many people don’t know what to do, or how to help. Some are concerned about making things worse. This means many people don’t approach the person at all. The person in crisis may feel [...]
Can you remember watching Jamie’s School Dinners and being horrified at what UK and US schools were serving up to kids on a daily basis? Can you remember shaking your head in disbelief as school principals, canteen supervisors and local administrators continually argued that healthy food wasn’t financially viable in a school setting? I mean, [...]
The United Nations hosted a "High Level Meeting on Happiness and Well-being" in New York this week. The confab's point was that judging the success of societies solely by material measures such as Gross National Product fails to capture everything that goes into a life well-lived. True enough, but I do wonder how accurate a [...]
The risk posed by some popular antidepressants in early pregnancy is not worth taking for women with mild to moderate depression, an expert has warned. Professor Stephen Pilling says evidence suggests SSRIs can double the risk of a child being born with a heart defect. The drugs have been used by up to one in [...]
On Friday 30 May, NSW Mental Health Commissioner, John Feneley addressed teachers, nurses, social workers, police and mental health professionals as he officially opened the Sydney Generation Next seminar. Held at the Sydney Town Hall, the Generation Next seminar saw more than 1000 professionals from across multiple disciplines come together to learn how to support [...]
Our brains might be adapting to an emoticon-filled world by processing them differently. Today emoticons are so pervasive that behavioral science has taken an active interest in how people use them. Among the evidence (recently surveyedby Roni Jacobson at the great new Science of Usblog), we find that women use more emoticons than men, that using [...]
Dr. Wang explains that the first step is to identify triggers for excessive Internet, social media or technology use - such as boredom or stress. Next, learned automatic responses - such as using the smartphone to relieve anxiety - are challenged and reversed. "At a deeper level, exploring their thoughts and beliefs about anxiety and [...]
Researchers at University College London were able to create an equation that could accurately predict the happiness of over 18,000 people, according to a new study. First, the researchers had 26 participants complete decisionmaking tasks in which their choices either led to monetary gains or losses. The researchers used fMRI imaging to measure their brain [...]
High amounts of work related stress have been shown to raise the risk of type 2 diabetes by 45% in a study of over 5,000 people. The research was carried out by researchers from the Helmholtz Zentrum München in Germany. 5,337 people, without type 2 diabetes at the start of the study period, were picked from the MONICA-KORA cohort [...]
