A little blog by me for the mental elf here on an interesting study that showed that concussion in teens is associated with a threefold increase in their likelihood of being depressed.
Almost everyone I know has had a cold recently, including me (I know, poor me… *tiny violin*). Continue reading
Healthcare services have come under fire in 2013 for their lack of compassionate care, particularly post-mid-Staffs scandal. Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust was found to have serious failings in provision of care which resulted in patient distress and deaths. Continue reading
Pondering my own New Year’s resolutions this year led me to looking up what research has been done on this phenomenon. A very well-written paper from 1989 by Norcross & Vangerelli describes the origins of the New Year’s resolution. Apparently resolutions hail from Roman times, when people promised the two-headed God Janus that they would behave better. Janus looks both forwards and backwards and is whom the month of January is named after. Continue reading
Sex differences in brain connections found in a recent PNAS article have caused a media stir. The BBC reported that “men and women’s brains are wired differently” and that this might result in differences between what each sex does well. A backlash of comment debated whether this is a helpful position for gender equality, and whether the media story had covered the science accurately enough. Continue reading
A friend stumbled across this poster in the Lake District at Halloween. It reminded me of a sign that used to be up in our local corner shop when I was at school, prohibiting more than two children in the shop at the same time, in case of shoplifting. Because of course ALL children shoplift. And of course ALL “young people” are only going to buy eggs and flour to throw at other, presumably “old” people. God forbid that any of them might actually be BAKING. Continue reading
What happens to a facebook page when its creator dies? And are our ways of mourning changing? Continue reading
Bring to mind something about yourself that you feel ashamed of, something you feel is a weakness: a character trait, something you said, something you did… Now imagine how you would feel if this thing were held up and talked about as if it were the worst possible thing: inhuman, scary, impossible to understand. Imagine a supermarket made a fancy dress costume based on how disgusting this thing was – turning it into a caricature. For the millions of people who have been to see a psychologist or psychiatrist because of deep distress of some kind, this is exactly what has happened. Continue reading
It seems that even in birds, age can bring wisdom in knowing which direction to take in life.
Young birds learn which direction to migrate in by following old birds, scientists reported last week in the journal Science. Bird migration has been studied for hundreds of years, but no one has known for sure how birds figure out which route to take. Continue reading
Camping can help you re-set your body clock, a new study from the University of Colorado suggests. Continue reading
Psychology magpie 