The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth.
~Chinese Proverb~
Most of us do not need proof that listening to music can lift our mood. We simply accept what experience tells us.
That does not stop researchers from looking for reasons why music positively affects our feelings and perceptions. Scientists in Finland at the University of Helsinki, for instance, …
As the Christmas Carol goes, “It’s that time of year when the world falls in love,” but it is also the time of year when daylight savings time is over, daylight hours are shorter, and many people suffer from SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Our body’s circadian rhythm, or its 24 hour interna…
Overthinking is examining and reexamining negative emotions, thoughts, and memories. Both men and women can fall into a pattern of overthinking, although women tend to do it more often.
While standard worrywarts fret about the future, overthinkers circle their negative mental wagons around past occ…
We do not hear much about music therapy for depression, although studies showing it effectively relieves depressive symptoms have been done.
Music therapy involves a trained music therapist engaging in improvisational music-making with a client. It seems that the “active doing” of playing musical i…
Maybe you have noticed that many positively charged words contain the “i” sound (e.g., like, high), while many negatively charged words have an “o” sound (e.g. lonely, low).
Some scientists noticed this is true in many languages, and wondered why. Their research shows that the way our mouth…
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be triggered by various traumatic experiences, but the symptoms are most often recognized in individuals suffering military related trauma.
This is not surprising since military experience and PTSD are frequently linked in TV shows, films, and the news medi…
There are many scientific reasons why yoga is good exercise choice for people with depression.
Practicing yoga helps us become mindful of the present, reduces stress, and helps balance the body’s hormones. Research suggests yoga increases the release of our feel-good neurotransmitters (e.g., seroto…
Compassionate action arises when we understand that beneath our different circumstances and appearances lies an essential oneness, a shared human experience.
Though we know this oneness includes our self, many of us have an easier time extending compassion to strangers than to the person reflecte…
When you roll a genetic scientist and monk into one human being, you end up with Matthieu Ricard, a very happy individual with a passion for the perks of meditation.
He wants others to understand that meditation alters the brain just as weight-lifting changes muscle, and that anyone who trains his …
We know that water can be a solid, liquid or gas. That makes water an excellent metaphor or illustration for thoughts, which can also be a solid, liquid or gas.
What we feel has much to do with how we think. Knowing the difference between “types” of thoughts can help us manage our depression, anxie…
You learn the most about mental health diagnoses by talking to people who have them, especially those who have lived with symptoms for many years.
I interviewed Ginny, a 50-something-year-old woman who has struggled with, and learned to manage, symptoms of PTSD.
Part of Ginny’s PTSD journey is dea…
In The Twenty-Four Hour Mind, sleep researcher Rosalind D. Cartwright writes about dreams as a means of regulating distressing emotion.
She also shares what research has discovered about rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in people who are depressed.
Cartwright believes that dreams, which occur duri…
We have been taught that thinking (cognition) happens in the gray matter housed in our skull.
It is natural for us to assume that everything we do is the result of complex mental computations that go on there. And it is logical for us to assume that if a person is not managing life well, the proble…
Our bodies cannot function without the mineral magnesium, and that includes the proper working of neurons and neurotransmitters in the brain.
Research indicates that magnesium is required for our nervous system to relax from the effects of fear and anxiety.
Magnesium also supports the brain me…
Most of us, when we speak of loneliness or of being lonely, are talking about a feeling. It is a feeling described as emptiness tinged with longing, sadness or grief.
We may feel cutoff from others, bleak, desolate or desperate whether in a room by ourself, in company with significant others, or at…
Our physical, mental, emotional, and chemical well being are interrelated.
We can study these aspects of health separately and address problems in these areas separately, but whatever affects one area touches all the others, for good or ill.
Something that has an immediate impact on each aspect of hea…
We all know vitamin D is necessary for good health and that a lack of it can contribute to numerous health problems. Is depression one of those problems?
Research on the role vitamin D plays in mental health is growing. So far, studies have yielded links and tendencies between mood and levels of vita…
One of the best coping methods for stress and symptoms of a mental illness is having a creative outlet, an activity we can pour ourselves into.
It can be anything we deeply engage in such as gardening, scrapbooking, baking, yoga, writing, woodworking, or painting. Writing poems is an excellent creati…
Our experience of life has much to do with the way we see or perceive it. One of the reasons a poem can be life altering is that it may change our experience by changing our view or perception of it.
April is National Poetry Month, the perfect time to explore the positive and profound effect well-ch…
When you are caught in a depressive funk, it is important to get away from your thoughts.
Although these thoughts can seem inescapable, they’re not. We can escape them because our awareness is something we can control.
It takes effort to move our awareness where we want it, but with practice it gets…
© psydtraks
