Exercise Benefits Memory, Mental Health

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Exercise Benefits Memory, Mental HealthResearchers at Dartmouth College have found that exercise can benefit memory, as well as help children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
By Janice Wood Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on May 26, 2012

Over the past few years data has shown that exercise creates neurobiological changes, according to David Bucci, an associate professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences.
His latest research finds that the effects of exercise are different on memory, as well as on the brain, depending on whether the exerciser is an adolescent or an adult. Researchers have also identified a gene that seems to mediate the degree to which exercise has a beneficial effect, which has implications for the use of exercise as an intervention for mental illness, Bucci said.
He said he began his pursuit of the link between exercise and memory with ADHD, one of the most common childhood psychological disorders, noting he is concerned that the treatment of choice is medication.
“The notion of pumping children full of psycho-stimulants at an early age is troublesome,” Bucci said. “We frankly don’t know the long-term effects of administering drugs at an early age — drugs that affect the brain — so looking for alternative therapies is clearly important.”
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Cognitive Therapy for Depression

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Are your thoughts dragging you down?
By
WebMD Feature

Almost everyone has dark thoughts when his or her mood is bad. With depression, though, the thoughts can be extremely negative. They can also take over and distort your view of reality.
Cognitive therapy can be an effective way to defuse those thoughts. When used for depression, cognitive therapy provides a mental tool kit that can be used to challenge negative thoughts. Over the long term, cognitive therapy for depression can change the way a depressed person sees the world.
Studies have shown that cognitive therapy works at least as well as antidepressants in helping people with mild to moderate depression. Treatment with medication and/or psychotherapy can shorten depression’s course and can help reduce symptoms such as fatigue and poor self-esteem that accompany depression. Read on to see how cognitive therapy or talk therapy might help you start thinking and feeling better if you are depressed.

Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A Thinking Problem

Cognitive therapy was developed in the 1960s as an alternative way to treat depression, says Judith S. Beck, PhD. Beck is director of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research located outside Philadelphia. She tells WebMD that the principle underlying cognitive therapy is “thoughts influence moods.”
According to cognitive therapists, depression is maintained by constant negative thoughts. These thoughts are known as automatic thoughts. That means they occur without a conscious effort. For example, a depressed person might have automatic thoughts like these:

  • “I always fail at everything.”
  • “I’m the world’s worst mother.”
  • “I am doomed to be unhappy.”

To read more, click here. 

Glenn Close: Let’s End the Stigma Around Mental Illness Now

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In 1987, when Glenn Close was cast as Alex Forrest — the iconic lead character in Fatal Attraction — Close met with several psychiatrists. She was hoping to learn more about the obviously troubled lead character. Little did she know, she was also about to learn something more troubling about the status of mentally ill people in our society.
Glenn says those visits provided insight towards the stigma around mental illness: “Not only did I not have a vocabulary for it, I realized, startlingly, that [the psychiatrists] didn’t either.” She realized that even mental health professionals still struggled to speak openly about mental illness. That experience, along with the experiences in her own family, is part of what made her into the mental health advocate she is today.
I recently had the privilege of attending the annual meeting of One Mind for Research at UCLA. With the ambitious title “Curing Brain Disease,” the conference was filled to capacity with neuroscientists and policymakers with a powerful vision: that all mankind experiences a lifetime free of brain disease.
A highlight of the conference was “The Science of Stigma,” a panel led by Glenn Close. I was fortunate enough to sit in, and to interview Glenn and the panelists afterward.
 To read more, click here.

The 3 Minute Test for Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder and PTSD

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These are serious conditions that affect, not only your quality of life, but your physical health.

Did you know that having a mood disorder may increase your heart attack risk and decrease your ability to recover from other illnesses like stroke, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and cancer?

Your M3 score is a number that will help you and your doctor understand if you have a treatable mood disorder, like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or post traumatic stress disorder. You can even monitor your score to see how your mental health is changing over time.

What’s my M3? Knowing can help you take control of your mental health, and you can discover yours in about three minutes with our free, confidential test.

Click here to read more.

Screening for mental illness? Yes, there’s an app for that

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By Michelle Healy, USA TODAY

There are numbers to track cholesterol and numbers to assess blood pressure, body temperature and weight. But can a number give an accurate read on your mental health?
The medical team behind a screening tool called Whats MyM3 says it can — and it can tell if you’re at increased risk for depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
WhatsMyM3 (originally My Mood Monitor) can help adults, whether in treatment or not, “monitor their own symptoms and have a view of what’s going on” in terms of mood and anxiety, says psychiatrist Steven Daviss of M3 Information, Bethesda, Md. Daviss is chairman of psychiatry at Baltimore Washington Medical Center.
WhatsMyM3 is available as a mobile app ($2.99 for iPhone, iPad and Android), or free on the Web (WhatsMyM3.com). M3Clinician is a version for physicians. The company has no financial or other relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, says president Michael Byer.
To read more, click here. 

Preemies at Greater Risk for Future Bipolar, Depression, Psychosis

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By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on June 3, 2012
Preemies at Greater Risk for Future Bipolar, Depression, PsychosisBabies born prematurely are at a much greater risk for developing severe mental disorders including psychosis, bipolar disorder and depression, according to a new study.

Researchers found that individuals born very prematurely (less than 32 weeks) were three times more likely to be hospitalized with a psychiatric illness at age 16 and older than those born full-term.
The scientists believe the increased risk may be due to small but critical differences in brain development if the child is born before the full 40-week gestation period.
The risk varied with each condition. Psychosis was two and a half times more likely for premature babies, severe depression three times more likely, and bipolar disorder 7.4 times more likely for those born before 32 weeks.
Researchers also found smaller but significant increased psychiatric risks for infants born only moderately early, between 32 and 36 weeks.
“Since we considered only the most severe cases that resulted in hospitalization, it may be that in real terms this link is even stronger,” said Chiara Nosarti from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, who led the research.
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Depressed? Try This One Simple Tip

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Depression is insidious.
You feel sad, you lose your concentration, nothing is interesting to you anymore, and – to top it all off – your thoughts become stuck in an endless loop of self-criticism.
There are many ways to address depression. Researchers interested in decreasing depression and increasing resilience have found that using a number of intentional activities creates positive emotions and helps reduce feelings of depression.
The first step, though, is to work toward letting go of the critical rumination going on in your head. Why? Because it is very difficult to even consider pursuing intentional activities with thoughts such as:
“It won’t help.”
“Why even bother?”
“I’ll just screw it up.”
These thoughts make your mood bleaker and keep you on the sofa rather than feeling up for trying a new activity or intervention.
To read more, click here.

Schizophrenia, Autism Linked to Several of the Same Genes

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By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on April 28, 2012

Schizophrenia, Autism Linked to Several of the Same GenesScientists have labeled 33 genes as being associated with autism and other related disorders and also found several of these genes to be altered in people with schizophrenia, according to a study published in the journal Cell.
Of the 33 genes, 22 were linked to autism for the first time.
“By sequencing the genomes of a group of children with neurodevelopmental abnormalities, including autism, who were also known to have abnormal chromosomes, we identified the precise points where the DNA strands are disrupted and segments exchanged within or between chromosomes,” said senior study author James Gusella, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Human Genetic Research.
To read more, click here.

Playing Tetris may treat PTSD, flashbacks

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By LiveScience Contributor

updated 4/25/2012 3:36:51 PM ET 2012-04-25T19:36:51

Image: TetrisLONDON — A seemingly trivial task — playing a particular video game — may lessen flashbacks and other psychological symptoms following a traumatic event, according to research presented here at the British Psychology Society Annual Conference.

Researchers are now corroborating what some trauma sufferers have happened upon by chance: Focusing on a highly engaging visual-spatial task, such as playing video games, may significantly reduce the occurrence of flashbacks, the mental images concerning the trauma that intrude on the sufferer afterward.
Flashbacks are considered by some to be the central hub of symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), researchers Lalitha Iyadurai and Ella James of Oxford University explained to LiveScience. They are invasive, unpredictable distress signals that can make everyday activities difficult. The jarring mental images also may trigger or exacerbate other symptoms associated with PTSD, including irritability, anger, poor concentration and sleep disorders. [ Top 10 Spooky Sleep Disorders ] Click here to read more.


New Study About the Psychology of Bullying

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By Katherine Prudente, LCAT, RDT

Jaana Juvonen, a UCLA developmental psychologist has published new study that sheds a different light on the psychology of bullying here. What I found most enlightening was that, contrary to popular belief that bullies are young people who have low self-esteem and thus bully to compensate, Ms. Juvonen’s study notes that bullies,”…have almost ridiculously high levels of self-esteem… what’s more, they are viewed by their fellow students and even by teachers not as pariahs but as popular — in fact, as some of the coolest kids at school.”
WHAT!
When I think about  all my work with kids in classrooms (and reflecting on my own adolescences) the students with the most social clout are some of the kids that bully. Ms. Juvonen’s study validates what victims of bullying have known anecdotally.
Perhaps this is what makes bullying such a difficult problem to address – young people who bully benefit from it by being viewed as powerful, likable and cool. Which in turn, helps the child develop a sense of self-worth, albeit at the expense of another child. I found the research enlightening and thought provoking. Ms. Juvonen notes that bullying is not just an individual problem but a systemic problem in which adults have to be creative in how to address bullies:

“Think if there might be another way to provide them with a sense of control and power other than being mean to others,” she suggested. “I’ve seen some very clever teachers do that. When they see a kid who’s constantly on the case of other kids, these clever teachers give this kid a special role” that channels the bully’s energies more positively.

Click here to read more.