In times of stress, we’re often encouraged to pause for a moment and simply be in the ‘now.’ This kind of mindfulness, an essential part of Buddhist and Indian Yoga traditions, has entered the mainstream as people try to find ways to combat stress and improve their quality of life. And research suggests that mindfulness meditation can have benefits for health and performance, including improved immune function, reduced blood pressure, and enhanced cognitive function.

But how is it that a single practice can have such wide-ranging effects on well-being? A new article published in the latest issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, draws on the existing scientific literature to build a framework that can explain these positive effects.

The goal of this work, according to author Britta Hölzel, of Justus Liebig University and Harvard Medical School, is to “unveil the conceptual and mechanistic complexity of mindfulness, providing the ‘big picture’ by arranging many findings like the pieces of a mosaic.” By using a framework approach to understand the mechanisms of mindfulness, Hölzel and her co-authors point out that what we think of as mindfulness is not actually a single skill. Rather, it is a multi-faceted mental practice that encompasses several mechanisms. [continue reading…]

Study demonstrates that social stressors around the transition into adulthood sow the seeds of disease in mid-adulthood

Being hard up socially and financially during adolescence and early adulthood takes its toll on the body, and leads to physiological wear and tear in middle aged men and women, irrespective of how tough things have been in the interim. According to Dr. Per E. Gustafsson from Umeå University in Sweden and colleagues, experience of social and material stressors around the time of transition into adulthood is linked to a rise in disease risk factors in middle age, including higher blood pressure, body weight and cholesterol. Their work is published online in Springer’s journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine. [continue reading…]

Study proves gender stereotype that men are funnier than women

Why do we think that men are funnier than women? Because they are! And men are particularly responsive to other men’s humor. Women, however, find men funnier because they mistakenly attribute funny things to men. Laura Mickes and her team, from the University of California, and Robert Mankoff from The New Yorker, explore the reasons behind the stereotype that men are funnier than women and find scientific proof to support it. Their work appears online in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, published by Springer.

Both men and women seem to believe that men are funnier than women. Why? One theory is that men use humor to impress potential partners. Women often say they prefer a man who makes them laugh and men prefer women who laugh at their jokes. Mickes and team wanted to find out if there was some substance behind the stereotype i.e. are men actually funnier than women or are they simply perceived as such? [continue reading…]