A good fight with your spouse may be good for your health, research suggests.
Couples in which both the husband and wife suppress their anger when one attacks the other die earlier than members of couples where one or both partners express their anger and resolve the conflict, preliminary results of a U-M study indicate. [continue reading…]
Depression affects huge numbers of people. One in four of us suffer from it at some point in our lives; one in ten will in the next year, and about one in twenty of us is living with the condition right now. Dr Paul Keedwell argues that, although depression is unpleasant and sometimes unbearable, it can have some long term benefits both for individuals and possibly for us as a species.
In his new book “How Sadness Survived” Dr Keedwell, a specialist in depression at the section of Neuroscience and Emotion, Institute of Psychiatry, London, proposes that depression can lead to increased resilience, empathy and creativity of thought. Examples of brilliant and successful people who have suffered from the condition – from Michelangelo to Winston Churchill – are highlighted.
Case examples support Dr Keedwell’s suggestion that depression is a defence rather than a defect. The condition may have persisted and evolved as an effective response to life challenges and could still represent a potentially successful strategy in today’s modern world.
Paul Keedwell offers a new approach to the benefits of negative emotions, and how we might view depression in a more constructive way.
“An important and novel analysis of the possible advantages of having a depression.”
Lewis Wolpert, Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine
How Sadness Survived is now available from Radcliffe Publishing: click here.
Source:Medical News Today
Same-sex couples are just as committed in their romantic relationships as heterosexual couples, say researchers who have studied the quality of adult relationships and healthy development. Their finding disputes the stereotype that couples in same-sex relationships are not as committed as their heterosexual counterparts and are therefore not as psychologically healthy.These results are from two studies featured in the January issue of Developmental Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association. This issue includes a special section that examines sexual orientation across the lifespan. [continue reading…]
Most people know it from experience: After so many hours of being awake, your brain feels unable to absorb any more—and several hours of sleep will refresh it.Now new research from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health clarifies this phenomenon, supporting the idea that sleep plays a critical role in the brain’s ability to change in response to its environment. This ability, called plasticity, is at the heart of learning. [continue reading…]
