Dealing with Chronic Pain
A new post at my PsychologyToday.com blog, Crisis Knocks–an interview with Alan Gordon, LCSW, pain psychotherapist, regarding Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS):
Anyone who’s ever had a headache or stomachache as the result of stress has experienced TMS. For most, the pain goes away within a day or two, but for some it becomes a chronic condition. Chronic back pain, neck pain, fibromyagia, carpal tunnel syndrome, and many other conditions that are commonly thought of as having structural causes are often TMS.
Many of my clients bounced around from doctor to doctor for years, unable to find relief for their chronic pain. Usually they come upon the TMS diagnosis as a last resort, having exhausted every treatment from physical therapy to magnets to South American shamanism…
Depression Good for You?…Maybe Not
A vigorous response to the NYT’s Depression’s Upside article by Dr. Ronald Pies at PsychCentral:
[W]e have the myth of depression as a “clarifying force,” or as an “adaptive response to affliction” — notions being advanced by a number of psychologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists. Thus, Lehrer quotes psychiatrist Andy Thomson as saying, “…even if you are depressed for a few months, the depression might be worth it if it helps you better understand social relationships… Maybe you realize you need to be less rigid or more loving. Those are insights that can come out of depression, and they can be very valuable.”
Now, with all due respect to Dr. Thomson, I am inclined to ask, “Worth it to whom?”
Zone of Greatness: More Internet Dating Stats
For internet daters (and stats lovers), a series of new and old posts at the OkCupid.com blog:
Interactive maps showing why men should be looking to date older women, among other things.
Another entry looks at the data and comes up with Exactly What to Say in a First Message.
Another looks at How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating.
Plenty more where these came from on the site…
Music is Brain Food
Don’t want to learn an instrument? Just turn on the radio. From the L.A. Times:
“Music is sort of the perfect activity that people can engage in from young to older years. It affects how the brain develops and affects how the brain changes in structure” at any age, Schlaug says.
For the mature brain, even listening to beloved music may have what scientists call a “neuroprotective” effect…
Depression is Good For You…Maybe
A massive NYT Magazine piece explores “Depression’s Upside,” as hypothesized by evolutionary and social psychologists.
[T]heir speculation is part of a larger scientific re-evaluation of negative moods, which have long been seen as emotional states to avoid. The dismissal of sadness and its synonyms is perhaps best exemplified by the rise of positive psychology, a scientific field devoted to the pursuit of happiness. […] The new research on negative moods, however, suggests that sadness comes with its own set of benefits and that even our most unpleasant feelings serve an important purpose…
Touching Recommended
Another study, again posted by the New York Times, suggests a little bit of physical contact does big things.
[I]n recent years some researchers have begun to focus on a different, often more subtle kind of wordless communication: physical contact. Momentary touches, they say — whether an exuberant high five, a warm hand on the shoulder, or a creepy touch to the arm — can communicate an even wider range of emotion than gestures or expressions, and sometimes do so more quickly and accurately than words.
“It is the first language we learn”…
Pins and Needles: Acupuncture v. Depression During Pregnancy
Study of the day, as posted by the New York Times:
Up to a quarter of all women suffer from depression during pregnancy, and many are reluctant to take antidepressants. Now a new study suggests that acupuncture may provide some relief during pregnancy, even though it has not been found to be an effective treatment against depression in general…
Worldview Trumps
An NPR story about a report that details how little the facts matter to people–beliefs trump science again and again.
“People tend to conform their factual beliefs to ones that are consistent with their cultural outlook, their world view,” Braman says.
The Cultural Cognition Project has conducted several experiments to back that up…
Exercise More, Worry Less
A study shows exercise decreases anxiety in people suffering from chronic illnesses. Ill or not, try testing out the difference between a day with exercise and a day without. Exercise usually equals less worry, more sleep. From the L.A. Times:
[I]f you exercise regularly, you will likely feel much less anxious — regardless of the status of your illness. In a study published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed data from 40 studies on how exercise affects anxiety. All of the 3,000 study participants were sedentary individuals who had chronic illnesses but were still able to exercise in sessions of at least 30 minutes…
Facebook Truth
The L.A. Times reports on a study about how people present themselves on social networking sites:
A prevailing theory in psychology has been that people use their social-networking pages to protect an idealized version of themselves, not the person they really are. That may not be so.
[A] study, published recently in the journal Psychological Science, showed that peoples’ profiles do reflect their true selves. It was easiest to authenticate such personality traits as extroversion and openness from social-networking pages, somewhat harder to gauge neuroticism. But, overall, people didn’t idealize their Facebook selves, as some researchers had suspected they might.
Read the rest here.