Positive thinking

Michael Smith, Northumbria University, Newcastle   Writing about positive emotions may help to reduce stress and anxiety, according to our new study , published in the British Journal of Health Psychology. Earlier research has also found that writing about negative emotions – getting things “off your chest” – can improve your mental health . And it seems to benefit physical health, too. Stress affects your physical health, so it is thought that improvements in mental well-being might stop people becoming physically unwell. Research has shown that writing about negative emotions can lead to fewer visits to the doctor , fewer self-reported symptoms of ill health , and less time off work due to ill health . Not many studies have investigated writing about positive emotions, but if writing about negative emotions helps people deal with their negative thoughts and feelings, then it’s possible that focusing on positive emotions might have a positive effect on people’s me...

Michael J.Porter, University of Central Lancashire   Stress is great. It makes us faster, stronger, more agile and our brains have better recall and flexibility. That’s why people are willing to put themselves in stressful work situations or engage in extreme sports . The problem is that uncontrolled, stress can leave us frozen to the spot and unable to think – something all too familiar for people having to speak in public or students sitting in the exam hall. Stress developed because it gives an evolutionary advantage . For early man, and with predators everywhere, food could be scarce and diseases prevalent. By understanding what is happening inside our bodies and why, we can learn to control stress and use it our advantage. Your body, when stressed When you’re feeling stressed, it’s a sign that your body is going into emergency mode. The turbo button is pressed, the engine of your body has roared into overdrive and you become superhuman. This means becoming u...

Liza Morton, Strathclyde University   One in every 125 babies is born with a heart condition – but thanks to modern medicine more infants are surviving than ever before. In the developed world, 90% will now live into adulthood, compared with just 20% in the 1940s . However, there is no cure for these conditions and the person needs lifelong medical monitoring . Congenital heart disease (CHD) doesn’t just affect the body – it affects the mind, too. A growing body of evidence shows that people with CHD are more likely to suffer from mental health problems, such as anxiety , depression and post-traumatic stress disorder . To date, this psychological impact has been understood as a consequence of the additional stressors that living with a serious lifelong medical condition can bring, such as missed schooling, spending lots of time in hospital (from childhood), and having to undergo frequent surgery. I know from personal experience how challenging this journey can...

Jean Twenge, San Diego State University Something is stealing teens’ sleep. In a newly released analysis of two large national surveys , my co-authors and I found that the number of U.S. teens who reported sleeping less than seven hours a night jumped 22 percent between 2012 and 2015. Sleep experts agree that teens need at least nine hours of sleep a night . But by 2015, 43 percent of teens reported sleeping less than seven hours a night on most nights – meaning almost half of U.S. teens are significantly sleep-deprived. What could have raised sleep deprivation among teens to such unprecedented levels? Some factors are easy to rule out. For example, we found that the amount of time teens spent working, doing homework and participating in extracurricular activities held steady during those years. But there was one large change in teens’ lives between 2012 and 2015: More owned smartphones. It starts as an alarm clock… Today’s teens – whom I call “iGen” – a...

Olivia Remes , University of Cambridge Do you have anxiety? Have you tried just about everything to get over it, but it just keeps coming back? Perhaps you thought you had got over it, only for the symptoms to return with a vengeance? Whatever your circumstances, science can help you to beat anxiety for good. Anxiety can present as fear, restlessness, an inability to focus at work or school, finding it hard to fall or stay asleep at night, or getting easily irritated. In social situations, it can make it hard to talk to others; you might feel like you’re constantly being judged, or have symptoms such as stuttering, sweating, blushing or an upset stomach. It can appear out of the blue as a panic attack, when sudden spikes of anxiety make you feel like you’re about to have a heart attack, go mad or lose control. Or it can be present all the time, as in generalised anxiety disorder, when diffuse and pervasive worry consumes you and you look to the future with dr...