Mindfully Healing

Certain words can reduce both social pain and physical pain. Swearing can help to relieve hurt feelings and an aching heart, new research has found. Swearing aloud helps to quickly reduce various types of ‘social distress’ such as being socially excluded. The experiment was carried out to test ‘Pain Overlap Theory’. This is the idea that physical pain is processed in a similar way by the brain as social pain, the kind you get from being rejected or embarrassed. Dr Michael Philipp, the study’s first author, explained the results: “The

The behavior is linked to more white matter, the brain’s ‘superhighway’. People who take calculated risks are likely to be smarter than average, research finds. People making quick decisions and taking chances have more white matter in their brains. White matter is sometimes called the ‘superhighway’ of the brain: it transmits signals and regulates communication. The researchers were surprised by the result as they expected the exact opposite: that smarter people would spend more time evaluating the situation before making a decision. Dr Dagfinn Moe, study co-author, explained: “We expected

The smouldering regret that is most widespread won’t surprise you. Romantic regrets are the most common type, research finds. Among women, regrets about romance were twice as common as among men. For men, work regrets were most widespread. Other common areas of regret included financial decisions, parenting mistakes, missed educational opportunities and family arguments. Professor Neal Roese, an author of this study, said: “We found that one’s life circumstances, such as accomplishments or shortcomings, inject considerable fuel into the fires of regret. Although regret is painful, it is an essential