Mindfully Healing

Both creativity and intelligence could be linked to this relaxing activity. Being a daydreamer is a sign that you are intelligent and creative, new research concludes. The result comes from a study in which over 100 people had their brains scanned while they stared at a fixed point for five minutes. The researchers wanted to see how their brains worked in unison when they were given nothing in particular to do. People whose brains worked more efficiently had greater intellectual abilities and also reported more daydreaming in their everyday lives.

Study tests if western diet contributes to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Poor diet and inactivity probably account for around one-quarter of cases of Alzheimer’s disease, recent research finds. Now, a new study suggests that a ‘western diet’ may well be a contributing factor to Alzheimer’s. The study’s authors describe the typical western diet: “A western diet tends to include highly processed, less expensive fast food, that has a high fat content and simple carbohydrates while lacking essential nutrients from complex grains, fruits and vegetables.” Scientists at Tufts University

The research found this technique improved people’s ability to remember new names. The secret to better learning could be very brief exercise directly afterwards, new research finds. People who did just 5 minutes of step aerobics after learning remembered more than those who did not exercise. It is thought that immediate exercise helps the process of memory consolidation. Consolidation is how the brain locks in and strengthens the memory after it has been acquired. Memory consolidation was first written about two thousand years ago by the Roman scholar Quintilian, but

Psychopaths are likely to be selfish, callous, remorseless and anti-social. Psychopaths are more likely to major in business and economics, a study finds. This supports the view of business people as tending towards the callous and self-interested. At the other end of the scale, people intending to study psychology were the least likely to have psychopathic traits. The results come from a survey of over 400 Danish students. They took a personality test along with providing information about their future academic choices. All the information was collected before they started

Smarter people are also healthier, finds 10 year study of over half a million Britons. People born with larger heads are more intelligent, according to research from a large study. Large heads — along with greater brain volume — are also linked to having a more successful future. Those with larger heads are more likely to go on to higher education. This is probably because children with larger heads also have higher scores on tests of verbal and numerical reasoning. The findings come from the UK Biobank study, which is

This confirms what smart women always suspected about men. Men prefer smarter women, but only in theory, a new study finds. When a real living, breathing smarter women is close by, men shy away, preferring women of lower intelligence. Dr Lora Park, who led the study, said: “There is a disconnect between what people appear to like in the abstract when someone is unknown and when that same person is with them in some immediate social context.” The research tested the difference between abstract and actual intelligence. Dr Park explained

The parental behaviour that lowers children’s IQ. Children who were spanked in childhood have lower IQs, a study finds. The more children were spanked, the lower their IQ, the research also found. The probable reason is that spanking is highly stressful for children. It can leave them with post-traumatic stress disorder. An ongoing fear of terrible things happening — being easily startled — is linked to a lower IQ. Parents who continue to use corporal punishment into the teenage years may hamper their children’s brain development even more. Professor Murray

The antioxidants help soak up damaging chemicals in the body. A healthy diet filled with fruit and vegetables makes people look more attractive. The diet changes the skin to a golden colour, which looks more attractive to others. Dr Ian Stephen, who led the research, said: “Most people think the best way to improve skin colour is to get a suntan, but our research shows that eating lots of fruit and vegetables is actually more effective.” People in the study who ate more fruit and vegetables developed a more golden

For 50 years scientists and the public alike have been completely wrong about the biological basis of depression. The scientific basis behind commonly used antidepressants is completely backwards, according to a new review of the research. For almost 50 years it has been believed by scientists and the public alike that depression is related to low levels of serotonin in the brain. The most commonly prescribed antidepressant medications — like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft — are thought to work by keeping serotonin levels higher. So-called selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, or

3,961 people from 29 different studies were included in the analysis. Depression is more than a mental disorder, it affects the body’s ability to detoxify itself. It should be seen as a systematic disease that affects the whole body, argues a new study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Accepting that depression affects the whole body could help explain why people experiencing depression are more likely to suffer from cancer, cardiovascular disease and to die younger. All of these problems can be combated, however, by the usual treatments for depression: