Mindfully Healing

This type of music helps you search longer and harder for a creative solution. Listening to happy, energetic music increases people’s creativity, a new study finds. Researchers found that listening to the violin concerto “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi helped their divergent creativity. Divergent creativity refers to creating lots of potential answers to a problem. For example, try to think of as many uses as you can for a brick. Building a house is the obvious one, but you might also list sitting on it, using it to smash

Three steps that will help you stop brooding. Repetitive negative thoughts are at the heart of the depressive experience. There are three steps vital to reducing repetitive negative thoughts, according to Professor Hans M. Nordahl, an expert on psychological therapy. These are (1) realising that brooding is a waste of time, (2) focus on the here-and-now rather than the past and (3) be wary of habitual distractions like drinking. 1. Brooding is a waste of time Professor Nordahl said that people… “…often confuse ruminative brooding with problem solving, analysis or

People prefer it when your name matches your face. People have a preference for names and faces that go together, new research finds. Names that have a round sound, that require rounding of the mouth, like “Lou”, go better with round faces. Angular sounding names, like “Peter”, though, go better with more angular faces. The psychologists tested this by having people look at pairs of names and faces. Sometimes the names matched the face (round name, round face) and sometimes not (round name, angular face). They found that people prefer

This positive personality trait linked to more suicidal thoughts and suicide itself. People who have a tendency towards perfectionism are at a much higher risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide itself, new research finds. Perfectionists find it harder than others to deal with a world that is fundamentally flawed. Perfectionism involves being highly self-critical, constantly striving to meet the standards of others (typically parents or mentors) and being unsure about the efficacy of one’s own actions. While a certain amount of perfectionism is adaptive and necessary, when it becomes an

Have you ever fallen foul of the grammar police? Introverts are more likely to judge a person negatively on the basis of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, a new study finds. People who are sensitive to grammatical errors are also more likely to be less agreeable by nature. Extroverted people, though, are more likely to ignore written errors. Professor Julie Boland, one of the study’s authors, said: “This is the first study to show that the personality traits of listeners/readers have an effect on the interpretation of language. In this

Slows and can even reverse age-related physical and mental decline. Dancing keeps your brain young, new research finds. Compared with exercise like cycling and Nordic walking, dancing has more profound effects. Dr Kathrin Rehfeld, lead author of the study, said: “Exercise has the beneficial effect of slowing down or even counteracting age-related decline in mental and physical capacity. In this study, we show that two different types of physical exercise (dancing and endurance training) both increase the area of the brain that declines with age. In comparison, it was only

Being sarcastic, ignoring deadlines and these five other unusual things are all linked to higher creativity. 1. You are sarcastic Sarcasm can actually promote creative thinking, a study finds. Researchers have discovered that sarcasm can actually cause creativity, rather than just being its byproduct. Sarcasm may not even be detrimental to relationships, if used between people who know each other. Despite being considered one of the lowest forms of wit, sarcasm actually requires considerable mental powers to produce. 2. Your mind wanders People tend to think of daydreaming and letting

People in the study were asked to journal about their most stressful experiences. Accepting negative emotions is the best way to deal with them in the long-run, new research finds. People who are more accepting of their darker moods have better psychological health. Dr Iris Mauss, one author of the study, said: “We found that people who habitually accept their negative emotions experience fewer negative emotions, which adds up to better psychological health.” Psychologists are still not sure exactly why acceptance is so powerful, said Dr Mauss: “Maybe if you

The most appealing sexual behaviours revealed by survey of over 2,000 men and women. Being romantic and affectionate top the list of most appealing sexual behaviours, new research finds. Even men found kissing and cuddling most appealing in comparison to other ‘kinkier’ activities, the survey of over 2,000 men and women found. The sample included a wide range of ages and sexual orientations. Professor Debby Herbenick, the study’s first author, said: “Contrary to some stereotypes, the most appealing behaviors, even for men, are romantic and affectionate behaviors. These included kissing

Why some memories last a lifetime and others are quickly forgotten. Memories that last a lifetime need to be linked to lots of other memories, plus they need to be a bit weird. Professor Per Sederberg, an expert on memory, thinks the idea of peculiarity is vital to understanding memory: “You have to build a memory on the scaffolding of what you already know, but then you have to violate the expectations somewhat. It has to be a little bit weird.” This ‘scaffolding’ means connections to other memories. For example,