How sugar affects our brain chemistry making us want more and more Published on February 5, 2013 by Melanie A. Greenberg, Ph.D. in The Mindful Self-Express   37 inShare     “That glazed doughnut is calling my name. Oh yes it is!  It’s so sweet and pink and full of sprinkles. I long to taste those delicious sweet tidbits melting in my mouth, giving me a rush of pleasure and energy and making everything okay even when it isn’t.”  How many of us have had this feeling around mid-afternoon on a particularly grey and miserable day, when nothing seems to be going our way.  I know I have!  Longing for…

Staying on the job 11 hours or more each day doubles the risk for depression, study shows People who work overtime are at much greater risk for depression, according to a new study. Researchers followed roughly 2,000 middle-aged British government workers and after taking other risk factors for depression into account, found that workers on the job for 11 hours or more each day are twice as likely to suffer from depression as those who work just seven to eight hours daily.

By Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. Created Dec 6 2011 – 10:52am OK, nobody wants to make mistakes — but how you react to them makes a big difference in whether you learn from them. Two new studies looked at what happens in people’s brains as they make mistakes. One used college students performing a computer task; the other used doctors making decisions about which medications to prescribe. In both studies, participants received immediate feedback about whether they had made the right decision, and they were given opportunities to try again, using what they had learned.

 The human brain doesn’t stop developing at adolescence, but continues well into our 20s, demonstrates recent research from the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta.

Consumers who feel a lack of control over circumstances seek boundaries — including physical borders, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. “People often turn to aesthetic boundaries in their environment to give them a sense that their world is ordered and structured as opposed to random and chaotic,” writes author Keisha Cutright (University of Pennsylvania).

September 15, 2011 Research provides new insight into why some individuals may be more aggressive than others. Fluctuations of serotonin levels in the brain, which often occur when someone hasn’t eaten or is stressed, affects brain regions that enable people to regulate anger, new research from the University of Cambridge has shown. Although reduced serotonin levels have previously been implicated in aggression, this is the first study which has shown how this chemical helps regulate behaviour in the brain as well as why some individuals may be more prone to aggression.  The research findings were published today, 15 September, in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

UCLA life scientists have identified for the first time a particular gene’s link to optimism, self-esteem and “mastery,” the belief that one has control over one’s own life — three critical psychological resources for coping well with stress and depression. “I have been looking for this gene for a few years, and it is not the gene I expected,” said Shelley E. Taylor, a distinguished professor of psychology at UCLA and senior author of the new research. “I knew there had to be a gene for these psychological resources.”

How To Be More Compassionate Toward Yourself     In my last blog entry, Stop Self-Criticism With Compassionate Self-Awareness, I offered a way to help you stop being self-critical. The last part of the approach included advice to respond to yourself with more compassion.