Mindcare Counselling Blog

UC Berkeley researchers have found that stress chemicals shut down and the brain processes emotional experiences during the REM dream phase of sleep They say time heals all wounds, and new research from the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that time spent in dream sleep can help. UC Berkeley researchers have found that during the dream phase of sleep, also known as REM sleep, our stress chemistry shuts down and the brain processes emotional experiences and takes the painful edge off difficult memories. The findings offer a compelling explanation for why people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as war veterans, have a hard time recovering from painful experiences and suffer reoccurring nightmares.They also offer clues into why we dream. "The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day's emotional experiences," s...

Online psychology clinics could help people cope with a variety of anxiety disorders, Australian experience reveals. The Anxiety Online clinic of the Swinburne University of Technology has been lauded by the  Journal of Medical Internet Research . The eTherapy programs of the clinic are tailored to treat generalised anxiety, panic, obsessive-compulsive, post-traumatic stress and social anxiety disorders.  More than 220 people with an least one mild anxiety symptom – who completed one of the five fully-automated programs over 12 weeks – showed significant improvements on 21 of 25 measures, Swinburne researchers have reported.  Each program consists of 12 modules using text-based and multimedia materials such as audio, video and animated graphics and online activities.  Swinburne National eTherapy Centre Director Associate Professor Britt Klein said that although the findings need to be replicated, the preliminary results were very pleasing.  “Essentially we ...

November 3, 2011 — A new study provides more evidence that people with schizophrenia have a diminished sense of mind–body connection, or "body ownership," and hints that yoga and other types of movement therapy that get patients to focus on their own body may be helpful. Katharine N. Thakkar, PhD, from the Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and colleagues measured the strength of body ownership of 24 schizophrenia outpatients and 21 healthy control patients by testing their susceptibility to the rubber hand illusion (RHI). First described in 1998, this tactile illusion is induced by simultaneously stroking a visible rubber hand and the participant's own hidden hand. "Watching a rubber hand being stroked while one's own unseen hand is stroked simultaneously often leads to a sense of ownership over the rubber hand and a shift in perceived position of the real hand toward the rubber hand," the investigators explain in their...

In times of stress, we're often encouraged to pause for a moment and simply be in the 'now.' This kind of mindfulness, an essential part of Buddhist and Indian Yoga traditions, has entered the mainstream as people try to find ways to combat stress and improve their quality of life. And research suggests that mindfulness meditation can have benefits for health and performance, including improved immune function, reduced blood pressure, and enhanced cognitive function. But how is it that a single practice can have such wide-ranging effects on well-being? A new article published in the latest issue of  Perspectives on Psychological Science , a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, draws on the existing scientific literature to build a framework that can explain these positive effects. The goal of this work, according to author Britta Hölzel, of Justus Liebig University and Harvard Medical School, is to "unveil the conceptual and mechanistic complexity o...

Lead author, Michael F. Lorber, now at NYU, looks at mother-child parenting patterns from birth to first grade Children who are persistently aggressive, defiant, and explosive by the time they're in kindergarten very often have tumultuous relationships with their parents from early on. A new longitudinal study suggests that a cycle involving parenting styles and hostility between mothers and toddlers is at play. The study was done by researchers at the University of Minnesota and appears in the journal  Child Development . The researchers looked at more than 260 mothers and their children, following them from the children's birth until first grade. They assessed infants' difficult temperament as well as how they were parented between the first week and the sixth month of life, based on both observations and parent reports. When the children were 2 and a half and 3 years old, the researchers watched mothers with their children doing tasks that challenged the children and r...

Success in math takes practice to control fears. Using brain-imaging technology for the first time with people experiencing mathematics anxiety, University of Chicago scientists have gained new insights into how some students are able to overcome their fears and succeed in math. For the highly math anxious, researchers found a strong link between math success and activity in a network of brain areas in the frontal and parietal lobes involved in controlling attention and regulating negative emotional reactions. This response kicked in at the very mention of having to solve a mathematics problem. Teachers as well as students can use the information to improve performance in mathematics, said Sian Beilock, associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago. Beilock and PhD student Ian Lyons report their findings in the article, "Mathematics Anxiety: Separating the Math from the Anxiety," published Oct. 20 in the journal  Cerebral Cortex . "Classroom prac...