Psychology

UPFs are made to encourage addiction and consumption and should be regulated like tobacco, say researchersUltra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report.UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both. Continue reading...

People suffering from depression demonstrate strength in dealing with their illness on a daily basis, but this is often not perceived as such.

Sexual dysfunction is a reality for many women, but the subject remains taboo. A large percentage of women remain untreated, a problem that is exacerbated by the shortage of treatment options for female sexual dysfunction.

Every second, 11m bits of information enter our brains, which then efficiently prioritise them. We need to learn to work with the process, rather than against it It’s believed that we have about 50,000 thoughts a day: big, small, urgent, banal – “Did I leave the oven on?”. And those are just the ones that register. Subconsciously, we’re constantly sifting through a barrage of stimuli: background noise, clutter on our desks, the mere presence of our phones.Every second, 11m bits of information enter our brains. Just 0.0004% is perceived by our conscious minds, showing just how hard our brains are working to parse what’s sufficiently relevant to bring to our attention. Continue rea..

Interoceptive, visceral pain from within the body is perceived more unpleasant than exteroceptive pain from outside the body.

We are living longer and longer, but many of us are unprepared for the challenges age brings, says the novelist and psychotherapist Frank TallisWe have never lived so long, so well, nor had more available advice on how to do so: don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat ultraprocessed foods; lift weights, get outside, learn a language. Cosmetics – or surgery – have never been so available, so advanced, nor so widely used; we take for granted medical procedures that previous ages would have considered miracles. And something’s clearly working: average global life expectancy is the highest in recorded history. The fastest growing demographic is now the over-80s.There is much public hand-..

The series in which readers answer other readers’ questions explores an ancient, vexed musical conundrum• Readers reply: to shred or not to shred? Is it OK to throw out sensitive documents?I know a song that’ll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a so … you get the gist! Why does a song sometimes get stuck in our heads? (And good luck stopping this one now!) Laura Ashton, Haslemere, SurreyPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...

There are lots of guidebooks for parents of young children – but what happens when your offspring hit adulthood? A psychotherapist shares her guiding principles for raising grownupsWhen one of my daughters turned 18, our relationship hit a crisis so painful it lasted longer than I knew how to bear. I was a psychotherapist, trained in child and adult development, yet I was utterly flummoxed. Decades have passed since then, but when I recently spoke to her about that time, a flood of distress washed through me as if it were yesterday.This is how my daughter, now a mother herself, put it when I asked her to describe that era: Continue reading...

From building resilience to boosting artistic creativity, there are unexpected benefits to being rebuffedRejection hurts. Whether in a professional, social or romantic setting, there is a particularly painful sting to the discovery that one has been judged undesirable in some way. If you have ever experienced proper rejection – and that would be most of us – it may stand out in your mind for a long time, like a boulder lodged in the landscape of memory.And it can hurt literally. The late anthropologist Helen Fisher, who studied human behaviour in the context of romantic love, showed that rejection and physical injury have much in common. In 2010 she led a study of people who had been rec..

Source: NASA NewsApproximately 140 million miles from earth, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has completed the first drives on another world that were planned by artificial intelligence. Executed on December 8 and 10, and led by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the demonstration used generative AI vision-language models to create a driving path—a complex decision-making task typically performed manually by the NASA's human planners.

Source: Al JazeeraAt Lychakiv Cemetery in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, the surge in deaths from war with Russia has forced authorities to allocate additional space beyond the cemetery's walls and is now running out of room. The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine says that in 2025 alone, conflict-related violence killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142. According to one expert, "pretty much everybody" in the country "has some mental health...

New research from Michigan State University finds that how young adults recall adverse childhood experiences fluctuates based on the current quality of their relationships - particularly with their parents.

Similar - yet not the same: Many studies show that patients often struggle to interpret numerical information in medical contexts, especially probabilities related to recovery and side effects.

A psychologist’s gripping guide to surviving dark nights of the soul offers both comfort and insight I’m proud of how mild-mannered my midlife crisis is. While the cliche involves the purchase of a Porsche or a frantic fling with a colleague, I’ve mainly fallen back into the geeky preoccupations of my youth, such as founding poetry clubs and playing niche racket sports. Nevertheless, on the cusp of turning 50, and having just been beaten by my 11-year-old at Scrabble, I’m thrilled to have found a book that addresses my small struggle: an elegant discourse on the deep wisdom that I’m hoping will characterise my remaining years.First, the author, a clinical psychologist named Fr..

King’s researchers will help transform mental health data, clinical trials and industry partnerships as part of the UK Government’s Mental Health Goals programme.

Many people with different mental health problems can be absent from work for a long time. But new results give hope that more people can recover and return to work sooner.

A groundbreaking study identifies a

Source: NPR The "Bible of psychiatry" that classifies mental disorders—known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM-5—is about to get a major overhaul and become an online "living document." The American Psychiatric Association outlined its thinking and approach for the next revision in five papers published Wednesday in The American Journal of Psychiatry and is seeking input from health care professionals and people who have psychiatric...

Source: The Guardian - Climate CrisisLast year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it would rescind the so-called "endangerment finding," a landmark 2009 determination affirmed by the Supreme Court and outside experts that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide harm human health. Now, EPA's head has said he wants to thrust "a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion," favor gasoline cars over electric cars, and revive coal—the dirtiest of...

Source: CarbonBriefNew research estimates that climate change could lead to half a million more deaths from malaria in Africa over the next 25 years. The study, published in Nature, found that extreme weather, rising temperatures, and shifting rainfall patterns could significantly increase the habitable range of mosquitoes that carry the disease. Africa is currently home to 95% of malaria cases and deaths, and of these deaths, three in four are children under the...

Source: The Guardian - Climate CrisisThe U.S. leads a huge global surge in gas-fired power generation that will cause a major leap in planet-heating emissions, with this record boom driven by the expansion of energy-hungry data centers to service artificial intelligence, according to a new forecast. This year is set to shatter the annual record for new gas power additions around the world, with global gas capacity expected to jump nearly 50%, a report by Global Energy Monitor found.

Source: United Press International - Health NewsElon Musk's Grok AI chatbot came last in a study by the Anti-Defamation League looking at how well the leading six Large Language Models performed when it came to detecting and removing anti-Semitic and extremist content. The xAI chatbot ranked at the bottom with an overall score of 21 out of a possible 100, compared with 80 scored by Anthropic's Claude, indicating that Grok has "substantial limitations" in detecting areas of bias, ADL said...

Source: United Nations NewsIn his 10th Holocaust Remembrance Day address, Secretary-General António Guterres decried "the ancient poison of antisemitism" and honored the memory of six million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Included in the commemoration were the Roma and Sinti communities, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ individuals, and all others who suffered from the systemic violence, torture, and genocide of the Nazi regime.

Source: Google News - HealthAt the dawn of the nuclear age, scientists created the Doomsday Clock as a symbolic representation of how close humanity is to destroying the world. On Tuesday, nearly 80 years later, the clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight—the closest it's ever been to midnight, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which established the clock in 1947. The reason? A "failure of leadership" to address climate change, AI, and other existential...

Research from APA finds that virtual juries remain just as attentive, engaged, and fair as in‑person juries, suggesting online deliberations can be a reliable and accessible option for modern courts.

A sample of recent articles covering longitudinal designs, gender identity, research models, and more.

A new study finds the hippocampus reorganizes memories to predict rewards. This discovery explains how the brain learns and why Alzheimer's affects decision-making.

정신의학신문 ㅣ 황성연 정신건강의학과 전문의 최근 청년층의 정신 건강 문제가 사회적으로 주목받고 있습니다. 취업 불안, 주거 문제, 대인관계 부담 등 복합적인 스트레스 요인이 청년들의 우울과 불안을 심화시키고 있다는 것입니다. 경제적 어려움과 사회적 고립은 신체적 건강과 일상 기능을 제한하며, 장기적으로 삶의 방향과 선택에도 큰 영향을 미칩니다. 청년 정신 건강 문제는 사회 구조적 요인과 밀접하게 연결되어 있어, 이를 이해하고 대응하는 것이 중요합니다. 청년층 우울증의 원인은 다양합니다. 우선 경제적 ..

New research in Brain & Behavior found a link between screen time and adolescents' sleep quality and beliefs about healthy lifestyles.

정신의학신문 ㅣ 안성우 정신건강의학과 전문의 불안은 생존을 위한 감각에서 비롯됩니다. 위험을 감지하면 대비하고 적응하도록 돕는 기능이 있습니다. 그러나 최근 MZ세대가 경험하는 불안은 과거 세대와는 다소 다른 양상을 보입니다. 미래를 위해 현재를 희생하는 방식의 삶이 흔하지 않은 시대, 성공과 안정의 기준이 빠르게 변하며, 소득·주거·관계·경력의 모든 영역에서 불확실성이 커진 시대적 맥락 속에 놓여 있습니다. 어떤 사람들은 더 나은 인생, 더 의미 있는 일, 더 만족스러운 관계가 어딘가에 존재할 것 같다는 ..