Are Your Facebook Friends Stressing You Out? (Yes.) - "The finding, which is similar to one determined last year, is nice as a headline: It's both unexpected (friends! stressing you out! ha!) and ironic (the currency of the social web, taking value rather than adding it!). What's interesting, though, is the why of the matter: the idea that, the report theorizes, the wider your Facebook network, the more likely it is that something you say or do on the site will end up offending one of that network's members... Unsurprisingly, per the study's survey of more than 300 Facebook users, 'adding employers or parents resulted in the greatest increase in anxiety.'"
[more inside]
posted by flex
on Nov 27, 2012 -
135 comments
The Medical School at the University of California, San Francisco “presents
Mini Medical School for the Public, a series of programs providing an opportunity to learn about health and the health sciences directly from UCSF faculty members and other nationally-recognized experts.”
Videos particularly geared toward integrative medicine and healthy living can be found
here. (Most of the videos are between sixty and ninety minutes long.)
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posted by ferdydurke
on Sep 8, 2012 -
12 comments
I am not busy. I am the laziest ambitious person I know. Like most writers, I feel like a reprobate who does not deserve to live on any day that I do not write, but I also feel that four or five hours is enough to earn my stay on the planet for one more day. On the best ordinary days of my life, I write in the morning, go for a long bike ride and run errands in the afternoon, and in the evening I see friends, read or watch a movie. This, it seems to me, is a sane and pleasant pace for a day.
Tim Kreider:
The ‘Busy’ Trap.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane
on Jul 1, 2012 -
107 comments
A chronic public health disaster. Complex trauma and toxic stress puts children into a state of reflexive fight, flight, or freeze responses to a perpetually threatening world. The traditional authoritative response only serves to reinforce those behaviours and, perhaps worse, has long-term health consequences:
With an ACE score of 4 or more, things start getting serious. The likelihood of chronic pulmonary lung disease increases 390 percent; hepatitis, 240 percent; depression 460 percent; suicide, 1,220 percent.
One doctor describes it as “a chronic public health disaster”. Remediating this problem is going to require listening, kindness, and parachutes.
posted by davidpriest.ca
on May 1, 2012 -
53 comments
Religious Experiences Shrink Part of the Brain. Scientific American analyses a study which links life-changing religious experiences, like being born again, with atrophy in the hippocampus.
The study, “Religious factors and hippocampal atrophy in late life,” by Amy Owen and colleagues at Duke University, 'is a surprising result, given that many prior studies have shown religion to have potentially beneficial effects on brain function, anxiety, and depression.'
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posted by VikingSword
on Jun 1, 2011 -
76 comments
... it's terribly important for veterans to feel they are continuing a mission that held them together through the violence and stress of war. "PTSD carries a stigma, that you're broken and wounded," said Yount, "And many guys have guilt for not still being in the fight. The idea of Paws for Purple Hearts is you can be part of the war effort while you're getting treatment."
posted by Joe Beese
on Nov 13, 2010 -
17 comments
"Web professionals are often expected to be “always on”—always working, absorbing information, and honing new skills. Unless our work and personal lives are carefully balanced, however, the physical and mental effects of an "always on" life can be debilitating." Burnout: Running On Empty [more inside]
posted by netbros
on May 27, 2009 -
56 comments
TM without the ™. When he's not directing
one of the best movies of the year or
sitting on intersections with cows,
David Lynch is a vocal
advocate of
Transcendental Meditation. In his new book
Catching the Big Fish, he talks about
the Box and the Key, meeting Fellini, the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit, why he doesn't do DVD commentaries--and TM, which he calls "the experience that does everything." If you're intrigued by TM but sketched out by the
organization and the
$2,500 fee, perhaps you'd like to know that there is a
cheap, downloadable alternative.
posted by muckster
on Dec 3, 2006 -
35 comments
U.S. workers will leave an average 4 vacation days on the table this year, one more than last year, according to the 6th annual
Vacation Deprivation Survey sponsored by Expedia. This despite the
fact that at an average of 14 days total, we are already deprived, trailing Australia (17), Canada (19), Great Britain (24), Germany (27), and France (39) in holiday time. Why don't we get more time off? And why aren't we using the time we do get? [
Full results (PDF))]
posted by madamjujujive
on Jun 5, 2006 -
89 comments
Graduates of the "school of hard knocks" flunk real life. A study from the University of Leicester says that, contrary to popular expectation, unpleasant and traumatic life experiences don't make people suspicious and shrewd -- quite the opposite.
Many people who've had a tough life actually turn out more gullible and easily swayed:
"This is because the person may have learned to distrust their actions, judgments and decisions due to the fact that the majority of the time their actions have been perceived to invite negative consequences"
The counter-intuitiveness of this finding fascinates me.
Wait. Maybe I shouldn't be taking it at face value...
posted by AmbroseChapel
on May 27, 2006 -
50 comments
A quick flash movie, to help relieve the stress and tension of last minute holiday shopping. In with the good air, out with the bad air, rinse and repeat. After all is said and done, you can get back to enjoying the holidays in the company of your friends and/or family.
posted by jcterminal
on Dec 24, 2003 -
9 comments
Girls night out can save your life. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside down. Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible... (Old news, but I don't think it's been posted before.)
posted by badstone
on Dec 11, 2003 -
30 comments
Things to do in Denver When You're Stressed Unemployed meditation teacher Jeff Peckman, apparently having nothing better to do, managed to collect enough signatures to squeak his stress-reducing initiative onto the November ballot. What would he suggest for reducing stress?: Indian Sitar music in public buildings, healthier school lunches, and (surprise surprise) meditation. The Denver City Council thinks it's stupid, which they have expressed in
varying degrees of bluntness:
--Councilwoman Rosemary Rodriguez: "While the ideas behind it are admirable, it would be impossible to implement."
--Council President Elbra Wedgeworth: "With a $70 million budget shortfall, this is not what we should be doing."
--Councilman Charlie Brown: "It's lunacy, it's frivolous, it's fantasy. If you want fantasy, go to Disneyland. These are city offices. We don't sit around holding hands, burning incense and singing `Kumbaya.' We are in serious economic times."
Denver martial arts instructor Ted Fowler scoffs at the proposal, calling it a waste of money and adding, “Well, I don’t listen to Indian satire music either. I’ve got a radio here and I can put on whatever music I like."
posted by Shoeburyness
on Aug 21, 2003 -
20 comments
Take Five - you won't be disappointed The perfect way to end a day of stress and media overload.
This will take about five minutes, but stay with it. Sure, it's funny (VERY), but it's the messages at the end that make it worth watching the whole thing.
Just when I was feeling like there was nothing worth looking at today...
posted by sparky
on Sep 11, 2002 -
50 comments
Do you seem to feel anxious lately? Well
answer a few questions, and Hello Kitty will provide a psychological analysis for you!
This is just a bit scary. The questions are a little bizarre, too.
posted by Su
on Jul 22, 2002 -
18 comments
