Teens are increasingly depressed, anxious, and suicidal. How can we help?
a wellbeing society
Brain Changer: How diet can save your mental health – cutting-edge science from an expert
Gut Feelings Study
The Food and Mood Centre (Deakin University, Australia) is conducting research into ‘psychobiotics’. The researchers say: “The term ‘psychobiotics’ has recently been coined to refer to treatments for mental and neurological conditions that act via the gut microbiome. Specifically, these could…
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Changing Your Diet Can Help Tamp Down Depression, Boost Mood
Allison Aubrey and Rhitu Chatterjee, reporting for America’s National Public Radio (NPR): “There’s fresh evidence that eating a healthy diet, one that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables and limits highly processed foods, can help reduce symptoms of depression. A randomized controlled trial published in the journal PLOS ONE finds that symptoms of depression dropped…
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We are in the midst of a mental health crisis – advice about jogging and self-care is not enough
In an opinion piece for The Guardian newspaper, journalist Suzanne Moore writes: “Is there a problem in this sad old world that can’t be solved by physical jerks? I find myself muttering this, because wherever I go someone is coming up behind…
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Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
Re-Lit
‘Light in dark places’: exploring qualitative data from a longitudinal study using creative arts as a form of social prescribing
This research, published in Arts & Health (“An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice”), was carried out by Mark Redmond, Rachel Sumner, Diane Crone and Samantha Hughes from the University of Gloucestershire. The research abstract says: “Background: This paper draws on a longitudinal…
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Literature and Mental Health: Reading for Wellbeing
This free, online course is offered by FutureLearn (owned by the Open University), who say: “Find out how poems, plays and novels can help us understand and cope with deep emotional strain. The great 18th century writer Dr Samuel Johnson, who suffered from…
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No hugging: are we living through a crisis of touch?
Writing in The Guardian , Paula Cocozza asks: “When did you last touch someone outside your family or intimate relationship? I don’t mean a brush of the fingers when you took your parcel from the delivery guy. I mean: when did you pat…
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