Tag: mental health

These scientific rules of connection can supercharge your social life

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If you were to take one step to improve your health, what would it be: change what you eat, be more active or invest more time in your friendships?

Most people know that diet and exercise have huge impacts on well-being. Fewer realise that social connection is just as important. A slew of studies has shown that feeling supported and loved can help protect you from common conditions, including diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and heart attack. And the benefits don’t end there. In the workplace, good relationships are linked with greater creativity and job satisfaction – and a lower risk of burnout.

The obvious upshot is that we should put more effort into building strong and meaningful relationships. But many people find the idea of supercharging their social lives daunting. Up to now, science hasn’t been of much practical help because research was focused on environmental factors linked with lonelines, such as increasing urbanisation and reliance on technology. That might help explain why people seeking the secrets of better connection often turn to self-help gurus, whose advice is based on anecdote rather than data. But now there is a better way to think about this problem.

In recent years, researchers have made great strides in revealing the psychological barriers that undermine our attempts to build good relationships, and in discovering ways to overcome them. As I explain in my new book, The Laws of Connection: 13 social strategies that will change your life, most of us are needlessly pessimistic about our capacity to build bridges with those around us, and it is often surprisingly simple to cultivate better habits.

One…

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May 28, 2024
Ancient viruses in the human genome linked to mental health conditions

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Human endogenous retroviruses are remnants of viral genes in the human genome

NICOLLE R. FULLER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Ancient viruses embedded in human DNA millions of years ago may play a role in raising people’s risks of depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The viral genes have unusual activity levels in people who have a higher genetic risk of experiencing these mental health conditions, a study has found.

Retroviruses are a large group of viruses whose life cycle involves inserting their genetic information into the DNA of their host. Remnants of such viral genes can be seen in the DNA of many animal species, and these sequences are called human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) when found in the human genome.

Until recently, most HERVs were thought to remain dormant and were called “fossil viruses”. But previous studies have suggested that some of the viral genes may in fact be active – although not producing infectious viruses – and may even play a role in neurological conditions, such as multiple sclerosis.

In a new study, Timothy Powell at King’s College London and his colleagues investigated the possible role of these viral remnants in mental health conditions by looking at viral proteins in nearly 800 brains that had been donated for medical research.

While the team didn’t record if any of the donors had been diagnosed with mental health conditions while alive, they found that some genetic variants that are known to raise the risks of depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were associated with altered activity of genes from five different HERVs.

It wasn’t possible to estimate how much of a raised risk was linked with the unusual viral gene activity, but it is probably in the range of a few per cent, as most human gene variants affect psychiatric risk by such small amounts, says Powell.

The findings also don’t necessarily mean that the altered HERV activity is causing the conditions – it could be a consequence, he says.

“The methods used look pretty robust,” says Rachael Tarlinton at the University of Nottingham in the UK. “The results are likely real that these things are markers of these diseases, but [the researchers] are rightly cautious in saying they don’t know what that means.”

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May 22, 2024
Could mental health conditions be ‘transmitted’ among teen classmates?

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People with mental health conditions are often advised to talk things over with people they are close to

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If there is one thing most people know about teenagers and their mental health, it is that things are getting worse. Rates of several mental health conditions are on the rise in this group, especially in the US, but also in Australia, the UK and many other European countries.

While several possible causes have been debated, further evidence has emerged for an alarming possibility that has long been suspected, but has been hard…

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May 22, 2024
Saunas Are the Next Frontier in Fighting Depression

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“The premise of this is great,” says Earric Lee, a physiologist with the Montreal Heart Institute, who was not involved in the study but has led sauna studies since completing his doctoral research in Finland. “Trying to move away from pharmacology is a good thing.” More than 250 million people worldwide have major depressive disorder, and tens of millions of people don’t respond to any available treatment.

Such a small study doesn’t prove that sauna therapy can treat depression. “Single-arm studies have meaningful weaknesses,” Mason admits. The cohort was too small to test multiple scenarios, such as varying degrees of heating, CBT without heat, or an attempt at a placebo. (Tricking people into thinking they’ve had heat treatment when they haven’t is difficult, but not impossible—the 2016 study into hyperthermia had a placebo arm that subjected people to mild heat, and convinced 72 percent of participants that they were receiving the actual treatment.)

But these results harden Mason’s hunch that heat sessions may ease debilitating symptoms of depression, and that this is an avenue that needs to be better explored. Eight weeks of CBT alone shouldn’t achieve such high remission rates.

Adam Chekroud, an adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University, appreciates the potential benefit of the hyperthermia routine, but remains skeptical about why Mason’s study produced the results reported. For one, some of the participants completed weekly sauna sessions in Mason’s study while others completed fortnightly sessions; Chekroud believes that the benefit of receiving a “higher dose” of heat would manifest itself if the intervention were as strong as effective antidepressants. “The placebo effect is powerful in mental health,” he says.

Still, Chekroud sees the value in these explorations. “So much of the history of the treatments for depression started out as a bit experimental,” he says. Exercise, meditation, and yoga are all potentially effective mind-body options. “Exercise is a phenomenally effective treatment,” Chekroud says, noting his own 2018 study in The Lancet analyzing data from 1.2 million people.

Comparing heat therapy to exercise is not totally unfounded. Beyond just sweating and increasing heart rate, exercise, like using a sauna, also requires getting out of bed, making a plan, and maybe interacting with people—actions that themselves may have an impact on mood. “You’re gonna go back home and feel proud that you’ve made a change in your life,” Chekroud says. “Psychologically, these are big similarities.”

But it’s plausible that the heat itself may contribute too, notes Lee, the sauna physiologist. We know that thermoregulation correlates with mood and moves in tandem with circadian rhythms: Your body typically cools down at night and warms in the early morning, but this temperature regulation turns wonky in severe depression. This might then impair sleep, which is also linked to mood.

Doses of extreme heat might have some sort of hacking or resetting effect on thermoregulation, which then changes mood. Sauna can kickstart the body’s “cool down” programming, Lee says. “You fake it into thinking that it needs to lower its temperature much more,” he says. “So it will get there quickly.”

Whatever the mechanism, heat therapy may be more accessible to people than pharmaceuticals, talk therapy, or vigorous workouts. “We know exercise works for depression,” Mason says. “It’s just much easier to get someone to lay down in a sauna for a while than to go on an hourlong run—especially if they have depression.” Ditto for people with disabilities.

Mason’s trial is still several years—and many grant dollars—away from really nailing down the efficacy of antidepressant heat, though the new results have bolstered her optimism. “A mind and body treatment with that kind of outcome is surely worthy of further study,“ she says. “I hope that grant reviewers and funding agencies will agree.” Her long-term goal is to amass enough convincing evidence for insurance companies to cover practices like sauna, “so that when a person with depression is considering a menu of treatment options, this is on the menu.”

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May 15, 2024
One-day mental health workshop improves teenagers’ mood for six months

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Teenagers can gain long-lasting mental health benefits from CBT

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A one-day school workshop based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) led to small improvements in teenagers’ mood and stress levels for at least six months, a trial has found.

The result contrasts with several other recent trials of mental health interventions for schools, which found they slightly worsened children’s well-being.

In the past decade, CBT has become one of the most common kinds of talking therapy offered to people with depression or anxiety. Unlike more open-ended kinds of talking therapy, such as psychoanalysis, CBT is structured with the aim of encouraging people to change unhelpful ways of thinking or behavioural patterns, like focusing on upsetting events or avoiding social situations.

CBT also has the most supporting evidence from randomised trials involving adults with depression, anxiety or other mental health problems. Participants usually see a therapist for 1 hour a week for two or three months.

The latest trial was designed to assess whether a one-day course could have benefits for teenagers, in this case aged 16 to 18. The workshop was offered to students who felt they were experiencing stress, worries or low mood.

Three therapists delivered the course to groups of 16 pupils. It involved teaching them about CBT and techniques for relaxation and mindfulness – brief meditative practices – and offering practical tips about time management and getting enough sleep.

In 57 schools in England, 900 pupils were randomly selected to attend one of the workshops or to use existing mental health systems, such as being directed to health services.

After the workshops, the pupils were allowed up to three further phone calls with the therapists for support.

Those who took part in the workshops saw a decline in their symptoms of depression, compared with the control group, of just over 2 points on a 67-point scale, which is classed as a small effect.

But among the one-third of participants who had the highest depression scores to begin with, those who attended the workshops saw about a 4-point reduction in symptoms on average, which is classed as a moderate impact, says Ben Carter at King’s College London. “We found an effect that was far higher than we were expecting.”

The workshops also led to small improvements across the whole group in tests for anxiety and well-being, which lasted for at least six months.

June Brown, another member of the team at King’s, says there may be several reasons why this format seems more beneficial than other mental health interventions in schools. Some previous schemes involved teachers giving training on mindfulness to whole classes, rather than using therapists and focusing on teens who really are having problems, as in this trial, she says. Mindfulness also has less supporting evidence for its use in adults than CBT.

Jack Andrews at the University of Oxford says the findings are welcome. “The trial was very well designed,” he says. “These results are very promising.”

The therapists running the workshops are part of a new initiative that began in 2018 to have mental health professionals work within English schools. They are currently operating in schools that teach about a third of pupils in England, with coverage eventually planned for all schools.

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May 15, 2024
The unexpected effects of nostalgia on our health and at work

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For hundreds of years, nostalgia wasn’t just an emotion, but a potentially deadly disease. Coined by a Swiss physician in 1688, nostalgia struck down servants in 17th-century Germany and killed soldiers in their thousands during the American Civil War. It was a kind of pathological homesickness and while its exact mechanism is unclear, it caused people to slowly waste away. Weak and unable to eat, some starved to death.

These days, we view nostalgia very differently. Now, psychologists and neuroscientists think nostalgia is a predominantly positive, albeit bittersweet, emotion that arises from personally salient, tender, wistful memories of…

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May 1, 2024
How to Handle Online Harassment When It Happens to You

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In 2022 I wrote an op-ed for NBC News Think about leg hair, of all things. The piece detailed a monthlong experiment during which I stopped shaving. Aside from one paragraph about bodily autonomy and Roe v. Wade, I thought it was a mild article. Boring, even.

The internet disagreed. Within an hour of publication, I started getting angry, all-caps emails. Then it started on Twitter. I was called everything from stupid and self-absorbed to a Sasquatch. I was accused of hating men and pressuring women.

The deluge lasted nearly two weeks. By the end of it, I had dozens of nasty emails, nearly a thousand social media notifications, and zero idea how to handle what I’d experienced.

Unfortunately, these instances of online harassment are becoming more common. In 2021, the Pew Research Center reported that 41 percent of US adults had experienced online harassment; the Anti-Defamation League reported an increase to 52 percent in 2023. Public and semipublic figures are especially at risk, as noted by recent studies on American journalists, Zimbabwean journalists, and female members of parliament in Sweden.

But the truth is, on social media anyone with an account can experience harassment. Here’s what to do if it happens to you.

Document Everything

Knee-deep in hate mail, I reached out to a former thesis adviser who’d written op-eds. How had he handled the trolls?

His reply: Document everything. If you have to report the harassment to a social platform or to law enforcement, you will need a body of evidence that proves the harassment.

Save the nasty emails in a special folder, either manually or by using keywords to filter and route all of the relevant mail automatically.

On social media, screenshot what people say. Doing this gives you lasting digital proof, which is important if the trolling comments disappear later on, either because the trolls deleted them or because someone reported the comments, which led to them being removed. Save all of these screenshots in a folder that can easily be shared with anyone investigating your harassment.

Documenting harassment is common advice, featured in resources ranging from writing-specific organizations like PEN America to wider organizations like the University of Chicago and the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

Don’t Respond

Another common piece of advice is “don’t feed the trolls.” In theory, if you don’t react to harassment, the trolls get bored and leave. Some have argued that this advice has failed us, as it puts the onus on the victim to stop the cyberbullying; it suggests that it’s not the trolls who need to stop but rather the victim who needs to turn the other cheek.

This is a fair critique; social media platforms should build better moderation systems and restrict users who breach standards on harassment. Ideally, events like the 2024 child safety hearing before US Congress will lead to changes that make the internet safer for everyone. In a perfect world, the onus is on Big Tech.

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April 24, 2024
U-M launches interprofessional digital wellness class for sixth graders

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Sixth grader Sera Bergman confesses she spends a significant amount of time watching reels—and enjoys it, like most kids her age. Once she starts scrolling through the short videos, stopping is challenging.

“When I am in the car, I think I will just watch a couple of YouTube shorts before I get somewhere,” said Bergman, who attends Scarlett Middle School in Ann Arbor. “But then when I get out of the car, I’ll be like, ‘Just one more.’ It is super addictive. When creating games and social media apps, designers find ways to make us addicted to them.”

Addiction, cyberbullying, eating disorders, anxiety and other mental health issues caused by problematic digital practices and an increase in screen time are some of the themes of a new and unique University of Michigan interprofessional Peer-to-Peer Digital Wellness class.

This semester, U-M students and scholars launched an interprofessional course in partnership with sixth graders from Ann Arbor Public Schools to provide classroom and real-world engagement about digital wellness.

Evidence suggests the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified mental health issues and shifted social engagement to digital platforms. With an increasing reliance on screens as primary tools of learning, entertainment and socialization, there is a critical need to educate students about digital wellness.

“Enhancing digital wellness, encompassing online engagement activities and emotional experiences, is crucial for students’ emotional, intellectual and social well-being.”

Liz Kolb, clinical professor at U-M’s Marsal Family School of Education

The current digital wellness program evolved from the digital citizenship curriculum designed by Kolb. The curriculum she launched at Scarlett Middle School began with a focus on bullying, privacy and online safety. As the concerns of parents, teachers and scholars around the country have mounted, the new digital wellness program has shifted toward a broader conversation with kids: “What impact are these devices having on me?”

The program is a collaboration between the Marsal Family School of Education, School of Information and School of Social Work. The U-M student mentors are undergraduate and graduate students from these schools taking a digital wellness course.

“Most education around digital device use for young people has focused on safety lectures and lists of ‘do’s and don’ts’ coming from adults and authority figures,” Kolb said. “These approaches do not often work at helping young people understand the impact of their device on their individual mental and physical health, and rarely cause young people to change habits.

“This course takes a different approach, giving young people—both college and middle school students—scientific information about what happens to our bodies when using screens, both the benefits and harms.”

This first class includes 52 sixth graders from Scarlett, Tappan and Clague middle schools and 11 U-M students.

Besides getting internship credit for the class and seeing digital wellness as an area of interest after graduation, master’s student Wanting Qian, majoring in education studies, decided to take this course for its interdisciplinarity.

“This course is interdisciplinary and co-taught by the schools of Social Work, Education and Information, and I want to understand how these three aspects work together,” she said. “I also needed hands-on experience to put theory into practice.”

Qian’s studies are concentrated on design and technologies for learning across cultures and contexts, and she has no doubt that this experience will benefit her future career.

“First, the understanding of trauma-informed practice,” she said. “This is a concept and theory every teacher should be aware of and integrate into their teaching, considering students’ prior experiences and personalities, and being culturally responsive.

“Second, technology is rapidly developing in today’s world. In addition to investing in new technology, we must critically examine how it impacts our lives and what we should do when facing negative influences, especially for the younger generation.”

Muneer Khalid of the U-M Center for Research on Learning and Teaching has been working closely with Kolb and her colleagues Kristin Fontichiaro, clinical professor of information, and Beth Sherman, clinical associate professor of social work, to develop and support the new class.

According to the researchers, it has been surprising to see what the sixth graders and college students have in common regarding their device use and mental health struggles. They hope many schools throughout Michigan and the United States can replicate this digital wellness program.

“Students of all ages have been able to share stories, engage in conversation and debate solutions to their challenges,” Kolb said. “This near-peer approach seems to be leading to more long-term change of habit or, at the very least, an understanding of how individual feelings and emotions are impacted through screen time.

“This project has had a lot of joy, which feels different from the shame often associated with school-related talks/lectures on digital safety and citizenship. Engaging with digital devices in a healthy way should feel good.”

For sixth grader Oliver Thomas, who attends Scarlett Middle School, balance has been one of the program’s big takeaways.

“I learned that technology isn’t a really bad thing,” he said. “It can be bad in some cases, so you just have to monitor it. We learned that social media, for example, can lead to higher anxiety and depression rates. So, I have to be smarter about how much I use social media, if at all. We should try to put it off for as long as we can. But if we decide to use it, we should be smart and put a time limit on it.”

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April 23, 2024
Social media messages may sway young people’s beliefs about mental illness

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Even subtle differences in the wording of social media messages may be enough to sway young people’s beliefs about depression and anxiety and their treatment.

In a new study, researchers found that college students were more optimistic about the possibility of successfully treating mental health problems after they read social media messages conveying what is called a “growth mindset.”

But social media posts written with a “fixed mindset” led young people to feel that depression and anxiety were more stable and innate, and not so easy to treat.

Growth mindset is the belief that a feature, such as mental health, can be improved with effort. A fixed mindset is the belief that a feature can’t change, no matter how hard you try.

The results are important because young people spend a lot of time on social media and those with depression and anxiety may be encountering a lot of messages about their condition, said Whitney Whitted, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in psychology at The Ohio State University.

“These relatively subtle messages may be influencing whether they believe they have any possibility of working through their depression and anxiety and getting better,” Whitted said.

The study, published recently in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, involved 322 undergraduate students.

Participants viewed a series of messages (tweets) from the social media site X, formerly Twitter. They were randomly assigned to view tweets about mental health with a growth mindset or a fixed mindset, or a control condition in which the tweets did not involve mental health at all.

In the fixed mindset condition, the tweets portrayed mental health as a fixed condition that does not change. (For example, one tweet said, “I can’t wait for my seasonal depression to be over so that I can get back to my regular depression.”)

Participants in the growth mindset condition read tweets that emphasized the fluid nature of mental health and the ability to recover from and take control of mental illness. (In one tweet, the user captioned “I got this” to a meme that read “telling those anxious thoughts who’s really in control.”)

After reading the tweets, participants completed a survey assessing their beliefs about how long depression and anxiety normally last and whether they ever go away; the effectiveness of treatment for depression and anxiety; and beliefs about how much control people have in recovering from mental illness.

Results showed that participants who read the growth mindset tweets were more likely than others to say depression and anxiety don’t have to be permanent conditions and that people can take steps to alleviate the symptoms.

In contrast, those who read the fixed mindset tweets had less optimistic views about the permanence of mental illness and the ability of people to treat it.

It is notable that this short intervention had an impact, said study co-author Jennifer Cheavens, professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.

“It was just a few minutes of people reading these tweets with small variations in how the messages about mental illness were framed,” Cheavens said. “But it made a difference in what these participants reported they believed.”

Of course, it is not known how long the changes connected to reading the social media messages will last. But the results could be encouraging for several reasons.

For one, it suggests that growth mindset social media messages may help persuade people with depression or anxiety that it is worthwhile to seek help, the researchers said.

It can also help with people who are already in therapy.

We want our clients to put in the hard work necessary to overcome their problems – but they have to believe it is possible.

This study suggests there may be ways to give them a boost, to help persuade them that working hard in therapy can pay off in the end.”

Jennifer Cheavens, professor of psychology, The Ohio State University

Whitted said the findings are especially important now, given how much time young people spend on social media. Participants in this study reported using social media one to three hours a day.

“What we found is that what young adult college students view on social media has the potential to impact what they believe about mental illness,” Whitted said.

“It is important that the messages they receive accurately reflect what we know about mental illness, especially the fact that it is treatable.”

Other co-authors were Matthew Southward of the University of Kentucky; Kristen Howard of the Milwaukee VA Medical Center/Medical College of Wisconsin; Samantha Wick of Miami University; and Daniel Strunk of Ohio State.

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Journal reference:

Whitted, W. M., et al. (2024). Seeing is believing: The effect of subtle communication in social media on viewers’ beliefs about depression and anxiety symptom trajectories. Journal of Clinical Psychology. doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23647.

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April 23, 2024
Variability shown across patient characteristics

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In a recent study published in the BMC Medicine, a group of researchers identified the factors influencing the variability in depression prevalence among chronic pain sufferers and developed clinical prediction models for estimating depression likelihood in this group.

Study: Variability in the prevalence of depression among adults with chronic pain: UK Biobank analysis through clinical prediction models. Image Credit: fizkes/Shutterstock.com

Background

Chronic pain is a major global disability cause, affecting over 30% of the population and often coexisting with depression, which disables roughly 5% of adults worldwide. The relationship between chronic pain and depression is well-established; each condition has the potential to worsen the other.

Despite this, the prevalence of depression among those with chronic pain is variable, with estimates ranging from 15% to 85%, influenced by differences in depression definitions, pain severity, and demographic factors such as gender, additional health conditions, and socioeconomic status.

Further research is needed to refine the understanding of the complex relationship between chronic pain and depression and to enhance the accuracy and applicability of clinical prediction models across diverse populations.

About the study

The present study utilized data from the United Kingdom (UK) Biobank. It focused on participants who completed the “online mental health self-assessment” between 2016 and 2017 and the “experience of pain” questionnaire from 2019 to 2020.

The UK Biobank’s large dataset, combined with detailed surveys on pain and mental health, provided a unique platform for exploring chronic pain and its association with depression.

The “experience of pain” questionnaire was selected over the baseline data due to its more extensive array of pain types and additional variables related to pain characteristics.

Chronic pain was defined using criteria from the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision, categorizing it as either widespread or regional based on participant responses. This distinction was important because the nature and location of pain are significant factors in the prevalence of depression among those affected.

Additionally, the study considered multisite pain and its impact on mood disorders, integrating questions about the most bothersome pain areas and the nature of the pain (neuropathic or not).

Depression was defined using a dual approach: a professional diagnosis linked from healthcare records and self-reported symptoms through a validated short form of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview.

This method aimed to capture a comprehensive view of participants’ lifetime mental health history, which is crucial for understanding fluctuating conditions like depression.

The study also used the Patient Health Questionnaire to assess current depression among participants, adding another layer to the analysis. Statistical analyses included logistic regression models developed to estimate depression probability among chronic pain sufferers.

The models integrated a range of predictors, including demographic details, pain characteristics, and lifestyle factors, highlighting the complexity of chronic pain’s impact on mental health.

Study results

The present comprehensive analysis involved 24,405 UK Biobank participants with chronic pain. Among these individuals, 3.7% reported present depression, 32.6% had a lifetime history of depression, 21.8% exhibited subthreshold depressive symptoms throughout their lives, and 45.6% had no lifetime history of depression.

The cohort predominantly comprised white individuals (97.1%) with an average age of 64.1 years, highlighting the need to consider a variety of demographic factors in understanding depression among those with chronic pain.

For those experiencing chronic widespread pain, 45.7% reported a lifetime history of depression, with prevalence rates varying significantly from 25.0% to 66.7% based on individual characteristics.

A prediction model incorporating variables such as age, body mass index (BMI), smoking status, physical activity, and medical history showed moderate discrimination and good calibration, suggesting its utility in clinical settings. Notably, age, gender, and BMI emerged as significant predictors of a lifetime history of depression.

Similarly, among those with chronic regional pain, 30.2% had a lifetime history of depression. The model for this group included predictors like the nature of pain and regular opioid use, and it demonstrated similar levels of discrimination and calibration.

Key predictors again included age, gender, and the specific characteristics of pain, which significantly influenced depression outcomes.

The study also assessed present depression, finding that 10.5% of individuals with chronic widespread pain and 2.5% of those with chronic regional pain were currently depressed.

Different predictors were relevant for these outcomes, with smoking status, physical activity, and comorbid conditions like chronic kidney disease playing significant roles. Models developed for current depression demonstrated moderate to high levels of discrimination and good calibration, indicating their potential reliability.

Additional analyses confirmed that the prediction models were generally robust across different types of regional pain, although some categories, like stomach and chest pain, showed slightly lower predictive accuracy.

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April 23, 2024