Forget and Forgive

Forgiving is hard, right? Some people seem to be able to very easily get past being hurt but it's a big ol' thing for me to turn off the part of my brain that relives the pain over and over again.

Well heeeeeerrrrrrrrre comes SCIENCE with some answers!!!

Apparently there are two kinds of forgiveness: decisional and emotional. Like the names say, in the former you decide to forgive someone and in the latter you try to release the negative emotions related to the perpetrator of your pain and even usher in positive ones.

Here's the cool part: people who opt for emotional forgiveness tend to forget the details of how they were harmed. They'll still remember the gist of it, but those details that might otherwise recycle themselves over and over in your brain get fuzzy around the edges.

And guess what makes it easier to forgive someone??? Yeah, FORGETTING all those dang details.

So really, the saying should be, "forget and forgive."

(If you're wondering how the heck to even do emotional forgiveness, in the study the participants were instructed “wish that the offender experiences something positive or healing and to focus their thoughts and feelings on empathy," so apparently that's it.)

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Getting Defensive

The Office

 

Here's an interesting finding: if we don't feel socially accepted, we are more likely to get defensive when we've done something wrong.

It makes so much sense! If I think to the times I have engaged with (sometimes very stupid) cover-ups or denials for wrongdoing, I think they were often connected to people with whom I felt uncertain about my standing.

What's interesting is that this research shows that people will feel the implicit guilt over whatever they have done either way, but only those who have had reassurance will admit to their guilt explicitly.

This applies to making your wrong right as well. Unsurprisingly, those who are unwilling to admit their guilt are also less likely to take steps to repair the harm they caused.

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Learning! Roundup: Kids Know Animals Are Better Than People and Cheese is Healthy

Giphy

+ Children don't prioritize human lives over animals. Most people, aside, perhaps, from many vegans, would probably say that a human life was ultimately more valuable/worth saving than an animal. Even when you stack up 100 doggy lives over one human life, most adults would opt to save the human. Not kids, though! With kids, even if it's one human vs. one dog, most pick the dog.

What do those kids know????

+ I have never accepted the notion that cheese is not good for me to eat. And now some new studies says that cheese is a benign, and maybe even helpful, element in a diet! Of course, these studies are purely looking at the impact of cheese on weight gain which is not necessarily a measure of health, so it probably doesn't matter anyways. Eat that cheese!!!

+ If you're trying to increase equity in your workplace, a new method has emerged: simply make your "shortlist" of potential candidates longer. In these studies, they had people shortlist three candidates for a CEO position (or three to star in a new action film) and then asked some of them to double it and give three more. The group with more candidates had more diversity.

What this reveals to me is that we start with our default assumptions and biases, and then, with the teensiest amount of effort, will look beyond that scope. We just need an itty-bitty push.

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Learning! Roundup: Researching Death, Happy Families, and Potty Mouths

New York Public Library

How to Research Death

I learned more about how longevity and fitness-based research is developed from this article than I did about the value of exercise (although I did learn that doing HIIT-style workouts is better for your longevity and overall quality of life by a pretty small margin, although that margin might mean a lot when you're dying). Apparently, scientists studying longevity like to use elderly participants because they are more likely to die which will make it easier to identify if, you know, the interventions are making a difference.

It's a bit morbid and a lot logical.

The Recipe for a Happy Family

Being happy with your partner and kids, if you go that route in life, may depend on psychological flexibility. This includes traits like being open to new experiences (good or bad), connecting to the present moment, and maintaining "deeper values" despite other stressors in life. Honestly, these seem like a recipe for increased satisfaction in life, in general.

(Also, I read the full list of traits of psychological flexibility in the article, and went, oh crap, I may not be psychologically flexible.)

Potty Mouths

Children are swearing more in quarantine. (Me too!)

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Okay, Okay, I Get It, I Need to Get Back into Gratitude!

Brenroy

Last week's episode of the podcast Nerdette included a chat with poet Ross Gay who released an essay collection called The Book of Delights. The book is exactly what the title says: he spent a year handwriting little essays to honour something that delighted him that day. Those essays are the book.

He spoke about how looking for delights every day really helped change his perspective on life.

Also on the episode was Dr. Y. Joel Wong, discussing the scientific backing for the power of gratitude to support your mental and physical health. Coincidentally, his summation of the research is exactly what I suggest in my book Feeling Better: A Field Guide to Liking Yourself: write it down (don't just think about it) and to keep it simple by committing to just noting three things a day, in point form.

In further gratitude-related prompting from the universe, my dad finally got to have an in-person visit with my grandma in her long-term care facility, where she has lived in near-total isolation for almost a year. He asked what she wanted to say to the family, and she said:

"Being thankful is the only thing."

She said we have to "touch it." (Again, this is from the woman who has been quite literally alone with her thoughts for the better part of 10 months.)

Over the past couple of years, my habit of gratitude journalling has wained--which is a nice way of saying I'm not doing it anymore, and whenever I've tried to start, I've had a really hard time re-introducing the habit.

Well, this is motivating me! I am going to get back at it, but! Since I obviously have struggled with making it happen, though, I need some extra accountability. Here it is: once a week I'll share a little roundup of the things that made me grateful that week.

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Instead of Fighting Your Fear

Wayward Pencil

“It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too.”

– Elizabeth Gilbert

I'm getting into this idea that, if we can just chill a little bit with our less-desirable feelings and accept their presence, they are then able to chill, too. Especially if they live in the realm of fear and anxiety, which is all about protecting us. If you fight back against something that's trying to protect you, of course it's going to keep freaking out. You're not listening! As far as it can tell, a giant freight truck with cut brakes is about to smash into you! If you're not going to run you should at least panic!!!

But if you let it exist and maybe even make it feel heard, then I don't know, maybe it will relax, knowing it's done its job.

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Why Are We So Excited to Hack Happiness in Our Brains and So Unexcited to Just Be Happy?

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A post shared by Huma Aslam (@huma_clinicalpsychologist)

I've seen this image float around my social media feeds for the past couple of months.

For the first little while, I thought it was neat. Oh! Here's how I can try to boost my various happiness hormones. What fun!

Then I became indifferent to it. Oh hey, this again.

Then I became suspicious of it.

What is happening in our world that we now have to manipulate our brains into producing happiness chemicals? What does this say about us that we need to "hack" feeling good? Why is this need so dang prevalent that it keeps getting posted and reposted and posted again on social media?

I get it. I have a list on the wall in my apartment literally titled, "Things That Feel Good" because when I am bored or feeling junky, it's hard to remember that I can do things to feel better instead of just sinking into my couch. And the list of activities in this post are actually really beneficial: get some physical activity, hug someone, do something to make yourself laugh. These "hacks" are really just actual healthy behaviour.

But that almost makes it worse: are we (myself included!) so lost that instead of realizing that we could use a laugh or a hug or a walk, we have to see it on a list of brain hacks? We have to think we're doing it to trick our brains into being happier instead of just doing things because we know they make us happier?

I may be completely overreacting here, but after seeing it passed around so many times, this post has gone from charmingly useful to tragic for me.

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Turns Out I'm Past My Prime (Cognitively Speaking)

Pineapple Supply Co.

Turns out that my last birthday was a big milestone and I didn't even know it: I was exiting my cognitive peak.

A new study shows that our brains reach their "cognitive peak" at age 35. Downhill from there.

What would I have done differently, had I known I was in my peak year last year? Honestly, probably not much, except that I would have also made a lot of jokes about how I was the smartest I would ever be. (So my friends are probably grateful I didn't know!)

Other fun research:

You can measure ongoing/chronic stress levels using your earwax.

If you want to feel good about yourself and build efficacy, you should do the hardest thing first. Contrary to popular belief, we do worse when we start with something easy and build our way up to the hard thing.

If you can get someone to question their prejudice about one group, it will actually help reduce their prejudice against other groups.

Bad news for me: depression and social anxiety symptoms are associated with use of dating apps in women. (Insert teeth-gritting/brace yourself emoji here.) This is correlation, not causation, but I can certainly tell you that I don't feel like my best self after a round of swiping.

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Learning! Roundup: Did you know that plants have COGNITION???

Remember these??? It's been awhile! But there has been some cool research that's come out recently and I still want to share it with you:

Photo by Chuttersnap

+ When people think about their mortality, it makes them more likely to make donations they perceive as leaving a legacy or somehow transcending death.

+ Growing up with an elderly person at home actually increases negative views towards older people, especially if the elderly person in the home has serious health needs.

+ If you think religious people hate science, you might be American, because apparently religious Americans are unique in the world for their skepticism towards science.

+ HEY-O! Plants might actually have COGNITION!!! There is evidence that plants can do things like communicate, remember things, recognize kin, and even count, which are all considered markers of cognition. (This is not really a surprise, but it's also kind of wild to see discussed by a scientist. I can't wait until we start learning about the personalities of plants!)

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Learning! Roundup: This is Your Brain on Absurdist Art (also, oil-soaking sponges, loneliness, and more!)

Photo by Mr TT.

When Nothing Makes Sense

Have you ever seen the movie Mulholland Drive? Or looked at some absurdist painting that just didn't make any sense? Turns out that under the meaning maintenance model, taking in art like this causes a sensation similar to physical pain in our minds, but then ultimately results in perking up the meaning-maker part of our brain, making greater sense of the world and affirming our identity.

Oil Sponge

I remember in elementary school, our teacher had us do an exercise where we imagined we were in charge of cleaning up an oil spill. How would we do it? One student suggested a giant sponge of some kind. Of course, we were kids and a magical oil-sucking sponge hadn't been invented... UNTIL NOW! Researchers have now developed a large, porous sponge that can suck up oil off of water. I am just going to imagine that my classmate went on a life trajectory that led him to be a member of that team.

Lonely Days

A new global study of loneliness has been done, showing that people are lonelier if they are younger, male, and live in countries that are higher in individualism. There are, of course, some confounding factors, and this study directly contradicts another one that came out recently saying that women were more likely to feel lonely, but there you have it!

Be a Memory Athlete

First of all, did you know memory athletes are REAL THINGS? It's true. People train, practice, and compete at memorizing stuff. They aren't special - or at least, they aren't cognitively special or different from the rest of us. They ARE special in that they devote their time to mastering memory-encoding techniques that any of us could learn and do on a daily basis.

Machine Diagnosis

A new machine learning study analyzed social media posts about COVID symptoms on Chinese social media site Weibo (similar to Twitter). It was able to predict diagnosis rates in regions up to 14 days ahead of official statistics.

Asymptomatic Commons

Remember how COVID confirmed what many people suspected: that cruise ships are travelling incubators of disease? Well, a new study of a group of people stuck on a cruise ship showed that a whopping 80% of those who were infected with COVID had no symptoms at all.

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Learning! Roundup: It's Possible to Love Your Job TOO Much (also, hope-filled recoveries, moral machines, and more!)

Photo by Jon Tyson.

Don't Love Your Job Too Much

Companies love it when their employees love their jobs because then they work wayyyyy more. It turns out, however, that they are also more likely to be territorial, hoarding work-related knowledge, and even behave unethically. All so that they can advance in the sweet job they love so very much.

Hope

If you are trying to recover from a mental illness, hope is a key factor. A new study shows that hope is a strong predictor of recovery from common anxiety-based disorders, and that hope increases in therapy.

Moral Machines

In our continued efforts towards the machine uprising, when computers become or great and all-knowing overlords, we have now successfully taught them morals! By feeding a computer books and articles, scientists have now been able to help a computer program make moral judgements of right and wrong. And of course, these judgements vary slightly depending on what eras or societies the readings come from.

Smart Folks Can't Take the Heat

If you do realllllly well at tasks where you're just trying to do your best and absolutely choke under pressure, maybe you're smarter than average! Turns out that people with higher intelligence perform better in low-pressure situations, but when they are under intense pressure, those with lower intelligence shine. So for the smartypants among us, process-based goals and a focus on "doing your best" really does make a difference.

Live For Today, Plan For Forever

My grandpa used to say you should live as if you're going to die tomorrow and plan as if you're going to live forever. Turns out that this ability, to live in the moment while planning ahead, is a magical key to mental well-being. So no problem! Just strike that perfect balance of presence and planning.

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Learning! Roundup: When You Lose Your Religion, You May Not Lose the Whole Thing (also, conscientious psychopaths, guessing people's age, and more!)

Photo by thom masat.

Losing My Religion (But Only a Little)

People who were once religious and now are not carry some "residue" of their religion with them through the rest of life. The good news is that this generally takes the form of some pretty positive behaviours, like volunteerism or caring about a group's success over an individual's.

Conscientious Psychopaths

Despite psychopaths being associated with violent or criminal behaviour, there's actually a good number who are "successful" at life (defining success as not committing crimes or being violent, I guess?). The thing that sets them apart is higher conscientiousness. This allows the more positive traits of psychopathology (like their dang charm) to shine and help them go places in life.

Guessing Age

Where do you look when you try to guess someone's age? Apparently, you'll probably spend most of your time looking around their mouth and neck. Not that staring at someone to guess their age is something that really needs to be done very often. Or at all.

Bodies Online

There has been a lot of research showing how women's bodies are depicted online, but not much looking at what is out there for men. A new study shows that men face the same kinds of images as women on Instagram influencer posts, with most being lean, muscular, white men.

The Gamers Are Alright

A 6-year longitudinal study shows that 90% of gamers are not addicted and are totally fine, even if it seems like they play a lot. Within that 90% are a group who started the study showing "moderate" symptoms of problematic gaming that never got worse, so even if it seems like someone is getting a bit too into their games, chances are they will be fine!

Toxic Masculinity Strikes Again

Since feelings in and of themselves are perceived as being gendered, apparently, men can't even be happy without having their sexuality questioned. Men who are happier are more likely to be perceived as gay, whereas women have a greater range of emotional expressions available to them without threatening their sexual identity.

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Learning! Roundup: Where Does Your Mind Go When You Sleep? (also, sad vegetarians, going great, and more!)

Photo by Kinga Cichewicz.

Only in Dreams

Thanks to some very fancy technology, we have direct evidence for the very first time that our brains are replaying the events of the day while we sleep. This seems to be what makes sleeping help with the creation of memories.

Sad Vegetarians

As a vegetarian and a person who cares about the environment, I don't love this one: looks like people who don't eat meat are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and even a desire to self-harm. It's just a correlation, so who knows, maybe depressed and anxious people are just more likely to see the world for what it is and be okay denying ourselves something than happy folks.

Going Green

A new economic study suggests that now is the perfect time to invest in a green stimulus package: spending on things like clean energy infrastructure will actually have greater economic returns, and bonus, help divert climate change. Oh please, can we do this???

Cover-Ups

If you're going to cover up some wrongdoing, it may go better if you are covering for someone else. People seem to be more lenient towards those who display loyalty by covering up for someone else in their in-group than those who cover up their own mistakes.

Universal Basic Income

COVID lockdowns have inspired people to reconsider the notion of universal basic income. In Finland, a test run and two-year study has had a timely release, showing that those who received the basic income were overall more satisfied with their lives and had less mental strain than the control group.

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Learning! Roundup: We May Be Always Online, But We Don't Want Everyone to Know It (also, drunk animals, smart teens, and more!)

Photo by Tobias Nii Kwatei Quartey

Always Online

You know how many apps have these indicators that show everyone whether or not you are online? WELL! If you've ever changed your behaviour because of these status indicators, you're not alone. From changing the app settings to hide our online status to going on just to check if someone else is online to going online and then off very quickly, most of us let these indicators drive how we relate online. Interestingly, it's most common that we do all this for the sake of one person who we are trying to avoid or check up on.

Drunk Animals

Ever wonder which animals can hold their liquor? Honestly, I haven't, but I am now tickled to have this information. Apparently, animals who consume fruit as a significant part of their diets are more likely to successfully break down alcohol enzymes without getting tipsy.

Smartypants Teens

Most people have a tendency to think they are smarter than they actually are, but here's a fun twist: teenagers who rate their own intelligence as higher are not only more likely to be narcissistic, but are more likely to be happy with their lives. Interestingly, there is a gender difference: teen boys have a stronger relationship between their self-rated intelligence, narcissism, and life satisfaction. Honestly, I'm not surprised that the girls were less likely to have this inflated view and happiness to go with it - we're not trained to see ourselves as smart and bound for greatness to the same level as boys!

Hearing Voices

Two-thirds of authors can actually hear their characters speak in their heads - some can actually enter into a dialogue with those characters.

Bias in Media

If a mega-corporation gets caught doing something inappropriate, like breaking environmental regulations or corruption, that's news, right? Perhaps unsurprisingly, it depends on whether or not they have a vested interest in the media company doing the reporting. A new analysis of 1,054 instances of corporate social irresponsibility shows that media outlets use their own interest, including advertising spending, to decide whether or not they cover these events.

Selfish Memories

We all like to think of ourselves as kind and generous people. So our memories help us out with that. Turns out that selfish people actually remember themselves as being more benevolent than they actually are, which helps them feel better about themselves as people.

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Learning! Roundup: Hiding From Your Feelings Works, But Not the Way You Might Hope (and more!)

Photo by Moshen Shenavari.

The Feels

One thing my counsellor tells me is that I can't pick and choose my feelings: if I want to turn off the negative ones, I'll have to turn off the positive ones as well. A new study sort of confirms her claim. Turns out that people who turn off emotional responses to negative stimuli have a more notable reduction in positive emotions than negative ones. Plus, while they think they are experiencing less negative emotion, their bodies are actually still having the same response as ever. So basically, by trying to turn off the negative, you turn off your positive and mask the negative!

Suppressed Stress

Here's another one on suppressed feelings, this one for parents to add to the list of things they shouldn't be doing: suppressing stress! A new study has shown that when parents try to hide their stress, their children not only pick up on it, but they take that stress on physiologically. The parents who were trying to suppress their stress also engaged less with their child and vice versa.

Cheer Yourself Up

For most people, their current mood will influence the activity they choose to do next: if they are feeling down, they are more likely to choose an activity that cheers them up and if they are feeling overly positive, they will choose something to bring them down to a more balanced place. However, people with depression and chronic low mood have a reduced or even absent ability to regulate mood in this way. Honestly, this explains why I have such a hard time making myself get up and DO something when I am feeling in a funk.

Zoom Eye Contact

Making eye contact in real life is a nice part of human interaction (at least until it becomes a creepy part of human interaction). Now that we're only looking at faces over Zoom calls, it turns out that our bodies react similarly to eye contact over video chat as it does in person! One effect: the smile muscles in our faces are activated while the frown muscles relax a bit. That's nice.

Eye Tracking Secrets

It's pretty common these days for researchers to use eye-tracking for studies. Where once it took a pretty large and awkward device, eye movements can now easily be tracked using the cameras built into all our devices. Well, it turns out that a person's eye movements and what they spend more time looking at (something that is generally considered to be subconscious) can reveal a lot about you: gender, age, race, personality traits, drug consumption habits, skills, fears, sexual preferences, and more. MORE! Wild.

Diversity and Innovation

An analysis of American PhD recipients shows that those from under-represented groups, such as people of colour, are more likely to have innovative research discoveries. However, their innovations are less likely to be accepted by the "establishment" and lead to fewer job opportunities in academia.

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Learning! Roundup: If You Can't BE an Optimist, Marry One! (Also, astronauts have big brains, the real Mulan, and more!)

Photo by Nathan Dumlao.

Marry an Optimist

I have shared research in the past about how optimists are healthier and live longer than those who struggle to see the bright side of things. If you are one of those people, take heart! You just have to marry an optimist and their positive outlook will actually improve your health!

Astronauts Have Bigger Brains

Literally, after an astronaut is in space for a long time, their brains increase in volume. Unfortunately, this just creates more intracranial pressure and actually makes their eyesight worse.

The Real Mulan

It's possible that the legend of Mulan is inspired by real Xianbei women who were travelling warriors. Cool!

Teachers Are Still Human

As much as we might like to think (or hope) that teachers are somehow "better people" than the rest of us (a tempting belief, since, you know, they hold our children's fragile minds in their hands), teachers are just as likely to hold unconscious racial bias as anyone. Turns out that just because they wanted to teach kids doesn't mean that they are immune to the white supremacist society we live in.

Late-Night Feelings

Night owls already have a rough go of things in this society, what with the fact that their sleep schedule completely contradicts how society has established work and life should happen. Well, science just made it a little worse for them: people who are night owls have worse emotional regulation and assertiveness than early risers or even the "regular" people who don't fall into either extreme.

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Learning! Roundup: It's Cool (or at least healthy) to Be Kind to Yourself! (And More!)

Photo by Olia Nayda.

It's Cool To Be Kind (To Yourself)

Guys! Our counsellors were right all along! People who are more compassionate and kind towards themselves rate higher for health-promoting behaviours. Meanwhile, no connection to healthy activities for folks who overly criticize themselves and treat exercise as a punishment for letting themselves have one moment of happiness. (For example.)

Okay, okay, it's a correlation, so all we know right now is that there is a relationship between self-compassion and healthy behaviours. But I am still getting excited about it.

Trusting the Gut

During medical emergencies (like, oh, I don't know, a global pandemic), people are more likely to listen to information that includes personal experience than simple facts, even when they contradict each other. When in doubt, it seems, we will follow the anecdotes first.

The Advantage of Being Well-Liked

Turns our Willy Loman was right, being well-liked matters. (That's a Death of a Salesman reference, for the non-theatre-nerds among us.) A new study shows that kids who are popular are less susceptible to illness than those who are less popular, even though they come into contact with more children (and should be exposed to more germs).

The "Aha!" Drug

For some folks, getting a creative breakthrough or insight (that aha! moment when it all comes together) activates the same reward centre in the brain as delicious food, drugs, and sex. Makes sense, then, that some of us go on to get addicted to MAKING THINGS.

Haters Gonna Hate

We tend to think that online trolls are simply small people who are unhappy with their own lives and taking it out on others. A new study, however, shows that a better predictor of hateful behaviour online is psychopathy. So that's fun?

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Learning! Roundup: Will COVID Help Us Save Ourselves from Climate Change? (Also, Abstinence, Ageing, and Selfies!)

Photo by Markus Spiske.

COVID and Climate Change

We are in the midst of a huge global experiment right now: with so much human activity slowed or even stopped, will we get more time to fight climate change? Are we seeing how capable we are of making significant changes to our lifestyles? Or are we simply spending all the money that would have gone to green projects to keep our economies afloat now? This article dives into the different perspectives.

Abstinence Pledges

Another study has been added to the huge pile of research showing that abstinence-only education, where you teach teens that they shouldn't have sex instead of teaching them about birth control and STI's and consent doesn't work. The kids who take abstinence pledges still have the same amount of sex as their counterparts AND they are less likely to use condoms or other forms of protection.

Healthy Ageing

It looks like diet and exercise can have a powerful impact on keeping your brain healthy as you age... if you have the right genes. Otherwise, I guess don't worry about it?

Selfie Time

I don't know about you, but I'm seeing my face on screens WAY MORE these days than I usually do! From all the video conferences to the fact that I feel compelled to take and share more content online, I'm getting more and more used to what my face looks like on screen. Luckily, new research shows that taking selfies isn't bad for your self-esteem (which I guess was a concern), but that editing them is.

Autistic and Social Buddies

Neurotypical people tend to think of those on the autism spectrum as more awkward and less warm to be around and might write them off quickly as people to socialize readily with, but new research confirms what those on the autism spectrum have probably known all along: they make great social partners, we just need to give them a chance.

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Learning! Roundup: It's Smart to Be Helpful, Say Thank You, Helping Sad Friends, and More!

Photo by Victoria Kubiaki.

It's Smart to Be Helpful

Here is a new measure of intelligence: how much a person is willing to help someone else out. Okay, that would be a SLIGHT misinterpretation of these findings, but a new study shows that people who are more intelligent are more likely to be helpful, collaborative, and otherwise prosocial. It's a correlation that makes me feel hopeful for the world, and so I am holding onto it!

Say Thanks, Not Sorry

For a while, some friends and I have been trying to replace our apologies with gratitude, saying "thanks for listening" instead of "sorry for talking so much," for example. We have found that it makes all of us feel better about the conversation. Well, now science has shown that, in customer service settings, it is, in fact, better to say thank you than sorry. When there has been a service failure, it's better to address it by thanking the customer for (for example) sticking around than to apologize.

How to Help Sad Friends

Given how many people are going through ROUGH TIMES right now, this research is especially useful: it's more helpful to validate someone's negative feelings than criticize, correct, or try to reframe them. If someone is stressed or down, instead of trying to help them see the bright side, all you need to do is give them some space to talk through their feelings. (This is literally what I pay my counsellor $120 a pop to do for me.)

Persistent Germs

In vet's clinics (where diligent disinfecting practices are supposedly in place), only about half of the surfaces were actually disinfected. So it's a lot more work than you might think to keep those germs away! Now is a time to be as diligent as possible, of course, without panicking.

PARTIICIPATE IN SCIENCE!

There is a study on right now about the impact of COVID-19 on people's mental health and lives. The first part of it is simply a survey of your understanding of the illness and how it has impacted your well-being. After that you have the option of joining the next phase and doing a daily journal study. You can HELP SCIENCE right now!

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Learning! Roundup: How to Help Your COVID-Fears, Understanding the Toilet Paper Bandwagon, and More!

Photo by Milan Popovic.

A Little Mindfulness Goes a Long Way

Just one short week of mindfulness training can help reduce overall feelings of paranoia. So if you're feeling especially fearful these days, grab one of the many, many free online courses out there on mindfulness (or jump on a two-week free trial, you only need one, after all!) It will make a real difference. Also, here is a nice article from a psychologist on managing our fear during a pandemic.

Bandwagons and Toilet Paper

There are two articles up right now on Psychology Today that, together, may help you understand the whole toilet-paper-stockpiling thing that is going on and maybe show slightly less scorn towards it online. First, we need a basic understanding of the bandwagon effect and the basic psychology behind why we follow others' lead. (Short answer: our lizard brain thinks they might know something we don't.)  Second, we look at toilet paper, specifically, and the fact that, once we believe a resource is going to be scarce, even if it shouldn't be, it becomes entirely rational to stock up on it. So basically, once the media started sharing story after story about toilet paper shortages, even if we knew it was dumb to stock up on TP, we knew that there might legitimately become a problem because everyone else is stocking up, and so now it makes sense to get some extra and play it safe.

Just Say No to Seductive Details

Ever heard of seductive details? Me neither! Apparently, they are when you insert an interesting, but irrelevant detail into a lesson, like a joke or cute cat picture. Looks like students retain less when you put those fun little bits in. So keep your lessons dry and straightforward, folks!

Remember, Remember the... Sorry, What?

Researchers have identified a molecule that is a key factor in holding thoughts in our working memories, even through a distraction. This could be a major breakthrough in helping those with Alzheimer's and other dementia!

Invest in the Children

If governments invest financial support and resources in the well-being of low-income children, that cost will pay off big time! Those kids grow up to have better-paying jobs where they pay more in taxes and require less support from the government, paying off the money initially spent on them and contributing back into the economy. Invest in the children!

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