As we have been discussing this week, people use four basic strategies to manage stress. They avoid stressful situations or the people that trigger them. They alter situations they can’t avoid. They adapt to the situation by changing their response. Or they accept the situation so it no longer acts as a stressor. In our […]
Stress Management Strategies
Between family, home and work, our lives are hectic, complicated and demanding. Stress seems to be a constant companion. We may not be able to avoid stress, but we can learn to manage it more effectively. The first step to decreasing stress is to realize that you are in control of your life. You have […]
Combating Dangerous Pattern Perceptions
Perceiving patterns where none exist, a psychological phenomenon called pattern perception, is a mental coping mechanism used by many people to combat uncertainty when events spin their lives out of control (see our June 10 post). It’s a phenomenon that’s on the rise in these times of economic uncertainty where rising unemployment, catastrophic investment losses, […]
Can Brain Scans Detect Lies?
Brain scans are opening new avenues in science, including forensic psychiatry. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is being used to discover new insights into how the brain works and what makes people tick. By studying which areas of the brain “light up” on MRI images, researchers are uncovering differences in how men and women communicate […]
Army Suicides Increase Each Year
The US Army recently released the statistics for 2008 of numbers of army suicides. Since 2004 the numbers have been increasing to now 128 active duty soldiers and 43 non-active duty soldiers. These 2008 numbers correspond to a suicide rate of 20 per 100,000 personnel. If you look at the suicide rate of the US […]
Fame, Money, Beauty Don’t Bring Happiness
It turns out that those oft sought goals in life — fame, wealth and beauty — don’t bring happiness and can, in fact, make life miserable. That’s the finding of a new study by three researchers at the University of Rochester in New York that was reported this week on ScienceDaily online. “People understand that […]