Commonwealth Magazine: Pandemic will leave PTSD in its wake. I should know.. “It won’t touch everyone, or even most people. But for those who do go through it, military veterans have been where you’re about to go. I was treated for PTSD and so were a lot of the other veterans you know, even if […]
NHK World Japan: Japanese scale measures stress of COVID-19 workers. “A group of researchers in Japan has developed a tool to detect mental distress in medical workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical workers are said to be at high risk of developing mental health problems due to fears of coronavirus infection and social stigma.”
Raw Story: A neuroscientist explains how to vaccinate against the long-term psychological effects of COVID-19. “Unlike posttraumatic stress disorder which is commonly linked to one or more distinct, episodic traumatic events, COVID represents a continuous, ongoing stressor that includes at least three principal elements: (1) fear of current and/or future viral infection, (2) long-lasting adverse […]
Lonely Planet: Iceland can help you quit your ‘doomscrolling’ habit in 2021. “The site is called Joyscroll and it has been launched by the Icelandic tourism board after it conducted an in-depth study to find just how much people were doomscrolling on their phones in 2020. It then decided to create an interactive website that […]
Reuters: Cuddling in COVID: ‘Hug bubble’ lets seniors feel the magic of touch. “Since the COVID-19 outbreak, French care home resident Colette Dupas’s contact with her daughters has been limited to talking via video call, or through a window. Now the 97-year-old has been able to feel their touch, thanks to an inflatable tunnel and […]
EurekAlert: Increased social media use linked to developing depression, research finds. “Young adults who increased their use of social media were significantly more likely to develop depression within six months, according to a new national study authored by Dr. Brian Primack, dean of the College of Education and Health Professions and professor of public health […]
BBC: Covid: Students and retirees form long-distance friendships. “Millie Jacoby met her new ‘French grandma’ for the first time last week via video call. The 21-year-old British student signed up to a scheme pairing language students with elderly French people, some of whom have been left isolated by the coronavirus pandemic.”
Washington Post: No game days. No bars. The pandemic is forcing some men to realize they need deeper friendships.. “For more than a decade, psychologists have written about the ‘friendship crisis’ facing many men. One 2006 analysis published in the American Sociological Review found that while Americans in general have fewer friends outside the family […]
Northwell Health: Researchers use Facebook activity to predict psychiatric diagnoses . “Researchers at The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research developed novel machine learning (ML) algorithms from a user’s Facebook activity capable of accurately predicting those who go on to develop schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) and mood disorders (MD) more than a year prior to the […]
Washington Post: Japan and South Korea see surge of suicides among young women, raising new questions about pandemic stress. “Suicide rates among young women have increased notably in Japan and South Korea, raising possible links to the prolonged coronavirus pandemic as it amplifies stress levels, worsens economic woes and aggravates feelings of loneliness and isolation.”
MakeUseOf: How to Stop Social Media Envy From Taking Over Your Life. “Envy is that painful longing to have what others have. And if you’ve ever felt envious of people you see on Facebook or Instagram, you are not alone. Because of social media, people are constantly bombarded with updates about friends, family, or acquaintances […]
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Virtual Mental Health First Aid Training available free of charge for Texas public library workers. “Thanks to a grant from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM), Hill Country Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Center (Hill Country MHDD), in partnership with the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, […]
Popular Science: Social media can be toxic. Here’s how to make sure your feeds aren’t.. “There are dozens of guides out there on how to curate your feed by unfollowing and blocking the toxic people in your life, and you can even use third-party tools to remove posts with certain words. That can do a […]
Politico: Drugs hyped as coronavirus treatment linked to psychiatric disorders, says EU agency. “Chloroquine and a related compound, hydroxychloroquine, have been associated with cases of psychiatric disturbances and suicidal behavior after being given to COVID-19 patients, warned the EU’s drug regulator [November 27]. The two medicines were some of the first drugs put forward as […]
New Yorker: Our Brains Explain the Season’s Sadness. “I’ve been consumed this fall with a melancholy sadness. It’s different from the loneliness that I felt in the early stage of the pandemic, during the lockdown, when I took a picture of my shadow after a neighborhood walk failed to jumpstart exercise endorphins. Eleven months after […]