Category Archives: Health Psychology

Mind Body Medicine: Does Improving Your Mood Help Your Brain to Think More Creatively?

While many people still doubt the power of the mind, the effectiveness of mind body medicine and mind body techniques such as laughter, also known as humor therapy, positive psychology, and the remarkable impact our moods have on our ability to function, one study has made a significant discovery regarding how positive emotions impact our ...…

Optimism Decreases A Woman’s Risk of Heart Disease and Death

Researchers have found that women with high levels of cynical hostility, harboring hostile thoughts towards other or having a general mistrust of people are at higher risk of dying, but the risk of developing heart disease wasn’t different from non-hostile women. Hillary A.  Tendo, M.D., MPH, lead author of the study and assistant professor of ...…

Do You Know How To Keep Your Heart Healthy Using Holistic Healing Techniques?

While February was  healthy heart month, and while many have focused on preventing and treating heart disease, I believe the focus should be on what we can do to improve our heart health, which will prevent disease throughout the year. I just read an article about a cardiologist, a fellow alumni of my alma mater ...…

Mind Body Healing Update:Does Happiness Improve Health and Longevity?

The study appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being, is the most comprehensive review thus far of scientific research linking health and happiness.…

Do You Have A Self Healing Personality?

A dear friend of mine, Bill was diagnosed several years ago with terminal prostate cancer.  The tumor was so large, the upper portion protruded into his abdominal cavity.  His doctor recommended immediate surgery and chemotherapy.  Bill asked the doctor if he could wait a few weeks, because he felt within himself that he had a ...…

Is Holistic Healing the Key To Your Health?

Do you know that you have the power to improve your health, or do you believe that it’s your family history, your genes, your doctors,  your access to medical care, your health insurance plan that is most important? Many years ago when I was in medical school, I attended a lecture that was at the ...…

Does Hopelessness Increase Risk of Death,Heart Attacks and Cancer?

The incidence of heart attacks and cancer in a population sample of middle aged men.…

Meditation Helps Increase Attention Span

It’s virtually impossible to pay attention to one thing for a long time. A recently conducted study reviewed the impact Buddhist meditation had on an individual’s s ability to be attentive and determined that meditation training helps people do better at focusing for a long an extended period of time on a task that requires ...…

Harvard Researchers Find Supplement Decreases Depression Symptoms

A new study indicates that an over-the-counter supplement may help people with depression who haven’t responded to anti-depression drug therapy.   Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts general hospital have found that S-Adenosyl-Methionine or SAMe, when added to a patient’s antidepressant treatment aided more people with major depression to reduce and improve their symptoms ...…

Taking Music Seriously, It Boosts Learning

Those ubiquitous wires connecting listeners to you-name-the-sounds from invisible MP3 players — whether of Bach, Miles Davis or, more likely today, Lady Gaga — only hint at music’s effect on the soul throughout the ages.   Now a data-driven review by Northwestern University researchers that will be published July 20 in Nature Reviews Neuroscience pulls ...…