Forget the stage-show stereotypes. Hypnosis has helped people cut back on pain, anxiety, and depression medications, resolve intestinal problems, quit smoking, even have less stressful childbirth. There’s no pocket watch involved. Hypnosis is simply a state of concentration and focused attention — focused on a mental image. It’s a skill that must be learned from [...]
Danny Worrel paid in advance to have a load of firewood delivered. It was a handshake deal, but as the guy drove off, Worrel, a 57-year-old building engineer in Coupeville, Wash., said, “I just lost $150.” He was sure the woodsman would take off with the cash and never deliver. (Of course, the firewood promptly [...]
Naps help Constance Kobylarz Wilde, 58, recharge, especially if she takes them right after lunch. Wilde, a marketing manager and health blogger in Mountain View, Calif., is constantly juggling her schedule as a working mom and family caregiver. She’s up by 6 a.m. every day and tries to go to bed by 10:30 p.m., but [...]
Indulging in chocolate may help lift one’s mood, but a new study has found that people who eat the most chocolate have a greater likelihood of depression. A study of 931 men and women in the San Diego area showed that people who ate an average of 8.4 servings of chocolate per month tested positive [...]
Lots of people who quit cigarettes to escape the dangers of nicotine are turning to water pipe smoking, wrongly assuming that toking on “hookahs” is safer, new research indicates. Researchers used questionnaires and collected information on 871 Canadians aged 18 to 24 and found that 23% had used water pipes, commonly known as hookahs, during [...]
The FDA has approved a new drug called Saphris to treat schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder in adults. “Mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be devastating to patients and families, requiring lifelong treatment and therapy,” Thomas Laughren, MD, director of the division of psychiatry products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and [...]
Twelve weeks of fish oil pills made teens at high risk of psychosis much less likely to become psychotic for at least one year. The finding comes from a placebo-controlled clinical trial that enrolled 81 young people — average age 16 — teetering on the brink of psychosis. A year after entering the study, 11 [...]
Including certain foods in a daily diet has shown great promise for reversing memory loss and protecting against age related illnesses affecting memory and concentration. Seeking the fountain of youth is as old as mankind itself and stories on clay tablets from as early as 4,000 years ago in ancient Sumeria talk about the epic [...]
I like to imagine that I’m a kind, patient person. That I embody calm when confronted with prickly personalities. That their aggravations roll off me like water off a duck’s back. But this delusion is quickly dispelled every time I have a run-in with a difficult person. Take last week: My friend (let’s call her [...]
Here’s how to resolve the most common relationship problems and get your love life back on track. It’s the rare couple that doesn’t, sooner or later, run into a few bumps in the road. If you recognize ahead of time what those relationship problems can be, you’ll have a much better chance of weathering the [...]
