April 2017

Here's yet another reason to make sure your kids are active: New research shows those with stronger muscles may have better working memory. Evaluating 79 children between the ages of 9 and 11, scientists said they found that muscle fitness was directly related to a more accurate memory. The results also reinforced established research linking kids' aerobic fitness to better thinking skills and academic performance. "There are multiple ways children can derive benefit from exercise ... to...

Teens and young adults who come from troubled backgrounds have a greater risk of killing themselves, a new study suggests. Kids exposed to suicide in the family, parental mental health disorders and substantial parental criminal behavior had the highest suicide rates, the study found. The findings "emphasize the importance of understanding the social mechanisms of suicide and the need for effective interventions early in life aimed at alleviating the suicide risk in disadvantaged children,"...

You probably haven’t heard of the winner of this year’s UNESCO Peace Prize. In the past, the award, officially called the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Prize, has been granted to internationally renowned figures including Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat, and Shimon Peres. This year, for the first time ever, the award goes to a mayor: 56-year-old Giusi Nicolini, mayor of a small Italian island that’s home to about 6,000 people. The island in question is Lampedusa , a small islet roughly equidistant...

You saw the pictures in science class—a profile view of the human brain, sectioned by function. The piece at the very front, right behind where a forehead would be if the brain were actually in someone’s head, is the pre-frontal cortex. It handles problem-solving, goal-setting, and task execution. And it works with the limbic system, which is connected and sits closer to the center of the brain. The limbic system processes emotions and triggers emotional responses, in part because of its...

As the United States faces a worsening opioid drug crisis, health experts offered an overview of the epidemic, explored the rise in toxic drug combinations, and suggested new ways of approaching the story in a webinar hosted by the Center for Health Journalism this week. “We are in the midst of a severe epidemic that’s fueling record high levels of opioid overdose deaths,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny , the co-director of Opioid Policy Research at the Heller School for Social Policy and...

The Five Year Mental Health Youth Report presented findings from the past five Mission Australia youth surveys, during which thousands of adolescents answered questions on several topics, including mental health. The report found that there are more people in the 15-to-19 age category in psychological distress than there were five years ago. It also found girls were "twice as likely as boys to meet the criteria for having a probable serious mental illness", and almost a third of Aboriginal...

Kate was labelled as ‘mentally ill’ since she was a kid. She despised this label. It meant that something was wrong with her. At the age of 17, she was finally diagnosed with ‘Schizophrenia’ when her condition was getting worse. Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental condition. It can hamper people’s interaction with reality itself. But with Kate’s natural propensity towards art, it only amplified the way she drew and painted things. And like any natural artist, she took the mental condition...

There’s a lot of debate about which form of therapy is the most psychologically effective, the most cost-effective, the quickest working and the longest lasting. They all have their benefits and drawbacks, depending on the individual and the kind of mental health problem he or she is dealing with. A new study reports that an eight-week course of group mindfulness training has a similar efficacy to usual care—in the this case, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which in recent years has been...

On a cloudy afternoon in the Bayview district, Shaquille, 21, was riding in his sister’s 1991 Acura when another car ran a stop sign, narrowly missing them. Both cars screeched to a halt, and Shaquille and the other driver got out. “I just wanted to talk,” he recalls. But the talk became an argument, and the argument ended when Shaquille sent the other driver to the pavement with a left hook. Later that day, he was arrested and charged with felony assault. He already had a misdemeanor...

The first in a series of 6 webinars will be held on Monday, April 24, 3-4 ET on "Safety: Common Ground" in a series: “ Trauma-Informed Innovations in Crisis Services.” The announcement from SAMHSA follows ( URL: https://nasmhpd.adobeconnect.com/crisisvln/ . Telephone: 1-888-727-2247, Conference ID: 9452092#): The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) National Center for Trauma-Informed Care and Alternatives to Seclusion and Restraint (NCTIC) is pleased to...

What does it mean to be in the present moment? How do we even know if we are present? How do we shift from other states into the present moment? And why does it even matter? It's all here!

As a student assistance counselor, I regularly receive flashy emails from various organizations promoting materials for drug-free schools. Secretly I roll my eyes and strike the trash icon. “Drug free schools - ha, right?!” It may sound cynical or jaded that I don’t believe in drug-free high schools. It’s not that. The truth is I don’t believe a drug-free high school exists. This isn’t from a lack of effort or concern. As a product of the “Just Say No” era, schools have worked for decades to...