Mind & Mood Archive

Some research suggests that disclosing deep emotions through writing can boost immune function as well as mood and well-being. Conversely, the stress of holding in strong feelings can ratchet up blood pressure and heart rate, and increase muscle tension.

Deeply troubling situations, such as suicide or a violent death, are best explored with the help of an experienced therapist. You might want to seek professional support to help you start to deal with your grief before trying journal writing. If you'd like to try keeping a journal to help you process feelings of grief, keep these things in mind:

At a time of loss, it's important to focus on maintaining your health and getting the support you need.

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Losing a family member, a close friend, or even a beloved pet can be devastating. All the small details of daily life—getting out of bed, making meals, going to appointments, taking care of children, handling responsibilities at work—may seem monumentally hard or inconsequential. Yet, even as you grieve, you've probably been reminded that life must go on. But working through the emotional pain can be difficult, particularly during the holidays, when you may feel you are supposed to be celebrating.

The normal process of grieving

Understanding the three Rs —reminder, routine, and reward—can help you create healthful habits.

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Everyone has bad habits they want to break, but instead of scorning yourself for being helpless to break them, use the fundamentals of forming habits to your advantage.

Habits, good or bad, follow a typical three-step pattern. One way to describe this is as three Rs: reminder, routine, and reward. By breaking down the cycle of a bad habit, you can identify what triggers the routine and begin to address what really needs to change. This way you can establish a pattern for new and healthier habits.

Older adults who stay busy scored higher on cognitive function scores compared with more idle people. The greatest effect is with episodic memory, which is the memory of past events like times and places.

Some drugs go too far, dulling emotions across the spectrum. A dose adjustment or a switch to a different medication can help.

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When your doctor prescribes a medication for depression, the goal is to reduce painful feelings of sadness or hopelessness. The majority of people taking the most commonly prescribed antidepressants—selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)—improve substantially. But sometimes, SSRIs go beyond improving mood and make a person feel too little emotion. "Some people feel like they've lost the richness of daily life," says Dr. Michael Craig Miller, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Serotonin and SSRIs

What you should do

An analysis of records of 5,635 participants in the Health and Retirement Study linked regular book reading with a 20% reduced risk of dying over a 12-year period. 

Animal-assisted therapy can be your best friend when it comes to mental support.

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They say a dog is man's best friend, but when it comes to better health, any type of animal bonding will do.

Research shows that interaction with animals like dogs, cats, and even horses can have both immediate and long-lasting impacts on your mental well-being. Done more formally in a medical context, it's known as animal-assisted therapy (AAT).

Lower your dependency on medication by altering your perception of pain.

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Everyday pain becomes more constant as you age. It can vary from morning aches to occasional joint flare-ups to recurrent episodes that interfere with your life and overall health.

Yet pain has a valuable role. It alerts your systems to potential injury so you can seek treatment. "Pain is similar to blood pressure, which becomes a problem if the levels become too high," says Dr. Jianren Mao, director of the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Translational Pain Research. "Only when pain becomes intolerable should you resort to medication or other types of treatment."

A mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) can help control anxiety among men who follow active surveillance for prostate cancer. The wait-and-see approach can make men feel so uneasy about their condition that they opt for treatment with radiation therapy or surgery when it is unnecessary. MBSR not only eases anxiety levels, but also inspires men to be more proactive about their health and adopt lifestyle changes like a proper diet and exercise.

A study published online Aug. 8, 2016, by BMJ Open found that volunteering seems to confer greater benefits for general well-being in middle and older age than earlier in life.