Positive Psychology Archive

There is growing evidence that the placebo effect is at work in most successful medical therapies.

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When you were a child, your mother or grandmother might have used a home remedy that made you feel better, especially when it was delivered with a soothing hand on the forehead or a kiss on the cheek. Perhaps she assured you that a cup of warm milk would help you fall asleep, and you found that it did.

Unbeknownst to you — or her — she was probably harnessing the placebo effect, loosely defined as a favorable response to a medical intervention that doesn't have a direct physiological effect. Although you may have learned later in life that there isn't much scientific evidence to support the practice, you may still sleep better after a cup of warm milk at bedtime.

Research suggests that moving out of your comfort zone is the key to staying mentally and physically young.

Finding role models who are older than we are gets more difficult as we age. But in the last few years, medical science has identified a new group we can aspire to join — the super-agers. The term refers to people in their 70s and 80s who have the mental or physical capability of their decades-younger counterparts.

What makes a cognitive super-ager?

Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital and his colleagues have been studying super-agers for several years. Their results suggest that embracing new mental challenges may be the key to preserving both brain tissue and brain function.

Don't assume age is to blame for changes in memory, attention, and decision making.

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Depression has a way of sucking the joy and meaning from life. Chronic feelings of hopelessness, apathy, or despair are part of the condition. It may also bring physical symptoms, such as weight loss, sleep disturbance, fatigue, and aches and pains. But depression can be sneaky, causing subtle changes in thinking skills that you may not attribute to the condition. "Very often, one of the first signs of depression in people ages 70 or older is a change in thinking," says Dr. Helen Farrell, a psychiatrist with Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

What's the connection?

Depression may involve the interruption or reduction of chemical messengers in the brain called neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These chemical changes may be the cause of your depression (if the brain systems that regulate them go awry), or they may result from other depression triggers, such as the following:

As doctors acknowledge the role that they have played in the current opioid crisis, they, along with hospitals, medical schools, and other members of the medical community have worked to address the issue on several fronts, including instituting prescribing guidelines and offering continuing education to prescribers.

The brain's fear center may trigger inflammation and lead to a heart attack. But stress reduction techniques can break the chain.

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A small, almond-shaped area deep inside the brain called the amygdala is involved in processing intense emotions, such as anxiety, fear, and stress. Now, a new brain-imaging study reveals how heightened activity in the amygdala may trigger a series of events throughout the body that raises heart attack risk.

"This study identifies a mechanism that links stress, artery inflammation, and subsequent risk of a heart attack," says study leader Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Earlier animal studies have shown that stress activates bone marrow to make white blood cells. These infection-fighting cells trigger inflammation, a process that encourages the buildup of fatty plaque inside artery walls. "But what we didn't know was, does this happen in humans? And what is the role of the brain?" he says.

Don't accept regular fatigue as part of aging.

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Weariness, tiredness, lack of energy. There are many ways to describe those times when you are so fatigued you can't do anything. Often you bounce back after a quick rest or a good night's sleep, but if fatigue is occurring more often and lasting longer, it could be a sign of something more serious.

"Men may chalk up fatigue to aging, but there is no reason you should battle ongoing fatigue," says Dr. Suzanne Salamon, a geriatric physician with Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "Everyone gets tired sometimes, and your endurance may decline with age — you may not move as fast and sometimes tire quicker — but you should never be too fatigued to enjoy an active lifestyle."

Hurting bodies and suffering minds often require the same treatment.

Pain, especially chronic pain, is an emotional condition as well as a physical sensation. It is a complex experience that affects thought, mood, and behavior and can lead to isolation, immobility, and drug dependence.

In those ways, it resembles depression, and the relationship is intimate. Pain is depressing, and depression causes and intensifies pain. People with chronic pain have three times the average risk of developing psychiatric symptoms — usually mood or anxiety disorders — and depressed patients have three times the average risk of developing chronic pain.

Some people live long lives with no disease or serious illness. What can they teach you about healthy living?

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You won't live forever, but it may be possible to live a long and maybe disease-free life by following the lead of "wellderlies."

This is a term to describe a special group of people who have reached ages 90 to 100 without having any major health issue or disease. And if they do get sick, it often happens late in their life and a short period before death.