Mind Space

Travel For a Better Brain

- Adam Clare

I just booked a flight to London and coincidentally came across an article that says that our brains can benefit greatly from exploring the world. A good way to start the day!

It turns out that the ability of the brain to handle new information is connected to well-being and that travel can get your bring working in new ways. It is also beneficial to step out of your comfort zone, which travelling general encourages. So you should book that trip you’ve been thinking about!

In recent years, psychologists and neuroscientists have begun examining more closely what many people have already learned anecdotally: that spending time abroad may have the potential to affect mental change. In general, creativity is related to neuroplasticity, or how the brain is wired. Neural pathways are influenced by environment and habit, meaning they’re also sensitive to change: New sounds, smells, language, tastes, sensations, and sights spark different synapses in the brain and may have the potential to revitalize the mind.

“Foreign experiences increase both cognitive flexibility and depth and integrativeness of thought, the ability to make deep connections between disparate forms,” says Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia Business School and the author of numerous studies on the connection between creativity and international travel. Cognitive flexibility is the mind’s ability to jump between different ideas, a key component of creativity. But it’s not just about being abroad, Galinsky says: “The key, critical process is multicultural engagement, immersion, and adaptation. Someone who lives abroad and doesn’t engage with the local culture will likely get less of a creative boost than someone who travels abroad and really engages in the local environment.” In other words, going to Cancun for a week on spring break probably won’t make a person any more creative. But going to Cancun and living with local fishermen might.

Read more.

Violent Video Games can be Good

- Adam Clare

Violent video games get attacked a lot. Media and news companies are quick to blame the influence video games have on youth to be the reason that youth commit acts of violence. This is not the case though. Every year there is more evidence that it’s not true that violent entertainment leads to real-world violence. In fact, it can be stingily argued that playing violent video games can be a good thing in your life.

First, an international research team from the USA and Canada found that by playing a game together we can change attitudes of players towards others. They had people kill zombies with someone who the player thought was from the States (and in the USA they thought they were playing with a Canadian).

The research concluded that having people play with someone they thought was from another country increased player’s opinion of people from said country.

Read more.

A Video Designed to Spread

- Adam Clare

This video has been making the online rounds for the last couple of weeks and I figured I’d post it here. The video looks at why some ideas spread faster and further than others. It’s a neat take on memes (The Richard Dawkins kind).

Focus Less on Work to Improve Everything – Even Your Job

- Adam Clare

Stressed about not getting enough done at work? Don’t be. It turns out that you can improve how much you get things done at the office by not thinking about it. Turn your attention elsewhere and focus on things that do matter instead.

But, how can performance at work improve with less attention paid to it? There are several reasons:

  • Clearer focus on results that really matter to the people around you.
  • Less wasted effort on activities that aren’t that important.
  • Reduced psychological interference across domains as a result of being less distracted, because you’re taking care of critical needs in those other parts.
  • A virtuous cycle of benefits from one part of your life spilling over to other parts; for example, greater confidence, less crankiness, and a stronger sense of control.

Read more.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Can Help Patients Cope with Schizophrenia

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Cognitive behavioural therapy can be used by people dealing with schizophrenia to improve their lives. Just six sessions of the therapy can help people deal with worry which can lead to schizophrenic episodes or even be used to help people who are at risk of developing schizophrenia.

Six sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) focused upon reducing worry reduced the severity of persecutory delusions, the researchers found.

The patients were much happier and less fearful of other people after therapy. These effects lasted at least six months.

A study participant commented, ‘The breakthrough was that I was able to, with the help of my psychologist, come up with a strategy – that is, when worry is gripping me I would say ‘Excuse me worry, I need to interrupt you because…’. I sometime worry about people trying to harm me but now I can interrupt my worry and do something else’.

Read more.

Scroll To Top