Mind Space – Page 48 – Things Are Good

Violent Video Games can be Good

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 playerâ€™s opinion of people from said country.

A Video Designed to Spread

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

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 arenâ€™t that important.

Reduced psychological interference across domains as a result of being less distracted, because youâ€™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.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Can Help Patients Cope with Schizophrenia

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 â€“ that is, when worry is gripping me I would say ‘Excuse me worry, I need to interrupt you becauseâ€¦’. I sometime worry about people trying to harm me but now I can interrupt my worry and do something else’.

Mindfulness Meditation Effective in Improving Sleep

Mindfulness meditation is already pretty great, and it keeps getting better! Not only can it help you go amongst your day in a more thoughtful, productive, focussed manner, it can even help you sleep!

A six week trial of getting people who had trouble sleeping to mediate proved to help them get better rest.

Importance
Sleep disturbances are most prevalent among older adults and often go untreated. Treatment options for sleep disturbances remain limited, and there is a need for community-accessible programs that can improve sleep.

Objective
To determine the efficacy of a mind-body medicine intervention, called mindfulness meditation, to promote sleep quality in older adults with moderate sleep disturbances.

…

Conclusions and Relevance
The use of a community-accessible MAPs intervention resulted in improvements in sleep quality at immediate postintervention, which was superior to a highly structured SHE intervention. Formalized mindfulness-based interventions have clinical importance by possibly serving to remediate sleep problems among older adults in the short term, and this effect appears to carry over into reducing sleep-related daytime impairment that has implications for quality of life.