According to a study by Ron B. Postuma, MD, MSc, a member of the American Academy of Neurology, sleep plays an crucial part in keeping up overall wellbeing, good disposition, cognition, work execution, and social movement, and it is impacted by the circadian cadence, the inside clock that controls body forms. “The good news is that the sleep disruptions we observed following the change to standard time were brief and no longer evident two weeks after the shift,” he said.
The study included 30,097 individuals, ages 45 to 85, who completed a survey about sleep duration and satisfaction, ability to fall asleep, capacity to stay sleeping and intemperate sleepiness during the day. Questions consisted of, “Over the last month, how often did it take you more than 30 minutes to fall asleep?” and “Over the last month, how often did you wake in the middle of the night or too early in the morning and found it difficult to fall asleep again?” Those whose response was three or more times a week to either of these questions were considered to have sleep issues.
For the transition to autumn standard time, the researchers compared the questionnaire filled out a week before the transition with those filled out a week later. After adjusting for age, gender and location, they found that those who finished the questionnaire a week after the shift had a 34% higher risk of insomnia, with 28% reporting insomnia, compared to 23% of those surveyed the week before. After one week, those who completed the survey were also more than twice as likely to fall asleep, 64 per cent more likely to fall asleep, and twice as likely to experience excessive sleepiness while awake.
In connection with the transition to daylight saving time in spring, the researchers compared those who completed the survey a week before the change with those who answered the survey a week later. They found no difference in sleep disturbances. However, they found that sleep duration decreased by nine minutes after one week of switching.
The researchers looked at when participants completed the survey: spring, summer, autumn, or winter. Although they found no difference in sleep disturbance, they did find a minor difference in sleep duration. In the summer, the respondents to the survey had the shortest sleep duration, an average of 6.76 hours per day. In winter, the survey respondents had the longest sleep time, an average of 6.84 hours per day, which means the difference is five minutes.
“As disruptive as these transitions may feel in the short term, there may be few long-term implications of the repeated switch back and forth from daylight saving time to standard time,” said Postuma. But, previous studies have linked the transitions to and from daylight saving time with higher accident rates and an increased risk of stroke and heart attack. Future studies are needed that follow people over time, including people who live in places with different light exposure and seasonal changes.
The study’s limitation was that it only comprised middle-aged and older adults, and outcomes may not be similar for younger adults. The study was financed by the Canadian Institute for Health Research.
Source link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230503200454.htm
After undergoing seven years of clinical trials that studied over 600 children, FDA has authorized doctors to prescribe the iPhone and iPad game for children, between the ages 8 to 12, with mainly inattentive or combined-type ADHD, who have demonstrated issues with attention. Before its authorization as a treatment method, FDA reviewed data from multiple studies conducted on over 600 children, including studies that examined, whether participants exhibited improvements in attention function, as measured by the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA), academic performance measures, and other assessment tools.
Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Cincinnati, have underscored the link between air pollution and mental health in children in a series of three new studies.
A recent research has demonstrated that worry affects regions of the brain that are crucial for concentration. The study was conducted by researchers from the Department of Psychology in the University of Roehampton, London. Professor Paul Allen and his colleagues from the Department have examined how worry influences ‘attentional control’ or the brain areas that are involved in concentration.
Celebrities, particularly female celebrities, are customarily criticized about their appearance in magazines and newspapers. While we generally don’t give much importance to those nasty headlines assuming they are trivial, little do we realize that the effects of such comments can extend well beyond the targeted person and ripple through the population at large.
Explicit attitudes are those, which people consciously endorse and which are often susceptible to concerns about social desirability and presenting oneself in the most positive light. By contrast, implicit attitudes, around which this investigation also revolved, indicate people’s split-second gut-level reactions that something is inherently good or bad. Implicit attitudes are generally believed to be developed over a lifetime. “We constantly receive messages that things are good or bad, and the more we hear them, the stronger the association is,” Bartz explained. “These cultural messages appeared to augment women’s gut-level feeling that ‘thin’ is good and ‘fat’ is bad. These media messages can leave a private trace in people’s minds,” she added.
More and more children these days are battling digital addiction. They are being exposed to electronic devices at much younger ages, and we often watch them spending hours gazing at cell-phone/tablet or computer screens. According to experts, digital addiction is as potent as meth and can have alarming effects on children. It is extremely important to apply moderation, when it comes to screens or screen-time and we as parents must teach our children how to use them in a healthy way.
While researchers often talk about the difficulty they experience in trying to understand and quantify children’s use of devices, Dr Christakis in his commentary, points out how while the required information is routinely—and efficiently—gathered by the industry and applied to increase the charm of the devices and the programs, people in academia and research are struggling to get the data needed to put together coherent and extensive guidelines for parents and policymakers. Dr Christakis, thus, suggests that an increased cooperation between industry and researchers might help in setting up those guidelines.
We all were probably taught to never lie but there would be rarely anyone who can truthfully claim that he or she doesn’t lie or hasn’t lied in life, ever. Depending upon the demands of the situation, we might tell a lie for harmless reasons like to avoid awkward situations, protect others, or avoid hurting others’ feelings, or, for some other reasons that are much serious and can potentially wreak havoc on our lives. However, there are some people who lie out of habit. And, the more they lie, the easier and more frequent this behaviour becomes. Scientists have now discovered why liars lie.
Ariely and his colleagues conducted a study to show the change in participants’ brain while they are being dishonest. The study revealed that there was an increased activity in their amygdala, a part of the brain responsible for producing fear, anxiety and emotions. This change made lying or being dishonest easier for those participants. The signals from the amygdala reduced when they expected no consequences for being dishonest, such as when playing a game. Cognitive neuroscientist at University College London, Tali Sharot, who led the research said, “If you give people multiple opportunities to lie for their own benefit, they start with little lies and get bigger and bigger over time.”
HeartyPsych 