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A Meditation On Meditation: Behavioral Flexibility and Success
As an undergraduate I worked for a man who was, if nothing else, compelling. Tall and trim, with a bushy handlebar mustache, slicked back hair, and a propensity for pulling out and smoking an e-cigarette in the middle of lab meetings, my adviser could often be heard shouting expletives at his computer from down the…
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Hot off the press: Yoga and inflammation randomized trial
Yoga can make you feel good emotionally, but can it also help your immune system? Our research group recently completed a randomized controlled trial looking at the effects of a yoga intervention on inflammation.
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Feeling the Love [Hormone]: the Oxytocin Receptor
![Feeling the Love [Hormone]: the Oxytocin Receptor](https://sites.lifesci.ucla.edu/psych-pia/wp-content/uploads/sites/290/2014/04/Oxytocin3d-300x240-1.png)
Oxytocin has gotten a lot of hype as the biological basis of our favorite human emotion, Love. Oxytocin is a hormone produced by the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary gland. The oxytocin system is involved in HPA axis and autonomic nervous system functions as well as reproductive functions and social behaviors. We are coming…
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The anti-inflammatory effects of music
Can music help us heal? The first piece of research evidence that turned me on to my field was a finding presented in a Health Psychology course as an undergraduate. Researchers found that after surgery, patients healed faster, and were released from the hospital sooner, if they had a window that looked out on to…
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What is Sleep Health?
We all know what poor sleep looks like (see: zombie apocalypse), but do we have a good understanding of what healthy sleep is? Most psychological and medical research on sleep has been focused on sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnea, but healthy sleep is not necessarily the absence of these disorders. Since 1948, the…
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Acute vs. Chronic Stress: Can it ever be both?
In the field of health psychology, there is still much debate as to what constitutes an acute stressor versus a chronic stressor. The importance of this clarification is crucial for researchers in this field, because stress is a key factor in many areas of research including coping processes, health behavior, disease progression, and psychoneuroimmunology among…
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Happy Monday Morning!
Mondays. The hardest part about Mondays is waking up in the morning. Kudos to those to feel otherwise. Getting back to the rhythm of our early weekday start is typically more difficult for people who are naturally night owls. Each of us has a unique circadian rhythm and are characterized as early, intermediate or late…
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Social Facilitation and Food: Your Friends are Bigger than Your Stomach
In the 21st century, many people still attribute their eating behavior primarily to factors such as hunger and taste. However, research on the psychology of eating indicates that the social presence and behavior of others can also have an enormous impact on food consumption.
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Solving the problem of adverse childhood stress
Recently an article in the New York Times caught my eye. It was about something called “toxic stress” and its effect on children. Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACE), like abuse, neglect, and domestic violence, has long term impacts on a child’s psychological and physical well-being. These negative experiences can induce what researchers at the…
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Psychology Classics: James Pennebaker’s Expressive Writing Paradigm
ames Pennebaker’s writing paradigm was an important contribution to the young field of health psychology at the time and continues to be used today to explore connections between disclosure and physical and mental health and to generate hypotheses about other psychological phenomena.