What's Next In Health

Psychologists have been fond of stating in recent years that human happiness, or what psychologists call subjective well-being, is largely independent of our life circumstances. The wealthy aren’t much happier than the middle class, married people aren’t much happier than single people, healthy people aren’t much happier than sick people, and so on.

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Happiness and other positive emotions play an even more important role in health than previously thought, according to a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine by Carnegie Mellon University Psychology Professor Sheldon Cohen. The paper will be available online at www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/.

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A new study has found that babies that are breastfed for longer than six months have significantly better mental health in childhood.

The findings are based on data from the ground-breaking Raine Study at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, that has tracked the growth and development of more than 2500 West Australian children over the past 16 years.

Researcher Dr Wendy Oddy said there was growing evidence that bioactive factors in breast milk played an important role in the rapid early brain development that occurs in the first year of life.

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People who experience emotional ambivalence -- simultaneously feeling positive and negative emotions -- are more creative than those who feel just happy or sad, or lack emotion at all, according to a new study.

That's because people who feel mixed emotions interpret the experience as a signal that they are in an unusual environment and thus respond to it by drawing upon their creative thinking abilities, said Christina Ting Fong, an assistant professor at the University of Washington Business School. This increased sensitivity for recognizing unusual associations, which happy or sad workers probably couldn't detect, is what leads to creativity in the workplace, she added.

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So your high school senior says she wants to be a doctor. Great news, right? It is if she's got the talent and the grades to back up her ambition.

Unfortunately, the goals of too many teens now outpace what they are likely to achieve, a problem that can lead to wasted time and resources, not to mention anxiety and distress, according to a new Florida State University study.

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Realities associated with aging are numerous, and often negative. However, according to a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher, the aging process isn't all bad because it helps most individuals become more autonomous and self determined, achieving a higher level of personal satisfaction.

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Depressed singles receive greater psychological benefits from getting married than those who are not depressed, new research shows.

While many studies have shown that marriage helps boost well-being, most studies have looked at a general, average population and don't examine whether some people were helped more by marriage than others.

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Special skills workshops for parents of anxious young children could offer a breakthrough in addressing this difficult problem, according to psychologists at The University of Manchester.

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There's no doubt that laughter feels good, but is there real neurophysiology behind it and what can you do about it? In a paper being presented in an American Physiological Society session at Experimental Biology 2006, Lee S. Berk of Loma Linda University, reports that not only is there real science and psychophysiology, but just the anticipation of the "mirthful laughter" involved in watching your favorite funny movie has some very surprising and significant neuroendocrine/hormone effects.

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A device that can pick up on people's emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed.

One of the problems facing people with autism is an inability to pick up on social cues. Failure to notice that they are boring or confusing their listeners can be particularly damaging, says Rana El Kaliouby of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's sad because people then avoid having conversations with them."

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A study by University of Virginia sociologists W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven L. Nock finds that the single most important factor in women's marital happiness is the level of their husbands' emotional engagement -- not money, the division of household chores or other factors.

The study also finds that women whose husbands earn the lion's share of income, who don't work outside the home, or who share a strong commitment to lifelong marriage with their husbands report the highest levels of marital happiness -- in sharp contrast to academic conventional wisdom, according to the authors. In addition, perceptions of fairness matter for married women. Women who report that the division of housework is fair are happier in their marriages than women who think that their husbands don't do their fair share.

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Long-term, low-quality marriages have significant effects on overall well-being, according to a recent study by Penn State researchers.

Daniel Hawkins, graduate student, and Alan Booth, distinguished professor of sociology, human development and family studies, and demography, said that people who remain unhappily married suffer from lower levels of self-esteem, overall health, overall happiness, and life satisfaction along with elevated levels of psychological distress, in contrast to those in long-term happy marriages.

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Personal and professional success may lead to happiness but may also engender success. Happy individuals are predisposed to seek out and undertake new goals in life and this reinforces positive emotions, say researchers who examined the connections between desirable characteristics, life successes and well-being of over 275,000 people.

From a review of 225 studies in the current issue of Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association (APA), lead author Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., of the University of California, Riverside found that chronically happy people are in general more successful across many life domains than less happy people and their happiness is in large part a consequence of their positive emotions rather than vice versa. Happy people are more likely to achieve favorable life circumstances, said Dr. Lyubomirsky, and "this may be because happy people frequently experience positive moods and these positive moods prompt them to be more likely to work actively toward new goals and build new resources. When people feel happy, they tend to feel confident, optimistic, and energetic and others find them likable and sociable. Happy people are thus able to benefit from these perceptions."

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A study published in the December issue of Psychological Science finds divorce leaves a lasting effect on our satisfaction levels. A person's happiness level drops as she or he approaches divorce and gradually rebounds over time. But the level of satisfaction does not return to baseline (the level of satisfaction felt prior to the divorce.) Although some rebounding does occur in the years immediately following, there are lasting changes. "Instead people's satisfaction ended up .22 to .34 points lower than baseline levels," author Richard Lucas states.

To measure the long-term life changes before and after a divorce the author used data from an 18-year study of 30,000 Germans that examined their reactions. The surveys were conducted yearly using face-to-face interviews and respondents participated in at least one of the 18 waves. The author found that neither age nor sex moderated the effects of divorce on happiness and satisfaction. "Researchers, clinicians, and friends and family members of persons who have experienced such events should not assume that time naturally heals all wounds," Dr. Lucas concludes. "Instead, some people may never adapt to some life events, at least not without intervention."

Imaging study of children with autism finds broken mirror neuron system.

New imaging research at UCLA shows children with autism have virtually no activity in a key part of the brain's mirror neuron system while imitating and observing emotions.

Mirror neurons fire when a person performs a goal-directed action and while he or she observes the same action performed by others. Neuroscientists believe this observation-execution matching system provides a neural mechanism by which others' actions, intentions and emotions can be understood automatically.

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