Nasal temperature drops during stress, especially social speech stress
Thermal video of the nose tracked an objective “stress dip,” and it lined up with body-type anxiety symptoms more than self-rated stress. In healthy adults, nasal skin temperature dropped during two lab stressors and rebounded during recovery, but did not fully return to baseline in five minutes. A speech-based social stressor produced a bigger temperature […]
When Anxiety Dims Our Warmth but Not Our Insight
Anxiety’s Quiet Tax on Connection We tend to treat empathy as a single skill—either you have it or you don’t. But empathy actually has two parts that work together: affective empathy, the capacity to feel with someone, and cognitive empathy, the ability to understand what someone else is thinking or experiencing. Many of us notice […]
Breath Before the Cry: How Prenatal Mindfulness Helped Vulnerable Mothers Bond and Cope
Pregnancy, Stress, and the Quiet Tools That Can Change a Family’s Start Pregnancy is often painted as glowing joy, but for many women—especially those with psychosocial vulnerabilities like past mental health difficulties, trauma, financial stress, or limited support—the perinatal period can be overwhelming. Stress and depression in pregnancy don’t always end at delivery; they can […]
Caring on the Home Front: What Military Spouses Teach Us About Mental Health, Love, and Staying Afloat
When Home Becomes the Front Line of Care Military life is already a complex balancing act—deployments, relocations, and strict schedules—but it grows heavier when a service member develops a mental health issue. The Living with a loved one’s mental health issue: Recognizing the Lived Experiences of Military Spouses research paper steps into this often-invisible space, […]
Coping Beats Raw Brainpower: What Drives Grades for University Students in Southern Ethiopia
When Stress Management Outweighs Memory Tricks Grades are often treated like a scoreboard of intelligence, but this study suggests something far more practical: how students handle stress may be just as important as how quickly they process information. In the Psychosocial and cognitive predictors of academic achievement among higher education students in Southern Ethiopia, a […]
Calmer Minds at the Bedside: How Mindfulness Reduced “Showing Up But Not Fully There” Among ICU Nurses
When Showing Up Isn’t the Same as Being There: ICU Nursing and the Hidden Cost of Presenteeism In intensive care units, nurses carry the weight of life-and-death decisions while navigating alarms, complex protocols, and rotating shifts. In this setting, simply coming to work is not the same as being fully present. Psychologists call this gap […]
Belonging to Breathe: How Group Identity Shapes NHS Staff Engagement with Mindfulness
When Mindfulness Becomes a Badge We Wear at Work Mindfulness isn’t just a personal habit; in busy healthcare settings, it can feel like a badge of who you are. Are you one of the “mindful people”? Do you belong with them? This question sits at the heart of the research paper A qualitative exploration of […]
When Psychologists Need Support Too
When Healers Face the Same Storm They Treat Psychologists spent the COVID-19 crisis helping others manage fear, grief, and relentless uncertainty. But who was looking after them? The research paper Depression, anxiety, and stress levels during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study among Indonesian psychologists turns the lens onto the healers themselves. It follows a […]
Holding On and Reaching Out: What COVID-19 Taught Older Malaysians About Connection and Control
When Everyday Routines Turned Risky for Older Adults in the Klang Valley When the pandemic hit, everyday routines—buying vegetables at the wet market, morning tai chi at the park, Friday prayers, weekend visits from grandkids—suddenly felt risky. For older adults in Malaysia’s Greater Klang Valley, these changes weren’t just inconvenient; they reshaped how people felt, […]
When School Becomes a Battle: How Children’s Non-Attendance Reverberates Through Parents’ Minds and Homes
When School Stops, Life Doesn’t: The Hidden Toll on UK Parents Every school day missed by a child sends a ripple through family life. For many UK parents, those ripples turn into waves that are hard to manage. The research paper Exploring the experiences of having a child who regularly does not attend school on […]