Yoga may ease symptoms of depression, according to new research
According to the analysis, the more yoga sessions a person did each week, the less they struggled with depressive symptoms.
- Depressive disorders are the leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting over 340 million people.
- According to a new study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, yoga sessions may be able to ease depressive symptoms in people with mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.
- Mindfulness, meditation, and breathing control techniques are all things that have been proven effective in reducing depressive symptoms. Traditional yoga practices typically include a combination of these things and therefore may actually have more of a positive impact.
'I hope he doesn't feel too lonely' — COVID-19 hits people with intellectual disabilities hard
Prior to COVID-19, 45% of people with intellectual disabilities reported feeling lonely.
My brother was supposed to move into his first "independent" home in mid-March. In his late 20s, and a person with an intellectual disability, he had finally gathered up the courage and the will to move out of our family home and live in a group home.
Why vaccines are absolutely necessary
Vaccines have done their job so well that anti-vax parents have forgotten the horror of contagious disease.
- "Autism is caused by a lot of factors that we don't fully understand," says epidemiologist Dr Larry Brilliant, "but vaccines are not one of those factors."
- Vaccines have saved hundreds of millions of children's lives—they have eradicated smallpox, nearly eradicated polio, and they have reduced the population explosion. How? Thanks to vaccinations, parents no longer expect 50% of their children to die from disease, so they have less children.
- Vaccines have protected the lives of children so effectively that anti-vax parents—who only have their children's best interests at heart—have lost sight of how critical vaccines are. When polio was rampant in the U.S., parents waited in line for hours and hours to have their children vaccinated. Safety changes our mental calculus, but vaccinations must continue to ensure that safety lasts.
Could there be an 'exercise pill' in the future?
What if we could just skip the workout part and take the results in supplement form? Researchers did it… On mice and flies.
- A group of scientists found that boosting the protein Sestrin in mice and flies mimicked the effects of exercise.
- One hypothesis is that the protein activates metabolic pathways that result in certain biological benefits.
- Researchers hope these findings could eventually help scientists combat muscle wasting in humans due to physical limitation.
We're looking at death all wrong. Here's why.
Can a shift in the way we treat death and dying improve our lives while we're still here?
- These days, for the most part, the concept of death is consumed by health care and medicine.
- However, as humans we need to view death as more than just a medical event. It takes into account our psychology, spirituality, philosophy, social worlds, and personal lives.
- This reconsideration should also apply to the way we treat people who are dying. Life is in the senses, not just our physical capabilities.
