Summary of Research for Students & Faculty
The contents of this section have been compiled and organized by Kaveh Farrokh (Ph.D.), Counsellor & Learning Specialist at the Langara College Counselling Department.
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There has been a considerable amount of excellent research with respect to the brain, mental health, learning and memory:
Mental Wellness and Coronavirus
- Mental Health tips on Managing Coronavirus Anxiety
- BBC Report: How to Protect Your Mental Health during the Coronavirus
- Is Your Home Stressing You Out?
- The Impact of prolonged loneliness on the Brain
- Graphic by Dr Monika Langeh: Who do I choose to be during Covid-19?
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and Covid-19
- Under-25s bearing brunt of Covid mental-health toll – survey
- If Your Brain Feels Foggy And You’re Tired All The Time, You’re Not Alone
- The “Pandemic Brain” and Your Concentration
- Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC): Mental Health & Wellness Resources during Covid-19 Pandemic
Zoom Fatigue
- Zoom Fatigue: Causes, Coping and Finding Comfort with Zoom
- Stanford study into “Zoom Fatigue” Explains why Video Chats are so Tiring
- Psychiatric Times: A Neuropsychological Exploration of Zoom Fatigue
- BBC: The Reason Zoom drains Your Energy
- Harvard Business Review: How to Overcome Zoom Fatigue
Write-ups & Handouts for Langara College Mental Health & Wellness Student Success Workshops
- What are the Overall Characteristics of Happiness?
- Your Smartphone, Your Health and Your IQ
- Meditation, Your Brain and Your Wellness
Handouts (pdf) for Your Brain, Your Emotions, Your Health workshop (click each link below to download):
- Frontal Lobes: Functions
- Frontal Lobes: Upgrade & Improve
- Temporal Lobes: Functions
- Temporal Lobes: Upgrade & Improve
- Limbic System: Functions
- Limbic System: Upgrade & Improve
- Limbic System: Emotions & Memory
- Basal Ganglia: Functions
- Basal Ganglia: Upgrade & Improve
- Emotional IQ & Resiliency
- Vagal Tone & A.N.T.s (Automatic Negative Thoughts)
Happiness, Mental Health and the Brain
- The Neurology of Trust?
- The Power of Positive People
- The Health benefits of Optimism
- Impact of Gratitude on Your Health and Happiness
- The compelling case for working a lot less
- Time, not Material Goods, Raises Happiness
- This is what you’re getting wrong about your pursuit of happiness
- “More” is not Always Better: Make Self-Improvement Your Hobby
- The Epidemic of Loneliness and its impact on Mental Health
- Say no to Happiness?
- Secrets of People Who Stay Happy in the Worst Circumstances
- Scientists’ Understanding of Anxiety is Rapidly Evolving
- Five Effective Exercises to Help Stop Unwanted Negative Thoughts
- Neuroscience, Smiling and Happiness
- Secrets of Happiness from the Oldest of the Old
- The Neurological and Wellness Benefits of Smiling
- How to Boost Happiness Hormones Serotonin and Dopamine in Everyday Life
- Master Your Self-Talk for Wellness and Success
- Happiness: “Finding” or “Cultivating” Your Passion for Life?
Impact of Feelings and Stress on the Brain, Body and Thoughts
- Your “Feelings” and Your Brain
- Scientific American report of How Management of Thoughts Impacts Health & Wellness at DNA level
Impact on Brain
- Why your Brain can’t let go of a Grudge
- Feeling our Emotions
- Regrets and Negative impact on Mental Health – and How to Leave Regrets Behind
Impact on Body
- Accepting your darkest emotions is the key to psychological health
- Hostility and Anger linked to Chronic Inflammation
- Overactive Neurons can Shorten the Life Span
Impact on Thoughts
- “Stress Hormone” Cortisol Linked to Early Toll on Thinking Ability
- Misophonia and how it operates at the Neurological Level
- Biological and Social Causes for Self-Harm
Behaviors & Habits: Impact on Brain, Wellness and Success
Poverty: Impact on Brain, Wellness and Success
Self-Esteem (versus Pride) and Brain Health
Perfectionism
Resilience, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Brain Health
- Nineteen Effective Emotional Intelligence Strategies
- Resilience is about Recharging, not Endurance
- Emotional Intelligence Testing
- 9 Toxic Mental Habits that the Most Emotionally Intelligent People Avoid
- The 15 Qualities of “Mental Toughness”
- 9 Toxic Mental Habits That the Most Emotionally Intelligent People Avoid
- 7 Reasons Why Emotional Intelligence Is One Of The Fastest-Growing Job Skills
- Emotional Intelligence: The Social Skills You Weren’t Taught in School
- Why some People Get Burned Out and Others Do Not
- Three Strategies for Coping with Sorrow and Tragedy in Life
- Reducing Anxiety by Increasing Compassion
Communication Intelligence (C-IQ), Relationships and Brain Health
Technology Designed for “Brain Training”
- Can Computer-based Games help Improve Working Memory and Cognitive Processing Deficits?
- Programs designed to enhance Cognitive Processing Skills: the Eaton Arrowsmith Project
Impact of Technology on Brain Health
- Impact of Social Media and Internet Communications on Intelligence, Learning and Emotional Fitness
- Do Cellphones cause Cancer? Government Study reveals “Stunningly Important” Findings
- Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
- World Health Organization thinks Video Games are causing a Mental health Disorder
- Impact of Electronic Screens (phones, Computers, etc.) on Happiness
- The Lost Art of Concentration: being Distracted in a Digital World
- Relax, Turn off your Phone, and go to Sleep
- Messaging in the Digital Realm can Trigger Deep Anxiety
- What happened when I Made my Students Turn Off their Phones
- Faking it: how selfie dysmorphia is driving people to seek surgery
- Mental Health benefits of Getting off Facebook
- Starting Your Day on the Internet is Damaging Your Brain
- Relax, Turn off Your Phone and Go to Sleep
- How Giving Up TV For A Month Changed My Brain And My Life
- Five Things too Much Screen Time Does to Your Body
- This is What it’s like to Not Own a Smartphone
- Increasing productive time by decreasing smartphone use
- What Happened When I Made my Students Turn Off Their Phones
- Industry Insiders Don’t Use Their Products Like We Do: That Should Worry Us
- The Lost Art of Concentration: Distraction and Mental Wellness in a Digital World
- Doomscrolling is slowly eroding your Mental health
- Constant Craving: How Digital Media Turned Us All Into Dopamine Addicts
Diet, “the Gut” and and Brain Health
- Your Diet and Your Brain Health
- How Diet Affects Your Mental Health
- Your Gut is directly Connected to Your Brain
- The Connection between Gut and Brain
- How Gut Bacteria Affect Mental Health
- When Gut Bacteria Change Brain Function
- How Giving Up Refined Sugar is Good for the Brain
- Diet and Depression: What You Eat can Help Improve Mood New Study Finds
- Fitness Today versus in the 1980s – possible role of gut microbiomes and anti-depressants
Water, Plants, Health and Brain Health
Breathing and Stress Management
- Why Breathing is so Effective at Reducing Stress
- How Breathing can Enhance Mental and Physical Wellness
- The Easy Breathing Technique That Can Lower Your Anxiety 44%
- Deep-Breathing Strategies that Help us to cope better with High Pressure Situations
- Longer Exhalations Are an Easy Way to Hack Your Vagus Nerve
- A Two-Minute Breathing Exercise that will Help You Make Better Decisions
Stress and Brain Health
- Reducing Anxiety by Increasing Compassion
- Why Stress is Dangerous – and how to Avoid its Effects
- How to Stop Catastrophizing: An Expert Guide
- Re-programming Ourselves towards Stress Reduction and Enhancement of Wellness
- Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response
- Prolonged Stress can Shrink the Brain
- Chronic Stress Changes the Brain
- Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
Overwork, Stress and Brain Health
- The Strain of Always Being on Call: Just knowing that work might reach you makes it hard to relax and recover
- Why Some People Get Burned Out and Others Do Not
- Jeffrey Pfeffer (Stanford University): How work kills us
- “Workism” is making North Americans miserable
Immune System and Brain Health
Physical Exercise and Brain Health, Memory & Learning
- Impact of Exercise on Student Success and Mental Health
- How Exercise can Help Improve Your Mental Health
- How Exercise benefits the Brain as it does the Body
- An anatomical understanding of how movement controls the body’s stress response system
- Five Surprising ways Exercise Changes your Brain
- The Brain Benefits of Physical Exercise
- Benefits of Lifting Weights: Stress Reduction, Improvement of Mood, Enhancement of Learning and Memory
- How Movement Controls the Body’s Stress Response System
- Strong muscles linked to healthy brain and mental wellness
- Regular Physical Exercise Activity linked to Larger Brain Volume
Sleep and Brain Health, Memory & Learning
- Your Sleep and Your Brain Health
- Sleep ‘Resets’ Brain Connections crucial for Memory & Learning, study reveals
- Lack of sleep alters brain chemicals to bring on cannabis-style ‘munchies’
- Sleep deprivation disrupts brain activity as much as alcohol by causing mental glitches and lapses
- Too much sleep is just as bad for your brain as too little, concludes world’s largest sleep study
- Why Six Hours of Sleep is Just as Bad as No Sleep
- Sleep myths that can actually damage your health
- REM sleep: What happens in Your Brain when You are Dreaming
- What happens to Your Body on No Sleep
- What Dreams can Tell Us about Our Mental Health
Meditation and Brain Health
- Neuroscience has a lot to Learn from Buddhism
- Mindfulness Meditation Changes the Brain of Depressed patients
Creativity and Brain Health
Addictions and Brain Health
Depression and Brain Health
Stress and Brain Health
PTSD and Brain Health
- Understanding PTSD in Uncertain Times
- Unexpected Physical Symptoms of PTSD
- What are the Symptoms of PTSD?
- PTSD and Gut Issues
ADD/ADHD and Your Brain
- What is TMS? The Most Effective ADHD Treatment May Also be the Most Controversial
- The Creative side of ADD/ADHD
Brain Capacity, IQ, Creativity, Open-Mindedness, “Brain Size”, Neurons & Learning
- Improving the Brain: Growing more Neurons or Making More Connections between Neurons?
- Neuroscience of the “Smart” Brain
- April Holloway: Scientists are alarmed by shrinking of the human brain
- The Rose Hip Cell: A New type of Neuron
- Open-Minded People Have a Different Visual Perception of Reality
- The Strange Similarity Between Neuron and Galaxy Networks
[More content to be posted in 2023-2024]