Архив рубрики: Здоровье Америка

More than a decade ago, Thomas Derrick Hull, a clinical psychologist who researches digital health, had what felt like a wild thought. What if therapists, who can’t keep up with demand for mental-health care in the U.S., started texting their patients instead of making them come into the office?

Back then, it seemed unlikely even to Hull that patients and providers could use a screen to forge the bonds and meaningful conversations that blossom face-to-face. But the benefits were appealing: texting is cheap, fast, accessible, and easy to do on the fly, potentially allowing therapists to have regular interactions with their patients rather than waiting for a weekly session. So Hull began studying the efficacy of text-based care, eventually doing so as an executive at the online therapy provider Talkspace. (He left the company in 2020 and now works for a digital wellness startup.)

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Even if texting turned out to be only 60% or 70% as effective as traditi..

When I describe “cynics,” you might conjure up a certain type of person: the toxic, smirking misanthrope, oozing contempt. But they are not a fixed category, like New Zealanders or anesthesiologists. Cynicism is a spectrum. We all have cynical moments, or in my case, cynical years.

Cynicism—the belief that all people are selfish, greedy, and dishonest—is a natural response to a world reeling from social division, rising sea levels, and countless other problems. But that doesn’t mean it helps us. Cynics suffer at basically every level scientists can measure. They experience more depression, earn less money, and even die younger than non-cynics. Cynical communities also do worse, socially and economically.

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But despite the harm it causes, more people report being cynical now than in decades past. Why? One reason is our cultural norms. These days, hope has been typecast as naïve or privileged, a way of ignoring our problems. Cynicism, by contrast, seems..

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian health authorities and United Nations agencies on Sunday began a large-scale campaign of vaccinations against polio in the Gaza Strip, hoping to prevent an outbreak in the territory that has been ravaged by the Israel-Hamas war.

Authorities plan to vaccinate children in central Gaza until Wednesday before moving on to the more devastated northern and southern parts of the strip. The campaign began with a small number of vaccinations on Saturday and aims to reach about 640,000 children.

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Gaza’s Health Ministry said more than 72,600 children received vaccines Sunday.

Read More: Gaza’s Doctors Face a New Battle: The War on Polio

The World Health Organization has said Israel agreed to limited pauses in the fighting to facilitate the campaign. There were initial reports of Israeli strikes in central Gaza early Sunday, but it was not immediately known if anyone was killed or wounded. The pause ended Sunday afternoon..

In relationship research, there’s a concept known as “turning points.” These are moments when bonds change, either for better or worse—perhaps because of shifting life circumstances or something more dramatic, like a fight or reunion.

Long-term friendships often involve multiple turning points, studies show. “Friendships have a lot of different trajectories,” says Jeffrey Hall, director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at the University of Kansas. “They can go up, they can go down, they can plateau.”

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Sometimes, if a relationship has cratered, one person has to actively initiate a turning point to revive it. How to do that, of course, depends on why your friendship suffered in the first place. Did you drift away from a childhood friend once adulthood hit, or are you trying to repair the damage after a friend breakup or betrayal?

No matter the circumstances, experts say it is often possible to get your friendship back on track. Here’s where to..

If you’re like most Americans, you’re not getting enough sleep. And that exacts a toll on the body—especially the heart. Poor sleep has been linked to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, inflammation, heart attack, and more.

One solution: catch up on your sleep when you can, especially on weekends. But while that may help you feel more rested, can it really undo the cardiac damage that comes from a sleep-poor work week? According to a new study to be presented at the Sept. 1 meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, it may.

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The findings come from an analysis of nearly 91,000 people enrolled in the UK Biobank project, a large-scale biomedical database. People reported how much sleep they got per night, and those averaging fewer than seven hours—about 22% of the sample group—were considered sleep-deprived. People in the study briefly wore sleep-tracking devices that allowed the investigators to measure how much additional sleep they got over ..

There are many flavors of friendship. Most U.S. adults say they have pals who fit into specific niches in their lives, like gym friends or work friends. These relationships may come and go as life circumstances change, fading away when someone switches jobs or loses interest in a shared hobby.

Then there are close friends, those you lean on in hard times and know on a deeper level. Many U.S. adults say they have only a small handful of friends who fit into this category.

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Rarer still are the true forever best friends, those who are by your side for decades on end—through jobs, moves, relationships, fights, losses, and life stages—and may even come to feel like family. But what makes a friendship durable enough to stand the tests of time in this way?

Shared traits, interests, and backgrounds help a lot, says Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist and author of Friends: Understanding the Power of Our Most Important Relationships. Dunbar’s work sug..

Do you feel sad as summer transitions into fall? You may have what social scientists and TikTokers alike call “end-of-summer sadness” or “end-of-summer blues.”

There are biological, psychological, and social reasons for a seasonal mood swing. Daylight starts to wane and the temperature may drop, which can cause the body to generate less serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to mood control and sensations of well-being, says biological psychologist Mary Poffenroth, author of Brave New You: Strategies, Tools, and Neurohacks to Live More Courageously Every Day. Melatonin levels, which are also linked to mood, also fluctuate, she explains.

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“There’s the likely dopamine crash that occurs when all the fun summer activities end, and we enter a lull of adjusting to going back to school or work,” says Gilly Kahn, a clinical psychologist based in Atlanta. Fall typically means increased demands on our time. “After more freedom and less responsibility, jumping bac..

For the second time in two years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern. Mpox didn’t disappear in between the two outbreaks, but the WHO’s new announcement signals that it is again becoming a significant concern for global health.

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Right now, the mpox outbreak is concentrated in Africa, where the virus has long been endemic in certain areas. The illness is particularly prevalent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but countries including Burundi, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic also have cases. Sweden and Thailand have each reported a travel-associated case linked to the outbreak.

Currently, the WHO says risk to people in other parts of the world is “moderate.” Here’s what to know about mpox in 2024.

How is this outbreak different from 2022?

The current outbreak is more complicated than what the world experienced two years ago, says Dr. Krutika Kup..

Chris Duffy isn’t going to sugarcoat it: Making friends as an adult is hard. If you’ve ever tried to figure out exactly how to ask a potential platonic connection for their number—or word that first follow-up text—you know what he’s talking about. “It’s mortifying,” he says. “It requires being vulnerable and cringe-worthy and putting yourself out there.”

Social awkwardness aside, it’s simply harder to meet new people as an adult, when you no longer have shared high school classes or a college dorm room. Add in long work hours, a fear of rejection, and lack of trust, and it’s no wonder many people struggle to make new friends.

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Yet despite these obstacles, investing time and energy into growing your community is unequivocally worth it. Friendships keep us mentally and physically healthy. Plus, “I think a lot of pressure gets put on your partner to be everything,” says Duffy, author of Let’s Hang Out: Making (and Keeping) Friends, Acquaintances, and Oth..

Parents in the U.S. are feeling stressed, and Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says it’s time to do something about it. Nearly half feel overwhelming stress on any given day, compared to just 25% of non-parents, according to a recent survey from the American Psychological Association (APA).

The crisis has convinced Murthy to issue a new advisory calling attention to the immense pressures parents face.

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“What we have to realize as a country is that the work of parenting is really vital to the well-being of our kids, and to our society overall,” Murthy says. “That means the well-being of parents really matters to society.”

He says the current advisory is a natural follow-up to his previous ones on the harmful effects of social media on youth mental health, and the growing crisis of mental health issues among young people, which is reflected in increasing depression and suicide rates in teens. Stress in parents, he says, can also harm the well-being of..