Most of us could probably agree that social media can damage self-esteem—especially in women. Think about it: every magazine has a slender woman on the cover and a story within about how she lost the weight—and how you can, too. Additionally, TV shows and movies cast female leads that make…
A recent study says emotional or traumatic events can create false memories, despite the widespread belief that traumatic events are more vivid and, therefore, reliable. The latter belief is called flashbulb memory, which says that emotional events cause us to completely capture the context of the event and our reaction…
Jealousy changes with time—we envy what is to come more than we envy what has already happened. This, according to researchers at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In the first phase of their study, researchers asked 620 participants to imagine a close friend living out the participant’s…
Do you have trouble falling or staying asleep? Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience say your insomnia might stem from emotional distress. The team asked participants to relive shameful moments from their past, while receiving an MRI scan of their brain activity. Researchers found that good sleepers neutralized those…
When we feel ashamed of our secrets, we’re more likely to think about them over and over again. We can better cope by shifting away from shame and toward guilt. A Columbia University study asked 1,000 participants questions about their secrets, including how much shame and guilt they associated with…
Many of us are fearful of snakes and spiders, whether they are or aren’t poisonous or dangerous—why? Researchers say that this fear is deep-rooted, one we likely developed from ancestors that lived 40-60 million years ago. To reach these findings, researchers showed infants varying pictures of which included snakes, spiders,…
A new study says that your imagination can help you overcome your fears; this involves imagining an encounter with the fear and realizing it is not a threat. Researchers sought to understand how fears are learned and unlearned; this goal led to their conducting an experiment that involved auditory threat…
We all have an inner bully who focuses on the negative and threatens to send us into a shame spiral, which can have harmful short and long-term effects. This makes acknowledging your inner bully crucial to improving your life and defeating the bully, so you can then replace the negative…
While there are many issues discussed in therapy (including mental health conditions and relationship challenges) an extremely common issue is low self-esteem. Therapists use a few key strategies to help their patients build their confidence and overcome their feelings of inadequacy. The first essential step is acknowledging one’s negative thinking…
Abandonment issues can leave you feeling completely hopeless and alone in this world—but you can take action and pull out of this low level of despair. First, you must take a good, long look at what happened. You can’t ignore or avoid what happened or those difficult feelings that resulted…
Imagine this: You and your friend are going out for your weekly dinner date and you couldn’t be more excited. You grin from ear-to-ear thinking about the slice (or two) of greasy pepperoni pizza you’re about to indulge in. But when you pick up your friend, she doesn’t appear to…
We’re often told to trust our intuition and “go with our gut.” Why? Where did this saying come from? Well, it’s actually quite literal: when we find ourselves in an uncomfortable or potentially troublesome situation, we get “butterflies,” or a nervous feeling in the “pit of our stomach.” In this…
