UGC NET/JRF Psychology

❗️11 ways plants enhance your mental and emotional health. 🌱 1. Stress reduction. Spending time in natural settings helps speed up recovery from mental fatigue, slow down heart rate, reduce high blood pressure, and lower anxiety. 2. Reduced symptoms of depression. Researchers repeatedly report increases in subjects' mood, fewer incidents of depressive symptoms, as well as increased memory span and decreased symptoms of anxiety after a walk in nature, as compared to a walk through an urban environment. One Korean study of patients diagnosed with moderate to severe depression compared the effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) performed in a hospital to CBT performed in an arboretum with a forest-like setting. Symptoms of depression were most significantly reduced in the arboretum group, who also experienced 20% to 30% higher rates of complete remission when compared to a typically medicated group. 3. Stronger memory retention. Compared to those who walked through a well-trafficked urban area, participants in several studies who walked through a green space or a natural environment, such as an arboretum, were better able to focus and concentrate on a test of their working memory. 4. Fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Studies of both veterans and victims of natural disasters who participated in horticultural therapies or nature-based rehabilitation programs found that both groups were better able to control symptoms of PTSD and developed more positive states of mind. 5. Improved symptoms of attention-deficient disorders (ADD/ADHD). In one study, school children diagnosed with ADHD were better able to concentrate after a walk in a park than their peers who went for a walk in a downtown neighborhood. Similar studies found that even short nature breaks are restorative and can improve attention span, working memory and cognitive functioning in children with ADD/ADHD. 6. Higher productivity and improved concentration in schools and workplaces. Students and employees with a view of nature, either indoors or right outside their windows, were not only found to be more productive but also more alert, more attentive, more relaxed, in better moods, and less irritated by physical symptoms of allergies and asthma than their counterparts who had no views of plant life or other natural settings. 7. Higher levels of creativity. Nature walks, and even short visits to parks and woodlands within urban areas, have been found to boost creativity, mood, and sense of vitality. 8. Fewer symptoms of dementia. When dementia patients in an adult day care facility became actively involved in gardening and landscaping activities, their cognitive abilities improved and there were fewer incidents of aggressive behavior. 9. Higher intellect. Other studies suggest that deep experiences that connect us to nature are due to the geometry and architecture of both natural environments and the environments we build to replicate nature that regularly enhance our quality of life. These not only have a healing effect, researchers say, but studies in animals have found that such complex environments also increase brain size and the ability to perform well on tests of intelligence; Dr. Nikos Salingaros of the University of Texas at San Antonio believes the same is true for growing human minds, which are best nourished by exposure to complexity and details. 10. Better self-esteem. The researchers found several studies indicating improvements in self-esteem and mood in both men and women after exercising in natural environments, and especially in the presence of a body of water. 11. Greater quality of life overall. The improved psychological well-being of those who interact with nature has been shown in numerous studies to result in greater feelings of positivity and hopefulness, comfort and relaxation and general overall happiness and satisfaction with life. SOURCE: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cravings/201909/11-ways-plants-enhance-your-mental-and-emotional-health

😌9 NATURAL #DEPRESSION TREATMENTS: Being depressed can make you feel helpless. You're not. Along with therapy and sometimes medication, there's a lot you can do on your own to fight back. Changing your behavior -- your physical activity, lifestyle, and even your way of thinking -- are all natural depression treatments. These tips can help you feel better -- starting right now. 🎈1. Get in a routine. If you’re depressed, you need a routine, says Ian Cook, MD. He's a psychiatrist and director of the Depression Research and Clinic Program at UCLA. New Guidelines for Treatment of Depression Depression can strip away the structure from your life. One day melts into the next. Setting a gentle daily schedule can help you get back on track. 🎈2. Set goals. When you're depressed, you may feel like you can't accomplish anything. That makes you feel worse about yourself. To push back, set daily goals for yourself. "Start very small," Cook says. "Make your goal something that you can succeed at, like doing the dishes every other day." As you start to feel better, you can add more challenging daily goals. 🎈3. Exercise. It temporarily boosts feel-good chemicals called endorphins. It may also have long-term benefits for people with depression. Regular exercise seems to encourage the brain to rewire itself in positive ways, Cook says. How much exercise do you need? You don’t need to run marathons to get a benefit. Just walking a few times a week can help. 🎈4. Eat healthy. There is no magic diet that fixes depression. It's a good idea to watch what you eat, though. If depression tends to make you overeat, getting in control of your eating will help you feel better. Although nothing is definitive, Cook says there's evidence that foods with omega-3 fatty acids (such as salmon and tuna) and folic acid (such as spinach and avocado) could help ease depression. 🎈5. Get enough sleep. Depression can make it hard to get enough shut-eye, and too little sleep can make depression worse. 🎈6. Take on responsibilities. When you’re depressed, you may want to pull back from life and give up your responsibilities at home and at work. Don't. Staying involved and having daily responsibilities can help you maintain a lifestyle that can help counter depression. They ground you and give you a sense of accomplishment. If you're not up to full-time school or work, that’s fine. Think about part-time. If that seems like too much, consider volunteer work. 🎈7. Challenge negative thoughts. In your fight against depression, a lot of the work is mental -- changing how you think. When you're depressed, you leap to the worst possible conclusions. The next time you're feeling terrible about yourself, use logic as a natural depression treatment. You might feel like no one likes you, but is there real evidence for that? You might feel like the most worthless person on the planet, but is that really likely? It takes practice, but in time you can beat back those negative thoughts before they get out of control. 🎈8. Check with your doctor before using supplements. "There's promising evidence for certain supplements for depression," Cook says. Those include fish oil, folic acid, and SAMe. But more research needs to be done before we'll know for sure. Always check with your doctor before starting any supplement, especially if you’re already taking medications. 🎈9. Do something new. When you’re depressed, you’re in a rut. Push yourself to do something different. Go to a museum. Pick up a used book and read it on a park bench. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Take a language class. "When we challenge ourselves to do something different, there are chemical changes in the brain," Cook says. "Trying something new alters the levels of [the brain chemical] dopamine, which is associated with pleasure, enjoyment, and learning."

Consciousness - the awareness or perception of the environment and of one's own mental processes. Many books state that consciousness isthe awareness of internal and external stimuli. One problem with this definition, and with this area of study as a whole, is that it seems like an impossible area to understand since we do not know if the experience of consciousness is the same (or even similar) between individuals. I can tell you about my conscious experiences, and you can tell me about yours, but we can never truly understand and appreciate the conscious of others? Can I really understand what it is like to think the way you think or if we imagine things the same way? I. William James - possibly the most influential figure in the study of consciousness (you know that phrase, "stream of consciousness"? That's his). He identified the following 4 basic perspectives on consciousness. He indicated that, consciousness is: 1) ... Always Changing - can't be held for study: "No state once gone can recur and be identical with what it was before." If that is the case, then how in the world do we study it? 2) ... A Personal Experience - you can try to tell me about your consciousness but I can never appreciate it or experience it. 3) ... Continuous - our awareness is not broken into pieces, and there are no gaps. We really can't tell where one thought ends and one begins. "Consciousness then does not appear to itself chopped up in bits...It is nothing jointed; it flows. A river or stream is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness..." 4) ... Selective - awareness is often a matter of making choices, of selecting what to attend to and what to ignore. In general, when we speak of "consciousness" we refer to either being awake or being asleep. There are, however, altered states of consciousness: sleep, drugs, hypnosis, meditation, sensory deprivation, sensory confusion. BUT - we will focus on sleep from this point on.

❗️Pygmalion Effect: Pygmalion effect refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, often children or students and employees, the better they perform. The Pygmalion effect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, it is a prediction that causes itself to become true. In this respect, people with poor expectations internalize their negative label, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly. For example, you assume you are going to perform badly at your test today so you decrease the effort and end up doing poorly. If I think my relationship with my significant other is going to fail, I start acting differently, pulling away emotionally, which may cause it to fail.

💢 Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (Multiple Personality Disorder): There is a lot of controversy with the definition of the following disorder, but it can be defined as a condition where a person's identity is fragmented into two or more distinct personality states. Only 2% of the cases are recorded. Possible causes are said to be childhood trauma or induced by therapy.

❗️Effects of neurotransmitters: 🔺ACETYLCHOLINE: Muscle contraction, and a role in development of memory. 🔺DOPAMINE: Voluntary movement, learning, and feeling of pleasure. 🔺NOREPINEPHRINE: Arousal, alertness. 🔺SEROTONIN: Sleep, arousal levels, and emotion. These are some of the over simplfied actions of these neurotransmitters, in reality, the combined function of there neurotransmiters promote moods and mental disorders such as depression and anexity.

SCHIZOPHRENIA: ❗️A brain disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. The exact cause of schizophrenia isn't known, but genetics, environment, and imbalanced brain chemicals may play a role. Schizophrenia is characterized by abnormal social behavior. In severe cases, patients may see or hear things that aren't real. Treatment is usually lifelong and often involves a combination of medications and psychological and social therapy.

👽ALIEN HAND SYNDROME: ❗️Alien hand syndrome sounds really cool, but it is hard to imagine it being anything but extremely frustrating for the person experiencing it. Basically, it occurs when an arm seems to have a mind of its own; it moves around, grabs hold of things, and responds to to the touch of another person—but it does this without the control of the person to whom it belongs. As you’d expect, this nightmare syndrome can lead to great distress on the part of the sufferers, who often refer to their rogue arm as though it were a separate entity.❗️ keep your hands safe. Read more here:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4059570/

❗️Insomnia is the inability to comfortably fall asleep. Most cases of insomnia are related to poor sleep habits, depression, anxiety, lack of exercise, chronic illness, or certain medications. Symptoms may include difficulty falling or staying asleep and not feeling well-rested. Treatment for insomnia consists of improving sleep habits, behavior therapy, and identifying and treating underlying causes. Sleeping pills may also be used, but should be monitored for side effects.

❗️The bystander effect: The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation. Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley popularized the concept following the infamous 1964 Kitty Genovese murder in New York City. Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment while bystanders who observed the crime did not step in to assist or call the police. Latané and Darley attributed the bystander effect to the perceived diffusion of responsibility (onlookers are more likely to intervene if there are few or no other witnesses) and social influence (individuals in a group monitor the behavior of those around them to determine how to act). In Genovese's case, each onlooker concluded from their neighbors' inaction that their own personal help was not needed.

💡Psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality. Psychosis is characterized by an impaired relationship with reality. It’s a symptom of serious mental disorders. People who are experiencing psychosis may have either hallucinations or delusions. Hallucinations are sensory experiences that occur within the absence of an actual stimulus. For example, a person having an auditory hallucination may hear their mother yelling at them when their mother isn’t around. Or someone having a visual hallucination may see something, like a person in front of them, who isn’t actually there. The person experiencing psychosis may also have thoughts that are contrary to actual evidence. These thoughts are known as delusions. Some people with psychosis may also experience loss of motivation and social withdrawal. These experiences can be frightening. They may also cause people who are experiencing psychosis to hurt themselves or others. It’s important to see a doctor right away if you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of psychosis.

What Are the Different Types of Psychological Tests for the Workplace? Often called a pre-employment test, a psychological test for employment is a type of psychological assessment. According to SIOP, all types of psychological tests or all types of psychological tests for an industrial setting boil down to three areas: Biographical data instruments, which often seek information on a candidate's leadership and teamwork skills, interpersonal skills, extraversion, and creativity through the use of questions about education, training, work experience, and interests to predict success on the job.  "Some biographical data instruments also ask about an individual's attitudes, personal assessments of skills, and personality" Cognitive ability tests, also called aptitude tests, which typically use questions or problems to measure a candidate's ability to learn quickly, and use logic, reasoning, reading comprehension and other mental abilities that are important for success in many different jobs.  These tests "assess a person's aptitude or potential to solve job-related problems by providing information about their mental abilities," Personality tests, which try to measure a person's extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to new experiences, optimism, agreeableness, service orientation, stress tolerance, emotional stability, and initiative or proactivity.  "Personality tests typically measure traits related to behavior at work, interpersonal interactions, and satisfaction with different aspects of work,"

Cotard Delusion The patient feels like they are dead and their body is rotting. An extremely rare mental illness, this condition was first described by the neurologist Jules Cotard in 1880. The affected person may believe that they are already dead, do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs. Sufferers of this condition tend to be heavily depressed, and even end up starving themselves on occasion. A case study of a patient described his symptoms - He was convinced that he had been taken to hell, and that he had died of septicaemia, or perhaps from AIDS. #CotardDelusion