September 2005

How diet affects mood and behaviour

An interesting website I’ve just discovered is Food and Behaviour Research (http://www.fabresearch.org) – a UK-based charity which promotes and collects scientific research into the effects of nutrition on:

  • Everyday difficulties in behaviour, learning or mood that can
    affect children and adults – at home, at school or in the workplace.
  • Developmental conditions – such as ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and autistic spectrum disorders.
  • Mental health conditions – such as anxiety, depression, bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder and schizophrenia.

They have some useful factsheets and lots of links to research, as well as popular treatments of the issues (e.g. the recent school dinners series with Jamie Oliver)

West and East have different worldviews – literally

An study at the University of Michigan by psychologist Richard Nisbett tracked how American and Chinese students look at pictures. The Americans paid more attention to the foreground object, while the Chinese looked more at the background. From the report in New Scientist: “There is plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that Western and East Asian

Spiritual meditation works better than secular

A study at Bowling Green State University in Ohio compared the effectiveness of spiritual meditation, secular meditation and a relaxation technique. The spiritual meditation group had greater decreases in anxiety and
more positive mood, spiritual health, and spiritual experiences than
the other two groups. They also tolerated pain almost twice as long as
the other two groups.

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