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Message of the day: 14th January 2015

‘PLEASANT TOUCH’ Fosters Social, Physical Development

Research supports the vital role of bodily social interaction from the first days of birth. Caregivers who lovingly caress their infants are promoting early physiological and emotional development.

A study at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, showed that slow and gentle touch of the skin helps to build the social links essential to bonding. It was found that infant’s heart rate slowed in response to brushstrokes when the strokes were light and of medium velocity (3cm per second). Interestingly, the more sensitive the caregiver was to touch, the stronger was this physiological effect and the more the infants engaged with the touch. This skin-to-skin contact early in life can serve as a protective factor against emotional, behavioural and social problems later in adulthood. Affective touch is known to provide important interoceptive signals, which help the brain to monitor the internal environment of our body and give us a sense of coherent bodily self.

Source:
Fairhurst M, Line L, Grossmann T. Physiological and Behavioral Responses Reveal 9-Month-Old Infants’ Sensitivity to Pleasant Touch. Psychological Science. 2014.

Message of the day: 13th January 2015

The Problem
Body image dissatisfaction is becoming a major psychosocial problem in most Western Societies, with about 60% of adults reporting that they feel unhappy with the way they look. In young women the problem is particularly acute. In the US, 80-90% of young women report body image concerns. A UK survey found that 70% of teenage girls don’t participate in certain school activities because of body image anxiety, while 42% of girls feel that the most negative part about being a female is the pressure to look attractive and the fear of being or becoming fat.

One Solution
However, at least two systematic studies in Australia have shown that it is possible to reduce the likelihood of adolescent girls developing body dissatisfaction. The trick seems to be simple, but interactive and creative, school-based classes that encourage the girls to think, talk and play around notions of body individuality and enjoyment of appearance differences. Practical exercises and games included role-play to help develop strategies that could counter body comparisons, idealization of the thin body and fat-talk or teasing. Skills of media literacy, self-esteem boosting and dealing with relationships were also practiced.

For details of the ‘Everybody’s Different’school programme see: 

O’Dea, J. (1995). Everybody’s different: A self esteem program for young adolescents. Sydney: University of Sydney Press.
O’Dea JA, & Abraham S. Improving the body image, eating attitudes, and behaviors of young male and female adolescents: a new educational approach that focuses on self-esteem. Int J Eat Disord. 2000 Jul;28(1):43-57.

For details of the ‘Happy Being Me’ school programme see here:
Richardson SM, Paxton SJ. An evaluation of a body image intervention based on risk factors for body dissatisfaction: a controlled study with adolescent girls. Int J Eat Disord. 2010 Mar;43(2):112-22. doi: 10.1002/eat.20682.

Help us fund much needed research: Body image concerns

Change your mind

 

HELP US FUND MUCH NEEDED RESEARCH ON A PSYCHOLOGICAL EPIDEMIC: BODY IMAGE CONCERNS
http://www.zequs.com/campaign/reclaming-body-image-from-within-time-for-science#.VJvrUCDyA

Change your mind, not your body!

A lot of our body image concerns, as well as our attempts to modify the body ( e.g. binge eating, plastic surgery) are actually attempts to feel better about ourselves. Our aim is to fund research than can help us understand why we try to change our body as a means to changing our mind, and whether there are instead healthier ways of changing the mind (sometimes via the brain). In research projects with prestigious universities (UCL, King’s College, Royal Holloway), NPSA will investigate brain and psychological mechanisms that can help individuals enhance their internal body awareness and hence build a stronger resilience against unhelpful, externalised influences, such as media and fashion images of the body ‘as advertised’.

We have launced a fund-raising campaign on Zequs (equivalent of JustGiving) and we have only 30 days to reach our target of £2000. To support the cause, and offer something to you, our research team will upload one related scientific finding per day, pointing to the potential of using science and psychological interventions to combat body image dissatisfaction in society, as well as obesity and eating disorders.

Link for the campaign: http://www.zequs.com/campaign/reclaming-body-image-from-within-time-for-science#.VJvrUCDyA

Research at Katlab

KATLAB_edited_CKResearch at KatLab focuses on topics and disorders that lie at the borders between neurology and psychology and challenge any rigid distinction between mind and body. The lab is particularly interested in understanding how our embodiment, including the rooting of the mind in our embodied interactions with other people, influence the function of our brain and ultimately shape how we understand ourselves and our new experiences.

We use behavioural, electrophysiological, neuroimaging and pharmacological methods to study body feelings, sensorimotor signals and related body representations in healthy individuals and in patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders of body awareness, including patients with sdata:text/mce-internal,troke-induced unawareness of deficit and related body delusions, functional sensorimotor disorders and eating disorders.