On April 4th the Shaw Mind Foundation launched a campaign, titled HeadeducationUK, to make mental health education compulsory within every school in the UK. You can support their campaign and sign their petition here.
Mental health problems run in families. This is well known and uncontroversial. There is much that we could do to reduce this risk, but we currently do almost nothing.
As rates of depression and anxiety rise, it isn’t too surprising that social attitudes towards mental illness have improved considerably. However, as the current economic climate continues to strain our mental health, it also demands us to stay positive in the face of stress and uncertainty. Have we become so…
In any given year, one in four people experience a mental health problem, and for 81% their first contact with mental health services is through their GP. However, knowing how to explain how you’re feeling to someone who isn’t a trained psychologist can be incredibly difficult. Last year, the mental…
Heading into the Festival of Genomics 2017, I had very carefully planned which talks I was going to attend, making sure I would catch all the big names in research and healthcare. As I was scanning the timetable, a talk caught my eye titled ‘A family experience with open-access personal…
Not surprisingly the first time I showed any interest in procrastination as a topic was somewhere in the middle of my PhD (Coincidence? I don’t think so). I found back then a review article on procrastination, but like the proper procrastination pro that I am, I never actually got around…
It can often feel as if the weather dictates our moods. London has begun to come alive in the spring weather as people head outside to enjoy the warmth and the light. Yet can the sun truly make us feel happier? To answer this question, researchers have investigated whether sunlight is connected with…
An ever-expanding methodological toolbox is one of the privileges of 21st century science. For most of us, the pace of Moore’s law-driven technological advancement is now so familiar as to be almost taken for granted. However, the mere availability of technologically-advanced new methods is not a guaranteed solution to any…
When it first emerged just over a decade ago, D-cycloserine (DCS) enhanced cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for anxiety was hailed as one of the best examples of translational research in psychiatry. But does this apparent wonder drug really enhance the effects of exposure-based CBT? A recently published meta-analysis attempts to…
The relationship between the body and the mind is probably one of the most elusive aspects of medicine. Although topics such as placebo effect and medically unexplained symptoms capture our imagination, it is the co-occurrence of common physical and mental health problems that impacts the most on patients’ well-being and…
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