Filling the day with simple activities could be the key to improving mood and well-being after a person has suffered the loss of a loved one, a new study finds. These “uplifts” — activities that can improve a person’s mood — helped ease grief on a day-to-day basis, researchers reported recently in the journal Applied Psychology Health and Well-Being. “In other words, there are things we can do — which are accessible for most people — to improve our moods,” said researcher Shevaun Neupert, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. “And those things can help us most on days when we most need it.” Uplifts that can help a person manage their grief include: Completing a task. Getting enough sleep. Dining out. Visiting, phoning or writing a friend. Spending time with family. These uplifts helped just about everyone, regardless of their age or financial status, researchers found. “Uplifts were good for everyone, but there is some nuance in not only who is most impacted, but when the uplifts are most powerful,” Neupert says. “For example, we found that the positive effect of uplifts was more pronounced for people who had experienced traumatic loss, and especially so on days when they reported feeling older.” For this study, researchers worked with data from 440 U.S. adults ages 50 to 85, 356 of whom had…  read on >  read on >

Preliminary data from the largest survey examining the quality of life for transgender and nonbinary Americans show they suffer high levels of unemployment and harassment. In the early findings, released Wednesday, the National Center for Transgender Equality gathered responses on 600 questions from more than 92,000 transgender and nonbinary Americans, age 16 and up, from every state in the country. This latest survey, conducted in late 2022, drew more than three times as many respondents as there were in 2015, the last time the survey was conducted. “You don’t see data sets like this,” survey leader Sandy James said during a media briefing, the New York Times reported. “Tens of thousands of trans people knew that it was imperative that they make their voices heard.” What did they want Americans to hear? Many respondents reported daunting financial challenges. Eighteen percent said they were unemployed, much higher than the national rate, and one-third said they had experienced homelessness at some point in their lives. More than one-quarter reported not seeing a doctor when they needed to in the previous year because of cost. But financial problems were not their only burden to bear: Nearly a third said they had been verbally harassed in the previous year, while 3% said they were physically attacked in the last year because of their gender identity. Still, they also shared positive…  read on >  read on >

Reducing homelessness by 25% could save nearly 2,000 lives lost each year to opioid overdoses, a new study estimates. It also could save 850 lives from alcohol poisoning and 540 from cocaine overdoses, researchers from the University of Georgia estimate. This is the first study to suggest that homelessness contributes to deaths from substance use, the researchers said. “One of the frustrations for people who study and recommend policy changes is that homelessness and the opioid crisis are persistent,” said researcher David Bradford, a professor with the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs. “Our study shows that there is a causal effect. Homelessness is making the opioid crisis worse.” For the study, researchers analyzed federal data kept on homeless people between 2007 and 2017, comparing it with death certificates with drug overdose or alcohol poisoning as the cause of death. Researchers found that even a small decrease in homelessness could save lives. For example, even a 10% decrease in homelessness could save more than 650 from death by opioid overdose, their results show. “That’s a lot of lives,” said researcher Felipe Lozano-Rojas, an assistant professor in the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs. “Deaths from opioids used to be a rare event, but it has become increasingly prevalent.” Evictions have skyrocketed in recent years, with the lifting of the…  read on >  read on >

Divorce later in life might be harder on women than on men, based on patterns of antidepressant use in a new study of people aged 50 or older. Both sexes tended to increase their antidepressant use when going through a divorce, break-up or the death of a partner, researchers found. But women’s use of these drugs was greater than men’s, results show. Antidepressant use increased by 7% in women prior to a divorce and 6% before a break-up, compared to 5% and 3% for men, researchers found. Within a year, antidepressant use went back to normal levels for men. It was a different story for women, however. Women’s use tailed off only slightly immediately after the end of a relationship, and then increased again a year after and onward, results show. “The greater increases in [antidepressant] use associated with union dissolution among women in our study may indeed relate to the fact that the costs of union dissolution on mental health fall more heavily on women than men,” wrote researchers led by Yaoyue Hu, an associate professor with the Chongqing Medical University School of Public Health in Chongqing, China. This could have widespread repercussions around the world, researchers noted. “Gray divorce” from the age 50 onward is becoming more frequent in high-income countries, researchers said. Later-life depression is also relatively common, affecting an estimated 10%…  read on >  read on >

Music may be good medicine for older adults, boosting both their mental and physical health, a new survey finds. Virtually all people between the ages of 50 and 80 (98%) say they benefit in at least one health-related way from engaging with music, according to results from the latest University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging. Three-quarters said music helps them relieve stress or relax, 65% said it helps their mental health and mood, and about 60% said they get energized or motivated by music. Overall, nine of 10 survey participants (89%) said music is very or somewhat important to them. “Music has the power to bring joy and meaning to life. It is woven into the very fabric of existence for all of humankind,” said Dr. Joel Howell, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School who worked on the poll.  Music can benefit a variety of ailments related to aging, Howell added. “We know that music is associated with positive effects on measures from blood pressure to depression,” Howell said in a university news release. Most of the older adults surveyed said they listen to music, with 85% listening a few times a week and 80% watching musical performances a few times over the past year. Two in five (41%) attended a live concert. Fewer actually make music…  read on >  read on >

Depression and a rise in body temperature appear linked, although researchers say it’s not yet clear which causes which. Still, the findings offer a hint that manipulating body temperature might be a new form of therapy against depression. “To our knowledge, this is the largest study to date to examine the association between body temperature — assessed using both self-report methods and wearable sensors — and depressive symptoms in a geographically broad sample,” said study lead Ashley Mason, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). “Given the climbing rates of depression in the United States, we’re excited by the possibilities of a new avenue for treatment,” she added in a UCSF news release. The new study involved more than 20,000 people from 106 countries who wore a device that measured their body temperature. The study ran for seven months, beginning in early 2020. As a person’s level of depression severity rose, so, too, did their body temperatures, Mason’s group reported. The findings were published Feb. 5 in the journal Scientific Reports. There was also a trend suggesting that folks whose body temperatures remained stable over a 24-hour period also had higher risks for depression — but the finding didn’t quite meet statistical significance, the investigators said. It’s also unclear whether higher body temperature can help trigger depression, whether depression…  read on >  read on >

The Pearl Jam song “Jeremy” tells the story of a boy driven mad by bullies who commits suicide in front of his classroom. The song might reflect a real and ongoing threat to teens’ mental health, new research suggests. Teens being bullied face a greater risk of early-stage psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations or paranoia, according to findings published recently in the journal Nature. Bullied teenagers also have lower levels of a key neurotransmitter found in a part of the brain involved in regulating emotions, researchers said. The findings highlight the value of efforts to reduce bullying at schools, said lead researcher Naohiro Okada, a project associate professor with the University of Tokyo’s International Research Center for Neurointelligence. “Anti-bullying programs in schools that focus on promoting positive social interactions and reducing aggressive behaviors are essential for their own sake and to reduce the risk of psychosis and its subclinical precursors,” Okada said in a university news release. “These programs can help create a safe and supportive environment for all students, reducing the likelihood of bullying and its negative consequences,” Okada added. Researchers tracked bullying via questionnaires completed by Japanese teenagers, as well as the effect bullying had on their mental health. They found bullying associated with subclinical psychotic experiences in early adolescence — symptoms that come close to psychosis but do not meet the full…  read on >  read on >

Police seizures of “magic” mushrooms have more than tripled within the past five years, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse reports. The total weight of psilocybin mushrooms seized by law enforcement increased from 498 pounds in 2017 to 1,861 pounds in 2022, according to a new report published Feb. 6 in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. To put those seizures in perspective, a typical dried mushroom dose in clinical trials for psilocybin therapy runs between 2.5 grams (.08 ounces) to 6 grams (.2 ounces), according to a 2022 analysis in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry. These seizures come in the midst of a surge in public interest regarding the use of psilocybin for therapy and recreation, researchers said. “While psilocybin is by no means the most dangerous drug, recreational use can come with unforeseen risks such as bad trips,” said lead researcher Joseph Palamar, an associate professor of epidemiology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.  “Research studies suggesting its effectiveness in treating mental health issues and extensive positive media coverage may lead some people to seek ‘shrooms’ outside of medical contexts,” Palamar added. “People who use psilocybin outside of medical supervision need to be educated about risks associated with use.” In 2018 and 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted breakthrough therapy status to research using psilocybin as a treatment for…  read on >  read on >