The science of affirmations

My first experience of affirmations was when I was a teenager and my Mum would frequently repeat, “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” She had suffered with post natal (partum) depression in the mid-late 70s after my youngest sister was born and, as the condition wasn’t as well understood at…

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The placebo effect

Forty patients with asthma, emphysema, or restrictive lung disease were given an inhaler that contained a nebulised saline placebo, but they were told that it contained allergens that would restrict their airways. It was a study conducted in the departments of psychiatry and medicine at the State University of New York. Before long, 19 of…

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How to deflect negative emotion

Here’s a very simple hack for when you feel you’re soaking up other people’s emotions. We all catch other people’s emotions. It’s called ‘emotional contagion’ because the effect is similar to catching a bug, only it’s an emotion we catch rather than a cold.  It is extremely common and probably much more so than you’d…

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Survival of the kindest

You’ve probably heard of the term, ‘survival of the fittest’. Most people assume it means that only the fastest or physically strongest people survive, that nature favours big muscles, speed and strength. In actual fact, that isn’t exactly what the term means. It simply means that the species who is most suited to an environment…

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