June-19: AROUND THE WORLD
- Posted by CERC India
- Posted in Jun19
UK
Train your brain to develop good habits 
Action replayÂ
Psychologists have been trying to understand what drives our habits for long. They have debated over whether habits are a product of what we want or what we do. New research suggests that you can train your brain to form good habits – like going to the gym and eating healthily – simply by repeating actions until they stick.
The researchers, from the University of Warwick, Princeton and Brown Universities, have created a model which shows that forming good (and bad) habits depends more on how often you perform an action than on how much satisfaction you get from it. The study is published in Psychological Review.
Habits get ingrained
SWEDEN
Stressful jobs make women gain weight
Gender disparity
A Swedish study investigating the effects of job stress on weight gain has found that women participants who struggled to cope at work gained around 20% more weight than those with easy-going careers. Interestingly, this did not apply to men in stressful jobs.
The study was published in International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health. It found that women gain weight over 10 to 20 years if they feel they lack control in their jobs. Apparently, juggling careers and running the home means women eat too much and don’t exercise. Moreover, women feeling overwhelmed at work may be demotivated to eat healthily. Also, stress triggers the release of cortisol which can lead to weight gain.
Impact of stress
AUSTRALIA
Avoid social media after a failure
Distressed feelings
When you have just faced failure, why do you feel worse seeing inspirational and supportive Facebook and Instagram posts? Why don’t you feel more hopeful and optimistic? A recent study, published in Emotion, has an explanation.
The study has found that the greater the emphasis a culture places on happiness, and the greater the societal pressure not to experience negative emotions, the worse we deal with failure. It explains that handling failure is a two-step process. First, we should give ourselves time to feel bad, but not enough time to ruminate too much on the negative emotions – disappointment, anger, frustration and sadness. Second, we should bounce back emotionally.
Avoiding ruminationÂ
