» Listings for 2015

1. Why It's good for your health to hate Adele

   Posted on 5:54am Thursday 5th Nov 2015

   It's official. You can stop listening to Adele right now!

   

   If you dread the sound of an Adele song coming on the radio and it feels like a funeral dirge designed to bring you down, then the good news is that you now have the perfect reason to turn over the radio and delete her songs from your music accounts. A new study shows that listening to sad songs can in fact be bad for your mental health. In fact they say it can make you even more anxious and neurotic.

   Music to suit your mood

   You probably already realise that when you hear a happy song it can lift your mood. As an ex radio presenter we all expect to play Katrina and the Waves and Walking on sunshine as soon as the clouds part at the beginning of summer. Perhaps when you have felt low you have put on a sad tune and noticed that it really suited your mood. Well the author of a new study has shown why it may well be a good idea to avoid the new Adele album 25 when it arrives in the shops and online.

   Emily Carlson is the music therapist and author of the latest study. In order to find out what the effect of the music that people were listening to on their moods the researchers tested the neural responses of the participants while they listened to happy, aggressive and sad music and compared this to markers of mental health including depression, anxiety and neuroticism.
   
   Emily said ‘Some ways of coping with negative emotion, such as rumination, which means continually thinking over negative things, are linked to poor mental health.’We wanted to learn whether there could be similar negative effects of some styles of music listening.’
   
   

   If you are a man then you really do have an excuse to ask your other half to turn down Adele

   They also found that listening to music affected the medial prefrontal cortex of the brain, with those using sad and aggressive music to reflect on their emotions having higher levels of anxiety and neuroticism than those who didn’t. Interestingly they found that in male subjects this effect was more pronounced. So, at least we have a real reason not to listen to Adele singing now! Don't get me wrong, she seems like a lovely person, but when a song of hers comes on the radio I will flick to another channel because it doesn't really appeal to me. Now we know that there is science behind that feeling.

   Senior study author Elvira Brattico said: ‘These results show a link between music listening styles and mPFC activation, which could mean that certain listening styles have long-term effects on the brain.’ I'm pretty sure that Adele herself would laugh it off, but then she has sold millions of records and that is set to continue when the new album sells millions more.

   So perhaps it's time to dig out those old eighties Wham and Duran Duran albums and have yourself a party!

    

2. Words can ease operation anxiety better than drugs with conversational hyposis

   Posted on 12:31pm Sunday 25th Oct 2015

   Have you ever encountered a Doctor with a great bedside manner and felt very at ease? Or perhaps you have felt that during a hospital procedure you were made to feel more scared during a time when you would be in a heightened state of anxiety anyway?

   As a hypnotherapist I work with people who are worried about health issues and may even have a fear of needles or an operation that they really need. I even work with dental patients who know that if they do not overcome the problem then their teeth could suffer, or even fall out. I know how much the words that I say help people and of course this means that I am very aware of the language and what can often be called converstainal hypnosis.

   Study shows that words can help patients before surgery even more than pills.

   In fact conversational hypnosis may do a better job than pills for relaxing patients before surgery according to a brand new study being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2015 annual meeting. Anxious patients heading into surgery often receive medication to ease their fears, you may have been in this situation yourself, but in fact a few calming words from the health professionals might actually be an even more effective medicine.

   Emmanuel Boselli, is the lead author of the study and a physician anesthesiologist at édouard Herriot Hospital, Lyons, France. He said...

   "The anesthesiologist uses calm, positive words to divert the patient's attention and help him or her feel more comfortable. It reflects a change in the way the physician interacts with the patient and takes just a few minutes."

   It's in the way that you say it.

   The way that you phrase the information that you present makes all the difference. For instance talking quietly and with a positive aspect to the patient and saying things like  "Keep calm and quiet" instead of  "Please don't move". Alongside this they showed that focusing the patient's attention on something other than the preparations for surgery and anesthesia procedure has a great effect.

   This was compared to the use of a standard medication called hydroxyzine, which is taken orally to relax patients before their procedure.

   Asked to rate the effects on a scale ranging from 0 (no comfort) to 10 (maximal comfort) the results may well surprise you.

   Words vs Pills

   The average comfort scale of those who had received hypnosis was 6.7 before and 9.3 after, while patients who had medication averaged 7.8 before and 8.3 after. So clearly the calming words and distraction worked better than the drugs and medication.

   It’s interesting to note how just the way that you are spoken to makes a real difference, and if even more effective that drugs.

   It’s something that we see in dentistry. When the dentist says to you before an injection “This is just a little scratch” then that’s what you feel. If your dentist says “I hope this doesn’t hurt too much” then you would feel more pain...and perhaps it would be time to think about changing dentists too!

   If you feel anxious about a medical procedure then you really can get help and learn to be more relaxed right the way through it.