Natural sounds such as birdsong and the sound of water have been used in stressful situations like surgical procedures, and have demonstrated stress-relieving effects via the autonomic nervous system Continue reading
Posted in Environmental Psychology, Psychology, Stress
Tagged autonomic nervous system, natural sounds, stress test
How do people typically respond to traumatic stress? What is the best way to support someone in a traumatic crisis? Johan Cullberg, a Swedish professor in psychiatry, may have some of the answers.
Posted in Mental Health, Psychology, Trauma
Tagged crisis, johan cullberg, trauma, traumatic
The dead man’s solution is to have goals that could be achieved by a dead man, such as having no pain or no more terrible feelings. At first, it seems like some nice goals to have, but in fact they may not help us.
Continue reading
Posted in Mental Health, Personal Development, Psychology, Self-help
Tagged actual self, ideal self
Learning is not just a matter of education or experience. We need both to encourage personal development.
It can be tough to learn from experience. Experience may frighten us, weaken us or make us self-doubt, but it may also make us stronger. What all experiences have in common is that they shape who we are. Continue reading
Everyone experiences recall difficulties. The human memory isn’t perfect, but luckily there are ways to improve it.
It is annoying not to be able to recall stuff you have just learned, heard about, or witnessed. Imagine you look through all of your study notes before an exam, and you don’t remember anything. Let’s try to avoid this situation with a few learning principles.
Posted in Psychology, Self-help
Tagged encode, learning cycle, mnemonic devices, retrieve, study techniques
When we make decisions or judgments, we often use mental shortcuts. The purpose of mental shortcuts is to ease the “cognitive load” of making decisions.
Mental shortcuts are helpful because they allow us to make quick decisions, but sometimes they result in “thinking errors” or so-called cognitive biases. We should be aware of these biases because they prevent us from thinking rationally.
Posted in Cognitive Bias, Psychology
My name is Simon Moesgaard, a psychologist from Denmark, and this is my blog about psychology.
