Mental Health Archive

Writing a letter of gratitude to someone can increase positive feelings for both the letter writer and recipient.

In a 2024 study by Harvard researchers, people who reported feeling persistently lonely had a 56% higher risk of experiencing a stroke compared with people who did not report feelings of loneliness.

Doomscrolling is the habit of constantly scrolling online news headlines, which often blare bad news. Doomscrolling became prominent during the pandemic. It can lead to a wide range of physical and mental health effects, including headaches, muscle tension, elevated blood pressure, and existential anxiety. To offset doomscrolling, people can create boundaries around using devices that include keeping phones off their nightstand, opting out of digital notifications, focusing on local news, and asking others not to send you depressing news items.

The 1,000 Hours Outside challenge can motivate people to spend more time outdoors by trying to accumulate 1,000 hours of outdoor time over a year.

Music therapy uses personally tailored interventions such as singing, songwriting, playing an instrument, or moving to the beat to help people with a variety of health conditions manage disease symptoms and treatment side effects. Research suggests music therapy can curb stress, soothe pain, promote sleep, reduce anxiety, and improve memory and focus. People interested in accessing music therapy can ask their health care team or hospital for a referral, or look for a music therapist through the American Music Therapy Association.

People with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are especially vulnerable to cardiovascular problems, including a 40% increased risk of heart attack. The amygdala, a brain structure involved in processing anxiety, fear, and stress, is overactive in people with PTSD. But these people also have decreased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for regulating emotions and dampening the fear response. This brain activity imbalance triggers chronic activation of the body's "fight-or-flight" response. The resulting physiological changes appear to underlie the development of atherosclerosis.

Caring for a person with dementia is physically, emotionally, logistically, and financially demanding. Caregivers can benefit from numerous services, such as caregiver support groups; respite care; and dementia care navigators, such as the local Area Agency on Aging (which can provide a long list of resources) or a local hospital dementia care program. It can also help to speak to doctors about consolidating appointments for the person with dementia and to reach out to family and friends to ask for assistance.

As people face their mortality, they often focus on how to live their best life in their remaining time. Two Harvard experts—Dr. Howard LeWine and Dr. Anthony Komaroff—share advice on how they are achieving this during their golden years. Some of their suggestions include embracing the natural changes of aging, doing inspiring activities, learning to live in the moment, and finding one's sense of purpose.

A 2024 study suggests that women in perimenopause are significantly more likely to experience depression than either before or after this stage.