Recent Posts by Alan Carpenter

Garden for Your Health and Well-Being

Better physical and mental health Greater well-being Increasing evidence suggests that gardening confers health benefits. Yet, until 2016, no quantitative meta-analysis of previous studies existed. Japanese and British researchers scoured the published academic gardening literature and found 22 case studies from the US and Europe. The studies included 76 comparisons between treatment (gardening in some…
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Resilience Training Can Help You

Learn to be more resilient Build resilience with behavioral and cognitive strategies Resilience refers to the process of responding positively to adversities, traumas, threats, or significant stress. Psychologists increasingly find that higher levels of resilience predict lower levels of anxiety, psychological distress, and depression. But can we learn to be more resilient? Researchers in Australia…
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Resilience, Health, and Successful Aging in Seniors

Bounce back resourcefully from adversity High resilience predicts better health and successful aging Successful aging arises from several sources, including physical and mental health. A cross-sectional study used data from 1,006 persons over age 50 living in San Diego County, California, as part of the Successful Aging Evaluation Study. Researchers found that perceived stress moderated…
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Volunteering Boosts Seniors’ Cognitive Health

Keep your brain active Engagement more with life An international team of researchers conducted a critical review of 73 studies about senior citizen volunteering. Volunteering consistently predicted reduced depressive symptoms, better self-reported health, fewer functional limitations, and lower mortality. In addition, volunteering promoted greater social, physical, and cognitive activity. These factors led to increased altruism…
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