Technology

TO PARAPHRASE YOGI: 90% OF HEALTH IS HALF MENTAL

The Mere Sight of Someone Sick Triggers an Immune Response, Study Suggests: Researchers equipped study participants with virtual reality headsets and observed how their brains and immune systems reacted to avatars with signs of illness (Sara Hashemi, July 31, 2025, Smithsonian)

The study is “unique in demonstrating that people’s immune system can be primed just by the visual recognition that someone looks sick,” Irwin adds to Simon Makin at Science News. “That’s really remarkable.”

Or un.

ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

Gluten Could Be Wrongly Blamed for Americans’ Stomach Trouble (Ed Cara, July 22, 2025, Gizmodo)

“These findings suggest that expectations played a major role in symptom generation and that only some of these patients could benefit from gluten or wheat restriction,” they wrote in their paper, published Monday in The Lancet Gastroenetrology and Hepatology.

We so devoutly wish to be special.

A RANGE OF PLACEBOES:

64 widely available “mood-boosting” supplements are put to the test (Bronwyn Thompson, July 14, 2025, New Atlas)

The most comprehensively studied products were omega-3s (39 trials), St John’s wort (38), prebiotics (18) and vitamin D (14) – as well as saffron (18), which is popular in the Middle East and Asia.

As far as relieving depression symptoms, there was little conclusive evidence that omega-3 supplements had any impact; the scientists found more studies produced no effects than those that showed some, compared to a placebo. In 2021, we covered one such study that failed to show omega-3 supplements played any role in treating depression.

St John’s wort and saffron had the strongest positive outcomes, with studies showing these two distinct supplements worked, compared to a placebo, and were on par with existing prescription antidepressants. And gut-health probiotics, as well as vitamin D, reduced depressive symptoms to some degree in their respective controlled trials.

But overall, the researchers found a distinct lack of multiple trials for many emerging OTC products, which shows how far the science is lagging behind as the wellbeing supplements market continues to grow. More than 40 of the 64 products had only a single clinical study completed on them to date.

Do whatever you believe will work.

GET YOUR HEAD STRAIGHT:

Negative thinking associated with worse asthma outcomes (Paul McClure, July 11, 2025, New Atlas)

New research suggests that expectations are associated with asthma outcomes. People who thought more negatively about their condition reported worse symptoms, adding to growing evidence about the mind-body connection and its influence on health.

ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

Five Psychological Tricks You Can Use to Make Yourself Feel Happier: Hack your brain and feel better. (Jeff Somers, July 3, 2025, Life Hacker)

For a quick mood booster, try the One Minute Rule: Identify tasks and chores that you can accomplish in one minute or less. These will be simple things, like putting something away, responding to a text, or packing up an item to return. Because these tasks are quickly accomplished, they take relatively little effort to engage with—but the sense of accomplishment is often the same as with larger, more complex tasks.

Escape yourself.

ESCAPE YOUR SELF:

Can a Campfire Improve Your Mental Health? Many Therapists Say Yes. (Stephanie Vermillion, 6/30/25, Outside)

Since 2021, Ward has been using the healing benefits of fire to help those struggling with mental health challenges and addiction through his Scotland-based nonprofit, Fire and Peace Recovery. He runs monthly retreats in Scotland’s great outdoors that harness the healing power of campfires. He’s not the only one tapping into fire’s therapeutic effects.

SHAKE IT OFF (profanity alert):

Against therapy (Harry Readhead, 30 June, 2025, The Critic)

There is a more pernicious, insidious aspect of therapy. In Beyond the Self, the Buddhist monk and former scientist Matthieu Ricard questions the wisdom of an approach to wellbeing that is “me, me, me”. For him, trying to find peace “within the ego bubble” resembles a kind of Stockholm syndrome. Breaking free of our various entanglements and focusing on what is outside of ourselves might be better. We tend to make too much of things simply because we’re involved. One risks getting trapped in a hall of mirrors and losing one’s sense of proportion. To paraphrase the priest and writer Pablo d’Ors, we “martyr [ourselves] with diminutive problems or imaginary pains”. If we had a friend in the same situation, we would see things differently.

More: what Carl Rogers called “unconditional positive regard” can feel to the patient like endorsement. The patient suggests his friend or parent is “toxic”. The therapist does not disagree. Emboldened, the patient grows more certain. But his view may be highly subjective. Ask ten people for theirs and, on balance, they might find he has more to answer for. He is unlikely to hear that in therapy. Worse: his therapist has only his version of events, and is duty-bound principally to him. Yet our patient lives among others and must answer to them, too. This can lead to an absurd state of affairs in which someone grows ever more sure of his rightness, and ever less able to mix with those around him. He may even turn away from those precious few who would drop everything to get him out of a bind — or at least bring him tea and sandwiches — because their idea of affection doesn’t quite match his.

Abigail Shrier, who has a knack for walking straight into the hornet’s nest, charts this drift in Bad Therapy, which paints a vaguely dystopian picture of the therapeutic landscape. She shows that therapy can teach helplessness and induce distress; that its very definition (The American Psychological Association defines therapy as “Any psychological service provided by a trained professional.”) is circular; and that the idea behind the bestseller The Body Keeps the Score is reheated “repressed memory”, a discredited theory that led to the wrongful incarceration of people in the 80s. (The book’s author, Bessel van der Kolk, was a witness in their trials and “crucial to putting innocent people in prison”, according to journalist Mark Prendergast). Shrier’s book ruffled some feathers, as you can imagine; but it also drew approving nods from many in the therapy world. The writer and psychotherapist Joseph Burgo admitted that the profession “has come to be dominated by bad ideas”. […]

Ricard may well have been onto something when he said that trying to find peace through the filter of self-centeredness might not be all that wise. It is, after all, striking that some of the more well-grounded ways to lift our spirits involve, in effect, getting out of our own way. Many are ancient. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy owes much to the Stoics; meditation turns up in nearly every faith; and yoga came about over 2,000 years ago. Amusingly, there is now some evidence that those who suppress fearful thoughts feel better than those who don’t. It had been roundly accepted that it is terribly unhealthy to bury our feelings. But it seems the stiff upper lip might in fact have its uses.