Biggest Miner Tracking Trucker Brain Waves In Technology Race: "Truck drivers employed by the world's biggest mining company are wearing baseball caps and hard helmets with sensors mounted inside to track their brain waves so they can get early warnings of fatigue and cut accidents."

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November 1, 2017 at 08:02AM

Behavioral Traits Can Influence Financial Decisions

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New research suggests that impatience and similar behavioral traits play a role in how people manage their money.

Imagine you are receiving a sizable tax refund from the federal government. Are you going to spend it right away or save the money? Is the decision based on your short-term finances? Or does it hinge on whether you are a “spender” or a “saver?”

In a new study, researchers reviewed individual decisions following the U.S. federal government’s 2008 economic stimulus payments. At this time, many households received a substantial check from the U.S. federal government.

The study’s rather nuanced findings indicate that while people do “smooth” their consumption by spending or saving money based on their own liquidity as traditional economic theory would predict, some longer-term factors are at play as well.

For starters, other things being equal, lower historical incomes, not just short-term fluctuations in income, match a greater tendency to spend money right away.

For others, people who describe themselves as habitual “spenders” will use the money more quickly. Researchers believe this pattern supports the contention that larger behavioral tendencies, not just rational calculations, help drive financial decisions.

Self-assessments about being “savers” or “spenders” do “a phenomenally good job of separating those who save from those who don’t,” said Dr. Jonathan Parker, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who authored the study.

“It’s a question about impatience. Are you someone who is impatient? If you get ‘yes’ for that answer, those are the spenders.”

Like other research, the study shows that people lacking considerable income or wealth are more likely to spend such refunds more quickly. “It does suggest that lower-income, lower-liquidity folks tend to tie their consumer demand very much to income,” Parker said.

The paper appears in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics.

To conduct the study, Parker took advantage of a quirk in the 2008 stimulus. The federal government sent the payments to households on a schedule determined by the last two digits of the recipients’ social security number, something unrelated to financial circumstances or personal characteristics.

Therefore the timing of the receipt of payments — and the subsequent spending that resulted — was effectively random.

All told, the study encompasses about 29,000 households actively participating in the Nielsen Consumer Panel, an ongoing survey that measures spending habits and household characteristics across the U.S. The average payment was around $900 per household.

On one level, the research reinforces the idea that basic financial need drives a certain portion of the household spending. On average, household spending on household goods rose by 10 percent the first week after the payment arrived, and by roughly 5 percent over the first four weeks.

But households with low liquidity, which comprised 36 percent of those surveyed, spent more than three times as much of the money in the first week and more than twice as much of the payment in the first four weeks.

“There are people who have persistently lower incomes and lower liquidity, who spend this money when it arrives,” Parker said.

Historical income performance was also bound up in this response. As Parker writes in the paper, “low income in 2006 is as good as” liquidity status at the same time, when it comes to “separating the households who spent from those who did not.”

Meanwhile, self-conception and long-run spending habits also influenced outcomes considerably, adding a wrinkle to existing models of household behavior in these circumstances. Parker’s research found that those who describe themselves as people who prefer to “spend now” rather than “save for the future” had a threefold increase in spending.

“I think it suggests to me there is a lot of heterogeneity on the preference side and the behavior side,” Parker said. “Despite the first-order importance of the financial variable in separating people, there’s also a lot of evidence that preferences matter a lot.”

Or, as he added, “my findings are consistent with a reasonably simple model in which people with different degrees of impatience try to maintain a stable standard of living but face limits on low-cost borrowing. For the range of differences in behavior that I uncover, so-called behavioral modeling assumptions are second order.”

The study joins a growing body of literature that attempts to explain financial behavior when money becomes available.

“We think that people try to maintain a reasonably stable standard of living,” Parker says. And yet, he said, people “do an awful lot of spending when money shows up.”

In research terms, Parker said, one contribution of the study is to “cleanly identify and connect differences in spending behavior across people, to measurable differences in people,” such as their self-conceptions as “spenders” or “savers.”

He hopes his work will pave the way for improved mathematical models of “consumption and savings and borrowing decisions that incorporate, in a simple yet rigorous way, these differences in behavior.”

Source: MIT

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November 1, 2017 at 07:22AM

Episode 10: How To Stop Procrastinating

Yoga, hypnosis classes offered in Pine River - The Lake Country Echo

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Yoga, hypnosis classes offered in Pine River The Lake Country Echo Group Hypnosis for weight loss and smoking: 6-9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13, Pine River-Backus High School Media Center. Fee: $50 for one session or $90 for both sessions. Dr. Fisher, who holds a doctoral degree in clinical hypnotherapy, along with five ...

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November 1, 2017 at 06:54AM

Yoga, hypnosis classes offered in Pine River - The Lake Country Echo

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• Gentle Yoga: 5:15-6:15 p.m. Tuesdays, Nov. 7-Dec. 5, Pine River-Backus Elementary School gym, Door 32. Fee: $50 per five-week session.

Class will focus on yoga for daily well-being, including flowing and held poses, simple meditation and breathing practices. This class keeps a gentle pace and is ideal for all levels of experience or those completely new to yoga. Bring a mat, blanket and dress comfortably. Instructor is Amber Hunt, certified yoga instructor.

• Flow Yoga: 6:30-7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Nov. 7-Dec. 5, Pine River-Backus Elementary School gym, Door 32. Fee: $50 per five-week session.

Class will focus on yinyasa flow, building strength and flexibility, and will incorporate elements of yogic breathing and meditation. Ideal for students with yoga experience. This is not power yoga.

Instructor is Amber Hunt, certified yoga instructor.

• Group Hypnosis for weight loss and smoking: 6-9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13, Pine River-Backus High School Media Center. Fee: $50 for one session or $90 for both sessions.

Dr. Fisher, who holds a doctoral degree in clinical hypnotherapy, along with five certificates in hypnotherapy, three certificates in proficiency in neuro-linguistic programming and a proficiency certificate in time-line therapy, works extensively with weight control, smoking, stress management, self-confidence and many other issues.

-Weight loss/weight control: This program is aimed at helping people gain control over weight loss. Hypnosis may help them stop thinking about food, cravings, overeating and snacking.

-Stop smoking or chewing: Hypnosis is a tool to help students stop smoking or chewing tobacco for themselves. Hypnosis may help to stop smoking or chewing immediately without withdrawal, cravings or weight gain.

Additional Articles Recommended by Pineandlakes Echo Journal

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November 1, 2017 at 06:49AM

Smartphone-Based Interventions for Depression

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Technology is rapidly advancing and more people are depending on it to stay in touch with friends, finding the quickest way to work or doing their weekly shopping. It is no surprise that people are turning to their smartphones to improve their mental wellbeing. There are many mobile applications available on smartphones that claim to improve your mental health, however not all mental health apps are created equal and it is important to know how to make sure the one you are using is truly helpful.

Joseph Firth and colleagues conducted the first meta-analysis of apps for depressive symptoms in October 2017, which was published in the Official Journal of the World Psychiatric Association. Depression is typically a treatable mental health condition with a variety of different treatments, ranging from mindfulness-based interventions to medication. Though treatable, a high number of individuals with depression do not actively seek support from mental health professionals.

One in 27 people in poorer countries seek support, while 1 in 5 seek support in richer countries. So, if only 1 in 5 people are visiting their doctor when they are feeling particularly depressed even though they are in a country where support should be easily accessible and affordable, what is stopping people from accessing help? It could be due to a lack of trained psychologists in your area, the cost of therapy or the stigma surrounding mental health conditions. Not only this, but according to Firth, almost half of the world’s population live in countries where there is less than 1 psychiatrist per 100,000 people — making effective therapy almost impossible. Following this, even in countries where high standard therapy can be carried out, people can relapse and become depressed again. Given the barriers to access effective treatment “methods for reducing depression on a population scale are urgently needed.”¹ Mobile applications may be part of the solution as they can be a way to enable access to effective treatment methods at a low cost to a large population.

The study conducted by Firth and colleagues started by identifying all studies exploring how effective mobile applications were for treating depressive symptoms. The articles included were all in English and eligible studies were all randomized controlled trials which explored the impact of a mental health intervention delivered via smartphone on at least one measure for symptoms of depression. After weeding out all the low-quality studies the authors found 18 studies which they could include in their analysis. These studies assessed a total of 22 different smartphone mental health interventions.

The mean sample ages ranged from 18 years of age to 59 years of age. Two of the studies in the meta-analysis included people with major depression, two individuals with bipolar disorder, one included young people with any mental health condition and the rest recruited participants with self-reported mild to moderate depression, suicidal tendencies, ADHD (attention deficit disorder), anxiety, insomnia or PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder.) The intervention via smartphone lasted anywhere between 4 and 24 weeks.

Overall, the effectiveness of smartphone intervention on depressive symptoms were small to moderate in comparison to no intervention. Further analysis was explored on what particular intervention was more effective for depression. The studies involved were separated into different groups depending on techniques, feedback types and characteristics. The analyses suggested that smartphone interventions which involved humans had small effects on depressive symptoms whereas those which did not use in-person feedback had more of a positive effect. Following this, applications which as “in-app feedback”, such as progress on mental well-being had greater effect on those which did not. Finally, applications which were primarily focused on cognitive training had a smaller effect on depression outcomes than those apps which focused on mental health. The authors concluded that smart-phone interventions have been found to have a moderate positive effect on depressive symptoms.

The take away messages from the study are:

• Smartphone applications for depression can be a good first step, particularly for mild forms of depression.
• People working on their own can do quite well, making these solutions scalable as face-to-face contact with therapists does not appear to be essential.
• The content of the app should be based on evidence.
• The content should focus on mental health, rather than brain training.

The other important aspect of using a mental health application for depression is to make sure your data is kept safe and used only to provide the service. App developers should not be selling your data to third parties. Other than that, smartphone applications for depression can be a very useful tool to help with recovery.

 

Reference:

1. Firth, J., Torous, J., Nicholas, J., Carney, R., Pratap, A., Rosenbaum, S., & Sarris, J. (2017). The efficacy of smartphone‐based mental health interventions for depressive symptoms: a meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials. World Psychiatry, 16(3), 287–298. http://ift.tt/2yjw7EZ

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November 1, 2017 at 06:36AM

Group Exercise May Help With Quality of Life & Stress More Than Going Solo

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In a new study which compared the benefits of group exercise to individual exercise, researchers found that those who exercised in a group were able to reduce their stress levels by 26 percent and achieve significant improvements in quality of life, compared to those who worked out alone.

The findings are published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.

“The communal benefits of coming together with friends and colleagues, and doing something difficult, while encouraging one another, pays dividends beyond exercising alone,” said Dayna Yorks, D.O., lead researcher on this study. “The findings support the concept of a mental, physical and emotional approach to health that is necessary for student doctors and physicians.”

For the study, researchers at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine recruited 69 medical students — a group known for high levels of stress and self-reported low quality of life — and allowed them to self-select a 12-week exercise program, either within a group setting or as individuals. A control group abstained from exercise other than walking or biking as a means of transportation.

Every four weeks, the students participated in a survey asking them to rate their levels of perceived stress and quality of life in three categories: mental, physical and emotional.

At least once a week, students in the group exercise cohort participated in a 30-minute exercise program called CXWORX, a core strengthening and functional fitness training program. At the end of the 12 weeks, their mean monthly survey scores showed significant improvements in all three quality of life measures: mental (12.6 percent), physical (24.8 percent) and emotional (26 percent). They also reported a 26.2 percent reduction in perceived stress levels.

By comparison, students in the solo fitness cohort were allowed to engage in any exercise schedule they preferred, which could include activities like running and weightlifting, but they had to work out alone or with no more than two partners.

On average the solitary exercisers worked out twice as long, and saw no major improvements in any measure, except in mental quality of life (11 percent increase). Similarly, the control group saw no significant changes in quality of life or perceived stress.

“Medical schools understand their programs are demanding and stressful. Given this data on the positive impact group fitness can have, schools should consider offering group fitness opportunities,” said Yorks. “Giving students an outlet to help them manage stress and feel better mentally and physically can potentially alleviate some of the burnout and anxiety in the profession.”

Source: American Osteopathic Association

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November 1, 2017 at 06:32AM