{"id":322,"date":"2011-03-24T21:51:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-24T21:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/?p=322"},"modified":"2011-03-24T21:51:42","modified_gmt":"2011-03-24T21:51:42","slug":"5-exciting-findings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/?p=322","title":{"rendered":"5 Exciting Findings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a list of what I think are the 5 most exciting recent research findings in psychology:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. That regular cardio exercise has a powerful positive influence on our mood. <\/li>\n
  2. That the human brain has the ability to change and develop (i.e., the capacity for neuroplasicity) throughout the lifespan.<\/li>\n
  3. That psychotherapy leads to measurable brain changes.<\/li>\n
  4. That the best predictor of adjustment in children is how well parents make sense of their own life experiences.<\/li>\n
  5. That mindfulness exercises result in measurable brain changes (particularly in the pre-frontal cortex).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I find these findings exciting and encouraging because: a) they point to the possibility of real, fundamental and sustainable changes in our psychological functioning; b) they suggest that – although we are often powerless to avoid negative life events occurring (life just happens) – we are not<\/em> powerless to deal with the consequences of these events in a functional way; c) even though we may have had difficult things happen in our lives we can work though these and avoid this impacting on our parenting ability in destructive ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Here is a list of what I think are the 5 most exciting recent research findings in psychology: That regular cardio exercise has a powerful positive influence on our mood. That the human brain has the ability to change and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-therapy-notes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323,"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinicalpsychology.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}