Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This paper is a meta-analysis of more than 300 studies in humans that looked at links between psychological stress and measures of the immune system. It found that very short, acute stressors (minutes) were tied to increases in some natural (innate) immune measures and decreases in some specific (adaptive) immune…
This chapter explains three ways people think about health. It says the best view — the "complete state" — includes both the lack of disease and the presence of positive mental capacities and functioning. The author reviews studies that support using this complete-state view for mental health and suggests that…
This study followed 1,356 apparently healthy, employed adults over about 18 months to see how burnout and insomnia change together. Using standard questionnaires, the researchers found that higher burnout predicted new cases of insomnia and higher insomnia predicted new cases of burnout, even after adjusting for depression and other factors.…
This randomized trial tested a 3‑week outpatient program that combined stress‑management training, relaxation, physical exercise and moor baths for people with above‑average stress. Compared with a waiting list group, people who did the program had large and statistically significant reductions in perceived stress and in burnout-related symptoms (including emotional exhaustion).…
This systematic narrative review looked at research from January 1981 to November 2020 across five databases to list factors linked to burnout. The authors found 40 distinct burnout-related factors and grouped them into 10 broad categories. They report that, besides biological, psychological, and social factors, spiritual and work-cultural factors also…
This review says that calling ME/CFS a psychosomatic illness does not fit current scientific evidence and harms patients. ME/CFS has been classed as a neurological disease since 1969. Studies report repeated physical abnormalities in blood flow, vascular function, energy metabolism, and immune markers, and many patients develop ME/CFS after an…
This case-control study compared 163 depressed in-patients (44% women) with 176 controls (51% women). Using a median split on the Male Depression Rating Scale‑22 to label 'masculine' versus 'non-masculine' depression, the study found that masculine depression was linked to worse depression, more frequent and heavy use of alcohol (including binge…
This international mixed-method study developed and tested a new tool called the Trauma Recovery Rubric (TRR) to describe how people recover after gender-based violence. The researchers worked in three phases and used data from sites in four countries. They identified seven recovery pathways and six recovery domains, found that depression…
This cross‑sectional study of 242 women (ages 45–70) seen at one hospital in Tehran measured depression and anxiety with Beck questionnaires. The authors found that depression and anxiety were common overall, and that premenopausal women had a slightly higher rate of both conditions than menopausal women, but the differences were…
Researchers ran an 8-week mindful movement program (Movimento Biologico) with 38 university students (mean age 21.2 years; 60.5% male). Participants completed four questionnaires before and after the program. After the program, several measures of interoceptive awareness and positive mental health improved significantly, while overall psychological well-being and sense of coherence…
