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.
4 papers
This study reviewed surveys and used global models to measure how the COVID-19 pandemic changed rates of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders in 2020. It found that places with higher COVID-19 infection rates and bigger drops in movement had larger increases in these disorders. The authors estimate about 53.2…
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), especially Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), teach people to pay nonjudgmental attention to the present moment. Reviews and randomized trials show MBIs can reduce anxiety and depression symptom severity across many groups, often doing better than non-evidence treatments or active controls and performing…
This review looked at short, single-session psychological techniques aimed at lowering state anxiety. The authors found 12 randomized trials and reported that cognitive and embodiment exercises tended to reduce anxiety, while breathing-only exercises gave mixed results. Combined approaches like mindfulness showed moderate benefits when they used passive attention, but results…
This Nature news feature by Lynne Peeples (10 December 2025) looks at new research on mental fatigue — why thinking hard can make people feel worn out. It explains that scientists are trying to build better ways to measure cognitive exhaustion. The article says those better measures could help point…
