This week at Mental Health Notes, I recommended checking out John La Puma and the book he wrote with Rebecca Powell Marx, Chef MD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine, as well as I Dose, which claims to be “the perfect Binaural Beats experience.” I also introduced you to Frank Calloway and the Cover America Tour, and then asked you what you thought about Barack Obama’s stance on mental health parity and to share good stories about mental health.

In the world of mental health news, UC Irvine researchers may be quickening the pace to finding more effective medications to treat panic disorders now that they’ve found out how to “switch off” the traumatic feelings bad memories can bring about, and Oregon Health & Science University researchers may have a drug that could help people addicted to alcohol quit drinking. An international group of researchers have found that the proteins that modify DNA are more expressed in people who commit suicide and may help identify underlying causes of depression, while another group of researchers supported by the National Institute of Mental Health may have discovered why some mothers develop postpartum depression and others don’t.

Regarding mental health advocacy, Dr. Waqas. A. Awan would like to pass along news of the new Web site MyFamilyHealth.com, which “allows people to connect with their relatives and track family health history.” The DBSA’s 2008 National Conference: The Power of Peers is drawing closer (September 10-14), and you can still take advantage of Advance Rates if you register before August 3.

Here at b5media’s Health & Wellness Channel, we’re as busy as ever! Mental Health Notes was featured at Best Health Mag yesterday, and a whole slue of us is in the Health & Wellness Channel are in included in eDrugsearch.com’s “The World’s Top Blogs On Health and Medicine.” Liz at Alzheimer’s Notes shares an informative video about the “creation of Leeza’s Place, an oasis for caregivers and loved ones dealing with Alzheimer’s Disease,” and Angelique at Breaking the Mirror issues a call for advice for a man suffering from postpartum depression and an eating disorder. Susan at Grounded Fitness explains why yoga can help make you happy, and Grace at Kids Health Notes offers a nice round up of blog contests and giveaways, while Karen at Pink Ribbon Review talks about the benefits and downfalls of emotional writing.

Oh, and Kristen at Lively Women has one of the worst. bruises. ever.

If you have something you’d like featured in next week’s Saturday Sanity, shoot me an email with “Saturday Sanity” (or similar) in the subject line and we’ll take it from there!

Image: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Saturday Sanity: Tons Of New Mental Health Research

I ran across an interesting Web site the other day called I Dose, which claims to be “the perfect Binaural Beats experience.”

(If you don’t know what Binaural Beats do, I Dose offers a pretty decent layman’s explanation: “Playing tones with a slightly different frequency to each ear, cause the brain to recalculate the frequency, and to create a new frequency inside the brain. A frequency which doesn’t actually exist outside of the brain.”)

Always eager to tickle my ears with something new, I gave several of the various I Dose tracks a listen (in total there are 11, designed to help with everything from creativity and energy to meditation and lucid dreams), and the experiences were interesting.

I steered clear of the tracks focused on increasing energy and alertness (as I had too much coffee in my system at the time for them to make a difference), and listened instead to “Meditation” (20 minutes of tinkling wind chimes, designed to help with – you guessed it – meditation), “Aspirin” (12 minutes of what sounded like someone washing their hands, designed to help with pain relief), and “Mirage” (15 minutes of what must have been a recording of a waiting room – seriously – designed to help with creativity).

Of the three I listened to, “Meditation” was by far the most effective and my favorite. Of course, that could just be because I’m partial to wind chimes. (I don’t think there’s ever been a point in my life when there wasn’t a wind chime hanging out on the porch. I even wrote a poem about them back in one of my college creative writing classes. Weird, I am, I know.)

I Dose is entirely free, so head on over to check it out and let me know what you think.

In the meantime, you can find more music- and sound-related lowdown at the following Mental Health Notes posts:

• Product Review: Using pzizz To Treat Sleep Problems And Increase Energy
• Mood Music Made Easy From YouLicense.com
• Brain Break: Make Your Own Music!
• The Mental Benefits of Music Therapy

Image: miamiamia (from SXC)

Post from: Blisstree

Meditate, Focus, And Even Relieve Pain With I Dose