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Unlocking Mental Well-being: Everyday Behaviors That Boost Happiness

Research from Curtin University has revealed that everyday actions like chatting with friends, spending time in nature, and engaging in mentally stimulating activities can significantly improve mental well-being. The study surveyed over 600 Western Australian adults and found that those who practiced these behaviors on a daily basis scored higher on a standard mental well-being scale than those who did so less frequently.

The research highlighted the importance of social connections, physical activity, spirituality, and helping others in maintaining good mental health. Participants who chatted with friends every day scored 10 points higher on average, while spending time in nature daily was associated with a five-point increase. Other behaviors linked to improved mental well-being included frequent catch-ups with friends, physical activity, practicing spirituality, and engaging in mentally stimulating activities like crosswords or learning a new language.

Lead author Professor Christina Pollard emphasized that these findings offer clear evidence of the power of simple, low-cost actions in promoting good mental health and well-being. “These aren’t expensive programs or clinical interventions,” she said. “They’re behaviors that are already part of many people’s lives and can be easily encouraged through public health messaging.”

The study also evaluated 15 behaviors promoted by the Act Belong Commit campaign and found that mental well-being increased consistently with the frequency of participation in these behaviors. Awareness of the campaign was high, with 86 per cent of participants recognizing it, and nearly all agreed that mental health should be prioritized alongside physical health.

Despite being conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social interactions were limited, 93 per cent of respondents reported no psychological distress, and average mental well-being scores were comparable to international pre-pandemic norms. Professor Pollard noted that this research provides a strong case for long-term investment in population-wide mental health promotion campaigns that go beyond awareness and empower people to take meaningful action.

“This research confirms that when people are supported and encouraged to engage in mentally healthy behaviors, the benefits can be felt across the community,” she said. “It’s about prevention, not just treatment – helping people stay mentally well before they reach crisis point.”

The article discusses the findings of a study conducted at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) that compared the effects of manual and keyboard training on children’s reading and writing skills. The researchers concluded that children who used their hands to practice handwriting obtained better results than those who typed on keyboards.

The study involved 50 children aged 5-6 years, who were taught new letters and words using either manual or keyboard-based methods. The researchers found that the group that practiced handwriting had a greater ability to identify, write, and pronounce both the letters and the pseudowords compared to the group that used keyboards.

One of the key findings was that the graphomotor function – the ability to make precise hand movements while writing – played an essential role in memorizing letter and word structures. The researchers also discovered that variability in handwriting practice had a positive effect on learning, with children who practiced freely obtaining better results than those who followed guides or used standard fonts.

The study’s lead researcher, Joana Acha, emphasized the importance of prioritizing manual practice in learning processes, stating that “children learn best from hand movements and so technological devices should only be used in a complementary way.” This suggests that while digital tools can be useful for certain aspects of learning, traditional handwriting practices are essential for developing reading and writing skills.

Overall, the study’s findings have significant implications for educators and parents who want to support children’s learning and development. By prioritizing manual practice and providing opportunities for children to engage in free-writing activities, we can help them develop the skills they need to succeed in school and beyond.

Researchers at Northwestern University and Harvard University have made a groundbreaking discovery about the way infants learn new words for objects. A study led by Sandra Waxman, senior author and Louis W. Menk Professor of Psychology, found that 15-month-old babies can identify an object they’ve learned about from listening to language, even if it’s not present in front of them.

Imagine a baby playing with blocks on the floor while listening to parents talk about kumquats, a novel fruit. Can the baby form an initial representation or “gist” about what kumquat means? The researchers sought to answer this question and more.

The study involved 134 infants, divided into two age groups: 12 months and 15 months. In a three-part task, babies were presented with words paired with images of familiar objects (e.g., apple, banana). Then, they heard a new word while an image of a novel object (e.g., kumquat) was hidden from their view.

The results showed that 15-month-olds looked longer at the novel fruit than the novel artifact, indicating that they had used context clues to identify which object was most likely the one referred to by the new word. This is significant because it suggests that even babies who are just beginning to say their first words can learn from language and form mental representations of objects and events never witnessed directly.

Waxman explained, “We’re asking whether infants, too, can use the conversational contexts in which a word occurs to begin to learn their meaning.” The study provides new insight into the developmental origins of the human capacity to learn about things that are not perceptually present.

The researchers’ findings highlight the power of language in infants’ daily lives. Babies often hear words that they don’t yet understand, and that they cannot “map” immediately to an object or event. However, this study shows that by 15 months, infants can spontaneously use linguistic context to build a gist of a new word’s meaning that will support subsequent learning.

As Waxman noted, “When we hear new words, like ‘kumquat’ in conversation when there are no kumquats around, we don’t waste the opportunity to home in its meaning. We now know this is also true about tiny babies.”