Connect with us
We’re experimenting with AI-generated content to help deliver information faster and more efficiently.
While we try to keep things accurate, this content is part of an ongoing experiment and may not always be reliable.
Please double-check important details — we’re not responsible for how the information is used.

Child Development

“When Home Life Meets Work Performance: How Proactive Family Routines Boost Productivity”

A new study shows that people who proactively reorganise their family routines — such as adjusting childcare schedules or redistributing domestic responsibilities — are more likely to demonstrate adaptability and innovation at work.

Avatar photo

Published

on

A groundbreaking new study published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology reveals that people who take proactive steps to reorganize their family routines are more likely to demonstrate adaptability and innovation at work. Researchers from the University of Bath’s School of Management followed 147 full-time, dual-income heterosexual couples with children in the US for six weeks, observing how home life influences work performance.

The study found that employees who take initiative at home carry the momentum into their professional lives, becoming more resilient and forward-thinking. This phenomenon is called “strategic renewal.” Examples of strategic renewal at home include implementing shared calendars to coordinate busy schedules, rotating school pick-up duties, setting up new systems for eldercare, or introducing structured family planning sessions to resolve conflicts and set goals together.

Professor Yasin Rofcanin from the University of Bath’s Future of Work research centre explains: “Sometimes family life can feel like survival mode. But when people proactively and deliberately make changes – whether to childcare routines, care of older relatives, or how domestic tasks are shared – they feel more capable and in control. That confidence can carry over into their work, helping them become more creative and adaptable.”

Dr Siqi Wang from Aston Business School adds: “Couples might hold regular ‘household check-ins’ to reassign chores, revisit priorities, or coordinate weekly plans. These kinds of deliberate, future-oriented adjustments enable families to respond flexibly to changing demands to build confidence, reduce stress, and enhance overall functioning at home and at work.”

The researchers emphasize that creativity is essential not only in the workplace but also within family systems, where individuals must continually adapt to shifting responsibilities and external demands. A family environment that fosters openness, collaboration, and experimentation – what the researchers refer to as “family creativity” – can significantly enhance this adaptability.

As hybrid and flexible work models become the norm, it’s essential that employers recognize how home dynamics influence workplace performance. Supporting employees both at work and home can lead to a more engaged and innovative workforce. The study suggests that employers can amplify these benefits by investing in leadership development programmes that include training on work-family dynamics.

Additional support – such as wellness programmes, counseling services, family care assistance, and leisure incentives – can also play a key role in fostering a productive and creative workforce.

Autism

The Brain’s Hidden Patterns: Uncovering the Secret to Flexibility and Stability

A new study challenges a decades-old assumption in neuroscience by showing that the brain uses distinct transmission sites — not a shared site — to achieve different types of plasticity.

Avatar photo

Published

on

By

The Brain’s Hidden Patterns: Uncovering the Secret to Flexibility and Stability

For decades, scientists believed that the brain used a single, shared transmission site for all types of plasticity. However, a groundbreaking study from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh has challenged this assumption, revealing that the brain employs distinct transmission sites to achieve different types of plasticity.

The study, published in Science Advances, offers a deeper understanding of how the brain balances stability with flexibility – a process essential for learning, memory, and mental health. By uncovering the hidden patterns of the brain’s transmission sites, researchers hope to shed light on the underlying mechanisms that govern our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Neurons communicate through synaptic transmission, where one neuron releases chemical messengers called neurotransmitters from a presynaptic terminal. These molecules travel across a microscopic gap called a synaptic cleft and bind to receptors on a neighboring postsynaptic neuron, triggering a response.

Traditionally, scientists believed that spontaneous transmissions (signals that occur randomly) and evoked transmissions (signals triggered by sensory input or experience) originated from one type of canonical synaptic site and relied on shared molecular machinery. However, the research team led by Oliver Schlüter discovered that the brain instead uses separate synaptic transmission sites to carry out regulation of these two types of activity.

The study focused on the primary visual cortex, where cortical visual processing begins. The researchers expected spontaneous and evoked transmissions to follow a similar developmental trajectory, but instead found that they diverged after eye opening.

As the brain began receiving visual input, evoked transmissions continued to strengthen. In contrast, spontaneous transmissions plateaued, suggesting that the brain applies different forms of control to the two signaling modes. To understand why, the researchers applied a chemical that activates otherwise silent receptors on the postsynaptic side, causing spontaneous activity to increase while evoked signals remained unchanged.

This division likely enables the brain to maintain consistent background activity through spontaneous signaling while refining behaviorally relevant pathways through evoked activity. This dual system supports both homeostasis and Hebbian plasticity – the experience-dependent process that strengthens neural connections during learning.

“Our findings reveal a key organizational strategy in the brain,” said Yue Yang, a research associate in the Department of Neuroscience and first author of the study. “By separating these two signaling modes, the brain can remain stable while still being flexible enough to adapt and learn.”

The implications could be broad. Abnormalities in synaptic signaling have been linked to conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, and substance use disorders. A better understanding of how these systems operate in the healthy brain may help researchers identify how they become disrupted in disease.

“Learning how the brain normally separates and regulates different types of signals brings us closer to understanding what might be going wrong in neurological and psychiatric conditions,” said Yang.

Continue Reading

Breastfeeding

Singing to Babies Boosts Their Mood and Improves Quality of Life

Singing to your infant can significantly boost the baby’s mood, according to a recent study. Around the world and across cultures, singing to babies seems to come instinctively to caregivers. Now, new findings support that singing is an easy, safe, and free way to help improve the mental well-being of infants. Because improved mood in infancy is associated with a greater quality of life for both parents and babies, this in turn has benefits for the health of the entire family, the researchers say. The study also helps explain why musical behaviors may have evolved in parents.

Avatar photo

Published

on

The study published in Child Development found that singing to infants can significantly boost their mood. This is according to researchers at Yale University’s Child Study Center, who conducted an experiment where parents were encouraged to sing more frequently to their babies. The results showed a measurable improvement in infants’ moods overall, compared to those in the control group.

The study included 110 parents and their babies, most of whom were under four months old. Parents were randomly assigned into two groups: one group received encouragement to sing more frequently by teaching them new songs, providing karaoke-style instructional videos, and sending weekly newsletters with ideas for incorporating music into daily routines. For four weeks, these parents received surveys on their smartphones at random times throughout the day.

The researchers found that parents were successfully able to increase the amount of time they spent singing to their babies. Not only did the parents sing more frequently, but they also chose to use music especially in one context: calming their infants when they were fussy.

“This simple practice can lead to real health benefits for babies,” said Eun Cho, postdoctoral researcher at the Yale Child Study Center and co-first author of the study. “We show that singing is something that anyone can do, and most families are already doing.”

The researchers believe that the benefits of singing may be even stronger than the current study shows, especially in a family that does not already rely on music as a way of soothing their infants.

A follow-up study, “Together We Grow,” will investigate the impact of infant-directed singing over an eight-month period. The Child Study Center researchers are currently enrolling parents and babies under four months old in this study to further explore the benefits of singing.

The findings have implications for alleviating stress or conditions such as postpartum depression in the long term, and may also show benefits beyond mood in infants, such as improved sleep.

As Samuel Mehr, an adjunct associate professor at the Child Study Center and director of The Music Lab, said, “Our understanding of the evolutionary functions of music points to a role of music in communication. Parents send babies a clear signal in their lullabies: I’m close by, I hear you, I’m looking out for you — so things can’t be all that bad.”

Continue Reading

Child Development

The Power of Motherly Love: How Childhood Affection Shapes Teen Health

Parental warmth and affection in early childhood can have life-long physical and mental health benefits for children, and new research points to an important underlying process: children’s sense of social safety.

Avatar photo

Published

on

By

The bond between a child and their caregiver is the foundation upon which a lifetime of emotional and physical well-being is built. A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry has revealed that the warmth and affection shown by mothers to their children in early childhood can have a profound impact on their mental and physical health as they grow into teenagers.

Researchers from UCLA Health followed over 8,500 children as part of the Millennium Cohort Study in the United Kingdom. At age 3, independent evaluators assessed the mother’s warmth (praise, positive tone of voice) and harshness (physically restraining or grabbing the child). The same children were then asked about their perceptions of social safety at age 14. This included questions such as “Do I have family and friends who help me feel safe, secure, and happy?” At age 17, the participants reported on their overall physical health, psychiatric problems, and psychological distress.

The study found that maternal warmth at age 3 was strongly associated with more positive perceptions of social safety at age 14. This, in turn, predicted better physical and mental health outcomes at age 17. The researchers discovered that this relationship was not only significant but also influenced by the mother’s warmth rather than her harshness.

Dr. Jenna Alley, lead author of the study, explained that children who experience more maternal warmth tend to develop a positive view of the social world. This perspective is shaped by their early experiences and influences how they interpret, organize, and make predictions about social situations and relationships. In essence, a child’s “social safety schema” becomes their lens for viewing every interaction.

Dr. George Slavich, senior author of the study, noted that the findings have important implications for interventions and public health campaigns designed to enhance resilience across the lifespan. By focusing on enhancing a teenager’s sense of social safety, rather than just reducing perceptions of harshness, we can potentially have a positive impact on their health outcomes for years to come.

The study highlights the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping our perception of the world and ourselves. While it may not be possible to change past experiences, this research suggests that focusing on enhancing warmth and safety can greatly improve lives.

Additional studies are needed to determine how maternal warmth affects children in other contexts outside the United Kingdom and to explore ways in which healthcare providers and policymakers can use these findings to develop better interventions and public health campaigns.

Continue Reading

Trending