I read a lot of research.  When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 15,600 abstracts. 

  This blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!"
                                                                                attrib. Goethe/William Murray

This blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file.

Introduction: 
Lying very comfortably in my warm bed early this morning, I knew I wanted to get up but it was hard to do.  I waited a little, then tightened my right hand into a blade shape, "cutting through", and got up simply and easily.  Fascinatingly tightening almost any muscle group would probably have helped in "boosting my willpower" to get over the obstacle of inertia and short term comfort in order to achieve a longer term gain.  Hung & Labroo have recently published on the results of a series of very interesting experiments exploring this muscle tension/willpower boosting effect: 

This blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file.

This blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file.

Here are details of half a dozen recent research papers - two on relationships, two on body to mind effects, and two on mindfulness.  Fuller details, links and abstracts of all the studies mentioned are given further down this post.

Valentine's Day!  Well here's a topical research study.  Professor Jamie Pennebaker is probably best known for his research on expressive writing - see, for example, the series of four blog posts I wrote about his lecture at last year's British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies' conference.  However, as he states on his very informative website, "His most recent research focuses on the nature of language and emotion in the real world. The words people use serve as powerful reflections of their personality and social worlds".  Last month Jamie and colleagues published this interesting paper: 

In January, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published their new evidence-based clinical guideline on the care and treatment of adults with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) or panic disorder (with or without agoraphobia).  This guideline updates and replaces their 2004 one (which was itself amended in 2007).  The full 56 page guideline is available as a PDF and in Word format.  It also comes as a 24 page "Quick reference guide" for health professionals, and as a 16 page "Treating generalised anxiety disorder and pan

This is a very brief blog entry to signpost a couple of recent National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines on the management of bed-wetting in children & young people (up to age 19), and on the prevention of osteoporosis in adults.  These are both subjects that I'm sometimes asked about, and high quality, up-to-date, evidence-based advice is well worthwhile.