Health, Fitness & Human Performance
Practical psychological maintenance.
10 topics · 13 curated works
No prior grounding assumed.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder in Adults: Management
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence · 2011
Sets out a stepped-care model for anxiety disorders in which low-intensity self-help and guided practical techniques come first, and full…
+1 more at this level
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Experimental Disclosure and Its Moderators: A Meta-Analysis
Joanne Frattaroli · 2006
Pools over 100 studies of expressive writing and finds a small but reliable benefit to physical and psychological health, concentrated in people…
+6 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adult Anxiety Disorders: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trials
Stefan G. Hofmann & Jasper A. J. Smits · 2008
Pools placebo-controlled trials across anxiety disorders and finds cognitive-behavioural therapy produces a large, consistent effect, giving the…
+3 more at this level
12 of 13 works
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
Sets out a stepped-care model for anxiety disorders in which low-intensity self-help and guided practical techniques come first, and full psychological or drug treatment is reserved for when those fail.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Wendy Suzuki (TED)
Argues that a single session of exercise measurably shifts mood, attention and reaction time, and that sustained training protects the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex against age-related decline.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Joanne Frattaroli
Pools over 100 studies of expressive writing and finds a small but reliable benefit to physical and psychological health, concentrated in people writing about a genuinely traumatic rather than a merely stressful event.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Michael F. Steger, Patricia Frazier, Shigehiro Oishi & Matthew Kaler
Distinguishes having a sense of meaning from searching for one, and shows the two are only weakly related — searching for meaning does not itself indicate distress, and having meaning does not end the search.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Katy M. Richardson & Hannah R. Rothstein
Compares cognitive-behavioural, relaxation, and organisational stress interventions across 55 studies and finds cognitive-behavioural programmes produce the largest and most consistent reduction in measured stress.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Holger Cramer, Heidemarie Haller, Romy Lauche & Gustav Dobos
Reviews the randomised trials of Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness-based stress reduction protocol applied specifically to chronic low back pain and finds tentative evidence it improves pain and disability, while noting the founding trials were too small and methodologically thin to call the result settled.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Madhav Goyal et al.
Reviews 47 randomised trials and finds mindfulness meditation programmes produce a moderate improvement in anxiety, depression and pain, but no more than other active treatments and far less than the popular claims made for meditation.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Randy Cohen, Chirag Bavishi & Alan Rozanski
Pools ten prospective cohort studies and finds a strong sense of purpose in life predicts substantially lower all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events, independent of other health behaviours measured.
Andrea Zaccaro, Andrea Piarulli, Marco Laurino, Erika Garbella, Danilo Menicucci, Bruno Neri & Angelo Gemignani
Reviews the physiological trial evidence for slow-breathing practices and finds a genuine, if heterogeneous, calming effect on the autonomic nervous system, well short of the broader claims made for breathwork in popular wellness culture.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Stefan G. Hofmann & Jasper A. J. Smits
Pools placebo-controlled trials across anxiety disorders and finds cognitive-behavioural therapy produces a large, consistent effect, giving the practical techniques it teaches — exposure, restructuring — a stronger evidence base than most self-help competitors.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith & J. Bradley Layton
Pools 148 studies covering over 300,000 people and finds weak social ties predict earlier death at a scale comparable to smoking or physical inactivity.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Nicholas T. Van Dam et al.
Argues that popular and scientific claims for mindfulness have outrun the evidence, pointing to inconsistent definitions, weak controls and small effect sizes across the published trials, and sets out what better research would look like.
link checked 17 Sept 2026