How You Can Feel Less Lonely

The show on how we think, feel and behave. Claudia Hammond delves into the evidence on mental health, psychology and neuroscience.

Health & Fitness

In this episode, Claudia Hammond goes to the Chelsea Flower Show to speak to garden designer Katherine Holland. She credits gardening with helping to ease her grief following the death of her mother. Her Grief Kind garden features a meeting space with three chairs set around a coffee table, to encourage conversations about grief and will include a rotating display of personal objects symbolising loved ones who have died. Professor Catherine Loveday, a psychologist and neuroscientist from the University of Westminster, joins Claudia in the studio to discuss how objects can help us form links in our brains and remember our loved ones.  Many of us breathe a sigh of relief when the weather warms up and the sun pops out, but one listener actually finds their mood worsens during the summer. Catherine and Claudia discuss the little-known condition of summer seasonal affective disorder (SAD).  Finally, we hear from Professor Andrew Steptoe, a psychologist and epidemiologist from University College London. He heads up the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, which has been running for 20 years. He has found that older people's anxiety levels have remained high following the pandemic. Claudia and Catherine unpick a few of the issues and stereotypes that some people may face.  Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell
Studio Manager: Neva Missirian
Production Coordinator: Siobhan Maguire
Editor: Holly Squire

Grief, summer seasonal affective disorder, and anxiety in older people

As part of the BBC’s mental well-being season, All in the Mind takes a deep dive into the evidence on the relationship between exercise and mental health. Not just whether getting moving can make a difference, but why.  Claudia Hammond laces up her running shoes and goes for a jog on the seafront in Eastbourne with a group of people who are running for their mental health. Claudia meets the founder of 'Run Talk Run', Jess Robson, and talks to other members of the group about why they find exercise to be helpful. Back in the studio, Claudia speaks to Jonathan Roiser, Professor of Neuroscience and Mental Health at University College London. He’s about to embark on a major piece of research that should help us understand a lot more about what exercise does for people with depression. As well as explaining what they’re hoping to discover, he tells her about the latest research into exercise and mental health. Why does it work for some people and not others, and what’s the best exercise for your brain? Then there’s the commonly held belief that exercise is good for your mood because it ‘gets the endorphins going’, but we know that endorphins are not able to cross the blood-brain barrier. Claudia talks to Dr Hilary Marusak from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit about one of the possible alternatives – the endocannabinoid system.  Throughout the programme Claudia is joined by Dr Peter Olusoga, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at  Sheffield Hallam University. Together they discuss the many barriers people face to improving their physical activity, including the fact that poor mental health itself can stop you wanting to exercise in the first place. And if getting more exercise really does sound like the worst idea you can think of, it turns out that watching sport on TV might also be good for you. Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producer: Ben Motley
Content Editor: Holly Squire
Production Coordinator: Siobhan Maguire

Why is exercise good for your mental health?

First today, a story of alleged academic fraud. The allegations against Professor Francesca Gino might seem unremarkable at first sight. After all, we’ve covered allegations of fraud in psychology on All in the Mind before and the field has been doing all sorts to try to fix the problems. But what is unusual about this eminent Harvard researcher is that her research topic is dishonesty. Yes, a dishonesty researcher accused of the doing the very thing she studies. Cathleen O’Grady reports on a tale of data sleuths and multi-million dollar law suits. Of course there’s no reason why a dishonesty researcher should be any more honest than anyone else. But somehow we feel as though you should have extra high standards if this is the topic you study, otherwise you could be accused of hypocrisy. Which got us wondering what it is about hypocrisy that interests, and sometimes infuriates, us so much? Professor Catherine Loveday, from the University of Westminster, is in the studio with Claudia to take a look at the evidence. And we hear from Professor Rory O’Connor, at the University of Glasgow, about a generation of men whose suicide risk appears to have followed them through life. We talk about what that generation can tell us, as well as about the latest suicide statistics for England, and about what you can do to help someone in your life who you think might be having suicidal thoughts. And if you are suffering distress or despair, details of help and support are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline. And finally, were you lucky ones enough to see the Northern Lights this weekend? Claudia and Catherine Loveday unpack the psychology of awe. Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producer: Lorna Stewart
Content Editor: Holly Squire
Production Coordinator: Siobhan Maguire

Dishonesty researcher accused of fraud; hypocrisy; suicide prevention; awe

In this episode of All in the Mind, we’re at the 2024 Northern Ireland Science Festival where we’re discussing the psychology of hope.  With a live audience in Belfast’s Metropolitan Arts Centre, Claudia Hammond is joined by a panel of experts well-versed in the topic of hope: Dr Karen Kirby, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Ulster; Dr Kevin Mitchell, associate professor of genetics and neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin; and author Sinéad Moriarty.   We take a look at the role of hope in medical scenarios, if we can learn to be hopeful, and how we can hold onto hope in the modern world. And we take questions from our audience – including whether or not we should all just lower our expectations. Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producers: Lucy Taylor and Sophie Ormiston
Audio supervisors: Andrew Saunderson and Bill Maul 
Production coordinator: Siobhan Maguire
Editor: Holly Squire

The psychology of hope

Are you looking forward to the lighter evenings of summer? Perhaps you're already feeling different as the seasons change and the green shoots of spring arrive? This week on All in the Mind we're taking a look at how the seasons affect our moods, thoughts and behaviours. Claudia Hammond speaks to Michael Varnum from Arizona State University about what the research says. Cognitive neuroscientist Sophie Scott, joins Claudia in the studio to ask what it means for the science of psychology if the seasons have such a profound effect. And we hear from a project in Northern Ireland that teaches people to have hope. Marie Dunne was inspired to set up the project, called Resilio, after witnessing the success of a programme designed to teach hope in schools. Based on that programme Resilio developed their own hope courses for adults. We hear from people who have benefitted from those courses, and from people who run them, about how to find hope.  Finally, Sophie Scott discusses a new study which found that male psychology scholars were less likely to think of female scholars when asked to name eminent researchers in that field. Could it explain the gender cap in citation rates? Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producers: Lorna Stewart & Lucy Taylor
Studio Manager: Tim Heffer
Production Coordinator: Siobhan Maguire
Editor: Holly Squire

How You Can Feel Less Lonely

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