Research on Anxiety

1. Acts of kindness can help reduce social anxiety

Performing acts of kindness can help people with social anxiety mingle with others more easily.

People recruited into the study were put into one of three groups for four weeks:

• One group performed acts of kindness, like doing their roommates’ dishes.
• Another group were exposed to various social interactions without the acts of kindness.
• A third group, who did nothing special, acted as a control.

At the end of the study it was those who’d performed the acts of kindness who felt more comfortable in social interactions.

2. Three dietary supplements which reduce anxiety

Dietary supplements which contain passionflower, kava or combinations of L-lysine and L-arginine can help reduce anxiety, according to a review published in the Nutrition Journal.

The supplements generally had mild to moderate effects without producing any serious side-effects.

3. Why anxiety can be socially isolating

Anxiety interferes with the ability to take other people’s perspective, new research reveals.

Anxiety makes people focus more on themselves and reduces their empathy for others, psychologists have found.

The study’s results may help explain why anxiety can be such an isolating emotion.

4. You can inherit anxiety from your parents

An over-active network of brain areas is central to how children inherit anxiety and depression from their parents.

The network consists of three regions in the brain which work together to control the fear-response.

The study found that around 35% of the difference in anxiety was explained by family history.

5. Sedentary behaviour linked to anxiety

Sitting down all day has been linked to increased anxiety, a new study finds.

Low energy activities like watching TV, working at a computer or playing electronic games may all be linked to anxiety.

The cause of the link could be down to disturbed sleep, poor metabolic health or social withdrawal.