Psychology

Want good health in your golden years? Keep working

If you're hoping to retire as soon as possible with the intention of never working again, you might want to reconsider. Retirees who transition from full-time work to full retirement in one fell swoop actually contract more diseases and function worse doing day-to-day tasks than those who continue to work even just temporarily or part-time, according to a national study published in the October issue of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

"Choosing a suitable type of bridge employment will help retirees transition better into full retirement and in good physical and mental health," says co-author Kenneth Shultz, … Read more

Are gamers really overweight and depressed?

The average gamer isn't that 9-year-old child fragging you online, according to a new study by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University, and Andrews University. The average gamer, they concluded, looks nothing like that kid.

According to "Health-Risk Correlates of Video-Game Playing Among Adults" (PDF), the result of a 2006 survey of 552 adults living in the Seattle area, the average gamer is 35 years old, overweight, and depressed.

The researchers chose the Seattle area because of its size, diversity, and reputation of having the highest Web usage in the United States.

James B. Weaver III of the CDC's National Center for Health Marketing said the study shows that there are real differences between gamers and nongamers.

"Health risk factors differentiated adult video game players from nonplayers," Weaver said in a statement. "Video game players also reported lower extroversion, consistent with research on adolescents that linked video game playing to a sedentary lifestyle and overweight status, and to mental-health concerns."

The study also found that a gamer's gender doesn't matter when it comes to those issues. Female gamers surveyed had "lower health status" than women who chose not to play video games. Male gamers had a higher body mass index, or BMI, than nongamers, according to study results.

The paper also says women who play video games may be self-medicating.… Read more

Study: Facebook makes lovers jealous

It's easily done, that slide into the Facebook face-plant.

You casually slip onto your lover's Facebook page and see that his or her status has been changed from "in a relationship" to "single."

Perhaps you'd had a fight. Perhaps he or she was pressing you for a commitment, a press that you responded to with the wrong words or the wrong tone. Or perhaps you saw that your lover seemed to have a new special friend, one who delighted in commenting on every one of your lover's new photos.

Suddenly, there it … Read more