Welcome to the Weekly Medius PsychNews. Every week, we select five thought-provoking Psychology articles from hundreds published in journals and other media. Psychology Drives Everything.

Is a Gray Rock Strategy Advisable?
One strategy for dealing with a narcissist or sociopath is to act like a “gray rock,” meaning that you become uninteresting and unresponsive. You don’t feed their needs for drama or attention. You don’t show emotion, say anything interesting, or disclose any personal information. Nor do you ask questions or participate in conversations, except for brief factual replies. Limit your answers to a few syllables, a nod, or say “maybe” or “I don’t know.” Additionally, you may have to make yourself plain and unattractive, so your partner gains no pleasure in showing you off or even being seen with you. This maneuver removes a narcissist of his or her “narcissistic supply.” For sociopaths and borderline personalities, you deprive them of drama. You become so boring that the other person loses interest in you and will look elsewhere to get their needs met. Even if you’re accused, you might agree or say nothing.  Full article.


Comfort Foods for Good Moods:
We’ve all been there: grumpy, snapping at everyone, feeling blue. You need a boost. So, you turn to one of the tried and true comfort foods: mac-n-cheese, a “loaded” baked potato, hot apple pie, or chocolate cake and a glass of milk. Then you feel better. Life seems a little more manageable. Those irritating people are now just benign eccentrics you can laugh off. As it turns out, the high starch and high sugar in these foods promote the release of that “feel good” neurotransmitter, serotonin. So now, all is well. Or so you think. Although high starch/high sugar foods may be a “quick fix,” frequent consumption can risk health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. A growing trend with increasing popularity has been plant-based diets as an alternative to wholly animal-based nutrition. These diets are rich in seeds, nuts, grains, beans, fruit, and vegetables and are touted to regulate blood sugar and promote well-being. Full article.

 

 

Changing Emotional Habits:
What we choose to focus on determines in large part the meaning of our lives. We know neurologically that mental focus amplifies and magnifies — that is, makes the object of focus more important than what we don't focus on. Due to the brain’s proclivity to form habits, repeated focus eventually yields rigid sequences of conditioned responses, which we experience as habits. These shape the day-to-day experience that forms the fabric of our lives by default. Because habits are processed in the brain thousands of times faster than intentional behavior, the only reliable way to change an entrenched habit is to develop a new one that is incompatible with the one you want to change. If you want to change the habit of yelling at your kids, develop a habit of modeling emotion regulation for them, which will be incompatible with yelling at them. Full article.

Relaxation makes worriers more anxious:
Some people become more anxious as they attempt to relax because relaxing interrupts their worrying, according to new research. Although the intent of relaxation exercises is to reduce anxiety, for some people, they have the opposite effect. A new study concludes that, in these people, relaxation conflicts with a strategy that they employ to lessen the impact of negative events: continual worrying. Full article.