MENTAL HEALTH

Uk Adds Mental Health Minister

FEELING FOGGY?

Try this: Give yourself five minutes to sit and gaze out a window. Notice the colors, shapes, and movements at play. Birds flying by, buildings standing solid—whatever you see, let it in.

21-year-old medical student Hamzah Selim was at a London Tube station heading home from an anatomy lecture when he heard a woman scream. He rushed over to find her in labor, and used what he’d learned in school to help deliver the baby on the spot.

On World Mental Health Day in October 2018, the UK government appointed health minister Jackie Doyle-Price to the role of Minister for Mental Health, Inequalities and Suicide Prevention. With 1 in 8 children and youth in the UK experiencing mental health issues, Doyle-Price will oversee the training of “mental health support teams” to work with young people in schools. The government will also partially fund the Samaritans’ free crisis hotline over the next four years.

COWS CAN HAVE RESILIENCE, TOO People handle stress in different ways—and so do cows, according to a recent study. PhD students in an animal welfare program at the University of British Columbia found calves’ ability to cope with typical stressors in dairy-cow life can vary significantly. Some calves showed signs of optimism and resilience, while others tended toward pessimism or fearfulness.

Everybody’s doing it!

More Americans are meditating than ever. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 4.1% of the adult population reported doing it in 2012 compared to 14.2% in 2017, an increase that outpaced even yoga.