Have you ever considered rowing across the Atlantic? How about making it even more challenging by doing it whilst wearing an ECG monitor and filling in psychological questionnaires? Claudia Hammond speaks to the first Austrian woman to row the Atlantic, Ciara Burns, who collected data throughout her 42 day crossing. And to the professor who studied the data, Eugenijus Kaniusas from the Vienna University of Technology, about the three big dips in mood along the way. Ciara talks about the emotional highs and lows of rowing to America, about the night skies, meeting whales, and how it feels when the Atlantic comes crashing down on you.
Sports psychologist Peter Olusoga from Sheffield Hallam University, discusses mental preparation for an adventure like Ciara's and how being in the middle of the Atlantic, with the astronauts on the international space station as your nearest other humans, can provide a lasting perspective change.
Peter also describes a new piece of research showing that smelling other people's sweat, collected whilst they watched scary films, can help us to be more observant and overcome a well-established psychological effect known as inattentional blindness.
And Claudia talks to Tiago Pereira, a Portuguese psychologist who is calling for psychologists to put a full stop to poverty. He says that psychologists are uniquely placed to communicate the causes and consequences of poverty, and to use that information to demand governmental policy changes.
Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producer: Lorna Stewart
Studio Manager: Donald MacDonald
Production Co-ordination: Siobhan Maguire
Editor: Holly Squire
How much empathy should doctors have?
Do lonely brains see the world differently?
Aphasia
Feeling an unseen presence
Can you knit away your worries?
Fergal Keane and PTSD
The sudden rise in teenagers developing tics during the pandemic
Can Mental Health Awareness have unintended consequences?
Devices to aid our memories and safe music for driving
Diagnosing bipolar disorder and the launch of the 2023 All in the Mind Awards
Negotiating a crisis
Steven Pinker
Urban rewilding for wellbeing, oxytocin and kindness, false alarm crowd panic
One mother's story of the psychological impact on her children of her ex husband's sexual offences
The Psychology of Regret
Breastfeeding Trauma and the Psychology of Awkwardness
Post-pandemic mental health; navigation ability; conversations with strangers
Gardening and mental health
Manifestation; Overconfidence; Radio drama changing attitudes
Treating refugee mental health; Improving personal growth; Dreamachine
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