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Mindful Music Reduces Stress
Destigmatizing Tardive Dyskinesia and Examining Out-of-Body Experiences
The Patient Advocate
May 09, 2025
In the News: May is Mental Health Awareness Month, dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of mental health, reducing stigma and encouraging open conversations about mental illness. The initiative aims to educate the public, promote compassion and support those affected by mental health challenges, while also highlighting the need for early intervention and improved access to care.
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SUICIDE PREVENTION:
Call 988 Anytime to Talk
Suicide prevention is a central focus of Mental Health Awareness Month, with organizations and leaders emphasizing the urgent need for community support, resilience-building and open conversations.
Take care of a friend, a loved one, or yourself for help during difficult moments anytime, day or night by contacting 988 by telephone or online. An additional detailed resource with even more contacts can be downloaded for free below.
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MUSIC THERAPY:
Live Mindful Music Sessions Can Help Reduce Stress
Music can make the mind feel good. In a new study just published, researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found both live and virtual music mindfulness sessions engage the mind and heart, leading to reduced stress and altered states of consciousness.
The researchers also found that live music mindfulness sessions uniquely enhanced feelings of social connection, a factor linked to improved mental health outcomes. This finding underscores the unique benefits of in-person experiences.
As music and mindfulness both continue to gain recognition for their therapeutic potential, this study points to a promising, evidence-based approach for supporting mental well-being.
PATIENT SAFETY:
Tardive Dyskinesia and Antipsychotic Medications
Tardive Dyskinesia (TD) is an involuntary movement disorder characterized by uncontrollable body movements and is associated with the use of antipsychotic medication that may be necessary to treat people living with mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia plus schizoaffective disorder. It can also used to treat certain gastrointestinal disorders such as gastroparesis.
Of those living with TD, approximately 60% remain undiagnosed, according to Talk about TD. People taking antipsychotic medications should be monitored by practitioners for drug-induced movement disorders such as TD.
CBS News’ Health Watch spoke to an internal medicine specialist about the disorder and how to overcome TD’s stigma.
PSYCHOLOGY:
Study: Out of Body Experiences
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are often shrouded in mystery and skepticism, but a new study is giving voice to those who have lived through them. Researchers in Spain interviewed 10 people with firsthand OBE experiences, none had underlying mental or neurological conditions, to better understand how people interpret these extraordinary moments.
The findings reveal that, for those who experience them, OBEs feel not only real, but often more vivid and authentic than everyday life.
As we celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month, this study reminds us of the importance of listening to and validating diverse experiences of consciousness. By fostering open, stigma-free conversations, we can help normalize unusual but meaningful phenomena like OBEs, supporting mental health and well-being for all.
Read the full study here.
MINDFUL HOBBIES:
How Your Hobbies Can Boost Well-Being
Free Sample: Mindfulness means living in the present moment and being fully engaged in what is happening in a person's surroundings. In psychology, mindfulness can be used as a therapeutic technique for helping reduce stress and anxiety or for improving depression. For example, during recent years, clinical studies have shown measurable evidence that the subtle act of coloring mandalas can have the potential to increase mindfulness and reduce anxiety. Studying mandalas is not new. Dr. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, studied them extensively. In the 1970s, Dr. Jung wrote that he believed mandalas had a calming and centering effect upon its maker or viewer. Similarly, becoming immersed in a puzzle can be like practicing a mindful meditation. If you found these pages helpful and would like more, the Patient Advocate has partnered with Amazon to provide the Mindful Hobbies series by Cambridge Publishing Group. If you purchase a book through these article links we may receive a small commission at no cost to you. |