All in the Mind

5. Talking to Friends or family about your feelings

6. Look for the good in everyone

7. Reflecting on why you feel lonely

Claudia Hammond hosts the All in the Mind Awards Ceremony from Wellcome Collection in London and meets all the All in the Mind Award finalists. Back in November we asked you to nominate the person, professional or group who had made a difference to your mental health.Throughout the current series we've been hearing the individual stories of the nine finalists, and this edition offers the chance to recap the people and organisations who've made a huge difference to other people's lives - and of course to hear comments from the judges and winners from each of the three categories.The event is hosted by Claudia Hammond.Judges are Olympic athlete Dame Kelly Holmes, mental health campaigner Marion Janner, Mathijs Lucassen lecturer at the Open University, and manager of mental health services, Mandy Stevens Produced by Pam Rutherford and Adrian Washbourne.

Susie McKinnon doesn't have amnesia but can't remember her own past. She has Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory syndrome where she knows an event happened but has no recollection of being there herself. She tells Claudia what it is like and memory scientist Brian Levine from Baycrest in Canada explains more about what the syndrome's existence tells us about the nature of memory and knowledge. In the All in the Awards, Rosa explains why she nominated Ian, her manager while working at Church's shoes after her experience of psychosis while studying at University. The Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918 killed at least 50 million people but many who survived were left overwhelmed by depression. Laura Spinney explains more about the effects of Spanish Flu on the mind.

As the population ages, Parkinson's disease is the fastest growing neurodegenerative disease. Symptoms of tremor and difficulties with co-ordination are well known, but memory problems or cognitive decline also affects over 30% of patients. Until now doctors had no reliable way of predicting which people will develop these cognitive symptoms or how serious they'd get. Now a team at Kings College London has found a way of doing this before symptoms even begin using an MRI brain scanner. Claudia Hammond meets neuroimaging researcher Heather Wilson, and Marios Politis, the Lily Safra Professor of Neurology and Neuroimaging at Kings College London to examine the benefits of its predictive power.We hear about the last Group Finalist in this year's All in the Mind Mental Health Award : 22 The Avenue is a mental health telephone helpline which has been going for 15 years in York - and it's funded by the council. The staff there have been nominated by Jackie who has been receiving support from the team on and off for much of that time.Medical Historian Sarah Wise uncovers the archive of celebrated 19th century psychiatrist Sir Alexander Morison, held in his home city of Edinburgh, He made a serious attempt to raise the professional profile of 'lunatic' attendants / keepers - a job that was very looked down on, but crucial in the burgeoning world of both public-sector and private asylum care. The archive offers a unique insight into a voice that up until now has gone missing in mental health history.

KIM stands for Knowledge, Inspiration and Motivation. It is a mental health group running activities for people around Holywell in North Wales and is the latest group finalist in the All in the Mind Awards. They were nominated by Hannah who explains why she sought their help as a teenager. Sophie Forster from Sussex University talks about her new research on smell blindness. One of the awards judges, Mandy Stevens, talks about some of the best ways to find help for your own mental health. Also, neuropsychologist and writer, Paul Broks talks about grief and how his wife's death changed his views on the importance of magical thinking.

Is it possible to take the guesswork out of the prescription of medication for psychosis? Medication is available for the distressing experiences of hallucinations or delusions, but anti-psychotics only work for about three quarters of people and psychiatrists currently have no good way of working out who those people are. New research at Kings College London is trialling a type of scan that's been around for some time - a PET scan - but using it in a new way to detect whether a person's brain has an overactive dopamine system which might be able to predict which drugs will work. Claudia Hammond talks to Oliver Howes, Professor of Molecular Psychiatry, King's College London and Sameer Jauhar, Senior Research Fellow, King's College London who've been conducting this game changing research. We hear from the latest finalist in the All in the Mind Awards - someone who knows just what it's like to struggle for many years with mental health issues and to deal with some of worst things that can happen in life. Douglas, who's had to deal with a combination of physical and mental pain, nominated his GP Jens Foell for an award in the Professional category.What type of personality dictates whether we're prepared to stand up to someone dropping litter, chatting during a movie or more serious transgressions such as verbal abuse? It takes a certain type of person to say something, rather than to sit there and fume. So who is the most likely to stand up to anti-social behaviour? Markus Brauer, who's Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Wisconsin Madison, has been investigating just that. How did he go about it?

Claudia Hammond visits the RHS Feel Good Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. The garden is part of the 70th birthday celebrations for the NHS and was proposed by occupational therapist Andrew Kingston and designed by Matt Keightley. It highlights the benefits of gardening for mental health. After the show the garden will be replanted in the grounds of a hospital in Archway.Michael Scullin is Director of the Sleep, Neuroscience and Cognition Lab at Baylor University in the US and he has a useful suggestion to alleviate exam stress.All in the Mind awards, this week the finalist is Fiona Sadler a pastoral support advisor at a primary school in Norfolk. Fiona was nominated by Stephanie because of all the support she has shown over the years. They first became friends when Fiona found a note in Steph's son's school bag.Post Olympic Blues. Dr Mathijs Luccassen from the Open University reports on the difficulties athletes face when they return from the Olympics.

Claudia hears from Fiona who nominated the nurse who gave her treatment for bladder cancer for the 2018 All in the Mind Awards. Fiona explains why her experience of childhood trauma re-surfaced when she realised what her treatment for bladder cancer would involve. And why nurse Tanya went the extra mile to manage her anxieties and make the treatment as trauma free as possible. Also in the programme for people who find it difficult to drop off at night, how does writing a to-do list help? Michael Scullin from Baylor University explains. Studio guest, Professor Daryl O'Connor from the University of Leeds talks about the relationship between conscientiousness and stress. And,is yawning really as contagious as we think it is, or does it depend on who is doing the yawning? John Drury from Sussex University talks about his latest research.

Claudia Hammond's guest is University of Cambridge clinical psychologist Tim Dalgleish The vision of autonomous vehicles on our roads is becoming a reality, but in order for driverless cars to succeed, not only does the technology need to be faultless, but it's essential they can interact with pedestrians safely. So we need to know more about how pedestrians deal with the cars. Claudia Hammond takes a driverless ride with Prof Ed Galea of the University of Greenwich who's just conducted a trail to assess the detailed response of other road users.Some of us are much more likely to take risks than others. One way of spotting the risk-takers is to look at how they behave, but do our brains hold clues as well. Joe Kable, Associate Professor of Psychology at the university of Pennsylvania, has unravelled the system in the brain that could help predict the degrees of risk we're prepared to take.And Claudia meets the third of the nine finalists for the All in the Mind Awards 2018. We hear from Maddie, a professional actor- nominated by her childhood friend and now health economist Stephanie.

How do our minds view policies that we don't really like, once they become a reality? New research shows that once they actually take place, our mind set changes - and surprisingly we stop minding quite as much. So have we been overestimating the amount of opposition to new initiatives? Kristin Lauren from the University of British Columbia has found that we rationalise the things we feel stuck with.There's been much research on the link between exercise and depression, but to what extent does exercise prevent depression, rather than help with it? An international team including Brendon Stubbs, a post-doctoral research physiotherapist at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, has identified 49 studies from around the world which followed non-depressed people for an average of seven years asking them how much exercise they did. The results are striking.And Claudia meets the second of the nine finalists for the All in the Mind Awards 2018. We hear from Nathan who's nominated Judith, a counsellor at the Oxfordshire Association for the Blind who has played a huge role in addressing Nathan's mental health issues since his sight began to decline.

In the first of a new series Claudia Hammond meets the first of the nine finalists for the All in the Mind Awards 2018. We hear from Helen who nominated Sarah's Runners, a running group in Tunbridge Wells who helped her after her husband took his own life when she was pregnant with their second child. The group meets twice a week and their ethos is far from personal bests on the track but all about people being included and getting the best they can from exercise. Claudia goes running with Helen and finds out why Sarah and the group have been such a huge support to her after her bereavement. Catherine Loveday explains how running helps with improving mood and even cognitive function. Also in the programme, Claudia talks to Professor Coral Dando about research published this week showing that eye witnesses recalled more information more accurately when interviewed by an avatar in a virtual reality environment rather than a real person. So why do the social pressures of an interview with a human impact on our ability to recall events in the past? Have you ever felt 'Gigil'? It's a Tagalog word meaning 'to want to squeeze or pinch someone because you cherish them so much. Claudia talks to Tim Lomas about his lexicon of 'untranslatable words' related to wellbeing from other languages which can't easily be translated into English. Catherine Loveday discusses a new way of understanding how different parts of the brain communicate: brain entropy. What is it and why might caffeine increase it.

All in the Mind: The Loneliness Experiment launches the world's largest ever survey of its kind on loneliness. Britain is the "loneliness capital of Europe" according to the Office for National Statistics. Loneliness is likely to affect all of us at some point in our lives and is not only distressing, but is implicated in health problems such as an increased risk of heart disease. For some people loneliness occurs because of a change in circumstances such as after bereavement, becoming unemployed or starting university. And while some tend to adapt to their new lives and the feeling of loneliness fades others are less able to shake off their pain.The Loneliness Experiment, devised by Professor Pamela Qualter and colleagues, aims to look at causes and possible solutions to loneliness. And we want as many people as possible to fill in our survey, even if they've never felt lonely, because we want to know what stops people feeling lonely, so that more of us can feel connected. To launch the Experiment Claudia Hammond is joined by Olivia Laing, author of Lonely City, and psychology professor, Pamela Qualter, an expert in loneliness in young people. Building on the success of 2016's Rest Test, which was the largest global survey on rest, Radio 4 will explore the topic of loneliness in a further collaboration with the Wellcome Collection.

Claudia finds out what can be done to help children whose parents have a mental illness and who may end up becoming their carers. She talks to Kiera and Ambeya who have lived with their parents' depression and schizophrenia and she meets Alan Cooklin, the founder of Kidstime, a charity which aims to support families where one or more parent has a mental illness. Claudia talks to the psychologist who finds out why our perceptions of the amount of exercise we do can change its health benefits. And Dame Kelly Holmes is one of the judges for the All in the Mind Awards. She talks about the mental health struggles she faced just months before winning two gold Olympic medals. She explains why it was so hard to talk about her feelings at the time and why she believes it's so important people are more open about their own mental health difficulties. Also another awards judge, Mandy Stevens, explains how to do square breathing and why it's such a good technique to help tackle anxiety and panic attacks.

How good is your intuition - those hunches you follow because you're convinced you're right? Alas, if you think you're good at it, evidence shows you're probably not. Claudia Hammond hears the latest research from Dr Mario Weick from the University of KentThere's still time for you to enter the 2018 All in the Mind Awards. This is your chance to nominate someone who's made a difference to your mental health. You could nominate a group or project or maybe a friend, a therapist, a partner, a nurse - anyone who's really been there for you. We hear from GP Daniel Dietch - one of last year's finalists on the impact being nominated had on him after being put forward by a patient with bi-polar disorder. Medication taken by some people with psychosis or schizophrenia is designed to reduce delusions and hallucinations. What it doesn't tackle are the additional problems with memory and decision-making. Claudia Hammond meets Dr Natasza Orlov of Kings College London who's been trialling mild electrical stimulation to the brain aimed specifically at these symptoms. Could it improve everyone else's memory as well?And we catch up on what's happened to the very first high flying graduates we've been following who've been fast- tracked into mental health social work.Producer Adrian Washbourne.

Claudia Hammond finds out why films are being made of residents of a care home in South West London. They all have dementia and the story of their lives is told through photos, interviews and music and their beneficial effects are being studied in a small NHS trial. Claudia meets 92 year old May and her daughter, Valerie to find out what the film has done for her and why this kind of reminiscence therapy is so effective. Claudia talks to psychologist John Bargh about the power of the unconscious mind, why sad music makes people spend more and how we can use our unconscious mind's susceptibility to our own advantage. And why a community organisation in Tyne and Wear called Citizens UK has brought together people from schools, mosques, churches, politicians and the NHS to ask what their top priority should be. Find out why they all voted for mental health and what they're going to do about it. Psychologist Dr Catherine Loveday of the University of Westminster also explains why just believing that you do less exercise than your friends is likely to make you die earlier even if it's not true and a she discusses a recent study investigating the therapists' habits that most annoy their clients.

Our sense of reward motivates us and is essential for survival - influencing the hundreds of decisions we make every day about what feels good and what doesn't. Claudia Hammond meets Ray Dolan, Wolfram Schultz and Peter Dayan, winners of this year's Brain Prize, in front of an audience at London's Royal Institution, to discuss their ground-breaking work on how the brain recognises and processes reward.The trio's discoveries have revolutionised our understanding in how our brain's reward system can motivate us, give us the best chance in life and influence the way we learn. So when the system malfunctions, it can lead to big problems such as obesity, gambling and addiction. But as understanding of this brain system continues to be unravelled Claudia Hammond hears why this happens and what can be done to control it.

All in the Mind Awards: Claudia Hammond launches the 2018 All in the Mind Awards - a chance for anyone who has received help for a mental health problem, to recognise the people and organisations who have gone above and beyond the call of duty1 in 3 of us will experience problems with our mental health at some time in our lives, and help and support from people around us can make all the difference in how we cope day to day and helping us on the road to recovery. Between now and the end of January 2018 the Radio 4 All in the Mind Awards is seeking listeners' experiences of brilliant mental health care and to recognise the people - the unsung heroes who helped make the difference. The judging panel this year includes Star Wards founder Marion Janner; director of nursing and mental health services Mandy Stevens; Dr Mathijs Lucassen lecturer in mental health ; and Claudia Hammond, psychologist and All In The Mind presenter.There are 3 categories for the awards, the individual, professional or project Individual Award : An individual family member, friend, boss or colleague who offered significant support Professional Award: A mental health professional whose dedication, help and support made a really significant difference to you. This could be a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, nurse, volunteer or other professional Project Award: A mental health project or group you took part in, which made a big difference to your recovery or the way you cope. The winners of the awards will be announced during a ceremony to be held at the Wellcome Collection in London in June 2018Attachment theory: For decades researchers have been interested in how the attachment between parents and their babies might affect how the baby develops into an adult. Elizabeth Meins, Professor of psychology at York University argues that this body of research is now being misinterpreted , leaving parents feeling anxious about whether they're doing the right thingChildren's willpower: The popular image of children is that they have short attention spans and want everything right now. But a new analysis of 50 years of data from the Marshmallow Test - a classic test of self control suggests that children are getting better at delaying gratification. John Protzko of University of California Santa Barbara explains why it's happening. Claudia Hammond's studio guest is fellow judge Mathijs Lucassen , lecturer in mental health at the Open University.

Claudia Hammond's guest is Catherine Loveday, Principle lecturer in Psychology at the University of WestminsterIf you have sisters or brothers you probably know all about sibling rivalry. But if you're a parent who despairs over your children squabbling, fear not. Claudia Hammond hears how sibling rivalry can be handled and can have an upside. It's something that should be embraced argues child psychologist Linda Blair, author of a new book Siblings.What insights can diaries and letters from prisoners of war can give us into the imprisoned soldier's minds? We hear from historian Clare Makepeace who has spent years studying the diaries and letters of POWs and Mark McDermott Professor of Health Psychology at the University of East London to discuss the psychological impact the confined experience can have.And new evidence on the link between inflammation in the body and depression. It's the first study ever published showing that inflammation can lead to alterations in how specific new brain cells are formed - a process that leads to depression in a third of patients. As Patricia Zunszain of Kings College London explains, drugs targeting these mechanisms could be the effective antidepressants of the future - drugs which don't tackle mood, but which encourage the creation of new brain cells.

Claudia Hammond talks to Professor Christopher French from Goldsmiths, University of London about the strange phenomenon of sleep paralysis. As many as 1 in 20 people will experience vivid hallucinations while falling asleep or waking up while also completely unable to move. People also describe a very powerful sense of fear and the feeling of being crushed or that an intruder or something supernatural is there with them. Despite being relatively common, this sleep anomaly is little understood. Even less well known or understood is the frightening experience of 'Exploding Head Syndrome' where someone perceives abrupt and very loud noises when going to sleep or waking up. Also can a robot deliver therapy via your smartphone? Claudia talks to Alison Darcy - Stanford University researcher who's created Woebot - an artificially intelligent chatbot designed to treat depression. Woebot, uses cognitive-behavioural therapy and is available via Facebook messenger. Alison explains how it works and that it's not a replacement for traditional therapy, but it's the first tech based treatment to have been properly scientifically tested and peer reviewed.. Simon Wessley, outgoing president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and Paul Farmer, chief executive of the mental health charity MIND discuss mental health awareness campaigns with Claudia. Do they overload already stretched mental health services? Or are they vital to helping people understand their own mental health and are they changing the wider landscape of how these conditions are understood, talked about and de-stigmatised?

We tend to assume that once we are adults there are aspects of our personalities that never alter. But a huge new re-analysis of more than 200 studies has found that therapy can change your personality in just a few weeks. The idea of therapy is to make you feel happier, and to help you find a way of resolving your problems. But as Professor Brent Roberts from the University of Illinois reveals, it can also change our personalities in surprising ways.Over 25 years ago as a junior doctor, Tom Solomon soon learnt that a patient on his ward, the children's author Roald Dahl, was fascinated by the brain. Then years later, away from his day job as a neurologist at Liverpool University, he decided to trace the influence of that interest on Dahl's writing. Last year he recounted it in a book which has now been adapted into a stage show for this year's Edinburgh Fringe - Roald Dahl's Marvellous Medicine. He tells Claudia Hammond how Dahl's interest in the brain began with an accident.The final Insiders' Guide to getting the best out of mental health services is probably the most important of all. What to do if you or someone you know is in serious crisis? We hear from Stephen Buckley from Mind, GP Daniel Dietch and Lisa Rodrigues, who's both had mental health difficulties and led services herself.Look in any bookshop at the self-help section, and it appears that a lot of people are trying to change themselves. Now a Danish philosopher and psychologist Sven Brinkmann says it's gone too far. In his new book "Stand Firm: resisting the self-improvement craze" he says the secret to a happier life is to come to terms with yourself as you are. But there is some very good research out there on happiness, so isn't it worth trying to put that evidence into practice? We brought together Sven Brinkmann with a leading researcher in the field of happiness, Dr Sonja Lyubomirsky from the University of California Riverside.

Neurogenesis is the process where we create new brain cells. Many researchers believe that if someone has depression then neurogenesis is reduced. Could this in some cases even be the cause of depression? It's possible this idea could lead to the discovery of new drugs for depression, drugs which don't tackle mood, but which encourage the creation of new brain cells. Claudia Hammond brought together Timothy Powell, MRC postdoctoral research fellow, and Sandrine Thuret, Head of Neurogenesis and Mental Health, from Kings College London to examine the latest research.The Government has committed to make prisons not just places of detention, but of rehabilitation. Some prisons are hoping that yoga classes could make a difference. Research from Oxford University is beginning to suggest that yoga can help with prisoners' mental health. Claudia Hammond hears from lead researcher and psychologist Amy Bilderbeck, Sam Settle Director of the Prison Phoenix Trust and former prisoner Richard for whom yoga was to become a vital tool during his years as an inmate.This week's Insiders' Guides to mental health asks with all the guidance out there in the public domain, how do you decide what is best for you? We hear from Stephen Buckley from Mind, GP Daniel Dietch and before them Lisa Rodrigues, who's had mental health issues herself and long experience of managing services.Psychologists discovered long ago that most of us think we're better than average at most things - the Lake Wobegon Effect - and that we go round looking for information that confirms our views on life - the confirmation biases. But there's now another bias in our thinking. If we imagine a theory is our own, we think it must be true. Aiden Gregg, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Southampton, told Claudia Hammond about his new research. Producer Adrian Washbourne.

Claudia Hammond has been following some of the first tranche of trainee mental health social workers setting out on the Think Ahead scheme which is getting high-flying graduates into social work. As a 22 year old English graduate Al Toombs was one of the youngest people on the course. It's rare to be able to eavesdrop on actual sessions between mental health professionals of any kind and their clients, but Claudia spent the day with Al in Coventry on visits to clients such as Jo, who's lived with depression for several years whilst juggling a complicated family life.As we grow up we get better at tasks involving thinking. But there is something at which 5 year olds excel and that adults are really not very good at - and that is noticing things. New research by Vladimir Sloutsky, a psychologist at Ohio State University, shows that small children pay more attention to what's going on around them than adults do. It's a skill he thinks we've been underestimating and a finding that holds lessons for the appearances of our primary schools.In this week's Insiders' Guide to getting the best out of mental health services - what should you do if you're not happy with the mental health care you're getting? We hear from Stephen Buckley from Mind, psychiatrist Sri Kalidindi, GP Dr Daniel Dietch and Lisa Rodrigues, who has both experienced mental health problems and run services herself.Producer Adrian Washbourne.

For parents, it can be very hard to watch their child struggle with anxiety. Parents often blame themselves, thinking that it must be their fault that their child feels so worried. What can parents can do about it and how much of a genetic component there is in anxiety? Claudia Hammond meets Professor Cathy Creswell from Reading University who's done extensive practical research helping parents to deal with their child's anxiety, Thalia Eley Professor of Developmental Behavioural Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry, and Rachel - whose daughter suffers constant anxiety.When we see a photograph of a person we make instant judgements about how trustworthy or competent we think they are. But how reliable are these snap decisions? Claudia meets Professor Alexander Todorov from Princeton University who studies first impressions from faces and has brought his findings together in a new book called Face Value: The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions.Politicians know people really care about mental health. So what are the different parties promising in their election manifestoes? We set Rachel Schraer from the BBC's political research unit, the task of scrutinising each manifesto and summing it all up for us.The next in our insiders' guide to getting the best out of your mental health services asks if it's a good idea to take a friend or relative along to an appointment with a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist?Producer Adrian Washbourne.

Claudia Hammond's guest today is Tim Dalgleish a clinical psychologist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge.Transient global amnesia is a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss that can't be attributed to a more common neurological condition, such as epilepsy or a stroke. Following a letter from a listener who suffered an episode of this curious condition we were intrigued to find out how it is triggered and what's really occurring in the brain. Claudia Hammond spoke with Adam Zeman, Professor of Cognitive and Behavioural Neurology at Exeter University.Is the enthusiasm for mindfulness in schools running ahead of the evidence? The skill of learning to become aware of what's going on around you and in your body and mind at a given moment has been shown to benefit people who've had recurrent episodes of depression. An increasing number of schools are holding mindfulness classes. But when it comes to the research on its benefits in school, the results are mixed. Andre Tomlin started the blog Mental Elf which examines the evidence when it comes to mental health so we got him into the All in the Mind studio to help us examine what difference mindfulness does and doesn't make in school.The latest Insiders Guide to getting the best out of mental health services asks: how do you tell your friends and family that you are having difficulties with your mental health if this is something you've never broached with them before? We hear from Stephen Buckley, Head of Information at Mind, Lisa Rodriguez who has had mental health issues herself and has long experience of managing mental health services, psychiatrist Sri Kalidindi and GP Daniel Dietch.Autism spectrum disorder is a lifelong condition which can affect how a child or adult communicates with and relates to other people. Scientists are still trying to understand the causes and why symptoms can range from the mild to the severe. The Somali language doesn't have a word for autism, so when Nura Aabe's son Zak was diagnosed with autism at the age of two and a half she was at a loss to explain the diagnosis to others in the Somali community in the UK. As she explains to Claudia Hammond she was inspired by her experience to write a play called Yusuf Can't TalkProducer: Adrian Washbourne.

All in the Mind has been following the progress a scheme called Think Ahead, which trains high-flying graduates to become a new generation of mental health social workers. A bit like Teach First, they are taught mostly on the job with a lot of special support. Not everyone in the field supports the idea but there has been no shortage of applicants. One of the first trainees, Charlotte Seymour who used to work in the legal field, is now based in east London where her clients' needs vary - from very practical help with sorting out rent arrears to emotional support when they fear their mental health is deteriorating. She met Emma during a stay in hospital, under section and her mental health is now vastly improved. But a family bereavement has affected her deeply. Despite not eating or sleeping for days she keeps her appointment with Charlotte to discuss how to keep herself safe at this difficult time. In our Insiders' Guide series - if you've been referred to mental health services, what can you expect to happen at that first appointment? Lisa Rodrigues who has had mental health issues herself and has long experience managing mental health services and Sri Kalidindi, a psychiatrist with South London and Maudsley NHS Trust explain what's involved. This includes building up a good rapport and the taking of a full medical history - including traumatic life events and social circumstances. This helps to establish a diagnosis. Making a list might help if you are anxious - but you should also be realistic as most problems aren't sorted out straight away. A mental illness might make you feel like you don't deserve help - but everyone does, so it's important to go along to that first appointment with an open mind. If you're not sure about something how do you make a decision? Who should you believe if you rely on others to help you decide? Researchers have found that if someone appears confident then we are likely to be influenced by them - our brains literally tune in to confident people. Psychologist Dr Dan Campbell-Meiklejohn from the University of Sussex has scanned the brains of people and discovered that they assess the confidence of others using a specific part at the front of the brain, in the prefrontal cortex. He asked people to play a computer game - with a "virtual" jar of marbles - where the colour of the next one pulled out had to be predicted. Computer-generated faces - with more or less confident expressions - helped to influence their decisions.

We are all guilty of making instant unconscious decisions about other people. Could a greater awareness and a practical approach help to overcome this common hurdle at work?Claudia Hammond hosts a special edition recorded live in front of an audience at the Royal Institution in London to discuss something that happens to all of us - when our minds make snap judgments about other people without us even realising it. It's known as unconscious bias - it doesn't mean bias in any deliberate way. The whole point is that we don't even know it's happening. How does it play out in real life? Claudia Hammond is joined by a panel of experts to discuss what effect the bias in our decision making has on the lives of each and every one of us and what we can do about itTaking part are business psychologist Binna Kandola; Jessica Rowson, from the Institute of Physics who's been examining why more girls don't choose to study physics at school; Emma Chapman, a Royal Astronomical Society fellow; and Louise Archer, Professor of Sociology of Education at King's College London.

Whether you're seeing a psychiatrist, a psychologist or another kind of therapist, the tradition has been that the information all goes one way. Professional boundaries tend to be closely guarded, but social media is changing all that. A quick search online might tell you all sorts about a therapist. Should you engage in this kind of cyber snooping and how about the other way round? Claudia Hammond speaks with Louise Chunn, the founder of welldoing.org, an online directory of independent counsellors and psychotherapists and Susanna Hailstone-Walker, a psychotherapist.How can you overcome performance anxiety? For musicians and music students performing in front of audiences and audition panels, the experience can be terrifying. But this is where a digital simulation of the event could help. We visit the Royal College of Music where researchers have designed a concert hall which even includes a nerve-racking waiting area, and grim-faced judges reacting on a screen, to give students a chance to experience what it's like and to try putting the coping skills they've learnt into practice. The next in our insiders' guide to getting the best out of your mental health services asks what can you do if you're worried about the mental health of someone you know, but they don't want to go for help.We tend to think of the descent into corruption as a slippery slope where people do one small thing wrong and then gradually it gets more serious. But psychologists in the Netherlands have discovered that people are more likely to engage in corruption when there's a big reward and a sudden opportunity, than to do it bit by bit. Nils Kobis from the University of Amsterdam explains.Producer: Adrian Washbourne.

900,000 people in the UK suffer from heart failure - where the heart can no longer pump sufficient blood around the body. Symptoms can include a combination of breathlessness, fluid retention and tiredness - enough to have a severe impact on a person's quality of life. Getting a diagnosis of heart failure can be frightening, but there is good evidence that psychological input can make a difference. Claudia Hammond hears from patients and Dr John Sharp, Consultant Clinical Psychologist with the Scottish National Advanced Heart Failure Service, on recognising and dealing with the unique mental health challenges of this increasingly prevalent condition.The second of the All in the Mind Insiders' Guide to Mental Health Services asks what can you do if you think you're not getting the best from your GP, and, if you think you're waiting too long for treatment, should you seek a private referral? Our 'insiders' this week are service user, mental health campaigner and retired chief of an NHS Trust, Lisa Rodrigues, GP and All in the Mind Awards finalist Daniel Dietch, and Head of Information at Mind Stephen Buckley And Claudia Hammond talks to psychologist Ariana Orvell from the University of Michigan on why we use the word "you", instead of "I", more frequently than we realise. It's emerging as a useful tool to distance ourselves psychologically - and extract meaning - from negative experiences.Producer: Adrian Washbourne.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is often thought of as a condition of childhood, but up to 3% of the adult population also experience it. Impressionist and comedian Rory Bremner is one of those. He discusses his experiences with Jonna Kuntsi and Jessica Agnew-Blais from Kings College London who study how childhood and adult versions of the condition differ, whether we can predict which children continue to experience symptoms in adulthood, and a new proposal that the majority of adult ADHD might not have begun in childhood at all.The first two parts of the All in the Mind Insiders' Guide to Mental Health Services ask how do you know when you have a mental health problem, and what should you say to your GP in order to get help. Our 'insiders' are service user, mental health campaigner and retired chief of an NHS Trust Lisa Rodrigues, GP and All in the Mind Awards finalist Daniel Dietch, Head of Information at Mind Stephen Buckley, and psychiatrist Sri Kalidindi.And Claudia Hammond talks to Kavita Vedhara about a new study that shows once more that simply writing about how you feel can speed up wound healing. Although this effect has been known since James Pennebaker's landmark studies in the 1980's, this is the first study to demonstrate that expressive writing after an injury can aid healing as much as doing it in advance of a wound. An important finding since we don't always plan our wounds in advance.Producer: Lorna Stewart.

The Boomerang Generation Many parents are finding that with the cost of housing so high in some areas, coupled with job insecurity and more years spent studying - the kids are back home, except that they're not kids anymore. But however much parents might moan,from the perspective of mental health for the parents at least, there is an upside. This comes from an analysis of 50,000 people across 27 countries by Emilie Courtin from the London School of Economic. All in the Mind Awards When we had the All in the Mind Awards for the first time two years ago, there were some people we met who were faced with a future that was uncertain, to say the least. One of those was Tony, who had nominated his Clinical Psychologist Alan Barrett from the Military Veterans Service for helping him to turn his life around. He had post traumatic stress disorder after his time serving in the army in Northern Ireland.Two years later he's giving back and working with veterans. The Lipstick Effect When there's a recession fewer people buy luxury goods but the sales of lipstick goes up. It might not be an essential, but it's cheap enough for people buy themselves a treat. This is known as the lipstick effect and the reasons for it have been debated for years. One idea is that during tough times women are keen to make themselves look better to attract a mate with money. Now psychologists have conducted a new series of experiments published in the journal Psychological Science and believe they've come up with a rather more modern explanation. Ekaterina Netchaeva from Bocconi University in Italy explains.

ADHD - or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - tends to be characterised by difficulties in concentrating, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Claudia Hammond talks to Philip Asherson, Professor of Clinical and Molecular Psychiatry at Kings College London and a consultant at the Maudsley Hospital in London, who has recently published research that shows that excessive mind-wandering might be at its core. She also hears from two teenage girls with ADHD about their experience of mindwandering during school lessons.it's not at all unusual for people with depression to have difficulty sleeping. Now a trial has focussed on treating the insomnia in the hope that it improves the depression, rather than vice versa. Professor of Mental Health, Helen Christensen, and Dr Aliza Werner-Saidler, a Research Fellow and Clinical Psychologist at the Black Dog Institute at the University of New South Wales in Australia, showed Claudia Hammond how an online programme called SHUTi - developed by the University of Virginia and commercially available - helped people with insomnia and depression.Two years ago on All in the Mind we debated the merits of a new scheme to get more high-flying graduates into the mental health field. Called Think Ahead it follows in the footsteps of similar schemes like Teach First. This time top graduates train, mostly on the job, to become mental health social workers. Claudia finds out how two of the first graduates are getting on in the their first placements.

Claudia Hammond's guest is Mathijs Lucassen - lecturer in mental health at the Open University.Pathological demand avoidance is a developmental condition where children resist the demands of everyday life, and they can have extreme reactions if they feel they are being made to do anything. Although they might seem sociable, these children can end up ruling their families and even refuse to go to school for months at a time. The professionals who use this diagnosis consider it to be part of the autism spectrum. But is it a discrete condition? Claudia Hammond hears from Liz O'Nions at the University of Louven about its history and new research into teasing out PDA's traits.Is there such a thing as a wise person or does wisdom all depend on the situation? It appears as though some people have more of it than others. But new research suggests it might not be quite like that. Psychologist Igor Grossman of the University of Waterloo assessed the wisdom of individuals in their real lives, rather than in a lab and found some intriguing results.If you've ever arrived at a comedy gig to the terror of realising that the only seats left at the middle of the front row, where you might well get picked on, then you might like Sofie Hagen's approach to gigs. She is creating anxiety safe spaces. People can contact her in advance to let her know what they need at the gig to stop them from feeling anxious. Claudia Hammond headed to one of her gigs to see how it works.

Claudia Hammond's studio guest is Catherine Loveday Principal Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Westminster.Adolescence is a time when life-long mental health difficulties sometimes emerge for the first time. By combining genetic data with the information from brain scans of many hundreds of people, a team at Cambridge might have worked out why this can happen. Claudia Hammond hears from neuroimaging researcher Dr Kirstie Whittaker and bioinformatics researcher Dr Petra Vertes who work together as part of the Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network (NSPN) consortium. We've the first in an occasional update from the finalists of the All in the Mind Awards. We hear of progress from Alex : she nominated the organisation One in Four which offers subsidised long-term counselling and supports people in what can be a very long process if they want their abuser to be tried in court. Some people can't recognise the voices they know. And they might not even realise they have the condition - until they take a test . Phonagnosia is thought to affect as much as 3% of the population. Professor of Neuroscience Irving Biederman has just published the largest analysis to date in the journal Brain and Language. He played people a whole series of celebrity voices to test their skills at identification. He discusses the causes and strategies to minimise this unusual audio anomaly.

Claudia Hammond is in Sydney, Australia, with a live studio audience at the BBC's World Changing Ideas Summit finding out what is so special about the human mind. Are we the only creatures who can mentally time travel - deciding at will to look back nostalgically at a past event or to look forward, imagining something we've never done before? But the brilliance of the human mind brings its own problems too, a dread of the future or rumination about the past so strong, that a person develops depression. Claudia Hammond's guests are Thomas Suddendorf Professor of child cognition at the University of Queensland and Professor Helen Christensen Chief Scientist at Black Dog Institute, and they discuss whether new technology might hold some solutions for us.

The brain has billions of neurons interconnected by trillions of synapses. It is at these synapses where memories are made.Ground-breaking research by Timothy Bliss, Graham Collingridge and Richard Morris has transformed our understanding of memory, and offered new insights into devastating effects of failing memory. This year they won the Brain Prize, the world's most valuable award in brain research. Claudia Hammond meets them in front of an audience at London's Royal Institution to discuss how memories are made.

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, and we all know it comes before a fall. But in her new book Take Pride, Jess Tracy, Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, argues that pride is the glue that holds societies together and that it can explain much of human success.How often do you use words like mad, crazy and schizophrenic in every day conversation? What impact does this have on people with mental health problems? To discuss this we brought together Niall Boyce, the Editor of the Lancet Psychiatry, linguist Dr Zsofia Demjen, and Clive Buckenham, an ambassador for Time to Change.There's plenty of evidence to suggest that exercise is good for our mental health. And there's an increasing interest in the idea of green exercise - the idea that exercising outdoors might be even better. Bur why is this? Claudia Hammond takes a bike ride with Dr Mike Rogerson who researches how exercising in different environments can influence psychological well-being.

Four people are tasered every day in the UK and a man who's been at the receiving end describes how much it hurts. But new evidence suggests it could also affect thinking and memory. Professor Rob Kane from Drexel University in the US tasered students and then measured their ability to recall facts in the hours after being tasered. He found serious deficits: the tasered group mirrored the ability of a 78 year old man with mild cognitive impairment, with some of the taser victims performing so poorly in cognitive tests that they could be diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Claudia Hammond asks what implications these new findings have for the timing of police interviews after somebody has been tasered.Claire experienced amnesia after she had viral encephalitis and she has lost memory of most of her life. Her experience, along with the lesion or abnormality she had in her brain, has inspired an exhibition called Lesions in the Landscape, a collaboration with artist Shona Illingworth at The Gallery in Southwark Park, London. Claudia visits the exhibition, meets Claire and Shona and hears from Catherine Loveday, Principal Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Westminster about the way this artistic collaboration has cast light on the nature and meaning of memory and memory loss.There's been a lot of comment about the mental health of the US Presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, with much armchair speculation about the various psychiatric disorders he might be suffering from and why these should rule him out from high office. But Dr Margaret McCartney tells Claudia why the trend to #diagnosetrump is unacceptable and stigmatising for mental health issues. And finally Dr Catherine Loveday tells Claudia about more evidence that walking makes you feel good. The mere act of putting one foot in front of the other for a few minutes seems to improve our mood, wherever we do it.

Claudia Hammond hosts the All in the Mind Awards Ceremony from Wellcome Collection in London and meets all the All in the Mind Award Finalists.Back in November we asked you to nominate the person, professional or group who had made a difference to your mental health.Throughout the current series we've been hearing the individual stories of the nine finalists, and this edition offers the chance to recap the people and organisations who've made a huge difference to other people's lives - and of course to hear comments from the judges and winners from each of the three categories.Winner in the personal category was Jane Clement nominated by her friend and neighbour Charlotte Forsyth. Charlotte's daughter died in the hospital where Charlotte worked. She was grateful for the down to earth approach of Jane who has helped her cope with grief and depression. Glasgow's Common Wheel project won the group or project award. They use bicycle building as a therapy to help people with a range of mental health issues. By learning to strip, service and rebuild bicycles, clients gain a new skill and a sense of achievement. By concentrating on bicycle building they dwell less on their mental health issues. The professional category winner was case worker Amy Wollny from Turning Point. After spending half his life in prison 'John' was helped to turn his life around. For the first time in his life he has regular employment and is in control of his own behaviour.The event is hosted by Claudia Hammond.Judges are author Matt Haig, clinical psychologist Linda Blair, mental health campaigner Marion Janner, and Kevan Jones MP.Produced by Adrian Washbourne and Julian Siddle.

Many people say they feel better when they're out in nature. And some projects deliberately get people involved in conservation, horticulture or farming in order to take advantage of the benefits to health and well-being in the great outdoors. It's known as green care and a new report from Nature England suggests it could play a bigger part in our mental health services. Claudia Hammond visits a Care Farm - Church Farm near Stevenage in Hertfordshire to examine the therapeutic benefits.In the final candidate for this year's All in the Mind Awards we hear of a care worker who was nominated for making a real difference to a victim of a violent assault succumbing to post traumatic stress disorder but whose life is turning around as a result of seemingly effortless intervention.For conversations to work we need to take turns to speak and it's something we learn when we're very young and then hone as time goes on. But there are also moments where no one is speaking and it's those lapses in conversation which might give us a clue as to how all this turn-taking takes place with precise millisecond timing. Claudia Hammond speaks to Elliott Hoey, from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, about this research.

Could you be one on the 2.5% of the population psychologists have dubbed "supertaskers". These are people who are able to deal with a multitude of different tasks all at the same time? Now a team in Australia has put together an online test so that you can find out for yourself. We've had a lot of response to our discussion on education and exam stress. Claudia Hammond looks at a radical system designed to end exam stress forever - by doing away with exams and using artificial intelligence to carry out much more nuanced assessments. The research is being done at the University College London Knowledge Lab, and Claudia went along to see how it all works. And a strong bond between mother and daughter is at the heart of our latest interview with a finalist in the All in the Mind awards. We hear from the daughter who has nominated her mother for an award. Ellie, who's 20, explains why she thinks her mother should get an award for the support she's given her since her diagnosis with depression, psychosis and a personality disorder at the age of 14.

Summer temperatures might be tempting you to eat outside, but maybe you live in a part of the country where your barbecues are blighted by aircraft noise and where you're woken in the morning by the roar of planes overhead? Some people insist that the noise affects their mental health. The evidence for the link between aircraft noise and depression has been patchy, but a major new study suggests there is a link. Claudia Hammond discusses the evidence with project leader and epidemiologist Professor Andreas Seidler from Dresden University.We've another finalist in the All in the Mind Awards - this week from your nominations for the professional who'd made a real difference to your mental health.If you've ever stuck your tongue at a young baby and watched it copy you back, you've observed early imitation - a key concept in developmental psychology. But is a new study about to overturn what psychology textbooks have been telling us for years? Psychologist Janine Oostenbroek of York University discusses her results. With expert comment from Dr Catherine Loveday, Principal Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Westminster.

The impact of gut bacteria on our cardiovascular system and metabolism has been well-researched. But how about the effect on our minds? Scientists are examining the possibility that these bacteria might influence our moods. John Cryan, who's Professor of Anatomy and Neuroscience at University College Cork, has just published a review of the current state of the field in the journal Genome Medicine. So could we see a day when certain gut bacteria are used in the treatment of depression and anxiety? We brought together John Cryan with Phil Burnett, who's a neuroscientist working with psychiatrists at the University of Oxford.Is the murder rate rising? Think you know what proportion of the population are immigrants or how many people voted in the last election? Ipsos Mori Social Research Institute has been conducting worldwide research to explore how accurate people's perceptions are about the reality of what's happening in their country. They've found we're not terribly good it. Their Global Director Bobby Duffy came into the All in the Mind studio to discuss what's going wrong with our thinking.And we've the latest on the nine finalists in the All in the Mind Awards - the Depressed Cake Shop where the cakes are grey on the outside and bright on the inside, and they're getting people talking about depression in a very unique way.Presented by Claudia Hammond.

As every summer, exams are in the news. We look at whether the pressure to do well in exams is having an effect on children's mental health. We speak to experts from Education, Psychology and Economics who are now working together to address the wider issue of the effect of Britain's current education system on our children's wellbeing.Looking beyond anecdotal evidence, we ask why, when considering education, is it so difficult to find firm data from which to draw conclusions and make recommendations? And we hear from Today's finalist in the All in the Mind Awards.The Tomorrow Project is a suicide prevention project established in response to the needs and concerns of local communities, in Nottinghamshire affected by suicide.We meet people who have been helped by the project and discuss the kind of services it provides.

For many, working with animals is a dream job and every year thousands of students compete to get into vet school. But whilst life as a vet isn't always easy, surprisingly the suicide rate amongst vets is four times greater than among medical doctors. This fact came to prominence in research back in 2004 and steps have been taken to address it. Yet the exact reasons are still unclear. Claudia hears from vet Richard Hillman and meets Rosie Allister, who's based at Edinburgh University researching the wellbeing of vets, and is the Chair of Vetlife Helpline.There's been a lot of talk about the technology behind self-driving cars, but what about the psychology? As the first UK trials begin examining how other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians react to coming across a car that's driving itself, Claudia travels to the Transport Research Laboratory in Surrey, to meet its Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Stevens, to discuss the behaviour psychologists and car manufacturers need to understand before autonomous vehicles hit the road.Our latest finalist in this year's All in the Mind Awards is a boss called Blair with an unusual relationship with her employee, Steven. She doesn't just pay him and supervise him. She has supported him through some of the hardest times in his life.

In the UK there are around a hundred unfilled Consultant Psychiatrist posts. Claudia Hammond discusses with Sir Simon Wessely, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, why there is such a shortage, and the knock on effect for patients. Why does psychiatry seem to be the poor relation when compared with other branches of medicine and what can be done to persuade more trainee doctors to consider psychiatry as a career?In the next of our series of features on the shortlist for the All in the Mind Awards, Claudia meets a GP who has helped one patient with a range of mental health issues, giving advice to her when she was admitted to hospital - despite not being in the same country at the time - and helping her to manage mental health complications associated with childbirth.Are you bored? Don't worry it could be good for you. Research into boredom suggests an uncluttered schedule might be a good thing, giving us the chance for a bit of creative thinking. Sandi Mann, Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire talks to Claudia about the benefits of boredom.With expert comment from Dr Catherine Loveday, Principal Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Westminster.

We hear the second nomination in this year's All in the Mind Awards - where we asked you to nominate the person or group who has made a difference to your mental health. Last week we heard from the first of the finalists in the groups category. This week we have the first of our individuals.Neuroscience may be a young science, but discoveries are coming through fast. Will we see a day where everything is known about the brain and where parts of it that have gone wrong can even be replaced with computer chips? This is the premise of a new play called Elegy at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Cognitive neuroscientist Catherine Loveday reviews the play. Why are theatre and film directors, who have long turned to historians and scientists for help, increasingly embracing psychology? Claudia Hammond talks to University of Berkeley Psychology Professor Dacher Keltner who was invited to advise on the Pixar animation Inside Out and to director Simon McBurney who sought advice about the psychology of time perception in advance of his production Encounter.

In the first of a new series Claudia Hammond meets the finalists for the All in the Mind Awards. Claudia meets group finalists The Common Wheel in Glasgow and discovers why bicycle maintenance helps mental health.Plus, the so-called replication crisis that's plaguing psychology at the moment - why is it proving so difficult to repeat some long-established experiments and to get the same results? First the crisis happened with something called priming, and now 23 labs around the world led by Professor Martin Hagger have tried to replicate an effect involving willpower first described by Professor Roy Baumeister. How early does gender stereotyping begin? New research from David Reby at Sussex University shows it may start as early as three months.

As Tim Peake is launched on his trip to spend 6 months on the International Space Station Claudia Hammond talks to Alexander Kumar, the doctor who has been to Antarctica to investigate the psychology of a human mission to Mars. How will the confined spaces, the dark and distance from planet Earth affect Mars astronauts of the future? Professor Philip Tetlock explains why his newly discovered elite group of so-called Superforecasters are so good at predicting global events. Claudia talks to MP James Morris about why some of his constituents are coming to him and his staff for help in a mental health crisis. He talks about the advice available for other MPs and constituency staff in the same situation. Claudia visits the South London and Maudsley Recovery college to find out how their educational courses are helping people in south London with their mental health.