All in the Mind

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Factual: Health & Wellbeing

The show with the latest evidence on psychology, mental health and neuroscience.

The show on how we think, feel and behave. Claudia Hammond delves into the evidence on mental health, psychology and neuroscience.

28/05/2024

BBC Radio 4 FM

All in the Mind: Grief, summer seasonal affective disorder, and anxiety in older people

AITM 28/5/24

Grief, summer seasonal affective disorder, and anxiety in older people

BBC Radio 4 - All in the Mind, Grief, summer seasonal affective disorder, and anxiety in older people

The links between objects and grief, summer SAD, and how ageing affects anxiety.

We look at how keeping objects from deceased loved ones can help with grief, we hear from a listener with summer seasonal affective disorder and talk about anxiety in older people.

In this episode, Claudia Hammond goes to the Chelsea Flower Show to speak to garden designer Katherine Holland. She credits gardening with helping to ease her grief following the death of her mother. Her Grief Kind garden features a meeting space with three chairs set around a coffee table, to encourage conversations about grief and will include a rotating display of personal objects symbolising loved ones who have died. Professor Catherine Loveday, a psychologist and neuroscientist from the University of Westminster, joins Claudia in the studio to discuss how objects can help us form links in our brains and remember our loved ones. 

Many of us breathe a sigh of relief when the weather warms up and the sun pops out, but one listener actually finds their mood worsens during the summer. Catherine and Claudia discuss the little-known condition of summer seasonal affective disorder (SAD). 

Finally, we hear from Professor Andrew Steptoe, a psychologist and epidemiologist from University College London. He heads up the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, which has been running for 20 years. He has found that older people's anxiety levels have remained high following the pandemic. Claudia and Catherine unpick a few of the issues and stereotypes that some people may face. 

Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell
Studio Manager: Neva Missirian
Production Coordinator: Siobhan Maguire
Editor: Holly Squire

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All in the Mind

Grief, summer seasonal affective disorder, and anxiety in older people

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