PsychMatic

Psychology backed by science with cited sources. We read the studies so you don't have to. psychmatic.com

[psychmatic]

Check out PsychMatic

psychmatic.com

[psychmatic]

Loneliness Is Literally Shrinking Your Brain | PsychMatic

Neuroscience reveals that chronic loneliness reduces brain volume in areas controlling memory, emotions, and decision making. Here is what t

[quotes-vault-deactivated2026060]

[anxietyproblem]

[a-path-by-the-moon]

[serenityquest]

[psychmatic]

so apparently scientists can now weaken your worst memories while you sleep. no drugs, no surgery, just sound.

a 2024 study played specific audio cues to people during their deepest sleep phase and their traumatic memories got measurably weaker by morning. like their brains just quietly rewrote themselves overnight. and when a second team tried it on actual PTSD patients, one week of this matched what normally takes months of therapy.

the way it works has to do with this tiny window during deep sleep where your memories become temporarily unstable, and honestly the science behind it reads like a sci-fi movie plot. the ethical implications are even wilder.

your brain was already editing your memories every night. someone just figured out how to hand it a red pen.

reblog if this broke your brain a little. follow for more psychology deep dives.

Read the full breakdown: https://psychmatic.com/scientists-can-edit-your-memories-while-you-sleep/

[psychmatic]

about 90% of americans think they're above average at spotting fake news which is literally mathematically impossible, but the actually scary part is that the people who were most confident? they performed the worst.

a 2025 meta-analysis in PNAS found something that should bother everyone, people with higher analytical thinking skills were actually better at rationalizing misinformation that matched their politics. like your brain's critical thinking tools work great when the news confirms what you already believe, but they flip and work against the truth when it doesn't. smarter people aren't better at finding truth, they're better at building convincing arguments for whatever they already think is true.

and it gets worse because researchers identified four types of misinformation consumers and honestly most of us aren't the "knowers" we think we are. there are consumers who just accept everything, doubters who reject everything, duffers who consistently get it wrong, and knowers who can actually tell the difference. your education level barely matters. the most biased people in the studies were the ones who believed their own political group was unbiased and objective.

the people who think they're immune are literally the most vulnerable.

reblog if this made you question yourself a little. follow for more psychology deep dives.

Read the full breakdown: Why Smart People Fall for Fake News: The Psychology of Misinformation

[somethingtocallmine]

[psychmatic]

Once I stopped stressing over things I couldn't change, life got so much lighter. Protect your energy at all costs!

[thepeacefulgarden]

[psychmatic]

This is the one right here 🔥 Healing isn't just for you it's for every single person you love. Don't let old wounds ruin new connections.

[psychmatic]

so apparently 90% of single women said they were interested in a guy when told he was already taken, but only 59% wanted him when told he was single. literally the same person.

psychologists call it mate-choice copying and it's basically your brain going "well if she picked him he must be worth something." it's the same reason you trust a restaurant with a long line more than an empty one. a 2006 study changed nothing except the word "married" or "single" on the same photos and women rated the married ones 23% more attractive. one word did that.

but here's the part that actually flipped my understanding, it's not single women driving this effect. a 2015 study found that coupled women rated men higher when they saw them with another woman, while single women actually rated them lower. the whole "she's trying to steal your man" thing is basically the opposite of what's happening. and on top of that your brain is stacking four biases at once, mate-choice copying, psychological reactance (wanting what you can't have), scarcity, and social proof, all pointing in the same direction without you even realizing it.

your brain is running a whole evaluation algorithm on wedding rings and honestly that's wild.

reblog if this messed with your head. follow for more psychology deep dives.

[deepwithinwords-deactivated2026]

[deepwithinwords-deactivated2026]

[psychmatic]

The Irish really just figured life out centuries ago and we're all still catching up

[quotesverse]

[quotesverse]

[psychmatic]

so for like 60 years scientists told everyone your brain stops making new cells after childhood and that was just it, you get what you get and then they slowly die off forever.

a 2025 study in Science just proved that's completely wrong. researchers at Karolinska Institutet examined brain tissue from people aged newborn to 78 and found neural progenitor cells actively dividing in almost every single brain they tested. these are the parent cells that literally birth new neurons. in brains as old as 78.

and the wildest part is that a big 2018 study in Nature declared adult neurogenesis was basically dead, media ran with it, everyone moved on. but the new team used single-nucleus RNA sequencing on over 100,000 cells and found what the old methods completely missed. 18 out of 19 adult brains had immature neurons just sitting there, growing.

this matters because your hippocampus uses those new neurons for memory, pattern separation, and stress regulation. chronic stress kills them, exercise grows more of them, and SSRIs might actually work partly by boosting them.

your brain was never a fixed machine. it's still building! Please reblog is you fix it useful and follow for more.

[psychmatic]

so being lonely literally kills you at the same rate as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and that's not some wellness influencer take, it's from a 2025 meta-analysis that reviewed 86 studies.

social isolation raises your risk of dying by 35%. that's higher than obesity. higher than not exercising. and honestly the scariest part is who it's hitting hardest, because it's not who you'd expect. 1 in 4 young men aged 15 to 34 reported feeling lonely "a lot" yesterday. 63% of gen z says they're lonely frequently. we're literally the most connected generation in human history and we're dying from disconnection.

and it's not just a feelings thing either. your brain actually treats loneliness like a physical threat, your amygdala goes haywire, cortisol floods your system around the clock, and your immune system basically gives up. lonely people show higher inflammation markers across 91 studies, and that's the same inflammation that drives heart disease, diabetes, and alzheimer's.

the surgeon general declared this a national epidemic in 2023 and it feels like nobody listened.

Read the full breakdown: Loneliness Is as Deadly as Smoking 15 Cigarettes a Day