Giving someone the silent treatment may not always be such a bad thing. It may actually be a good way to deal with someone who is acting like a jerk, a new study finds.

The research reveals there are benefits to cutting off conversation with a person who is being obnoxious: It's not as draining on your mental resources, you avoid conflict with someone offensive, and it's much simpler than getting into a heated discussion.

That's because the silent treatment can speak volumes, even when someone is not saying a word or limiting their conversation to short or one-syllable responses.

From a psychological standpoint, this brush-off technique is largely viewed in a negative light. It's considered a manipulative way to communicate dissatisfaction and a passive form of rejection.

But this new research has identified at least some situations when silence might  be golden: When people are strongly motivated to avoid social interaction with an undesirable person, giving the silent treatment may be as easy -- if not easier -- than a conversation.

The silent treatment is not always motivated by an intent to harm another person or punish their behavior, said study author Kristin Sommer, Ph.D, an associate professor of psychology at Baruch College, City University of New York. "It may be used as a way to offset feelings of fatigue or depletion associated with the expectation of an unpleasant interaction," she explained.

For this new study, published online in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, the researchers ran two different experiments involving 118 college students. In each study, they asked participants to either talk with or ignore another individual, who was in on the experiment and told to act in a highly likeable -- meaning polite, relaxed, and friendly -- or a highly unlikeable manner -- someone rude, prejudicial, and arrogant. 

After four minutes with the "nice guy" or "jerk," study participants had to complete a task that involved thought and self-control.

Researchers found that participants who  ignored an unlikable person or talked with someone likable did better on the task than those who were forced to converse with a jerk or snub a nice guy. Rebuffing a likable person and exchanging pleasantries with someone obnoxious both took a toll. It left participants feeling depleted and their performance suffered as a result.

"Our findings suggest that the silent treatment may be used as a strategy for conserving mental resources that would otherwise be exhausted by interacting with someone who is inherently aversive to be around," said Sommer.

These findings do not mean that you can now feel justified every time you give a cold shoulder to a spouse, family member, or best friend. The study only looked into its use as a short-term snub in a non-close relationship.

There is a greater potential for risks when using the silent treatment in close relationships.

"The use of the silent treatment may have save energy-saving benefits," Sommer explained, "but these benefits may come at a long-term cost to a relationship."

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Nearly half of 3-D movie-goers feel sick

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Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

The most common gripes among moviegoers watching 3-D movies were that their eyes felt tired or they had a headache. But nearly 11 percent felt like they wanted to puke.

If you found yourself feeling a little woozy while watching 3-D films like "Avatar" or "Tron," you won't be surprised to hear this. More than half the people who put on the special glasses and caught a showing of a 3-D flick reported the movie made them feel sick to some degree, a new study suggests.

Roughly 55 percent of viewers had at least one physical complaint after the experience, according to research recently published in the journal PLoS ONE.

The most common gripes among moviegoers were that their eyes felt tired or they had a headache. But nearly 11 percent felt like they wanted to puke.

"I was surprised by the relatively high proportion of people who reported symptoms after a 3-D movie," said study author Angelo Solimini, Ph.D, an adjunct professor and research scientist in hygiene and public health at Sapienza University of Rome.

But there's no reason to shy away from a showing of movies like "Up" or the soon-to-be-released "Oz: The Great and Powerful." Solimini pointed out that viewer's symptoms were usually mild and seemed to disappear as soon as they took off their 3-D glasses -- except, perhaps if it triggered a headache.

Although Solimini has only seen one 3-D movie, "Despicable Me," he got the idea for this study after chatting with a group of parents. After taking their children to see a 3-D film, many of the mothers complained of physical discomforts, but their kids did not.

To look into these side effects, he rounded up 497 healthy adults in Italy, ages 18 to 65. Participants were asked to see one 2-D movie and one 3-D film during a three-week period. They could choose whichever movies they wanted as long as they didn't see the 2-D and 3-D flick on the same day.

Before and after seeing each flick, participants completed questionnaires about their movie-going experience, in which they rated their symptoms in three main areas: nausea, vision problems and dizziness.

Close to 55 percent of the viewers of the 3-D flick reported some level of sickness following the film compared to only 14% of those watching a 2-D film.

Nearly half of the 3-D viewers complained that the film hurt their eyes. It strained their eyes, blurred their vision, or made it hard to focus.

Slightly more than one in five 3-D moviegoers felt somewhat disoriented at the theater. They had a headache, or felt off-balance or dizzy, whether their eyes were open or shut.

About one in 10 3-D film attendees felt queasy during the show.

Some individuals were more prone to these unpleasant feelings than others. The study found that women, especially those with a history of car sickness, vertigo, or frequent headache, may be more vulnerable to these symptoms.

As for why some people find it harder to handle 3-D movies than others do, Solimini suggests it's because the distance at which our eyes converge is different from where they focus. This mismatch causes extra work for the visual system that for some individuals may result in these annoying side effects.

The most susceptible people, he explains, are those with unequal vision in both eyes or those with small vision misalignments.

Solimini draws an analogy between seeing a 3-D film and riding a roller coaster. Both are forms of entertainment in which some people may be willing to put up with an increase in symptoms and mild -- but temporary -- discomfort as part of the experience. 

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There were no hand cymbals or sequined harem pants, and no Middle Eastern music was playing in the background. And yet the rhythmic, wavy movements of an Iraqi woman's abdominal wall muscles resembled belly dancing.

Although her midsection lacked Shakira's graceful shimmying, its unintentional "jerky" movements were from a rarely diagnosed neurological condition known as "belly dancer's syndrome."

In an intriguing case study and video published in the British Medical Journal's Case Report, doctors describe and show the visible vibrations of this woman's stomach, most noticeable on her left side. 

Belly dancer's syndrome is a form of myoclonic jerk, which in its more common forms can trigger hiccups or can cause the sudden muscle twitches known as "sleep starts" before nodding off. Like hiccups, belly dancer's syndrome affects the diaphragm, the main muscle involved in breathing.

The fluttering motion seen in the woman's stomach occurred because her diaphragm was rapidly contracting and releasing. When this muscle's contraction and relaxation cycle is disorganized, normal breathing is interrupted, says study author Dr. Osama Amin, a neurologist at Sulaimaniya General Teaching Hospital in Sulaimaniya City, Iraq.

As a result, she felt short of breath since she couldn't exhale fully. And these quick diaphragmatic contractions were also causing her a great deal of abdominal pain, like the pain brought on by a muscle spasm, explains Amin, who is a fellow of the American College of Physicians. 

According to the case report, a week before this 47-year-old Iraqi Kurdish woman showed up at the emergency room, she had an operation to remove hemorrhoids. She was feeling fine two days after her surgery and was sent home from the hospital. But four days later she noticed the undulating movements of her belly.

At first, her doctors thought she may have an intestinal obstruction. But when she was given treatment for this condition, her symptoms did not improve. So they asked Dr. Amin, a neurologist, to see this patient thinking she may have had a seizure.

"We did a thorough search for any underlying cause within the abdomen, brain, and spinal cord but it was fruitless," says Amin. Nothing turned up either when they did blood tests on her, meaning that this mother of four was otherwise healthy.

This led Amin to conclude that the cause of her belly dancer's syndrome was psychological in origin and was possibly triggered by the stress of her recent surgery.  Interestingly, the abdominal wall fluttering would stop while the woman was sleeping and would start up again when she was awake, another indication that its roots were psychological.

Once diagnosed, Amin prescribed two medications -- an IV form of Benadryl and the muscle relaxant Valium -- to help get rid of her belly dancing movements. After three days on this drug treatment, all of her symptoms disappeared and they have never returned.

So how did this woman, who had never belly danced in her life, react to hearing she had "belly dancer's syndrome," a funny name for a rare condition?

"She laughed," says Amin. "But we immediately reassured her that this is just a name; it's not a bad stigma, and her diagnosis is 'frequent spasms of the diaphragm.'"

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You can get better at lying with more practice, a recent study suggests.

Researchers found that with a little training, people can learn to tell a lie more automatically and efficiently. It gets easier for folks to repeat the lies and becomes harder for them to differentiate deception from telling the truth.

The idea that lying becomes easier with more practice comes on the heels of news from the sports world of two high-profile athletes publicly admitting their tall tales. It's something cyclist Lance Armstrong and Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o may have both discovered while repeating their own lies about not using performance enhancing drugs or the "death" of Te'o's fake online girlfriend even after learning he was the victim of a hoax.

In this small study, published in the journal Frontiers in Cognitive Science, scientists looked at whether lying can be trained to become more automatic and a less demanding task for the brain. The research involved 48 college students from China who were assigned to either an instruction group, a training group, or a control group.

After all groups completed a task for the first time, the instruction group was told to speed up their deceptive responses and make fewer errors during their second attempt. The training group was also told to speed up their deceptive responses and make fewer errors, but they also received more practice and were given more time to prepare their lies. The control group simply repeated the task for a second time.

Researchers noticed that the reaction time needed to tell lies was reduced in both the training and instruction groups. But the results also revealed that only the training group, who had the most practice telling lies, no longer took more time to be dishonest compared with telling the truth.

"We were surprised to find that lying is more malleable than previously thought," said study author Xiaoqing Hu, a doctoral candidate in psychology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Simply asking the participants to speed up and make fewer errors when telling a lie enabled the participants to do so, he explained. "In other words, a strong motivation makes people a better liar."

Exactly how does lying become easier and more automatic with practice?

As Hu explained it, lying is usually accompanied by conflicting thoughts because people are mostly honest and genuine during social interactions.

But what he believed happened during his study is that as participants repeatedly practiced retrieving a dishonest response from their minds, the original conflicts and barriers to lying were reduced, and people became better at stretching the truth.

Previous research had claimed that lying is more cognitively demanding than being honest and lying cannot be made easier. The thinking was that constructing lies and keeping them straight in someone's head required more mental work, so people typically took a little longer to give false responses compared with giving honest answers, and they made more mistakes when fibbing.

Yet Hu's study results indicate that this may not necessarily be the case. He said that lying can be more multifaceted, and repeating a lie makes it more fluent or easier.

"People can also become good at deceiving themselves, which is similar to a repeated lie," Hu pointed out.

Although Hu admits he did not follow the Armstrong or Te'o news closely, his research findings seem to suggest that once you repeat lies often enough -- and especially when you have a good reason to do so, such as to maintain a positive self-image or to avoid punishment -- you may no longer feel that you are lying.

"Once people feel their lying is justified, they may no longer experience the moral or mental conflict," Hu said.

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When searching for that dream girl or guy, height may be one of the qualities you put on your mental wish list. But is height a trait that people really care about when choosing a mate or is just a number?

A new study has found that people's height preferences mattered to both men and women and seemed to be reflected in their actual partner choices to some degree.

The effects observed for partner height preferences and actual mate characteristics were generally small, says study author Gert Stulp, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

For this study, published in the journal PLoS One, Dutch researchers compared height differences found in real-life couples to the distribution patterns expected in random mating. They looked at self-reported height data collected from about 12,500 heterosexual couples in the UK, who were participating in a long-term health study of British families.

Among these 12,500 British parents, the men were taller than the women in more than 11,500 pairs. Women were taller than their mates in 511 couples, while 425 twosomes were the same height.

Previous studies have found that women generally prefer men somewhat taller than themselves while guys typically go for a shorter gal. This new research revealed that men were taller than their female partners in 92.5% of the actual pairings, which is more often than expected on the basis of chance.

Ladies also tend to look for a fellow who's not too much taller than they are, a preference that was also reflected in the results. The number of actual mates in which the guy was 10 or more inches taller than a gal occurred in nearly 14 percent of couples, or rarer than would be expected by chance.

And the number of couples in which the man was much shorter than the woman was less likely to occur than pairs in which the man is only slightly smaller than the woman. More of the British couples fell into a category in which a male was roughly 2 to 8 inches taller than a female.

Even if the link between height preferences and actual partners is not very strong, the findings suggest that in Western cultures we truly do size up a potential mate.

Two other trends held up in the real-life twosomes, but they also had weaker associations than findings that were previously reported in preference studies (where people were asked to indicate the importance of characteristics they'd like in a potential mate.): Shorter women and taller men were more likely to have greater height differences with their mate, while taller women and shorter men preferred smaller variations in height.

Preferring a certain height in the opposite sex may mean preferring the biologically 'best' partner, points out Stulp. Since somewhat taller men seem to be preferred by women, he suggests this may have something to do with the fact that taller men tend to be somewhat more healthy, wealthy, and educated than guys who are vertically challenged.

In height preference studies he's conducted, Stulp says it appears that women -- and not men -- are driving the desire for a taller partner. He explains that men don't care much or only slightly care if a woman is shorter than they are, but women really do prefer a taller mate.

Height is one factor that could spark physical attraction, but Stulp suggests that clearly other partner traits play a role in selecting a mate and may be much more important.

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Little kids often put things into their mouths that don't belong there, from coins and jewelry to small toys and batteries. Even though grownups know better, they sometimes accidentally swallow items they shouldn't either -- and these objects may get stuck in their throats or lodged in their digestive tracts.

A review study from Germany, published in the journal Deutsches Arzteblatt International, recently identified the three items most likely to be inadvertently swallowed by adults. First on the list was fish bones followed by chicken bones, neither of which seem that unusual. The third most common item was dentures, which may loosen up in an older person's mouth while eating. 

Although the researchers didn't speculate beyond these three items, I asked Dr. Ram Chuttani, a gastroenterologist and director of endoscopy at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston to do so. He was not involved in the study, but described some of the most frequent objects he's known to unintentionally slide down an adult's throat during his medical career.

"Coins are a big one," says Chuttani. "How they get there is difficult to say, but they're not uncommon." Toothpicks are also common, he suggests, and they're one of the more dangerous because they are long, thin, pointy, and wooden.

Wooden objects, such as pencils and toothpicks, are not easily picked up on X-rays, Chuttani explains. Also tough to see are broken pieces of glass whose sharp edges can damage your insides. So can swallowing an open safety pin, and Chuttani says that sometimes prisoners purposely swallow sharp items like razor blades because they know it will temporarily get them out of jail and into the hospital.

The German study also recommends seeking prompt medical attention if items such as batteries and magnets are accidentally swallowed. A battery stuck in the esophagus needs to be removed immediately because it might leak alkaline substances. It can also put pressure on the wall of esophagus, or generate electrical currents that can short-circuit its function. Batteries that make their way into the stomach might corrode the lining there.

Magnets can be especially risky when you swallow more than one of them, points out Chuttani. He says that if one magnet winds up in the stomach while another is in the small intestine, they can attract each other causing the walls of the intestine to get trapped in between. Pressure can build up and puncture a hole in the intestine.

Sometimes people do dumb things and an object glides down their gullet -- whole. Chuttani once removed a ping pong ball that a drunk college student chugged during a memorable game of beer pong. He's also retrieved a latex glove that a psych patient stuck down his throat, and has drudged up swallowed condoms.

The study shows pictures taken after folks accidentally swallowed a toothbrush, spoon, or dental drill bit, while other case reports have described women who have mistakenly sent a butter knife or pen down their throats.

Chuttani says most of the time these foreign objects pass by themselves.

According to the study, about 80 percent of the time an item winds its way through the curvy GI tract without causing any trouble. It typically comes out in your poop within 4 to 6 days. In rare instances, an object may take up to 4 weeks to pass through a person's body safely.

Roughly 20 percent of cases need endoscopy, in which doctors look inside the body, locate the item, and then gently remove it. 

A very small minority -- less than 1 percent of cases -- require surgery to retrieve the object.

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Gossip usually gets a bad rap, but a new study suggests it can do some good: It might discourage some of us from slacking off. 

The study reveals that the good form of gossip can protect a group from individuals looking for a free ride, which can be a good thing for co-workers on a project team, students in a study group, or parents serving on a school committee, to name a few.

We tend to think of gossip as the nasty rumors spread behind someone's back or what busybodies blabber about for lack of anything better to say. But it can be more than that, says study author Bianca Beersma, PhD, an associate professor in the department of work and organizational psychology at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. "Gossip is not merely a trivial activity, nor is it always detrimental to group functioning," says Beersma says. "It can serve neutral and even positive functions for groups."

In one experiment, published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 221 college students completed a questionnaire rating people's main motives for gossiping.

They found that exchanging and validating information was the most important reason to instigate gossip. Students also rated its negative influence as the least important reason to gossip, and its social enjoyment and group protection ranked second and third, respectively.

As a result, Beersma suggests that malicious gossip may be a relatively infrequent type, but its consequences may be disproportionately large -- such as when gossip is part of bullying someone for a long period of time. 

In another experiment, the same college students read a situation describing an employee who was not doing their fair share at work. Study participants were then told to imagine they ran into a friend or a co-worker at a bus stop after leaving their job and asked whether they would gossip about the annoying slacker at work.

Researchers found people were more likely to gossip about a co-worker who was slacking off to another colleague, and the main reason was to protect other group members from this norm-violating behavior. 

For example, it's always tempting for some individuals to slack off in a group project, contribute little, and let others do the work. But the study found that one of the motives to gossip was to warn other group members about someone who was looking for a free ride who could hurt the rest of the group's overall performance. 

"Our study clearly shows that there is more to gossip than just the malicious aspect," says Beersma. "We are in need of a more nuanced view of gossip to enable organizations to benefit from its positive aspects."

But when it comes to workplace gossip, Beersma says the biggest challenge for an organization and its employees is to distinguish between positive, group-protecting gossip and the malicious, self-interested kind. 

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When looking for love, dating books and well-meaning friends may advise guys and gals to play hard-to-get. And now pretending not to be interested in a potential partner to increase your desirability is gaining some scientific support:  A new study suggests that if you want a serious relationship, it pays for men and women to be hard-to-get.

According to the research, one potential benefit of playing hard-to-get is attracting a higher-quality mate with the greatest level of commitment for a long-term relationship. 

In the study, published in the European Journal of Personality, psychology researchers ran four different experiments to determine how and why people play hard-to-get and if or when it works in attracting a mate.

In one test, they identified the ways people play hard-to-get and how often men and women use them. From a list of 58 strategies, nearly 500 American college students rated 'acting confident' and 'talking to others' as the two most commonly used methods of playing hard-to-get.

But there were slight differences in strategies between the sexes. When gals acted coy they tended 'not to call,' 'not to talk a lot,' and 'to stay busy,' more than guys did.

When guys wanted to appear less available, they used only three methods more than gals did including 'acting snooty or rude,' 'saying all the right things but not calling,' and 'treating others like s#@t.'

Not surprisingly to anyone who's been single, researchers found that women played hard-to-get more often than men did.

"Women derive more benefit from playing hard-to-get because it allows them to test men out and increase the demand men place on them," says study author Peter Jonason, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Western Sydney in Australia. 

"Because women have greater value in the biological mating market, they can afford to play hard-to-get more than men can," he explains. "Men who are too hard-to-get may miss out on a mating opportunity." 

A second experiment of nearly 300 U.S. college students identified the top two reasons for playing hard-to-get were to increase demand (to make a romantic partner want someone more) and to test a partner's willingness to commit (to gauge interest and keep up a mate's pursuit).

The study also found that for a committed romantic relationship, women preferred a man who was medium in availability (not too easy or too hard-to-get) while guys preferred a gal with low availability (harder to get).

For a hookup, the results suggest a different story: If you're a women looking for casual sex, it does not pay to be hard to get. But if you're a man looking for a casual fling, it pays to be impossible to get, says Jonason. 

And when it came to spending money and time on a potential romantic partner, 425 college students revealed that the less available a person is, the more a prospective mate is willing to invest time and money in him or her.

The researchers admit that since their study only looked at college students their results may not apply to other age groups of single people. But their findings indicate some of the games people play when dating.

"We all would want honesty in dating but this is never going to happen," says Jonason. "We are not overtly lying, but we're always trying to marry up."

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Your navel is bacteria-land.

What's inside your belly button? Probably dirt and sweat; possibly some lint, and perhaps even a piercing.

But according to new research, which asked 66 men and women to swab their navels with a sterile Q-tip, the skin in study participants' belly buttons also contained an average of 67 different species of bacteria.

The study, published online in the journal PLoS ONE, was done as part of the Belly Button Biodiversity project.

Why belly buttons? "It was a fun way to reach out to the public and teach them about the ecology and evolution of everyday life," says Rob Dunn, PhD, an associate professor of biology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who led the study. In other words, the navel is a novel, attention-getting device to study science.

He says the belly button is a fun habitat filled with living organisms that we don't know much about. It's less exposed and gets washed less often than other areas of skin, so the bacterial community in the umbilicus is less disturbed.

Researchers cultured the bacteria from people's navels, and participants could view online photos of the bacterial colonies found living in their belly button. The experimenters also isolated DNA from the sample to identify the exact bacterial species.

In all, they found 2,368 different species of bacteria, which is a heck of a lot of biological diversity.

"We got many more species of bacteria than we expected," says Dunn. But most of those bacterial species were rare ones found in just a few people's belly buttons.

Only about 8 bacterial types occurred in more than 70% of all the people screened.

Those common kinds included species such as Staphylococci, which Dunn says is like your skin's standing army defending it from bad germs. Other frequent microbes were a species of Bacillus, a type that gives stinky feet their odor and may be protecting the body from fungi, and Micrococcus, a hardy bacteria found deep in the navel that can survive without oxygen.

The more common species of bacteria seem to be very predictable, Dunn explains. "They were more frequent and abundant on more people, and more common than we expected," he points out.

Dunn suggests that if scientists can get a handle on those common ones, they will know a lot more about what's going on with skin bacteria. For example, they might understand which ones are really good for the skin and which ones are bad. Or how the bacteria interact with one another or with the immune system.

Two samples contained an extremely rare type of archaea, a single-cell organism never previously found on human skin. One of these samples came from a man who self-reported that he had not bathed or showered for several years -- yikes!

Researchers also collected information from study participants on their age, gender, ethnicity, where they grew up, if they are pet owners (who may get more bacteria on their skin if their pooch or cat frequently lick them), and even if their belly button was an innie or an outie. So far, none of this data has been linked to the types of bacterial species found in someone's umbilicus.

Dunn said his research team will continue to study belly button bacteria and have collected more than 500 samples. But they have also started to look into the microbial diversity of underarms, and they are currently recruiting people interested in sampling the microbial communities found in their homes.

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People with relaxation-induced anxiety get stressed out when they begin to unwind, experts say.

You may be counting the days until you get your holiday R & R, but for some people, rest and relaxation is a scary thing. They freak out while chilling out.

The phenomenon, known as relaxation-induced anxiety, happens when people become anxious as a result of being relaxed. While it sounds contradictory, activities such as exercise, listening to music, or taking a vacation trigger anxious feelings.

"Someone with a fear of relaxation is able to initially relax," says Christina Luberto, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of Cincinnati, who has developed a questionnaire, known as the Relaxation Sensitivity Index, to examine this fear. "But once they start to feel relaxed, they begin to feel anxious as a result."

Instead of enjoying a bit of down time, their heart rate increases, their breathing speeds up, their muscles tense and they feel nervous and worried. Relaxing activities don't truly unwind them but rather make them feel wound up.

Relaxation-induced anxiety is a fear of relaxation itself or an increased fear that occurs not long after relaxation is achieved, explains Luberto.

For example, people with this fear may dislike getting a massage because they're frightened by the physical sensations it creates when tension gets released from their muscles and their neck and shoulders loosen up.

Or some might be scared of the mental aspects of chilling out, such as the unwanted thoughts that enter their heads when their minds quiet down. Still others may be afraid of the social consequences of doing relaxing activities, such as appearing lazy, feeling a loss of control, or worrying they're not relaxing "correctly."

Luberto says relaxation-induced fears are relatively common based on a study involving 300 college students, most of whom were 21 years old, female and Caucasian.

Participants in the study were asked to rank on a scale of 0 to 5 statements such as "I worry that when I let my body relax, I will look silly" and "When my mind begins to wander, I worry that I might be going crazy." Luberto's preliminary findings revealed that about 15 percent of those tested experienced relaxation-induced anxiety.

While that number reflects the frequency of these fears in a group of relatively healthy young adults, Luberto says relaxation-induced fears may run as high as 50 percent among people with anxiety disorders. And there's not yet information on its frequency among individuals with other types of mood disorders or mental health problems. 

Luberto is quick to point out that relaxation-induced anxiety isn't a diagnosis, and it doesn't necessarily require treatment unless this fear is interfering with a person's life.

But since relaxation techniques are a common treatment for anxiety disorders, this would obviously be problematic for people with a fear of relaxation. You can't suggest deep breathing exercises or meditation as a remedy for anxiety if these techniques make the person feel more nervous, uncomfortable, and worried while doing them.

Luberto developed her questionnaire as a tool for mental health professionals to use when working with anxiety patients. It can help identify those who are afraid of relaxation and might need a different treatment option to successfully overcome this fear. 

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A nearly full moon sets over waters of Cook Inlet and a children's whale slippery slide just before sunrise on Tuesday, at Elderberry Park in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. Anchorage's next full moon is Wednesday.

When there's a full moon (like the one Wednesday), there's a tendency to blame some people's strange behavior on it. But a new Canadian study dismisses this popular belief and suggests that more people with psychological problems do not show up at hospital emergency rooms during a full moon.

Researchers found little evidence that the moon's lunar cycles were linked to an increased incidence of mental health concerns. 

In other words, the moon's behavior seems to have no effect on human behavior on planet Earth. Sure, the word "lunatic" derives from the Latin word "luna" for "moon," but science has found little connection between the moon and madness.

Even so, that won't stop some of us from thinking that lunar cycles can influence psychological symptoms. By one estimate, 80 percent of nurses and 64 percent of doctors who work in the emergency department believe it affects patients' mental health.

In the study, which will appear in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry, researchers reviewed medical records from two hospitals in Montreal over a three-year period. They looked at nearly 800 patients who came to the emergency room for unexplained chest pains, meaning doctors aren't sure what caused their heart trouble.

Researchers studied unexplained chest pains because people with this complaint often suffer from many psychological difficulties, including panic attacks, anxiety and mood disorders, and suicidal thoughts.

They also investigated this topic because the research team was already conducting a study on panic attacks and unexplained chest pains. And the emergency department personnel would often make comments, such as "This would be a good night for research because it's a full moon," says study researcher William Foldes-Busque, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada. So, experimenters knew some health professionals already had this perception in their heads, but they wanted to see if the idea had any truth to it.

After patients completed a mental health evaluation, scientists then analyzed data to find out if their psychological symptoms revealed any seasonal patterns or lunar phase influence. Researchers were able to determine which one of the moon's four phases -- new moon, first quarter, full moon, or last quarter -- was present on the day each patient came to the emergency room.

The study found that lunar cycle had no influence on the occurrence of psychological problems, such as panic attacks, anxiety and mood disorders, or suicidal thoughts. The only exception was a 32% drop in the frequency of anxiety disorders during the moon's last quarter. 

"We don't know for sure why this happened," says Foldes-Busque.

Other studies have looked at admissions to psychiatric hospitals, calls to crisis hotlines, or homicide rates, and also failed to turn up a link between the moon's illumination and behavior changes. But if you talk to health professionals or police officers, they may think there's more nuttiness and craziness during a full moon. 

It's possible that people are more prone to notice -- and remember -- a full moon, so they may link any strange behaviors they see that day to it. And perhaps when people act odd during other times of the month, they're just considered weird -- no further explanations given.

Foldes-Busque says it's possible the moon affects mental health in other ways. "I've heard that the full moon may affect sleep, mostly because of increased luminosity," he says.

What's his advice for today's full moon? "Don't do anything special or change anything because of it."

Related: 

Do you hear what I hear? Your brain on Christmas music

Coffee helps you see the bright side

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Noah Berger / AP file

All those holiday shoppers...and all that holiday music. Can your brain handle it?

Shana McGough likes Christmas music, until she hears too much of it.

"I think at first Christmas music is nice, it's nostalgic, and it gets me into the holiday spirit," says the writer from Escondido, Calif. Then, "it gets old, and it can start to feel like a part of a giant sales machine trying to bleed me dry."

She also suspects that for anyone of a different faith who doesn't celebrate Christmas,"holiday music must be beyond annoying, right into offensive."

If it’s not started already, by the time the Thanksgiving meal is devoured and the stores open for Black Friday, Christmas music will be inescapable. After hearing 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree' and 'Frosty the Snowman' for the umpteenth time, you might be hoping for a silent night.

Earlier this month Canada's top pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. heeded shopper complaints and put the holiday music on pause until later in the season. Even for people who celebrate Christmas, listening to the same seemingly inescapable seasonal songs over and over again may be incredibly irritating.

Endless loops of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” or any tinsel-y tune can have a psychological impact known as the 'mere exposure effect,' says Victoria Williamson, Ph.D, who conducts research on the psychology of music at Goldsmiths, University of London. There's a U-shaped relationship between the amount of times we hear music that we like and our subsequent reaction to it, she says.

As Williamson puts it, at first we like music a bit, then we like it more and more until it hits a peak. And then we crash down -- we have overheard it. That's when boredom and annoyance at the repetition of the same sound hits home. "Anyone who has worked in a Christmas store over the holidays will know what I'm talking about," Williamson says. When asked why holiday music seems to have a polarizing effect, driving some people crazy while others like, or at least, can tolerate it, Williamson suggests that music's effect on us in any situation depends on our own psychological state.

People who are already stressed out about the holidays -- worrying about money, traveling, or seeing relatives -- may find the musical reminder of the cause of their stress very unwelcome, she says. But those who approach the holidays in a receptive, relaxed state are more likely to get a boost from the happy associations -- childhood memories, family gatherings, or the holiday's religious meaning -- triggered by holiday music.

Of course, the reason Christmas music is played in every department store, supermarket from Thanksgiving through December. Music can put us in the mood to spend money, research suggests.

"We've shown that 'holiday appropriate' music combined with congruent 'holiday scents' can influence shoppers by increasing the amount of time they spend in a store, their intention to revisit it, and intention to purchase," says Eric Spangenberg, Ph.D, dean of the College of Business at Washington State University in Pullman, who has studied the  influence of music on holiday shopping.

He says that some types of music work better than others. "Slower tempo music slows down shoppers, and they spend more time and money in a store," Spangenberg explains. Faster-paced pieces move people through the store quicker than retailers would like.

For Charlie Muldoon, only certain types of holiday music can put him in a good mood.

"I find the traditional songs sung by the great artists of the 50s and 60s or the funny songs about 'Grandma Getting Run Over by a Reindeer' put a smile on my face," says the Washington, DC-based professional polo player. 

"But those remakes by commercial singers and rappers make me want to go postal," Muldoon confesses. And some sounds make him forget the season's peace on earth, goodwill toward men sentiment. "Those 'elevator' versions of holiday music make me want to take a bat to the machine that plays them," he says.

As long as Christmas songs are played after Thanksgiving, Mary Leach, a public relations professional who lives in Cambridge, Mass., doesn’t mind. To her, "Christmas [music and decorations] much prior to Turkey Day is just plain wrong."

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• See Jesus in toast? Science explains the mind trick
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• Even your strangest dreams are rooted in reality

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