Finally a study has proved that women are more prone to stress related disorders than men. New research has focused on a hormone that organises stress response in rats. The study found that stressed male rats adapted by making themselves less responsive to the hormone, whereas female rats didn't. Confirmation that men really do switch off when it comes to emotions!!

It was also interesting to note a study that may point to the reasons why people become anorexic. They asked people to put their hands palm down and asked people to say where they thought their knuckles and fingers were. They found that nearly everyone said that their hands were shorter and fatter than they actually were. It is suspected that the distorted model of body shape is due to the way the brain represents different parts of the skin. In hypnotherapy it has long been recognised that a person with a condition such as anorexia will have a distorted internal image of their body; imagining themselves to be much fatter than they really are. Hypnotherapy works on matching up the body shape with the mental image. Maybe we should be working more closely with the scientists to investigate this further.