Sarah's runners, Avatars and eyewitness testimony, Untranslatable words

All in the Mind

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.