tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35944322870280691902024-03-13T20:55:54.981-07:00The Stress BlogThe latest scientific information on stress and its effects on your life, plus tips and ideas on how to cope with the day to day.Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-58582640432001715442014-08-12T15:55:00.000-07:002014-08-12T15:55:09.350-07:00Managers suffer less stress when work relationships are good<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">M</span></strong>anagers who enjoy a good relationship with their employees, suffer less dangerous stress at work, according to a study of nearly 3000 managers.<br />
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It's tough at the top, people say. Managers have heavy responsibilities, both for their workers and for the organization's results. They need to make hard, and at times unpopular, decisions. Such factors will make us think it is stressful to be a manager.<br />
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Much research has been conducted regarding stress, but not many studies have looked specifically at stress among managers. How is life among those in the driving seat in companies and organizations? Are they more stressed than what is good for them?<br />
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<strong>Pressure and stress among managers</strong> <br />
Professors Astrid M. Richardsen and Stig Berge Matthiesen at BI Norwegian Business School have analysed the responses from over 2900 professional managers.<br />
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The study measures four key stress factors: <br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Time pressures and workload, </li>
<li>Emotional strain, </li>
<li>Role stress at work (role conflict between the demands from the top management and from the employees) </li>
<li>Role conflict between work and private life.</li>
</ol>
More than six out of ten managers surveyed (61.8 per cent) indicate that they often or all the time experience time pressure or a heavy workload. Fewer than five per cent say they rarely or never have time pressure at work.<br />
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"Although a clear majority of the managers experience time pressure at work, there are relatively few who have role stress at work, or a role conflict between work and private life," the BI researchers conclude.<br />
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<strong>Few allow themselves to get stressed</strong> <br />
Only five out of 100 managers surveyed experience role stress at work often or all the time, while just over one third (36.6 per cent) feel it some of the time. A little more than one of ten managers (11 per cent) experience a role conflict between work and private life often or all the time.<br />
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Managers who feel they have control of their work situation and great freedom to make decisions, experience less work pressure and emotional strain, and they also suffer considerably less role stress than managers who do not have such control.<br />
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The factors that contribute the most to the managers' workload and work stress, are the degree of unpredictability in the company and the unit they manage, and the amount of changes that have been made in the course of the last year.<br />
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<strong>Good relationships prevent stress</strong><br />
Managers under a high work pressure considered their work performance and efficiency to be high, the study shows. This is probably because they quite simply spend more hours at work. It is worth noting that managers experience significantly less stress when they feel they have a good relationship to their employees, and the employees show a positive conduct and confidence in their managers.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<em><strong>The best thing a manager can do to prevent work stress, is to develop good relationships with the employees at work</strong></em>," Astrid M. Richardsen recommends.</blockquote>
When employees are happy with what the manager does, understand his or her challenges and participate actively in solving the problems, the manager will have less stress. This will probably be because the manager trusts the employees more and delegates more tasks to them. Hence the work pressure will decrease, Richardsen believes.<br />
Ten tips for stress management <br />
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Stress can come from many sources. Here are four common stress factors: • Stress may relate to factors in the job itself (e.g. the work requirements facing the manager).<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Stress may be caused by the manager's own reactions to a specific job situation (e.g. anxiety for how people will respond, a feeling of fatigue or exhaustion).</li>
<li>Stress may be about how one handles work tasks that are challenging or straining (e.g. works harder, works overtime, takes work home).</li>
<li>Any conflict between the demands at work and family considerations / leisure activities may also be a source of stress.</li>
</ul>
Managers who suffer work-related stress factors over time, may develop individual reactions such as frustration, irritation and anger, reduced self-confidence and depression. That again might lead to lower concentration, reduced motivation and work satisfaction, and a low work effort and performance.<br />
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According to the researchers, stress can impact the organization in the form of e.g. reduced productivity and a poorer bottom line result. The perception of a high workload and role stress may reduce the manager's loyalty and commitment to the organization and make it more likely that he or she will look for a job somewhere else.<br />
Astrid Richardsen and Stig Berge Matthisen at BI Norwegian Business School have prepared ten research-based tips that may help managers to handle work stress.<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><strong>Find out what is creating the stress</strong>: </li>
<ul>
<li>Identify the sources of work stress. Knowledge makes it easier to implement stress management measures.</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>More knowledge about stress</strong>: </li>
<ul>
<li>Increase the general knowledge of the nature of stress. How do various conditions for stress interact? What can be done about it?</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Have a healthy lifestyle</strong>. </li>
<ul>
<li>Make sure you have sufficient rest and sleep, exercise and a healthy diet. A healthy mind in a healthy body ("Mens sana in corpore sano"). There are good reasons why so many managers are keen on their exercise.</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Learn to rest and relax</strong>. </li>
<ul>
<li>Practice the skill of stressing down or relaxing. Muscle relaxation, meditation and tools that tell you whether your body really is relaxing, may be a help here.</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Manage your time more efficiently</strong>. </li>
<ul>
<li>Learn to prioritize work tasks better. Identify the time thieves, and try to get rid of them.</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Increase your employees' skills</strong>. </li>
<ul>
<li>By increasing the skills of your employees, you yourself will have less stress. You will feel more confident that the jobs you delegate will be done.</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Establish relationships for support</strong>. </li>
<ul>
<li>Do you have someone to ask for help and support when you need it? Is there anyone you can go to with your joys and sorrows? Social support in everyday life is important for managers, too.</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Plan your career</strong>. </li>
<ul>
<li>For managers as for others, a job or work commitment may have a "best before" date. Remaining too long in a job may lead to unnecessary stress or strain.</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Switch jobs in time</strong>. </li>
<ul>
<li>Make the switch while you still have good control of the job and its related stress.</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Seek outside, professional help if the job becomes too much of a strain</strong>. </li>
<ul>
<li>Major work stress can have serious consequences, both for the person suffering it and for his/her surroundings.</li>
</ul>
</ol>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Story Source</strong>: The above story is based on materials provided by BI Norwegian Business School. "Managers: Less stress when work relationships are good." <em>ScienceDaily</em></span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-31927852176615404992014-08-09T16:00:00.000-07:002014-08-09T16:00:14.973-07:00Work-related stress a risk factor for type 2 diabetes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Credit: © Alliance / Fotolia</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="text-align: left;">Roughly one in five people in employment is affected by high levels of mental<br /> stress at work.not mean 'normal job stress' but when the demands made<br /> are very high, with little or no scope for maneuver or decision making.</span> </i></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">W</span></b>orkplace stress can have a range of adverse effects on health with an increased risk of cardio-vascular diseases in the first line. However, to date, convincing evidence for a strong association between work stress and incident Type 2 diabetes mellitus is missing. Researchers have now discovered that individuals who are under a high level of pressure at work face an about 45 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who are subjected to less stress at their workplace.<br />
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Workplace stress can have a range of adverse effects on health with an increased risk of cardio-vascular diseases in the first line. However, to date, convincing evidence for a strong association between work stress and incident Type 2 diabetes mellitus is missing.<br />
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<b>Risk of diabetes about 45 percent higher</b><br />
As the team of scientists headed by Dr. Cornelia Huth and Prof. Karl-Heinz Ladwig has now discovered that individuals who are under a high level of pressure at work and at the same time perceive little control over the activities they perform face an about 45 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who are subjected to less stress at their workplace.<br />
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The scientists from the Institute of Epidemiology II (EPI II) at the Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU) in collaboration with Prof. Johannes Kruse from the University Hospital of Giessen and Marburg examined data prospectively collected from more than 5,300 employed individuals aged between 29 and 66 who took part in the population-based MONICA/KORA cohort study. At the beginning of the study, none of the participants had diabetes, while in the post-observation period, which covered an average of 13 years, almost 300 of them were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The increase in risk in work-related stress was identified independently of classic risk factors such as obesity, age or gender.<br />
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<b>Holistic prevention is important -- also at the workplace</b><br />
"According to our data, roughly one in five people in employment is affected by high levels of mental stress at work. By that, scientists do not mean 'normal job stress' but rather the situation in which the individuals concerned rate the demands made upon them as very high, and at the same time they have little scope for maneuver or for decision making. We covered both these aspects in great detail in our surveys," explains Prof. Ladwig, who led the study. "In view of the huge health implications of stress-related disorders, preventive measures to prevent common diseases such as diabetes should therefore also begin at this point," he added.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: Materials provided by Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen - German Research Centre for Environmental Health. Huth, C. et al. Job Strain as a Risk Factor for the Onset of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Findings From the MONICA/KORA Augsburg Cohort Study. <i>Psychosomatic Medicine</i>, August 2014</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-55862212008255849902014-08-08T11:29:00.001-07:002014-08-08T11:29:24.602-07:00Stress brings on pimples? Then, reducing stress may help lead to clearer skin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></strong>nyone who's had a pimple form right before an important event may wonder if stress caused the break out. While commonly linked anecdotally, proving the relationship between stress and inflammatory skin conditions, such as acne, psoriasis and rosacea, is another matter.<br />
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"Nearly everyone has some form of stress in their life, so it's difficult to determine whether stress can actually make the skin's appearance worse," said board-certified dermatologist Richard D. Granstein, MD, FAAD, the George W. Hambrick Jr., professor and chairman of the department of dermatology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. "However, it's been known for a long time that the nervous system, which processes our stress, has an impact on conditions such as psoriasis."<br />
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Dr. Granstein discusses the latest research on the impact stress has on inflammatory skin conditions and his thoughts on how this research could change treatment options.<br />
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How does stress play a role in inflammatory skin conditions? Dr. Granstein said research linking the nervous system and the skin has long been understood. "If you interrupt the nerves' path to an area of a patient's skin affected by psoriasis, the psoriasis improves," said Dr. Granstein. "In addition, the condition improves if you inject local anesthetic into psoriasis patches. This information strongly suggests that nerves play a role in how psoriasis operates."<br />
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<strong>Stress shown to make inflammatory skin conditions worse</strong><br />
Dr. Granstein notes that animal studies have demonstrated that stress can make inflammatory skin conditions worse. In a Japanese study , mice genetically prone to develop a rash similar to the inflammatory skin condition atopic dermatitis did so when stressed, while mice that were not exposed to stress did not develop the rash.<br />
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Dr. Granstein said experimental data support the idea that the nervous system and stress affect inflammatory skin conditions in humans. Many types of cells in the skin, including immune cells and endothelial cells (cells that line blood vessels), can be regulated by neuropeptides and neurotransmitters, which are chemicals released by the skin's nerve endings. Stress can result in the skin's nerve endings releasing an increased level of these chemicals. When this occurs, it can affect how and at what level our body responds to many important functions, such as sensation and control of blood flow, and can contribute to the symptoms of stress that we feel. In addition, the release of these chemicals can lead to inflammation of the skin.<br />
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"If we could block specific steps in certain pathways between the nervous system and the skin -- without impacting the whole body -- we would likely have new ways to prevent or treat some skin disorders," said Dr. Granstein. "We're gaining a greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying many skin conditions, which will help us develop new therapies."<br />
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Has stress been shown to impact the skin in other ways? While commonly believed, Dr. Granstein said research has not proven that stress causes skin aging.<br />
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When combined with exposure to ultraviolet rays, Dr. Granstein noted that animal studies have shown that stress could have an impact on the development of skin cancer. "When exposed to ultraviolet radiation, stressed mice developed skin cancers more quickly than mice that were not exposed to stress," he said.<br />
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How does current research impact how people with inflammatory skin conditions are treated? Dr. Granstein said more research needs to be done to further understand the role of the nervous system and stress on inflammatory skin conditions, especially since other factors play a role, including genetics. <br />
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<strong>Meditation, yoga, or tai chi</strong><br />
He encourages people with inflammatory skin conditions to tell their dermatologist if they believe stress is impacting their condition. They can experiment with stress reduction techniques such as meditation, yoga, or tai chi, but they should continue their treatment plan as prescribed by their dermatologist.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Story Source</strong>: The above story is based on materials provided by American Academy of Dermatology. "Reducing stress may help lead to clearer skin." ScienceDaily</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-25820654183256067452014-05-26T11:12:00.004-07:002014-05-26T11:12:34.513-07:00The power of a hug<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-46359945970911144802014-05-18T08:21:00.000-07:002014-05-18T08:21:18.326-07:00Have a problem to solve? Try non-directive meditation.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>The left images show the brain during concentrative meditation, while images to the right show the brain during non-directive meditation.</i><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">M</span></b>editation is more than just a way to calm our thoughts and lower stress levels: our brain processes more thoughts and feelings during meditation than when you are simply relaxing, a coalition of researchers from Norway and Australia has found.<br />
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Mindfulness. Zen. Acem. Meditation drumming. Chakra. Buddhist and transcendental meditation. There are countless ways of meditating, but the purpose behind them all remains basically the same: more peace, less stress, better concentration, greater self-awareness and better processing of thoughts and feelings.<br />
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But which of these techniques should a poor stressed-out wretch choose? What does the research say? Very little -- at least until now.<br />
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A team of researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the University of Oslo and the University of Sydney is now working to determine how the brain works during different kinds of meditation. Their most recent results were published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.<br />
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Different meditation techniques can actually be divided into two main groups. One type is concentrative meditation, where the meditating person focuses attention on his or her breathing or on specific thoughts, and in doing so, suppresses other thoughts.<br />
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The other type may be called non-directive meditation, where the person who is meditating effortlessly focuses on his or her breathing or on a meditation sound, but beyond that the mind is allowed to wander as it pleases. Some modern meditation methods are of this nondirective kind.<br />
"No one knows how the brain works when you meditate. That is why I'd like to study it," says Jian Xu, who is a physician at St. Olavs Hospital in Trondheim, Norway and a researcher at the Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging at NTNU.<br />
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Fourteen people who had extensive experience with the Norwegian technique Acem meditation were tested in an MRI machine. In addition to simple resting, they undertook two different mental meditation activities, non-directive meditation and a more concentrative meditation task.<br />
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The research team wanted to test people who were used to meditation because it meant fewer misunderstandings about what the subjects should actually be doing while they lay in the MRI machine.<br />
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Non-directive meditation led to higher activity than during rest in the part of the brain dedicated to processing self-related thoughts and feelings. When test subjects performed concentrative meditation, the activity in this part of the brain was almost the same as when they were just resting.<br />
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"I was surprised that the activity of the brain was greatest when the person's thoughts wandered freely on their own, rather than when the brain worked to be more strongly focused," said Xu. "When the subjects stopped doing a specific task and were not really doing anything special, there was an increase in activity in the area of the brain where we process thoughts and feelings. It is described as a kind of resting network. And it was this area that was most active during non-directive meditation."<br />
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"The study indicates that non-directive meditation allows for more room to process memories and emotions than during concentrated meditation," says Svend Davanger, a neuroscientist at the University of Oslo, and co-author of the study.<br />
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"This area of the brain has its highest activity when we rest. It represents a kind of basic operating system, a resting network that takes over when external tasks do not require our attention. It is remarkable that a mental task like non-directive meditation results in even higher activity in this network than regular rest," says Davanger.<br />
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Most of the research team behind the study does not practice meditation, although three do: Professors Are Holen and Øyvind Ellingsen from NTNU and Professor Svend Davanger from the University of Oslo.<br />
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Acem meditation is a technique that falls under the category of non-directive meditation. Davanger believes that good research depends on having a team that can combine personal experience with meditation with a critical attitude towards results.<br />
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"Meditation is an activity that is practiced by millions of people. It is important that we find out how this really works. In recent years there has been a sharp increase in international research on meditation. Several universities in the US spend a great deal of money to research in the field. So I think it is important that we are also active," says Davanger.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: Materials provided by The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), original article written by Nancy Bazilchuk. Jian Xu, Alexandra Vik, Inge R. Groote, Jim Lagopoulos, Are Holen, Øyvind Ellingsen, Asta K. Håberg, Svend Davanger. Nondirective meditation activates default mode network and areas associated with memory retrieval and emotional processing. <i>Frontiers in Human Neuroscience</i>, 2014</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-58401866603637637282014-04-01T12:48:00.003-07:002014-04-01T12:48:28.863-07:00Want spring allergy relief? Avoid stress<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>S</b></span>tress doesn’t cause allergies, but easing your mind might mean less allergy flare-ups this spring. According to a study, allergy sufferers with persistent stress experience more allergy flares. "Stress can cause several negative effects on the body, including causing more symptoms for allergy sufferers," said an allergist.<br />
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"Stress can cause several negative effects on the body, including causing more symptoms for allergy sufferers," said allergist Amber Patterson, MD, lead study author and ACAAI member. "Our study also found those with more frequent allergy flares also have a greater negative mood, which may be leading to these flares."<br />
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Researchers from The Ohio State University analyzed 179 patients for 12 weeks. Thirty-nine percent had more than one allergy flare. This group had higher stress than the group without allergy symptoms. Of this group, 64 percent had more than four flares over two, 14 day periods.<br />
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While there were no significant findings between allergy flares and stress on the same day, a number of sufferers reported allergy flares within days of increased daily stress.<br />
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"Symptoms, such as sneezing, runny nose and watery eyes can cause added stress for allergy sufferers, and may even be the root of stress for some," said Dr. Patterson. "While alleviating stress won't cure allergies, it may help decrease episodes of intense symptoms."<br />
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Allergy sufferers can help alleviate stress by:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Meditating and breathing deeply</li>
<li>Reducing things that may be responsible for stress and learning how to cope better (i.e. not turning to smoking or caffeine which can do more damage than good)</li>
<li>Asking for help whether from a social worker, family member or colleague</li>
<li>Making time for fun and relaxation</li>
<li>Adopting a healthy lifestyle by eating right, getting enough sleep and taking care of health conditions</li>
</ul>
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<br />
"Allergy sufferers can also alleviate stress and allergy symptoms by seeing their board-certified allergist," said allergist James Sublett, MD, ACAAI president-elect. "An allergist will help you develop an action plan with ways to avoid allergy triggers and what treatment will be best for your individual needs.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>* * * * *</b></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: Materials provided by American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI). Amber M. Patterson, Vedat O. Yildiz, Maryanna D. Klatt, William B. Malarkey. Perceived stress predicts allergy flares. Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, 2014</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-14444814495486753742014-02-21T11:10:00.006-08:002014-02-21T11:10:55.207-08:00Does more stress equal more headaches?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span></span></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b> new study provides evidence for what many people who experience headache have long suspected—having more stress in your life leads to more headaches.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For the study, 5,159 people age 21 to 71 in the general population were surveyed about their stress levels and headaches four times a year for two years. Participants stated how many headaches they had per month and rated their stress level on a scale of zero to 100.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A total of 31 percent of the participants had tension-type headache, </span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">14 percent had migraine, </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">11 percent had migraine combined with tension-type headache and for </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">17 percent the headache type was not classified. </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Those with tension-type headache rated their stress at an average of 52 out of 100.</span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For migraine, it was 62 out of 100 and </span></li>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
<li>59 for those with migraine and tension-type headache.</li>
</span></ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For each type of headache, an increase in stress was associated with an increase in the number of headaches per month. </span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For those with tension headache, an increase of 10 points on the stress scale was associated with a 6.3-percent increase in the number of headache days per month. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For migraine, the number of headache days per month went up by 4.3 percent, and </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">4 percent for those with migraine and tension headache. </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The results were adjusted to account for factors that could affect the number of headaches, such as drinking, smoking and frequent use of headache drugs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"These results show that this is a problem for everyone who suffers from headaches and emphasize the importance of stress management approaches for people with migraine and those who treat them," said study author Sara H. Schramm, MD, of University Hospital of University Duisburg-Essen in Germany. "The results add weight to the concept that stress can be a factor contributing to the onset of headache disorders, that it accelerates the progression to chronic headache, exacerbates headache episodes, and that the headache experience itself can serve as a stressor."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Story Source</b>: Materials provided by American Academy of Neurology (AAN). "Does more stress equal more headaches?." <i>ScienceDaily</i>.</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-14698874197852701522014-02-12T10:57:00.003-08:002014-02-12T10:58:47.413-08:00Chronic Stress Predisposes Sufferer to Mental Disorders<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">B</span></b>iologists have shown that chronic stress effects the stem cells in the brain, possibly affecting the speed of connections between cells as well as memory and learning. This could explain why stress leads to mental illness, such as PTSD, anxiety and mood disorders, later in life.University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown that chronic stress generates long-term changes in the brain that may explain why people suffering chronic stress are prone to mental problems such as anxiety and mood disorders later in life.<br />
<br />
Doctors know that people with stress-related illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have abnormalities in the brain, including differences in the amount of gray matter versus white matter. Gray matter consists mostly of cells -- neurons, which store and process information, and support cells called glia -- while white matter is composed of axons, which create a network of fibers that interconnect neurons. White matter gets its name from the white, fatty myelin sheath that surrounds the axons and speeds the flow of electrical signals from cell to cell.<br />
<br />
How chronic stress creates these long-lasting changes in brain structure is a mystery that researchers are only now beginning to unravel.<br />
<br />
In a series of experiments, Daniela Kaufer, UC Berkeley associate professor of integrative biology, and her colleagues, including graduate students Sundari Chetty and Aaron Freidman, discovered that chronic stress generates more myelin-producing cells and fewer neurons than normal. This results in an excess of myelin -- and thus, white matter -- in some areas of the brain, which disrupts the delicate balance and timing of communication within the brain.<br />
<br />
"We studied only one part of the brain, the hippocampus, but our findings could provide insight into how white matter is changing in conditions such as schizophrenia, autism, depression, suicide, ADHD and PTSD," she said.<br />
<br />
The hippocampus regulates memory and emotions, and plays a role in various emotional disorders.<br />
Kaufer and her colleagues published their findings in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Molecular Psychiatry.<br />
<br />
<b>Does stress affect brain connectivity?</b><br />
Kaufer's findings suggest a mechanism that may explain some changes in brain connectivity in people with PTSD, for example. One can imagine, she said, that PTSD patients could develop a stronger connectivity between the hippocampus and the amygdala -- the seat of the brain's fight or flight response -- and lower than normal connectivity between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, which moderates our responses.<br />
<br />
"You can imagine that if your amygdala and hippocampus are better connected, that could mean that your fear responses are much quicker, which is something you see in stress survivors," she said. "On the other hand, if your connections are not so good to the prefrontal cortex, your ability to shut down responses is impaired. So, when you are in a stressful situation, the inhibitory pathways from the prefrontal cortex telling you not to get stressed don't work as well as the amygdala shouting to the hippocampus, 'This is terrible!' You have a much bigger response than you should."<br />
<br />
She is involved in a study to test this hypothesis in PTSD patients, and continues to study brain changes in rodents subjected to chronic stress or to adverse environments in early life.<br />
<br />
<b>Stress tweaks stem cells</b><br />
Kaufer's lab, which conducts research on the molecular and cellular effects of acute and chronic stress, focused in this study on neural stem cells in the hippocampus of the brains of adult rats. These stem cells were previously thought to mature only into neurons or a type of glial cell called an astrocyte. The researchers found, however, that chronic stress also made stem cells in the hippocampus mature into another type of glial cell called an oligodendrocyte, which produces the myelin that sheaths nerve cells.<br />
<br />
The finding, which they demonstrated in rats and cultured rat brain cells, suggests a key role for oligodendrocytes in long-term and perhaps permanent changes in the brain that could set the stage for later mental problems. Oligodendrocytes also help form synapses -- sites where one cell talks to another -- and help control the growth pathway of axons, which make those synapse connections.<br />
The fact that chronic stress also decreases the number of stem cells that mature into neurons could provide an explanation for how chronic stress also affects learning and memory, she said.<br />
<br />
Kaufer is now conducting experiments to determine how stress in infancy affects the brain's white matter, and whether chronic early-life stress decreases resilience later in life. She also is looking at the effects of therapies, ranging from exercise to antidepressant drugs, that reduce the impact of stress and stress hormones.<br />
<br />
Kaufer's coauthors include Chetty, formerly from UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and now at Harvard University; Friedman and K. Taravosh-Lahn at UC Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology; additional colleagues from UC Berkeley and others from Stanford University and UC Davis.<br />
The work was supported by a BRAINS (Biobehavioral Research Awards for Innovative New Scientists) award from the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health (R01 MH087495), a Berkeley Stem Cell Center Seed Grant, the Hellman Family Foundation and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>* * * * *</b></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: S Chetty, A R Friedman, K Taravosh-Lahn, E D Kirby, C Mirescu, F Guo, D Krupik, A Nicholas, A C Geraghty, A Krishnamurthy, M-K Tsai, D Covarrubias, A T Wong, D D Francis, R M Sapolsky, T D Palmer, D Pleasure, D Kaufer. Stress and glucocorticoids promote oligodendrogenesis in the adult hippocampus. Molecular Psychiatry, 2014</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-41859435185997666462014-01-16T06:00:00.000-08:002014-01-16T06:00:13.707-08:00Practicing Mindfulness Helps You Stay On Track<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
"<i>Mndfulness is a mental state in which a person pays attention to the present experience without ruminating about the past or worrying about the future</i>."</div>
<br />
Few situations present as much distraction and time pressure as the college experience. In this environment, attention can be elusive and difficult to sustain even when it is attained. This lack of concentration interferes with learning and is associated with stress, which tends to increase during the academic term.<br />
<br />
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A form of mental training called mindfulness training, specifically designed for undergraduate students, shows promise as a tool to train attention and improve learning during the academic semester, according to a new study by a team of University of Miami researchers.<br />
<br />
The study is the first to examine the incidence of mind wandering and the impact of mindfulness training, at different time points in the academic calendar. The findings are published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.<br />
<br />
"This work was the first to integrate mindfulness training into the academic semester by embedding training in students' course schedules, hosting training in the academic building to best accommodate their schedules, and providing a supervised space for mindfulness exercises," says Amishi Jha, associate professor in the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and principal investigator of the study.<br />
<br />
Mindfulness is a mental state in which a person pays attention to the present experience without ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. Mindfulness training (MT) emphasizes attention-building exercises and learning to observe the activity of the mind, according to Jha.<br />
<br />
For the study, 58 UM undergraduate students participated in an experiment testing the effectiveness of a seven-week mental training program designed to tame the mind wandering and increase focus.<br />
<br />
The students were assigned to either the MT group or a control group, who received no training. All participants completed two testing sessions, one at the start of the semester and again at the end of the training interval, as final exams neared. Attention was measured by examining overall accuracy and other performance measures in a computer task of sustained attention. The students also self-reported the incidence of mind wandering during the task.<br />
<br />
The results indicate that the groups did not differ at the start of the semester. However, by the end of the training interval, the control group showed diminished attention and reported increased mind wandering, while those who participated in the program showed significant improvements in attention and no increase in reported mind wandering.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>* * * * *</b></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: Original article written by Marie Guma-Diaz and Annette Gallagher. Alexandra B. Morrison, Merissa Goolsarran, Scott L. Rogers, Amishi P. Jha. Taming a wandering attention: short-form mindfulness training in student cohorts. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2014</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-46106765468034696402014-01-15T12:05:00.002-08:002014-01-15T12:05:24.718-08:00Music and the Arts Fight Depression, Promote Health<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If you paint, dance or play a musical instrument -- or just enjoy going to the theater or concerts -- it's likely that you feel healthier and are less depressed than people who don't.<br />
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The findings are drawn from studies conducted for the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Nord-Trøndelag Health Study, or HUNT, which used questionnaires, interviews, clinical examinations and the collection of blood and urine samples to assemble detailed health profiles of 48,289 participants.<br />
<br />
"There is a positive relationship between cultural participation and self-perceived health for both women and men, "says Professor Jostein Holmen, a HUNT researcher who presented the findings at a Norwegian health conference in Stjørdal in November, 2009. "For men, there is also a positive relationship between cultural participation and depression, in that there is less depression among men who participate in cultural activities, although this is not true for women."<br />
<br />
But what surprised the medical researcher was that these findings held true no matter the individual's socio-economic status -- whether truck driver or bank president, participating in some way in the arts, theater or music, as player or participant, had a positive effect on that individual's sense of health and well-being.<br />
<br />
The new findings were controlled for socioeconomic status, chronic illness, social capital, smoking and alcohol. However, Holmen also reported that the same sense of well-being in people who participate in cultural activities that seemed to protect them from depression did not appear to have the same beneficial effect on anxiety.<br />
.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>* * * * *</b></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: The above story is based on materials provided by The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) (2009, December 16). Music and the arts fight depression, promote health. ScienceDaily.</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-83334461494971372952014-01-08T11:19:00.001-08:002014-01-08T11:19:09.825-08:00Health & Wealth Connected?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"<i>Health and wealth may be more strongly connected than previously thought</i>."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We ring in the New Year with hopes of being healthy, wealthy, and wise. A new study from researchers John W. Ayers of San Diego State University and Benjamin Althouse of the Santa Fe Institute and their colleagues suggests that health and wealth may be more strongly connected than previously thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The group examined Americans' Google search patterns and discovered that during the recent Great Recession, people searched considerably more frequently for information about health ailments. The kinds of problems indicated by the queries weren't life threatening, but they could keep someone in the bed a few days, like ulcers, headaches, and back pain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In total, the team found there were more than 200 million excess queries of this kind during the Great Recession than expected.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"While it's impossible to uncover the motives for increased searches, they likely indicate a person being ill, and ill enough to seek out online information or remedies," Ayers said. The same group previously published a report showing that queries for anxiety and depression also increased substantially during the Great Recession.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Revealing searches</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the new study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the team began with five root words indicative of the most common health problems: "chest," "headache," "heart," "pain," and "stomach." Controlling for search terms that might return false positives (such as "tool chest"), the researchers measured how frequently people in the United States searched for queries involving those root terms during the Great Recession, here defined as December 2008 through 2011, and came up with a list of 343 symptom queries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Next, the team calculated what the search volume of those symptoms' queries would have been if there had been no Great Recession -- what statisticians call synthetic controls) -- correcting for such variables as the growing availability of the Internet and increased usage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Comparing those values to people's actual search behavior revealed that certain symptoms were searched for with far more frequency during the recession. Searches for "stomach ulcer symptoms" were 228 percent higher than would be expected and "headache symptoms" were 193 percent higher, representing about 1.48 and 1.52 million excess searches.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Aggregating the symptoms into themes, the researchers found that several broad categories of health concerns stuck out: Queries about headaches were 41 percent higher than expected; for hernias, 37 percent; for chest pain, 35 percent; and for heart arrhythmias, 32 percent. Back pain, gastric pain, joint pain and toothache also popped up with greater-than-expected frequency among the search terms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The Great Recession undoubtedly got inside the body via the mind," Ayers said. "Job loss or losing a home touched nearly everyone, directly or indirectly. But those who got away unscathed were probably not immune to the Great Recession's health implications, with many thinking 'I could be next'."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Superior surveillance</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Althouse, the study's lead author, said that by monitoring health-related search terms, public health officials could recognize burgeoning epidemics and direct resources to help people reduce their stress or take other precautionary measures. This technique is quicker, cheaper, and more efficient than traditional survey based methodologies, he added.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"In fact, many current approaches to public health surveillance are both slow and expensive," Althouse said. "Internet search queries may be a significantly more precise metric, suggesting precisely when and how the population's health could be changing."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"By looking for these more-frequent-than-expected search terms and matching them up to world events, public health officials can conduct population health surveillance on a truly unprecedented scale," added Mark Dredze, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University and one of the study's coauthors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The team pointed out that their approach could be used to immediately improve public health. For example, search engines like Google could interpret these searches and suggest links to evidence-based, Internet-based treatment options in coordination with health agencies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The web is a stigma-reducing and cost-reducing venue to reach patients who search for, but do not otherwise receive, treatment because they cannot afford medications or copayments," said Jon-Patrick Allem, another of the study's coauthor and a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Matthew Childers, study coauthor and professor of political science at the University of Georgia, added that their findings carry political implications, as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"If you just recently had your unemployment benefits slashed, in addition to becoming poorer, you just might end up sicker too," Childers said. "Of the more than $800 billion allocated by the stimulus package, only $9 billion was spent on health promotion, and our study shows how health can have greater salience in economic debates going forward."</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>* * * * *</b></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: Original article was written by Michael Price: Benjamin M. Althouse, PhD, ScM, Jon-Patrick Allem, MA, Matthew A. Childers, PhD, MPP, Mark Dredze, PhD, John W. Ayers, PhD, MA. Population Health Concerns During the United States ’ Great Recession. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, January 2013</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-79132055074024101522013-12-11T12:56:00.002-08:002013-12-11T12:56:58.198-08:00Immediate "Accelerated Resolution Therapy" Eases PTSD<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When I worked with Vietnam era vets as a volunteer PTSD co-facilitator with the VA, the most common attribute of the men and women in our groups was the length of time it had been since the trauma that caused their distress. Most often, it had been years since their experience. As PTSD is known to be a slowly debilitating disease, the people we counseled were well established in the behavior and thought patterns of the illness.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now it's found that an approach applied immediately after the event can be very effective in resolving the issues and prevent the long-term debilitation of PTSD. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Accelerated Resolution Therapy, or ART, is a brief, safe, and effective treatment for combat-related symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among veterans and U.S. service members, researchers at University of South Florida College of Nursing report in a new study. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They found this newer treatment -- a combination of evidence-based psychotherapies and use of eye movements -- was shorter and more likely to be completed, than conventional therapies formally endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Kevin Kip, PhD, FAHA, professor and executive director for the Research Center at the USF College of Nursing, led the team of scientists and clinicians who conducted the first randomized controlled trial of ART in a military population. The trial enrolled 57 service members and veterans, primarily from the Tampa Bay area.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Based on this trial and an earlier study completed at the USF College of Nursing, we believe that accelerated resolution therapy may provide the quickest way to effectively and safely treat post-traumatic stress disorder," Dr. Kip said. "Our goal is to obtain enough evidence and interest to warrant classifying ART as a potential first-line treatment for PTSD among both civilian and military personnel."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Dr. Kip's work on this project has been phenomenal," said Dianne Morrison-Beedy, PhD, senior associate vice president of USF Health, and dean of the College of Nursing. "ART has been a cornerstone of RESTORE LIVES at USF Nursing as we continue developing research and education to advance the health care received by veterans, service members and their families."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ART works in two phases to alleviate psychological trauma symptoms and related disorders such as depression and anxiety.</span><br />
<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The patient first visualizes in his or her mind a prior traumatic experience which typically elicits uncomfortable physiological sensations like tightness of the chest, increased heart rate and sweating. Then, </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">through talk therapy and a series of rapid left-to-right eye movements in which the patient follows the clinician's hand back and forth, the sensations are minimized. In the second phase, and with similar clinician input, the patient "replaces" the distressing images they have seen with positive ones in a way that the original distressing images can no longer be accessed. </span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ART is delivered in two to five one-hour sessions, requires no homework, and no written or verbal recall of the traumatic experience.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Through this therapy, we're able to quiet down and separate physiological symptoms that come with re-envisioning a traumatic experience," Dr. Kip said. "We can also alter or replace the traumatic images and add positive material to them. We are changing how images are remembered in the brain."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It worked well for Brian Anderson, a former Green Beret, 10-year Army veteran and director of the Pasco County Veteran Services and Stand Down program. He had tried an endorsed first-line PTSD treatment known as prolonged exposure therapy, which was very lengthy and worked for a while, but then symptoms like hyper-vigilance returned.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"ART changed my life," Anderson said. "This brief therapy took the bad memories that constantly resurfaced and put them in the proper order or long-term storage; it was almost like I was thinking about a time in history. As a veteran, I would much rather go through a therapy that works, in only a few sessions, than sit through intensive and grueling sessions that last as long as 16 weeks."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">PTSD is a prevalent, disabling disorder that can emerge following a life-threatening event or traumatic experience. Those experiences create chronic symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, sleep disturbances, mood swings, and loss of interest in life. According to PTSD Foundation of America, one in three troops returning from combat suffers PTSD symptoms, although less than 40 percent seek help. The organization also reports that at least five active duty military members attempt suicide every day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Accelerated resolution therapy is giving hope to many veterans who felt like they had no hope," said Lt. Col. (Ret.) Lawrence A. Braue, EdD, director of the USF Office of Veterans Services. "I look forward to the day when this treatment is widely available across the country. USF College of Nursing faculty and staff genuinely care about our veterans, and that means the world to any veteran."</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* * * * *</span></b></div>
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781456795030?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781456795030" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Vietnam, Ptsd, and Therapy: Survived All That!</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781456795030&t=60" style="border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Secret Charles-ford<br />
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt"><img alt="Powells.com" border="0" height="35" hspace="0" src="http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png" style="border: none; margin-top: 10px;" title="Powells.com" vspace="0" width="80" /></a></div>
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<div style="background: #ffffff; border: 2px solid #4C290D; color: #4c290d; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; padding: 5px; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 150px;">
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781430313199?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781430313199" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Ptsd: Pathways Through the Secret Door</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781430313199&t=60" style="border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Timothy Kendrick<br />
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt"><img alt="Powells.com" border="0" height="35" hspace="0" src="http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png" style="border: none; margin-top: 10px;" title="Powells.com" vspace="0" width="80" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: Kip, Kevin E.; Rosenzweig, Laney; Hernandez, Diego F.; Shuman, Amy; Sullivan, Kelly L.; Long, Christopher J.; Taylor, James; McGhee, Stephen; Girling, Sue Ann; Wittenberg, Trudy; Sahebzamani, Frances M.; Lengacher, Cecile A.; Kadel, Rajendra; and Diamond, David M. Randomized Controlled Trial of Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) for Symptoms of Combat-Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Military Medicine, Vol. 178, No. 12, December 2013</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-23405917042454359922013-12-10T09:00:00.000-08:002013-12-10T09:00:06.729-08:00As Life and Work Become One and the Same<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Flexible workplaces may seem attractive when considering work-life balance but new research being published shows it's not unusual for firms to cash-in, profiting from our "free" time and non-professional aptitudes, experts warn.<br />
<br />
Peter Fleming, Professor of Business and Society at Cass Business School, City University, London, UK, weighs the evidence for this shift in work culture in "When 'life itself' goes to work: Reviewing shifts in organizational life through the lens of biopower" in the current issue of the journal Human Relations, published by SAGE.<br />
<br />
<b>Liberation Management ~ Giving Employers Something for Nothing</b><br />
In the past it was very clear where work stopped and play started -- managers at offices and factories encouraged a formal environment. Personal lives were left at the door as employees clocked in.<br />
<br />
Today, jobs increasingly allow us to work flexible hours, yet we are expected to be responsive around the clock. Dubbed Liberation Management, the latest trend encourages us all to 'be ourselves' at work, dropping the formal, professional attitudes of the past. And workers looking for ideas or opinions free of charge can crowd-source them from the Internet.<br />
<br />
<b>Businesses are getting something for nothing, experts say</b>.<br />
Examining the dark side to today's apparent freedom and autonomy for workers, Fleming uses a concept known as biopower developed by French scholar, historian, and social theorist Michel Foucault, an expert in the workings of discipline and control. Foucault spoke about biopower in a series of 1970s lectures at the College de France, which have only recently been translated into English.<br />
<br />
As long as a project deadline is met, firms don't care when, how and where the work is done -- be it in your underwear in the middle of the night or in a cafe on Monday morning, Fleming says. Today, managers often rely on aspects of life that were previously inappropriate at work.<br />
<br />
This is a 'lifestyle approach' to management, where companies hope to get a better performance from employees by encouraging their everyday selves on the job. Largely seen in Western economies, this trend is linked to a decline in jobs focused on concrete or industrial tasks. Life skills, communication and organization skills, and emotional intelligence are now key.<br />
<br />
If the onset of flu is coupled with relief that you can finally take a day for yourself, and you feel that your work is your life, blame this trend of always being at work, even when you aren't. The widely reported death of banking intern <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398415/Moritz-Erhardt-dies-High-flying-bank-intern-died-working-crazy-hours-written-huge-pressure-succeed.html">Moritz Erhadt</a> following three days of non-stop work is perhaps an extreme example of what this trend can do to us: When work and life become blended to such an extent, even rest and sleep are considered a 'waste of time'.<br />
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<img alt="Moritz Erhardt at home on the day of his father Hans-Georg's 50th birthday in 2011." height="120" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/10/3/1380808803671/Moritz-Erhardt-at-home-on-010.jpg" width="200" /></div>
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Click here to read:</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398415/Moritz-Erhardt-dies-High-flying-bank-intern-died-working-crazy-hours-written-huge-pressure-succeed.html">About the Death of Moritz Erhadt</a></div>
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"The Foucault lectures are astoundingly prescient in the way they concentrate on biopower as a sign of things to come," says Fleming. "Our jobs are no longer defined as something we do among other things, but what we are… Ominously, we are now permanently poised for work."<br />
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<b><i>Suggest reading ~</i></b><br />
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<div style="background: #ffffff; border: 2px solid #4C290D; color: #4c290d; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; padding: 5px; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 150px;">
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781590305966?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781590305966" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Work, Sex, Money: Real Life on the Path of Mindfulness</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781590305966&t=60" style="border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Chogyam Trungpa<br />
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<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: Peter Fleming. When 'life itself' goes to work: Reviewing shifts in organisational life through the lens of biopower. Human Relations, November 2013</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-68297910426835965102013-12-09T11:59:00.003-08:002013-12-09T11:59:45.911-08:00How Meditation Changes the Way Your Genes Express Themselves<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Gene Expression Changes With Meditation</b></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;"><i>Meditators show genetic and molecular differences which in turn correlate with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation</i>.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">With evidence growing that meditation can have beneficial health effects, scientists are working to understand how these practices physically affect the body. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A new study by researchers in Wisconsin, Spain, and France reports the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body following a period of mindfulness meditation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The study investigated the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness practice in a group of experienced meditators, compared to a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice," says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Meditation vs. Drugs to Reduce Inflammation</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs," says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The study was published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mindfulness-based training has shown beneficial effects on inflammatory disorders in prior clinical studies and are endorsed by the American Heart Association as a preventative intervention. The new results provide a possible biological mechanism for therapeutic effects.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Perhaps surprisingly, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. Effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affects certain regulatory pathways.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Our genes are quite dynamic in their expression and these results suggest that the calmness of our mind has a potential influence on their expression," Davidson says.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>* * * * *</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i>Suggested reading ~</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="background: #ffffff; border: 2px solid #4C290D; color: #4c290d; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; padding: 5px; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 150px;">
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9780738702032?p_wgt" rel="powells-9780738702032" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Meditation for Beginners: Techniques for Awareness, Mindfulness & Relaxation (For Beginners)</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9780738702032&t=60" style="border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Stephanie Clement<br />
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt"><img alt="Powells.com" border="0" height="35" hspace="0" src="http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png" style="border: none; margin-top: 10px;" title="Powells.com" vspace="0" width="80" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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<div style="background: #ffffff; border: 2px solid #4C290D; color: #4c290d; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; padding: 5px; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 150px;">
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9780738702032?p_wgt" rel="powells-9780738702032" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Meditation for Beginners: Techniques for Awareness, Mindfulness & Relaxation (For Beginners)</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9780738702032&t=60" style="border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Stephanie Clement<br />
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<div style="background: #ffffff; border: 2px solid #4C290D; color: #4c290d; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; padding: 5px; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 150px;">
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781936828142?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781936828142" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Happiness: Finding Inner Peace and Contentment Through Mind Awareness and Relaxation</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781936828142&t=60" style="border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Ph. D. Gopi Vishnu<br />
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt"><img alt="Powells.com" border="0" height="35" hspace="0" src="http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png" style="border: none; margin-top: 10px;" title="Powells.com" vspace="0" width="80" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: Materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison. The original article was written by Jill Sakai, (2013, December 8). Gene expression changes with meditation. <i>ScienceDaily</i>.</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-44144113551814072902013-12-06T13:41:00.001-08:002013-12-06T13:41:21.564-08:00Parental Stress Linked to Obesity in Children<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Parental stress is linked to weight gain in children, according to a new study from St. Michael's Hospital.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The study found that children whose parents have high levels of stress have a Body Mass Index, or BMI, about 2 per cent higher than those whose parents have low levels of stress. Children with higher parental stress also gained weight at a 7 per cent higher rate during the study period than other children.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Those figures may sound low, said lead author Dr. Ketan Shankardass, but they're significant because they are happening in children, whose bodies and eating and exercise habits are still developing. Plus, if that weight gain continues and is compounded over a lifetime, it could lead to serious obesity and health issues.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dr. Shankardass, a social epidemiologist with the hospital's Centre for Research on Inner City Health, studied data collected during the Children's Health Study, one of the largest and most comprehensive investigations into the long-term effects of air pollution on the respiratory health of children.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The childrens' BMI was calculated each year. Their parents were given a questionnaire to measure their perceived psychological stress that asked how often in the last month they were able or unable to control important things in their life and whether things were going their way or their difficulties were piling up so high they could not overcome them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dr. Shankardass said he believes this is the first study to link parental stress to weight gain in such young children. His research was published today in the journal Pediatric Obesity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dr. Shankardass, who is also an assistant professor in psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, said it was not clear why the link between stress and obesity exists.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He said parents could change their behavior when they are stressed, to reduce the amount of physical activity in the household or increase the amount of unhealthy food available. Parental stress could also create stress for the children, who cope by eating more or exercising less, or whose stress leads to biological changes that cause weight gain, he said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dr. Shankardass said that rather than focusing only on getting parents to change their behavior, it would be useful to focus on interventions that can support families living in challenging conditions, such as making sure they have a reliable supply of healthy food, an opportunity to live in a nice neighbourhood and other financial or service resources to help cope with stress.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Childhood is a time when we develop inter-connected habits related to how we deal with stress, how we eat and how active we are," Dr. Shankardass said. "It's a time when we might be doing irreversible damage or damage that is very hard to change later."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dr. Shankardass noted that more than half the students followed in the California study were Hispanic, and that the effects of stress on their BMI was greater than children of other ethnic backgrounds. He said this was consistent with other research which has suggested that Hispanic children may be more likely to experience hypherphasia (excessive hunger or increased appetite) and sedentary lifestyle. Future research should consider other reasons that Hispanic children are more susceptible to parental stress, including differences in how Hispanic parents respond to stress or how Hispanic children perceive stressors or cope with stress.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9780738702032?p_wgt" rel="powells-9780738702032" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Meditation for Beginners: Techniques for Awareness, Mindfulness & Relaxation (For Beginners)</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9780738702032&t=60" style="border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Stephanie Clement<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9780786883370?p_wgt" rel="powells-9780786883370" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Don't Sweat the Small Stuff with Your Family: Simple Ways to Keep Daily Responsibilities and Household Chaos from Taking Over Your Life (Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Series)</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9780786883370&t=60" style="border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Richard Carlson<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781412968515?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781412968515" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Families & Change: Coping with Stressful Events and Transitions</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781412968515&t=60" style="border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Sharon J. Price<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: K. Shankardass, R. McConnell, M. Jerrett, C. Lam, J. Wolch, J. Milam, F. Gilliland, K. Berhane. Parental stress increases body mass index trajectory in pre-adolescents. Pediatric Obesity, 2013</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-39181722986138499162013-11-27T17:16:00.001-08:002013-11-27T17:16:33.926-08:00Children Likely to Develop PTSD If Mother Afflicted<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) study indicates that children are more likely to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) if their mother is already afflicted.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the study published in the Journal of Depression & Anxiety, while fewer than 10 percent (8.4 percent) of the mothers were suffering from PTSD, more than a fifth (21 percent) of their children presented PTSD symptoms. Children who developed PTSD symptoms also had more psychosomatic complaints such as constipation, diarrhea and headaches.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"This study reinforces the existing body of knowledge regarding the importance of evaluating and treating parental responses in time of stress," the researchers explain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Parents are often the key to understanding children's responses generally and specifically in times of stress. The study also highlights the close interrelations between 'body and soul' among children and adults."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the study, some 160 mothers of preschool children were interviewed about symptoms exhibited by their children and their own responses during Operation Cast Lead. More than 750 rockets were fired into Southern Israel from Gaza from December 2008 to January 2009.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Working with the Preschool Psychiatric Unit at Soroka University Medical Center, the BGU researchers examined the relationship between PTSD symptoms and socio-demographic, family attributes and psychosomatic symptoms among children exposed to Grad missile attacks in Beer-Sheva, Israel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>* * * * *</b></span></div>
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<div style='width: 150px; text-align: left; border: 2px solid #4C290D; padding: 5px; background: #ffffff; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: #4C290D; line-height: 15px;'><a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781433810442?p_wgt' style='color: #3E7795; text-decoration: none;' title='More info about this book at Powells.com' rel='powells-9781433810442'><b>Why Are You So Scared?: A Child's Book about Parents with Ptsd</b><br /><img src='http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781433810442&t=60' border='0' style='border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;' width='60'></a>by Beth Andrews<br clear='all'><a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt'><img src='http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png' border='0' style='border: none; margin-top: 10px;' width='80' height='35' hspace='0' vspace='0' title='Powells.com' alt='Powells.com'></a></div>
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<div style='width: 150px; text-align: left; border: 2px solid #4C290D; padding: 5px; background: #ffffff; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: #4C290D; line-height: 15px;'><a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781615991068?p_wgt' style='color: #3E7795; text-decoration: none;' title='More info about this book at Powells.com' rel='powells-9781615991068'><b>Gentling: A Practical Guide to Treating Ptsd in Abused Children, 2nd Edition</b><br /><img src='http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781615991068&t=60' border='0' style='border: 1px solid #4C290D; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;' width='60'></a>by William E. Krill<br clear='all'><a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt'><img src='http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png' border='0' style='border: none; margin-top: 10px;' width='80' height='35' hspace='0' vspace='0' title='Powells.com' alt='Powells.com'></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">|</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Story Source</b>: materials provided by American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev(2013, November 27). Children significantly more likely to develop PTSD if mother afflicted. <i>ScienceDaily</i>.</span></div>Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-73509163652664006342013-11-26T10:02:00.002-08:002013-11-26T10:02:15.695-08:00How to Protect Your Good Mood<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Psychology shows that it doesn't take much to put you in a bad mood. Just reading the morning news can do it. And being in a bad mood slows your reaction time, and affects your basic cognitive abilities like speech, writing, and counting. If you read a depressing newspaper headline in the morning, you may perform worse at work throughout the day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But new research out of Tel Aviv University reveals that repeated exposure to a negative event neutralizes its effect on your mood and your thinking. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The study, published in Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, shows that </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">it's better to read the article all the way through and repeatedly expose yourself to the negative information. You will be freer to go on with your day in a better mood and without any negative effects.</span><br />
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<strong><em>Suggest reading ~</em></strong></div>
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9780749953164?p_wgt" rel="powells-9780749953164" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>The Feel Good Factor: 10 Proven Ways to Boost Your Mood and Motivate Yourself</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9780749953164&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Patrick Holford<br />
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt"><img alt="Powells.com" border="0" height="35" hspace="0" src="http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png" style="border: currentColor; margin-top: 10px;" title="Powells.com" vspace="0" width="80" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9780615556499?p_wgt" rel="powells-9780615556499" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>"But I Was in Such a Good Mood This Morning"</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9780615556499&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Mr Robert A. Henslin<br />
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt"><img alt="Powells.com" border="0" height="35" hspace="0" src="http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png" style="border: currentColor; margin-top: 10px;" title="Powells.com" vspace="0" width="80" /></a></div>
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<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 2px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); color: #4c290d; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; padding: 5px; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 150px;">
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9780380731763?p_wgt" rel="powells-9780380731763" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Feeling Good:: The New Mood Therapy</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9780380731763&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by David D. Burns<br />
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt"><img alt="Powells.com" border="0" height="35" hspace="0" src="http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png" style="border: currentColor; margin-top: 10px;" title="Powells.com" vspace="0" width="80" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Story Source</strong>: Moshe Shay Ben-Haim, Yaniv Mama, Michal Icht, Daniel Algom. Is the emotional Stroop task a special case of mood induction? Evidence from sustained effects of attention under emotion. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 2013</span></span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-51971396798638977492013-11-13T13:19:00.002-08:002013-11-13T13:19:24.306-08:00Mindfullness Helps Prevent Bad Habits. Good Habits, Too.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Mindfulness may help prevent formation of all habits because a mindful person is aware of what they are doing</span></em>."</blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The technique of mindful awareness is commonly used to help people reduce the effects of stress in their lives. But does it do more as well?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">New research out of Georgetown University reveals that b</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">eing mindful appears to help prevent the formation of bad habits. That's the good news. Being mindful may also prevent good habits, as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In trying to unravel the impact of implicit learning have come up with this conclusion - which may not make sense -- at first.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Consider this: when testing who would do best on a task to find patterns among a bunch of dots many might think mindful people would score higher than those who are distracted. Actually, researchers found the opposite: participants low on the mindfulness scale did much better on this test of implicit learning, or learning that occurs without awareness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This outcome might be surprising until one considers that behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that mindfulness can undercut the automatic learning processes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This study was aimed at examining how individual differences in mindfulness are related to implicit learning. "Our theory is that one learns habits -- good or bad -- implicitly, without thinking about them," Stillman says. "So we wanted to see if mindfulness impeded implicit learning."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">That is what they found. Two samples of adult participants first completed a test that gauged their mindfulness character trait, and then they completed different tasks that measured implicit learning -- either the Triplet-Learning Task or the Alternating Serial Reaction Time Task test. Both tasks used circles on a screen and participants were asked to respond to the location of certain colored circles. These tasks tested the ability of participants to learn complex, probabilistic patterns, although test takers would not be aware of that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The researchers found that people reporting low on the mindfulness scale tended to learn more -- their reaction times were quicker in targeting events that occurred more often within a context of preceding events than those that occurred less often.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">. . .<em>mindfulness may prevent formation of all habits</em>. . .</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"The very fact of paying too much attention or being too aware of stimuli coming up in these tests might actually inhibit implicit learning," one researcher says. "That suggests that mindfulness may help prevent formation of all habits -- which is done through implicit learning -- because a mindful person is aware of what they are doing."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Story Source</strong>: based on materials provided by Georgetown University Medical Center (2013, November 12). Mindfulness inhibits implicit learning -- the wellspring of bad habits. ScienceDaily.</span></span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-40303920011881796072013-11-06T16:40:00.003-08:002013-11-06T16:40:50.612-08:00Chronic Stress Changes Your Genes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It's now known that chronic stress not only will damage your body, it actually changes your genes - and that is not good news for the millions of people world-wide who suffer in unremitting stressful situations nor for our health care system.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The stress reaction, also known as the fight or flight reaction, is something we all have. While this response is important for survival, prolonged activation over an extended period of time has negative effects on health.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">During a stress reaction, you experience an event, say an argument or near accident. Your heart races, your palms sweat, and your body reacts to the sudden dumping of adrenaline into your bloodstream. After time, the adrenaline is used up, and our body returns to normal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">With chronic stress, whatever is stressing you, say a demanding boss or a requirement to work long hours over a long period of time, your body continually pumps out adrenaline without an opportunity to recover. The end result can be burnout or perhaps a wide variety of debilitating diseases from heart attack to stroke to Alzheimer's, to name but a few.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">New research shows that chronic stress also changes the activity of the genes in your immune cells before they reach the bloodstream. These changes "instruct" cause the cells in your immune system to fight an infection or trauma that doesn't exist. This leads to an overabundance of the inflammation linked to so many health problems. One thing a hyped-up immune system may do is to attack your own body with an auto-immune disease such as arthritis.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A study in animals showed that this type of chronic stress changes the activation, or expression, of genes in immune cells before they are released from the bone marrow. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Genes that lead to inflammation are expressed at higher-than-normal levels, </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">while the activation of genes that might suppress inflammation is diminished.</span></div>
</li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ohio State University scientists made this discovery in a study of mice. Their colleagues from other institutions, testing blood samples from humans living in poor socioeconomic conditions, found that similarly primed immune cells were present in these chronically stressed people as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"The cells share many of the same characteristics in terms of their response to stress," said John Sheridan, professor of oral biology in the College of Dentistry and associate director of Ohio State's Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research (IBMR), and co-lead author of the study. "There is a stress-induced alteration in the bone marrow in both our mouse model and in chronically stressed humans that selects for a cell to be pro-inflammatory.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"So what this suggests is that if you're working for a really bad boss over a long period of time, that experience may play out at the level of gene expression in your immune system."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The mind-body connection is well established, and research has confirmed that stress is associated with health problems. But the inner workings of that association -- exactly how stress can harm health -- are still under investigation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Under normal conditions, the bone marrow of humans is making and releasing billions of red blood cells every day, as well as a variety of white blood cells that constitute the immune system. Sheridan and colleagues already knew from previous work that stress skews this process so that the white blood cells produced in the bone marrow are more inflammatory than normal upon their release -- as if they are ready to defend the body against an external threat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A typical immune response to a pathogen or other foreign body requires some inflammation, which is generated with the help of immune cells. But when inflammation is excessive and has no protective or healing role, the condition can lead to an increased risk for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and obesity, as well as other disorders.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In this work, the researchers compared cells circulating in the blood of mice that had experienced repeated social defeat to cells from control mice that were not stressed. The stressed mice had an average fourfold increase in the frequency of immune cells in their blood and spleen compared to the normal mice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"This study provides a nice mechanism for how psychology impacts biology," said study first author Nicole Powell, a research scientist in oral biology at Ohio State. "Other studies have indicated that these cells are more inflammatory; our work shows that these cells are primed at the level of the gene, and it's directly due to the sympathetic nervous system."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This same pro-inflammatory immune-cell profile has been seen in research on parents of children with cancer.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781577314417?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781577314417" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Beginning Mindfulness: Learning the Way of Awareness: A Ten Week Course</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781577314417&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Andrew Weiss<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781591795773?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781591795773" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditioned Awareness</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781591795773&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Peter Fenner<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781617221460?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781617221460" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Waking Up: A Parent's Guide to Mindful Awareness and Connection</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781617221460&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Raelynn Maloney<br />
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt"><img alt="Powells.com" border="0" height="35" hspace="0" src="http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png" style="border: currentColor; margin-top: 10px;" title="Powells.com" vspace="0" width="80" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Story Source</strong>: N. D. Powell, E. K. Sloan, M. T. Bailey, J. M. G. Arevalo, G. E. Miller, E. Chen, M. S. Kobor, B. F. Reader, J. F. Sheridan, S. W. Cole. Social stress up-regulates inflammatory gene expression in the leukocyte transcriptome via -adrenergic induction of myelopoiesis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013</span></span><br />
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Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-1010214354788725652013-11-02T10:38:00.001-07:002013-11-02T10:38:23.999-07:00Mindful Individuals Less Impulsive<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Mindful individuals are much better at letting their feelings and thoughts go rather than getting carried away</em>.</span></blockquote>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A new study from the University of Toronto Scarborough shows that people who are aware of their own thoughts and emotions are less affected by positive feedback from others.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"These findings suggest that mindful individuals may be less affected by immediate rewards and fits well with the idea that mindful individuals are typically less impulsive" says UTSC PhD candidate Rimma Teper.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Trait mindfulness is characterized by an ability to recognize and accept one's thoughts and emotions without judgment. Mindful individuals are much better at letting their feelings and thoughts go rather than getting carried away.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Using electroencephalography (EEG) the brain activity of participants was recorded while they completed a reaction time task on a computer. The authors were interested in participants' brain activity in response to receiving performance feedback that was rewarding, neutral or negative in nature. Not only were mindful individuals less responsive to rewarding feedback compared to others, they also showed less difference in their neural response to neutral versus rewarding feedback.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The findings also reflect further clinical research that supports the notion of accepting one's emotions is an important indicator of mental well-being.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"Individuals who are problem gamblers for instance show more brain reactivity to immediate rewards, because they are typically more impulsive," says Teper.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"Many studies, including our own past work, have shown that people who meditate, and mindful individuals exhibit improved self-control. If mindful individuals are also less affected by immediate rewards, as our study suggests, this may help explain why," says Teper's PhD supervisor and UTSC psychology professor Michael Inzlicht.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781577314417?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781577314417" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Beginning Mindfulness: Learning the Way of Awareness: A Ten Week Course</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781577314417&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Andrew Weiss<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781591795773?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781591795773" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditioned Awareness</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781591795773&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Peter Fenner<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781617221460?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781617221460" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Waking Up: A Parent's Guide to Mindful Awareness and Connection</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781617221460&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Raelynn Maloney<br />
<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/?p_wgt"><img alt="Powells.com" border="0" height="35" hspace="0" src="http://www.powells.com/images/logo_brown80.png" style="border: currentColor; margin-top: 10px;" title="Powells.com" vspace="0" width="80" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>Story Source</strong>: Rimma Teper, Michael Inzlicht. Mindful Acceptance Dampens Neuroaffective Reactions to External and Rewarding Performance Feedback, Emotion, 2013</span> </div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-54606969428678359212013-10-18T11:56:00.003-07:002013-10-18T11:56:52.541-07:00Housework Isn't as Healthy as People Think<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Exercise is a good stress reliever, but, if you are including doing housework as part of your exercise program, well, STOP IT.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Don't stop doing housework, just stop counting housework as part of your exercise. Why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A new study just published in the journal BMC Public Health reveals that people who include housework in their self-recorded physical activity diary tend to be heavier than those whose time is spent in other forms of exercise.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>The analysis of data from the Sport NI Sport & Physical Activity Survey (SAPAS) by the University of Ulster, showed that people who include housework as part of their weekly exercise tend to be heavier</em>. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Professor Marie Murphy who led this study commented, "Housework is physical activity and any physical activity should theoretically increase the amount of calories expended. But we found that housework was inversely related to leanness which suggests that either people are overestimating the amount of moderate intensity physical activity they do through housework, or are eating too much to compensate for the amount of activity undertaken."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Women and older people included higher levels of housework. For women, exclusion of housework from the list of activities meant that only 20% met current activity recommendations. Prof Murphy continued, "When talking to people about the amount of physical activity they need to stay healthy, it needs to be made clear that housework may not be intense enough to contribute to the weekly target and that other more intense activities also need to be included each week."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>* * * * *</strong></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781885693099?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781885693099" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Exercising Your Way To Better Mental Health : Fight Depression and Alleviate Stress Through Exercises (98 Edition)</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781885693099&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Larry M. Leith<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9780743237024?p_wgt" rel="powells-9780743237024" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Mind Your Heart: A Mind/Body Approach to Stress Management, Exercise, and Nutrition for Heart Health</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9780743237024&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Aggie Casey<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>Story Source</strong>: Marie H Murphy, Paul Donnelly, Gavin Breslin, Simon Shibli and Alan M Nevill. Does housework keep you healthy? The contribution of domestic physical activity to meeting current recommendations. BMC Public Health, October 2013</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-134587482220396562013-10-17T12:37:00.000-07:002013-10-17T12:37:06.317-07:00Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Helps Lower Blood Pressure<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This week an article appeared in the October issue of the prestigious professional journal Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine written by Joel W. Hughes, PhD, of Kent State (Ohio) University,. Dr. Hughes et al conclude:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"<em>Our results provide evidence that mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), when added to lifestyle modification advice, may be an appropriate complementary treatment for BP in the prehypertensive range</em>."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In everyday English: the research conducted by Dr. Hughes and colleagues adds to the body of evidence that mindful awareness along with other lifestyle changes works to lower the blood pressure of patients with pre-hypertension or borderline high blood pressure, a major pre-condition of stroke and heart attack.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If you've not heard of mindful awareness, it is a series of relaxation and focusing techniques used by many people around the world to reduce the short and long term effects of stress. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Mindfulness Leads to Drop in Blood Pressure</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The study included 56 women and men diagnosed with prehypertension -- blood pressure that was higher than desirable, but not yet so high that antihypertensive drugs would be prescribed. Prehypertension receives increasing attention from doctors because it is associated with a wide range of heart disease and other cardiovascular problems. About 30% of Americans have prehypertension and may be prescribed medications for this condition.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">One group of patients was assigned to a program of MBSR: eight group sessions of 2½ hours per week. Led by an experienced instructor, the sessions included three main types of mindfulness skills: </span><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">body scan exercises, </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">sitting meditation, and </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">yoga exercises. </span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The other "comparison" group received lifestyle advice plus a muscle-relaxation activity. This "active control" treatment group was not expected to have lasting effects on blood pressure. Blood pressure measurements were compared between groups to determine whether the mindfulness-based intervention reduced blood pressure in this group of people at risk of cardiovascular problems.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Patients in the mindfulness-based intervention group had significant reductions in clinic-based blood pressure measurements. Systolic blood pressure (the first, higher number) decreased by an average of nearly 5 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), compared to less than 1 mm Hg with in the control group who did not receive the mindfulness intervention.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Diastolic blood pressure (the second, lower number) was also lower in the mindfulness-based intervention group: a reduction of nearly 2 mm Hg, compared to an increase of 1 mm Hg in the control group.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Mindfulness-based Could Prevent or Delay Need for Antihypertensive Drugs</strong> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ambulatory monitoring is an increasingly used alternative to clinic-based blood pressure measurements. However, 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring showed no significant difference in blood pressure with the mindfulness-based intervention.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"Mindfulness-based stress reduction is an increasingly popular practice that has been purported to alleviate stress, treat depression and anxiety, and treat certain health conditions," according to Dr. Hughes and coauthors. It has been suggested that MBSR and other types of meditation may be useful in lowering blood pressure. Previous studies have reported small but significant reductions in blood pressure with Transcendental Meditation; the new study is the first to specifically evaluate the blood pressure effects of mindfulness-based intervention in patients with prehypertension.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Although the blood pressure reductions associated with mindfulness-based interventions are modest, they are similar to many drug interventions and potentially large enough to lead to reductions in the risk of heart attack or stroke. Further studies are needed to see if the blood pressure-lowering effects are sustained over time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The researchers argue that mindfulness-based interventions may provide a useful alternative to help "prevent or delay" the need for antihypertensive medications in patients with borderline high blood pressure.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">* * * * *</span></strong></div>
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781577314417?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781577314417" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Beginning Mindfulness: Learning the Way of Awareness: A Ten Week Course</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781577314417&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Andrew Weiss<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9780738702032?p_wgt" rel="powells-9780738702032" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Meditation for Beginners: Techniques for Awareness, Mindfulness & Relaxation (For Beginners)</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9780738702032&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Stephanie Clement<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781468559415?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781468559415" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Achieving and Living a Healthy Lifestyle in a World of Stress: 70 Lessons for Those Wanting Improved Health and Lower Health Care Costs</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781468559415&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Allan G. Hedberg Ph. D.<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781620060797?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781620060797" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Create a Healthy Lifestyle</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781620060797&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Michael A. Panar<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Story Source</strong>: J. W. Hughes, D. M. Fresco, R. Myerscough, M. H. M. van Dulmen, L. E. Carlson, R. Josephson. Randomized Controlled Trial of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Prehypertension. Psychosomatic Medicine, 2013</span></span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-64797196348586337382013-10-11T11:24:00.001-07:002013-10-11T11:24:26.948-07:00Work Seems Life Threatening to People Suffering from Stress<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em><strong>Do you experience. . .</strong></em><br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Black spots in front of your eyes? </span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Palpitations? </span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Shooting pain through your body?</span></strong></div>
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These are symptoms in people who go to work with the feeling that their lives are at stake. Even though evolution intended for stress to occur when a person's life is threatened, today we are most at risk of experiencing stress at work, even if our work -- for most of us -- does not bring our lives in actual danger.<br />
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<strong>Stress causes more prolonged absence from work due to illness.</strong> <br />
Why? According to Copenhagen University researcher Malene Friis Andersen, our identity and the job we hold are more closely knit than ever before, causing work to feel like a matter of life and death to the person suffering from stress. This is the conclusion of Copenhagen University researcher Malene Friis Andersen in a newly published anthology which questions modern quick fixes for those faced with stress.<br />
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<strong>"<em>the saber-toothed tiger is our boss</em>. . ."</strong></div>
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"Some reach what may seem like an obvious conclusion; that, in our modern world, the saber-toothed tiger is our boss or the deadlines that we have to meet. But even if you have an unpleasant boss, he or she will rarely go so far as to kill you. <br />
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<strong>Simple advice does not work</strong><br />
Malene Friis Andersen's research is based, among other things, on 15 interviews with people who have been absent from work for longer periods of time due to stress. They all had jobs where creativity, knowledge, and personal commitment were their primary working tools. The 15 interviews were chosen among 51 interviews from her PhD thesis.<br />
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"Job identity is extremely important to maintaining our general identity, self- image and sense of worth, and it is necessary to use our identity to be able to perform our tasks at work. This is why today stress poses an existential threat to us. The place of work has become a potential arena for fighting many major battles and achieving recognition," she says.<br />
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Subsequently, the simplistic advice which we are given today on stress only makes sense in times of peace at work: "It is not just about saying no or lowering your own expectations. Once the symptoms of stress have occurred, you end up in an impossible situation in which your life depends on you succeeding at work."<br />
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<strong>Companies miss the target</strong><br />
Stress especially affects the working ability of employees in companies who make high demands on the knowledge, social competences and creativity of their employees. Malene Friis Andersen bases her research on employees from this category. Quite contrary to their intentions the companies create an environment which is counterproductive to the commitment and welfare of the employees.<br />
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"Many companies use different tools to measure and evaluate the performance of the employee, but these tools only make the employee insecure. The parameters for success become too narrow and the employee can no longer take stock after his or hers own authority, values, feelings or hunches. This creates employees who are inflexible and vulnerable to stress," says Malene Friis Andersen.<br />
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<strong>The myth of perfectionism and stress</strong><br />
Malene Friis Andersen believes it is a myth that perfectionism is a character trait for which you are responsible yourself, and which leads to stress.<br />
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"Instead perfectionism must be regarded as behaviour brought about by the demands made by the labour market on the employee. Therefore, if you are suffering from stress, it is important for the outside world not to blame you for being a perfectionist. If you want to eliminate stress, you must first realise that there is no one-size-fits-all solution," she concludes.<br />
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"The companies throw money at consultants who promise to make the employees more robust under stress, but there is no indication that stress reactions are less frequent now. There has never been consensus as to what constitutes stress which in turn makes it common property and thus, big business.. It is necessary to come to a common understanding of stress and examine how stress develops in different types of work. The effort must be tailored to the challenges of different sectors of industry, if you want to eliminate stress," says Malene Friis Andersen.<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781578631292?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781578631292" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Sixteen Minutes to a Better 9-To-5: Stress-Free Work with Yoga and Ayurveda</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781578631292&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Vinod Verma<br />
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<a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36926/biblio/9781577314417?p_wgt" rel="powells-9781577314417" style="color: #3e7795; text-decoration: none;" title="More info about this book at Powells.com"><b>Beginning Mindfulness: Learning the Way of Awareness: A Ten Week Course</b><br /><img border="0" src="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=9781577314417&t=60" style="border: 1px solid rgb(76, 41, 13); float: right; margin: 5px 0px 6px 6px;" width="60" /></a>by Andrew Weiss<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Story Source</strong>: University of Copenhagen (2013, October 7). Work seems life threatening to people suffering from stress. ScienceDaily</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-79567180662415548522013-07-25T12:51:00.001-07:002013-07-25T12:51:54.582-07:00Optimists Better at Regulating Stress<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This probably sounds like a no-brainer, but in science, conclusions like this have to be quantifiable and reproducible by researchers working elsewhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Which someone has finally accomplished. Joelle Jobin, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology at Concordia University's Department of Psychology co-authored the study with her supervisor Carsten Wrosch and Michael Scheier from Carnegie Mellon University. Ms. Jobin came up with a study that measured cortisol, aka the "stress hormone", at various times of the day and correlated hormone levels with how study subjects were responding to events during their day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Results show that indeed the "stress hormone" cortisol tends to be more stable in those with more positive personalities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The study, recently published in the American Psychological Association's Health Psychology journal, tracked 135 older adults (aged 60+) over six years, and involved collecting saliva samples five times a day to monitor cortisol levels. This age group was selected because older adults often face a number of age-related stressors and their cortisol levels have been shown to increase.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ms. Jobin explains that "for some people, going to the grocery store on a Saturday morning can be very stressful, so that's why we asked people how often they felt stressed or overwhelmed during the day and compared people to their own averages, then analyzed their responses by looking at the stress levels over many days." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She also notes that pessimists tended to have a higher stress baseline than optimists, but also had trouble regulating their system when they go through particularly stressful situations. "On days where they experience higher than average stress, that's when we see that the pessimists' stress response is much elevated, and they have trouble bringing their cortisol levels back down. Optimists, by contrast, were protected in these circumstances," says Jobin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">While the study generally confirmed the researchers' hypotheses about the relation between optimism and stress, one surprising finding was that optimists who generally had more stressful lives secreted higher cortisol levels than expected shortly after they awoke (cortisol peaks just after waking and declines through the day). Jobin says there are several possible explanations, but also notes that the finding points to the difficulty of classifying these complex hormones as good or bad. "The problem with cortisol is that we call it "the stress hormone," but it's also our 'get up and do things' hormone, so we may secrete more if engaged and focused on what's happening."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Story Source: Joelle Jobin, Carsten Wrosch, Michael F. Scheier. Associations Between Dispositional Optimism and Diurnal Cortisol in a Community Sample: When Stress Is Perceived as Higher Than Normal. Health Psychology, 2013.</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3594432287028069190.post-88490841390411168492013-06-28T10:23:00.005-07:002013-06-28T10:23:53.180-07:00Unrelieved Stress Leads to Heart Disease<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Stress: It Should Never Be Ignored</h1>
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Work pressure, tension at home, financial difficulties … the list of causes of stress grows longer every day. There have been several studies in the past showing that stress can have negative effects on health (cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure and more). The Inserm researchers at unit 1018, "The Epidemiology and Public Health Research Centre," working in collaboration with researchers from England and Finland have demonstrated that it is essential to be vigilant about this and to take it very seriously when people say that they are stressed, particularly if they believe that stress is affecting their health. According to the study performed by these researchers, with 7268 participants, such people have twice as much risk of a heart attack, compared with others.</div>
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Today, stress is recognized as one of the main health problems. When people face a situation that is considered stressful, they may experience several physical, emotional and behavioural symptoms (anxiety, difficulty in concentrating, skin problems, migraines, etc.). Previous studies, particularly the recent studies performed within the Whitehall II cohort<span style="font-size: xx-small;">[1]</span>, composed of several thousand British civil servants, have already shown that the physiological changes associated with stress can have an adverse effect on health.<br />
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Herman Nabi, Inserm researcher at Unit 1018 "The Epidemiology and Public Health Research Centre," and his team went further and studied people who declared themselves to be stressed, in order to look more closely at whether there was a link between their feeling and the occurrence of coronary disease some years later.<br />
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Using a questionnaire prepared for the Whitehall II cohort, the participants were invited to answer the following question: "to what extent do you consider the stress or pressure that you have experienced in your life has an effect on your health," the participants had the following answers to choose from: "not at all," "a little," "moderately," "a lot" or "extremely."<br />
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The participants were also asked about their stress level, as well as about other factors that might affect their health, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and levels of physical activity. Arterial pressure, diabetes, body mass index and socio-demographic data such as marital status, age, sex, ethnicity and socio-economic status were also taken into account.<br />
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According to the results, the participants who reported, at the start of the study, that their health was "a lot" or "extremely" affected by stress had more than twice the risk (2.12 times higher) of having or dying from a heart attack, compared with those who had not indicated any effect of stress on their health.<br />
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From a clinical point of view, these results suggest that the patient's perception of the impact of stress on their health may be highly accurate, to the extent that it can predict a health event as serious and common as coronary disease.<br />
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In addition, this study also shows that this link is not affected by differences between individuals related to biological, behavioural or psychological factors. However, capacities for dealing with stress do differ massively between individuals depending on the resources available to them, such as support from close friends and family.<br />
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According to Hermann Nabi, "the main message is that complaints from patients concerning the effect of stress on their health should not be ignored in a clinical environment, because they may indicate an increased risk of developing and dying of coronary disease. Future studies of stress should include perceptions of patients concerning the effect of stress on their health."<br />
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In the future, as Hermann Nabi emphasizes, "tests will be needed to determine whether the risk of disease can be reduced by increasing the clinical attention given to patients who complain of stress having an effect on their health."<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] Created in 1985, the Whitehall II cohort, consisting of British civil servants, is making a major contribution to research in social epidemiology and is considered internationally to be one of the main sources of scientific knowledge concerning social determinant factors for health.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Story Source: </strong>H. Nabi, M. Kivimaki, G. D. Batty, M. J. Shipley, A. Britton, E. J. Brunner, J. Vahtera, C. Lemogne, A. Elbaz, A. Singh-Manoux. <strong>Increased risk of coronary heart disease among individuals reporting adverse impact of stress on their health: the Whitehall II prospective cohort study</strong>. <em>European Heart Journal</em>, 2013</span></div>
Jim Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11563688818199726793noreply@blogger.com0