Thursday, September 9, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Childhood Abuse and Fibromyalgia in Women
It's like the switches in the brain that respond to stress get stuck on, then turn the volume up from a normal stress response to telling the body every little stressor is a five alarm fire. Too many five alarm fires and the nervous & immune systems begin to wear out, leaving the body itself on fire, unable to repair the daily wear and tear damages in soft tissues, and joints.
"In women with chronic pain, self-reported childhood maltreatment was associated with higher diurnal cortisol levels. These results add to the evidence that abuse in childhood can induce long-term changes in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical activity. They further underscore the importance of evaluating childhood maltreatment in fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions." Psychosomatic Medicine Journal article, May 13, 2010
The good news is there are many cutting edge therapies that can soften or reduce the highly reactive stress response. Meditation has been proven in studies to change brain responses to stress; any body treatment that releases endorphins such as massage or Reiki will also change brain patterns with repeated use.
In order to change we must give the brain a replacement behavior pattern and practice it to create new neuron pathways that over-ride exacerbated stress responses. Some therapies such as Meridian Tapping Techniques (EFT, TFT, Energy Psychology) can unravel the switches at the source. Anti-depressants are used with fibromyalgia patients with fairly good results, but this is a chemical correction in the brain. These drugs may be helpful to get other healing activated, and provide quick relief, but there are many downsides and side-effects from AD's which often lose their effectiveness over a period of time and must be monitored and adjusted carefully.
Monday, August 24, 2009
PTSD Linked to Heart Disease in Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans
Reuters Health Online article...
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Fibromyalgia and Traumatic Stress connections
| | |
| Question: Here is an explanatory (or at least I hope so) excerpt of the relevant material from my book (and for those of you who have the book, it’s in Chapter 5, The Physical Effects of Trauma, pages 78-80. Chronic Pain Conditions This constant activation of the alarm state leads to an accumulation of metabolic waste products in the muscle fibers, and the release of kinins and other chemical pain generators in the tissue, resulting in myofascial pain and the appearance of those seemingly intractable chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic headache, TMJ and more. And because these conditions are generated in the brain stem and the motor reflex centers in the spinal column, and routed through a perturbed, automatic, arousal circuitry, peripheral forms of treatment provide only temporary relief. Constantly activated by everyday sensory cues, normal muscle movement and spontaneous memories, symptoms grow and become more and more entrenched over time. In other words, this is one nasty gift from the kindled feedback loop that, if not interrupted, will just keep on giving. Our epidemiology research has already shown us an astounding percentage of people with baffling chronic pain conditions and “functional” diseases that have no obvious causes, who have been found to have prior histories of severe trauma. Probably if we could tease out the subset of traumatized people who experienced substantial dissociation during their trauma, and a truncated freeze response in the midst of it, we might find closer to one hundred percent suffering from posttraumatic stress. Unfortunately for them, they are often assumed to be malingering or engaged in attention-seeking behavior for neurotic reasons, instead of suffering from a very serious, self perpetuating condition with a potentially worsening trajectory. Included in this group of maligned and misunderstood patients would be scores of people suffering from pelvic and low back pain, orofacial and myofascial pain, genito-urinary and abdominal pain; interstitial cystitis; and the previously mentioned headache, fibromyalgia (FM), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD); irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disorder (IBD), multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and migraine. Thanks for asking. Too many people still don’t know about this connection. |
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Workplace Yoga And Meditation Lowers Stress
Workplace Yoga And Meditation Can Lower Feelings Of Stress
05 Aug 2009Twenty minutes per day of guided workplace meditation and yoga combined with six weekly group sessions can lower feelings of stress by more than 10 percent and improve sleep quality in sedentary office employees, a pilot study suggests.
The study offered participants a modified version of what is known as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), a program established in 1979 to help hospital patients in Massachusetts assist in their own healing that is now in wide use around the world..
In this context, mindfulness refers in part to one's heightened awareness of an external stressor as the first step toward relaxing in a way that can minimize the effects of that stress on the body... [cont.] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159817.php
This work was supported by the National Institute of Health-funded General Clinical Research Center at Ohio State..
Co-authors of the study are Janet Buckworth of the College of Education and Human Ecology and William Malarkey of the College of Medicine, both at Ohio State..
Source: Ohio State University
Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159817.php
© 2009 MediLexicon International LtdTuesday, February 3, 2009
Childhood Stress and Autoimmune Disease
Shanta R. Dube , PhD, MPH, DeLisa Fairweather , PhD, William S. Pearson , PhD, MHA, Vincent J. Felitti , MD, Robert F. Anda , MD, MS, Janet B. Croft , PhD
Abstract
Objective: To examine whether childhood traumatic stress increased the risk of developing autoimmune diseases as an adult. Methods: Retrospective cohort study of 15,357 adult health maintenance organization members enrolled in the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study from 1995 to 1997 in San Diego, California, and eligible for follow-up through 2005. ACEs included childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; witnessing domestic violence; growing up with household substance abuse, mental illness, parental divorce, and/or an incarcerated household member. The total number of ACEs (ACE Score range = 0–8) was used as a measure of cumulative childhood stress. The outcome was hospitalizations for any of 21 selected autoimmune diseases and 4 immunopathology groupings: T- helper 1 (Th1) (e.g., idiopathic myocarditis); T-helper 2 (Th2) (e.g., myasthenia gravis); Th2 rheumatic (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis); and mixed Th1/Th2 (e.g., autoimmune hemolytic anemia).
Results: Sixty-four percent reported at least one ACE. The event rate (per 10,000 person-years) for a first hospitalization with any autoimmune disease was 31.4 in women and 34.4 in men. First hospitalizations for any autoimmune disease increased with increasing number of ACEs (p < .05). Compared with persons with no ACEs, persons with ?2 ACEs were at a 70% increased risk for hospitalizations with Th1, 80% increased risk for Th2, and 100% increased risk for rheumatic diseases (p < .05).
Conclusions: Childhood traumatic stress increased the likelihood of hospitalization with a diagnosed autoimmune disease decades into adulthood. These findings are consistent with recent biological studies on the impact of early life stress on subsequent inflammatory responses.
http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/PSY.0b013e3181907888v1?ct
Friday, January 16, 2009
How to THINK your way to less STRESS
As published January 7, 2009 in:
Health, Mind & Body, special supplement to the newspapers of Feather Publishing Co.: Feather River Bulletin, Chester Progressive, Indian Valley Record, Portola Reporter
13,000. The average number of thoughts we are plagued with each and every day. Think about it… oops! There goes another thought... and another… and another…
Doesn’t it seem like each and every one of those thoughts has substance, reality, validity? We “thought” it, so it must be true, right? We assume every thought is an expression of fact. Even our bodies believe every thought we think.
Take this lemon I am getting ready to cut up. I’ve placed it on the cutting board, removed my sharpest knife, and now I am slicing it, bright yellow and juicy, with spray coming easily off the thick waxy peel. I can smell the tart citrus-y odors, immediately thinking of lemonade, and lemon meringue pie. I take half a lemon in my hands, squeeze gently, and the juices flow into my mouth.
What’s happening in your body right now? Is your mouth filled with saliva anticipating the sour lemon juices? I just tricked your brain into recalling a caseload of memories, and your body responded as if it were real.
What if I ask you to recall the last argument you had? The last time you were ashamed or humiliated? The last time you were mad as a hornet? Give these thoughts the time of day and, voila! Your body is back at that precise moment in time, reliving not just the thoughts and emotions, but also the stress hormones and health compromising effects that come along with it.
Give it more attention and, before you know it a whole lifetime of similar events come swarming at you, filling you with more anger, fear, or sadness; or, conversely, joy and appreciation.
Instant thinking
We can “think” ourselves into most any emotion, but did you know that often the reverse is true? An emotion can be instantly triggered by an event or sensory input (sight, smell, touch, taste, sound), leading the brain to reply with “instant” explanations. The assumption that gets us into trouble is believing that what we think is reality.
However, the brain is trafficking in habitual responses. Like a search on Google, our brain reacts to input by spewing out the most likely combinations of information and memories from the “files” until a plausible reason is reached. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck, right? Not always.
Our brains evolved to learn. And learning requires instant memorization of complex environmental stimuli, so that the next similar event can be dealt with as quickly as possible. It is the difference between life and death, in other words, survival. What the brain learns and believes is instantly communicated to every cell in the body, via hormones (neuro-peptides), electrical impulses, and molecular vibration.
Our bodies are listening
This brings us to the relationship between thinking and chronic stress. When we communicate “within,” our cells, organs and tissues are listening. If I am angry, my cells are soaking in anger. If I am happy my cells are soaking in happiness. Directing these feelings at others does not leave me out of the equation. Road rage, feelings of overwhelm and frustration, directed at drivers who do not follow our rules of the road ultimately hurts us.
Transient feelings of hurt, anger, frustration, or shame are not dangerous, and do not cause harm. What causes damage is the habitual indulgence of dwelling in the past hurts and regrets, or future worries and fears, and the endless abuse we silently spew at ourselves, most often at the subconscious level where we are unaware.
If our Inner Voice was a person sitting next to us on a bench, how long would we put up with their insults? Their abuse? The crazy, disconnected verbiage that is our constant companion heard inside our heads? We’d run quickly in the opposite direction!
“Thinking,” is the major source of chronic stress in our modern world, where prior generations have suffered (presumably) under more physical, or primitive, forms of stress, such as untreatable illness and injuries, hunger, providing shelter, and protecting oneself, family and community from predation, competition or invasion.
Thanks to the amazing learning abilities of the brain, thought connections perform like well-traveled roads. The more a road is traveled, the deeper the ruts. At some point the ruts are so deep, a traveler cannot change the path, even when they try to. Our minds work similarly. The more we think a thought, the more instantaneous and transparent the thought/action becomes.
This is fantastic if we are learning to drive a car, or to speak a new language. The less we have to think about our actions, the quicker we can respond with automated action. No longer wasting energy by concentrating on clutch, brake, accelerator, turn signal, traffic, we are able to eat, drink, talk on the phone, apply makeup, balance the checkbook, text your kids and check the stock market, while cruising 62 mph down the highway!
Take a breath!
Stop! Take a deep breath… Step back slowly from the situations of your crazy life. Think (briefly) about how habitually overwhelming yourself with demands and tasks is shortening your life. The resultant chronic stress is hardening your arteries, raising your blood pressure, elevating blood sugar, and picking away at the very fabric of your DNA. Precious DNA, the blueprint for repairs in every cell of your body.
The instinctive way we often deal with “bad thinking,” is negation. We tell ourselves, “don’t think that thought.” We try to push away from the feelings: “don’t be depressed,” “don’t be sad.” Because the focus is still on the unwanted, we tend to remain focused on what we wish to avoid.
The next level of repairing our thinking is zero balance. That’s when people try to meditate by thinking about “nothing.” Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think… Oops! Darn, there goes another thought! Don’t think, I really mean it, DON’T THINK! Before you know it the 13,000 thoughts have you in a strangle-hold. At that point most people give up and decide meditation is clearly not for them. They (think they) have failed miserably at changing their thinking and relieving stress.
We begin to see some results when we practice replacement thinking. Instead of trying to change old thoughts, habits, feelings and the resultant behaviors, we begin to come up with replacement ideas that are healthier. Sometimes these are referred to as affirmations. These are new statements of positive experience we consciously choose over the old.
The old thoughts still come bouncing in, but the more we practice, the better it gets, the more relief we enjoy. This employs re-routing the thought patterns of the brain. Just like building muscles, practicing powerful healthier statements on a regular basis strengthens the neuronal connections giving them more clout.
One of the most practiced examples of affirmation is the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” (Commonly attributed to theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr)
Positive emotion connection
Expanding on replacement thinking, and backed by scientific research, are the practices that might be referred to as positive emotion connection. The glue in memory is emotion. By utilizing techniques that employ heart-feeling with mind and body connections, healthier stress-free living becomes more quickly accessible. There are many new, and not-so-new, versions of positive emotion practices. These include a variety of practices with exotic names like Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Thought-Field Therapy (TFT), Energy Freedom Technique (EFT), Energy Psychology, the broad field of Guided Imagery, mindfulness or breath meditations, and HeartMath.
Developed by Doc Childre and Howard Martin, HeartMath is focused on teaching “heart-based living – people relying on the intelligence of their heart in concert with their minds to improve health, performance, relationships and well-being at home and in the workplace” (www.heartmath.com). The basic premise is a three-step process called Quick Coherence® Technique: “Heart focus. Heart breathing. Heart feeling.”
By tapping into our bodies innate drive for health, and linking that to the process of feeling and thinking, we can learn to manage stress more easily, building more effective coping, and restoring the ability to thrive in our lives, regardless of our external circumstances.
"All that we are is a result of what we have thought." -Buddha
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Sometimes more mess means less stress
By Marjorie Ingall
updated 5:41 a.m. PT, Fri., July. 18, 2008
On my desk is a half-empty bag of wasabi peas. Beside it is a disposable razor from a gift bag I received several weeks ago, a bottle of Sally Hansen Sheer Beige Gloss, a flyer from a Tibetan art museum on which I scribbled a reminder to call the pharmacy, an idea for a story, my older daughter's drawing of a robot in a purple minidress, a stack of books I will read someday if it kills me and a festive rainbow of curling Post-its dating back to the Pleistocene era.
On certain days, this mess stirs up all of my anxiety and self-loathing, especially when, in addition to the detritus on my desk, toys cover my living room floor, the cat is stalking a dust bunny the size of a rabbit and I can't find the phone number of the scientist I'm supposed to interview in 20 minutes. I gaze around at it all and, feeling utterly overwhelmed, become convinced that I will never make another deadline or write another book until I frantically straighten up.
I see desks in decor magazines, naked except for one perfect potted plant, and I moan and sigh like someone looking at porn. I'm not alone in my obsession: According to Consumer Reports, Americans spent more than $2 billion in 2004 to impose external, Container Store-like order on their life. “The world is so complicated today, with images and information bombarding us all the time,” says Carol Gould, a marriage and family therapist in San Francisco. Who wouldn't want a home that felt like a serene refuge?
Coping with chaos
Many experts would say that my chronic longing to be neat and tidy has less to do with the state of my stuff than the state of my life: A year ago, my husband was diagnosed with thyroid cancer; ever since, my day-to-day has been nothing if not disorderly. Suddenly, I had to live with the most painful, agonizing kind of messiness. Would Jonathan get better? I wondered again and again. If he didn't, could I handle it? “Controlling your environment allows you to feel that you're at least controlling something,” confirms Julie Holland, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine in New York City. “You can't control Iraq; you can't control the economy; but you can control the amount of dust in your carpet. It's a way to feel as if you're not powerless.”
But although it's possible to impose neatness, at least temporarily, exerting control over life is more challenging, as I discovered when my relatively young, always-healthy husband got sick. Learning to accept occasional messiness and the uncertainty that goes along with it — the life kind as well as the clutter kind — is really about accepting this fundamental lack of control.
That may seem grimly fatalistic, but there's a positive side to letting go. Order and predictability may sound better, but mess, it turns out, has its own rewards, even if you can't always see them at the time. “A chaotic period can be a catalyst for greater understanding,” says Rabbi Irwin Kula, author of “Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life” (Hyperion). “Ambivalence, contradictions and tension ultimately give rise to wisdom.”
I relate to that. I am the least Zen person you can imagine, but while Jonathan was having surgery, getting radiation and acting completely zonked-out from his resulting low thyroid levels, I had no time to be a drama queen. I had to earn a living and take care of our daughters, 3 and 6, not to mention my spouse. I had to learn to tolerate untidiness. And a disorganized desk is nothing compared with the messiness of a relationship and the tension that can arise when two people make a life together.
Cultivating tolerance
While Jonathan was sick, for instance, I wanted to talk about it. He didn't. “When there's stress in a marriage and you work through it together, it leads to greater intimacy and depth,” Kula says. “You can run from emotions and ideas that make you uncomfortable, you can repress them as fiercely as possible, or you can step back and figure out what you're struggling with.” I did some figuring, and it led me to realize that I needed to work on my own generosity so I could meet my husband's needs rather than focus on my own desire for reassurance. The last thing my husband felt like doing was discussing what he was going through. I had to accept that, for him, simply being together felt comforting, even if we were sitting in silence. His illness brought us closer not only because we relied more on each other, the two of us clinging against the storm, but because I learned to be more tolerant of his way of coping.
If you happen to be in a crisis, relationship or otherwise, Kula suggests coaxing the process of understanding along by asking yourself, How can this situation help me better grasp who I am? How can it make me more compassionate in my web of connections? “The more you face your frailties and understand yourself, the more empathy you'll be able to muster.”
My struggle to accept that Jonathan and I had different communication styles made me think that perhaps I also needed to view the other imperfections in my life more tolerantly, including the debris on my desk. The two concepts may seem different, but just as discovering how to coexist peacefully with life's emotional messes (and your spouse, for that matter) can make you a stronger, more empathetic person, so, too, can living with a bit of physical clutter. Both, after all, are about letting go of the need to control every last thing and seeing what comes into your life in return. “If you focus all your energy on excessively organizing your time — or your desk — you won't be as open to all kinds of opportunities,” says Eric Abrahamson, co-author of “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder” (Little, Brown).
Think of it this way: When you're looking at a variety of things in front of you — pictures, desk toys, disparate stacks of paper — your mind starts jumping around and making intriguing connections. “The more stuff you have out in the open, the more ways there are to arrange the items and the more information you can gain from them,” Abrahamson explains. My friend Tanya, a textile artist, concurs. “I need to see my materials, tools and photos around me. They make me want to create; if I don't see them, I'm not as inspired to move forward with my work.”
The same thing happens when you mix different types of people. “In companies, there's a tendency to put everyone with the same function on the same floor,” Abrahamson says. “But if you sit different departments together so folks mingle at the coffeemaker, there's more chance for an influx of new ideas.”
This isn't to say that we should all throw our papers into the wind, let cat hair coat every surface and allow dishes to pile up to the heavens. The point is to find the level of mess that feels optimal for your work, life and peace of mind. For some people, that may be quite a bit; for others, not so much.
Accepting a little messiness
Take my friend Katie, a reformed megaslob. “Twice,” she says, “I've actually thrown out a sink full of dishes that had been sitting for so long that they were caked in muck rather than attempt to wash them. It was simply easier for me to buy new ones.”
That's extreme, granted, but most of us end up with a few dirty pots left in the kitchen when we sit down to eat. If we stopped to wash every last one of them, the food would get cold. “You can't let mess impede your enjoyment of the meal,” Kula says. “They'll get washed — later!” As for Katie, when she moved to a new, larger apartment, she swore she'd make a fresh start. “I vowed to be tidy in all areas, not only in the kitchen. I set up an ultra organized filing system and spent days stashing every piece of paper I owned into its exact place,” she recalls. “But it was so disheartening when the mail came, with new bills and things to file. I realized I was never going to keep up.” Perfection, after all, is ephemeral, as evanescent as the moment when all of Katie's papers were neatly filed (and her dishes washed).
Katie has now found a happy medium, tossing paperwork into a few general folders and doing a more elaborate sort-and-toss a few times a year. Abrahamson points out that being able to tolerate a bit of dishevelment can make you more efficient in the long run. “By letting paper pile up for a while before you deal with it, you make one trip to the filing cabinet instead of 10.” Even Albert Einstein, great thinker that he was, advocated messiness, famously saying, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?” Perhaps that's why a 2005 survey by the nationwide recruiting firm Ajilon Office found that people who call themselves neat freaks are likely to earn less than folks who don't describe themselves that way.
This compromise between entropy and order can make life feel more meaningful, if you let it. As my friend Jessica says, “I sort of accept my messiness, but I still strive for some kind of system, and that's when I make my discoveries. When I'm weeding through the monstrosity of paper that is our dining room, I inevitably find a year's worth of my son's drawings in a bin, and it's fantastic to see his progress. Same with all the other stuff around. I love the serendipity of it, especially when I've lost something for so long that I've forgotten about it. When I do tidy up, however half-assed, it turns life into a treasure hunt.”
Beauty in disorder
You could say that Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, came to the same conclusion about mess. The man was a genius; his lab, a pigsty. In 1928, he left for vacation and abandoned some cultures in their petri dishes. When he returned, he found that mold had grown in one of them; observing the fuzzy growths, where bacteria seemed unable to flourish, led to his lifesaving breakthrough. (Abrahamson adds that years later, when Fleming was given a tour of a pristine, well-organized laboratory, a fellow scientist exclaimed, “Imagine what you could have discovered here!” Fleming wryly replied, “Not penicillin.”)
Even if you're unlikely to have a scientific aha! moment anytime soon, you may find that more disorder means more random moments of beauty. (Chaos theory actually refers to a seemingly random jumble that contains hidden order.) “If you're not always focused on finding the main path, you're more open to the world,” Dr. Holland says. With that in mind, I recently played hooky from work to chaperone my 6-year-old's class trip. If you haven't figured it out already, I have problems with procrastination — which is about holding out for perfection rather than jumping in and taking risks, even if the results are a little messy. I spend far too much time at my desk checking e-mail and looking at important cat pictures online. Then I castigate myself for being so unfocused. So on this morning, I told myself that because I wasn't accomplishing anything anyway, I might as well be with my daughter Josie, instead of at my desk.
The trip was the essence of messiness. There was no AC on the school bus, but instead of bitching, I focused on Josie's luminous skin and delicious little-girl smell. At the beach, where the children were studying tidal pools, I observed from the shore as Josie was knocked down by a wave. Instead of rushing to her, I stayed still and watched her eyes widen and her body freeze for a moment, before she bounced up laughing, coated in sand. (That night, I washed half a cup of the stuff out of her hair. Talk about mess.) After she was in bed, I stopped procrastinating for once and started writing. I had to crank to meet my deadline, but I also felt rejuvenated and newly motivated. Away from the computer, my ideas had the time to gel.
The Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi is about the beauty of imperfection, the art of appreciating the loveliness of hair that's full of sand as opposed to a perfect, sprayed, unmussed 'do. Wabi-sabi isn't about embracing dirt; it is about savoring the beauty that can be found even in a chipped bowl, recycled to hold some stones from the beach, or in the inviting softness of old leather. It's a truly environmentally friendly way to live — the opposite of our craze for consumerism — and one that's very human.
A perfectly minimalist, clutter-free house, on the other hand, may be beautiful, but it's also sterile, a little cold. You might say the same of someone who worries more about a wine ring marring her countertop than enjoying the wine. Something meaningful is getting sacrificed on the altar of tidiness. “If you feel hollow inside, a fabulous apartment won't make everything better,” Dr. Holland says. “You'll always be searching for the next level of perfection.” Or you'll be guarding against the natural devolution of what you've crafted, unable to relax for a moment. “You can treat your home like a museum but still get termites,” Dr. Holland adds. You can also treasure your white flokati rug, asking every guest to take off her shoes and drink only clear beverages, as an acquaintance of mine did, but then one day, a visiting dog can manage to scarf a bowl of M&M's in a minute, and upchuck in Technicolor all over the rug (true story).
Similarly, you can exercise, eat right and go for regular checkups and still end up getting cancer, as my husband did, or scrupulously avoid soft cheeses, sushi and litter boxes and still have a miscarriage, as I did. Accepting human frailty — and occasional piles of newspaper — is a lot saner than constantly seeking perfection.
Organized all along
Clearly, mess isn't simply about stuff. Ambiguity will always be with us, and finding the right balance between order and anarchy is a work in progress. There will always be pain and uncertainty; the trick is learning to live with it. “It's possible to be happy, even if your desires are never fully satisfied,” Kula says. “Your yearnings themselves can be a huge source of self-awareness and joy.”
Unfortunately, most of us expect life to be as clean as an operating room. When something terrible (and therefore messy) happens, we want there to be a reason. She shouldn't have gone to his apartment on a first date. They shouldn't have taken that adjustable-rate mortgage. “But when we try to justify the unjustifiable, what we're doing is blaming or deflecting; we're saying, ‘That can't happen to me!’” Rabbi Kula explains. “You can't separate nature's beauty from its destructiveness.” That's terrifying but also liberating. If you admit that understanding the universe or fixing its messes isn't always possible, you can be more loving and humane, toward others and yourself.
“Mess is life, and too often we don't appreciate it until it's gone,” says my friend Judith, whose golden retriever died earlier this year. “A few days ago, I went to get my idiotic, overpriced vacuum cleaner fixed and discovered that — surprise! — dog hair had gummed up the works. The guys at the repair store were joking that I needed to get a different, less sheddy dog. Then I told them what had happened. And they hugged me! Now every time I look around my apartment and notice that the tumbleweeds of rusty hair are gone, I feel sad. In retrospect, there was joy in that mess.”
I had a revelation of my own when my husband got sick, and then recovered: I need to be a little more forgiving of my own disorganization, internal and external. Instead of beating myself up and lamenting my Post-it collection and seemingly scattershot way of working, I'm better off focusing on the things I have the power to improve and letting-the-hell-go of the rest. In the process, I've discovered that my tendency to do several things at once, all imperfectly, may not be such a liability. When I get stuck on one assignment, I can move to another; if my mind isn't worrying a problem like a dog with a bone, my subconscious tends to come up with a solution. In my way, I've been organized all along. I just couldn't see it.
Copyright © 2007 CondéNet. All rights reserved.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Five Steps Closer to Calm
- Breathe—Focusing on your breathing is an essential practice that draws your awareness inward and helps you experience the presence and flow of energy.
- Relax—The more you relax, the more you deepen awareness of sensation.
- Feel—Let your sense of feeling move beyond physical sensation. Acknowledge who you are as a being of energy.
- Watch—Sense who you are as a witness; be a scientist observing phenomena arising in and around you.
- Allow—Sense who you are with no preferences. Be present to the process of your life unfolding moment by moment.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Negative Response Pattern Defined
Want to truly take control of your life? Then you really should take a few moments to understand this term because it has a lot to do with how you think, feel and respond to all sorts of situations, information and more importantly, the stressors in your life.
You already know … a major function of your brain is to serve as a memory bank – and a huge one at that. Among the array of memories stored in this vast repository are all of the responses to the various situations and challenges you encounter throughout your day, whether it is your response to the changing weather, food you eat, a near miss on the freeway or an unpleasant encounter with someone you’d rather avoid.
How you react to those events and everything else in your life is stored in your brain. How did it all get there? Simple enough: You put it there by your actions. Every time something pleasant happens in your life, something interesting, scary, even the fragrance of a flower, how you respond or react to it is studiously inventoried by your brain, all neatly stored for future reference. Over time, the way we perceive and react to the various events we encountered sets up automatic response patterns.
The brain basically operates as a pattern-matching system that scans for a familiar response. When a stressful situation occurs, the brain scans its memory banks looking for previous stressful experiences and how we responded, until it perceives a match. If our past response pattern was to perceive the situation as negative, then it triggers the same emotional reactions you had the previous time – like anxiety, hurt, resignation, or depression.
What can we do about negative response patterns? "The good news is," Transforming Depression authors Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman write, "that all these brain circuits are flexible and can be reshaped with new patterns throughout life. It’s never too late to learn or to change."
You may choose to step back when stressful events occur and react compassionately, lovingly or any other way, and your brain will remember this, too. Make any of these your routine reaction and you’ll create a positive response pattern that eventually can replace the negative patterns.
Institute of HeartMath Newsletter, May/June 2008 Vol. 7/No.1
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Connecting a Million Hearts
HeartMath is campaigning to connect a Million Hearts on April 22 by asking everyone to stop for 2 minutes and focus on the feeling of gratitude and appreciation for our beautiful planet. Watch their awe inspiring video here.
On this same webpage you can also download their free 20 page e-book: Applied Appreciation
According to the American Institute of Stress, up to 90% of all health problems are related to stress. Additionally, a large body of research confirms that our thoughts and emotions have a dynamic effect on our health and vitality.
Emotions like frustration, insecurity and depressing feelings are stressful and inhibit optimal health. Positive emotions like appreciation, care, and love not only feel good, they promote health, performance and well being.
HeartMath's research has shown when you learn how to intentionally shift to a positive emotion, heart rhythms immediately change. A shift in heart rhythms may not seem important but in fact it creates a favorable cascade of neural, hormonal and biochemical events that benefit the entire body. The stress-reducing effects are both immediate and long lasting.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The challenges of stress may motivate us to greatness
Don't get the wrong idea! This is not a plea for foolhardiness, but rather a challenge to you to express more of your tremendous potential. To do so you need to cultivate stress up to a point, and you need to develop an appreciation for the lessons and potential growth that disease or problems can afford you. You may have the impression that stress and disease are enemies and your job is to eliminate them from your life. But that is not true. Stress is necessary for life. Without it you’d be slithering on the ground instead of walking upright. Without it you’d be dead! Illness is a virtually unavoidable fact of life, and the sooner you accept it as a friend and teacher, the better off you will be.
| The first step . . . shall be to lose the way.
- Galway Kinnell |
We invite you to take risks—the kind that stretch you beyond your limited definitions of yourself and of what is possible. Life is a great adventure filled with impossible goals, which may seem beyond your grasp, but that you commit to all the same. To paraphrase Woody Allen, if you aren’t making any mistakes, or if people aren’t criticizing you, you probably aren’t taking any risks. You probably aren’t having any fun, and you certainly aren’t living and growing to your fullest potential.
| Life is too close for comfort.
- Lee Lozowick |
Health is a function of your participation in life. Those who play it too safe often end up lonely, isolated from others, or obsessed with their own health issues. Such attitudes limit one’s world and weaken the immune system as well. How about it? When was the last time you took a risk? Did something uncharacteristic? Committed yourself to a great task? Here are a few simple suggestions to help keep life "unsafe":
- Avoid the well-balanced life. A life that is perfectly balanced is safe, limited, homogenized, and boring. Any programs that promise complete harmony are sure setups for failure and disappointment.
- Cultivate chaos. Without chaos the possibility of serendipity is eliminated. Operate without your usual rules and schedules for a day or two, and refuse to let it be a problem. Let things break down and don’t fix them; then deal with the consequences. Learn what happens.
- Think stress. Build your inner strength by cultivating situations that tax your courage, discipline, and commitment. If you’ve got a problem that you think is big or important, give yourself a bigger problem by taking on a commitment to a task "bigger than you are." Now watch the first problem fall into place. And don’t be fooled by thinking that it necessarily means you will have to work harder. Busy, committed people quickly learn to work smarter!
- Resist comfort. Avoid the numbing effects of a "walking death" by maintaining an edge of discomfort for yourself. If you run for a sweater every time you’re cold or turn up the air conditioner every time you’re hot, you’re keeping yourself insulated in more ways than one. Appreciate unavoidable pain and use it to learn what stuff you’re made of. Remedies that mask symptoms also mask the information that those symptoms might provide.
- "Pig out." The healthier your diet, the more important it is to indulge yourself, occasionally, with all the foods you think are "bad" for you (unless you are actually allergic to them).
- Put on some music, pump up the volume, and dance!
- Don’t be nice. Be simple. Be straightforward. Be caring. Be daring. Be wild. Be silly. Be uncharacteristic. Be anything . . . but don’t be N-I-C-E. Not all the time. You know what we mean. Yes, nice is a four-letter word.
- Apprentice yourself to greatness. There is nothing harder yet ultimately more satisfying than being stretched beyond the limited vision you have for yourself. Fraternize with people who provoke you to greatness, who make you uncomfortable, who ask more of you than you think is possible. Study what they have to teach you.
- Live your questions. It is a natural human phenomenon to find or see what we are looking for, and to overlook or miss what we haven’t anticipated. Our thoughts, and in this case our questions, will therefore mold our experience of reality. (For example, if you are fascinated by the nature and meaning of time, your questioning will motivate and direct you into situations where you will learn about time.) It is important to cultivate questions that are open-ended in order to live in an open-ended world. Otherwise we mold our world into black and white, and answer all questions with right or wrong, yes or no.
| Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves . . . the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, |
Reprinted with permission from Simply Well by John W. Travis, MD, & Regina Sara Ryan. Copyright 2001. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA. www.tenspeed.com
Posted at: http://healthy.net/scr/column.asp?id=522
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Aromatherapy Massages With Music Reduced Stress Levels in Nurses
Source: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Date: September 24, 2007
Two 12-week alternative therapy sessions were provided over the course of a year. 86 nurses participated in the study, with 39 taking part in both the summer and winter sessions. Researchers found that 60 per cent of the staff - 54 per cent in summer and 65 per cent in winter - suffered from moderate to extreme anxiety. But this fell to just eight per cent, regardless of the season, once staff had received 15-minute aromatherapy massages while listening to relaxing new-age music.
The study also sought to examine whether there were any seasonal differences in stress levels.
"There's always been a perception that staff feel more stressed in the winter months -- when they deal with more serious respiratory and cardiac cases -- and the stress levels we recorded would seem to support this" says Marie Cooke, Deputy Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.
"But when we analyzed the workload figures and case distribution we found little difference between winter and summer patient levels during the study periods. Staff dealt with just over 10,700 patients each season and the number of deaths and the percentage of patients in each triage category (which determines how quickly people need to be seen) was fairly consistent between the seasons.
"However the fact remains that providing alternative therapy was more effective during the winter months. During both study periods the number of staff feeling stressed fell to eight per cent, but there was a greater reduction in winter, when the number fell from 65 per cent, than in the summer, when the pre-massage score was 54 per cent. As well as measuring staff's anxiety levels before and after aromatherapy massages, 68 responded to a detailed occupational stress survey -- 33 who had taken part in the summer sessions and 35 from the winter sessions.
The survey - which included measuring occupational stress factors such as pressure of responsibility, quality concerns, role conflict, job satisfaction and self esteem - was carried out before and after each 12-week period. It revealed that occupational stress levels were consistent between the summer and winter trials.
Staff who took part in the study had an average age of 38 and had spent just over seven years working in the emergency department. 80 per cent were female and 60 per cent worked full time. Comparisons with national statistics showed that the sample had more male and full-time staff than national averages.
Massages were provided by a qualified therapist who sprayed aromatherapy mist above the heads of participants and then massaged their shoulders, mid back, neck, scalp forehead and temples, while they listened to relaxing music on headphones. Participants, who were seated in a quiet room, were able to choose the essential oil used, from rose, lavender, lime or ocean breeze -- a combination of lavender, ylang ylang, bergamot and patchouli. Sixteen massages were carried out over a two-day work period each week, with the names of all staff working those days put into an envelope and selected at random.
"There is scope for a lot more research into this area," concludes Dr Cooke. "We would be interested to see if different types of alternative therapy produced different results and whether factors such as age, gender and health status had any effect on the outcome. "But what is clear from this study is that providing aromatherapy massage had an immediate and dramatic effect on staff who traditionally suffer high anxiety levels because of the nature of their work.
Reference: "The effect of aromatherapy massage with music on the stress and anxiety levels of emergency nurses: comparison between summer and winter." Cooke et al. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 16, pages 1695-1703 (September 2007).
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
Friday, September 21, 2007
Stress Breaks Hearts
Sept. 20, 2007 -- Here's a health fact most of us understand better than our doctors do: Emotional stress really can harm our hearts.
Intense grief, acute anger, and sudden fear can have direct -- sometimes fatal -- effects on the human heart. And long-term emotional stress shortens lives by increasing the risk of heart disease, notes Daniel J. Brotman, MD, director of the hospitalist program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore.
"What is intuitive to people is not necessarily intuitive to physicians," Brotman tells WebMD. "Emotional stress, conceptually, is the same thing for cardiovascular risk as physical stress. But a lot of doctors blow that off, because they think emotional stress is a psychological problem, not a physical problem."
To overcome this false impression, Brotman and colleagues reviewed recent studies looking at the short- and long-term effects of emotional stress on the heart. Their resulting report, "The Cardiovascular Toll of Stress," appears in the Sept. 22 issue of The Lancet.
"In the hospital, I see people under all sorts of stress all the time -- and I see what happens to bodies under stress," Brotman says. "Our study illustrates how important the body's stress responses are in precipitating cardiovascular effects."
Heartache, Heart HarmPsychological disorders, personality types, and other psychological stressors are linked to various heart problems:
- People who suffer from depression, hopelessness, or a pessimistic outlook are more likely than others to suffer heart attack and sudden heart death. They are more likely to develop conditions that increase heart risk, such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and impaired heart rate.
- People who suffer chronic anxiety are more likely than others to suffer heart attack, atrial fibrillation, and sudden heart death. Their propensity for high blood pressure and impaired heart rate increases their heart risk.
- Emotional trauma -- such as the death of a spouse, mental or physical abuse, or posttraumatic stress disorder -- increases risk of heart attack and heart death.
- People with type D personalities (characterized by pessimistic emotions and inability to share emotions with others) and type A personalities (characterized by anxiety directed outward as aggressive, irritable, or hostile behaviors) are more likely than others to suffer heart attacks.
- People with angry or hostile temperaments are more likely than others to suffer heart death.
- Acute fear, grief, startling, or anger can cause "stunned heart." Wallops of emotion also can cause sudden death due to life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm.
Even when intense bouts of emotion don't kill, they may cause long-lasting heart damage.
"Most people who suffer the death of a loved one are not coming to medical attention, but that does not mean their hearts are not stunned for a period of time," Brotman says. "We doctors only see those with heart failure, or those with already-damaged hearts whose defibrillators fire. But probably, in every body, what stress hormones do today have some impact on how healthy your cardiovascular system will be 20 years from now."
It would seem to be wise for all of us to learn to deal with stressful emotions. But Brotman warns that there does not seem to be any one-size-fits-all way to do this.
"We don't have concrete evidence to suggest that if you manage your stress levels you will reduce your cardiovascular risk," he says. "People are different and have different ways of reducing stress. It is disingenuous to suggest that stress reduction is going to be simple."
Meanwhile, he urges doctors to pay more attention to what their patients are telling them when they talk about stress.
"Real-time physical effects correlate with intense emotional states," Brotman says. "We should think beyond cholesterol, beyond blood pressure, when thinking about what it means to live a heart-healthy lifestyle."
Bigger Brains, Better Genes. Dean Ornish, M.D.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Dean Ornish, M.D.Special to Newsweek, Updated: 12:47 p.m. PT Sept 12, 2007
“Go pump some neurons! Expand your craniums!”
—Robin Williams, in “Mrs. Doubtfire”
You don’t need to read this column to know that exercise is good for you. You probably already know that regular, moderate exercise is one of the best things you can do for your health and well-being. What you may not know is that new research is showing that exercise beneficially affects your genes, helps reverse the aging process at a cellular level, gives you more energy, makes you smarter, and may even help you grow so many new brain cells (a process called neurogenesis) that your brain actually gets bigger.
Really.
So does improving your nutrition. A diet high in sugar and saturated fat diminishes neurogenesis, whereas other foods increase it, including chocolate (in moderate amounts), tea and blackberries, which contain a substance called epicatechin that improves memory. Small amounts of alcohol increase neurogenesis, whereas larger amounts decrease it. Chronic emotional stress decreases neurogenesis, but stress management techniques increase it. Drugs such as nicotine, opiates and cocaine decrease neurogenesis, whereas a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in 1995 showed that cannabinoids (found in marijuana) increase it, at least in rats. (Uh, what were we just talking about?)
Use It or Lose It
Until about nine years ago it was thought that you were born with a certain number of neurons, and they tended to decrease in number as you got older. The best you could hope to do was to slow the rate at which you lost brain cells.
Fortunately, it’s not true. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and at Columbia University showed that older adults continue to generate new neurons at virtually any age. Earlier this year these researchers found that in addition to growing new neurons, exercise doubled blood flow to the brain. A study published last year by researchers at the University of Illinois reported that just walking for three hours per week for only three months caused so many new neurons to grow that it actually increased the size of people’s brains.
Best of all, the region of the brain that grew the most was the hippocampus, the part most involved with memory and cognition. After only three months, those who exercised had brain volumes typical of people who were three years younger! Also, the new neurons tend to find their way to well-established existing connections and replace ones that are damaged or nonfunctioning. Those who showed the most improvement in fitness also showed the greatest enhancement in memory. The authors concluded, “These results suggest that cardiovascular fitness is associated with the sparing of brain tissue in aging humans. Furthermore, these results suggest a strong biological basis for the role of aerobic fitness in maintaining and enhancing central nervous system health and cognitive functioning in older adults.”
Regular, moderate exercise (along with healthier eating and stress management techniques) also reduces inflammation throughout your body, including in your brain, and reduces the incidence of tiny strokes that can impair your ability to think clearly. Exercise also helps boost your sense of well-being. Levels of beneficial neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine are higher in those who exercise—the same ones elevated by many antidepressants. These, in turn, may help reduce depression, elevate mood and help you focus better.
Exercise Makes You More Intelligent
Other studies have shown that older adults who exercise regularly have better memory, are better at going from one mental task to another, and can focus and concentrate better than those who are sedentary. In other words, exercise makes older people more intelligent.
Exercise makes younger people smarter too. Kids who exercise have fewer problems with attention-deficit disorder and learn faster. Studies have shown that physical education in schools improves academic performance as well as physical fitness. For example, a study by the California Department of Education of 322,000 seventh-grade students found that the most fit scored in the 66th percentile on their SATs, whereas the least fit scored in the 28th percentile. Studies at the University of Illinois also found that those who were more fit had better standardized test scores.
Exercising Your Genes
Your genes are not your fate. The choices you make each day in your diet and lifestyle have a direct influence on how your genetic predisposition is expressed—for better and for worse. You’re only as old as your genes, but how your genes are expressed may be modified by exercise, diet and lifestyle choices much more than had previously been believed—and more quickly. For example, Finnish scientists reported in a study published in July that increased moderate to vigorous physical activity modified two genes involved in type 2 diabetes and reduced the risk of developing the disease, independent of changes in weight or diet.
Another recent study compared mitochondria in muscle biopsies of older and younger men and women. Your mitochondria are the “energy generators” of your body’s cells. One of the reasons many people feel less energetic as they get older is that their mitochondria work less efficiently with age. The investigators found that in those who were mostly sedentary, mitochondrial function declined markedly with age and was affected by more than 300 genes. Then the investigators put these older men and women through a six-month exercise program that involved strength training for one hour only two days per week using the types of weight machines found in most gyms. Resistance exercise for each session consisted of three sets of 10 repetitions for each of: leg press, chest press, leg extension, leg flexion, shoulder press, lat pull-down, seated row, calf raise, abdominal crunch and back extension, and 10 repetitions for arm flexion and arm extension.
After only six months, the subjects’ strength improved by 50 percent, and they reported feeling much more energetic. Many of the 300 genes that had declined with age began to now act more like those in younger people. In fact, the investigators found that exercise affected age-associated gene expression more than in younger people, meaning that exercise is especially beneficial as people get older.
These high-tech studies illustrate what a powerful difference low-tech interventions such as changes in exercise, nutrition and stress management techniques can play in our lives. People often believe that advances in medicine have to be a new drug, a new laser or a surgical intervention to be powerful—something really high-tech and expensive. They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lives each day—how much we exercise, what we eat and how we respond to stress—may make such a powerful difference in our health, our well-being, and even in our brains. But they often do.
How to remember to exercise in a way that’s sustainable? Do what you enjoy, make it fun and do it regularly. If you grow new neurons, then you won’t forget!
Monday, August 13, 2007
Stress May Wreak Havoc on Your Mouth
Aug. 13, 2007 -- Too much stress may not only spoil your mood, it may also spoil your smile.
There is mounting evidence that there’s a strong link between stress and gum disease, according to a new review of research on the issue.
Researchers found 57% of recent studies reviewed showed a positive relationship between gum disease and stress and related psychological symptoms like distress, anxiety, depression, and loneliness.
Although it’s difficult to pinpoint the negative effects of stress on your gums, researchers say the studies suggest that elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol may be involved.
In addition, stress may make people more lax about their oral health habits.
“Individuals with high stress levels tend to increase their bad habits, which can be harmful to periodontal health. They are less attentive to their oral hygiene and may increase their use of nicotine, alcohol, or drugs,” says Preston D. Miller Jr., DDS, president of the American Academy of Periodontology, in a news release. “Patients should seek healthy ways to relieve stress through exercise, balanced eating, plenty of sleep, and maintaining a positive mental attitude.”
Stress Harms GumsResearchers reviewed 14 studies published between 1990 and 2006 on the relationship between stress and gum disease in adults. The results, published in the Journal of Periodontology, indicated that most showed a positive relationship between stress and psychological factors and gum disease.
“More research is needed to determine the definitive relationship between stress and periodontal diseases,” says researcher Daiane Peruzzo, PhD, of the State University of Campinas, Piracicaba in Brazil, in the news release. “However, patients who minimize stress may be at less risk for periodontal diseases.”
If untreated, gum disease can lead to loss of teeth as well as bone in the jaw. Symptoms of gum disease include tender, bleeding gums, swollen gums, bad breath, and loose teeth.
SOURCES: Peruzzo, D. Journal of Periodontology, August 2007; vol 78: pp 1491-1504. News release, American Academy of Periodontology. WebMD Medical Reference from Healthwise: "Gum Disease."
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Weds, Sept. 12 – Nov. 14, 2007
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
An ideal program for anyone seeking affordable, science-based, complementary stress relief for:
job-related stress, general anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, caregiver burnout, smoking cessation,
parenting, weight loss, technology burnout, bereavement, chronic or auto-immune disease, chronic pain,
PMS/menopause, preparing for surgery and similar.
· easy, effective meditation techniques… a simple practice of coming back to the present moment via the breath, the body, the senses. Meditation practice will serve as the foundation for this program and will comprise 50% of the class time.
· tools for on-the-spot stress management, including Thought Field Therapy® and HeartMath® skills
· simple exercises extracted from Tai Chi, Chi Gung, and Donna Eden’s Energy Medicine · harness the power of the mind through guided imagery & breath-work
· interrupt anxiety-prone thinking and behavior habits
· know when it is time to seek professional counseling or medical intervention
Classes include training in meditation, self-care and relaxation techniques. There will be periods of experiential practice, lecture and discussion in a confidential, compassionate setting.
- Improvements in blood pressure, and other cardiac health factors
- Improvements in blood sugar readings
- Improved digestion
- Reduced pain and/or better pain management
- Renewed pleasure in life
- Reduced mental fog, more clarity, better memory
- Improved relationships at home and work
- Improved sleep habits
a simple pre-class interview to be sure this
program is right for you. 258-0377, ext. 2
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Janis Davies, CWHE
Friday, July 20, 2007
Marital Status, Marital Strain, and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease
Elaine D. Eaker , ScD, Lisa M. Sullivan , PhD, Margaret Kelly-Hayes , EdD, RN, Ralph B. D'Agostino Sr, PhD,Emelia J. Benjamin , MD, ScM
Published online before print July 18, 2007
Psychosom Med 2007, doi:10.1097/PSY.0b013e3180f62357
© 2007 by American Psychosomatic Society
Objective: To determine if marriage and marital strain are related to the 10-year coronary heart disease (CHD) incidence or total mortality. Research has demonstrated associations between marital strain and prognosis of heart disease, but little research has addressed the association between specific aspects of marital strain and incident CHD.
Methods: From 1984 to 1987, 3682 participants (mean age 48.5 ± 10.1 (standard deviation) years; 52% women) of the Framingham Offspring Study were examined; measures of marital status, marital strain, and risk factors for CHD were collected at the baseline examination. The present study describes the 10-year follow-up for incident CHD and total mortality.
Results: After adjusting for age, systolic blood pressure, body mass index, cigarette smoking, diabetes, and total cholesterol/high density cholesterol, the married men compared with unmarried men were almost half as likely to die during follow-up (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.54; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.34-0.83). Women who "self-silenced" during conflict with their spouse, compared with women who did not, had four times the risk of dying (HR = 4.01; 95% CI: 1.75-9.20). Men with wives who were upset by work were 2.7 times more likely to develop CHD (HR = 2.71; 95% CI: 1.22-6.03). Marital happiness, satisfaction, and disagreements were not related to the development of CHD or death in men or women.
Conclusions: Our study suggests that marital communication, conflict, and strain are associated with adverse health outcomes. Further research into the influence of marital stress on health is merited.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Stress + “comfort” foods = excess weight gain
Washington, D.C.--In what they call a “stunning research advance,” investigators at Georgetown University Medical Center have been able to use simple, non-toxic chemical injections to add and remove fat in targeted areas on the bodies of laboratory animals. They say the discovery, published online in Nature Medicine on July 1, could revolutionize human cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery and treatment of diseases associated with human obesity.
Investigators say these findings may also, over the long-term, lead to better control of metabolic syndrome, which is a collection of risk factors that increase a patient’s chances of developing heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Sixty million Americans were estimated to be affected by metabolic syndrome in 2000, according to a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control in 2004. In the paper, the Georgetown researchers describe a mechanism they found by which stress activates weight gain in mice, and they say this pathway (which they were able to manipulate) may explain why people who are chronically stressed gain more weight than they should based on the calories they consume.
“An accumulation of chronic stressors, like disagreements with your boss, taking care of a chronically ill child, or repeated traffic road rages, could be acting as an amplifier to a hypercaloric diet when protracted over time. Depression may also be acting as a stressor.” Not only were the stressed mice much fatter, they began to exhibit the metabolic and cardiovascular consequences of obesity, Kuo said. “They had the glucose intolerance seen in diabetes, elevated blood pressure, inflammation in the blood vessels, and fat in their livers and muscles.”
“We are hopeful that these findings might eventually lead to control of metabolic syndrome, which is a huge health issue for many Americans,” she said. “Decreasing fat in the abdomen of the mice we studied reduced the fat in their liver and skeletal muscles, and also helped to control insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, blood pressure and inflammation.
Complete article is posted here: