With all of the bad news, it can be very difficult to avoid feeling highly stressed. I read a lot from participants in this forum suggesting this may be a fairly common problem for a lot of us. So, this thread is for coping with that problem by citing news articles that may be of help. I personally don't like to give advice, but if others feel more comfortable about that, this may be a good thread in which to participate.
Stressed? Four Ways to Stop Your Brain From Telling You the Worst Will Happen
by Patricia Riddell
June 30, 2022
Introduction:
(Science Alert) Imagine you have an interview for a new job tomorrow. Some people might think about what kind of questions they will be asked so that they can prepare, or imagine the interview going well.
For others, the thought of an interview will cause them to toss and turn all night thinking of every worst case scenario possible – no matter how outlandish these may be. If you're someone who has a tendency to do the latter, you are prone to catastrophizing.
Catastrophizing is a tendency to assume the worst will happen when imagining a future situation – even if you have evidence that this is not the most likely outcome. People who like to feel in control (and are therefore intolerant of uncertainty) are more likely to catastrophize. This has been linked to anxiety – suggesting that frequent catastrophizing may be a factor in developing certain mental health problems.
Catastrophizing comes from the belief that by imagining what might go wrong, we're better able to protect ourselves from harm – both physical and mental. However, this tendency is only helpful if you're able to correctly predict what will happen in a certain situation and how it will make you feel.
As we imagine future events, we experience an emotional reaction to the story we are creating – and we use this response to determine how we will feel in the future. But this way of predicting the future is often wrong since we're not able to imagine everything that might happen.
Axios Finish Line: Making friends by Erica Pandey
July, 2022
Introduction:
(Axios) In America, we value family and work — but friendship often falls behind. Many of us have few or no close confidants, the data shows.
Why it matters: Friends help us get through the tough times and sweeten the good times. And a thriving society is filled with strong friendships.
• Studies have shown friendship lengthens our lives, improves our performance at work, makes us better parents and broadens our minds.
But 27% of millennials say they have no close friends, and 22% say they have no friends at all, according to a recent YouGov survey.
• Americans also lost touch with many of their friends when COVID hit, an American Enterprise Institute study found.
Gardening Can Cultivate Better Mental Health
July 6, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Many longtime gardeners will tell you that the garden is their happy place. New research suggests that many people may indeed reap mental health benefits from working with plants — even if they’ve never gardened before.
In a study published in the journal “PLOS ONE,” University of Florida scientists found that gardening activities lowered stress, anxiety and depression in healthy women who attended twice-weekly gardening classes. None of study participants had gardened before.
“Past studies have shown that gardening can help improve the mental health of people who have existing medical conditions or challenges. Our study shows that healthy people can also experience a boost in mental wellbeing through gardening,” said Charles Guy, principal investigator on the study and a professor emeritus in the UF/IFAS environmental horticulture department.
The study was co-authored by an interdisciplinary team of researchers with the environmental horticulture department, the UF College of Medicine, the UF Center for Arts in Medicine and the UF Wilmot Botanical Gardens, which also hosted all the study treatment sessions.
Thirty-two women between the ages of 26 and 49 completed the study. All were in good health, which for this experiment meant screening for factors such as chronic health conditions, tobacco use and drug abuse, and having been prescribed medications for anxiety or depression. Half of the participants were assigned to gardening sessions, while the other half were assigned to art-making sessions. Both groups met twice a week for a total eight times. The art group served as a point of comparison with the gardening group.
Often related to the ability to deal with stress is the ability to deal with depression. (At least IMHO).
Genetic Testing May Benefit Patients with Depression July 12 , 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) A new U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs study found that pharmacogenomic testing can help providers avoid prescribing antidepressant medications that may have undesirable outcomes. Pharmacogenomics is the study of how genes affect the body’s response to drugs.
The researchers also found that the patients who underwent genetic testing had more positive outcomes, compared with patients in usual care. Over 24 weeks of treatment, the group with genetic testing had in a drop in depression symptoms—with a peak effect at 12 weeks. Each patient in the study had major depressive disorder. Symptoms of that health condition include insomnia, loss of appetite, feelings of sadness and depression, and thoughts of dying by suicide.
The results appeared in July 2022 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. David Oslin, director of VA’s VISN 4 Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC), led the study. He thinks the results will encourage providers to consider using pharmacogenomic testing, with patient consent, to help drive treatment decisions.
“From a VA policy perspective, I don’t think that we would say the study is robust enough that we recommend testing everybody,” says Oslin, who is also a psychiatrist at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia. “The results were not a slam dunk, and in fact, an important outcome of the study is that only about 15% to 20% of the patients had genes that would significantly interfere with the prescribed medication. But I think the results favoring a positive effect on treatment, although small, will encourage providers to test patients and get this genetic information. Future research should explore if there are subgroups of patients who would benefit more from testing.”
Breaking Up is Hard to Do – But Many Men Find Healthy Ways to Cope July 14 , 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) The popular stereotype that men don’t want support during a breakup, separation or divorce is simply not true, according to a new paper by researchers at the UBC school of nursing.
In reality, many men do seek out help by accessing online resources, coaches and self-help books, or they reach out to friends, family and community-based groups, and some engage professional counsellors.
Senior author Dr. John Oliffe (he/him), a professor of nursing who leads the men's health research program at UBC, and research co-author Mary T. Kelly (she/her) say men can be resourceful and resilient as they work their way through painful relationship change.
"A failed relationship can lead to significant mental stress—men already have higher risks for suicide than women, and marital separation increases that risk four times. By exploring the ways through which men seek help after a breakup, we can potentially design better supports for their mental health," says Kelly.
"It’s also important to shift the narrative," adds Oliffe, the Canada Research Chair in men‘s health promotion. "The story that is most often told is that when a relationship breaks down, the man goes into crisis and/or perpetrates violence on his partner, but this is not the trajectory for most men. It’s helpful for guys to see that most breakups end with the men working through their challenges by leaning into help."
Stress Transmitter Wakes Your Brain More Than 100 Times a Night – and It is Perfectly Normal July 14 , 2022
Introduction:
((EurekAlert) You wake up. The alarm clock says 02:56.
“Oh no, it is not time to wake up yet,” you think, fearing that you will need lots of coffee to stay awake the following day.
Most people believe that a good night’s sleep should be uninterrupted. That is why it can be extremely annoying to wake up in the middle of the night when all you want to do is sleep.
New research from the University of Copenhagen shows that the stress transmitter noradrenaline causes you to wake up many times a night. But do not worry. It is all part of a normal, good night’s sleep and can even mean that you have slept well.
(Noradrenaline
Noradrenaline is a stress hormone and transmitter substance, which i.a. is associated with the body’s fight or flight response. It is related to adrenaline, and levels may increase during stress, but it also helps you stay focussed.)
“You may think that sleep is a constant state that you are in, and then you wake up. But there is a lot more to sleep than meets the eye. We have learned that noradrenaline causes you to wake up more than 100 times a night. And that is during perfectly normal sleep,” says Assistant Professor Celia Kjærby from the Center for Translational Neuromedicine, who is one of the first authors of the study.
Please don’t take my posting of this article as a product endorsement. I have never used the product under discussion and have no idea whether it is effective. Just something that may be looming in our future, for better or worse. It does remind me of scenes from Orwell’s 1984.
Wysa Raises $20 Million to Expand Its Therapist Chatbot Into a Wider Set of Mental Health Services by Jagmeet Singh
July 14 , 2022
Introduction:
(Techcrunch) Wysa, a popular mental health app originally founded in India around an AI chatbot that helps users talk through their feelings, has raised $20 million in a Series B funding round to expand its business on the heels of hitting 4.5 million users in 65 countries.
The all-equity round is led by India’s digital health-focused venture capital fund HealthQuad, with participation also from British International Investment (BII), the U.K.’s development finance institution. The plan will be to use the money to double down on its home market as well as the U.S. and U.K, where it already has respectively had approvals from the FDA and the National Health Service (NHS) and is used by the latter as part of its online mental health services. Originally built to work in English, Wysa will use some of the investment also to widen multilingual support. The team currently has 100–150 people.
Previous backers have included both Amazon and Google (who invest by way of their digital assistant funds), and Wysa prior to this round had raised $9.4 million. It’s not disclosing valuation.
To date, Wysa has served over 400 million conversations to 4.5 million users in 65 countries, and its rise speaks not just to the stresses of life in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic but to the lack of resources for many to deal with that.
“The demand for mental health, as you can imagine, is exploding,” said Ramakant Vempati, co-founder, Wysa, in an interview with TechCrunch. “The number of mental health professionals is just not enough to meet that demand.”
caltrek wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:52 pm Stress Transmitter Wakes Your Brain More Than 100 Times a Night – and It is Perfectly Normal July 14 , 2022
Introduction:
((EurekAlert) You wake up. The alarm clock says 02:56.
“Oh no, it is not time to wake up yet,” you think, fearing that you will need lots of coffee to stay awake the following day.
Most people believe that a good night’s sleep should be uninterrupted. That is why it can be extremely annoying to wake up in the middle of the night when all you want to do is sleep.
New research from the University of Copenhagen shows that the stress transmitter noradrenaline causes you to wake up many times a night. But do not worry. It is all part of a normal, good night’s sleep and can even mean that you have slept well.
(Noradrenaline
Noradrenaline is a stress hormone and transmitter substance, which i.a. is associated with the body’s fight or flight response. It is related to adrenaline, and levels may increase during stress, but it also helps you stay focussed.)
“You may think that sleep is a constant state that you are in, and then you wake up. But there is a lot more to sleep than meets the eye. We have learned that noradrenaline causes you to wake up more than 100 times a night. And that is during perfectly normal sleep,” says Assistant Professor Celia Kjærby from the Center for Translational Neuromedicine, who is one of the first authors of the study.
A Brain Mechanism Underlying the Evolution of Anxiety August 5, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Monoamine neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine play important roles in our cognitive and emotional functions. Their evolutionary origins date back to metazoans, and while the function of related genes is strongly evolutionarily conserved, genetic variation within and between species has been reported to have a significant impact on animal mental characteristics such as sociality, aggression, anxiety, and depression.
A research group led by Dr Daiki Sato and Professor Masakado Kawata has previously reported that the vesicular monoamine transporter 1 (VMAT1) gene, which transports neurotransmitters to secretory vesicles in neurons and secretory cells, has evolved through natural selection during human evolution. In particular, the 136th amino acid locus of this gene has evolved in the human lineage from asparagine (Asn) to threonine (Thr), and moreover, a new allele (isoleucine, Ile) has emerged and increased in its frequencies around the world. Previous reports suggested that people with the Ile genotype are less prone to depression and anxiety than those with the Thr genotype, but it was unclear how these human-specific mutations function in the brain and lead to changes in neuropsychiatric behavior.
In this study, Sato, Kawata (Tohoku University),Yukiko U. Inoue (National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry), and their colleagues prepared Vmat1 gene-edited mice in which the 136th amino acid locus was replaced with the human genotype (Thr or Ile) via genome editing technology, and compared gene expression, neural activity, and behavior among genotypes. The Ile-type mice showed decreased levels of anxiety-like behaviors, consistent with human studies. In addition, the genotype affected post-synaptic gene expression and neural activity in the amygdala, a brain region involved in emotional regulation. The functional role of the VMAT1 gene in the central nervous system remains unclear, and this study may provide a steppingstone toward elucidating its molecular mechanisms. Moreover, there are few studies in which the effects of single amino acid substitutions under natural selection during human evolution have been verified using genome editing technology. This study demonstrates the functional importance of human-specific variants in the regulatory circuits of neurotransmitters involved in cognitive and emotional functions and is expected to shed light on the pathogenic mechanisms of neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression.
How College Students Perceive Academic Stress Affects Their Mental Well-being August 9, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert ) Academic stress takes a toll on the mental well-being of certain groups of college students more than others – a correlation further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Rutgers New Jersey Medical School study.
Published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers found a significant correlation between perceived academic stress and poor mental well-being in all the students, but most acutely in those who are nonbinary, female or those who were in the second year of a four-year program.
“This study shows that college students are not uniformly impacted by academic stress or pandemic-related stress and that certain groups should be offered additional resources and support,” said study author Xue Ming, a professor of neurology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. “The findings support prior studies that have shown that nonbinary adults face adverse mental health outcomes when compared to male- and female-identifying adults.”
According to the American Psychological Association, up to 87 percent of U.S. college students cite education as their primary source of stress – arising from demanding course loads, studying, time management, classroom competition, financial concerns, family pressures and difficulty adapting to new environments – but few studies have looked at how that stress directly affects mental health.
Conclusion:
The researchers also recommend colleges provide stress-management and coping strategies such as mindfulness meditation and cognitive behavioral therapy as well as offer stress-reduction peer support groups to help build resilience.
I'm fighting chronic stress and anxiety. I'm waking up every morning with a body in stress mode. Maybe excess Cortisol production. So I'm never fully rested after a nights sleep.
It's very annoying and difficult to get rid of.
But today, Saturday, I ran almost a half marathon, in the morning, and in the afternoon I cycled for about 40 minutes. That made a huge difference. especially the running, I probably need to run at least an hour and the pace most be just right, not too slow and not too fast.
But running is very taxing on the legs so I can't do that distance every day, but I think I will go for longer distances when running and the days not running I will cycle and do weight training.
Showering today was amazing. You know from the movies, when someone has gone through a lot and then enjoys a shower, something like that. Usually it's a dread, because my skin is oversensitive due to the stress.
I'm also doing the B6 vitamins as mentioned in this thread. And mentally, I need to relax more, take it easy, but it's difficult.
Research Finds That People Who Struggle to Cope With Stressful Situations Could Benefit from Owning a Pet October 25, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Having a pet can help people who are less resilient cope with the stresses of everyday life, new Kingston University research has found. Where owners consider their animals to be more important than the friends in their lives, however, it can contribute to increased feelings of loneliness.
Psychology student Ece Beren Barklam, who is completing a PhD in pet ownership and human-animal interactions, explored whether having a pet was linked to better mental wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study took into account owners' perceptions of their own resilience levels and how emotionally attached they were to their animals.
The research, published in human-animal relations journal Anthrozoös, was carried out through two surveys of more than 700 people from the UK and around the world, one during the early stages of the pandemic in May 2020 and another in September 2021.
Overall, the study found pets had a mostly positive effect on the lives of their owners during the pandemic. Increased exposure to their animals – such as taking them out for walks or playing with them more often – was linked to better mental health, with owners who spent more time interacting with their animals during this time reporting being happier than those who did not.
Today I did some "shock therapy". No, not electroshock, but I biked indoors for 80 minutes. After that I went to the sauna and dipped in the freezing(to me) fjord. The bathing in the cold water is the new thing I'm doing, it feels good when you are out of the water again.
caltrek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 4:18 pm Research Finds That People Who Struggle to Cope With Stressful Situations Could Benefit from Owning a Pet October 25, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Having a pet can help people who are less resilient cope with the stresses of everyday life, new Kingston University research has found. Where owners consider their animals to be more important than the friends in their lives, however, it can contribute to increased feelings of loneliness.
Psychology student Ece Beren Barklam, who is completing a PhD in pet ownership and human-animal interactions, explored whether having a pet was linked to better mental wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study took into account owners' perceptions of their own resilience levels and how emotionally attached they were to their animals.
The research, published in human-animal relations journal Anthrozoös, was carried out through two surveys of more than 700 people from the UK and around the world, one during the early stages of the pandemic in May 2020 and another in September 2021.
Overall, the study found pets had a mostly positive effect on the lives of their owners during the pandemic. Increased exposure to their animals – such as taking them out for walks or playing with them more often – was linked to better mental health, with owners who spent more time interacting with their animals during this time reporting being happier than those who did not.
Feeling lonely? What We Want From Our Relationships Can Change with Age November 14, 2022
Introduction:
(EurkAlert) Not everyone’s holiday plans resemble a Hallmark card.
If the “most wonderful time of the year” isn’t your reality, you’re not alone. You might have an idea of a festive picture-perfect holiday season, but what actually transpires doesn’t always measure up.
And that’s where loneliness comes from, says King's College London graduate student Samia Akhter-Khan, first author of a new study on the subject.
“Loneliness results from a discrepancy between expected and actual social relationships,” Akhter-Khan said.
Together with Duke psychology and neuroscience Ph.D. Leon Li, Akhter-Khan and colleagues co-authored a paper on why people feel lonely, particularly in later life, and what we can do about it.
Adhering to The Five Precepts Of Buddhism May Lower Risk Of Depression by Ben Taub
November 30, 2022
Introduction:
(IFL Science) People who observe the five precepts of Buddhism may be more resilient to stress and less likely to experience depression, according to the results of a new study. An ethical code of conduct designed to banish suffering and help followers achieve enlightenment, the five precepts may promote inner calm and equanimity, which the researchers say could lead to more general mental health benefits.
According to the study authors, the personality trait neuroticism – which is characterized by a range of negative emotions including anger, anxiety and irritability – represents a major risk factor for depression, especially during times of stress. “A clinically significant depressive symptom is usually attributable to an interaction of the trait of neuroticism with a life stressor,” they say.
On the other hand, the researchers explain that the five precepts of Buddhism have been linked to improvements in useful qualities such as “self-efficacy, resilience [and] equanimity,” all of which may protect against mental anguish. They therefore sought to determine how adherence to these five moral behaviors influences the relationship between neuroticism, stress and depression.
Specifically, the five precepts include refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, telling bad-intentioned lies, and using intoxicants. Though some of these may sound easy, bear in mind that the restrictions on taking a life apply equally to non-humans, which means that swatting a mosquito counts as an infringement of the code.
Study Shows a High-fat Diet May Fuel Anxiety June 17, 2024
Introduction:
(Eurekalert) When stressed out, many of us turn to junk food for solace. But new University of Colorado Boulder research suggests this strategy may backfire.
The study found that in animals, a high-fat diet disrupts resident gut bacteria, alters behavior and, through a complex pathway connecting the gut to the brain, influences brain chemicals in ways that fuel anxiety.
“Everyone knows that these are not healthy foods, but we tend to think about them strictly in terms of a little weight gain,” said lead author Christopher Lowry, a professor of integrative physiology at CU Boulder. “If you understand that they also impact your brain in a way that can promote anxiety, that makes the stakes even higher.”
Lowry’s team divided adolescent rats into two groups: Half got a standard diet of about 11% fat for nine weeks; the others got a high-fat diet of 45% fat, consisting mostly of saturated fat from animal products.
The typical American diet is about 36% fat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Study Suggests that Just 10 minutes of Mindfulness Daily Boosts Wellbeing and Fights Depression August 22, 2024
Introduction:
(Eurekalert) In a new study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, researchers from the Universities of Bath and Southampton have unveiled how just 10 minutes of daily mindfulness practice can improve wellbeing, ease depression and anxiety, and help people to be more motivated to improve their lifestyle – including healthier exercise, eating and sleeping habits.
The research, which enrolled 1247 adults from 91 countries, demonstrates that brief daily mindfulness sessions, delivered through a free mobile app Medito, can have profound benefits.
Participants, most of whom had no prior mindfulness experience, were randomly allocated to a month-long mindfulness routine or a control condition—listening to excerpts from Alice in Wonderland. Daily mindfulness sessions included relaxation exercises, intention-setting, body scans, breath-focused attention, and self-reflection.
The participants completed surveys on their mental health before starting the 30 days of mindfulness training and upon completing it. The results were striking. After mindfulness training participants using the mindfulness app reported:
• Reduced Depression by 19.2% more than control group.
• Improved Wellbeing by 6.9% more.
• Decreased Anxiety by 12.6% more.
• Attitudes to Health got more Positive by 7.1% over control group.
• Behavioural Intentions to look after Health increased by 6.5% beyond control.
The positive effects of mindfulness were largely maintained after 30 days. In survey follow-ups one month later (Day 61) the mindfulness group showed sustained improvements to their wellbeing, depression, attitudes, and even reporting better sleep quality.
