Tuesday, December 31, 2002
The gut has a mind of its own
Ever wonder why you get cramps when you’re stressed? Or why you get “butterflies” in your stomach before a job interview? And why your gut tells you not to trust a certain person?
Scientists say it’s because the body has two brains—the familiar one encased in our skull and another more obscure one in our gut. This “second brain,” known as the enteric nervous system, is located in our digestive tract and holds about 100-million nerve cells—more than in our spinal cord.
Born to Be Happy, Through a Twist of Human Hard Wire
In the course of the last year, the woman lost her husband to cancer and then her job. But she did not come to my office as a patient; she sought advice about her teenage son who was having trouble dealing with his father’s death.
Despite crushing loss and stress, she was not at all depressed — sad, yes, but still upbeat. I found myself stunned by her resilience. What accounted for her ability to weather such sorrow with buoyant optimism?
Monday, December 30, 2002
Generalized anxiety disorder linked with ulcers
Prior to the discovery that a type of bacteria known as H. pylori was a major cause of ulcers, doctors commonly blamed stress or other psychological factors. Now a new study suggests that the brain may indeed play a role in ulcers, though exactly how remains unclear.
Friday, December 27, 2002
Womb no haven from mood: Depression leaves mark before birth Research probes prenatal impact
Like an insidious virus, a mother’s depression can reach the most vulnerable of victims — her child. Even in the womb, a cocktail of melancholy appears to wend its way from mother to child. Later, the grim facade that supplants a mommy’s coos and smiles can dampen her infant’s ability to learn and develop.
Gen Stress: Many youths struggle with depressing, anxiety
A paralyzing sense of emptiness would grab hold of Kimberly the way an early winter’s night creeps up and suddenly swallows the day. She’d look at the other kids at high school and marvel at how easy it all seemed to them—the right friends, the right clothes, the right life.
Thursday, December 26, 2002
Intimacy Helps Moms Cope with Parenting Stress
For new mothers, the key to remaining sane amidst piles of dirty diapers and what seems like incessant crying during their baby’s first few months is maintaining intimacy with their partner, study findings suggest.
Survey: Employees ready to walk
A raft of dissatisfied employees may mean an increase in job-hopping next year, according to a study released from recruiting Web site CareerBuilder.com.
Hostile Women Risk Heart Problems
Hostile women with heart disease are twice as likely to have a heart attack or die from heart problems then their more mild-mannered peers, a new study found. In fact, they appear to be at greater risk from a bad attitude than from known cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
The Happy Heretic: Martin Seligman Thinks Psychologists Should Help People Be Happy. Who Could Possi
Martin Seligman seems an unlikely man to lead the field of psychology, much less the rest of humanity, into the realm of human joy. The 60-year-old former president of the American Psychological Association and author of the bestselling “Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment” doesn’t seem particularly, well . . . happy. He doesn’t smile or laugh a lot; he’s not especially warm or gregarious; his dress is subdued and professorial. Even his manner of speaking is quiet, monotone, often stern and blunt. But that, he says, is just the point.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Adolescent Angst or a Deeper Disorder?
Teenagers — one minute they’re on top of the world, the next they’re down in the dumps. One minute you’re the best dad or mom there ever was. The next you’re the world’s worst, and they’re threatening to leave home.
As their lives, bodies and hormones change, teenagers can find themselves on an emotional seesaw with no way off. Not all teenagers, of course. Some are rather even-tempered, always up or always down or somewhere in between.
Monday, December 23, 2002
Abusive supervisors may get employees to meet deadlines at expense of company’s ‘bottom line’
Frustration and stress resulting from the intense competition and ever-changing deadlines of today’s business world may cause some supervisors to become abusive to their employees. While yelling at and using other non-physical intimidation toward subordinates may motivate employees to get their work done on time, the company may suffer financially in the long run, according to a study in the December issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Friday, December 20, 2002
More Teens Struggling With Depression
More young Americans seem to be suffering from depression this holiday season, a new survey finds. The survey, done for the New York University Child Study Center, reports that 43 percent of adolescent girls and 28 percent of adolescent boys say they have experienced recent periods of depression lasting at least two weeks.
Fair Treatment at Work Equals Less Sick Leave
Workers who are not in the loop with regard to deciding how work gets done and those who are just plain treated badly by their bosses or co-workers are more likely to call in sick, new study findings from Finland suggest. This is the first study to follow a group of workers over time to evaluate the extent to which just treatment in the workplace predicts health.
Poor People and African Americans Suffer the Most Stress from the Hassles of Daily Living
One of the best ways to measure stress is to find out how often people are affected by the hassles of daily life. Academic researchers have used a very large battery of questions, sometimes called a “daily hassle scale.” In this Harris Poll, we have selected 13 important indicators and asked a nationwide sample of adults which of these have affected them in the last month.
Depression: Is stress a contributing factor?
Regions of the brain-such as left prefrontal cortex- believed to be involved in maintaining mood are often abnormally small and under-active in patients who have suffered episodes of major depression. The relationship between these abnormalities and depressive symptoms is not clear, but one intriguing possibility is that prolonged or acute stress and associated over-secretion of stress hormones -such as cortisol - might impair mood centers in the brain, increasing the chances that individuals under stress will become depressed. (Interesting computer graphic animation.)