Hormones
Monday, April 07, 2008
New Study Finds Anticipating A Laugh Reduces Stress
In 2006 researchers investigating the interaction between the brain, behavior, and the immune system found that simply anticipating a mirthful laughter experience boosted health-protecting hormones. Now, two years later, the same researchers have found that the anticipation of a positive humorous laughter experience also reduces potentially detrimental stress hormones.
Appreciation • Emotions • Happiness • Hormones • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Friday, February 22, 2008
Family context influences stress hormone
Continuous production of the stress hormone cortisol is affected by growing up in difficult situations, a study in Canada found. The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found 40 percent of differences in cortisol production were genetically determined, but growing up in difficult family circumstances overrode this genetic effect.
Children • Hormones • Parenting • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Stress hormone impacts memory, learning in diabetic rodents
Diabetes is known to impair the cognitive health of people, but now scientists have identified one potential mechanism underlying these learning and memory problems. A new National Institutes of Health (NIH) study in diabetic rodents finds that increased levels of a stress hormone produced by the adrenal gland disrupt the healthy functioning of the hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for learning and short-term memory.
Brain • Diabetes • Hormones • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Happy in care: it’s in the hormones
Children from loving homes are stressed when placed in poor quality child-care centres, new scientific evidence reveals. But children from disadvantaged families are better off in child care even if the quality is substandard. The Australian study measured the levels of cortisol - a hormone produced in response to stress - in 156 children attending 16 centres.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Morning Cortisol Response
People who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) often endure months of persistent fatigue, muscle pain, and impaired memory and concentration. Understanding the physiological changes that accompany CFS, however, has been difficult, but a new study accepted for publication reveals that abnormally low morning concentrations of the hormone cortisol may be correlated with more severe fatigue in CFS patients, especially in women.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The Role of Stress in Just About Everything
You live in a majorly stressed out world. You’re never very far from a ringing cell phone or a guilt-inducing laptop. Traffic makes you flip out. And as if stressing out over lines, health, your job, your grades, or global terrorism wasn’t enough, along comes the APS Observer with one more thing in your life to stress out over: Stress.
Anxiety • Brain • Cardiovascular Health • Emotions • Genetics • Hormones • Immune System • Optimism • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Happy? It may help keep you healthy
A happy heart just might be a healthier one as well, new research suggests. In a study of nearly 3,000 healthy British adults, led by Dr. Andrew Steptoe of University College London, found that those who reported upbeat moods had lower levels of cortisol — a “stress” hormone that, when chronically elevated, may contribute to high blood pressure, abdominal obesity and dampened immune function, among other problems.
Hormones • Hypertension • Immune System • Obesity • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
For women, marital distress means less relief from stress
That’s the suggestion from a new UCLA study that tracked levels of cortisol, a key stress hormone, among 30 Los Angeles married couples involved in one of our age’s trickiest juggling acts — raising kids when both parents work full time.
Children • Hormones • Parenting • Psychology • Relationships • Women • (0) Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Downtime: It’s Enough to Make Some People Sick
Some Research Suggests Illness Goes Up When the Stress of Work Goes Down. Skeptics Are Immune to This Theory.
Burnout • Health at Work • Hormones • Immune System • Productivity/Performance • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
This Is Your Brain On 9/11
If you witnessed the attacks on 9/11 up close and then continually had bad dreams, felt jumpy, kept thinking about what you saw, and avoided the site even several years later, chances are that parts of your brain were altered in subtle ways. According to scientists, such lingering symptoms and physical changes reflect an undiagnosed and long-term toll on mental health resulting from the attacks.
9/11 • Amygdala • Brain • Children • Depression • Hormones • PTSD • (0) Comments • Permalink
The Hormone That Helps You Read Minds
We’ve long accepted that hormones can make you amorous, aggressive, or erratic. But lately neuroscience has been abuzz with evidence that the hormone oxytocin—which also acts as a neuromodulator—can enhance at least one cognitive power: the ability to understand the gist of what others are thinking.
Brain • Hormones • Relationships • (0) Comments • Permalink
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Loneliness is bad for your health
When psychologists looked at the lives of the middle-aged and old people in their study, they found that although the lonely ones reported the same number of stressful life events, they identified more sources of chronic stress and recalled more childhood adversity. Moreover, they differed in how they perceived their life experiences. Even when faced with similar challenges, the lonelier people appeared more helpless and threatened. And ironically, they were less apt to actively seek help when they are stressed out.
Aging • Hormones • Relationships • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Lighten Up
New studies show that stress not only makes you gain weight, but it affects what you eat and even where you pack on those extra pounds. What you can do to stop it. Does emotional stress make you fatter or thinner? Both. It appears that short-term, acute stresses may help you lose weight, whereas chronic stresses cause you to put on pounds, especially around your belly, where it’s most harmful.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Fetuses experience stress earlier than thought
Stress in a pregnant woman may be experienced by her unborn fetus as early as 17 weeks into gestation, researchers say. Researchers have long suspected that maternal stress can damage a developing fetus, when stress hormones such as cortisol cross the placenta. Now scientists have new evidence that the unborn child’s exposure to cortisol following maternal stress is evident earlier in gestation than previously believed.
Children • Hormones • Reproduction • Stress • Women • (0) Comments • Permalink
Sunday, April 22, 2007
HeartMath’s emWave Personal Stress Reliever
Our emWave Personal Stress Reliever is on sale until the end of the April for $20.00 off. If you’re interested in realtime stress reduction and peak performance, please take a look at the two-minute demo.
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