Even a single mindfulness meditation session can reduce anxiety
People with anxiety show reduced stress on the arteries after 1-hour introductory session
April 23, 2018
Science Daily/Experimental Biology 2018
Mindfulness meditation programs have shown promise for the treatment of anxiety, one of the most common mental health disorders in the US. New research suggests people can begin to derive psychological and physiological benefits from the practice after a single introductory session.
"Our results show a clear reduction in anxiety in the first hour after the meditation session, and our preliminary results suggest that anxiety was significantly lower one week after the meditation session," said lead study author John J. Durocher, PhD, an assistant professor of physiology in the department of biological sciences at Michigan Technological University. "Participants also had reduced mechanical stress on their arteries an hour after the session. This could help to reduce stress on organs like the brain and kidneys and help prevent conditions such as high blood pressure."
Understanding the effects of mindfulness meditation on the body can help improve the design of anti-anxiety therapies, according to Durocher. He will present the research at the American Physiological Society annual meeting during the 2018 Experimental Biology meeting, held April 21-25 in San Diego.
Anxiety can be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Previous studies have indicated that arterial stiffness (a predictor of cardiovascular disease) can be increased by traumatic life events, job strain, depression, temporary anxiety and long-term proneness to anxiety. Cardiovascular changes associated with anxiety can also lead to high blood pressure and long-term damage to various organs.
Researchers recruited 14 participants who had normal blood pressure but high levels of anxiety. They measured factors related to cardiovascular functioning -- including heart rate, blood pressure, aortic blood pressure (blood pressure in the aorta, specifically) and arterial stiffness -- before and after a 60-minute guided introductory session of mindfulness meditation. This type of meditation emphasizes focusing on breathing and awareness of one's thoughts.
The results demonstrate that even a single, brief intervention can yield measurable improvements in people with anxiety. Researchers said most participants reported continuing to use mindfulness after the initial session and anxiety scores were reduced even further one week later.
"This study is different because we examined the effect of a single mindfulness meditation session on anxiety and cardiovascular outcomes, while other studies have examined the effect of several days or weeks of mindfulness meditation," Durocher said. "The results suggest that a single mindfulness meditation session may help to reduce cardiovascular risk in those with moderate anxiety."
Durocher and colleagues recently started a new study to assess the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction in people with moderately elevated blood pressure.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180423135048.htm
Meditation could help anxiety and cardiovascular health
April 20, 2018
Science Daily/Michigan Technological University
In a student-led study, one hour of mindfulness meditation shown to reduce anxiety and some cardiovascular risk markers.
It sounds like a late-night commercial: In just one hour you can reduce your anxiety levels and some heart health risk factors. But a recent study with 14 participants shows preliminary data that even a single session of meditation can have cardiovascular and psychological benefits for adults with mild to moderate anxiety.
John Durocher, assistant professor of biological sciences, is presenting the work of a team of Michigan Technological University researchers about mindfulness meditation and its ability to reduce anxiety at the 2018 Experimental Biology meeting April 21-25 in San Diego, which is attended by approximately 14,000 people.
In "Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Aortic Pulsatile Load and Anxiety in Mild to Moderately Anxious Adults," Durocher, along with fellow researchers Hannah Marti, a recent Michigan Tech graduate, Brigitte Morin, lecturer in biological science, and Travis Wakeham, a graduate student, explains the finding that 60 minutes after meditating the 14 study participants showed lower resting heart rates and reduction in aortic pulsatile load -- the amount of change in blood pressure between diastole and systole of each heartbeat multiplied by heart rate. Additionally, shortly after meditating, and even one week later, the group reported anxiety levels were lower than pre-meditation levels.
"Even a single hour of meditation appears to reduce anxiety and some of the markers for cardiovascular risk," Durocher says.
While it's well-documented that meditation over the course of several weeks reduces anxiety, there have been few comprehensive research studies on the benefits of a single meditation session. Durocher's team wanted to understand the effect of acute mindfulness on cognition and the cardiovascular system to improve how anti-anxiety therapies and interventions are designed.
Studying the physiological effects of mindfulness meditation
Durocher said the study hinged on a research design proposed by recent graduate Hannah Marti '17. Marti, who graduated from Michigan Tech with a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering, will begin medical school in July at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Marti designed the mindfulness study to include three sessions:
· An orientation session during which researchers measured anxiety using the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and conducted cardiovascular testing by measuring heart rate variability, resting blood pressure and pulse wave analysis;
· A meditation session that included repetition of the cardiovascular testing plus the mindfulness meditation -- 20 minutes introductory meditation, 30 minutes body scan and 10 minutes self-guided meditation -- as well as repeating cardiovascular measurements immediately following meditation and 60 minutes after;
· A post-meditation anxiety test one week later.
During a body scan, the participant is asked to focus intensely on one part of the body at a time, beginning with the toes. By focusing on individual parts of the body, a person can train his or her mind to pivot from detailed attention to a wider awareness from one moment to the next.
"The point of a body scan is that if you can focus on one single part of your body, just your big toe, it can make it much easier for you to deal with something stressful in your life. You can learn to focus on one part of it rather than stressing about everything else in your life," Marti says.
One participant in the study commented that following the session they were the least stressed they'd been in a decade.
Durocher says Marti was capable of designing such a study because of her experiences with research during her undergraduate studies at Michigan Tech and by securing support through two Pavlis Honors College and Portage Health Foundation internships.
"She had some experience during the first internship so she could propose her own study for the second one," he says. "I helped to make minor adjustments, but Hannah did much of this project on her own."
New avenues of research in the health sciences at Michigan Tech
The single session mindfulness meditation study and the NIH-funded study to come (see sidebar), are excellent examples of the emphasis on student participation in research at Michigan's northern-most public university.
"In Michigan Tech's health science research programs, I want our students to get hands-on experience that they can carry into their futures, gaining experiences to advance their educational careers or their professional careers," Durocher says. "When they go for an interview, they have something real to talk about, there's substance."
Marti says this has been her experience.
"I had so much to talk about in my medical school interviews," she says. "I didn't have to say 'I just helped the professor do this,' because with Dr. Durocher's help, I was able to do most of the research myself."
Case in point, Durocher notes that nearly 20 former students who participated in laboratory research with him have gone on to physical therapy programs, medical school or to pursue a research doctorate.
And just as important, after students move on to the next chapter of their lives, there remains the legacy of their involvement in research: research designs are used in future projects and upcoming students will carry the research forward.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180420122810.htm
Tai Chi improves brain metabolism and muscle energetics in older adults
April 19, 2018
Science Daily/Wiley
A new Journal of Neuroimaging study provides insights into the biochemical mechanisms by which Tai Chi -- a mind-body exercise -- may provide both physical and psychological benefits.
Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a non-invasive method of measuring brain and muscle chemistry using MRI machines, tests conducted in 6 older adults enrolled in a 12-week Tai Chi program revealed significant increases in a marker of neuronal health in the brain and significantly improved recovery rates of a metabolite involved in energy production in leg muscles.
"The benefits of Tai Chi have been well known anecdotally; however recent research such as our study can quantify these improvements using objective measures," said senior author Dr. Alexander Lin, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180419100204.htm
Seven-year follow-up shows lasting cognitive gains from meditation
April 5, 2018
Science Daily/University of California - Davis
Gains in the ability to sustain attention developed through intensive meditation training are maintained up to seven years later, according to a new study.
"This study is the first to offer evidence that intensive and continued meditation practice is associated with enduring improvements in sustained attention and response inhibition, with the potential to alter longitudinal trajectories of cognitive change across a person's life," said first author Anthony Zanesco, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Miami, who began work on the project before starting his Ph.D. program in psychology at UC Davis. The project is led by Clifford Saron, research scientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, in collaboration with a large group of researchers.
The Shamatha Project is the most comprehensive longitudinal study of intensive meditation yet undertaken and has drawn the attention of scientists and Buddhist scholars alike, including the Dalai Lama, who has endorsed the project. It examines the effects of two intensive meditation retreats held in 2007 at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. The study followed 60 experienced meditators who attended these three-month meditation retreats and received ongoing instruction in meditation techniques from Buddhist scholar, author and teacher B. Alan Wallace of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. They attended group meditation sessions twice a day and engaged in individual practice for about six hours a day.
Gains maintained in regular meditators
Immediately after the study, participants in the meditation retreat showed improvements in attention as well as in general psychological well-being and ability to cope with stress.
Since the retreats, the researchers have followed up with participants at six and 18 months, and most recently at seven years. The 40 participants who remained in the study at this latest follow-up all reported that they continued some form of meditation practice over the seven-year period, equivalent to about an hour a day on average.
The new study shows that those gains in attention observed immediately after retreat were partly maintained seven years later, especially for older participants who maintained a more diligent meditation practice over the seven years. Compared to those who practiced less, these participants maintained cognitive gains and did not show typical patterns of age-related decline in sustained attention.
The participants' lifestyle or personality might also have contributed to the observations, Zanesco noted. Benefits from meditation appeared to have plateaued after the retreats, even in participants who practiced the most: This could have implications for how much meditation can, in fact, influence human cognition and the workings of the brain, he said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180405093257.htm
Practicing Tai Chi helps improve respiratory function in patients with COPD
Tai Chi offers a low-cost, easily accessible alternative to pulmonary rehabilitation
April 4, 2018
Science Daily/Elsevier
Currently, pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is used where available to improve exercise capacity and quality of life, but the treatment requires access to trained staff and specialized facilities. A new study looked at Tai Chi as a lower cost, more easily accessed treatment option. Investigators found that this slow, methodical form of exercise is equivalent to PR for improving respiratory function in patients with COPD.
Finding ways to help patients with COPD improve their functional status is an area of interest for pulmonary healthcare providers. Currently, pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is used where available to improve exercise capacity and quality of life, but the treatment requires access to trained staff and specialized facilities. A new study in the journal CHEST® looked at Tai Chi as a lower cost, more easily accessed treatment option. Investigators found that this slow, methodical form of exercise is equivalent to PR for improving respiratory function in patients with COPD.
Tai Chi, an ancient martial art that involves significant levels of physical exertion, is gaining popularity, especially among older people, across the globe. Originating in China, Tai Chi incorporates stretching, breathing, and coordinated movement and requires no special equipment. "Knowing the potential benefits of Tai Chi, we hypothesized that, in patients being treated with medication to manage their COPD symptoms, it could help improve the quality of life when compared to a course of classical western style PR," noted Professor Nan-Shan Zhong, MD, State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou, China.
The study tracked 120 patients with COPD in rural China who had never used a bronchodilator. After beginning daily treatment with indacaterol, subjects were randomly assigned to groups receiving traditional PR or Tai Chi. Both the Tai Chi and PR groups showed similar improvements in Saint Georges Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) scores, a standard measure of health status in patients with diseases causing airway obstruction. However, after twelve weeks, a clinically significant difference in SGRQ scores emerged favoring Tai Chi. Similar trends were noted in performance of a six-minute walk test.
"Tai Chi is an appropriate substitute for PR," explained lead investigator Professor Yuan-Ming Luo, PhD, also of the State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease. "While neither training approach differed from the other by more than the minimal clinically important difference of four SGRQ points at the end of this 12-week study, an additional 12 weeks after discontinuation of formal training, improvements emerged in favor of Tai Chi in SGRQ score, six-minute walk distance, modified Medical Research Council dyspnea score, and quadriceps strength. We conclude that Tai Chi is equivalent to PR and may confer more sustained benefit."
Subjects in the Tai Chi group met for formal instruction five hours per week for 12 weeks and were taught the 24 form Yang style. The results of the Tai Chi group were compared to that of another group of subjects who received PR three times a week for 12 weeks. After the initial 12 weeks, participants were encouraged to continue their Tai Chi either alone or with a group in their community; however, no formal assistance was provided to patients during this period. Those in the PR group received verbal encouragement to remain as physically active as possible. Final analysis of all data was conducted 12 weeks after the formal training had concluded.
For many patients, reducing the symptoms of COPD can greatly improve their quality of life. While medication continues to play an important role in treating COPD, the cost of those medicines can be a barrier for some patients, especially for treating a chronic illness like COPD.
"This study demonstrates that a low-cost exercise intervention is equivalent to formal pulmonary rehabilitation, and this may enable a greater number of patients to be treated," concluded lead author of the study Michael I. Polkey, PhD, NIHR Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, The Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College, London, United Kingdom. "Physical activity is key to reducing symptoms in COPD. We do recommend PR, but our study shows that Tai Chi is a viable alternative when there is no local PR service. We encourage pulmonary rehabilitation providers to consider offering Tai Chi as an alternative therapy that patients would then be able to continue unsupervised in their own home."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180404182507.htm
Meditate regularly for an improved attention span in old age
Extensive study finds that regular meditation sessions can have a long-lasting effect on a person's attention span and other cognitive abilities
March 28, 2018
Science Daily/Springer
Regular and intensive meditation sessions over the course of a lifetime could help a person remain attentive and focused well into old age. This is according to the most extensive longitudinal study to date examining a group of meditation practitioners. The research evaluates the benefits that people gained after three months of full-time meditation training and whether these benefits are maintained seven years later.
This study follows up on previous work by the same group of researchers at the University of California, Davis in 2011, which assessed the cognitive abilities of 30 people who regularly meditated before and after they went on a three-month-long retreat at the Shambhala Mountain meditation center in the US. At the center, they meditated daily using techniques designed to foster calm sustained attention on a chosen object and to generate aspirations such as compassion, loving-kindness, emphatic joy and equanimity among participants, for others and themselves. During this time, another group of 30 people who regularly meditated were also monitored. Other than traveling to the meditation center for a week-long assessment period, they carried on with their lives as normal. After the first group's initial retreat was over, the second group received similar intensive training at the Shambhala Mountain Center.
As part of this study, follow-up assessments were conducted six months, eighteen months and seven years after completion of the retreats. During the last appraisal, participants were asked to estimate how much time over the course of seven years they had spent meditating outside of formal retreat settings, such as through daily or non-intensive practice. The forty participants who had remained in the study all reported some form of continued meditation practice: 85 per cent attended at least one meditation retreat, and they practiced amounts on average that were comparable to an hour a day for seven years.
The participants again completed assessments designed to measure their reaction time and ability to pay attention to a task. Although these did not improve, the cognitive gains accrued after the 2011 training and assessment were partially maintained many years later. This was especially true for older participants who practiced a lot of meditation over the seven years. Compared to those who practiced less, they maintained cognitive gains and did not show typical patterns of age-related decline in sustained attention.
"This study is the first to offer evidence that intensive and continued meditation practice is associated with enduring improvements in sustained attention and response inhibition, with the potential to alter longitudinal trajectories of cognitive change across a person's life," says Zanesco.
He is aware that participants' lifestyle or personality might have contributed to the observations. Zanesco therefore calls for further research into meditation as an intervention to improve brain functioning among older people.
He says the current findings also provide a sobering appraisal of whether short-term or non-intensive mindfulness interventions are helpful to improve sustained attention in a lasting manner. Participants practiced far more meditation than is feasible for shorter-term programs that might aim to help with cognitive aging, and despite practicing that much meditation, participants did not generally improve over years; these benefits instead plateaued. Zanesco believes this has broad implications for meditation and mindfulness-based approaches to cognitive training and raises important questions regarding how much meditation can, in fact, influence human cognition and the workings of the brain.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180328103708.htm
Meditation has limited role in making you a better person
For decades many people have claimed meditation can change how we behave towards others and make us more compassionate -- but new research suggests this is not the case.
February 5, 2018
Science Daily/Coventry University
For decades many people have claimed meditation can change how we behave towards others and make us more compassionate.
But now new research has suggested meditation's role in making individuals better people is limited.
The study by scientists at Coventry University in the UK, Massey University in New Zealand, and Radboud University in the Netherlands, reviewed more than 20 studies that investigated the effect of various types of meditation, such as mindfulness and loving-kindness, on pro-social feelings and behaviours.
Initial analysis indicated that meditation did have an overall positive impact.
The researchers said meditation made people feel moderately more compassionate or empathic, compared to if they had done no other new emotionally-engaging activity.
However further analysis revealed that it played no significant role in reducing aggression or prejudice or improving how socially-connected someone was.
The most unexpected result of this study, though, was that the more positive results found for compassion had important methodological flaws -- compassion levels in some studies only increased if the meditation teacher was also an author of the published report.
Overall, these results suggest that the moderate improvements reported by psychologists in previous studies may be the result of methodological weaknesses and biases, said the researchers.
Their research -- published today in Scientific Reports -- only included randomised controlled studies, where meditators were compared to other individuals that did not meditate.
All these studies used secular meditation techniques derived from Buddhism, such as mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation, but not other related activities, like yoga or Tai-Chi.
Dr Miguel Farias, from Coventry University's Centre for Advances in Behavioural Science, said:
"The popularisation of meditation techniques, like mindfulness, despite being taught without religious beliefs, still seem to offer the hope of a better self and a better world to many. We wanted to investigate how powerful these techniques were in affecting one's feelings and behaviours towards others.
"Despite the high hopes of practitioners and past studies, our research found that methodological shortcomings greatly influenced the results we found. Most of the initial positive results disappeared when the meditation groups were compared to other groups that engaged in tasks unrelated to meditation. We also found that the beneficial effect of meditation on compassion disappeared if the meditation teacher was an author in the studies. This reveals that the researchers might have unintentionally biased their results.
"None of this, of course, invalidates Buddhism or other religions' claims about the moral value and eventually life changing potential of its beliefs and practices. But our research findings are a far cry from many popular claims made by meditators and some psychologists.
"To understand the true impact of meditation on people's feelings and behaviour further we first need to address the methodological weaknesses we uncovered -- starting with the high expectations researchers might have about the power of meditation."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180205092902.htm
Mindfulness may help reduce cravings for food and drugs
January 30, 2018
Science Daily/City University London
Mindfulness strategies may help prevent or interrupt cravings for food and drugs, such as cigarettes and alcohol, by occupying short term memory, according to a new review.
Looking at experimental studies that have examined the effects of different types of mindfulness strategies on cravings, it was found that in many instances these strategies brought about an immediate reduction in craving. The research was published in Clinical Psychology Review.
Craving can be defined as an intense, conscious desire, usually to consume a specific drug or food. There is also a significant body of research that suggests it is causally linked to behaviour. For example, craving predicts relapse episodes in substance use and food cravings predict both eating and weight gain. As such, cravings are often considered an appropriate target for intervention.
Mindfulness meditation has a long tradition of being used to address cravings. According to ancient Buddhist texts, craving leads to suffering but can be avoided through mindfulness meditation practice. More recently, mindfulness-based interventions have been used to explicitly target cravings with the aim of bringing about clinically relevant changes to behaviour.
Mindfulness interventions typically employ a range of different types of strategy, for example they may include exercises designed to promote greater awareness of bodily sensations, to develop an attitude of acceptance toward uncomfortable feelings, or to help individuals see themselves as separate from their thoughts and emotions.
However, there is currently a limited understanding of the ways in which these different types of strategy may influence craving-related outcomes, either independently, or in combination. As a result, the review aimed to address these limitations by reviewing studies that have examined the independent effects of mindfulness on craving.
Looking at 30 studies which met the criteria, it was found that some of the beneficial effects seen for mindfulness strategies in relation to craving are likely to stem from interrupting cravings by loading working memory, a part of our short-term memory which is concerned with immediate conscious perceptual and linguistic processing.
In addition, it was also seen that mindfulness reduced craving over the medium term, most likely due to 'extinction processes'; essentially strategies that result in the individual inhibiting craving-related responses and behaviours which eventually lead to reduced cravings.
Dr Katy Tapper, author of the review and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at City, University of London, said:
"The research suggests that certain mindfulness-based strategies may help prevent or interrupt cravings by occupying a part of our mind that contributes to the development of cravings. Whether mindfulness strategies are more effective than alternative strategies, such as engaging in visual imagery, has yet to be established. However, there is also some evidence to suggest that engaging in regular mindfulness practice may reduce the extent to which people feel the need to react to their cravings, though further research is needed to confirm such an effect."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180130123735.htm
Researchers 'dismantle' mindfulness intervention to see how each component works
December 4, 2017
Science Daily/Brown University
Because mindfulness-based interventions blend multiple practices, researchers can't always figure out how each one works, so they created a rigorously controlled study to isolate each of them and confirm that they do what is claimed.
As health interventions based on mindfulness have grown in popularity, some of the field's leading researchers have become concerned that the evidence base for such practices is not yet robust enough. A new study shows how a rigorous approach to studying mindfulness-based interventions can help ensure that claims are backed by science.
One problem is that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) sometimes blend practices, which makes it difficult to measure how each of those practices affects participants. To address that issue, the researchers took a common intervention for mood disorders -- mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) -- and created a controlled study that isolated, or dismantled, its two main ingredients. Those include open monitoring (OM) -- noticing and acknowledging negative feelings without judgment or an emotional secondary reaction to them; and focused attention (FA) -- maintaining focus on or shifting it toward a neutral sensation, such as breathing, to disengage from negative emotions or distractions.
"It has long been hypothesized that focused attention practice improves attentional control while open-monitoring promotes emotional non-reactivity -- two aspects of mindfulness thought to contribute its therapeutic effects," said study lead and corresponding author Willoughby Britton, an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. "However, because these two practices are almost always delivered in combination, it is difficult to assess their purported differential effects. By creating separate, validated, single-ingredient training programs for each practice, the current project provides researchers with a tool to test the individual contributions of each component and mechanism to clinical endpoints."
In the study, the researchers randomized more than 100 individuals with mild-to-severe depression, anxiety and stress to take one of three eight-week courses: one set of classes provided a standardized MBCT that incorporated the typical blend of OM and FA. The two other classes each provided an intervention that employed only OM or only FA. In every other respect -- time spent in class, time practicing at home, instructor training and skill, participant characteristics, number of handouts -- each class was comparable by design.
At the beginning and end of the classes, the researchers asked the volunteers to answer a variety of standardized questionnaires, including scales that measure their self-reported ability to achieve some of the key skills each practice is assumed to improve. If the researchers saw significant differences between the FA group and the OM group on the skills each was supposed to affect, then there would be evidence that the practices uniquely improve those skills as intervention providers often claim.
Sure enough, the different practices engaged different skills and mechanisms as predicted. The FA-only group, for example, reported much greater improvement in the ability to willfully shift or focus attention than the OM-only group (but not the MBCT group, which also received FA training). Meanwhile, the OM-only group was significantly more improved than the FA-only group (but not the MBCT group) in the skill of being non-reactive to negative thoughts.
"If FA practice promotes attentional control, and OM practice promotes emotional non-reactivity, then end users can alter the amount of each practice to fit their individual needs for each skill," Britton said. "The study created validated single-practice programs that can be used by other researchers or providers for specific populations or conditions. This is the first step to an evidence-based personalized medicine approach to mindfulness."
The Science of Behavior Change
Along with co-author and epidemiology associate professor Eric Loucks, director of Brown University's Mindfulness Center, Britton is part of the five-university Mindfulness Research Collaborative. The collaborative is one of eight teams in the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health's Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) Research Network.
The new research will appear in print inae February 2018 special issue of the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy titled "An experimental medicine approach to behavior change: The NIH Science Of Behavior Change (SOBC)," which takes a mechanism-focused approach to studying behavioral interventions.
The Mindfulness Research Collaborative (MRC) consists of 11 mindfulness researchers across five universities, and is one of the eight teams in the SOBC Research Network who are working to advance a mechanism-focused approach to behavioral interventions. The collaborative's SOBC project "Mindfulness Influences on Self-Regulation: Mental and Physical Health Implications" seeks to identify self-regulation intervention targets that are engaged by MBIs, as well as factors that influence target engagement. The current paper describes the "Dismantling Mindfulness" concurrent clinical trial.
Britton said the SOBC approach can make mindfulness more effective for people who practice it.
"Mindfulness research in general could benefit from employing the SOBC experimental medicine approach," she said. "Little is known about how MBIs work or how they should be modified to maximize effectiveness. The SOBC experimental medicine approach will not only help MBIs become maximally effective, but also provide essential mechanistic information that will help tailor the intervention and instructor training to specific populations and conditions."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171204105332.htm
Mindfulness meditation can offset the worry of waiting
December 4, 2017
Science Daily/University of California - Riverside
Research has shown all the techniques we employ to reduce the stress of worry don't work. Now an expert has found something that can help: 'mindfulness' meditation. That is, focusing on the present using meditation. The research has found that mindfulness is a sort of antidote to the 'curse' of waiting.
Popular music and clichés aren't the only evidence that the waiting is the hardest part. Research backs it up as well; waiting for potentially bad news can be at least as difficult as receiving the news.
try lots of things to mitigate the suffering that comes with waiting for exam scores, hospital test results, or the outcome of a job interview. They try to distract themselves. They try to stay positive. They brace for the worst.
Past research by UC Riverside "worry and waiting" expert Kate Sweeny has studied the effectiveness of those techniques. None of it works, her research has found. Those tactics not only fail to reduce distress -- they can even backfire and make it worse.
But now, Sweeny's research finds something that can help: supplementing those ineffective strategies with "mindfulness" meditation. That is, focusing on the present using meditation.
In the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, research funded by the National Science Foundation asserts that mindfulness is a sort of antidote to the "curse" of waiting. That curse is a focus on the past or on the future, represented by questions such as "Why did I say that?" and "What if things don't go my way?"
"We try to predict our fate and regain a sense of certainty and control over our life," said Sweeny, who is an associate professor of psychology at UCR. "We know from lots of research that rumination (repetitive thoughts about the past) and worry (repetitive thoughts about the future) are quite unpleasant and even harmful to our health and well-being, so it's important to seek solutions to this painful form of mental time-travel."
Better to focus on the present, Sweeny said, and accept your thoughts and feelings as they arise rather than engage in tactics to avoid them. It means you'll process your emotions differently and -- Sweeny argues -- more effectively.
The study was performed using 150 California law students who had taken the bar exam and were awaiting the exam results. It takes four months after taking the exam before results are posted online. The students completed a series of questionnaires in that four-month waiting period.
There are few "waiting" scenarios more stressful than the potentially career-killing bar exam. The magnitude of the distress is represented in several sample statements Sweeny and her team collected. Among them:
I had a nightmare where I couldn't determine whether I had passed or failed the bar exam and I spent the entire dream trying to find out my results. I have these sort of bar exam nightmares once every couple weeks.
I got sick, like fever flu sick, and I think it's because my anxiety levels have slowly been building up to today!! I was constantly thinking and thinking about the results.
During the four-month waiting period, the students were asked to participate in a 15-minute audio-guided meditation session at least once a week.
Sweeny found the mindfulness meditation served to postpone the phenomenon of "bracing." Bracing is essentially preparing for the worst. Previous research by Sweeny and others shows bracing can be an effective technique for managing expectations, but its benefits erode when it occurs too early in the waiting process.
"Optimism feels good; it just does a poor job of preparing us for the blow of bad news," Sweeny said. "That's where bracing comes in. In a perfect world, we'd be optimistic as long as possible to get all the good feelings we can from assuming the best, and then we'd brace for the worst at the moment of truth to make sure we're prepared for bad news."
The benefits of mindfulness meditation have long been asserted, but Sweeny said this is the first research to demonstrate its effectiveness coping with waiting.
"We know that meditation is a great way to reduce everyday stress, but our study is the first to see if it also makes it easier to wait for personally significant news. This study is also one of the first to identify any strategy that helps people wait better, and it also shows that even brief and infrequent meditation can be helpful," Sweeny said.
Best of all, Sweeny said, the mindfulness tactic requires no training, no money, and minimal time and effort.
"Meditation isn't for everyone, but our study shows that you don't have to be a master meditater or go to a silent meditation retreat to benefit from mindfulness," she said. "Even 15 minutes once a week, which was the average amount of meditation practiced by our participants, was enough to ease the stress of waiting."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171204095011.htm
Mindfulness training and therapy can reverse jail time's negative psychological effects
November 30, 2017
Science Daily/University of Pennsylvania
Just four months in prison can negatively affects a person's cognitive abilities and impulse control, according to new findings. The good news is that a combination of mindfulness training and cognitive behavioral therapy can help undo some of jail time's undesirable consequences.
"We have known for decades that poor cognitive functioning is a risk factor for crime and delinquency," says Raine, the Richard Perry University Professor of Criminology, Psychiatry, and Psychology. "The big thing for society here is that imprisonment is making worse a risk factor that sends people to prison to begin with."
The study, led by Umbach, a fourth-year criminology graduate student, analyzed data collected by New York University researcher Noelle R. Leonard. Incarcerated 16- to 18-year-old males at Rikers Island Prison were randomly assigned to three months of either a control group that attended weekly sessions focused on substance use, violence, and sexual health risk-reduction or an experimental group that participated in CBT and mindfulness exercises.
"This was a specific kind of mindfulness," Umbach says. "Participants learned breathing exercises and went through varying degrees of CBT. The idea was that the CBT would make you more willing to open up to the positive effects of mindfulness. They were also encouraged to meditate and do breathing exercises on their own."
Everyone in the study completed what's called the "Emotional Go/No Go" test at intake, then again after four months. Inmates viewed faces on a computer screen expressing one of four emotions -- fear, happiness, sadness, or anger -- or a neutral face. For each of eight rounds, one of these or a neutral face became the focus. For the fear-focused round, for example, participants were to press the button when a fearful face appeared and avoid pressing it for a neutral one.
The Penn team confirmed what's been hypothesized, that spending time in prison has negative psychological consequences for cognitive control, emotion regulation, and emotion recognition. They also found that while performance of both groups decreased significantly over time, the CBT/mindfulness appeared to mitigate the decline for impulse control and emotion regulation.
"Perhaps we should be paying a little more attention to cognitive behavior therapy and mindfulness when we have young offenders. These kids are 16 to 18, they're teenagers," Raine says. "Maybe we should be doing a little more to help them with their impulse control."
Though this work doesn't prove that such an intervention can work for older offenders who have been in prison longer, Raine says it's proof of concept for a methodology that could apply to future research.
In that vein, Umbach says she hopes to replicate the results, and has plans to assess other tasks in the dataset Leonard originally collected. She feels strongly about the implications of these and future findings on those who end up in prison.
"Most people who are incarcerated go back out into the world," she says. "Are there efforts we can make to keep them at a level of cognitive functioning that's as close to normal as possible?"
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171130150421.htm
Visiting the doctor for low back pain? Expect something different now
November 15, 2017
Science Daily/University of Sydney
If you visit your family doctor with low back pain (LBP), you may be surprised at the treatment options they suggest now. Recent changes to major international guidelines for the management of LBP mean that general practitioners (GP) are now unlikely to recommend pain medicines which were previously the go-to treatment. Instead of pain medicines, GPs might suggest non-medicinal approaches including yoga, mindfulness and various types of physiotherapy and psychological therapies.
Low back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide. It is the second most common reason for seeking care from a family doctor. In Australia, low back pain is the number one cause of early retirement and income poverty.
The new guidelines -- the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence clinical guideline for low-back pain and sciatica, and a clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians -- encourage a shift in thinking about the primary care management of low-back pain.
In response to an escalating prescription opioid crisis, and an overwhelming amount of research showing most pain medicines have little to no effect compared to placebo for people with LBP, the guidelines have radically changed their stance on the medicines.
Instead of pain medicines, GPs might suggest non-medicinal approaches including yoga, mindfulness and various types of physiotherapy and psychological therapies.
The results of a University of Sydney review to investigate the current approach and changes to diagnosis and management of LBP were published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
"Until now, the recommended approach to help LBP in general practice was to prescribe simple pain medicines such as paracetamol or anti-inflammatories," said lead author Dr Adrian Traeger, researcher from the Musculoskeletal Health Group at the University's School of Public Health.
"These new guidelines suggest avoiding pain medicines initially and discouraging other invasive treatments such as injections and surgery. The recent changes to these guidelines are important and represent a substantial change in thinking on how best to manage LBP -- the previous recommendations were in place for decades.
"If you have an uncomplicated case of recent-onset LBP, your doctor may now simply provide advice on how to remain active and non-drug methods for pain relief such as heat and massage, and arrange to see you in two weeks to make sure the pain has settled.
"If your pain started a long time ago, they might suggest treatments such as yoga, exercise or mindfulness as treatment. Other effective options could include spinal manipulation, acupuncture, or multi-disciplinary rehabilitation programs.
"These revisions to major international guidelines should see changes to practice worldwide.
However Dr Traeger is concerned that without support from Medicare the suggested reforms could place additional financial strain on those suffering from low back pain.
"There will be challenges to providing this type of care. It's currently much easier and cheaper to provide a prescription for an opioid pain medicine (which is not a long-term solution to chronic pain and carries a risk of substantial harm) than a course of treatment with a physiotherapist or psychologist.
"Health systems in most industrialised countries, including Australian Medicare, are simply not set up to fund the care that is considered the most appropriate for low back pain right now.
"Without policy changes, it will be difficult for GPs to follow current best practice. However, if Medicare were to make simple changes to improve affordability of alternatives to pain medicines, not only would it make a GPs job easier, it could result a major impact on the lives of many living with low back pain, including those who rely on opioids. This needs the attention of the Federal Government."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171115091753.htm
Mother's attitude to baby during pregnancy may have implications for child's development
June 12, 2018
Science Daily/University of Cambridge
Mothers who 'connect' with their baby during pregnancy are more likely to interact in a more positive way with their infant after it is born, according to a new study. Interaction is important for helping infants learn and develop.
Researchers at the Centre for Family Research carried out a meta-analysis, reviewing all published studies in the field, in an attempt to demonstrate conclusively whether there was a link with the way parents think about their child during pregnancy and their behaviour towards them postnatally.
The results of their work, which draws data from 14 studies involving 1,862 mothers and fathers, are published in the journal Developmental Review.
Studies included in the meta-analysis examined parents' thoughts and feelings about their child during pregnancy through interviews and questionnaires. For example, in interviews expectant parents were considered to have a 'balanced' representation of their child if they showed positive anticipation of their relationship with the child or showed 'mind-mindedness' -- a propensity to see their child as an individual, with its own thoughts and feelings. This was contrasted by parents who had a 'distorted' representation of their child, with a narrow, idealised description of their child, and incomplete or inconsistent descriptions of them.
Once the child had been born, researchers in these studies would observe the interactions between parent and child. One measure they were looking for was 'sensitivity' -- the ability to notice, interpret and respond in a timely and appropriate manner to children's signals, for example if the baby was upset.
Combining the results from all 14 studies, the Cambridge team showed a modest association between positive thoughts and feelings about the infant during pregnancy and later interaction with the infant, but only in mothers.
"Studies have shown that parent-child interaction is crucial for a child's development and learning, so we wanted to understand if there were prenatal signs that might predict a parent's behaviour," says Dr Sarah Foley, the study's first author, who carried out the research as part of her PhD.
"Although we found a relationship between a mother's attitude towards her baby during pregnancy and her later interactions, this link was only modest. This suggests it is likely to be a part of the jigsaw, rather than the whole story."
Research has also shown that increased awareness of the baby during pregnancy is associated with healthy behaviours during pregnancy, such as giving up smoking or attending antenatal appointments.
While more work is needed to determine what form such interventions might take, options might include the midwife encouraging the mother to think about what her baby may be like, or asking the mother to imagine activities they think she and her baby might like to do together.
"This is a relatively new area of research, but could have important implications for children's development," adds Dr Foley. "We need more research in this area, but hope it will inform new interventions that could help new mothers engage more with their children."
Dr Foley says there may be a number of factors that contribute to low levels of attachment with the baby during pregnancy. These include: previous experience of miscarriage, depression or anxiety, a mother's relationship with her own parents, or cultures in which focusing on the baby is considered inappropriate. However, she says, the paucity of evidence means it is difficult to determine which of these factors would impact on prenatal thoughts about the infant, which might in turn influence the quality of later interaction with the infant.
The study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Researcher Profile: Dr Sarah Foley
"Working with children throws up lots of unexpected and fun moments," says Dr Sarah Foley. "One day you're being splashed whilst standing on a toilet-seat filming bath-times, the next you're catching YouTube-worthy vomiting action shots and being used as a climbing frame by one child to ensure you can film another!"
Sarah has just completed an ESRC-funded PhD at the Centre for Family Research, working with Professor Claire Hughes. She has spent several years at Cambridge now, having completed her undergraduate degree in Social and Political Sciences at St Catharine's College. The Centre, she says, "is an incredibly stimulating academic environment with immense support and lively discussions over cake on a Friday morning!"
Her doctoral research looked at expectant mothers' and fathers' thoughts and feelings in the last trimester of pregnancy as predictors of their adjustment to parenthood and subsequent parenting over the first two years of life. "Despite an increase in fathers' involvement in childcare, the majority of research remains focused on mothers," she says.
Her current research involves, in part, looking at parents' expectations of their roles and division of childcare, and the consequences when these expectations are not met. This is timely in light of recent changes to parental leave in the UK and societal shifts in notions of the involved father, she says.
Sarah's research is part of the ERSC-funded New Fathers and Mothers Study, a longitudinal study of 200 first time parents from Cambridge, and 200 from the Netherlands and New York.
"The children in the study are turning three this year and we're busy seeing how they are getting on at nursery," she explains. "This typically involves me getting down on the floor and testing the children's social understanding and thinking skills through a variety of fun tasks."
She hopes that her research will lead to changes in antenatal education and early parent support that promote discussion of parents' thoughts and feelings about parenthood and their future infant. In November 2017, as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, she ran a free ante-natal class for new parents that discussed the realities of parenthood, the importance of self-care and simple parenting tips rather than simply focusing on birth plans.
"The journey through parenthood is filled with joy, but also elements of confusion, and sometimes pain. Crucially, parents should not feel alone and I hope that through greater dissemination of my research findings, through classes or perhaps a book or an app, we can support new parents and encourage more 'honest conversations' about parenthood."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180612105757.htm
Fathers' early parenting quality affected by mothers
Study shows importance of maternal 'gatekeeping'
June 11, 2018
Science Daily/Ohio State University
How a new mother reacts to her partner's early interactions with their baby may affect his parenting quality later on, a new study suggests. Researchers found that fathers did not perform as well as a parent to their 9-month-old child if the dads felt their partner was critical of their parenting skills six months earlier.
Researchers found that fathers did not perform as well as a parent to their 9-month-old child if the dads felt their partner was critical of their parenting skills six months earlier.
The study -- done with relatively affluent, highly educated dual-earner couples -- is the first to show how fathers' parenting quality might be affected by "maternal gatekeeping."
That's the term researchers use to describe the behaviors and attitudes of mothers that may support or limit father involvement in child rearing.
"The behaviors of mothers can shape how fathers interact with their children," said Lauren Altenburger, lead author of the study, who did the work as a doctoral student in human sciences at The Ohio State University.
"Mothers may not even be aware of how their criticisms of the father may end up negatively influencing how dads parent."
The study appears online in the Journal of Child and Family Studies.
The results reflect the fact that, in our society, mothers still have the most power and influence when it comes to raising children, said study co-author Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, professor of human sciences at Ohio State.
"Many fathers may be more vulnerable to criticism than mothers are because there is still less support in our society for fathers as active, involved parents," she said.
The researchers used data from the New Parents Project, a long-term study co-led by Schoppe-Sullivan that is investigating how dual-earner couples adjust to becoming parents for the first time. In all, 182 couples, most of whom were married, participated in this study.
The parents were assessed twice: when their child was 3 months old and when he or she was 9 months old.
Fathers answered questions at both time points to gauge how much they felt their partner "opened" or "closed" the gate to their involvement in child care.
For example, each dad reported how often his partner took over baby-related tasks because the mom thought he wasn't doing them properly and how often she gave him irritated looks about his parenting, which are gate closing. Examples of gate opening include encouraging the father to help bathe the baby or mom letting him know she appreciates his contributions to parenting.
The researchers measured parenting quality by observing the father interacting with his child for three minutes when the infant was 3 months old and five minutes when he or she was 9 months old.
The fathers were rated on a variety of factors, such as how appropriately they responded to the child's gestures and expressions, how engaged they were with the child and how much they smiled and spoke in a warm tone.
Findings showed that the more the fathers reported gate closing by their partner when the child was 3 months old, the worse researchers rated their parenting quality at 9 months old.
"If fathers feel their partners don't have confidence in their parenting, they may withdraw, and become less positive and sensitive with their child," Altenburger said.
One theory is that mothers may close the gate on fathers because dads show evidence of poor parenting. But in this study, poorer parenting at 3 months was not linked to maternal gate closing at 9 months, which would be expected if this theory were correct.
Schoppe-Sullivan noted that this sample of dual-earner couples may be different from other families. "We might see more evidence of protective gatekeeping by mothers in more distressed families," she said.
The researchers said that both mothers and fathers need to be supportive to each other in those early months after their first baby is born.
The transition to parenthood is challenging and both parents often feel vulnerable, Schoppe-Sullivan said, because they are still developing their identities as parents.
But fathers may be especially vulnerable to criticism.
"There still is an assumption in our society that mothers are the primary caregivers and that they have the power to determine the involvement of others in child care," she said. "Fathers may feel they should withdraw if they don't have their partner's support."
The results suggest moms should think twice before criticizing dads' parenting choices on minor issues such as what their baby will wear on a particular day, Altenburger said.
"It is about giving fathers the space to parent, too. Both parents need to keep communication open and not be so quick to criticize," she said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180611133434.htm
Maternal depressive emotion associated with children's sleep problems
Study finds increased happiness during pregnancy decreases sleep disturbances for kids
June 5, 2018
Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine
Maternal depressive mood during the prenatal and postnatal periods is related to child sleep disturbances, according to recent pilot data from a longitudinal cohort study in kindergarten children.
"The most surprising thing about our results was the mediation role of child behavior in the maternal emotion-children's sleep quality relationship, this demonstrates that emotion during pregnancy affects child behavior which further affects child's sleep, said principal investigator and lead author Jianghong Liu, PhD, RN, FAAN, an associate professor at the Schools of Nursing and Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Furthermore, we found that happiness increased across the trimesters and that happiness during the second and third trimester was protective against child sleep problems."
Participants included 833 kindergarteners with mean age of about six years old. Women's emotional status, including prenatal/postnatal depressive emotion and perceived happiness throughout trimesters, was rated by a self-designed set of questions with a 5-point scale for happiness and a 3-point scale for depression. Sleep problems were assessed using the sleep subdomain of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Child behavioral problems were measured using the CBCL total score. General linear models were performed to examine the adjusted associations between childhood sleep problems and maternal emotional status.
Adjusted models showed that children of women who expressed either depressive emotion during the postnatal period (?=3.13, p=0.003) or during both the prenatal and postnatal periods (?=2.65, p=0.04) were more likely to exhibit sleep disturbances. Similarly, increased levels of happiness in the second and third trimester were significantly associated with decreased risk for children's sleep problems. Results show a significant mediation effect of child's behavior on the maternal emotion and child sleep relationship.
According to Liu and her co-authors (Xiaopeng Ji, Guanghai Wang, Yuli Li and Jennifer Pinto-Martin), these results are noteworthy because they highlight the importance of prenatal maternal emotional health and its impact on child sleep outcomes.
"These results promote the caretaking of maternal health and happiness during pregnancy and encourage the roles of familial and community support in aiding expecting mothers. This will benefit not only maternal health but also the long term behavioral and sleep health of their child," said Liu.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180605083034.htm
Sleep better, parent better: Study shows link between maternal sleep and permissive parenting
May 21, 2018
Science Daily/University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
A new study looks at the link between maternal sleep and permissive parenting during late adolescence. Findings show that mothers who don't get enough sleep or who take longer falling asleep have a greater tendency to engage in permissive parenting -- parenting marked by lax or inconsistent discipline.
A new study from Kelly Tu, a human development and family studies researcher at the University of Illinois, and colleagues, looks at the link between maternal sleep and permissive parenting during late adolescence. Findings show that mothers who don't get enough sleep or who take longer falling asleep have a greater tendency to engage in permissive parenting -- parenting marked by lax or inconsistent discipline.
Results also show that sleep quality may be especially important for African-American mothers and mothers from socioeconomically disadvantaged households.
"Short and disrupted sleep patterns are common among parents, especially parents of young children, and can affect their mental and physical health and daily functioning," explains Tu, assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at U of I. "Extending this work beyond young children, we were curious as to how sleep affects the parenting of adolescents."
During adolescence -- 11 to 18 years of age -- parental involvement is still an important contributing factor in how well kids are adjusting socially, emotionally, and behaviorally. Tu explains that research has shown a link between permissive parenting and adolescents' vulnerability to problematic or risky behaviors.
Those risky behaviors during adolescence could include affiliating with deviant or delinquent peers, engaging in delinquent behavior (vandalism or skipping school), or substance use and abuse, Tu explains. "Given that permissive parenting may heighten the risk of adolescents' risky behaviors, we wanted to take a step back to ask what's driving these permissive parenting behaviors, and to see if sleep could be a contributing factor.
"We found that when mothers were not receiving enough sleep, or receiving poor quality sleep, it had an effect on their levels of permissiveness with their adolescents. It may be that they're more irritable, experiencing impaired attention, or so over-tired that they are less consistent in their parenting. But on the plus side, we also find that mothers who are receiving adequate sleep are less likely to be permissive with their adolescents."
To examine maternal sleep duration and quality, 234 mothers were asked to wear actigraphs -- a wristwatch-like device, think of a Fitbit -- at bedtime for seven consecutive nights. The actigraph detects movement throughout the night and determines whether there is a disruption in sleep. Information about race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status of the mothers was also collected.
Adolescents, averaging 15 years of age, then completed questionnaires (subscales of the Parent Behavior Inventory) about how they perceived their mothers' parenting. They rated behavior on a scale of "likely or not likely to." Example statements included, "Lets me off easy when I do something wrong," "Can't say no to anything I want," or "Doesn't check up to see whether I have done what she told me."
Findings showed that mothers who had longer durations of sleep or who were able to fall asleep easily, had adolescents who reported lower levels of permissive parenting.
Race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status also emerged as significant factors in linking sleep quality with permissive parenting. African-American mothers and mothers from lower socioeconomic households who experienced higher quality sleep (higher sleep efficiency, fewer night wakings) had lower levels of permissive parenting. Yet, for these same mothers, poorer sleep quality resulted in higher levels of permissive parenting.
"Studies have documented sleep disparities among ethnic minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals, and our findings are consistent with that. For socioeconomic status, we may need to consider the day-to-day stressors or challenges that these mothers are facing," Tu explains. "Mothers from lower socioeconomic households may be encountering additional stressors or financial hardships that could be affecting their sleep and/or parenting. "But what's exciting is that we also find positive effects of high quality sleep on parenting behaviors for ethnic minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers," Tu says.
The findings from the study, Tu says, point out the need for self-care and the importance of sleep.
"Sleep is an easier point to intervene in terms of changes individuals can make -- things like not drinking caffeine or exercising too close to bedtime, establishing a bedtime routine, and thinking about the sleep environment," she says. "Parents may be thinking about these things when it comes to their children, but it's just as important for parents to get enough sleep as it may impact their family interactions and children's well-being."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180521164537.htm
Aging: The natural stress reliever for many women
April 24, 2018
Science Daily/University of Michigan
While some research suggests that midlife is a dissatisfying time for women, other studies show that women report feeling less stressed and enjoy a higher quality of life during this period.
So, which is it? A recent University of Michigan study by Elizabeth Hedgeman, a doctoral graduate of the U-M School of Public Health, and colleagues found that perceived stress -- a measure of confidence, control and ability to cope with life's stressors -- did indeed decrease for most women over a 15-year span.
The study also found that menopausal status wasn't a factor, which challenges the notion that menopause is associated with higher stress and depression.
The results come from data collected from more than 3,000 women who were recruited between the ages of 42-53 for the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation.
Hedgeman's goal was to assess the effects of age, menopausal status and sociodemographics on stress over time. She did the work while in the lab of Sioban Harlow, professor of epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health.
By the end of the study period, the mean age was 62 and stress declined with age across nearly all sociodemographic categories. Compared to similar black, white and Chinese women, stress decreased in a more attenuated fashion for Japanese women. After adjusting for other sociodemographic variables, race and ethnicity was a significant predictor of increased stress only for Japanese women.
Women with less education and increased financial hardship consistently reported higher levels of stress compared to their peers, but this difference diminished over time.
"The results suggested that even women with less education or more financial hardship reported less perceived stress over the midlife," Hedgeman said. "And then there's menopause.
"Our perception of stress decreased even through the menopausal transition, which suggests that menopause isn't a great bugaboo, perhaps in relation to the other events or experiences that we're having in the midlife."
Education, employment and financial hardship were stronger predictors of perceived stress over midlife than the menopause transition, and this may suggest that women experience the menopausal transition as a series of acute stressors (hot flashes, sleep disturbances) that can be muted by chronic, socioeconomic-based life stressors.
The only groups that reported increased perceived stress over the study were Hispanic and white women from New Jersey, but Hedgeman said these are outlier results that needed to be replicated. Additionally, there were extenuating circumstances at the New Jersey site that may have contributed.
Despite reporting decreased levels of stress throughout life, women who reported higher stress at the start of midlife continued to report higher stress levels than their peers as they aged. This is important because stress is a known health risk.
The study did not specifically examine the reasons for this decrease in perceived stress, but Hedgeman said that there could be both circumstantial and neurological causes -- children have moved out, professional goals are being met, or women might have hit a sweet spot before the next life challenges arise, such as chronic health conditions or aging parents.
Existing research also suggests that aging helps us regulate our emotions. "Perhaps things just don't bother us as much as we age, whether due to emotional experience or neurochemical changes. It's all worth exploring," Hedgeman said. Overall, the findings are good news for women transitioning through midlife, she said.
"The neat thing is that for most of us, our perception of stress decreases as we age through the midlife -- perhaps life itself is becoming less stressful, or maybe we're finally feeling at the top of our game, or maybe things just don't bother us the way they did," Hedgeman said. "But whatever the root reason, we're reporting less perceived stress as we age through the midlife and menopause."
The primary limitation of the study was the inability to understand perceived stress among women reporting the highest levels over time. Also, a disruption of operations at the New Jersey site, limited the number of visits to five, not 13 as with the other sites. Also, New Jersey was the only site that recruited Hispanic women.
Co-authors include: Rebecca Hasson, assistant professor of kinesiology and nutritional sciences; Carrie Karvonen-Gutierrez, assistant professor of epidemiology; and William Herman, professor of internal medicine and epidemiology.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180424112834.htm
Pregnant moms and their offspring should limit added sugars in their diets to protect childhood cognition
April 19, 2018
Science Daily/Elsevier
A new study has determined that poorer childhood cognition occurred, particularly in memory and learning, when pregnant women or their offspring consumed greater quantities of sugar. Substituting diet soda for sugar-sweetened versions during pregnancy also appeared to have negative effects. However, children's fruit consumption had beneficial effects and was associated with higher cognitive scores.
Research is increasingly focusing on the adverse impact of sugar consumption on health, especially high-fructose corn syrup. Sugar consumption among Americans is above recommended limits, and the Current Dietary Guidelines for Americans emphasize the importance of reducing calories from added sugars. They are incorporated into foods and beverages during preparation or processing, with sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) being the greatest contributor in Americans' diets. Evidence is also emerging that sugar consumption may negatively impact children's cognitive development.
"The aim of our study was to examine associations of pregnancy and offspring sugar consumption (sucrose, fructose) with child cognition," explained lead investigator Juliana F.W. Cohen, ScD, School of Health Sciences, Merrimack College, North Andover, MA, and Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA. "Additionally, we examined associations of maternal and child consumption of SSBs, other beverages including diet soda and juice, and fruit with child cognition."
Investigators collected dietary assessment data for more than 1,000 pregnant women from 1999 to 2002 who participated in Project Viva. Their offspring's diets were assessed in early childhood. Child cognition was assessed in early- and mid-childhood (at approximately age 3 and 7, respectively).
The results of this study indicate that consuming more fruits and less sugar, as well as avoiding diet soda during pregnancy, may have a meaningful impact on child cognitive functioning. Key findings include:
· Maternal sugar consumption, especially from SSBs, was associated with poorer childhood cognition including non-verbal abilities to solve novel problems and poorer verbal memory.
· Maternal SSB consumption was associated with poorer global intelligence associated with both verbal knowledge and non-verbal skills.
· Maternal diet soda consumption was associated with poorer fine motor, visual spatial, and visual motor abilities in early childhood and poorer verbal abilities in mid-childhood.
· Childhood SSB consumption was associated with poorer verbal intelligence at mid-childhood.
· Child consumption of both fructose and fruit in early childhood was associated with higher cognitive scores in several areas and greater receptive vocabulary.
· Fruit was additionally associated with greater visual motor abilities in early childhood and verbal intelligence in mid-childhood.
· Fruit juice intake was not associated improved cognition, which may suggest the benefits are from other aspects of fruits, such as phytochemicals, and not fructose itself.
"This study provides evidence that there should be no further delays in implementing the new Nutrition Facts label. The new label will provide information on added sugars so that pregnant women and parents can make informed choices regarding added sugars and more easily limit their intake. This study also provides additional support for keeping federal nutrition programs strong, such as Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the National School Lunch Program, because their promotion of diets higher in fruits and lower in added sugars may be associated with improved childhood cognition," commented Dr. Cohen.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180419130943.htm
Mother's depression might do the same to her child's IQ
Study finds maternal depression negatively impacts a child's cognitive development, infancy through age 16
April 17, 2018
Science Daily/University of California - San Diego
Roughly one in 10 women in the United States will experience depression. The consequences, however, may extend to their children, report researchers who found that a mother's depression can negatively affect a child's cognitive development up to the age of 16.
Researchers surveyed approximately 900 healthy children and their mothers living in Santiago, Chile at five-year intervals from the child's infancy through age 16. They observed how affectionate and responsive mothers were to their children at each age period, as well as how much mothers provided age-appropriate learning materials. Children were assessed on verbal cognitive abilities using standardized IQ tests during each assessment. Mothers were tested for symptoms of depression.
"We found that mothers who were highly depressed didn't invest emotionally or in providing learning materials to support their child, such as toys and books, as much as mothers who were not depressed. This, in turn, impacted the child's IQ at ages 1, 5, 10 and 16," said Patricia East, PhD, research scientist with the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "The consistency and longevity of these results speak to the enduring effect that depression has on a mother's parenting and her child's development."
On a scale from one to 19, the average verbal IQ score for all children in the study at age 5 was 7.64. Children who had severely depressed mothers were found to have an average verbal IQ score of 7.30 compared to a score of 7.78 in children without depressed mothers.
"Although seemingly small, differences in IQ from 7.78 to 7.30 are highly meaningful in terms of children's verbal skills and vocabulary," said East. "Our study results show the long term consequences that a child can experience due to chronic maternal depression."
Throughout the study period, at least half of the mothers were determined to be depressed based on a questionnaire with questions like, "Are you sad?" and "Do you find yourself crying?"
"For mothers in the study, there were many stressors in their lives. Most of the mothers, while literate, had only nine years of education, were not employed outside the home and often lived with extended family in small, crowded homes -- factors that likely contributed to their depression," said East. "Many mothers suffer from depression in the first six months after childbirth, but for some, depression lingers."
East said study data suggested approximately 20 percent of mothers who are severely depressed when their child turns age 1 remain depressed for a long time.
"For health care providers, the results show that early identification, intervention and treatment of maternal depression are key," said East. "Providing resources to depressed moms will help them manage their symptoms in a productive way and ensure their children reach their full potential."
Study authors said future steps include further analyzing the data to see how mothers' depression affects children's own depressive symptoms through childhood and adolescence and children's academic achievement and health, such as their likelihood of being overweight or obese.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180417090019.htm
Does age at menopause affect memory?
April 11, 2018
Science Daily/American Academy of Neurology
Entering menopause at a later age may be associated with a small benefit to your memory years later, according to a new study.
"This study suggests that lifelong hormonal processes, not just short-term fluctuations during menopause, may be associated with memory skills," said study author Diana Kuh, PhD, FFPH, FMedSci, of the University College London in the United Kingdom.
The study involved 1,315 women from the Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development in Great Britain who had been followed since birth in March 1946. All of the women had tests of their verbal memory skills and their cognitive processing speed at ages 43, 53, between 60 and 64, and at age 69. The researchers collected information on age at menopause, either natural or due to removal of the ovaries, whether they took hormone replacement therapy, and other factors that could affect thinking and memory skills, such as childhood cognitive ability, amount of education, smoking and type of occupation.
Menopause, which is defined as the age at last menstrual cycle, started on average for the women with natural menopause at age 51 and a half.
For the verbal memory test, participants were asked to recall a 15-item list three times, with a maximum score of 45. At age 43, participants recalled an average of 25.8 words. By age 69, they recalled an average of 23.3 words. The study found that among 846 women who experienced menopause naturally, women who had later menopause had higher verbal memory scores, remembering 0.17 additional words per year. After researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect memory, the difference was 0.09 additional words per year.
"The difference in verbal memory scores for a 10-year difference in the start of menopause was small -- recalling only one additional word, but it's possible that this benefit could translate to a reduced risk of dementia years later," Kuh said. "More research and follow-up are needed to determine whether that is the case."
Kuh noted that the relationship between the age at menopause and memory scores was not affected by use of hormone therapy.
For 313 women who experienced menopause due to surgery, the relationship between age at the time of surgery and memory scores was no longer present after researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect memory.
On the test of how fast the women could process information, there was no relationship between the age at menopause and test scores.
"This difference may be due to the estrogen receptor role, which regulates the gene that codes brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which helps to solidify memory formation and storage," Kuh said.
Limitations of the study were that the tests of memory and processing speed were taken relatively far apart in time and that information was not available on the dose for women taking hormone therapy.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180411161300.htm