STRESS/SLEEP
Okay, test time. What's the "mind-body connection" really called in medicine? It's psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) and it refers to how stress robs your body of its ability to ward off disease and illness. Allow stress to build up and you can not only develop a physical disorder, you can make one you already have worse. Yes, it may actually all be in your mind in that how you live and what type of lifestyle you lead, in other words, how you approach life, may lead to physical illness. Skip a vacation, forget about keeping joy and laughter (one of the best medicines) in your daily life and you've begun the journey to dancing on a wire between health and illness.
One word of caution, however. Stress comes from both the good things in our lives and the bad ones. So, everything is stressful, but it's the way that we learn to manage it and put it in perspective that helps us survive it. Try this test and see how stressed you are: The Holmes-Rahe Scale.
A recent National Geographic documentary discussed the topic of stress. What we learn from this documentary is that stress causes real, possibly permanent, damage to the body. It attacks a vital area of the DNA in our bodies, makes us vulnerable to disease and stress-related disorders (the autoimmune disorders), clogs our arteries, shrinks our brains (the vital memory centers), causes fat to deposit around the waistline (an indicator of potential cardiac problems) and can shorten our lives. The one problem with this excellent documentary is that it doesn't do enough to tell us how to reverse these problems or what major or small steps to take right now to, literally, save our lives. I think they need to do a part 2 of this to offer meat-and-potatoes solutions we can all implement. So, it's left to you, the reader, to search the internet, look at the links below and begin to make a life plan that does mean "life" in the truest sense of the word. Begin today and concentrate on your real life's work and that is to save your life so that you can enjoy it with those you love and doing the things you love to do. Got a hobby? Go to it. Haven't got one? Find one because it's one step you can take immediately.
See what a famous neurobiologyist (Dr. Robert Sopolsky) thinks about stress and what we can learn from animals about it. We have a video interview with Dr. Sopolsky on our Videos page.
The Baboon in All of Us
2008 American Psychological Association Stress Survey
Self-help resources (doc.)
Stress a Major Health Problem in the US Warns APA
Enhancing Worker Well-Being (stress doc)
Does Stress Cause Disease? It Doesn't Help, Reviewers Say
Commuting and All That
The “commuting paradox” and what that entails was detailed in an article a few years ago in Business Week. How much benefit do you really get from commuting long distances in the belief that it will provide a better life for you and your family? Perhaps in today’s economy, commuting any distance may be worth it just to have a job. But in the long run, sitting in a car or on a bus or train, even if you’re actively working on your laptop means you’re working all the more and your quality of life may not be much better. It’s worth a read for the things it may bring to mind. Unfortunately, the page has lots of ads on it, but the content of the article is worth the reading.
Stress statistics
Breast Cancer: What Psychiatrists Need to Know
Results of Mind-Body Meditation Study
Risk of a Second Heart Attack Doubled With Chronic Job Strain
Scent of Warm Cookies Can Ease Stress of Chemo
Inborn Stress Response Triggered by Carbon Dioxide
Less Power=Less Ability to Get Ahead (study)
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Stress clinical trials
Psychological stress and related disorders
Stress in early life
Managing stress in school
What to do if you don't like school
5 Tips for coping with grad school
Job Stress Network
Stress at work
Job stress, burnout on the rise
Mind, body, health: Job stress
Managing job stress
Job stress raises blood pressure
Surviving job skills
Protecting the heart
From family stress to family strength
Family stress management
Farm and ranch family stress
Family stress test
Helping your family cope
Family stress and autism
State Missing Children Clearinghouse
Stress Management (WebMD)
Children and Stress
Do kids really have it better today than their parents or grandparents did a few decades ago? When you consider the “over-scheduled child” with all the school and school-related activities, it doesn’t seem like childhood is what it once may have been. When parents begin to put their children on lists for preschool even before they’re born or aim for college when they’re still in kindergarten, the stress is major. Also, when a child is average and the parent wants them to be “special” and to get into advanced classes when the child doesn’t want it or can’t do the work, what damage is done?
I’ve seen kids being taken to psychologists to see if they can get their scores up or to get a favorable report that their child meets the entrance criteria for advanced schooling. How sad the kids appear as they are dragged around in search of that golden goose that supposed to provide those mythical eggs that guarantee their parents will have produced a super kid. Children shouldn’t be seen as status symbols. When they’re used as some vicarious means to prove a parent’s worth, what has the parent done and what will they reap?
Children and Stress
Caring Strategies to Guide Children
Are You Pushing Your Child Too Hard?
Helping Gifted Children With Stress Management
Children and Stress: Understanding and Helping
Children and Trauma: Reflections on the WTC Disaster
Stress During Pregnancy
Abuse During Pregnancy
Abuse Disclosure in Privately and Medicaid-Funded Pregnant Women
Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Children of Battered Women
Predicting Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Children After Traffic Accidents
SLEEP
How much sleep do you need? Do you really need to sleep? Is it okay to skip sleep and get by on three or four hours a night? How does shiftwork affect sleep? The mysteries of sleep are now beginning to be revealed and sleep has assumed an ultra-important place in medicine. There is now, in fact, a subspecialty in medicine and it’s called Sleep Medicine.
Any of the 70 (yes, there are now 70 of them at last count) sleep disorders may cause problems in daytime functioning, so depriving yourself of sleep is like depriving yourself of food. You wouldn’t do that, so why would anyone boast that they “don’t need that much sleep?” You do need sleep and building up a large “sleep debt” can lead to physical and mental problems. Simply put, you can’t do without a sufficient amount of sleep. How much is that? Check out the links below and find out more about sleep. Don’t fool yourself; you need sleep and you can’t put it off.
Take the Epworth Sleepiness Scale and see how you score on sleep. You may be surprised at just how sleepy you are.
Sleep Deprivation Leads to Emotional Instability Even in Healthy Subjects (doc)
National Sleep Foundation
Sleep Disorders Guide
Sleep Restriction
Sleep Myoclonus (muscle jerk) Fact Sheet
Bruxism
Emory Sleep Center
Sleep: Teacher's Guide
Shift Work Sleep Disorder
Shift Work (Sleep Channel)
The Hazards of Shift Work Sleep Disorder
Shift-Work Sleep Disorder: The Glass Is More Than Half Empty
Heart Disease Linked to Shift Work
Science Explores Shift Work-Linked Fatigue
Sleep (journal)
Sleepnet
NINDS - understanding sleep
Neuroscience for kids and adults
BBC on sleep
Sleep Medicine
How to sleep well
Sleep disorders
The Sleep Well
Sleep information for patients and public
Canadian Center for Occupational Health & Safety
Police Shiftwork Guide (UK)
Shift work, sleep quality and worker health
Effects of shift work on Air Force Security Police Personnel
Biology and shift work
Rotating shifts vs. fixed shifts in police work
Police shifts
Hard work on shift work (nurses)
Shift work and well being
A wake-up call for nurses
Your child and sleep
All about sleep (kids)
Children and sleep disorders
Geriatric sleep research program