Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

By: Lara Endreszl

Sometimes used as a tactic to show perspective, oftentimes used as an insult, the phrase “take a look inside yourself” is better served for the mind rather than with an actual mirror, but for someone searching for answers it is always a powerful solution. A relatively new idea, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), is exactly in line with the self-reflection hinted at in the above imperative statement.

As a process of focused awareness on the present, the practice of MBSR reserves judgment, allowing the patient to let go of the restrictions he or she constantly puts on themselves. By letting go of those restrictions, they are also able to deny access to other people and other outside sources that can alter his or her mood or attitude.

In 1979, a young doctor by the name of Jon Kabat-Zinn proposed a new alternative program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn called it the Stress Reduction Clinic in opposition to using the word “meditation” for fear of not being taken seriously enough. The program gained popularity and soon expanded, ending up being called The Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare and Society.

By fusing mindfulness, meditation, a mixture of martial arts and yoga, MBSR teaches you to work through your own demons such as stress, pain, illness, or emotional challenges that can plague your life, MBSR uses spirituality to create awareness. Patients going through the program are able to take hold of their own life using affirmations to ensure a positive outlook. With tens of thousands of patients having graduated from the MBSR program, there are now hundreds of hospitals across the United States that have enacted similar programs.

A sister-program to MBSR is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, or MBCT. As a sect of MBSR, MBCT deals with depression as a cognitive-based therapy connecting the ideas of thinking with the impact of feelings. MBCT focuses on recognizing moods of depression and helping to defer negative patterns of thought before depression overwhelms you.

According to multiple studies that researched the many benefits of MBSR, there was a lowered use of pain medications overall, a boost in self esteem and an increase of patient activity related to a revived zest for life. MBSR is an intensive 8-week program that trains the student to meditate according to mindfulness to achieve the awareness between mind and body one is searching for.

MBSR has been used to treat minor pains and chronic illnesses and new research is being done all the time. One study in particular set to end this year is sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and is being conducted at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Professor and co-director Susan Folkman and her team are conducting a threefold rigorous study in order to show the effects of MBSR in patients with HIV diagnosed in an early stage. Hoping to slow the progression of HIV when patients need to start the antiretroviral treatment (ART)—the process of helping to stop or slow the disease—by using MBSR to decrease T-cells is their first goal. Secondly, the team of scientists will use MBSR to combat stress and biological stress arousal that could be affecting the immune functions. The third project is to test the immunity pathways and functions which are affected by MBSR and stress against HIV cell replication.

It seems that Dr. Kabat-Zinn was onto something in the 1970s when he came up with the idea for Mindful Based Stress Reduction and the trend has stuck. More than just meditation and yoga, MBSR has been shown to help many patients struggling to cope with outside forces because he or she is not at peace with what is inside. Who knows, the foundations of MBSR and the act of taking a look inside of you may just be the answer to hundreds of dollars worth of therapy sessions, acupuncture treatments, or the overused rubber stress ball.

art and health

Some Scary News..

Monday, April 27, 2009

By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - Current flu vaccines will not stop a deadly virus spreading around the world but people who have had their annual shots may end up with milder symptoms, vaccine specialists said on Monday.

The flu virus has killed as many as 149 people in Mexico and has spread into the United States, Canada and Europe, prompting fears the new strain could mark the start of a pandemic.

So-called swine flu is a variant of the H1N1 form of the human influenza virus. Mutations of this strain have been circulating in the human population for years and the current seasonal flu vaccine is designed to protect against H1N1.

But tests show the H1N1 component of the current seasonal flu vaccine does not protect against the new strain although the jabs may still offer some benefit, experts say.

"There may well be some immunity to H1N1 at the population level that will provide a degree of protection," said Dr. John McConnell, editor of the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

While the virus has so far has killed no one outside Mexico, it spreads quickly between humans which makes health officials fear it could cause the flu pandemic that scientists say is long overdue.

Experts agree the process for making vaccines is clumsy and outdated, but new and more efficient technologies are still a few years away.

At least 20 companies make flu vaccines including Sanofi Pasteur, Australia's CSL Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG, Baxter and nasal spray maker MedImmune, acquired by AstraZeneca Plc.

"Clearly if this virus evolves into a pandemic, the first wave will come and go before a vaccine can be produced," Karl Nicholson, a vaccine expert at Leicester University in Britain said in a telephone interview.

"There has been this realization we can't make a vaccine in time so we should be priming populations."

Another problem is many people do not get yearly flu vaccines because they live in poor countries or do not see it as a priority.

U.S. health officials recommend that 261 million Americans -- 85 percent of the population -- should be vaccinated against flu but a RAND Corp. study in December showed only about a third of those who should have did get the vaccine.

Other experts noted that because swine flu is only partly related to human strains, vaccines already in use will not be effective in producing antibodies that provide protection.

But there may be some benefit when it comes to white blood cells, which can shorten the period of infection, Ian Jones, a researcher at the University of Reading said.

"The most likely result is that a current vaccination would not stop you from being infected but might reduce the severity of the symptoms," he said.

Brushing Teeth May Prevent Heart Attacks, Study Finds

WASHINGTON - People with the germiest mouths are the most likely to have heart attacks, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

A study that compared heart attack victims to healthy volunteers found the heart patients had higher numbers of bacteria in their mouths, the researchers said.

Their findings add to a growing body of evidence linking oral hygiene with overall health.

Oelisoa Andriankaja and colleagues at the University at Buffalo in New York were trying to find if any particular species of bacteria might be causing heart attacks.

Their tests on 386 men and women who had suffered heart attacks and 840 people free of heart trouble showed two types — Tannerella forsynthesis and Prevotella intermedia — were more common among the heart attack patients.

But more striking, the people who had the most bacteria of all types in their mouths were the most likely to have had heart attacks, they told a meeting of the International Association of Dental Research in Miami.

"The message here is that even though some specific periodontal pathogens have been found to be associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, the total bacterial pathogenic burden is more important than the type of bacteria," Andriankaja, now at the University of Puerto Rico, said in a statement.

"In other words, the total number of 'bugs' is more important than one single organism."

Doctors are not sure how bacteria may be linked with heart attacks but several studies have shown associations between gum disease and heart disease. Bacteria may set off general inflammation that in turn causes blood to clot.

Copyright 2009 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29990146/

HealthDay: "Marathons Go the Distance on Heart Health

Today, I accidentally ran eight miles. Now, you might be questioning how an individual could achieve such an act. The truth is, I was inspired by an article I read this morning about a Taiwanese man who ran 52 marathons in 52 days, and decided to go for a long, stress-relieving run. Turns out I was a little too pumped keeping pace with the Bruce Springsteen set I was listening and I completely missed a mile marker on a one-way trail. Unfortunately, when I turned around, I ran straight into a wind and hail storm-- and there is nothing like rocking out to "Glory Days" with pellets of ice sailing toward your face when you're four miles deep in a wheat field with only one way home. P.S. Pullman: it's mid-April.
With that exciting anecdote, I returned to read this article from HealthDay related to the health benefits of running, and I felt a little more accomplished about said mistake. Perhaps it will inspire you to miss a mile marker or two.

FRIDAY, April 10 (HealthDay News) -- Long-distance runners are less likely than other people to develop metabolic syndrome, a group of health problems that include high blood pressure and high cholesterol and can lead to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

U.S. researchers analyzed data from the National Runners' Health Study of more than 62,000 men and 45,000 women. They found that men who ran two or more marathons per year were 41 percent less likely to suffer from high blood pressure, 32 percent less likely to have high cholesterol, and 87 percent less likely to have diabetes than non-marathoners.

Men who ran only one marathon every two to five years were also significantly less likely to have these conditions than non-marathoners.

Study author Paul Williams found that the benefits of running marathons were largely independent of total number of miles run per year by participants. This indicates that isolated distance running bouts in preparation for marathons may have helped decrease the risk of disease. Even runners who didn't enter marathons, but did include longer runs as part of their usual exercise routines, were less likely to have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes.

The findings were published in the March issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

"All forms of regular exercise provide important health benefits. But these data suggest there may be heightened benefits for those who make the exceptional effort and commitment," Williams said in an American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) news release.

However, he noted that people who regularly run marathons may be genetically predisposed to running long distances.

"Not everyone is going to run marathons, but most can probably exercise a lot more than they are currently. Those with heart conditions should consult their physician," Williams said.

Research shows that even modest sessions of regular exercise, such as walking half an hour a day, can improve health, sustain quality of life and boost longevity, according to the ACSM.

Step Outside to Recharge!

By Andrea Miller MSNBC.com

In our increasingly urbanized world, it turns out that a little green can go a long way toward improving our health, not just that of the planet.
That could mean something as simple as a walk in the park or just a tree viewed through a window. It's not necessarily the exercise that is the key. It's the refreshing contact with nature and its uncomplicated demands on us.
Here is how it works: Modern life — commuting, computing, paying taxes — can place a burden on our brains and bodies. In recent years, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Landscape and Human Health Laboratory and elsewhere have compiled evidence that suggests that a connection to nature is vital to our psychological and physical health because it helps recharge our brains so that we're better able to cope with the stresses in life.
This ingrained dependence on our environment is like that of any other animal it seems, because like other organisms, we evolved to thrive in our natural surroundings, said Frances (Ming) Kuo, director of the laboratory. Kuo's colleague William Sullivan discussed this topic earlier this month at a symposium, "Exploring the Dynamic Relationship Between Health and the Environment," at the American Museum of Natural History here.
"It's out there in real life; people can see it," Kuo told LiveScience.
Urban shift
In 2007, it was estimated that more than half of the world's population lived in urban, rather than rural, areas for the first time in human history.
Urban environments, with their traffic and harried pace, are a constant drain on our mental resources because we have to work to pay attention to a myriad of stimuli.
Similarly, animals taken out of their natural habitats can start to degrade mentally and physically — parenting skills decline, aggression increases and playful activity stops. Some of these same symptoms can be seen in particularly stressed human populations.
Nature, on the other hand, is a little kinder to our craniums.
"In evolution, those of us who found it — nature — sort of inherently interesting probably were more likely to remember where the berries were" or where a specific threat was, Kuo explained. "And so the idea is that we're selected for being interested in relevant natural phenomena."
So thanks to evolution, we don't have to work to pay attention to nature — it, well, naturally interests us. Several studies conducted by Kuo and her colleagues show that exercising this easy interest in nature, even unconsciously, seems to improve our ability to pay attention and react to stressful situations.
Green vs. non-green
In a 2001 study detailed in the journal Environment and Behavior, Kuo and her colleagues surveyed parents of children aged 7 to 12 who had been diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder. They asked the parents to rate activities that seemed to alleviate their child's symptoms and which seemed to aggravate them.
They found the children functioned better after a "green" activity (i.e. one that likely took place in a natural setting, such as fishing or soccer) than a "non-green" one (such as watching TV or playing video games).
Kuo and her colleagues think the improvement stems from nature's ability to capture our attention involuntarily, giving the hard-working, overtaxed part of our brain used to voluntarily focus our attention on more demanding tasks a break, essentially allowing it to recharge.
A series of studies conducted by Kuo's lab in public housing around Chicago found similar results. The researchers interviewed a number of female residents of public housing projects. Each subject was randomly assigned to rooms that had views of trees or grass outside and ones that looked out on barren courtyards.
People living in public housing "have fatiguing lives, and not particularly rejuvenating home circumstances," Kuo said. "They're just much more likely to be at the end of their rope on any given day."
Through the interviews, the researchers found that residents whose apartments were exposed to green spaces reported fewer aggressive conflicts, including domestic violence, than those who that had no views of green spaces. They also procrastinated less on major goals, such as finding a job or a new home, and were less likely to think their problems were unsolvable.
Having our capacities for attention restored, "allows us to be our best selves, so we are able to inhibit impulses that we want to be able to inhibit; we can take the long view of things; we can think better," Kuo said.
These benefits can reach beyond an individual person to the community or even society, by strengthening community ties and helping disadvantaged populations better cope with and solve their problems.
"When you take the individual effects, and then you magnify it by the fact that people around you share that same environment, you can actually imagine that they're really, really significant effects," Kuo said.
For example, greener areas also had lower crime rates and more socializing between neighbors.
Where there are trees and other greenery outside buildings, "what you see is people are using the outdoor spaces more often, and as a consequence, they actually run into each other," Kuo said. And with more people using the spaces, there are more "eyes on the street," which could deter crime.
The green spaces are "kind of the seed around which strong neighborhoods grow," Kuo said.
Physical health
Access to green spaces can lead to improvements in physical health too, other studies have found.
One study of 80- to 85-year-olds conducted in Tokyo found that those with access to green space had a lower rate of mortality, even when socioeconomic status was taken into account.
Another study in the United Kingdom found that the health disparities normally seen between the wealthy and non-wealthy disappeared when access to green areas was factored in.
One study conducted in Indianapolis found that children in greener neighborhoods had a reduced risk of being overweight or obese.
"All their findings are kind of pointing in the same direction," Kuo said.
Kuo said that the connections between green spaces and health could be applied to daily life, both at the individual and community levels.
After a hard day at work, maybe do a little gardening before starting in on the taxes, or, if you're a student, play some soccer before studying for that test. (Kuo said that nature isn't the only thing that can help us rejuvenate in this way — reading a book for pleasure, listening to music or spending quiet time with friends and family can also help by easily engaging us while letting our brains rest.)
Cities and other communities can also use this information, and several already have.
Chicago recently undertook a $10 million tree-planting initiative — the largest in city history. They also used a large chunk of the federal funds for rehabbing the city on landscaping, which Kuo was told was done partly because of the findings of her studies.
Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York also have city greening initiatives running or in the works.
"So it seems like policy folks are paying attention," Kuo said.
But even with the benefits that Kuo and others have seen their studies, there still may be more links not yet discovered.
"We're finding all these ways in which the environment matters to us and affects, but I don't think we're done," she said.

Beer with Health Benefits?

Believe it or not... Just remember, moderation is key!!