For most people food is associated with all things positive—birthdays, graduations, weddings, holidays—so it’s no wonder we often turn to so called “comfort food” to feel better when we’re down, stressed or bored. Though you probably don’t need a researcher to tell you, a new study says comfort food doesn’t improve mood. In fact, it often makes you feel worse.

Penn State researchers analyzed responses from college-age women who reported that if they were in a negative mood before indulging in comfort foods, that mood only got worse after the episode. However, if they were in a positive mood beforehand, that mood didn’t change.

Emotional Eating

Turning to food for emotional reasons is not only an ineffective way to change how we feel, it is one of the major reasons why many of us struggle with maintaining our weight. Emotional eating often leads to eating too much, especially too much of high-calorie, sweet, fatty foods.

But if you're prone to emotional eating, you can take steps to regain control of your eating habits and get back on track with your weight-loss goals.

Try These Tips:

Self Assessment – Keep a food/mood journal of what you eat, how much you eat, how you were feeling (mood and hunger level) each day. This will help you understand your personal emotional triggers and responses.

Tame Triggers – Try to reduce or eliminate the situations that trigger emotional eating. For example, reduce stress through yoga, meditation, relaxation or other healthy lifestyle change. If you engage in mindless eating when you’re bored, find an activity to keep you occupied—take a walk, play with your dog, listen to music or surf the internet.

Gut Check – Ask yourself: Am I really hungry? If you just ate and your stomach isn’t growling, you’re eating for a reason other than hunger. Drink a glass of water, divert your attention to another activity and give the urge to eat time to pass.

Find Balance – The trick to managing comfort food cravings is finding a healthy balance. You may not want to eliminate these foods entirely as this may only increase cravings. Instead, slowly reduce the amount and frequency of their consumption and replace them with healthier options like: fresh fruit, vegetables, lite popcorn, non-fat yogurt or lower calorie/fat/sugar versions of the same foods.

Learn and Adjust – Changing behaviors takes self-awareness, time, and patience. If you get off track, learn from mistakes and determine how to avoid them in the future. Give yourself credit for making changes that will improve your overall health and wellness.

When to Get Help

If you've tried to gain control over emotional eating on your own without success, consider therapy with a professional healthcare provider. Therapy can help you understand the motivations behind your emotional eating and help you learn new coping skills. Therapy can also help you discover whether you may have an eating disorder.

Sources:

Third Age

Mayo Clinic

You probably didn’t need a study to tell you what you’ve no doubt experienced for yourself—there is more stress in people’s lives today than 25 years ago.

But, nonetheless the work of Sheldon Cohen, the leading researcher and expert on stress and how it affects our health, provides scientific proof of our pressure cooker existence.

Cohen has been conducting periodic surveys using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to measure stress levels in thousands of Americans since 1983. In 35 years of study, his research revealed:

• Those with higher stress were women, people with lower incomes and those with less education.
• As people age, stress decreases.
• Almost every demographic category surveyed from 1983 to 2009 experienced an increase in stress ranging from 10% to 30%.
• The recent economic downturn hit middle-aged men with college degrees and full-time jobs the hardest-- almost double that of any other demographic group.

The Health Toll

It’s also no surprise that stress contributes to poorer health habits, increased risk for disease and accelerated disease progression and increased mortality.

But many of us are at a loss on what to do about it.

We’ve offered some practical tips in previous posts that you may find helpful:

• Practical Ways to Strike a Work/Live Balance and Reduce Stress
• Reduce Workplace Stress: Take an Email Vacation
• Getting Stressed? Eat Some Walnuts
• Massage Can Improve Immune System, Lower Stress Hormones
• Make the Food Mood Connection Work for You

Unfortunately, the very things that help us deal with stress are often the first to go—like regular exercise and eating right. If nothing else, try to keep these two positive aspects of your life in place.

And for a little added insurance during times of stress or fatigue--taking a B6 + B-Complex supplement can help maintain energy levels and mental focus.

Sources:

Journal of Applied Social Psychology

PR Newswire

In our tech-enabled work lives, many of us sit in front of a computer all day. And, unless you count dragging a mouse or lifting a cup of coffee, there isn’t a lot of physical activity involved. All this sitting on the job say researchers may be the single most harmful thing we can do to our health. Furthermore, some health experts believe desk jobs are behind the growing trend in obesity, rising stress levels, and increasing rates of heart disease and chronic illness.

The Impact of Sitting

• In the 1960’s nearly half of all jobs required physical activity.
• In 2012, only 20% of jobs require physical activity which leaves 80% of Americans sitting down on the job

Weight Gain – Sitting more and exercising less is making us heavier

• Americans burn 140 fewer calories a day than they did 50 years ago. This equals 51,100 calories or 14.6 pounds a year.
• Today over 292,345,090 Americans do not get the minimum level of exercise for good health
• 1 in 3 Americans is obese.
• Obese people sit for 2.5 hours more than thin people
• From 1980 to 2000 the time spent sitting down increased by 8% and exercise rates stayed the same. But in the same time period, obesity doubled.

Chronic Illness – Sitting causes many physiological changes that adversely affect your metabolism, vision and musculoskeletal system

• Two-thirds of working Americans use a computer at work and 75% of those workers suffer from eye and vision problems.
• People with sedentary jobs are twice as likely to die from heart disease than those with active jobs
• Sitting also affects circulation, posture and other physiological functions that can lead to joint, back and neck pain.

Stress - Sitting at a desk all day exacerbates stress and work-related health problems

• 1 out of 4 working Americans say their job is the most stressful part of their lives.
• It is estimated that over 1 million workers call in sick to work every day due to stress.
• Workplace stress costs employers $200 billion per year.
• The average work zone is becoming hostile with 42% of workers reporting that yelling and verbal abuse is common. And 10% of workers say they have been in a work environment where stress has led to physical violence.

Getting Off the Chair

So what’s a desk-bound worker to do? The experts suggest focusing on increasing the amount of time on your feet. While exercise and movement are good, just standing is enough to prevent many of the negative effects of sitting.  Here’s a few tips to consider:

• Use a standing-height desk or a treadmill desk that enables you to stand or walk while working.
• If your office won’t spring for a standing height desk, try to make other ergonomic changes that will decrease the strain on your body. See our article on ergonomics in the workplace.
• Take a break every hour to stretch, stand or walk around.
• Take a 15-20 minute walk on your lunch break.
• Take the stairs if you going to another floor in your office building.
• Do isometric exercises at your desk.
• Introduce the concept of “standing” meetings.
• Get in a more intensive 30-45 minute workout every day.

Sources:

MSNBC

Fairleigh Dickinson University

American Institute of Stress

Researchers studying conflict and stress have found that stress stimulates part of the immune system that causes inflammation in the body. Inflammation has been linked to a long list of health problems including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, depression, and autoimmune disorders.

The focus of the study was to determine whether the stress of personal conflicts and competitive sports would trigger the release of molecules known as cytokines, which are linked to inflammation.

Study participants, 122 young adults (53 men and 69 women) recorded their activities over eight days. They noted all their interactions with others and whether these were positive or negative. They were also given stress tests and saliva samples were taken to measure biological markers for inflammation.

The researchers found that cytokine levels went up after "negative" interactions, usually arguments. But playing competitive sports didn't have the same effect. However, the researchers noted that the  study subjects played “friendly games," and that high-stakes sports could be more stressful and thereby trigger inflammation.

Stress Run Amok

A carryover from early man, stress is part of the fight-or-flight response necessary for survival. It activates the immune system in preparation for fighting infection and healing wounds—a good thing if you’re facing a woolly mammoth. However if you aren't wounded, inflammatory cytokines are circulating with no place to go causing low-grade inflammation.

Over time, chronic stress and inflammation can contribute to the buildup of artery-blocking plaque and contribute to disorders linked to an out-of-control immune system, such as asthma.

Reducing Stress

While you can’t always avoid conflict and other stressful situations, there are things you can do to reduce stress and its damaging health effects:

• Sharpen your coping skills. There are many great books on the topic in your local library or bookstore.
• Foster a healthy social network of family and friends for support in stressful situations.
• Participate in activities that have been shown to reduce stress such as:
  • yoga, meditation or prayer.
  • listening to music, getting a massage, or cuddling with your pet or spouse.
  • regular exercise.
• Look for ways to prevent stress. This might include avoiding unnecessary conflict, not over committing yourself, and being assertive by dealing with a situation before it escalates.
• Eat a healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables and omega 3 fatty acids that help reduce inflammation. Limit foods that that are high in saturated fats (like red meat and full-fat dairy products) that promote inflammation.

For more ideas, read Practical Ways to Strike a Work/Life Balance and Reduce Stress.

Sources:

Health Day News

WebMD

U.S. News & World Report

WebMD

Researchers studying the effects of our emotional states on cardiovascular function have found that negative states such as stress and anger can increase the number of cardiac events by as much as 57%. Conversely, laughter and cognitive therapy to promote a more positive outlook greatly improved heart healthy outcomes.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

One study examined the link between vascular function and emotions by subjected participants to stressful and humorous movies. Subjects were shown the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, an intense 15-minute segment that shows Allied forces storming the beach of Normandy. Researchers were also shown segments of There's Something about Mary, Shallow Hal, and Kingpin, all comedies.

After each movie, vascular function was measured. After watching the scene from Saving Private Ryan, blood vessels constricted by as much as 30% to 50%, whereas vasodilatation (widening of blood vessels) occurred in subjects watching comedies. They also observed that vascular changes can occur quickly, with the funny movies reversing blood-vessel contraction that occurred after watching the intense D-Day scene.

The vascular effects lasted for about an hour, although other researchers have seen the benefits of laughter on vascular function extended to 24 hours. The magnitude of change in the blood vessel is similar to the effects observed with statins and physical activity. So we may only need 10-15 minutes of laughter a day to have fairly long lasting benefits.

Manage Anger and Stress

Another study of 227 patients with myocardial infarction assessed the long-term effects of anger on recurrent cardiovascular outcomes. Over the course of 10 years 78.5% of patients without an angry-personality profile were free from a recurrent infarction compared with 57.4% of patients with angry personalities. Not only does anger directly increase heart rate and blood pressure that may trigger a heart attack, it may also lead to lifestyles that worsen cardiovascular health, such as stress induced overeating or alcoholism.

Even what many might consider “mild stress” such as working overtime can have ill effects. A Finnish researcher observed that public sector employees who worked more than three hours overtime per day were at an increased risk of coronary heart disease compared with those who worked no overtime.

Curb Anxiety and Depression

Similar to anger and stress, anxiety and depression are also associated with higher morbidity and mortality both before and after a cardiac event. Depressed cardiac patients tend not to do so well after an event. They don't take their medication, follow post-op therapy, engage in physical activity, and they often smoke and have poor lifestyle behaviors.

However researchers in Australia found that cognitive therapy was highly effective in reducing anxiety and depression as well as modifying unhealthy behaviors in post-op cardiac patients. Study participants who received four months of cognitive therapy had less depression as well as reduced waist girth, increased HDL cholesterol levels and physical activity. At one year, the reduction in depression was maintained, and there were significant improvements in self-rated health.

Source:

Medscape

We all know that most stress isn’t good for our health, and one of the best ways to reduce stress is to achieve the elusive “work/life balance.” But how do you achieve this utopian ideal when life keeps coming at you at mach speed? Experts say it’s a lifelong challenge and finding balance is different for each person. So, while there are no hard and fast rules, there are some basic strategies that can help you find the version of work/life balance that’s best for you:

• Know how you are spending your time. Track how you spend your time for a week by keeping a time log. Once you know where your time is being spent you’ll be better equipped to edit how you spend it.
• Prioritize, cut and delegate. Decide what’s really necessary and what is personally satisfying.  Cut or delegate activities you don’t enjoy or could be done more efficiently by others. Speak with your employer or family members about your concerns and possible solutions.
• Eliminate the time wasters. Tracking your time will also help you identify the time wasters.  For example, you may be able to leave work earlier if you can avoid the coworker who likes to gossip or distractions such as personal calls, web surfing, and social media sites.
• Take advantage of perks. Ask your employer about flex hours, job sharing, telecommuting or other scheduling flexibility that gives you more control over your time.
• Learn to say the NO. Don’t allow others to use guilt or other arm-twisting measures to coerce you into over committing yourself. It’s ok to respectfully say no.  More...

Stress management has been one of my very favorite subjects to write about in this space, for a lot of reasons. For one, this topic allows me to explore, learn more about and share some of the safer, non-pharmaceutical ways to handle strong emotions right along with you, like getting a massage or eating a rational portion of walnuts every day. And, on occasion, I have the opportunity to share a personal story to better illustrate "the moral" of the story, like I do today.

My father, William Taylor Beamer, was an electrician and Merchant Marine sailing the Seven Seas on merchant vessels for 30-something years, starting just before the end of World War II. From most appearances, Bill's life was exciting: He managed to squeeze in traveling around the world at least seven times, staying married to my cantankerous Mom for a sometimes wild 24 years and raising three kids who benefited greatly then and now from his kindness and wisdom.

There were some massively unfair tradeoffs, however. Probably, the hardest one for me was that our family was together peacefully under one roof often for relatively brief bits of time. When Bill took off longer than a month or two to spend time at home with us, he would often lose his "permanent" spot aboard that merchant ship, thus he was perpetually chasing his next job.

More...

It's amazing and alarming how stressful emotions may harm your health in so many ways, for example, keeping cancer cells alive. A recent study demonstrates how treating those emotions with counseling may benefit cervical cancer patients for the short-term, particularly at the cellular level.

During the course of the study, 31 cervical cancer patients were divided into two groups. Both received standard medical care, but one group also had six counseling sessions by telephone that evaluated their current quality of life, addressed better management of stressful emotions and discussed their interpersonal relationships and sexual concerns.

The "proof in the pudding" came when researchers examined the DNA in blood samples drawn from both groups at the beginning of the study and after four months for the length of their telomeres, repetitive DNA material that protects the ends of chromosomes from deteriorating.

Past research we've cited in this space has shown how exercise slows down the shortening of telomeres and stress-related aging. Although scientists wouldn't try to quantify it, cervical cancer patients in the counseling group had longer telomeres.

Or, simply, "The stress didn't change. Their response to it did," lead researcher Dr. Edward Nelson, chief of hematology and oncology at the University of California, Irvine, told WebMD. FYI, counseling may also work as well as an antidepressant too.

American Association for Cancer Research April 2, 2011

healthfinder.gov April 2, 2011

WebMD April 2, 2011

Before becoming CNCA's social networking health blogger almost two years ago, I assumed that I knew more about cancer, the complications, the pain and the frustration of fighting and, inevitably, losing that battle than the average Joe/Mary. Chalk it up to human nature and "know-it-all" hubris on my part.

What I didn't expect to experience regularly: The continuous awe I've felt for ALL cancer fighters -- those survivors I've met in person or written about -- who have chosen not to quit on their lives or themselves. Better to spit in the face of cancer and not allow a disease to define the rest of their lives. Slow them down, yes. Change their lives, very much so. Stopping them cold in their tracks, not one iota…

More studies are suggesting the adversity that comes from a challenge like cancer is certainly life-changing, but not a completely horrible thing either. In fact, the battle could make one stronger and resilient in the long run. The results of a recent meta-analysis of 94 studies involving more than 14,000 patient data collected during the first five years after folks were diagnosed with cancer may explain why.

Researchers found only one-sixth of the cancer patients surveyed suffered from depression, leading them to theorize that depression wasn't an inevitable outcome of a cancer diagnosis and less common than they assumed, regardless of age and gender, and that differences in cancer setting and, possibly, cancer stage may have been overemphasized too.

But, depression shouldn't be the only concern either. Paying attention and screening for related mental health concerns like mood disorders (anxiety, distress and adjustment problems) is just as important, and may go a long way toward explaining why feeling stressed can keep cancer cells alive.

Get Daily Health Updates and Cancer News  Subscribe to This Blog: RSS or Email

The Lancet Oncology January 19, 2011

Medscape Today January 21, 2011 Free Subscription Required

EurekAlert January 18, 2011

The news just keeps getting better and better about the health value of walnuts, already linked to lowering your cholesterol and slowing the progress of prostate cancer in mice.

Researchers from Penn State University and the University of Guelph monitored the health of 22 healthy patients with elevated LDL cholesterol levels -- the bad kind that increases your risk of heart disease -- to determine how diets chock full of walnuts and walnut oil can prepare the human body to deal with stress.

Each patient ate three specific diets lasting six weeks apiece. One diet excluded walnuts altogether, while the others included small amounts of walnuts, walnut oil and flaxseed oil (either mixed into prepared foods or offered as snacks). Between each diet, researchers also measured the blood pressure of patients in a pair of stress tests, involving public speaking and dunking one foot in icy cold water.

The healthy effect of walnuts was seen in significant drops of average diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number measuring artery pressure when the heart is resting) among patients eating diets rich in walnut oil and walnuts. And, after giving a smaller group of patients a vascular ultrasound, researchers learned artery dilation was greatly improved and the amount of c-reactive protein in the blood fell when patients consumed flaxseed oil in addition to walnuts and walnut oil.

Penn State Live October 4, 2010

For the few of you still holding onto the belief that the development of disease and strong emotions aren't connected in some way, it's time to let that myth go for good.

A common molecular protein (heat shock factor-1) triggered by stress -- strong emotions or physical duress brought on by intense workouts -- activates a second protein (Hsp27) that allows cancer cells to survive the typical therapy regimens of radiation and chemotherapy.

The presence and effect of heat shock factor-1 in a cancer environment worried one Ohio State University heart researcher who observed how it protected heart tissue in toxic environments. His concerns were confirmed after experiments with breast cancer cells consistently demonstrated how heat shock factor-1 triggered the expression of Hsp27 that protected cancer cells from elimination, even after exposure to common chemotherapy drugs and radiation that damaged the cells' DNA.

Before you ask, a known molecule (siRNA) reverses the effect of Hsp27 and reactivates the death of cancer cells, but it isn't suitable for cancer patients. And, there's no comparable drug in the development pipeline either.

These results led scientists to recommend cancer patients avoid both physical and emotional stressors in the one to two days prior to their cancer treatments, or risk limiting the good these therapies can do.

In the absence of a go-to drug, here's hoping scientists get around to studying how alternative treatments, like meditation and Qigong, reduce your stress levels and complement the beneficial effect of your cancer treatments.

Molecular Cancer Research September 21, 2010

healthfinder.gov September 23, 2010

ScienceDaily September 22, 2010

Listening to music on an iPod in a quiet place may be cheaper, but I can't think of too many things more relaxing and enjoyable than a massage. If you been looking for health-related reasons to justify having them on a regular basis, consider today's post your ticket to paradise, a better bodily immune system and a decrease in the stress hormone cortisol that slows down healing, according to a recent study.

Scientists studied the effect of different kinds of massage on two sets of healthy patients. One group received 45 minutes of light touch massage while the other experienced a Swedish massage for the same duration. Before their massages, patients were hooked up to IVs so that blood samples could be drawn before, during and after their massages.

For those receiving Swedish massages, the benefits were very obvious, as scientists noted increases in the level of lymphocytes (white blood cells that defend the body from disease), and drops, not only in cortisol levels, but arginine vasopressin (a hormone contributing to aggressive behavior and increasing the amount of cortisol in the human body) and cytokines (signaling proteins produced by white blood cells).

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine September 1, 2010

ScienceDaily September 9, 2010

No question, chronic stress can be very harmful to your health, particularly when you don't take the right steps to treat it. But, how much of the chronic stuff does it really take to put your health at risk?

A consortium of scientists from Israel and Canada may have found a biological marker by measuring the amount of the hormone cortisol, secreted during times of stress, in a 1.2-inch (3 cm) strand of human hair. They compared hair samples taken from 56 male heart attack patients to a control group of equal number who were admitted for unrelated medical reasons (infection, chest pains).

Compared to the control group, higher levels of cortisol were found in the hair samples of heart attack patients, even after taking other risk factors (like BMI) into account.

As always, however, there are caveats. Even though previous research determined cortisol levels in hair match those found in blood, scientists are unsure if those elevated levels match up with a patient's actual feelings of stress, and whether these test results would even be valid for women. If cortisol testing is viable for women, one mental health expert believes it could be a boon for doctors monitoring chronic stress felt by pregnant moms and their unborn children.

Receive Daily Health Updates from CNCA Subscribe to This Blog: RSS or Email

Stress September 2, 2010 Free Full Text Study

ScienceDaily September 4, 2010

LiveScience September 3, 2010

We've discussed the many ways stress affects your health almost always for the negative in this space. The stress that comes from working overtime, according to a European study, can be just as damaging to your heart.

Based on medical data collected on some 6,000 patients over 11 years, civil service employees who worked more than three hours (on top of their typical seven-hour day) elevated their risk for non-fatal heart attacks, angina and death due to heart disease by 60 percent, compared to those who avoided OT.

Unfortunately, the study pinpointed many possibilities for the spike in heart disease -- type A behaviors, sleep deprivation, stress, a lack of work-related freedom and high blood pressure -- but no firm culprits. And, it didn't track blue-collar workers either, which makes me wonder if those downbeat numbers would've risen even higher.

Unfortunately, stress isn't the only thing that can harm your heart. Check out our Facebook page for an interesting study we posted recently about the deadly mix of bottled-up anger and cardiac problems and many more links to studies than we have room to post here.

European Heart Journal May 11, 2010

ScienceDaily May 11, 2010

Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer experienced by American men, other than skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. And, even though some 16 percent of all men (close to one out of every six) will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetimes and it is the second leading cancer-related deaths, only one of every 35 will die from it.

Sounds like reasonably good odds and not particularly deadly ones either, especially if you take care of your health and get the right amount of exercise. So why does the stress of receiving such a diagnosis put male patients at greater risk of cardiovascular problems and suicide?

A study of nearly 169,000 Swedish men culled from the Swedish Cancer Registry from 1961-2004 discovered patients prior to 1987 were 11 times more likely to experience a fatal cardiovascular event during the initial week after being told about their prostate cancer diagnosis. Over a year's time, prostate cancer patients were twice as likely to have a heart attack. Thankfully, those numbers dropped significantly after 1987 to just triple the risk of a cardiovascular event during the first week after a diagnosis, compared to healthy men, and a constant, but slightly elevated risk during the first year after a diagnosis.

And, although the risk of suicide was very tiny (136 patients took their lives during the study), the greatest danger for men came during the first week after a diagnosis.

Just another reason the proper care and handling of emotions is an important part of any cancer survivor's tool kit.

Receive Daily Health Updates from CNCA Subscribe to Our Blog

PLOS Medicine December 15, 2009 Free Full Text Study

Natural News.com December 29, 2009

Yahoo News December 15, 2009