Feeling younger than actual age meant lower early death rate for older people, study finds

Researchers found that older people who felt three or more years younger than their chronological age had a lower death rate compared with those who felt their age or who felt more than one year older than their actual age. Self-perceived age can reflect assessments of health, physical limitation and well-being in later life, and many older people feel younger than their actual age, according to background information in the report. Authors Isla Rippon, M.Sc., and Andrew Steptoe, D.Sc., of the University College London, examined the relationship between self-perceived age and mortality. The authors used data from a study on aging and included 6,489 individuals, whose average chronological age was 65.8 years but whose average self-perceived age was 56.8 years. Most of the adults (69.6%) felt three or more years younger than their actual age, while 25.6% had a self-perceived age close to their real age and 4.8% felt more than a year older than their chronological age. Mortality rates during an average follow-up of 99 months were 14.3% in adults who felt younger, 18.5% in those who felt about their actual age and 24.6% in those adults who felt older, according to the study results. The relationship between self-perceived age and cardiovascular death was strong but there was no association between self-perceived age and cancer death. "The mechanisms underlying these associations merit further investigation. Possibilities include a broader set of health behaviors than we measured (such as maintaining a healthy weight and adherence to medical advice), and greater resilience, sense of mastery and will to live among those who feel younger than their age. Self-perceived age has the potential to change, so interventions may be possible. Individuals who feel older than their actual age could be targeted with health messages promoting positive health behaviors and attitudes toward aging," the study concludes.

Hugs help protect against stress and infection, say researchers from Carnegie Mellon University

Led by Sheldon Cohen, the Robert E. Doherty University Professor of Psychology in CMU's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the researchers tested whether hugs act as a form of social support, protecting stressed people from getting sick. They found that greater social support and more frequent hugs protected people from the increased susceptibility to infection associated with being stressed and resulted in less severe illness symptoms. Cohen and his team chose to study hugging as an example of social support because hugs are typically a marker of having a more intimate and close relationship with another person. "We know that people experiencing ongoing conflicts with others are less able to fight off cold viruses. We also know that people who report having social support are partly protected from the effects of stress on psychological states, such as depression and anxiety," said Cohen. "We tested whether perceptions of social support are equally effective in protecting us from stress-induced susceptibility to infection and also whether receiving hugs might partially account for those feelings of support and themselves protect a person against infection." In 404 healthy adults, perceived support was assessed by a questionnaire, and frequencies of interpersonal conflicts and receiving hugs were derived from telephone interviews conducted on 14 consecutive evenings. Then, the participants were intentionally exposed to a common cold virus and monitored in quarantine to assess infection and signs of illness. The results showed that perceived social support reduced the risk of infection associated with experiencing conflicts. Hugs were responsible for one-third of the protective effect of social support. Among infected participants, greater perceived social support and more frequent hugs both resulted in less severe illness symptoms whether or not they experienced conflicts. "This suggests that being hugged by a trusted person may act as an effective means of conveying support and that increasing the frequency of hugs might be an effective means of reducing the deleterious effects of stress," Cohen said. "The apparent protective effect of hugs may be attributable to the physical contact itself or to hugging being a behavioral indicator of support and intimacy." Cohen added, "Either way, those who receive more hugs are somewhat more protected from infection."

When you go to bed and how long you sleep at a time might actually make it difficult for you to stop worrying, according to researchers at Binghamton University

The study, led by Binghamton Anxiety Clinic Director Meredith Coles and graduate student Jacob Nota, found that people who sleep for shorter periods of time and go to bed very late at night are often overwhelmed with more negative thoughts than those who keep more regular sleeping hours. People are said to have repetitive negative thinking when they have bothersome pessimistic thoughts that seem to repeat in their minds without the person feeling as though he or she has much control over these contemplations. They tend to worry excessively about the future, delve too much in the past and experience annoying intrusive thoughts. Such thoughts are often typical of people suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder. These individuals also tend to have sleep problems. Previous studies have linked sleep problems with such repetitive negative thoughts, especially in cases where someone does not get enough shuteye. Nota and Coles set out to replicate these studies, and to further see if there's any link between having such repetitive thoughts and the actual time when someone goes to bed. They asked 100 young adults at Binghamton University to complete a battery of questionnaires and two computerized tasks. In the process, they measured how much the students worry, ruminate or obsess about something - three measures by which repetitive negative thinking is gauged. The students were also asked whether they were more habitual morning or evening types, preferring to hold regular hours or to have a sleep-wake schedule that is more skewed towards later in the day. The researchers found that people who sleep for shorter periods of time and go to bed later often experience more repetitive negative thoughts than others. This was also true for those students who described themselves as evening types. "Making sure that sleep is obtained during the right time of day may be an inexpensive and easily disseminable intervention for individuals who are bothered by intrusive thoughts," said Nota. The findings also suggest that sleep disruption may be linked to the development of repetitive negative thinking. Nota and Coles believe that it might benefit people who are at risk of developing a disorder characterized by such intrusive thoughts to focus on getting enough sleep. "If further findings support the relation between sleep timing and repetitive negative thinking, this could one day lead to a new avenue for treatment of individuals with internalizing disorders," added Coles. "Studying the relation between reductions in sleep duration and psychopathology has already demonstrated that focusing on sleep in the clinic also leads to reductions in symptoms of psychopathology." This study is part of a line of research examining the relations between sleep behavior and mental health. Based on growing evidence linking sleep and psychopathology, Nota and Coles and their colleagues at Binghamton University are aiming to understand how information about sleep may be used to help individuals with anxiety disorders. People who have sleep apnea or spend less time in deep sleep may be more likely to have changes in the brain that are associated with dementia, according to another study. The study found that people who don't have as much oxygen in their blood during sleep, which occurs with sleep apnea and conditions such as emphysema, are more likely to have tiny abnormalities in brain tissue, called micro infarcts, than people with higher levels of oxygen in the blood. These abnormalities are associated with the development of dementia. In addition, people who spent less time in deep sleep, called slow wave sleep, were more likely to have loss of brain cells than people who spent more time in slow wave sleep. Slow wave sleep is important in processing new memories and remembering facts. People tend to spend less time in slow wave sleep as they age. Loss of brain cells is also associated with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. For the study, 167 Japanese American men had sleep tests conducted in their homes when they were an average age of 84. All were followed until they died an average of six years later, and autopsies were conducted on their brains to look for micro infarcts, loss of brain cells, the plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy bodies found in Lewy body dementia. The researchers divided the participants into four groups based on the percentage of time spent with lower than normal blood oxygen levels during sleep, with the lowest group spending 13% of their time or less with low oxygen levels and the highest group spending 72% to 99% of the night with low oxygen levels. Each group had 41 or 42 men. Of the 41 men in the lowest group, four had micro infarcts in the brain, while 14 of the 42 men in the highest group had the abnormalities, making them nearly four times more likely to have brain damage. Previous studies have also shown a link between sleep stages and dementia. For this study, the participants were again divided into four groups based on the percentage of the night spent in slow wave sleep. Of the 37 men who spent the least time in slow wave sleep, 17 had brain cell loss, compared to seven of the 38 men who spent the most time in slow wave sleep. The results remained the same after adjusting for factors such as smoking and body mass index and after excluding participants who had died early in the follow-up period and those who had low scores on cognitive tests at the beginning of the study. "These findings suggest that low blood oxygen levels and reduced slow wave sleep may contribute to the processes that lead to cognitive decline and dementia," said study author Rebecca P. Gelber, MD, DrPH, of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System and the Pacific Health Research and Education Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii. "More research is needed to determine how slow wave sleep may play a restorative role in brain function and whether preventing low blood oxygen levels may reduce the risk of dementia." Gelber noted that a previous study showed that use of a continuous positive airway pressure machine (CPAP) for obstructive sleep apnea may improve cognition, even after dementia has developed. There was no association between the sleep measures and the level of plaques and tangles.

At the Center for Brain Research at the MedUni Vienna an important factor for stress has been identified in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden

This is the protein secretagogin that plays an important role in the release of the stress hormone CRH and which only then enables stress processes in the brain to be transmitted to the pituitary gland and then onwards to the organs. "If, however, the presence of secretagogin, a calcium-binding protein, is suppressed, then CRH (= Corticotropin Releasing Hormone) might not be released in the hypothalamus of the brain thus preventing the triggering of hormonal responses to stress in the body," explains Tibor Harkany of the Department of Molecular Neurosciences at the MedUni Vienna. The hypothalamus requires the assistance of CRH to stimulate the production and release of the hormone ACTH from cells in the pituitary gland into the blood stream. Thus, ACTH reaches the adrenal cortex and once there stimulates the production and release of further hormones including, cortisol, a vital stress hormone. Upon stress, the hypothalamus responds by releasing CRH and thus produces the critical signal orchestrating also ACTH and cortisol secretion. However, if this cycle is interrupted, it is not possible for acute, and even chronic, stress to arise. Another interesting fact: secretagogin was discovered at the MedUni Vienna 15 years ago by Ludwig Wagner at the University Department of Internal Medicine III in connection with research on the pancreas. "Now we have a better understanding of how stress is generated," says Tomas Hökfelt of the Karolinska Institutet and guest professor at the MedUni Vienna. This could result in a further development where secretagogin is deployed as a tool to treat stress, perhaps in people suffering from mental illness such as depression, burn out or post-traumatic stress disorder, but also in cases of chronic stress brought on by pain. If a rapid recovery phase follows a period of stress, body and mind are restored to "normal working", which is associated with a suppression of the release of circulating stress hormones. In contrast, the consequences of chronic stress are manifold and can, for example, lead to an increased tendency to suffer from infections but also to high blood pressure, diabetes and an increased risk of cardio-vascular disease right through to chronic headaches, tinnitus or osteoporosis. Illnesses resulting from stress steadily increase in frequency and place a burden on the health care system. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work has therefore dedicated 2014 to the subject of stress. According to the Austrian employees' organization, international studies show that in Europe over 50% of sick leave is attributable to a form of stress. In a recent analysis by the Austrian Economic Research Institute, IWS, a figure of seven billion Euros a year was placed on the economic damage due to mental illness in Austria.

Up to 80% of American patients with breast cancer will undergo complementary therapies to manage anxiety and stress after they receive a diagnosis

Though there’s no clear consensus on which integrative and alternative therapies work and which are ineffective, more and more medical practices have incorporated practices like mindfulness and acupuncture into their offerings. But a new study conducted by several major oncology facilities has examined which therapies benefit patients the most. The answer? Meditation, yoga and relaxation with imagery. The three methods are known to be calming for those who practice them, and the researchers gave the practices an “A” for treating symptoms of mood disorders that are highly common among people with a recent diagnosis. To come up with the grade, the researchers parsed through clinical trials conducted from 1990-2013 on complementary therapies paired with routine cancer treatment, like chemotherapy. The researchers then graded each therapy based on efficacy. Acupuncture was given a “B” for controlling chemo nausea, and music therapy also received a “B” for anxiety and stress. “Women with breast cancer are among the highest users [of these therapies]…and usage has been increasing,” the authors write in their study. “Clear clinical practice guidelines are needed.” The study involved researchers from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, MD Anderson, University of Michigan, Memorial Sloan Kettering and more. The researchers also gave some therapies low grades. For example, healing touch was given a “C” for lowering pain, and aloe vera gel was not recommended at all for preventing skin reactions from radiation therapy. The researchers also point out that while some natural products were shown to be effective, they did not have the safety data to back them up, suggesting more formal research is needed before some of the therapies can be officially recommended. As patients with breast cancer and other forms of cancer continue to seek other ways to deal with some of the emotional side effects that stem from serious illness, it will become increasingly important for hospitals to find ways to answer their unmet needs — which might include a yoga class.

Meditating really is a workout for the mind, according to scientists who have found it can make the brain bigger

Practicing simple meditation techniques such as concentrating on your breathing helps build denser grey matter in parts of the brain associated with learning and memory, controlling emotions and compassion. Just eight weeks of meditation can produce structural changes large enough to be picked up by MRI scanners, scientists have discovered. In a study run by Harvard neuro-scientist Dr Sara Lazar and her colleagues, 16 volunteers had their brains scanned before and after an eight-week mindfulness course. Mindfulness is an increasingly popular form of meditation where the aim is to focus thoughts on the body’s physical sensations and detach yourself from the chatter of the mind. The volunteers had weekly group sessions in which they did breathing exercises, gentle yoga and a body scan, focusing their thoughts on one part of the body at a time. They were also asked to practice for about half an hour each day. MRI scans were taken before and after the sessions and compared with volunteers who had not taken part in the meditation course. After eight weeks, those who went on the course had thicker grey matter in several parts of the brain. These included the left hippocampus, a small horseshoe-shaped structure in the central brain involved in memory, learning and emotional regulation. Other parts strengthened were the posterior cingulate cortex – again important for memory and emotions; the temporo-parietal junction, involved in empathizing; and the cerebellum, which helps coordinate movement. Those who did not go on the course experienced no such structural brain changes. Dr Lazar said mental exercise stimulated the neurons that make up grey matter to form denser connections among themselves.

A UCL-led study of 9,050 English people with an average age of 65 found that the people with the greatest well being were 30% less likely to die during the average eight and a half year follow-up period than those with the least well being

The study was conducted by researchers from UCL, Princeton University and Stony Brook University. It used questionnaire answers to measure a type of well being called 'eudemonic well being', which relates to your sense of control, feeling that what you do is worthwhile, and your sense of purpose in life. People were divided into four categories based on their answers, ranked from highest well being to lowest well being. The results were adjusted for age, sex, socio-economic status, physical health, depression, smoking, physical activity and alcohol intake, to rule out as many factors as possible that could influence both health and well being. For example, terminal illnesses could reduce both well being and life expectancy. Over the next eight and a half years, 9% of people in the highest well being category had died, compared with 29% in the lowest category. Once all the other factors had been taken into account, people with the highest well being were 30% less likely to die over the study period, living on average two years longer than those in the lowest well being group. "We have previously found that happiness is associated with a lower risk of death," says Professor Andrew Steptoe, Director of the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, who led the study. "These analyses show that the meaningfulness and sense of purpose that older people have in their lives are also related to survival. We cannot be sure that higher well being necessarily causes lower risk of death, since the relationship may not be causal. But the findings raise the intriguing possibility that increasing well being could help to improve physical health. There are several biological mechanisms that may link well being to improved health, for example through hormonal changes or reduced blood pressure. Further research is now needed to see if such changes might contribute to the links between well being and life expectancy in older people." The researchers also examined data on 'evaluative well being', a measure of life satisfaction, and 'hedonic well being', related to feelings of happiness, sadness, anger, stress and pain. International data from the Gallup World Poll confirmed that in high-income English speaking countries, life satisfaction dips around middle age and rises in older age, but the pattern varied across the world. In the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, older residents reported very low rankings of life satisfaction compared with younger residents in those regions. This same pattern is seen in Latin America and Caribbean countries, though life satisfaction does not decrease as sharply as in the Eastern European countries. And in sub-Saharan Africa, life satisfaction is very low at all ages. "Economic theory can predict a dip in well being among the middle age in high-income, English-speaking countries," says co-author Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University. "This is the period at which wage rates typically peak and is the best time to work and earn the most, even at the expense of present well-being, so as to have increased wealth and well-being later in life. What is interesting is that this pattern is not universal. Other regions, like the former Soviet Union, have been affected by the collapse of communism and other systems. Such events have affected the elderly who have lost a system that, however imperfect, gave meaning to their lives, and, in some cases, their pensions and health care."

A new study that measured "dispositional mindfulness" along with seven indicators of cardiovascular health found that persons reporting higher degrees of awareness of their present feelings and experiences had better health

The research suggests that interventions to improve mindfulness could benefit cardiovascular health. Researchers at Brown University found a significant association between self-reported "dispositional mindfulness" and better scores on four of seven cardiovascular health indicators, as well as a composite overall health score. Dispositional mindfulness is defined as someone's awareness and attention to what they are thinking and feeling in the moment. The study is the first to quantify such an association between mindfulness and better cardiovascular health, said study lead author Eric Loucks, assistant professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health. It's an encouraging link for health promotion, because mindfulness can be enhanced with training. "Mindfulness is changeable, and standardized mindfulness interventions are available," Loucks said. "Mostly they've been looked at for mental health and pain management, but increasingly they are being looked at for cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, smoking, and blood pressure." The connection may come about because people who are attuned to their present feelings may be better at minding and managing the various cravings - for salty or sugary foods or cigarettes or even a spell on the couch - that undermine health, Loucks said. Mindfulness interventions, for example, have already shown efficacy in helping people to quit smoking. In the study, Loucks and his colleagues asked 382 participants in the broader New England Family Study to answer the 15 questions of the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS). MAAS questions, rated on a six-point scale from "almost always" to "almost never" include "I find it difficult to stay focused on what's happening in the present" and "I tend not to notice feelings of physical tension or discomfort until they really grab my attention." The participants also underwent tests to determine ratings on seven indicators of cardiovascular health, as suggested by the American Heart Association: smoking avoidance, physical activity, body mass index, fruit and vegetable consumption, cholesterol, blood pressure, and fasting blood glucose. The researchers also noted the participants' age, race, sex, education and scores on standardized scales of depression, and sense of control in their lives. In their analysis of the data, Loucks and his team examined the association between the degree of self-reported mindfulness and the scores on each of the seven cardiovascular health indicators, accounting for age, sex, and race. They also calculated a composite score of the health indicators. Participants with high MAAS scores had an 83% greater prevalence of good cardiovascular health (as measured by the composite score) compared to those with relatively low MAAS scores. High vs. low MAAS scores were associated with significantly higher cardiovascular health on four of the seven individual indicators: BMI, physical activity, fasting glucose, and avoiding smoking. That higher mindfulness did not also associate with higher scores for blood pressure or cholesterol may be because neither of those health indicators directly affect how someone feels in a typical moment, whereas smoking, obesity (and closely related fasting glucose), and physical activity are all much more explicitly evident experiences for the self. Meanwhile, fruit and vegetable consumption, an indicator of diet quality, showed a positive association with higher MAAS scores, but with too wide a range of uncertainty to be considered statistically significant. Loucks said that the next step in his research is to begin testing whether improving mindfulness can increase cardiovascular health indicators. He said that he hopes to launch randomized controlled trials with long-term follow-up (because behavioral interventions often look good in the short term but then don't last).

While many students opt for the all night cramming sessions, those who rest and reflect on what they have learnt are most likely to do well, researchers say

Researchers have found that our learning ability is boosted when people allow their minds to rest and reflect on things that they've learned. The researchers say that their findings could have a major impact of the way children are taught. Scientists have already established that resting the mind, as in daydreaming, helps strengthen memories of events and retention of information. Now researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have shown that the right kind of mental rest, which strengthens and consolidates memories from recent learning tasks, helps boost future learning. Margaret Schlichting, a graduate student researcher, and Alison Preston, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, gave participants in the study two learning tasks in which participants were asked to memorize different series of associated photo pairs. Between the tasks, participants rested and could think about anything they chose, but brain scans found that the ones who used that time to reflect on what they had learned earlier in the day fared better on tests pertaining to what they learned later, especially where small threads of information between the two tasks overlapped. Participants seemed to be making connections that helped them absorb information later on, even if it was only loosely related to something they learned before.

Curiosity isn't just the sign of a healthy mind — a new study suggests that it actually helps the mind get stronger

Researchers in Australia found that people were better able to remember something if they were naturally curious about the subject. That wasn't too surprising. The more intriguing part of the study showed that once a person's curiosity is piqued about anything, the brain gets fired up and is better able to learn about other subjects, too. Using MRI scans, the researchers discovered that regions of the brain associated with memory and reward light up when a person gets curious. “There are times when people feel they can take in a lot of new information, and other times when they feel their memories are terrible,” a researcher said. “This work suggests that once you light that fire of curiosity, you put the brain in a state that’s more conducive to learning." The brain, he adds, "becomes more like a sponge that’s ready to soak up whatever is happening.” Researchers followed up with their subjects a full day after their tests and found that the effects still held.

New research by biomedical engineers at the University of Minnesota shows that people who practice yoga and meditation long term can learn to control a computer with their minds faster and better than people with little or no yoga or meditation experience

The research could have major implications for treatments of people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases. In the study, researchers involved a total of 36 participants. One group of 12 had at least one year of experience in yoga or meditation at least two times per week for one hour. The second group included 24 healthy participants who had little or no yoga or meditation experience. Both groups were new to systems using the brain to control a computer. Both groups participated in three, two-hour experiments over four weeks in which they wore a high tech, non-invasive cap over the scalp that picked up brain activity. The participants were asked to move a computer cursor across the screen by imaging left or right hand movements. The participants with yoga or meditation experience were twice as likely to complete the brain-computer interface task by the end of 30 trials and learned three times faster than their counterparts for the left-right cursor movement experiments. "In recent years, there has been a lot of attention on improving the computer side of the brain-computer interface but very little attention to the brain side," said lead researcher Bin He, a biomedical engineering professor in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering and director of the University's Institute for Engineering in Medicine. "This comprehensive study shows for the first time that looking closer at the brain side may provide a valuable tool for reducing obstacles for brain-computer interface success in early stages." Researchers have been increasingly focused on finding ways to help physically disabled individuals who are paralyzed, have lost limbs, or suffer from diseases such as ALS or cerebral palsy. In these cases, brain function remains intact, but these people have to find a way to bypass muscular control to move a wheelchair, control an artificial limb, or control other devices. Professor He gained international attention in 2013 when members of his research team were able to demonstrate flying a robot with only their minds. However, they found that not everyone can easily learn to control a computer with their brains. Many people are unsuccessful in controlling the computer after multiple attempts. A consistent and reliable EEG brain signal may depend on an undistracted mind and sustained attention. Meditators have shown more distinctive EEG patterns than untrained participants, which may explain their success. Professor He said that he got the idea for the study more than five years ago when he began his brain-computer interface research and noticed one woman participant who was much more successful than other participants at controlling the computer with her brain. The woman had extensive experience with yoga and mediation, referred to by researchers as Mind-Body Awareness Training (MBAT). The next step for He and his team is to study a group of participants over time who are participating in yoga or meditation for the first time to see if their performance on the brain-computer interface improves. "Our ultimate goal is to help people who are paralyzed or have brain diseases regain mobility and independence," He said. "We need to look at all possibilities to improve the number of people who could benefit from our research."

A mindfulness-based therapy for depression has the added benefit of reducing health-care visits among patients who often see their family doctors, according to a new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES)

The research showed that frequent health service users who received mindfulness-based cognitive therapy showed a significant reduction in non-mental health care visits over a one-year period, compared with those who received other types of group therapy. "We speculate that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy has elements that could help people who are high health-care utilizers manage their distress without needing to go to a doctor," says Dr. Paul Kurdyak, lead author and Director of Health Systems Research at CAMH and Lead of the Mental Health and Addictions Research Program at ICES. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is a structured form of psychotherapy that combines elements of cognitive-behaviour therapy with mindfulness meditation. It is delivered in a group setting for eight weekly sessions. The therapy was originally developed to prevent relapse of symptoms among people with recurring depression, as an alternative to ongoing medication treatment. It has been proven effective in multiple studies, and has been applied to other conditions such as anxiety and chronic pain. "Primary care physicians play a large role in managing patients with distress, and they often report feeling overwhelmed and unable to effectively deal with cases of medically unexplained symptoms," says Dr. Kurdyak. "This study shows the potential of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to help both patients and their doctors."

The happiness of over 18,000 people worldwide has been predicted by a mathematical equation developed by researchers at UCL, with results showing that moment-to-moment happiness reflects not just how well things are going, but whether things are going better than expected

The new equation accurately predicts exactly how happy people will say they are from moment to moment based on recent events, such as the rewards they receive and the expectations they have during a decision-making task. Scientists found that overall wealth accumulated during the experiment was not a good predictor of happiness. Instead, moment-to-moment happiness depended on the recent history of rewards and expectations. These expectations depended, for example, on whether the available options could lead to good or bad outcomes. The study investigated the relationship between happiness and reward, and the neural processes that lead to feelings that are central to our conscious experience, such as happiness. Before now, it was known that life events affect an individual's happiness but not exactly how happy people will be from moment to moment as they make decisions and receive outcomes resulting from those decisions, something the new equation can predict. Scientists believe that quantifying subjective states mathematically could help doctors better understand mood disorders, by seeing how self-reported feelings fluctuate in response to events like small wins and losses in a smartphone game. A better understanding of how mood is determined by life events and circumstances, and how that differs in people suffering from mood disorders, will hopefully lead to more effective treatments. For the study, 26 subjects completed a decision-making task in which their choices led to monetary gains and losses, and they were repeatedly asked to answer the question 'how happy are you right now?'. The participant's neural activity was also measured during the task using functional MRI and from these data, scientists built a computational model in which self-reported happiness was related to recent rewards and expectations. The model was then tested on 18,420 participants in the game 'What makes me happy?' in a smartphone app developed at UCL called 'The Great Brain Experiment'. Scientists were surprised to find that the same equation could be used to predict how happy subjects would be while they played the smartphone game, even though subjects could win only points and not money. Lead author of the study, Dr Robb Rutledge (UCL Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging and the new Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing), said: "It is often said that you will be happier if your expectations are lower. We find that there is some truth to this: lower expectations make it more likely that an outcome will exceed those expectations and have a positive impact on happiness. However, expectations also affect happiness even before we learn the outcome of a decision. If you have plans to meet a friend at your favorite restaurant, those positive expectations may increase your happiness as soon as you make the plan." The team used functional MRI to demonstrate that neural signals during decisions and outcomes in the task in an area of the brain called the striatum can be used to predict changes in moment-to-moment happiness. The striatum has a lot of connections with dopamine neurons, and signals in this brain area are thought to depend at least partially on dopamine. These results raise the possibility that dopamine may play a role in determining happiness.

Weight loss significantly improves physical health but effects on mental health are less straightforward, finds new research

In a study of 1,979 overweight and obese adults in Britain, people who lost 5% or more of their initial body weight over four years showed significant changes in markers of physical health, but were more likely to report depressed mood than those who stayed within 5% of their original weight. The research highlights the need to consider mental health alongside physical health when losing weight. Clinical trials of weight loss have been shown to improve participants' mood, but this could be a result of the supportive environment rather than the weight loss itself, as the effects are seen very early on in treatment and are not related to the extent of weight loss. It's important to note this new result does not mean that weight loss necessarily causes depression directly, as depression and weight loss may share a common cause. However, it shows that weight loss outside the clinical trial setting cannot be assumed to improve mood and raises questions about the psychological impact of weight loss. The data came from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a British study of adults aged 50 or older, and excluded participants with a diagnosis of clinical depression or a debilitating illness. Depressed mood and overall well-being were assessed using standard questionnaires and weight was measured by trained nurses. Of the 1,979 overweight and obese participants, 278 (14%) lost at least 5% of their initial body weight with a mean weight loss of 6.8kg per person. Before adjusting for serious health issues and major life events such as bereavement, which can cause both weight loss and depressed mood, the people who lost weight were 78% more likely to report depressed mood. After controlling for these, the increased odds of depressed mood remained significant at 52%.

Meditating can have an almost instant effect on reducing stress

Researchers say that three consecutive days of 25 minute sessions can have a dramatic effect. In a study of mindfulness meditation, J. David Creswell, associate professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and his research team had 66 healthy individuals aged 18-30 years old participate in a three-day experiment. Some participants went through a brief mindfulness meditation training program; for 25 minutes for three consecutive days, the individuals were given breathing exercises to help them monitor their breath and pay attention to their present moment experiences. A second group of participants completed a matched three-day cognitive training program in which they were asked to critically analyze poetry in an effort to enhance problem-solving skills. Following the final training activity, all participants were asked to complete stressful speech and math tasks in front of stern-faced evaluators. Each individual reported their stress levels in response to stressful speech and math performance stress tasks. The participants who received the brief mindfulness meditation training reported reduced stress perceptions to the speech and math tasks, indicating that the mindfulness meditation fostered psychological stress resilience.

Meditation is more than just a way to calm our thoughts and lower stress levels: our brain processes more thoughts and feelings during meditation than when you are simply relaxing, a coalition of researchers from Norway and Australia has found

A team of researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the University of Oslo and the University of Sydney is now working to determine how the brain works during different kinds of meditation. Different meditation techniques can actually be divided into two main groups. One type is concentrative meditation, where the meditating person focuses attention on his or her breathing or on specific thoughts, and in doing so, suppresses other thoughts. The other type may be called nondirective meditation, where the person who is meditating effortlessly focuses on his or her breathing or on a meditation sound, but beyond that the mind is allowed to wander as it pleases. Some modern meditation methods are of this nondirective kind. "No one knows how the brain works when you meditate. That is why I'd like to study it," says Jian Xu, who is a physician at St. Olavs Hospital in Trondheim, Norway and a researcher at the Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging at NTNU. Fourteen people who had extensive experience with the Norwegian technique Acem meditation were tested in an MRI machine. In addition to simple resting, they undertook two different mental meditation activities, nondirective meditation and a more concentrative meditation task. The research team wanted to test people who were used to meditation because it meant fewer misunderstandings about what the subjects should actually be doing while they lay in the MRI machine. Nondirective meditation led to higher activity than during rest in the part of the brain dedicated to processing self-related thoughts and feelings. When test subjects performed concentrative meditation, the activity in this part of the brain was almost the same as when they were just resting. "I was surprised that the activity of the brain was greatest when the person's thoughts wandered freely on their own, rather than when the brain worked to be more strongly focused," said Xu. "When the subjects stopped doing a specific task and were not really doing anything special, there was an increase in activity in the area of the brain where we process thoughts and feelings. It is described as a kind of resting network. And it was this area that was most active during nondirective meditation." "The study indicates that nondirective meditation allows for more room to process memories and emotions than during concentrated meditation," says Svend Davanger, a neuroscientist at the University of Oslo, and co-author of the study. "This area of the brain has its highest activity when we rest. It represents a kind of basic operating system, a resting network that takes over when external tasks do not require our attention. It is remarkable that a mental task like nondirective meditation results in even higher activity in this network than regular rest," says Davanger. Most of the research team behind the study does not practice meditation, although three do: Professors Are Holen and Øyvind Ellingsen from NTNU and Professor Svend Davanger from the University of Oslo. Acem meditation is a technique that falls under the category of nondirective meditation.

Laughter triggers brain waves similar to those associated with meditation, according to a small new study

It also found that other forms of stimulation produce different types of brain waves. The study included 31 people whose brain waves were monitored while they watched humorous, spiritual or distressing video clips. While watching the humorous videos, the volunteers' brains had high levels of gamma waves, which are the same ones produced during meditation, researchers found. During the spiritual videos, the participants' brains showed higher levels of alpha brain waves, similar to when a person is at rest. The distressing videos caused flat brain wave bands, similar to when a person feels detached, non-responsive or doesn't want to be in a certain situation. Researchers were led by Lee Berk, an associate professor in the School of Allied Health Professions, and an associate research professor of pathology and human anatomy in the School of Medicine, at Loma Linda University, in California. "What we have found in our study is that humor associated with mirthful laughter sustains high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations. Gamma is the only frequency found in every part of the brain," Berk said. "What this means is that humor actually engages the entire brain — it is a whole brain experience with the gamma wave band frequency and humor, similar to meditation, holds it there; we call this being 'in the zone,'" Berk explained. He said that with laughter, "it's as if the brain gets a workout." This effect is important because it "allows for the subjective feeling states of being able to think more clearly and have more integrative thoughts," Berk said. "This is of great value to individuals who need or want to revisit, reorganize or rearrange various aspects of their lives or experiences, to make them feel whole or more focused."

An ancient form of meditation and exercise could help women who suffer from urinary incontinence, according to a new study

Researchers discovered that a yoga training program, designed to improve pelvic health, can help women gain more control over their urination and avoid accidental urine leakage. Men were not included in this study because urinary incontinence in men is often related to problems related to the prostate, which may be less likely to improve with yoga. "Yoga is often directed at mindful awareness, increasing relaxation, and relieving anxiety and stress," said Alison Huang, MD, assistant professor in the UC San Francisco School of Medicine. "For these reasons, yoga has been directed at a variety of other conditions - metabolic syndrome or pain syndromes - but there's also a reason to think that it could help for incontinence as well." Huang and her colleagues recruited 20 women from the Bay Area who were 40 years and older and who suffered from urinary incontinence on a daily basis. Half were randomly assigned to take part in a six-week yoga therapy program and the other half were not. The women who took part in the yoga program experienced an overall 70% improvement - or reduction - in the frequency of their urine leakage compared to the baseline. The control group - or the group that did not start yoga therapy - only had 13% improvement. Most of the observed improvement in incontinence was in stress incontinence, or urine leakage brought on by activities that increase abdominal pressure such as coughing, sneezing, and bending over. Huang and her colleagues believe that yoga can improve urinary incontinence through more than one mechanism. Because incontinence is associated with anxiety and depression, women suffering from incontinence may benefit from yoga's emphasis on mindful meditation and relaxation. But regular practice of yoga may also help women strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor that support the bladder and protect against incontinence. Approximately 25 million adults in America suffer from some form of urinary incontinence, according to the National Association for Continence. Up to 80% of them are women. Urinary incontinence becomes more common as women age, although many younger women also suffer from it.

Researchers say that the key to a long and happy life is to cut yourself some slack

Brandeis University researchers have found a connection between a self-compassionate attitude and lower levels of stress-induced inflammation. Psychological stress can trigger biological responses similar to the effects of illness or injury, including inflammation. While regulated inflammation can help stave off infection or promote healing, unregulated inflammation can lead to cardiovascular disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. Self-compassion describes behaviors such as self-forgiveness or, more colloquially, cutting yourself some slack. A person with high levels of self-compassion may not blame themselves for stress beyond their control or may be more willing to move on from an argument, rather than dwelling on it for days. The researchers found that people with higher levels of self-compassion had lower levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), an inflammatory agent linked to stress.

People who are materialistic are more likely to be depressed and unsatisfied, in part because they find it harder to be grateful for what they have, according to a study

"Gratitude is a positive mood. It's about other people," said study lead author Jo-Ann Tsang, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor's College of Arts and Sciences. "Previous research that we and others have done finds that people are motivated to help people that help them - and to help others as well. We're social creatures, and so focusing on others in a positive way is good for our health." But materialism tends to be "me-centered." A material outlook focuses on what one does not have, impairing the ability to be grateful for what one already has, researchers said. "Our ability to adapt to new situations may help explain why 'more stuff' doesn't make us any happier," said study co-author James Roberts, Ph.D., holder of The Ben H. Williams Professorship in Marketing in Baylor's Hankamer School of Business. "As we amass more and more possessions, we don't get any happier - we simply raise our reference point," he said. "That new 2,500-square-foot house becomes the baseline for your desires for an even bigger house. It's called the Treadmill of Consumption. We continue to purchase more and more stuff but we don't get any closer to happiness, we simply speed up the treadmill." Study results were based on an analysis of 246 members of the department of marketing in a mid-sized private university in the southwestern United States, with an average age of 21. They took part in a 15-minute survey using a 15-item scale of materialism. Previous research suggests that materialists, despite the fact they are more likely to achieve material goals, are less satisfied overall with their lives. They are more likely to be unhappy and have lower self-esteem. They also are more likely to be less satisfied with relationships and less involved in community events. Meanwhile, those who are grateful are likely to find more meaning in life, previous research shows. The study notes that ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus advised, "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."

Happiness and Seon Buddhist meditation

Hwansan Sunim, who has studied Seon Buddhism under the guidance of Korean zen master Songdam at Yonghwasa Temple in Incheon, South Korea, shares Seon Buddhist principles for dealing with life's challenges through his instructional YouTube video series:

Practicing mindfulness meditation, which emphasizes identifying and distancing oneself from certain thoughts - without judging them - weakened chocolate cravings among people with a self-declared sweet tooth, Canadian researchers say

Apparently the trick is to distance yourself from your cravings by thinking of craving-related thoughts as separate from yourself. Mindfulness meditation teaches us that we are not our thoughts and that we can take control over our thoughts in a relatively short period of time. To do that, the goal is to create mental distance between oneself and one's cravings, identifying a craving as simply a thought. The technique may work by changing mental habits over time, training the brain to rewire itself into a state in which cravings are not as strong, and in which negative habits have been broken down and replaced with positive thinking.

Body Scan

This can be done either lying down or sitting in a chair:

Is stress really a friend?

Michael Friedman responds to Kelly McGonigal's claim that stress can be beneficial.

Mindfulness: What is the evidence that the practice – part meditation, part CBT – works?

David Derbyshire has written an insightful article where he cuts through the hype and looks at the actual benefits of mindfulness meditation. Derbyshire talks to Professor Mark Williams, one of the pioneers of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in Britain and a recently retired professor of clinical psychology at Oxford University. Williams says that: "A lot of people think it will cure everything. But we know there is nothing that cures everything. There is some interesting work in psychosis, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia but it's in its early days. There's a lot of hype around mindfulness and we need to be cautious because it doesn't serve our science or patients well if we're overenthusiastic. We have to make sure the science catches up with the enthusiasm."

Claim: Transcendental Meditation significantly reduces PTSD in African refugees within 10 days

African civilians in war-torn countries have experienced the threat of violence or death, and many have witnessed the abuse, torture, rape and even murder of loved ones. Many Congolese living in Ugandan refugee camps are suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). New research claims that Congolese war refugees who learned the Transcendental Meditation technique showed a significant reduction in post-traumatic stress disorder in just 10 days. In the study, Significant Reductions in Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Congolese Refugees within 10 days Transcendental Meditation Practice, 11 subjects were tested after 10-days and 30-days TM practice. After just 10-days PTSD symptoms dropped almost 30 points. "An earlier study found a similar result after 30 days where 90% of TM subjects dropped to a non-symptomatic level. But we were surprised to see such a significant reduction with this group after just 10 days," said study author Brian Rees, MD, MPH. The subjects were assessed using the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for Civilians, (PCL-C), which rates the severity of PTSD on a scale from 17 to 85. A score below 35 means the symptoms of PTSD have abated. The subjects in the study initially tested with an average score of 77.9. After just 10 days of practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique, their PTSD test scores dropped to an average of 48, which was highly significant clinically. Thirty days later the subjects were tested again with their PTSD scores falling to an average of 35.3 — meaning that they were nearly without symptoms of PTSD. "What makes this study interesting is when we tested them in the 90 days before they began the TM technique, their PTSD scores kept going up," said coauthor Fred Travis, director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management. "During that period their scores were rising, from 68.5 at the beginning to 77.9 after 90 days. But once they started the Transcendental Meditation technique, their PTSD scores plummeted." According to the researchers, during this particular meditation technique one experiences a deep state of restful alertness. Repeated experience of this state for 20 minutes twice a day cultures the nervous system to maintain settled mental and physical functioning the rest of the day. This helps to minimize disturbing thoughts, sleep difficulties, and other adverse PTSD symptoms. A previous study of Congolese refugees, which involved 42 subjects claimed that the Transcendental Meditation group had an average Checklist score of below 35 after 30 days, a non-symptomatic level, while the average score of the control group actually worsened over the same period. "This is now the fourth study to show an improvement in PTSD," said Dr. Rees, a colonel in the US Army Reserve Medical Corps. "The Transcendental Meditation technique is increasingly being seen as a viable treatment by the US military."

Mindfulness meditation with Dr. Donna Rockwell

Does meditation lead people to behave better, improve their relationships or make them happier?

Tony Schwartz has some doubts about the value of meditation.

How to make stress your friend

Kelly McGonigal explains how changing our minds about stress can make us healthier:

So Hum Mantra Meditation

And here is something for those who enjoy a little mantra meditation:

Mindfulness may have a negative effect on creativity

In 2012, Jonathan Schooler, who runs a lab investigating mindfulness and creativity at the University of California, Santa Barbara, published a study titled “Inspired by Distraction: Mind Wandering Facilitates Creative Incubation.” In it, he found that having participants spend a brief period of time on an undemanding task that maximizes mind wandering improved their subsequent performance on a test of creativity. In a follow-up study, he reported that physicists and writers alike came up with their most insightful ideas while spacing out. “A third of the creative ideas they had during a two-week period came when their minds were wandering,” Schooler said. “And those ideas were more likely to be characterized as ‘aha’ insights that overcame an impasse.” The trick is knowing when mindfulness is called for and when it’s not. “When you’re staring out the window, you may well be coming up with your next great idea,” he said. “But you’re not paying attention to the teacher. So the challenge is finding the balance between mindfulness and mind wandering. If you’re driving in a difficult situation, if you’re operating machinery, if you’re having a conversation, it’s useful to hold that focus. But that could be taken to an extreme, where one always holds their attention in the present and never lets it wander.”

There is growing evidence that optimistic people not only tend to live longer but may reap physical benefits as well, allowing them to continue working, volunteering, participating in activities or doing whatever they deem important

A recent study analyzed data on 3,199 people, 60 and older, including their attitudes about how much they enjoyed life, any problems they had with basic daily functions such as dressing and bathing, and how mobile they were. About 21% were deemed to have a high level of enjoyment about life, 56% a medium level and 23% a low level of enjoyment. In an eight-year span, problems with day-to-day tasks generally increased and mobility declined. About 4% of those most upbeat about life developed two or more new functional impairments, compared with 17% of those who enjoyed life the least. During this time, people assessed as enjoying life at a medium or low level were about 80% more likely than their happier counterparts to have developed mobility and functional problems. In general, people who meditate tend to be more optimistic than those who don't, so meditation may provide health benefits for us as we move into our golden years.

Does mindfulness have a downside?

Mindfulness may have a negative effect on learning and memory.

What is mindfulness?

Here is how Jon Kabat-Zinn defines it:

The effortful effortlessness of meditation

George Hofmann feels that mindfulness risks becoming the latest self-help fad to perish from oversimplification.

Religion may be the answer to combating work stress because it can provide a buffer against the strains of modern life

Dr Roxane Gervais, a senior psychologist at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Stockport, surveyed employees to find out how content they were with their working lives. Her study concluded that employees who are more actively religious are more likely to report low levels of anxiety, depression and fatigue and also higher presence of meaning in life, that is feeling that their lives have meaning. Workers said that attending religious services connects them to a higher being as well as makes them feel better about themselves. These findings are being presented at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology’s in Brighton. Previous studies have shown that companies who accommodated workers beliefs improved morale, staff retention and loyalty. The report also found that those who regularly practiced religion were more likely to have healthier lifestyles and so took fewer sick days.

What keeps some people from meditating?

Diane Winston: The Practice of Mindfulness

Diana Winston, a former Buddhist nun who is the director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA Mindful Awareness Center, discusses mindfulness meditation:

Meditation podcasts

The UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center has some free guided meditations that you can play or download onto your computer.