Chronic stress strongly linked with addictive tendencies, quality of life

by Global Good News staff writer
Global Good News  
1 February 2013


'One of the most important factors in determining the quality of a person's life is simply how well their stress response works,' explained Dr William Stixrud at a recent conference on Stress, Meditation, Addictions, and Self-Recovery.

Dr Stixrud, a clinical neuropsychologist who has served as consultant to the National Institutes of Health Division of Neuropsychology, spoke to the attendees about the deleterious effects of stress on managing addictive tendencies.

'We live in a chronically anxious society,' he said.

How well people cope with stress and how they respond to challenges in life play a major role in predicting addictive tendencies.

'It is assumed that we have the same fight or flight response . . . as our ancient ancestors did,' Dr Stixrud said. An animal in nature might encounter a predator and choose to run or fight. Either way, the scenario would be short-lived and stress hormones would basically normalize in about 45 minutes.

However, Dr Stixrud added, 'In a modern life, we can keep our stress response turned on for hours at a time, days at a time, weeks and months at a time.

'It turns out that chronically high levels of stress hormones are always deleterious and it also turns out that stress powerfully affects the development of the brain. . . . Kids who have a lot of stress early on, basically their stress response stays turned on long enough that the amygdala* gets bigger and it gets more interconnected with the rest of the brain.'

The amygdala, explained Dr Stixrud, is a threat detector. It is necessary, but when it gets bigger and more interconnected, it often alerts the brain to false threats.

'People will become hypervigilant—always looking over their shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop.'

Continuing to discuss effects on the brain, he explained that chronic stress will actually shrink the hippocampus, which is the major memory centre, because it kills cells in the prefrontal cortex.

On the other hand, Dr Stixrud spoke about the powerful stress-neutralizing ability of Transcendental Meditation, which has been shown to increase coherent brain activity in the prefrontal cortex.



* The amygdala is one of the basal ganglia in the brain that is part of the limbic system, and described as involved in emotions of fear and aggression.

Copyright © 2013 Global Good News Service

Sorrel could treat certain types of cancer

How to Make Sorrel Drink

Research at Northern Caribbean University (NCU) in Mandeville shows that sorrel, which is grown in three varieties in Jamaica, could be a treatment or cure for certain types of cancer.

NCU lecturer and cancer researcher, Dr. Juliet Penrod initiated the study in 1998 and later supervised Patrice Gordon who looked at the effects of sorrel and garlic on certain types of cancers for her Masters thesis.

Dr. Penrod told The Gleaner that the idea to study sorrel as a possible treatment for cancer just came to her "out of the blue". She says, "It was when I started to go through the literature that I realized that everything about it was useful, and when I learnt about the nutritional properties of the seed I decided to look at both the seed and the calyx (the outer red section)."

Mrs. Gordon, who is also a lecturer in the Department of Biology Chemistry and Medical Technology at the university, completed her thesis on sorrel last December and presented her findings to members of the University and the public during a Faculty Forum on Tuesday, March 19.

Mrs. Gordon said that lung and liver cancer cells were used in the study and different types of cells were treated separately with extracts from garlic (Allium sativum), and the seed and calyx of sorrel (Hibiscus Sabdariffa). Normal cells were also treated with the extracts. The tests were done repeatedly on the samples and the effects observed at various intervals.


The researchers observed that H (liver cancer cells) which were treated with sorrel extracts decreased in vitality and dramatic cell death occurred. She further explained. "We also noticed that when liver cancer cells were treated with extracts from the sorrel seed the result was even quicker and more dramatic." The sorrel extract however had minimal effect on lung cancer cells and normal cells.


When the tests were done with garlic it was observed that garlic extracts had a marked effect on lung cancer cells. The cells lost vitality and overtime most of them died. She said however that garlic took a longer time to affect the cells and had little or no effect on liver cancer cells.


Head of the Department Of Biology, Chemistry and Medical Technology Dr. Paul Gyles who initiated the garlic section of the research said that "these findings meant that NCU had positioned itself to be a contributor to the body of knowledge on cancer research. "This," he added, "is significant for Jamaica. It also sets the stage for further research work such as clinical trials to be done," he told The Gleaner.


The head of The Scientific Research Council (SRC) Dr. Audia Barnett responded to news of the finding saying: "This could be the beginning of something great." She noted that while the results would have to be verified. "The Scientific Research Council stands ready to collaborate in further research because we think sorrel is a winner."


She said the SRC had already established a databank on sorrel. "We are also collaborating with the Department of Chemistry at the University of the West Indies (UWI) on a study to get additional information about the beneficial effect which sorrel might have to human health especially as it operates from a cellular level," she said. The researchers are studying certain chemicals known as anthocyanins which act as antioxidants.


He noted that NCU's findings on sorrel could have implications for sorrel production, for example boosting production. Last year Jamaica produced 841.47 tonnes of sorrel. Clarendon, the main sorrel producer, grew 247.3 tonnes. Jamaica grows three varieties of sorrel, a common variety, which bears in the first and last quarter of the year, a blood red variety which bears all year round and was introduced in the last two years and a white sorrel.
Story from Jamaican Gleaner
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Use the Placebo effect to lose weight

Three steps to a new you.

by JOHN BRIFFA

Published: December 12, 2011

If you see it, you can do it!

THE BRAIN HAS AN OVERARCHING influence on all bodily actions and processes. From the regulation of the body’s internal environment, to physical actions such as walking, talking, eating and drinking, the brain acts as central HQ. In recent years there has been growing recognition that our thoughts can have a profound influence on how our body functions. Certain emotions, for example aggression and hostility, have been linked with negative effects on the body, including an increased risk of heart disease and impairment of the immune system. But there’s another side to this: certain beliefs and thought processes may positively affect health and well-being.

One of the most startling examples of the power of the mind to influence health is the placebo response. For example, give individuals in pain a dummy pill (placebo) but tell them it’s a painkiller, and a third or more of them will get significant pain-relief from it. The same is true for depressed individuals given dummy pills dressed up as antidepressants. Clearly, the mind has the capacity to induce considerable self-healing – if the mental conditions are right.

Could the same be true for, say, weight loss or fitness? Could a change in thinking have benefits here?

This was the question that was essentially posed in a study published in 2007. In this piece of research, 84 hotel chambermaids were split into two groups. One group was told that their work constituted good exercise and satisfied the official recommendations for maintaining health and fitness. To reinforce this message, the group was given examples of how their work-related activity supposedly constituted decent exercise. The other group, on the other hand, were told nothing.

The women were monitored over a four-week period, during which activity levels stayed the same in the two groups. However, the group who had been told their work constituted good exercise believed they were getting more exercise than before. And, compared to the other group, these women saw a reduction in blood pressure, weight, body fat percentage and waist-to-hip ratio. It seems that these women saw significant improvement in their weight and health, just because they thought they were doing something healthy.

This study shows that the placebo response can be powerful enough to change objective body measurements including weight and levels of body fat.

Can we use this to our advantage? You bet. Here are some simple mental exercises designed to harness the power of the placebo response, and get you in the best frame of mind for fat loss and improved fitness success.

See It

There’s an old adage: ‘What you resist, persists.’ The idea here is that if you tend to focus on the things in your life that you don’t want, then the very act of focusing on them causes them to perpetuate. One quick way to get around this problem is to change your mental tack. Instead of concentrating on, say, not being overweight, put your energy into being slim. Sounds the same? It’s not. Essentially, motivation tends to be stronger if we are moving towards something positive rather than attempting to move away from something negative.

So, instead of getting locked into focusing on those physical attributes that you are not happy with, keep in mind the size and shape of the body you really want to have. If it’s a trimmer waist and a more muscular upper body you want, then that’s the image to keep in mind as you go through the process of change. If you’re looking to be fitter and healthier, then hold that as your ultimate goal.

One thing that can help here is to have real images around you that represent the benefits you’re aiming for, such a picture of you when you were in better shape, or even pictures of others (e.g. athletes, sportspeople) you find inspirational. Have a very clear picture in your mind of how you want the new and improved version of you to look.

Once you have this, it’s time to move on to the next stage.

Feel It

Now that you have a positive image of the person you want to be, get excited about it. How would you feel if you were slim and healthy now? Plug into your new vision of yourself with all your senses, just as if you were that person right here, right now. Imagine how you would think and feel as this improved version of you.

Once you can truly see and feel this transformed image of you, it’s time to take action.

Be It

The final step to manifesting the changes you desire is to do something about them. Behave in a way that is in accordance with the person you see and feel. As much as possible, act in a manner you would expect this transformed image of you to behave. Eat the health-giving foods the “new” you eats. Be active and exercise just as you would if you were already in great shape. Do anything and everything that is representative of the person you aspire to be. Thinking and acting positively regarding your body can be a powerful force for change.

Excerpted from Waist Disposal by Dr. John Briffa. Copyright © 2011 (Hay House).

Dr. John Briffa is a prize-winning graduate of the University College of London School of Medicine. He has successfully treated thousands of patients using unique individualized nutritional approaches that form the basis of this book, and is listed by Tatler magazine as one of the UK’s top doctors. www.thetruyoudiet.com

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The Amazing Power of Music

Listening to music is a great way to make exercising more enjoyable. MP3 players are an excellent way to do this. But as science is now beginning to document, music may have a much greater impact on your health than previously imagined.

Exercising to Music Can Boost Your Verbal Skills

For example, while studies have shown that exercising alone has the capability to improve your mood and increase the speed of your decision-making process, listening to music while exercising has been shown to improve verbal fluency as well.

A 2003 study published in the journal Heart Lung found that listening to music while exercising boosted cognitive levels and verbal fluency skills in people diagnosed with coronary artery disease.

Coronary artery disease has been linked to a decline in cognitive abilities. In this study, signs of improvement in the verbal fluency areas more than doubled after listening to music compared to that of the non-music session.

Music Reduces Stress and Improves Healing

Music is a great mood regulator, whether it’s used in conjunction with exercise or not. Loud, upbeat music generally has a stimulating effect, whereas slow music can act as a sedative.

It’s very encouraging that more and more health professionals are beginning to realize the value of simple techniques such as music, using it as an adjunct to promote healing even in more conventional medical settings. As pediatrician Linda Fisher stated in the article above, it’s the music’s rhythm, melody and tonal quality that puts the patient in that “special place of peace” where healing can be achieved faster.

For example, harp music might be particularly helpful for people who have heart trouble. Harvard researchers have shown that the rhythms of healthy hearts may be similar to those found in classical music, and that certain rhythms, such as that of harp music can cause your heart to beat more normally.

Other studies from the early 1990s concluded that music significantly lowered the heart rates and calmed and regulated the blood pressures and respiration rates of patients who had undergone surgery.

Music therapy has also been shown to:

    *
      Improve motor skills in patients recovering from strokes
    *
      Boost your immune system
    *
      Improve mental focus
    *
      Help control pain
    *
      Create a feeling of well-being
    *
      Reduce anxiety

One study published in the October issue of The Journal of Clinical Nursing found that pregnant women listening to soothing music showed significant reductions in stress, anxiety and depression.

The researchers concluded that,

    “The findings can be used to encourage pregnant women to use this cost-effective method of music in their daily life to reduce their stress, anxiety and depression.”

Just more evidence that some of the simplest things in the world can benefit your health in profound ways.

Since depression, general stress and anxiety are very common issues facing many pregnant women, this is excellent advice, especially in light of the ever increasing use of antidepressant drugs during pregnancy. Although some studies claim that using antidepressants during pregnancy does not raise your risk of having a baby with birth defects, others have shown that they can cause severe rebound effects in your baby. 

Clearly drugs are rarely the best choice for pregnant women who are depressed. There are so many better options – music being one of them.

In addition to various types of music, like classical, nature sounds such as birds, rainstorms, frogs or ocean waves are also often used as a stress-relief tool. The sounds have a calming effect and can help patients relax while undergoing medical procedures.

Another exceptional, and more scientific, tool to help you dramatically reduce the stress that is a prime contributor to all forms of disease, while maximizing your awareness and potential for growth, is the Insight audio CD.  Many of the patients at my clinic have received enormous benefits from it. Layered beneath the soothing sounds of natural rain is a “binaural beat,” which can help you achieve dramatically powerful states of altered consciousness.

How Can Your Workout Benefit From Music?

As stated earlier, exercising to music has more benefits than just making your workout more fun. As sport psychologist Costas Karageorghis explained, listening to music while working out can:

   1.
      Reduce your perception of how hard you are working by about 10 percent during low-to-moderate intensity activity.
   2.
      Profoundly influence your mood; elevating the positive aspects, such as vigor, excitement and happiness, and reducing depression, tension, fatigue, anger and confusion.
   3.
      Be used to set an appropriate warm-up, workout, and cool-down pace.
   4.
      Be used to overcome fatigue, and control your emotions if you’re in a competition.

According to Karageorghis' research, music is most effective when you are losing steam and need some motivation to keep going -- not as a constant stimulus. He recommends doing two workouts with music to every one without, so the effect of the music is not dulled.

Committing yourself to a regular exercise routine is just as important as following a nutritious eating program. Taking into consideration these positive benefits from music and exercising, I would encourage those working out at their local gyms to add a little music to their workout routine.

How I Listen to Music

There are many ways you can listen to music. In my mind, the 21st century way is not to purchase music at all but merely to rent it. There are many services available but the one I use is Rhapsody.  For well under $200 a year you can download as many as you want of the over 4 million songs available.

This is typically far less than you would pay to purchase them, and you can transfer them to your MP3 player to listen to them offline.  You can also use the most incredible, inexpensive system to stream the music to your home stereo system with Sonos.

Dr. Mercola-- Article courtesy of mercola.com

Twelve Secrets to Living Stress Free

1.Real Success is not measured by what you are driven to achieve, but by what you can quietly understand.

2.Letting Go is the natural release which always follows the realization that holding on hurts.

3.Why seek answers to tormenting questions when it is possible to realize there is no intelligence in torment? So simply drop those painful questions.

4.See the upset not as an exterior circumstance to be remedied, but as an interior condition to be understood.

5.Your secret strength knows that your secret weakness isn't really yours at all.

6.Letting Go is all about finding out what you are not, and then having the courage to leave it at that.

7.Instead of always asking how to get others to approve of you ... learn to ask: What do I really want, the applause of the crowds or to quietly have my own life?

8.Chasing after a pleasure to ease a pain is like running after a breeze to cool you down.

9.Real freedom is the absence of the self that feels trapped, not the trappings that the self requires to make it feel free.

10.Letting Go of yourself is Letting Go of your problems, for they are one and the same.

11.The only thing you lose when you Let Go of something you are afraid to live without is the fear itself.

12.Go along with your longing to be Limitless.

- Guy Finley

Eliminating Stress

by Michael Masterson

You can’t lead a happy, healthy, and productive life when you are feeling crummy. You can’t work very well. You can’t be creative. And you can’t enjoy the company of others.

So why is it that so many people, so much of the time, are downright miserable?

Is it the existential situation - the psychological default program that kicks in when we realize we are alone? Is it the result of thinking we are alone when we are not? Is it what happens when we live without purpose, as Victor Frankl suggests? Or is it merely too much sugar?

Answer: All of the above.

But what do you care? You can’t avoid getting into a funk now and then. However, you can learn to recognize the onset of a bad mood and get yourself out of it before it ruins your day (or your life).

I should know. I’m a moody bastard. If I could gather up all the time I’ve spent fretting, frowning, grousing, and/or complaining, I’d have enough to become a medical doctor and start my own emergency clinic. (That would cheer me up!)

Grumping around is not only wasteful; it’s limiting and potentially destructive. When you feel bad, you lack the emotional strength to try new things or overcome obstacles. As a consequence, you tend to spend your time on very ordinary chores, the kinds of tasks that will ensure the same old ho-hum life.

I once read a book on optimism and pessimism that made the case that the difference between feeling sad and clinical depression is not one of kind but of degree. If this is true, two conjectures come immediately to mind:

1. That moodiness should be actively combated, because moodiness can lead to despair.
2. That despair is an extreme form of moodiness, and so some of the techniques that eliminate moodiness can cure clinical depression.

Versions of despair - cynicism, anger, and fear - have no place in your business or personal life. If you let them in, you will give up too easily - and that can cost you.

Bad feelings are usually triggered by stress - some external event that creates a feeling of emotional discomfort. To lead a psychologically comfortable life (free of unnecessary stress and open to happiness and other good things), you must learn to recognize stress in its early stages and do something to reduce it.

Avoiding a bad mood is much like avoiding a common headache: If you can feel it coming on early enough and get some aspirin into your system, you’ll never be in pain. But if you wait till the pain is planted in your head, you’ll have a very difficult time getting rid of it.

One way to deal with stress is to get rid of the external cause of it. If, for example, a new client is a royal pain, figure out how to deal with him or pass him off to a competitor. If a new set of regulations is making your routine work difficult, master them and they’ll cease to give you stress.

Another, sometimes more practical, way to defeat stress is to change the way you react to it. As Victor Frankl pointed out in his classic book "Man’s Search for Meaning", it is impossible to control the external circumstances of our lives. We must accept what comes to us with equanimity. But we do not have to accept the way we respond.

Frankl argues that if you see a purpose in your role in life, you’ll have a much easier time avoiding the stress of not knowing what to do. Two thousand years ago, Marcus Aurelius said, "If you are distressed by anything internal, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to the view you have of that thing. How you view anything is a power you can revoke at any moment."

Here are 12 ways to deal with problems without getting stressed over them:

1. Forgive yourself for feeling bad. Depending on your biology, your upbringing, and your circumstances, you may feel blue rarely, sometimes, or often. Accept it as normal.

2. Count your blessings.

3. Take a nap. You’d be surprised by how often you can make yourself feel better simply by taking a 10-minute catnap.

4. Take a stress break. If you work as hard as I do, you will be forever on the verge of a nervous breakdown unless you do something about it. One of the best things you can do is schedule at least two (and preferably three or four) stress breaks every working day.

• A stress break is not a stress break unless:
• You get at least 10 feet away from your desk.
• You are completely distracted by it.
• It lasts at least five minutes.
• It relaxes you.
• It energizes you.

If you have good control over your daily schedule, you can plan stress breaks between tasks. Ideally, you’ll want a five-minute break every 90 to 120 minutes. If your schedule is too frenetic or unpredictable to do it that way, use an egg timer and simply break away from whatever you are doing when it rings.

5.Cut out the crap food. Remember, sugar and starch are poisons. Be aware of how they affect your moods.

6. Spend as much time as you can with upbeat people. Moody people are often helpful, productive, inspiring, and useful. But they are always an emotional drag. If your life involves moody energy-sappers, refresh with positive friends.

7. Follow Dale Carnegie’s Three C’s: Don’t criticize. Don’t condemn. Don’t complain.

8. Make sure you are getting enough sleep. If you are not sleeping well, chances are you are irritable and somewhat unproductive. This is a vicious circle. Get out of it. Get some sleep.

This will not only keep your stress level in check but will also improve your overall health. And remember this: The sleep you get before midnight is twice as good as the sleep you get afterward. So go to bed early. In fact, your entire health-and-fitness program should be based on the "early to rise" concept. Get to bed early enough so that you can wake up refreshed and stress free, eat properly, get your cardio workout done, and get to work at least an hour before you have to. (Two hours earlier is better.)

9. Exercise. Intense exercise will tire you out, but it won’t reduce stress. Walking, biking at a medium pace, swimming slowly - these are the sorts of exercise that can reduce stress.

10. Play. Again, be cognizant of what forms of play reduce stress and which add to it. Golfing is mostly, from what I’ve seen, a stress producer. So are most competitive sports. Yes, they’re fun if you have a competitive nature. But they don’t reduce stress.

11. Work to improve things. If you are bummed out about problems at work, do this: Compose a list of your five most pressing incomplete jobs. Then break down each job into specific tasks that can be accomplished in an hour or less. Arrange those tasks in order of priority. Finally, choose one. Just one. Put everything else out of your mind and get to work on it. Immediately. No excuses.

12. Listen to classical music. Researchers have discovered many interesting things about the effects of classical music - especially Mozart’s - on the brain. For example:

• In 1996, the College Entrance Exam Board Service conducted a study of all students taking their SATs. Students who sang or played a musical instrument scored an average of 51 points higher on the verbal portion and 39 points higher on the math portion of the test.
• In a controlled University of California study, students who listened to 10 minutes of Mozart before taking SATs had higher scores than students who didn’t.
• Major corporations like Shell, IBM, and Dupont, along with hundreds of schools and universities, have started using classical music to cut learning time in half and increase the retention of newly learned material.
• And in a University of Washington study, people who listened to light classical music for 90 minutes while copyediting a manuscript caught 21% more mistakes.

Even if you rarely listen to classical music, give it a try. "The Mozart Effect" will help you on some level by having a positive, lifelong effect on your health, learning, and behavior.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

Green Tea Improves Your Health

About 20 years ago when I was living in Kingston , Jamaica ,my landlady An Yueng told me one day that that the secret to her good health was Tai Chi and drinking green tea.
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She did her Tai Chi every morning. I would watch her go through the graceful routine and she would say," Good for you. Make you peaceful and you make more children." Whenever I visited her she would offer me a cup of green tea. She must have noticed my wrinkled smile at the pale green tasteless (to me) brew. "It makes you live longer, Chinee people not like Westerners. We respect elders. They say green tea good for you."

With the advent of the internet I began to read up about green tea in 1994 after I noticed a small news item on the news. It said that drinking green tea daily is one of the best health habits you can have.
Later I found out that several studies have shown that regular use of green tea can improve the ratio between “good” and “bad” cholesterol, ease mild depression, help prevent diabetes and more.

A recent study, published in the September 13, 2006 Journal of the American Medical Association, found that among 40,530 Japanese adults followed for 11 years, there was a 16 percent lower risk of death from all causes among those who drank more than 5 cups of green tea a day compared to those who drank less than one cup daily.

Even though the health food stores are full of Green-tea extracts I prefer drinking the tea. That's right, I've finally learned to love the pale green brew. Sometimes I add it to regular black tea.
I think An Yeung was right and now the scientific studies seem to back her view that the greater benefit comes from simply drinking green tea.
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High IQ link to being vegetarian-

Intelligent children are more likely to become vegetarians later in life, a study says.
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A Southampton University team found those who were vegetarian by 30 had recorded five IQ points more on average at the age of 10.

Researchers said it could explain why people with higher IQ were healthier as a vegetarian diet was linked to lower heart disease and obesity rates.

The study of 8,179 was reported in the British Medical Journal.

Twenty years after the IQ tests were carried out in 1970, 366 of the participants said they were vegetarian - although more than 100 reported eating either fish or chicken.

Men who were vegetarian had an IQ score of 106, compared with 101 for non-vegetarians; while female vegetarians averaged 104, compared with 99 for non-vegetarians.

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