Category: Mental Health

This modern habit is on the rise — and it is no good for your mental and physical health.

Too much sitting down is killing people — and it is on the rise, according to the latest data.

Getting up and moving about, though, is linked to less anxiety, more happiness, positive changes in personality and even a boost to cognitive function.

Unfortunately, in just over a decade, US adults have increased their average sitting time each day from 5.5 hours to almost 6.5 hours.

Among adolescents, the figure has gone from seven hours per day in 2007 to eight hours per day in 2016.

Time spent in front of a screen increased substantially during this period.

One-quarter of people said they used their computer outside of work or school for at least three hours per day.

Inactivity is linked to a wide range of diseases including heart problems, obesity, diabetes and certain cancers.

Dr Yin Cao, study co-author, said:

“In almost none of the groups we analyzed are the numbers going in the right direction.

We want to raise awareness about this issue on multiple levels — from individuals and families to schools, employers and elected officials.”

The conclusions come from an analysis of over 51,000 people in the US of all different ages who were surveyed between 2001 and 2016.

It tracked how much time people spent sitting, including in front of TVs and computers.

Professor Graham A. Colditz, study co-author, said:

“How we create public policies or promote social change that supports less sitting is unclear and likely to be complicated.

If a neighborhood in a disadvantaged community is unsafe, for example, parents can’t just send their kids outside to play.

Our environments — the way our cities, our school days and working days are designed — play roles in this behavior that are difficult to change.

But at least now, we have a baseline from which to measure whether specific changes are having an impact.”

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Yang et al., 2019).

These are three factors that you can change.

Exercise, quality sleep and eating raw fruits and vegetables are the three pillars of good mental health, a study suggests.

Among the 1,100 young adults who were surveyed for the research, those who slept well, did more exercise and ate better were more likely to be flourishing.

Out of these, quality sleep was most strongly linked to better mental health, followed by exercise and then diet.

The finding that sleep quality rather quantity was so important was surprising, said Ms Shay-Ruby Wickham, the study’s first author:

“This is surprising because sleep recommendations predominantly focus on quantity rather than quality.

While we did see that both too little sleep — less than eight hours — and too much sleep — more than 12 hours — were associated with higher depressive symptoms and lower well-being, sleep quality significantly outranked sleep quantity in predicting mental health and well-being.

This suggests that sleep quality should be promoted alongside sleep quantity as tools for improving mental health and well-being within young adults.”

The study’s results showed that those who slept an average of 8 hours had the highest mental well-being.

Those sleeping almost 10 hours, though, had the lowest chance of developing depressive symptoms.

People in the study were in their early 20s, however, and generally we require less sleep with age.

Having too much sleep is generally considered almost as bad as having too little.

Diet also played an important role in mental health.

Those who ate 5 servings of raw fruit and vegetables per day had the highest mental-wellbeing and those who ate less than 2 servings each day had the worst.

Ms Wickham said:

“Sleep, physical activity, and a healthy diet can be thought of as three pillars of health, which could contribute to promoting optimal well-being among young adults, a population where the prevalence of mental disorders is high and well-being is suboptimal.”

Dr Tamlin Conner, study co-author, warned that the findings were correlational:

“We didn’t manipulate sleep, activity, or diet to test their changes on mental health and well-being.

Other research has done that and has found positive benefits.

Our research suggests that a ‘whole health’ intervention prioritising sleep, exercise, and fruit and vegetable intake together, could be the next logical step in this research.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Wickham et al., 2020).

This social epidemic increases heart disease risk by 30 percent.

Loneliness increases the risk of heart disease by 30 percent, research finds.

Coronary heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of death in rich countries.

The conclusions come from a review of 23 studies including over 181,000 adults.

The researchers found that social isolation or loneliness was linked to a 32 percent increase in stroke risk and 29 percent increase of a heart or angina attack.

The study’s authors write:

“Our work suggests that addressing loneliness and social isolation may have an important role in the prevention of two of the leading causes of morbidity in high income countries.”

Writing in a linked editorial, psychologists Dr Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Dr Timothy Smith, say:

“With such rapid changes in the way people are interacting socially, empirical research is needed to address several important questions.

Does interacting socially via technology reduce or replace face to face social interaction and/or alter social skills?

Given projected increases in levels of social isolation and loneliness in Europe and North America, medical science needs to squarely address the ramifications for physical health.

Similar to how cardiologists and other healthcare professionals have taken strong public stances regarding other factors exacerbating [cardiovascular disease], eg smoking, and diets high in saturated fats, further attention to social connections is needed in research and public health surveillance, prevention and intervention efforts.”

The studies were published in the journal Heart (Valtorta et al., 2016; Holt-Lunstad & Smith, 2015).