Mindfulness - Page 8 of 10

People Eat Fewer Calories After A Straightforward Change To Home Environment

This straightforward change to the household environment can help people eat fewer calories.

This straightforward change to the household environment can help people eat fewer calories.

Messy environments create stress and that can lead people to eat more than they should, a new study finds.

Keeping the kitchen clean, though, leads people to eat less.

The study had stressed women in either:

a messy kitchen with the phone ringing,
or a quiet and clean kitchen.

The kitchen had bowls of cookies, crackers and carrots for them to eat.

Those waiting in the messy, noisy kitchen ate 65 more calories in 10 minutes.

Dr Lenny Vartanian, the study’s lead author, said:

“Being in a chaotic environment and feeling out of control is bad for diets.
It seems to lead people to think, ‘Everything else is out of control, so why shouldn’t I be?’
I suspect the same would hold with males.”

The study also compared the effects of being stressed with being relaxed.

Being stressed while waiting in the kitchen led women to eat an average of 100 calories more.

Professor Brian Wansink, a study co-author, said:

“Although meditation, as a way of feeling in control, might be one way to resist kitchen snacking for some, it’s probably easier just to keep our kitchens picked up and cleaned up.”

The study was published in the journal Environment and Behavior (Vartanian et al., 2016).

Weight loss image from Shutterstock

Anxiety Is Linked To These Common Mental Health Problems By Neurocircuitry

Anxiety is a normal part of everyday life, but when anxiety starts to interfere with everyday life it can become a more serious problem.

Anxiety is a normal part of everyday life, but when anxiety starts to interfere with everyday life it can become a more serious problem.

Stress and anxiety have been linked to the same neurocircuitry in the brain as depression and dementia.

The new study suggests people need to find ways to reduce chronic stress or they could be putting themselves at increased risk of mental health problems.

Neuroscientists have found there is an extensive overlap between neurocircuitry for anxiety, depression and dementia.

Dr. Linda Mah, who led the study, said:

“Pathological anxiety and chronic stress are associated with structural degeneration and impaired functioning of the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which may account for the increased risk of developing neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression and dementia.”

Experiencing anxiety is a normal part of everyday life.

But, when anxiety starts to interfere with everyday life, it can become a more serious problem.

Chronic anxiety has also been linked to problems with memory and other health difficulties such as metabolic and immune disorders.

A previous study by Dr Mah and colleagues found that anxiety doubled the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease:

“Canadian researchers examined 376 people between the ages of 55 and 91 with ‘mild cognitive impairment’, and their chances of going on to develop Alzheimer’s disease
[…]
The results showed that for people with mild anxiety symptoms, the chances of developing Alzheimer’s increased by 33%, for those with moderate anxiety it was 78% and for those with severe anxiety, the risk increased by 135%.
While depression has already been identified as a risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s, this is the first study to implicate anxiety separately.”

Dr. Mah said:

“Looking to the future, we need to do more work to determine whether interventions, such as exercise, mindfulness training and cognitive behavioural therapy, can not only reduce stress but decrease the risk of developing neuropsychiatric disorders.”

The study was published in the journal Current Opinion in Psychiatry (Mah et al., 2016).

Image credit: amenclinisphotos ac

This Is The Root of Happiness In Your Brain

Happiness has two components which predict the size of this brain region.

Happiness has two components which predict the size of this brain region.

Japanese neuroscientist have made a step forward in understanding the neurology of happiness.

They have found that happier people have a larger ‘precuneus’: an area towards the back of the brain, hidden between the two cerebral hemispheres.

The study is the first to link the area to happiness.

Researchers asked people about the two major components of happiness.

These are:

their moment-by-moment experience of happiness,
plus their feeling of satisfaction with life.

Positive emotions are what we naturally think of as happiness: the pleasure we get from a delicious meal or a fascinating conversation.

Satisfaction with life, though, comes more from cognitive evaluations of how well we are doing in general.

Satisfaction is less of a feeling and more of an idea or thought.

Brain scans revealed that both types of happiness were linked to larger grey matter mass in the precuneus.

The image below on the left shows the location of the right precuneus in the brain.

The graph on the right shows the association between increasing gray matter mass in this area and increasing subjective happiness.

The precuneus has been linked to all sorts of functions, including thoughts about the self, memory and the experience of consciousness itself.

The study’s authors write:

“…our results suggest that the precuneus may play an important role in integrating different types of information and converting it into subjective happiness.”

But the study does not necessarily suggest that your level of happiness is unchangeable.

Dr Wataru Sato, who led the research, said:

“Several studies have shown that meditation increases grey matter mass in the precuneus.
This new insight on where happiness happens in the brain will be useful for developing happiness programs based on scientific research.”

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Sato et al., 2015).

Happy image from Shutterstock

Reduce Pain With This Mental Practice — In Just 20 Minutes Over Four Days

As little as four 20-minute daily sessions were enough to reduce pain.

As little as four 20-minute daily sessions were enough to reduce pain.

Mindfulness meditation is better at reducing pain than a placebo, a new study finds.

This is more impressive than it sounds because even a placebo can reduce the experience of pain considerably.

Brain scans also showed that people who practised mindfulness meditation had very different patterns of activity.

[** Here are eight quick mindfulness exercises that can easily fit into your day. **]

Dr Fadel Zeidan, who led the study, said:

“We were completely surprised by the findings.
While we thought that there would be some overlap in brain regions between meditation and placebo, the findings from this study provide novel and objective evidence that mindfulness meditation reduces pain in a unique fashion.”

People in the study were initially pain-free, but were treated with a ‘thermal probe’ to get over this hurdle.

For the treatment, one group were given a placebo cream, which contained no active ingredient.

The other group had some brief training in mindfulness meditation.

Placebo cream reduced the sensation of pain by 11% and the emotional aspect of the pain by 13%.

Mindfulness, however, reduced pain sensation by 27% and the emotional aspect by 44%.

Mindfulness also did better on other measures of pain compared to a placebo.

It reduced pain intensity and pain unpleasantness.

Dr Zeidan explained the results of the accompanying brain scans:

“The MRI scans showed for the first time that mindfulness meditation produced patterns of brain activity that are different than those produced by the placebo cream.”

The study’s results suggested that the mindfulness may have worked, at least partly, by slowing breathing.

Dr Zeidan said:

“This study is the first to show that mindfulness meditation is mechanistically distinct and produces pain relief above and beyond the analgesic effects seen with either placebo cream or sham meditation.
Based on our findings, we believe that as little as four 20-minute daily sessions of mindfulness meditation could enhance pain treatment in a clinical setting.
However, given that the present study examined healthy, pain-free volunteers, we cannot generalize our findings to chronic pain patients at this time.”

The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Pain image from Shutterstock

Ancient Practice Can Heal Brains Damaged By Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is known to impair brain function, causing problems with memory and the emotions.

Chronic pain is known to impair brain function, causing problems with memory and the emotions.

Yoga can be an effective way to reduce the effects of chronic pain on the brain.

So said Dr M. Catherine Bushnell, an expert on reducing pain without the use of drugs, at the American Pain Society’s recent annual meeting.

Chronic pain causes changes in gray matter volume, studies have shown.

These can lead to memory deficits, emotional problems and lowered cognitive functioning.

Dr Bushnell explained:

“Imaging studies in multiple types of chronic pain patients show their brains differ from healthy control subjects.
Studies of people with depression show they also have reduced gray matter, and this could contribute to the gray matter changes in pain patients who are depressed.
Our research shows that gray matter loss is directly related to the pain when we take depression into account.”

Techniques like yoga and meditation can counteract the negative effects of pain on the brain.

Studies from different labs suggest that yoga increases gray matter volume in critical areas of the brain.

That includes areas which can reduce the experience of pain.

Dr Bushnell said:

“Practicing yoga has the opposite effect on the brain as does chronic pain.
Some gray matter increases in yogis correspond to duration of yoga practice, which suggests there is a causative link between yoga and gray matter increases.
Insula gray matter size correlates with pain tolerance, and increases in insula gray matter can result from ongoing yoga practice.”

Mind-body practices can be beneficial to people experiencing pains in all sorts of ways, Dr Bushnell said:

“Brain anatomy changes may contribute to mood disorders and other affective and cognitive comorbidities of chronic pain.
The encouraging news for people with chronic pain is mind-body practices seem to exert a protective effect on brain gray matter that counteracts the neuroanatomical effects of chronic pain.”

Eyes closed image from Shutterstock

How To Sleep Better: Ancient Technique Beats Modern Therapy

Learning how to sleep better can improve quality of life, depression and fatigue.

Learning how to sleep better can improve quality of life, depression and fatigue.

Mindfulness training could be more effective than modern techniques for how to sleep better, new research reveals.

The findings could point the way to community-based training for sleep problems — especially for vulnerable seniors.

Learning how to sleep better is particularly important as poor sleep is connected with so many psychological and physical problems.

Around 50% of people over 55 report some sort of sleep problems.

Learning how to sleep better

The study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, randomly assigned 49 people to two different groups (Black et al., 2015).

All the people in the study were older individuals who were having moderate problems sleeping.

One group took a six-week ‘sleep hygiene’ course, a relatively modern technique tested in many studies (more on this here: How To Fall Asleep Fast).

The other group received a six-week course in mindfulness training.

In the words of mindfulness expert, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn:

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

The results showed that those in the mindfulness group showed greater improvements in their sleep quality in comparison to those who had taken the sleep hygiene course.

The mindfulness group also had lower levels of depression and they felt less tired.

Dr Adam P. Spira, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, writing about the study in the same journal, said:

“…effective nonpharmacological interventions that are both ‘scalable’ and ‘community accessible’ are needed to improve disturbed sleep and prevent clinical levels of insomnia.
This is imperative given links between insomnia and poor health outcomes, risks of sleep medication use and the limited availability of health care professionals trained in effective nondrug treatments such as behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.
This context makes the positive results of this RCT [randomized clinical trial] compelling.” (Spira, 2015)

• Read on: Mindfulness Meditation: 8 Quick Exercises That Easily Fit into Your Day

Sleepy man image from Shutterstock

Meditation’s Widespread Effect on How The Brain Ages

Study shows how meditation affects the brain’s gray matter in the long-term.

Study shows how meditation affects the brain’s gray matter in the long-term.

Meditation conserves the brain’s gray matter — used for processing thoughts — against age-related degeneration, a new study finds.

From around the late twenties, people’s brains start to reduce in size and weight.

With these changes come worse memory, slower processing and the other cognitive changes associated with age.

The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, imaged the brains of 50 meditators and 50 non-meditators, who were aged between 24 and 77 (Luders et al., 2015).

They found that older people who meditated had preserved more gray matter.

So, not only can meditation preserve the brain’s white matter — used for communication between different areas — it can also preserve the brain’s gray matter, which is where cognition ‘happens’.

Dr. Florian Kurth, a co-author of the study, explained:

“We expected rather small and distinct effects located in some of the regions that had previously been associated with meditating.
Instead, what we actually observed was a widespread effect of meditation that encompassed regions throughout the entire brain.”

The image below shows the areas of the brain (in red) which had lost tissue with age.

The top row is non-meditators and the bottom row is meditators.

Meditators in the study had been doing so for an average of 20 years, with the range from 4 up to 46 years.

Because of the design of the study, it’s not strong evidence that meditation causes these differences, but Dr. Eileen Luders, the study’s first author, said:

“Still, our results are promising.
Hopefully they will stimulate other studies exploring the potential of meditation to better preserve our aging brains and minds.
Accumulating scientific evidence that meditation has brain-altering capabilities might ultimately allow for an effective translation from research to practice, not only in the framework of healthy aging but also pathological aging.”

Man meditating image from Shutterstock & brain imaging picture courtesy of Dr. Eileen Luders

This Group Depression Treatment is as Effective as Individual Therapy

People with depression and anxiety were treated in groups of 10.

People with depression and anxiety were treated in groups of 10.

Group mindfulness training is as effective as the established psychological treatment for depression, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), a new Swedish study finds.

The research, published in The British Journal of Psychiatry, involved 215 primary healthcare patients across Sweden (Sundquist et al., 2014).

People in the study, who were experiencing depression and anxiety, were randomised into one of two groups.

The first received mostly individual CBT, a well-established therapy which tries to change emotional and cognitive responses.

The second received mindfulness training in groups of 10.

Rather than changing thoughts and feelings as in CBT, the mindfulness training is more about accepting them.

People were taught to notice their thoughts while treating the self with more compassion.

Mindfulness helps people to realise that anxious thoughts and feelings are not necessarily part of the self and can be observed ‘from the outside’.

Both groups were treated over an eight-week period and at the end both had improved by the same amount.

This study builds on previous research from 47 clinical trials which has found that meditation can be as effective as antidepressants in treating depression, anxiety and pain.

Professor Jan Sundquist, who led the study,

“The study’s results indicate that group mindfulness treatment, conducted by certified instructors in primary health care, is as effective a treatment method as individual CBT for treating depression and anxiety.
This means that group mindfulness treatment should be considered as an alternative to individual psychotherapy, especially at primary health care centres that can’t offer everyone individual therapy.”

Given that more people can be helped by fewer clinicians using this method, it’s hoped that treatment will become more accessible.

• Read on: Mindfulness Meditation: 8 Quick Exercises That Easily Fit into Your Day & Meditation Benefits: 10 Ways It Helps Your Mind

Image credit: Brandon Warren

Anxiety’s Influence on Developing Alzheimer’s Disease

New study reveals anxiety’s influence on the chances of developing Alzheimer’s.

New study reveals anxiety’s influence on the chances of developing Alzheimer’s.

People who suffer from moderate to severe anxiety have double the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, a new study finds.

Canadian researchers examined 376 people between the ages of 55 and 91 with ‘mild cognitive impairment’, and their chances of going on to develop Alzheimer’s disease (Mah et al., 2014).

Participants were followed over three years and their progress was monitored every six months.

The results showed that for people with mild anxiety symptoms, the chances of developing Alzheimer’s increased by 33%, for those with moderate anxiety it was 78% and for those with severe anxiety, the risk increased by 135%.

While depression has already been identified as a risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s, this is the first study to implicate anxiety separately.

People with mild cognitive impairment — which can turn into dementia — are regularly screened for depression, but not for anxiety.

Dr. Linda Mah, who led the study, said:

“Our findings suggest that clinicians should routinely screen for anxiety in people who have memory problems because anxiety signals that these people are at greater risk for developing Alzheimer’s.”

Greater levels of anxiety were also linked to shrinkage in areas of the brain that are crucial for the formation of memories (the medial temporal lobe regions).

Dr Mah speculated that treating the anxiety might also reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s:

“While there is no published evidence to demonstrate whether drug treatments used in psychiatry for treating anxiety would be helpful in managing anxiety symptoms in people with mild cognitive impairment or in reducing their risk of conversion to Alzheimer’s, we think that at the very least behavioural stress management programs could be recommended.
In particular, there has been research on the use of mindfulness-based stress reduction in treating anxiety and other psychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer’s –and this is showing promise.”

Image credit: amenclinisphotos ac

Three Ways To Fight Disease With Your Mind

Three psychological approaches which improve health at the cellular level.

Three psychological approaches which improve health at the cellular level.

Practising mindfulness meditation, yoga or being involved in a support group have positive impacts at the cellular level in breast cancer, a new study finds.

The study, conducted at Canadian cancer centres, found that breast cancer survivors who practised meditation and yoga or took part in support groups had longer telomeres, part of the chromosome thought to be important in physical health.

Dr. Linda E. Carlson, who led the study, said:

“We already know that psychosocial interventions like mindfulness meditation will help you feel better mentally, but now for the first time we have evidence that they can also influence key aspects of your biology.”

The role of telomores — protein complexes that book-end the chromosomes — is not fully understood, but shortened telomores have been linked to cell ageing and disease states.

Dr. Carlson continued:

“It was surprising that we could see any difference in telomere length at all over the three-month period studied.
Further research is needed to better quantify these potential health benefits, but this is an exciting discovery that provides encouraging news.”

The study divided 88 breast cancer survivors into three groups (Carlson et al., 2014).

One group took part in eight weekly mindfulness meditation classes that lasted 90 minutes, which also included some gentle Hatha yoga.

Participants continued their mindfulness practice at home for 45 minutes a day.

Another group went to a ‘Supportive Expressive Therapy’ group in which they talked openly about their concerns for 90 minutes over 12 weeks.

The aim of the group was to help the women express both positive and negative emotions with each other along with building mutual support between group members.

A third group — the control — took a single 5-hour stress reduction class.

The results showed that while telomere length had shortened in the control group, it was maintained in the support and meditation groups combined.

One of the study’s participants, Allison McPherson, who was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, said:

“I was skeptical at first and thought it was a bunch of hocus-pocus.
But I now practise mindfulness throughout the day and it’s reminded me to become less reactive and kinder toward myself and others.”

Another breast cancer survivor who took part, Deanne David, said:

“Being part of this made a huge difference to me.
I think people involved in their own cancer journey would benefit from learning more about mindfulness and connecting with others who are going through the same things.”