Laugh more, stress less

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Humor can help reduce stress by providing a positive way of looking at problems. Humor can also help you perceive what's ridiculous or absurd in a situation. To promote humor in your life, follow these steps: 1. Be open to humor. Give yourself permission to laugh, even during tough times. 2. Surround yourself with humor. Try hanging cartoons in your workstation. 3. Seek out humor. Look for humor in everyday situations. Or watch a favorite comedy DVD. 4. Share your humor. Tell a funny true story to a coworker or friend.

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A new biomarker for chronic stress: Hair Cortisol

Main Category: Anxiety / Stress
Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry;  Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 20 Aug 2013 - 1:00 PDT Current ratings for:
A new biomarker for chronic stress: Hair Cortisol

Cortisol is a well-known stress hormone and until recently, we have only been able to understand how stressed a person has been for about the past 20 minutes or the past day. Now, with about 100 strands of hair clipped from the scalp, we can get a biological indicator of stress over the past three months. Since hair growth approximately 1 cm per month, with 3 cms, we capture cortisol retrospectively, so we can measure "chronic" or accumulated stress. In one of our first studies of chronic stress conducted on the University of Massachusetts, Boston campus, we included students, staff, and community members.

The present research was conducted to assess relationships between biological chronic stress as measured by CORT and perceived stress indices. Furthermore, this research examines potential differences in biological and perceived stress by racial/ethnic identity, SES, sex and age. We obtained domain-specific indices of stress (i.e. personal perceived stress, chaos in the home and neighborhood assessments) and examined associations between CORT, subjective stress and health indicators [blood pressure and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR)]. Finally, we also investigated the interactions of well-known factors associated with health disparities: racial/ethnic identity and SES with both hair CORT and the perceived stress indices as the dependent variables.

We found the highest cortisol levels in males, the group aged 18-22 (the entire sample was 18-66 yrs.), and those who identified as an ethnic minority. Critically, we also found perceived stress was positively related to hair cortisol. Specifically, when an individual was higher across several domains of stress (e.g., stress at home, stress in their neighborhood); this was associated with higher secretion of the stress hormone. One important interpretation of this is that perceiving something as stressful, whether happening or not, can be just as meaningful on our biological reactions to stress.

An unanticipated finding was that hair cortisol levels were higher for minorities in the higher socioeconomic status (SES). Much of the literature examining the SES/health gradient posits that better health is associated with higher objective and subjective status. However, there is related evidence that minority members may not always be conferred this benefit. One interpretation is that minorities in higher SES experience greater, albeit more subtle discrimination. Researchers suggest that in high SES, race becomes more salient, along with greater instances of misunderstanding cultural differences and awkwardness during interactions.

Interestingly, CORT was associated with only one of the other biomarkers of stress, higher systolic blood pressure. Waist and WHR were not significantly associated with CORT in these data. This was unexpected, since WHR is a well-known indicator of allostatic load and has been positively associated with CORT in other research (e.g.Manenschijn, et al., 2011). The relationship between CORT and health risk indicators needs further investigation. It is not yet known whether CORT will be consistently associated with chronic health issues and reliably predictive of chronic diseases associated with allostatic load.

Since hair grows approximately 1 cm per month, capturing 3 cms of hair (about 75-100 strands) can give us a retrospective window of stress levels for the past 3 months, rather than moments or days. Hair cortisol is a promising measure of cumulative or long term stress stress. And chronic stress is quickly becoming recognized as the mediator for multiple psychological and physical health outcomes.

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
Visit our anxiety / stress section for the latest news on this subject.

This research was funded by an NIMHD P20 Center of Excellence (NIMHD 5P20MD002290-05).

(2013) Relationship between Hair Cortisol and Perceived Chronic Stress in a Diverse Sample. Article first published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) 6 DEC 2012, DOI: 10.1002/smi.2475

K. M. O'Brien, E. Z. Tronick & C. L. Moore

University of Massachusetts Boston

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Why some suffer and others are better able to cope with chronic stress

Main Category: Anxiety / Stress
Article Date: 19 Aug 2013 - 0:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Why some suffer and others are better able to cope with chronic stress

New research at Rutgers University may help shed light on how and why nervous system changes occur and what causes some people to suffer from life-threatening anxiety disorders while others are better able to cope.

Maureen Barr, a professor in the Department of Genetics, and a team of researchers, found that the architectural structure of the six sensory brain cells in the roundworm, responsible for receiving information, undergo major changes and become much more elaborate when the worm is put into a high stress environment.

Scientists have known for some time that changes in the tree-like dendrite structures that connect neurons in the human brain and enable our thought processes to work properly can occur under extreme stress, alter brain cell development and result in anxiety disorders like depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affecting millions of Americans each year.

What scientists don't understand for sure, Barr says, is the cause behind these molecular changes in the brain.

"This type of research provides us necessary clues that ultimately could lead to the development of drugs to help those suffering with severe anxiety disorders," Barr says.

In the study published in Current Biology, scientists at Rutgers have identified six sensory nerve cells in the tiny, transparent roundworm, known as the C. elegans and an enzyme called KPC-1/furin which triggers a chemical reaction in humans that is needed for essential life functions like blood-clotting.

While the enzyme also appears to play a role in the growth of tumors and the activation of several types of virus and diseases in humans, in the roundworm the enzyme enables its simple neurons to morph into new elaborately branched shapes when placed under adverse conditions.

Normally, this one-millimeter long worm develops from an embryo through four larval stages before molting into a reproductive adult. Put it under stressful conditions of overcrowding, starvation and high temperature and the worm transforms into an alternative larval stage known as the dauer that becomes so stress-resistant it can survive almost anything - including the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 of which they were the only living things to survive.

"These worms that normally have a short life cycle turn into super worms when they go into the dauer stage and can live for months, although they are no longer able to reproduce," Barr says.

What is so interesting to Barr is that when a perceived threat is over, these tiny creatures and their IL2 neurons transform back to a normal lifespan and reproductive state like nothing had ever happened. Under a microscope, the complicated looking tree-like connectors that receive information are pruned back and the worm appears as it did before the trauma occurred.

This type of neural reaction differs in humans who can suffer from extreme anxiety months or even years after the traumatic event even though they are no longer in a threatening situation.

The ultimate goal, Barr says, is to determine how and why the nervous system responds to stress. By identifying molecular pathways that regulate neuronal remodeling, scientists may apply this knowledge to develop future therapeutics.

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
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Optimists better at regulating stress

Main Category: Anxiety / Stress
Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 25 Jul 2013 - 2:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Optimists better at regulating stress

It's no surprise that those who tend to see a rose's blooms before its thorns are also better at handling stress. But science has failed to reliably associate optimism with individuals' biological stress response - until now.

New research from Concordia University's Department of Psychology is deepening the understanding of how optimists and pessimists each handle stress by comparing them not to each other but to themselves. Results show that indeed the "stress hormone" cortisol tends to be more stable in those with more positive personalities.

The study, which was recently published in the American Psychological Association's Health Psychology journal, tracked 135 older adults (aged 60+) over six years, and involved collecting saliva samples five times a day to monitor cortisol levels. This age group was selected becauseolder adults often face a number of age-related stressors and their cortisol levels have been shown to increase.

Participants were asked to report on the level of stress they perceived in their day-to-day lives, and self-identify along a continuum as optimists or pessimists. Each person's stress levels were then measured against their own average. Measuring the stress levels against participants' own average provided a real-world picture of how individuals handle stress because individuals can become accustomed to the typical amount of stress in their lives.

Joelle Jobin, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology who co-authored the study with her supervisor Carsten Wrosch and Michael Scheier from Carnegie Mellon University, says "for some people, going to the grocery store on a Saturday morning can be very stressful, so that's why we asked people how often they felt stressed or overwhelmed during the day and compared people to their own averages, then analyzed their responses by looking at the stress levels over many days."

She also notes that pessimists tended to have a higher stress baseline than optimists, but also had trouble regulating their system when they go through particularly stressful situations. "On days where they experience higher than average stress, that's when we see that the pessimists' stress response is much elevated, and they have trouble bringing their cortisol levels back down. Optimists, by contrast, were protected in these circumstances," says Jobin.

While the study generally confirmed the researchers' hypotheses about the relation between optimism and stress, one surprising finding was that optimists who generally had more stressful lives secreted higher cortisol levels than expected shortly after they awoke (cortisol peaks just after waking and declines through the day). Jobin says there are several possible explanations, but also notes that the finding points to the difficulty of classifying these complex hormones as good or bad. "The problem with cortisol is that we call it "the stress hormone", but it's also our 'get up and do things' hormone, so we may secrete more if engaged and focused on what's happening."

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
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Associations Between Dispositional Optimism and Diurnal Cortisol in a Community Sample: When Stress Is Perceived as Higher Than Normal. Jobin, Joelle; Wrosch, Carsten; Scheier, Michael F. Health Psychology, May 13 , 2013, doi: 10.1037/a0032736

Further information on Carsten Wrosch.

Concordia University

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