Children of academics exhibit more stress
June 25, 2020
Science Daily/Ruhr-University Bochum
Starting university is an exciting phase for everyone. However, children from academic households exhibit significantly more stress during this period than those from non-academic families. A Swiss-German research team has found this out by analysing the hair of female first-year students. Study authors Professor Alex Bertrams from the University of Bern and Dr. Nina Minkley from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have concluded that students may be stressed by the fear of jeopardising the social status of their families if they fail their degrees. They published their report in Frontiers of Psychiatry on 5 June 2020.
Stress hormone accumulates in the hair
In stressful situations, the body releases an increased amount of the hormone cortisol, which also reaches growing hair and is stored there if the levels remain high over a lengthy period of time. By analysing the hair, researchers can identify the phases when a person had more stress.
In order to find out whether the stress levels of young people from different family backgrounds differ when they're starting university, the research team recruited a total of 71 test persons. "The only inclusion criteria were that they started their first semester and that they had sufficiently long hair," explains Nina Minkley from the Behavioural Biology and Didactics of Biology research group at RUB. "In the end, this meant that we recruited almost only women, and we decided not to include the few eligible men to avoid falsifying the results."
Strands of hair and questionnaires
The participants supplied the research team with three thin strands of hair each, which were cut off near the scalp. Since a hair grows about one centimetre per month, the researchers examined the latest one and a half centimetres that had grown in the six weeks since the beginning of the semester. In addition, the participants filled out questionnaires in which they provided information about their parents' educational background. They were also asked about the stress they subjectively perceived.
It emerged that first-year students from academic households where at least one parent had a university degree exhibit higher stress levels than those from non-academic households, even though they didn't differ in other respects. The subjectively perceived stress levels, for example, were the same.
Stress due to impending loss of status
The research team interprets this result as an indication of female students from academic households being under greater pressure, because failing their study would result in a loss of status for them and their families. This is in line with findings in sociological studies, which have shown that children of academics tend to go to university even if their academic performance isn't expected to be successful, based on their school grades. "Children of non-academics, on the other hand, can only win and are therefore probably less stressed," concludes Minkley.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200625144820.htm
School-based yoga can help children better manage stress and anxiety
Researchers worked with a public school to add yoga and mindfulness activities to help third-graders screened for anxiety at the beginning of the school year
April 10, 2018
Science Daily/Tulane University
Participating in yoga and mindfulness activities at school helps third-graders exhibiting anxiety improve their wellbeing and emotional health, according to a new Tulane University study published in the journal Psychology Research and Behavior Management.
Researchers worked with a public school in New Orleans to add mindfulness and yoga to the school's existing empathy-based programming for students needing supplementary support. Third graders who were screened for symptoms of anxiety at the beginning of the school year were randomly assigned to two groups. A control group of 32 students received care as usual, which included counseling and other activities led by a school social worker.
The intervention group of 20 students participated in small group yoga/mindfulness activities for eight weeks using a Yoga Ed curriculum. Students attended the small group activities at the beginning of the school day. The sessions included breathing exercises, guided relaxation and several traditional yoga poses appropriate for children.
Researchers evaluated each group's health related quality of life before and after the intervention, using two widely recognized research tools. The Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale-Peabody Treatment Progress Battery version was used to assess life satisfaction, and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory was used to assess psychosocial conditions and emotional well-being at the beginning, middle and end of the study.
"The intervention improved psychosocial and emotional quality of life scores for students, as compared to their peers who received standard care," said principal author Alessandra Bazzano, associate professor of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences at Tulane University School of Public Health. "We also heard from teachers about the benefits of using yoga in the classroom, and they reported using yoga more often each week, and throughout each day in class, following the professional development component of intervention."
Researchers targeted third grade because it is a crucial time of transition for elementary students, when academic expectations increase.
"Our initial work found that many kids expressed anxious feelings in third grade as the classroom work becomes more developmentally complex," Bazzano said. "Even younger children are experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety, especially around test time."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180410100919.htm