Brain connectivity is lower in adults with PTSD or a history of sexual abuse

Adults with a history of sexual abuse or with maltreatment-related posttraumatic stress disorder have reduced brain connectivity

October 27, 2021

Science Daily/Medical University of South Carolina

A study conducted at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in adults with a history of childhood maltreatment showed that two groups -- those with a history of sexual abuse and those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- had reduced brain connectivity in the attention systems known as the ventral and dorsal attention network (VAN-DAN). No such reduction was seen in adults with a history of physical abuse, nor in those who did not develop PTSD. The team, which was led by MUSC neuroscientist Jane Joseph, Ph.D., also showed that connectivity in the VAN-DAN systems increased after treatment with oxytocin, a hormone associated with social affiliations and the stress response. The team's findings are published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

"We believe that these findings contribute to the field by helping us to understand better how the connection between the brain's attention systems may be involved in whether PTSD develops after childhood trauma," explained Kathleen Crum, Ph.D., lead author of the article. Crum, who was at MUSC at the time of the study, has since transitioned to a faculty position in the Department of Psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Abuse during childhood is a major risk factor for PTSD. Indeed, children who experience any form of abuse are 70% more likely to develop PTSD. Sexual abuse during childhood disrupts brain development and is theorized to be associated with betrayal trauma, which occurs when a person's trust in an institution or loved one is violated by abuse.

"Current psychology literature suggests the possibility of something known as betrayal trauma," Crum explained. "People perceive events differently depending on the form of abuse."

For example, study participants with a history of sexual abuse had reduced VAN-DAN connectivity, regardless of whether they went on to develop PTSD, whereas those with a history of physical abuse did not.

VAN and DAN each play a unique role in the regulation of attention, according to Crum.

"DAN is a network in the brain that is responsible for voluntary attention, while VAN is the process of shifting or reorienting our attention to another event," said Crum. "They act as a push-pull mechanism; while one action occurs, the other cannot."

Joseph and Crum wanted to study the VAN-DAN network because patients with PTSD often find it difficult to reorient their attention.

"Individuals with PTSD have difficulty disengaging attention from threat-related cues, including cues that remind them of their traumatic experiences," explained Crum. "Individuals with PTSD may also tend to interpret neutral cues as threat-related. Collectively, these problems affect their ability to direct their attention to the task at hand in their everyday lives."

It is thought that the "fight or flight" response may be hyperactive in these individuals, which may account for this difficulty with shifting their attention. Crum provided an example to illustrate why it can be difficult for people with PTSD to concentrate on a specific task when their perception of external threat is heightened.

"Imagine a scenario where you are parachuting or skydiving and someone asks you to do a complex math problem -- how well would you do on that math problem?" asked Crum. "The focus on survival and staying out of danger can compete with performing everyday tasks, like holding a conversation or doing our work."

The team wanted to measure VAN-DAN connectivity at rest because it enabled them to compare differences in connectivity without the demands of a specific task.

To measure resting-state connectivity, the team placed participants in an MRI scanner and asked them to focus on a cross on a screen, allowing their attention systems to remain at rest. Participants with PTSD or a history of sexual abuse showed decreased resting-state functional connectivity between the VAN and DAN regions, suggesting decreased connectivity between the two.

The effect of the hormone oxytocin was also explored in relation to decreased connectivity. Oxytocin is thought to act on the attention network system and is being studied nationally as a potential treatment for PTSD and childhood trauma, including at MUSC.

"Oxytocin is very important for social bonding and stress reduction," explained Joseph. "While PTSD does not always originate from social and personal trauma, oxytocin seems to be beneficial in stressful situations, which is why it is being explored as a treatment for this disorder."

Crum believes the next step for the field would be to examine how trauma exposure itself affects attention network connectivity.

"Existing research suggests that trauma exposure is associated with changes in the brain and its functions, regardless of a PTSD diagnosis," stated Crum. "Future work should analyze the differences between trauma exposure and traumatic stress in groups exposed to trauma who did and did not develop PTSD, as well as a third group who did not experience any trauma whatsoever."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211027121948.htm

Dragging your feet? Lack of sleep affects your walk

Periodically catching up on sleep can improve gait control for the chronically sleep-deprived.

October 26, 2021

Science Daily/Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Good sleep can be hard to come by. But a new study finds that if you can make up for lost sleep, even for just a few weekend hours, the extra zzz's could help reduce fatigue-induced clumsiness, at least in how you walk.

There's plenty of evidence to show sleep, and how much we get of it, can affect how well we do on cognitive tasks such as solving a math problem, holding a conversation, or even reading this article. Less explored is the question of whether sleep influences the way we walk or carry out other activities that are assumed to be less mentally taxing.

The new study, by researchers at MIT and the University of São Paulo in Brazil, reports that walking -- and specifically, how well we can control our stride, or gait -- can indeed be affected by lack of sleep.

In experiments with student volunteers, the team found that overall, the less sleep students got, the less control they had when walking during a treadmill test. For students who pulled an all-nighter before the test, this gait control plummeted even further.

Interestingly, for those who didn't stay up all night before the test, but who generally had less-than-ideal sleep during the week, those who slept in on weekends performed better than those who didn't.

"Scientifically, it wasn't clear that almost automatic activities like walking would be influenced by lack of sleep," says Hermano Krebs, principal research scientist in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering. "We also find that compensating for sleep could be an important strategy. For instance, for those who are chronically sleep-deprived, like shift workers, clinicians, and some military personnel, if they build in regular sleep compensation, they might have better control over their gait."

Krebs and his co-authors, including lead author Arturo Forner-Cordero of the University of São Paulo, have published the study in the journal Scientific Reports.

Brainy influence

The act of walking was once seen as an entirely automatic process, involving very little conscious, cognitive control. Animal experiments with a treadmill suggested that walking appeared to be an automatic process, governed mainly by reflexive, spinal activity, rather than more cognitive processes involving the brain.

"This is the case with quadrupeds, but the idea was more controversial in humans," Krebs says.

Indeed, since those experiments, scientists including Krebs have showed that the act of walking is slightly more involved than once thought. Over the last decade, Krebs has extensively studied gait control and the mechanics of walking, in order to develop strategies and assistive robotics for patients who have suffered strokes and other motion-limiting conditions.

In previous experiments, he has shown, for instance, that healthy subjects can adjust their gait to match subtle changes in visual stimuli, without realizing they are doing so. These results suggested that walking involves some subtle, conscious influence, in addition to more automatic processes.

In 2013, he struck up a collaboration with Forner-Cordero through a grant from the MIT-Brazil MISTI program, and the team began to explore whether more subtle stimuli, such as auditory cues, might influence walking. In these initial experiments, volunteers were asked to walk on a treadmill as researchers played and slowly shifted the frequency of a metronome. The volunteers, without realizing it, matched their steps to the subtly changing beat.

"That suggested the concept of gait being only an automatic process is not a complete story," Krebs says. "There's a lot of influence coming from the brain."

Sleep and walking

Forner-Cordero and Krebs continued to investigate the mechanics of walking and general motor control, mostly enlisting student volunteers in their experiments. Cordero in particular noticed that, toward the end of the semester, when students faced multiple exams and project deadlines, they were more sleep-deprived and happened to do worse in the team's experiments.

"So, we decided to embrace the situation," Forner-Cordero says.

In their new study, the team enlisted students from the University of São Paulo to take part in an experiment focused on the effects of sleep deprivation on gait control.

The students were each given a watch to track their activity over 14 days. This information gave researchers an idea of when and how long students were sleeping and active each day. The students were given no instruction on how much to sleep, so that the researchers could record their natural sleep patterns. On average, each student slept about six hours per day, although some students compensated, catching up on sleep over the two weekends during the 14-day period.

On the evening before the 14th day, one group of students stayed awake all night in the team's sleep lab. This group was designated the Sleep Acute Deprivation group, or SAD. On the morning of the 14th day, all students went to the lab to perform a walking test.

Each student walked on a treadmill set at the same speed, as researchers played a metronome. The students were asked to keep step with the beat, as the researchers slowly and subtly raised and lowered the metronome's speed, without telling the students they were doing so. Cameras captured the students' walking, and specifically, the moment their heel struck the treadmill, compared with the beat of the metronome.

"They had to synchronize their heel strike to the beat, and we found the errors were larger in people with acute sleep deprivation," Forner-Cordero says. "They were off the rhythm, they missed beeps, and were performing in general, worse."

This in itself may not be entirely surprising. But in comparing students who did not pull an all-nighter prior to the test, the researchers found an unexpected difference: The students who did slightly better were those who compensated and got slightly more sleep on the weekends, even when they performed the test at the tail end of the week.

"That's paradoxical," Forner-Cordero says. "Even at the peak of when most people would be tired, this compensating group did better, which we didn't expect."

"The results show that gait is not an automatic process, and that it can be affected by sleep deprivation," Krebs says. "They also suggest strategies for mitigating effects of sleep deprivation. Ideally, everyone should sleep eight hours a night. But if we can't, then we should compensate as much and as regularly as possible."

This research was supported, in part, by the Office of Naval Research Global.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211026085348.htm

Men, women ride the same emotional roller coaster

October 25, 2021

Science Daily/University of Michigan

Contrary to widely held gender stereotypes, women are not more emotional than men, researchers say.

Feelings such as enthusiasm, nervousness or strength are often interpreted differently between the two genders. It's what being "emotional" means to men vs. women that is part of a new University of Michigan study that dispels these biases.

For instance, a man whose emotions fluctuate during a sporting event is described as "passionate." But a woman whose emotions change due to any event, even if provoked, is considered "irrational," says the study's senior author Adriene Beltz, U-M assistant professor of psychology.

Beltz and colleagues Alexander Weigard, U-M assistant professor of psychiatry, and Amy Loviska, a graduate student at Purdue University, followed 142 men and women over 75 days to learn more about their daily emotions, both positive and negative. The women were divided into four groups: one naturally cycling and three others using different forms of oral contraceptives.

The researchers detected fluctuations in emotions three different ways, and then compared the sexes. They found little-to-no differences between the men and the various groups of women, suggesting that men's emotions fluctuate to the same extent as women's do (although likely for different reasons).

"We also didn't find meaningful differences between the groups of women, making clear that emotional highs and lows are due to many influences -- not only hormones," she said.

The findings have implications beyond everyday people, the researchers say. Women have historically been excluded from research participation in part due to the assumption that ovarian hormone fluctuations lead to variation, especially in emotion, that can't be experimentally controlled, they say.

"Our study uniquely provides psychological data to show that the justifications for excluding women in the first place (because fluctuating ovarian hormones, and consequently emotions, confounded experiments) were misguided," Beltz said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211025113735.htm

New research finds air pollution reduces sperm counts through brain inflammation

October 25, 2021

Science Daily/University of Maryland School of Medicine

Researchers have long known that air pollution can increase the risk of disorders such as obesity, diabetes, and fertility, but they did not know the exact mechanism for how it can lead to these health conditions.

Now, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers have shown how air pollution reduces sperm count in mice by causing inflammation in the brain.

Scientists already know that the brain has a direct line to the reproductive organs affecting fertility and sperm count under stressful conditions. For example, emotional stress can lead to skipped menstrual periods in women. However, this latest study, published on Sept. 8 in Environmental Health Perspectives, connects the dots on how breathing polluted air can lower fertility.

"Our findings showed that the damage due to air pollution -- at least to the sperm count -- could be remedied by removing a single inflammation marker in the brains of mice, suggesting that we may be able to develop therapies that could prevent or reverse the damaging effects of air pollution on fertility," said lead study author Zhekang Ying, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at UMSOM.

Charles Hong, MD, PhD, the Melvin Sharoky, MD Professor in Medicine and Director of Cardiology Research at UMSOM said, "These findings have wider implications than just fertility, as there are many conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease that can result from brain inflammation due to air pollution."

About 92 percent of the world population lives in areas where the level of fine particles in the air smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter exceed the minimum safety standards set by the World Health Organization. These particles can come from sources such as car exhaust, factory emissions, wildfires, and woodburning stoves.

In past studies, some results have shown that mice exposed to air pollution did not always have inflammation of the testes -- the male sex organs that make sperm -- meaning that some other mechanism was potentially responsible for reduced sperm counts. Knowing the direct link between the brain and the sex organs, the researchers tested whether air pollution increased inflammation in the brain.

For this new study, researchers tested healthy mice and mice bred to lack a marker of inflammation in the brain, called Inhibitor KappaB Kinase 2, or IKK2 for short, specifically located in the brain's neurons. They exposed both healthy and IKK2 mutant mice to filtered air or air pollution and then tested their sperm counts. The mice bred without the IKK2 inflammation marker in their neurons did not have reductions in their sperm counts when exposed to the polluted air, unlike the healthy mice.

Researchers then removed IKK2 from specific neurons to determine more precisely how air pollution was leading to lower sperm counts. They found that one specific kind of neuron typically associated with sleep cycle and obesity was responsible for the reduced sperm count due to air pollution. These neurons typically are found in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain which controls hunger, thirst, and sex drive. The hypothalamus also works with the brain's pituitary gland, which makes hormones that communicate directly with reproductive organs.

"Looking back, it makes perfect sense that the neurons in the hypothalamus are the culprits perpetuating this inflammation response that results in low sperm count, as we know that the hypothalamus is a major pathway link between the brain and the reproductive system," said Dr. Ying.

E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean at UMSOM commented, " Environmental pollution is a problem of equity in that some persons who are poor or of color tend to face more severe health-related conditions due to greater exposure. It is important to explore the mechanisms by which pollution affects the body, so we can devise ways to prevent or treat these conditions to eliminate these health disparities."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211025101719.htm

Sense of smell is our most rapid warning system

October 14, 2021

Science Daily/Karolinska Institutet

The ability to detect and react to the smell of a potential threat is a precondition of our and other mammals' survival. Using a novel technique, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have been able to study what happens in the brain when the central nervous system judges a smell to represent danger. The study, which is published in PNAS, indicates that negative smells associated with unpleasantness or unease are processed earlier than positive smells and trigger a physical avoidance response.

"The human avoidance response to unpleasant smells associated with danger has long been seen as a conscious cognitive process, but our study shows for the first time that it's unconscious and extremely rapid," says the study's first author Behzad Iravani, researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.

The olfactory organ takes up about five per cent of the human brain and enables us to distinguish between many million different smells. A large proportion of these smells are associated with a threat to our health and survival, such as that of chemicals and rotten food. Odour signals reach the brain within 100 to 150 milliseconds after being inhaled through the nose.

The survival of all living organisms depends on their ability to avoid danger and seek rewards. In humans, the olfactory sense seems particularly important for detecting and reacting to potentially harmful stimuli.

It has long been a mystery just which neural mechanisms are involved in the conversion of an unpleasant smell into avoidance behaviour in humans. One reason for this is the lack of non-invasive methods of measuring signals from the olfactory bulb, the first part of the rhinencephalon (literally "nose brain") with direct (monosynaptic) connections to the important central parts of the nervous system that helps us detect and remember threatening and dangerous situations and substances.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now developed a method that for the first time has made it possible to measure signals from the human olfactory bulb, which processes smells and in turn can transmits signals to parts of the brain that control movement and avoidance behaviour.

Their results are based on three experiments in which participants were asked to rate their experience of six different smells, some positive, some negative, while the electrophysiological activity of the olfactory bulb when responding to each of the smells was measured.

"It was clear that the bulb reacts specifically and rapidly to negative smells and sends a direct signal to the motor cortex within about 300 ms," says the study's last author Johan Lundström, associate professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. "The signal causes the person to unconsciously lean back and away from the source of the smell."

He continues:

"The results suggest that our sense of smell is important to our ability to detect dangers in our vicinity, and much of this ability is more unconscious than our response to danger mediated by our senses of vision and hearing."

The study was financed by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the Swedish Research Council. There are no reported conflicts of interest.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211014100139.htm

Warm milk makes you sleepy — peptides could explain why

October 13, 2021

Science Daily/American Chemical Society

According to time-honored advice, drinking a glass of warm milk at bedtime will encourage a good night's rest. Milk's sleep-enhancing properties are commonly ascribed to tryptophan, but scientists have also discovered a mixture of milk peptides, called casein tryptic hydrolysate (CTH), that relieves stress and enhances sleep. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have identified specific peptides in CTH that might someday be used in new, natural sleep remedies.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one-third of U.S. adults don't get enough sleep. Sedatives, such as benzodiazepines and zolpidem, are commonly prescribed for insomnia, but they can cause side effects, and people can become addicted to them. Many sedatives work by activating the GABA receptor, a protein in the brain that suppresses nerve signaling. Scientists have also discovered several natural peptides, or small pieces of proteins, that bind the GABA receptor and have anti-anxiety and sleep-enhancing effects. For example, treating a protein in cow's milk, called casein, with the digestive enzyme trypsin produces the mixture of sleep-enhancing peptides known as CTH. Within this mixture, a specific peptide known as α-casozepine (α-CZP) has been identified that could be responsible for some of these effects. Lin Zheng, Mouming Zhao and colleagues wondered if they could find other, perhaps more powerful, sleep-enhancing peptides in CTH.

The researchers first compared the effects of CTH and α-CZP in mouse sleep tests, finding that CTH showed better sleep-enhancing properties than α-CZP alone. This result suggested that other sleep-promoting peptides besides α-CZP exist in CTH. The team then used mass spectrometry to identify bioactive peptides released from CTH during simulated gastric digestion, and they virtually screened these peptides for binding to the GABA receptor and for the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. When the strongest candidates were tested in mice, the best one (called YPVEPF) increased the number of mice that fell asleep quickly by about 25% and the sleep duration by more than 400% compared to a control group. In addition to this promising peptide, others in CTH should be explored that might enhance sleep through other pathways, the researchers say.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211013104610.htm

How to Reap the Benefits of Side Sleeping

Guest Post by Julia Mitchell As the makers of the MindSpa, A/V Stim knows the importance of getting a good night’s sleep is hard to overstate. Diet and exercise get a lot of attention when it comes to the topic of living healthy, and rightfully so. But sleep is every bit as important as eating well and working out regularly, and quality sleep actually helps you to eat and exercise better. 

People who sleep well on a nightly basis enjoy tons of other benefits, including:

●      Reduced risk of heart disease and stroke

●      A stronger immune system

●      Better concentration and memory

●      Improved productivity

●      Less stress, anxiety and depression symptoms

Developing good sleep habits means more than just going to bed at a decent time, coming up with a pre-sleep routine, and setting the atmosphere in your bedroom. While all these things are important, one of the most critical aspects of getting a good night’s rest is the way your body is positioned as you sleep. Sleeping on your back is widely considered to be the healthiest all-around position, excluding special scenarios (e.g., if you're pregnant or have sleep apnea). However, sleeping on your side also comes with several benefits—as long as you do it the right way.

For all the side sleepers out there (and that’s most people), we offer a breakdown of the benefits, along with some practical tips to ensure you get the most out of your sleep:

Know the Benefits

When you sleep on your side correctly, you can enjoy several benefits, some of which are unique to the side position. Take brain health, for instance. Sleeping on your side can help your body get rid of interstitial waste in your brain, which can lower your chances of developing certain neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. It can also help to mitigate snoring and sleep apnea, because your tongue isn’t lying in your throat and blocking your airway (this could be as beneficial to your partner as it is to you). 

Perhaps the most impactful result of side-sleeping is that it fosters digestion and reduces acid reflux. Since your stomach is located on the left side of your abdomen, sleeping on your left side helps the stomach to process gastric acids and move them through the system more easily. The location of your stomach also plays a role in acid reflux; when you lay on your left side, gravity helps to keep acid reflux from escaping your stomach.

Understand How Mattresses can Cause Pain 

Getting a good mattress is not overrated. In fact, the condition and the type of mattress you sleep on can cause—or at least exacerbate—pain and inflammation in your body. For instance, if your mattress is too old, sags and/or has lumps, it can contribute to severe neck pain. If your mattress isn’t providing the support you need, it can be a factor in back pain. Moreover, mattresses that are too firm can lead to joint problems. 

Find the Right Kind of Mattress 

Finding a mattress that fits your body type and sleep style is paramount to getting a good night’s rest and reducing various kinds of pain. For side sleepers who deal with back pain, for instance, hybrid models with a soft or medium firmness level can go a long way in relieving that pain. This is due to the fact that moderate firmness provides targeted relief at your pressure points (the shoulders and hips). 

 On the other hand, heavier individuals with back pain typically benefit from innerspring mattresses. This is because innerspring mattresses are typically more firm, which means they help you to maintain adequate spinal alignment throughout the night. 

 Clean Your Mattress

While it might not have any bearing on your preferred sleeping position, a dirty mattress can contribute to poor sleep. Particularly when it comes to allergens, which get trapped in the mattress. Ideally, you should clean your mattress every six months to remove any dirt or debris. For a true deep clean, connect with furniture cleaning professionals who specifically offer mattress cleaning. Look for “professional furniture cleaning near me” to locate top-rated specialists, but also be sure to check out their websites or call to confirm they offer mattress cleaning. And don’t forget to ask about coupons!

 Sleep on Your Left Side 

 As previously mentioned, those who sleep on their left side will realize the most benefits. This is primarily because of anatomy. That is, think about your internal organs. When you sleep on your left side, less pressure is put on your stomach and digestive tract. This can help to mitigate acid reflux and heartburn and facilitate digestion. It is even beneficial during pregnancy, because it improves blood flow, maintains good kidney function, and sends more nutrients to the fetus.

 Get a Firm Pillow with Proper Loft 

 There’s more to pillows than meets the eye. Along with supporting your head and neck, the right kind of pillow will help your spine—from top to bottom—stay in the ideal position throughout the night. The last thing you want is a pillow that leaves your head bent down (talk about neck problems). However, you don’t want your head to be too elevated. Try to find a pillow with enough loft that your ear, shoulder and hip are aligned with one another.

 Finding the right pillow is worth shopping around and trying out different ones. As a starting point, remember that the size of your shoulders will determine the size of your pillow. That is, if you have thinner shoulders, you should use a thinner pillow. If you have larger shoulders, you need a thicker pillow, and so on. However, you should be able to easily move any quality pillow designed for side sleepers as you change positions. 

 Keep a Pillow Between Your Knees

 In order to sleep on your side the right way, you need more than just the pillow behind your head. Sleeping with a memory foam pillow between your knees helps to keep your hips and legs in proper alignment. It can also help alleviate back pain. If you move around in your sleep often, look for a knee pillow that comes with a strap to keep it in place.

 If you’re one of the many people who sleep on their side each night, you can enjoy several benefits if you do it the right way. Remember how important your mattress is for relieving pain, and if necessary, get a new mattress that meets your needs. Also, be sure to sleep on your left side, invest in the perfect pillow, and put an extra pillow between your knees. Implementing these little tips might just take your sleep habits to the next level. 

 Image via Unsplash

For an added dose of relaxation, invest in your own MindSpa to promote deep, restful sleep. Check out our shop today to buy your device! 

10 Things You Can Do to Deal With Career Stress

Guest Post by Felix Prasetyo

As a solopreneur, I've had to learn how to deal with career stress because nobody was there to help me. Working on my own has its benefits--behind the scenes while everyone else is still at work, charging only for the time I spend on an assignment or project, making my own hours and schedule work for me. But it takes learning on how to be self-motivated and control my own focus level. If I get distracted, procrastinate all day long, stop taking breaks during the day, then suddenly realize that it's 10 pm, and I haven't done any meaningful work in two days...I'm screwed!

But if you're like most young professionals out there who are managing their careers themselves for the first time, then you might find yourself dealing with some stress that doesn't come from your new career. Maybe it's because of school, especially if you're juggling one or two degrees while trying to work, or maybe even it's moving to a new city for the first time on your own, or maybe it's family problems...either way, here 10 things you can do to cope with it all.

1. Take up yoga. 

I know what you're thinking: "Yoga? Ha ha ha! More like Yogurt!" Well guess what--yogurt won't help reduce your blood pressure or deal with anxiety attacks before an important pitch meeting. Yoga is great for learning how to breathe properly and really control every part of your body, which helps keep your mind centered too!

Experts believe that incorporating yoga into a daily routine has many benefits in our lives, emotionally as well as physically. As more research is conducted regarding the positive effects of yoga on our health, it becomes more apparent that this practice truly does have some amazing benefits even for those who consider themselves "healthy".

2. Try seeing a doctor for medication. 

I'm not joking--you could have some sort of anxiety disorder that is making it hard to be comfortable in your new career, and if you're feeling overwhelmed then that's not normal or healthy. A doctor can prescribe something that will help control that, so don't ignore the signs!

3. Practice meditation at least once a day (in addition to yoga). 

It helps clear your mind and gives you perspective on any problems you might have. It also helps make it easier to focus on what you need to do during the day--if you've had time to sit down, center yourself, and think about everything, then it'll be easier for you to tackle each item one at a time.

A study conducted by Harvard neuroscientists showed that meditation actually changes grey matter concentration in the brain regions responsible for memory, learning ability, and compassion. Meditation helps control your emotions also because it reduces activity within our amygdala - a region associated with fear and anxiety response. 

4. Find friends at work--or approach coworkers who seem friendly so you can get to know them better outside of the office. 

It'll be nice to have some people that you can talk to about any problems or frustrations, particularly when it's someone that understands what you're going through in your career right now! Sometimes having just one person with whom you can approach personal issues is enough to cut out stress in half for the day.

5. Save up some money when times are good so you have some extra leeway if things don't turn out as planned during a rough patch of job.

Sure, I live with my family...but not everyone has that luxury! If your parents will let you stay with them rent-free while you find a job, then that's great. If not, then make sure to keep some money tucked away for the day when you come home and say "I don't know what to do anymore!"

6. Find ways to relax outside of work (even if it means taking time off). 

As much as this is about dealing with stress at work, it's also about learning how to take care of yourself...so make sure you're doing things that are enjoyable too! You can use up all your vacation days or personal days on relaxing--that way there'll be no guilt involved the next time you have an assignment due which is eating up your last few hours of free time!

7. Find ways to escape work at work (and don't feel bad about it). 

Your job might be stressful, but that doesn't mean you can't take a few minutes out of your day to check your personal email or text the people who are closest to you! If anything, it'll make you feel better for the rest of the day so you can tackle each problem with more ease.

8. Take advantage of company programs designed to help employees relax and refocus themselves.

There's no shame in asking HR if they have any services available for their staff. You might need to go through some training or counseling sessions before anything is approved, but there's nothing wrong with taking part in something that could improve your mental health during these tough times.

9. Reach out to your S.O., family, or friends for support.

Sometimes it's easier to talk about tough problems with people who won't be directly impacted by the outcome (or at least not until they find out how things turn out!). They can give you a different perspective on what you're going through, and help remind you of the good parts of the situation too!

10. Make sure you have some activities planned during downtime. 

When work does start to weigh on your mind, it'll be nice to have something else waiting for you! A new book series? An upcoming movie marathon? Exciting plans with your best friend from back home? Whatever it is, just sure there's something there which will make you happy--because there's no point in dealing with stress if it doesn't make you feel better!

Hobbies are great for keeping your mind busy during times of stress, especially if the hobby is something that keeps you active. If entering a 5K race to support cancer research or hula hooping for fun will help take away your worries, then go out and do it! Be sure to check what types of activities are offered through work too--if they'll reimburse you for them, then even better!

Final thoughts

You are so worth it. When you're feeling stressed, it's important to take time for yourself and find ways to relieve the tension. Because at the end of the day, we all face challenges in our lives. Stress, because of that, is inevitable. But by implementing these 10 tips you can reduce the amount of time it takes for your brain and body to recover. Implementing even one tip will make a difference in how you feel. Let us know if any of these ideas resonate with you or share some that work well for you!

Author bio (Gravatar email: felix@lifengoal.com):

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Hit the sleep ‘sweet spot’ to keep brain sharp

Too little and too much sleep linked to cognitive decline

October 20, 2021

Science Daily/Washington University School of Medicine

Like so many other good things in life, sleep is best in moderation. A multiyear study of older adults found that both short and long sleepers experienced greater cognitive decline than people who slept a moderate amount, even when the effects of early Alzheimer's disease were taken into account. The study was led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Poor sleep and Alzheimer's disease are both associated with cognitive decline, and separating out the effects of each has proven challenging. By tracking cognitive function in a large group of older adults over several years and analyzing it against levels of Alzheimer's-related proteins and measures of brain activity during sleep, the researchers generated crucial data that help untangle the complicated relationship among sleep, Alzheimer's and cognitive function. The findings could aid efforts to help keep people's minds sharp as they age.

The findings are published Oct. 20 in the journal Brain.

"It's been challenging to determine how sleep and different stages of Alzheimer's disease are related, but that's what you need to know to start designing interventions," said first author Brendan Lucey, MD, an associate professor of neurology and director of the Washington University Sleep Medicine Center. "Our study suggests that there is a middle range, or 'sweet spot,' for total sleep time where cognitive performance was stable over time. Short and long sleep times were associated with worse cognitive performance, perhaps due to insufficient sleep or poor sleep quality. An unanswered question is if we can intervene to improve sleep, such as increasing sleep time for short sleepers by an hour or so, would that have a positive effect on their cognitive performance so they no longer decline? We need more longitudinal data to answer this question."

Alzheimer's is the main cause of cognitive decline in older adults, contributing to about 70% of dementia cases. Poor sleep is a common symptom of the disease and a driving force that can accelerate the disease's progression. Studies have shown that self-reported short and long sleepers are both more likely to perform poorly on cognitive tests, but such sleep studies typically do not include assessments of Alzheimer's disease.

To tease apart the separate effects of sleep and Alzheimer's disease on cognition, Lucey and colleagues turned to volunteers who participate in Alzheimer's studies through the university's Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center. Such volunteers undergo annual clinical and cognitive assessments, and provide a blood sample to be tested for the high-risk Alzheimer's genetic variant APOE4. For this study, the participants also provided samples of cerebrospinal fluid to measure levels of Alzheimer's proteins, and each slept with a tiny electroencephalogram (EEG) monitor strapped to their foreheads for four to six nights to measure brain activity during sleep.

In total, the researchers obtained sleep and Alzheimer's data on 100 participants whose cognitive function had been monitored for an average of 4 1/2 years. Most (88) had no cognitive impairments, 11 were very mildly impaired, and one had mild cognitive impairment. The average age was 75 at the time of the sleep study.

The researchers found a U-shaped relationship between sleep and cognitive decline. Overall, cognitive scores declined for the groups that slept less than 4.5 or more than 6.5 hours per night -- as measured by EEG -- while scores stayed stable for those in the middle of the range. EEG tends to yield estimates of sleep time that are about an hour shorter than self-reported sleep time, so the findings correspond to 5.5 to 7.5 hours of self-reported sleep, Lucey said.

The U-shaped relationship held true for measures of specific sleep phases, including rapid-eye movement (REM), or dreaming, sleep; and non-REM sleep. Moreover, the relationship held even after adjusting for factors that can affect both sleep and cognition, such as age, sex, levels of Alzheimer's proteins, and the presence of APOE4.

"It was particularly interesting to see that not only those with short amounts of sleep but also those with long amounts of sleep had more cognitive decline," said co-senior author David Holtzman, MD, a professor of neurology. "It suggests that sleep quality may be key, as opposed to simply total sleep."

Each person's sleep needs are unique, and people who wake up feeling rested on short or long sleep schedules should not feel compelled to change their habits, Lucey said. But those who are not sleeping well should be aware that sleep problems often can be treated.

"I ask many of my patients, 'How's your sleep?'" said co-senior author Beau M. Ances, MD, PhD, the Daniel J. Brennan, MD, Professor of Neurology. Ances treats patients with dementia and other neurodegenerative conditions at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "Often patients report that they're not sleeping well. Often once their sleep issues are treated, they may have improvements in cognition. Physicians who are seeing patients with cognitive complaints should ask them about their quality of sleep. This is potentially a modifiable factor."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211020135920.htm

Sleep loss does not impact ability to assess emotional information

October 11, 2021

Science Daily/Washington State University

It's no secret that going without sleep can affect people's mood, but a new study shows it does not interfere with their ability to evaluate emotional situations.

It is often assumed that feeling more negative will color people's experience of emotional images and events in the environment around them. However, Washington State University researchers found that while going 24 hours without sleep impacted study participants' mood, it did not change their performance on tests evaluating their ability to process emotional words and images.

"People do become less happy through sleep deprivation, but it's not affecting how they are processing emotional stimuli in their environment," said Anthony Stenson, a WSU psychology doctoral student and lead author of the study in Plos One.

The findings have implications for healthcare providers, law enforcement and people in other long-hour professions who need to be able to control their own emotions during stressful and emotionally trying situations. Sleep loss in not likely to make them numb to emotional situations, the researchers found, but it is likely to make them less able to control their own emotional responses.

For the study, about 60 adult participants spent four consecutive days in the Sleep and Performance Research Center at the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. All participants were allowed to sleep normally the first night and then given a set of baseline tests to judge their mood as well as their emotional regulation and processing ability. Then, the researchers divided the participants into two groups: one group of 40 people spent the second night awake, while a control group of 20 were allowed a normal sleep period. The tests were then re-administered at different intervals.

The emotional regulation and processing tests both involved viewing a series of images with positive and negative emotional connotations. In the emotional regulation tests, participants were given a prompt to help them recontextualize negative images before seeing them and asked to control their feelings. The sleep-deprived group had greater difficulty reducing the emotion they felt when instructed to do so.

The processing tests involved responding to words and images with emotional content, for example rating the emotions conveyed by a smiling family, a growling dog or a crying child All participants performed similarly on these tests whether they were sleep deprived or not.

The distinction between processing the emotional content of the world around you and being able to regulate your own emotional responses is an important one, especially for some professions, said co-author Paul Whitney, a WSU professor of psychology.

"I don't think we want our first responders being numb to the emotional nature of the situations they encounter, and it looks like they are not," he said. "On the other hand, reacting normally to emotional situations, but not being able to control your own emotions, could be one reason sleep loss sometimes produces catastrophic errors in stressful situations."

A lot of previous research has looked at how sleep deprivation impacts so called "cold" cognitive tasks -- supposedly emotionally neutral tasks like recalling facts. These studies have also found that regulation, which is considered a "top-down" cognitive process, is a major problem with cold cognitive tasks. For instance, mental flexibility is compromised by sleep deprivation. This is the ability an emergency room doctor might need to quickly change tactics if a patient isn't responding to a treatment.

The current study shows that top-down regulation is a problem as well with "hot" or emotional cognitive processes. Future research is needed to understand whether the effects of sleep loss on the two top-down processes are linked.

This study is the result of an ongoing collaboration among WSU psychology researchers and sleep experts at WSU College of Medicine. Other authors include psychology post-doctoral fellow Courtney Kurinec as well as psychology Professor John Hinson and College of Medicine Professor Hans Van Dongen. All are also affiliated with the WSU Sleep and Performance Research Center.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211011091255.htm