Stress Is Contagious In the Classroom

When teachers are stressed, so are their students, according to a new study.

In the report, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, researchers assessed the burnout levels of 17 teachers of fourth through seventh grade. They also assessed levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their students—more than 400 of them—by taking saliva samples at three different times during the school day.

The researchers found that students had higher levels of cortisol if their teachers reported higher burnout levels. “Teachers who experience higher levels of burnout report to be more stressed, less effective in teaching and classroom management, less connected to their students, and less satisfied with their work,” the study authors write.

The study is the first to link teacher burnout to physical stress changes in their students. Occupational burnout has been shown to take a toll on job success and contribute to health problems; in the case of physicians who experience stress and burnout, both doctors and their patients are affected.

“Considering that classroom teachers can take on many roles for elementary school students, including mentor, role model, and parental roles, it is possible that spending most of the school day in interaction with a stressed and burned out teacher is taxing for students and can affect their physiological stress profile,” the researchers write.

Burned out teachers may also have fewer resources and support, which could also contribute to student stress. The study, however, could not definitively connect students’ cortisol levels to their teachers. More research is needed to understand how people’s stress could impact the stress levels of people around them.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

Stress Is Contagious In the Classroom

NYU Lutheran helps patients fight prostate cancer with latest diagnostic and robotic surgery technology

Leading NYU Lutheran's fight is Marc Bjurlin, DO, the hospital's newly appointed director of urologic oncology and clinical assistant professor of urology at NYU School of Medicine. NYU Lutheran helps patients fight prostate cancer with latest diagnostic and robotic surgery technology

NYU Lutheran helps patients fight prostate cancer with latest diagnostic and robotic surgery technology

Leading NYU Lutheran's fight is Marc Bjurlin, DO, the hospital's newly appointed director of urologic oncology and clinical assistant professor of urology at NYU School of Medicine. NYU Lutheran helps patients fight prostate cancer with latest diagnostic and robotic surgery technology

How This App Helped Me Finally Stop Procrastinating

I’ve always been a procrastinator. Studying for high school history exams, calling the dreaded cable company, scrubbing my bathroom—you name it, I’ve said, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” So when I heard about a popular task-manager app called 30/30 (iOS), I had to try it out. 

What it does

The app lets you schedule your to-do list in timed intervals. The simple concept: You work on a task for 30 minutes; the app alerts you when your time is up, and you get a 30-minute break (hence the name 30/30).  

RELATED: 12 Ways to Improve Your Concentration at Work

The pros

The interface is so bright and pleasing to the eye, it’s hard not to feel motivated when you open it. I had fun color coding and labeling my tasks with mini icons (say, silverware for the week's meal prep, a piggy bank for managing my budget). You can also choose how you want to be alerted—with a ring, a vibration, or a visual notification. (I found the ring worked best, so I didn't, you know, procrastinate by checking my phone.) If you finish a task early, you touch the check mark, which brings you to the next item on your to-do list. Or, if the timer goes off and you are in the zone, you can hit '+5m' to give yourself an extra five minutes. 

Knowing that I was being timed really motivated me to get stuff done. And knowing that I only had to work in 30-minute bursts helped me get through the really daunting chores (like my taxes). I'd find myself thinking, You probably only have 20 minutes left on the clock, so get as much done as you can and then you can watch an episode of Friends!

I have an unhealthy habit of scrolling through Instagram and obsessively clicking through Snapchat stories to avoid whatever it is I don't want to do. But with this app, I felt like I was always on a mission to beat the clock.

​RELATED: A Standing Desk Won't Help You Slim Down—​But Doing This Will

The cons

One of the app's downsides is that it’s confusing at first. It took me a little while to figure out how to set my tasks and change my settings. But once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty self-explanatory. My other complaint is that there are a lot of interactive options for managing your to-dos. On each task, you can 2-finger tap, 3-finger tap, touch and hold, shake the phone, spread your fingers apart vertically, and more. Each kind of tap and swipe does something different, and there are so many options, it's a little overwhelming.

Who should try it

If you have a serious problem focusing, 30/30 might be yet another source of distraction. But for people like me who need a little extra motivation to get things done, the ticking clock may be just the amount of pressure you need. 

How This App Helped Me Finally Stop Procrastinating

Stuck on a Problem? Let Your Mind Wander, Researchers Say

There’s a reason some people say they get their best ideas when they're running. A new study from researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and published in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that a clear mind—free of too much chatter—is a more creative one. 

In three different experiments, about 20 people completed the same free association task. (They had to quickly name the first thing that popped into their head after they heard a series of target words.) But in each experiment, the researchers manipulated the "cognitive load" of the participants with various additional tasks. For example, some people were asked to remember a string of two digits (a low cognitive load), while others had to alphabetize the first three letters of each target word (a high cognitive load). 

RELATED: 12 Reasons to Stop Multitasking Now!

What the researchers found was that the participants with lower cognitive loads gave more creative responses. “When you reduce mental [stress], people have a greater tendency to avoid the ‘obvious solution’ and instead access unique thoughts in their mind,” study co-author and PhD student Shira Baror explained in an email to Health. In other words, when your brain is quieter, it can afford to "put aside its stored, immediate, well-earned associations and take a more interesting path of more original associations." 

The study's findings are in line with prior research, says Jonathan Schooler, PhD, a professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2012 he led a study that showed the benefits of letting your mind slow down and wander: His team's work suggested that when you're trying to solve a problem, you may get the best creative boost from engaging in a non-demanding task. Think taking a shower, doing light chores—or you know, going for a good sweaty run.

RELATED: How Exercise Makes You More Creative

In fact, that's exactly what Baror suggests when you're stuck in a rut. "Ruminating on the same problem, especially when you're under stress or tension, will not yield creative solutions." Instead, she says, literally walk away, and give your mind the chance to make those seemingly random, unexpected turns that lead to breakthroughs.

 

Stuck on a Problem? Let Your Mind Wander, Researchers Say

This Is How Tonight’s Rare ‘Strawberry Moon’ Might Affect Your Body

Look up at the sky tonight, and you will see a rare celestial phenomenon: a solstice full moon. Depending on your time zone, it may be the first since 1948. 

The June solstice, observed at 6:34 p.m. ET, when the sun reaches its northernmost position in the sky, will mark the first day of summer, and the longest day of the year. (Of course it's a Monday!) Then, as the sun sets two hours later, a full moon will rise in the east. 

June's full moon is known as the strawberry moon because it appears at the peak of strawberry season. Algonquin tribes considered it a signal to start harvesting the fruit, according to the Farmer's Almanac. But tonight's full moon may mean other things aside from perfectly ripe berries. Research suggests it might affect us in a handful of unexpected ways.

If you've been sleeping fitfully, for example, this lunar phase could be to blame. In a 2013 study published in the journal Current Biology, researchers found that on nights surrounding a full moon, participants had lower levels of the sleep hormone melatonin. They also slept 20 fewer minutes overall, and brain activity related to deep sleep declined 30%.

Research has also hinted there may be a link between the lunar cycle and a woman's menstrual cycle. According to a 2011 study in the journal Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, some women's periods may be synced to the full moon. The researchers found that of the 826 women who participated in the study, 30% had their period during the full moon. 

The moon may even have an effect on surgical outcomes. A 2013 study revealed that people who had emergency heart surgery during a full moon were less likely to die. They also spent, on average, four fewer days in the hospital than patients who underwent the same surgery during two other moon phases. 

But whether you notice any effects from tonight's moon or not, you're likely to feel good this week. As TIME reports, the summer solstice may be the happiest day of the year, possibly due to the extra minutes of sunlight; or because during the summer, our natural circadian rhythms become more closely aligned with the 24-hour cycle of sunlight and darkness, which can influence both our sleep and our moods. 

Now go soak up some extra rays, and make sure you hang out long enough to catch a glimpse of a beautiful moon.

This Is How Tonight’s Rare ‘Strawberry Moon’ Might Affect Your Body

7 Ways to Carve Out Time to Meditate

Establishing a meditation routine can be difficult. You’re busy! Who has time to breathe, let alone sit and breathe? But if you think the only way you’ll learn how to meditate is with a 25-hour day, think again.

RELATED: How to Meditate (Even If You’re Really Impatient)

Plenty of busy people are making time for meditation. Media guru Arianna Huffington makes it a part of her morning routine. Rapper 50 Cent uses meditation to help him remain positive when faced with negative personalities. And Jerry Seinfeld won’t let anything get between him and his meditation time—he allegedly takes time between TV shoots to get zen.

Cultivating Calm, On Your Time

“I have a really chaotic schedule so I do it whenever I can,” says Dan Harris, a correspondent for ABC News and the author of the New York Times bestseller 10% Happier. “I don’t freak out if I can’t fit it in but I do think it’s important to do something every day.” Harris has been meditating ever since he experienced a panic attack on air nearly a decade ago.

He credits meditation with helping him control knee-jerk reactions to frustrating situations. Thanks to improved patience, Harris says he’s a better listener and is able to hold shorter, more fruitful meetings. Meditation, he says, is “fighting a lifetime pattern of letting your thoughts lead you by the nose.”

RELATED: The 8 Best Apps for Guided Meditation

Dina Kaplan, founder of The Path, a weekly meditation practice in New York City, says meditation allows her to have more “mental agility” during her day. She’s much more calm when faced with stress, and feels as though she makes better decisions. And science confirms these benefits: your brain will actually change if you stick with meditation, just as your body changes when you exercise regularly. You’ll be rewarded with improved memory and other cognitive benefits.

“Don’t put the pressure on yourself that you have to do it forever,” Harris says. It’s okay if you fall off the wagon for a few weeks, so long as you muster the grit to return to your practice. The power of meditation, he says, is derived from practicing daily. Watch this video for a short meditation exercise from Happify, featuring Harris and Sharon Salzberg, a meditation teacher and author.

So what’s the secret to actually making time for meditation? We asked Harris, Kaplan and David Ngo, a behavioral designer at Stanford University and behavior consultant for The Path, for their best tips on how to actually create a meditation habit.

7 Ways to Start Meditating Today 

1. Type it into your phone calendar
Instead of simply hoping you’ll be able to squeeze in meditation on the fly, try setting aside a specific time for it. “If I carve out time to [meditate], that’s the space for my practice to go,” says Ngo. When you create that space, the habit can grow. But rather than thinking of meditation as another item on your to-do list, think of it as a gift to yourself, says Kaplan.

 2. Do it in the morning
“If you’re starting out and you’re struggling with developing the habit, I do think you should do it first thing [in the morning]” says Kaplan. She meditates right after she brushes her teeth. By doing it right away, she has no excuse. Especially for parents with young kids, doing it before the day gets underway is your best bet for fitting in some “me time,” she says. Kaplan recommends not setting your goals too high in the beginning. “If you can do five minutes, that’s better than nothing.”

RELATED: 19 Ways to Trick Yourself Into Becoming a Morning Person

3. Start with one breath
Don’t underestimate the power of small behaviors. By focusing on taking one conscious breath when you have a spare moment, you can pave the way for creating a meditation habit. Ngo says this philosophy comes from BJ Fogg, Ph.D., behavioral scientist and founder of Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, who pioneered the idea of creating tiny habits. For example, to create a habit of tidying up at home, you might start by making your bed each morning. A tiny habit should be a behavior that requires little effort and can be performed in less than 30 seconds. “That seed of the habit can then grow into a full-blow tree,” says Ngo.

4. Perform meditation after an existing habit
After you get into your car for your daily commute, try meditating for a few breaths instead of racing to turn on the ignition. Or quiet your mind after you go to the bathroom at work. “The pattern is always after,” says Ngo. “This is called anchoring.” Ngo recommends choosing a daily occurrence or existing activity to remind yourself to meditate.

5. Use headphones
As a TV correspondent, Harris has a packed schedule that involves a fair amount of travel. “People think you have to sit in some position, but that isn’t true,” he says. “There are four ways to do it: walking, standing, sitting or lying down.” No matter how busy life gets, Harris tries to fit in 30 minutes of meditation each day. His secret weapon? Headphones. He puts on a pair to cancel noise when he meditates in airports and on planes. “As long as you’re somewhere that’s reasonably quiet, you’re good,” says Harris. (And if you’re lying down and you fall asleep, that’s ok, he says.)

RELATED: How to Overcome Anxiety, Starting Now

6. Siphon time from superfluous activities
Think about it: Do you really need to hit ‘reply all’ to every email that hits your inbox? “I would have considered myself busy at my last job, but it was just an excuse to procrastinate from what was really important,” says Kaplan. As a successful start-up founder and Emmy award-winning TV reporter, Kaplan says she was writing redundant emails and taking meetings that were unnecessary. “If you’re answering emails you don’t really need to respond to, that would give you 15 minutes,” she says. With that extra time, she suggests finding a quiet park bench to relax, or even sneaking into a hotel lobby for a few minutes.

7. Practice mindfulness when you’ve got time to kill
Resist the urge to scroll through Instagram the moment your friend or dinner date heads to the bathroom. “I think it’s very healthy to have all sorts of moments in the day where you’re just being,” says Kaplan. It’s tempting to use our phones as entertainment during those “black spaces” during the day, but Kaplan recommends pausing and just letting the moment happen instead of gluing yourself to your Facebook feed. Look around, smile at other people and enjoy some momentary calm. While it’s not the same as doing a seated meditation, being fully present during these small moments can help you feel more comfortable confronting the thoughts rattling around in your mind.

This article originally appeared on DailyBurn.com. 

7 Ways to Carve Out Time to Meditate

Why the Summer Solstice May Be the Happiest Day of the Year

The summer solstice is June 20, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. But do the extra hours of sunshine make you happier?

In general, people are more cheerful in the summertime, according to Philip Gehrman, associate director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Light serves as the strongest cue to regulate circadian rhythms, which include the sleep cycle, hormonal fluctuations and body temperature and follow a roughly 24-hour pattern.

“People tend to feel better in summer months,” Gehrman said. “There’s a slight elevation in our mood. More positive emotions are reported.”

But the effect isn’t uniform—circadian rhythms vary from person to person, so the amount and timing of sunlight means different things to different people, said Dr. Irina V. Zhdanova, a neuroscience professor at Boston University. For example, morning sunlight can irritate people who wake up late. On the other hand, for people who rise early, morning sunlight can have a positive effect, but sunlight may irritate them in the evening.

It’s similar to meal habits, Zhdanova said.

“Some like three meals a day, others like 10 small meals a day,” Zhdanova said. “Sometimes sunlight is good and uplifting during a certain time of the day, while for others, it’s neither uplifting or positive and can induce mild irritation.”

The extra sunlight also entrains the circadian rhythm, a process in which the internal biological clock aligns itself to external cues, like the light-dark cycle. Now that the days are longer, in general, the circadian rhythm is entrained much better, Zhdanova said. In other words, the circadian rhythm is better aligned with natural sunlight and darkness, which can affect people’s sleep and moods.

However, Gehrman said, it is unclear whether elevated moods come from more entrained circadian rhythms and better sleep, or if the happiness boost is directly attributable to the sunlight.

On the flip side, experiencing less sunlight in the winter can pose a challenge, said Frank Scheer, director of the Medical Chronobiology Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

“The lengthening or shortening of the light period during the day does have a clear effect,” Scheer said. “In wintertime, when the days are shorter, we are more likely to wake up when it’s still dark outside and before the circadian system stimulates wakefulness and improved mood.”

So, enjoy the longest day of the year while it lasts—the days will start getting shorter again from here.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

Why the Summer Solstice May Be the Happiest Day of the Year

Forgiving Other People Is Good for Your Health

Being forgiving to yourself and others can protect against stress and the toll it takes on mental health, according to a new study in the Journal of Health Psychology.

Researchers looked at the effects of lifetime stress on a person’s mental health, and how more forgiving people fared compared to people who weren’t so forgiving. To do this, they asked 148 young adults to fill out questionnaires that assessed their levels of lifetime stress, their tendency to forgive and their mental and physical health.

No surprise, people with greater exposure to stress over their lifetimes had worse mental and physical health. But the researchers also discovered that if people were highly forgiving of both themselves and others, that characteristic alone virtually eliminated the connection between stress and mental illness.

“It’s almost entirely erased—it’s statistically zero,” says study author Loren Toussaint, an associate professor of psychology at Luther College in Iowa. “If you don’t have forgiving tendencies, you feel the raw effects of stress in an unmitigated way. You don’t have a buffer against that stress.”

How a forgiving personality protects a person from the ills of severe stress is hard to determine. The researchers speculate that people who are more forgiving may adopt better coping skills to deal with stress, or their reaction to major stressors may be dulled.

The sample of people in the study is small, and more research is needed to fully understand the benefits of being more forgiving. But Toussaint says he believes “100%” that forgiveness can be learned. Many therapists work to cultivate forgiveness in sessions, he says, and his own prior research has shown that saying a short prayer or a brief meditation on forgiveness can help people take the edge off.

“Forgiveness takes that bad connection between stress and mental illness and makes it zero,” he says. “I think most people want to feel good and it offers you the opportunity to do that.”

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

Forgiving Other People Is Good for Your Health

The Best Stress Buster You're Currently Not Using

If you've ever spent some time doodling with crayons or sculpting a lump of Play-Doh and emerged feeling refreshed and relaxed, science may have an explanation. Researchers found that levels of the stress hormone cortisol (which normally spikes during the fight-or-flight response) went down in a group of 39 volunteers who drew with markers, made collages, or played with clay for 45 minutes.

Although this study, published in Art Therapy, was done in healthy adults, it confirms what Lindsay Aaron sees all the time in cancer patients: "This is a very science-focused study but it's something you see on the outside of the individual, in body language, the emotional state, behavior," says Aaron, a healing arts therapist at Montefiore Health System in New York City. "We're being able to understand what goes on in the neurology."  

Much of the research thus far has been done in people suffering from different health conditions, and usually with much more defined tasks, such as painting a single tile. This study is the first to look at more freewheeling creative expression in healthy people.

RELATED: Pamper Yourself! 8 Natural Stress Relievers

Researchers took saliva samples from 33 women and six men aged 18 to 59 before and after 45-minute sessions with an art therapist, who was present to provide any assistance needed.​ Levels of cortisol in the saliva tend to mirror those in the blood, so are a good measure of how stressed you are.  

The participants were given no specific instructions other than to make anything they wanted with paper, markers, modeling clay, and collage materials. Some made collages out of magazine pages, some made small clay sculptures, and some combined clay, scribbles, and words cut out of newspapers. About half of the participants had little experience making art.

Cortisol levels went down in 75% of participants over the course of a session. Surprisingly, the remaining 25% had higher levels of cortisol than when they started, something the researchers are still trying to understand. It could be that the art led to new learning or self awareness, which raised stress levels. When asked to write about the experience, participants who said they had learned about themselves during the exercise were slightly more likely to have elevated cortisol levels. 

The study included no control group, which means the researchers don't know if the changes in cortisol levels were due to making art or to some other factor, like hanging out with other people, says study lead author Girija Kaimal, assistant professor of creative arts therapies at Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions in Philadelphia. 

RELATED: 25 Surprising Ways Stress Affects Your Health

It's possible that cortisol levels would decrease after an hour of watching TV as well, points out James W. Pennebaker, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Pennebaker has done numerous studies linking expressive writing with better heath and lower stress levels.

That said, "The findings are certainly consistent with the idea that self-expression can reduce stress and improve health," Pennebaker added.

Art serves two purposes at least, according to Kaimal. "It helps us express things that we don't often have words for but are deeply felt and experienced," she says. "Second, it helps us communicate to others this inner state, and when you communicate, you can build relationships. You are really communicating 'This is who I am and where I am.'"

The Best Stress Buster You're Currently Not Using

Learning Something New? Exercising Could Boost Memory

Working out might keep the brain sharp, and according to a new study, exercising four hours after learning a task can improve memory.

In the new report, published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, researchers found that exercising four hours after a memory task increased brain patterns associated with memory, and helped people retain information better than people who exercised immediately after or people who did not work out.

Seventy two people partook in a picture-location memory task for about 40 minutes. Then, the people were either randomly assigned to 35 minutes of exercise right away, exercise four hours later, or no exercise at all. Two days later, the people came back to see how well they remembered what they had learned, and their brains were scanned. The people who exercised hours later had better recall and stronger and more clear activation in the areas of their brain associated with memory retrieval.

“There is good evidence from animal data that the release of certain neurotransmitters—dopamine and norepinephrine—leads to a biochemical cascade leading to the production of so called plasticity related proteins,” says study author Guillén Fernández, director of the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour at Radboud University Medical Center in an email to TIME. “These proteins help stabilize new memory traces, which would otherwise be lost. Physical exercise is at the start of this sequence, because it is accompanied by the release of dopamine and norepinephrine.”

The idea that regular exercise has an impact on brain health, including memory, has been reported in many studies and Fernández says the new report adds to the evidence by showing a single session of exercise can aid in memory retention.

The number of people in the study is small, so it’s hard to say whether people should start pacing workouts exactly four hours after learning something important. Still, the study authors argue that their study is a proof of principal that exercise should be considered as a strategy for long-term memory.

This post originally appeared on Time.com. 

Learning Something New? Exercising Could Boost Memory

Do These 5 Things Every Day to Live Longer

 

What if the secret to a longer life could be boiled down to five simple steps?

Harvard Medical School professor Sanjiv Chopra, MD, believes it can. In his new book, The Big Five ($25; amazon.com), Dr. Chopra outlines a handful of habits with benefits backed by decades of research. For the majority of people, he writes, making these behaviors part of your daily routine can boost your health, and perhaps lengthen your life span. Below, the five-step plan he's dubbed the lazy man's guide to longevity.

RELATED: 21 Reasons You'll Live Longer Than Your Friends

Drink Coffee

“It really is a miracle drug,” Dr. Chopra said in an interview with Health, pointing to the thousands of studies on coffee's health benefits. Research has suggested that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of everything from type 2 diabetes to Parkinson's disease to liver cancer. Those studies don't prove that coffee is the reason for the risk reduction; it could be some other factor linked to coffee drinkers' lifestyles. But a 2012 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine that analyzed data from 400,000 people over a 14-year period did find that the overall mortality rate was 15% lower for women who drank two to six cups of coffee a day, and 10% lower for men who drank that amount. Just don't drink it too hot; a recent World Health Organization analysis suggests hot coffee (or any super-hot beverage) is linked to a higher risk of esophageal cancer.

Exercise

We all know the perks of physical activity, and "we all have the choice to do it or not," Dr. Chopra points out. In his book, he cites a large review of research published in the journal PLOS Medicine that revealed 150 minutes of brisk walking per week was associated with a gain in life expectancy of 3.5 to 4.5 years. But it doesn't matter what you do as long as you're doing something, Dr. Chopra says. To get his more reluctant patients moving, he asks which type of exercise they "dislike the least," then writes a prescription for that particular workout. 

RELATED:  How to Become an Exercise Addict

Get Your Vitamin D

Dr. Chopra recommends that all healthy adults ask their doctor for a vitamin D test. He points out in his book that an estimated 25% of Americans have an insufficient amount of D, and another 39% are deficient. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a host of medical issues, including multiple sclerosis, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. "Vitamin D3 is the only supplement I take regularly," he writes. "It's simple: If this growing mountain of evidence is wrong and vitamin D3 supplements don't fortify my immune system or decrease the chances that I'll eventually be diagnosed with one of many different conditions, then I'll be out $30 a year." Keep in mind that a 2010 report from the Institute of Medicine concluded (after a massive analysis of the data) that most Americans are getting sufficient vitamin D, so check with your doctor.

RELATED: 27 Health Problems Linked to Low Vitamin D

Eat Nuts

You may lower your risk of pancreatic cancer, heart disease, stroke, and early death with just a handful of nuts a day, Dr. Chopra says. He refers to them as "miniature health food stores," since they offer everything from protein and omega-3 fatty acids to antioxidants like vitamins B and E and essential minerals like selenium and magnesium. Just go easy on the types high in unhealthy saturated fats, like macadamia nuts, he says. And keep in mind that portion and sodium control are key; nuts are a relatively high-calorie snack that can also deliver too much salt if you're not careful (choose unsalted!).

RELATED: Best and Worst Nuts for Your Health

Meditate

People around the world have been practicing meditation for thousands of years, and now science is finally starting to document its benefits, including stress reduction. "This reduction of stress might well be reason that continued meditation appears to have a positive effect on long-term health," Dr. Chopra writes, noting that stress and mood play a role in nearly all types of illness. "There is no longer any doubt that meditation affects both mental and physical processes, but how it does so and exactly what it does—and how to control it and benefit from it—just isn't known." For now, he recommends at least 15 minutes of meditation twice a day, and learning from an experienced teacher. In the meantime, check out our beginner's guide for some tips on how to get started.

Do These 5 Things Every Day to Live Longer

Apple Just Introduced a Breathing App. Here’s Why That’s Brilliant

Apple has a message for you: Remember to breathe. Later this year, the Cupertino, Calif. company is adding a new app to its Apple Watch that walks users through short, deep-breathing programs. The app, appropriately, is called “Breathe.”

Wait, what? Who needs an app to remind us to inhale oxygen? Isn’t this as silly as those apps that remind you to drink water when you’re thirsty?

Not at all. Medical experts have long maintained that deep-breathing exercises can provide a wide range of health benefits, from stress relief to cardiovascular improvements. (During Apple’s presentation, the company used a quote from Deepak Chopra, who has had many of his health claims called into question.)

I know this from experience. Early in my senior year of college, I experienced my first real bout of anxiety. It struck suddenly—so quickly that I thought I was having a heart attack—and refused to fade. Worst of all, there was no clear cause. It was generalized anxiety, the sort of thing that probably afflicts lots of students about to leave the soft, cushy bubble of campus life for the first time.

For months, I would wake up every day, enjoy a few blissful moments of normality, then my heart rate would skyrocket. I felt a bit like Bruce Banner, though I never turned into a hulking green monster. (The experience taught me that Banner’s superpower isn’t turning into the Hulk; it’s staying Banner.) I did my best to go about my day before coming home and trying to calm myself down for a few hours of rest. There were many sleepless nights.

Only three things helped. First, I took full advantage of my university’s mental health professionals, and thank god for them. Second, I started running, because I figured if my mind was racing, my body might as well too. But what was most helpful turned out to be the deep-breathing exercises recommended by one of my professors. It sounds unbelievable that taking a few minutes every now and then to stop what I was doing to focus on taking nice, big breaths helped lift me out of a mental health crisis. But with time, it did.

Anxiety is far less of a problem in my life these days, mostly because I’m proactive about controlling it. But when I feel it coming on, deep breathing is my primary weapon against it. Often I use apps like Headspace or sites like Calm.com to guide my sessions. But now that I’ll have a breathing coach right on my wrist, it’ll make me that less anxious about, well, anxiety.

If Apple’s app takes off, it could make many of its users’ lives much healthier.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

Apple Just Introduced a Breathing App. Here’s Why That’s Brilliant

How Your iPhone Photos Make You Happier

Photography was once an expensive, laborious ordeal reserved for life’s greatest milestones. Now, the only apparent cost to taking infinite photos of something as mundane as a meal is the space on your hard drive (and your dining companion’s patience).

But is there another cost, a deeper cost, to documenting a life experience instead of simply enjoying it? “You hear that you shouldn’t take all these photos and interrupt the experience, and it’s bad for you, and we’re not living in the present moment,” says Kristin Diehl, associate professor of marketing at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

Diehl and her fellow researchers wanted to find out if that was true, so they embarked on a series of nine experiments in the lab and in the field testing people’s enjoyment in the presence or absence of a camera. The results, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, surprised them. Taking photos actually makes people enjoy what they’re doing more, not less.

“What we find is you actually look at the world slightly differently, because you’re looking for things you want to capture, that you may want to hang onto,” Diehl explains. “That gets people more engaged in the experience, and they tend to enjoy it more.”

Take sightseeing. In one experiment, nearly 200 participants boarded a double-decker bus for a tour of Philadelphia. Both bus tours forbade the use of cell phones but one tour provided digital cameras and encouraged people to take photos. The people who took photos enjoyed the experience significantly more, and said they were more engaged, than those who didn’t.

Snapping a photo directs attention, which heightens the pleasure you get from whatever you’re looking at, Diehl says. It works for things as boring (sorry, as educational) as archaeological museums, where people were given eye-tracking glasses and instructed either to take photos or not. “People look longer at things they want to photograph,” Diehl says. They report liking the exhibits more, too.

To the relief of Instagrammers everywhere, it can even makes meals more enjoyable. When people were encouraged to take at least three photos while they ate lunch, they were more immersed in their meals more than those who weren’t told to take photos.

Was it the satisfying click of the camera? The physical act of the snap? No, they found; just the act of planning to take a photo—and not actually taking it—had the same joy-boosting effect. “If you want to take mental photos, that works the same way,” Diehl says. “Thinking about what you would want to photograph also gets you more engaged.”

But don’t expect to enjoy yourself more by simply strapping on a GoPro and recording your life. “That kind of technology we don’t think will have any effect,” Diehl says. “It’s when you actively decide what you what to take photos of that you get more engaged.”

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

How Your iPhone Photos Make You Happier

Why You Should Be 'Womanspreading'

One of Donald Trump’s most effective attacks on Hillary Clinton is ridiculing her voice. Campaigning in California recently, the candidate said he “can’t stand her screaming all the time,” wincing and covering his ears to illustrate his point. The imitation draws big laughs from Trump’s crowd, but for many women it’s just one more reminder of a persistent double standard: While men can raise their voices at will, women who do the same are “grating” or “shrill.”

Yet new data suggest that there may a way for women to short circuit this sexist perception. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, a researcher from Emory’s Goizueta Business School explained how she and a colleague from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business synthesized 71 studies looking at reactions to assertive behavior. As you might expect, they found that women were penalized for “direct, explicit forms of assertiveness, such as negotiating for a higher salary or asking a neighbor to turn down the music.”

But here’s the surprising thing: The researchers found that women were not dinged for “nonverbal” assertiveness. In other words, they could use expansive body positions—think throwing an arm over the next chair—or putting themselves in close physical proximity to their audience. Similarly, there was no gender-based penalty for “paraverbal cues,” such as speaking loudly or even interrupting.

Their conclusion: Women can use the confident body language that men and women have come to expect from leaders without fear of being judged more harshly than their male counterparts. While acknowledging that using a strong speaking style without using strong words still puts women at a disadvantage, the researchers asserted that nonverbal dominance can be, at the very least, “a side door to achieving influence.”

Now, some women might read this and sigh, “Oh, great..so we have to use SIGN language to get what we want.” However, I see these findings as a real positive. As a communication coach, my work with female execs has proven the value body language—and how the right postures can help them use stronger language effectively. For instance, people are less receptive to women when they frown, so adjusting to a more neutral—but still serious face—will help you get your message across, even when your message is something something people may not want to hear. The same goes for moderating a high pitched voice. Women who become defensive and react fiercely to criticism of them or their teams are often dinged for failing to “show grace under fire,” the most prized of all leadership behaviors. Again, strategies such as pausing before firing back, maintaining a calm but serious face, and responding in low tone paves the way to use assertive language.

When faced with the need to change their communication, both women and men tend to push back, concerned about losing authenticity. But experts say leadership requires constant evolution and adaptation. In a recent HBR article, Herminia Ibarra at INSEAD said, “The only way we grow as leaders is by stretching the limits of who we are.”

Consider Hillary Clinton, who has noticeably changed her tone. Of her recent, and widely praised, speech attacking Trump, the New York Times wrote, “Speaking in a steady, modulated tone but lobbing some of the most fiery lines of her presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton painted Mr. Trump as a reckless, childish and uninformed amateur who was playing at the game of global statecraft.” She wasn’t loud, but her words hit the mark.

In my view, the path forward for women is two-fold. Yes, we must sometimes adjust our style to account for centuries centuries of male leadership. But we can simultaneously widen that path and make it our own. Think of Sheryl Sandberg and her trademark stilettos. Her style may be a far cry from her famously t-shirted boss, but she’s every bit as powerful.

This article originally appeared on Fortune.com.

 

Why You Should Be 'Womanspreading'

What Is Adrenal Fatigue? The Facts About This Controversial Medical Condition

It seems like everyone's talking about adrenal fatigue, and it's pretty easy to see why. The condition's extremely-common-yet hard-to-pin-down symptoms include fatigue, body aches, trouble sleeping, and dark under-eye circles, and adrenal fatigue wraps them up in a tidy diagnosis that can supposedly be treated with a cocktail of supplements.

Thing is, there's no scientific evidence this condition actually exists.

An alternative medicine specialist named James L. Wilson first introduced the concept of adrenal fatigue with his 1998 book, Adrenal Fatigue: The 21^st Century Stress Syndrome. The condition, as he explained it, is a group of non-specific symptoms associated with "below optimal adrenal function resulting from stress." When the adrenals (small glands that sit on top of the kidneys and produce vital hormones and help the body to regulate metabolism and respond to stress) are overtaxed, he argued, we can suffer from everything from "'gray' feelings" to the inability to leave bed for more than a few hours. Wilson offered "unique dietary supplements" as the remedy.

Nearly two decades later, there's still no way to test for the condition. What's more, researchers have uncovered no concrete evidence that stress actually does drain the adrenal glands. The Endocrine Society, a group representing more than 18,000 physicians and scientists around the world, doesn't mince words in its fact sheet: "'Adrenal fatigue' is not a real medical condition. There are no scientific facts to support the theory that long-term mental, emotional, or physical stress drains the adrenal glands and causes many common symptoms."

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"The symptoms people experience [when they believe they have adrenal fatigue] are very real, and sometimes it's difficult to have symptoms and not have a diagnosis, so that could be where the persistent myth of 'adrenal fatigue' syndrome comes from," says Salila Kurra, MD, co-director of the Columbia Adrenal Center and assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

There really is harm in believing that myth and 'waiting for the research to catch up,' as some people put it, says Marilyn Tan, MD, an endocrinologist with Stanford Health Care and clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford School of Medicine in California. "Symptoms of fatigue, body aches, trouble sleeping, indigestion, and nervousness are non-specific and could be due to a variety of other diseases, including sleep disorders, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and thyroid disease," she explains. "To attribute all symptoms to a single diagnosis of 'adrenal fatigue' risks missing the detection of other treatable underlying diseases."

Confusing matters, there is a similarly-named condition that's widely accepted in the medical community, with research supporting its existence: adrenal insufficiency.

Primary adrenal insufficiency, also known as Addison's disease, occurs when the adrenal glands are damaged and can no longer produce enough cortisol, a hormone that plays a role in bone growth, blood pressure control, immune system function, metabolism, nervous system function, and stress response. It's very rare, affecting 110 to 144 of every 1 million people in developed countries. Autoimmune disorders cause about 80% of cases. Secondary adrenal insufficiency, on the other hand, is much more common, and occurs when the pituitary gland won't produce enough of a hormone that stimulates the adrenal gland to produce cortisol. It can be brought on by long-term glucocorticoid (steroid) use, pituitary disease, radiation, or other causes.

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Both types of adrenal insufficiency can be detected with lab tests, and patients suspected of having it might receive, for example, a morning blood test to measure their production of cortisol. "The reason you check cortisol levels in the morning to look for whether or not someone is making enough is because that's when it should be the highest," Dr. Kurra explains. "Most people with a normal sleep/wake cycle should have a spike of cortisol around 8 a.m." Adrenal insufficiency is a serious condition treated with hormone substitution and replacement, and people diagnosed with it are urged to carry medical identification so that they can receive appropriate help in the event of a crisis.

If your adrenal glands aren't working properly, your primary-care physician will likely refer you to a specialist. And take note: Although proponents of "adrenal fatigue" suggest treating yourself with over-the-counter supplements that promise "adrenal support" or "thyroid support," you absolutely should not do this to treat potential adrenal concerns of any kind. "If you take a supplement that has thyroid extract or adrenal extract, it could cause the symptoms of having too much of those hormones," Dr. Kurra says. "Supplements can also make your own glands—especially the adrenal glands, if you're taking some derivative of cortisol—stop working. Then, if you stop taking the supplement all of a sudden, your adrenal glands may not work; it takes time for them to 'wake up' again."

Plus, supplements have other drawbacks. "Most supplements are not only costly and not covered by insurance, but they are not FDA regulated," says Dr. Tan. "We do not have a full understanding of all of the effects of various supplements. Even though components of the supplements may be 'natural,' that does not mean they will not affect the body in adverse ways." They can also make it trickier for your doctor to help you: "Supplements make testing [for hormone levels] really difficult," Dr. Kurra adds. "We don't really know the active ingredients; there can actually be something in a supplement that gives false positive or false negative results." This is especially true when it comes to herbal remedies and multi-ingredient supplements; mega-doses of vitamins can have their own drawbacks, of course, but they are less likely to cause harm.

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If you're experiencing symptoms that may have led you to believe you have adrenal fatigue, it's time to reach out to your primary care doctor, says Dr. Kurra. "A primary-care physician can help guide you in the direction of your treatment and, if you need to, help you find a subspecialist." Dr. Tan concurs: "This provider is the one who will be coordinating all your care between various other providers. Since the symptoms attributed to 'adrenal fatigue' can be non-specific, it is best to speak with your primary care provider so that he or she can better assess whether there is another obvious underlying cause." You've got all the background you need; now, make that call.

What Is Adrenal Fatigue? The Facts About This Controversial Medical Condition

MRI-guided focal laser ablation could be feasible, safe in prostate cancer patients

Prostate cancer patients may soon have a new option to treat their disease: laser heat. UCLA researchers have found that focal laser ablation - the precise application of heat via laser to a tumor - is both feasible and safe in men with intermediate risk prostate cancer. MRI-guided focal laser ablation could be feasible, safe in prostate cancer patients

MRI-guided focal laser ablation could be feasible, safe in prostate cancer patients

Prostate cancer patients may soon have a new option to treat their disease: laser heat. UCLA researchers have found that focal laser ablation - the precise application of heat via laser to a tumor - is both feasible and safe in men with intermediate risk prostate cancer. MRI-guided focal laser ablation could be feasible, safe in prostate cancer patients

How 6 Olympic Athletes Deal with the Pressure

If keeping calm under pressure was an Olympic sport, these athletes would all be gold medalists. Watch the video to hear from Olympic athletes like Gabby Douglas, Missy Franklin, and others on how they stay cool in the face of fierce competition, the global spotlight and…oh, the hopes of an entire nation. How 6 Olympic Athletes Deal with the Pressure

Mayo Clinic offers new treatment for patients with long-term fecal incontinence

A clinical team on Mayo Clinic's Florida campus is the first to offer four patients with long-term fecal incontinence a new and potentially long-lasting treatment — a small band of interlinked magnetic titanium beads on a titanium string that successfully mimics the function of the anal sphincter. Mayo Clinic offers new treatment for patients with long-term fecal incontinence

What 5 Olympic Athletes Can Teach You About Body Confidence

Does being broadcast on screens around the globe wearing only a swimsuit sound like your worst nightmare? For these Olympians, who often compete in body-hugging attire, rocking serious body confidence is part of what helps them achieve their dreams. What 5 Olympic Athletes Can Teach You About Body Confidence

How Your Cube Mate Can Improve Your Concentration

It may not be an epidemic yet, but concentration appears to be contagious, according to new research.

This could help explain why some of us (think coffee shop worker bees, and fans of the open-office floor plan) are more productive around other people—at least other people who aren't slacking off.

"Our findings might also suggest that we will copy low effort too, so it's not as simple as 'studying together is better,'" lead author Kobe Desender, a doctoral researcher in the cognitive psychology group of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, told Health in an e-mail. "But working in the vicinity of highly motivated people might be wise."

Research had already shown that having another person nearby can affect how well you perform. But does what the other person is doing have any influence? To find out, Desender and his co-authors conducted two experiments.

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In the first, 38 volunteers sat side by side in pairs, each duo sharing a computer and a keyboard. They were asked to respond to certain colors appearing on the screen by hitting pre-specified buttons on the keyboard. The task became more difficult for participant A but stayed the same for participant B. Regardless, participant B tended to match his or her effort to participant A even though B's task remained the same.

The second experiment was the same as the first, except this time a cardboard wall divided the computer screen in half. That way participants could not see what their matched pair was doing, and the researchers could determine that Participant B's improved performance was due to mental effort, and not just seeing the partner's tasks.

Either way, the result was the same—and not too different from the findings of other "social contagion" studies which have suggested, for instance, that obesity may be contagious.

When one person in a group gains or loses weight, friends tend to follow suit. "How your partner, friend, or Weight Watchers [buddy] is engaging with the world, the task that they're doing is going to have some impact on you and your behavior," Aaron Heller, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, told Health. (Heller wasn't involved in the current study.)

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There's no good explanation for why mental effort may be contagious, at least not yet. It's possible that we pick up on scent cues emanating from our neighbors, or even their body posture. "Some postures are indicative of increased effort," says Desender. "But [this is] very speculative." 

Who knows—there may even be an evolutionary perk to matching the level of exertion of the person in the next cave, er, cube. "If my co-worker exerts quite some effort in a task, it makes sense to do the same, this might be a good cue with a high evolutionary advantage. If she or he has access to more information then you, mirroring her or his effort might be adaptive," says Desender.

"Future research should examine how we detect effort in other persons," says Desender. It would also be interesting to note how individual differences play into the dynamic, Heller notes, for example, in people who are depressed and withdrawn.

For now, though, all we know is that focused effort seemed to spread between volunteers in a university experiment. We don't know if this will be the same in a library, coffee shop, or an office setting. But it does seem to matter who your friends are.   

How Your Cube Mate Can Improve Your Concentration

Are You Too Hard on Yourself? This Study Explains Why

When you screw up—think misplaced keys, missed deadline, missed opportunity—do you accept it as a misstep and move on? Or do you beat yourself up for not being on top of your game?

A team of psychologists recently published findings in the journal Self and Identity that help explain why some of us are prone to do the latter.

For the study, 161 adults between the ages of 17 and 34 completed a questionnaire that measured their capacity for self-compassion. They also filled out a survey about their values, including what they wanted out of life, and the behaviors or traits they believed were necessary to achieve those things.

Finally, the participants were asked to imagine themselves in two scenarios: One in which they acted with self-compassion, and another in which they were self-critical. Then they described how they would feel about themselves after each scenario.

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The researchers found that across the board, the study participants recognized that self-compassion is generally a good thing—but not necessarily for themselves.

Participants who were less self-compassionate thought that practicing self-care would negatively impact their performance. They said being kind to themselves after a failure, rejection, or loss would make them feel less conscientious, less ambitious, and less motivated. They also saw self-criticism as “a sign of strength and responsibility.” In other words, they believed being tough on themselves made them tougher, better, and more driven.

But those folks might want to start cutting themselves some slack: The researchers note that people who are rich in self-compassion typically possess better emotional health. They benefit from higher life satisfaction, and a lower risk of depression and anxiety. They also tend to have a greater positive affect, and to cope better when crap (inevitably) happens.  

If you're in the habit of treating yourself harshly, try shifting your perspective on what self-criticism actually does for you, suggests Ashwini Nadkarni, MD, a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who was not involved in the study. “You might think [being self-critical is] motivating, and in the short term, it can be. But in the long run, the things that you tell yourself—I should be a better mother, I should have a better job—are demoralizing,” she explains. Over time, that type of self-flagellation can lead to burn out, and keep you from reaching the goals you were pushing so hard to achieve in the first place.

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Below, Dr. Nadkarni offers her four-step plan for practicing more self-kindness and understanding:

Be aware. In order to change a behavior, first you need to be convinced it’s a problem. So for one week, write down any self-critical thoughts you notice. 

Talk to yourself like you'd talk to a friend. You are more likely to be kind and empathetic to a loved one. Try treating yourself with the same level of respect. 

Be mindful. Observe your feelings, but don’t judge them. When a self-critical thought pops into your head, recognize it; then refocus your attention to something neutral, like your breath.

Start a journal. When something upsetting happens, write down the most self-compassionate things you can think to say. Ideally, the words will express that you accept yourself exactly as you are, imperfections and all.

Are You Too Hard on Yourself? This Study Explains Why

Rome IV criteria helps diagnose, treat gastrointestinal conditions in children

A child feels nauseated all the time, but no medical test can find what is wrong. Or a child vomits regularly, but there's no illness or eating disorder to explain it. These, and other stomach and bowel-related problems with no obvious causes, are called functional gastrointestinal disorders. Rome IV criteria helps diagnose, treat gastrointestinal conditions in children