Tag: stress

Hillary Clinton Explains Alternate-Nostril Breathing – The Atlantic

When I came to the part in Hillary Clinton’s new book where she describes how she treated her anxiety with a practice called alternate-nostril breathing, I thought, that sounds impossible. I tried breathing through only one nostril at a time. I couldn’t do it.

Then I read a little further and saw that she recommends using her fingers to cover one nostril. Got it. Okay, that makes it much easier.

Clinton demonstrated the technique last Wednesday in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN. She doubled down on her enthusiasm, suggesting that it’s best done sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat with eyes closed. “I would highly recommend it,” she said. She also endorsed it to viewers of CBS Sunday Morning: “Off I went into a frenzy of closet-cleaning, and long walks in the woods, and playing with my dogs, and … yoga—alternate-nostril breathing, which I highly recommend—trying to calm myself down.”

Hillary Clinton Explains Alternate-Nostril Breathing – The Atlantic

Neuroscientists have identified how exactly a deep breath changes your mind — Quartzy

Breathing is traditionally thought of as an automatic process driven by the brainstem—the part of the brain controlling such life-sustaining functions as heartbeat and sleeping patterns. But new and unique research, involving recordings made directly from within the brains of humans undergoing neurosurgery, shows that breathing can also change your brain.

Simply put, changes in breathing—for example, breathing at different paces or paying careful attention to the breaths—were shown to engage different parts of the brain.

Neuroscientists have identified how exactly a deep breath changes your mind — Quartzy

Cutting off your hair to get through a difficult time is totally normal

Every now and then, a haircut is so much more than routine grooming.

People recovering from trauma—the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, or our own failing health—will often cope, in part, by changing their appearance. Sometimes, it’ll be subtle, like a new bob or a little retail therapy. But other times, people will feel the need to drastically change their look by doing things like dyeing their hair fuschia or shaving it off entirely.

It’s completely normal to want to superficially change your appearance. “You can consider it a form of self care,” says Christy Beck, a therapist based in State College, Pennsylvania. “You’re doing something for yourself to make yourself feel better.”

After some kind of major stressor, it can be helpful to give yourself some kind of pick-me-up. Although this doesn’t need to be an outward makeover, haircuts, a new wardrobe, or a new piercing or tattoo, can all be investments in ourselves, a way to make ourselves feel better. Stressors tend to emotionally stop us in our tracks; they channel the energy we’d normally expend on our work, hobbies, or chores, into trying to alleviate some immediate pain. Giving ourselves some TLC can be one way to jumpstart our moods to start moving past whatever upset us.

Cutting off your hair to get through a difficult time is totally normal — Quartz

How climate change will threaten mental health – CNN.com

“One of the major health effects of flooding seems to be the mental health aspects,” said James Rubin, a psychologist at Kings College London whose recent research looked into the psychological impact of people both directly and indirectly effected by floods. “There are a whole host of stressors around it,” he said.
These types of natural disasters are expected to rise in frequency due to climate change, and Rubin feels that the mental health aspect deserves more attention.
“Preventing (climate change) from happening, from worsening and intervening is really important,” he said.
Climate change is predicted to bring more than just floods: There could be heat waves, sea level rises causing loss of land, and forced migration and droughts affecting agriculture and the farmers producing it. And with these concerns comes a plethora of issues plaguing the human mind, such as depression, worry, anxiety, substance abuse, aggression and even suicide among those who cannot cope.
“If you don’t resolve them, these conditions don’t necessarily go away,” Rubin said.
To find out the extent of this psychological burden, he focused in on flooding and sent surveys to more than 8,000 people living in areas affected by floods in 2013-14, looking for signs of conditions such as depression and anxiety.
How climate change will threaten mental health – CNN.com

Early Puberty in Girls Is Becoming Epidemic and Getting Worse

Padded bras for kindergarteners with growing breasts to make them more comfortable? Sixteen percent of U.S. girls experiencing breast development by the age of 7? Thirty percent by the age of 8? Clearly something is affecting the hormones of U.S. girls—a phenomenon also seen in other developed countries. Girls in poorer countries seem to be spared—until they move to developed countries.

No scientists dispute that precocious or early-onset puberty is on the rise but they do not agree on the reasons. Is it bad diets and lack of exercise that cause growing obesity? Is it soft drinks themselves, even when not linked to obesity? Is it the common chemicals known as endocrine disrupters that exert estrogen-like effects (and also cause obesity)? Is it the many legal, unlabeled hormones used in the U.S. to fatten livestock? Some researchers even believe precocious puberty could be triggered by sociological factors like having no father in the home or even stress.

Alternet

It’ll be alright on the night: how musicians cope with performance stress

Jonas Kaufmann was 26 when he forgot how to sing. Kaufmann, who headlines at the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday alongside soprano Danielle de Niese and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, is today a hugely acclaimed and in-demand tenor, described by the New York Times as one of the most versatile performers of his generation. But 20 years ago, he experienced a bout of stage fright so crippling it almost ended his career.

Kaufmann was singing in Richard Wagner’s Parsifal. With Act III approaching its climax, his voice simply deserted him. He stood paralysed, unable to utter a single sound, as the orchestra repeated his cue and the conductor gestured to him in increasing bemusement.

Kaufmann’s moment of paralysis was a common symptom of extreme performance anxiety, a physiological reaction to nerves which manifests itself as hoarseness and, at worst, losing the ability to sing altogether. He was, of course, able to overcome it after working with a vocal coach who helped him rebuild his technique so he felt completely secure in it, and thus confident on stage.

Kaufmann’s experience is more common among professional musicians than you might think. While some seem apparently immune to the pressures of a crowd, many of the greatest soloists in history.

The Guardian