̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - stress

Mindfulness can improve mental health and wellbeing – but unlikely to work for everyone

cjb250 — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 19:00:26 +0000

Mindfulness is typically defined as ‘the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment’. It has become increasingly popular in recent years as a way of increasing wellbeing and reducing stress levels.

In the UK, the National Health Service offers therapies based on mindfulness to help treat mental health issues such as depression and suicidal thoughts. However, the majority of people who practice mindfulness learn their skills in community settings such as universities, workplaces, or private courses. Mindfulness-based programmes are frequently promoted as the go-to universal tool to reduce stress and increase wellbeing, accessible to anyone, anywhere.

Many randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have been conducted around the world to assess whether in-person mindfulness training can improve mental health and wellbeing, but the results are often varied. In a report published today in PLOS Medicine, a team of researchers from the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge led a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the published data from the RCTs. This approach allows them to bring together existing – and often contradictory or under-powered – studies to provide more robust conclusions.

̽��ֱ��team identified 136 RCTs on mindfulness training for mental health promotion in community settings. These trials included 11,605 participants aged 18 to 73 years from 29 countries, more than three-quarters (77%) of whom were women.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that in most community settings, compared with doing nothing, mindfulness reduces anxiety, depression and stress, and increases wellbeing. However, the data suggested that in more than one in 20 trials settings, mindfulness-based programmes may not improve these outcomes.

Dr Julieta Galante from the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the report’s first author, said: “For the average person and setting, practising mindfulness appears to be better than doing nothing for improving our mental health, particularly when it comes to depression, anxiety and psychological distress – but we shouldn’t assume that it works for everyone, everywhere.

“Mindfulness training in the community needs to be implemented with care. Community mindfulness courses should be just one option among others, and the range of effects should be researched as courses are implemented in new settings. ̽��ֱ��courses that work best may be those aimed at people who are most stressed or in stressful situations, for example health workers, as they appear to see the biggest benefit.”

̽��ֱ��researchers caution that RCTs in this field tended to be of poor quality, so the combined results may not represent the true effects. For example, many participants stopped attending mindfulness courses and were not asked why, so they are not represented in the results. When the researchers repeated the analyses including only the higher quality studies, mindfulness only showed effects on stress, not on wellbeing, depression or anxiety.

When compared against other ‘feel good’ practices such as exercise, mindfulness fared neither better nor worse. Professor Peter Jones, also from Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry, and senior author, said: “While mindfulness is often better than taking no action, we found that there may be other effective ways of improving our mental health and wellbeing, such as exercise. In many cases, these may prove to be more suitable alternatives if they are more effective, culturally more acceptable or are more feasible or cost effective to implement. ̽��ֱ��good news is that there are now more options.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say that the variability in the success of different mindfulness-based programmes identified among the RCTs may be down to a number of reasons, including how, where and by whom they are implemented as well as at whom they are targeted. ̽��ֱ��techniques and frameworks taught in mindfulness have rich and diverse backgrounds, from early Buddhist psychology and meditation through to cognitive neuroscience and participatory medicine – the interplay between all of these different factors can be expected to influence how effective a programme is.

̽��ֱ��number of online mindfulness courses has increased rapidly, accelerated further by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this review has not looked at online courses, studies suggest that these may be as effective as their offline counterparts, despite most lacking interactions with teacher and peers.

Dr Galante added: “If the effects of online mindfulness courses vary as widely according to the setting as their offline counterparts, then the lack of human support they offer could cause potential problems. We need more research before we can be confident about their effectiveness and safety.”

̽��ֱ��research was mainly funded by the National Institute for Health Research.

Reference
Galante, J et al. Mindfulness-based programmes for mental health promotion in adults in non-clinical settings: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. PLOS Medicine; 11 Jan 2021; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003481

Mindfulness courses can reduce anxiety, depression and stress and increase mental wellbeing within most but not all non-clinical settings, say a team of researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. They also found that mindfulness may be no better than other practices aimed at improving mental health and wellbeing.

Mindfulness training in the community needs to be implemented with care. Community mindfulness courses should be just one option among others

Julieta Galante

World Economic Forum

Mindfulness meditation

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Many highly-engaged employees suffer from burnout

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 00:00:01 +0000

Whereas lack of engagement is commonly seen as leading to employee turnover due to boredom and disaffection, the study finds that companies, in fact, risk losing some of their most motivated and hard-working employees due to high stress and burnout – a symptom of the “darker side” of workplace engagement.

It is concerning, concludes the study by academics working in the UK, US and Germany, that many engaged employees suffer from stress and burnout symptoms, which may be the beginning of a pathway leading into disengagement.

“Nearly half of all employees were moderately to highly engaged in their work but also exhausted and ready to leave their organisations,” said co-author Dr Jochen Menges from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “This should give managers a lot to think about.”

̽��ֱ��study, published in the journal Career Development International, examined multiple workplace factors that divide employees into various engagement-burnout profiles. These include low engagement-low burnout (“apathetic”), low engagement-high burnout (“burned-out”), high engagement-low burnout (“engaged”), “moderately engaged-exhausted”; and “highly engaged-exhausted”.

While the largest population at 41 percent fit the healthily “engaged” profile, 19 percent experienced high levels of both engagement and burnout (“highly engaged-exhausted”) and another 35.5 percent were “moderately engaged-exhausted”.

̽��ֱ��highest turnover intentions were reported by the “highly engaged-exhausted” group – higher than even the unengaged group that might be commonly expected to be eyeing an exit.

“These findings are a big challenge to organisations and their management,” said Menges, who is a Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at Cambridge Judge Business School. “By shedding light on some of the factors in both engagement and burnout, the study can help organisations identify workers who are motivated but also at risk of burning out and leaving.”

While previous studies had looked at engagement-burnout profiles, the new study – conducted at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, in collaboration with the Faas Foundation – also focuses on demands placed on employees and resources provided to them in the workplace, and how these affect engagement and burnout.

̽��ֱ��study is based on an online survey of 1,085 employees in all 50 US states. It measured engagement, burnout, demands and resources on a six-point scale ranging from such responses as “never” to “almost always” or “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”.

For engagement, questions included “I strive as hard as I can to complete my job” and “I feel energetic at my job”. For burnout, participants were asked how often at work they feel “disappointed with people” or “physically weak/sickly”. Demand questions included “I have too much work to do”, while resources were measured by questions such as “my supervisor provides me with the support I need to do my job well”.

̽��ֱ��researchers then examined overlap of these various factors, and how they interact and influence each other, in order to draw conclusions about the different profile groups.

“High engagement levels in the workplace can be a double-edged sword for some employees,” said Menges. “Engagement is very beneficial to workers and organisations when burnout symptoms are low, but engagement coupled with high burnout symptoms can lead to undesired outcomes including increased intentions to leave an organisation. So managers need to look carefully at high levels of engagement and help those employees who may be headed for burnout, or they risk higher turnover levels and other undesirable outcomes.”

Reference:
Julia Moeller et al. ‘Highly engaged but burned out: intra-individual profiles in the US workforce.’ Career Development International (2018). DOI: 10.1108/CDI-12-2016-0215

Underlining the danger of job burnout, a new study of more than 1,000 US workers finds that many employees who are highly engaged in their work are also exhausted and ready to leave their organisations.

These findings are a big challenge to organisations and their management.

Jochen Menges

Glenn Carstens-Peters

Keyboard warrior

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Mindfulness training reduces stress during exam time

cjb250 — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 23:38:22 +0000

While the prevalence of anxiety and depression among first year undergraduates is lower than the general population, it increases to overtake this during their second year. ̽��ֱ��number of students accessing counselling services in the UK grew by 50% from 2010 to 2015, surpassing the growth in the number of students during the same period. There is little consensus as to whether students are suffering more mental disorders, are less resilient than in the past or whether there is less stigma attached to accessing support. Regardless, mental health support services for students are becoming stretched.

Recent years have seen increasing interest in mindfulness, a means of training attention for the purpose of mental wellbeing based on the practice of meditation. There is evidence that mindfulness training can improve symptoms of common mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. However, there is little robust evidence on the effectiveness of mindfulness training in preventing such problems in university students.

“Given the increasing demands on student mental health services, we wanted to see whether mindfulness could help students develop preventative coping strategies,” says Géraldine Dufour Head of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Counselling Service. Dufour is one of the authors of a study that set out to test the effectiveness of mindfulness – the results are published today in ̽��ֱ��Lancet Public Health.

In total, 616 students took part in the study and were randomised across two groups. Both groups were offered access to comprehensive centralised support at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Counselling Service in addition to support available from the university and its colleges, and from health services including the National Health Service.

Half of the cohort (309 students) were also offered the Mindfulness Skills for Students course. This consisted of eight, weekly, face-to-face, group-based sessions based on the course book Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World, adapted for university students. Students were encouraged to also practice at home, starting at eight minute meditations, and increasing to about 15-25 minutes per day, as well as other mindfulness practices such as a mindful walking and mindful eating. Students in the other half of the cohort were offered their mindfulness training the following year.

̽��ֱ��researchers assessed the impact of the mindfulness training on stress (‘psychological distress’) during the main, annual examination period in May and June 2016, the most stressful weeks for most students. They measured this using the CORE-OM, a generic assessment used in many counselling services.

̽��ֱ��mindfulness course led to lower distress scores after the course and during the exam term compared with students who only received the usual support. Mindfulness participants were a third less likely than other participants to have scores above a threshold commonly seen as meriting mental health support. Distress scores for the mindfulness group during exam time fell below their baselines levels (as measured at the start of the study, before exam time), whereas the students who received the standard support became increasingly stressed as the academic year progressed.

̽��ֱ��researchers also looked at other measures, such as self-reported wellbeing. They found that mindfulness training improved wellbeing during the exam period when compared with the usual support.

“This is, to the best of our knowledge, the most robust study to date to assess mindfulness training for students, and backs up previous studies that suggest it can improve mental health and wellbeing during stressful periods,” says Dr Julieta Galante from the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge, who led the study.

“Students who had been practising mindfulness had distress scores lower than their baseline levels even during exam time, which suggests that mindfulness helps build resilience against stress.”

Professor Peter Jones, also from the Department of Psychiatry, adds: “ ̽��ֱ��evidence is mounting that mindfulness training can help people cope with accumulative stress. While these benefits may be similar to some other preventative methods, mindfulness could be a useful addition to the interventions already delivered by university counselling services. It appears to be popular, feasible, acceptable and without stigma.”

̽��ֱ��team also looked at whether mindfulness had any effect of examination results; however, their findings proved inconclusive.

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the National Institute for Health (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England, hosted by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

Reference
Galante, J et al. Effectiveness of providing university students with a mindfulness-based intervention to increase resilience to stress: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Lancet Public Health; 19 December 2017; DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(17)30231-1

Mindfulness training can help support students at risk of mental health problems, concludes a randomised controlled trial carried out by researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

This is, to the best of our knowledge, the most robust study to date to assess mindfulness training for students, and backs up previous studies that suggest it can improve mental health and wellbeing during stressful periods

Julieta Galante

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Students studying

Researcher profile: Dr Julieta Galante

Dr Julieta Galante is a research associate in the Department of Psychiatry. Her interests lie in mental health promotion, particularly the effects of meditation on mental health. She hopes to contribute to the growing number of approaches to preventing mental health problems that do not rely on medication.

“What fascinates me is the idea that you could potentially train your mind to improve your wellbeing and develop yourself as a person,” she says. “It’s not the academic type of mind-training –meditation training is more like embarking on a deep inner-exploration.”

Galante’s research involves studying large numbers of people in real-world settings, such as busy students revising for their exams. It’s a very complex research field, she says: there are many factors, social, psychological and biological, that contribute to an individual’s mental health.

“Our projects are most successful (and enjoyable) when we collaborate with people outside the academic sphere, in this particular project with the Student Counselling Service, ̽��ֱ�� authorities, and the students themselves.”

̽��ֱ��mindfulness trial was ‘blinded’, meaning that the researchers did not know which students (and hence which data) belonged to which group. ̽��ֱ��‘unblinding’ of the results – when they found out whether their trial was successful – was nerve-wracking, she says. “ ̽��ֱ��team statistician didn’t know which group had received mindfulness training and which group was the control. He showed his results to the rest of the team and we could all see that there was a clear difference between the groups, but we didn’t know whether this meant really good or really bad news for mindfulness training. When the results were then unveiled, we all laughed with relief!”

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'Precarious scheduling' at work affects over four million people in UK – far more than just zero-hours

fpjl2 — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 01:44:50 +0000

A new analysis by Cambridge and Oxford sociologists indicates that some 4.6 million people in the UK regularly experience ‘precarious scheduling’: flexible working with limited hours dictated by management, often with little notice, and to the detriment of employees’ home lives and mental health.

Researchers say this damaging approach to flexible work is common among supermarket and care home workers, for example, with precarious scheduling affecting 3.9 million more than just those on zero-hours contracts.

In fact, they describe zero-hours as merely the “tip of the iceberg” of precarious employment practices – as any contract with minimal guaranteed hours subject to last minute changes and reductions offers very little security.

This can leave workers in a degrading relationship with managers: begging for schedule changes to accommodate commitments such as childcare, and competing to become management ‘favourites’ in the hope of additional hours – often hours originally promised to them.

Dr Alex Wood, now at Oxford ̽��ֱ��, embedded himself as a shelf-stacker at a UK supermarket while a researcher at Cambridge’s Department of Sociology. He experienced first-hand the toxic interactions between shop management and the insecure – at times desperate – workers whose lives are controlled through scheduling.

Together with Cambridge collaborator Dr Brendan Burchell, Wood has now interrogated data from three rounds of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) – undertaken across Europe every five years by EU agency EuroFound, most recently in 2015.

Using data from the last EWCS, the pair found that 14.7% of all surveyed UK workers routinely experienced manager-controlled alterations to their schedules – often at very short notice. They say that, when scaled up, this percentage equates to 4.6 million people experiencing some form of precarious scheduling in the UK.

̽��ֱ��researchers’ EWCS analysis is published today (16 August) in a blog post, as is Wood’s latest Cambridge study of supermarket staff living with precarious scheduling, in the journal Work, Employment & Society.

“Manager-controlled flexible scheduling causes a huge amount of stress and anxiety for workers who are unable to plan their lives socially or financially as a result,” says Burchell, from Cambridge’s Department of Sociology.

“ ̽��ֱ��practice is both toxic and endemic in many UK sectors such as care and retail. Government reviews need to look far beyond just zero-hours contracts.”

“ ̽��ֱ��key issue is not simply the lack of any guaranteed hours. ̽��ֱ��employment contracts of millions offer little security around the hours they will be told to work in a given day, week or month, and how much notice they are given.”

̽��ֱ��EWCS data includes surveys conducted in 2005, 2010 and 2015. ̽��ֱ��recent peak of precarious scheduling in the UK was 2010, with 18.4% of those surveyed. Wood suggests that reduced unemployment since 2010 may mean slightly less pressure to take precarious and unpredictable jobs with limited hours.

“ ̽��ֱ��past decade has seen a fragmenting of working time, as firms have saved costs by increasing shift flexibility through a variety of mechanisms,” says Wood, now at Oxford’s Internet Institute.

“These mechanisms include short- and zero-hour contracts, the emergence of ‘gig economy’ platforms, and flexible contracts that guarantee a minimum number of hours but no fixed scheduling pattern.

“Seven years of austerity have placed the public sector under pressure to contain labour costs through shift flexibility. Those who have challenging schedules imposed on them at short notice are likely to experience worse mental health, typified by anxiety and feeling low,” says Wood.

During his supermarket fieldwork, Wood observed how workers were frequently expected to extend or change shifts with little or no notice – causing the majority to feel negatively about their jobs.

̽��ֱ��latest study, out today, describes how control exerted by managers through flexible scheduling creates an environment where workers must constantly strive to maintain managers’ favour.

In one London store, he witnessed managers encouraging workers to “beg them for additional hours” by making vague promises that more hours would be available.

“Staff were told ‘I always have some overtime so let me know if you want any’. This was despite my entire work team being employed on less than nine hours a week and all desiring more hours or full time work,” says Wood.

One UK worker, Jackie, told Wood: “It’s strange because you speak to the staff and they say their department is short [of staff] but when you ask the manager they say ‘there isn’t any at the moment but keep putting your name down for overtime’. I’m just getting a few hours here and there.”

Wood also observed managers cutting hours – affecting worker income – at short notice and altering schedules to clash with childcare and education. Some staff would often work unpaid overtime just to stay in management good books.

“Managers plead innocence, and that staffing needs are set by head office. This was frequently disbelieved. Many workers felt punished, but it was impossible for them to know for sure – adding to the insecurity,” he says.

Analysis of EU survey data suggests millions in UK may suffer anxiety as a result of unpredictable management-imposed flexible working hours. Research in supermarkets finds workers ‘begging’ for extra hours, and feeling they are being punished with last minute shift changes.

Manager-controlled flexible scheduling causes a huge amount of stress and anxiety for workers who are unable to plan their lives socially or financially as a result

Brendan Burchell

Alex Barth

Eggs. Plenty of them.

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Opinion: Feeling anxious about that first date? Here’s how science can help

bjb42 — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 10:27:29 +0000

Sometimes, just thinking about a social situation can induce panic attacks, which are sudden spikes of intense anxiety that peak within a few minutes and feel like you’re about to have a heart attack, lose control, or go mad. During social situations, people with anxiety might feel short of breath and experience dizziness, sweating, blushing, stuttering, and an upset stomach

Many people are affected by anxiety. In fact, one in 14 people around the world will have an anxiety disorder at any given time, with women and young people being most affected. But it is possible to overcome anxiety and date successfully. Here are some top scientific tips.

Don’t focus on the worst

People with anxiety tend to worry about what might go wrong in a situation and fear that they will do or say something to embarrass themselves. These thoughts not only produce a highly negative mental state characterised by dread and helplessness, but also harmful physiological body changes, such as higher secretion of stress hormones.

Being in such a negative state doesn’t allow you to put your best self forward and shine. An effective way to get over this is to stop focusing on what might go wrong. As soon as a worrying thought pops into your head, let it go. Realise that it is just that – a thought or a mental event that will pass just like many others did. This technique is based on mindfulness, which has been shown to lower anxiety in study after study.

Another thing you can do when you’re feeling stressed or anxious is to take a few minutes and simply focus on your breathing. If thoughts come into your head as you’re doing this, don’t follow them – let them go and bring your mind gently back to your breaths. This meditative technique will relax you and make you feel calmer.

Face your fears

One of the best ways of getting over your anxiety is through repeated exposure to circumstances that scare you – and this doesn’t apply to just dating. Repeated exposure to situations or people that make you feel anxious eventually lessens your fear response and makes you realise that you really are more resilient than you thought you were.

Not so bad, after all. Shutterstock

When it comes to social interactions – or any other phobias for that matter – graded exposure is an effective way of getting over those nerves: start small with mildly feared situations and build your way up to more strongly feared circumstances. For example, next time you go to a social event, practice making small talk for a short period of time or make it a point to voice a comment during a group interaction. Next time, practice making small talk for a longer time and with more people. This will retrain your mind to stop seeing social situations as scary and will give you greater control when around others.

Don’t replay conversations in your head

You’ve got that “I just met someone” feeling and you can’t help but replay the conversation you’ve just had over in your head. Studies have shown that rumination – or constantly going over situations or conversations in your mind (especially those you’re uncertain of) – will only increase your anxiety. If there is an issue that needs to be dealt with, focus on fixing it or doing something about it – but without reacting to it. This is called problem-focused coping. According to research studies, people who do this have better mental health, tend to feel more positive and have more positive outcomes in life than those who use emotion-focused coping. For example, if someone does something that bothers you, tell this person, but don’t ruminate or think about it afterwards.

Are they worth it?

Many self-help books talk about what you should do in order to keep someone attracted. But that seems to be totally the wrong way of going about it. He or she may well be attractive and funny – and know just what to say to keep you hooked – but is that enough? Instead of worrying about how you look to the other person or being self-critical, try to find out more about him/her and whether this person is really worth sticking around for. Maybe you’ll discover that this cutie has a lying streak, is unreliable, or says things that he/she doesn’t mean. Is such a person really worth a relationship? Because the only thing worse than being in a bad relationship for a year, is being in a bad relationship for a year and a day.

Olivia Remes, PhD Candidate, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Does anxiety keep getting in the way of you making connections with the people you’d like to spend more time with? Maybe you’ve just met someone, but are worried that your anxiety will ruin it all. People with anxiety can be highly self-critical, tend to overestimate the likelihood that something negative will happen, and often feel that others are judging them.

Jocelyn Kinghorn on Flickr

Blankets to Keep Warm

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Mindfulness study to look at benefits in helping build resilience to stress among university students

sc604 — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 10:20:12 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, which could see over 500 students receive mindfulness training, aims to measure its effectiveness in managing stress amongst students, particularly at exam time, and whether it helps in other factors such as sleep and wellbeing. It will also explore whether the training affects students’ use of mental health treatment and support services.

Mindfulness involves the use of meditation techniques and self-awareness. Originally developed to help patients with chronic pain cope with their condition, it is now a recognised – and clinically-proven – way of helping individuals cope with depression, anxiety and stress.

Géraldine Dufour, Head of Counselling at the ̽��ֱ��, says: “ ̽��ֱ�� life can be stressful at time for students, as they develop the skills to live and study independently. Developing resilience and the skills to cope with stress is key so that students can make the most of life in the collegiate university and when they leave. ̽��ֱ��university counselling service offers many opportunities for students to develop their skills through an extensive programme of workshops, groups and individual counselling. We believe mindfulness could be a powerful tool to help them, in addition to the other counselling services we offer. This research project will help us determine if mindfulness is a good use of resources.”

From October, undergraduates and postgraduates at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge will be invited to register for a free, eight-week mindfulness training course called Mindfulness Skills for Students, which will be led by Dr Elizabeth English, the ̽��ֱ��’s Mindfulness Practitioner. ̽��ֱ��course is a group-based training programme based on the course book Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World, by Mark Williams and Danny Penman, and adapted for Cambridge students. It consists of one 90-minute session and seven 75-minute sessions. Participants are also requested to do some home practice and reading every week.

Students will be allocated at random to two groups – one to receive training immediately, the second to be deferred twelve months. All students – both those who take the course and those whose training is deferred – will record their stress levels using a smartphone app during the exam period, while activity monitors will record their physical activity and sleep patterns.

“ ̽��ֱ��academic year provides a very real ‘natural experiment’,” says Dr Julieta Galante from the Department of Psychiatry, who will carry out the research together with Professor Peter Jones. “Students receive training, practice at home, then face a ‘pressure point’ – their exams. We hope that our study will help us answer the question of whether the provision of mindfulness training, which we know to be effective in other settings, can help students throughout the year and particularly at exam time.”

̽��ֱ��level of support available to students at Cambridge is unparalleled in most other universities. ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� Counselling Service, one of the best funded in the country, includes counsellors as well as mental health advisors and supplements the support available to students from specialist staff in the colleges such as college nurses and chaplains. In the previous academic year, over 1,500 people were seen for counselling – this represents around one in 12 of the student population. Its Mindfulness Skills for Students programme is believed to be the largest such programme in any university.

Students wishing to register for the evaluation study of the Mindfulness Training Programme should visit the mindfulness website or email mindfulstudentstudy@medschl.cam.ac.uk.

Students at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge are to be offered free, eight-week mindfulness training to help build resilience against stress as part of a new research project launched to coincide with the start of term.

̽��ֱ�� life can be stressful at time for students, as they develop the skills to live and study independently

Géraldine Dufour

Cambridge ̽��ֱ��. Photo by Sir Cam.

General Admission 2012

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Mother’s stress hormone levels may affect foetal growth and long term health of child

cjb250 — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:51:07 +0000

In the Journal of Physiology, researchers at the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge examine whether levels of the stress hormones known as glucocorticoids can influence the supply of glucose from mother to foetus. Glucocorticoids are important in regulating metabolism in adults as well as in the foetus. Levels of the hormone are raised by stress related to the physical or social environment, disease or pregnancy.

Pregnant mice received the natural glucocorticoid corticosterone at different times during pregnancy via their drinking water, either from days 11 to 16, days 14-19, or not at all; pregnancy in mice lasts 21 days and the days on which corticosterone was given corresponds to different developmental phases of the placenta. This treatment was designed to produce glucocorticoid levels in the mother similar to those seen in stressful conditions. ̽��ֱ��animals were either allowed to eat freely or their food intake limited to that of normal, untreated mice. ̽��ֱ��researchers then measured the amount of glucose crossing the placenta, the organ that supplies all of the substances required for foetal growth, in a specific period of time.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that when corticosterone was given later in pregnancy and the mice allowed to eat freely, the mother ate more but her placenta was less able to transport glucose to the foetus, leading to a decrease in the size of the foetus. This effect was not seen when the hormone was administered earlier in pregnancy or when the diet was restricted. They believe this may be because, under stress and with an unlimited diet, the activity of certain genes in the placenta was modified, including that of the gene Redd1. This gene is believed to signal availability of other substances, like oxygen, and to interact with intracellular pathways regulating growth and nutrient uptake in other tissues of the body. ̽��ֱ��team believe that future studies may prove this molecule is important in the placenta in linking environmental effects to the nutrition of the foetus.

Together with previous work, the findings show that maternal glucocorticoids regulate foetal nutrition by acting on the placenta. ̽��ֱ��researchers believe that glucocorticoid levels in pregnant women may therefore determine the specific combination of nutrients received by the foetus and influence the long term metabolic health of their children as a result.

Dr Owen Vaughan from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge says: “ ̽��ֱ��foetuses of the mice with raised levels of the stress hormone tended to be smaller, despite the mother overeating, suggesting that a mother’s stress levels may affect her child’s growth. We showed that this is likely to be because the stress hormone reduced the ability of the placenta to pass essential nutrients to the foetus.”

̽��ֱ��researchers believe this study may have implications for women stressed during pregnancy or treated clinically with glucocorticoids, if the mechanisms are similar in humans, though it is unclear yet the extent to which changes in the ability of the placenta to transport nutrients to the foetus exacerbate or protect the child from the potential adverse effects of glucocorticoid overexposure during pregnancy. Nor is it clear whether maternal diet influences the outcome of glucocorticoid overexposure during human pregnancy.

Professor Abby Fowden, who led the research, adds: “It may be that by changing her diet, a mother can counter the effects of stress hormones on the human placenta. In other words, a mother’s ‘hormonal profile’ may dictate the most appropriate diet for a successful outcome of pregnancy. We need more research in this area before we can start giving such advice, however.”

Reference
Vaughan OR, Fisher HM, Dionelis KN, Jefferies EC, Higgins JS, Musial B, Sferruzzi-Perri AN & Fowden AL (2015) Corticosterone alters materno-foetal glucose partitioning and insulin signalling in pregnant mice. DOI: 10.1113/jphysiol.2014.287177

Increased levels of stress hormones can lead pregnant mice to overeat, but affect growth of the foetus and, potentially, the long term health of the offspring, according to a study published today.

̽��ֱ��foetuses of the mice with raised levels of the stress hormone tended to be smaller, despite the mother overeating, suggesting that a mother’s stress levels may affect her child’s growth

Owen Vaughan

TipsTimesAdmin

Pregnancy

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Stress hormones in financial traders may trigger ‘risk aversion’ and contribute to market crises

fpjl2 — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 09:27:09 +0000

High levels of the stress hormone cortisol may contribute to the risk aversion and ‘irrational pessimism’ found among bankers and fund managers during financial crises, according to a new study.

̽��ֱ��study’s authors say that risk takers in the financial world exhibit risk averse behaviour during periods of extreme market volatility – just when a crashing market most needs them to take risks – and that this change in their appetite for risk may be “physiologically-driven”, specifically by the body’s response to cortisol. They suggest that stress could be an “under-appreciated” cause of market instability.

Published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study conducted at the Cambridge Judge Business School and the ̽��ֱ��’s Institute of Metabolic Science is the first to show that personal financial risk preferences fluctuate substantially, and these fluctuations may be linked to hormone response.

̽��ֱ��finding could fundamentally alter our understanding of risk as, up until now, almost every model in finance and economics – even those used by banks and central banks – rested on the assumption that traders’ personal risk preferences stay consistent across the market cycle, say the authors.

In a previous study conducted with real traders in the City of London, researchers observed that cortisol levels rose 68% over a two week period when market volatility increased. In the latest study they combined field work with lab work, a rare approach in economics, to test for the effects of this elevated cortisol on financial risk-taking.

̽��ֱ��researchers administered hydrocortisone – the pharmaceutical form of cortisol – to 36 volunteers, 20 men and 16 women, aged 20 to 36 years, over an eight day period, raising their cortisol levels 69%: almost exactly the levels seen in the traders.

̽��ֱ��volunteers took part in lottery-style financial risk-taking tasks with real monetary pay-offs, designed to measure the preferences for risky gambles and the judgments of probability underlying their risk taking. While initial spikes of cortisol had little effect on behaviour, chronically high and sustained levels, as seen in traders, led to a dramatic drop in participants’ willingness to take risks, with the ‘risk premium’ – the amount of extra risk someone will tolerate for the possibility of higher return – falling by 44%.

“Any trader knows that their body is taken on a rollercoaster ride by the markets. What we haven’t known until this study was that these physiological changes - the sub-clinical levels of stress of which we are only dimly aware - are actually altering our ability to take risk,” said Dr John Coates, co-lead of the study from the Cambridge Judge Business School, and a former Wall Street derivatives trader himself.

“It is frightening to realise that no one in the financial world – not the traders, not the risk managers, not the central bankers – knows that these subterranean shifts in risk appetite are taking place.”

Cortisol is a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands in response to moments of high physical stress, such as ‘fight or flight’. Importantly, cortisol also rises powerfully in situations of uncertainty, such as volatility in the financial markets. Cortisol prepares us for possible action by releasing glucose and free fatty acids into the blood. It also suppresses any bodily functions not needed during a crisis - such as the digestive, reproductive, and immune systems.

However, should this stress become chronic, as it might during a prolonged financial crisis, the elevated cortisol can contribute to impaired learning, heightened anxiety, and eventually depression. ̽��ֱ��current study has now shown that in addition to these known pathologies, chronic stress can also lead to a substantial decrease in the willingness to take financial risks, say the researchers.

They also suggest that an unsuspected side effect of anti-inflammatory treatments such as prednisone may be financial risk aversion.

̽��ֱ��study’s authors also looked for differences between men and women. While other researchers have argued that women are more risk averse than men, the current study found no differences between the sexes under normal circumstances. However, the study did find that, when exposed to chronically-raised levels of cortisol, men placed too much importance on smaller risks, while women did not.

̽��ֱ��authors point out that during the Credit Crisis of 2007 to 2009 volatility in US equities spiked from 12% to over 70%. They argue that it is reasonable to assume that such historically high levels of uncertainty would have caused stress hormones to rise far higher and longer than the team had been able to observe in their study.

Chronic stress may therefore have decreased risk taking just when the economy needed it most – when markets were crashing and needed traders and investors to buy distressed assets, they say.

Physiologically-driven shifts in risk preferences may be a source of financial market instability that hasn’t been considered by economists, risk managers and central bankers alike.

Added Coates: “Traders, risk managers, and central banks cannot hope to manage risk if they do not understand that the drivers of risk taking lurk deep in our bodies. Risk managers who fail to understand this will have as little success as fire fighters spraying water at the tips of flames.”

New study’s findings overturn theory of personal risk preference as a ‘stable trait’, and show that real source of instability in risk behaviour “lurks deep in the physiology of traders and investors”.

It is frightening to realise that no one in the financial world – not the traders, not the risk managers, not the central bankers – knows that these subterranean shifts in risk appetite are taking place

John Coates

Rafael Matsunaga via Flickr

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