̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Olivia Remes

Fighting anxiety with science: exploring the links between self-control and wellbeing

lkm37 — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 06:57:04 +0000

Dr Olivia Remes has spent her career researching mental health and wellbeing. In her new book, ̽��ֱ��Instant Mood Fix, she brings together the research in this field in a bid to help others.

̽��ֱ��power of touch

ta385 — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 05:30:00 +0000

As a major Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition explores human touch through 4,000 years of art, Cambridge researchers explain why this sense is so important in their own work.

Opinion: Five ways to beat anxiety and take back control of your life during the COVID-19 pandemic – based on science

cjb250 — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 14:11:53 +0000

When you look at the news, all you hear about are the latest deaths and numbers of people infected by coronavirus, along with tips on how to avoid infection, how to protect yourself, how to avoid sick people… This is enough to make even the calmest of individuals experience anxiety, and it’s even worse if you’re dealing with a mental health condition.

One in six people has a common mental health problem such as anxiety and depression in England. If you add to that the fears and stress surrounding coronavirus, what do you get? A grim situation which makes it hard to cope and go through daily life.

Fortunately, there are ways – based on science – that allow you to take back control and lower your anxiety levels during this time of uncertainty. We’re all going through a difficult time, so it’s very important that we take care of our mental health. Here are some simple steps that will help you take back control of the situation, take back control of your life, and take back control of your mental wellbeing.

1. Stay away from the news

Constantly reading, watching, or checking the news only makes your anxiety grow stronger. Your curiosity can turn into a habit, and before you know it, your work breaks turn into checking the latest news on coronavirus on your phone.

Because it’s easier to nip a bad habit in the bud, try to limit the amount of time you spend watching the news – starting from now. It will be much easier to do this now that it will in a month’s time.

2. Distract yourself

Our minds can’t hold two thoughts at once. We can’t panic about coronavirus and at the same time be absorbed by a work project. So next time a worrying thought creeps into your mind, try to distract yourself – it can be with work, taking a shower, or even watching a silly YouTube video.

This is really effective, because it gives our minds a chance to focus on and still be consumed by something – but this time we’re choosing what it’s being consumed by rather than letting it go astray. We’re back in the driver’s seat and taking control of our minds.

Distraction is much more effective than trying to “not think” about something, because whenever we try to suppress thoughts, they come back to haunt us with a vengeance – it doesn’t work. Try this experiment: close your eyes and try to not think of a polar bear. Did it work? Of course not! In order not to think about something, you have to conjure up an image of that thing in the first place. It’s the same with coronavirus or anything unpleasant you don’t want to think about. Telling yourself that you shouldn’t be thinking about something and trying to banish unwanted thoughts makes it even worse. Distraction is far more effective.

3. Choose what you focus on

It’s a difficult time, because we’re isolated and many of us feel lonely and helpless. Instead of thinking about social isolation and the difficulties surrounding it, which can make us depressed, change focus. Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but have never had the time – a project at home or a new language you’ve always wanted to learn, for example? Could you sign up for a self-improvement webinar that allows you to gain life skills?

Here are 450 Ivy League courses you can take online right now for free.

Let go of the guilt that you could be doing something more valuable with your time – what could be better than learning how to better yourself? Now is a time to be kind to others, but also a time to be kind to yourself. And when you do this, your self-compassion grows and your mental health will improve.

4. Stay connected

Even though we’re socially distancing ourselves from other people, this doesn’t mean that we should be socially isolating ourselves. Make use of technology and FaceTime or Skype with the people you care about. One of the ways of combatting loneliness in older people is through technology, by connecting them with others they care about. You could be in separate countries, but knowing that a friendly voice is just a click away gives you something to look forward to in the day.

5. Remember: thoughts are mental events that will pass

Anxiety may get the better of you and you’re finding it hard to fall asleep at night or to concentrate during the day because of the uncertainties of the situation. You might worry that you’re going to contract coronavirus and maybe even that you’re even going to die.

A few years ago, I heard a Buddhist monk speak at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. He said that our thoughts are mental events – any consuming thoughts you have now will pass just like many others did.

If you have difficulty letting go of thoughts, consider practicing some mindfulness meditation. Focus on your breaths going in and out of your lungs while gently letting go of thoughts. You’re not fighting or banishing the thoughts: you’re just trying not to feed them – instead, you’re always gently bringing your mind back to the breaths.

There are many videos online on how to do mindfulness meditation. Doing this can calm you and it can ground you.

Dr Olivia Remes is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, where she focuses on anxiety and depression.

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Anxiety is tough to deal with at the best of time. It’s even tougher when we’re in the midst of a pandemic that is causing chaos around the globe. Dr Olivia Remes shares her top tips on looking after your mental health during this difficult period.

Chad Davis

Coronavirus

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Opinion: Depression - men far more at risk than women in deprived areas

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 10:10:38 +0000

Depression is a major cause of disability around the world, and if left untreated, can lead to substance abuse, anxiety and suicide.

Major depressive disorder is a particular form of the condition which affects many people, potentially causing loss of pleasure in activities that once used to bring joy. It can also lead to feelings of worthlessness, imbalances such as oversleeping or insomnia, and trigger thoughts of suicide. This is the condition we examined during our new study, which showed that living in a deprived area can lead to major depressive disorder in men, but not in women.

Before explaining these findings, it is important to provide some further background on this condition. There are certain factors which can place you at increased risk for major depression. Being diagnosed with a serious chronic ailment, such as diabetes or cancer, now or in the past, can increase your risk for it. As can experiences of trauma, such as physical or sexual abuse, or being raised in a dysfunctional family in which there was a high degree of marital discord.

These, however, are all individual factors – or personal circumstances – which can negatively affect your mental health. And most of the research on depression has indeed focused on such personal factors. But there are characteristics beyond the level of the individual – such as attributes of the communities in which we live – that can also have a profound effect on our mental well-being.

Previous studies have shown that living in communities characterised as deprived can lead residents of those areas to rate their health as suboptimal and experience early death. Through our study, we wanted to know if living in a deprived area can also influence the mental health of men and women – even after accounting for personal circumstances. That is, even after you take people’s socioeconomic status into account (in our study’s case, education and social class), does a person’s residential environment still affect their mental health?

̽��ֱ��findings

To answer this question, we used data from one of Britain’s longest-running studies on health, chronic diseases, and the way people live their lives: EPIC-Norfolk. This study was based on over 20,000 people who filled out detailed questionnaires on their mental health and medical history.

Respondents’ postal codes were linked to the census to determine whether they lived in deprived communities. Five years after deprivation levels were measured, participants filled out a psychosocial questionnaire to determine whether they suffered from major depressive disorder. Using statistical techniques, the association between area deprivation and depression was examined while accounting for medical history, education, social class, and other important factors.

Our study showed that living in a deprived area does affect mental health – at least in men. In fact, we found that men living in the most deprived areas were 51% more likely to experience depression than those living in areas that were not deprived. Interestingly, the results did not reach statistical significance in women.

Loss of purpose. Shutterstock

Our study did not set out to determine why this might be the case – and further research is now needed to do this. Nevertheless, it is possible that many men in the UK and other parts of the world still feel a primary responsibility to provide for and support their families.

A recent study investigating depression risks for men and women indicated that men are more affected by “failures at key instrumental tasks, such as expected work achievements and failures to provide adequately for the family”.

Research shows that men seem to be more sensitive to certain stressors in their environment compared to women, such as those related to work and finances. Women’s depression levels, on the other hand, are more influenced by stressors stemming from relationships and the social networks they are embedded in. Factors such as low parental warmth and low marital satisfaction, for example, can really affect women’s mental health.

A great many factors may be behind this, but in the UK, men are three times more likely to die by suicide than women and so root causes as to why men are struggling should be investigated.

While women are at a lower risk of depression than men in deprived areas, other research shows that they are more likely to experience anxiety. Again, further work is needed on the effect of the residential environment on mental health from a gender perspective.

High numbers of people are living in deprivation around the world and depression is a leading cause of disability on a global scale. Knowing how men and women are affected by the hardship of living in deprivation can help focus mental health treatment, and this is a valuable step forward.

This article is republished from ̽��ֱ��Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Deprivation affects men and women differently, writes Olivia Remes, PhD candidate at the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, with men more likely to experience depression.

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Loneliness is contagious – and here's how to beat it

cjb250 — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 10:07:10 +0000

Loneliness is a common condition affecting around one in three adults. It damages your brain, immune system, and can lead to depression and suicide. Loneliness can also increase your risk of dying prematurely as much as smoking can – and even more so than obesity. If you feel lonely, you tend to feel more stressed in situations that others cope better in, and even though you might get sufficient sleep, you don’t feel rested during the day.

Loneliness has also increased over the past few decades. Compared to the 1980s, the number of people living alone in the US has increased by about one-third. When Americans were asked about the number of people that they can confide in, the number dropped from three in 1985 to two in 2004.

In the UK, 21% to 31% of people report that they feel lonely some of the time, and surveys in other parts of the world report similarly high estimates. And it’s not just adults who feel lonely. Over a tenth of kindergarteners and first graders report feeling lonely in the school environment.

Loneliness is common among children, too. Shutterstock

So many people feel lonely these days. But loneliness is a tricky condition, because it doesn’t necessarily refer to the number of people you talk to or the number of acquaintances you have. You can have many people around you and still feel lonely. As the comedian Robin Williams put it in the film World’s Greatest Dad:

I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. ̽��ֱ��worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.

What is loneliness?

Loneliness refers to the discrepancy between the number and quality of the relationships that you desire and those you actually have. You can have only two friends, but if you get along really well with them and feel that they meet your needs, you’re not lonely. Or you can be in a crowd and feel all alone.

But loneliness is not just about how you feel. Being in this state can make you behave differently, too, because you have less control over yourself – for example, you’re more likely to eat that chocolate cake for lunch instead of a meal or order take-out for dinner and you will also feel less motivated to exercise, which is important for mental and physical health. You’re also more likely to act aggressively towards others.

Sometimes people think that the only way out of loneliness is to simply talk to a few more people. But while that can help, loneliness is less about the number of contacts that you make and more about how you see the world. When you become lonely, you start to act and see the world differently. You begin noticing the threats in your environment more readily, you expect to be rejected more often, and become more judgemental of the people you interact with. People that you talk to can feel this, and as a result, start moving away from you, which perpetuates your loneliness cycle.

Studies have shown that (non-lonely) people who hang out with lonely people are more likely to become lonely themselves. So loneliness is contagious, just as happiness is – when you hang out with happy people, you are more likely to become happy.

There is also a loneliness gene that can be passed down and, while inheriting this gene doesn’t mean you will end up alone, it does affect how distressed you feel from social disconnection. If you have this gene, you are more likely to feel the pain of not having the kinds of relationships that you want.

It’s particularly bad news for men. Loneliness more often results in death for men than for women. Lonely men are also less resilient and tend to be more depressed than lonely women. This is because men are typically discouraged from expressing their emotions in society and if they do they are judged harshly for it. As such, they might not even admit it to themselves that they’re feeling lonely and tend to wait a long time before seeking help. This can have serious consequences for their mental health.

How to escape it

Look at being alone in a new light. Shutterstock

To overcome loneliness and improve our mental health, there are certain things we can do. Research has looked at the different ways of combating this condition, such as increasing the number of people you talk to, improving your social skills, and learning how to compliment others. But it seems the number one thing is to change your perceptions of the world around you.

It’s realising that sometimes people aren’t able to meet up with you, not because there is something inherently wrong with you, but because of other things going on in their lives. Maybe the person that you wanted to have dinner with wasn’t able to accept your invitation because it was too short notice for them and they had already promised someone else they would have drinks. People who aren’t lonely realise this and, as a consequence, don’t get down or start beating themselves up when someone says no to their invitations. When you don’t attribute “failures” to yourself, but rather to circumstances, you become much more resilient in life and can keep going.

Getting rid of loneliness is also about letting go of cynicism and mistrust of others. So next time you meet someone new, try to lose that protective shield and really allow them in, even though you don’t know what the outcome will be.

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

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

One in three adults is affected by loneliness. It's time for us to take a risk and let others into our lives, says Olivia Remes, PhD candidate at the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, writing for ̽��ֱ��Conversation.

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Sense of control and meaning helps protect women from anxiety, study suggests

cjb250 — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 23:13:22 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, published today in BMJ Open, found that women who had these traits did not have anxiety, even if they were living in the most deprived circumstances, but women who did not feel that they were in control of their lives and who lacked purpose and meaning in life had high levels of anxiety when facing the hardships of living in deprivation. ̽��ֱ��study could help researchers develop new ways of teaching women how to overcome anxiety.

Anxiety disorders can manifest as fear, restlessness, an inability to concentrate on work or school tasks, and difficulty in falling asleep at night. In some cases, anxiety can arise out of the blue as in a panic attack, when sudden spikes of intense anxiety make the sufferer think they are having a heart attack, ‘going mad’, or even dying. In other cases, it is triggered by specific situations, such as being on a bus or at a social gathering, and symptoms such as sweating, gastrointestinal discomfort, dizziness, and chest pains may ensue.

Anxiety disorders are some of the most common mental health problems and their annual cost in the United States is estimated to be $42.3 billion. In the European Union, they affect over 60 million people in a given year.

Despite anxiety disorders being common and costly, few studies have looked at what makes some people have anxiety when going through tough times, while others facing the exact same situations are able to maintain good mental health. National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)-funded researchers from the Cambridge Institute of Public Health used data from over 10,000 British women who had responded to a structured health and lifestyle questionnaire. ̽��ֱ��questionnaire included a measure of Sense of Coherence, which is a personality disposition.

Women living in deprivation but who reported the following traits were less likely to have anxiety: believing they were in control of their lives, believing their lives made sense, and having a purpose and meaning in life. Women living in deprivation but without these desirable traits had high levels of anxiety. In fact, women in deprived communities without these traits were almost twice as likely to have anxiety as women living in more affluent communities.

“This study sheds light on inner strengths or qualities that we may have which can protect us from anxiety when we’re exposed to hardships, such as living in deprivation,” says first author and PhD candidate Olivia Remes. “Fostering such strengths or traits may be useful for people who do not respond well to medication or other therapies for anxiety, and further research would be needed on this.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say that living in deprivation can lead to a sense of meaninglessness among individuals, and can give rise to poor mental health and suicide. In deprived communities, people are more fearful of their neighbours, assaults are more likely to happen, and it is difficult to form close relationships with others. ̽��ֱ��total number of people living in deprivation worldwide is large; as such, the results of this study are particularly important.

“This study takes a different approach to mental health,” continues Professor Carol Brayne, Director of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health. “Up until now, most studies have looked at what makes someone prone to disease, and the risk factors for ill health. But we have taken a different approach. Instead of looking at risk factors for disease, we are looking at traits or strengths that we have within us that can help us maintain good mental health and overcome adversity.

“ ̽��ֱ��study could help researchers develop new ways to approach how women can be helped to overcome anxiety, and also highlights the key role of context in our mental health.”

Dr Louise Lafortune, Senior Research Associate at the institute, explains: “Anxiety disorders are common, debilitating, and impairing. Now we know that people who feel that they are in control of their lives, who believe that life makes sense, and who have found purpose and meaning are less likely to have anxiety even if they are going through hardships, such as living in deprivation.”

Reference
Remes, O. et al. Sense of coherence as a coping mechanism for women with anxiety living in deprivation: British population study. BMJ Open; Tuesday 24 April; DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018501

People who feel in control of their lives and who find purpose and meaning in life are less likely to have anxiety disorders even when going through the toughest times, according to a study led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

This study sheds light on inner strengths or qualities that we may have which can protect us from anxiety when we’re exposed to hardships, such as living in deprivation

Olivia Remes

Leon Biss

Woman contemplates sunrise

Researcher Profile: Olivia Remes

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems, and if left untreated, can lead to substance abuse, depression, and risk of suicide. Yet little seems to known about its causes and consequences.

It is to address this gap in our knowledge that Olivia Remes, originally from Canada, is carrying out research for her PhD. She has been looking at who is most affected by anxiety, some of the factors that can give rise to it, and the impact that untreated illness can have on society.

“Anxiety is not only very costly for society in terms of high health service use, work absenteeism and decreased work productivity, but it can cause much suffering to those affected,” she says.

To carry out her research, Olivia uses data from the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer in Norfolk, one of the largest cohort studies looking at chronic diseases, mental health, and the way people live their lives.

Olivia is keenly aware of the importance of sharing her research with other academics, policy-makers and the public, often through the media. This led to significant interest when she published her findings on the burden of anxiety around the world, with radio and TV interviews across the BBC and other media outlets.

“It was truly exhilarating. Knowing that I had done something to increase awareness about anxiety and that I was able to reach people with key messages from my research was very rewarding,” she says.

“As I started received personal messages from people suffering from anxiety, I felt that all the hard work I had done to bring this condition to light was truly worthwhile. It made me persevere in my research and gave me hope that, through my work, I can have a positive impact on people’s lives.”

Olivia hopes her research will help inform prevention and intervention efforts directed to help those suffering from anxiety, but also that it will lead to greater awareness of the condition. “I hope that, as more studies on anxiety come out, more people will start talking about this condition and will seek help if experiencing symptoms without feeling embarrassed or ashamed.”

Studying at Cambridge has given her the opportunity to work with and learn from some of the brightest minds in the field, she says.

“ ̽��ֱ��postgrad community is also very welcoming – the Colleges organize many events for students throughout the year, providing opportunities to meet many wonderful people from all over the world,” she says. “I have made many friendships here that I will treasure for many years to come. Cambridge is an inspiring place steeped in history, and is dedicated to inspiring innovation. I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy every minute here.”

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Opinion: Surprising ways to beat anxiety and become mentally strong – according to science

cjb250 — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 10:44:20 +0000

Do you have anxiety? Have you tried just about everything to get over it, but it just keeps coming back? Perhaps you thought you had got over it, only for the symptoms to return with a vengeance? Whatever your circumstances, science can help you to beat anxiety for good.

Anxiety can present as fear, restlessness, an inability to focus at work or school, finding it hard to fall or stay asleep at night, or getting easily irritated. In social situations, it can make it hard to talk to others; you might feel like you’re constantly being judged, or have symptoms such as stuttering, sweating, blushing or an upset stomach.

It can appear out of the blue as a panic attack, when sudden spikes of anxiety make you feel like you’re about to have a heart attack, go mad or lose control. Or it can be present all the time, as in generalised anxiety disorder, when diffuse and pervasive worry consumes you and you look to the future with dread.

Most people experience it at some point, but if anxiety starts interfering with your life, sleep, ability to form relationships, or productivity at work or school, you might have an anxiety disorder. Research shows that if it’s left untreated, anxiety can lead to depression, early death and suicide. And while it can indeed lead to such serious health consequences, the medication that is prescribed to treat anxiety doesn’t often work in the long-term. Symptoms often return and you’re back where you started.

How science can help

̽��ֱ��way you cope or handle things in life has a direct impact on how much anxiety you experience – tweak the way you’re coping, therefore, and you can lower your anxiety levels. Here are some of the top coping skills that have emerged from our study at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, which will be presented at the 30th European Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology in Paris, and other scientific research.

Do you feel like your life is out of control? Do you find it hard to make decisions – or get things started? Well, one way to overcome indecision or get going on that new project is to “do it badly”.

This may sound strange, but the writer and poet GK Chesterton said that: “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” And he had a point. ̽��ֱ��reason this works so well is that it speeds up your decision-making process and catapults you straight into action. Otherwise, you could spend hours deciding how you should do something or what you should do, which can be very time-consuming and stressful.

People often want to do something “perfectly” or to wait for the “perfect time” before starting. But this can lead to procrastination, long delays or even prevent us from doing it at all. And that causes stress – and anxiety.

Instead, why not just start by “doing it badly” and without worrying about how it’s going to turn out. This will not only make it much easier to begin, but you’ll also find that you’re completing tasks much more quickly than before. More often than not, you’ll also discover that you’re not doing it that badly after all – even if you are, you can always fine tune it later.

Using “do it badly” as a motto gives you the courage to try new things, adds a little fun to everything, and stops you worrying too much about the outcome. It’s about doing it badly today and improving as you go. Ultimately, it’s about liberation.

Just jump right in … ̽��ֱ��National Guard via flickr, CC BY

Forgive yourself and ‘wait to worry’

Are you particularly critical of yourself and the blunders you make? Well, imagine if you had a friend who constantly pointed out everything that was wrong with you and your life. You’d probably want to get rid of them right away.

But people with anxiety often do this to themselves so frequently that they don’t even realise it anymore. They’re just not kind to themselves.

So perhaps it’s time to change and start forgiving ourselves for the mistakes we make. If you feel like you’ve embarrassed yourself in a situation, don’t criticise yourself – simply realise that you have this impulse to blame yourself, then drop the negative thought and redirect your attention back to the task at hand or whatever you were doing.

Another effective strategy is to “wait to worry”. If something went wrong and you feel compelled to worry (because you think you screwed up), don’t do this immediately. Instead, postpone your worry – set aside 10 minutes each day during which you can worry about anything.

If you do this, you’ll find that you won’t perceive the situation which triggered the initial anxiety to be as bothersome or worrisome when you come back to it later. And our thoughts actually decay very quickly if we don’t feed them with energy.

Find purpose in life by helping others

It’s also worth considering how much of your day is spent with someone else in mind? If it’s very little or none at all, then you’re at a high risk of poor mental health. Regardless of how much we work or the amount of money we make, we can’t be truly happy until we know that someone else needs us and depends on our productivity or love.

This doesn’t mean that we need people’s praise, but doing something with someone else in mind takes the spotlight off of us (and our anxieties and worries) and places it onto others – and how we can make a difference to them.

Being connected to people has regularly been shown to be one of the most potent buffers against poor mental health. ̽��ֱ��neurologist Viktor Frankl wrote: "For people who think there’s nothing to live for, nothing more to expect from life … the question is getting these people to realise that life is still expecting something from them."

Knowing that someone else needs you makes it easier to endure the toughest times. You’ll know the “why” for your existence and will be able to bear almost any “how”.

So how can you make yourself important in someone else’s life? It could be as simple as taking care of a child or elderly parent, volunteering, or finishing work that might benefit future generations. Even if these people never realise what you’ve done for them, it doesn’t matter because you will know. And this will make you realise the uniqueness and importance of your life.

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

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Most people experience anxiety at some point in their lives, but for some it can be a crippling condition. Writing for ̽��ֱ��Conversation, Olivia Remes, a PhD candidate at the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, looks at what science tells us about beating the disorder.

Micheal Saisi

Anxiety centred

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Living in a poor area increases the risk of anxiety in women, but not in men

cjb250 — Thu, 04 May 2017 23:01:25 +0000

Anxiety disorders, which often manifest as excessive worry, fear and a tendency to avoid potentially stressful situations including social gatherings, are some of the most common mental health problems in the Western world. ̽��ֱ��annual cost related to the disorders in the United States is estimated to be $42.3 million. In the European Union, over 60 million people are affected by anxiety disorders in a given year.

There have been few studies to date that assess the factors or characteristics that are linked to anxiety disorders, and even fewer looking at the impact of places where people live in relation to anxiety. However, previous studies have linked living in areas of high deprivation or poverty with significantly increased risks for serious medical conditions and a shorter life expectancy.

To examine whether living in poor areas is related to anxiety disorders, researchers from the Cambridge Institute of Public Health studied health and lifestyle questionnaires completed by some 21,000 people in and around Norwich, east England, between 1993-2000. ̽��ֱ��participants had been recruited as part of the EPIC-Norfolk study, set up to look at the connection between diet, lifestyle factors and cancer.

̽��ֱ��results of the study are published today in the journal BMJ Open.

One in 40 women (2.5%) and one in 55 men (1.8%) were found to have generalised anxiety disorder. Women living in the most deprived areas were over 60% more likely to have anxiety than those living in areas that were not deprived. This association between deprivation and generalised anxiety disorder was not apparent in men.

Although the researchers acknowledge that it is difficult to confirm that living in deprivation causes an increased risk of anxiety in women, they believe this is what their analysis points towards.

“Anxiety disorders can be very disabling, affecting people’s life, work and relationships, and increasing the risk of depression, substance misuse and serious medical conditions,” says first author Olivia Remes, PhD candidate at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care. “We see from our study that women who live in deprived areas not only have to cope with the effects of living in poverty, but are also much more susceptible to anxiety than their peers. In real terms, given the number of people living in poverty worldwide, this puts many millions of women at increased risk of anxiety.”

̽��ֱ��team speculate why this may be the case. Women are more embedded in their communities than men – tending to stay at home more and do more of the domestic duties – and so the stress and strain of living in impoverished communities seems to affect them more, they argue. Also, women are increasingly taking on multiple roles in society today: income-earner, child-bearer, care-taker – all of which adds to their burden. However, while men may be less susceptible to anxiety, their stress can lead to other negative coping behaviours such as alcohol and substance abuse.

Professor Carol Brayne from the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, explains: “Anxiety disorders affect a substantial number of people and can lead to poor health outcomes and risk of suicide. Now we know that women are particularly affected by deprivation, while men less so. This is intriguing and further research is needed on this, particularly in the most deprived regions.”

“Our findings show that mental health policy needs to take communities or the places where people live into account: investing in a local area will not benefit all parts of its population in the same way,” says Dr Louise Lafortune, Senior Research Associate at the Cambridge Institute of Public Health. “It’s evident from our study that we need to take into account gender when determining what action to take. This is particularly important at a time of scarce economic and health-related resources.”

Reference
Remes, O et al. Sex differences in the association between area deprivation and generalised anxiety disorder: British population study. BMJ Open; 5 May 2017; DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-013590

Women living in the most deprived areas are over 60% more likely to have anxiety as women living in richer areas. However, whether men lived in poorer or richer areas made very little difference to their anxiety levels, according to new research from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Women who live in deprived areas not only have to cope with the effects of living in poverty, but are also much more susceptible to anxiety than their peers. In real terms, given the number of people living in poverty worldwide, this puts many millions of women at increased risk of anxiety

Olivia Remes

Olivia Remes On Anxiety & ̽��ֱ��Places In Which We Live

Bradley Gordon

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