What do you think of when you hear the term “burnt out?” These days, everyone seems to be stressed. The strains of balancing work, relationships, family and recreation can be overwhelming and exhausting. But burnout is different – suffering from long-term fatigue, stress, and disinterest is life altering. In May, a new study was published […]
Stress, Obesity and Our Children: What Mind-Body Research Says
Our lifestyle choices can create direct routes to conditions like inflammation. Even more recently, information linking psychoneuroimmunology and depression with stress and obesity has surfaced.
PTSD Risk for Child Cancer Survivors
I frequently receive donation requests from charities like St. Jude’s Hospital or American Cancer Society, sometimes featuring the picture of a child recovering from cancer. I can tell that they have gone through experiences that make them older than their years and just hope that the treatments that they are receiving are successful. But it […]
Ecstasy and PTSD
I’ve recently seen numerous articles published in the “mainstream media” questioning the use of illegal narcotics in the treatment of PTSD. This issue isn’t something new; the 60s and 70s saw the same debate, though then it quieted for a while. Well, it’s back. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) held its first US […]
Stress and Oxytocin: The Mom Factor
Mother’s Day has already come and gone this year, but according to new research, your stress levels may decrease if you keep in touch with your Mom. Seth D. Pollack, PhD, led a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison who looked at the effect that contact with mothers can have on the stress […]
PTSD and Genes
In past blogs, I’ve looked at how to help alleviate stress symptoms and how stress can affect the body, but we haven’t yet talked about who develops traumatic symptoms. It is well known that people don’t react to stressors the same way. When faced with a potentially traumatic event, why do some people develop trauma […]
Suicide and Veterans: A Call for Treatment
During times of war, we’re unfortunately conditioned to expect some causalities. But what isn’t expected are deaths that occur later from suicide. How can we explain the deaths of veterans who survive combat, but then commit suicide after their return? Tamera Coyne-Beasley, MD, MPH presented findings at the Pediatric Academic Societies May 2010 annual meeting […]
When Diagnosis Creates Trauma
It was an ordinary, sunny Sunday in January just over five years ago that would change our lives forever. . . On a walk with Christine Huda, NICABM’s Executive Director and my long-time partner, we were discussing the fact that she’d been having trouble talking recently. “You’ll see your physician tomorrow,” was my response. The […]
How the Brain Helps Us to Survive Trauma
New research into brain science has shown that neuroplasticity, or the changing of the brain, is possible. But the downside is that negative experiences also affect the brain. Scientists have known that stress can alter the brain’s structure, but the specifics of these changes have not yet been found. A new study out of the […]
PTSD and Dementia
Here’s a worrisome finding. Having a diagnosis of PTSD is positively associated with an increased risk of developing dementia. According to a recent study published in Alzheimers and Dementia Kristine Yaffe, MD, from the University of California San Francisco led a group of researchers as they tracked over 180,000 veterans aged 55 and older from […]