The Brigham Young University study found that 16- to 18-year-olds perform better academically when they sleep for 7 hours.

“We’re not talking about sleep deprivation,” said study author Eric Eide. “The data simply says that seven hours is optimal at that age.”

The new study by Eide and fellow BYU economics professor Mark Showalter is the first in a series of studies where they examine sleep and its impact on health and education.

Current federal guidelines are based on studies where teens were simply told to keep sleeping until they felt satisfied.

“If you used that same approach for a guideline on how much people should eat, you would put them in a well-stocked pantry and just watch how much they ate until they felt satisfied,” Showalter said.

“Somehow that doesn’t seem right.”

BYU investigators attempted to devise a scientific study that matched the amount of sleep to academic performance or productivity.

Analyzing data from a representative sample of 1,724 primary and secondary school students across the country, they found a strong relationship between the amount of sleep youths got and how they fared on standardized tests.

But more sleep isn’t always better. As they report in the Eastern Economics Journal, the right amount of sleep decreases with age:

• The optimal for 10-year-olds is 9 – 9.5 hours;
• The optimal for 12-year-olds is 8 – 8.5 hours;
• The optimal for 16-year-olds is 7 hours.

“We don’t look at it just from a ‘your kid might be sleeping too much’ perspective,” Eide said.

“From the other end, if a kid is only getting 5.5 hours of sleep a night because he’s overscheduled, he would perform better if he got 90 minutes more each night.”

The size of the effect on test scores depends on a number of factors, but an 80-minute shift toward the optimum is comparable to the child’s parents completing about one more year of schooling.

“Most of our students at BYU, especially those that took early-morning seminary classes in high school, are going to realize that 9 hours of sleep isn’t what the top students do,” Showalter said.

Source: Brigham Young University

Sleeping teenager photo by shutterstock.

Penn State investigators determined people who are more physically active report greater levels of excitement and enthusiasm than people who are less physically active.

Researchers determined people also are more likely to report feelings of excitement and enthusiasm on days when they are more physically active than usual.

This discovery conceptually dates back to ancient times when the Greeks believed physical and mental well-being were inseparable.

“You don’t have to be the fittest person who is exercising every day to receive the feel-good benefits of exercise,” said David Conroy, Ph.D., professor of kinesiology.

“It’s a matter of taking it one day at a time, of trying to get your activity in, and then there’s this feel-good reward afterwards.”

Conroy believes a common fault is the focus on long-term rather than short-term exercise goals.

“When people set New Year’s resolutions, they set them up to include the entire upcoming year, but that can be really overwhelming,” he said.

“Taking it one day at a time and savoring that feel-good effect at the end of the day might be one step to break it down and get those daily rewards for activity. Doing this could help people be a little more encouraged to stay active and keep up the program they started.”

In the study, researchers asked 190 university students to keep daily diaries of their lived experiences, including free-time physical activity and sleep quantity and quality, as well as their mental states, including perceived stress and feeling states.

Participants were instructed to record only those episodes of physical activity that occurred for at least 15 minutes and to note whether the physical activity was mild, moderate or vigorous. Participants returned their diaries to the researchers at the end of each day for a total of eight days.

Investigators then separated the participants’ feeling states into four categories: pleasant-activated feelings exemplified by excitement and enthusiasm, pleasant-deactivated feelings exemplified by satisfaction and relaxation, unpleasant-activated feelings exemplified by anxiety and anger, and unpleasant-deactivated feelings exemplified by depression and sadness.

“We found that people who are more physically active have more pleasant-activated feelings than people who are less active, and we also found that people have more pleasant-activated feelings on days when they are more physically active than usual,” said co-author and doctoral student Amanda Hyde, who noted that the team was able to rule out alternative explanations for the pleasant-activated feelings, such as quality of sleep.

“Our results suggest that not only are there chronic benefits of physical activity, but there are discrete benefits as well. Doing more exercise than you typically do can give you a burst of pleasant-activated feelings. So today, if you want a boost, go do some moderate-to-vigorous intensity exercise.”

The researchers say that this is one of the first studies to acknowledge a benefit of physical activity is activation of positive feelings and energy.

“Knowing that moderate and vigorous physical activity generates a pleasant-activated feeling, rather than just a pleasant feeling, might help to explain why physical activity is so much more effective for treating depression rather than anxiety,” Conroy said.

“People dealing with anxious symptoms don’t need an increase in activation. If anything, they might want to bring it down some. In the future, we plan to look more closely at the effects of physical activity on mental health symptoms.”

The results of the study may be found in the current issue of the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology.

Source: Penn State

Young man running photo by shutterstock.

Researchers found the hardest desires to resist were either technology-driven — such as checking in with our friends on Facebook or surfing the web for specific information — or goal-directed activities, such as finishing up a project for work or school.

“Desires for media like watching television, surfing the Internet, using your iPhone, and our desire to work — that is, the intrinsic desire to get your work done —these are the hardest to resist,” said Wilhelm Hofmann, Ph.D., a behavioral science professor at the University of the Chicago.

The researchers studied the willpower of 205 adults ages 18 to 55 in the new study, checking in with them through a study-provided smartphone seven times a day to see if they were currently experiencing or recently experienced a desire or urge. Researchers assessed the kind of desire experience as well as its severity, and asked if the subject resisted or submitted to their desire. The study was conducted in and around the German city of Würtzburg, so it’s unclear whether the findings generalize to other countries or Americans.

Researchers collected 10,558 responses and 7,827 episodes where an urge or desire were reported.

It turns out that while sleep was a powerful desire for many subjects, it was easy to resist because there are few opportunities to sleep outside of the house. Other easy desires to resist include sexual urges, and spending impulses.

The hardest desires to control were ones dealing with our interactions with technology. It is especially hard for people to resist the desire to work even when it conflict with other goals such as socializing or leisure activities because “work can define people’s identities, dictate many aspects of daily life, and invoke penalties if important duties are shirked.”

Hofmann suggested that the desires for media may be harder to resist because of its high availability and also because it “feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist,” he told one media outlet.

Drinking and smoking, on the other hand, are not readily available to most people throughout the day, and they come with higher costs, both financially and socially.

“With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs — long-term as well as monetary — and the opportunity may not always be the right one. Even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still ‘steal’ a lot of people’s time.”

The best ways to resist undesirable urges said Hofmann is to not overindulge while drinking alcoholic beverages, and avoid being with or watching others participate in tempting activities.

The study also found that that as the day wore on, willpower lessened. This suggests it would be wiser not to make any big purchases later in the day, and to avoid behaviors which may lessen one’s willpower or inhibitions further.

Source: Society for Personality and Social Psychology

Although GAD is difficult to overcome, new research suggests regular exercise can significantly reduce anxiety symptoms in patients with GAD.

The clinical presentation of GAD typically includes a variety of physical symptoms including fatigue, muscle tension, irritability and poor sleep.

University of Georgia researchers randomly assigned 30 sedentary women diagnosed with GAD to either a control group or six weeks of strength or aerobic exercise training. The women ranged in age from 18-37. Exercise training consisted of two sessions a week of either weight lifting or leg cycling exercise.

Assessment of GAD was then performed by psychologists who were unaware (blinded) of group status.

Researchers found that symptoms of GAD were more likely to retract among the exercise cohort. The largest reduction in symptoms occurred in the group that performed weight-lifting exercises.

All exercisers demonstrated a significant reduction in worry symptoms and moderate-to-large improvements in other symptoms, such as irritability, feelings of tension, low energy and pain, were found.

“Our findings add to the growing body of evidence of the positive effects of exercise training on anxiety,” said researcher and doctoral student Matthew Herring.

“Our study is the first randomized controlled trial focused on the effects of exercise training among individuals diagnosed with GAD. Given the prevalence of GAD and drawbacks of current treatments, including expense and potential negative side effects, our findings are particularly exciting, because they suggest that exercise training is a feasible, well-tolerated potential adjuvant therapy with low risk that can reduce the severity of signs and symptoms of GAD.

“Future research should confirm these findings with large trials and explore potential underlying mechanisms of exercise effects among individuals with GAD.”

Researchers also examined the efficacy of an exercise and medication regimen for the treatment of GAD.

In the study, half of the participants in each group were taking a medication to treat GAD during the exercise program.

Researchers found that the benefit of exercise training extended to all participants, lessening anxiety symptoms to the same degree among those taking medication compared to those not taking medication.

“The large improvements found in this small investigation show that regular exercise has the power to help calm women suffering from GAD, even among those who appear to be resistant to treatment using medication,” said exercise physiologist Patrick O’Connor, Ph.D.

“The results of this research are very exciting because exercise is available to everyone, is relatively inexpensive and has beneficial effects beyond the reduction of anxious and depressive symptoms,” said c0-author and clinical psychologist Cynthia Suveg, Ph.D.

“For individuals suffering from impairing symptoms, these preliminary findings suggest that exercise may offer another potential treatment option that has few, if any, negative side effects. Future research needs to explore the long-term benefits of exercise as well as the conditions under which exercise may be most beneficial and for whom.”

The study has been published online in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.

Source: University of Georgia

Woman exercising photo by shutterstock.

Specifically, investigators discovered the brain region to be more activated in response to food images after one night of sleep loss than after one night of normal sleep.

Investigators believes this finding suggests that poor sleep habits can affect a person’s risk of becoming overweight in the long run.

The findings are published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

In prior research, neuroscientists Drs. Christian Benedict and Helgi Schiöth found that a single night of total sleep loss in young normal weight men curbed the energy expenditure the next morning. This research also showed that subjects had increased levels of hunger, which indicates that an acute lack of sleep may affect human’s food perception.

In this new study, researchers examined how the regions in the brain involved in appetite sensation are influenced by acute sleep loss.

Investigators used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the brains of 12 normal-weight males while they viewed images of foods. The researchers then compared the results after a night with normal sleep with those obtained after one night without sleep.

Said Benedict, “After a night of total sleep loss, these males showed a high level of activation in an area of the brain that is involved in a desire to eat.

“Bearing in mind that insufficient sleep is a growing problem in modern society, our results may explain why poor sleep habits can affect people’s risk to gain weight in the long run. It may therefore be important to sleep about eight hours every night to maintain a stable and healthy body weight.”

Source: Uppsala University

Researchers say this is the first study of its kind to look into a possible correlation between treatment and productivity.

Given the global economic morass, efforts to improve health and well-being and enhance productivity are sorely needed. Mental illness costs the Canadian economy an estimated $51 billion annually, with a third of that attributed to productivity losses.

In the U.S., nearly 20 million Americans experience some form of the disorder in a given year. The good news is that four out of five individuals with depression can be successfully treated; however, experts believe 80 percent of the population with depression goes undiagnosed and untreated.

Although symptoms may vary, depression typically causes obvious emotional distress, increases the risk of additional health disorders, hampers sleep and sexual function, and can cause an individual to feel sad and empty.

Since the disorder is common and often undiagnosed and untreated, workplace productivity often suffers. In the new study, published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, researchers examined data from a large-scale community survey of employed and recently employed people in Alberta.

Not surprisingly, investigators found people who experienced a depressive episode were significantly less likely to be highly productive. “We expected this, as past research has found that depression has adverse effects on comprehension, social participation, and day-to-day-functioning,” said researcher Carolyn Dewa, Ph.D.

“What’s exciting is we found that treatment for depression improves work productivity. People who had experienced a moderate depressive episode and received treatment were 2.5 times more likely to be highly productive compared with those who had no treatment,” she said.

“Likewise, people who experienced severe depression were seven times more likely to be high-performing than those who had no treatment.”

Of the 3,000 workers in the in the sample, 8.5 per cent experienced a depressive episode, representing 255 workers.

While the analyses showed that treatment improves work performance, the data also showed a troubling trend.

“We found that among all study participants who had been diagnosed with a severe depressive episode, 57 per cent did not receive treatment; 40 per cent of those who experienced a moderate depressive episode did not receive treatment,” said Dewa.

“When we look at the success of workers in the sample who received treatment while still in the workplace, it really speaks to the importance of prevention and the need for employers to facilitate treatment and support. If people are able to receive treatment early, disability leave, which costs companies $18,000 per leave, may be avoided.”

“Stigma and discrimination have often affected people’s willingness to access to services, as has the lack of knowledge around supports available in the workplace,” added Dewa.

“It is crucial that employers offer mental health interventions to their employees and support them in engaging in treatment, as well as continuing to support them as they transition back into the workplace.”

Source: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

University of Colorado Boulder researchers found that toddlers between 2 and a half and 3 years old who miss only a single daily nap show more anxiety, less joy and interest and a poorer understanding of how to solve problems.

The results indicate insufficient sleep alters the facial expressions of toddlers — exciting events are responded to less positively and frustrating events are responded to more negatively, said study leader, Monique LeBourgeois, Ph.D.

“Many young children today are not getting enough sleep, and for toddlers, daytime naps are one way of making sure their ‘sleep tanks’ are set to full each day,” she said.

“This study shows insufficient sleep in the form of missing a nap taxes the way toddlers express different feelings, and, over time, may shape their developing emotional brains and put them at risk for lifelong, mood-related problems.”

LeBourgeois and her colleagues assessed the emotional expressions of healthy, nap-deprived toddlers one hour after their normal nap time, and tested them again on another day following their normal nap.

Researchers believe the study is unique as it is the first to look at the experimental effects of missing sleep on the emotional responses of young children. Investigators discovered the loss of a nap — of just 90 minutes — may make toddlers unable to take full advantage of exciting and interesting experiences and to adapt to new frustrations.

“Just like good nutrition, adequate sleep is a basic need that gives children the best chance of getting what is most important from the people and things they experience each day,” said LeBourgeois.

In the study, the toddlers’ faces were videotaped while they performed “kid-friendly” picture puzzles, including those of farm animals, sea creatures and insects. One puzzle each child worked had all of the correct pieces, which gave him or her the opportunity to experience and express positive emotion, she said.

A second puzzle had a “wrong” piece and therefore was frustrating to the toddlers in the study because it was unsolvable.

Researchers observed the facial expressions of the toddlers and then assigned or coded, on a second-by-second basis, for emotions of joy, interest, excitement, sadness, anger, anxiety, disgust, shame and confusion.

Investigators found a 34 percent decrease in positive emotional responses among nap-deprived toddlers as they completed a puzzle as compared to the same children completing similar puzzles after their usual midday naps.

The study also showed a 31 percent increase in negative emotional responses of nap-deprived toddlers when they attempted to complete unsolvable puzzles when compared with puzzle-solving attempts after they had napped.

In addition, the study found a 39 percent decrease in the expression of “confusion” when nap-deprived toddlers attempted to put together unsolvable puzzles.

“Confusion is not bad — it’s a complex emotion showing a child knows something does not add up,” said LeBourgeois. “When well-slept toddlers experience confusion, they are more likely to elicit help from others, which is a positive, adaptive response indicating they are cognitively engaged with their world.

“The non-adaptive emotional effects we saw in toddlers who missed a single nap make us wonder how young kids who consistently don’t get enough sleep deal with their complicated social worlds,” said LeBourgeois.

The toddlers were kept on a strict sleep schedule of at least 12 and a half hours of nighttime and daytime sleep for at least five days before the emotion-testing sessions. Having children follow a set sleep schedule before testing is important because it synchronizes their circadian cycles and makes sure the participants are well-slept prior to the nap and no-nap emotional assessments.

“A sleepy child in a classroom or daycare environment may not be able to engage with others and benefit from positive interactions,” she said.

“Their coping skills decrease and they may be more prone to tantrums or frustration, which would affect how other children and adults interact with them. This study shows that missing even a single nap causes them to be less positive, more negative and have decreased cognitive engagement.”

Similar interactions in the home setting could affect parent-child relationships and a child’s quality of life, LeBourgeois said.

The toddlers in the study all wore devices on their wrists that measured their sleep patterns. The parents also kept daily diaries documenting their toddlers’ sleep.

“The goal of our study was to understand how losing sleep affects the way young kids respond emotionally to their world,” said LeBourgeois.

“This is important because toddlerhood is a sensitive period for developing strategies to cope with emotions and a time children naturally lose some sleep as they begin giving up their daytime naps.”

Le Bourgeois and her colleagues now plan to study how sleep restriction may affect not only emotion, but also higher levels of cognition known as executive function, which includes working memory and inhibitory control.

“These are the building blocks for lifelong learning,” she said.

Source: University of Colorado at Boulder

A new study suggests sleep disorders among young diabetics can contribute to misbehavior, worse control of their blood sugar and poor school performance.

“Despite adhering to recommendations for good diabetic health, many youth with Type 1 diabetes have difficulty maintaining control of their blood sugars,” said Michelle Perfect, Ph.D., the principal investigator in the study.

“We found that it could be due to abnormalities in sleep, such as daytime sleepiness, lighter sleep and sleep apnea. All of these make it more difficult to have good blood sugar control.”

Researchers followed the sleep health of 50 Type 1 diabetics, ages 10 to 16, and then compared the findings to a control group.

The investigators discovered the young diabetics spent more time in a lighter stage of sleep than youth without diabetes – this, in turn, was related to compromised school performance and higher blood sugar levels.

The study appears in the January issue of the journal Sleep.

“Sleep problems were associated with lower grades, poorer performance on state standardized tests, poor quality of life and abnormalities in daytime behavior,” Perfect said.

“On the upside, sleep is a potentially modifiable health behavior, so these kids could be helped by a qualified professional to get a better night’s sleep.”

Perfect and colleagues also found that nearly one-third of the youths in their study had sleep apnea, regardless of weight or body mass index (BMI). The finding is important as sleep apnea is associated with Type 2 diabetes, often referred to as adult-onset diabetes.

Type 2 diabetics are often overweight or obese, a condition that contributes to sleep apnea.

In the current study, the young participants with sleep apnea showed significantly higher blood sugar levels – the same pattern linked to adults.

“Sleep apnea and its impact may not be confined to older people with diabetes, we don’t know,” she said. “It’s something that needs to be looked at again.”

Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine

The new data from the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) Information Centre shows antidepressant use alone rose 28 percent between 2007/08 and 2010/11 in England. Just under 34 million prescriptions were dispensed for antidepressants in 2007/08, rising to 43.4 million in 2010/11.

The use of anti-anxiety drugs rose from just over six million to 6.5 million in the same period (an 8 percent jump), while prescriptions for sleeping pills rose 3 percent from around 9.9 million to 10.2 million.

Meanwhile, prescriptions for barbiturates, which promote sleep and reduce anxiety, have dropped 51 percent from just over 22,000 to just under 11,000. Across all these groups of drugs, there was a 20 percent rise in prescription items dispensed between 2007/08 and 2010/11.

Paul Farmer, chief executive of the UK mental health charity Mind, told the UK Press Association there were several factors that could lead to increased prescription figures. “The tough economic times may have contributed to more people experiencing depression,” he said, “but improved awareness around mental health problems may also mean more people are seeking help for their problems, with doctors also getting better at spotting symptoms.

“It’s important to remember that antidepressants can be a lifeline for some people which enable them to manage their mental health problems. It is worrying that antidepressants can be the first port of call for some doctors, despite the fact that ‘watchful waiting’ and talking therapies are recommended as the first line of treatment for mild to moderate depression.”

In addition, Farmer said there was a lack of access to counseling and psychotherapy in some parts of the country “which means doctors are left with little choice but to prescribe medication.” He added: “Last year Mind found that one in five people still have to wait over a year to access talking therapies.”

Still, some experts urge caution in interpreting the NHS figures. In April 2011, NHS data on a 43 percent jump in prescriptions for the SSRI class of antidepressants from 2006-2010 launched a media bandwagon declaring an epidemic of depression and blaming economic woes.

But Dr. Ben Goldacre, a physician, academic and author, noted that the jump was nothing new: a British Medical Journal article in 2009 found in the five-year period from 2000 to 2005 antidepressant prescribing also increased, by 36 percent.

“This isn’t very different from 43 percent, so it feels unlikely that the present increase in prescriptions is due to the recession,” Goldacre wrote in his blog for the Guardian newspaper, “Bad Science.”

As it turned out, closer examination of the data from 2000-2005 found that there was not necessarily more depression being diagnosed, nor that the rise in the overall number of antidepressant prescriptions was due to increasing numbers of patients receiving antidepressants.

“It was almost entirely caused by one thing: a small increase in the small proportion of those patients who received treatment for longer periods of time.

“Numerically, people receiving treatment for long periods make up the biggest chunk of all the prescriptions written, so this small shift bumped up the overall numbers hugely,” Goldacre wrote.

Source: UK Press Association

Half also have irregular body clocks out of sync with the pattern of night and day.

Twenty patients with schizophrenia were involved in the research. Severe disruption in the sleep patterns were found in all 20 patients, despite their mood being stable and each being on a steady drug regime. 

All patients took longer to fall asleep, spent longer in bed, slept longer and had much more variable sleep patterns, compared with a control group of 21 healthy unemployed people.

The research team insists that the severe impact of these long-term sleep disturbances need to be considered during treatment along with the other symptoms of schizophrenia, because they have such a strong effect on mood, social function, mental abilities and quality of life.

“The people in our study were stable in mood, taking medication and yet they still experienced enormous sleep problems,” says first author Dr. Katharina Wulff of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford. 

“Clinicians may need to start thinking about treating their patients’ sleep problems as well, or refer them to sleep specialists,” she says.

The variable sleep patterns are unlikely to be simply caused by having unstructured days without any routine, since those in the control group may also not have a pattern to their daily lives.  The sleep disturbances also appeared unrelated to the different drugs taken by those with schizophrenia.

Ten of the patients also had irregular body clocks: Their internal 24-hour rhythm was delayed compared with all the others, or longer than 24 hours. They were often sleeping at times other than at night. 

For example, an individual may only fall asleep after 4 a.m. and get up in the afternoon or have ‘free-running’ sleep patterns unrelated to the 24-hour day.

Although the study provides strong evidence of an association between schizophrenia and severely disrupted sleep patterns, there is not yet a demonstrated causal link between the two. 

Sleep disturbances are considered common in many mental health disorders, including schizophrenia. However, this is one of the first studies to provide solid evidence as well as look for body clock abnormalities.

“Patients often complain of being so tired they can’t concentrate, can’t work, that dealing with their sleep problems would make life so much better. There are also lots of anecdotal stories from psychiatrists of patients being unable to settle to sleep and running around all night, or not turning up to consultations organized for mornings,” says Professor Russell Foster of Oxford University, who headed the research group.

“We now know many of the patients are also essentially suffering persistent jetlag with their body clocks out of synch with day and night. This immediately opens up a lot of new avenues for research in understanding the links between sleep problems and mental ill health.

“But regardless of whether or not there is a mechanistic link between the body clock and psychiatric conditions, it is clear that treating sleep problems could improve the lives of many patients.’

The Oxford University-led study, with colleagues from UCL and the University of Surrey, is published online by the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Source:  University of Oxford

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg performed the study on 691 Swedish widowers.

Experts say that scientific studies show that the relatives of the deceased are at greater risk of dying themselves or developing mental and physical illness. However, most studies have focused on widows, and on the short-term risks.

The unique long term study of men discovered that widowers who had found a new partner four to five years after a wife’s death managed to deal with their loss relatively well.

Investigators found that those who remained single were at far greater risk of developing depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and emotional blunting. They were also more likely to use sleeping pills and antidepressants.

“Previous studies have shown that people who lose their partner are at greater short-term poor mental health,” said Gunnar Steineck, Ph.D., who worked on the study.

“Our study is the first to show that the risk of poor mental health last for many years but, on the average, the risk is restricted to those who don’t find a new partner.”

Investigators believe the study shows the value of emotional support.

“We need more research to understand the underlying mechanisms, but yes, emotional support from a new partner does probably help to process grief and protect against mental illness,” said Steineck.

“But it could also be the case that those men who cope best with their loss are more likely to show an interest in finding a new partner.”

Source: University of Gothenburg

Couple happy together photo by shutterstock.

Vanderbilt University investigators believe Ecstasy produces long-lasting serotonin neurotoxicity in humans. Their findings are reported online in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

“Our study provides some of the strongest evidence to date that the drug causes chronic loss of serotonin in humans,” said Ronald Cowan, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry.

The neurotransmitter serotonin, a critical signaling molecule, has roles in regulating mood, appetite, sleep, learning and memory.

Cowan says knowledge of the effects of MDMA (Ecstasy’s chemical name) is important as the drug may have therapeutic benefits. In fact, MDMA is now being tested as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety associated with cancer.

“It’s essential that we understand the risk associated with using Ecstasy,” Cowan said. “If news keeps coming out that MDMA is being tested therapeutically and is safe, more people will tend to self-administer the drug. We need to know the dose at which this drug becomes toxic.

“Our studies suggest that if you use Ecstasy recreationally, the more you use, the more brain changes you get.”

In the current study, Cowan and colleagues used positron emission tomography (PET) imaging to examine the levels of serotonin-2A receptors in various brain regions, in females who had used Ecstasy (but not in the 90 days prior to imaging) and in females who had never used the drug.

They limited their studies to females because previous work has shown gender-specific differences in serotonin receptor levels.

They found that Ecstasy users had increased levels of serotonin-2A receptors and that higher lifetime use of the drug (higher doses) correlated with higher serotonin receptor levels. The findings are consistent with some studies in animal models, with receptor levels increasing to compensate for the loss of serotonin, Cowan said.

Earlier this year, Cowan and colleagues discovered Ecstasy increased brain activation in three brain areas associated with visual processing, which suggested a loss in brain efficiency.

Investigators believe the two studies provide strong evidence that Ecstasy causes lasting changes in brain serotonin function.

“It’s really critical to know whether or not this drug is causing long-term brain damage because millions of people are using it,” says Cowan.

The 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 15.9 million individuals 12 years or older in the United States had used Ecstasy in their lifetime; 695,000 people had used Ecstasy in the month prior to being surveyed.

Cowan and his research team are interested in determining the doses of Ecstasy that are toxic, and whether there are genetic vulnerabilities to toxicity. If clinical trials show that the drug has therapeutic benefits, it’s critical to know the risks, he said.

Source: Vanderbilt University

Ecstasy pills photo by shutterstock.

The discovery is another blow to the old belief that productivity is tied to an individual being on-site for a strict 40 hours — and, never mind if they are unhappy or have poor health habits.

University of Minnesota sociologists Drs. Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen discussed their findings in the December issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

“Our study shows that moving from viewing time at the office as a sign of productivity, to emphasizing actual results can create a work environment that fosters healthy behavior and well-being,” said Moen.

“This has important policy implications, suggesting that initiatives creating broad access to time flexibility encourage employees to take better care of themselves.”

Researchers analyzed data collected from 608 employees of a white-collar organization before and after a flexible workplace initiative was implemented.

Investigators examined changes in health-promoting behaviors and health outcomes among the employees participating in the initiative compared to those who did not participate.

Introduced at the Best Buy headquarters in Richfield, Minn. in 2005, the workplace initiative—dubbed the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE)—redirected the focus of employees and managers towards measurable results and away from when and where work is completed.

Under ROWE, employees were allowed to routinely change when and where they worked based on their individual needs and job responsibilities without seeking permission from a manager or even notifying one.

Among the key findings:

• Employees participating in the flexible workplace initiative reported getting almost an extra hour (52 minutes) of sleep on nights before work;
• Employees participating in the flexible workplace initiative managed their health differently: They were less likely to feel obligated to work when sick and more likely to go to a doctor when necessary, even when busy;
• The flexible workplace initiative increased employees’ sense of schedule control and reduced their work-family conflict which, in turn, improved their sleep quality, energy levels, self-reported health, and sense of personal mastery while decreasing employees’ emotional exhaustion and psychological distress.

“Narrower flexibility policies allow some “accommodations” for family needs, but are less likely to promote employee health and well-being or to be available to all employees,” said Kelly.

Source: American Sociological Association

Man working on compter photo by shutterstock.

At the conclusion of a two-year study of women from across the nation, assistant professor Jesse R. Cougle, Ph.D., found that those with PTSD who reported a history of rape or severe childhood physical abuse were more likely to suffer chronic PTSD symptoms.

What’s more, women who reported more “re-experiencing” symptoms, such as nightmares and flashbacks, at the initial assessment were more likely to suffer from persistent PTSD symptoms two years after the study began.

“What makes our findings unique is the recovery component,” Cougle said. “Most studies of this kind have looked at risk and resiliency or the factors that determine who develops PTSD and who doesn’t. We studied factors that influence recovery, or lack thereof, in a sample with PTSD. What we found, interestingly, is that more than half of the women in our sample — 58 percent — recovered within two years.”

Most people will experience at least one potentially traumatic event during their lifetimes that could result in PTSD, he noted. Knowing the factors that predict chronic PTSD will help to identify people who are most in need of assistance and treatment after suffering a traumatic event.

Cougle also found that about half of the women who recovered from PTSD during the study did so without any sort of professional treatment.

“Some women have a natural capacity to recover from PTSD,” Cougle said. “They won’t require treatment to get better.”

In addition to re-experiencing symptoms, a PTSD diagnosis includes avoidance and numbing, such as efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings or conversations associated with the trauma; efforts to avoid activities, places or people that arouse recollections of the trauma; an inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma; and feelings of emotional detachment. Additional symptoms include hyperarousal, such as difficulty concentrating; difficulty falling or staying asleep; irritability; and hypervigilance.

The new research was published in the journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy.

Source: Florida State Univesity

“Poor sleepers who engage in what we call ‘safety behaviors’, such as taking sleep medication or drinking alcohol, are actually disrupting their sleep in the long term,” said Heather Hood, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Ryerson University .

“These safety behaviors are driven by unhelpful beliefs about sleep, but people suffering from insomnia or poor sleep feel they need to do these things to help them fall asleep.”

Ten to 15 per cent of the general population suffer from clinical levels of insomnia.

Hood conducted previous research on the connection between anxiety disorders and safety behavior and was curious to see if there was a connection with insomnia as well.

In the present study, researchers asked 397 undergraduate students to complete an online survey that asked about their safety behaviors (routines they did to avoid being awake at night), how often they completed these nightly rituals and how much they believe they needed to complete these tasks to sleep.

The student participants were also asked the degree to which they were afraid of not getting enough sleep and the extent to which they tried to avoid feeling tired.

The researchers found that 40 per cent of the students were poor sleepers and may be using safety behaviors that were not helping them.

“These students not only relied on these safety behaviors to help them, but truly believed that these routines were helping them sleep better at night. But their strong beliefs in these behaviors were actually leading to more sleeping problems for them,” said Hood.

“A poor sleeper or someone with insomnia may have many reasons for needing to do these things to help them sleep, but our study is questioning their beliefs if they are really helpful.”

The study found poor sleepers felt they needed to rely on a certain task to help them sleep. With students who had no difficulty falling asleep, they often didn’t think of anything – they just fell asleep.

“People who are poor sleepers exert a ton of energy trying to force sleep,” said psychologist Dr. Colleen Carney, study co-author. “Sleep is something that has to unfold naturally, so the more you engage in behaviors to try to sleep, the less likely you’re going to fall asleep.”

Carney, who is also a sleep disorder therapist, said cognitive behavior therapy is a more effective, long-term solution for sleep sufferers. In cognitive behavior therapy, individuals are taught to give up that fight, and work with their physiology to help them learn how to fall asleep naturally.

“Cognitive behavior therapy is the front-line recommended therapy for chronic insomnia. It teaches you to adopt the habits of a good sleeper by changing your sleep habits and having a more relaxed attitude towards getting a good night’s rest.”

Their study will be published in the December issue of Behavior Therapy.

Source: Ryerson University

Therapy photo by shutterstock.