In an effort to understand how the motivation to exercise is linked to behavior, researchers examined college students’ intentions to be physically active as well as their actual activity levels.

“Many of us set New Year’s resolutions to be more physically active, and we expect these resolutions to be stable throughout the year,” said David Conroy, Ph.D., professor of kinesiology.

“One of the things we see in this study is that from week to week our motivation can change a lot, and these weekly changes in motivation can be destructive to our resolutions.”

Investigators recruited 33 college students and assessed over a 10-week period both the students’ weekly intentions to be physically active and their activity levels.

Participants were instructed to log on to a website and to rate their intentions to perform physical activity for the week ahead. To assess physical activity, participants were instructed to wear pedometers each day for the first four weeks.

Researchers discovered that for many of the participants, the motivation to exercise fluctuated on a weekly basis, and these fluctuations were linked to their behavior.

The findings from the study appear in the current issue of the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology.

“Our motivation to be physically active changes on a weekly basis because we have so many demands on our time,” said Conroy.

For most of us, the challenge to remain motivated to exercise in the weeks when we are maxed-out is problematic. “Maybe one week we’re sick or we have a work deadline — or, in the case of students, an upcoming exam.”

According to Conroy, the lapses in motivation really seem to be destructive.

“Our results suggest that people with consistently strong intentions to exercise have the best chance of actually following through on their intentions, while people with the greatest fluctuations in their motivation have the hardest time using that motivation to regulate their behavior.”

A solution for individuals with wavering motivation includes incorporating physical activity into their daily lives, said research assistant Amanda Hyde.

“Maybe the way to get these people to be more physical active isn’t necessarily by increasing their motivation,” she said, ” but rather by changing the way they do things in their lives so exercise automatically fits within their schedule, like walking to work rather than driving or taking the stairs rather than the elevator.”

Conroy added that consistency of intentions is not the only thing that matters in predicting whether or not a person will be active. It also matters if it is a weekday or the weekend.

“We saw that people who consistently reported stronger intentions to be active were more active during the week, but then on weekends the pattern flipped for them,” said Conroy. “If a person was really motivated during the week, then he or she crashed on the weekend.”

This finding may be unique to the student population as an opposite behavior – that of limited exercise during the week, then over-exercising on the weekend – is often displayed by the working professional a/k/a “weekend warrior.”

Conroy noted that people seem to have different systems that motivate their behavior during the week and on the weekend.

In the case of college students, “individuals may be exhausted from having regulated their behavior and managed their time so carefully during the week that on the weekends they need to recharge their batteries and throw their time management out of the window.”

Regarding New Year’s resolutions, Conroy advised that people should focus less on making broad commitments to becoming more active and instead come up with a plan for how they’re going to sustain their motivation from one week to the next.

“It is important to pay attention to how we can sustain a high level of motivation and not just let that motivation degrade in response to all the external demands we face,” said Conroy.

Source: Penn State

Needless to say, a pessimistic assessment goes hand in hand with an increased risk of illness or death. It can be assumed that on average people who rate their health as poor have an unhealthier lifestyle, are often in a fragile state of health or are already sick.

However, earlier studies that only monitored the participants for a few years after the survey reveal that the correlation persists even if these factors are taken into account.

In the new study by researchers at the University of Zurich, investigators demonstrated that self-rated health is also linked to the probability of survival or death over a long period of more than thirty years.

In the study, which was conducted in Switzerland, men who rated their health as “very poor” were 3.3 times more likely to die than men of the same age who rated their health as “excellent”, and the risk of death was 1.9 times higher in women who rated their health as “very poor” than for those who rated it as “excellent”.

Here, the risk increased steadily from an optimistic to a pessimistic rating: people in “excellent” health had better chances of survival than those in “good” health, the latter better chances than those in a “fair” state of health, and so on.

“The steady increase in risk and the long time of over thirty years between the self-rating and the end of the observation period render it practically impossible for medical history or a dark foreboding to be main causes of the correlation observed,” explains head of the study Matthias Bopp.

When investigators statistically removed confounding variables, such as education levels, marital status, tobacco-related strains, medical history, the use of medication, blood pressure and blood glucose into account, the correlation between self-rated health and mortality only remained strong.

The difference in the risk of death between the best and the worst rating was still 1:2.9 in men and 1:1.5 in women.

“Our results indicate that people who rate their state of health as excellent have attributes that improve and sustain their health,” concludes specialist in preventive medicine David Fäh.

“These might include a positive attitude, an optimistic outlook and a fundamental level of satisfaction with one’s own life.”

The results of the study support the broad concept of health advocated by the World Health Organization not as the absence of disease, but rather as complete physical, mental and social wellbeing.

In the future, investigators hope that an individual’s uncertain view of health will trigger positive holistic strategies to improve an individual’s outlook on life.

“Good doctors should therefore not just look for the presence of risk factors or diseases, but also check which health resources their patients have and boost and consolidate them if need be,” says David Fäh.

Source: University of Zurich

Elwely woman and doctor looking out window photo by shutterstock.

Researchers say the connection allows each partner an opportunity to relieve stress and anxiety and helps to improve relationship satisfaction.

The findings stem from research by Kansas State University psychologist Dr. Brenda McDaniel as she studied conflict and conflict recovery in young dating couples. McDaniel reviewed self-reported questionnaires, documented physiological markers of stress and videotaped emotional reactions.

She also has looked at factors that relate to positive dating relationships or problematic relationships.

In the current study, McDaniel and her team worked with more than 50 couples ages 18 to 20 who had been dating for a least six months but were not engaged, married or living together.

“These relationships are, by nature, unstable to begin with,” McDaniel said. “They are early dating relationships. Sometimes it is hard to even get the couples to engage in conflict. Conflict does exist but, because the relationship is so new to them, they don’t want to cause a break-up.”

To observe stress hormone levels, researchers had participants spend 20 minutes talking about a topic that continually causes relationship tension. Often, conflict occurred when one partner treated the other differently in front of family, did not introduce the other to parents and friends, or was flirting with someone else.

“Typically, the couple is not going to come to a resolution regarding the reoccurring conflict within the 20 minute discussion,” McDaniel said. “But we want to get the stress response to see how couples recover from that relationship stress.”

As part of the research design, the stressful discussion was followed by a 20 minutes discussion of a positive shared time during their relationship. These conversations often included reminiscing about their first date, remembering their first kiss or a vacation together.

The researchers tracked physiological markers of stress and videotaped emotional reaction before, during and after both the conflict discussion and the happier discussion.

“Whenever you get into a fight and you get amped up, it is typically more adaptive to let that go after the fight,” McDaniel said. “If you ruminate and keep that anger, it can have negative mental and physical consequences. It’s better to have a nice downward recovery after conflict.”

To see if a downward recovery occurred in couples, researchers examined levels of the stress hormone cortisol before the conflict discussion, after the conflict discussion and after the “happy times” discussion.

Specifically, researchers discovered that if the cortisol levels resembled an inverted V shape — low before the conflict discussion, high after the conflict discussion, and low again after the happier discussion — the person often reported higher relationship satisfaction and higher relationship closeness. Participants whose cortisol levels stayed high instead of coming back down after the happier discussion reported lower relationship satisfaction and less relationship closeness.

Positive relationships were also associated with smooth conversational flow. “Those individuals whose stress hormone levels remained high didn’t enter into that state of flow.”

Flow is like being “in the zone,” McDaniel said. People might be in a state of flow if they are so engaged they lose track of time, or get a sense of enjoyment or creativity from an experience. Flow is often used to describe an athlete who is “hot” during a basketball game or a painter during the creation of a painting.

“A majority of the literature focuses on experiencing flow in a job or activity,” McDaniel said. “But our study examined how couples might experience flow during conversation.”

Investigators discovered that staying or engaging in the flow is often associated with positive characteristics of relationships. However, researchers found that the flow could be one-sided, that is, a person who was happy and in a positive mood could engage in flow even if his or her partner was not “in the zone.”

McDaniel said this disconnect in flow may be because of the nature of late adolescent relationships — 18- to 20-year-olds are still more focused on themselves than on others.

Among this age group, each party may focus only on how they feel about the relationship and what they are getting out of it — rather than a mutual process that includes how the other person feels about the relationship.

“While more research needs to be done, this positive rewarding state of flow during conversation may be one of the factors that create enduring marital relationships,” McDaniel said. “Hence, these early relationships may serve as practice for later long-term relationship.”

McDaniel also has a recommendation for young dating couples who want to improve their relationship.

“Try to engage in as much conversation as you can with potential romantic partners,” McDaniel said. “The partners that provide you with the most rewarding experience during those conversations are likely the ones to pursue.”

Source: Kansas State University

Two new studies, presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), suggest understanding an individual’s mental health status is an important factor for achieving the best outcome after surgery.

The knowledge is meaningful for obtaining improved clinical and generic (patient-satisfaction) outcomes — two measures that will influence future reimbursement schedules for surgeons.

One paper, derived from a study of 97 men and women who received minimally invasive total knee replacement (TKR) surgery, suggested men with anxiety traits — defined as a high level of anxiety unrelated to a stressful event — had higher post-operative pain ratings resulting in longer hospital stays. Women were found to generally report higher post-operative pain levels than men, and women were consistently less satisfied with pain control.

However, researchers found that some old presumptions did not hold up to the new findings. Specifically, postoperative pain or pain medication use in either men or women was not linked to reports of anxiety or even “catastrophizing” (an extreme response to stress).

In the next paper, reporting on a study of 1,657 patients receiving hip replacement surgery, researchers discovered patients taking antidepressants up to three years prior to undergoing a total hip replacement (THR) were more likely to report greater pain before and after surgery and less satisfaction with their procedure.

Approximately 215 patients were using antidepressants three years before the surgery.

In this study, patients were surveyed before and one year after the THR. The investigators found that a patient’s mental health status, assessed by the use of antidepressants before surgery, was a significant factor in predicting outcomes, as well as gender (men are more likely to report lower outcomes), advanced age and co-morbidity (other joint diseases or conditions which affect walking).

In summary, researchers believe a patient’s mental health status should be assessed prior to surgery and taken into consideration during post-operative care.

Source: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons

Knee in brace 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.

In a new study, researchers conducted a qualitative synthesis of over 30 studies that focused on the relationship between social comparisons and health.

“If you’ve ever looked at another person and thought, ‘Well, at least I’m doing better than he is,’ or ‘Wow, I wish I could be doing as well as she is,’ you’re not alone,” said Josh Smyth, Ph.D., professor of biobehavioral health and of medicine at Penn State.

“This phenomenon — first proposed in the 1950s — is common in daily life. When we’re unsure of how we’re doing, we can reduce uncertainty by getting information from others. People with chronic illnesses are particularly likely to compare themselves to others with the same illness.”

In the study, published in the current issue of Health Psychology Review, Smith and researchers at Syracuse University and the University of Iowa found that people who compare “downward,” to others who are worse off, are less depressed than people who compare “upward,” to people who are better off.

Downward comparisons often are associated with immediate positive feelings such as relief and gratitude.

However, many studies show the exact opposite. People who compare upward do better on physical health measures and report feeling hopeful about their ability to improve.

Other studies demonstrate the negative effects of both types of comparisons — downward comparisons can lead to sadness or worry and upward comparisons can lead to dejection.

In the current study, investigators studied the variance in the perceptions. According to investigator and doctoral student Danielle Arigo, this is exactly what researchers need to know before they can help people benefit from making comparisons.

“Right now, we know that it can go either way,” she said. “Someone’s doing better than you are? That can be either inspirational or depressing. Someone’s doing worse? That can give you some relief, or it can get you thinking about your own situation getting worse in the future. The problem is that although we don’t quite understand how social comparisons work, they are frequently used in health interventions for individuals with chronic illness.”

For example, health-education materials often include images or descriptions of patients with a particular medical condition to get patients thinking about a hypothetical future. Public service announcements typically use similar tactics, often with limited effect.

Arigo said studying the process of social comparison can improve the way we use positive and negative examples of behavior.

“We found that previous research points to differences in what people think about while they’re reading, specifically, how similar they are to the person they’re reading about,” she said.

“Focusing on similarities between you and people doing well will likely lead to feeling good. Focusing on differences between you and people doing poorly will likely lead to feeling good.

“But if you focus on differences between you and someone doing well, or similarities between you and someone doing poorly, you’ll likely feel worse. What people focus on appears to be associated with personality traits, mood and a variety of other factors that are not yet well understood.”

According to Smyth, this research summary identifies specific gaps in the current knowledge about social comparisons, including the factors that determine whether a person focuses on similarities or differences between themselves and others.

“In the future, this information may help to improve health communication efforts,” he said. Jerry Suls, professor of social psychology, University of Iowa, was also part of this research.

Source: Penn State

The key to popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) revolves around how the experience makes us feel. Investigators discovered social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace evoke a positive experience on individuals when the users access and use the sites.

While experts have known that the use of SNSs can have both a positive and negative effect on an individual, the popularity of SNSs suggests a strong positive experience is the norm.

In the current study investigators looked at body physiological responses when an individual was exposed to a 3 minute episode of (a) a slide show of natural panoramas (relaxation condition), (b) the subject’s personal Facebook account, and (c) a Stroop and mathematical task (stress condition).

Investigators monitored skin conduction velocity, pulse, respiration rate and pupil dilation using an electroencephalogram and electromyography. The procedure was performed on 30 healthy subjects.

Researchers wanted to learn how the SNSs experience influence body responses associated with stress, relaxation and the “affective experience.”

Statistical analysis of the psychophysiological data and pupil dilation indicates that the Facebook experience was significantly different from stress and relaxation on many linear and spectral indices of somatic activity.

Investigators believe the biological signals revealed that Facebook use can evoke a psychophysiological state characterized by high positive valence and high arousal (Core Flow State).

This means that use of Facebook may help individuals improve their mood.

The study is found in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

Source: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

Facebook image photo by shutterstock.

The program is called the School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS), and is widely used as an alternative to some schools zero-tolerance anti-bullying policies.

Bullying has gained greater national attention in recent years as specific events have brought it into the media spotlight. Bullying left unchecked can lead to academic, interpersonal, physical health and mental health problems.

Despite the concern, relatively few school-based programs have shown to be effective at preventing bullying. Even worse, zero-tolerance policies adopted at many schools have not been shown to be effective either.

An alternative to zero-tolerance policies is positive schoolwide prevention efforts. Tracy E. Waasdorp, Ph.D., of the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and her colleagues decided to evaluate one such program.

School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) aims to alter the school environment by creating improved systems — such as discipline and data management — and procedures — such as office referral and behavioral reinforcement — that promote positive changes in staff and student behaviors.

“SWPBIS teaches behavioral expectations through direct instruction, positive reinforcement and consistent consequences, promoting acceptable social and classroom behaviors. This in turn is theorized to reduce the likelihood of engaging in and rewarding bullying behavior,” the authors note.

Data for the study came from a randomized controlled effectiveness trial of the universal SWPBIS model conducted in 37 Maryland public elementary schools to determine the impact on discipline problems and the school environment. The sample included 12,344 children.

“The hierarchical linear modeling results indicated that children in the SWPBIS schools displayed significantly less bullying behavior and experienced lower levels of rejection over time vs children in the comparison schools,” the study results indicate.

Researchers called the potential effects of SWPBIS on bullying encouraging and in line with policymakers’ and researchers’ emphasis on school climate and culture for bullying prevention as an alternative to zero-tolerance policies.

“These findings suggest that a universal SWPBIS model is a promising approach for preventing bullying. Although the rates of bullying tend to be the highest in middle school, when SWPBIS is implemented in elementary school, it may help children better prepare for the transition into adolescence,” the researchers conclude.

The new study appears in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Source: JAMA

The research on brain activity during competitive social interactions is described in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Experts say this is the first investigation to use a computational approach to analyze differing patterns of brain activity during these interactions.

“When players compete against each other in a game, they try to make a mental model of the other person’s intentions, what they’re going to do and how they’re going to play, so they can play strategically against them,” said University of Illinois postdoctoral researcher Kyle Mathewson, Ph.D. “We were interested in how this process happens in the brain.”

Previous studies have tended to consider only how one learns from the consequences of one’s own actions, called reinforcement learning, Mathewson said.

These studies have found heightened activity in the basal ganglia, a set of brain structures known to be involved in the control of muscle movements, goals and learning. Many of these structures signal via the neurotransmitter dopamine.

“That’s been pretty well studied and it’s been figured out that dopamine seems to carry the signal for learning about the outcome of our own actions,” Mathewson said.

“But how we learn from the actions of other people wasn’t very well characterized.”

Researchers call this type of learning “belief learning.”

Investigators used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track activity in the brains of participants while they played a competitive game, called a Patent Race, against other players.

The goal of the game was to invest more than one’s opponent in each round to win a prize (a patent worth considerably more than the amount wagered), while minimizing one’s own losses (the amount wagered in each trial was lost). The fMRI tracked activity at the moment the player learned the outcome of the trial and how much his or her opponent had wagered.

A computational model evaluated the players’ strategies and the outcomes of the trials to map the brain regions involved in each type of learning.

“Both types of learning were tracked by activity in the ventral striatum, which is part of the basal ganglia,” Mathewson said. “That’s traditionally known to be involved in reinforcement learning, so we were a little bit surprised to see that belief learning also was represented in that area.”

Belief learning also spurred activity in the rostral anterior cingulate, a structure deep in the front of the brain. This region is known to be involved in error processing, regret and “learning with a more social and emotional flavor,” Mathewson said.

The findings offer new insight into the workings of the brain as it is engaged in strategic thinking, says co-author Ming Hsu. This in turn may aid the understanding of neuropsychiatric illnesses that undermine those processes.

“There are a number of mental disorders that affect the brain circuits implicated in our study,” Hsu said.

“These include schizophrenia, depression and Parkinson’s disease. They all affect these dopaminergic regions in the frontal and striatal brain areas. So to the degree that we can better understand these ubiquitous social functions in strategic settings, it may help us understand how to characterize and, eventually, treat the social deficits that are symptoms of these diseases.”

Source: University of Illinois

Woman playing cards photo by shutterstock.

A new study offers a novel way to improve worker productivity — training direct supervisors to provide emotional and social support. While it may seem a common-sense notion, many employers do not train supervisors on the necessity of support or on techniques to provide assistance.

As an example, a worker might develop somatic symptoms, such as stomach aches, a headache or muscle tension from workplace stress. The symptoms may cause the individual to call in sick or even take a leave of absence.

However, when the individual’s supervisor offers emotional and social support, the employee may recover without needing to take that extra afternoon or day off.

This is the finding of a new study from the University of Haifa, soon to be published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.

In earlier studies, scholars have shown stress at the workplace (due to high job demands and low control) can cause workers to develop psychological strain that translates into physiological symptoms, such as headaches, stomach aches and fatigue.

The symptoms and ill effects are often relieved when individuals take time away from work to recover. Experts report that approximately $225.8 billion per year is lost in the U.S. alone due to absenteeism.

The study, lead by Dr. Michal Biron of the University of Haifa, examined interpersonal workplace dynamics and their influence on burnout. Biron also investigated if the workplace environment influenced the individual’s decision to take sick leave to recover.

The study was conducted in a manufacturing enterprise in China and examined a sample group of 241 workers.

In Chinese culture, there is significant distance between supervisor and employee, making it a particularly relevant context to examine the role of supervisor support relating to absenteeism.

The workers were asked to report on common somatic symptoms, such as headaches or muscle soreness, that they experienced over the past month and to indicate how often their supervisor provided them with emotional and instrumental support once they experienced physical symptoms of stress.

Data on sickness absence was provided by the employer.

The results showed that support from a supervisor when an employee is experiencing psychosomatic symptoms of the stress can make a real difference.

When the boss offers support in the form of, for example, a lightened work load or stress management training, it is more likely to keep the worker from taking sick leave. This is because the worker feels more inclined to reciprocate the supportive treatment by keeping their work effort high.

“The worker who is given this sort of support is more likely to overcome the somatic stress and continue to work productively, leaving recovery for the normal after-work hours when we recharge our batteries,” said Biron.

However, investigators realized that a worker might stay at work out of fear for their position. But the study suggests such a worker is also less likely to be able to shake off the symptoms and will in due course need more sickness absence.

Researchers determined that co-worker support early on, when the employee begins to experience workday stress, plays a role in reducing the physical effects of stress, thereby reducing the likelihood of even developing the need for sickness absence.

“We see from this study that employers can provide concrete support for employees experiencing somatic stress symptoms, but can also encourage co-workers to support one another in the first place and minimize the effects triggered by their workload,” Biron said.

“With the enormous economic losses due to absenteeism and with this still being a poorly understood phenomenon, the results of this new study are shedding light on those factors influencing sickness absence and which can be considered in the effort to reduce the losses without compromising work ethic and commitment.”

Source: University of Haifa

Man sressed out leaning against a building photo by shutterstock.

Canadian researchers discovered people who put a price on their time are more likely to feel impatient when they’re not using it to earn money. Moreover, this perception appears to hurt individuals’ ability to derive happiness during leisure activities.

“Treating time as money can actually undermine your well-being,” said Sanford DeVoe, Ph.D., lead author of the study. DeVoe and Ph.D. student Julian House based their conclusions on three experiments.

In each, a sub-group of participants was prepared, through survey questions, to think about their time in terms of money.

In turn, the time-is-money orientation influenced the way in which the group responded to relaxation opportunities. Specifically, this group showed greater impatience and lower satisfaction during leisure activities introduced during the experiments.

However, those put into the sub-group reported more enjoyment and less impatience when they were paid during one of those activities, which was listening to music.

The experiments’ results demonstrate that thinking about time in terms of money “changes the way you actually experience time,” said DeVoe. “Two people may experience the same thing, over the same amount of time, yet react to it very differently.”

Researchers believe the findings are important given societal pressures toward productivity and reimbursement. Devoe believes the growth over the last several decades in jobs paid by the hour has detrimentally influenced the ability to relax.

It’s important for people to be “mindful” of the impact this can have on their leisure enjoyment, he said, and allow themselves “to really smell the roses.”

Source: University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management

Money and time 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

Researchers discovered cases where large or small DNA segments change direction, are duplicated, or become completely lost. The changes were mainly discovered in older twins.

This finding may help to explain why the immune system is often impaired in older age.

Uppsala University researchers explain that during a person’s life, continuous alterations in the cells’ DNA occur. The alterations can be changes to the individual building blocks of the DNA but more common are rearrangements where large DNA segments change place or direction, or are duplicated or completely lost.

In the current study, scientists examined normal blood cells from identical (monozygotic) twins in different age groups and looked for large or smaller DNA rearrangements.

The results showed that large rearrangements were only present in the group older than 60 years.

The most common rearrangement was that a DNA region, for instance a part of a chromosome, had been lost in some of the blood cells. Certain, almost identical, rearrangements were found in several individuals and some of these could be associated with a known blood disease in which the bone marrow’s capacity to produce new blood cells is disturbed.

Rearrangements were also found in the younger age group. The changes were smaller and less complex but the researchers could also in this case show that the number of rearrangements correlated with age.

Investigators were surprised to find that as many as 3.5 percent of healthy individuals older than 60 years carry such large genetic alterations.

The discovery sets the stage for a better understanding of disease development in older age.

Scientists believe that this type of acquired genetic variation might be much more common, says Jan Dumanski, professor at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology and one of the authors of the paper.

A key to the potential association between DNA changes and alterations to our immune system is the understanding that although we possess a variety of blood cell types, only white blood cells contain DNA.

This distinction is important as researchers believe an increased number of WBC cells with DNA alterations can damage or alter the immune system.

Specifically, the genetic alterations lead to an increased growth of the cells that have acquired them; these cells will increase in number in relation to other white blood cells.

The consequence might be a reduced diversity among the white blood cells and thereby an impaired immune system.

Researchers have published the findings online in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Source: Uppsala University

In a new study, UCLA psychologists asked 172 married couples the question: What does being committed to your marriage really mean?

The findings, published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, reflect current societal values and beliefs.

“When people say, ‘I’m committed to my relationship,’ they can mean two things,” said study co-author Benjamin Karney. “One thing they can mean is, ‘I really like this relationship and want it to continue.’ However, commitment is more than just that.”

Psychologists believe a deeper level of commitment is required to work through the inevitable problems and avoid divorce.

“It’s easy to be committed to your relationship when it’s going well,” said senior study author Thomas Bradbury, a psychology professor who co-directs the Relationship Institute.

“As a relationship changes, however, shouldn’t you say at some point something like, ‘I’m committed to this relationship, but it’s not going very well — I need to have some resolve, make some sacrifices and take the steps I need to take to keep this relationship moving forward.’”

Bradbury believes it takes more than merely liking the relationship – especially when times get tough. True commitment means that you are willing to take sacrifices to keep a relationship alive. The challenge is that the commitment to taking active steps to maintain the relationship means that you may not get your way in certain areas.

“This,” Bradbury said, “is the other kind of commitment: the difference between ‘I like this relationship and I’m committed to it’ and ‘I’m committed to doing what it takes to make this relationship work.’ When you and your partner are struggling a bit, are you going to do what’s difficult when you don’t want to? At 2 a.m., are you going to feed the baby?”

Researchers found that couples willing to make sacrifices within their relationships were more effective in solving their problems. “It’s a robust finding,” Bradbury said. “The second kind of commitment predicted lower divorce rates and slower rates of deterioration in the relationship.”

Of the 172 married couples in the study, 78.5 percent were still married after 11 years, and 21.5 percent were divorced. The couples in which both people were willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the marriage were significantly more likely to have lasting and happy marriages.

In the study, the couples — all first-time newlyweds — were assessed on their level of commitment by asking if they agreed or disagreed with statements like “I want my marriage to stay strong no matter what rough times we may encounter,” “My marriage is more important to me than almost anything else in my life,” “Giving up something for my partner is frequently not worth the trouble” and “It makes me feel good to sacrifice for my partner.”

The psychologists also videotaped the couples’ interactions and measured how they behaved toward each other. Follow-up interviews were conducted every six months for the first four years and again later in their marriages.

During the interview the couples were asked about their relationship history, their feelings toward each other, the stress in their lives, their level of social support, and their childhood and family, among other subjects.

Researchers believe the findings show that being committed a marriage means that either partner will do whatever it takes to make the relationship successful. “In a long-term relationship, both parties cannot always get their way.”

When a couple has a dispute, they have many choices of how to respond, the psychologists said.

“One choice,” Karney said, “is if you dig your heels in, then I can dig my heels in too. I can say, ‘You’re wrong. Listen to me!’ But if this relationship is really important to me, I’m willing to say, ‘I will compromise.’ What is my goal? Is it to win this battle? Is it to preserve the relationship? The behaviors I might engage in to win this conflict are different from those that are best for the relationship. The people who think more about protecting the relationship over the long term are more likely to think this is not that big a problem.”

“When the stakes are high, our relationships are vulnerable,” Bradbury said. “When we’re under a great deal of stress or when there is a high-stakes decision on which you disagree, those are defining moments in a relationship. What our data indicate is that committing to the relationship rather than committing to your own agenda and your own immediate needs is a far better strategy. We’re not saying it’s easy.”

The researchers believe a postive outcome can be accomplished if broad guidelines are followed. And, not surprisingly, they begin with communication.

“Find ways to compromise, or at least have the conversation that allows you and your partner to see things eye to eye,” Bradbury said.

“Often, we don’t have the big conversations that we need in our relationship. The very act of communicating in difficult times can be as important as the outcome of the conversation. Everybody has the opportunity to engage in a conflict, or not, to say, ‘You’re wrong, I’m right.’ When people are in it for the long term, they are often willing to make sacrifices and view themselves as a team. They both are.”

The couples whose marriages lasted were better at this than the couples who divorced, Bradbury and Karney said.

“The people who ended their marriages would have said they were very committed to the marriage,” Bradbury said. “But they did not have the resolve to say, ‘Honey, we need to work on this; it’s going to be hard, but it’s important.’ The successful couples were able to shift their focus away from whether ‘I win’ or ‘you win’ to ‘Are we going to keep this relationship afloat?’ That is the ideal.”

In a marriage, disagreement is inevitable, but conflict is optional — a choice we make, Bradbury and Karney said. When the psychologists give workshops for couples, they encourage them to discuss a source of disagreement. Finding such a topic is rarely, if ever, a problem.

The psychologists recommend against “bank-account relationships,” in which you keep score of how often you get your way and how often you compromise.

Source: UCLA

Canadian investigators determined female college students who have survived childhood abuse or domestic violence were significantly aided by a mentoring program.

Researchers from Concordia University have published their findings in the Journal of College Student Development.

“Studies have shown that childhood abuse unleashes a chain of negative emotions that can impact an individual’s future, producing feelings of shame, isolation, self-loathing and educational underachievement,” said first author Rosemary C. Reilly, Ph.D.

Reilly’s study builds on prior evidence which suggests that at least 20 per cent of all women are adult survivors of childhood abuse — that is, physical, psychological or sexual maltreatment during childhood.

According to experts, as many as half the women studying in educational programs in Canada are trying to learn while simultaneously dealing with the consequences of violence.

Researchers conducted detailed interview with 10 women who had experienced intense childhood abuse and were enrolled in an undergraduate program when interviewed.

All but one participant had been mentored at different stages in her life. Reilly and D’Amico found that the timing of women’s mentoring was contingent on the impact the abuse had on their sense of identity.

Investigators determined four major themes emerged from the mentorship: fantasy mentors, mentors as mirrors, mentors as nurturers and supporters, and mentors as embodiments of a particular profession.

Although the researchers caution that these themes should be viewed as atypical, they enrich the understanding of mentoring for women marginalized by violence and demonstrate the malleable nature of mentorship. The mentoring, in its various guises, clearly played a significant role in these women’s healing processes.

Study authors believe the findings should encourage universities to consider establishing a formalized mentoring program for survivors of trauma.

As an example, student services departments could support the education of this population by creating multiple opportunities for mentorship from different individuals, at various stages, as survivors’ needs evolve.

“For survivors of childhood abuse, relationship and connection are what really matters and what successful mentorship is all about,” said Reilly.

Source: Concordia University

Young woman helping photo by shutterstock.