Word: stress
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Such positive results are encouraging, but they carry risks. Patients might blame themselves for not meditating hard enough, say, if they don't improve. And in the face of serious illness, stress reduction is likely to produce only minor effects compared with conventional medical treatment. But if meditation, prayer, exercise or relaxation techniques take even a little pressure off the immune system, that could add up over decades to a significantly healthier life. --By Michael D. Lemonick. Reported by David Bjerklie/New York
...health. He had worked for a software-development company in Fairfax, Va., for 10 years following a 22-year hitch with the Air Force, and the pressure was finally too much. "I left to start my own business," says Valvo, now 55, "but I could feel that all the stress was having physiological effects." Sure enough, he was diagnosed with coronary-artery disease and underwent bypass surgery in 1999. But after the operation, he spiraled into a severe depression, which would recede and then return with renewed force. Finally, Valvo's physician put him on an antidepressant--which not only...
...this study is hardly the last word on the genetic roots of violence. There are almost certainly other genes involved and other kinds of life stress that can contribute to violence. Moffitt and her colleagues are already planning more experiments to isolate other factors that might be involved. As for predicting whether a particular child will become violent, no one can be sure when that might be possible. For now, we will have to deal with kids like the King brothers the way we always have: one case at a time. --By Michael D. Lemonick. Reported by Alice Park/New York
...anxiety attack. Breathing exercises derived from yoga are even more effective. With practice, breath work quiets down the nervous system. This not only blunts anxiety but also lowers blood pressure, slows the heart rate, improves circulation and digestion, and helps protect the body from the damaging effects of stress...
What's going on? Several things at once, I suspect. At a hormonal level, studies have shown that meditation can counteract the fight-or-flight response that floods the body with the stress hormone cortisol and that also shuts down the parasympathetic system, which normally restores order after the alert is over. At a molecular level, meditation slows metabolism in red blood cells and suppresses the production of cytokines--proteins associated with the kind of heightened immune response often seen in stressed-out subjects such as students taking exams...