Posts Tagged ‘health and wellbeing’

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British surgeons should hypnotise patients for some operations, says academic

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

From The Telegraph Newspaper www.telegraph.co.uk 7 June 2009

British surgeons should be taught to hypnotise patients to control pain for some operations rather than rely on general anaesthetics, according to a leading American academic.

By Daily Telegraph Reporter Published: 3:15PM BST 07 Jun 2009 Professor David Spiegel, of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University, wants the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) to sanction sweeping changes.

He will tell the Royal Society of Medicine on Monday that Nice should add hypnotherapy to its list of approved therapeutic techniques for the treatment of conditions ranging from allergies and high blood pressure to the pain associated with cancer treatment and bone marrow transplantation. 

 ”It is time for hypnosis to work its way into the mainstream of British medicine,” says Professor Spiegel.

“There is solid science behind what sounds like mysticism and we need to get that message across to the bodies that influence this area.

“Hypnosis has no negative side-effects. It makes operations quicker, as the patient is able to talk to the surgeon as the operation proceeds, and it is cheaper than conventional pain relief. Since it does not interfere with the workings of the body, the patient recovers faster, too.

“It is also extremely powerful as a means of pain relief. Hypnosis has been accepted and rejected because people are nervous of it. They think it’s either too powerful or not powerful enough, but, although the public are sceptical, the hardest part of the procedure is getting other doctors to accept it.”

Last year, the Daily Telegraph reported how a pensioner had knee surgery using just hypnosis to control the pain. Trained hypnotist Bernadine Coady, 67, was wide awake for the one-hour operation, which is usually performed under a general anaesthetic.

A spokesman for the National Council for Hypnotherapy said of her case that the technique has been used for centuries for pain relief. He added: “It is used often other countries, for example Belgium, as an alternative to anaesthetics and patients report that it is very successful, that they feel no pain during their operations.” The theory behind medical hypnosis is that the body’s brain and nervous system cannot always distinguish an imagined situation from a real occurrence. As a result the brain can act on any image or verbal suggestion as if it were reality.

Hypnosis puts patients into a state of deep relaxation that is very susceptible to imagery; the more vivid this imagery, the greater the effect on the body. Nice said it would welcome submissions for hypnotherapy to be considered as an approved therapeutic technique on the NHS if it could be cost-effective and consistent delivery could be guaranteed.

But Professor Steve Field, who chairs the Royal College of General Practitioners, said he was sceptical as to whether hypnotherapy could meet these standards. “It is a useful tool used by some GPs and patients for relaxation, but I don’t think it is something that we should support being rolled out to all medical students and all doctors,” he said.

“We can’t call on the NHS to support it without there being a firm medical and economic basis, and I’m not convinced those have been proved to exist.”

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Posted in Cognitive hypnotherapy, health and wellbeing, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, lifestyle, pain control, relaxation | No Comments »

Use Hypnotherapy to Reduce Pain and Nausea in Cancer Patients

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

From Natura lNews.com:

Wednesday, June 03, 2009 by: Steve G. Jones, M.Ed., citizen journalist
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Key concepts: Cancer, Hypnotherapy and Hypnosis

(NaturalNews) Cancer is an illness that affects millions of Americans, whether they are currently being treated or in remission. Two of the most common symptoms of cancer and cancer treatments are pain and nausea. Hypnotherapy has been proven to help cancer patients reduce the severity of their cancer symptoms including pain and nausea. It is important that alternative methods are explored in order to help people naturally improve their symptoms.

According to the American Cancer Society, about 560,000 Americans will die from cancer in 2009. Cancer is the number two cause of death in the United States behind heart disease. Men have a 1 in 2 chance of developing cancer in their lifetime and women have a 1 in 3 chance of developing cancer in their lifetime.

A clinical trial tested the effectiveness of hypnosis and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) on treating pain and nausea in cancer patients. The researchers evaluated whether hypnosis or CBT were effective in treating the symptoms of 67 cancer patients. The patients that participated in the clinical trial were recipients of a bone marrow transplant (Syrjala, Cummings, & Donaldson, 1992).

A bone marrow transplant is needed when a patient’s bone marrow has been destroyed or is not functioning properly. Cancers that often require bone marrow transplants include leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. A transplant occurs when bone marrow is taken from a healthy individual and implanted into the cancer patient. This process involves many symptoms including pain and nausea (Medline Plus).

The clinical trial randomly divided the participants into 4 groups. Group one received hypnosis. Group two received CBT. Groups three and four served as control groups where group three had access to a therapist and group four received normal treatment. All patients participated in psychological and physical testing. Groups one, two, and three received their respective forms of therapy twice before their transplant operation. While in the hospital for their transplant, they also received 10 sessions.

At the end of the trial, 45 patients were still involved in the study. Results of the trial showed that hypnosis was effective at reducing pain experienced by bone marrow transplant patients. There was no difference between the hypnosis and the CBT groups in relation to reducing nausea. CBT was found to be ineffective at reducing pain with the participants (Syrjala et al., 1992).

This trial shows that hypnosis is an effective treatment in reducing pain. More research needs to be performed to find out all the potential benefits of hypnosis and pain. Treating pain with hypnosis is a natural and safe form of treatment.

 Sources “bone marrow transplant” Medline Plus. Retrieved on May 29, 2009:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/… Cancer Statistics 2009 Presentation. American Cancer Society.

Retrieved on May 29, 2009: HYPERLINK “http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PRO/c… Syrjala, K.L., Cummings, C., & Donaldson, G.W. (1992).

 Hypnosis or cognitive behavioral training for the reduction of pain and nausea during cancer treatment: A controlled clinical trial. Pain, 50(2), 237-238.

Buzz up!vote now About the author Steve G. Jones, M.Ed. has been practicing hypnotherapy since the 1980s. He is the author of 22 books on Hypnotherapy. Steve is a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists, American Board of Hypnotherapy, president of the American Alliance of Hypnotists, on the board of directors of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Lung Association, and director of the Steve G. Jones School of Clinical Hypnotherapy. Steve G. Jones, M.Ed. is a board certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Florida (1994), a master’s degree in education from Armstrong Atlantic State University (2007), and is currently working on a doctorate in education, Ed.D., at Georgia Southern University. Learn more at: http://www.betterlivingwithhypnosis…

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Posted in Cognitive hypnotherapy, cancer, health and wellbeing, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, lifestyle, pain control | 1 Comment »

Many unaware of alcohol calories

Friday, April 17th, 2009

Posted on the BBC News site today. Something to be aware of if weight loss is on your agenda:

 

 The campaign is focusing on the calorie content of alcohol Many people are unaware of the calorie content of alcohol, a survey shows. Four in 10 did not know a glass of wine has the same calories (120) as a slice of cake, or that a pint of lager and a small sausage roll have 170 each. The poll of 2,000 adults in England was carried out as part of the government’s drive to curb people’s drinking habits. The campaign also stresses that a heavy drinking session is often followed by an unhealthy breakfast, which again helps to pile on the pounds. The Know Your Limits campaign has in the past focused on other consequences of drinking, such as disease risk. ALCOHOL CALORIE CONTENT A small glass of red wine and slice of sponge cake both have 120 calories A pint of beer or lager has 170 calories, the same as a small sausage roll A pint of cider and beans on toast both have 200 calories A cream liquor has 160 calories, the same as a chicken drumstick Spirits, such as vodka or gin, and a 25ml serving of single cream both contain 55 calories But to coincide with the focus on weight, the Department of Health carried out research showing a regular beer drinker, who downed five pints a week or 250 over the course of a year, packed away the same number of calories as someone eating 221 doughnuts over the space of 12 months. It also revealed the average wine drinker consumed 2,000 calories each month. Over the course of a year, that is the equivalent of eating an extra 38 roast beef dinners. Health minister Phil Hope said: “Regularly drinking more than our recommended daily limits can have a knock-on effect on our health, including an expanding waistline. “It’s not only the calories in the drinks themselves that can help to pile on the pounds, we’re also more likely to eat fatty foods when we’ve had one too many.” Heather Caswell, of the British Nutrition Foundation, added: “Most people would baulk at consuming a full glass of single cream, but wouldn’t think twice about a couple of pints. “But the calorie content is similar and, over time, excess alcohol intake is likely to lead to weight gain.”

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Building Blocks of Bliss

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

Interesting how after all the research done on the subject, we don’t really know what the key to happiness is. It would seem that we can’t just put it down to one or two things, but it looks like we might be getting closer to knowing … This article from Psychology Today explains the latest findings.
An optimistic outlook and strong interpersonal bonds are key to happiness.

By: Anna Schneider-Mayerson

If Tolstoy was correct in his famous statement that happy families are essentially “happy in the same way,” researchers have yet to find that common denominator. When it came to analyzing extremely happy college students, researchers were reduced to triangulation: The very happy are not more religious, nor do they exercise or sleep more than the rest of us. True, they spend more time socializing and receive the highest self and peer ratings on the quality of their relationships.

But some unhappy students were equally social and boasted satisfactory relationships, according to Martin Seligman, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and Edward Diener, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who compared college students in the top 10 percent on bliss indices to those whose moods were average to miserable. The researchers liken happiness to “symphonic music necessitating many instruments, without any one being sufficient for the beautiful quality.”

Diener describes the top-rated students as “happy most of the time, rather than intensely happy a lot.” Interestingly, 6 of the 22 extremely happy students exhibited a degree of hypomania indicative of “active, energetic people who are very self-confident.”

While optimism is not tantamount to happiness, optimists and the very happy both have strong social networks. This support system, as well as coping mechanisms such as the “every cloud has a silver lining” mentality, known as “positive reinterpretation and growth,” enables optimists to better weather stress and depression.

“Most personality psychologists examine the benefits of optimism in terms of what optimists do for themselves,” explains Ian Brissette, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Rutgers University, who studied 89 college freshmen during their first semester at school. But “benefits may also stem from the ability to develop social support,” says Brissette. “Optimists experience better mental health not only because of what they do but because of what others do for them.” The results were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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Sleep and Teenagers

Monday, April 6th, 2009

From Pyschology Today

By John Cline, Ph.D. on April 5, 2009 – 2:40pm in Sleepless in America

On a recent episode of the MTV series “True Life,” a high school student suffering from delayed sleep phase syndrome was followed. She finds it impossible to go to sleep at a regular time, instead staying up until the early hours of the morning and then finding it nearly impossible to get out of bed to go to school. When she does, she is constantly falling asleep and is unable to pay attention to class discussions. This was an accurate depiction of the problems some teens have related to sleep. Teens tend to have three major sleep concerns. One, they are naturally sleepier than younger children or adults. Two, they tend to get insufficient sleep during the week due to academic, social and recreational demands and try to make up for it on the weekend by sleeping late. Three, they have a delayed sleep phase, meaning they want go to bed later and sleep later than other age groups. Given late night activities such as text messaging and video gaming, this propensity can easily become a full fledged delayed sleep phase disorder in which bed time isn’t until 3 or 4 a.m., and the ideal wake up time is pushed to around 12 p.m. This shift in circadian rhythm is facilitated by late night exposure to light, as when looking into a bright computer screen at 2 a.m. Teens almost always sleep late on the weekends. Some teens, however, find it almost impossible to get out of bed on any given day due to their sleep difficulties. This can easily result in missing school and becoming truant. Indeed, studies have shown that teens are sleepier than younger children or older adults. Their sleep is shallower and less restorative than the sleep that younger children get. When allowed to sleep as much as they would like, teens average 9 to 10 hrs per night, but few are getting anywhere near this amount. Indeed, as the start of the school day is earlier for high school than middle school, it is often necessary for high school students to get up as early as 5:30 a.m. to get to school on time. In order to get even nine hours of sleep with such a schedule, it would be necessary to go to bed around 8:30 p.m., which is not likely. Once children become preschoolers, most no longer require naptime, and by nature choose to stay awake. Teens regain the ability to nap and are better able to stay up later than younger children. They are able to over sleep when necessary and regularly do so on weekends and during vacations. Teens also tend to have much more irregular sleep schedules, with greatly different bed and wake up times on weekdays as compared to weekends. This greater flexibility in sleep ability and sleep scheduling can lead to significant disruption of the sleep pattern. As a result of the miss-match between sleep-need and school schedules, insufficient sleep is common among teens. It is estimated that up to 40% of high school and college students are sleep deprived. This may be an underestimate. There are many reasons for this. At this age there is decreasing control exercised by parents. At the same time academic work increases. Many high school students are taking honors and advanced placement classes, often working at a college level. Young people engage in many more social activities such as sports and school clubs. In addition to doing their home work, they also may have to work long hours to earn money for college. Many college students have to essentially be full time students and full time workers due to the current economic challenges. The adolescent years are filled with challenges. Teens take on more adult roles while still having many of the needs of children. They experience the rapid physical and emotional changes of becoming young adults. Many have concerns about their future such as going to college, getting a job and having enough money. Sexual feelings are intense during this time and teenagers have to take on more adult decisions regarding sexuality, the use of alcohol and other drugs, and working out their own value systems which may be different from their parents. During this time distrust of parents or authority figures may develop. All of these worries and concerns can cause arousal that interferes with sleep. As with adults, sleep is often a lower priority for adolescents. This is especially true during the school week when school, homework, sports, after school activities, volunteer work, jobs and socializing seem much more important than sleep. As with adults, few teens can appreciate the benefits of sleep with regard to improved cognitive functioning and mood. If they did, the improved functioning young people would experience might more than off-set the extra time devoted to sleep. There are a number of concerns related to insufficient sleep that go beyond the cognitive, memory and emotional effects. Increased sleepiness results in increased risk for fatigue-related accidents, especially motor vehicle accidents. Laboratory studies have shown that significant sleep loss results in cognitive impairment equivalent to that caused by alcohol intoxication. Not a good thing for new drivers just learning the rules of the road! When young people are getting insufficient sleep, there is impairment of the motivation needed to do well in the class room or on the job. Unintended sleep episodes may occur in the form of falling asleep in class or on a job, or behind the wheel of a car. Indeed, students with a C average or below typically report getting less sleep and having a more irregular sleep schedule than students with better grades. While the above issues are the most common ones for sleep problems among young people, a number of other sleep disorders are also potentially problematic. For example, narcolepsy usually appears in adolescence or early adulthood and about 50% of people with narcolepsy will have some symptoms by age 16. Another significant concern is the impact of the increasing obesity in our society. Obesity can increase the risk for sleep apnea in young people just as it does in older individuals. The long term impact of sleep apnea can have severe implications for health and well being. In the next post, I will discuss some ways to help teens keep from being sleepless in America.

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Experiences make us happier than things

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Here’s a new twist on the ‘money doesn’t make you happy’ senario from Startribune.com. It would certainly stand to reason that experiences have the possibility to make us happier, simply because memories last longer than material things generally – but do they need to be ‘good’ experiences? I suppose they do …

Experiences make us happier than things By SHARI ROAN, Los Angeles Times Last update: March 29, 2009 – 12:59 PM

Money is an emotional issue, especially during economic hard times. Social scientists have always warned that once a person’s basic needs are met, money doesn’t buy happiness. But if you’re wondering, or maybe even arguing over, what to do with any precious discretionary income these days, a new study suggests how to get the biggest emotional bang for your buck.

Ryan Howell, an assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, found that buying experiences — such as vacations, going to the theater or renting a sailboat — gave people more happiness than buying material things.

The study, of 154 people ages 19 to 50, showed that experiences increase happiness because they are often social in nature. In addition, however, experiences tend to make people feel more alive.

“People report a sense of feeling invigorated or inspired,” Howell said.

Experiences might also yield more happiness because people are left with positive memories, a sort of return on their investment.

“It’s not that material things don’t bring any happiness. It’s just that they don’t bring as much,” Howell said. “You’re happy with a new television set. But you’re thrilled with a vacation.”

The study might yield some lessons for Americans in despair over the recession. “For whatever you can afford, you’ll maximize your happiness, and the happiness of others around you, if you spend it on a life experience,” he said.

It doesn’t matter how much money you spend, either.

“Whether you spent a little or a lot on the life experience, you still have the same level of happiness,” he said.

The study was presented recently at an annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and will be published this year in the Journal of Positive Psychology.

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Video Games Can Encourage Positive Behavior, Too

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

With so much bad press for video games and the people who partake in them, this article  from Miller-McCune makes a refreshing change

 By: Tom Jacobs  |  March 27, 2009  |  01:07 PM (PDT)  |  

 

If violent video games encourage violent behavior, as a series of studies suggests, do prosocial games — those that reward helpful behavior — inspire players to act in more constructive, cooperative ways? A newly published paper, featuring studies of three different age groups in three different countries, suggests the answer is yes.

“Video games are not inherently good or bad,” concludes the team of 12 researchers led by psychologist Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University. Their findings suggest this popular form of entertainment “can have both positive and negative effects.”

The paper, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, begins with a survey of secondary school students in Singapore (adolescents in the equivalent of seventh or eighth grade). They listed their favorite games, the number of hours they spend playing them each week and how often the games involve a) helping others, or b) hurting or killing others.

They were then asked a series of questions to measure their emotional awareness and empathy for others. After controlling for several variables, “prosocial game exposure was positively related to prosocial behavior,” the researchers report.

The second survey was of fifth-, eighth- and eleventh-grade students in Japan. They were asked how often in the past month they had played games in which characters help troubled people, or games in which friendship or a positive parent-child relationship was featured.

Finally, the youngsters were asked how often in the previous month they had acted in one of four specific helpful ways (such as “I helped a person who was in trouble”). The researchers discovered a strong relationship between playing prosocial games and self-reported prosocial behavior.

For the third study, the researchers conducted an experiment using 161 American college students, who were randomly assigned to play specific parts of one of six video games. Two of the games were violent (Ty2 and Crash Trinsanity), two were neutral (Pure Pinball and Super Monkey Ball Deluxe), and two were deemed prosocial: Chibi Robo, in which the goal is to make your family happy by cleaning up and helping out with the chores; and Super Mario Sunshine, in which players gain points by cleaning up a polluted island.

After playing one of the games for 20 minutes, participants were asked to assign a partner 11 puzzles to complete. They were told that if their partners completed 10 of the puzzles within 10 minutes, the partner would win a $10 gift certificate. They could choose puzzles from one of three difficulty levels, depending upon whether they were disposed to help their partner win the prize, or to place difficulties in his or her path.

The researchers found that “participants who played a prosocial game helped their partners significantly more than did either those who had played a violent game, or those who had played a neutral game.” Furthermore, “the violent gamers hurt their partners significantly more than did either those who had played a prosocial game or those who had played a neutral game.”

Taken together, the three studies found that “prosocial game play was significantly positively related to all four measured prosocial behaviors and traits” — helping behavior, cooperation and sharing, empathy and emotional awareness. These findings complement a 2008 study from Britain that found listening to songs with prosocial lyrics encourages charitable behavior.

According to Gentile and his colleagues, these results “make it clear how critical it is to separate amount of play from the content of play.” In other words, video game playing per se isn’t the issue: Rather, the important factor is the underlying messages contained in specific games.

“Content matters,” they conclude, “and games are excellent teachers.”

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Posted in Cognitive hypnotherapy, Training, brain, brain fitness, learning, mind, performance, positive psychology | 1 Comment »

Pregnancy Health Grant

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

The money can be claimed fairly easily from your 25th week of pregnancy, after receiving health advice from a midwife, or other health professional.

If you are a mum-to-be, with a baby due on or after 6 April 2009, then you could be eligible for a new Pregnancy Health Grant of £190.

The one-off payment is intended to help pregnant mums stay fit and healthy in the run up to the birth, and help meet some of the costs involved. You might like to consider using the grant to participate in the Confident Childbirth Course that I run to help you prepare for the pregnancy, labour and birth of your baby. Click here to find out more.

You’ll be given a claim form to sign and send off, which you must do within 31 days. When your claim is approved, the money is paid directly into your bank or building society account.

For Further information please visit http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/hipg/payments.htm.

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Slow Starvation of Brain Triggers Alzheimer's

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

www.anitamitchell.co.uk

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 24 December 2008 01:06 pm ET

 

A slow starvation of the brain over time is one of the major triggers of the biochemistry that causes some forms of Alzheimer’s, according to a new study that is helping to crack the mystery of the disease’s origins.

An estimated 10 million baby boomers will develop Alzheimer’s in their lifetime, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The disease usually begins after age 60, and risk rises with age. The direct and indirect cost of Alzheimer’s and other dementias is about $148 billion a year.

Robert Vassar of Northwestern University, the study’s lead author, found that when the brain doesn’t get enough of the simple sugar called glucose — as might occur when cardiovascular disease restricts blood flow in arteries to the brain — a process is launched that ultimately produces the sticky clumps of protein that appear to be a cause of Alzheimer’s.

Working with human and mice brains, Vassar discovered that a key brain protein is altered when the brain’s supply of energy drops. The altered protein, called eIF2alpha, increases the production of an enzyme that, in turn, flips a switch to produce the sticky protein clumps.

“This finding is significant because it suggests that improving blood flow to the brain might be an effective therapeutic approach to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s,” Vassar said.

The best ways to improve blood flow to the brain and thereby reduce the chances of getting Alzheimer’s is to reduce cholesterol intake, manage high blood pressure and exercise, especially entering mid-life.

“If people start early enough, maybe they can dodge the bullet,” Vassar said. For people who already have symptoms, vasodilators, which increase blood flow, may help the delivery of oxygen and glucose to the brain, he added. The study is published in the Dec. 26 issue of the journal Neuron.

No candy bars

When it comes to prevention of Alzheimer’s, eating candy bars is not the solution to improving the flow of blood glucose to the brain, Vassar told LiveScience.

A decreasing blood flow to the brain happens over time, as we age, and that slowly starves the brain of glucose. This could be a general aging phenomenon, or it could be that some individuals are particularly prone to it, Vassar said. Also, decreased blood flow is associated with atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, and hypertension, or high blood pressure.

“We need to improve our cardiovascular health, not eat more sugar,” Vassar said. “What is coming out in terms of the epidemiological studies is that exercise during mid-life is one of the best prevention strategies for Alzheimer’s disease, so people should stay active physically, and they should watch their diets and reduce cholesterol intake, because cholesterol contributes to atherosclerosis, and that is true for the heart and the rest of the body as well as for the brain.”

Vassar said it also is possible that drugs could be designed to block the elF2alpha protein that begins the formation of the protein clumps, known as amyloid plaques.

Earlier Alzheimer’s findings

Ten years ago, Vassar discovered the enzyme, BACE1, that was responsible for making the sticky, fiber-like clumps of protein that form outside neurons and disrupt their ability to send messages.

But the cause of the high levels of the protein in people with the disease has been unknown. Vassar’s new study now shows that energy deprivation in the brain might be the trigger starting the process that forms plaques in Alzheimer’s.

Vassar said his work suggests that Alzheimer’s disease may result from a less severe type of energy deprivation than occurs in a stroke. Rather than dying, the brain cells react by increasing BACE1, which may be a protective response in the short term, but harmful in the long term.

“A stroke is a blockage that prevents blood flow and produces cell death in an acute, dramatic event,” Vassar said. “What we are talking about here is a slow, insidious process over many years where people have a low level of cardiovascular disease or atherosclerosis in the brain. It’s so mild, they don’t even notice it, but it has an effect over time because it’s producing a chronic reduction in the blood flow.”

Vassar said when people reach a certain age, some may get increased levels of the enzymes that cause a build-up of the plaques. “Then they start falling off the cliff,” he said.

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Posted in Alzheimer's, Cognitive hypnotherapy, brain, brain fitness, health and wellbeing, mind | 1 Comment »

Affectionate Writing Can Reduce Cholesterol

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
This was posted on PsyBlog, as a way of reducing cholesterol without medication. Makes interesting reading, and is actually quite a nice thing to do for it’s own sake!
Pen
[Photo by phil h]

According to new research, writing down affectionate thoughts about close friends and family can reduce your cholesterol levels. Floyd et al. (2007) randomly assigned participants to one of two groups: one experimental and one control. The experimental group wrote with affection about one person in their lives for 20 minutes on three occasions over a five-week period. The control group wrote mundane descriptions of their activities over the week, jobs they had done and places they had lived.

The results from two separate studies demonstrated that after only 25 days, the experimental group who had written affectionate notes, showed a significant reduction in cholesterol. These reductions were seen independently from the effects of general health factors like age, drinking, smoking and so on. Mean cholesterol levels reduced from 170 mg/dL to 159 mg/dL (figures are from the second study which was methodologically more secure).

The researchers also examined whether linguistic features of the experimental group’s writing affected cholesterol reduction. They found that those who wrote directly to someone showed greater reductions in cholesterol than those who wrote in the third person about someone.

One of the strengths of this study was that it specifically examined the benefits of expressing affection. Other studies have found evidence for the benefits of expressing affection but have had difficulties separating the expressing from the receiving. This is because when you express affection towards someone else, they are likely to reciprocate. Expressing is, therefore, tightly bound up with receiving.

In an age where human nature is often considered profoundly selfish, here’s a selfish reason to be nice to people. Of course compared with all the money-spinning methods of reducing cholesterol levels around nowadays, you’ll never see this one advertised (except on PsyBlog!) because it’s essentially free. So, pass it on…

Caution
These are preliminary results. The research was carried out in a small sample (Study 1, N=34; Study 2, N=30) of healthy US college students all in the normal range for cholesterol. More research will be required to see if this generalises across cultures, overall health status and so on. On the other hand, the possible side-effects of writing affectionate letters are not that worrying, unless you count paper cuts.

» This post is part of a series on the psychology of relationships.

 

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