Category: Anxiety

People who hold materialistic values automatically reach for the wrong solution.

Shopping to try and recover from negative emotions can only make things worse, new research finds.

Typically, negative events make materialistic people run to the shops — but it only helps them feel better in the short-term.

The study examined how people coped with a terrorist attack in Israel.

Professor Rindfleisch, one of the study’s authors, said:

“Materialistic people cope with bad events through materialistic mechanisms.

When there’s a terrorist attack in Israel, people who are materialistic suffer higher levels of distress and are more likely to compensate for that through higher levels of compulsive and impulsive purchasing.”

The researchers found that people who were more materialistic had higher post-traumatic stress along with higher compulsive and impulsive consumption.

Professor Rindfleisch said:

“In times of stress, people often seek solace through shopping.

The idea here is that we need some form of a cultural-based coping mechanism, because the research suggests that there is actually a short-term fix with retail therapy.

Soon after purchasing something, there is a reduction of anxiety.

But it doesn’t last very long.

It’s fleeting.

Materialists seek that as one of their coping mechanisms.”

A separate survey carried out in the US found that low self-esteem made it harder to cope with difficult events.

Professor Rindfleisch said:

“You can think of terrorist attacks as a mortal threat to your life.

To replicate the study in the U.S., as a corollary, we asked people to tell us about their level of death anxiety.

Those who had more anxiety toward death were very similar to the groups who were under terrorist attacks in Israel.”

Professor Rindfleisch concluded:

“If you’re a materialistic individual and life suddenly takes a wrong turn, you’re going to have a tougher time recovering from that setback than someone who is less materialistic.

The research is novel in that an event that’s unrelated to materialism will have a stronger impact on someone because of their materialistic values.

In other words, materialism has a multiplier effect.

It’s a finding that I think is especially interesting given our consumer-driven economy.”

The study was published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (Ruvio et al., 2013).

Both techniques can reduce that anxious, rushed feeling on a daily basis, research finds.

It can feel like we have less and less time to get the things done that we want.

But there are two easy ways to increase the feeling of having time.

The first — slow breathing — is simple enough to do (see the end of the article if you would like some instructions).

The second is reframing stress and anxiety as excitement.

This can be done by simply telling yourself that you are excited.

Excitement has many of the same feelings in the body as stress and anxiety but has a positive meaning.

The idea is to reframe what you are feeling.

A recent study finds both techniques work well to decrease that anxious, rushed feeling on a daily basis.

The study’s authors write:

“Beyond the number of activities actually competing for their time, emotional conflict between activities makes consumers feel that they have even less time.

Emotions such as guilt about where time is being spent or fear over loss of income both generate stress, and make a person feel more pressed for time than they actually are.”

The reason for having such stressful lives is the complexity of everyday life, the study’s authors write, as people…

“…exist in a complex social environment that often activates multiple goals at the same time.

People may simultaneously have goals to be successful at work and a good parent at home, save money for retirement and buy nice things, or be healthy and indulge in tasty treats.”

Of course this pressure has a knock-on effect:

“Feeling pressed for time impacts how consumers spend time, and how much they are willing to pay to save it.

From a consumer standpoint, feeling pressed for time can have many harmful consequences such as poorer health, trouble sleeping, and depression.

By pausing to breathe or envision the source of stress in a more positive light, people can enjoy the time they actually have in a healthier and happier way.”

Here are the breathing instructions:

“…breathe so that each complete breath (inhale plus exhale) lasts 11 counts.

The inhale should last 5 counts (i.e., 1-2-3-4-5) and the exhale should last 6 counts (i.e., 6-7-8-9-10-11).

Please complete 10 of these 11 count breaths now.”

The study was published in the Journal of Marketing Research (Etkin et al., 2015).

Research tests the aroma oils that can reduce anxiety and blood pressure.

Giving yourself a foot massage with aromatherapy helps reduce anxiety and blood pressure, new research finds.

People in the study gave themselves 45-minute foot massages three times a week for four weeks.

The researchers describe the essential oils they used:

“…we included lavender, ylang-ylang, marjoram, sandalwood, and chamomile in the aroma oil blend.

Lavender relaxes the autonomic nervous system, calms and relaxes the level of emotion, and alleviates insomnia, while ylang-ylang decreases BP and HR, and reduces depression and stress.”

Fifty-seven people took part in the study, which lasted 8 weeks, including four weeks of foot massages.

Half did the massages while the other half acted as a control group.

Those in the foot massage group showed lower blood pressure and anxiety after two months in comparison to the control group.

Those in the massage group also had better mental health afterwards.

It is not completely clear if the aromatherapy added anything to the foot massage, the study’s authors admit:

“[although] it was difficult to differentiate the effects of the aromatherapy from the effects of the massage therapy… [the combination] may be an effective way to increase mental health and improve blood pressure.”

Other studies, though, have suggested the benefits of particular aromas, the authors write:

“…studies have shown that ambient odors of lavender and orange decreased anxiety and lightened mood in a dental office, and massages with aroma oils promoted skin absorption of the oils stimulating blood and lymphatic circulation, improving the oxygen and nutrient supply, relaxing muscle tone, and relieving emotional stress.”

In comparison to other types of treatment for hypertension, though, self-administered foot massages looks like a good bet:

“Other non-medical treatments that prevent hypertension, such as changes to an unhealthy diet, reducing excessive energy intake, increasing physical activity, and decreasing tobacco use, are not easy to maintain.

In contrast, our trial suggested that performing self-administered aroma foot massages is easy and may improve BP more than other interventions that require participants to make a lifestyle change.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Eguchi et al., 2016).

Scientists think it could be down to body posture or even smell.

Concentration is contagious, according to a new study.

Being around other people who are working hard automatically helps us work harder as well, researchers have found.

Scientists think it could be down to body posture.

The nonverbal signs of mental effort from those around may be enough to help us concentrate.

Or, maybe you can actually smell mental effort, the study’s authors write:

“Effort exertion is linked to a more tense body posture and the adoption of such a posture also leads to an increased level of effort exertion.

However, expanding the limits, more radical hypotheses should also be considered, such as the possibility that effort exertion is influenced by a difference in scent of someone else exerting high or low effort.”

In the study, people were sat side-by-side while performing a series of tasks.

Sometimes the task would suddenly become very difficult for one of the pair.

Even though the task was no more difficult for the other person, the mental effort was contagious.

The study’s authors write:

“In the current study, we showed for the first time that the exertion of mental effort is contagious.

Simply performing a task next to a person who exerts a lot of effort in a task will make you do the same.”

Why do we do this?

It could be nothing more than an automatic response, the authors write:

“…it could be that this does not reflect a truly deliberate decision, but instead a more automatic tendency to imitate people, as is the case with yawning, rubbing your face, or shaking your foot, and facial expressions.”

Concentration is just one of many psychological properties found to be contagious between people.

Others include:

• happiness,
• anxiety,
• rudeness,
• laughter,
• and risk-taking.

For the full list, see: 8 Behaviours That Really Are Contagious.

The study was published in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (Desender et al., 2016).

Could the famous ‘10,000 hours’ rule be wrong?

For elite athletes, practice only accounts for 1% of the difference in how they perform, new research finds.

Outside sports, practice may have surprisingly little to do with performance.

It flies in the face of the old axiom that ‘practice makes perfect’.

The researchers also found that it didn’t matter how early in life the athletes started their sport.

Dr Brooke Macnamara, lead author of the study, said:

“While practice is necessary for elite athletes to reach a high level of competition, after a certain point, the amount of practice essentially stops differentiating who makes it far and who makes it to the very top.”

The results come from an analysis of 52 separate studies on the relationships between performance and practice.

Practice mattered more at levels below the elite, but still not as much as many might imagine.

Across all skill-levels studied, practice accounted for 18% of the difference in performance.

Dr Macnamara said:

“Human performance is incredibly complex.

Multiple factors need to be considered, only one of which is practice.”

The idea that 10,000 hours of practice is enough to create an expert or elite athlete could be mistaken, Dr Macnamara thinks:

“The concept of 10,000 hours taps into the American ideal of hard work and dedication leading naturally to excellence.

But it does not account for the inherent differences across people and across sports.”

Early specialisation in one particular sport was not an advantage, the researchers found.

“People and parents who buy into the 10,000-hour rule can push early specialization in a sport, leading to physical or mental burnout before it’s clear that a child even has a penchant for that sport.”

Other factors thought to be important over and above practice include:

• performance anxiety,
• working memory,
• confidence,
• fast-twitch muscles,
• and maximum blood-oxygenation.

Dr Macnamara said:

“As we look at multiple factors, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to–with 100 percent certainty–predict someone’s performance in any activity, not just sports.

But we can do better than we’re doing now.”

The study was published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science (Macnamara et al., 2016).

Image credit: Justin Smith

During childhood the mind is highly sensitive to moving house.

Moving home during childhood increases the chances of mental health problems later on, new research finds.

The most sensitive period for moving home was between the ages of 12 and 14.

Those that moved house at this age had the highest increased risk of a variety of negative outcomes.

Overall, though, the more home moves a child experienced, the greater their chances of experiencing problems later on.

The problems caused by moving were not linked to income.

In other words: it wasn’t just poorer children who suffered from frequent moves, so did the affluent.

The researchers grouped the negative outcomes into three categories:

• Mental illness: any psychiatric diagnosis, such as depression and anxiety. Also including substance misuse.
• Violence: including suicide and criminality
• Death: dying at an earlier age than expected.

Dr. Roger T. Webb, who led the research, said:

“Childhood residential mobility is associated with multiple long-term adverse outcomes.

Although frequent residential mobility could be a marker for familial psychosocial difficulties, the elevated risks were observed across the socioeconomic spectrum, and mobility may be intrinsically harmful.

Health and social services, schools, and other public agencies should be vigilant of the psychological needs of relocated adolescents, including those from affluent as well as deprived families.”

For the study, scientists used data about every child born in Denmark between 1971 and 1997.

Dr Webb explained:

“Owing to its uniquely complete and accurate registration of all residential changes in its population, Denmark is the only country where it is currently possible to conduct such a comprehensive national investigation of childhood residential mobility and risk of adverse outcomes in later life.”

The research found that 37% of children had moved home at least once before their 15th birthday.

The study was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (Webb et al., 2016).

Workaholics are two or three times more likely to suffer these psychiatric disorders.

People who are workaholics are also more likely to experience other psychiatric disorders, new research finds.

Workaholism often co-occurs with OCD, ADHD, depression and anxiety.

The conclusions come from a very large study of 16,426 adults in Norway.

Dr Cecilie Schou Andreassen, the study’s first author, said:

“Workaholics scored higher on all the psychiatric symptoms than non-workaholics.

Thus, taking work to the extreme may be a sign of deeper psychological or emotional issues.

Whether this reflects overlapping genetic vulnerabilities, disorders leading to workaholism or, conversely, workaholism causing such disorders, remain uncertain.”

7 signs of workaholism

Rate of these on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (always).

• You think of how you can free up more time to work.
• You spend much more time working than initially intended.
• You work in order to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness or depression.
• You have been told by others to cut down on work without listening to them.
• You become stressed if you are prohibited from working.
• You deprioritize hobbies, leisure activities, and/or exercise because of your work.
• You work so much that it has negatively influenced your health.

Scoring a 4 (often) or 5 (always) on four or more of these statements indicates a workaholic.

Some of the highlights of the findings include:

• 32.7 per cent met ADHD criteria (12.7 per cent among non-workaholics).
• 25.6 per cent OCD criteria (8.7 per cent among non-workaholics).
• 33.8 per cent met anxiety criteria (11.9 per cent among non-workaholics).
• 8.9 per cent met depression criteria (2.6 per cent among non-workaholics).

Dr Andreassen concluded:

“In wait for more research, physicians should not take for granted that a seemingly successful workaholic does not have ADHD-related or other clinical features.

Their considerations affect both the identification and treatment of these disorders.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS One (Andreassen et al., 2016).