Learning to De–Stress! Celebrating National Stress Awareness Day

Today, 2^nd November, is National Stress Awareness Day, aimed at helping people to deal with and avoid stress.

Stress Management has never been more relevant than it is today.  Recent research has emphasised that stress levels have doubled in four years.  Statistics from MIND show that half a million people in the UK experience work-related stress at a level they believe is making them ill and that twelve million adults see their GP with mental health problems each year, much of which is stress related.

As such, this year’s theme is based on “Wellbeing and Resilience at Work”

Why are we more stressed?

With our current economic climate, the increasing number of redundancies and the growing uncertainty of job security, has inevitably lead to a lot of worries.  People are concerned about their financial situations, paying back mortgages or how they will provide for their families.

In the work place, stress can be caused by relationship conflicts between colleagues, greater workload and pressure, which can also lead to depression.  Depression and issues from work are one of the main causes of stress reported by patients when they visit their GP’s.  

National Stress Awareness Day asks whether you have a technique or routine to help you combat tension?

We all know that stress is harmful for our overall health and wellbeing.  It can have a negative impact on our body, the way we feel and can also affect the way we operate and behave.  However, feeling stressed is reversible and we can all take certain steps to ensure we cope with pressure and also learn how to relax and take time out for ourselves.  It could be something as simple as taking a bath, writing a diary, listening to music, doing physical activity.   

MIND have identified Ten Top Tips to tackle stress, as well as guides on how to relax, manage stress and also how to improve your mental wellbeing.

For further information on National Stress Awareness Day and ways to support it, please visit the International Stress Management Association UK  

Getting Sporty – The Benefits for Body and Brain!

It is widely accepted that exercise has many beneficial effects on the body.  However, a new review article entitled “Exercise, Brain and Cognition Across the Lifespan” published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, highlights that the positive effects of exercise also extends to the brain, influencing cognition.  The article draws upon recent evidence which identifies physical activity as positively affecting the body and also the mind.     

Michelle W. Voss, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her colleagues affirmed that both aerobic exercise and strength training play an essential role in maintaining brain and cognitive health throughout life.  However, they also highlighted that this area of research still needed to be explored into understanding how certain aspects of exercise influence brain physiology and function.   

The Results

The article used the findings from 111 studies to demonstrate the effects of aerobic exercise and strength training on humans from children through to the elderly. 
It was found that aerobic exercise was crucial for getting a head start during childhood on cognitive abilities.  It suggested that physical inactivity was associated with poor academic performance, whereas, exercise programs could help to improve memory, attention and decision making.  These effects, it was argued, extend to both young and elderly adults. 

There was strong evidence that showed aerobic training benefitted executive functions, including multi-tasking, planning and inhibition, as well as improving memory.  This is particularly evident for high-intensity and high load training for older adults.  More research needs to be carried out on the effects of strength training on brain health for children. 

Animal studies, which examine the influence of aerobic exercise has found that physical activity appears to change the brain structure, promoting the growth of new nerve cells and blood vessels.  It is also recognised as increasing the production of neurochemicals, such as BDNF and IGF-1 which help to promote growth, survival and repair of brain cells. 

Clearly, the studies identify the positive effects of exercise on the brain, but the article also made clear that there were gaps in the scientific literature and more needed to be done to examine how exercise type might promote different effects on brain health and cognition at different ages. 

"It is increasingly prevalent in the print media, television, and the Internet to be bombarded with advertisements for products and programs to enhance mental and physical health in a relatively painless fashion through miracle elixirs, computer-based training, or gaming programs, or brief exercise programs," the authors say. "Although there is little convincing scientific evidence for such claims, there have been some promising developments in the scientific literature with regard to physical activity and exercise effects on cognitive and brain health."

For more information on how to get active and the recommended physical activity guidelines please visit the NHS Choices website by click here. 

RSPH – Sport for Health

Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer stated that:

“The potential benefits of physical activity to health are huge.  If a medication existed which had a similar effect, it would be regarded as a ‘wonder drug’ or ‘miracle cure’.

RSPH Training Solutions, recognises the importance of how sport can play a vital role in improving ones overall health and wellbeing.  However, the problem stems in that so many people avoid sport and thus ignore one of the cheapest and most effective ways to improve health.  Sport for Health is a programme which has been designed for people who work in sport, either in a professional or voluntary role.  It aims to help them increase the level of physical activity amongst people by understanding how an active lifestyle promotes good health and also understanding the barriers people face and ways to overcome them.

Through the Mayor’s Legacy Fund, applicants can apply for funding which entitles them to 75% off the cost of the course.  For more information on Sport for Health please click here or email sportforhealth@rsph.org.uk

Loneliness – A Public Health Issue?

“Friendship is a lot like food. We need it to survive” –  Hara Estroff Marano, Psychology Today.

We humans have an inherent need to be part of a group, to form friendships, to interact and to socialise with people.  Evidence suggests that these are all necessary in order for us to maintain good health and wellbeing.  However, what happens when we only have part or none of the above, when we are unable to socialise, when we don’t feel like interacting, when we loose touch with friends and family?  It is likely that we will feel a sense of loneliness, and this, the experts say, can be detrimental to our health.

Since the 1990’s an increasing number of studies measuring the impact of loneliness suggest it is an important public health concern.  The evidence reveals that the risk of developing and dying from heart disease can depend on the strength of one’s social network of friends and family.

What is Loneliness and how does it arise?

Loneliness, although easy to describe is harder to define because of its many dimensions.  Wikipedia defines loneliness as an unpleasant feeling in which a person experiences a strong sense of emptiness and solitude resulting from inadequate levels of social relationships.  Loneliness is however a subjective experience, in that, if a person thinks they are lonely, then they are lonely whether they are in solitude or in the middle of a crowd. 

The mental Health Charity MIND, believe that loneliness is a very intense feeling and "to feel lonely is to be overwhelmed by an unbearable feeling of separateness, at a deep level”. 

It is likely that many of us will have experienced loneliness at some point in our lives.  For some it may be a temporary feeling, resulting from certain events, while for others, it could feel like a permanent part of life. 

Loneliness can occur for a number of reasons and as highlighted above can depend on a persons state of mind.  However, feelings of loneliness may arise from losing connection with others through death, breakup of a relationship, moving away, being immobile or ill and working longer hours, or from being unable to form new connections due to shyness or lack of confidence.

A report called The Lonely Society? commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation, found that the way in which people now live is impacting on their ability to connect with others. More people live alone: the percentage of households occupied by one person doubled from 6% in 1972 to 12% in 2008. The divorce rate has almost doubled in the past 50 years and the number of lone parent households is rising. People are living longer but many older people are doing so alone. Because of people pursuing careers and education opportunities, many now live further away from their families and the communities they grew up in. 

The Health Implications of Loneliness

Loneliness, although a natural emotion, can be detrimental to our physical and mental health.  One of the main reasons why loneliness has negative implications is because it makes it harder for us to control our habits and behaviour.  A book written by John T Cacioppo and William Patrick entitled "Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection" suggests that loneliness leads to self destructive habits, such as overeating, relying on alcohol and avoiding physical exercise.

In their numerous studies, they reported that not only do lonely people tend to withdraw from society (becoming further isolated) but they express higher levels of stress and difficulties sleeping, leading to diminished restorative processes.  Tests also show that loneliness affects the immune and cardiovascular systems and that there is a strong correlation between loneliness and depression.  The Lonely Society report? found that four in ten people (42%) have felt depressed because they felt alone.

James J Lynch, loneliness expert and writer of  "A Cry Unheard: New Insights into the Medical Consequences of Loneliness" describes loneliness as a silent epidemic that is harming public health, leading to depression and early death.  He proposes that causes of death are notably higher for “divorced, single, and widowed individuals of both sexes and all races."

Cacioppo points out that, “being connected with others is so necessary to survival, that human brains have become hard-wired to seek regular social contact”. 

How Lonely are We - The Statistics

The UK report by The Lonely Society? reveled that 48% of us believe people are getting lonelier in general.  Only 22% of us never feel lonely and one in ten (11%) of us feel lonely often.  A third of us (37%) have a close friend or family member who we think is very lonely and over half of us (57%) who have experienced depression or anxiety isolated ourselves from friends and family.

The pain of loneliness is the sharp end of a milder feeling of social disconnection that research suggests is widespread: a recent Emotional Needs Audit of the UK by the Human Givens Institute, which involved 4,600 online respondents, reported that 24.1% of people did not feel emotionally connected to others; 34.8% did not feel connected to the wider community and 35.4% felt they did not receive enough attention.  The lonelier our society, the more likely we are to experience loneliness.

Coping with Loneliness

Loneliness is clearly a health concern, and we need to seek ways of overcoming it.  Making the effort to spend time with a friend or family can have a two way effect.  It will allow you to socialise and feel good as well as having a positive impact on the other person.

The UK mental health charity MIND, offers several suggestions on how to overcome loneliness.  Some of these include; learning to be with others, joining a class, a local interest group or volunteering for something.  For further information on dealing with loneliness click here to go to the MIND website.

We are interested to hear your opinions.  Are we becoming a lonely society? Has technology played a part or is it the changes in our lifestyles?  How else can we tackle the lonely issue? 

MHF/Mind mental health practice guide to launch in January

The MHF and Mind joint conference Achieving effective practice in male mental health will take place in London in January 2011. Visitors to this website are entitled to a 20% discount - just quote MHF50 when booking.

This conference, which is on 11 January 2011 at the ORT House Conference Centre, London NW1, will see the launch of the Guide to Effective Practice in Male Mental Health commissioned by the National Mental Health Development Unit from Mind and the MHF.
Key speakers include the two co-authors MHF policy officer David Wilkins and Marian Kemple who was previously Policy and Campaigns Officer at Mind as well as Melba Wilson who is the national programme lead for the Mental Health Equalities Programme at the National Mental Health Development Unit.
Delegate places also include a free year’s subscription to Mental Health Today magazine.

To Download the flyer and booking form please click here