Stress Relief, Health and Wellness Blog

// Depressing News About Antidepressant Studies suggest that the popular drugs are no more effective than a placebo. In fact, they may be worse. It seems I am not alone in having moral qualms about blowing the whistle on antidepressants. That first analysis, in 1998, examined 38 manufacturer-sponsored studies involving just over 3,000 depressed patients. [...]

// Study Points at a Clear-Cut Way to Diagnose PTSD For all the attention focused on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in recent years, doctors have never had a clear-cut way to be certain a patient has it. But Minnesota scientists now believe they have found a long-sought PTSD fingerprint that confirms the disorder by measuring [...]

// Is your junk food habit making you depressed? Processed food can bring down your mood, a new study finds A new study published in The British Journal of Psychiatry makes a strong case that processed junk food can trigger or contribute to depression, while eating whole and healthy food seems protective. Junk food may [...]

// Being Fat Goes Global It’s not just Americans anymore; the whole world is becoming obese, and we have more than just the advent of cheap cheeseburgers to blame. Two years ago, when Barry Popkin announced that more than a billion people worldwide were overweight—easily outnumbering the 800 million who were malnourished—folks looked up from [...]

// Study sees parking lot dust as a cancer risk Chemicals in a cancer-causing substance used to seal pavement, parking lots and driveways across the U.S. are showing up at alarming levels in dust in homes, prompting concerns about the potential health effects of long-term exposure, a new study shows. The substance is coal tar [...]

// Farmed or wild fish: Which is healthier? (CNN) — Got a wish for fish? These days, it’s hard to know what underwater life you should be eating. There’s talk of great benefits from fish-originating omega-3 fatty acids but worries about contamination and concerns about the environmental impact of farmed fish. “It’s really high time [...]

// Student Stress Therapy Goes to the Dogs Chapman University students are getting some stress therapy as they prepare for final exams… cute and cuddly puppies! A bunch of pups were made available for students to pet and play with outside the school’s library at an event called “Furry Friends for Finals.” The event was [...]

// ‘Power Control Center’ helps students cope with stress in the classroom (CNN) — Elementary students are now learning how to control stress in the classroom by deciding when they need a time out. Grace Noone has more on the “Power Control Center” and explains why your children might like it. Jenna DeDomenico is only [...]

// New York seeks national reduction of salt in food New York (CNN) — First it was trans fats. Then it was high-calorie fast food. Now, the New York City Health Department is tackling another diet enemy: salt. The department unveiled an initiative Monday urging restaurants and food companies across the country to voluntarily reduce [...]

// What you need to know about multivitamins Basic Multivitamins What they are: One-pill wonders that offer 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance (RDA), as suggested by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, for many important vitamins. Benefits: They give you much of what you need in a day, including [...]