Stress Relief, Health and Wellness Blog

// 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 [...]

// ‘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 [...]

// High heels and knee osteoarthritis, a painful, degenerative joint disease In 1998, a team of Harvard researchers linked high heels and knee osteoarthritis, a painful, degenerative joint disease characterized by the breakdown of the cartilage surrounding the knee. In that study, D. Casey Kerrigan, MD, associate professor of physical medicine at Harvard Medical School, [...]

// House panel considers brain injuries and NFL players A 2005 follow-up study showed that NFL players suffering concussions had five times the rate of cognitive impairment, Conyers noted, and retired players were almost 40 percent more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease than the population as a whole. A University of Michigan study released [...]

// Music as medicine: Docs use tunes as treatment As Victor Fabry napped in his hospital bed, a quiet symphony filled his room. The steady pulse of a cardiac monitor marked the progress of his mending heart. Over that beat, the swaying strains of a Brazilian guitarist pumped nearly nonstop from a CD player on [...]

// Army gets $117 million for emotional training http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32456908/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/ The training, the first of its kind in the military, is meant to improve performance in combat and head off the mental health problems, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide, that plague about one-fifth of troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. Active-duty soldiers, reservists and [...]

Walking disaster? Why some are accident prone Steve Roe’s catalogue of self-induced injuries reads like something out of The Spanish Inquisition Handbook: fractured skull, torn rotator cuff, shattered fingers, broken wrists, fractured elbows, torn muscles, sulfuric acid burns, self-stabbings, multiple broken noses and, as of last month, a ruptured tendon in his ankle. “I didn’t [...]

Lean times mean tighter pants for stress eaters Excess worries and time weighing on many Americans Leslie Fuller tried to stick to her shopping list on a recent grocery run. Instead, she found herself venturing down the candy aisle, throwing bags of Hershey’s Miniatures and M&M’s into her cart. “I should just put them down [...]

Darker outlook for night owls, study finds A new study, published in Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, bears out Africa’s experience: People who tend to stay up late, the so-called “night owls,” have a darker outlook than those who bounce out of bed at the crack of dawn, the “morning larks.” This might be true for [...]

Mindfulness training busts stress The program lasted eight weeks and participants were followed for an additional three months. Williams said they found those who received the mindfulness training “had significantly less daily hassles, psychological distress and significantly fewer medical symptoms” — like lower blood pressure and fewer aches and pains — than those who were [...]