How Swimming Reduces Depression

I’ve always known that I climb out of any pool a lot happier than when I dove in.
Yes, I know any kind of aerobic exercise relieves depression.
For starters, it stimulates brain chemicals that foster the growth of nerve cells; exercise also affects neurotransmitters such as serotonin that influence mood and produces ANP, a stress-reducing hormone, which helps control the brain’s response to stress and anxiety. But swimming, for me, seems to zap a bad mood more efficiently than even running. Swimming a good 3000 meters for me can, in the midst of a depressive cycle, hush the dead thoughts for up to two hours. It’s like taking a Tylenol for a headache! It was with interest, then, that I read an article in “Swimmer” magazine about why, in fact, that’s the case.

Here’s the gist, excerpted from the article “Staying Happy?” by Jim Thornton in the Jan/Feb issue of “Swimmer” magazine.

Regardless of cause, a growing number of researchers and psychologists alike have become true believers in the efficacy of swimming. “We know, for instance, that vigorous exercise like swimming can significantly decrease both anxiety and depression” says sports psychologist Aimee C. Kimball, director of mental training at the Center for Sports Medicine at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “Currently, there’s a ton of research looking at the various mechanisms by which it works.”
On the physiological level, hard swimming workouts release endorphins, natural feel-good compounds whose very name derives from “endogenous” and “morphine.” Swimming serves, as well, to sop us excess fight-or-flight stress hormones, converting free-floating angst into muscle relaxation. It can even promote so-called “hippocampal neurogenesis” – the growth of new brain cells in a part of the brain that atrophies under chronic stress. In animal models, exercise has shown itself to be even more potent than drugs like Prozac at spurring such beneficial changes.
Moby Coquillard, a psychotherapist and swimmer from San Mateo, Calif., is so convinced that he prescribes exercise to depressed patients. “I absolutely believe swimming can serve as a kind of medicine. For me, it represents a potent adjunct to antidepressant medications and, for some patients, it’s something you can take in lieu of pills.”
Besides possible biochemical changes in the brain, swimming requires the alternating stretch and relaxation of skeletal muscles while simultaneously deep-breathing in a rhythmic pattern. If this sounds familiar, it’s because these are key elements of many practices, from hatha yoga to progressive muscle relaxation, used to evoke the relaxation response. “Swimming, because of its repetitive nature, is incredibly meditative,” Coquillard says. There’s even a built-in mantra, be this the slow count of laps, or self-directed thoughts like “relax” or “stay smooth.”
“I teach a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy class for depression,” he adds, “and we use focus on the body here in the moment to keep past thoughts or future worries from invading our consciousness.” By concentrating on different aspects of their stroke mechanics, from hip rotation and kick patterns, to streamlining and pulls, regular swimmers practice this intuitively. The result: On a regular basis, most get a break from life’s not always pleasant stream of rumination.
Moreover, since most pools have set times for lap swimming and coached Masters workouts alike, regular swimmer usually find themselves settling into a schedule that becomes automatic. There’s no need to decide if you should go exercise now or later. For stressed out people, this lack of options, says Coquillard, is paradoxically comforting because it removes the burden of yet another decision. “All you have to do is show up at the regular time,” he says, “and you know there’s a good chance you’ll end up leaving the pool feeling a little better than when you arrived.

By Therese J. Borchard

5 Tips to End the Summer Well

While the season of summer still has more than a few weeks to go, the reality of summer is quickly coming to an end. School is starting, parents are out shopping for their kids’ new clothes and school supplies already, and college students are preparing for their annual return to campus.
What’s a person to do with the last few remaining weeks of summer?
Well, I can’t tell you what to do or not to do, but I can offer these five tips for ending your summer well. Whether they work for you or not, you won’t know until you try them. But it’s a good bet that you be disappointed with the results if you only try.

1. Finish what you started.
Sometimes we find ourselves putting off the end of a project because we believe we’ll always have time “later.” Later never comes, of course, so the project never really ends. There’s no better way to feel like you’ve accomplished something this summer — no matter how big or small that something is — by simply finishing it up.

2. Don’t worry, be happy.
Many of us spend a lot of time worrying about things we have little or no control of, making our worry essentially worthless in the cosmic scheme of things. Why expend the energy on needless worry when you could be expending it on some last-minute summertime activities, like going to the pool, the waterpark, getting in one last getaway some place, or even just hanging with your friends. Sometimes the simplest activities can turn out to be the most enjoyable. For many of us, this is the one time of the year we can really enjoy the outdoors. Get at least one last thing in — a ballgame, a trip to the beach, a hike in the mountains, something summery! — before the summer’s over!

3. Prepare now, so you won’t be overwhelmed later.
How many times do we think, “Ah, I can study later” or “Ah, I can start organizing the things I need to head back to campus next week.” Then next week comes and boom! — it’s time to go and you’re nowhere close to being packed. Organize yourself now for the semester or the next few months ahead, and you’ll find yourself less likely to get bogged down in things you could’ve done earlier. You might also find it’s a great way to relieve some of the stress of going back to school — being organized helps a person feel more organized internally, more in-control of their own destiny and life.

4. (Some) friends are forever.
Summertime’s also a great time to take stock of your friendships, since you have more time and aren’t as distracted by work or school. Who haven’t you spoken to in forever? Give them a call and hang out sometime. Who has become dead weight in your life whether neither one of you is getting much from the friendship any more? Time to cut the line on those friends, to make room for some new ones. People do change and grow each year. While we’d like to think our friends are always going to grow with us, that’s simply not a realistic expectation — sometimes we simply grow in different, separate directions.

5. Don’t let it hang or simmer.
Sometimes we do something over the summer months we later regret. Maybe we get into an argument with a best friend, or ignore an invite from a favorite aunt. Maybe we blew off one set of friends to spend more time with another set. Whatever it is you might have done, don’t let it keep simmering after the summer is over. Now’s a great time to make amends — before the hectic pace of fall makes all of our lives more stressful and less forgiving.

* * *

 

Summertime is a great time to relax, recharge and re-organize your resources and life. Not just your outside life, but your inner life as well. Take stock in how things are going, what changes you’d like to make, and set the plan in motion for the fall. Because once September comes, all heck usually breaks loose and time once again becomes a quantity much in demand, but short in supply.
So until then, enjoy the rest of your summer (and I’ll do the same!).

By John M Grohol PsyD

Study Shows Sisters Protect Siblings From Depression, Loving Siblings Promote Good Deeds More Than Loving Parents

Something about having a sister - even a little sister - makes 10- to 14-year-olds a bit less likely to feel down in the dumps.

That's one of several intriguing findings from a new study on the impact siblings have on one another. Brigham Young University professor Laura Padilla-Walker is the lead author on the research, which also sorts out the influence of siblings and the influence of parents within families.

"Even after you account for parents' influence, siblings do matter in unique ways," said Padilla-Walker, who teaches in BYU's School of Family Life. "They give kids something that parents don't."

Padilla-Walker's research stems from BYU's Flourishing Families Project and will appear in the August issue of the Journal of Family Psychology. The study included 395 families with more than one child, at least one of whom was an adolescent between 10 and 14 years old. The researchers gathered a wealth of information about each family's dynamic, then followed up one year later. Statistical analyses showed that having a sister protected adolescents from feeling lonely, unloved, guilty, self-conscious and fearful. It didn't matter whether the sister was younger or older, or how far apart the siblings were agewise.

Brothers mattered, too. The study found that having a loving sibling of either gender promoted good deeds, such as helping a neighbor or watching out for other kids at school. In fact, loving siblings fostered charitable attitudes more than loving parents did. The relationship between sibling affection and good deeds was twice as strong as that between parenting and good deeds.

"For parents of younger kids, the message is to encourage sibling affection," said Padilla-Walker. "Once they get to adolescence, it's going to be a big protective factor."

Many parents justifiably worry about the seemingly endless fighting between siblings. The study found hostility was indeed associated with greater risk of delinquency. Yet Padilla-Walker also sees a silver lining in the data: The fights give children a chance to learn how to make up and to regain control of their emotions, skills that come in handy down the road.

"An absence of affection seems to be a bigger problem than high levels of conflict," Padilla-Walker said.

BYU professor James Harper and BYU graduate Alex Jensen are co-authors on the new study. Jensen, now a Ph.D. candidate at Purdue, also co-authored the 2009 study showing a link between video games and poor relationships.

Source:
Joe Hadfield
Brigham Young University  

Staying Busy Translates To Being Happy

An interesting new study suggests people who are extremely active are happier than people who sit idle.
The finding may explain why people confess to being so incredibly busy in today’s society.
“The general phenomenon I’m interested in is why people are so busy doing what they are doing in modern society,” says Christopher K. Hsee, of the University of Chicago. He co-wrote the study with Adelle X. Yang, also of the University of Chicago, and Liangyan Wang, of Shanghai Jiaotong University.
“People are running around, working hard, way beyond the basic level.”
Sure, there are reasons, like making a living, earning money, accruing fame, helping others, and so on. But, Hsee says, “I think there’s something deeper: We have excessive energy and we want to avoid idleness.”
For the study, volunteers completed a survey, then had to wait 15 minutes before the next survey would be ready. They could drop off the completed survey at a nearby location and wait out the remaining time or drop it off at a location farther away, where walking back and forth would keep them busy for the 15 minutes.
Either way, they would receive a candy when they handed in their survey. Volunteers who chose to stay busy by going to the faraway location were found to be happier than those who chose to be idle.
Not everyone chose to go to the faraway location. If the candies offered at the two locations were the same, the subjects were more likely to choose to stay idle. But if the candies offered at the two locations were different, they were more likely to choose the far location—because they could make up a justification for the trip, Hsee and his colleagues say.
The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Hsee thinks it may be possible to use this principle—people like being busy, and they like being able to justify being busy—to benefit society.
“If we can devise a mechanism for idle people to engage in activity that is at least not harmful, I think it is better than destructive busyness,” he says.
Hsee himself has been known to give a research assistant a useless task when he doesn’t have anything for them to do, so he isn’t sitting around the office getting bored and depressed.
“I know this is not particularly ethical, but he is happy,” says Hsee.

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on July 30, 2010
Source: Association for Psychological Science

Almost invisible mirrored tree house built in Sweden

They said it couldn't be done. When we first wrote about the almost invisible tree house to be built in Sweden by Tham & Videgard, 899 commenters thought it was computer-generated eye candy, impossible to build, and death for birds.
But the architects built it, one of six units in a "Treehotel," which recently opened 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle in Sweden.


The four-meter glass cube looks as spectacular in reality as it did in the rendering. Kent Lindvall, co-owner of the TreeHotel, has been quoted as saying:

Everything will reflect in this -- the trees, the birds, the clouds, the sun, everything. So it should be invisible nearly in the forest.

 
And what about the birds? According to Designboom, Lindvall says that a special film that is visible to birds will be applied to the glass.


The units are constructed from sustainably harvested wood and have electric radiant floor heating and "a state-of-the-art, eco-friendly, incineration toilet"
(Although I've owned an incinerating toilet, and it wasn't that eco-friendly. It used a lot of electricity and created noise and some smells. But perhaps they've improved.)
But other than that minor quibble, this appears to be a truly "eco" resort. The owners say in Designboom:

"This is untouched forest, and we want to maintain it the same way. We decided, for example, to not offer snowmobile safari which is very common up here," says Selberg. Instead, wilderness walks will be offered.

Where do I sign up?

By Lloyd Alter, TreeHugger

Posted Wed Jul 21, 2010 12:21pm PDT

All photos courtesy of Tham & Videgard.

Family Chats Can Help Students Learn

Taking the time to talk to your children about current events like the Gulf Oil spill - and using mathematical terms to do so - can help students develop better reasoning and math skills and perform better in school, according to a study by a University at Buffalo professor.

"When families chat about societal issues, they often create simple mathematical models of the events," says Ming Ming Chiu, a professor of learning and instruction at UB's Graduate School of Education with extensive experience studying how children from different cultures and countries learn. "Unlike casual chats, these chats about societal issues can both show the real-life value of mathematics to motivate students and improve their number sense."

The findings, published in the current issue of Social Forces, an international journal of sociology, was the first international study on how conversations among family members affect students' mathematical aptitude and performance in school. Chiu's findings were based on data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; its Program for International Student Assessment collected almost 110,000 science test scores and questionnaires from 15-year-olds from 41 countries, including 3,846 from the U.S.

Interestingly, Chiu found that family chats about society and current events are uncommon, regardless of ethnic background or level of affluence. "They occur less than once a month for 58 percent of the children in the 41 countries," he says. "Students in richer countries, richer families, or with two parents do not have more family chats about societal issues than other students do."

However, Chiu's findings conclude that the impact of chats and other family involvement is much greater in more affluent countries than those in developing countries. So these discussions often do more good in families within richer countries.

"In rich countries, most students have rulers, books, calculators and other physical resources, but they do not spend much time with their parents (family involvement)," he says, "So family involvement becomes more important to student learning in richer countries."

Chiu, whose previous published research includes how overconfidence can stunt reading skills among teenagers, used the data to make the following recommendations for parents and teachers:

• Chat with children about current social and political events. Chiu suggested creating simple mathematical models of current events ("The BP oil spill leaks 1 ½ million gallons of oil a day for 80 days. Half of 80 is 40, so 1 ½ times 80 is 80 plus 40 or 120 million gallons of oil spilling into the gulf."). These models or meaningful computations allow children to use their basic math skills in a concrete way that not only gets them to practice their math faculties, but also shows how math can help put the world in a more understandable context.
• Use familiar terms to describe quantities. For example, ask children to estimate how many gallons it would take to fill up their house, apartment or swimming pool.
• Ask for and listen to children's ideas about current events. Chiu says the research suggests that children's reasoning skills improve when their parents ask them what they would do if they faced a similar situation. ("How would you solve the oil spill?") Can they explain their decisions? ("Does burning the oil help?") Can they compare the real costs of different solutions? ("Does it cost less to burn the oil or use booms to contain it?")

Source:
Ellen Goldbaum
University at Buffalo 


Did you guys do this with your parents? 

Study: Body shape affects memory in older women

Memory loss in later life is more pronounced in women who carry excess weight around their hips, a study says.

       (CNN) -- A woman's body shape may play a role in how good her memory is, according to a new study.
      The more an older woman weighs, the worse her memory, according to research released this week from Northwestern Medicine at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
       The effect is more pronounced in women who carry excess weight around their hips, known as pear shapes, than women who carry it around their waists, called apple shapes.
       The reason pear-shaped women experienced more memory and brain function deterioration than apple-shaped women is likely related to the type of fat deposited around the hips versus the waist.
        Scientists know that different kinds of fat release different cytokines -- the hormones that can cause inflammation and affect cognition.
       "We need to find out if one kind of fat is more detrimental than the other, and how it affects brain function," said Dr. Diana Kerwin, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of medicine and a physician at Northwestern Medicine. "The fat may contribute to the formation of plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease or a restricted blood flow to the brain."
       The study published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Geriatric Society said, on average, there is a one-point drop in the memory score for every one-point increase in body-mass index -- a ratio of a person's height and weight. The study included 8,745 cognitively normal, post-menopausal women ages 65 to 79.
       "Obesity is bad, but its effects are worse depending on where the fat is located," Kerwin said.

       "The study tells us if we have a woman in our office, and we know from her waist-to-hip ratio that she's carrying excess fat on her hips, we might be more aggressive with weight loss," Kerwin said. "We can't change where your fat is located, but having less of it is better."

By the CNN Wire Staff

July 15, 2010 7:16 a.m. EDT