Healthy Tips from HealthyLife

Beth Cooney offers tips to keep you healthy
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How Well do You Know Yourself?

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 by:Jill Montag
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If you think you know yourself better than anyone else knows you, a new study says think again.

A psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis has found that the individual is more accurate in assessing one’s own internal, or neurotic traits, like anxiety, but that friends are better judges of intellect-related traits, like intelligence and creativity. And there’s more: even strangers are equally adept as our friends and ourselves at spotting the extrovert in us all.

Simine Vazire, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, developed the self-other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model, which she tested by calling upon 165 volunteers and giving them a number of different tasks. They took an IQ test in order to obtain an objective measure of behavior; they all participated in a group discussion to see who emerged as the take-charge individual; and they took a social stress test in which trained experimenters with fake stern demeanors filmed participants in a narrow, cramped room, as they gave a two-minute public speaking exhibition on the topic of what I like and don’t like about my body. Each participant also graded him or himself and group members on a 40-trait personality rating form.

Vazire’s model correctly predicted that self ratings would be more accurate for internal things like thoughts and feelings such as sadness and anxiety, for example, than the ratings of friends and strangers. Vazire says that makes sense because, after all, you can mask your inner feelings. However, she says, others are often better than the self in things that deal with overt behavior.

Vazire says the self has difficult in judging itself accurately in what are called evaluative traits, like intelligence, attractiveness and creativity. It’s hard for people to judge their own traits like that because everyone wants to be seen as intelligent and attractive. The self is better at judging friends’ intelligence than its own, Vazire says, because it’s not threatening to us to admit that our friends aren’t brilliant, but it’s definitely threatening to ourselves to admit that we’re not brilliant.

Napping Boost Brain Power

Monday, April 26, 2010 by:Jill Montag
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Here’s some welcome news for all you nappers: new research says napping boosts brain power.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, studied 39 healthy young adult volunteers divided into two groups: a nap group and a no-nap group. At midday, both groups performed about the same in a challenging task that involved absorbing a lot of facts. At 2:00pm, the nap group volunteers took about a 1.5 hour nap while the no-nap group stayed awake. At 6:00pm, they underwent a new set of learning exercises.

The group that took a nap in the afternoon performed better in the evening exercise than the group that stayed awake all day. They also performed better than they had earlier in their day, before napping.

The researchers concluded that napping boost brain power by clearing out the brain’s temporary storage space, allowing it to absorb new information. Not only does a nap refresh the mind, they suggest, but it can also make you smarter. In other words, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap.

Hmmm…I think it’s time for me to go catch some Z’s…

Anti-Drinking Ads and Alcohol Use

Friday, April 23, 2010 by:Jill Montag
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You’ve probably seen public service ads that use guilt or shame to warn against alcohol abuse. According to new research, they might actually have the reverse effect, causing target audiences to drink more instead of less.

Researchers at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business and the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University interviewed more than 1,200 undergraduate students after showing them shame- and guilt-inducing ads. They specifically created these ads for the research, instead of using existing campaigns, to avoid biases on the part of respondents. Researchers found that instead of the intended outcome, the ads triggered an innate coping mechanism that allows viewers to distance themselves from the serious consequences of reckless drinking.

Anti- or “responsible” drinking campaigns have long been produced by health departments, nonprofit organizations and even beverage companies, and yet alcohol abuse has continued to rise — especially on college campuses. According to the study, these kinds of messages are too difficult to process for viewers who already experience emotions like shame and guilt related to drinking, for example those who already have alcohol-related transgressions.

To cope, they adopt a defensive mindset that allows them believe, in essence, that the consequences only happen to “other people.” As a result, according to study participants, they engage in greater amounts of irresponsible drinking.

The study’s authors encourage marketers looking to have an influence in this field to convey messages of empowerment along with dire consequences. For example, providing ways to control one’s drinking or recalling instances where one resisted the temptation to engage in risky driving behavior may help reduce these kinds of undesirable behaviors more effectively.

Pregnancy, Milk and Multiple Sclerosis

Thursday, April 22, 2010 by:Jill Montag
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We hear a lot about the importance of milk for babies and young children; according to a recent study, the importance of drinking milk begins even earlier — in pregnancy. According to the study, drinking milk during pregnancy may help lower your child’s risk of developing multiple sclerosis later in life.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston studied 35,794 nurses whose mothers completed a questionnaire in 2001 about their diet and experiences when they were pregnant with their nurse-daughter. 199 of the nurse studied developed MS over the 16 year-study period. According to the researchers, the risk of MS was lower among women borth to mothers who had high milk or dietary vitamin D intake in pregnancy. In fact, they say, daughters whose mothers drank four glasses of milk a day had a 56 percent lower risk of MS than daughters whose mothers consumed less than three glasses of milk per month. And, mothers who were in the top 20 percent of vitamin D intake during pregnancy had daughters with a 45 percent lower risk of MS than daughters whose mothers were in the bottom 20 percent for vitamin D intake during pregnancy.

Researchers say there is a growing body of evidence that vitamin D has an effect on MS, and this study suggests that the effect may start in the womb. The best sources of vitamin D are fortified milk, fatty fish such as salmon and exposure to sunlight.

Massage and Healing

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 by:Jill Montag
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For most people, massages are a relaxing treat; according to a new study, they could also help you deal with the loss of a loved one.

The study, conducted by Swedish researchers, involved 18 people between the ages of 34 and 78 who’d just lost a relative to cancer. They were offered a 25-minute hand or foot massage once a week for 8 weeks; they could choose to have their massages at work, home or in a hospital.

Nine of the study participants chose foot massage, eight chose hand massage and one had both types. Only three of them had received a soft-tissue massage in the past. The hand or foot massage was done with light pressure, slow strokes and circling movements using citrus or hawthorn-scented oil. Researchers encouraged the participants to relax for 30 more minutes after their massage.

Researchers say six to eight months later, 17 of the participants had begun to move forward with their lives; one of them continued to have trouble because of another death in the family.

The leader of the study says this may be because soft-tissue massage activates touch receptors, which then release oxytocin — a hormone known to help boost well-being and relaxation.

Eating after Exercise

Monday, April 19, 2010 by:Jill Montag
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Even though exercising might make you hungry, it’s tempting to forego a tasty (and higher-calorie) meal in favor of grilled chicken after a trip to the gym. After all, you didn’t just sweat for an hour for nothing, now did you? Well, according to a new study, you may not need to starve yourself after you work out. 

The study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan included nine healthy sedentary men between 28 and 30 years old. They spent four separate sessions, each approximately 29 hours, in the Michigan Clinical Research Unit in the University of Michigan Hospital. The sessions began in the morning, after the study subjects had fasted overnight. 

The four visits differed primarily by the meals eaten after exercise. On one visit (the control trial), they didn’t exercise and ate meals to match their daily calorie expenditure. On another visit, they exercised for about 90 minutes at moderate intensity and then ate meals that matched their caloric expenditure and had balanced carbohydrate, fat and protein content. During another session, they exercised for about 90 minutes at moderate intensity and then ate meals relative low in carbs but still enough to match their calorie expenditure. And another visit involved exercising for about 90 minutes at moderate intensity and then eating relatively low-calorie but high-carb meals.

The order of the trials was randomized. The exercise was performed ona a treadmill and stationary bicycle.

There was an increase in insulin sensitivity (a hallmark of Type II diabetes and a major risk factor for other chronic diseases like heart disease) in the three exercise trails; eating less carbs after exercise enhanced insulin sensitivity significantly more. According to the researchers, these results suggest that people can still reap some important health benefits from exercise without undereating or losing weight.  The study also reinforces previous evidence that the differences in what you eat after exercising can produce different changes in your body and that each exercise session can affect the body’s physiology.

Is Junk Food Addiction real?

Friday, April 16, 2010 by:Jill Montag
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If you tend to doubt people who say they feel powerless to stop overeating, think again. According to new research, they just might be right. Researchers at Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida gave lab rats unlimited access to a high-calorie diet of bacon, candy bars, pound cake and other junk food, and found that the rats gained a lot of weight — quickly. As they got fatter, eating became such a compulsion that they kept pigging out even when they knew they’d receive an unpleasant electric shock to their foot if they did so.

On the other hand, rats who were fed the human equivalent of a healthy diet (with only limited access to junk food) didn’t gain much weight and managed to stop eating when they received the cue that they were about to get shocked.

What’s really startling, say the researchers, is that when they took the junk food away from the obese rats and replaced it with healthier food, the obese rats went on something of a hunger strike, refusing to eat much for two weeks.

Researchers aren’t sure if these results apply to people who struggle with their weight but say it’s possible that a diet full of highly rewarding foods may cause changes in the brain’s reward system for satiety. When that goes awry, people not only gain weight but also feel compelled to keep seeking out more junk food. Researchers say there is evidence of “addiction-like adaptations.”

Your Children and the Dentist

Thursday, April 15, 2010 by:Jill Montag
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Let’s face it — it’s hard to get a child to look forward to going to the dentist. After all, most adults don’t look forward to it either! However, according to a recent study, if you see the dentist regularly, your kids will too. And that’s important, because dental caries (tooth decay) is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases of childhood in the United States — and more than half of American children don’t see a dentist on a yearly basis.

In the study, published in the March issue of Pediatrics, children were more likely to have visited a dentist in the previous 12 months when their parents also had a dental visit.

77 percent of children and 64 percent of parents (out of 6,107 child-parent pairs) had a dental visit in the previous 12 months. Among parents who had seen a dentist, 85 percent of their children also had a dental appointment. On the other hand, among parents who had not seen a dentist, only 62 percent of their children had gone to the dentist. Children whose dental care was deferred because of cost were more likely to have parents whose dental care was deferred for the same reason.

Researchers say comprehensive strategies to increase awareness of the importance of oral health and eliminate financial barriers could improve children’s oral health.

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