"What is to give light must endure burning. "


Posts tagged with 'stress'

Is short duration sleep a problem or is it just disturbed sleep that leads to increased mortality risk? A personal exploration.

3rd January 2012

It is clear that there is a U-shaped association between sleep duration and mortality, with both short and long sleep linked with increased death rates. This finding is underlined by two major recent research overviews - Gallicchio & Kalesan "Sleep duration and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis" and Cappuccio …

Learning MBSR: third evening of the course - the surprising importance of practising mindfulness during movement

14th October 2011

Well last night was the third session of this MBSR course. I wrote last week about the second evening and also about mindfulness during daily activities. We packed a lot into this session - there were four practical meditation exercises involving attending to sounds, breath & body awareness, mindfulness during …

Learning mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR): second evening of the course

7th October 2011

Yesterday evening was the second session of this eight week (plus a full day) Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course that I am attending. I wrote a week ago about the initial group meeting. There are nine of us plus the trainer on the course, but one of us was unable …

Learning mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR): first evening of the course

30th September 2011

I wrote a blog post a few days ago entitled "Mindfulness: teaching & learning". I talked about my decision to participate in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course, saying "Why participate in a MBSR course? Basically because I think it would be rather interesting! There's a real groundswell of energy …

Recent research: three studies on CBT, one on implementation intentions and two on compassion

17th March 2011

Here are details of half a dozen recent research papers - three on CBT, one on implementation intentions (and CBT), and two on compassion. Fuller details, links and abstracts of all the studies mentioned are given further down this post. The first, by Gulliksson et al, is "Randomized Controlled Trial …

Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, introduction to the course

29th May 2010

On Monday of next week I'm due to run the first evening of a new twelve session course that I have been "cooking" for quite a while - see, for example, the post I wrote back in February "Developing a training course: life skills for stress, health & wellbeing". I …

Developing a training course: life skills for stress, health & wellbeing

19th February 2010

Last Spring, I went walking and camping in Glen Affric. Amongst other things, being away on my own in the hills gave me a chance to think creatively. Once I was back I wrote a blog post about developing a next generation stress management course. I said "I've known for …

Recent research: NICE guidance on recognition of child maltreatment & report of the Task Force on neck pain

3rd September 2009

Here are a disparate pair of subjects for a research update. One is the recent NICE guideline on " ... alerting features in children and young people (under 18 years) of: physical, sexual and emotional abuse, neglect, fabricated or induced illness." I have posted on NICE and its guidelines before. …

Recent research: six papers on helping children & adolescents

21st May 2009

Here are half a dozen papers on helping kids and adolescents. The Fuligni et al paper found that adolescents experiencing frequent interpersonal stresses tended to have increased levels of C-reactive protein, " ... an inflammatory marker that is a key indicator of cardiovascular risk ... ". Jackson et al showed …

Handouts & questionnaires for assessing & building good relationship networks

8th September 2008

Relationships are crucial. They are crucial in promoting resilience to stress, and they are crucial in enhancing wellbeing and happiness. Research suggests that all three of social support, social integration and (inversely) social conflict contribute to self-esteem and health. The relationship questionnaire & scoring provides a helpful way of assessing …