Hans Selye, a pioneering Hungarian scientist who was a pioneer in modern stress research, was quoted as saying, “It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.”

Today, 75 years after he made that statement, it rings as true as ever. And nowhere is it more challenging to find an effective response to stress than among our kids.

An annual survey by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2013 identified today’s teens and young adults (age 18-33) as the “most-stressed generation” in the United States. Nearly half of the teens surveyed said that they had stress but couldn’t manage it.  Another recent survey of seventh graders found that only 36 percent of students agreed with the statement, “I am happy with my life.”

Heading into the school year can be a particularly stressful time for kids, and a great time to start implementing long-term strategies to improve our and our kids’ ability to cope with stress.

Here are a few simple but important ways you can help your children and yourself to have a successful and less stressed start to the school year.

1. Start the school sleep schedule early. A good night’s sleep is one of the most important stress reducers, as sleep helps to manage hormone levels, maintain a healthy body weight, and maintain and grow muscle tissue. Start the school sleep routine a week or two before the first day of school, to ease the transition from late summer nights. Getting into a good sleep routine will work best if you create a consistent bed time, keep away from the screen for at least 2 hours before bedtime, and do some type of winding-down exercises before bed such as prayer and other forms of meditation, gentle stretching, playing soothing music, or taking a bath.
2. Be as prepared as possible. If you have school-age children, visiting the school can help them feel more comfortable and excited about returning. Find out who their classmates are, and if possible, ensure they have at least one friend in their classroom. Shopping for school supplies and other necessary items can be a fun transition ritual that has the important benefit of bringing a sense of control to a new situation. Along these lines, you can extend the preparation ritual by setting up a study area for your child. A quiet, organized space that is designated for schoolwork will encourage commitment and follow-through to the homework routine.
3. Talk about it, and stay positive. Another great way to prepare for the coming year is to simply talk to your child about their feelings. Find out what’s making them anxious; validate those feelings and work together to come up with potential solutions.If possible, carve out some quality time before school starts to reminisce about the joys of summer and any worries about the new school year.You might create a night-before-school special meal; showing enthusiasm yourself is sure to spread to your kids, turning their nervous energy into excitement. This may be especially important to do on Sunday evenings, which is when kids most often become stressed about school the next day. As a parent, you send your children an important message by assuring them that they can get through a transition, even if it’s hard.
4.  Help your child set realistic priorities for school and outside activities. Talk to them about finding a balance among discipline, self-challenge, and enjoyment. Maybe they don’t need to do three sports, or maybe they need encouragement to try something new. Establishing a successful schedule will go a long way to reducing stress. Part of this schedule should include down time, where nothing is scheduled and you have the opportunity to connect with your child. That relaxed connection can be a tremendous stress relief.

Finally, be a role model. In this stress-filled world, it is valuable for us to show our children how to counteract stress. Let them see you taking a few minutes to sit still while you concentrate on your breathing. Tell them about your own commitment to create a less stressful year.

In many ways school is the testing ground for a lifetime of challenges and opportunities that your child will face throughout his or her life. Providing children with a toolbox of ways to reduce their worry early in life can go a long way to promoting a lifetime of well-being.

On November 3rd, 2014, the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine Research will host its inaugural Integrative Medicine Research Forum. BHI Medical Director Darshan Mehta, MD, MPH, will be presenting at this free event, the first-of-its kind in-person gathering, bringing together the rich and diverse Boston-wide network of experts and practitioners with interests in integrative medicine research. The submission of IM Research Abstracts are invited for presentation at the Forum.

Schedule:
12:15 pm – 6:30 pm Half-Day Symposium

Keynote Speakers:
Professor Albert Laszlo Barabasi, Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science and Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University.
David King, Founder, Exaptive, Inc.

Guest Speakers from:

• The Osher Center for Integrative Medicine
• Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine
• Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies
• Cheng-Tsui Integrated Health Center, and
• Representatives from Boston University, Tufts Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance

To register, please visit oshercenter.org

There is still time to register and join world-renowned experts and workshop leaders at Benson-Henry Institute’s fall CME course, The New Science of Resiliency and its Clinical Applications.

Past attendees consistently rank this 4-day course as one of Harvard’s best CME programs. Here are just a few of the many positive comments we received after last year’s course:

“It is rare that I  take away as many concepts, techniques or interventions as I am doing today.”
“A powerful blend of research, heart, experience and love of mind body work.”
“Topics extremely thought provoking.”
“Excellent conference both in content and presenter’s delivery”
“Wonderful. Fed my soul.”

This year, we are honored to welcome Bruce S. McEwen as our keynote speaker. The author of over 600 peer-reviewed articles, Dr. McEwen is unparalleled in his contributions to the scientific understanding of the influence of stress on health and illness.

Participants will come away with
•    a strong understanding of the scientific foundation of mind body mechanisms and health
•    insights into the latest and most exciting brain imaging and genomic research, as well as the role of mind body medicine in public health.
•    The ability to apply mind body interventions with their patients
•    Techniques to avoid provider burnout

Partner’s affiliates receive a 30 percent discount!! For more information and to register, visit http://www.hms-cme.net/341983/  or call Jill Buchanan at 617-643-6043.

From NPR’s show, The Exchange with Laura Knoy

From major challenges like chronic illness or financial problems to minor annoyances like traffic jams or inconsiderate neighbors, stress affects us all.  For some, it can be overwhelming, while others find ways to cope and even use it to their advantage. In connection with the NPR series on this topic, we’re exploring the latest thinking on stress.

Click HERE

Mind Over Matter

When Joanne Ring’s husband passed away three years ago, she found  herself working through a grief process that became nearly impossible  to manage. Raising four young boys and working fulltime as an ICU  nurse only added to her stress and anxiety. Although her primary care  physician offered medication to help her cope with her anxiety, Ring felt there was a better option.

She turned to the MGH Center for Community Health Improvement in Charlestown, which works with the MGH Wellness Center and Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine (BHI), to offer group mind-body intervention (MBI) as a plausible option for treating anxiety and depression.

The eight-week MBI group is provided at MGH community health centers in Revere and Charlestown by licensed clinical social workers trained in MBI at BHI. The groups meet once weekly for 90 minutes.  The program includes teaching methods eliciting the relaxation response  using a variety of techniques, along with promoting adaptive cognitive practices, such as optimism and acceptance; promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors, such as recommendations for nutrition, exercise, and restorative sleep; and building social support.

“The BHI Wellness Center conducted a retrospective study looking at the medical records of 124 patients who had participated in the MBI groups for anxiety and depression,” says Kathleen Miller, RN, PhD, director of the BHI Wellness Center, and a principal author of the study.

“Participants in our study showed improvements in symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as decreases in perceived stress. Based on this, we think the group MBI may be a good resource for community health center providers to recommend as adjunctive treatment for anxiety, depression and stress.”

Ring says, “If I hadn’t learned some of the strategies channeling the relaxation response, I likely would have ended up on medication – a route I really didn’t want to take. The tools I’ve learned to manage my stress and anxiety, coupled with positive lifestyle alterations, have truly changed my life for the better.”

The study, entitled “The Effectiveness of a Community-based, Mind-Body Group for Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety,” was published in the summer 2014 issue of Advances in Mind-Body Medicine.

Upcoming CME Keynote Speaker Feature
Bruce McEwen- Unparalleled depth and breadth in Stress Research

The Benson-Henry Institute is honored to welcome Bruce S. McEwen, PhD, as keynote speaker for its CME Course, The New Science of Resiliency and its Clinical Applications, which will be held September 16-19 in collaboration with Harvard Medical School. For more information, please visit http://bensonhenryinstitute.org/professional-training/live-cme.

For more than 40 years, Dr. McEwen has studied the mechanisms and impact of stress on humans. McEwen’s depth of experience in studying stress hormones and the brain is unequaled, and his work has far-reaching implications for understanding the impact of stress on human health in general.

Among his remarkable accomplishments, McEwen has:

* Contributed heavily to a new understanding of how the brain changes in structure and function during development and in adult life.

* Helped draw distinctions between good or adaptable forms of stress and toxic stress.

* Expanded our understanding of allostatic load, a widely used term that explains how stress systems that help the body survive can cause problems when overworked.

* Significantly contributed to understandings of gender differences in stress effects.

* Expanded awareness of how circadian disruption, arising from shift work, jet lag, and sleep deprivation, can affect brain function and behavior.

McEwen is the author or co-author of more than 900 scientific papers, and co-author of two books for the lay public. His is currently the Alfred E. Mirsky Professor and Head of the Harold and  Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at The Rockefeller University. He is also involved with the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, which investigates how early life stress can be ameliorated to minimize its lifelong consequences.

LIVE WEBCAST: Wednesday, July 9, 2014, 12:30-1:30pmET.

Do you have resources to share to help manage stress to improve health? During the webcast on July 9, we will invite you to Tweet your ideas using hashtag #BurdenofStress.

You also can Tweet questions for the panelists before or during the live webcast to @ForumHSPH. Or, e-mail them to theforum@hsph.harvard.edu. We’ll also be conducting a live chat on this web page during the live webcast. For many of us, stress is an omnipresent and frequently overwhelming factor of day-to-day life. As we begin to better understand its toll on our health, this Forum at the Harvard School of Public Health event – in connection with a new poll by HSPH, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and NPR – will share the story of stress as perceived by many Americans. What are the biggest sources of stress? How can it affect our health? And what can we do in our homes, workplaces and communities to help us manage stress and to live calmer – and healthier – lives?

Presented in Collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and NPR

Background Articles

• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Harvard School of Public Health Opinion Research Program
• NPR
  Science Section
• Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine
  MGH
• Poll: The Burden of Stress in America
  NPR/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health

From: Medical News Today

Monday 23 June 2014 – 8am PST

Psychologists at Stony Brook University, NY, suggest that about 20% of the population aregenetically predisposed to be more aware and empathic. Now, in a new study, they explore which regions of the brain are implicated in this. They publish their findings in the journal Brain and Behavior.

Stony Brook’s Elaine Aron, PhD, claims that about 20% of the population are “highly sensitive people” (HSP), who display heightened awareness to subtle stimuli – whether positive or negative – and process information more thoroughly

To investigate whether these traits can be associated with identifiable behaviors, genes, physiological reactions and patterns of brain activity, Dr. Aron and co-author Dr. Arthur Aron, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain scans of HSP individuals.

The team scanned the brains of 18 married individuals as these participants were shown photographs of smiling or sad faces. The faces either belonged to people who were strangers to the subjects, or they were the faces of their husbands or wives.

The two Dr. Arons describe the team’s findings:

“We found that areas of the brain involved with awareness and emotion, particularly those areas connected with empathetic feelings, in the highly sensitive people showed substantially greater blood flow to relevant brain areas than was seen in individuals with low sensitivity during the 12-second period when they viewed the photos.”

“This is physical evidence within the brain that highly sensitive individuals respond especially strongly to social situations that trigger emotions, in this case of faces being happy or sad,” they add.

Increased activity in brain regions linked with awareness and empathy

When the participants who were classed by the researchers as being HSP saw a photo of their spouse, they exhibited even higher brain activity – with the highest activation of all occurring when a participant viewed images of their spouse smiling.
The areas of this fMRI scan in color represent some of the regions of the brain where greater activation occurs in HSPs compared with non-HSPs.
Image credit: Stony Brook Unirersity

The researchers found that the brain regions exhibiting the greatest activity were those associated with awareness, processing sensory information, action planning and empathetic response – many of which are implicated in the “mirror neuron system.”

A year later, most of the subjects were scanned again, and the researchers observed identical reactions to the previous test.

According to the researchers, the fMRI results confirm that not only are HSPs highly tuned to their environment, but also these heightened awareness and emotional responsiveness traits are intrinsic to this group of humans.

Earlier this year, Medical News Today reported on a study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, where researchers used fMRI to investigate whether witnessing a loved one in distress or experiencing social exclusion causes us to feel physical pain.

The researchers found that both experiencing “social pain” in ourselves and witnessing it in others activates the posterior insular cortex – the brain region linked to the sensory processing of physical pain.

Author Giorgia Silani explained the study’s findings:

“Our findings lend support to the theoretical model of empathy that explains involvement in other people’s emotions by the fact that our representation is based on the representation of our own emotional experience in similar conditions.”

Also, in March, a study published in PLOS One found that the phenomenon of “contagious yawning” is not actually linked to empathy, as was previously thought.

http://www.wcvb.com/health/Can-you-think-yourself-young/24518862

From WCVB TV News, Feb 18, 2014

This is a very unusual area of medicine,” said Ann Webster, Ph.D., director of the Program for Successful Aging at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine. “These are things people can do for themselves.”

It was at the Benson-Henry Institute that the term “relaxation response” was first coined. It’s an actual physiologic state of deep rest that’s the opposite of the body’s ‘fight or flight’ response.

“This is a time when you restore energy to every cell in your body, and this is also a time when healing can take place,” said Webster.

It may sound far-fetched, but they say it’s grounded in real, cutting-edge science and proven to help people avoid high blood pressure,  pain syndromes and even rheumatoid arthritis.

“Take in a deep breath. Hold it … a few seconds, and then let it go,” said Webster. “By the end of the third breath, they’ve already quieted down.”

To turn on the relaxation response, Webster suggests meditation coupled with deep breathing every day for at least 20 minutes, along with:

• Staying fit and eating right
• Keeping a gratitude journal
• Social support
• Staying engaged in life even after retirement
• Getting quality sleep

According to Webster, the number No. 1 barrier to successful aging is obesity.