Stress and its impact on health

Stress and its impact on physical and mental health were a major concern in the health news in 2010. Here's what caught our attention in this regard.

How do we recognize what stress?

The researcher and specialist in stress Sonia Lupien has recently published a book entitled For Love of stress.To manage stress, it is important to know the source of the stressor. But how to recognize it? It is necessary that at least one of the 4 following characteristics - that the researcher has grouped under the acronym NICE - is this:
• Control: You feel you do not have control over a situation.
• Unpredictability: the situation is unexpected.
• New: You are facing a new situation.
• Ego: The situation represents a threat to your ego.
And the opposite of stress, this is not relaxation, warns Sonia Lupien. Rather, resilience is the ability to have a Plan B when a stressful event occurs, to "calm the brain so that it produces the least possible stress hormones.

Mental health problems at work: the enormous costs

For the most part, these problems are related to the workload, the interactions between colleagues and management to work-life balance and clarity of tasks, says Gilles Dupuis, Scientific Director of the Liaison Centre on the psychosocial intervention and prevention. And management practices that promote a better quality of work life are autonomy, support, recognition, collaboration and evaluation of load and work pace.

Stress SOS! The solution Matthieu Ricard

The Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, who was visiting Montreal last September, offers meditation to help manage stress. Meditation allows learning to cultivate an inner space "and to construct a" mental immune system, "he said.

Prevent burnout through a blood test?

It is possible to measure the "rate of wear physiological" stress-related chronic blood tests and saliva testing. Robert Paul Juster, researcher, and Sonia Lupien, director of the Center on Human Stress, have identified 15 biological markers of stress, including cholesterol and insulin and cortisol, the stress hormone. Moreover, these markers are higher and the risk of burnout is as well, have they noticed in a small study.

Stress and depression damages the heart

Depression can cause inflammation of the heart muscle and is also associated with hypertension and diabetes, according to the work of researchers of the Centre québécois de recherche Fernand-Séguin who have studied the adverse effects of depression on physical health.

Stress, anxiety and depression: an important step

We knew that there was a link between stress, depression and anxiety, but for the first time, Canadian researchers have identified the biological mechanism of connection in the brain. They have discovered how two related to serotonin receptors could cause stress and anxiety create depression. The discovery could lead to better pharmacological treatments.