stress

Posted on Diet

“Want to feel less stressed? Give the Mediterranean diet a try!”

Mediterranean diet

Consuming components of the Mediterranean diet is associated with lower levels of perceived stress and mental distress, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York. Credit Alachua County

Following the Mediterranean diet rather than the traditional Western diet might reduce stress, according to new research conducted by a team from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Lina Begdache, associate professor of health and wellness studies, said the findings suggest that people can lower their perception of how much stress they can tolerate by following a Mediterranean diet.

“Stress is recognized to be a precursor to mental distress, and research, including our own, has demonstrated that the Mediterranean diet lowers mental distress,” she said. “Thus, one element of the puzzle may be explained by the fact that the Mediterranean diet may be associated with a decrease in the negative components of perceived stress and an improvement in its positive attributes.”  

The Mediterranean diet is plant-based, with healthy fats, and mainly includes wholesome food and a spectrum of natural colours. It stands in sharp contrast to the Western diet, which is known for its high concentration of high-glycemic and low-quality processed foods.

While the Mediterranean diet is known for its benefits to both mental and physical health, little is known about its effect on perceived stress, which is how much stress you are under at any particular time.

To assess this, Begdache and her students surveyed over 1,500 people, asking them what foods they ate and evaluating their perceived stress levelsss. Using a machine learning model, the results show that consuming components of the Mediterranean diet is associated with lower levels of perceived stress and mental distres,s while consuming Western dietary components is correlated with perceived stress and mental anguish.

Begdache said these results close a gap in the literature because most studies on diet and stress focused on how stress affects dietary choices and quality. She and her team are looking at different aspects of brain function and behaviours about dietary patterns.

Posted on Multiple Sclerosis

Stress and Multiple Sclerosis – How it Affects our Symptoms and How to Minimize it

Living with MS (multiple sclerosis) or chronic illness can be stressful! And stress can affect our symptoms. In this video, hear about how stress can affect us, our MS symptoms, and some easy-to-implement tips to help with stress management and symptom management.

Posted on Multiple Sclerosis

Life stressors may contribute to multiple sclerosis flares, disability.

The findings highlight the importance of analyzing the impact of life stressors on those with MS
The findings highlight the importance of analyzing the impact of life stressors on those with MS

A Michigan Medicine-led study finds that stressors across the lifespan — including poverty, abuse and divorce — are associated with worsening health and functional outcomes for people with multiple sclerosis.

Using survey data from more than 700 people with MS, researchers discovered that stressful events occurring both in childhood and adulthood contributed significantly to participants’ level of disability.

The results are published in Brain and Behavior.

“MS is the leading cause of non-traumatic disability among young adults, and additional research is needed to identify these external drivers of disability that can be addressed or prevented, including stress, to improve functional outcomes,” said co-author Tiffany Braley, M.D., M.S., director of the Multiple Sclerosis/Neuroimmunology Division and Multidisciplinary MS Fatigue and Sleep Clinic at University of Michigan Health.

“This knowledge is needed to inform MS research as well as clinical care. Referrals to resources, such as mental health or substance use support could help reduce the impact of stress and enhance wellbeing,” Braley said.

More than 2.8 million people in the world have MS, an autoimmune condition that affects the brain and spinal cord, in which the protective layer of nerve cells is attacked by the body’s immune system. People with MS can experience unique, often painful, exacerbations of their symptoms known as a relapses, exacerbations or “flares”.

Initially in the study, both childhood and adult stressors were significantly associated with worse burden caused by relapse after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the association between childhood stressors and disease burden lost significance when further accounting for experiences in adulthood. 

Studies focused on stress and MS that don’t account for the full lifespan, researchers say, could miss vital information or overestimate the relationship between childhood stressors and health outcomes.

“Adverse Childhood Experiences, which we call ACEs, and other childhood stressors could impact immune, inflammatory and behavioral processes throughout life, and reduce resilience to adult stress,” said first author Carri Polick, Ph.D., R.N., who completed this work while at the U-M School of Nursing and is now a postdoctoral fellow in the National Clinician Scholars Program at Duke University.

“It is important to use a lifespan approach in future work to better understand patterns and inform symptom management. For example, we are expanding upon this work to investigate mechanistic pathways through sleep, smoking and mental health, through which stressors may lead to worse MS outcomes including increased disability, pain and fatigue.”

Posted on Pain Management

Music therapy significantly reduces pain, stress, and anxiety in community hospitals

UH Cleveland Medical Center
IMAGE: UH CLEVELAND MEDICAL CENTER view more CREDIT: UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS

CLEVELAND – A new study from University Hospitals (UH) Connor Whole Health found patients with moderate-to-severe pain, stress, or anxiety treated at UH community hospitals reported clinically significant reductions in pain, stress, and anxiety in response to a single session of music therapy. Furthermore, the clinically significant effect on pain was not influenced by patients’ demographic or clinical characteristics, suggesting that music therapy can be effective for acute pain management across various inpatient adult populations. The findings from this study were recently published in the journal, Pain Reports, a leading journal focusing on advancing pain research.

In this retrospective study conducted between January 2017 and July 2020, researchers from UH Connor Whole Health examined the first music therapy interventions provided to 1,056 adults receiving inpatient medical care who reported pre-session pain, anxiety, and/or stress scores greater than or equal to 4 on the 0 to 10 numeric rating scale. Unlike prior studies of music therapy, which have primarily been conducted at academic medical centers, this is the first and largest investigation of the real-world effectiveness of music therapy within community medical centers. This study builds upon a history of seminal music therapy studies funded by the Kulas Foundation, the country’s leading foundation for funding scientific research in music therapy, that have investigated the efficacy of music therapy in palliative care, surgery, and sickle cell disease as well as the clinical effectiveness of music therapy within an academic cancer center.

“The music therapists at UH Connor Whole Health offer non-pharmacological frontline treatment throughout our medical system while addressing issues of stress, pain, and anxiety. Greater Cleveland residents may receive these services during hospitalizations at UH as a clinical service line offering direct evidence-based community benefit,” said Seneca Block, The Lauren Rich Fine Endowed Director of Expressive Therapies at UH Connor Whole Health. UH Connor Whole Health manages the largest health system-based music therapy program in the US with 11 board-certified music therapists who collaborate with providers across the system to help patients and their families manage the physical and emotional toll of an illness or hospitalization. Additionally, UH Connor Whole Health provides a diverse offering of integrative health and medicine modalities, including acupuncture, chiropractic, and integrative medicine consults, that are centered on patients’ entire well-being.

In “Effectiveness of Music Therapy within Community Hospitals: An EMMPIRE Retrospective Study,” researchers examined the real-world effectiveness of music therapy at eight UH community medical centers and explored variables associated with pain reduction of greater than or equal to 2 units on a 0 to 10 unit numeric rating scale.

Music therapists provided interventions including live music listening, music-assisted relaxation and imagery, and active music making to address patients’ needs including pain management, coping, stress reduction, and anxiety reduction. As part of clinical care, the music therapists assessed patients’ self-reported pain, stress, and anxiety on a 0 to 10 scale at the beginning and end of each session and documented their sessions in the electronic health record.

“What makes this research novel is our ability to streamline data collection from music therapy clinical practice to the electronic health record. We can then use these data to understand the real-world impact of music therapy throughout multiple medical centers and how best to tailor music therapy interventions to meet patients’ needs,” said Sam Rodgers-Melnick, a music therapist, first author of the study, and a co-investigator on the EMMPIRE project (Effectiveness of Medical Music Therapy Practice: Integrative Research using the Electronic Health Record). The present EMMPIRE study was funded by a 3-year grant from the Kulas Foundation to UH Hospitals.org/ConnorWholeHealth with Jeffery A. Dusek PhD, Director of Research, UH Connor Whole Health, Block and Rodgers-Melnick as prime investigators. Said Dusek, “Routine collection of patient-reported outcomes from clinical practice (also called practice-based research) is becoming increasingly common as a patient-centered quality of care measure.”

Prior research has demonstrated that reductions of at least 1.3 units on the numeric rating scale for pain are clinically significant for patients with non-cancer pain, meaning that the symptom reduction represents a meaningful difference for patients with moderate-to-severe symptoms. Reductions of at least 2 units in stress and anxiety are also considered clinically significant. In this study, patients reported clinically significant mean reductions in pain (2.04 units), anxiety (2.80 units), and stress (3.48 units) in response to music therapy, with all changes exceeding clinically significant thresholds. Additionally, of the patients reporting a pain score greater than or equal to 4, 14% fell asleep during music therapy sessions, an important observation given the sleep challenges patients with moderate-to-severe pain face during hospitalization.

Additionally, after adjusting for demographic, clinical, and operational characteristics, patients receiving a music therapy session in which pain management was a goal were 4.32 times more likely to report pain reduction greater than or equal to 2 units than patients receiving a music therapy session in which pain management was not a session goal. Said Rodgers-Melnick, “this finding raises important questions regarding how music therapists tailor their interventions to address pain when that is the goal of the session, and we will be examining these specific features of music therapy interventions in future research.