Bad social experiences promote inflammation

This is fascinating - the impact of stress from competitors and general social interactions can promote inflammation.


Negative and competitive social interactions are related to heightened proinflammatory cytokine activity

These findings suggest that daily social interactions that are negative and competitive are associated prospectively with heightened proinflammatory cytokine activity.

It is all about environment.....but that is not just diet,  social interactions, other stresses are important too.  Getting your stress under control - work, relationships etc - is as vital as diet.  You can get diet and exercise dialed in but if you are chronically stressed from other things then you will still suffer. 

I am like this at the moment from work and family pressures

There is a good commentary here.

A vicious circle of stress

Stress can make you fat – and being obese can create stress.

A vicious circle of stress

Getting fatter can potentially trigger the stress response, which in turn encourages additional weight gain.

"When you go up in weight, your body also comes under stress. That probably has a self-reinforcing effect – so you get even fatter," Foss explains.

But dieting can also stimulate cortisol production, which in turn may trigger the stress response and thereby counter the weight loss.

"Should our hypothesis turn out to be correct, it would mean that you'll have to break this stress pattern if you want to halt the weight increase," says Foss.

The paper is in medical hypotheses....

Stress in obesity: Cause or consequence?

Abstract

Obesity is a global public health challenge that increases the risk of various diseases including type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension and cancer, and will in the future cause further increases in the incidence of chronic disease. Understanding the mechanisms of obesity is critical if we are to prevent and treat this pandemic challenge. Diet and physical activity have traditionally been the major tasks in preventing and treating obesity. However, other mechanisms are now also being considered in the quest for knowledge and understanding of obesity, including the body’s stress system and cortisol release. While it seems evident that stress is a cause of obesity, whether stress is also a consequence of obesity has up to now only briefly been discussed. The aim of this article is to elucidate how stress and obesity might be linked and discuss the cause/consequence relationship between the stress response and obesity. Our hypothesis is that stress and obesity interfere by positive feedback. This may be an important issue in both our understanding and coping of obesity.

Stress and walking

That Paleo Guy (Jamie) tweeted about the infographic below (more here). It is superb - great find Jamie.

It got me thinking about stress, something I am going to write about in TGO. A friend was telling me recently about his experience as a guide taking a guy up a mountain. It wasn't really a tough route, more of a walk, but the fella got very scared. The various stress hormones did their jobs - sugar dump in the blood, elevated heart rate, worse digestion etc. He got immediately exhausted and had to be physically led down the hill on a short rope. The stress response actually got him into a very dangerous situation not in terms of location but because of how his body reacted.

We need to think of strategies to deal with stress to improve performance.

Of couse we are also at risk from long term chronic stress........but that is another issue.

So now fat people are more stoopid?

Here is an interesting one.  I've watched a couple of important people in my life decline markedly through various types of dementia recently.  It is really sad to see once vibrant intelligent people so limited by changes in their brains.

Insulin Sensitivity as a Mediator of the Relationship Between BMI and Working Memory-Related Brain Activation

This study has a simple conclusions:  obesity in middle age was related to alterations in brain activation during a cognitive challenge and this association appeared to be mediated by insulin sensitivity.

Insulin sensitivity again.  What can we do to maintain insulin sensitivity?  It is all the regular stuff - low carb/paleo diet, sensible exercise, adequate sleep, minimal chronic stress.....

The sad impact of loneliness

In all the discussion of evolutionary fitness and paleo living there is a lot of focus on diet and - to a lesser degree - on exercise.

Fair enough, but I think there are a range of other factors that often get left out of the argument, factors which if neglected can totally destroy other efforts.

At the least I'd list:

• Sleep
• Stress
• Sociability / sex

If we are talking about living as we are meant to there is more to it than diet and exercise, important though they are.  You need decent sleep.  You need to minimise chronic stress.  You need social contact.

I just saw this study that stresses the importance of social contact.


Loneliness and the Rate of Motor Decline in Old Age:

Among community-dwelling older persons, both feeling alone and being alone are associated with more rapid motor decline, underscoring the importance of psychosocial factors and motor decline in old age.

The whole study is available at this link.

You need your tribe

Another sleep less get fatter study

Reading Robb Wolf's Paleo Solution has got me thinking more about lifestyle, in particular 2 areas: sleep and stress.   Stress messes with you hormonally.

He has prompted me to do a couple of things:

• Totally black out my bedroom so I really sleep in total dark
• Aim for at least 8 hours sleep
• Ease back in general and take it easier.

In some of his podcasts he really emphasises (stresses?) the danger of overtraining and fasting too.  Both can bump up your cortisol levels with a range  dodgy effects.

Anyway, I spotted this abstract today:


Sleep duration and body-weight development during puberty in a Dutch children cohort

Conclusion: Changes in BMI during puberty were inversely related to changes in sleep duration, independent of possible confounders.

The Shallows - the internet is making us stupid

I mentioned a book I was reading recently - The Shallows.   It is a really challenging book basically proposing that the tools we use alter how we think.  The key thesis is that the internet is making us less likely to think deeply - we skim read now and get easily distracted led astray by hyperlinks etc.  Here is the author talking about these ideas



It is really interesting stuff.

From a paleo point of view what I find intersting is the idea that the hunter gatherer brain is also a naturaly distacted one - it needs to be to spot prey or evade attack.  It would do not good to be too much of a dat dreamer.  Deep thinking is good though.

Brief exercise reduces impact of stress on aging

I've pointed to research in the past on the effect of different types of exercise on cell aging, as measured by telomere length( for example - Marathons make your muscles old). As usual, things are quite complex.

Anyway, there is some new research just published that

Vigorous physical activity appears to protect those experiencing high stress by buffering its relationship with telomere length.

Chronic psychological stress is responsible for a range of health problems, but it seems that it even has an effect at a cellular level right in the DNA. Exercise however can reduce its negative impacts:

In the study, 62 post-menopausal women – many of whom were caring for spouses or parents with dementia -- reported at the end of each day over three days the number of minutes of vigorous physical activity in which they had engaged. Vigorous activity in the study was defined as "increased heart rate and/or sweating.'' They also reported separately their perceptions of life stress that they had experienced during the prior month. Their blood's immune cells were examined for telomere length.

Results support the UCSF-led discovery six years earlier in premenopausal women that psychological stress has a detrimental effect on immune cell longevity, as it relates to shorter telomeres. The new study showed, however, that when participants were divided into groups – an inactive group, and an active group (i.e., they met federal recommendations for 75 minutes of weekly physical activity) – only the inactive high stress group had shorter telomeres. The active high stress group did not have shorter telomeres. In other words, stress predicted shorter telomeres in the sedentary group, but not in the active group.

There is more in the report here.

optimism is healthy

the impact of the mind on your health is wildly underapprecited. I think many health problems are at root exacerbated by - if not caused by - psychological stress. It is not just our diet that is far divorced from what it should be, it is our psychological state. We are chronically stressed. Anyway typically, optimism is good for your immune system:

Optimism boosts the immune system

Feeling better about the future might help you feel better for real. In a new study, psychological scientists Suzanne Segerstrom of the University of Kentucky and Sandra Sephton of the University of Louisville studied how law students' expectations about the future affected their immune response. Their conclusions: Optimism may be good for your health.

Other studies have found that people who are optimistic about their health tend to do better. For example, people who are optimistic about heart transplant surgery recover better from that grueling operation. But it's not clear how optimism affects your health — or whether pessimism makes you less healthy.

Great podcasts on stress

mc pointed these out:

To get a flavour of Sapolsky's amazing work, there are at least two audiobook lectures at iTunes U on the work from Zebras on stress. The first is Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers; the second is Stress and Coping: What Baboons can Teach Us. These are both free, and part of Stanford's Healthy Living Series at iTunes U. The take aways from Baboons are perhaps no surprise, but that they are so well underlined with both observation and physiology is well worth exploring.

Very definitely worth listening to.

mc's posts are always worth reading and reflecting on. (interview with her here)

More on exercise and brain health

This follows on from the Spark posts.

I saw this in the Guardian today:

Start running and watch your brain grow, say scientists

Neuroscientists at Cambridge University have shown that running stimulates the brain to grow fresh grey matter and it has a big impact on mental ability.

A few days of running led to the growth of hundreds of thousands of new brain cells that improved the ability to recall memories without confusing them, a skill that is crucial for learning and other cognitive tasks, researchers said.

The new brain cells appeared in a region that is linked to the formation and recollection of memories. The work reveals why jogging and other aerobic exercise can improve memory and learning, and potentially slow down the deterioration of mental ability that happens with old age.

Shame they weren't looking at resistance training too.

Here is the Telegraph version

Spark on exercise

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned this book which had been mentioned by Frank Forencich.

The book came to me from Amazon a week or so ago and I've been skimming it before reading through properly. It is about the way in which exercise improves your mental performance, memory and psychological well-being.

The focus is on aerobic exercise - because that is where the research is - but he does mention benefits from resistance training.

Anyway, what I found interesting was Ratey's prescription for exercise, which is pretty similar to Art Devany's position or indeed to the routine that Nassim Taleb wrote about.

This is what Ratey says in his chapter "The Regimen":

Today, of course, there's no need to forage and hunt to survive. Yet our genes are coded for this activity, and our brains are meant to direct it. Take that activity away, and you're disrupting a delicate biological balance that has been fine-tuned over half a million years......The ancient rhythms of activity ingrained in our DNA translate roughly to the varied intensities of walking jogging, running and sprinting. In broad strokes then I think the best advice is to follow our ancestors' routine:

• walk (or jog) everyday;
• run a couple of times a week; and
  
• then go for the kill every now and then by sprinting.
  

That is a pretty good pattern, similar also to Mark Sisson's blueprint with respect to exercise:

• Move around a lot at a slow pace
• Lift heavy things
• Run really fast every once in a while.
  

Pain from emotional factors

I've posted in the past about the way in which emotional issues and stress can give rise to pain. I know in my life episodes of chronic back spasm correlate closely with periods of stress in work or in my personal life.

The topic was covered well by Monte and Adam also.

Anyway, this caught my eye:

Abuse in childhood linked to migraine and other pain disorders

Researchers from the American Headache Society's Women's Issues Section Research Consortium found that incidence of childhood maltreatment, especially emotional abuse and neglect, are prevalent in migraine patients. The study also found that migraineurs reporting childhood emotional or physical abuse and/or neglect had a significantly higher number of comorbid pain conditions compared with those without a history of maltreatment. Full findings of the study appear in the January issue of Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain,

Spark.....

I saw this mentioned by Frank Forencich and it looks interesting, so I ordered the book (extract here).

The author's blog has some nice stuff.

In Spark, John J. Ratey, MD, takes the listener on a fascinating journey through the mind-body connection, presenting startling new research to prove that exercise is truly the best defense against everything from mood disorders to ADHD to addiction to menopause to Alzheimer's. He explains that the brain works just as muscles do-growing with use, withering with inactivity-and shows why getting your heart and lungs pumping can mean the difference between a calm, focused mind and a harried, inattentive self.

Anyway it ties in with some of the ideas that I was thinking of after speaking to mc. It fits in with Kelly Lambert's ideas too.


Here is how Frank applies the ideas...it comes down to moving being healthy.


"SPARK" your brain with Exuberant Animal from Lauren Muney on Vimeo.

Stop obsessing about your training

I read this in an article by Doug McGuff. It reminded me of something Skyler wrote the other day.


From THE GEEKS SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH

Several non-training circumstances seem to offer the millieu in which proper training can be most productive. While non-scientific and anecdotal at best, these factors were universally present during my own periods of rapid progress as well those of my clients. Personally, I was able to make these observations because my growth seems to occur all at once on a very intermittent basis. It usually occurs in the early morning and will actually awaken me from sleep because I can feel it occurring. It can best be described as “feeling like rice crispies sound when you pour milk on them”. I’ve had as much as 3/4 inch arm growth overnight. Such results never seemed to correlate to the previous workout, but several factors over time can be noted in my journals.

1. Happiness-in general I was not elated or extremely happy. Rather, I was simply contented with life in general and had a sense of peace. There was no current issue that was troubling me or occupying my mind.

2. Lack of preoccupation with training-universally I was involved in activities that precluded me from thinking about my training or progress. I hadn’t looked at a muscle magazine in months or read any books, articles or visited any internet sites related to training.

3. Busy Professional Life-usually I was fairly busy with my professional life and absorbed in it. However, I was not overly stressed by this absorption…it was truly immersion rather than anxious rumination.

4. Laziness-it seemed I retained the skill of being able to lay around and do nothing for at least an hour each day.

5. Sleep-in general I was getting about an hour and a half of extra sleep per night during a period when I was on the same shift rotation. In addition my sleep seemed to be filled with pleasant dreams.

6. Lack of body awareness-in general I had recently spent very little time assessing my appearance in the mirror or taking measurements. My only impetus to do so was after the sensation of sudden growth had occurred.

7. Season-gains seem to occur in early Spring and late Fall. I seem to be dressed in such a way that my body awareness is less, and I also think the lack of heat stress is more conducive to growth.

8. Hydration-this is without exception the strongest correlate I have found. I originally noted this when I tried Ellington Darden’s recommendation for superhydration (drinking at least a gallon of water a day). My largest growth spurt ever took place while superhydrating and every subsequent improvement has occurred during periods when I used this technique. Recently one of my clients began superhydrating and added an entire minute to her TUL’s for every set of her workout.

In general I think the best most concise advice (other than superhydration) that can be offered to most HIT enthusiasts is the following: First, stop obsessing about training. Stop spending hours on the internet discussing and debating training. Stop having arguments with people. Stop visiting all the web sites and calling the facilities around the country on a daily basis. Second, decrease your level of body awareness. Take some time off from tape measures, skin fold calipers and scales and wear clothing that conceals your body from your concern. There is truth in the old saying “a watched pot never boils”. Finally, be content and happy with the hand that nature has given you and achieve within your capabilities.

It is an important point. Sometimes I spend so much time reading crap on the internet that I do not get enough sleep. It is totally self defeating. Training is simple - push it hard, rest and recover. There is only so much to learn....

In Body by Science Doug talks about Training angst:

Monte on over-use injuries, muscle imbalances, or alignment.

Here is another guest post from Monte Hueftle (you may remember my interview with Monte recently). Monte talks again about stress and tension causing physical pain.

This update is geared towards runners or active people who are battling what they think are over-use injuries, muscle imbalances, or having a body that is out of alignment.

I can confidently state to you that in most cases (90%+) your injury is being caused by inner stress and tension and it is not a physical problem. Let me qualify that statement. I am speaking about chronic pain or a chronic injury pattern. Meaning you have had your injury on and off for 2 months or longer. Or you have a chronic injury like sciatica for three months and then it goes away but now you are battling pain in your hip or back or butt. You win these injury battles but there is always a new one challenging you. You have tried numerous treatments and medical specialist but no one knows exactly what is wrong or how to fix it. If they do, what they are prescribing is not working. Does this sound familiar? These are very common experiences of people living with tension-induced pain.

I get a ton of questions about how do you know the difference from pain symptoms that are caused by inner tension and ones caused by physical deficiencies. Here are some guidelines.

1. Does rest, ice, self-massage and anti-inflammatory products provide relief and continued progress? If the answer is yes then this is a good indication it is physical—Diligently stick with what you are doing.
2. Have you tried many different treatments (doctors, chiropractic, massage, injections, physical therapy, new shoes, medications, etc) with mixed results and the bottom-line outcome being you are still in pain or fighting a new injury pattern? This is a good indication your pain is likely caused by inner stress/tension.
3. Does your pain or injury act exactly like you think or believe an injury should act like if it was caused by a physical problem? If so, I want you to understand that tension or stressed induced pain will have you swearing up and down that it has to be a physical cause because of the way it feels and how you became injured. Most likely you first noticed the pain/injury while in your activity or following a workout. This can be more perfect reasoning for you that it has to be a physical cause, right? No, this is also quite common in tension-induced pain. Realize that pain symptoms will in many cases locate in a part of your body that is dominantly being used in an activity. Tennis = shoulder or elbow; rowing = shoulder or back; running = knee, hip, piriformis, sciatica and back; typing = hand/wrist; sitting = piriformis, sciatica, hip; bending over and lifting = back.

One of the big huge points that I want to emphasize to you is that pain/injury caused by inner stress/tension is very real pain. Yes, the cause has psychological components, but in no way, shape or form is anyone suggesting that it is not real or in your head. This is one of the reasons that I never refer to this chronic pain disorder as a psychosomatic disorder. There are too many misconceptions and negative connotations associated around that word and it causes people to avoid the subject all together.

Simply put, tension or inner stress induced pain is caused by behavior patterns (usually type “a” such as: striving, people pleasing, controlling, perfection, worry and being self-conscious) and the thoughts that you think when you are in these behavior modes. Not everyone who is a type “a” person generates chronic pain, but that is not the point. If you identify with these qualities and you have chronic pain/injuries then you need to investigate this disorder.

Another good way to look at this pain disorder is cause and effect. If you are behaving and thinking in ways that are (closed-off, resistant, non-allowing, un-flexible) then through the mind–body connection your body is feeling (closed-off, tight, stiff and un-flexible).

It can be helpful for many to understand the bio-chemical process taking place that is generating pain and other symptoms. When you communicate stress or tension through your thoughts and behaviors, automatically this is received by your autonomic nervous system and your nervous system responds accordingly. Your nervous system constricts blood vessel walls and less blood is now flowing to muscle and nerve tissue. You now have less oxygen reaching your tissue (oxygen deprivation) and this is pain (burning, shooting, constant or spasm, on/off, and moving locations).

What you really want to know is, “how do I stop or reverse this process”. This can be the big, huge, challenging part for athletically minded people who put significant focus on their body and how it is performing!

1. You must begin to accept this diagnosis. At the very least, enough to genuinely engage in the key points below.
2. You have to stop your physical treatments. Why? If you are treating pain caused by psychological factors with physical treatments then you are not treating the cause. You are not changing the whole mind-body dynamic that has you in this chronic/pain injury cycle.
3. Regard the pain symptom as a Signal that is trying to distract you or keep you from the real psychological cause. Choose not to be distracted by focusing on the pain or physical treatments.
4. Instead, ask yourself a psychological question like, “what is going on with me right now, or what is causing me to feel stressed right now, or which one of my type “a” patterns am I in”. When you do this you are not distracted and you are identifying the cause. This one step can break your pain cycle!
5. Begin to practice being in the flow or present-moment based in more areas of your life. Start listening to or observing your thoughts and behavior patterns. When you catch yourself in these patterns ask yourself if there is a more open or more flexible way that you could be thinking and acting. This is important because it takes you out of the patterns that generate inner tension more and more often.
6. Resume or continue your physical activity as long as you are not in so much pain that all you are focusing on is the pain. While in your activity you do not want to be focused in your type “a” patterns and you do not want to focus on the symptoms or on what is wrong with me and how am I going to fix this self talk. Remember, you now know what is going on and you are choosing not to be distracted. Pain is your signal to think psychologically. If you are not sure---email or call me with your questions.
7. Start a practice of journaling about your behaviors, thoughts and feelings. Again this is an example of addressing the psychological factors that are generating inner tension and it opens you up psychologically as well as physically.
8. Begin a practice like power yoga or root lock. Root lock is the breathing and muscle contraction used in power yoga without all of the postures. This is not a physical treatment. These are mindful, highly focused practices that allow you to release tension in the body without creating more tension with your mind!
9. Now with all of this, do it or be it without having it be a treatment that is fixing your pain condition. It is, but as much as possible, take the striving, controlling, perfection, analyzing and worry out of it.

I understand that you just want to run or workout or train and not be in pain. I also know that you want a “quick fix” that prompts you to search anywhere and everywhere for something that has worked for someone at one time or another.

Here is the truth and bottom-line with these physical pain disorders caused by inner tension/stress. The steps that I outlined above can be the quick fix to your symptom. They can also be not quite as quick as you want them to be. I can absolutely tell you that these steps are the permanent solution to end chronic pain/injuries that are caused by inner tension/stress.

This information will resonate with you on some level or not. If it does but you are not quite sure drop me a note. If not, “no worries”, keep it in the back of your mind for future reference if need be.

Stay the course,

Monte Hueftle

www.runningpain.com

P.S. If you would like a personal response from me on your pain/injury situation and the psychological factors that could be involved, fill out this brief survey

Attitude

Positive attitude is really important.

Don't be like this

The benefits of a positive attitude

Every know and again on this blog I talk about the importance of mental factors. I believe we often underplay the psychological factors of health - the need for us to minimise chronic stress, to have a positive outlook on life.

Here is an interesting story from the BBC

Optimistic women had a 9% lower risk of developing heart disease and a 14% lower risk of dying from any cause after more than eight years of follow-up.

In comparison, cynical women who harboured hostile thoughts about others or were generally mistrusting of others were 16% more likely to die over the same time-scale.

One possibility is that optimists are better at coping with adversity, and might, for example take better care of themselves when they do fall ill.
In the study, the optimistic women exercised more and were leaner than pessimistic peers.

Unhappiness, misery is unhealthy....it is not how things were meant to be.

The related story of course is that Divorce makes you ill

A psychological back injury?

I've written before about back injuries coming from psychological stress - for example the interviews with Monte and Adam.

I thought about these principles after the English Wicketkeeper was hurt preparing for the test on Friday:

Wicketkeeper Prior then suffered a back spasm at 1000 BST shortly after the England players finished their football warm up and to make matters worse, England masseur Mark Saxby was struck on the head by a ball during Australia's catching practice.

Reflecting on his freak injury, Prior revealed it had been "really touch and go" over whether he would participate in the match.

"I had a bit of a shocker," he stated. "I've absolutely no idea how or why it happened, I was jogging along and suddenly had a back spasm. It was a tricky situation.

"The toss was pushed back 10 minutes and thanks to the Aussies for letting that happen. Ten minutes isn't a great deal to ask, but it was great they allowed it.

"The keeping was harder [than batting] but I should be fine. The good thing about a back spasm is that it can only get better. I will have a lot of massages this evening and carry on with the drugs this evening and I should be fine tomorrow morning."

Totally out of the blue......prior to a very very stressful situation.......

The Stress of Social Subordination

I've mentioned stress before. Psychological factors are I think under appreciated when it comes to health and fitness.

This story harks back to the ideas of Malcolm Kendrick - author of the Great Cholesterol Con - who sees the cause of heart disease as social stress rather than fat. He explained it in the videos here.

This study particularly looks at the stress of social subordination. I wonder how "natural" that condition is. Unemployment, poverty, nasty bosses, poor relationships, etc all bring such stresses

That is not how it was meant to be

New research links social stress to harmful fat deposits, heart disease

"We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic," Shively said. "Much of the excess fat in many people who are overweight is located in the abdomen, and that fat behaves differently than fat in other locations. If there's too much, it can have far more harmful effects on health than fat located in other areas."

She notes that obesity is directly related to lower socioeconomic status in Western societies, as is heart disease. So, the people who have fewer resources to buffer themselves from the stresses of life are more likely to experience such health problems, she said.

The researchers found that the stress of social subordination results in the release of stress hormones that promote the deposition of fat in the viscera. Visceral fat, in turn, promotes coronary artery atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in the blood vessels that leads to heart disease, the leading cause of death in the world today.