Kinesio tape
My second blog post for Kinetic Revolution is here. In it, I discuss the evidence for, and possible benefits of using the athletic tape that you will have seen plastered all over the competitors at the London Olympics. Take a look at the post over at Kinetic Revolution to see what I have to say about it.
But don’t forget to come back!
Chris Russell, who runs the popular US-based RunRunLive podcast suggested that I might want to present a short one minute slot in each of his weekly shows summarizing some health research that I have talked about in my blog. I thought it was a great idea, so here is the first podcast in which my Wellbeing Update is included.
This week, I talk about the benefits of taking up exercise, even if you do so for the first time in midlife. The blogpost that talks about that is right here
Here’s the audio. I start talking at about 1 minute 45 seconds:
I have worked in Japan for short periods on a couple of occasions (in 2007 and 2009) and have visited often. I really like Japanese culture, sport, the land and its people and their food. One thing that has really intrigued me is the cultural belief in blood types being important – from what you eat to who you marry. I have always been a sceptic about this, but there seems to be increasing evidence that blood type might be worth looking at further, especially when we talk about heart disease risk.
In an analysis of two large data sets (62,000+ and 27,000+), where people aged 30-75 were followed for 20 years or more, they found over and under representations of various blood types and the heart disease risk associated with having that type. Here’s a summary:
Although the research team considered the relative impacts of gender, race, diet, age, and other factors, they didn’t offer an explanation as to the mechanism of the heart disease risk profile associated with particular blood types. There is other research suggesting that blood type A is associated with higher levels of LDL cholesterol (that’s the bad cholesterol), and that type AB is linked to increased inflammation.
However, there is evidence suggesting that type A is associated with higher levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, the waxy substance that can clog arteries, and type AB is linked to inflammation, which may affect the function of the blood vessels. This inflammation can be reduced through regular exercise – see my post here for details. Also, a substance that plays a favorable role in blood flow and clotting may be higher in people with type O blood may have a higher level of a substance that plays a positive role in blood flow and clotting – and that this may offer some protective effects against the development of heart disease.
This kind of research is useful because it offers a way forward in developing interventions for those who have increased risk for particular diseases. For example, a person with type A blood might be able to best reduce their heart disease risk through lowering cholesterol.
I have no idea how this relates to dietary advice that the Japanese who believe in the influence of blood types on various aspects of life, but I am sure there are people working on it right now. But it does show that although it is perhaps wise to keep a skeptical and wary eye out, paying attention to high quality evidence, it is also good to keep an open mind when the contrary or confirmatory evidence is presented before you.
An encouraging study led by Dr Mark Hamer at my old College – University College London – suggests that it is never too late to start exercising and accrue the protective benefits against heart problems. In a study of over 4000 men and women with an average age of 49 years from the Whitehall II cohort study, their research showed that those who had been exercising regularly seemed to show lower markers of inflammation in their blood assays over 10 years of follow-up. This is important, because inflammation in the body tends to increase as we get older, and this inflammation has been identified as a risk in developing heart disease. As well as confirming the well-known link between exercise and improved heart health, this study seems to be the first to identify the anti-inflammatory effects of exercise as the possible mediating mechanism for these benefits.
The good news in this study is that the level of exercise needed to receive these protective benefits didn’t seem to be all that taxing. A mere 2.5 hours of moderate activity was all that was required to show the associated reduction in inflammatory markers. That means, you don’t have to be chained to a treadmill at the gym – brisk walks that raise a sweat count, as do activities such as gardening and mowing the lawn etc. Aim for around 120 beats per minute or slightly higher. However, its worth noting that people who stuck to their exercise plan for the full 10 years seemed to get the most benefit. Commitment to exercise as a lifestyle still seems to be the best route to wellbeing.
Some caution is still needed in interpreting the results of the study. The research relies upon people reporting their own levels of physical activity, and we tend to over-report this when asked. And the study also looked more at heart problems rather than heart disease itself. I’d be tempted to say that more research is needed, but there are other views on that. Anyway, my view is these findings are a great launchpad to take action.
So, whatever your age, if you’ve been inspired by the Olympics to become more physically active and to step up your exercise, here’s another good reason to do so. Remember though, if you haven’t been so physically active in a while, take things slow and steady. That way, your muscles, heart and lungs can get used to working a bit harder, you won’t feel so bad in the day or two following exercise, and you’ll be much more likely to feel like giving it another go in the following days, weeks and months.
Have fun!
Of course, crying can be distressing, both for the person who is weeping, and the person who witnesses it. Sometimes we cry with sorrow, and sometimes we may shed tears of joy. Crying can also be something of a mystery – even the person crying often reports that they don’t know why they are crying.
Until recently, our understanding of why we cry hadn’t moved much beyond Freud’s model of catharsis. This ‘steam-kettle’ model of emotional release paints a slightly absurd picture that emotions are stored quantities of energy which will cause havoc if bottled up for too long, or released too abruptly. It also litters our language, for example, “blowing off steam” or “boiling over”. Although this steam-kettle model may seem to make sense on the surface, it doesn’t help us to understand why we cry when we are happy.
A more physiological explanation proposed by Jay Efran suggests a two-stage theory of tears. He proposes that tears start to fall when a person shift’s rapidly from a state of autonomic nervous system arousal and high tension to a state of recalibration and recovery. The shift from tension to recalibration and recovery is almost always accompanied by some sort of psychologically meaningful event, such as a child finally finding their parents after they have been lost in a supermarket for a while. When children get lost, typically they don’t tend to cry when they first realise their parents have gone missing. Instead, they scan their environments and search for them, in a state of high alert and some considerable physiological tension. When mum or dad appear from around the corner, that’s when the state of tension is relieved and the crying starts. The tears start to flow when the parasympathetic nervous system is activated – the second stage of the two stage cycle.
Of course, the parent is wondering why they have started to cry after they have re-appeared rather than when the child was lost – “Why are you crying? I’m here!” But the child’s reaction, according to this theory is entirely predictable – wide-eyed hypervigilant scanning in stage 1, and an opening floodgate of tears in stage 2. When parents see crying in this situation, they can be assured that it means the child is relieved to see them. Some children in this situation may start to cry before they find their parent. For example, their physiological system may start to go off duty and shift from sympathetic arousal to more parasympathetic calming nervous system activity when a friendly shop assistant takes their hand and offers to help them find their parent. Or sometimes, they might burst into tears when they exhaust their repertoire for trying to solve a problem, or when they signal that they have temporarily given up the struggle with an intractable problem. Biologically, this serves a purpose in alerting potential helpers nearby that they are struggling, and also offers an opportunity to regroup.
The thing about this theory is that tears don’t flow unless you have been in a state of some autonomic arousal, for whatever reason. However, in the midst of threat, we almost never cry – rather we cry when an opportunity for relief appears. For example, receiving bad news of a bereavement when you are away from home – traveling home stoically to be with your family – and then crying once you see a family member on your doorstep. at home. We perhaps try to maintain the ‘stiff upper lip’ to prevent ourselves from falling into a parasympathetic state where tears are more likely after a period of tension. We hunt around for things to do, to occupy our minds to prevent this progress into stage 2 of the theory of tears.
Typically, we actually cry when we feel safe. So, tears can offer a signal of willingness for others to help. Biologically, we may be more primed to help infants who cry. When we see an adult crying, we may not be so sure of what to do. What can we do to help someone in tears?
Tears seem to be emotionally neutral. The label we attach to them are related to the context in which they occur. Both happy and sad tears follow the pattern of elevated tension followed by an event that triggers a biophysical shift to state that enables recalibration and recovery. If you want to help someone to move from a state of tension or high vigilance to a state where the parasympathetic system is more engaged, ask them to describe a pleasant or joyful time. But remember, the biophysical shift from tension to relaxation is likely to be accompanied by tears. Be prepared, and acknowledge what it will mean for you too.
Living in a society where the overarching message is that you can and should be happy can actually make you more miserable. In studies conducted in both Australia and Japan, the research found that when people think that others expect them not to feel sad, they actually feel more sad. The effect of the expectations of others was even stronger that their own personal expectations of how they should be feeling. The researchers sum up by saying, “In short, when people perceive that others think they should feel happy, and not sad, this leads them to feel sad more frequently and intensely.”
It’s interesting that the study conceptualises emotions as essentially social phenomena – not solely individual experiences – a trap we can sometimes fall into. Our emotional experiences are actively shaped not only by our own internal world, but very much also through how others expect us to feel. The ironic effect of people expecting us not to be sad actually making us feel sad more often (and more intensely) can also perhaps teach us something about our other experiences, such as with life satisfaction or depression. As a society, we tend to emphasise the experience of feeling good over other experiences. This is perfectly understandable – being happy has lots of benefits – and perhaps our intention is to inspire people to change their lives so they can also experience our shared goal of increased happiness, and spend less time in other, less valued emotional states. Yet, if we as a society are not more accepting of other emotional states and see them as valuable too, we could unintentionally be setting people up to feeling more miserable instead.
We tend to send out messages that feeling sad is a bit like failing. Happy people are vital, successful people, and the way to becoming a vital, successful person is to be happy. Different people seem to have different emotional settings – some experience more sadness than others. The difficulty comes in rejecting our own experience because we feel we should be having some other, more valued experience instead. And although our own lack of acceptance of our sad feelings can be a problem that actually makes us feel more miserable, this research suggests that societal rejection of sadness and promotion of happiness above all other emotional states can make things even worse.
Acceptance of the full range of our experience – even though some of these may be uncomfortable or distressing for us – sets us on the right path to avoid the trap of trying to control our emotions to fit in with society says we should be feeling. Controlling our experience is a natural thing to try to do when we are experiencing unpleasant states – and it works for some in the short-term – but there are long-term costs. I talk through some examples of how futile it is to try to control our experiences here.
Of course, we can also advocate for a more realistic societal understanding of the full range of emotional experience – something I believe in. It was interesting that the research participants in Japan expected more of a balance between different emotional states compared to the Australian participants, and that the Japanese tended to see the pursuit of happiness as slightly dubious. Nevertheless, the effects of societal expectations were present in both countries. There is still much work to do.
Assertiveness has been defined ‘as standing up for one’s rights without anger’, and aggression ‘as standing up for one’s rights with anger’ (Hauck, 1991a, p.207). When you act with assertiveness, you recognise that the other person has rights too, and you act accordingly to try to come to a solution that satisfies both sides. However, if you behave as if only your rights counts, you are much more likely to behave in an intimidating, manipulating or demanding manner – your aim is to come out on top at the expense of the other person. This is acting with aggression.
If you intend to act assertively, it’s probably wise to ask yourself a couple of questions, just to check you aren’t straying over the line into aggression:
People often sign up for assertiveness training in the hope that will help them to be mores elf-confident, get more control of their lives, and therefore help to remove feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. However, assertiveness won’t do all that for you – seeking to control your life to such an extent is, to a large extent, a wild goose chase. Behaving assertively won’t mean you get everything you want. Nor will it solve all your problems. Equally, behaving assertively doesn’t mean that you must act in this manner all the time, nor will it make you an all-round superhero and good person. However, it might help you to get more of what you want and less of what you don’t want. It will undoubtedly help you to solve some of your problems. Being prudent and smart about how you use your assertiveness skills will also enable you to know when to keep silent, or to take a low-key approach. Sometimes, to steal a phrase from Walen, ‘discretion may be the better part of assertion’.
Let’s cut to the chase. Here’s how to act more assertively.
8 steps to self-assertion (adapted from Dryden, 1992, Life coaching, a cognitive behavioural approach).
Remember, it won’t solve everything, but practicing assertiveness can get you more of what you want. Good luck!
Today, I was a guest on Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon in their parenting slot. We talked about transitions to daycare and school, and also playing with small children. The whole thing lasts about 15 minutes, and you can listen to it, or download here.
Or you can listen to it right here: [audio http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20120809-1133-parenting_-_sarb_johal-048.mp3]
I enjoyed it, and hopefully, you find it interesting to listening to. I hope to be invited back sometime in September. Let me know if you’ve any ideas as to what we could talk about.
When I talk about writing, I don’t mean this – blogging – that is, writing in a public way. What I mean is writing privately about things in your life that you are finding stressful and difficult. You know, like keeping a private diary or a journal.
There is an increasing amount of evidence indicating that writing about stressful situations is one of the easiest ways for people to understand circumstances, events, feelings and thoughts that they find themselves returning to in their minds. It may also provide a means to perhaps safely expose themselves to troubling thoughts, that become less troubling as a result of the writing process. Dozens of studies have explored the many psychological and physical benefits for different populations, and the different conditions under which the writing protocol is effective. The protocol itself is pretty simple, and relatively standard. Here are the instructions we gave in a study we did:
“During today’s writing session, we would like you to spend about 10 minutes writing about a traumatic or upsetting experience that has happened to you. The important thing is that you write about your deepest thoughts and feelings. Ideally, whatever you write about should deal with an event or experience that you have not talked with others about in detail.” We asked our participants to do this again on Day 2 and Day 3 of the study too. Of course, not everyone has a traumatic experience, but all of us have had major conflicts or stressors in our lives. That was OK to write about too.
This writing protocol is quite powerful. Time and time again, the results have demonstrated that when people are given the opportunity to write about deeply personal aspects of their lives, they readily do so. It was a very sobering experience being part of the study team in this kind of research. Even though a large number of participants across numerous studies report crying or being pretty upset by the experience, the overwhelming majority reported that the writing experience was valuable and meaningful in their lives.
Although this is a topic area that I have been interested ever since my early postgraduate days (here is a paper that I published on this technique being used out of the laboratory situation, and another early paper here on the potential benefits ), the mechanisms underlying these potential benefits are not well understood. Inhibition was originally proposed as the explanation in early work in the 1980s- that is, the work of not talking about emotional upheaval ultimately led to stress and illness, However, researchers now recognize that this is only part of the picture, and that the effective mechanisms are likely to be more complex and nuanced than this. Not talking about stressful experiences can contribute to social networks being disrupted or breaking down, a decrease in working memory capacity, disturbed sleep, alcohol and drug problems and an increased risk for further stressful events. However, it does seem that expressive writing can help to short-circuit this negative circle.
Expressive writing forces people to pause and reevaluate their life story and circumstance. The process of writing also helps to impose a structure beyond mere labeling and acknowledgement of emotions. The act of writing also forces a translation of our thoughts, feelings and images into words – an entirely different representation in the brain, memory, and how we think on a daily basis. All of this may help us to come to a different understanding of our lives, our worlds, and our place in them. As a result of this process, perhaps we begin to talk more, to connect with others differently. Perhaps we come to value the support of others around us. We also see from the research evidence that many unhealthy behaviors start to fall away. Expressive writing also seems to promote sleep and enhance immune function.
Expressive journal writing should not be seen as a cure-all,as the overall effect size for this kind of protocol is modest. We are still not sure about who it works best for, when it should be used, or when other things should be tried instead. The benefits may be slow to come, and may show itself in ways that we don’t yet realize. But it does seem like a promising avenue to research and practice. I have certainly kept a private diary at times in my life when I have been struggling to make sense of things, and I have found it useful. You might too.
My first post on Jame’s Dunne’s excellent site. James runs a specialist coaching site for Ironman, Marathon and Cycling enthusiasts, including those competing at top-level. I’m really pleased to be invited – so here’s a link to Kinetic Revolution, and my post on cheering spectators: do they encourage champions or choking?
Dr Sarb Johal - Complete Coach 