Stress and Health最新文献

The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the following conflict has impacted Israeli society, causing widespread distress. While research has examined the direct impacts of such events, less attention has been given to how sociopolitical and demographic factors impact resilience outcomes during prolonged conflict. This study examines the mediating role of individual resilience in the relationships between key factors (including demographic variables, political stance, and religiosity) and psychological outcomes (community resilience and psychological distress) across five time points following the October 7 attack. A representative sample of 957 Israeli adults completed surveys at five time points following October 7, 2023. Linear Mixed Models with random intercepts evaluated relationships between demographic and sociopolitical factors and individual resilience, community resilience, and psychological distress. Mediation analyses examined individual resilience as a mechanism connecting these factors to psychological outcomes. Community resilience significantly declined across five time points, whereas individual resilience was consistently positively associated with community and lower psychological distress. Mediation analyses showed that individual resilience explained the effect of gender, age, income, and government support on resilience and psychological distress. The study found that religiosity's impact on individual resilience strengthened over time, yet its protective effect against psychological distress was direct rather than mediated. This study's results show the importance of enhancing individual resilience to mitigate long-term psychological distress and declining community resilience. This study found that individual resilience is a mechanism through which demographic and sociopolitical factors impact community resilience and psychological distress during a prolonged conflict. The findings show the importance of targeting individual resilience in interventions while acknowledging the direct protective association between religiosity and psychological distress. These results offer important insights for developing tailored support strategies for diverse populations experiencing an ongoing conflict.

Breathwork - deliberately altering the way one breathes - has gained growing attention as an emerging non-pharmacological intervention for mental health and stress regulation. A novel yet ancient method that remains largely underexplored in the literature, breathwork requires structured, evidence-based investigation to optimize its application. This review analyses the existing literature on slow, diaphragmatic, nasal breathing and breath-holding techniques, to propose the A52 Breath Method-a theoretically grounded approach for enhancing stress resilience. A narrative review of breathwork literature was conducted that focused on the physiological and psychological mechanisms underpinning stress reduction. Medical databases were searched: 465 articles were screened and 30 studies underwent full-text review. Studies examining slow breathing (≤ 6 breaths per minute), diaphragmatic activation, nasal breathing, and breath holds were analyzed for their effects on autonomic nervous system regulation, heart rate variability (HRV), and psychological resilience. The findings indicate that slow, nasal, diaphragmatic breathing significantly improves vagal tone, HRV, parasympathetic activity, and emotional control, while reducing cortisol, anxiety, stress, and PTSD. The integration of these elements in the 5-s inhale, 5-s exhale, 2-s hold pattern (A52 Breath Method) provides a structured approach to breathwork with potential applications in high-stress professions, including emergency responders, military personnel, healthcare workers, and everyday life. The A52 Breath Method represents a novel, evidence-informed breathwork framework designed to optimize stress regulation. Future research should validate its efficacy through randomised controlled trials, particularly in populations exposed to chronic and acute stress. This conceptual model has the potential to inform clinical and occupational interventions for mental health and stress resilience.

Public safety personnel (PSP) and healthcare providers (HCP) are routinely exposed to potentially psychologically traumatic events and are at increased risk of developing mental disorder symptoms and posttraumatic stress injuries (PTSI). The Before Operational Stress program (BOS) is an evidence-informed mental health and resiliency training programme designed to mitigate the effects of PTSI. We conducted 41 in-depth semi-structured interviews with PSP and HCP who had completed the BOS program to investigate whether and how the programme benefits mental health, and how the content can integrate with their personal and professional lives. Data were analysed using team-based template analysis. The four overarching themes that emerged were: (1) health journeys; (2) the ripple effect of helping; (3) the destabilising effect of organizational pressures; and (4) context matters to how the programme was received. Each main theme was developed and supported by multiple subthemes explored herein. The results indicated BOS was well-received and helpful to participants at various career stages while furthering the discourse on mental health in PSP and HCP workplaces; however, difficulties were reported related to persistent stigma around mental health injuries. Organizational policies and systemic strains appear to be key contextual determinants and barriers.

The ability to distinguish between self- and other-related mental representations is crucial for navigating complex social environments. This capacity, known as self-other distinction (SOD), plays a fundamental role in social cognition, allowing individuals to understand others' thoughts and emotions without confusing them with their own. Despite growing interest in understanding the role of SOD in clinical populations, little is known about the factors that influence the capacity for SOD in non-clinical samples. Here, we investigated the relative contribution of self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and emotion dysregulation to the capacity for SOD in a sample of adults (N = 164, age range: 18-39 years, M_age = 24.91 years, SD = 5.19) who reported no history of psychiatric or neurological disorders. We assessed the capacity for SOD using the imitation-inhibition task. Participants also provided self-reports of emotional states of depression, anxiety, stress, and emotion dysregulation. Multiple regression analyses revealed that higher depressive symptoms were associated with enhanced SOD performance, whereas elevated anxiety and emotion dysregulation were linked to impaired SOD. We also found that stress did not predict SOD. Importantly, the association between SOD and depression deviates from prior literature, as previous studies typically link depression to deficits in social cognition. Our results contribute to the broader literature on SOD by providing evidence that emotional states can facilitate or hinder SOD in a general population sample. These findings may have important practical implications for early identification and therapeutic interventions for individuals who experience self-other processing differences, including some autistic individuals, as well as those with personality disorders.

Resilience helps mitigate the negative impacts of stress and promotes effective adaptation in adverse situations. This study investigated the impact of immediate and standardized mindfulness meditation (MM) on the resilience of college students, aiming to offer adaptable MM practices for different stress scenarios. The blood pressure (BP) and heart rate variability (HRV) of 48 participants were assessed during rest, stress, immediate MM, and repeated stress conditions. They were then randomly distributed into two groups to undergo an 8-week standardized MM intervention (n = 24) or a sham MM intervention (n = 24). Emotional states and mindfulness levels were evaluated at baseline (W0), post-training (W8), and a 12-week follow-up (W20) using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). HRV and BP were measured under resting and stress conditions after training. Compared to the initial stress condition, immediate MM significantly enhanced normalized high-frequency HRV (nHF), while reducing BP, normalized low-frequency HRV (nLF), and LF/HF. No notable changes in HRV or BP were observed across different stress conditions. After an 8-week intervention, both groups exhibited significant reductions in DASS-21 and enhancements in FFMQ, persisting at follow-up. The standard deviation of the normal-to-normal interval was notably elevated under stress compared to rest in both groups. In the meditation group, stress-induced BP significantly decreased. Immediate MM effectively reduces stress responses, while standardized MM improves resilience and offers sustained benefits, suggesting that college students can select various meditation practices to address different stress scenarios. TRAIL REGISTRATION: The trial was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ref. ChiCTR2300070457).

Children with a chronic physical illness (CPI) experience significant stress and are at a greater risk of psychopathology. However, little is known about chronic stress and its relationship with psychopathology in this population. Over the last decade, hair cortisol concentration (HCC) has emerged as a viable biomarker of chronic stress. This study identified trajectories of HCC in children with a CPI and examined their associations with psychopathology. The study included data from 244 children enroled in the Multimorbidity in Children and Youth across the Life-course (MY LIFE) study. MY LIFE is a prospective study of children aged 2-16 years with a CPI recruited from outpatient clinics at a Canadian paediatric hospital and followed for 48 months. Children provided 3-cm hair samples for cortisol assay and parents reported psychopathology symptoms using the Emotional Behavioural Scales. We identified three HCC trajectories: (1) Hypersecretion (n = 166, 68.03%); (2) Hyposecretion (n = 21, 8.61%); and (3) Hyper-to-Hypo (n = 57, 23.36%). When adjusting for sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, children in the Hyper-to-Hypo class had lower internalising (β = -3.17, p = 0.005) and externalising (β = -2.27, p = 0.007) psychopathology symptoms compared to the Hypersecretion class. This study provides evidence that children with a CPI follow distinct HCC trajectories. Children who followed a decreasing trajectory exhibited lower psychopathology symptoms compared to children who followed a consistently elevated trajectory, indicating that chronically high cortisol levels may contribute to the development of psychopathology.

The present study explored the role of two types of uncertainty attitudes, that is, risk and ambiguity, in the relationship between childhood stress and depressive symptoms among 214 undergraduates. Participants completed an economic decision-making task designed to assess their attitudes towards risk and ambiguity. Risk attitude and ambiguity attitude were quantified using a theoretical model of decision-making under uncertainty. Childhood stress was measured by the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and depressive symptoms by the Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS). Results indicated that higher levels of childhood stress were significantly associated with greater risk aversion but not with ambiguity attitude. Moreover, risk attitude statistically moderated the relationship between childhood stress and depressive symptoms, with gender differences emerging in the direction of this effect. Specifically, among females, increased risk aversion strengthened the association between childhood stress and depressive symptoms. In contrast, in males, greater risk aversion weakened this relationship. These findings suggest that risk attitude may operates in a context-dependent and gender-specific manner, highlighting the need for tailored interventions.

Anxiety-depression comorbidity in adolescents has become an urgent public health problem, and childhood abuse has been proven to be associated with it. However, the mechanisms that drive this association are still relatively underexplored. This study investigated the cognitive and emotional mechanisms underlying this association, and whether these are moderated by teacher and peer support. Data came from 1184 Chinese adolescents (M_AgeTime1 = 13.82 years, SD = 1.50; 53.5% boys) from a three-wave longitudinal study with data spanning 1.5 years. Results revealed that a general factor (the internalizing factor) can capture the common etiology of anxiety and depression. Interpretation bias and emotion regulation difficulties mediated the association between childhood abuse and the internalizing factor. Furthermore, high teacher support buffered the positive association between emotion regulation difficulties and the internalizing factor, amplifying the positive association between interpretation bias and the internalizing factor. These findings emphasize the importance of individual cognition, emotional, and social contexts in adolescents with abuse experiences and provide empirical evidence for the intervention and clinical treatment of anxiety and depressive symptoms.

This study examined how U.S. Army Soldiers' subjective perceptions of organizational affect relate to holistic mental health across the deployment cycle. Using a repeated cross-sectional design, 1554 Soldiers completed surveys before (T1), during (T2), and after (T3) deployment. Perceptions of organizational affect were conceptualised along two theoretically grounded dimensions: ambiance (emotional tone) and vigour (motivational energy), and measured using a novel validated scale. Factor analyses identified four distinct perceptions: suffering (negative ambiance, low vigour), contentment (positive ambiance, low vigour), restlessness (negative ambiance, high vigour), and zeal (positive ambiance, high vigour). General linear models showed that perceptions of organizational affect at T2 and T3 were significantly associated with psychological distress, hedonic happiness, and eudaimonic thriving at those time points, controlling for pre-deployment (T1) holistic mental health. Perceptions of suffering were linked to increased distress, perceptions of contentment to greater happiness, and perceptions of both zeal and restlessness to greater thriving. Perceptions of organizational affect accounted for 5%-15% of the variance in holistic mental health outcomes. These findings underscore the importance of both perceptions of organizational ambiance and vigour in shaping mental health and well-being and suggest opportunities for targeted interventions in high-stakes occupational environments like military deployments.

The literature has consistently demonstrated that being the victim of interpersonal violence increases the risk of future interpersonal violence (i.e., revictimisation). In this context, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is highly important since it has been investigated as a risk factor and consequence of revictimisation. The aim of the current study was to (a) compute a rate of revictimisation across types of interpersonal violence, and (b) examine which factors are associated with observed rates of revictimisation. We conducted a pre-registered systematic search in PubMed, APA PsycInfo, PTSDpubs, Web of Science, and Scopus, that resulted in N = 1286 individual records and n = 19 inclusions (PROSPERO ID: CRD42023446788). Criteria for inclusion were: adult human sample, assessment of PTSD symptoms that precedes assessment of interpersonal revictimisation, published in a peer-reviewed journal, longitudinal study design. Most studies focused on intimate partner revictimisation, followed by sexual revictimisation. The pooled rate of revictimisation was 39.2% for the overall group, and 53.4% for those experiencing intimate partner revictimisation. Only the proportion of females was positively associated with the observed rate of revictimisation. None of the other factors: presence of severe PTSD symptoms, mode of assessment (PTSD), type of sample, or duration of the follow-up period, were associated with the rates of revictimisation. We recommend the use of gold-standard assessment for PTSD, more representative and more clearly defined samples, and the development of a validated measure of revictimisation. For clinicians, we recommend paying attention to and providing psychoeducation about revictimisation and potential ways to prevent this. In sum, revictimisation is highly prevalent, but remains poorly understood. This gap may be addressed by rigorous methodological improvements (research) and psychoeducation (clinical practice).