A 50-year study of British residents suggests psychological problems experienced during childhood can have a long-lasting impact throughout an individual’s life course.

Researchers discovered childhood problems reduced people’s earnings and decreased the chances of establishing long-lasting relationships.

Scientists followed a large group of British residents for five decades from the week of their birth. During this period, researchers found that family income was about one-fourth lower on average by age 50 among those who experienced serious psychological problems during childhood than among those who did not experience such problems.

In addition, childhood psychological problems were associated later in life with being less conscientious, having a lower likelihood of being married and having less-stable personal relationships, according to findings being published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

“These findings demonstrate that childhood psychological problems can have significant negative impacts over the course of an individual’s life, much more so than childhood physical health problems,” said James P. Smith, Ph.D., one of the study’s authors and a senior economist at the RAND Corporation.

“The findings suggest that increasing efforts to address these problems early in children may have large economic payoffs later in life.”

The researchers found a significant difference between family income levels between those with childhood mental problems, versus childhood physical problems. While family income at age 50 is reduced by 25 percent or more due to childhood mental problems, income is reduced only 9 percent due to major childhood physical health problems and only 3 percent due to minor physical health problems.

A central reason for the larger impact of childhood mental health problems is their effects take place much earlier in childhood and persist, researchers say.

The study is the latest in a growing body of evidence that shows psychological troubles early in life can have a long-term negative impact on earnings and social relationships.

An earlier study co-authored by Smith showed that childhood psychological problems had a major impact on adult socioeconomic standing, costing $2.1 trillion over the lifetimes of all affected Americans.

The results found for the American sample closely parallel those found for the British sample. Another source of concern is that in both America and Britain childhood mental problems appear to be increasing over time.

The latest study was conducted by analyzing information collected as part of the National Child Development Study, which has followed the lives of a single group of 17,634 children who were born in Britain during the first week of March in 1958.

Information has been collected from the group periodically, including surveys about childhood physical and psychological health through physician-led examinations, extensive parental questionnaires and teacher reports. The study includes detailed information about participants’ parents, including socio-economic details and family circumstances such as whether there was instability in the home.

Researchers found that the negative economic impact of childhood psychological problems were apparent early in adulthood, with household income 19 percent lower among 23-year-olds who had psychological problems as a child as compared to those who did not.

Some of the smaller family income is caused by a lower likelihood that those who had childhood psychological problems will live with a partner as an adult. By age 50, people who had childhood psychological problems had a 6 percent lower probability of being married or cohabitating and an 11 percent lower chance of working.

The National Child Development Study includes assessments of participants’ cognitive functioning and personality traits at age 50, allowing researchers to estimate the impact of childhood psychological problems in those areas.

Children with mental health issues showed reduced cognitive abilities as adults, possibly because their psychological problems make it difficult for them to concentrate and remember, researchers say. Childhood mental health problems also had a negative impact at age 50 on agreeableness and conscientiousness, two key measures of personality.

Researchers found childhood mental health problems also had significant effects on inhibiting social mobility across and within generations and reduced the number of distinct continuous jobs a person held as an adult.

This is important because one way people increase their income is by changing jobs and moving on to better opportunities.

Source: Rand Corporation

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Not getting enough sleep can lead to short-term euphoria, possibly leading to poor decision-making and risky behavior, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Medical School.

The study revealed that the pleasure circuitry in the brains of volunteers got a jump-start after a missed night’s sleep. However, that same neural pathway that triggers euphoria as well as feelings of reward and motivation may also lead to chancy behavior.

“When functioning correctly, the brain finds the sweet spot on the mood spectrum. But the sleep-deprived brain will swing to both extremes, neither of which is optimal for making wise decisions,” said Dr. Matthew Walker, lead author and associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley.

The findings emphasize the need for people in critical professions and circumstances not to skip out on sleep, said Walker.

“We need to ensure that people making high-stakes decisions, from medical professionals to airline pilots to new parents, get enough sleep,” Walker said. “Based on this evidence, I’d be concerned by an emergency room doctor who’s been up for 20 hours straight making rational decisions about my health.”

Previous studies have shown that sleep patterns are disrupted in individuals suffering from mood disorders. Typically, the sleeping body alternates between two main phases during the night: Rapid Eye Movement (REM), when body and brain activity promote dreams, and Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM), when the brain and muscles rest.

In an effort to understand why so many people with clinical depression tend to feel better after a sleepless night  (at least temporarily), scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)to observe the brains of 27 young adults; half got a good night’s sleep and the other half had none.

Volunteers looked at various images, including pleasant scenes (such as bunnies or ice cream sundaes), and then rated the pictures as either neutral or positive. Across the board, those who had pulled an all-nighter gave more positive scores for all the images while the well-rested volunteers gave more moderate ratings.

In addition, brain scans of the sleepless individuals revealed stronger activity in the mesolimbic pathway, a brain circuit driven by dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with positive feelings, motivation, addiction, cravings, sex drive and decision-making.

While having a short-term boost in dopamine levels may seem like a good thing, this phenomenon can be dangerous if people are making impulsive decisions because they’re feeling overly optimistic, the study suggests.

The results add to prior research by Walker and his team that show how sleep deprivation shuts down the brain’s key decision-making regions, particularly the prefrontal cortex, while triggering more primal mechanisms such as the fight-or-flight reflex in the amygdala.

“After a good night’s sleep, the frontal lobe regions are strongly connected to the dopamine reward regions, but that’s not the case after a night of no sleep,” Walker said.

According to Walker, sleep deprivation is not a viable solution for those with clinical depression.  “The elastic band of sleep deprivation can only be stretched so far before it breaks,” he said.

The study is published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Source:  University of California

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The stigma of mental illness, weak patient-physician communication and an underuse of medications combine to hinder Latinos’ recovery from depression.

A study appearing in the March-April issue of General Hospital Psychiatry confirms that cultural barriers impede appropriate mental health care.

Authors followed the recovery of 220 Latinos who screened positive for depression at two clinics in Los Angeles County over 30 months.

Overall, they found that nearly 70 percent of participants improved, albeit slowly, following a course of antidepressants and with the benefit of good physician-patient communication, but stigma remained an important barrier.

Most of the participants were underemployed, Spanish-speaking Latinas with limited education, who had access to health care insurance.

“Doctor-patient communication is often the primary tool for bridging the gap between patients’ perspectives and the biomedical model that underlies medication-based treatments for depression,” said lead author Alejandro Interian, Ph.D.

Previous studies affiliated with the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research show that only 36 percent of depressed Latinos receive treatment compared with 60 percent of non-Latino whites. Latinos also are less likely to start on a course of antidepressants than whites and more likely to stop before the course runs out.

Sherrie Segovia, Ph.D., the mental health coordinator at the Hope Street Family Center/CHMC in Los Angeles, works predominantly with Latino immigrants. Her experience is consistent with Interian’s results.

“A high number of women receive prescriptions for antidepressants while complaining of headaches, backaches and stomach aches,” Segovia said.

“Once confronted with the possibility of mental illness, they are unwilling or afraid to take medication. Some of their beliefs are associated with religion and cultural mores, while others have concerns with the stigma of being ‘crazy’.”

Interian said that skilled physician-patient communication could allay these worries while respecting cultural concerns.

He recommended increasing the number of mental health professionals who speak other languages and understand different cultures, while ensuring that quality care is available to socially disadvantaged populations.

Segovia said, “The challenges from a clinician’s perspective are related to treatment that is culturally sensitive, as many Latinos also suffer from the effects of immigration, isolation and poverty.”

Source: Health Behavior News Service

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The next time you’re nervously prepping for an exam or a crucial job interview, consider this: taking a break to exercise may help you stay calm and focused as you complete your big task.

Exercise is an effective short-term treatment for anxiety, said Jonathan Abramowitz, Ph.D., director of the Anxiety and Stress Disorders Clinic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In fact, research suggests that — at least for temporary anxiety — exercise can be just as effective a coping tool as medication or psychotherapy, he said.

Although we often think of it negatively, anxiety is a normal emotion, Abramowitz said. It evolved in our ancestors as a response to danger, such as a nearby predator. When you perceive a threat, you begin sweating, your heart rate increases and your breathing accelerates — the “fight or flight” response. 

Of course, many modern dangers – such as a bad grade or an unsatisfactory job interview – can’t be thwarted by fighting or fleeing. In those cases, you may be left with only the unpleasant effects of anxiety, such as sweaty palms and a pounding heart.

Exercise can help you manage anxiety by distracting you from your worries and giving you a feeling of accomplishment, Abramowitz said. It also causes your body to release endorphins, pain-relieving chemicals that suffuse you with feelings of well-being.

Among the tips he offers for helping to relieve anxiety:

• When you start a new exercise routine, set goals that are reasonable for your ability. You’re less likely to injure yourself — and thus cause yourself additional distress — if you break your sessions into small, frequent increments.
•  How much exercise does it take to manage anxiety? That depends, Abramowitz said. If you’re already in good physical condition, try aiming for thirty minutes of exercise, three to five days a week. But generally, you’ll need to exercise just long enough to have a true break from your normal environment.
• When should you see a doctor? About 40 million American adults have anxiety disorders, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Although exercise can help you manage anxiety in the short term, it’s not an effective long-term treatment for anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks or phobias, Abramowitz said. If you spend more than half of your time worrying about something, or if your anxiety doesn’t diminish within a week or so, you should talk with a professional.
• Avoid taking benzodiazepines, often sold under the names Xanax, Valium, Klonopin. Those are quick-acting medicines that dampen the fight-or-flight response, and they can be habit-forming, Abramowitz said: “They’re not a long-term fix.”

Abramowitz also recommends that people shouldn’t hesitate to seek out professional advice when these tips fail to help. A therapist can help you learn additional techniques for managing your anxiety without medicine.

“People should try cognitive-behavior therapy with a well-trained mental health professional before they take medicine for anxiety,” he said, “because these problems are very treatable.”

Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine

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Various kinds of psychotherapy are increasingly available via new technologies, but little is known about the effectiveness of these novel delivery systems. Now, two psychologists have launched a program using online videoconferencing to help make treatment available to people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who might not otherwise have access to psychological help.

Drs. James Herbert and Evan Forman of Drexel University have designed a program that treats individuals with OCD through Skype,  a computer software application that allows users to make voice calls and videoconference over the Internet.

According to the Drexel researchers, programs like Skype could revolutionize how therapy is provided, particularly in cases in which individuals need highly specialized mental health treatment, as is the case with OCD.

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that one in four Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder, and of those more than 2.2 million people with anxiety disorders have OCD. An extremely debilitating anxiety disorder (despite how it is depicted in the media, most notably on the TV show Monk), it is responsible for roughly 8.4 billion dollars per year in social and economic losses in the United States.

Many professionals don’t know how to deliver highly effective, non-medication treatment for OCD and patients often don’t have access to high-quality treatment to address their needs.

The researchers aim to study the effectiveness and feasibility of videoconferencing treatment as a user-friendly and low-cost option for people seeking psychological counseling.

Source: Drexel University

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