The study is part of ongoing research on British civil servants and is usually called Whitehall II.The researchers are following more than 6,000 men and women who were first evaluated in the early 90’s. Eleven years later whether they had died from a heart attack, had a heart attack but survived, or had significant pain from their hearts (angina). People who regularly worked an extra 3 to 4 hours had 1.6 times the risk of having coronary heart disease than were those who did not.

I’ve written in the this blog and said in my talks that more and more evidence shows that the things that are heart healthy are probably also brain healthy. If you think about how many blood vessels are in your brain, it makes sense that the same things that can have a bad effect on the blood vessels of the heart can also hurt the ones in your brain.

I would say the message is clear: maintain a balance between work and the rest of your life. If you do have to work more than may be good for you, be sure to have a clear strategy for stress management. Close your eyes once or twice a day and just breathe. Maybe you can picture yourself on a beach or sitting by a mountain lake. Doing this regularly can have a surprisingly big impact on your stress levels, even if you are working until 10:00 a night.

Reference:

Virtanen M et al. (2010) Overtime work and incidence coronary heart disease: the Whitehall II prospective cohort study. European Heart Journal advance access, published online May 11, 2010.doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehq124

Brain fitness may help you avoid the risk of being bored, and that’s almost undoubtedly a good thing. In an ongoing study in the UK, researchers found that those who reported the most boredom when they were evaluated in the late 1980s were two and a half times more likely to die by 2009.

But it’s not clear exactly why boredom might increase someone’s risk of death. The authors of the study in the International Journal of Epidemiology suggest that a report of boredom probably represents some other problem. Bored people may be depressed or anxious, for example, factors that have already been related to disease risk in a number of studies. They may be more likely to drink excessively or smoke and less likely to exercise, all factors that might increase risk for cardiovascular disease.

An important part of any brain fitness program is staying actively engaged with friends and the community. Other studies have shown, for example, that having friends or being involved in a volunteer program can reduce the risk of cognitive decline. This finding underlines the fact that your thoughts, feeling, and behavior can have significant effects on your health.

Reference:

Britton A, Shipley MJ. Bored to death? International Journal of Epidemiology, available online February 1, 2010.

Available online (free) at the journal website.

Dias-Ferreira and his colleagues looked at what happens in the brains of rats subjected to stress and required to do a task in which they were reinforced for a specific outcome (something like running in a maze to get a piece of cheese).

Stressed animals didn’t change their behavior in relation to changes outcomes. So they tended to persist in a behavior even if the rewards changed.

Dias-Ferreira and his colleagues also looked at the rat’s brains. The stressed rats showed atrophy of the prefrontal cortex, and more nerve cells and connections in the striatum. That’s significant, because the prefrontal cortex is where many researchers believe that decisions are made. It’s where we can stop and think about where we’re going and decide to keep doing the same thing or try something different. The striatum, on the other hand, is the part of the brain that probably supports an habitual action (like running a specific direction in a maze).

While it’s always a jump from animal research to human behavior, the parallel between this study and what we see in humans are striking. When we’re stressed, we’re much less likely to try something new. This is true even if a situation is changing, and the same rewards aren’t likely to occur.

The study also shows why trying out new things  may be important for brain fitness. Trying out new behaviors, or learning something new, is more likely to activate the prefrontal cortex. That’s a good thing for brain fitness.

The moral to this story has two parts: (1) Manage your stress and (2) try new things to maintain your brain fitness.

Reference:

Dias-Ferreira et al (2009). Chronic stress causes frontostriatal reorganization and affects decision-making. Science, 325, 5940, 621-625.

Stress can affect your memory and other abilities in a number of ways. Psychological stress increases levels of hormones in your body that are known to be toxic to your brain. Chronic stress may cause depression, and depression by itself can affect your memory and your ability to think rapidly and clearly.

How can you tell whether you’re under significant stress? There are a number of stress scales on the Internet. I think the best way is to ask yourself two questions: (1) How often do you feel your ability to cope with things is challenged? and (2) How successful are you at coping with these challenges? The answer to how stressed you are comes from your response to both of these questions. If you feel frequently stressed, but you feel as though you’re doing a pretty good job of coping, your stress level is likely moderate. If you are frequently stressed and feel as though you are just barely hanging on, your stress level is probably much higher.

Coping with stress requires you to recognize that you’re feeling stressed. What causes you stress?

• Can you do anything about it?
• Can you avoid it?
• Try to schedule stressors for the time of day you’re most energetic and able to cope.
• At some point in the day, stop for five minutes and pay attention to your breathing. Interrupt the daily plunge into activity by taking five minutes for yourself.

Take stress seriously, dead seriously. Have a management plan that includes scheduling, exercise, and some form of relaxation.

What to do? First, check out your stress level. Do you often feel tense, worried, and jumpy? Stress might be the reason. How often do you feel out of control, or as though events have gotten away from you? Those are the sorts of experiences that make for increased stress. People sometimes forget that we adapt to stressors, so that after some time we may not even notice how stressed we are.

Simple ways to control stress include mental “time outs,” relaxation, and exercise. Mental “time outs” mean simply taking a few minutes once or twice a day to shift gears. Stop the headlong rush through the day for just a few minutes. Do something else for 10 minutes, but be sure that you take a few seconds to breathe and mentally shift gears. Still better, practice relaxation for 15 minutes twice a day. Simply sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and focus on relaxing the muscles of your body from your head to your feet. Finally, exercise five times a week. It doesn’t mean that you have to go to a gym and lift weights or train for a marathon. Just walking 30 minutes can make a difference

The most important things are to notice your stress level and make a plan for dealing with it. Your memory will thank you.