Background: Living conditions are becoming challenging day by day. Mental stress on individuals is increasing due to multiple reasons. As mental stress is a major cause of mental illness, it must be ...detected at the earliest to prevent serious conditions such as depression and anxiety. Purpose: The focus of this study is to detect the exact location of the source which causes such damage. In this article, we analyse the mental conditions of subjects under a workload of performing mental arithmetic calculations for various frequency bands and plot the topography to understand the areas of active potentials. Methods: We propose a Novel Cluster Ensemble Verifier (CLEVER) algorithm, which combines two different techniques: clustering and source localisation. The proposed algorithm is highly efficient in identifying the exact location of the source. It is seen that the topographic plots of the independent component analysis (ICA), which has the maximum percentage of relative variance, correlates to the cluster generated. We are able to give the percentage-wise contribution of every component which is responsible for brain source activation with less time complexity. Results: Out of 72 subjects, in 67 subjects, 299 out of 433 components originate from the occipital and parietal areas of the brain with a maximum power of 43.5 µv 2 . As an example, the relative variance of one component is found to be contributing up to 74.03% to source activations. Clusters show similarity across the subjects in the parietal and occipital areas of the brain. The dataset used for experimentation is EEGMAT from Physionet’s repository. The computation time for the algorithms is 17.6 ± 3.2 minutes. Conclusion: Findings show that during mental arithmetic calculations, both occipital and parietal areas of the brain are involved. As the data is acquired by orally mentioning the mathematical problem, subjects tend to visualise the numbers while finding the solution, which is reflected in the occipital area of the brain. CLEVER algorithm verifies the origin of the activity in the occipital and parietal areas of the brain.
Children exposed to extreme stress are at heightened risk for developing mental and physical disorders. However, little is known about mechanisms underlying these associations in humans. An emerging ...insight is that children's social environments change gene expression, which contributes to biological vulnerabilities for behavioral problems. Epigenetic changes in the glucocorticoid receptor gene, a critical component of stress regulation, were examined in whole blood from 56 children aged 11–14 years. Children exposed to physical maltreatment had greater methylation within exon 1F in the NR3C1 promoter region of the gene compared to nonmaltreated children, including the putative NGFI-A (nerve growth factor) binding site. These results highlight molecular mechanisms linking childhood stress with biological changes that may lead to mental and physical disorders.
Emotion regulation is central to psychological health. For instance, cognitive reappraisal (reframing an emotional situation) is generally an adaptive emotion-regulation strategy (i.e., it is ...associated with increased psychological health). However, a person-by-situation approach suggests that the adaptiveness of different emotion-regulation strategies depends on the context in which they are used. Specifically, reappraisal may be adaptive when stressors are uncontrollable (when the person can regulate only the self) but maladaptive when stressors can be controlled (when the person can change the situation). To test this prediction, we measured cognitive-reappraisal ability, the severity of recent life stressors, stressor controllability, and level of depression in 170 participants. For participants with uncontrollable stress, higher cognitive-reappraisal ability was associated with lower levels of depression. In contrast, for participants with controllable stress, higher cognitive-reappraisal ability was associated with greater levels of depression. These findings support a theoretical model in which particular emotion-regulation strategies are not adaptive or maladaptive per se; rather, their adaptiveness depends on the context.
Mental Stress and Cardiovascular Health—Part I Vancheri, Federico; Longo, Giovanni; Vancheri, Edoardo ...
Journal of clinical medicine,
06/2022, Letnik:
11, Številka:
12
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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Epidemiological studies have shown that a substantial proportion of acute coronary events occur in individuals who lack the traditional high-risk cardiovascular (CV) profile. Mental stress is an ...emerging risk and prognostic factor for coronary artery disease and stroke, independently of conventional risk factors. It is associated with an increased rate of CV events. Acute mental stress may develop as a result of anger, fear, or job strain, as well as consequence of earthquakes or hurricanes. Chronic stress may develop as a result of long-term or repetitive stress exposure, such as job-related stress, low socioeconomic status, financial problems, depression, and type A and type D personality. While the response to acute mental stress may result in acute coronary events, the relationship of chronic stress with increased risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) is mainly due to acceleration of atherosclerosis. Emotionally stressful stimuli are processed by a network of cortical and subcortical brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, insula, amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus. This system is involved in the interpretation of relevance of environmental stimuli, according to individual’s memory, past experience, and current context. The brain transduces the cognitive process of emotional stimuli into hemodynamic, neuroendocrine, and immune changes, called fight or flight response, through the autonomic nervous system and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. These changes may induce transient myocardial ischemia, defined as mental stress-induced myocardial ischemia (MSIMI) in patients with and without significant coronary obstruction. The clinical consequences may be angina, myocardial infarction, arrhythmias, and left ventricular dysfunction. Although MSIMI is associated with a substantial increase in CV mortality, it is usually underestimated because it arises without pain in most cases. MSIMI occurs at lower levels of cardiac work than exercise-induced ischemia, suggesting that the impairment of myocardial blood flow is mainly due to paradoxical coronary vasoconstriction and microvascular dysfunction.
Drawing from 2 largely isolated approaches to the study of social stress—stress proliferation and minority stress—the authors theorize about stress and mental health among same-sex couples. With this ...integrated stress framework, they hypothesized that couple-level minority stressors may be experienced by individual partners and jointly by couples as a result of the stigmatized status of their same-sex relationship—a novel concept. They also consider dyadic minority stress processes, which result from the relational experience of individual-level minority stressors between partners. Because this framework includes stressors emanating from both status-based (e.g., sexual minority) and role-based (e.g., partner) stress domains, it facilitates the study of stress proliferation linking minority stress (e.g., discrimination), more commonly experienced relational stress (e.g., conflict), and mental health. This framework can be applied to the study of stress and health among other marginalized couples, such as interracial/ethnic, interfaith, and age-discrepant couples.
Urbanization is a potential threat to mental health and well-being. Cross-sectional evidence suggests that living closer to urban green spaces, such as parks, is associated with lower mental ...distress. However, earlier research was unable to control for time-invariant heterogeneity (e.g., personality) and focused on indicators of poor psychological health. The current research advances the field by using panel data from over 10,000 individuals to explore the relation between urban green space and well-being (indexed by ratings of life satisfaction) and between urban green space and mental distress (indexed by General Health Questionnaire scores) for the same people over time. Controlling for individual and regional covariates, we found that, on average, individuals have both lower mental distress and higher well-being when living in urban areas with more green space. Although effects at the individual level were small, the potential cumulative benefit at the community level highlights the importance of policies to protect and promote urban green spaces for well-being.
Objectives: This study aims to comprehensively explore trends, sentiments, and visualization of mental stress expressions in online communities, focusing on discussions within subreddits on the ...social media platform Reddit. Methods/Analysis: Advanced text analysis and statistical techniques are employed to achieve the study’s objectives. The research utilizes natural language processing (NLP) methods, sentiment analysis, and topic modeling to unravel the intricate layers of mental stress expressions found in posts across diverse subreddits. Additionally, engagement metrics, such as Redditors’ scores and the number of comments, are analyzed to discern distinctive information and patterns of interest. Findings: The research sheds light on prevalent trends, sentiments, and themes related to mental stress in online conversations before and after January 2020. The findings provide valuable insights into patterns of exciting topics, shared experiences of stress, coping mechanisms, and the significant role of virtual communities in offering support and understanding. Novelty/Improvement: The novelty lies in applying advanced text analysis techniques, including sentiment analysis with the majority voting method combining different machine learning techniques and topic modeling with semantic networks, to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of mental stress expressions in online communities. The research explores current patterns and distinguishes itself by examining temporal variations in stress-related posts and their correlation with engagement metrics, offering an innovative perspective on mental health discussions in the digital age. Doi: 10.28991/HEF-2024-05-02-01 Full Text: PDF
Does the language people use to refer to the self during introspection influence how they think, feel, and behave under social stress? If so, do these effects extend to socially anxious people who ...are particularly vulnerable to such stress? Seven studies explored these questions (total N = 585). Studies 1a and 1b were proof-of-principle studies. They demonstrated that using non-first-person pronouns and one's own name (rather than first-person pronouns) during introspection enhances self-distancing. Studies 2 and 3 examined the implications of these different types of self-talk for regulating stress surrounding making good first impressions (Study 2) and public speaking (Study 3). Compared with the first-person group, the non-first-person group performed better according to objective raters in both studies. They also displayed less distress (Studies 2 and 3) and engaged in less maladaptive postevent processing (Study 3). Studies 4 and 5 examined how these different forms of self-talk influence the way people appraise social-anxiety-provoking events. They demonstrated that non-first-person language use (compared with first-person language use) leads people to appraise future stressors in more challenging and less threatening terms. Finally, a meta-analysis (Study 6) indicated that none of these findings were moderated by trait social anxiety, highlighting their translational potential. Together, these findings demonstrate that small shifts in the language people use to refer to the self during introspection consequentially influence their ability to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behavior under social stress, even for vulnerable individuals.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic continues to unfold globally, and its negative impact on the public's mental health is starting to reveal. Serving as reserve talents for the healthcare system, ...medical students are not yet professionally matured enough to face one of the worst global public health crises. This may exert increased mental stress and loneliness feelings, which in turn negatively influence medical students' future career choice. To address the issue, we conducted three online survey studies investigating how the epidemic affects the mental health as well as career attitude of medical students in China during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The results revealed preliminary evidence showing that the perceived stress induced by the COVID-19 epidemic might negatively affect medical students' future career choice, and the feeling of loneliness may play a mediating role. This study invites more attention to medical students' mental health during severe public health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
This article describes 3 studies that explore the role of mindsets in the context of stress. In Study 1, we present data supporting the reliability and validity of an 8-item instrument, the Stress ...Mindset Measure (SMM), designed to assess the extent to which an individual believes that the effects of stress are either enhancing or debilitating. In Study 2, we demonstrate that stress mindsets can be altered by watching short, multimedia film clips presenting factual information biased toward defining the nature of stress in 1 of 2 ways (stress-is-enhancing vs. stress-is-debilitating). In Study 3, we demonstrate the effect of stress mindset on physiological and behavioral outcomes, showing that a stress-is-enhancing mindset is associated with moderate cortisol reactivity and high desire for feedback under stress. Together, these 3 studies suggest that stress mindset is a distinct and meaningful variable in determining the stress response.
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