Can tackling the big questions in life make you less depressed and anxious?

As things are now back to full swing after the summer holiday, and before things get too budy, I wanted to share with you a piece of research that while being 3 years old is still highly relevant.  Researchers were looking at the effectiveness of listening to self-administered hypnosis stress reduction CD's to boost resilience. Eleven subjects took part in the study, all healthy, normally coping and functioning individuals - were provided with a self-administered hypnosis stress reduction CD, to be used for a minimum of 5 days a week over a 12 week period.  The CD contained two different hypnosis tracks, one to be played before sleep (25 minutes in duration) and the other to be played in the morning (lasting 7 minutes). The aim of the CD was to recondition the stress response, by minimising the participants "excessive emotional and physical reaction to perceived work and life stressors, while facilitating their coping skills and resilience."   Chronic stress and anxiety have been associated with inflammatory changes in the body, and high level of inflammation have been lined to a number of acute and chronic conditions.  Blood tests were used to measure the level of inflammatory response and self-reported measures (using the StressScan assesment) were taken pre and post intervention. While the study size is small, it provides some suggestive evidence that a self-administered stress reduction program that is time efficient may be clinically effective for modifying the stress response and boosting resilience. Reference Schoen M and Nowack K (2013)  Reconditioning the stress response with hypnosis CD reduces the inflammatory cytokine IL-6 and influences resilience: a pilot study.  Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice 2013; 19 83-88 http://www.ctcpjournal.com/article/S1744-3881(12)00088-6/abstract

I have never been that keen on the idea of eating genetically modified food.  I understand the economic argument about same amount of land would give you a greater yield and that the crops would be more robust and hence would need less pesticides.  But I have always had my concerns about if scientist truly understood all the implications of modify crops.  In Europe generally the idea of fooling with nature caused widespread protests. Genetically modified crops were more acceptable in North America and were introduced 20 years.  Well I can safely say that any fears I had about any adverse side effects or any other fears of GM crops being "Frankenstein" food that is harmful to humans were laid to rest a long time ago.  So I would say that GM crops are now more acceptable by the European general public, who here in the UK we probably eat GM crops that are imported from North America.  So on the "Frankenstein" criteria they have been very successful. But what about the economic arguments that were put forward 20 years ago.  Data from the united nations reveals that there is no discernible advantage in yields between North America and Europe that didn't introduce GM crops.  Since GM crops like corn, cotton and soyabeans were introduced into North America the use of toxic chemicals to kill insects and fungi has fallen by 33% but the spraying of herbicides has increased by 21%.  In France, the use of insecticides and fungicides has fallen by 65% and herbicide spraying as fallen by 36%. This suggests that GM crops aren't as robust as originally envisaged by scientist and they don't produce more abundant harvests either.  So western europe didn't loose out by not introducing GM crops. Where GM crops do seem to have made a difference according to Matin Qaim, a researcher at Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Germany, is significant yield gains from insect-resistant varieties  of crops in the developing world, particularly in India. References Genetically engineered crops: Experiences and Prospects report see >> https://www.nap.edu/login.php?record_id=23395

According to the UK's Office for National Statistics the UK  economy loses almost 31 million work days per year which costs the UK economy £14 billion to bad backs, neck & other muscle problems.  A bad back is of the most common causes of absence and 80% of p will suffer with people will experience back pain at some point in their lives.  At Vitality Therapy we find back pain is something we treat on a regular basis. I know a lot of my clients and potential clients are interested in what the latest scientific research is on how effective massage is for treating back pain, becuase they don't want to waste their time and money if massage isn't going to help them. Until now scientific studies of the effectiveness of massage were conducted in controlled research situations.  However in a recent study, a physician sent patients to a massage therapist.  The massage therapist designed and provided a series of 10 massage -- at no cost to the patient -- in a clinical treatment environment.  This clinical treatment environment mimicks the experience of people who choose to seek massage in the real world. More than 50 percent of those who participated in the study experienced clinically meaningful improvements in their low back pain.  The reasearches concluded that the study gives primary care providers (i.e. GPs) the confidence to tell patients with chronic low back pain to try massage, if the patients can afford to do so. References http://www.nhsemployers.org/news/2015/04/bad-backs-cost-the-uk-31-million-days-of-work Elder WG, Munk N, et al, 2017, Real Wold Massage Therapy Produces Meaningful Effectiveness Signal for Primary Care Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain: Results of a Repeated Measures Cohort Study, Journal of Pain Medicine, 18(7):1394-1405