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Stress

Surprising Trait of Spouse May Improve Your Health and Life

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Spouse optimism benefits
Photo courtesy of Flickr.com

Optimistic people are fun to be around; negative people drain you. What if the boost from optimism or drain from pessimism was not limited to emotional effects?

When you ask someone how his or her day is going, do you REALLY want to know that he or she had a flat tire on the way into work, one child is home sick and they don’t have the money for the mortgage?  If you live a negative life, then you can bet that everyone who asks you is ask the “how is your day” question rhetorically.  On the flip side, if you just won the Lotto, your spouse just booked a trip on a Mediterranean cruise and your new stray dog that you rescued from abuse was house broken on day 3, then the question was NOT rhetorical and please share!

Time and time again in research studies we see that pessimism and optimism have direct impacts on health.  Negative people tend to stress out more and we all know how much stress destroys health.  All of this is clear.  But just how far does the protection of optimism extend?  This particular study starts to answer this very question.  In it, researchers looked at  3940 adults (1970 couples) over 50 from the Health and Retirement Study.  These couples were tracked for four years for how much optimism had an impact on spousal health and well-being.  Here’s what they found:

  • Being optimistic led to higher self-rated health, physical functioning and fewer chronic illnesses.
  • Having an optimistic spouse also led to better physical functioning and fewer chronic illnesses.
  • The strength of the relationship between optimism and health did not diminish over time (in other words, optimism exerted a constant benefit on health).

This study can be looked at in one of two ways.  And I guess which way pops into your head first will tell you whether you’re an optimist or pessimist.  First (the optimistic thought process) is that being happy and thinking positively is going to bring, not only your health and well-being up, but your partner’s as well.   Pluses all around.

The second (the pessimist) thought is that being negative will drag your partner towards less health and well-being along with you.

Personally, my first thought when I read this was that my wife owes me dinner (at the least!).

The bottom line is that your thoughts do not affect just YOUR health.  They affect the health of those around you as well.  And you can bet that children are affected far, far more than a spouse is because children are so much more vulnerable emotionally.  If you do not consider yourself a positive person, you do NOT have to be stuck there.  There are any number of tips, tools and help available to turn yourself into an optimistic person.  But first you have to admit that you have a problem.

 

Treatment of Fibromyalgia with Antidepressants – (11-16-00)

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Treatment of Fibromyalgia with Antidepressants

This is always a touchy subject when it comes to patients who experience pain in any form. Many patients do experience some reduction in symptoms with antidepressants, but this may be from the overlay of psychological stress leading to additional pain, NOT from the original pain generator itself. This does not mean the symptoms are psychological in origin. Unfortunately, many physicians are so limited in their arsenal against many chronic diseases that antidepressants are their only tool.

Synergy Abstract

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Impaired Nighttime Sleep in Healthy Old vs Young Adults – (05-20-03)

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Impaired Nighttime Sleep in Healthy Old vs Young Adults Associated with Elevated IL-6 and Cortisol Levels

Wow!! The implications of this study are quite exciting. Basically, a marker of inflammation (interleukin-6) and cortisol levels (the body’s stress hormone) are associated with poor sleep quality and duration. This article does not differentiate whether the lack of sleep causes elevated values (which we already know that lack of sleep is a stress to the body and produces stress hormones), or whether the elevated levels interfere with sleep. Knowing the human body, it’s probably both. An important clinical note here–this article would strongly work against the common usage of valium derivatives to help patients sleep. Based on this article, any patient with problems sleeping needs to be fully evaluated for cortisol levels (best done with saliva) and markers of inflammation and treated appropriately.

JCEM — Abstracts: Vgontzas et al. 88 (5): 2087

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Whey protein rich in lactalbumin increases the ratio of plasma tryptophan – (06-06-02)

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Whey protein rich in lactalbumin increases the ratio of plasma tryptophan to the sum of the other large neutral amino acids and improves cognitive performance in stress-vulnerable subjects

Okay…I know the title is a little difficult to swallow, but there are several important concepts here. First a lesson in biochemistry of neurotransmitters… Tryptophan is an amino acid that crosses the blood brain barrier to get converted to serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that plays a major role in mood and satiety. The major class of antidepressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs) increases serotonin’s effects on the brain. However, when tryptophan is absorbed along with a bunch of other large neutral amino acids, passage of tryptophan across the blood brain barrier drops via competition. Hence some of the side effects with those wonderful and safe high protein diets–serotonin depletion from decreased brain tryptophan. Well…this article suggests an alternative method for getting enough tryptophan into the brain in patients under high levels of stress.

AJCN — Abstracts: Markus et al. 75 (6): 1051

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Adrenalectomy Improves Diabetes in Mice – (07-01-02)

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Adrenalectomy Improves Diabetes in Mice

It is well accepted that chronic stress resulting in the overproduction of cortisol (on of the body’s stress hormones…) alters insulin sensitivity in a negative fashion. This animal study builds on this foundation. Remember that chronic stress has deleterious effects on just about every aspect of human physiology. However, if your endocrinologist comes after you with a knife, better run for the hills–not only do you avoid the scars, but exercise is a wonderful way to manage chronically elevated cortisol…

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Abnormal Cortisol Metabolism, Tissue Sensitivity to Cortisol in Glucose Intolerance – (12-12-02)

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Abnormal Cortisol Metabolism, Tissue Sensitivity to Cortisol in Glucose Intolerance

Cortisol is the body’s stress hormone. It was designed to produce a heightened state of awareness in our bodies when a predator was near. Unfortunately, in today’s high stress society, there are no predators to identify and our bodies can enter into a state of chronic stress with hypercortisolemia. This elevated cortisol, much like insulin, wreaks havoc on many aspects of physiology. Here we see additional confirmation that cortisol produces abnormal glucose metabolism (and hence increased insulin resistance), obesity and hypertension. Yes, stress does kill. Slowly…

JCEM — Abstracts: Andrews et al. 87 (12): 5587

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Adrenocortical, Autonomic, Inflammatory Causes of Metabolic Syndrome – (11-21-02)

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Adrenocortical, Autonomic, Inflammatory Causes of Metabolic Syndrome

This article supports a link between chronic stress and Syndrome X. This is not at all surprising when you consider the fact that cortisol (the body’s stress hormone) will increase abdominal adiposity and interfere with insulin action, resulting in hyperinsulinemia. Remember that the human body is a complex web, with each system interacting in such complexity that we may never truly understand it. We can only try to back up and try to heal it using the tools Mother Nature gave us.

Circulation — Abstracts: Brunner et al. 106 (21): 2659 –

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