> Heart experts said at-risk patients should be helped to manage stress.
Is there any high-quality evidence that "stress management" interventions actually lead to a medically significant reduction in biological stress? I see this sort of thing mentioned in passing in lots of places as a potential mitigation, but studies that actually examine its effectiveness seem to be in short supply, and what I can dig up quickly seems to be low-quality (underpowered, not randomized, not controlled).
Meditation has a growing body of evidence that it reduces stress, not sure if it reaches high quality threshold yet. But there is very little harm in trying it (versus diet or pharma interventions).
My insurance company covers counselors for "medically necessary" reasons. What constitutes medically necessary is up to the counselor. They know how to bill it so you're covered.
Off the top of my head, stress reduction and meditation are part of the Dean Ornish program, which has some evidence for slowing atherosclerosis progression. Next question is, would causing a reduction in activity in the amygdala lead to reduced cardiovascular events?
A long time ago people reduced stress during the work day by stepping away from their desks, going outside, and enjoying a cool, relaxing, mentholated product from the Philip Morris company
Wow, this is a great example of dishonest statistics. The rate of lung cancer deaths peaked somewhere around 1985-95. This being the population that began smoking back in the 50s and 60s, by my estimate. You can't use raw numbers here because population has changed substantially in the US over the years.
I wonder how this relates to other findings about the relationship between stress, health, and mortality. It's a TED talk, but I found it to have some practical and interesting conclusions. Beliefs about stress impact how much harm stress causes.
We already knew that the amygdala activates the sympathetic nervous system during stress, which causes inflammation, and this was suspected to be the reason for heart disease. This study just provides more experimental evidence.
Is there any high-quality evidence that "stress management" interventions actually lead to a medically significant reduction in biological stress? I see this sort of thing mentioned in passing in lots of places as a potential mitigation, but studies that actually examine its effectiveness seem to be in short supply, and what I can dig up quickly seems to be low-quality (underpowered, not randomized, not controlled).