Physical fitness, menstrual cycle disorders and smoking habit in Croatian National Ballet and National Folk Dance Ensembles

The study investigated differences in morphological, motor and functional abilities between folk and ballet dancers. The sample comprised 51 female subjects: Croatian National Ballet (N=30) and Croatian National Folk Ensemble "LADO" (N=21). The data regarding menstrual cycle, menarche, number of births and smoking habit were collected and the morphological, motor and functional abilities measured. Significant correlations between the amount of fat tissue and number of births were found in both groups. Folk dancers were as tall as ballet dancers but weighted more and had a larger body frame (p<0.001). Ballet dancers were more flexible but there were no differences in absolute maximal oxygen uptake (2.65 vs. 2.35 L/min, p=0.101). Still, as the ballet dancers weighted less, their relative maximal oxygen uptake was significantly higher (37.62 vs. 50.22 mL/kg/min, p<0.001). Also, a high number of 45% of smokers among professional ballet and professional folk dancers was found.     

Meditation Experience Predicts Introspective Accuracy

The accuracy of subjective reports, especially those involving introspection of one''s own internal processes, remains unclear, and research has demonstrated large individual differences in introspective accuracy. It has been hypothesized that introspective accuracy may be heightened in persons who engage in meditation practices, due to the highly introspective nature of such practices. We undertook a preliminary exploration of this hypothesis, examining introspective accuracy in a cross-section of meditation practitioners (1–15,000 hrs experience). Introspective accuracy was assessed by comparing subjective reports of tactile sensitivity for each of 20 body regions during a ‘body-scanning’ meditation with averaged, objective measures of tactile sensitivity (mean size of body representation area in primary somatosensory cortex; two-point discrimination threshold) as reported in prior research. Expert meditators showed significantly better introspective accuracy than novices; overall meditation experience also significantly predicted individual introspective accuracy. These results suggest that long-term meditators provide more accurate introspective reports than novices.     

Job stress,satisfaction, and mental health among general practitioners before and after introduction of new contract.

OBJECTIVE--To compare measures of job stress, job satisfaction, and mental health among general practitioners before and after the introduction of the new contract in April 1990. DESIGN--Cross sectional postal questionnaire survey in July 1990. Comparison of results with those obtained in previous survey in November 1987. SETTING--General practice in United Kingdom. SUBJECTS--1500 general practitioners randomly selected from general medical services lists, 917 of whom (61%) returned questionnaires usable for statistical analysis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Aspects of job causing stress, job satisfaction (Warr, Cook, and Wall scale), and mental health (Crown-Crisp experiential index). RESULTS--Compared with 1987, in 1990 doctors experienced more stress from night calls (mean score 3.83 in 1990 v 3.45 in 1987), emergencies during surgery hours (3.72 v 3.48), and interruption of family life by telephone (3.58 v 2.73; p less than 0.001 for all three variables). Scores for somatic anxiety and depression were higher in both men and women in 1990 (men: somatic anxiety 3.12 v 2.36; depression 3.80 v 2.94; women: somatic anxiety 3.56 v 2.65; depression 4.02 v 3.37; p less than 0.001). Job satisfaction had also decreased in 1990 (5.23 v 4.26; p less than 0.001). CONCLUSIONS--Doctors experienced more stress, less job satisfaction, and poorer mental health in 1990 than in 1987. These changes may have resulted from the introduction of the new contract.     

Quantum squeezed state analysis of spontaneous ultra weak light photon emission of practitioners of meditation and control subjects

Research on human ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) has suggested a typical human emission anatomic percentage distribution pattern. It was demonstrated that emission intensities are lower in long-term practitioners of meditation as compared to control subjects. The percent contribution of emission from different anatomic locations was not significantly different for meditation practitioners and control subjects. Recently, a procedure was developed to analyze the fluctuations in the signals by measuring probabilities of detecting different numbers of photons in a bin and correct these for background noise. The procedure was tested utilizing the signal from three different body locations of a single subject, demonstrating that probabilities have non-classical features and are well described by the signal in a coherent state from the three body sites. The values indicate that the quantum state of photon emitted by the subject could be a coherent state in the subject being investigated. The objective in the present study was to systematically quantify, in subjects with long-term meditation experience and subjects without this experience, the photon count distribution of 12 different locations. Data show a variation in quantum state parameters within each individual subject as well as variation in quantum state parameters between the groups.     

Kinematic and kinetic analysis of the fouetté turn in classical ballet

The fouetté turn in classical ballet dancing is a continuous turn with the whipping of the gesture leg and the arms and the bending and stretching of the supporting leg. The knowledge of the movement intensities of both legs for the turn would be favorable for the conditioning of the dancer's body. The purpose of this study was to estimate the intensities. The hypothesis of this study was that the intensities were higher in the supporting leg than in the gesture leg. The joint torques of both legs were determined in the turns performed by seven experienced female classical ballet dancers with inverse dynamics using three high-speed cine cameras and a force platform. The hip abductor torque, knee extensor and plantar flexor torques of the supporting leg were estimated to be exerted up to their maximum levels and the peaks of the torques were larger than the peaks of their matching torques of the gesture leg. Thus, the hypothesis was partly supported. Training of the supporting leg rather than the gesture leg would help ballet dancers perform many revolutions of the fouetté turn continuously.     

Seeing or Doing? Influence of Visual and Motor Familiarity in Action Observation

The human brain contains specialized circuits for observing and understanding actions. Previous studies have not distinguished whether this "mirror system" uses specialized motor representations or general processes of visual inference and knowledge to understand observed actions. We report the first neuroimaging study to distinguish between these alternatives. Purely motoric influences on perception have been shown behaviorally, but their neural bases are unknown. We used fMRI to reveal the neural bases of motor influences on action observation. We controlled for visual and knowledge effects by studying expert dancers. Some ballet moves are performed by only one gender. However, male and female dancers train together and have equal visual familiarity with all moves. Male and female dancers viewed videos of gender-specific male and female ballet moves. We found greater premotor, parietal, and cerebellar activity when dancers viewed moves from their own motor repertoire, compared to opposite-gender moves that they frequently saw but did not perform. Our results show that mirror circuits have a purely motor response over and above visual representations of action. We understand actions not only by visual recognition, but also motorically. In addition, we confirm that the cerebellum is part of the action observation network.     

"Thinking about not-thinking": neural correlates of conceptual processing during Zen meditation

Recent neuroimaging studies have identified a set of brain regions that are metabolically active during wakeful rest and consistently deactivate in a variety the performance of demanding tasks. This "default network" has been functionally linked to the stream of thoughts occurring automatically in the absence of goal-directed activity and which constitutes an aspect of mental behavior specifically addressed by many meditative practices. Zen meditation, in particular, is traditionally associated with a mental state of full awareness but reduced conceptual content, to be attained via a disciplined regulation of attention and bodily posture. Using fMRI and a simplified meditative condition interspersed with a lexical decision task, we investigated the neural correlates of conceptual processing during meditation in regular Zen practitioners and matched control subjects. While behavioral performance did not differ between groups, Zen practitioners displayed a reduced duration of the neural response linked to conceptual processing in regions of the default network, suggesting that meditative training may foster the ability to control the automatic cascade of semantic associations triggered by a stimulus and, by extension, to voluntarily regulate the flow of spontaneous mentation.     

Detecting anxiety and depression in general medical settings.

To aid general practitioners and other non-psychiatrists in the better recognition of mental illness short scales measuring anxiety and depression were derived by latent trait analysis from a standardised psychiatric research interview. Designed to be used by non-psychiatrists, they provide dimensional measures of the severity of each disorder. The full set of nine questions need to be administered only if there are positive answers to the first four. When assessed against the full set of 60 questions contained in the psychiatric assessment schedule they had a specificity of 91% and a sensitivity of 86%. The scales would be used by non-psychiatrists in clinical investigations and possibly also by medical students to familiarise them with the common forms of psychiatric illness, which are often unrecognised in general medical settings.     

Relaxation with biofeedback-assisted guided imagery: the importance of breathing rate as an index of hypoarousal

Fifteen men and 35 women, suffering from a number of psychological and somatic disorders, were taught to relax by biofeedback-assisted deep-diaphragmatic breathing together with guided mental imagery. No instructions were given about rate. Breathing rate and pattern, PETCO2, and EEG were monitored before training and after the first three 2-minute training trials (session 1). In 27 subjects (54%), breathing patterns and rate were noted to resemble those reported by meditation practitioners (3 to 5 b/min). The PETCO2 and EEG changes support a hypothesis of metabolic hypoarousal. Four subjects spontaneously reported experiencing altered awareness. A centrally mediated hypoarousal response is tentatively implicated.     

Relaxation with biofeedback-assisted guided imagery: The importance of breathing rate as an index of hypoarousal

Fifteen men and 35 women, suffering from a number of psychological and somatic disorders, were taught to relax by biofeedback-assisted deep-diaphragmatic breathing together with guided mental imagery. No instructions were given about rate. Breathing rate and pattern, PETCO2, and EEG were monitored before training and after the first three 2-minute training trials (session 1). In 27 subjects (54%), breathing patterns and rate were noted to resemble those reported by meditation practitioners (3 to 5 b/min). The PETCO2 and EEG changes support a hypothesis of metabolic hypoarousal. Four subjects spontaneously reported experiencing altered awareness. A centrally mediated hypoarousal response is tentatively implicated.     

Yoga Ameliorates Performance Anxiety and Mood Disturbance in Young Professional Musicians

Yoga and meditation can alleviate stress, anxiety, mood disturbance, and musculoskeletal problems, and can enhance cognitive and physical performance. Professional musicians experience high levels of stress, performance anxiety, and debilitating performance-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs). The goal of this controlled study was to evaluate the benefits of yoga and meditation for musicians. Young adult professional musicians who volunteered to participate in a 2-month program of yoga and meditation were randomized to a yoga lifestyle intervention group (n = 15) or to a group practicing yoga and meditation only (n = 15). Additional musicians were recruited to a no-practice control group (n = 15). Both yoga groups attended three Kripalu Yoga or meditation classes each week. The yoga lifestyle group also experienced weekly group practice and discussion sessions as part of their more immersive treatment. All participants completed baseline and end-program self-report questionnaires that evaluated music performance anxiety, mood, PRMDs, perceived stress, and sleep quality; many participants later completed a 1-year followup assessment using the same questionnaires. Both yoga groups showed a trend towards less music performance anxiety and significantly less general anxiety/tension, depression, and anger at end-program relative to controls, but showed no changes in PRMDs, stress, or sleep. Similar results in the two yoga groups, despite psychosocial differences in their interventions, suggest that the yoga and meditation techniques themselves may have mediated the improvements. Our results suggest that yoga and meditation techniques can reduce performance anxiety and mood disturbance in young professional musicians.     

Short Meditation Trainings Enhance Non-REM Sleep Low-Frequency Oscillations

Study Objectives

We have recently shown higher parietal-occipital EEG gamma activity during sleep in long-term meditators compared to meditation-naive individuals. This gamma increase was specific for NREM sleep, was present throughout the entire night and correlated with meditation expertise, thus suggesting underlying long-lasting neuroplastic changes induced through prolonged training. The aim of this study was to explore the neuroplastic changes acutely induced by 2 intensive days of different meditation practices in the same group of practitioners. We also repeated baseline recordings in a meditation-naive cohort to account for time effects on sleep EEG activity.

Design

High-density EEG recordings of human brain activity were acquired over the course of whole sleep nights following intervention.

Setting

Sound-attenuated sleep research room.

Patients or Participants

Twenty-four long-term meditators and twenty-four meditation-naïve controls.

Interventions

Two 8-h sessions of either a mindfulness-based meditation or a form of meditation designed to cultivate compassion and loving kindness, hereafter referred to as compassion meditation.

Measurements and Results

We found an increase in EEG low-frequency oscillatory activities (1–12 Hz, centered around 7–8 Hz) over prefrontal and left parietal electrodes across whole night NREM cycles. This power increase peaked early in the night and extended during the third cycle to high-frequencies up to the gamma range (25–40 Hz). There was no difference in sleep EEG activity between meditation styles in long-term meditators nor in the meditation naïve group across different time points. Furthermore, the prefrontal-parietal changes were dependent on meditation life experience.

Conclusions

This low-frequency prefrontal-parietal activation likely reflects acute, meditation-related plastic changes occurring during wakefulness, and may underlie a top-down regulation from frontal and anterior parietal areas to the posterior parietal and occipital regions showing chronic, long-lasting plastic changes in long-term meditators.     

Netherlands twin family study of anxious depression (NETSAD).

In a longitudinal study of Dutch adolescent and young adult twins, their parents and their siblings, questionnaire data were collected on depression, anxiety and correlated personality traits, such as neuroticism. Data were collected by mailed surveys in 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997. A total of 13,717 individuals from 3344 families were included in the study. To localise quantitative trait loci (QTLs) involved in anxiety and depression, the survey data were used to select the most informative families for a genome-wide search. For each individual a genetic factor score was computed, based on a genetic multivariate analysis of anxiety, depression, neuroticism and somatic anxiety. A family was selected if at least two siblings (or DZ twins) had extreme factor scores. Both discordant (high-low) and concordant (high-high and low-low) pairs were included in the selected sample. Once an extreme sibling pair was selected, all family members (parents and additional siblings of the selected pair) who had at least once returned a questionnaire booklet were asked to provide a DNA sample. In total, 2724 individuals from 563 families (1007 parents and 1717 offspring) were approached and 1975 individuals from 479 families (643 patients and 1332 offspring) complied by returning a buccal swab for DNA isolation. All offspring from selected families were asked to participate in a psychiatric interview and in a 24-hour ambulatory assessment of cardiovascular parameters and cortisol. The interview consisted of the WHO-Composite International Diagnostic Interview and was administered to 1253 offspring. In this paper we describe the genetic-epidemiological analyses of the survey data on anxiety, somatic anxiety, neuroticism and depression. We detail how these data were used to select families for the QTL study and discuss strategies that may help elucidate the molecular pathways leading from genes to anxious depression.     

Brief Mindfulness Meditation Improves Mental State Attribution and Empathizing

The ability to infer and understand the mental states of others (i.e., Theory of Mind) is a cornerstone of human interaction. While considerable efforts have focused on explicating when, why and for whom this fundamental psychological ability can go awry, considerably less is known about factors that may enhance theory of mind. Accordingly, the current study explored the possibility that mindfulness-based meditation may improve people’s mindreading skills. Following a 5-minute mindfulness induction, participants with no prior meditation experience completed tests that assessed mindreading and empathic understanding. The results revealed that brief mindfulness meditation enhanced both mental state attribution and empathic concern, compared to participants in the control group. These findings suggest that mindfulness may be a powerful technique for facilitating core aspects of social-cognitive functioning.     

Der Arbeitsplatz als Quelle von Angst

Objective Adjustment disorders are often related to the work place. Of special importance in this regard are work related anxieties as every workplace has anxiety provoking features, e.g. failure, bossing by superiors, mobbing by colleagues, angry customers, or accidents. Work can cause anxiety. Similarly, anxiety disorders can cause special work problems. In this study we investigated the quality and quantity of job anxiety in patients with mental and somatic illnesses. Method 90 psychosomatic and 100 orthopaedic inpatients with mental and somatic disorders completed the Job Anxiety Scale. In addition patient characteristics and sick leave were assessed. Results Psychosomatic patients showed significantly higher job anxiety scores than orthopaedic patients. In particular, orthopaedic patients show fears of functional impairment, whereas psychosomatic patients suffer more from anxieties in the dimensions of generalised worrying, panic, fears of existence and global job-anxiety. Job anxieties were significantly correlated with time of sick leave in both groups. Conclusion There are differences in quality and quantity of job anxiety in the different clinical groups. The data suggest that mental disorders cause job anxiety. At the same time, job anxiety is also an important factor in patients with somatic morbidity in order to understand sick leave. This should have consequences for the diagnosis and treatment of these patients     

Meditation promotes insightful problem-solving by keeping people in a mindful and alert conscious state

Although previous studies have shown that sleep can inspire insight, it is still unclear whether meditation can promote insight. Meditation differs from other types of passive rest such as relaxation and sleep because it requires full consciousness and mindfulness of targets such as one’s breathing. Forty-eight university students without meditation experience were recruited to learn a simple meditation technique. They were given a list of 10 insight problems to solve (the pre-test session). In this study, we focused on the unsolved problems and examined if they could be successfully solved after a 20 min rest interval with or without meditation. Results showed that relative to the control group that listened to Chinese or English words and made a language judgment, the groups who learned meditation successfully solved significantly more failed problems from the pre-test session, providing direct evidence for the role of meditation in promoting insight. Further analysis showed that maintaining a mindful and alert state during meditation (raising a hand to report every 10 deep breaths compared to every 100 deep breaths) resulted in more insight regarding the failed items from the pre-test session. This implies that it was watchfulness in meditation, rather than relaxation, that actually contributed to insight. Consistently, in the meditation session or control task, the percentage of alpha waves-a brain index of mental relaxation-was negatively correlated with insight. These results suggest a meditation-based insight-promoting mechanism different from that involved in passive rest such as relaxation and sleep.     

Injuries to dancers: prevalence,treatment, and perceptions of causes.

A survey of injuries to dancers was commissioned by the National Organisation of Dance and Mime. Questionnaires asking about chronic and recent injuries were sent to 188 dancers and completed by 141 dancers from seven professional ballet and modern dance companies in the United Kingdom (75% response rate). It was found that of the 141 dancers, 67 (47%) had experienced a chronic injury and 59 (42%) an injury in the previous six months that had affected their dancing. A high proportion of injuries to the soft tissues had not responded to treatment. With correct treatment such injuries should usually heal completely. Dancers are aware of the high rate of injuries and also of procedures that might help to prevent injury--for example, dancing on floors that are sprung and in warmer studios; teachers'' and choreographers'' awareness of a dancer''s limitations and the need for rest and adequate treatment when an injury occurs.     

Practitioners of vipassana meditation exhibit enhanced slow wave sleep and REM sleep states across different age groups

Sleep and Biological Rhythms - Intense meditation practices influence brain functions in different ways and at different levels. Earlier studies have shown that meditation practices help to...     

The impact of psoriasis on the quality of life and psychological characteristics of persons suffering from psoriasis

Psoriasis, as same as other skin diseases, has an influence on many spheres of patient's life. It influences the mental image the patients have of themselves and it indirectly shapes their personality traits as well as it defines the quality of their lives. The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of psoriasis on the quality of life and gender differences in the quality of life and explore presence of neurotic symptoms among persons suffering from psoriasis in comparison to general population. During the treatment of persons suffering from psoriasis at the special hospital Naftalan in Ivani? Grad personality questionnaire and Quality of life scale were administered to 61 participants (m = 25; f = 36). Our results showed few gender differences in the satisfaction with specific life domains, but only differences in the satisfaction with sexual life could be related to the different effects psoriasis has on the quality of life of men and women. Our participants experience more anxiety and depression symptoms as well phobic fears in comparison to general population. Found genders differences in the presence and intensity of anxiety symptoms closely resemble those documented in the general population therefore aren't typical for people suffering from psoriasis.