Geeky wellbeing favourites: October 2023
A confession, and mind–body science highlights
I have a confession to make – I really struggled to come up with a topic for this month’s newsletter. I struggled so much, I actually failed. New readers, my apologies. I promise, this isn’t the norm.
You see, I recently completed a big writing project, one that I have been working on for over a year, and now I’m in that weird stage of loss where you don’t really know what to do with yourself. I am pretty sure I had the same after my wedding and after buying our house. Perhaps that hole that a big project leaves is also a sign to take a break and re-charge before you move on to something else.
(Plus, we also recently got a puppy, and I really hadn’t anticipated how much work it is. I REALLY hand’t. I spent the first couple of weeks in major puppy blues, crying at random times like while out for a run.)
So for this month, I have brought you a longer selection of mind–body science highlights to make up for the lack of other content recommendations. Enjoy!
Exciting news!
Brain, behaviour and immunity, the journal focusing on psychoneuroimmunology (ie the interface between psychology, neuroscience and immunology, ie the mind–body connection) has launched a new journal that will focus on Eastern biomedical research. I’m looking forward to exploring Brain, behaviour and immunity – integrative.
Mind–body science highlights
Yoga regulates inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis alongside medication
One for the fellow immunology geeks – this is a fairly technical study that looked at the prevalence and balance of two types of immune cells after a yoga intervention in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Participants were split into two groups, one which practiced yoga for 8 weeks alongside taking their medication (n=32), and one which took medication alone (controls; n=32).
Participants who took part in the yoga intervention had lower levels of the cells that promote inflammation (called Th17 cells) and higher levels of the cells that dampen inflammation (called TReg cells) than the controls. They also had lower levels of pro-inflammatory molecules and higher levels of anti-inflammatory molecules than the controls. This suggests that yoga could help to alleviate inflammation and therefore be a useful practice to incorporate alongside medication. Of note, participants practiced for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week – wow! That is quite an intense practice and probably not sustainable in the long-run, so it’s a bit of a shame that they didn’t test something more common and practical (eg 1 hour a day, 3 days a week). The practice included physical (asana), breathwork (pranayama) and meditation.
Qi Gong and the brain
If you are interested in neuroscience and mind–body practices, this review consolidates the findings of studies on the effects of Qi Gong on the brain. Qi Gong practice was associated with changes in the brain, most consistently the hippocampus (which is linked to memory), as well as improvements in cognitive function.
Complementary therapies and cancer
Unfortunately I don’t have access to this paper, but it sounds really interesting. It brings together all reviews that have explored the impact of complementary therapies, including yoga, on patient-reported outcomes in cancer – these are effects of an intervention that are reported directly by the patient and usually relate to the impact on their quality of life. From the abstract, we can see that they have concluded that yoga can help with cancer-related fatigue, as reported by patients.
Yoga/meditation dampens the effects of negative life events?
This is a re-analysis of an older (2015) large survey among Australian women (n=7,186, so pretty big), which had been designed to assess health and wellbeing. The researchers found that among women who practiced yoga or meditation (the question did not differentiate between the two), negative life events (such as death of a partner and being bullied) were not associated with depressive symptoms; this was not the case for women who did not practice yoga. This suggests that yoga may dampen the effects of negative life events specifically on depression. What is surprising here is that the positive effects on depressive symptoms didn’t seem to be driven by the effect of yoga/meditation on stress.
Stress improvements among Alzheimer’s carers
Another one I don’t have access to but sounds interesting – carers of those living with Alzheimer’s disease received a mobile app with yoga and breathing exercises for them to practice at home. After 12 weeks, the researchers observed small improvements in perceived burden (which included fatigue and lack of sleep) and mental health, and this correlated with how much time they had spent practicing.
You’re so not alone in the puppy blues! Mine is nearly one and is now absolute heaven. But for the first few weeks/months I struggled to eat and cried a LOT. It does pass. Loads of great stuff in this newsletter - thank you!