Optimists better at regulating stress

Relationship between optimism and stress hormone cortisol further defined by Concordia University researchers

2013-07-23

(Press-News.org) This news release is available in French.

Montreal, July 23, 2013 – It's no surprise that those who tend to see a rose's blooms before its thorns are also better at handling stress. But science has failed to reliably associate optimism with individuals' biological stress response – until now.

New research from Concordia University's Department of Psychology is deepening the understanding of how optimists and pessimists each handle stress by comparing them not to each other but to themselves. Results show that indeed the "stress hormone" cortisol tends to be more stable in those with more positive personalities.

The study tracked 135 older adults (aged 60+) over six years, and involved collecting saliva samples five times a day to monitor cortisol levels. This age group was selected because older adults often face a number of age-related stressors and their cortisol levels have been shown to increase.

Participants were asked to report on the level of stress they perceived in their day-to-day lives, and self-identify along a continuum as optimists or pessimists. Each person's stress levels were then measured against their own average. Measuring the stress levels against participants' own average provided a real-world picture of how individuals handle stress because individuals can become accustomed to the typical amount of stress in their lives.

Joelle Jobin, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology who co-authored the study with her supervisor Carsten Wrosch and Michael Scheier from Carnegie Mellon University, says "for some people, going to the grocery store on a Saturday morning can be very stressful, so that's why we asked people how often they felt stressed or overwhelmed during the day and compared people to their own averages, then analyzed their responses by looking at the stress levels over many days."

She also notes that pessimists tended to have a higher stress baseline than optimists, but also had trouble regulating their system when they go through particularly stressful situations. "On days where they experience higher than average stress, that's when we see that the pessimists' stress response is much elevated, and they have trouble bringing their cortisol levels back down. Optimists, by contrast, were protected in these circumstances," says Jobin.

While the study generally confirmed the researchers' hypotheses about the relation between optimism and stress, one surprising finding was that optimists who generally had more stressful lives secreted higher cortisol levels than expected shortly after they awoke (cortisol peaks just after waking and declines through the day). Jobin says there are several possible explanations, but also notes that the finding points to the difficulty of classifying these complex hormones as good or bad. "The problem with cortisol is that we call it "the stress hormone", but it's also our 'get up and do things' hormone, so we may secrete more if engaged and focused on what's happening."

INFORMATION:

Related Links:

Concordia University's Department of Psychology http://psychology.concordia.ca/facultyandstaff/faculty/wrosch.php The Personality, Aging and Health lab http://crdh.concordia.ca/Wrosch_Lab/ Centre for Research in Human Development http://crdh.concordia.ca/ Carsten Wrosch on Research @ Concordia http://www.concordia.ca/explore/#!/profile/139/

Media contact:

Cléa Desjardins
Senior Advisor, External Communications
Concordia University
Tel: 514-848-2424, ext. 5068
Cell: 514-909-2999
e-mail: clea.desjardins@concordia.ca
Web: concordia.ca/media-relations
Twitter: twitter.com/CleaDesjardins

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Purple bacteria on earth could survive alien light

2013-07-23

CORAL GABLES, FL (JULY 23, 2013) — Purple bacteria contain pigments that allow them to use sunlight as their source of energy, hence their color. Small as they are, these microbes can teach us a lot about life on Earth, because they have been around longer than most other organisms on the planet. University of Miami (UM) physicist Neil Johnson, who studies purple bacteria, recently found that these organisms can also survive in the presence of extreme alien light. The findings show that the way in which light is received by the bacteria can dictate the difference between ...

MU, K-State research team collaborate to save the bacon

2013-07-23

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- A research team from the University of Missouri and Kansas State University has been working to find a cure for a specific virus that affects pigs and costs the hog industry $800 million annually. In their latest study, the team disproved one way the virus spreads, which will help scientists narrow the search for an ultimate cure. Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) can inhibit pigs from reproducing and slow the growth of young pigs. Once pigs are infected, the only remedy is for hog farmers to cull their herds, which has cost ...

Scientists prove ticks harbor Heartland virus, a recently discovered disease in the United States

2013-07-23

DEERFIELD, IL. (JULY 22, 2013)— Scientists have for the first time traced a novel virus that infected two men from northwestern Missouri in 2009 to populations of ticks in the region, providing confirmation that lone star ticks are carrying the recently discovered virus and humans in the area are likely at risk of infection. The findings were published online today in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Dubbed Heartland virus or HRTV, the infection causes fever, headaches, and low white blood cell and platelet counts. The two men infected in 2009, who ...

Most flammable boreal forests in North America become more so

2013-07-23

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A 2,000-square-kilometer zone in the Yukon Flats of interior Alaska – one of the most flammable high-latitude regions of the world, according to scientists – has seen a dramatic increase in both the frequency and severity of fires in recent decades. Wildfire activity in this area is higher than at any other time in the past 10,000 years, the researchers report. The new findings add to the evidence that relatively frequent and powerful fires are converting the conifer-rich boreal forests of Alaska into deciduous woodlands. Deciduous trees, which shed ...

Bees 'betray' their flowers when pollinator species decline

2013-07-23

Remove even one bumblebee species from an ecosystem and the impact is swift and clear: Their floral "sweethearts" produce significantly fewer seeds, a new study finds. The study, to be published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on the interactions between bumblebees and larkspur wildflowers in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. The results show how reduced competition among pollinators disrupts floral fidelity, or specialization, among the remaining bees in the system, leading to less successful plant reproduction. "We found that these wildflowers ...

Plain packaging seems to make cigarettes less appealing and increase urgency to quit smoking

2013-07-23

Plain packaging for cigarettes seems to make tobacco less appealing and increase the urgency to quit smoking, suggest early findings from Australia, published in the online journal BMJ Open. Australia formally introduced plain brown packaging, accompanied by graphic health warnings taking up three quarters of the front of the pack, for all tobacco products on December 1 2012. So far, it is the only country in the world to have done so. The researchers wanted to find out what effects the policy was having in the early stages, and whether it helped curb the appeal of ...

Skipping breakfast may increase coronary heart disease risk

2013-07-23

Here's more evidence why breakfast may be the most important meal of the day: Men who reported that they regularly skipped breakfast had a higher risk of a heart attack or fatal coronary heart disease in a study reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. Researchers analyzed food frequency questionnaire data and tracked health outcomes for 16 years (1992-2008) on 26,902 male health professionals ages 45-82. They found: Men who reported they skipped breakfast had a 27 percent higher risk of heart attack or death from coronary heart disease than those ...

No benefit associated with echocardiographic screening in the general population

2013-07-23

A study in Norway suggests echocardiographic screening in the general public for structural and valvular heart disease was not associated with benefit for reducing the risk of death, myocardial infarction (heart attack) or stroke, according to a report published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Because of the low prevalence of structural heart disease in the general population, echocardiography has traditionally not been considered justified in low-risk individuals, although echocardiography is recommended for screening asymptomatic individuals with ...

Study examines use of transthoracic echocardiography

2013-07-23

A study of the use of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) at an academic medical center suggests that although 9 in 10 of the procedures were appropriate under 2011 appropriate use criteria, less than 1 in 3 of the TTEs resulted in an active change in care, according to a report of the research by Susan Matulevicius, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. The researchers, who studied 535 patients undergoing TTE, found that, overall, 31.8 percent of TTEs resulted in an active change in care; 46.9 percent resulted in a continuation ...

Parents' experiences with pediatric retail clinics examined

2013-07-23

Parents who had established relationships with pediatricians still accessed care for their children at retail clinics (RCs), typically located in large chain drugstores, mostly because the clinics were convenient, according to a study published by JAMA Pediatrics, a JAMA Network publication. Most RCs are staffed by nonpediatric nurse practitioners and physician assistants who care for patients 18 months and older with minor illnesses such as ear and throat infections. However, the literature regarding RCs is limited and little is known about the use of RCs for pediatric ...

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Optimists better at regulating stress

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: