• Gymnophobics are real-life 'never-nudes'

    Fox

    On "Arrested Development," psychotherapist-turned-actor Tobias Funke, played by David Cross, is pathologically afraid of being naked, even in front of his wife.

    By Meghan Holohan

    Of the many wonderfully nonsensical things the TV show “Arrested Development” has introduced us to – the mayonegg, hot ham water, each family member’s interpretation of the chicken dance – one of the most notable is the "never-nude".

    On the show, which returns May 26 for a much-anticipated fourth season on Netflix, psychotherapist-turned-actor Tobias Funke suffers from the psychological condition and is pathologically afraid of being naked. He wears denim cut-offs at all times, even in the shower.  

    But it's not just a made-up quirk played for laughs. There really are people with a crippling fear of nudity, a condition called gymnophobia.

    “There are people who are not comfortable being naked in front of other people — and there are other people who are not comfortable looking at themselves naked,” said Martin Antony, professor of psychology at Ryerson University in Toronto, and author of “The Anti-Anxiety Workbook.”

    People can develop phobias – an extreme, irrational fear that negatively impacts a person’s ability to lead a normal life – of just about anything. There are the common phobias like arachnophobia or claustrophobia, but there’s also coulrophobia (fear of clowns), nomophobia (fear of being out of cellphone service) and sesquipedalophobia (fear of long words).

    Phobias often develop after a negative experience. A gymnophobic may have been bullied while changing in the middle school locker room, for example. Most people who are afraid of nudity suffer from other anxiety disorders and body image problems.

    Some people who are afraid of being naked suffer from eating disorders or body dysmorphic disorder, a mental condition where people believe they are ugly or fat or imperfect when there is little truth to it. People with this disorder often obsess over their appearance, hiding their bodies from themselves or others. Others could simply feel they do not measure up to media images of beautiful bodies and feel nervous about showing off their bodies.

    “[It’s] more a general anxiety of their own body image as a comparative basis. We are an increasingly obese nation so the comparison could be stressful, anxiety producing, negative for one’s self-concept and could affect one’s own willingness to expose one’s self in privacy in a relationship,” said Frank Farley, a professor psychology at Temple University.

    Also, people with extreme forms of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can sometimes feel uncomfortable about being naked in front of other people, due to the intrusive, compulsive thoughts that accompany the condition.

    Experts say they would treat a nudity phobia like other phobias, such as claustrophobia or agoraphobia. They encourage exposure to the feared item in a safe, controlled way. If someone were afraid of being naked in front of a partner, Antony would recommend that the patient try wearing only underwear (cut-offs -- Funke's cover-up of choice --  are also acceptable) and work his or her way to full nudity. Antony also says that therapists would work on cognitive modification, changing the way someone thinks about their own nudity. 

    “Most people are not ‘never-nudes,’ but they are ‘not-usually-nudes.’ A lot of people would feel somewhat self-conscious about being naked,” Antony said.

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  • Psychopaths have terrible senses of smell

    By Megan Gannon, LiveScience

    New research suggests we may be able to sniff out psychopaths by their poor scores on a smell test.

    In the study, psychologists at Macquarie University in Australia tested the noses of more than 70 college-age participants, all without criminal records. The researchers had the subjects try to identify common odors (like orange, coffee and leather) and distinguish between different scents.

    The participants then were given personality tests to check for their level of empathy and psychopathic tendencies. For example, the subjects were asked to rate on a 5-point scale how much they agreed with statements such as: "I purposely flatter people to get them on my side;" "People sometimes say that I'm cold-hearted;" and "I have broken into a building or vehicle in order to steal something or vandalize."

    Psycopathy is a personality disorder marked by superficial charm, a lack of empathy and impulsive tendencies. 

    The researchers reported a correlation between a poorer sense of smell and psychopathic personality traits.

    They say this makes sense because previous research has shown that people with such traits have decreased function in the brain's frontal lobes, a region associated with impulse control and acting in accordance with social norms — and dysfunction in that part of the brain is associated with an impaired sense of smell.

    Criminal psychopaths' speech patterns can also give them away, according to research presented in 2011. When speaking of their crimes, psychopaths use less emotion and focus more on their basic needs than non-psychopaths, that research found. 

    Psychopaths, believed to make up as much as 1 percent of the general population, may attempt to fake answers during psychological evaluations, so a measure of smelling ability could offer a helpful new way to detect psychopathic traits, the researchers said.

    The study, led by Mehmet K. Mahmut and Richard J. Stevenson, was published recently in the journal Chemosensory Perception.

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  • One thing good presidents share: psychopathic traits

    By Emily Sohn, Discovery Channel
    With its long days and endless pressures to restore everything from economic crises to world peace, the job of President of the United States is stressful and usually thankless. And yet, every four years, plenty of candidates are crazy enough to devote their lives to getting votes.

    Craziness might not be the most scientific word for it. But a new study found that those who do well as presidents tend to score high on measures of a personality trait that they share in common with psychopaths.

    The trait, known as fearless dominance, describes people who are socially and physically bold, as well as emotionally resilient -- an outlook on life well summarized by Teddy Roosevelt’s motto: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Throughout our nation’s history, the study found, bold presidents seem to have been particularly persuasive, driven by vision, and good at managing crises.

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    Presidents aren’t psychopaths, nor should they be, emphasized lead author Scott Lilienfeld, a psychologist at Emory University in Atlanta. Instead, his research suggests that certain traits associated with psychopathy may give people a leg up in some situations.

    “Most psychopaths end up being pretty unsuccessful and maladaptive, and they end up in prison, which is usually where psychologists study them,” Lilienfeld said. “Even though the psychopathic personality as a whole shebang is not a good thing to have, this study raises the interesting possibility that at least some traits of this condition -- especially those linked to lack of social and physical apprehensiveness, immunity to stress, and resilience -- might be adaptive in real-world settings.”

    “Is it good to have a psychopathic president?” he added. “The answer to that is easy: It’s no. But maybe having a certain dash of those traits might give presidents a certain edge.”

    Psychoapthic personality, in psychological terms, refers to a collection of traits that include superficial charm, a self-centered attitude, a tendency to take risks, dishonesty, lack of guilt and empathy, poor impulse control, immunity to anxiety, and fearlessness. All together, this is generally not a good combination of characteristics to have.

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    But previous research has raised the possibility that at least some of the traits associated with psychopathy might also help people succeed in some situations, including in business, politics and high-risk sports. Fearlessness and boldness, in particular, seem like they should be useful in many of these settings.

    To test that possibility, Lilienfeld and colleagues tapped into a database of personality traits assessed by living experts on the 42 U.S. Presidents leading up to and including George W. Bush.

    Presidents that scored high on measures of fearless dominance, the researchers reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, were also considered to be among the most high-performing leaders our country has had.

    Although the data didn’t allow for precise comparisons, Theodore Roosevelt received the highest boldness scores. Nicknamed the “Cyclone Assemblyman,” Roosevelt was a war hero and powerful leader, willing to take on big companies and other issues that his predecessors were too timid to touch.

    On the flip side, the least bold and fearless presidents included William Taft and Millard Fillmore.

    “Presidents you might regard as forgettable were among the lowest,” Lilienfeld said. “These are the ones people say, “Oh, was he president? Oh yeah.”

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    The study didn’t analyze the personalities of President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, though Lilienfeld guessed that neither one would score particularly high or low on measures of fearlessness. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, on the other hand, would likely rank on the high end.

    The new findings parallel the idea of “creative genius,” in which madness and brilliance find common ground, said Dean Keith Simonton, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego. In both cases, a trait that can be “bad” in one setting ends up being “good” in another.

    Unfortunately for those who are looking to predict results of the upcoming election, dissecting the personalities of successful presidents of the past doesn’t help predict who will win in the future, Simonton said. Highly intelligent presidents do best once they’re in office, for example, but they find it harder to get elected.

    More than personality, luck often determines whether a presidential candidate is in the right place at the right time, given the state of the economy and other hot-button factors.

    “Personality counts, but it's not the most attractive traits that count the most,” Simonton said. “Sometimes vices can be virtues when a person occupies a unique niche.” 

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  • Your stressful job is indeed aging you, study confirms

    Darren Green

    By Brian Alexander, NBC News Contributor

    Everybody knows too much stress and anxiety is bad for you. It dents the immune system, the cardiovascular system and may even contribute to cancer. Now it appears that one common source of stress -- our jobs -- could be having damaging effects on critical DNA in our cells. And that could lead to early aging, and the diseases and conditions that go along with it.

    A study led by Kirsi Ahola of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health measured the length of DNA sections called telomeres and how the lengths varied in association with job stress. It found that people with the most job stress tended to have shorter telomeres.

    That matters because telomeres, located at the ends of chromosomes, serve as a kind of protective cap to the ropy strands, helping assure that the genetic instructions carried by genes on the chromosomes are accurately translated so cells get the right messages. Telomeres become shorter with age, oxidation and chemical insults. Often, when telomeres reach a critically short length, the cell dies in a process called apoptosis. Some cells don’t die. They become what scientists call “senescent.” They sputter along, making genetic errors and causing damage.

    In their study, published this month in the journal PLoS One, Ahola and her co-workers looked at blood cells called leukocytes, a group of cells critical for immune function and a common subject of telomere experiments. They found that workers who experienced “severe exhaustion” from job stress had significantly shorter leukocyte telomeres than workers who were not exhausted from stress. 

    As a result, those workers could face the diseases of aging sooner than they might otherwise. Telomere shortening has been associated with Parkinson’s, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. In short, a constantly stressful job could make you old before your time.

    “I think that these results should be used when considering health hazards and work place legislation,” Ahola told NBC News. “Chronic work stress can become a health risk and should be prevented.”

    She acknowledged that “both individual and environmental factors affect the experience of stress,” so the same objective workplace conditions could have greater or lesser effects depending upon a number of personal traits.

    That’s why, suggested Aoife O’Donovan, a research fellow at the University of California San Francisco, who studies the relationship between telomeres and stress, science can’t yet make definite cause and effect statements about telomere length, stress, aging and disease.

    A number of life stressors aside from work, such as marital troubles, poverty, early childhood experience, gender (males tend to have shorter telomeres) -- as well as genetic makeup and health behaviors like smoking and diet – also appear to affect telomere length. For example, people who have experienced childhood trauma tend to be less able to cope with stress later in life and also tend to have shorter telomeres. The Finnish researchers adjusted their findings to take some of these factors into account, but it’s not possible to filter them out completely.

    Still, O’Donovan doesn’t doubt the validity of the link between work stress and telomere shortening. “When you get a high enough dose of stress, hardly anyone is resilient,” she explained. “People can be resilient to one or two types of stressors in certain periods of time, but once it becomes cumulative, across domains, it’s rare to find resilient people.”

    Stress builds on itself, she said. “Chronic stress begets chronic stress.”   

    But despite the ample evidence that stress is damaging, O’Donovan said, “It’s amazing how much we talk about it, and how little we’re are doing about it.”  

    Brian Alexander (www.BrianRAlexander.com) is co-author, with Larry Young PhD., of "The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex and the Science of Attraction," (www.TheChemistryBetweenUs.com) to be published Sept. 13.

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  • High anxiety might make you age faster

    By MyHealthNewsDaily Staff

    High levels of anxiety might really make you age faster, a new study suggests.

    The study found a link between a common form of anxiety called phobic anxiety — an unreasonable fear of certain situations, such as crowds, heights or the outside world — and shorter telomeres in middle-aged and older women. Telomeres  are caps on the ends of chromosomes that protect the genetic material from damage.

    "Many people wonder about whether — and how — stress can make us age faster," said study researcher Dr. Olivia Okereke, a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "This study is notable for showing a connection between a common form of psychological stress — phobic anxiety  — and a plausible mechanism for premature aging," Okereke said.

    Telomeres generally shorten as we age, and among people of the same age, shortened telomeres have been linked to an increased risk of cancers, heart disease, dementia and overall risk of death.

    However, the researchers emphasized that the study only shows an association, not a cause-effect link, and it's possible that people with shorter telomeres are generally prone to experiencing more stress. Studies that follow people forward over time are needed to confirm the findings.

    Okereke and colleagues analyzed information from 5,243 women ages 42 to 69 years, who took part in the Nurses' Health Study. To measure participants' levels of phobic anxiety, researchers looked at their answers to questions such as "Do you have an unreasonable fear of being in enclosed spaces?" and "Do you feel panicky in crowds?"

    The researchers found a link between high scores on the questionnaire and shorter telomeres.

    The difference in telomere lengths between women who were highly phobic and those who were not was similar to what would be expected between women about six years apart in age.

    The findings held even after the researchers accounted for factors that might influence the length of telomeres, such as participants' smoking, body mass indexes, physical activity levels and the age of participants' fathers when their children were born. [See Men Who Delay Fatherhood May Extend Grandkids' Lives ]

    The researchers noted they did not take into account whether participants experienced depression, which may have affected the results.

    The study is published today (July 11) in the journal PLoS ONE.

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  • Where to hide your wallet so that you can find it again later

    Getty Images stock

    Wondering where you stashed your wallet? A new study suggests that people hide things in a different location than where they tend to look for things.

    By Meghan Holohan

    Have you ever stashed your wallet in a safe place, only to come up short when you search for it later?

    Turns out, we hide things in different locations than where we look for things. 

    Eric Legge, a doctoral student in comparative psychology at the University of Alberta, and his adviser, Marcia Spetch, a professor in the psychology department, examined how adults hide and seek.

    The idea came about after one of Spetch's students with a law enforcement background asked about past research on how humans hide things, in order to improve police searches. As it turns out, there were numerous studies about how people locate objects in a virtual environment but no studies about how people hide and seek in real-world settings.

    For the study, Legge asked 102 participants to hide three index cards within two minutes under 70 tiles placed around a room with couches, tables, pictures, and desks. The room included a dark corner and a window. Then the subjects had another two minutes to locate cards concealed in the room.

    When hiding their index cards, participants obscured them under tiles in the center of the room and immediately inside the entrance. When searching, participants looked at the darkest parts of the room, avoiding the open areas (exactly where they hid their own cards). 

    “We found people didn’t search where they would hide and they didn’t hide where they would search,” Legge explained. “It was a weird disconnect where people think they are kind of smarter than the other person and would over-think where they would hide [the cards].”

    The results suggest that people use different strategies to select hiding places than to search for objects hidden by others.

    Participants also avoided stashing the cards near windows. Legge suspects the hiders believe a window enables others to observe their actions. Subjects were not allowed to move the cards once they were hidden, and Legge noticed that both hiders and seekers took their time, sizing up the room prior their search for cards or hiding location.

    After the subjects completed the real-world task, they participated in the same test in a virtual environment. The virtual room resembled the real room, and in the virtual world participants employed the same concealment tricks.  

    Understanding how people hide items could potentially aid police searches or help the military find camouflaged items like IEDs.

    “We wanted to understand these biases so we could use them for training programs [for police officers]," Legge said. "If people have a bias toward hiding things in corners or near walls or something like that — and if you only have limited amount of time to search for things — you can use those heuristics to search for something off the bat.”   

    The paper appears in the online journal PloS ONE.

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  • Weird memory drain: Chewing gum

    By Sara Cann
    Men's Health

    Chomping on gum all day long won't just annoy your cube mate--it'll muck up your memory, too. Researchers at Cardiff University in the U.K. found that people who chewed gum had a harder time memorizing lists of letters and numbers than those who didn't chew.

    Why? Researchers believe that the motion involved in chewing impedes your brain's ability to memorize serial lists. Just like tapping your finger or foot may distract you from accomplishing the same task, continual movements like gnawing on gum can also interfere with your short-term memory. Let's test how good your short-term memory is. Memorize the following words: Nun, teddy bear, professor, pencil, banana, friend, soup.

    In 10 minutes, see how many of the words you can recall. If you can't get all seven, then follow this expert-approved plan to boost your short-term memory--no gum needed. Use these tricks to memorize that hot girl's digits, directions to a buddy's place, or the names of your new coworkers. (For more great tips, read How to Remember Everything.)

    1. Pay attention
    It takes about eight seconds of intense focus to process a piece of information into your memory, says Men's Health Mentalist Marc Salem, author of The Six Keys to Unlock and Empower Your Mind. So make sure you're not texting or checking Facebook when you're being introduced to someone or need to remember something. "If you're easily distracted, pick a quiet place where you won't be interrupted," says Salem.

    2. Create a mental picture
    Your brain is hardwired to remember things visually, says Gary Small, M.D., author of The Memory Bible. So soak in the context of your conversation: The clothes the person is wearing, the characteristics of their face or body, and the atmosphere of your location. "Context gives information more meaning," Small says. All of these clues may help you put together pieces of information later. (Learn 10 more ways to sharpen your mind.)

    3. Tell a story
    Using the contextual clues you've gathered, create a story around the info you're trying to remember. Take the words up top: Did you just try to repeat each word to sear it into your memory, or did you link the words with a story? (For example, the professor pointed with his pencil to a picture of a nun drawing a teddy bear who was eating soup with his friend, who had a banana.) The more emotional you can make your story (like linking a stranger's name to a family member's), the more likely you'll remember it, says Small.

    Related: 27 Ways to Power Up Your Brain

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  • A whiff of rosemary gives your brain a boost

    By Andrew Winner

    Could the smell of rosemary enhance your time on a crossword puzzle? It's possible, according to a new study.

    Researchers noted the surprising appearance of a component of rosemary oil in the bloodstream, leading to new ideas about how rosemary aroma can be used therapeutically. The results will be published in Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, a journal published by SAGE Publications.

    Rosemary has a long history as a traditional remedy with such widespread uses as a hair rinse and a cat repellent. When steamed, some say it can treat bronchitis and other forms of congestion, while the link between rosemary and improved cognitive function has long been established.

    Dr. Mark Moss, who devised and wrote the study, was interested in rosemary’s fragrant aroma, which has long been cherished by chefs and bakers. Could the 1,8-cineole, a constituent part of rosemary oil, be detected in the bloodstream after exposure to just the aroma?

    “We were not surprised by the improvement in cognitive performance following exposure to rosemary aroma as this has been demonstrated previously,” Moss wrote in an e-mail. “What excited us was the demonstration that performance was linked to plasma levels of 1,8-cineole following exposure.” 

    In the study, a cohort of 20 subjects were exposed to varying levels of the aroma, then given a battery of cognitive tests and mood assessments. Not surprisingly, the cognitive performance of the subjects increased, with a corresponding mood increase of lesser magnitude. However, the real surprise came when the blood tests were processed.

    The results showed absorption of 1,8-coneole into the bloodstream, meaning the natural compound was absorbed through the nose and into the blood plasma. For Moss, this means there is a more traditional biochemical explanation for the increased cognitive performances previously demonstrated.

    “This compound is present in rosemary but has not previously been demonstrated to be absorbed into blood plasma in humans,” Moss added. “It is our view that the aroma therefore acts like a therapeutic drug, rather than any effects being a result of the more sensory properties of the aroma.”

    Moss reminds that it’s easy to forget how many of our therapeutic drugs are the result of plant science. His team will continue to investigate the therapeutic benefits of several common plants, including peppermint and lavender. An upcoming study with rosemary will aim to determine whether 1,8-cineole, when ingested orally, can survive the rigors of the gastrointestinal system to be similarly absorbed into the bloodstream. 

    The potential benefits of the research are extremely wide-ranging.

    “Plants are very complex organisms and contain many different active compounds and these vary in concentration from plant to plant and even within the same plant over the course of a day,” Moss notes.  “The accumulation of knowledge regarding possible impacts of plant aromas and extracts could potentially lead to an identification of the best combination to promote specific effects.” 

    “At its grandest conclusion might be the development of plant-based drugs that might extend mental capacity into old age through pharmacological challenge to decline,” Moss concludes. 

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  • Better fuzzy brain cure? Sip some water

    Feeling fuzzy? Reach for a glass of water instead of a cup of coffee.

    By Leah Zerbe
    Rodale.com 

    Severe dehydration can do some pretty crazy things to your mental status, invoking extreme confusion and delirious thoughts. But what happens to your brain when you're just mildly dehydrated—a state that many of us are in every day? To figure this out, researchers conducted a small study of 25 young women, comparing groups that were hydrated to ones that were in need of water.

    In the three-day study, women were dehydrated through three 40-minute treadmill workouts and in a separate treadmill workout after taking a diuretic. In the final test, they worked out on a treadmill but were allowed to properly hydrate during the exercise. During and after each bout of exercise, the women took a series of cognitive tests.

    The researchers combined the results from the exercise-only and exercise-plus-diuretic sessions and compared those results to results from the adequate-hydration session. The average degree of dehydration was a 1.36% decrease in body mass. When the women were dehydrated, they reported less vigor, more fatigue, more mood disturbances, reduced ability to concentrate, increased perception of task difficulty, and greater severity of any headaches both when they were at rest and while exercising.

    Interestingly, the women could not themselves distinguish between being dehydrated and adequately hydrated. While there's not a one-size-fits-all recommendation for how much water to drink daily because different factors like humidity, physical activity levels, altitude, and water content in food play a role, a 2007 Mayo Clinic report found that women who are adequately hydrated take in the equivalent of about 9 cups' worth of beverages a day.

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  • Brain stimulation may improve sense of direction

    By Rachael Rettner
    MyHealthNewsDaily

    One type of memory can be improved by sending electrical pulses into the brain, a new study suggests.

    In the study, patients with epilepsy who were treated with deep brain stimulation showed enhanced spatial memory, the type of memory you need to find your car in a parking lot.

    The study was small — just seven patients — and it's unclear whether the findings would apply to people without epilepsy, or if the technique could improve other types of memory, such as the ability to remember events in your life.

    Still, these early findings suggest deep brain stimulation may improve memory in people with memory impairments, such as those with Alzheimer's disease, the researchers said. More research is needed to see if this is indeed the case.

    The study will be published Feb. 9 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

    Deep brain stimulation has previously been shown to help with symptoms of Parkinson's disease and obsessive compulsive disorder.

    Patients in the new study had previously had electrodes implanted in their brains, to locate the origins of their seizures.

    The patients played a video game in which they drove a taxi though a virtual city and had to pick up and drop off passengers at specific locations. Meanwhile, the researchers stimulated either the hippocampus, which plays a role in forming memories, or the entorhinal cortex, a sort of "doorway" into the hippocampus, through which brain signals must pass before memories are formed.

    The researchers stimulated the brain as the participants learned how to get to some, but not all, of the drop-off locations.

    It turned out, participants better remembered the routes to the drop-off locations when deep brain stimulation had been used. They got there faster, and chose a shorter route to those locations on subsequent trips.

    "They even learned to take shortcuts, reflecting improved spatial memory," said study researcher Dr. Itzhak Fried, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of California, Los Angeles.

    However, only stimulation at the entorhinal cortex, not the hippocampus, had an effect on spatial memory, Fried said.

    "It is possible that with stimulation, we are 'helping' the hippocampus form memories more strongly by manipulating the information that enters the hippocampus," said study researcher Nanthia Suthana, a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA.

    Because the brain stimulation was delivered only while participants were learning, the findings suggest that such stimulation would not need to be continuous in order to improve memory, Fried said. This could mean that a device implanted in the brain could be designed to switch on only at certain times during daily activities, in order to boost memory, Fried said.

    The findings are "highly intriguing," and are in line with the results of some previous animal studies, said Dr. Benjamin Greenberg, a psychiatrist at Brown University and at Butler Hospital in Providence, R.I., who has researched deep brain stimulation but was not involved in the new study.

    However, it's way too soon to say whether the findings with apply to Alzheimer's patients, Greenberg said. And even if deep brain stimulation is found to improve memory in Alzheimer's patients, the effects might be temporary, if they do not counter the brain degeneration that occurs in people with that disease, Greenberg said.

    A 2010 study of continuous deep brain stimulation on six Alzheimer's patients for one year found the therapy improved the use of sugar by the brain, but did not significantly improve memory. The therapy appeared safe, and the researchers said the idea warrants further testing.

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  • Heavy shopping bags weigh on your psyche

    Lisa Poole / AP file

    Heavy bags are a real downer.

    By Linda Carroll

    The charity workers staking out your favorite holiday shopping site with collection cups in hand may have chosen the exact right spot to prick your conscience, a new study suggests.  

    It’s not that you feel guilty for your purchasing power.  It’s about the weight of your shopping bags.

    Researchers found that when we are physically weighed down, with anything from groceries to gifts, our thoughts inescapably turn to serious -- weighty -- subjects.  Apparently, the wiring in our brain sparks directly from physical weight to psychological weight.

    When we’re toting a big haul, we're more likely to be suddenly struck by the importance of current events or issues in the world around us, according to the report published in the Journal of Consumer Behavior.

    “We found that carrying a heavy load leads consumers to feel an unrelated event as being more important and more stressful,” said the study’s lead author Meng Zhang, an assistant professor in the department of marketing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

    For the new study Zhang ran a series of experiments on more than 100 people to look at the impact of heavy loads on thinking.

    In her experiments, Zhang asked a group of volunteers to carry a shopping bag with bottles of water that weighed about 10 pounds. A comparison group carried bags with empty water bottles. The volunteers were told the experiment was to determine how much weight consumers might be willing to carry while shopping.

    Survey: Are your kids spoiled by the holidays?

    Later, both groups were asked questions, such as how important it is for people to express their opinions in public, how important it was to read nutrition labels, or how important it was that people stay socially connected.

    Sure enough, volunteers carrying the heavy bags tended to score higher on their answers to the societal questions. In other words, people carting around heavy bags were more likely to say lots of stuff was really important.

    Perhaps even more intriguing was Zhang’s discovery that people could be nudged to think about the importance of weighty societal issues just by asking them to read narratives that included words such as “heavy,” “tons,” and “loaded.”

    Is there an antidote to the psychological consequences of carrying a shopping bag loaded down with holiday loot?

    Apparently there is.  In another experiment Zhang determined that the psychological impact of a heavy load could be diminished when people thought about lightweight objects, such as balloons and feathers.      

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  • Carbon monoxide fumes help city dwellers chill out

    Nick Laham / Getty Images file

    Feeling relaxed? We thought so.

    By Cari Nierenberg

    Exhaust fumes may do more than pollute the air -- in very small amounts, they could be relieving stress in city dwellers.

    An Israeli researcher has suggested that breathing in small quantities of carbon monoxide helps relax the frazzled nerves of city folk, making it easier for them to handle the hustle and bustle of urban living.

    A study led by Itzhak Schnell, a professor of geography and human environment at Tel Aviv University, found that low levels of the poisonous gas can have a "narcotic effect" on city residents, says a news release. Although breathing in high levels of this colorless and odorless gas has been described as a "silent killer," extremely low levels of it may act as a "silent calmer," the news release claims.

    This new study appears in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.

    Schnell and his team tracked 36 young, healthy students who carried micro-sensors as they moved around Tel Aviv, Israel's busiest city. It measured participants' exposure to the typical hassles of city life. Scientists wanted to find out how four environmental stressors -- noise levels, air pollution (carbon monoxide concentrations), crowds and weather (temperature and humidity) -- affected the urbanites aged 20 to 40.

    The sensors captured data from participants in indoor and outdoor locations as they walked along busy streets, rode public transportation or shopped. Measurements were taken over a two-day period in all four seasons. Students also completed questionnaires rating their levels of personal discomfort in their surroundings.

    Researchers found that urbanite's biggest source of environmental stress was noise pollution from other people, mainly human voices. Participants also reported feeling the most stress in shopping malls, open markets and on main streets, likely because of the hordes of other people in these crowded locations.

    According to Schnell, the study's most surprising finding was that participants inhaled much lower levels of carbon monoxide than scientists had predicted. Even though the students took in very low concentrations of the gas, Schnell says it appeared to counteract the stress of the noise and crowds.

    The scientists suggest their findings show that for young, healthy people, the daily grind of city life might have fewer negative consequences on health as they had anticipated. Next, they plan to study how these same pressures of urban living affect more high-risk groups, such as babies, older people, and those with medical conditions like asthma.

    Perhaps taking several deep breaths of polluted city air several times a day isn't that bad an idea, and may turn out to be a new form of urban Zen.

     

     

     

     

     

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