Here is how you can train your brain to tackle stress

Opined by neuroscientist Dr Selena Bartlett, inculcating several healthy habits in life can train your brain to tackle stress. Bartlett, who has been mapping the way our brains react to stress for the last 25 years as a researcher, our brains often deal with stress and trauma through addictive behaviours such as the consumption of sugar and alcohol, reported the researchers.

The  researcher also said that the first step towards attaining a peaceful mind is to understand that you can 'train your brain' to handle stress efficiently. "People are just using alcohol and sugar as medication and I can't keep designing a medication for a medication. My lab looks at the capacity of using neuroplasticity, which is the ability of the brain to change itself, to help to reduce the impact of that stress and trauma on the brain and to use the power of the brain to drive in healthy habits," Bartlett, who develops drugs to treat addiction, said.

Adding that creating even the most basic healthy change takes time, she said: "Only when we start to become aware of our automatic, often unhealthy, responses to stress, then we can start to rewire them." "However, you can actually train the brain by doing small things every day, like how you wake up in the morning, what you eat, the exercise that you do, sleep and water," she added.

Bartlett, further said that prolonged over-consumption of sugar acts on the amygdala, emotional part of the brain, in a way that makes the brain more reactive to stress. Emphasising that one should understand that our brains process negative over positive information, the researcher said: "Gratitude works. When you wake up in the morning, set up your brain in a positive direction so it will start to take in more positive information than the negative ones."

"We can train our brains to become more resilient by using the principles of neuroplasticity. We can also teach ourselves to take a healthy path to stress-management rather than relying on substances," she added, according to the researchers.

Asserting that simple changes have transformed her capacity to cope with stress, Bartlett said: "I'm the happiest I've been. I can still get triggered by things because we all do and that's life. However, now I know how to handle stress in a way that I have control over it."

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The US Surgeon General just issued a rare advisory about e-cigs like the Juul - here's why vaping is so dangerous

In a rare national advisory, the top US public health official warned Americans of the dangers of e-cigarettes like the Juul, a popular device that lets users inhale nicotine vapor without burning tobacco.

US Surgeon General  said in a new advisory on Tuesday that e-cigs like the Juul are a particular danger to kids and teens, and called for fresh measures to halt their rising popularity.

"We need to protect our kids from all tobacco products, including all shapes and sizes of e-cigarettes" he said in a statement. "We must take action now to protect the health of our nation's young people."

The advisory singles out Juul by name multiple times, saying that the sleek devices are particularly popular among teens because they're easy to conceal and don't emit much odor. It tells parents, health professionals, and teachers to be on the look out for all forms of nicotine-delivery devices, including e-cigs.

His announcement comes on the heels of warnings from several other federal agencies about an explosion of e-cig use, including from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

In November, after new CDC data pointed to a 78% increase in e-cig use among high schoolers, FDA commissioner announced moves to further restrict sales of e-cigarettes to ensure they don't get into the hands of young people. That included a crackdown on flavoured offerings, which researchers say appeal strongly to youth.

Several days before the FDA's announcement, the startup behind the most popular e-cig in the US, temporarily halted it sales  of its falvoured varieties in stores until they agree to adopt the company's new age restrictions and a stronger system for making sure customers are at least 21 years old.

'E-cigs and youth don't mix'

Although smoking conventional cigarettes is uniquely deadly, and vaping appears to be somewhat healthier ( especially for adults looking to switch), public health experts are concerned about how e-cigarettes impact young people.

Because of their runaway popularity, e-cigs could create a new generation of Americans hooked on nicotine, one of the world's most addictive substances and the key ingredient in e-cigs like the Juul, these experts warn. Their concern comes in part from a host of studies which suggest that teens who vape are significantly more likely to go on to smoke regular cigarettes, compared to teens who never vape.
 

This finding could be related to the way nicotine impacts the developing brains of young people. Although the research on e-cigs is still limited because the devices are so new, researchers have a wealth of data on the negative impacts of nicotine on teens who start smoking early.

In brain imaging studies of adolescents who start smoking in their teens, researchers have found signs of reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain tied to planning and decision-making. The same teens perform worse on memory and attention tasks compared with teens who don't smoke.

A clinical pediatrics , spoke about the Juul at the American Society of Addiction Medicine's annual conference this spring. He described some anecdotal effects of nicotine vaping that he'd seen among teens in and around his hospital.

"After only a few months of using nicotine," the Dr. said, the teens "describe cravings, sometimes intense ones." He continued: "After only a few hundred cigarettes - or whatever the equivalent amount of vaping pods - some start showing irritability or shakiness when they stop."

Most e-cigs contain toxic metals, and using them may increase the risk of a heart attack

Beyond e-cigs' impact on the developing brain, a host of health issues related to e-cigs is beginning to emerge.

This spring, scientists took a look at the compounds in several popular brands of e-cigs aside from the Juul and found some of the same toxic metals found in conventional cigarettes, such as lead.

A study published this month showed that people who vape tend to have high concentrations of some of these toxic chemicals in their bodies.

In another study published this summer, scientists concluded that there was substantial evidence  tying daily e-cig use to an increased risk of heart attack. And this fall, a small study in rats suggested that vaping could have a negative effect on wound healing that's similar to the effect of regular cigarettes.

But teens may not be aware of these health risks. Researchers say that could be because so little research has focused specifically on the Juul - the e-cig which currently captures 80% of the market share.

So for a study published in October, researchers  surveyed young people who vaped and asked them whether they used the Juul or another e-cigarette.

Based on their sample of 445 high-school students, the researchers observed that teens who used the Juul tended to say they vaped more frequently compared with those who used other devices. Juul users also appeared to be less aware of how addictive the devices could be compared with teens who vaped other e-cigs.

"I was surprised and concerned that so many youths were using Juul more frequently than other products," a professor of pediatrics who was a lead author of the study, said in a statement.

"We need to help them understand the risks of addiction," she added. "This is not a combustible cigarette, but it still contains an enormous amount of nicotine - at least as much as a pack of cigarettes."

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Pollution even when ‘safe’ slows down brain growth in kids

Babies exposed to even “safe” levels of air pollution in the womb may be at an increased risk of having brain abnormalities that can contribute to impaired cognitive function by school-age, finds a study. According to the European Union 25 µg/m3 is the safe level of the fine particle. Previous studies have linked acceptable air pollution levels with impact on lungs, heart, and other organs including cognitive decline and foetal growth development. However, the new study showed that air pollution levels related to brain alterations in the foetal brain, which is in developing stages and has no mechanisms to protect against or remove environmental toxins, were below those considered to be safe.

“We observed brain development effects in relationship to fine particles levels below the current EU limit,” said the lead author. The findings showed that exposure to fine particles during foetal life was associated with a thinner outer layer of the brain, called the cortex, in several regions. These brain abnormalities contribute in part to difficulty with inhibitory control — the ability to regulate self-control over temptations and impulsive behaviour which is related to mental health problems such as addictive behaviour and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

“The observed cognitive delays at early ages could have significant long-term consequences such as increased risk of mental health disorders and low academic achievement, in particular due to the ubiquity of the exposure,” the author said. “Therefore, we cannot warrant the safety of the current levels of air pollution in our cities,” he added. For the study, the team assessed air pollution levels, including levels of nitrogen dioxide — a prominent air pollutant caused by traffic and cigarette smoking coarse particles, and fine particles, at home during the foetal life of 783 children.

Brain imaging performed when the children were between six and 10 years old revealed abnormalities in the thickness of the brain cortex of the precuneus and rostral middle frontal region.

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