Cell Phones Can Be Creating Anxiety

Researchers from San Francisco State University examined how cell phones are affecting a person’s level of anxiety. It turns out that people who use their cell phones the most had the highest level of anxiety. 

One of the pieces of this puzzle is the constant pings that you get while you were doing something else. These pings interrupt what the person was doing and even more importantly the ping is activating the same neural pathways in the brain that gets activated when your fight or flight response is triggered.

For a heavy cell phone user, as more and more pings happen, the person’s neural pathway gets hardwired, so each time a ping happens, you’re in a fight or flight response and your anxiety level goes up.

In addition, with our being flooded with news feeds, social media posts and twits, you’re continuing to trigger your flight or fight response.

So, what can you do about it besides reducing your checking your newsfeed, social media, and twitter accounts? Well, how about simply turning off the ping on your phone. Ask yourselfa simple question - how many texts are really that important that I need to stop what I was doing to answer it. 

What if you simple check your texts every half hour or (god forbid)even once an hour? Will it be the end of the world that you didn’t respond instantly? Probably not.

Another reason to stop the pings is that it takes you about 16 minutes to refocus on what you were doing when the ping interrupted what you were doing.
(Reported Prevention, May 2020) 

Alleviating Depression And Anxiety Through Your Gut

A study from Griffith University in Australian reported in Prevention Magazine analyzed the effects of taking probiotic supplements on participant’s levels of depression and anxiety. The researchers found that taking the supplement reduced the participant’s symptoms. This could be due to the level of communication between the brain and your digestive system. They also found that healthy people taking the supplement were better able to manage stressful situations. I would recommend taking a supplement that is in the 25 to 50 billion range and has a variety of bacteria strains in it. You can also add probiotic-rich foods to your diet which includes pickles, sauerkraut, yogurt, kefir and aged cheeses like cheddar and Gouda. So…take your supplement or eat up to reduce your anxiety, depression or stress.

Stop Moodiness and Anxiety With Selenium

Mood disorders like anxiety, agitation, and melancholy may be due to your being deficient in the mineral selenium. Selenium is necessary for the production and activation of thyroid hormone and low levels of thyroid can cause depression, anxiety, fatigue and brain fog. The recommendation is to take 200 mcg of selenium per day.

Another Use For Selenium - Stops Viruses In Our Bodies In The FASEB Journal it was reported that lab studies of selenium showed that it stopped viruses that in our body from mutating into a more damaging form. This means taking selenium supplements is another way of keeping viruses from causing more harm in our bodies. 

IT'S VITAL TO KEEP YOUR STRESS LEVEL DOWN

A study of 33,000 men found that chronic or serious anxiety increased the likelihood of sudden cardiac death six times more than those who scored low on an anxiety symptom questionnaire. Since 200,000 men die each year, reducing your stress level is even more important than ever!

More Benefits From Listening And Playing Music

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine found that emotions aroused by joyful music cause tissue in the inner lining of blood vessels to expand, increasing blood flow.

Other studies have shown that music can bring on sound sleep, boost mood and reduce anxiety.

Listening to music will also help surgery patients feel less pain and need less pain medication while they are recovering.

According to Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, even after a few years of musical training, children have more powerful brainstem responses to complex sounds than peers who never had lessons. These neural changes are retained into adulthood.

Using this music concept in Los Angeles with at-risk youths who attend schools in gang-reduction zones, the kids take music lessons and participate in ensembles.

Rather than winding up in jail, these kids are staying in school and they are completing their education.

So…turn that music on and take music lessons and remember to save your hearing if you are using ear buds by limiting your listening time to an hour and then give yourself a break.

The Power Of A Pencil To Reduce Test Anxiety?

You might be saying, “Uh,
how can a pencil reduce test anxiety?”

Well, a study reported in the journal Science found that students who spend 10 minutes before an exam writing about their thoughts and feelings can free up brainpower by focusing on their worries and fears.

The researchers found that students who were prone to test anxiety improved their test grades by nearly one grade point simply by writing about their feelings before the exam. So…anyone still own a pencil sharpener?