Is stress shortening your life?

Everybody experiences stressors. How this affects you health and longevity depends on how you respond to stress.  Do a Google search on "does stress shorten your lifespan" and you find an abundance of articles and research demonstrating the relationship between stress response and lifespan.

There is an abundance of resources to help you better respond to stress.  Many are free ans simple to do. But, similar to eating healthy and exercising, they are often forgotten or dismissed.  How you prioritize your health is reflected in what you do to stay healthy.

There is a more thorough approach to stress management called resilience training.  Resilience is the concept of dealing with stress in a positive and healthy way that allows you to bounce back better than you were before the stressor.  You know that muscles get stronger by using them to their maximum. In the same way you can get mentally and emotionally stronger by using stress as mental weight lifting. The challenge is to engage these mental exercises regularly, just as you should be doing with physical exercise.

The methods utilized in resilience training are quick, simple and have been shown to be clinically effective. Pick up a training book on Amazon, find a few exercises that fit with your schedule and personality, and DO IT.

I am planning to offer a resilience training workshop in February 2019. My current plan is to have a 60-90 minute session once weekly for 4 weeks. Start time would be 5:15 pm.  Attendees are expected to purchase the workbook and read the introductory chapter prior to the first class.  I haven't determined the fee yet, or if it will be billable to insurance. I will keep you posted via this blog and my office Facebook page.

Give me the placebo!

But don't tell me I'm getting it. If I know then it won't work.
I was looking at data on a recently-approved medication for migraine prevention. For $600 a month I can reduce my average migraine from 8 per month to 4 per month. The cost-free, side-effect free placebo reduced migraine days from 8 per month to 6 per month. If the placebo doesn't' work I can always switch to the real medication.
The power of placebo is real. Clinical trials routinely include a placebo group. The response rate to the placebo varies depending on what condition is being treated. The 'side effects' on placebo are also interesting, further demonstrating what the power of the mind can do.
I think that the power of placebo frightens off a lot of 'alternative practices' from doing any science to demonstrate safety and efficacy. What if they discover that the recent fad of (insert name of fad) is no more beneficial than placebo?  On the other hand, if I don't know that it's a placebo it might work for me!
Dr. George Lundberg has some excellent articles  that discuss the placebo effect. In 1998 he and Dr. Phil Fontanarosa wrote:
There is no "alternative medicine." There is only medicine:
Medicine that has been tested and found to be safe and effective. Use it; pay for it.
And, medicine that has been tested and found to be unsafe or ineffective. Don't use it; don't pay for it.
And, medicine for which there is some plausible reason to believe that it might be safe and effective. Test it and then place it into one of the other two categories.
This approach sounds simple. It also can be threatening to the multi-billion dollar industry of nutritional supplements. Try it and see if it works? Look back on the comment 'there is some plausible reason...". If it's cheap and harmless it might be worth a try. The likelihood of success depends on your susceptibility to he placebo effect.
There are plenty of trials for a variety of nonprescription therapies showing various benefits and failures. It's not always easy to find these reports. You need to know how to navigate PubMed and Google Scholar and know how to stratify the validity of the studies. As examples, there have been clinical trials for migraine headache using coenzyme Q10, riboflavin and melatonin. The studies weren't sufficiently large enough to garner the attention of the American Headache Society but the data supports at least giving it a try. On the other hand, herbal treatments purported to be useful for headache, including ginger, wood betony, feverfew and vervain, have no actual data. They have the support of history and urban legend. I have no idea what the effectiveness is above placebo.
I recommend the following articles by Dr. Lundberg to round out the discussion:
Accidental genius of homeopathy
Therapeutic (non) touch.