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Martin Paulus, professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego, studies anxiety's effects on decision-making. "Under certain circumstances anxious people are more sensitive in detecting potentially bad outcomes associated with choices. They do avoid harm, so, as a consequence, it may be useful to be anxious," he says.

Paulus and his team have found that anxious people tend to take a "bottom-up" approach to life—their emotional reactions to events are stronger, while their ability to reason and intellectually interpret events is weaker. "Chronically anxious peoples' brains experience everything as aversive," he says. Less anxious people, in contrast, take more of a "top-down" approach—the rational parts of their brain take over when they experience something potentially anxiety inducing, and they essentially talk themselves into not getting worked up.

Being a 'happy' teenager is linked to increased well-being in adulthood, new research finds.

For the first time, researchers from the University of Cambridge and the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing have analysed the link between a positive adolescence and well-being in midlife. Using information from 2776 individuals who participated in the 1946 British birth cohort study, the scientists tested associations between having a positive childhood and well-being in adulthood.

teenagers rated positively by their teachers were significantly more likely than those who received no positive ratings to have higher levels of well-being later in life, including a higher work satisfaction, more frequent contact with family and friends, and more regular engagement in social and leisure activities. Happy children were also much less likely than others to develop mental disorders throughout their lives - 60% less likely than young teens that had no positive ratings.

Casually flipping through a 2006 copy of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, I learned that exercise is the key to combating the stress of modern life.The authors, from the University of Ioannina in Greece, first explain (in regards to the fight-or-flight response) that "stress responses can be elicited by emotional stimuli or professional and social stress."

It takes just one negatively worded memo handed down from on high to get the glucocorticoids and catecholamines flowing, but these adrenal hormones go unused and are stored in visceral fat deposits, and this does bad things to you.

these stored adrenal hormones disturb gonadal function (no wonder Viagra is such a big seller), as well as growth hormone and thyroid function. They explain how these "metabolic disturbances" lead to "comorbidities including central obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and endothelial dysfunction." In other words, unrelieved stress turns you into an artery-clogged hippopotamus with Limbaugh-like blood pressure and a lousy immune system. Oh, and it's also hard on your brain.

More Americans with psychiatric conditions are being treated with drugs alone compared with a decade ago, while "talk therapy" -- either by itself or in combination with medication -- is on the decline, a new study finds.

The results, reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry, are based on data from two government health surveys conducted in 1998 and 2007.Over that period, the percentage of Americans who said they'd had at least one psychotherapy session in the past year remained steady -- at just over 3 percent in both 1998 and 2007.However, among Americans receiving any outpatient mental health care, the proportion being treated with drugs alone rose from 44 percent in 1998 to 57 percent in 2007.Meanwhile, combined treatment with drugs and psychotherapy declined from 40 percent to 32 percent, and the use of psychotherapy alone slipped from 16 percent in 1998 to about 10 percent in 2007.National spending on psychotherapy also declined -- from an estimated total of $11 billion in 1998 to $7 billion in 2007. Overall spending on mental health care remained fairly steady, however -- at $15.4 billion in 1998 and $16 billion in 2007- suggesting an increase in the proportion of mental health spending devoted to drug therapies.

"Mental health care," he said, "is evolving in a way that means more people are receiving treatment, but are not necessarily getting the most effective therapy."

The human brain never stops adapting to its environment in a quest to formulate what the mind perceives based on what the eyes see, according to a new study. The research adds credence to the notion that adult brains can be retrained following trauma or surgery or even from the effects of aging or eye misalignment, says Jan Brascamp, a research associate working with Randolph Blake, Centennial Professor of Psychology at Vanderbilt University. Details appear in the July 29 issue of Current Biology.

People with a history of heart disease who are prone to negative thinking, gloom, and inhibition -- a personality profile known as Type D (for "distressed") -- are nearly four times more likely to experience heart attack, heart failure, heart rhythm disorders, death, and other negative outcomes compared to heart patients with a different personality profile, the study found.

"There is a clear connection between heart risk and psychological risk factors, and those people who have this personality and lack social support have higher risk of health problems,"

Type D personalities are "characterized by negative emotions like anxiety, frustration, and anger, and at the same time score high on social inhibition, meaning that they are less likely to disclose emotions," Denollet says.

According to the American Psychological Association, a whopping 75 percent of people in the United States feel stressed out. Almost half of us eat unhealthy because of it; 47 percent of us can't sleep because of it; it makes one in three of us depressed; and for 42 percent of us, it has gotten worse in the last year. There is so much making us anxious these days -- from big-picture problems like uncontrollable oil spills and a still-soft economy to garden-variety job, relationship, money, you-name-it woes -- that it's easy to think of chronic stress as the new normal.

the latest research reveals that revving up your body with exercise may be the most effective antidote. In lab studies, when scientists at Princeton put animals on a six-week aerobic conditioning program, then compared their brain cells with those of a group that remained sedentary, they found that the "brains on exercise" morphed over time into a biochemically calm state that remained steady even when the subjects were under stress. The nonexercising group's brain cells continued to react strongly to anxiety-inducing situations. This breakthrough discovery has scientists now saying that cardio workouts may actually remodel the brain to make it more resistant to stress hormones.

"Renewed interest in personal training" is the number-one fitness trend for 2011 by the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and this is driven by baby boomers' interest in health and an anticipated economic upswing, he said.

How personal training will change:   1. Client  expectations. Many clients will want to improve function to stay independent as long as possible, but a subgroup will seek new activities or assistance in training for sports-specific competitions. Trainers will need to guide both types of clients.

2. Demand for knowledgeable trainers. Personal trainers will need to become more knowledgeable in two key areas: the motivations and aspirations of older adults, and the health conditions that can affect a client’s ability to work out, Milner said. They also need to learn how to collaborate with other healthcare providers.   3. More comprehensive continuing education courses. Trainers will need to know learn not just about chronic health conditions and rehabilitation, but also learn about social and psychological perspectives, emotional issues, and lifestyle choices that affect their older-adult clients. They will need to be coaches as well as flexible program designers who can work with their clients in multiple settings besides the gym.   

A study of German college students suggests that urbanite brains are more susceptible to stress, particularly social stress, than those of country dwellers.

Meyer-Lindenberg’s findings, published June 23 in Nature, are a neurological investigation into the underpinnings of a disturbing social trend: As a rule, city life seems to generate mental illness. Compared to their rural counterparts, city dwellers have higher levels of anxiety and mood disorders. The schizophrenia risk of people raised in cities is almost double. Literature on the effect is so thorough that researchers say it’s not just correlation, as might be expected if anxious people preferred to live in cities. Neither is it a result of heredity. It’s a cause-and-effect relationship between environment and mind.

cities are hyper-social places, in which residents must be constantly on guard, and have mathematically more opportunity to experience stressful interaction. Too much stress may ultimately alter the brain, leaving it ill-equipped to handle further stress and prone to mental illness.