Nip the stress bud

• Bangulzai

  6 Mar 09, 18:18

  improve>>

   

  Nip the stress bud

  Poor habits at the office can lead to burnout. One expert tells the reporter how to avoid this.

   

  "Stress is part and parcel of life. In fact, without some stress at the workplace, we would not strive to meet deadlines or archieve production targets. Instead, one should look for alternatives to handle it. Resignation is only a last resort," explains Dr Bernard Lim, president of the Singapore Psychological Society (SPS).

   

      On the flipside, there must be moderation in stress levels, as too much of it can be destructive to one's physical and mental well-being.

   

      "Excessive stress at the workplace can lead to increased blood pressure, heart rate, sweating, migraines, gastrointestinal disorders and emotional upheavals like anger, anxiety, depression and low esteem," warns Dr Lim.

   

      According to him, unmanaged stress can lead to poor work performance, over-reliance on and in some cases, abuse and addiction to prescription drugs, diminished communication abilities and irrational behaviour like picking quarrels over small issues.

   

      Stress is triggered by a multitude of causes. It could arise from time-consuming tasks not related to one's job scope. These unnecessary burdens can lead to one being overworked and consequently, having less time for rest and recreation.

   

      Dr Lim discloses, "Bosses breathing down your neck or colleagues you simply cannot work with are two of the leading causes of stress."

   

      Though not possible to completely eliminate it, stress levels can be mitigated.

   

      "Don't sweat on trivial matters like getting into petty arguments with colleagues over non-work issues as this can spill over into the workplace. The key to a less stressful work environment is to make friends, not burn bridges," says Dr Lim.

   

      Significant strides in alleviating stress levels can be made if there is constant communication between management and employees.

   

      Clear-the-air talks are one of the most effective methods in resolving disputes and clarifying misunderstandings. Bottling up unhappiness will only prolong one's misery and can ultimately affect individual performance.

   

      "One should approach their direct superior and voice their concerns. In that way, management will get feedback. The awareness created will provide management with some understanding of an employee's predicament," Dr Lim explains.

   

      However, in order for a management-employee synergy to work, the former must be proactive in feeling the pulse of its employees and identify any potential problem before it spirals out of control.

   

      Recognising employees for their efforts and achievements are also important as employees will feel appreciated and valued, a definite plus for morale, says Dr Lim. At the end of the day, it is up to the individual to help oneself.

   

      Dr Lim offers, "Organise your work, be systematic, manage your time properly and set realistic goals. Never procrastinate at work or it can create a backlog that becomes a snowball with stress written all over it."

• Bangulzai

  10 Mar 09, 10:38

  stress
   distress

  Stress is part of life. The danger
  is when it affects you so much
  that it wreaks havoc on your physical and mental health.

  Ever since my brother-in-law got retrenched, he hardly talks to us and stays in his room all day. How can we help him?
  Men’s traditional sense of self-worth includes career success and being a good provider, so it’s no surprise that they are affected deeply when they lose their job.
       One of the most basic differences between men and women is how they respond to stress. Men often react with a "fight-or-flight" response when confronted by stress. They react with aggressive behaviour such as verbal conflict or they withdraw. Anger, irritability and aggression are common symptoms that are more socially acceptable than fear or crying.
       A family member your brother-in-law trusts should try and talk to him – just to let him know he is not alone. He may want to be left alone for a while, but if he continues to show signs of stress, perhaps that person could advise him to seek professional counselling.
       He’ll be taught stress management techniques (see below). The doctor may also prescribe medications such mild sedatives and antidepressants to alleviate some symptoms.

  dealing with stress
  Coping with stress will put us in better physical and emotional health. These are some ways:
  1 manage your time
  We may feel stressed because we do not manage our time effectively. Some strategies:
  • set goals and prioritise them
  • learn to delegate some of your tasks
  • schedule time for breaks and relaxation

   

  2 learn to relax
  A change of routine can be helpful when you are feeling tense and tired. Breaks are important for the body and mind to recharge.

  3 avoid negative thinking
  What we say to ourselves (self-talk) affects our mood. People who engage in negative thinking tend to be more easily anxious or depressed. Examples are mind-reading ("My boss hates my work") and perfectionist thinking ("I must do it perfectly or I might as well not even try"). Be aware of unhelpful self-talk and learn to counter it.  

  4 learn to say "no"
  It is sometimes difficult to be assertive as we like to be obliging and helpful. Finding ourselves trapped by obligations often results in feelings of anger and helplessness. Learning to say "no" is very important – practise your assertive response in front of a mirror. So is your body language. Stand or sit up tall with your shoulders back and give good eye contact; speak in a calm but firm tone of voice.
  
  5 limit stressful changes
  

  It may not be wise to marry, buy a flat and change jobs all within a year as this will cause overwhelming stress, such as financial strain. Whenever possible, limit the number of life changes within a short period of time.

  6 live a healthy lifestyle
  Eating well-balanced meals and doing regular exercise can help the body cope better with stress, while overeating or consuming excessive quantities of alcohol and smoking lead to increased physical stress.
  
  7 get social support
  Try to find people who are good, non-judgmental listeners you are at ease with and trust enough to confide in. It is important to build healthy relationships with family members, friends or community support groups.
  
  how to spot stress
  Common physical symptoms
  • Aches
  • fatigue
  • dizziness
  • heart palpitations
  • shortness of breath
  • nausea or upset stomach
  • appetite changes
  • constipation or diarrhoea
  • frequent urination
  • changes in sleep or sexual interests, and
  • susceptibility to illnesses, like flu.
  
  Common emotional symptoms
  • Irritability
  • excessive worrying 
  •  feeling helpless and vulnerable
  • change in eating habits
  • difficulty sleeping
  • moodiness, depression or constant negativity
  • isolating oneself 
  •  working harder, accomplishing less
  increased use of alcohol/medications, and
  • worsening of psychiatric conditions.

  blame it on stress
  Psychosomatic disorders:
  • Hypertension
  • eczema
  • heart disease
  • tension headache
  • peptic ulcer disease
  • irritable bowel syndrome, and
  • general ill-health.

  Minor Psychiatric Disorders:
  • Anxiety
  • depressive disorders
  • hypochondriasis, and
  • disturbed emotional and social life.

   

  "By virtue of their personality, thinking patterns, life experience and social support, some people can take more stress than others. If you find yourself easily getting into a rage when you are normally rather controlled, this could be a sign that you may need to slow down."
  – Dr Angelina Chan, Consultant Psychiatrist Trauma Recovery & Corporate Solutions, Changi General Hospital

   

   

  The Trauma Recovery & Corporate Solutions (TRaCS) at Changi General Hospital provides services to improve workplace mental health and management of traumatic incidents through the provision of consultation, training and psychological support services for crisis management and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. For corporate enquiries, call 6850-2987/3389 or visit www.cgh.com.sg/corporate/tracs.asp. 

• Bangulzai

  12 Mar 09, 01:17

  抗压·è§£å¿§· 除痛·å®‰çœ ——中医更有效

  ◆王晓兰

   

  　　��科学技术的�断进步，工作�生活节�的�步加快，对人们能力的�求也越��高。�加上当�美国的金�海啸造�全�性的�济��，人们的压力已�被推到了顶端。今年新加�的金��济环境�容�观，这�压力在短时间内�会消失。从医学的角度�看，长期过度的压力具有高度的破�性，无论在心里还是生�上都会严��害你的�康。

  　　长期过度的压力究竟会给我们的身体带�哪些常�的疾病呢？

  一�压力导致抑�

  　　长期过度的精神压力导致抑�，是目�最常�也是破�性最大的心�问题。近年�，因为��压力而患上抑�症的患者越�越多，而且�分男女�少，抑�症已�为现代人第一大�康�手。它�仅仅是心�问题，还直接�害身体的�康，使人丧失工作和生活的能力，甚至导致自残自�的行为。

  　　抑�症的症状表现如下：

  1.　抑�沮丧的心情（情绪低�）
  2.　兴趣�低或消失(无愉快感，高兴�起�)
  3.　精力�退或丧失（工作效率低，常感到疲倦）
  4.　�眠障�（入�困难或早醒）
  5.　自我评价低（自责和内疚感）
  6.　自�的念头或者行为
  7.　其他如情绪焦��安，精力�能集中，决策力�注�力�退��维动作迟缓等。

  　　��充分认识到抑�症的�险性，了解抑�症的早期症状，�早进行治疗，就��得治愈的机会。

  　　中医�针�治疗抑�症具有很好的疗效，而且无毒副作用，无�赖性，无论从调整机体还是从远期疗效上都�优于镇�安神抗�的西�。

  二�压力导致失眠

  　　现代人的失眠和压力�抑�是�能完全分开的，由压力导致失眠抑�，失眠�加�了抑�和压力，由于长期得�到充足的�眠，�仅人的情绪�得�为�感和急�，身体�康状况也是�况愈下。

  　　如果是因为一段时间的压力而�生的暂时性失眠，�一定需�治疗，当事情解决了，压力解除了，一般就会��正常的�眠。但如果长期的压力问题得�到解决，长期失眠，久而久之，�使在没有压力的情况下，�然�能正常�眠，这就需��时求医治疗了。但�万���便�用安眠�，中医��针�，对于解除失眠是�常有帮助的。

  三�压力导致疼痛

  　　长期的紧张压力，如果未加注�，日积月累下�，在身体的��部�也会出现一些莫�的疼痛，比如头疼�背痛�颈肩痛�腰痛�关节痛等，甚至于全身疼痛。

  　　专家�醒：身体�明原因的疼痛，�能忽视，�万���便乱�止痛�，你�以从以下三个方�鉴别自己是�患上了此类的疼痛。第一是疼痛超过�年。第二，查无原因。第三，影�学习工作和生活。

  　　具备了这三点，就�注��好自身调节，找医生诊治，以�延误病情和长期��痛苦。通过针��拔����等方法，都�以有效且较迅速解除压力和压力带�的���适以�疼痛的问题。

  四�化解压力，自我调节

  1.　�动�压：�动是�常�康的�压方法，通过�动�以把身体里因压力而产生的�良物质释放出�，�以放�肌肉紧张度。

  2.　调整心�：过于追求完美的人，需�调整心�，用比较实际的�度去对待自己的生活和工作，��会给自己造�很大的压力。

  3.　9�食�有助于抗压解忧：①深水鱼（快�的�泉）②香蕉（�少忧虑）③��（赶走忧�）④鸡蛋（告别嗜�）⑤葡�柚（�神醒脑）⑥大蒜（摆脱焦虑）⑦�瓜（赶走疲劳）⑧核桃�（补脑安眠）⑨莲�（养心安神）

  　　（作者是莱佛士中医的顾问医师）

    

  《��早报》

• Bangulzai

  11 Apr 09, 03:32

  Stress Attack

  Get help before your office wears you out. By Sonia Boonchanasukit.
  Illustrations by Temsiri Pothipattananont

  

  American companies are spending some 16 billion a year on stress management and 20 percent of them run some kind of stress management program. In the Old World, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work ranks stress as the second biggest work-related health problem—and says the number of people suffering from stress is on the rise. “People used to consult for depression or marital problems but, in Europe, work stress is now the number one reason people see a psychologist,” says lecturer and psychologist Dr. Jean-Francois Botermans. His colleague, Dr. Benjamin Weinstein, says the worrying trend is catching on in the rest of the world: “A fifth of the people that come to me for consultations are suffering from work-related stress.” We’ve reached a tipping point where the greatest source of dissatisfaction in our lives is no longer family or personal relationships but work. Increasingly complicated jobs, global competition, a bad economy: It’s a perfect breeding ground for the job stress epidemic. It’s been proven that stress reduces your ability to resist infections and can cause an array of symptoms, from backaches to nausea. It also comes at a cost for companies: Absenteeism, reduced productivity and staff turnover. Here’s what causing it and a few tips to survive.

  Change, The Fuel of Stress
  One of the first studies to link stress and illness focused on life-changing experiences. By asking 5,000 medical patients to rank events in their lives, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe found proof that change creates stress and stress makes you ill. The top ranked stress causes? Death of a spouse (100 points), divorce (73) and marital separation (65).
          Dismissal from work only ranked eighth (43 points) but that was in 1967 and in the West. Most psychiatrists we spoke to agree that people are more likely to get stressed out by the fear of unemployment today than by problems in a personal relationship, like marriage. In other words, Bob signing his divorce papers in Los Angeles and David getting laid off from his managerial position in Singapore could roughly generate the same amount of stress.
          If you’re fired, or think you might get fired, Dr. Botermans encourages you to get connected with your network: “Get in touch with your friends, family members, or anyone that could provide you with the support and encouragement you need. If need be, consult a lawyer to know the legalities of your situation and also a doctor to ensure that you are physically well.” Why a doctor? Some studies suggest risks of illness could be as high as 80 percent for someone suffering from severe stress.
          Getting fired is the most drastic change that can occur in your career but it’s definitely not the only cause of stress. “A lot of people come for consultation sessions when they are stressed out due to major shifts in jobs, they either have been relocated someplace else or given more responsibilities,” adds Dr. Botermans. So how can getting a promotion, meant to be a change for the better, be a source of stress?

  3, 2, 1... Burnout
  “The work environment today is just naturally stressful,” says Dr. Weinstein. “It’s difficult to deal with a place where you have to deal with constant pressures and no slack.” And with a poor economy, things are not going to get any better. Due to downsizing, the same amount of responsibilities fall on fewer people. “It’s my observation that when this happens, it usually falls on someone who does the work really well. It’s not fair but he or she ends up taking on all the workload and the stress that goes with it,” says Dr. Botermans.
          The ultimate risk is burnout, a psychological term used to describe patients suffering from exhaustion and diminished interest at work. You may already have experienced that sensation, those moments when you stare blankly at your screen, unable to get anything done.
          Kamonwan Khamching, a kinesiologist who is involved in assessing and rehabiliating human movement, performance and functions, believes in think pink therapy: “If you choose to think about how stressful your world is, then you will just end up stressing yourself out even more. If you change your attitude, you will automatically see things in a better light.”
          Dr. Weinstein disagrees: “It’s not just about saying, ‘I’m going to think positive right now.’ That’s not mindfulness. You’ve got to stop and ask, ‘What’s happening right now?’ without getting attached to it, engaged in it. Just have a mindful moment at work, acknowledging what’s going on when it happens without trying to hide it by just being positive.”
          Today, psychologists agree, cognitive therapy has real results to bust stress. The New York Times stated that “in 18 studies, including more than 850 people working in a wide variety of jobs ... this kind of counseling has significantly reduced complaints, sometimes in as few as six sessions.”
          “Cognitive therapy is an approach where the therapist tries to modify the way the person thinks about the problem. It’s relatively recent but it’s based on very old concepts of Buddhist teachings and Greek philosophy that allows you to change the way you look at things,” says Dr. Botermans. “What this kind of therapy does is it makes us realize that it’s not the things we experience that makes us feel bad, it’s the way we interpret them.”
          You can look at stress like a glass of water. The glass represents you and the water, the amount of stress. You have three choices, you can either 1.) Widen your glass so you have the ability to absorb more stress, 2.) Punch holes in the glass to release the stress or 3.) Cover it with a lid to block the stress. We encourage every one to try and use all three methods because different stressful circumstances can be tackled differently.

  Crazy Bosses, Annoying Colleagues
  Out of all the factors related to stress, interpersonal stress can be the hardest to deal with. “When the stress deals with external circumstances, it can be easy to tackle, but when it deals with people and relationships, it becomes very hard to manage,” says Dr. Botermans. “I once had a real high performer come in for consultation. His company was going through a major downsizing and so he was given an increasing number of responsibilities. He dealt with it, lived up to the challenge. But then his supervisor changed and the real problems began.”
          Celia Ng (not her real name), an account manager for an advertising firm has it even worse. Pleasing one crazy boss is bad enough, not knowing who to please is as bad as it gets. “I have five people to answer to. It’s probably one of the most stressful things about this job. It’s great when all your supervisors agree on the same thing but when you have different people wanting different things, it’s a recipe for disaster. I have had occasions where I had to redo assignments and rework ideas based on one person’s opinion and then again for another person. It’s really stressful!”
          Here’s the bad news: If your boss is truly an asshole, the experts we spoke to have only one piece of advice: Quit. Sure, quitting creates a huge amount of stress but, in the long run, it could be worth it.
          As easy as it is to blame superiors, a lot of work-related stress could also stem from your fellow colleagues—or even the people below you on the corporate ladder. “It’s true that for the most part the boss sets the tone and environment for the office, but maintaining relationships with your coworkers is just as important,” says Dr. Botermans.
          “The work environment is increasingly collaborative,” says Dr. Weinstein of the modern workplace, an environment where no one works alone. “Relationships with co-workers are so important global companies are spending huge amounts on team-building exercises,” he explains. Maybe it’s time to gently push your boss for that company retreat or think about organizing one if you’re the head honcho.

  Work-Life Balance
  “With more responsibilities and adjustments, I see patients who end up spending a lot more time at work and less time with their families,” says Dr. Botermans of his stressed-out patients. “It’s important to have social connections and meaningful activities outside of work,” says Dr. Weinstein. “For a lot of people, I don’t think it’s a problem, because one of the things about our culture is the emphasis on interpersonal connections.”
          For kinesiologist Kamonwan Khamching, life out of the office should also include some “me time”: “Regular physical activity helps with the reduction of stress. Join a yoga or tai chi class; these physical activities help in releasing the stress in your energy system. I recommend that you do yoga about three times a week for about an hour or an hour and a half each time. Meditation is also another great way to keep both your mind and body balanced.”

  Good Stress
  If your stress is the kind that lingers, it will have harmful lasting effects. But stress that comes and goes is not only healthy but essential to your work life. Without some stress, you wouldn’t get anything done, you’d have no motivation to get out of bed or finish that report. One study even found that super achievers tend to be “blessed” with high levels of stress. Make sure you enjoy stress-free moments and don’t stress too much about being stressed.

  Five Quick Fixes to Stress at Work
  1. Breathe Baby, Breathe
  Inhaling and exhaling deeply 10-15 times should get the hemoglobin reaching the desired organs. And best yet, you can do it at the comfort of your desk during office hours, too.

  2. Power Nap!
  Doze off at your desk for about 10-15 mins. (Hey, not everyone has a futon under his or her table.) For quicker results, slap on an eye mask by TheFaceShop (#02-99/100 VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk, 6376-9383) for relaxation.

  3. LOL
  Ever heard of laughing therapy? It turns out, they weren’t just pulling our leg, it actually works. Laughing releases endorphins. Try http://tinyurl.com/4afx2a. We promise you, you won’t regret it.

  4. Shake dat Booty
  Take a five-minute break every hour and get your body in motion. A quick walk downstairs, or even just a step away from your cubicle could do you good. Ask your boss to get Wii Fit (Buy it at http://www.play-asia.com) to keep you limber and alert.

  5. Get Drunk!
  Yes, drinking on the job is not allowed, but neither are most of the truly fun things in life. Colorless, zero-cal’ and thanks to it being mixed with citrus botanicals sort-of-odorless, gin (try Bombay Sapphire, the bottle is pretty) is the on-the-job lush’s weapon of choice.

  Save the Environment!
  Sometimes, stress can stem from your surroundings more than the job itself; we give you five ways to improve your working environment.

  DO AWAY WITH THE CLUTTER
  Bring up regular Spring Cleaning Days in your next office meeting. It’s amazing how much gets trashed, donated and recycled when everyone gets into cleaning mode.

  ERGONOMICS
  With technology comes fast and efficient work practices, but it can also mean a stiff neck and a bad back. Here are a few simple prevention measures:
  •Angle your monitor upwards so that you’re looking at it from a slightly downward angle, approximately 20 degrees.
  •Maintain a 50-70cm viewing distance between you and your computer screen.
  •Place your keyboard so that your wrists are comfortably rested on your table and your arms are at a 90-degree angle.
  •Adjust your seat height so that your feet are firmly planted on the floor.

  CUSTOMIZE YOUR DESK
  When you started working, you were bestowed with a clean, plain and pathetically boring desk/cubicle. That’s just depressing. Go all out and adorn it in pink and funny pictures of your pampered pooch or make it all macho with some brushed steel office accessories, whatever works for you.

  TEMPERATURE
  Ideal workplace temperatures often vary depending on the type of work you do. Studies show that you need to keep your thermostats anywhere between 21-23 degrees Celsius for optimum output and productivity.

• Bangulzai

  11 Apr 09, 16:55

  Can lowering stress raise your intelligence?

  How often do you see it? An IT project team starts out collaborating well. Three months later they are in fire-fighting mode and blaming one another for the chaos. Team members may have gained weight, resumed smoking or even experienced trouble with their families or sleeping. It’s all evidence of too much stress.
  
  Excess stress isn’t just bad for individuals, it’s bad for business too. If you find your project team has locked into response mode, operating on a task-by-task level to survive the day, you may be achieving less than you think. Better project management that puts stress in balance can help you increase your competitive edge.
  
  What’s bad for the brain is bad for business
  When you’re under stress, you use less of the front part of your brain responsible for advanced thinking, and more of the back part that handles primitive thought processes such as the fight-or-flight response.  Consider the over-burdened IT executive who, during a project meeting, checks his e-mails and calendar on his laptop, or responds to messages on his handheld PDA, He’s so busy multitasking to keep up that he isn’t using the full capacity of his brain. He misses things, doesn’t ask the right questions, and can’t quickly prioritise issues. As a result, the project doesn’t run as efficiently as it could. Of course, not all stress is bad. In fact, occasional stress can be motivating. But as business problems increase in complexity and cycles of change accelerate, more employees today are in a constant state of survival mode than ever before, and their work can suffer because of it.
  
  Manage more when you manage stress first
  Any organisation that can keep its employees relaxed, focused and using their full mental capacity is going to operate more effectively – and ultimately be more competitive – than one whose employees are highly stressed and locked into a pattern of reacting to problems or competing with each other.
  
  While you can’t necessarily change the external forces causing stress levels to rise, you can recognise the signs and take action to help employees find balance well before the fight or flight response kicks in. Sometimes managers are under such pressure that they depersonalise employees, viewing them as numbers, budget line items or roles. If you can see employees as unique people with individual needs, both inside and outside of work, you’ll be more likely to keep stress in check.
  
  How to keep stress under control from the start
  Awareness is the first step in dealing with elevated stress, yet one of the first things you lose under pressure is your ability to self-monitor. Ask questions that will help a project team look inwards at how stress may be negatively affecting their behaviours and lives.  Model behaviour that doesn’t promote stress as a badge of honour, but encourages people to set healthy boundaries and teaches them when to say no. If employees are over-committing, look for ways to reduce the demands on their time and check their priority levels. Offer support and encourage them to take a good look at their diet, sleep and exercise patterns–the first to suffer when stress becomes unmanageable.
  
  Remember, high stress may be a badge of honour on the battlefield or in sports. But in business, where maintaining competitiveness means thinking and operating at our best, it’s nothing more than a liability.

• Bangulzai

  20 May 09, 22:11

  Stress causes bad breath epidemic
  

  Of all the idiotic, trivial things that can ruin a person’s life, bad breath has to rank high on anyone’s list of the humiliating tricks fate can play on us. Weekly Playboy (May 25) sounds the alarm: Japan’s collective breath, already bad, is getting worse.
  

  Blame stress. High standards and feverish competition make Japan a stressful place at the best of times, which these recessionary times are not. Assuming the diagnosis of recession halitosis holds, our breath should sweeten as the economy recovers—if the economy recovers.

  Weekly Playboy’s account opens with a personal anecdote concerning a certain “Mr A,” a 31-year-old advertising company employee who, always careful about brushing and flossing, was all the more chagrined to note unmistakable signs of repugnance on the face of a female colleague he was chatting up.

  How strange. Why should his breath be foul? His health was good, his stomach apparently fine. True, he was in a state of some anxiety over his precarious finances. Also, lately his mouth often felt strangely dry. Could that be significant?

  It is indeed, says Ichiro Saito, a dentistry professor at Tsurumi University and author of a book on “dry mouth” syndrome. The number of patients he’s seeing who suffer from it has increased dramatically over the past five years. Based on his own practice and other research, he estimates 30 million Japanese may be afflicted with it.

  The usual causes, stress aside, are aging and medicinal side effects. But Saito was noticing a sharp rise in the number of young sufferers, many of them under stress, though not necessarily economy-related. One of his patients, a company man in his 30s, was being persistently harassed by an older subordinate resentful of his relatively lowly status. Another patient, a “desk worker” in his 20s, found his mouth drying as a romantic relationship turned sour.

  Why should stress cause bad breath? As a rule, Saito tells Weekly Playboy, a person secretes 1.5 liters of saliva a day. Salivation is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. Have a relaxing massage and notice the flow increase. Quarrel with your boss and your mouth dries. If you think of saliva as a kind of natural mouth wash, the rest of the explanation is easily inferred—dry equals unclean.

  There are those who would say that if bad breath is your biggest worry, your life is on a pretty even keel. But it’s not necessarily so. Surveys consistently show, Weekly Playboy points out, that women are acutely sensitive to a man’s mouth odors. One 20-year-old woman the magazine speaks to sums it up clearly and bluntly: “I don’t care how good-looking a guy is, if his mouth smells like poison gas, I won’t kiss him!”

  So chew gum, men, and carry a PET bottle with you for emergency sips (not gulps) when you get that dry-mouth feeling. Perhaps most important of all: chew your food thoroughly. That’s something we’re apt to neglect in hurried, stressful times. In doing so, we don’t make our stress any easier to bear.

• lianamaster

  9 Jun 09, 15:37

  Shit la... My exams were testing stg abt  stress... should have read these posts earlier... lol...

• Bangulzai

  13 Jun 09, 22:38

  Stress makes your hair go gray

  Thursday, June 11, 2009
  
  Those pesky graying hairs that tend to crop up with age really are signs of stress, reveals a new report in the June 12 issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication.
  
  Researchers have discovered that the kind of "genotoxic stress" that does damage to DNA depletes the melanocyte stem cells (MSCs) within hair follicles that are responsible for making those pigment-producing cells. Rather than dying off, when the going gets tough, those precious stem cells differentiate, forming fully mature melanocytes themselves.
  
  "The DNA in cells is under constant attack by exogenously- and endogenously-arising DNA-damaging agents such as mutagenic chemicals, ultraviolet light and ionizing radiation," said Emi Nishimura of Tokyo Medical and Dental University. "It is estimated that a single cell in mammals can encounter approximately 100,000 DNA damaging events per day."
  
  Consequently, she explained, cells have elaborate ways to repair damaged DNA and prevent the lesions from being passed on to their daughter cells.
  
  "Once stem cells are damaged irreversibly, the damaged stem cells need to be eliminated to maintain the quality of the stem cell pools," Nishimura continued. "We found that excessive genotoxic stress triggers differentiation of melanocyte stem cells." She says that differentiation might be a more sophisticated way to get rid of those cells than stimulating their death.
  
  Nishimura's group earlier traced the loss of hair color to the gradual dying off of the stem cells that maintain a continuous supply of new melanocytes, giving hair its youthful color. Those specialized stem cells are not only lost, they also turn into fully committed pigment cells and in the wrong place.
  
  Now, they show in mice that irreparable DNA damage, as caused by ionizing radiation, is responsible. They further found that the "caretaker gene" known as ATM (for ataxia telangiectasia mutated) serves as a so-called stemness checkpoint, protecting against MSCs differentiation. That's why people with Ataxia-telangiectasia, an aging syndrome caused by a mutation in the ATM gene, go gray prematurely.
  
  The findings lend support to the notion that genome instability is a significant factor underlying aging in general, the researchers said. They also support the "stem cell aging hypothesis," which proposes that DNA damage to long-lived stem cells can be a major cause for the symptoms that come with age.
  
  "In this study, we discovered that hair graying, the most obvious aging phenotype, can be caused by the genomic damage response through stem cell differentiation, which suggests that physiological hair graying can be triggered by the accumulation of unavoidable DNA damage and DNA-damage response associated with aging through MSC differentiation," they wrote.
  
  ###
  
  Cell Press

  Thanks to Cell Press for this article.

• lianamaster

  23 Jun 09, 10:56

  Oh my... lol...