According to a study by Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, reported in the New York Times May 22, 2008, people are much more likely to stop smoking and stay stopped if they belong to a group of like-minded individuals who are also stopping or have stopped already. Further, those in such groups who found it impossible to stop smoking eventually gave in to peer pressure and stopped smoking or were ostracized by the group becoming social outcasts.

Researchers found that to improve odds of stopping smoking, those seeking to quit should seek the company of others wanting to quit or encourage smoking friends to join them in their cessation effort - creating their own social support group.

I’m all about improving the odds. Stopping smoking can be a monumental task. By allying yourself with others wanting to stop, you make the job a whole lot easier. Further, when you do stop, your social group will help you stay stopped. Now that’s a good deal.

Read more about this at the NY Times web site.

And to help you stop smoking and stay stopped, buy my book, You Can Stop Smoking and Stay Stopped Forever - available online at 1derworks.com and Amazon.com.

Stress at work can kill you.

A study by researchers at the School of Public Health in Berkeley, CA, discovered that work stress, resulting from pressure at the work place, may increase the progression of atherosclerosis by 46% in people who have highly reactive personalities to stress.

“Studies like these have shown that work stress is associated to cardiovascular disease,” states Dr. C. Noel Bairey Merz, Director of the Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center at Cedars-Sinai in the U.S.A., who will speak on stress at work at the XVI World Congress of Cardiology. “And, although it is difficult to estimate how many people are at risk of coronary disease because of work stress, the most recent analysis of the INTERHEART study directed by Dr. Salim Yusuf makes it possible to estimate that from 20% to 30% of heart attacks can be attributed to psychological stress.”

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Psychologists Nir Halevy, Gary Bornstein and Lilach Sagiv from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem have taken a step closer to our understanding of cooperation versus competition with a recent study exploring individual preferences for inter-group conflict or intra-group cohesiveness in humans.

They set up an experiment in which the participants had a clear choice to either contribute to the in-group without harming anyone, or actively choosing to damage the out-group.

Previous studies on the topic indicated that individuals would often choose to compete with any opposing group; however, the game used to measure those studies failed to give participants the option of leaving the other group alone. The only choices given participants in the previous studies were to keep all of the tokens or to give tokens to the in-group while subtracting tokens from the out-group. By adding the new option of keeping all money within the in-group, the psychologists allowed participants to strengthen their own group without damaging the other.

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“…heightened defensiveness reflects insecurity, fragility and less-than-optimal functioning rather than a healthy psychological outlook,” said Michael Kernis, Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia when describing those with fragile high self esteem. “We aren’t suggesting there’s something wrong with people when they want to feel good about themselves. What we are saying is that when feeling good about themselves becomes a prime directive, for these people excessive defensiveness and self-promotion are likely to follow, the self-esteem is likely to be fragile rather than secure and any psychological benefits will be very limited.”

Self esteem, it seems is a bit like cholesterol. It’s not as simple as too much cholesterol causes problems. There is “good cholesterol” and “bad cholesterol.” Further, too much “good” cholesterol can cause problems, too. So, too, with self esteem. There is “good” self esteem - called “healthy” self esteem; and there is “bad” self esteem - or “unhealthy” self esteem. Too much “healthy” self esteem can turn into unhealthy self esteem according to studies at UGA.

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Norihiro Sadato of the National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), Aichi, Japan, and colleagues found that making money and making a reputation engage much of the same reward circuitry in the brain - a finding that they say yields insight into what drives complex social behaviors.

“By directly contrasting the brain activities of the same subjects in relation to the delivery of social and monetary rewards, our results clearly show that social approval shares the same neural basis as monetary rewards, thus providing strong support for the idea of a ‘common neural currency’ of reward,” concluded the researchers.

They wrote that their findings “indicate that the social reward of a good reputation should be incorporated into the neural model of human decision making in a similar manner to monetary rewards.” Thus, they wrote, experiments on decision making that use money-related games need to take into account that the subjects are exchanging more than money; they are also dealing in approval and reputation.

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A new study from Northwestern University compared personality types used frequently in consumer research to self-improvement goal-setting strategies. People are motivated by one of two fundamental needs: we are either “promotion-focused,” seeking products that will help us achieve hopes and aspirations, or we are “prevention-focused,” seeking items that help satisfy a need for safety and security. According to the research, people are better able to exercise self-control when they choose goal-pursuit strategies that “fit” with their promotion or prevention focus.

“This research has important implications for consumer welfare,” explain Jiewen Hong and Angela Y. Lee (both of Northwestern) in the February issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. “While self-help remedies are saturating the market, resisting temptations remains a strenuous process and a constant struggle for many people. The data reported in this research offer an important step toward understanding self-control and highlight the benefits of adopting the right goal pursuit strategies.”

“[We] find that when people adopt goal pursuit strategies that fit with their promotion or prevention focus, they have better self-control. In contrast, their self-control is weakened when they adopt goal pursuit strategies that conflict with their focus,” the researchers explain.

They conclude: “Self-control is not just about doing the right things, but also about doing things the right way.”

Jiewen Hong and Angela Y. Lee, “Be Fit and Be Strong: Mastering Self-Regulation through Regulatory Fit.” Journal of Consumer Research: February 2008.

In a study appearing in the May edition of Research on Social Work Practice, Geisinger Senior Investigator Joseph Boscarino, PhD, MPH and his co-researchers examined psychological stress, job burnout and secondary trauma among 236 New York City social workers following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Secondary trauma includes experiencing symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress such as having nightmares or flashbacks, being easily startled and avoiding situations that remind one of the original trauma. Sometimes called vicarious trauma, it can seriously impact the mental health of counselors, first responders, critical care nurses and others in healthcare professions involved with treating those exposed to traumatic events, Boscarino said.

The study found that involvement in World Trade Center recovery effort was the primary reason why social workers experienced secondary trauma.

The research also showed that a positive work environment for social workers helped reduce secondary trauma and prevent job burnout.

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The top level [of risk], he said, was parents smoking in cars, where children were “trapped” and exposed to a “high intensity” of fumes.

A leading hospital says up to a third of the children it treats for certain conditions are ill because their parents smoke around them.

Dr Steve Ryan, Medical Director of Liverpool’s Alder Hey Hospital, says bronchitis, asthma and ear infections could be cut if parents quit smoking.

He said parents often lied about whether they smoke near their children. The British Lung Foundation says 17,000 under-fives are treated every year for exposure to second-hand smoke.

Speaking to BBC Radio Five Live, he said out of the 35,000 children the hospital treats every year, 2,000 are there because they have been exposed to their parents’ smoke.

He said between a quarter and a third of those suffering from certain conditions such as chest infections and asthma were the victims of passive smoking.

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Military combat often causes extreme stress, leaving many diagnosed with the psychiatric condition of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. PTSD is associated with several brain structure and function abnormalities. “Although it is tempting to conclude that these abnormalities were caused by the traumatic event, it is also possible that they were pre-existing risk factors that increased the risk of developing PTSD upon the traumatic event’s occurrence,” explains researcher Roger Pitman. Drs. Kasai and Yamasue and their colleagues at the Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan, sought to examine this association in a new study published in the March 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry.

The authors measured the gray matter density of the brains of combat-exposed Vietnam veterans, some with and some without PTSD, and their combat-unexposed identical twins using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The MRI images allowed the investigators to compare specific brain regions of the siblings. They found that the gray matter density of the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain involved in emotional functioning, was reduced in veterans with PTSD, but not in their twins who had not experienced combat. According to Dr. Pitman, “this finding supports the conclusion that the psychological stress resulting from the traumatic stressor may damage this brain region, with deleterious emotional consequences.”

The good news is that many other studies have demonstrated that our brains are plastic and have the ability to regenerate. The problem is that brain regeneration is not always a straight gain for loss thing. Diet, exercise, behavioral habits, attitude, and specific regenerative exercises all can play a substantial role in how or if certain brain structures recover from stressor damage. Learning how to de-stress and more easily roll with life’s stresses can speed the process of recovery. I recommend self-hypnosis, Rapid Eye Technology’s Skills for Life, and meditation as effective self-healing methods.

According to a new study of healthy women by Dr. Philippe R. Goldin and associates of the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, published in Biological Psychiatry on March 15th, emotional suppression strategies actually increased the activity of the emotional areas of the amygdala and insula. In contrast, re-evaluation strategies in which one reconsiders the meaning of an event or situation, tended to significantly lower the activity of these brain regions.

Basically, when you suppress an emotion, you still feel it and your body must account for the increased chemical activity - usually resulting in illness or later increased emotional expression. On the other hand, re-evaluation of the judgment one gives their experience tends to significantly decrease the chemical activity of emotional brain areas - and leads to far less emotional expression later.

I recommend the same for men as well. When you feel angry for whatever reason, if you will take a step back in your mind, disengage with the object of your anger, and reconsider your judgments about it, you may find that you’ll feel better. And even more importantly, you’ll feel better later.

Perhaps the greatest emotion generating judgment we have is the need to be right. The energy we expend on our crusades rivals those of the middle ages - often giving us similar results: less energy overall, impoverished relationships, and overall poorer health. It’s wise and prudent to reconsider your positions in relation to others. It may be okay for more than one person to be right. It may be okay to let someone else have their opinion.

If you find you’re having trouble reconsidering your judgments, you might find value in a therapy like Rapid Eye Technology, EFT, hypnosis, or CBT.