Energy psychology

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus is one of the fastest-growing health challenges of the twenty-first century with multifactorial impact including high rates of morbidity and mortality as well as increased healthcare costs. It is associated with musculoskeletal complications, with frozen shoulder being commonly reported. While low-level laser therapy (LLLT) and muscle energy technique (MET) are commonly used to manage  this condition, there remains a lack of agreement on the most effective approach, with limited research available on their comparative efficacy...

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected people's daily lives and health. Few studies have looked into the persistence of these changes. In the current study, we investigated to what extent changes in lifestyle and body weight were sustained after two years of restrictions. METHODS: We performed two representative online surveys among adults living in Germany. The first survey (S1) was performed in April 2021; the second survey (S2) in June 2022. The questionnaire focused on changes in physical activity, dietary habits, body weight, and mental stress levels...

In recent decades, hypertension has become the foremost risk factor for disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). The present study investigated the relationship between quality of life, depression, and hypertension among hospitalized patients in Afghanistan. A cross-sectional survey was administered from September 3, 2022, to February 2, 2023, in the Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif provinces of Afghanistan (N = 2059). The prevalence of depression symptoms was 65.8%, and hypertension was 20.9%. Multiple regression analysis indicated that moderate physical functioning, poor role-physical, higher bodily pain, poor general health, poor social functioning, lower role-emotional, and poor mental health significantly predicted depression...

Social interactions, spending time together, and relationships are important for individuals' well-being, with people feeling happier when they spend more time with others. So far, most information about the frequency and duration of spending time together is based on self-report questionnaires. Although recent technological innovations have stimulated the development of objective approaches for measuring physical proximity in humans in everyday life, these methods still have substantial limitations. Here we present a novel method, using Bluetooth low-energy beacons and a smartphone application, to measure the frequency and duration of dyads being in close proximity in daily life...

Diet quality has been associated with mental health, and recently, there has been growing interest in the association between sustainability of diets and human health. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to explore the relationship between a newly developed dietary index for health and sustainability, and psychological disorders among Iranian women. Participants in this cross-sectional study included 479 women living in Tehran with no history of chronic disease. A validated 168-item food frequency questionnaire was used to assess dietary intake...

BACKGROUND: In 1992 the American College of Sports Medicine first described the Female Athlete Triad. The Triad is a metabolic injury involving three distinct clinical traits: low energy availability, with possible eating disorder, low bone mineral density and menstrual dysfunction (MD). Although the estimated prevalence of the Triad is low (1.2%), single factors are common in female athletes, at all competitive levels and ages. Even though the Triad was described over two decades ago, the interrelation of the three diagnostics components is still debated: additional evidence is required to improve the multidisciplinary treatment approach for this complex condition...

OBJECTIVE: Chronic stress adversely affects mental and physical well-being. However, health outcomes vary among people experiencing the same stressor. Individual differences in physical and emotional well-being may depend on mitochondrial biology, as energy production is crucial for stress regulation. This study investigated whether mitochondrial respiratory capacity corresponds to individual differences in dementia spousal caregivers' mental and physical health. METHODS: Spousal caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (N = 102, mean age = 71, 78% female, 83% White) provided peripheral blood samples and completed self-report questionnaires on quality of life, caregiver burden, and a 7-day affect scale...

PURPOSE: Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a key component of evaluating outcome after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). As outcome is heterogeneous following mTBI, it is relevant to examine individual differences in HRQoL. This study investigated whether multiple homogenous subgroups could be meaningfully identified, 10 weeks after hospitalised mTBI with systemic injury, on the basis of HRQoL profiles. METHODS: Ninety-one adults were assessed for HRQoL, pain, fatigue, sleep quality, psychological distress, cognition and post-concussion symptoms...

BACKGROUND: Patients receiving home parenteral nutrition (HPN) are known to experience psychological distress and have profoundly disrupted sleep. The aim of this analysis was to examine the relationship between sleep patterns with depressive symptoms and HPN characteristics. METHODS: The study was a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data examining sleep patterns using subjective and objective measures. Sleep was assessed by surveys and 7-day actigraphy. The Patient Health Questionnaire-8 was used to evaluate depressive symptoms...

Central fatigue is a common pathological state characterized by psychological loss of drive, lack of appetite, drowsiness, and decreased psychic alertness. The mechanism underlying central fatigue is still unclear, and there is no widely accepted successful animal model that fully represents human characteristics. We aimed to construct a more clinically relevant and comprehensive animal model of central fatigue. In this study, we utilized the Modified Multiple Platform Method (MMPM) combined with alternate-day fasting (ADF) to create the animal model...

The pigmentation of the skin, modulated by different actors in melanogenesis, is mainly due to the melanins (protective pigments). In humans, these pigments' precursors are synthetized by an enzyme known as tyrosinase (TyH). The regulation of the enzyme activity by specific modulators (inhibitors or activators) can offer a means to fight hypo- and hyper-pigmentations responsible for medical, psychological and societal handicaps. Herein, we report the investigation of phenylalanine derivatives as TyH modulators...

In this study we introduce an innovative mathematical and statistical framework for the analysis of motion energy dynamics in psychotherapy sessions. Our method combines motion energy dynamics with coupled linear ordinary differential equations and a measurement error model, contributing new clinical parameters to enhance psychotherapy research. Our approach transforms raw motion energy data into an interpretable account of therapist-patient interactions, providing novel insights into the dynamics of these interactions...

People often decide whether to invest scarce resources-such as time, money, or energy-to improve their chances of a positive outcome. For example, a doctor might decide whether to utilize scarce medicine to improve a patient's chances of recovery, or a student might decide whether to study a few additional hours to increase their chances of passing an exam. We conducted 11 studies ( N = 5,342 adults) and found evidence that people behave as if they focus on the relative reduction in bad outcomes caused by such improvements...

Urban environments contribute substantially to the rising burden of cardiometabolic diseases worldwide. Cities are complex adaptive systems that continually exchange resources, shaping exposures relevant to human health such as air pollution, noise, and chemical exposures. In addition, urban infrastructure and provisioning systems influence multiple domains of health risk, including behaviors, psychological stress, pollution, and nutrition through various pathways (eg, physical inactivity, air pollution, noise, heat stress, food systems, the availability of green space, and contaminant exposures)...

OBJECTIVES: People with SSc often experience fatigue, which significantly affects daily life functioning and quality of life. We aimed to explore participants' experiences of a peer health-coached resilience-building energy management to enhance well-being (RENEW) intervention on symptoms and well-being and to use mixed methods to compare how SSc duration influenced the experiences of participants who had clinically significant fatigue improvement vs those who did not. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 participants from the parent clinical trial randomized to the RENEW intervention...

Among the often-neglected features of healthy diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, is the preparation and sharing of food, which is (or was) done in a social environment governed by social rules rather than by time constraints. The act of eating is a daily human practice that is not limited to meeting nutritional and energy needs but also involves a constructed social dimension of sharing meals that is part of the process of human civilization and food cultures around the world. In this narrative review, we outline the importance of conviviality in steering part of the health effects of healthful diets, with special reference to the Mediterranean diet...

OBJECTIVES: There is growing interest in collecting outcome information directly from patients in clinical trials. This study evaluates what patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) consider important to know about symptomatic side effects they may experience from a new prescription drug. METHODS: Patients with inflammatory arthritis, who had one or more prescribed drugs for their disease for at least 12 months, participated in focus groups and individual interviews...

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to verify the prevalence of sarcopenia and its associations with sociodemographic, clinical and psychological factors in community-dwelling older adults. STUDY DESIGN: A randomized cross-sectional study was extracted from a probabilistic cluster conducted on individuals aged 65 years or older residing in the community. METHODS: Sarcopenia was defined according to the criteria of the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP2)...

A key diagnostic criterion of Somatic Symptom and related Disorders (SSD) comprises significant distress and excessive time-and-energy consuming thoughts, feelings, and behavior pertaining to somatic symptoms. This diagnostic criterion is lacking in central sensitivity syndromes (CSS), such as fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome. This strong emphasis on disturbed psychological processing of somatic symptoms, suggests that psychological flexibility is low in SDD. Psychological flexibility is defined as the ability to approach difficult or challenging internal states (thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations) in a non-judgmental, mindful way, and being committed to pursue one's values...

BACKGROUND: One approach to promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors is to target students with digital interventions. One of these is the digital intervention Buddy. This study aimed to understand why college and university students' chose to participate in a digital multiple lifestyle behavior intervention trial (Buddy), and their subsequent experiences of the behavior-change process. METHODS: College and university students taking part in a trial of the Buddy intervention were individually interviewed after completing the 4-month intervention...