In a previous post, I talked about the relationship between positive emotions and health. I made the point that too much research focuses on the consequences of so-called “negative” emotions. In the post, I cited a study that was considered landmark research because it studied positive emotions. Specifically, the study found a correlation between expressions of positive emotions and lower blood pressure.

I wish I could report to you that today’s study is a follow-up to that study or even explored the relationship between positive emotions and other important aspects of our health. However, all is not lost. Today’s study IS quite important. Rather than looking at emotions, the investigation correlated a specific personality trait, optimism-pessimism, with mortality.

Just so we are on the same page  . . . let me briefly describe the difference between a personality trait and an emotion. Personality traits are considered to be relatively enduring characteristics and generally formed in early adulthood, if not before. Such traits are generally present in any individual, regardless of the specific environmental context in which they occur. And all individuals have a number of these traits or characteristics. An example would be a person who is described by him or herself and others as optimistic. Thus, that person would be more likely to be happy, or at least not terribly upset, even when facing adverse circumstances. Of course, this does not mean that such an individual never gets sad or unhappy, but just that they are not likely to remain with a depressed mood and is more likely to quickly return to their baseline optimism.

Emotions are very specific states that can be described as a distinct and integrated psychophysiological response and generally has three components: expression, autonomic changes, and a distinct subjective feeling state. There are now considered to be only a small number of such basic emotional states, examples being sadness, happiness, anxiety, anger, fear, and surprise. In contrast to personality traits, emotions are generally of short duration with varying intensity. Most individuals will experience a broad spectrum of emotions during any given day. A person might respond to any situation with one or more basic emotions, but then face a similar situation the next day and generate completely different emotional reactions.

Today’s study is huge, both in terms of numbers of subjects and length of time. The researchers followed over 7,000 students who had enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These were incoming students during the mid-1960’s and who were followed over the next 40 years. The students were administered the MMPI, a personality test I talked about in this post. The results of the MMPI were correlated with overall mortality during the next 40 years. 476 of the original subjects died during this time frame. It turns out that the most pessimistic subjects had a 42% greater probability of dying, from any cause, than the most optimistic.

I could point out a number of problems with the study, as well as some significant limitations. Yet, the impressive length of the study and number of subjects gives this investigation what is commonly termed power in scientific research. Thus it is fair to say that another salvo has been launched, adding to the already impressive collection of evidence that is telling us that one powerful key to transforming health lies in our state of mind and emotions.

Looking for the stuff on exorcism? I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high, but if its exercise you want, you came to the right place. Here is a recent study that is notable because of the powerful effects it found. There has been a recent trend in exercise research to try and quantify the doses or the outcomes. That is, to specify how much of some type of exercise to produce how much of some type of result. The present study took a slightly different approach - the researchers compared the results of exercise to the results of using a narcolepsy drug, modafinil.Pretty clever idea. They also tested various groups of people such as healthy adults, cancer patients, and patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes. The results indicated that virtually every group tested showed greater improvement using exercise versus the drug. The improvement was measured as an increase in the feeling of energy and a decrease in fatigue. While it might seem counterintuitive that expending energy by doing exercise would result in an increase in felt energy, there are good reasons to think that it does, in fact, work this way.

There is a whole host of prior studies which have shown that regular exercise promotes an increase of neurotransmitters in the nervous system, such as dopamine, norepinehprine, and serotonin. These neurotransmitters are known to produce mood-enhancement and energy-promotion.

It seems as though when we are tired, we usually look for a pick-me-up effect from caffeine or perhaps from so called sports energy drinks. One of the great values of using natural methods to produce desired effects is that whatever non-pharmaceutical technique, it can not only replace some potentially more invasive device but probably replace something that we are currently using that is less healthy.

BTW, while this study does not come right out and explicitly say so, but one implication is that it may only take a small amount of exercise to produce some positive effect. After all, who wants to exercise when you are feeling tired or even fatigued. The current result certainly provides strong support for regular exercise as having a prophylactic effect in preventing such fatigue, but it also may be that much lower amounts of exercise than commonly believed are beneficial. See my recent blog post for more on this subject.

In a previous post, I discussed the important work of Dr. Brian Wansink. He is noted for providing ground-breaking information about why we eat the foods that we eat, particularly when it comes to portion size. His work is part common-sense and part “why didn’t I think of that” insight laced with fun and humor that is all too lacking in science. Yet none of that detracts in any way from the relevance of his findings.

Dr. Wansink has recently published a book, Mindless Eating. He also has a website with a blog, some great quotes, and other stuff well worth perusing. Be sure and click on the Mindless Eating Meter at the top of the page - it takes you to a “quiz” that you shouldn’t miss.

. . . . a few minutes a day?

The short answer: maybe. I just read an intriguing new piece of research in the Journal of Physioology, by Martin J. Gibala et al. One group of authors is from the Exercise Metabolism Research Group in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The other group of authors is also from McMaster at the Department of Pediatrics and Medicine.

This research is a follow-up to the ground-breaking article that was published last year, also in the Journal of Physiology. In that report, the authors were able to demonstrate that sprint interval training (SIT) was able to significantly enhance aerobic endurance performance. The average gain was 100% for the 16 subjects, that is, at the end of the two-week trial, each participant was able to double, on average, their total endurance time on an aerobic cycling task.

This initial experiment challenged a long-held view that only aerobic endurance training is able to effect changes in aerobic endurance performance. While it may sound logical at first, on further analysis, there would appear to be some flaws with this assumption. While it is hard to argue against the view that aerobic endurance training enhances aerobic endurance performance, it does not necessarily follow that it is the ONLY technique that improves performance.

There are actually a number of observations that support the idea that SIT also positively impacts aerobic performance. Olympic and other elite middle-distance runners have been long known to incorporate SIT into their training routines. In fact, Woldemar Gerschler introduced SIT about 70 years ago and the result was a number of world records. Also, the study of muscle biochemistry has revealed that SIT results in an increase in muscular enzyme activity. This finding has been known for some time.

This most recent study extends the protocol and provides further support for SIT as an effective paradigm for enhancing aerobic endurance. The first study compared SIT to a control group that engaged in no structured physical training. There have been previous studies that have tried to compare SIT with continuous training but the results have been equivocal.

The Gibala experiment is the first to directly compare interval versus continuous training using a matched-groups research design. Thus, the experimenters matched exercise mode, cycling, exercise frequency, three times per week, and training duration, two weeks. But what was different between the two groups was total training volume and time commitment. In fact, when total training volume was measured, the SIT group was at about 10% the total for the continuous group. Further, while the continuous group time total was 10.5 hours during the two week experimental period, the SIT group time total was about 2.5, which is about 24% of the continuous group. generally, the previous studies tried to equalize the exercise and time requirements in their two groups.

I think the implications of this research are clear. It is beginning to appear that sprint interval training may be a very effective, time-efficient training strategy for improving aerobic endurance.