Sleep Duration, Insomnia, and Associated Factors Among Ukrainians 1 Year After Russia's Full-Scale Invasion
We aimed to investigate the prevalence of sleep disturbances and associated factors among Ukrainians 1 year after Russia's full-scale invasion.
Stressors and Subjective Cognition in Daily Life: Tests of Physical Activity and Age as Moderators
Growing research indicates that daily stress is associated with poorer same-day cognitive performance, for example, memory and attention. However, it is unclear whether this relationship holds across diverse ages and engagement in physical activity (PA), or whether these factors might buffer the relationship between daily stress and subjective cognitive function.
Mediators of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention for Younger Breast Cancer Survivors: Effects on Depressive Symptoms
Depression is associated with poor outcomes in breast cancer patients, with higher prevalence among younger women. Although mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have demonstrated therapeutic effects, the mechanisms of intervention effects are poorly understood. We investigated whether rumination, self-kindness, intrusive thoughts about cancer, cancer-related worry, or a sense of meaning and peace mediated the intervention effects of an MBI, Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPs), on depressive symptoms. Additionally, we explored the same variables as mediators of a psychoeducation program, Survivorship Education (SE).
Habitual Caffeine Use Is Associated With Heightened Cortisol Reactivity to Lab-Based Stress in Two Samples
Habitual caffeine consumption protects against depression but through unclear mechanisms. Although habitual caffeine use predicts cortisol release in response to other acute stressors (e.g., exercise), this is less examined with lab-based psychosocial stress in healthy adults. Furthermore, caffeine-induced cortisol increases may mask theory-predicted cortisol blunting to robust stress in people with elevated depression risk. In two samples, we tested whether acute (same-day) and habitual caffeine use would predict greater cortisol reactivity to lab-based stress, and whether caffeine would "mask" the effect of a depression risk factor, trait rumination, on blunted cortisol reactivity.
Neonatal Hair Cortisol and Birth Outcomes: An Empirical Study and Meta-Analysis
Prenatal stress physiology is often posited as a predictor of birth outcomes, including gestational age at birth and birthweight. However, research has predominantly relied on indicators in the maternal system, with few studies examining hormones of the fetal system. The current study focuses on fetal cortisol in the third trimester, as measured in neonatal hair, as a biological factor that might be associated with birth outcomes (gestational age at birth and birthweight). We report findings from two studies: a longitudinal cohort (Study 1), and a meta-analysis of the existing literature (Study 2).
Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Neighborhood Belonging, and Inflammation Among Adolescents
Childhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with a host of adverse health outcomes across the lifespan. However, there is increasing interest in identifying factors that may promote resilience to disadvantage's effects on health. One promising candidate in this regard is a sense of neighborhood belonging, which could offset health risks by providing a sense of connection to others, as well as a sense of belonging to a community larger than oneself.
Lifetime Trauma Exposure and Arthritis in Older Adults
Experiencing potentially traumatic events across one's lifecourse increases risk for poor physical health outcomes. Existing models emphasize the effects of any lifetime trauma exposure, risk accumulation (multiple traumas over time), and sensitive periods of exposure (specific exposure timepoints leading to lasting consequences). We examined how different indices of trauma exposure across the lifecourse were associated with later life arthritis, a common and debilitating health condition.
Depressive and Anxious Symptoms, Experimentally Manipulated Acute Social-Evaluative Threat, and Cortisol Reactivity
Exposure to social-evaluative threat (SET) can elicit greater physiological responses, including cortisol, compared to non-SET stressors. An individual's level of depressive and anxious symptoms predicts variability in cortisol responses to stressors, and other research suggests that these individual differences may predict vulnerability to social evaluation. The current study integrates both lines of research, testing if there are different relationships between depressive and/or anxious symptoms and cortisol reactivity in the presence or absence of SET.
Conclusions Regarding the Role of Expectations in Placebo Analgesia Studies May Depend on How We Investigate It: A Meta-Analysis, Systematic Review, and Proposal for Methodological Discussions
Expectations are highlighted as a key component in placebo effects. However, there are different approaches to whether and how placebo studies should account for expectations, and the direct contribution has yet to be estimated in meta-analyses. Using different methodological approaches, this meta-analysis and systematic review examines the extent to which expectations contribute to pain in placebo studies.
Associations Between Early-Pregnancy Vitamin D Status and Postpartum Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms
Maternal postpartum depressive and anxiety symptoms are risk factors for subsequent maternal and child mental health problems. Little is known about the potential role of antepartum vitamin D and C-reactive protein (CRP) in the etiology of maternal postpartum affective symptoms. We investigated associations between antepartum vitamin D status and postpartum depressive and anxiety symptoms and whether antepartum CRP mediated these associations.
The Hope and Reality of Pain Relief Using Psychological Manipulations
Many patients suffer from chronic pain despite the absence of injury or sufficient biomedical disease to explain their pain. These pains are highly resistant to treatment. Psychological therapies designed to help patients undermine the negative thought and behavioral patterns that maintain pain provide only modest pain relief, leading to suspicion that such pain might be maintained by unconscious processes. An article in this issue of Psychosomatic Medicine provides the first experimental evidence that unconscious negative memories can increase pain unpleasantness. These findings are exciting, but the effect sizes are small, which is consistent with the small effects of psychological therapy. It seems that pain stubbornly resists psychological manipulation, but this work provides some hope that psychological therapy for pain can be improved to provide more effective pain relief.
Physical Pain Among Urban Native American Emerging Adults: Sociocultural Risk and Protective Factors
American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) people have high rates of physical pain. Pain is understudied in urban-dwelling, AI/AN emerging adults, a group with unique sociocultural risk and protective factors. We explore associations between socioeconomic disadvantage, additional sociocultural factors, and pain among urban AI/AN emerging adults.
The Adaptiveness of Emotion Regulation Variability and Interoceptive Attention in Daily Life
In daily life, we must dynamically and flexibly deploy strategies to regulate our emotions, which depends on awareness of emotions and internal bodily signals. Variability in emotion-regulation strategy use may predict fewer negative emotions, especially when people pay more attention to their bodily states-or have greater "interoceptive attention" (IA). Using experience sampling, this study aimed to test whether IA predicts variability in strategy use and whether this variability and IA together predict negative affect.
Interactions Between Caregiving and Sex and the Antibody Response to COVID-19 Vaccination
Antibody response to vaccination is a powerful paradigm for studying the effects of chronic stress on immune function. In the present study, we used this paradigm to examine the interaction between caregiving (as a type of chronic stress) and sex on the antibody response to a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccination; recent research has called for examination of sex differences on health outcomes among family caregivers. A three-way interaction between caregiving, sex, and psychological distress was also examined.
Prospective Bidirectional Relationship Between Sleep Duration and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms After Suspected Acute Coronary Syndrome
Sleep disturbance is a "hallmark" symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Poor sleep (including short sleep) after combat-related trauma can also predict subsequent PTSD. Less is known about the association between sleep duration and PTSD symptoms when PTSD is induced by acute coronary syndrome (ACS). We examined the bidirectional relationship between sleep duration and PTSD symptoms over the year after hospital evaluation for ACS.
The Association of Multidimensional Sleep Health With HbA1c and Depressive Symptoms in African American Adults With Type 2 Diabetes
Sleep is important for diabetes-related health outcomes. Using a multidimensional sleep health framework, we examined the association of individual sleep health dimensions and a composite sleep health score with hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and depressive symptoms among African American adults with type 2 diabetes.
High-Frequency Heart Rate Variability Is Prospectively Associated With Sleep Complaints in a Healthy Working Cohort
Vagus nerve functioning, as indexed by high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), has been implicated in a wide range of mental and physical health conditions, including sleep complaints. This study aimed to test associations between HF-HRV measured during sleep (sleep HF-HRV) and subjective sleep complaints 4 years later.
Financial Hardship and Sleep Quality Among Black American Women With and Without Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
To compare dimensions of financial hardship and self-reported sleep quality among Black women with versus without systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
Affective Responses to Acute Exercise: A Meta-Analysis of the Potential Beneficial Effects of a Single Bout of Exercise on General Mood, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms
Acute exercise elicits various biobehavioral and psychological responses, but results are mixed with regard to the magnitude of exercise-induced affective reactions. This meta-analysis examines the magnitude of general mood state, anxiety, and depressive symptom responses to acute exercise while exploring exercise protocol characteristics and background health behaviors that may play a role in the affective response.
Differences in Emotion Expression, Suppression, and Cardiovascular Consequences Between Black and White Americans in the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Study
Recent theoretical work suggests that the expression of emotions may differ among Black and White Americans, such that Black Americans engage more frequently in expressive suppression to regulate emotions and avoid conflict. Prior work has linked expressive suppression usage with increases in cardiovascular disease risk, suggesting that racialized differences in expressive suppression usage may be one mechanism by which racism "gets under the skin" and creates health disparities.
Associations Between Sexual Orientation Dimensions and Cardiometabolic Diseases: Data From the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (NESARC-III)
Sexual orientation can be measured across identity, attraction, and behavior. Sexual minorities are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes; however, it is not known whether cardiometabolic disease risk varies across these dimensions.
Correlates and Predictors of Symptom Severity Over Time in People Under Investigation for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome
Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a poorly understood chronic disorder characterized by an unexplained excessive increase in heartbeat upon standing. The aim of this study was to investigate psychosocial and physiological correlates and predictors of symptom severity over time in patients presenting with POTS-like symptoms.
Learned Symptom-Specific Fear Toward a Visceral Sensation and Its Impact on Perceptual Habituation
Impaired habituation of bodily sensations has been suggested as a contributing factor to chronic pain. We examined in healthy volunteers the influence of fear learning toward a nonpainful sensation in the esophagus on the perceptual habituation of this sensation.
Emotional Awareness Is Correlated With Ambulatory Heart Rate Variability: A Replication and Extension
In healthy volunteers, a positive association has previously been observed between emotional awareness (EA), the ability to identify and describe emotional experiences in oneself and others, and resting heart rate variability (HRV), which is dominated by vagus nerve activity. The current study aimed to investigate the EA-HRV association across multiple assessments in a "real-world" ambulatory context in patients with long QT syndrome (LQTS) who are at genetic risk for sudden cardiac death.
Anger Expression Styles, Cynical Hostility, and the Risk for the Development of Type 2 Diabetes or Diabetes-Related Heart Complications: Secondary Analysis of the Health and Retirement Study
Limited research has examined associations between trait anger and hostility and incident type 2 diabetes (T2D) and diabetes-related heart complications. However, anger expression styles (i.e., anger-in, anger-out) have not been examined. The present study used secondary data to examine the associations between anger expression styles, cynical hostility, and the risk of developing T2D (objective 1) or diabetes-related heart complications (objective 2).
Ecologically Assessed Sleep Duration and Arterial Stiffness in Healthy Men and Women
Among younger adults, to determine the associations of actigraph- and self-reported sleep duration with arterial stiffness (AS) assessed in clinic and in ecologically valid contexts, and to examine sex-specific associations.
Psychological Factors Modulate Quantitative Sensory Testing Measures in Fibromyalgia Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Regression Analysis
Considering the growing evidence that psychological variables might contribute to fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), our study aims to understand the impact of psychological factors in quantitative sensory testing (QST) in FMS patients by performing a systematic review with meta-analysis.
