This increased risk is because the circadian rhythm can be thrown off, leading to fatigue and stress. And because they work at night, they don’t get to see their friends and families as often or spend time with them, which might amplify the sense of loneliness and despair they already feel.

Researchers discovered that night shift employees were more likely to experience depression than their daytime counterparts. This is in line with the findings of other studies, which indicated that night-shift employees have a higher chance of acquiring anxiety disorders.

Chronic insomnia, sleep disorders, gastrointestinal problems, and infertility are all linked to disruptions in the circadian cycle. In response to changes in light and dark, the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) regulates the body’s natural 24-hour circadian rhythm.

The circadian rhythm controls not only the generation of hormones but also the maintenance of a steady core temperature and the rate at which nutrients are burned.

People who work night shifts have trouble falling asleep during the day because the regular light-dark cycle is disturbed. This makes the hormone melatonin, which helps you sleep, less effective.

Working the night shift is linked to a greater chance of gaining weight and developing type 2 diabetes. Another research study came to the conclusion that working the night shift makes you more likely to get colorectal cancer. Such an association might be a result of stress on our immune system.

This is because your body’s internal clock isn’t in sync with your social life. This is called “social jetlag,” and working night shifts makes it worse.

Night shift workers must frequently remain awake and productive when their bodies beg for rest and sleep. This can cause workers to feel run down, anxious, and unwell. According to research, night shift work has been linked to an increased risk of menstruation problems. Employers must consider the issues associated with working the night shift.

An employer with a productive workforce needs to know about the risks of night work and do everything they can to help employees who work night shifts, so that night work has less of an effect on their mental health.

Employers can provide training, education, and therapy to help their employees deal with the emotional and psychological effects of working the night shift. Regarding scheduling, employers can be more flexible if they let night-shift workers switch to day shifts often and ensure employees have enough time off between shifts.

Workers on the night shift should also be aware of the risks to their health and take their own steps to reduce them, such as keeping a regular sleep schedule, making sure they have a dark, quiet place to sleep, getting regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, limiting their intake of caffeine and alcohol, using light therapy, and taking frequent breaks.

Because of their irregular work schedules, those who work the night shift may find it difficult to keep in touch with their loved ones and form meaningful relationships. However, night-shift employees can keep up with friends and family in several ways. Suggestions for working these hours are readily available.

Social media, instant messaging, and video conferencing technology can help those who work the night shift maintain social relationships with others despite physical distance and time zone differences.

It’s vital to remember that keeping in touch with friends and family takes work and sometimes compromise, but the benefits to your health are well worth it. Workers on the night shift should be aware of the difficulties that come with their schedules and try to find new ways to get to know their coworkers.

Night shift workers who want to keep their minds healthy should also get some exercise. Running, cycling, and swimming are all examples of aerobic exercises that have been shown to improve sleep quality and lower stress and anxiety levels.

When thinking “exercise,” it’s not all outdoors or requiring expensive equipment or gym memberships because many exercises can be done at home with inexpensive equipment. Not all of these are possible, but some activity must be included to counter the effect of shiftwork.

Yoga is a practice that incorporates breathing exercises, bodily postures, and meditation. It can help you relax and calm down, leading to a more restful night’s sleep.

Building muscle and increasing one’s general well-being are two of the many benefits of strength training methods like weightlifting and resistance band exercises. Stretching is a quick and easy way to help you feel better and calm down.

HIIT, or high-intensity interval training, is a way to work out that involves short bursts of hard work followed by short breaks. Walking, hiking and swimming are all ways to exercise and enjoy the outdoors. And being outdoors (forest bathing) has its benefits even if you are walking.

Keep in mind that the optimum exercise plan for a night shift worker will vary from person to person based on factors including preferences, fitness level, and availability. Before beginning an exercise program, people who work the night shift should see a doctor. Workers on the night shift would do well to pay attention to their bodies and modify their workouts accordingly if they were feeling too exhausted.

Consequences for one’s mental health are real, and night work is a major contributor. Evidence suggests that night shift workers are likelier to have mental health issues like sadness and anxiety.

If a person who works the night shift is having trouble getting used to the new schedule or has mental or physical health problems, they should consider getting help from a professional.

The post Tackling Night Shift Worker Health Perils; Failure to Act Is Unhealthy appeared first on Medika Life.

When I was a teenager, I became horribly sick after sleeping in front of a fan for hours on end (it was summertime and very hot). I also remember reading – way back in medical school – that respiratory viruses are able to attach better to the nasal mucosa in cold air. New research has elucidated the possible mechanism behind this. It turns out that our nasal mucosa has inherent, innate anti-viral properties.

There are things called “nasal epithelium-derived extracellular vesicles in innate Toll-like receptors” that line our nasal epithelium, or the lining of our noses. According to this research, these extracellular vesicles induce “a swarm-like increase in the secretion of nasal epithelial EVs via the TLR3 signaling,” and this helps prevent viral infections from happening.

Cold air, it turns out, seems to disrupt this process:

And so this may help explain why colds are more common in the winter months.

Now, it is true that there is also increased influenza in the winter months, even in warmer climates such as the Southern part of the U.S. And COVID did not stop during the summer, although it was definitely less prevalent than in the winter. Still, this may help explain part of the reason why respiratory viral infections are more common during the cold winter months.

Therefore…there seems to be a scientific case for a scarf: the scarf can help keep the upper airway nice and warm, so this innate antiviral defense system can stay as intact as possible. The same is true with a…dare I say it…mask (or balaclava) in the cold as well. It should be able to do the same thing: keep the ambient air in the upper airway warm.

Is this fool-proof? Of course not. But it is one possible extra arrow in the quiver to fight against respiratory viral infections in the winter. It is relatively inexpensive, does not involve drugs or medicines, and can be fashionable as well! And, with how annoying – and potentially deadly – some of these respiratory viruses can be, we need all the defenses we can muster.

The post The Scientific Case For a Scarf (Or A Mask) appeared first on Medika Life.

ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — An overwhelming number of parents support mental health education in schools and “mental health days” for their children, according to a poll out today conducted by Ipsos on behalf of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). The same poll found that 44% of parents of children 17 and younger report being concerned about their children’s mental health, but far fewer (16%) looked for help for them.

The poll’s release comes in the wake of a Surgeon General Advisory aimed at addressing the youth mental health crisis.

“NAMI’s poll finds that parents are deeply concerned about their children’s mental health and, importantly, understand the value of mental health awareness and treatment,” said NAMI CEO Daniel H. Gillison Jr. “It’s encouraging to see such strong support for mental health education in schools and mental health days for students. That’s why NAMI has youth educational programming like NAMI Ending the Silence and advocates for better mental health resources in schools.”

“But despite parents’ confidence in their ability to recognize the signs of mental health conditions in their children, there is a worrying gap between those who have concerns and those who actually look for help,” Gillison said. “We encourage parents to seek help for their children if they see signs that concern them.”

While 84% of parents say their children showed a lot of resilience during the pandemic, more than a third of parents (35%) are thinking more about their children’s mental health than before. While most parents report few changes in their kids’ activities and behaviors since the pandemic began, many of the changes that were reported were negative: 41% spend more time on screens, 25% play or exercise less, 37% participate less in school activities, and 16% are getting less sleep.

As previously mentioned, there is broad support among parents for mental health education in schools. The poll revealed that 87% of parents somewhat or strongly support mental health education in schools. The poll also found that 70% of all parents voiced support for mental health days for students. Notably, 89% of parents say their child’s mental health matters more than their academic achievement.

For more resources on mental health and young people,visit nami.org/youth.

Methodology:This poll was conducted Nov. 9–17, 2021, by Ipsos, on behalf of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), using the KnowledgePanel^®. It is based on a representative sample of 1,010 U.S. adults (ages 18 and over), who are parents to children 0–17 years old. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by mental illness. Join the conversation at  nami.org | facebook.com/nami | instagram.com/namicommunicate | twitter.com/namicommunicate #Together4MH

SOURCE National Alliance on Mental Illness

The post NAMI Poll: Parents Want Mental Health Education in Schools, Mental Health Days Off for Students appeared first on Medika Life.

Now you have brought your ideas and expertise to Finn Partners to focus your energies on communications for the environment, health, energy, and sustainability. Servant to the nation, advisor to major corporations, teacher and public advocate. Let’s talk about the environment and health. I think the two topics are inseparable.

Bashe: Our world has been struggling with one of the greatest public health crises of our generation. I sense that this period has sensitized us to something even bigger — a threat to our planet. COVID-19 was in our face. Its immediacy was palpable. Yet, I wonder if you agree that climate change and environmental degradation are far greater danger to our way of life. What do you think — is environmental health the great public health uniter?

Martineau: Gil, that is a great question and one I’ve thought about a lot during the last 16 months as we’ve dealt with the pandemic. How can we take the incredible focus and attention we’ve given to COVID 19 and translate it to meeting the climate challenge together? The impacts of COVID were real and immediate — we all know people who lost their lives or became very sick. Climate and environmental degradation pose a greater danger, but the adverse impacts are more incremental and harder to see. We live in a snapchat world of 30 second messaging. It’s hard to have that same sense of urgency when the degradation and impacts are more incremental and long term. But communicating the seriousness of the issue from a public health perspective could be the great uniter.

Bashe: I’ve often said that communication is part of the care. But, during COVID-19, I felt it was part of the problem — the pandemic of poor communications. Are communicators doing enough to rally corporate leaders — policy officials — to recognize that there is no going back when it comes to environmental health?

Martineau: Effective communication can certainly make a huge impact. During COVID, too much of the messaging was to and from corporate leaders and policy officials — urging companies to send everyone home, suspend large group gatherings, convincing people to take protective measures and get the vaccine when it became available. 

Successful communication must be three-part process:

1. Create an effective message

2. Make sure people are willing to listen

3. Make sure those who are listening are willing to respond.

As we saw with the pandemic, some public officials and other leaders who refused to accept good science, made the issue political and created their own set of “facts” because they did not trust the messenger. A significant percentage of the population still believes that the pandemic response was a political tool to control behavior, not a public health initiative. We need to find different ways to communicate with people the importance of critical public health issues and depoliticize them. We need to find better messengers — be they ministers in the pulpit, trusted sports heroes or a favorite music legend.

Bashe: Just like science moved mountains to shift molecules from lab benches into jabs in people’s arms, people may expect miracles to tackle our environmental challenges. How can law makers create policies to get us in the right direction — to accelerate innovation?

Martineau: We must create urgency.

Most human beings and government institutions are risk avoiders — we fear the unknown and stick with what we know. So, we need to create that sense of urgency in order to accelerate innovation. A few examples: offer tax breaks for innovative solutions to those things adversely impacting public health; incubate startup companies working on new solutions to old problems; and enlist research labs in our universities to stimulate innovation.

We have to communicate how climate change can interfere with our daily lives. We saw such an incredible response to COVID for two main reasons:

1. It changed our way of life overnight — travel shut down, restaurants closed, our personal and work life turned upside down

2. We saw people dying in large numbers every day. The impacts were real and immediate. Other public health issues are more incremental on both fronts. The changes to how we live will be more incremental and the loss of life or other health impacts more incremental.

Bashe: Some suggest that we have a ticking clock — a ticking that grows louder and louder — on the count-down to environmental danger where things will spiral out of control. How do voices of influence within the health ecosystem join others to ensure companies make sustainability both a requirement and a business builder?

Martineau: I agree the clock is ticking and growing louder because in the past few years, at least in the US, we detoured from addressing environmental and public health issues. But we can get where we need to be before we spiral out of control. Prominent voices in the health ecosystem can be a major force for change. The health sector can influence both the public and private sector behavior.

Leaders in health care world must raise their voices and support measures to mitigate the dangers. The health care industry has enormous power it can bring to bear in shaping forward thinking in the political arena.

The health care sector has enormous economic leverage it can use to shape private sector behavior towards more sustainable business models. ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) principles are all about risk management. The health sector can embrace ESG itself and it can demand it from its supplier partners. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it also makes good business sense. An increasing body of data shows that corporations that do well on ESG measures are doing better financially. Companies with good performance on ESG issues also have higher employee engagement. Younger employees want to work for socially responsible companies. Customers also can and should expect it from their vendors.

Bashe: How can people responsible for public health and wellness communicate the implications of what we face without scaring the life out of people or having them tune out? What are the paths to getting people to understand communities can affect change?

Martineau: Again, COVID-19 has given us a reality check that these issues are real, but solvable. We cannot just scare people or say our whole lifestyle must change. Instead, we should identify solutions that seem doable and will not completely turn our lifestyle on its head. We can address the carbon impacts of transportation without making everyone ride their bike to work. Innovation will make solutions appear feasible and spur adaption. A decade ago, who would have imagined General Motors pledging to make only electric vehicles by 2035. And yet, here we are.

Bashe: Doctors lost the ears of our nation when it comes to COVID-19. Who are the voices of influence when it comes to the environment? Who do you listen to closely to inform your opinions?

Martineau: Doctors may have lost about 40% of the nation on the issue, but many of us took it very seriously. And a lot of that 40% was due to politics, not science. In the environmental world, there are several sources for information. The EPA is once again relying on data and science to shape policy. NGOs like the Natural Resources Defense Council take a pragmatic approach to environmental regulatory programs and collaborate with industry and government policy makers. I have great respect for Gina McCarthy, now the White House lead on climate. I got to work with her on a wide variety of issues when she was EPA Administrator. She is willing to listen and is smart, savvy, passionate and pragmatic. More and more businesses are becoming proactive on environment and sustainability issues and taking the long view of what is good for business.

Bashe: The socially conscious investor is screening for sustainability according to Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) criteria. Health companies rely on communications to help them report ESG compliance. What is meaningful reporting for health enterprises such as hospital and pharmaceutical companies?

Martineau: Health care companies have a special role in ESG reporting, especially the “E.” As an industry whose very purpose is to protect public health and promote wellness, health companies must analyze their ESG performance. We used to think that the manufacturing, chemical, and utility sectors were the only ones with environmental issues. Yet hospitals operate 24/7/365 and use substantial electricity and water. Moving to energy efficient lighting, HVAC systems and equipment can help reduce carbon impact. Water saving measures can reduce water usage. The handling of medical waste can be an important metric.

Today’s ESG metrics will also look at supply network performance. Health care companies need to analyze their supplier network just like the auto industry does. Companies need to establish their baseline, determine where they need to be, set goals, and demonstrate progress with verifiable information. First and foremost, the ESG commitment must be central to the business culture. It cannot be a “check the box” item. It must be real to have impact.

Bashe: We can expect Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance to move from the corporate to non-profit/public spheres. We tend to look at growth and profit as the measure of business success. With our world in the balance, do you think we need an environmental impact ranking and health metrics?

Martineau: Environmental impact and health metrics are emerging. Some of the metrics being used in ESG reporting go to environmental impact, less so to health metrics. Beyond the direct operations of a business, be it a hospital or manufacturing plant, how do you fully assess the full environmental impacts of a business? From the operations of the supplier to the transportation used to get the supplies to you and your product to your customer, to the waste generated after the use of your product, it’s complicated. We must uncomplicate it. Relative to health metrics, you can look at everything from the health impacts of the products you produce to whether you provide health benefits to your employees. The challenge is to come up with a uniform set of metrics to enable fair comparisons. Many companies are asking for just that and all must find their path to improve.

Health is both an industry and a collective mindset.

The clock is ticking on creating a healthy, sustainable planet. This conversation with environmental affairs expert Bob Martineau frames the urgency and possibilities going forward. Health is both an industry and a collective mindset. While we work to invent new life-saving molecules against disease, we must dedicate ourselves to invention — new policies and technologies — that lead to the health of our planet. This interview can begin to frame our thinking.

The post Bob Martineau on How Our Planet’s Wellness Impacts Our Own appeared first on Medika Life.