stress

Workers cut off from office e-mail for five days exhibited more natural, variable heart rates and toggled between screens less frequently than those with e-mail access, according to new research out of the University of California, Irvine, and the Army's Natick Soldier Systems Center near Boston.

The "A pace not dictated by electrons" study of 13 civilian employees at the Army center is undoubtedly small, and the results, presented this week at a meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery in Austin, Texas, are only preliminary. Still, researchers say the findings were surprisingly consistent in favor of … Read more

QuickField Professional is a Finite Element Analysis tool for creating and analyzing electromagnetic, thermal, and stress simulations. It's used in many science, physics, and design classrooms and labs. QuickField Student is a free version with reduced functionality and a limited number of nodes. It can simulate basic problems in engineering and physics as well as display QuickField models. It's a great choice for engineering and physics students who use QuickField at school. QuickField Student helps users familiarize themselves with the full program as well as letting them view materials at home.

QuickField Student opened with a welcome message … Read more

Yesterday started like so many others, with me standing in the back of a noisy, sweltering bus that smelled of urine. But unlike previous mornings, this time I was able to use my phone to quantify my stress level as it mounted with each jarring pothole.

Armed with a new app called Stress Check on my iPhone, I could verify that the stress I was feeling was real--when I woke up my level was 1 percent, but on the bus it topped 100. And while a number of apps require an external attachment to take health measurements, Stress Check required just me and my phone.

Released a couple of weeks ago, Stress Check is one of several apps from Palo Alto, Calif. start-up Azumio, which recently received $2.5 million in series A funding. The company's first health-oriented app, Instant Heart Rate (also available for Android), has generated 8 million downloads since its release in January. The company has more apps in the pipeline.

If it's easy, and fun, to collect personal health data, more people will likely be inclined to do so--and take action, reasons Azumio co-founder Bojan Bostjancic, who stopped by CNET headquarters last week to demo the company's health apps. … Read more

The notion of erasing memories associated with painful or harmful pasts is not a new one. But it has remained just that: a notion.

Now scientists in Israel say they have devised a method to erase memories that trigger cravings in rats addicted to cocaine--a method that works so well it actually results in rats ignoring the place where they had been scoring the drug.

"Memories can trigger a desire for the drug, including memories of the drug itself, the needle, or the environment in which the drug was consumed," says Hebrew University researcher Rami Yaka. "This research indicates the possibility of erasing these memories in a way that will allow addicts to cancel the associations they have in their minds regarding the drug."

The team worked with a small protein called ZIP, which has been found in other studies in recent years to erase memories and even, as a result, inhibit learning processes.

After giving the rats cocaine in a designated spot in their pens for a few weeks, the team injected ZIP into the nucleus accumbens, a brain region known to control pleasure, reward, fear, and more, and then returned the rats to their pens. The rats proceeded to ignore the location they had only recently sought out, suggesting they no longer remembered either the place, the effect of the drug, or perhaps both.

Yaka, who will present his team's findings at the Facing Tomorrow 2011 conference in Jerusalem next week, sees possibilities not just for drug addicts but also those suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and other psychological conditions.

Of course, it remains unclear whether the protein erases selective memories associated with drugs, or if other pleasure-and-reward memories are also affected. Will one also forget the sweetness of chocolate? The ecstasies of copulation? The kiss of a gentle summer's breeze?

If so, will it be worth it?… Read more

It can be hard to get a techie to relax. We are often found toiling away at Internet start-ups, programming under pressure, or blasting away at Call of Duty as enemies swarm across the lines.

The new emWave2 stress management system from HeartMath features several components that geeks love: a gadget, a computer program, and lots of cool graphs. It also has 20 years worth of stress research behind its development, but the glowing lights are what first catch your eye.

According to HeartMath, emWave technology is already being used by more than 10,000 health professionals, including 65 Veteran Administration hospitals and clinics for post-traumatic stress disorder treatment. The second-generation emWave2 is designed for personal use and is portable enough to tuck in your pocket. It also adds a computer interface and desktop program that can track your results, and it has several additional applications including a slideshow and a garden game that adds colors and images as you relax.

I got my hands on the emWave2 and took it for a stress-test drive. The $229 kit includes both an ear and a thumb monitor for your heart rate. I used the thumb monitor. It also includes a line of blue lights that give you visual feedback for controlling your breathing.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--After a long, hard week at CES, a little stress relief is in order. But can you achieve a peaceful state through a portable PC gadget?

Being demoed at CES this week is the Emwave 2 personal stress reliever from HeartMath. This portable device lets you monitor your stress levels and help you calm down. Specifically, it monitors your heart rhythms as an indicator of how stressed you may be. To use the device, you connect it to your PC and place your finger on its small monitor. A graph charting your heart patterns then appears on the PC.… Read more

A researcher about to receive his Ph.D. has developed a pen that he says not only measures stress, but helps lower the heart rate of the user, too.

The next question, then, is how large the market for such an item might be. Many of us have a pretty good idea when we are stressed, and might not want to be--however subtly--reminded of it.

Miguel Bruns Alonso, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, says that because the sensors in the pen are entirely unobtrusive, it would give users "the right feedback" to help them "deal with their stress in a constructive way."

However, the pen's effect on heart rate is slight at best. In his experiment, Bruns found that those who received feedback on their stress levels had a heart rate roughly 5 percent slower than those who received no feedback. Still, those with lower heart rates said they did not feel any less stress.… Read more

Lie Detector Pro is a fun app that allegedly can detect whether you are generally a liar or generally truthful, but mostly it's just fun to play with. To start the test, place the iPhone in your hand, read the instructions, and hit Next. From there you will be asked a series of questions onscreen, and you will need to speak your answers out loud.

The app supposedly measures your stress level, the tonality of your voice, and whether your hands are shaking to detect if you are dishonest in your replies. The questions are mostly simple ("What … Read more

Relationships that lack strong connections--common when established online through Facebook, Twitter, and the like--can result in feelings of detachment and even health problems such as poor sleep and high stress, new research indicates.

The researchers studied 265 adults ages 19 to 85, and found that those who report being lonely were less apt to manage daily stressors well, had fewer close connections, didn't get adequate sleep, and scored lower on several health scores.

And while the precise role that online social networking plays is not fully understood, this research indicates it doesn't help foster close relationships.

"There … Read more