Changing Health Behaviours Webnotes

Rather than clutter the book with footnotes and endnotes, I've collected all my references together here.

Introduction

The Epic-Norfolk Prospective Population Study.

Hypnosis

Hypnosis and Faith debunks the idea that the two are incompatible.

Hypnosis and Suggestion has some excellent material on the science behind hypnosis.

Dr David Spiegel published the results of his brain scan experiments in the American Journal of Psychiatry; Discover magazine summarizes the results and gives more background.

Alpha Hypnosis Training and the New Zealand Association of Professional Hypnotherapists.

The Big Three: Being Smokefree, Eating Well, Being Active

Risks for chronic disease and death: Understanding Nutrition, eleventh edition, by Ellie Whitney and Sharon Rady Rolfes (Thomson, 2008), p. 478.

Top six causes of death: National Centre for Health Statistics, quoted in Whitney & Rolfes, p. 24.

Article in Journal of the American Medical Association (Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000): A.H. Mokdad et al, quoted in Whitney & Rolfes, p. 25.

Becoming Smokefree

Role of acetylcholine, nicotine boosting dopamine.

Other information on physical and neurological effects of nicotine.

About 30% of people who try one cigarette undergo sufficient brain changes that they are effectively addicted: Susceptibility to Nicotine Dependence: The Development and Assessment of Nicotine Dependence in Youth 2 Study Joseph DiFranza, M.D., department of family medicine and community health, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass; Joel Killen, Ph.D., professor, department of medicine, Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif; October 2007 Pediatrics

Taking a drug in a consistent setting affects how the brain responds to that drug: Conditioned compensatory response to ethanol as indicated by locomotor activity in rats, Duncan, P.M., Alici, T. & Woodward, J.D. Behavioural Pharmacology, 11, 395-402 (2000).

Smoking effects on the body.

Study on people giving up smoking through "networks": Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network. New England Journal of Medicine, May 22 2008, Vol. 358, No. 21, 2249-2258.

Eating Well

Study of Grade 5 students in Nova Scotia, showing academic performance correlated with nutrition status

Judy Stone recommends dietary change instead of drugs for chronic illness

Harvard Health Newsletter on managing common conditions without medication

Diets lead to weight gain for many, UCLA study on outcomes after 1 year

More differences than similarities among long-lived people's diets

95% of people who use diet products experience no net loss and a third to two-thirds of dieters end up heavier than they were after one year

The New York Daily News features eight of the most absurd weight loss products they could find

Being Active

John Medina's Brain Rules book, chapter on exercise

Correlation between exercise and reduced risk of Alzheimer’s in later life

Cognitive function, concentration, memory, creativity and intelligence are all measurably improved by exercise

Exercise is more effective than some antidepressant drugs

Low-intensity exercise reduces fatigue symptoms by 65 percent

In a long-term study of doctors in the US, the two strongest factors in their longevity appeared to be not smoking and being physically active

Recent study of a very long-lived man

Study in Denmark on reducing daily activity

Dealing with Stress

John Medina's Brain Rules

Nicotine causes the body to kick into fight-or-flight mode and release adrenalin

A British study found that smoking was associated with reduced quality of life

Buddhist teacher Shinzen Young teaches his students to distinguish between pain (which is a sensation like other sensations) and resistance to pain (which is what causes suffering)

A neuroimaging study led by Philippe R. Goldin of Stanford University, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry

The scientists noted that previous studies have shown increased physiological consequences from the expressive repression strategy

A study in the European Heart Journal looked at over 10,000 British civil servants

Getting Good Sleep

Australian National Sleep Research Project

Alcohol in Moderation

Much of the information in this chapter is from Understanding Nutrition, eleventh edition, by Ellie Whitney and Sharon Rady Rolfes (Thomson, 2008).

New Zealand Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC)

US National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Adopting Moderate Alcohol Consumption in Middle Age: Subsequent Cardiovascular Events (Reuters story)

Stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, several cancers (such as kidney and prostate cancer), metabolic syndrome (a collection of health issues which increase the risk of heart disease), rheumatoid arthritis and a number of other conditions have also been identified as being less prevalent among moderate drinkers than among heavy drinkers or non-drinkers, according to sociologist David J. Hanson.