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Have you ever taken a vacation from one job so you could catch upon your other job? I have. This is from the webcomic Mr. Lovenstein by J.L. Westover. Link -via The Daily What
It
ain't easy bein' top dog. Or, for that matter, top monkey. Sure your underlings
would pay
to gaze at your pictures, but being alpha baboons come at a high price:
A new study, "Life at the Top: Rank and Stress in Wild Male Baboons," published in the July 15 issue of the journal Science found that in wild baboon populations, the highest-ranking, or alpha, males have higher stress-hormone levels than the highly ranked males below them, known as beta males -- even during periods of stability. The findings have implications in the study of social hierarchies and of the impact of social dominance on health and well-being, a subject of interest among researchers who study human and other animal populations.
Link (Photo: Jeanne Altmann)
This chart from Jorge Cham of PhD Comics is more relevant than ever. However, I’ve heard that it only applies to Americans. Link -via Chart Porn
Stress Beater – $7.45
Does work have you down? Do you need a way to channel your anger and frustration? Get the Stress Beater from the NeatoShop and show stress who is boss. Stress will be screaming for mercy at the sight of this soft and squishy rubber toy. Nothing says I mean business like a set of fake brass knuckles!
Check out all the fantastic Stress Balls available at the NeatoShop.
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Psst, freshmen! Are you feeling stressed? You’re not alone: a survey revealed that this year’s incoming students are the most stressed in 25 years. The economy, it seems, is to blame:
“Students know their generation is likely to be less successful than their parents’, so they feel more pressure to succeed than in the past,” said Jason Ebbeling, director of residential education at Southern Oregon University. “These days, students worry that even with a college degree they won’t find a job that pays more than minimum wage, so even at 15 or 16 they’re thinking they’ll need to get into an M.B.A. program or Ph.D. program.”
Other findings in the survey underscore the degree to which the economy is weighing on college students.
“Paternal unemployment is at the highest level since we started measuring,” said John Pryor, director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at U.C.L.A.’s Higher Education Research Institute, which does the annual freshman survey. “More students are taking out loans. And we’re seeing the impact of not being able to get a summer job, and the importance of financial aid in choosing which college they’re going to attend.”
“We don’t know exactly why students’ emotional health is declining,” he said. “But it seems the economy could be a lot of it.”
Scientists have hammered the "fight or flight" stress response into our collective consciousness for decades. Turns out that they might just have overlooked another response, "friend":
When we’re under immediate stress—say, we are about to give a speech or about to be mugged—we either fight or flee, or so scientists have long preached. But some psychologists are now suggesting that this scenario may apply mainly to males. Men get antisocial under pressure, but women tend to react in the opposite way: they "tend and befriend," engaging in nurturing and social networking, perhaps as a way to protect their offspring, according to a theory proffered by neuroscientist Shelley Taylor of the University of California, Los Angeles. Here at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2010 annual meeting, psychologist Mara Mather of the University of Southern California presented powerful new support for Taylor’s hypothesis in the divergent ways that stressed men and women respond to faces.
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We go on vacation to unwind, and relieve stress. Well, at least that used to be the case. I hear and see this phenomenon more and more often, although I’m relatively good at avoiding it. PHD Comics has a great assortment of funnies, for the cubicle minded.
Many people who meditate regularly have better focus and control over their emotions, reduced levels of stress, and
bolstered immune systems, but does meditation do anything to the brain structure itself?
Eileen Luders and colleagues at UCLA used MRI to scan the brains of people who meditate to find out. They examined 44 people (22 control subjects and 22 who had practiced
various forms of meditation) who had practiced an average of 24 years. Meditators showed significantly larger volumes in regions known for regulating emotions.
The researchers found significantly larger cerebral measurements in meditators compared with controls, including larger volumes of the right hippocampus and increased gray matter in the right orbito-frontal cortex, the right thalamus and the left inferior temporal lobe. There were no regions where controls had significantly larger volumes or more gray matter than meditators.
Because these areas of the brain are closely linked to emotion, Luders said, “these might be the neuronal underpinnings that give meditators’ the outstanding ability to regulate their emotions and allow for well-adjusted responses to whatever life throws their way.”
Link – via holeinthedonut
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by baweibel.
We all have our days, the ones where the slightest thing can light our fuse and set us off. Maybe it was a horrible day at the office, trench warfare with a significant other, the swerving idiot at the
intersection, economic woes or you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Sometimes the only way to feel better is to vent that frustration. Before you go berserk in public and get yourself arrested maybe it’s time to pay a visit to Sarah’s Smash Shack.
The Smash Shack offers a variety of plates, glasses, vases and other smashable items for patrons to choose from, or they can bring their own. All smashing is performed in soundproof Break Rooms where patrons, clad in boots, gloves, coveralls and a protective mask, hurl objects at a stainless steel wall. Call it a form of artistic self-expression.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.
