Scientists who discovered migraine mechanism win £1.1m Brain prize | Neuroscience | The Guardian

Scientists who discovered migraine mechanism win £1.1m Brain prize | Neuroscience | The Guardian

Four scientists who discovered a key mechanism that causes migraines, paving the way for new preventive treatments, have won the largest prize for neuroscience in the world, sharing £1.1m.

The Lundbeck Foundation in Denmark announced on Thursday that the British researcher Peter Goadsby, Michael Moskowitz of the US, Lars Edvinsson of Sweden and Jes Olesen of Denmark had won the Brain prize.

Speaking at a press briefing ahead of the announcement, Goadsby, a professor of neurology at King’s College London, said: “I’m excited that migraine research is getting this award and that migraine – this disabling problem that is a brain disorder – is being recognised in an appropriate way.”

Formally known as the Grete Lundbeck European brain research prize, the annual award recognises highly original and influential advances in any area of brain research. The award ceremony will take place in Copenhagen on 25 October, where the prize will be presented by Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

The prize-winning research revolves around unpicking the neural basis of migraine, a crippling neurological condition characterised by episodes of throbbing head pain, as well as nausea, vomiting, dizziness, extreme sensitivity to sound, light, touch and smell. It affects about one in seven people globally and is about three times more common in women than men. In the UK, it is estimated that migraines result in the loss of 25m work or school days each year at an economic cost of £2.3bn.

For many years, migraine was thought to be a psychosomatic condition, resulting from people being unable to deal with stress. Although treatments were available, these only helped to relieve the symptoms, rather than addressing the root cause, which was unknown.

In 1979, Moskowitz, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, proposed that migraines result from an interaction between the trigeminal nerve – involved in detecting sensations from the head and face – and the thin, pain-sensitive “meninges” membranes that surround the brain. He demonstrated that migraine attacks were triggered when trigeminal nerve fibres released chemicals called neuropeptides that caused the blood vessels of the meninges to dilate, resulting in inflammation and pain. He suggested that blocking the action of these neuropeptides could provide a new type of treatment.

Another breakthrough came when Goadsby, together with Edvinsson, a professor of internal medicine at Lund University in Sweden and the president of the International Headache Society, identified the key neuropeptide involved in triggering these attacks: calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP).

Further work by Olesen showed that when CGRP was given to migraine patients it could trigger an attack, and that drugs that blocked the neuropeptide could help treat migraine. In 2004, he and his team published the results of a large clinical trial suggesting that such “CGRP antagonist drugs” were effective in the acute treatment of migraine attacks.

This has led to the development of new treatments, including monoclonal antibody-based drugs such as erenumab, currently available in the UK, and the small molecule drugs rimegepant and ubrogepant, which are as yet only available in the US. Although these drugs do not cure migraine, they markedly improve the quality of life of many patients, helping to both treat and prevent migraine attacks.

Goadsby said: “I think the important thing about this research is that it shows a neuroscience-based approach has value and that bench and bedside research married together has the ability to change clinical practice. I’m humbled by the emails that we get from patients whose lives have been changed by these medicines. We haven’t changed them all, we’ve only just started, but what this research shows is that migraine is a tractable problem.”

This content was originally published here.

Sounds of Silence: Extinction Is Erasing the Earth’s Music

Sounds of Silence: Extinction Is Erasing the Earth’s Music

What does a biodiversity crisis sound like? You may need to strain your ears to hear it. the ask

In the past 50 years, America’s bird populations have fallen by a third, and worldwide the average mammal population has dropped 60%, writes acclaimed environmental philosopher and nature writer Kathleen Dean Moore in her new collection of essays, Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World

And with all that loss comes an unsettling silence.

“Unless the world acts to stop extinctions, I will write my last nature essay on a planet that is less than half as song-graced and life-drenched as the one where I began to write,” she explains in the book’s preface. “My grandchildren will tear out half the pages in their field guides. They won’t need them.”

Her book uses sound as a reference point to better understand what we stand to lose as extinction rates climb higher. But the essays are also a celebration of the natural world’s chorus and the joy of learning to hear what’s still there.

The essays are also being set to music in a series for Oregon State’s Spring Creek Project that will feature 20 4-minute-long concerts combining live musical performance with excerpts from Earth’s Wild Music.

“I’ve never been so excited about a project in my life,” Moore tells us. “It combines everything I care about with the cause that I believe in more than anything else.”

The Revelator spoke to Moore about the moral stakes of our environmental crisis,

what it’s like to find a truly quiet place to listen, and what we lose as wild songs disappear.

You’ve been writing about nature for 50 years. During that time our environmental problems have become graver. Has this changed how you approach your work?

Author headshot
Kathleen Dean Moore. Photo: Frank Moore

At first I was a celebrant. I believed Mary Oliver when she said, “My work is loving the world … which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.” And that went along fine for years and years, but then it became clear that what I was writing celebrations of were disappearing.

I was right in the midst of an essay on frog song, and bulldozers came and took away the marsh and put in a condominium. I was writing about a bald eagle nest, and the nest — and the tree it was in — burned to the ground in a forest fire. So it was starting to become clear to me that I was going to have to do more than celebrate. I was going to have to demonstrate. I was going to have to protect. I was going to have to defend the natural world.

Why did you decide to focus this collection on sound?

I started thinking about how I could open people’s hearts without breaking them. How I could point to the onrushing extinctions and not force people to turn away in absolute grief. I decided that I was going to have to write in a way that was like a wave — I would lift people and smash them at the same time.

What is it that reaches people without breaking them? What is it that goes straight into people’s hearts? What do they love about the world and will call them to action?

I decided that of all the things I loved about the world, what I loved the most was the music. What I loved the most was the sound. I’ve been writing about this for quite some time, so I had a couple of essays already under my belt, and I couldn’t think of a more wonderful writing assignment for myself then to go outside and listen.

Nature may be getting quieter. But people are getting louder. How is our noise affecting wildlife?

We are deafening. Noise that we create is causing extraordinary harm to the creatures. Think about the pain caused to the whales from the exploratory thudding of those machines that go through the ocean and stamp to try to find oil.

Think about the meadowlarks that lived in the fracking fields and had to endure endless noise of drilling and trucks. And as a result, the songs of the meadowlarks are fractured and abbreviated. They haven’t been able to hear their parents well enough to imitate them.

Many of us may be out of practice at listening. In fact, a lot of folks walk around with earphones on so we can’t hear what’s around us. How do we get better at both listening to and understanding the sounds of nature?

Listening is an art that we should practice because it does two things. It makes us shut up and it makes us open up. We stop listening just to the songs of “me, me, me”. When we set aside our own stories, it opens us up so we can listen to the stories of other beings. It’s a skill of empathy, isn’t it? Listening to other people’s stories and other creatures’ sounds is a way of understanding the world from their point of view. It’s a moral training.

When it comes to understanding what we hear, Rachel Carson, who wrote Silent Spring, and cared so much about bird song, took pains to tell us that it doesn’t matter if we know the names of what we see. That comes later. But the first thing that has to happen is love.

So I’m not so concerned about knowing which bird is calling. I’m surrounded by people who could do that in a majestic way. My husband can identify birds by their call. My neighbor can. I think it’s a beautiful skill that I don’t have.

But I do have the ability to catch a song. To hear it, which isn’t nothing. It can catch my attention and I can seek it out and I can listen to it. Knowing its name — maybe that’s not so important as knowing its tune.

How are people affected by this loss of nature’s song, and what’s the importance of preserving silent places where we can still experience what’s left?book cover

We lose joy. Let’s face it — the sounds of the natural world are beautiful and they make us happy. I think we also lose a connection to the world around us.

In the book, I write about going with acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton to One Square Inch of Silence, a small spot in Olympic National Park [possibly the quietest place in the United States]. It was a wonderful experience. At the time, we were in pouring rain. Nature itself was cacophonous, but we didn’t hear a human sound for 20 minutes, which is the definition in Gordon’s mind of a quiet place.

Gordon now is recording in a jungle somewhere that can only be reached by canoeing down a wild river, because it’s one of the last places on Earth he can find that’s silent.

He’s famous for these recordings called the Dawn Chorus that captured the outpouring of bird song that’s triggered by morning light. But he couldn’t do that anymore, because that music box is broken. We’re in the process of wrecking what we should be treasuring.

It’s hard to find a balance between grief and celebration. But you know, people often ask me, “What can one person do?” And I say, “Stop being one person.”

You don’t have to do it all. Other people are working all around the world on the same causes you believe in. Find them, join up with them. You’ll find your place in the choir.  [Author and teacher] Joanna Macy says to choose what you love and devote yourself to it. That, she says, is enough.

The post Sounds of Silence: Extinction Is Erasing the Earth’s Music appeared first on The Revelator.

This content was originally published here.

15 Tips to Improve Your Mental Health – Fast&Up

15 Tips to Improve Your Mental Health - Fast&Up

1. Start your day with a cup of coffee

Coffee can help you kick start your day and uplift your mood quite instantly. If that doesn’t work for you, green tea is a good start too.

2. Get a journal to track your gratitude and achievements:

Make sure to include 3 things you were grateful for and 3 things you were able to accomplish daily.

3. Set up a getaway:

It could be a long drive on a weekend with your friends or an overnight trekking or camping plan that you always wanted to do. The act of planning a vacation lets you have something to look forward to and can significantly boost your overall happiness for several weeks to come.

4. Work on your strengths:

Do something you’re good at and build your self-confidence. Take one thing at a time and tackle a tougher task next.

5. Experiment and then improvise:

It could be a new recipe, writing a poem, or even painting. Creative expression has been linked overall well-being of an individual.

6. Treat yourself to some dark chocolate:

Dark chocolate is known to be rich in flavonoids and caffeine that work together to improve alertness and mental skills.

7. Spend some time with a furry friend:

Time with animals can lower your stress hormones and boost your happiness. If you don’t have a pet, hang out with a friend who does or visit a dog café if you want.

8. Be a tourist in your town:

When you open yourself as if you’re a child again you experience newer dimensions of existing things around you.

9. Remember :

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

10. Laugh out Loud:

Take some time out and hang out with a funny friend, or watch a comedy show. Laughter helps in reducing anxiety.

11. Go off the grid:

Your mental health is your responsibility and so if you think it’s getting too much, take some time out for yourself. Keep your smartphone away and disconnect from every other interruption. Invest time in doing something more fun.

12.Take 30 minutes off and go for a walk in nature:

The easiest thing you could do is take a stroll in the park. Being around nature will refresh your mind and improve your energy levels.

13. Make sure you’re out in the sun, at least for 15 minutes in the morning:

Vitamin D is believed to be a great mood lifter. Therefore, make sure to get at least 15 minutes of sunshine in the morning before 10 am. Post that, the sun can be harmful to the body.

14. Practice Forgiveness:

Holding on to resentment only makes you bitter in the long run. Therefore, every once in a while practice to let go of things and start on a fresh note.

15. Ending this on a bring note:

“What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when you bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.”

More more lifestyle and health tips, check out Fast&Up

This content was originally published here.

Exercise won’t help you lose weight

Exercise and weight loss: Exercise won't help you lose weight

Of all the wonderful things exercise does for your body, more evidence suggests losing weight isn’t one of them.

Your daily activity level has almost no bearing on the number of calories you burn and burning more energy doesn’t protect against getting fat, Herman Pontzer writes in his new book, “Burn: New Research Blows the Lid Off How We Really Burn Calories, Lose Weight, and Stay Healthy.”

“Your brain is very, very, very good at matching how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn,” Pontzer, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, told TODAY.

“The person who has a sedentary lifestyle and the person who has the active lifestyle will burn the same number of calories.”

Al gets moving with exercise physiologist Marco Borges

What? We’ve all been taught the more you move, the more energy you burn, helping with weight loss. But that’s the wrong view of the human body’s flexible metabolic engine, Pontzer says.

A person starting that new Peloton program, for example, and exercising like crazy will burn more calories at first, but her body will adjust over the course of a couple months and begin to spend less energy on its many other tasks, like inflammation and stress reaction, until things are back to the way they were, he noted.

How does Pontzer know? He studies the Hadza people of Tanzania, hunter-gatherers who walk for miles every day foraging for food. They’re incredibly physically active, moving more in a day than most Americans do in a week, so Pontzer and his colleagues were sure they’d be burning a crazy amount of calories. Yet when the researchers measured how much energy the Hadza burned, it turned out to be the same amount as sedentary urbanites in the West.

“That was a big surprise and a nice example of just how counterintuitive it can be,” Pontzer said. The results show our metabolic engines constantly adjust, making room for increased activity so that ultimately, daily energy expenditure is kept within a narrow window — whether you walk all day or don’t do much at all, he writes.

Mediterranean tops list of best diets for 2021

To lose weight, people are better off eating less than being more active, Pontzer noted. “Really the only strategy that seems to work well is to focus on your diet,” he said. “We’ve known for decades that exercise is a really poor tool for weight loss.”

Not everyone agrees. Programs that combine both diet and exercise result in a 20% greater weight loss compared to diet alone, said Deborah Riebe, a professor of exercise science and associate dean of the college of health sciences at the University of Rhode Island.

She recommends a combination of eating less along with getting adequate levels of exercise to maximize weight loss in people who are overweight or obese. Physical activity also appears to be a critical component to prevent weight regain, Riebe said.

Both diet and exercise are needed to slim down, added Maya Vadiveloo, an assistant professor in the department of nutrition and food sciences at the University of Rhode Island.

Take a Walk TODAY like Al Roker for fitness’ sake

Still, many people wrongly believe obesity is entirely due to lack of exercise when the fact is “you cannot outrun a bad diet,” researchers wrote in an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Pontzer agreed, noting we’re surrounded by processed foods with added oils and sugars that are designed and focus-group tested to affect our brains in ways that are almost addictive.

Here are more findings from his book:

Grapefruit, cayenne pepper, chili powder and green tea don’t boost your metabolism, and even things that do rev it a little bit, like coffee, have such a tiny effect that an extra bite of food would erase it, Pontzer said.

“The bigger question here is: Would a faster metabolism actually help you keep weight off? And there’s no evidence for that,” he noted. “If you boost your metabolism a little bit, your brain will go, ‘Oh OK, we better eat little bit more’ and you wouldn’t lose anything at all.”

That means eating in a way that helps you feel full on fewer calories, but since our brains are wired so differently and we all have different backgrounds and love different foods, there’s no one diet works for everybody, Pontzer said.

Staying away from ultra-processed foods found in the snack aisle, and instead focusing on protein and fiber are good ways to start.

The Hadza people of Tanzania studied by Pontzer offer a glimpse into how ancient humans may have eaten. They hunt for meat, and forage for tubers, berries and honey, which turns out to be a high-carb/low-fat diet. They get 65% of more of their calories from carbs while fat makes up less than 20%.

They have incredibly healthy hearts, don’t develop obesity and stay at the same weight their entire adult lives.

That’s hard to do, of course. Modern foods are “too delicious” and designed to be overeaten, Pontzer writes. When not sure exactly how much to eat, humans have evolved to err on the side of eating more.

But whether you choose low-carb, low-fat, vegan, intermittent fasting, Paleo or Mediterranean, whichever diet allows you to eat fewer calories over the long-term will help you lose weight.

Pontzer worries that people who are motivated only by weight loss will stop working out. But exercise is critical for making your body stronger and fitter, and for avoiding disease, so it’s important to stay active.

“If you want to keep your heart healthy, if you want to keep your mind sharp, if you want to be able to age into your 50s and 60s without kind of falling apart, then you really need exercise in your life and the more the better,” he said.

This content was originally published here.

The 10 Rules of Building an Athletic Body | T Nation

The 10 Rules of Building an Athletic Body | T Nation

Building a strong, lean, and athletic physique isn’t complicated. It requires focusing on a set of time-tested principles to help you optimize performance and longevity.

Secrets? There are none. The best way to get stronger, leaner, and more athletic comes down to executing time-tested principles, consistently.

1. Get stupid strong first.

Strength is measured in two ways: absolute strength (the maximum amount of force exerted regardless of muscle or body size) and relative strength (how strong you are for your size).

Absolute strength gets all the likes on Instagram, but what’s more important for athleticism is relative strength – how strong you are for your size.

All other qualities being equal, if you’re relatively stronger you’ll be able to move your own body through space better. You can sprint, jump, pirouette, or whatever you want to do with more power.

Sure, having more absolute strength can improve relative strength and thus speed and explosiveness. But piling more plates on the bar does reach a point of diminishing returns.

But the takeaway is clear: Build a big foundation of absolute strength, but make sure you’re also strong for your size.

2. Do explosive throws and jumps.

Being strong in the gym is pointless if you can’t generate strength fast. That’s why explosive jumps and throws are crucial. Think of them as power-primers and performance boosters.

Explosive jumps and throws prime your central nervous system (CNS), activating high threshold motor units and improving neuromuscular efficiency through optimizing intramuscular (on a cellular level) coordination and intermuscular coordination within a specific movement.

This translates to improved performance on your specific movement patterns and moving more efficiently overall to improve athleticism.

So before each workout, do the explosive movements that mimic the primary lifts of the day. Here are a few examples:

Lower Body (Squat Day) – Squat Jump

Lower Body (Hip Hinge or Deadlift Day) – Broad Jump

Upper Body Vertical Push/Pull – Medicine Ball Back Toss

Upper Body Horizontal Push/Pull – Plyo Push-Up

3. Sprint weekly.

Athletes with enviable physiques do sprints. Similar to heavy lifting, sprinting requires a huge CNS output, meaning you’ll activate a ton of muscle fibers to rapidly produce high levels of tension.

As fellow T Nation experts Charley Gould and Luka Hocevar pointed out in Speed Kills, Sprinting Builds, sprinting has been shown to increase muscle protein synthesis and HGH release (by up to 230% and 500%, respectively) while increasing testosterone, improving insulin sensitivity, and increasing mTor signaling for up to two hours post-training.

In simpler terms, sprinting helps you get shredded and build muscle, all while improving athletic performance.

The key to safe sprinting is to start slow and progress intelligently. Do it on a hill, or if needed, a treadmill. The incline decreases the impact due to a shorter foot-fall distance and prevents over-striding – the primary cause of hamstring pulls.

Try this routine twice a week either after lifting, or ideally, as a separate workout.

After you warm up and do some speed drills, sprint 10 seconds on and 50 seconds off. Go for 10 minutes. Then, week by week, increase your sprint time by one second and decrease the rest period by one second. Work your way up to 15-second sprints.

4. Do unilateral work.

Unilateral training can help prevent injuries caused by muscular imbalances.

Have you ever gotten under a squat and noticed one hip coming up first? Or when you military press, the bar looks like a ski slope because one shoulder can’t handle the weight?

Constantly throwing these faulty movement patterns under heavy load is asking for injury. But single-limb training doesn’t just help reduce muscular imbalances and improve core/spine stabilization, it also makes you stronger.

Most people who can bench press 225-pounds with a bar can’t bench press with a set of 100-pound dumbbells. However, if you CAN bench 100-pound dumbbells, you can definitely bench press 225 with a bar. Moral of the story: If you get ridiculously strong unilaterally, your main lifts will go up.

Unilateral exercises are often safer to load, which makes programming decisions easier, especially if you’re training around injuries. There are definitive benefits to heavy bilateral lifts, but if you can generate a response that improves performance with less risk, unilateral lifting is a no brainer.

5. Lift lighter, lift faster.

If your goal is to be more athletic, there are two paths to get there. Lift heavy weights, or lift relatively lighter weights (including your body) faster.

Most of us spend far too much time crushing our CNS and joints with heavy lifting, when a key piece of the puzzle is moving lighter weights fast.

Make sure those plates are moving with speed. Testing strength with a 1RM doesn’t build strength or improve performance. It drains you. It serves as a benchmark for the effectiveness of your previous programming, not a key pillar for effective training every time you hit the gym.

When you’re building strength (instead of testing it) check your ego at the door and move the weights with controlled aggression.

Lifting lighter faster has several benefits:

Improved Muscle Fiber Recruitment

More recruitment means more muscle fibers are stimulated. If your goal is to put on lean mass, you must fatigue as many muscle fibers as possible.

Less CNS Stress

Listen, we’re already stressed and over-tired. Start the week off with a set of max squats and your CNS will be trashed for most of the week. Mix in some explosive lifting, drop a max lift session, and take a walk. You’ll be less stressed and still get the gains.

Keeps Joints Healthy

Heavy lifting over time wrecks joints. Play the long game and keep strength gains by introducing lighter, explosive lifting. Painful knees and elbows can disrupt training consistency. Stay healthy, get more training sessions under your belt over the long term, and get stronger.

6. Fuel the machine.

Unless you’re in a specific phase of body recomposition where you’re trying to lose fat to compete at a certain weight, there’s no reason to be in a caloric deficit. You must maintain a proper caloric intake to feed recovery and fuel your performance gains.

This can mean anywhere from two to four grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight a day, on top of one gram of protein per pound recommended for athletes.

Here’s an example using a 205-pound competitive athlete:

That’s 4100 calories before consuming healthy fats, which could add another 1000 calories to that total.

Whether you’re a competitive athlete or just like to train like an athlete, your nutrition demands are much higher than the average Joe. You must eat high levels of quality food if you’re going to demand high performance from your body. This doesn’t mean eating garbage calories, but fresh, minimally processed foods that build you up for the next performance.

Hydration is critical for athletic performance as well. Aim for at least 3/4 ounce per pound of bodyweight of water per day. This is a bare minimum. Add an electrolyte beverage for every hour of continuous activity.

7. Recover hard.

The biggest performance enhancer is typically the most underutilized – sleep. You need 7-9 hours a night. Get the bedroom cool and dark. Try to finish your last meal at least two hours before bed.

Trouble falling asleep? Pick up some good fiction and read for 15 minutes before bed.

Trouble staying asleep? Supplement with magnesium 1-2 hours prior to bedtime to help with increasing a deep sleep state.

Go to sleep and wake up at the same times everyday, no matter what. Your body will thank you with gains.

8. Manage stress.

The stress of a bad relationship and a brutal lower-body workout both take a toll on everything from your immune system to digestion to recovery. The body doesn’t recognize the difference. Practice some different ways of reducing outside stress.

Meditation not your thing? Cool, find a quiet place to write in a journal and brain-dump some of the life issues bothering you. Or just go for a walk to end your work day.

This rule has as much to do with your overall well-being as it does athletic performance, but if you’re in a toxic relationship, not just with a partner but with an all-consuming job, friends, bad habits, or substances, you need to make decisions to improve or eliminate that relationship.

If it isn’t helping you move forward, it’s holding you back. End of story.

9. Train around injuries, not through them.

Injuries are part of the game. No matter how carefully you lift or how diligently you warm-up, at some point there will be an ache, pain, or strain that just won’t go away without treatment.

This doesn’t mean you have to lay off the iron for multiple weeks. Training around injuries can be a great time to focus on bringing up a weak body part. Research shows that training one side can still lead to strength gains in the opposite side, known as the “contralateral effects of unilateral strength training.”

For example, if you injure your left biceps tendon, doing biceps curls on the right side can keep both arms relatively strong. So when injuries occur, don’t try to push through them, just shift your focus.

Tweak your shoulder benching? Lay off upper body training for a bit and put some meat on those quads. Train smart and ride the gains train.

10. Pay attention to joint position.

I learned this from Loren Landow, strength coach of the Denver Broncos: “Joint position dictates muscle function.”

It’s a lens through which you should analyze everything you’re doing in the gym. If you use shoddy form on an exercise, you’re no longer loading the tissues (or the movement pattern) you originally intended.

So first, make sure you’re training what you intend to train. If you squat with a low-bar position, wide stance, and your toes externally rotated, you’re going to load your glutes, lower back, and hamstrings to a greater extent than a quad-dominant high-bar squat.

With this mindset, a squat isn’t just a squat. What you’re doing and why you’re doing it is crucial. Is your technique congruent to your goal? If not, adjust.

Form is everything, not just to hit the right areas, but to prevent injury. Remember, the best ability is availability. The key to long-term prosperity as an athlete and lifter is being able to complete full training cycles and avoid major injuries.

Leave your ego at the door. Own every inch of every rep. Control the eccentric (negative) on your lifts and train with purpose.

References

This content was originally published here.

How the U.S. Reopening Might Affect Anxiety Patients – The New York Times

How the U.S. Reopening Might Affect Anxiety Patients - The New York Times

Now, he says, “all my interactions are virtual, so I don’t worry about shaking hands and the awkwardness of in-person.”

“When I go to bed at night, I know what I’m doing the next day, and I don’t worry about it,” said Mr. Bernoff. He loves the predictability of life — like what time he’s having lunch and dinner and where it’s coming from. “I hate to sound paranoid about this, but I like being in the same place as my refrigerator.”

Mr. Bernoff hastened to say he can’t wait for the pandemic to end — “and go to dinner with my wife.”

“I don’t want this to go on forever,” he added, “but for just this year, this period, it’s been a little island of stability.”

Mr. Bernoff is fortunate to have consistent work; research shows that anxiety and depression triggered by the pandemic can disproportionately impact those with shakier economic prospects. A large-scale study of 36,000 subjects in the United Kingdom, published in the December 2020 issue of The Lancet, found that mental health challenges were elevated for some people early in the lockdown and then eased in general as the lockdown eased, with some groups more susceptible than others.

“Being female or younger, having lower educational attainment, lower income, or pre-existing mental health conditions, and living alone or with children were all risk factors for higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms at the start of lockdown,” the study found. That began to ebb, the researchers found, as people acclimated and lockdowns eased.

By contrast, the anxiety-ridden people who experienced relief during the pandemic probably are in higher income brackets, said Ms. Maikovich-Fong, the therapist from Denver. They are more likely to have jobs they can do remotely, allowing them to remain employed but with less stress than before.

This content was originally published here.