Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This 2013 review explains how physical and psychological stress change the brain and body. It describes how stress activates the HPA (hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal) system and alters brain chemicals such as GABA, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. The paper also covers short-term memory effects, animal models used to study chronic stress, and both…
This randomized trial put 74 adults with moderate-to-high perceived stress into either an 8-session mindful walking program over 4 weeks or a waiting-list control. After 4 weeks, the mindful walking group had a much larger drop in perceived stress scores than the control group. The study also reported better quality-of-life…
