Mind and Body Connection

This week, we will focus on how can digital health intervention can apply in stress detection and sleep problems.

In this video, Prof. Tsai will first introduce the relationship between stress and health. Stress is an important determinant of a person’s health. The reason why stress causes illness remains elusive. However, potential mechanisms have been proposed to explain the link between mind and body. She will then introduce a study by neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh uncovered evidence for the neural basis of a mind-body connection. According to their findings, the biggest influences arise from motor areas of the cerebral cortex and from other cortical regions involved in cognition and emotion. These results indicate that circuits exist to link movement, cognition, emotion to the function of the adrenal medulla, and the control of stress. This circuitry may mediate the effects of chronic stress and depression on organ function.

Prof. Tsai wraps up the talk about mind-body interventions focus on the relationships among the brain, mind, body, and behavior, and their effect on health and disease. Stress-related conditions include anxiety, coronary heart disease, depression, fatigue, fibromyalgia, hypertension, insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Have you or your relatives experienced one or more of these conditions?

There are many website tools nowadays to aid you to detect stress levels by a simple test. Here is an example: stress-test Another example test-your-stress

Please take a look at them. We will see research on how digital health applied in dealing with stress in the next step.

Educator:

Prof. Pei-Shan Tsai, Distinguished Professor, College of Nursing, Taipei Medical University