Your Bones Secrete a Hormone That Can Make You Panic, Scientists Find

a post by Ed Cara for the GIZMODO blog [via World of Psychology]


Anyone who’s ever said they felt scared to their bones might have been speaking more literally than we knew. A new study out Thursday [12 September] seems to show that in both mice and humans, bones secrete a hormone in reaction to stressful situations. What’s more, this bone hormone appears to be crucial to our fight-or-flight response, in a way completely separate from other well-known stress chemicals like adrenaline.

Gerard Karsenty, a geneticist at Columbia University, and his colleagues have long been interested in studying how our skeleton keeps us alive and healthy — not just by supporting us physically, but through the interactions it has with the rest of the body. Their work has centered on osteocalcin, a hormone produced by some of the same cells that make up bone. His and others’ earlier research has suggested that osteocalcin helps regulate diverse functions such as metabolism, muscle function during exercise, and fertility.

Continue reading but be prepared for feeling sad/angry/upset about the mice being stressed.

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Harness the Power of Calm

a post by Emma Sepala for the Big Think blog

Tap into the "Rest and Digest" System to Achieve Your Goals

• In the fast-paced workplaces and productivity-focused societies many of us inhabit today, it is easy to burnout.
• Emma Seppälä, a Stanford researcher on human happiness, recommends tapping into the parasympathetic nervous system instead—"rest and digest"rather than "fight or flight."
• Aiming for energy management rather than time management will give you the resilience you need to excel at the things that really matter in your life and career, rather than living "mostly off" by attempting to seem "always on."

Continue reading

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