Psychiatric and Mental Health Commons^™

Mindfulness-Based Interventions For Prenatal Stress, Anxiety, And Depression, Fiona Kate Rice

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Pregnant people in the United States (US) face myriad barriers to resource accessibility when seeking support, including financial gatekeeping, discrimination, and cis-gendering of the process. Commodification of prenatal support is exhaustive and contributes to a growing exclusivity of traditionally accessible interventions designed to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, and to promote positive fetal outcomes and parent-child bond. Mindfulness-based interventions are particularly appropriate for reducing stress, anxiety, and depression in pregnancy. Mindfulness-based interventions are intersectional, accessible means of pregnancy and childbirth support with evidence-based outcomes of positive birth experiences and results. Mindfulness is defined as nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment. …

Oxytocin, Cortisol, And Cognitive Control During Acute And Naturalistic Stress, Shari Young Kuchenbecker, Sarah D. Pressman, Jared Celniker, Karen M. Grewen, Ken D. Sumida, Naveen Jonathan, Brendan Everett, George M. Slavich

Health Sciences and Kinesiology Faculty Articles

Although stress is a strong risk factor for poor health, especially for women, it remains unclear how stress affects the key neurohormones cortisol and oxytocin, which influence stress-related risk and resilience. Whereas cortisol mediates energy mobilization during stress, oxytocin has anti-inflammatory, anxiolytic, and analgesic effects that support social connection and survival across the lifespan. However, how these neurohormones interrelate and are associated with cognitive control of emotional information during stress remains unclear. To address these issues, we recruited 37 college-aged women (M_age = 19.19, SD = 1.58) and randomly assigned each to a one-hour experimental session consisting of …

The Dynamics Of Stress And Fatigue Across Menopause: Attractors, Coupling, And Resilience, Lisa Taylor-Swanson, Alexander E. Wong, David Pincus, Jonathan E. Butner, Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook, Mary Koithan, Kathryn Wann, Nancy F. Woods

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective:

The objective of this study was to evaluate the regulatory dynamics between stress and fatigue experienced by women during the menopausal transition (MT) and early postmenopause (EPM). Fatigue and perceived stress are commonly experienced by women during the MT and EPM. We sought to discover relationships between these symptoms and to employ these symptoms as possible markers for resilience.

Methods:

Participants were drawn from the longitudinal Seattle Midlife Women's Health Study. Eligible women completed questionnaires on 60+ occasions (annual health reports and monthly health diaries) (n = 56 women). The total number of observations across the sample was 4,224. …