Living in the city can be hard on the senses and the spirit, but spending some time in a tree-lined park could counteract that stress, new research suggests. “Over a three-month period, we collected tweets from 4,688 Twitter users before, during and after they posted from the park,” explained study author Aaron Schwartz. He’s a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Vermont’s school of environment and natural resources and the Gund Institute for Environment. All of the 160 parks that were visited in the study were located in the city of San Francisco. About 100,000 tweets were analyzed by a hedonometer, a kind of online happiness dictionary that ranks words according to their happiness content. Tweeting “jail,” for example, would bank a score of less than 2, while a tweet of “hahaha” would render a score nearly 8. After comparing pre-park tweets to post-park tweets, the study authors concluded that parks trigger a mood bump equivalent to that seen at Christmas, the day hedonometer happiness levels hit their peak. The team didn’t track how long participants spent in parks, so they can’t say how short a visit might trigger a mood change. And some parks turned out to be better mood boosters than others. Large regional parks with lots of tree cover and vegetation conferred the biggest happiness lift, while paved urban plazas offered the…  read on >

High blood pressure can be a killer. But a new study finds that more than half of younger patients — those under 65 — who are prescribed high blood pressure meds either stop taking them within a few months or don’t take them as prescribed. But stopping treatment can prove dangerous, even for the relatively young, the study’s lead author warned. “Blood flow is a physical action. Your vessels are being slammed by waves of blood every time your heart pumps,” explained Gabriel Tajeu. He’s assistant professor of health services administration and policy at Temple University in Philadelphia. “That’s why the younger population is important,” he said in a Temple news release. “Somebody may have blood pressure that is a bit high, but they have been exposed to it for 10, 20 years, causing a lot of damage to their vascular system.” About 100 million U.S. adults have high blood pressure, and the number is rising. In the new study, Tajeu’s group tracked the rate of prescription refills for blood pressure medications issued to more than 370,000 patients younger than 65. All of the patients had private insurance. The researchers found that 23.5% of the patients stopped taking the drugs within the first nine months. And of those who kept using the medications, 40% had “low adherence” — taking the prescribed amount less than 80%…  read on >

Transgender college students are two to four times more likely than their classmates to have mental health problems, researchers say. They analyzed data from more than 1,200 gender-minority students on 71 U.S. campuses who took part in an annual nationwide survey. Gender-minority means their gender identity differs from the sex assigned to them at birth. About 78% of the students met criteria for one or more mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-injury and suicide risk, the survey found. Besides transgender individuals, gender minorities include people who are gender nonconforming, genderqueer and nonbinary. Nearly 60% of them screened positive for clinically significant depression, compared to 28% of students whose sex assigned at birth aligns with their current gender identity (cisgender). “There has never been a more important time for colleges and universities to take action to protect and support trans, genderqueer and nonbinary students on campus,” said lead author Sarah Ketchen Lipson, an assistant professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University. Researchers also found that transgender men and genderqueer students (those who identify with neither, both or a combination of male and female genders) are particularly vulnerable. That requires further study, Lipson said in a university news release. Previous research has shown that transgender college students experience near-constant discrimination and harassment and have higher dropout rates. Campus bathrooms and…  read on >

If you spend a lot of nights watching the clock instead of sleeping, new research suggests you may need to be as concerned about your heart health as you are about lost shut-eye. People with genetic variants linked to insomnia have an increased risk of heart disease, heart failure and stroke, according to the study. “Good sleep is important for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease,” said study author Susanna Larsson. She’s from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. “A potential explanation for our observed associations between insomnia and heart disease and stroke is that insomnia problems potentially lead to the metabolic syndrome, including high blood pressure, increased body weight and type 2 diabetes, which increase the risk of coronary artery disease and stroke,” she said. Insomnia affects up to 30% of the general population, the study authors said. More than 200 genetic variants are associated with insomnia complaints. For the new study, the researchers looked at health information on more than 1.3 million people in Europe. The investigators compared whether or not genetic variants linked to insomnia were also associated with the risk of heart conditions and stroke. The study found that people with a genetic predisposition to insomnia had a higher risk of heart disease, heart failure and stroke that affected large blood vessels. Other types of stroke were not increased. The researchers…  read on >

You don’t have to have the talent of a Rembrandt or Yo-Yo Ma to express creativity and get some very special benefits from doing so. Everyday creativity boosts well-being and can give you a stronger sense of purpose and engagement, and everyone can tap into it. So why don’t we do more of it? The book, The Creativity Challenge, suggests modern life isn’t set up to promote creativity the way it used to be, and you might need to not only seek out creative outlets, but also carve out time in your hectic schedule to devote to them. The first step is to figure out what interests you. You might look for inspiration at an arts and crafts store or a museum, but be open to new ideas, which can be a challenge for adults. When researchers at North Dakota State University asked adults to think about what they would do with a day off, the answers were better when participants were told to imagine themselves as a 7-year-old, a time in life without inhibitions and more free thinking. So, try to channel your inner child, especially if you consider yourself an introvert by nature. Keep in mind that creativity doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t need to schedule (or worry about paying for) lessons for activities like painting, creative writing and cooking. But…  read on >