The Relationships Between Physical Activity Behavior, Daily Experiences, and Well-Being in Everyday Life

A physically active lifestyle has several health benefits in both the short- and long-term. This includes higher levels of emotional and psychological well-being and, in many cases, maintained well-being despite stressful experiences that can have countervailing, negative impacts on health. This symposium presents innovative research that (a) links physical activity to positive and negative events or experiences in middle-aged and older adults, and that (b) uses different assessment and analytical techniques to unpack these links on multiple timescales – between moments, days, and years. Lee and colleagues investigate the influence of daily positive experiences on the likelihood and extent of physical activity. O’Brien and Almeida examine how daily stressor experiences predict engagement in different intensities of physical activity and highlight moderating factors such as perceived stressor control. Puterman and colleagues characterize the real-time associations between physical activity and negative responses to stressful experiences by using intensive, within-day assessment methods and accelerometry data. Lastly, Benson and colleagues report on whether the potential for daily physical activity to protect against negative stressor responses differs with age and changes across the adult lifespan. Together, these papers consider the nature and mechanisms of the relationship between physical activity and everyday experiences (e.g., stressors and positive events). They also underscore the importance of assessing relationships on different timescales to obtain a clearer understanding of intrapersonal and developmental processes. As discussant, Hoppmann will assess the strengths and limitations of these papers, elaborate on underlying and overarching themes, and identify future directions in this field.

Validation of the Adapted Response to Stressful Experiences Scale (RSES-4) Among First Responders

First responders are continually exposed to trauma-related events. Resilience is evidenced as a protective factor for mental health among first responders. However, there is a lack of assessments that measure the construct of resilience from a strength-based perspective. The present study used archival data from a treatment-seeking sample of 238 first responders to validate the 22-item Response to Stressful Experiences Scale (RSES-22) and its abbreviated version, the RSES-4, with two confirmatory factor analyses. Using a subsample of 190 first responders, correlational analyses were conducted of the RSES-22 and RSES-4 with measures of depressive symptoms, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and suicidality confirming convergent and criterion validity. The two confirmatory analyses revealed a poor model fit for the RSES-22; however, the RSES-4 demonstrated an acceptable model fit. Overall, the RSES-4 may be a reliable and valid measure of resilience for treatment-seeking first responder populations.

Stressful Experiences, Connection, and Depressive Symptoms Among Taiwanese Han and Indigenous Youth

This study examined Taiwanese Han and indigenous (Tayal) youth’s experiences of stressful life events, the association between stressful experiences and depressive symptomology, and also the indirect and interactive effects of connection on the relationship between stressful experiences and depressive symptomology. Taiwanese Han (97%) is the majority group, whereas indigenous people make up 2.3% of Taiwan’s population. Taiwanese indigenous people have experienced disparities across socio-historical, educational, and economic aspects of their lives. This study included 291 eighth-grade participants (40% from the Tayal tribe, 48.8% female, and Mage = 13.44). The Han sample in this study all lived in cities, and the Tayal sample all lived in the tribal areas of the Northern Taiwan mountain regions. Person-centered (latent class analyses) and cumulative (sum of items) approaches were used to investigate family and school stressful events, respectively. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted separately for the Han and Tayal participants to examine the role of family and school connection in relation to family and school stressors and depressive symptomology. Our results showed that stressful experiences are clearly linked to depressive symptomology and family connection was important to both Tayal and Han youth in supporting their coping with depressive symptoms. However, Tayal youth might be particularly vulnerable to family stressful events because family stressors disrupted their connection with their parents and thereby minimized the protective function of family relationships. To decrease the likely onset of depression during early adolescence, our results suggest that it is important for parents and other family members to monitor adolescents’ daily experiences of stress and provide support when needed. Furthermore, mental health interventions need to be tailored specifically for youth in specific racial, social, and economic contexts. Tayal youth mental health might benefit particularly from increasing school connection and decreasing stresses experienced in family contexts. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Enhancing Flexibility: A Biosocial Model for Resilience to Adversity in Youth With Autism

Flexibility is often associated with resilience from adversity. Youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at risk of stress and trauma yet have inherent difficulties with flexibility, including rigid behaviors, routines, “insistence on sameness,” and lack of social reciprocity. This review highlights literature of physiological and psychological processes related to inflexibility in ASD and proposes a heuristic model to understand mechanisms of resilience in the aftermath of adversity. This article presents the Biosocial Model for Resilience, which posits that interventions that target changes in central, autonomic, and endocrine dysregulation may in turn enhance processes of psychological flexibility (i.e., executive cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal regulation) that increase the likelihood of resilient adjustment in response to stressful experiences. This model of resilience is optimistic in positing that, in addition to critical programs on the prevention of social adversity, future research on flexibility can inform intervention programs that target this specific mechanism to minimize harmful aftereffects in youngsters with ASD.

Current Assessment and Interpretation of Perceived Post-Traumatic Growth

Positive reappraisal is a key method for managing distressing emotions and reframing troubling circumstances into a challenge that is more easily handled or resolved. One of the main ways that people positively reframe their stressful experiences is by perceiving that they have grown or benefitted from them. This chapter provides a historical perspective on the study of perceived growth. Topics that are covered include nuances in the terminology ranging from character growth, stress-related growth, hardiness, and post-traumatic growth. In sum, the various concepts that have been used in this literature will be discussed and distinguished, as opposed to being used interchangeably. The authors also provide a discussion of directions for future research.

Stressful experiences impact on pain, fatigue and mental health in people with endometriosis: a questionnaire study during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective To explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pain and fatigue symptoms and their interactions with the impact on mental health in people with endometriosis. Design Global cross-sectional survey. Setting Online survey. Sample A total of 4717 adults with a surgical or radiological diagnosis of endometriosis. Methods An online global study collected data in 5 languages between 11th May to 8th June 2020. The survey included questions on current-status and changes of endometriosis-symptoms, mental health, demographics, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the respondents’ lives. Main Outcome Measures Self-reported changes to endometriosis-associated symptoms (pelvic pain, tiredness/fatigue, bleeding) and to mental health during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Respondents reported a marked worsening of their endometriosis symptoms (endo-associated pain (39.3%; 95% CI [37.7, 40.5]), tiredness/fatigue (49.9%; 95% CI [48.4, 51.2]) and bleeding (39.6%; 95% CI [38.2, 41])) and mental health (38.6%; 95% CI [37.2, 39.9]). Those with a pre-existing mental health diagnosis (38.8%) were more negatively impacted. The worsening of pain and TF were significantly correlated with worsening of mental health (p<0.001) and these relationships were found to be weakly mediated by pain catastrophising scores (pain: effect size: 0.071, LLCI= 0.060, ULCI= 0.082, TF: effect size: 0.050, LLCI= 0.040, ULCI= 0.060). Conclusions This study demonstrates that stressful experiences impact the physical and mental health of people with endometriosis. The findings highlight the need to consider psychological approaches in the holistic management of people with endometriosis.

Ventral tegmental area GABA neurons mediate stress-induced blunted reward-seeking in mice

Decreased pleasure-seeking (anhedonia) forms a core symptom of depression. Stressful experiences precipitate depression and disrupt reward-seeking, but it remains unclear how stress causes anhedonia. We recorded simultaneous neural activity across limbic brain areas as mice underwent stress and discovered a stress-induced 4 Hz oscillation in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) that predicts the degree of subsequent blunted reward-seeking. Surprisingly, while previous studies on blunted reward-seeking focused on dopamine (DA) transmission from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the NAc, we found that VTA GABA, but not DA, neurons mediate stress-induced blunted reward-seeking. Inhibiting VTA GABA neurons disrupts stress-induced NAc oscillations and rescues reward-seeking. By contrast, mimicking this signature of stress by stimulating NAc-projecting VTA GABA neurons at 4 Hz reproduces both oscillations and blunted reward-seeking. Finally, we find that stress disrupts VTA GABA, but not DA, neural encoding of reward anticipation. Thus, stress elicits VTA-NAc GABAergic activity that induces VTA GABA mediated blunted reward-seeking.

Bridging the gap : immigrant children as language and culture brokers

This paper looks at the role that immigrant children play in translating and interpreting for their parents. Research shows that children pick up language skills and culture faster than their parents do, so they are often put into the position of translating. This paper includes previous literature on the subject, and uses interviews and questionnaires conducted with adults who have had experiences in the role of culture brokers as children. While many of the participants benefited by perfecting language skills and were able to assist their families, they generally did not enjoy their stressful experiences as culture brokers. Currently, Canada does not have any laws in place to govern this activity, and this research calls for the government to implement limitations to the practice of using children is such a role.

Bridging the gap : immigrant children as language and culture brokers

This paper looks at the role that immigrant children play in translating and interpreting for their parents. Research shows that children pick up language skills and culture faster than their parents do, so they are often put into the position of translating. This paper includes previous literature on the subject, and uses interviews and questionnaires conducted with adults who have had experiences in the role of culture brokers as children. While many of the participants benefited by perfecting language skills and were able to assist their families, they generally did not enjoy their stressful experiences as culture brokers. Currently, Canada does not have any laws in place to govern this activity, and this research calls for the government to implement limitations to the practice of using children is such a role.

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis shapes adaptation and improves stress response: a mechanistic and integrative perspective

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN) represents a remarkable form of neuroplasticity that has increasingly been linked to the stress response in recent years. However, the hippocampus does not itself support the expression of the different dimensions of the stress response. Moreover, the main hippocampal functions are essentially preserved under AHN depletion and adult-born immature neurons (abGNs) have no extrahippocampal projections, which questions the mechanisms by which abGNs influence functions supported by brain areas far from the hippocampus. Within this framework, we propose that through its computational influences AHN is pivotal in shaping adaption to environmental demands, underlying its role in stress response. The hippocampus with its high input convergence and output divergence represents a computational hub, ideally positioned in the brain (1) to detect cues and contexts linked to past, current and predicted stressful experiences, and (2) to supervise the expression of the stress response at the cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological levels. AHN appears to bias hippocampal computations toward enhanced conjunctive encoding and pattern separation, promoting contextual discrimination and cognitive flexibility, reducing proactive interference and generalization of stressful experiences to safe contexts. These effects result in gating downstream brain areas with more accurate and contextualized information, enabling the different dimensions of the stress response to be more appropriately set with specific contexts. Here, we first provide an integrative perspective of the functional involvement of AHN in the hippocampus and a phenomenological overview of the stress response. We then examine the mechanistic underpinning of the role of AHN in the stress response and describe its potential implications in the different dimensions accompanying this response.