Medscape (1/7, Laidman) reports that according to a study (1/1) published online Jan. 6 in the journal Pediatrics, “teaching caregivers about normal infant sleeping and crying patterns and providing them with information on infant settling techniques improved maternal depression scores.” The study involved 770 families of 781 babies. The intervention began about a month after birth, when some of the families were “given a booklet and a DVD that covered normal sleep and crying patterns, techniques for settling infants, information on possible medical causes of crying, and parent self-care advice.” The information was reinforced twice more at the eight-week and 13-week marks. Notably, at “six months, caregivers in the intervention group were less likely to score higher than 9 on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, with 7.9% scoring higher than 9 in the intervention group vs 12.9% in the control cohort (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 0.57; 95% CI, 0.34 – 0.94; P = .03).”

The Los Angeles Times (1/7, MacVean) “Science Now” blog reports that according to a review (1/7) published online Jan. 6 in JAMA Internal Medicine, “mindfulness meditation can help ease anxiety, depression and pain.” The review did not find much evidence, however, that “meditation helped other conditions including substance abuse or sleep and attention problems.”

The Wall Street Journal (1/7, D2, Gellman, Subscription Publication) reports that researchers arrived at those conclusions after examining data from 47 randomized clinical studies involving more than 3,500 participants.

Related Links:

— “Meditation can help with anxiety, pain, depression, study says, “Mary MacVean, Los Angeles Times, January 6, 2014.

Bloomberg News (1/5, Kearns) reports “falling stocks get people worried sick,” noting that a “one-day drop in the stock around 1.5 percent is followed by about a 0.26 percent increase in hospital admissions on average over the next two days,” citing a March 2013 study by Joseph Engelberg and Christopher Parsons, associate professors of finance at the University of California at San Diego. Engelberg, who presented the study at the American Economic Association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, said “It’s a very straightforward result.” The article says “the results were based on almost” 30 years of daily admission data for California hospitals. In fact, hospital admissions “rise on days when shares fall,” and “people are hospitalized disproportionately for mental conditions.”

Related Links:

— “Stocks Worry Investors Sick as Losses Spur More Hospital Visits, “Jeff Kearns, Bloomberg News, January 5, 2014.

USA Today (1/6, Healy) reports that according to a study published online Jan. 6 in the journal Pediatrics, allowing kids and teens to rest their brains following a concussion may lead to a faster recovery. The study, which involved 335 young people ranging in age from eight to 23, revealed that “those reporting the greatest levels of cognitive activity (including homework, playing video games, doing crossword puzzles, text messaging and online activities) after a concussion took the longest to fully recover from their symptoms – approximately 100 days on average, compared to approximately 20 to 50 days for patients reporting lesser levels of activity.”

Related Links:

— “Evidence shows cognitive rest aids concussion recovery, “Michelle Healy, USA Today, January 6, 2014.

In his column for the New York Times (1/5, Subscription Publication), Nicholas Kristof invited readers to tell him about the issues they think “deserve more attention in 2014,” and his own is mental health. He says that mental illness in the US poses “a greater risk to our well-being than, say, the Afghan Taliban or Al Qaeda terrorists, yet in polite society there is still something of a code of silence around these topics.” He says media outlets are complicit, because too much coverage focuses on extreme cases, when progress is possible. Kristof says the topic is “not sexy, and it doesn’t involve Democrats and Republicans screaming at each other, but it is a source of incalculable suffering that can be remedied.”

Related Links:

— “First Up, Mental Illness. Next Topic Is Up to You., “Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, January 4, 2014.