The New York Times (12/2, Friedman) reported, “Americans are five times more likely to say their stress level increases rather than decreases during the holidays,” And while such “higher stress levels aren’t only caused by a lack of physical activity, the lethargy certainly doesn’t help, said” Rebecca Brendel, MD, JD, “President of the American Psychiatric Association and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School.” Because “exercise can be a key way to combat the stress of the season,” the article provided “easy fitness strategies” to help people keep their spirits up.

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— “Stressed During the Holidays? There’s an Exercise for That. “Danielle Friedman, The New York Times, December 2, 2022

According to the Washington Post (12/5, A1, St. George, Strauss), across the US, “adolescent depression and anxiety – already at crisis levels before the pandemic – have surged amid the isolation, disruption and hardship of” the COVID-19 pandemic. However, “even as federal coronavirus relief money has helped schools step up their efforts to aid students, they also have come up short,” and it still remains “unclear how much money is going to mental health, how long efforts will last or if they truly reach those who struggle most.”

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

Healio (12/1, Downey) reports, “Childhood poverty was associated with increases in externalizing problems,” such as “aggression and hyperactivity,” but “not internalizing” (i.e., depression, anxiety), “over time in early adolescence,” investigators concluded in a study that included 7,569 children, 1,042 of whom “lived below the poverty threshold.” The findings were published online in JAMA Network Open.

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— “Poverty linked to externalizing problems in early adolescence “Ken Downey Jr., Healio, December 1, 2022

The Washington Post (12/1, Reynolds Lewis) reports, “The stress of pandemic lockdowns prematurely aged the brains of teenagers by at least three years and in ways similar to changes observed in children who have faced chronic stress and adversity,” according to a study published in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science. Researchers compared “MRI scans of a group of 128 children, half taken before and half at the end of the first year of the pandemic” and “found growth in the hippocampus and amygdala, brain areas that respectively control access to some memories and help regulate fear, stress and other emotions.” Researchers “also found thinning of the tissues in the cortex, which is involved in executive functioning.”

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

Medscape (7/6, Subscription Publication) reported, “High use of telemental health services by patients with serious mental illness (SMI) who live in nonmetropolitan US counties is associated with improvements in key outcomes, including greater post-hospitalization follow-up, new research suggests.” In this “nationwide study, researchers drew on Medicare data from nearly 3000 counties covering the period from 2000 to 2018.” The “results show that counties in which there was greater use of telemental health services reported higher increases of clinical visits and better follow-up after hospitalization among patients with bipolar 1 disorder and schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders.” The findings were published online June 27 in JAMA Network Open.

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— Medscape (requires login and subscription)