After briefly describing the nature of emotional processing biases associated with vulnerability to anxiety, and a model of how they may be produced, we review new data on the experimental induction of attentional and interpretative biases. We show that these biases can be readily induced in the laboratory, in the absence of mood changes. However, induced biases exert effects on the processing ...

This preliminary case report explored the use of hypnosis induced through a 3-dimensional, immersive, computer-generated virtual reality (VR) world as a means to control pain and anxiety in a patient with a severe burn injury. On hospitalization Day 40, after reports of uncontrollable pain and anxiety, the patient underwent hypnotic induction while immersed in a virtual world and received posth...

Induction of anesthesia can be a very stressful period for a child and his family and can be associated with increased risk of psychological disturbances. These disturbances are categorized as preoperative anxiety, emergence delirium and postoperative behavioral changes. Several tools have been developed to measure these psychological manifestations as well as the baseline personality traits of...

OBJECTIVE Previous research indicates the beneficial effects of humor among healthy adults. Little is known about the physical and psychological effects of sense of humor and laughter among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). METHODS Patients with COPD (n = 46; mean age ± SD, 66.9 ± 9.9 years) completed assessments of sense of humor, depression, anxiety, quality of lif...

Three hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students in a large-group setting were exposed to 20 min of either meditation, progressive muscle relaxation (PMR), or a control condition, followed by 1 min of stress induction and another 10 min of each intervention. Participants in the meditation and PMR groups decreased more in cognitive, somatic, and general state anxiety than controls. The PMR grou...

OBJECTIVE Patients often develop neuropsychiatric symptoms such as anxiety and agitation after they have started taking an antidepressant, and this is thought to be associated with a potentially increased risk of suicide. However, the incidence of antidepressant-induced jitteriness/anxiety syndrome has not been fully investigated, and little has been reported on its predictors. The aim of this ...

OBJECTIVES Anxiety leads to biases in processing personally relevant information. This study set out to examine whether anxious parents also experience biases in processing child-relevant material. DESIGN AND METHODS Ninety parents acted as a control condition, or received a social anxiety or child-related anxiety induction. They completed a task examining attentional biases in relation to ch...

Many patients experience some degree of anxiety and/or discomfort during dermatologic procedures. For most patients this anxiety or discomfort is tolerable, but a few find it intolerable to the point of interference with the accomplishment of the procedure. A case is presented in which a 51 -year-old female experienced so much anxiety that it jeopardized the continuation of a necessary procedur...

The oxidative imbalance appears to have an important role in anxiety development. Studies in both humans and animals have shown a strong correlation between anxiety and oxidative stress. In humans, for example, the increased malondialdehyde levels and discrepancies in antioxidant enzymes in erythrocytes have been observed. In animals, several studies also show that anxiety-like behavior is rela...