Matthew Price, Page Anderson, Georgia State University, and Barbara O. Rothbaum, Emory University School of Medicine Virtual reality exposure has recently emerged as an important tool for exposure therapy in the treatment of fear of flying. There have been numerous empirical studies that have evaluated the effectiveness of virtual reality exposure as compared to other treatments including in vi...

BACKGROUND Trichotillomania (TTM) is characterized by recurrent hair-pulling that results in substantial hair loss. A previous pilot study demonstrated that the online self-help intervention 'decoupling' (DC) might be effective at reducing hair-pulling symptoms, with a stronger effect than progressive muscle relaxation (PMR). We aimed to extend these findings using a more robust randomized clin...

Women diagnosed with breast cancer received massage therapy or practiced progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) for 30-min sessions 3 times a week for 5 weeks or received standard treatment. The massage therapy and relaxation groups reported less depressed mood, anxiety, and pain immediately after their first and last sessions. By the end of the study, however, only the massage therapy group repor...

The impact of stress on respiratory airflow in asthmatics is unclear. Part of the uncertainty may spring from the different physiological effects of different stressors. Given their potential to elicit increases in parasympathetic vagal activity, stressful situations that present few opportunities for coping (passive coping stressors) may be particularly problematic for people with asthma. Thir...

OBJECTIVE This study evaluated the efficacy of a spiritually integrated treatment (SIT) for subclinical anxiety in the Jewish community. METHOD One hundred and twenty-five self-reported religious Jewish individuals with elevated levels of stress and worry received SIT (n=36), progressive muscle relaxation (PMR, n=42), or a waitlist control condition (WLC, n=47). SIT and PMR participants acces...

Introduction. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) people suffer from severe physical impairments, which often elicit significant psychological distress and impact their quality of life. This meta-analysis aimed to assess evidence from the scientific literature on the effects of relaxation techniques. Methods. We investigated 9 databases to select 25 RCTs. Studies included both inpatien...

This paper describes a stress management training program used with a 26-year-old schizophrenic man attending an outpatient day care program. In a seven-session program the patient was taught to use various techniques in muscle relaxation and biofeedback to decrease anxiety and to cope with stress. The patient's improvement on 7 of the 20 items of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory demonstrated ...

OBJECTIVE Effective treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) exist, but additional treatment options are needed. The effectiveness of 8 sessions of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for adult OCD was compared with progressive relaxation training (PRT). METHOD Seventy-nine adults (61% female) diagnosed with OCD (mean age = 37 years; 89% Caucasian) participated in a randomized c...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Rural patients with anxiety often lack access to traditional biofeedback modalities. Exercise heart rate monitors (HRMs) are tools used in the fitness industry to provide athletes with feedback on heart rate and regulatory breathing strategies. HRMs are inexpensive, discrete, and publicly accessible. This randomized controlled pilot study explored whether use of HRMs f...

PURPOSE This study investigates the acute and longitudinal effects of resistance training on occupational muscle activity in office workers with chronic pain. METHODS 30 female office workers with chronic neck and shoulder pain participated for 10 weeks in high-intensity elastic resistance training for 2 minutes per day (n = 15) or in control receiving weekly email-based information on genera...