We are so happy to announce that our awesome RA, Natalie Okuhara, got accepted to the dental school of her choice, and will be attending the University of Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry’s Class of 2018! Natalie has been a great asset here in the DiSH lab, and we’ll be sorry to see her go, though we all are so excited for her and are confident that she will succeed! Best of luck to you Natalie! It is highly deserved, and we can’t wait to see all that you will accomplish!

Dr. T recently met with Congressman Ted Lieu. UCLA is in Representative Lieu’s district, and Dr. T communicated to him the importance of psychological science. Here’s what she had to say about the encounter:

“I met with Representative Lieu, who was extremely nice and clearly very committed to promoting research. I talked to him about how psychology and behavioral sciences have a tough job, which is to make things that are impossible to see (like prejudice, morality, or stress) graspable by science.

I talked to him about the DiSH Lab’s work examining weight stigma, and the effect that has on cortisol, and the effect THAT has on fat deposition. I communicated how important work like this is, because weight stigma is incredibly prevalent. But at the same time, I told him about how research like this is double the bang for your buck, because we study the mind and the body at the same time – what a great return on investment!

Research is so important, but we can’t do it without funding. The National Institutes of Health budget is flat, and not even 4% of investigators under age 36 (that’s still me!) have R01s – those are the critical types of grants that fund research and are needed for tenure. I talked about how Representative Lieu, by way of his appointment to the Budget Committee, might be able to make a huge difference.

Grant funding isn’t just about getting tenure. It also funds many jobs. Some grants also promote education, supporting things like the DiSH Lab’s soon-to-launch summer intensive. And most importantly, funding psychological science will give us solutions that will make society better!

Lastly, I invited him to take a tour of the DiSH Lab and other psychology labs at UCLA to see the action up close. He seemed really interested, so a visit from Representative Lieu may be in the very near future!”

 

Another successful event for Dr. T; she was the co-chair of the 2015 Social Personality Health Network (SPHN) Preconference today! The SPHN presented the 7th Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Preconference, and topics that were discussed included socioeconomic and racial health disparities, stress, psychoneuroendocrinology, behavior change, meditation, body image, doctor-patient communication, sleep, and Big Data. Additionally, the DiSH lab’s grad students were presenting their work, and overall the conference was a big success!

 

Last Thursday, Angela led a yoga and meditation class for her research assistants! It was a great activity to help lower everyone’s stress during midterm season. Here’s what some of her RAs had to say about the experience!

“I really enjoyed the yoga class because it enabled me to relax and focus on the present. I think it is super important to take a break from our busy lives and be in the moment. Also, I loved how encouraging and understanding Angela was of our capabilities. Doing yoga was a challenging, but extremely rewarding experience!”

-Marisa LoBuglio

“To whoever thinks practicing yoga is solely a relaxed, soft form of meditative exercise: I am STILL sore from Angela’s yoga class that I attended last Thursday! The workout she designed for us hit all of our self-proclaimed tensions spots – the low back, shoulders, hamstrings, and hips – the perfect way to release the physical stress that we all have been putting our bodies through during the midterms season. It was amazing to see Angela in her element – away from her desk and research, showing us how to move and bend our bodies into poses that we never thought we were strong enough or flexible enough to do. I guess that’s what yoga teaches you – to trust your body, your strength, and your ability to overcome boundaries that you never imagined you physically could. Thank you, Angela, for sharing your passion with us. I cannot wait for more yoga sessions in the future!”

– Megan White

“I enjoyed the meditation. I felt so relaxed after the short practice. I would like to learn more about mediation so I could perform it during my leisure time.”

-Jefferson Choi

“I have never done meditation before so at first it was a little hard to get the breathing exercises right, but then when I got the hang of it I could feel myself calming completely down. Since we did it during midterms week I came in all tense and preoccupied, but the meditation definitely made me get rid of some of the junk in my head and I felt like I left with a cleaner mind. This is something that I definitely want to keep doing to relieve some stress and I’m so happy Angela taught us!”

-Emilie Komnaes

 

Comfort food? Again? Yup! Seeing how everyone is guilty of using food for comfort, it should come to no surprise that the DiSH Lab is very interested on how comfort eating may affect your stress and health. This is especially the case when we have recently found out that comfort eating can actually be comforting!

As Dr. T states in a recent blog post:

The science of comfort eating, however, indicates that we may be engaging in this behavior for very good reasons, and that eating that brownie might mitigate the negative health effects of stress hormones—which may be even more harmful in the long-term than a few extra calories.

So, maybe we shouldn’t feel so guilty after all! But while Dr. T and the DiSH Lab team are currently working to get you more information on comfort food and possibly shift the current stance on stress eating, we present to you a fun list of what Buzzfeed considers The 29 Best Comfort Foods on the Planet. Did your favorite comfort foods make the list? If not, you may want to try some of these and see if it works!