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We've all had this job.  Nothing you do is ever right, the boss berates you if you're five minutes late (your kid's bus never came), and in meetings, he calls on everyone but you. I've been there.  Even broke out in a rash on vacation, thinking of having to go back. But now a new study says it can be worse than that.  Lousy jobs hurt your health by the time you're in your 40's. Job satisfaction in your late 20s and 30s has a link to overall health in your early 40s, according to a new nationwide study. And while job satisfaction has some impact on physical health, its effect was particularly strong for mental health, researchers have found. Not surprisingly, those less than happy with their work early in their careers said they were more depressed and worried and had more trouble sleeping. And the direction of your job satisfaction – whether it is getting better or worse in your early career – has an influence on your later health, the study showe...

Unemployed? Desperate for a job?  Go to a therapist. Well, not really.  But a new study has found that people who use the cognitive skills often taught in therapy can help in landing a new job. Unemployed people were more likely to land a job if they used skills commonly taught as part of cognitive therapy for depression,according to newswise.com. These skills included identifying negative thoughts and countering them with more positive responses and planning enjoyable activities to improve mood. This study is the first to show that cognitive behavioral (CB) skills not only predict changes in depression symptoms, but also real-life functioning, says Daniel Strunk, co-author of the study and associate professor of psychology at The Ohio State University. Searching for a job is difficult in any circumstance, but it may be even more difficult for people who are depressed,” Strunk says. “But we found that there are specific skills that can help not only manage ...

I'm a doom and gloom person. I always expect the worst. And it usually does. Take last week. Out running in my neighborhood I was jumped by a huge muzzled (muzzled!) German Shepherd who slashed my bare leg (it was warm then!) with his toenails. He did draw blood, two smallish scratches on my thigh. When I went online, worried about rabies (a friend who lives nearby says he's always running around with animals in his mouth), it turned out I was at risk only if he'd licked his paw first. Uh,no. Thank goodness for small favors. Animal Control came and went and nothing seemed to happen (this dog runs loose all the time, but that's a story for another time). Then my cell and charger (and, most painful of all, my new J.T. Watkins CD) were stolen out of my car (and cost me a fortune, even with insurance, to replace!). Granted. The car was unlocked. But it was a strange feeling, like being violated. It must have been catching because t...

Big news. Unemployment can change a person.  But maybe not in the ways you might think. I was unemployed twice and it wasn't pretty.  It was actually quite depressing.  Both times happened in my 20s, and I wound up with better jobs eventually.  But only after a very long, dark period in my life. The first time, I was let go from a large company that manufactured chemicals -- pesticides, household cleaners, that kind of thing.  I actually flew around the country to interview farmers on their use of agricultural chemicals.  No surprise it didn't work out.  Of course it didn't help that the owner of the company tried to sexually harass me and I had nowhere to turn.  Come to think of it, that's why I lost the first job, too.  In those days you got away with it. Then I got one of my favorite jobs, working as an editor for Good Housekeeping magazine.  It was a temporary position and they let me go after six months, due to office politics...

We've all been saddened by the tragic stories of young people who commit suicide because of online bullying.  But did you know you can also spread depression and disappointment along with euphoria on Facebook? A new study has found that emotions are contagious online, according to newswise.com.  According to a new study by social scientists at Cornell University, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Facebook, emotions can spread among users of online social networks. “People who had positive content experimentally reduced it on their Facebook news feed, for one week, and used more negative words in their status updates,” reports Jeff Hancock, professor of communication at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and co-director of its Social Media Lab. “When news feed negativity was reduced, the opposite pattern occurred: Significantly more positive words were used in peoples’ status updates.” The experiment is the first to suggest ...

And now we have depressed mothers to blame! According to a story at nytimes.com, "Mothers who report symptoms of depression are more likely to display obesity-promoting practices and have children who are overweight or obese than mothers who say they are not depressed, according to a new study ." As if we don't blame ourselves for enough.  But mothers who rated themselves as being moderately or severely depressed were 2.5 times more likely to have 5-year-olds who were overweight, or even obese, Hope Reeves, reports. These children were far more likely than other children to not eat breakfast and drink sweetened beverages.  I've learned from Weight Watchers (and a few commercials) that eating breakfast can help you lose weight, because if you don't -- or maybe I should say if I don't -- I eat all day to make up for it. Another reason for their children to be overweight?  The depressed mothers were less likely to supervise what and how much food the...

It's those with mental illness. According to Nicholas Bakalar, " people with mental illness may be at sharply increased risk of dying by homicide, a new study has found." Bakalar reported that, "after controlling for age, education level, income and other factors, they found that   people with mental illness were almost five times as likely to be a victim of murder as a person without a psychiatric diagnosis ." Substance abusers, for obvious reasons, were among those most likely to be victims of homicide -- 9 times the risk of the average population. Those with personality disorders were next, at triple the risk of the general population, while depressed people had 2 1/2 times the risk, and those with anxiety or schizophrenia had about twice the risk, Bakalar noted. It's been talked and talked about how our mental health system needs shoring up, if not rebuilding. But what's one of the first programs to be slashed when the budget-cutters come out? ...