Research suggests Hippocrates’ holistic view of health and illness was right; mind does matter when it comes to health and healing. Nurse researchers and clinicians at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON) and the Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) share that view and are working at this mind-body intersection. They are exploring how to prevent the damage excessive stress can do to a young child’s development and how the mind can help speed or slow healing and help control pain. And they’re helping nurses recognize and recover from their own stress-induced behavioral problems. Key Ingredient to Growing Healthy Kids under Stress: Active Parenting JHUSON researcher and professor Deborah Gross, DNSc, RN, FAAN, knows unrelenting stress hurts. For young children, that hurt can last a lifetime. Stress causes excessive secretion of the brain’s ‘fight-flight hormone, cortisol, that can damage a child’s growing body and brain. It’s a hurt she’s working to help stop. Consistent with a recent Institute of Medicine report, she has found that some behavioral disorders in young people are preventable, particularly if resilience is taught and risk factors for stress are reduced. Among the foremost stressors are factors like poverty and unemployment, community violence and […]