MSGID: 1:317/3 63d9eae9   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Mocktails or cocktails? Having a sense of purpose in life can keep binge   
   drinking at bay    
    A new study reveals that having a sense of purpose in daily life can   
   influence college students' decisions on day-to-day alcohol consumption    
      
     Date:   
         January 31, 2023   
     Source:   
         University of Pennsylvania   
     Summary:   
         A new study reveals that having a sense of purpose in daily life   
         can influence college students' decisions on day-to-day alcohol   
         consumption.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
   ==========================================================================   
   Heavy alcohol use is common among college students -- and as a   
   consequence, it puts young adults at risk for a wide range of health   
   issues, from cardiovascular disease to cancer. Day in and day out,   
   college students are bombarded with cues to drink, whether that's seeing   
   a group of friends toast at a party or celebrating after an exam.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Using functional MRI (fMRI) scanning technology, researchers from the   
   University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Dartmouth College   
   examined the relationship between these cues, alcohol craving, and   
   alcohol consumption.   
      
   They found that having a strong sense of purpose in life decreases the   
   temptation to consume alcohol to excess among some social drinkers.   
      
   Why purpose in life?  Lead author Yoona Kang, a research director of   
   the Communication Neuroscience Lab at the Penn's Annenberg School for   
   Communication, is deeply interested in the impact of purpose in life   
   on health.   
      
   Her previous research has found that having a strong life purpose --   
   the sense that your life is guided by personally meaningful values and   
   goals -- is associated with many health benefits, including easing the   
   loneliness of COVID- 19 isolation and reducing the effort it takes to   
   make healthy choices.   
      
   "Values and purposes can have powerful effects on how people think and   
   behave," Kang says. "And what's interesting about this study is that   
   we asked participants, 'How much sense of purpose in life do you feel   
   right now?'  Because your level of purpose can fluctuate day by day."   
   Craving alcohol For this study, Kang and colleagues charted the behavior   
   and attitudes of 54 healthy college students, with daily surveys over   
   the course of a month. Once a day, participants answered questions about   
   their current level of purpose in life -- and every morning and evening   
   they reported how much they craved and consumed alcohol.   
      
   "We focused on craving because it is one of the strongest predictors of   
   actual drinking. If you crave, then you're more likely to drink," Kang   
   says. "But just because you crave alcohol doesn't mean that you're going   
   to go out and drink, so we wanted to know what's nudging these social   
   drinkers into drinking when they crave alcohol."  The student volunteers   
   also received fMRI brain scans, which gave a real-time picture of their   
   brain activity while they were exposed to alcohol cues, like photos of   
   beer, wine, and liquor or photos of people toasting at a party.   
      
   Researchers analyzed the participants' brain activity within the ventral   
   striatum, the area of the brain previously associated with reward and   
   craving.   
      
   Individuals whose brains showed greater activity when they saw alcohol   
   cues - - people with higher neural alcohol cue reactivity -- were more   
   likely to drink after craving alcohol.   
      
   When this data was matched with life purpose data, Kang and colleagues   
   found something interesting: These neurally sensitive drinkers did not   
   necessarily drink more if they were feeling a strong life purpose when   
   they craved alcohol.   
      
   And if they felt less purposeful? They were more likely to drink heavily   
   after a craving for alcohol.   
      
   Further implications This finding opens the door to discovering new   
   strategies to discourage binge drinking in college students, especially   
   those with higher neural cue reactivity, not by talking about drinking   
   specifically, but by helping students focus on their mission, purpose,   
   and values. Kang suggests that future research could test interventions   
   used in other purposes in life and related studies - - strategies like   
   reflecting on what matters to you or making positive wishes for other   
   people.   
      
   While the researchers caution that further testing would be needed   
   to determine whether the findings would generalize to non-college   
   populations, they note that many studies point to the strong link between   
   purpose in life and health behavior across diverse populations.   
      
   And Kang underlines the importance of studying college   
   populations. "College students are in a formative time in their lives   
   where they are learning the norms around alcohol use and setting their   
   own habits that will affect their health later in life," she says. "So,   
   I think there's a lot of preventive values in studying alcohol use in   
   college populations."  Research was funded by the Army Research Office;   
   Hopelab Foundation; and Mind and Life Institute.   
      
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Health_&_Medicine   
                   # Healthy_Aging # Teen_Health #   
                   Medical_Education_and_Training # Birth_Defects   
             o Mind_&_Brain   
                   # Alcoholism # Addiction # Educational_Psychology #   
                   Social_Psychology   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Alcoholism o Macroeconomics o Fetal_alcohol_spectrum_disorder   
             o Anatomy o Methanol o Blood_alcohol_content o UV_index o   
             Circadian_rhythm_sleep_disorder   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Pennsylvania. Original   
   written by Hailey Reissman. Note: Content may be edited for style   
   and length.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Journal Reference:   
      1. Yoona Kang, Danielle Cosme, David Lydon‐Staley, Jeesung   
      Ahn, Mia   
         Jovanova, Faustine Corbani, Silicia Lomax, Ovidia Stanoi, Victor   
         Strecher, Peter J. Mucha, Kevin Ochsner, Dani S. Bassett, Emily   
         B. Falk.   
      
         Purpose in life, neural alcohol cue reactivity and daily alcohol   
         use in social drinkers. Addiction, 2022; 117 (12): 3049 DOI:   
         10.1111/add.16012   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230131183126.htm   
      
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