BCIA Continuing Education Posts

Executive Summary Two patients can face the same pressure and walk away in very different shapes, and a recent study from Mainz, Germany, helps explain part of that difference at the level of the heart. Rösner and colleagues (2026) tracked how the autonomic nervous system responds to the same laboratory stressor when it is repeated over several weeks, and then asked whether more resilient people exhibit a healthier physiological pattern over time. Their answer was encouraging

Training programs teach, rightly, that the outer brain layer drives language, planning, and voluntary reports. That does not settle where felt experience begins.

For many children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the central struggle is not simply paying attention but regulating thought and behavior.

The idea that willpower is a finite mental fuel, burned up by each act of self-discipline and replenished by rest or sugar, is one of the most widely believed myths in psychology.

Clients should not chase every glucose peak, but rather turn patterns into safe, psychologically informed decisions. Behavioral health clinicians have a particular contribution to make. They can help clients receive sensor data as feedback rather than surveillance, especially when shame, perfectionism, disordered eating, or diabetes distress are already in the room.

Cortisol is rhythmic, context-dependent, and clinically meaningful only when interpreted in light of timing, symptoms, medications, comorbidities, and validated testing. Cortisol supports arousal, blood pressure regulation, glucose availability, immune balance, and survival itself. The risk emerges when secretion is excessive, deficient, poorly timed, pharmacologically altered, or uncoupled from normal feedback.