Not for long, if some scientists have their way. In the past few years researchers have been testing simple video-game-like programs aimed at relieving common problems like anxiety and depression. These recent results have been encouraging enough that investigators are now delivering the programs on smartphones — therapy apps, in effect, that may soon make psychological help accessible anytime, anywhere, whether in the grocery store line, on the bus or just before a work presentation.

The prospect of a therapy icon next to Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja is stirring as much dread as hope in some quarters. “We are built as human beings to figure out our place in the world, to construct a narrative in the context of a relationship that gives meaning to our lives,” said Dr. Andrew J. Gerber, a psychiatrist at Columbia University. “I would be wary of treatments that don’t allow for that.”

The upside is that well-designed apps could reach millions of people who lack the means or interest to engage in traditional therapy and need more than the pop mysticism, soothing thoughts or confidence boosters now in use.

“That is what makes the idea so promising,” said Richard McNally, a psychologist at Harvard whose lab recently completed a study of 338 people using a simple program accessible on their smartphones. “But there are big questions about how it could work, and how robust the effect really is.”

The smartphone study is only one of the most recent tests of an approach called cognitive bias modification, or CBM, that seeks to break some of the brain’s bad habits. The premise, pioneered by Colin McLeod of the University of Western Australia, is straightforward. Consider people with social anxiety, a kind of extreme shyness that can leave people disabled. Studies have found that many who struggle with such anxiety fixate subconsciously on hostile faces in a crowd of people with mostly relaxed expressions, as if they see only the bad apples in a bushel of mostly good ones.

Modifying that bias — that is, reducing it — can interrupt the cascade of thoughts and feelings that normally follow, short-circuiting anxiety, lab studies suggest. In one commonly used program, for instance, people see two faces on the screen, one with a neutral expression and one looking hostile. The faces are stacked one atop the other, and a split-second later they disappear, and a single letter flashes on the screen, in either the top half or the bottom.

Users push a button to identify the letter, but this is meaningless; the object is to snap the eyes away from the part of the screen that showed the hostile face, conditioning the brain to ignore those bad apples. That’s all there is to it. Repeated practice, the researchers say, may train the eyes to automatically look away, or the frontal areas of the brain to exercise more top-down control.

“It’s a little boring, because it’s repetitive, but you’re only doing it for a few minutes a few times a day,” said Stefanie Block, 26, a graduate student at the University of Michigan who took part in the Harvard study while living in Boston. “I just did it when commuting to work on the subway; it’s crowded, there isn’t much you can do, it was the perfect time.”

In lab experiments, some researchers have gotten very strong results, “with effect sizes like you’d see in regular therapy,” said Nader Amir, a psychologist at San Diego State University.

In a series of experiments, Amir has found that about half of people with an anxiety disorder who complete a full course — practicing on a computer for about 30 minutes twice a week, for four to six weeks, in a lab setting — improve enough that the diagnosis no longer applies. He has tested programs that target social anxiety and generalised anxiety disorder and is part owner of a company that is marketing the technology.

A study among 40 children with chronic anxiety, published in December, found that a similar attention bias program produced “significant reductions in the number of anxiety symptoms and symptom severity”, according to the authors, who included Dr. Daniel Pine of the National Institute of Mental Health and Yair Bar-Haim of Tel Aviv University.

Psychologists in Europe have even tried a bias modification program aimed at heavy drinking — a computer task in which people push away images of alcoholic drinks, using a joystick, and zoom in on nonalcoholic ones — and found that it improved the effectiveness of talk therapy aimed at reducing the habit.

Other researchers have not had quite the same success. “I am far from convinced that this is for real,” said Willem Van der Does, a psychologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who has several papers under review testing bias modification.

“I did not notice any positive effect,” one woman with social anxiety who participated in the Harvard study said in an email. “It seemed similar to when I played Scramble or other games on my phone.”

In a review of studies of bias modification, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania concluded last year that the technique had a small effect that “significantly modified anxiety but not depression”. The authors noted that there was evidence of what scientists call a “file drawer” problem — in which studies finding no effect are filed away or ignored, while encouraging ones are published. “I think in this field the standards for publishing positive studies are lower than for negative ones,” Van der Does said in an email.

It is perhaps fitting that the largest study to date — by Phil Enock, a graduate student at Harvard; Stefan Hofmann, of Boston University; and McNally — produced results that were both encouraging and confusing. The team began recruiting participants in summer 2010, using Craigslist and online bulletin boards for social anxiety.

In March 2011, they were flooded, after an article in the Economist magazine about cognitive bias modification mentioned the project. Months later, after 338 participants with anxiety symptoms that ranged from mild to severe completed a total of more than 4000 sessions of the two-face therapy application, the researchers had some results.

Participants who got the treatment improved their scores on a questionnaire measuring anxiety, dropping by an average of 22 points, compared with an 8-point drop among people in a “waiting list” group, who got no computer games to play. However, a placebo group in the study practiced with a two-face video program not intended to shift the eyes from one face or the other, and their anxiety levels as measured on questionnaires also fell by about 22 points, just as they had for those who got the treatment.

Karin Langer, 34, an architectural historian in Chicago who scored high on some measures of social anxiety, was among those who seemed to improve using the app. Langer works at home, interacts almost entirely by email, and found herself increasingly anxious about phone conversations with colleagues. “I did notice a difference after using the therapy,” she said. “But it may have been due to a placebo effect. I felt good about myself, that I was doing something for my issues, and a lot happened in those two months outside the study that could have helped.”

Stranger still, the people who reported that they had learned about the study from the Economist article responded very well to the program — whether getting the treatment app or the placebo one — as if the article itself had some power of suggestion.

“We’re not exactly excited about that finding; we have no idea what it means,” said Enock, adding that there is still a lot of work to do to determine who best responds to which specific type of bias modification, and how strong the effect really is.

But, he said, “We certainly have shown that you can deliver treatments on smartphones, you can put attention and bias modification tools literally in people’s hands, and there’s no reason to hold back” from testing them.

Source = smh.com.au

Photo by:  okalkavan

Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

“Most of the dreams we have are due to anxiety,” said Adele Nozedar, author of the book “Freaky Dreams: An A-Z of the Weirdest and Wackiest Dreams and What They Really Mean” (HarperCollins). “The highest proportion of dreams that we have is about things we are worried about.”

Nozedar, who studied psychology in the U.K. and wrote two books about the meaning behind signs and signals, analyzed over 150 dreams for her book. They ranged from the bizarre – “I was throwing Phil Collins’ chicken off a cliff” – to funny – “I dreamed of a children’s story that features an amazing creature that’s half butterfly and half mermaid. She’s called ‘Buttmaid.’ ” There were also the recurring themes such as losing your teeth, not wearing any clothes in public, being chased, falling, flying, and not being prepared for a test.

“All of the most popular recurring dreams have to do with some sort of anxiety – such as fear of exposure, loss of control, and not being prepared,” she said. “The only one that doesn’t is the flying dreams. If you’re soaring above rooftops this is great. It implies confidence in yourself and satisfaction with your life.”

Her background in studying signs and symbols led to her to include an alphabetical symbol glossary in her book.

“An acorn can be a sign for a new beginning, or a germ of an idea,” she said. “If you’re dreaming you’re in a zoo, especially an animal in a cage, that could mean part of your personality is being held captive for some reason.”

While some dreams may be helping us work through our issues, Nozedar said some dreams lead to discoveries while we are awake. Madam C.J. Walker, an entrepreneur in black hair care products, claimed to have developed the formula for a scalp conditioner from a dream.

“The thing that tied all the invention dreams together where people were finding solutions in their dreams is that they were obsessed,” she said.

If you’re having a hard time remembering your dreams, Nozedar said to interrupt your sleep patterns.

“The first phase of dreaming happens 90 minutes after you’ve gone to bed,” she said. “Set the alarm and keep a notepad and pencil by your bed.”

Another way, she said, is to eat food that is difficult to digest just before you call it a day.

“Those who ate stinky cheese, like a Stilton or blue cheese, just before bed had really wild dreams,” she said. “You could also just have a baby, because guess what, rumor has it that new babies will keep you up at night.”

By:  Jen Weigel

Photo by: shannonkringen

Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Alternatively, you may want to coach your loved one through the problem. That strategy actually works sometimes, but it’s very tricky and we recommend professional guidance for both yourself and your loved ones if you want to become their coach.

Coaching, like reassurance, can easily backfire, cause arguments, or be perceived as criticism by people you’re trying to help.

Perhaps you’re tempted to try a confrontation or so-called “intervention” in which you and other family members tell the person how badly she needs help. That too is at least as likely to backfire as it is to help. Confrontations usually cause defensiveness and often, anger.

Instead, consider fully and unconditionally accepting your loved one and all of his problems with anxiety. After all, you likely fell in love with this person as a whole package that included issues with anxiety. And you probably have a few flaws and struggles yourself. Who doesn’t? So instead of forcing the issue to a head, consider embracing and loving the one you care about “as is.”

Acceptance delivers a positive message that may allow you and your loved one to actually become closer. When you drop pressuring people to change, it sometimes actually frees them up to make changes. When you convey the message that you’ll care about someone no matter what, it can actually enable them to start taking risks which is one of the things they’ll have to do if they want to overcome their anxiety.

In fact, change always requires being able to take risks, be vulnerable, and make mistakes. When people feel safe, they can do these things more easily. So, try letting go of your need to see your loved one make changes. Realize that whether the one you care about changes isn’t really about you anyway. Acceptance just may take you further than you think, but changing your loved one shouldn’t be your goal. Let go of that need and it just “may” happen a little more easily.

By Charles H. Elliott, Ph.D.

Photo by:  *~Dawn~*

Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Test anxiety has all of the elements of classic anxiety including fear, apprehension, and nervousness and is felt by students who have a fear of failing an exam.  Because test anxiety hinges on fear of negative evaluation, debate exists as to whether test anxiety is itself a unique anxiety disorder or whether it is a specific type of social phobia.

While the term “test anxiety” refers specifically to students, many workers share the same experience with regard to their career or profession. The fear of failing at a task and being negatively evaluated for failure can have a similarly negative effect on the adult.

If you’re looking to overcome test anxiety this is an excellent video for you:

Photo by:  Shaylor

Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Editor’s note: Mark Williams and Danny Penman are the authors of “Mindfulness: An Eight Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World.”

(CNN) — “The gloomy days of January can be the most miserable and stressful of the year, but it doesn’t have to be this way. If you follow this ten step guide to destressing your life, then the next few weeks just might become the most serene and fulfilling ones of the year.

One step should be carried out on each of the next 10 days. They’re based on the ideas found in the international best-seller “Mindfulness: An Eight Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World.”

The book uses a program based on mindfulness meditation developed by us at Oxford University in the United Kingdom to relieve anxiety, stress, exhaustion and depression. Mindfulness has proved in some clinical trials to be at least as effective as drugs or counseling for dealing with these conditions.

So what is this mindfulness?

It is quite simply paying full, whole-hearted attention. A typical meditation involves paying full attention to the breath as it flows in and out of the body. Focusing on each breath in this way allows you to observe your thoughts as they arise in your mind and, little by little, to let go of struggling with them. You come to the profound understanding that thoughts and feelings (including negative ones) are transient. They come and they go, and ultimately, you have a choice about whether to act on them.

Mindfulness is about observation without criticism and being compassionate with yourself. When unhappiness or stress hovers overhead, rather than taking it all personally, you learn to treat it as if it was a black cloud in the sky, and to observe it with friendly curiosity as it drifts past.

Scientific studies have shown that mindfulness not only prevents depression, but it also positively affects the brain patterns underlying day-to-day anxiety, stress, depression and irritability. When these negative thoughts arise, they dissolve away again more easily. Other studies have shown that people who regularly meditate see their doctors less often and spend fewer days in hospital. Memory improves, creativity increases and reaction times become faster.

Here are 10 ways to decrease stress and increase mindful meditation in your life:

Day 1: Eat some chocolate

At this time of year, it’s easy to eat too much chocolate and other high-carb “comfort foods.” At first, all that lovely rich food is packed with flavor and totally irresistible. but after a while, you hardly notice it at all. And if you are in a rush, it tends to be wolfed down by the handful.

When you eat without thinking you miss out on so many wonderful flavors, textures and aromas. A single bar of chocolate, for example, has more than 300 flavors. How many of them do you normally taste?

Reconnecting with your senses is the heart of mindfulness, so why not try this chocolate meditation to help you enjoy your food again?

You can listen to it here

Day 2: Go for a short walk

Walking is one of the finest exercises and a brilliant stress reliever. A good walk can put the world in perspective and soothe your frayed nerves. It’s the ideal way of taking a break from all of that work that built up during the holidays.
Walking is one of the finest exercises and a brilliant stress reliever.
Walking is one of the finest exercises and a brilliant stress reliever.

So today, why not go for a 15- to 30-minute walk? You don’t have to go anywhere special. A walk around your neighborhood, taken in an open frame of mind, can be just as interesting as a hike through the mountains.

There’s no need to feel that you have to rush anywhere; the aim is to walk as mindfully as you can, focusing your awareness on your feet as they land on the ground and feeling the fluid movements of all the muscles and tendons in your feet and legs.

Pay attention to all of the sights, sounds and smells. You might see the deep red color of the berries on the trees and bushes or perhaps the inky grayness of slushy ice and snow. See if it is possible to be open to all your senses: Smell the mustiness of the winter leaves; feel the rain on your head; the breeze on your face; watch how the patterns of light and shade shift unexpectedly.

Day 3: Take a three-minute breathing space

When you’re becoming angry, exhausted, anxious or stressed, it’s difficult to remember why you should remain calm. And at such times, it can feel as if the whole world was created just to bait you.

The three-minute breathing space was created to deal with such feelings. Its impact is twofold.

First, it’s a meditation that’s used to punctuate the day, so that it dissolves negative thought patterns before they gain control over your life. Secondly, it’s an emergency meditation that helps ground you when your thoughts threaten to spiral out of control.

When you are carrying out the meditation, you may find that your mind repeatedly runs away with itself. This is entirely natural. It’s what minds do. They leap around and offer up thoughts to your conscious self, much as a child hold’s up his or her toys to an approving adult. When you find that your mind has wandered, gently escort it back to full awareness and continue following the instructions on the track as best you can.

You can listen to the meditation here

Day 4: Do something pleasurable

At this time of year, exhaustion, stress and unhappiness can easily dominate. You can start to experience “anhedonia” — that is, you can’t find pleasure in life. The things you used to enjoy now leave you cold — you feel as if a thick fog has put a barrier between you and simple pleasures, and few things seem rewarding any more.

You can counteract this by taking baby steps toward the things that you used to like doing but have since forgotten about. You can make a start by choosing one or two of the following things to do (or perhaps come up with your own ideas):

– Be kind to your body. Have a hot bath; have a nap; treat yourself to your favorite food without feeling guilty; have your favorite hot drink.

– Do something you enjoy. Visit or phone a friend (particularly if you’ve been out of contact for a while), get together what you need so you can do your favorite hobby, get some exercise, bake a cake, read something that gives you pleasure, listen to some music that you have not listened to in a long while.

Day 5: The intensely frustrating line meditation

Sometimes life can seem like one big long line. You have to line up to buy gas, to pay for the food in the supermarket and all of the bars and restaurants are crammed with people waiting to order.

Next time you feel like screaming “why don’t they just get on with it!”, try carrying out our Intensely Frustrating Line Meditation instead.

When you are in a line, see if you can become aware of your reactions when something holds up your progress. Perhaps you joined the “wrong” line, and are obsessing about whether to make a dash for another one that seems shorter? At such times, it is helpful to check in with what’s going on in your mind. Taking a moment to ask yourself:

– What is going through my mind?

– What sensations are there in my body?

– What emotions and impulses am I aware of?

Mindfulness accepts that some experiences are unpleasant. Mindfulness will, however, help by allowing you to tease apart the two major flavors of suffering — primary and secondary.

Primary suffering is the initial stressor, such as the frustration of being in a long line. You can acknowledge that it is not pleasant; it’s OK not to like it. Secondary suffering is all of the emotional turbulence that follows in its wake, such as anger and frustration, as well as any ensuing thoughts and feelings that often arise in tandem. See if you can see these clearly as well. See if it’s possible to allow the frustration to be here without trying to make it go away.

Day 6: Set up a mindfulness bell

Pick a few ordinary activities from daily life that you can turn into “mindfulness bells,” that is, reminders to stop and pay attention to things in great detail. There’s a list below of things you might like to turn into bells. You don’t have to turn them all into mindfulness bells — they are just suggestions.

– Preparing food: Food offers a host of opportunities to become more mindful. If you’re preparing food, particularly if they are rich in flavors, smells and textures, then try and pay full mindful attention to all that you are doing.

– Washing the dishes: This is a great opportunity for exploring physical sensations. If you normally use a dishwasher, do them by hand for a change. When your mind wanders, shepherd it back to the present moment. Pay attention to the texture of the dishes, the temperature of the water, the smell of the detergent, etc.

– Listening to friends: If you are planning to meet a friend, or bump into one unexpectedly, it’s easy to lapse into the same tired-old conversations. So why not turn a friend’s voice into a “bell” that’s a signal to pay full attention to what they are saying? Notice when you are not listening — when you start to think of something else, what you are going to say in response etc. Come back to actually listening.

Day 7: The ten-finger gratitude exercise

To come to a positive appreciation for the small things in your life, you can try the gratitude exercise. It simply means that once a day you should bring to mind 10 things that you are grateful for, counting them on your fingers. It is important to get to 10 things, even when it becomes increasingly harder after three or four. This is exactly what the exercise is for — intentionally bringing into awareness the tiny, previously unnoticed elements of the day.

Day 8: Do the sounds and thoughts meditation

Sounds are as compelling as thoughts and just as immaterial and open to interpretation. Certain songs might cheer you up — or send you into an emotional tailspin. Sensing the power of sound — and its relationship to thoughts and emotion — is central to mindfulness and to becoming a happier, more relaxed and centered person.

Today, why not try our sounds and thoughts meditation? This elegantly reveals how the mind conjures up thoughts that can so easily lead us astray. Once you realize this — deep in your heart — then a great many of your stresses and troubles will simply evaporate before your eyes.

This meditation gradually reveals the similarities between sound and thought. Both appear as if from nowhere, and we have no control over their arising. They can easily trigger powerful emotions that run away with us leaving us feeling fragile and broken.

You can download the meditation here

Day 9: Reclaim your life

Think back to a time in your life when things seemed less frantic, before the time when some tragedy or increase in workload took over your daily existence. Or it might be more recent than that, before the run-up to Christmas say, or perhaps a relaxing break in the summer.

Recall in as much detail as you can some of the activities that you used to do at that time. These may be things you did by yourself (reading your favorite magazines or taking time to listen to a track from a favorite piece of music, going out for walks or bike rides) or together with friends or family (from playing board games to going to the theater).

Choose one of these activities and plan to do it today or over this weekend. It may take five minutes or five hours, it might be important or trivial, it might involve others or it could be by yourself.

It is only important that it should be something that puts you back in touch with a part of your life that you had forgotten — a part of you that you may have been telling yourself was lost somehow, that you could not get back to. Don’t wait until you feel like doing it; do it anyway and see what happens. It’s time to reclaim your life!

Day 10: Go to the movies

Ask a friend or family member to go with you to the movies — but this time, with a difference. Go at a set time (say 7 p.m.) and choose whatever film takes your fancy only when you get there. Often, what makes us happiest in life is the unexpected — the chance encounter or the unpredicted event. Movies are great for all these.

Before you go, notice any thoughts that may arise such as, ‘I haven’t got time for pleasure’, or, ‘What if there is nothing on that I’ll enjoy?’

They undermine your enthusiasm for taking action and discourage your intention to do something that might nourish your life in important ways. Once you’re inside the cinema, just forget about all this and be consumed by the film.”

Source= CNN

Photo by: bottled_void

Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Gathering information — being in the know — is not the same thing as being mindful, being aware, being present for what’s actually going on behind the news and the chatter and the stuff that just doesn’t matter.

Often when we think about money, it’s in terms of either past mistakes or worries about the future. Both of those types of thoughts take us away from focusing on the present.

Many people have a tendency to beat themselves up when they make a financial mistake. But most of us should spend less time worrying about things we could or should have done differently.

Instead, we can use our experiences to help ourselves and others avoid similar mistakes without getting involved in feelings of blame or feelings of shame. We can look at our mistakes, make note of the lesson and move on.

Spending too much time worrying about the future can also undermine our enjoyment of the present. This is a tricky issue for me because my work often involves encouraging people to have more meaningful conversations about the role that money plays in their lives — and normally such talks revolve around plans for the future.

One solution is to draw a line separating the time that you spend focused on planning for the future and the time you spend living for today.

Planning for the future is very important, but it needs to be done in isolation to avoid overshadowing the joy of today.

Think about setting aside time each month to evaluate your recent financial behavior. Try to identify any mistakes you may have made, and note the lessons that you need to learn. Think about your goals and what you should do now to move closer to reaching them.

Once you’ve done that, get on with living your life.

Money decisions are emotional decisions — and making good money decisions requires emotional clarity. So try to pay attention to your emotions around money. This can be as simple as considering how you feel when you get your monthly investment statement or when a medical bill arrives in the mail. Acknowledging those feelings and being aware of their potential impact on your decisions can be important, often in ways that aren’t clear right away.

I’ve found myself asking some really fundamental questions during the last several years. Whom I can trust? What’s really important to me? What do I really value? How much is enough? How should I really be spending my time?

I’ve watched as close friends have lost their businesses, their homes and even friendships over money. I’ve seen friends struggle to find jobs at a time when they had planned on being well into retirement. Other friends have had to move parents into care facilities that fall short of their family’s hopes but are all that they can afford. I’ve seen my own children’s disappointment when I had to tell them that we couldn’t afford something they really wanted.

When we go through these experiences we can feel sorry for ourselves and get angry. Or we can try to understand past mistakes, practice self-awareness and act from our deepest instincts.

Which approach will bring us closer to reaching our most important goals?

Excerpted from “The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things With Money,” published by Portfolio/Penguin. Copyright © Carl Richards, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

Chip Coffey, the director of Outpatient Services at St. Luke’s Behavioral Health Center, sent nine positive mental health resolutions for the new year through email:

1. “I will treat myself with respect and speak nicely about myself. Try taping a list of 10 positive characteristics about yourself in various places throughout the house and workplace to remind you of these things.”

2. “I resolve to be mentally healthy. In the United States, there is still a stigma about seeing a therapist. However, it is truly one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves. A therapist gives us an unbiased ear and can also help us to understand why we do the things we do … think of seeing a therapist as a mental health oil change.”

3. “I will be physically active on a daily basis.” Multiple studies show a link between exercise and improved mental health.

4. “I will act and not react. Many times we feel like everyone is pushing our buttons. When this happens, we are caught up in reaction. It is not that people are actually pushing buttons; it is that we became overly sensitive. If you know you’ll be around someone who says negative things, plan for this and have a list in your head of disarming statements.”

5. “I will learn to relax and enjoy. Many times we become so busy we forget how or even when to take care of ourselves. Take a yoga or meditation class. Find some activity like photography or journaling [that] is relaxing and enjoyable to you. Dedicate time to this daily, if possible, or at a minimum, weekly.”

6. “I will not define myself by a label. We often become our labels, e.g., I am depressed, I am fat, I am anxious. Drop your label; when you so it allows you to take control of the messages you have about yourself. For example, you could say, “I have depression, and today I will make sure to exercise to manage it.’”

7. “I will be mindful. Being mindful is about staying in the moment.

I cannot change yesterday; I cannot predict tomorrow, however I do have control over the here and now. So, I will be aware in the moment, and enjoy that moment.”

8. “I will work towards being the person I want to be. There is an old quote about life being a journey to be enjoyed not an obstacle to be overcome. When we see our lives as obstacles we do not enjoy life much. When we see life as a journey and a time to continue to be the person we desire to be, life is much more pleasant and enjoyable.”

9. “I will not be hard on myself if I make resolutions and do not keep them. I may want to try them later in the year. I may realize that it will take more time than I thought to work on issues and I will look at this as a good things and not a bad thing. I do not fail by trying.”

Soroya Bacchus, a psychiatrist in Calif., suggests that women look at setting healthy boundaries as a New Year’s resolution.

“This can be something that women struggle with much more than men, whether it be with their sexual partners, officemates, or children,” Bacchus said. “Boundaries are important as they protect us from being manipulated, controlled, or abused. This enables women to make choices about what they think, feel, or how they behave.”

Tina B. Tessina, a psychotherapist and author of “Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage,” said in an email that resolutions can center around removing toxic personal habits, like feeling lonely.

“Loneliness may not result from actually being alone, but more from feeling misunderstood or not valued,” Tessina said.

“People often isolate themselves because they feel inadequate in social situations. Value the friends you do have, and make new friends by attending classes or other group events where you can focus on a task or assignment. This will take the pressure off your contact with other people, and give you something in common with them.”

She said to also avoid spending too much time on the computer socializing because that doesn’t help loneliness as much.

“Make sure you schedule some time with a friend at least once a week, and if you don’t have friends, then use that weekly time to take a class or join a group (for example, a book club or sports group ) which will give you a chance to make new friends,” Tessina said.
By Rheyanne Weaver

Sources:

EmpowHER

Coffey, Chip. Email interview. Dec. 27, 2011
Bacchus, Soroya. Email interview. Dec. 27, 2011
Tessina, Tina. Email interview. Dec. 27, 2011

Reviewed December 29, 2011
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith

Photo by: Suus Wansink

Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

The shortages are a result of an awkward partnership between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Administration, with companies trying to maximize their profits and drug enforcement agents trying to minimize abuse by people, many of them college students, who use the medications to get high or to stay up all night.

Caught in between are millions of children and adults who rely on the pills to help them stay focused and calm. Shortages, particularly of cheaper generics, have become so endemic that some patients say they worry almost constantly about availability.

While the FDA monitors the safety and supply of the drugs, which are sold both as generics and under brand names like Ritalin and Adderall, the DEA sets manufacturing quotas that are designed to control supplies and thwart abuse. Every year, the DEA accepts applications from manufacturers to make the drugs, analyzes how much was sold the previous year, and then allots portions of the expected demand to various companies.

How each manufacturer divides its quota among its own ADHD medicines – preparing some as high-priced brands and others as cheaper generics – is left up to the company.

Now, multiple manufacturers have said their medicines are in short supply. The FDA has included these pills on its official shortages list, as has the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. And the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has told its members that shortages seem to be “widespread across a number of states’’ and are “devastating’’ for children.

Officials at the FDA say the shortages are a result of overly strict quotas set by the DEA, which, for its part, questions whether there really are shortages or whether manufacturers are simply choosing to make more of the expensive pills than the generics, creating supply and demand imbalances.

The situation has made for a rare open disagreement between two federal agencies.

“We have reached out to the DEA and told them that there are shortage issues,’’ said Valerie Jensen, associate director of the FDA’s drug shortage program. “But the quota issues are outside of our area of responsibility.’’

Still, Special Agent Gary Boggs of the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control, said in an interview, “We believe there is plenty of supply.’’

Some high-priced pills are indeed readily available, and DEA officials said that so long as that is the case, they believe that ADHD drug supplies are adequate. Boggs attributed any supply disruptions to decisions made by manufacturers.

Novartis, for instance, makes both branded and generic versions of Ritalin; Shire Pharmaceuticals does the same for Adderall XR. In both cases, the companies have ensured that supplies of branded drugs are adequate while allowing generic versions to go wanting.

But those who rely on the drugs can react very differently to apparently similar medicines, so an adequate supply of one drug does them no good when their preferred medicine is unavailable, patients and their doctors say. And prices can vary so much that some patients say they cannot afford to switch.

Boggs of the DEA said his agency was concerned that ADHD drug abuse was on the rise. “We see people abuse it in college and then continue to abuse it non-medically once they leave,’’ he said.

Since the drugs have been shown to improve concentration, they have become popular among students seeking a study aid. And since they can impart a euphoria that users have likened to a cocaine high, the pills are sometimes ground up by people who snort them for a thrill.”
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NYTimes

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But to some people these feelings can manifest themselves in a more serious way, when a dread of the dark winter months becomes debilitating. It’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, and epidemiologists estimate that 4-6% of people in the United States experience it annually.

Robert Farra, Ph.D, Director of the Adult Mood and Anxiety Disorders program called Solutions at NorthShore University HealthSystem, says with SAD individuals experience episodes of mild to moderate depressive symptoms that occur certain times of the year, usually during winter months when there is less natural light. People who live in places with long winter nights are at greater risk for SAD.

“For the last several weeks many of my patients have begun talking about the weather and how they dread the winter. When I ask them if they are new to the area, they say, ‘Oh no, I’ve lived here all my life,’” Farra says. “And every year they talk about how much they dislike the weather, usually predicting the worst weather scenes in their minds. … They make a whole plan on how they’re going to behave in the winter, which is basically hibernate except for going to work. It’s a miserable time of year for them every year.”

And more than we realize, Farra says, our thoughts influence our feelings and behavior. “I’m already seeing people who by the way they think are setting the stage for a full-blown episode of SAD,” Farra says.

Symptoms of SAD usually begin slowly in the fall and winter months, and include sad mood and often increased irritability; increased appetite and weight gain; increased sleep and daytime sleepiness; decreased energy and ability to concentrate, especially in the afternoon; loss of interest in work or other activities; and sometimes withdrawing from socializing with friends. For reasons researchers don’t understand, more women than men experience SAD.

Treatment can include light therapy using a special lamp with a very bright light (10,000 lux) that mimics light from the sun. Patients are advised to sit for 30-45 minutes twice daily for the treatment. But compliance often isn’t great, Farra says, because some people find it a chore to sit for that long. And light therapy has been shown to work on less than half those that try it.

“It’s not just a lack of light. If it were that simple everybody who got a high intensity light would be cured and that would be that,” says Farra. “There’s a cognitive and behavioral component to SAD.”

That goes back to the feelings of dread that consume some people and lead to behavioral changes. For these people, cognitive behavioral therapy can be helpful. In sessions with a psychiatrist, patients learn to change their negative thoughts and behaviors, and this helps alleviate symptoms.

“Through cognitive behavioral therapy people learn cognitive skills to use in the winter. Once you learn the skills you can practice them on your own,” he says. “It’s a relatively short-term therapy, six sessions on average, and people can learn the important skills necessary to manage this better.”

But in some cases that’s not enough, Farra says, and anti-depressants may also be needed. In addition, people who have had repeated seasonal depression should talk to a mental health care professional about prevention methods and starting treatment during the fall or early winter, before the symptoms of SAD begin, Farra says.

The larger point, he says, is that there are treatment options out there.

“Suffering is optional but you have to take some action. If you take no action to improve your life in these areas, nothing’s going to change,” Farra says.”

By Andy Buchanan
NorthShore University HealthSystem

Source= Tribloco.com

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Human beings are animals, yes, but we contend with totally different environmental pressures than wild animals do. Many of us engage in monogamous relationships, spend long hours in the office, and struggle to keep up with deadlines, bills, and other commitments. At a certain point in human evolution, the adaptive advantage of acute stress was overshadowed by the downsides of that headline-dominating bogeyman, chronic stress.

Robert Sapolsky’s book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers is the most enthralling treatise on chronic stress I’ve ever read. It does an excellent job explaining why the daily grind of traffic jams, post office visits, and sitting on hold with the electric company is simply not the “nature of the beast.” We didn’t evolve with the physiological equipment necessary to withstand these artificial stressors in a healthy way, which is why we (and not zebras) suffer from stress-related chronic illnesses.

Acute stress is adaptive. It helps us make beneficial decisions. The biochemical hallmark of acute stress is the release of epinephrine (adrenaline) from the adrenal glands, which sit atop the kidneys. But if everyday experiences of stress start to aggregate and snowball, they can lead to chronic stress. High levels of circulating epinephrine over the long term, coupled with the release of the stress hormone cortisol, can cause or exacerbate severe health problems, like heart disease, obesity, and suppression of the immune system. Chronic stress can also contribute to the risk of developing depression.

But this month, we’re talking about mental illnesses. Acute and chronic stress aren’t diagnosable mental illnesses, but anxiety disorders are. So what’s the difference? To me, this line is a bit fuzzy. It all comes down to what’s happening in the brain, and how that affects an individual’s ability to cope.

The brain experiences stress and anxiety in slightly different ways, although they do share some of the same real estate. Anxiety is more akin to fear. An anxiety disorder is diagnosed when that fear is significant enough to interfere with daily functioning, or if it seems to develop without cause. The DSM-IV-TR recognizes the following diagnosable anxiety disorders: generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, panic disorder with agoraphobia, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), separation anxiety, and childhood anxiety disorders. You can read specific descriptions of each anxiety disorder in a publication by the National Institutes of Mental Health here and in a statement released by the surgeon general here.

The neurocircuitry involved in anxiety disorders is largely indistinguishable from that involved in fear reactions. Limbic structures (deep brain structures involved in emotional processing) such as the amygdala and insular cortex show heightened activity in individuals struggling with anxiety. Specific disorders, such as OCD and PTSD, involve specific pathways and behaviors not seen in other states. For example, individuals with OCD have heightened activity in the caudate nucleus of the basal ganglia, a region involved in learning and memory, as well as emotional processing. It appears to be a gatekeeper of signals to the orbitofronal cortex and thalamus, two regions that are overactive in patients with OCD. The orbitofrontal cortex is a critical region for moral judgment, planning, and general executive functioning. The thalamus integrates and relays sensory information to brain regions necessary for its processing.

With recent pushes toward the medical model in modern psychiatry, I wonder if the lines between the terms “stress,” “fear,” and “anxiety” will continue to blur. The conventional wisdom is that unchecked acute stress may aggregate to become chronic stress, and that chronic stress underpins diagnosable anxiety in a large percentage of the population. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in America, affecting around 18 percent of the U.S. population in any given year, and almost 30 percent of American adults across the lifespan. But in a world where everyday stress is a fact of life, in a body that is not equipped to deal with its cumulative effects, this doesn’t really surprise me.

What do you think?”

Cara Santa Maria sciencecara@huffingtonpost.com

source = huffingtonpost.com

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