Friday, September 30, 2016
VR STUFF: VR Fold Viewer
http://ift.tt/2duwgGR
In this brief instructional review video, Brian David Phillips discusses the VR Fold Viewer which you can get from http://ift.tt/2deuYoN. For more about 3D/VR/AR/360° Taiwan, head on over to http://ift.tt/2dybExV and join us. In Taiwan and wish to join a Meetup? Check out the Taiwan Virtual Reality Meetup at http://ift.tt/2deu5ws and join us for live…
In this brief instructional review video, Brian David Phillips discusses the VR Fold Viewer which you can get from http://ift.tt/2deuYoN. For more about 3D/VR/AR/360° Taiwan, head on over to http://ift.tt/2dybExV and join us. In Taiwan and wish to join a Meetup? Check out the Taiwan Virtual Reality Meetup at http://ift.tt/2deu5ws and join us for live…
Mindfulness Approach May Help People Shed More Pounds
http://ift.tt/2dy4Mk8
A weight-loss therapy that focuses on personal values and “mindful” decision-making may help people shed more pounds, a new clinical trial suggests.
Over one year, people who received the therapy lost more than 13 percent of their initial weight, on average.
To put that into perspective, current behavioral therapies typically help people drop 5 percent to 8 percent of their starting weight, the study authors said.
Researchers call the new approach acceptance-based behavioral therapy, or ABT.
The study authors said ABT addresses some of the biggest obstacles in keeping extra pounds off -- including the difficulty of resisting temptation.
“The standard advice on weight loss only works if people are able to stick with it,” said Evan Forman, who helped develop ABT. He’s a professor of psychology at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
There is nothing new about using behavioral therapy to help people lose weight.
But, Forman said, the standard approaches don’t address the “main issue.”
“People are biologically driven to eat, especially foods that are rewarding and taste good,” he said.
Through most of human history, when food was scarce, that was an asset, Forman pointed out. Now, when so many people are surrounded by calorie-laden temptations every day, the biological drive to eat can be a problem.
“It takes special skills to resist those temptations,” Forman said. “It’s hard to turn down pleasure and reward. But those skills can be learned.”
ABT aims to teach people those skills.
The new clinical trial put the approach to the test by comparing it with standard behavioral therapy, which only encourages reducing calories and increasing exercise.
Forman’s team recruited 190 overweight or obese adults and randomly assigned them to either ABT or standard treatment. People in both groups went to 25 group sessions over one year, meeting with therapists with expertise in weight loss.
Both groups received help with diet changes and exercise, “problem solving,” and dealing with food cravings.
But ABT had added components.
For one, Forman said, people chose a goal based on their “personal values” -- rather than aiming for a certain number on the bathroom scale.
A person might, for example, choose the goal of being a healthy, active grandmother.
“We emphasize the point, ‘Why does this matter?’ “ Forman said. “We get at the bigger idea of what people want in life, and how is weight related to that?”
Beyond that, ABT encourages people to accept the fact that weight loss is hard and they will inevitably feel deprived, have cravings, or find it unpleasant to opt for an apple over a brownie.
“They can say, ‘Of course, that’s how my brain is working,’” Forman said. Then, rather than trying to fix their thinking, they can focus on what they can change: their behavior.
How do you learn to choose the apple when your brain really wants the brownie? Patience and practice, according to Forman.
“It sounds weird, but you can literally practice tossing a piece of brownie in the trash and eating the apple instead,” he said.
Another aspect of the therapy is training in “mindful” decision-making.
“So many of the decisions we make around eating have no explicit thought process behind them,” Forman said.
During ABT, people learn to notice how “cues” from their environment -- from TV to the presence of tempting food to sheer boredom -- influence their decisions to eat.
In this new trial, the approach appeared to work better than standard therapy: After a year, ABT patients had lost a little over 13 percent of their starting weight, compared to just under 10 percent for people in the comparison group.
The ABT group also fared better when it came to keeping the pounds off: 64 percent had maintained at least a 10 percent weight loss at the one-year mark, compared with 49 percent of the standard-therapy group.
Dr. Steven Heymsfield is a spokesman for the Obesity Society and a professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, La.
He had praise for the ABT approach.
“It recognizes the underlying biological drive to eat, and provides people with a powerful counterweight to that,” said Heymsfield, who wasn’t involved in the research.
Losing weight is not just about “willpower,” Heymsfield said. People have to overcome strong biological impulses -- and that takes strong motivation, he said.
It makes sense that focusing on important personal values (such as being a healthy grandma) can work better than a “superficial goal” of fitting into smaller jeans, Heymsfield said.
Still, he pointed to some big remaining questions about ABT: Does the weight loss hold up over time? And does the therapy have to be ongoing?
Practically speaking, it’s not clear whether ABT can be disseminated widely.
In this study, it was given by Ph.D.-level professionals, Heymsfield pointed out.
“So can this program ‘transport’ well?” he asked. “Can it be incorporated into a Watch Watchers or Jenny Craig program?”
Forman agreed that practical barriers have to be addressed. He also said it’s possible that after the initial therapy sessions, people could have once-a-year “booster” sessions -- or even get help through mobile apps -- to make the approach more feasible.
The study is published in the October issue of the journal Obesity.
Race and Homicide in America, by the Numbers
http://ift.tt/2den3aX
![Whites killed by black and blacks killed by whites.]()
![Interracial homicides by victim race]()
![Homicide victims by race]()
![White-on-white and black-on-black homicides]()
Interracial homicides – black people who killed whites and whites who killed blacks – climbed to their highest levels last year since the election of President Barack Obama almost eight years ago, even as the proportion of so-called black-on-black killings dipped, according to the latest national crime figures from the FBI.
The number of black people killed by whites – a demographic in the FBI report that includes those of Hispanic descent – surged by nearly a quarter in 2015 from the year before, as the number of whites killed by blacks jumped 12 percent. Together, such interracial killings increased about 13 percent from 2014.
The picture, however, is hugely complicated – though that hasn't mattered at a time when the topic of race and crime has played an outsized role in national politics.
Violent crime overall remained near 30-year lows last year, even as Americans' concern about crime hit a 15-year high in March, and 7 in 10 Americans last year said crime was rising. Unrest ignited by fatal police shootings in Charlotte, North Carolina; Cleveland; and Ferguson, Missouri, have fueled fears that the Bronx could soon be burning. Yet rebutting Black Lives Matter is the common refrain: "What about black-on-black crime?"
Homicides have been on the rise since the start of 2015, but that increase has largely been driven by street violence in Chicago, Baltimore and the nation's capital. Still, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has effectively played on Americans' perception of crime – itself buttressed by daily crime coverage in the news – declaring that blacks were responsible for 81 percent of the killings of white Americans, that "African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape they've ever been in before," and that "inner-city crime is reaching record levels."
All three claims earned "Pants on Fire" ratings from PolitiFact.
The FBI's annual Crime in the United States analysis released this week helps clarify some of the perceptions, cataloguing violent crimes and property crimes in 2015 and offering at least some insight into the demographics of who is killing and who is being killed in America.
The most detailed racial data have limits: They are confined to cases in which one person was killed and one person did the killing, eliminating about 17 percent of homicides. Also, police have to know and provide the backgrounds of not only the victims but the perpetrators, too – meaning that thousands of cases left unsolved and with no description of the person who committed the crimes are discounted. In total, about 61 percent of the 15,696 homicides committed in 2015 are excluded.
Nonetheless, here is what the figures tell us.
The number of black people who killed whites and the number of whites who killed blacks climbed to levels not seen since 2008, accounting last year for their largest percentages of U.S. homicides of black and white victims since at least the start of the century, according to the crime data.
The statistics show that the 500 killings of white people attributed to blacks last year were the most since black perpetrators were determined to be responsible for the homicides of 504 white people nationwide in 2008. Last year's total was up 12 percent from the 446 recorded in 2014 and 22 percent from the 409 seen in 2013, a year that saw the lowest total this century and one that capped seven years of general declines in black-on-white homicides. Prior to that, 2006 saw the most black-on-white killings since 2001, with 573.
The 229 black lives taken by white killers last year, however, marked an even larger leap from 2014, jumping more than 22 percent from the 187 black victims killed by whites that year, which was the second-lowest total since 2001. The tally was last exceeded in 2008, when 230 blacks were slain by whites. The highest total in the last 15 years came in 2007, when 245 black people were killed by whites.
(Alan Neuhauser for USN&WR)
Overall, killings of blacks by whites and whites by blacks accounted for about 12 percent of the roughly 6,000 homicides last year in which police had information about the race of both victim and killer – a slight increase from around 11 percent in 2014. About 15.8 percent of white victims were killed by blacks last year, and 8.6 percent of black victims were killed by whites.
Those percentages changed only slightly from previous years: The share of black-on-white killings as a subset of killings of white people and the segment of white-on-black homicides in relation to killings overall of blacks each ticked up just 1 percentage point from 2014.
(Alan Neuhauser for USN&WR)
"When we talk about trends, we need more than two data points," says Scott Decker, a professor at Arizona State University and director of the school's Center for Public Criminology. But, he adds, "Small changes are the lives of fathers and sons and daughters and mothers. And the police don't have the luxury of saying, 'We'll wait until we have more data points.' Police chiefs lose their jobs, captains get promoted or not based on getting out in front of trends.
"It's worth paying attention."
Black people have consistently accounted for close to half the country's homicide victims, making up more than 50 percent of the broader pool of those killed overall every year since 2010. The number of black victims increased 15 percent in 2015 over 2014.
Of the 13,455 cases from last year in which the FBI listed a victim's racial information, 7,039 victims – or 52.3 percent – were black. That compares with 5,854 cases – or 43.5 percent – in which the victim was white, an increase of about 8 percent from last year.
It's a disparity that becomes more pronounced in the context of population, as 2015 Census estimates suggest that whites account for 77.1 percent of the overall U.S. population of roughly 321 million, while blacks comprise 13.3 percent.
(Alan Neuhauser for USN&WR)
Black-on-Black and White-on-White Killings
The vast majority of homicide victims are killed by people of their own race. People tend to kill who they know.
"You hurt people who are a lot like you. That's how it works," says David Kennedy, a professor and director of the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
Among the roughly 6,000 cases in which the race of the victim and the offender were known, the number of blacks killed by blacks rose to 2,380 last year, an increase of about 8 percent from 2014.
However, the share of black-on-black homicides as a proportion of black people killed actually fell by just under 1 percentage point, to 89.3 percent. This undoubtedly fractional decrease – which marked the third straight year of incremental reductions – still meant that for the first time since the start of the 21st century, the percentage of black victims killed by another black person stood below 90 percent of the total of black people killed.
Often less discussed – to the consternation of experts and columnists – is the phenomenon of white-on-white homicides. The number of white people killed by other whites rose 3.5 percent to 2,574 victims in 2015.
White-on-white killings as a percentage of all homicides involving a white victim also fell, to 81.3 percent, marking the lowest share of such killings since 2001.
The margins are small, fluctuating by less than 3 percentage points in the last 15 years: Since 2001, the share of black-on-black and white-on-white homicides as a proportion of those killed of each race peaked at 91.9 and 84.2 percent, respectively.
(Alan Neuhauser for USN&WR)
California Requires Single-Stall Public Bathrooms to Be Open to All
http://ift.tt/2deodn6
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Single-stall public restrooms in California will be open to anyone regardless of gender under a bill signed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown on Thursday that is being hailed as an advance of transgender rights.
Access to public bathrooms has become a flashpoint in the battle over transgender rights in the United States, where some states including California already let transgender students use locker rooms and restrooms in accordance with their gender identities. Opponents fear that sexual predators will pose as transgender bathroom users in order to find victims.
"Restricting access to single-user restrooms by gender defies common sense and disproportionately burdens the LGBT community, women, and parents or caretakers of dependents of the opposite gender," said Democratic assembly member Phil Ting of San Francisco, who authored the bill.
The most populous U.S. state already bars discrimination against transgender people, including in public restrooms. The latest measure goes further, saying that single-use restrooms should not be reserved for one sex.
In addition to making it clear that people may use single-stall restrooms in accordance with their gender-identities, the measure will also make it easier for everyone to use restrooms at busy locations, supporters said.
"This law is a simple measure that will make everyone's lives easier," said Kris Hayashi, executive director of Transgender Law Center. "Having restrooms open to all genders will mean less hassle for everyone going about their day, and will allow people who don't fit neatly into expectations of what it looks like to be male or female to use the restroom without fear of harassment."
Allowing transgender people to use restrooms in accordance with their gender identities is the focus of ongoing disputes in several states. North Carolina earlier this year enacted a measure mandating that multiple-use bathrooms and locker rooms be restricted according to a person's biological gender.
That law has prompted protests and boycotts, and in August, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the state must allow two transgender students and a transgender employee to use bathrooms matching their gender identity.
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide within weeks whether to hear a major transgender rights case for the first time, a dispute involving which bathroom a Virginia high school student can use.
State law already requires California schools to allow students to use restrooms in accordance with their gender identities. The new law does not affect multi-stall bathrooms.
Women Chess Players Object to Wearing Hijab at World Tourney in Iran
http://ift.tt/2cHUlsB
Female chess players who make it to the world championship in Iran should be ready to adopt a new rule to play: They'll have to wear a hijab. And some players would rather not compete if they have to wear the religious head covering.
"Iran has hosted chess tournaments before and women were always forced to wear a hijab," Nazi Paikidze-Barnes, the current U.S. women's champion, explained to CNN. She plans to boycott the event. "I feel privileged to have qualified to represent the U.S. at the Women's World Chess Championship and to not be able to due to religious, sexist, and political issues is very disappointing."
Hijab is a head scarf traditionally worn by Muslim women. In Iran, Islamic codes of conduct such as women wearing hijab in public are strictly enforced.
Carla Heredia, a former Pan American champion who did not qualify for the tournament in Tehran, agreed with Paikidze-Barnes. "This is not only about 64 players [who qualified to compete in the tournament]; this is a world issue, a women's rights issue. That's why I'm speaking up. Sports should be free of this type of discrimination."
Meanwhile, according to a spokeswoman for the World Chess Federation, there were no objections to the locale from any of the 150 national chess federations, which includes the United States. Further, Iran was the only country that proposed to host the event.
"[The World Chess Federation is] reviewing all possible solutions for the players' comfort and will discuss all the issues with the organizers in Iran during meetings in the next few weeks," the spokeswoman said. She added that the organization has not yet received any complaints about the expected dress code from participants.
Dior Raises Banner of Feminism in Fashion Show
http://ift.tt/2dy3QRt
Paris (AFP) - She is the first woman ever to lead the legendary French fashion house of Dior.
And Maria Grazia Chiuri did not take her rendezvous with history lightly.
In her first show for the label, she went into battle in Paris on Friday under the banner: "We should all be feminists."
In the high point so far of Paris fashion week, the Italian designer -- who wore a Superman necklace for the occasion -- dressed her female models as if preparing mediaeval knights for a joust with destiny.
A short-haired waif in a white fencing suit, a "beating heart" sown on her chest, led out the procession of bare black and white pieces that looked like armoured underwear.
The line of biker jackets and leather breastplates ended in a plain white T-shirt declaring, "We should all be feminists."
Another would later carry the slogan, "Dior(e)volution" -- hinting that the "safe pair of hands" who took over the leaderless label in the summer would also be flexing her muscles.
It was the first of many surprises from a designer who at Valentino developed a line in romantically austere mediaeval-inspired dresses, somewhere between "Game of Thrones" and Italian Renaissance portraits.
As her debut show went on, the looks became more elaborate, with Chiuri layering on embroidered tarot, star sign and protective talismans onto transparent lingerie dresses.
- 'Sexual beings' -
"We teach girls they cannot be sexual beings like boys can," a voice intoned critically over the music as a model in black underwear with another red heart on her breast swept by, a silver embroidered sword running the length of her see-through skirt.
Another particularly romantic tulle dress had two golden hands reaching up to hold up the wearer's heart.
With the cheers of a standing ovation still ringing in her ears, Chiuri, 52, said the show was a cry for equality.
"I am introducing a completely different point of view because I am a woman," she told AFP.
"I have a son and a daughter. I want that they have the same opportunities in life... A lot of people believe that speaking about equality is not essential (anymore). But we have to speak about it because at the moment I am not sure everybody believes in it.
"Sometimes women use more the heart and not the head. They need to balance them."
Chiuri also defended bring back simple T-shirts, and "J'adore Dior" slogans on straps and belts in a collection that in other ways was almost haute couture in its sumptuous detailing.
- 'Sex in the City' -
"If you think about Dior you also think about Sarah Jessica Parker and 'Sex and the City' and the T-shirt 'J'adore Dior'," she said. "I am sure [the brand's founder Christian] Dior did not do that.
"Why should we lose that part of our heritage and only speak about Mr Dior? My reference is not only Mr Dior because he worked in the house for only 10 years."
She then namechecked John Galliano -- who led the label for 12 years -- and who was dramatically sacked from Dior in 2011 after an anti-Semitic tirade, calling him "a huge reference".
With the singer Rihanna, actress Natalie Portman and Marion Cotillard and former French first lady Carla Bruno in the front row, Chiuri said that "Dior believed fashion was both evolution and revolution. I started this story and I hope in the future I can tell more of it."
She has also prominently reintroduced the label's golden bee motif.
Having secured far more control over the brand than her predecessor Raf Simons, Chiuri laughed off the idea that she was now queen bee.
"The bee motif comes from Mr Dior. It is the Napoleon bee, but at the same time it comes from (ancient) Rome," which also happens to be Chiuri's home town.
Jennifer lost 35 pounds
http://ift.tt/2dGssUf
Jennifer lost 35 pounds. In the past, fitness wasn’t something she had to work at. That all changed after her second pregnancy. After her mom was diagnosed with ALS and the family moved to another state, she was faced with stress and depression. This strong mom found herself in a rut and took action to take […]
September 30, 2016 at 02:17PM
Jennifer lost 35 pounds. In the past, fitness wasn’t something she had to work at. That all changed after her second pregnancy. After her mom was diagnosed with ALS and the family moved to another state, she was faced with stress and depression. This strong mom found herself in a rut and took action to take […]
September 30, 2016 at 02:17PM
Life
http://ift.tt/2cHT30L
Happy Friday! It's finally the weekend (at least for me) and I am happy to have a little down time tonight and hopefully tomorrow. It's been a busy couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean I am neglecting my healthy eating. I have done much better with that since stopping the tracking. Using a more relaxed method is so much better for me, as I explained in my last post. I'm still enjoying my CSA box but that is coming to a close next week. I'll have to start hitting the produce section in the grocery store more often. I am really glad to have fresh locally grown squash available right now! We not only got the last of the summer squash, but we are getting delicious winter squash now, too. Zucchini, yellow squash, delicata, acorn squash, spaghetti squash and butternut squash are all in my pantry and I am roasting, baking and steaming them nearly every day. I hope to make some winter squash soup this week, too. I got a heck of a deal on grass fed beef and lamb (about $3 a pound!) so bought a bunch of that to stick in the freezer along with the pastured pork and free range chicken. Good stuff!
Someone asked about my schedule on the last post, and I've often gotten comments or emails asking whether I work outside the home and what I do with my time. I have posted about that in the past but things have changed a lot over the past few years. I no longer have little kids and teens taking up most of my time, so that has freed up my day for other things. I know I am very blessed to be able to spend much of my time as I wish; for most of my life, that was not the case, as I was either in school or working full time. I did have some great years when the boys were little, being a stay at home mom to 4+, homemaker, and farmer's wife (and that was a LOT of work, but joyous work!). My husband and I have chosen to have me stay home since our daughter was born, and even though she is in middle school now I am able to keep working part time from home and keep my priorities on home and family.
One of the passions of my heart is animal rescue. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to work with animals and help the less fortunate. I love all of God's creatures and it breaks my heart to see any animal suffering, neglected, or abused. So I spend a part of every day volunteering in rescue. My kids and I used to just go and walk dogs at the shelter; eventually it evolved into being even more involved. I do transports when a dog or cat needs to go to a different rescue or home, take animals to the vet when needed, do home checks on potential adopters, and foster dogs and cats in my home. I had planned to cut back and stop fostering for awhile to give myself more time to focus on my health, but we had an emergency foster come in last night who was in danger of being euthanized if I did not take her. Once she is adopted, and my other foster goes to her new home, I am not taking any more animals for awhile. I'd say I spend an average of 3 hours a day on rescue, plus 1-2 hours more in pet and foster care (just feeding, walking, exercising, grooming, etc). I also spend an hour or two a week working my Therapy dog, which is lots of fun, and 2-3 hours a week training my other dog. Having time to do what I love is amazing and not for one second do I take this for granted. It's a hobby that I find very relaxing and fulfilling and it just downright makes me happy that I can give of myself in this way. And the animals give back 100 fold. They know when they have been helped and they love you for it.
So aside from that, I do the typical homemaker stuff, keeping up the house, shopping, cooking, laundry, yard work, help with homework and fundraisers, all the usual things all stay-at-home-moms do. On weekends and after school, I spend time with my family. We try to have dinner together most nights. I spend an hour or two most weekdays taking my daughter to her after-school sports and groups, and we're part of an active church family with regular church service and activities two or three days a week. (I have to say I never thought I would enjoy church as much as I do!) I take my two youngest kids to various appointments (doctors, dentist, orthodontist, specialists) and sometimes get together with other Moms to visit and have fun. Sometimes we take the kids to a movie together, or to a big park to play. Last week we went to a fall festival and the kids had a blast! We have dinner with friends about twice a week. I go to meetings related to my science career twice a month (trying to stay in the loop for when I do go back to work). Right now, as I type, I am listening to my daughter practice the violin and I'm pausing to play tug with my dog every so often. Multi-tasking at its best! I also do still work from home but spend less time on that than I used to (just a few hours a week). Plus, you know, I blog once in awhile and sometimes, when everyone is in bed, I just sit down and read or watch reality TV and drink decaf coffee! I love the quiet at night.
Anyway, it's not very weight-loss related, but if you wanted to get to know me better there you have it. I like a simple life. I like sleeping with the windows open and listening to the crickets chirp at night in the summer. I love the seven trees I planted around my house over a decade ago and the huge, mature maples that were already here when I moved in. I love sitting on my porch in a rocking chair and watching the birds and the squirrels in the yard. I love having children (even the adult ones!) and being with family. I do know that all of this will only get better and more sweet as I get to a healthier weight, so I am making time for that, too. I have given a lot of thought to a comment I got some time ago, stating that the commenter looks at weight loss/better health as her "job" and so commits a certain number of hours a day specifically to that; this resonates with me, and when my fosters are adopted, I would like to take those hours I am now using on rescue and spend them specifically on bettering my health. Seems like a great idea to me!
September 30, 2016 at 01:01PM
Happy Friday! It's finally the weekend (at least for me) and I am happy to have a little down time tonight and hopefully tomorrow. It's been a busy couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean I am neglecting my healthy eating. I have done much better with that since stopping the tracking. Using a more relaxed method is so much better for me, as I explained in my last post. I'm still enjoying my CSA box but that is coming to a close next week. I'll have to start hitting the produce section in the grocery store more often. I am really glad to have fresh locally grown squash available right now! We not only got the last of the summer squash, but we are getting delicious winter squash now, too. Zucchini, yellow squash, delicata, acorn squash, spaghetti squash and butternut squash are all in my pantry and I am roasting, baking and steaming them nearly every day. I hope to make some winter squash soup this week, too. I got a heck of a deal on grass fed beef and lamb (about $3 a pound!) so bought a bunch of that to stick in the freezer along with the pastured pork and free range chicken. Good stuff!
Someone asked about my schedule on the last post, and I've often gotten comments or emails asking whether I work outside the home and what I do with my time. I have posted about that in the past but things have changed a lot over the past few years. I no longer have little kids and teens taking up most of my time, so that has freed up my day for other things. I know I am very blessed to be able to spend much of my time as I wish; for most of my life, that was not the case, as I was either in school or working full time. I did have some great years when the boys were little, being a stay at home mom to 4+, homemaker, and farmer's wife (and that was a LOT of work, but joyous work!). My husband and I have chosen to have me stay home since our daughter was born, and even though she is in middle school now I am able to keep working part time from home and keep my priorities on home and family.
One of the passions of my heart is animal rescue. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to work with animals and help the less fortunate. I love all of God's creatures and it breaks my heart to see any animal suffering, neglected, or abused. So I spend a part of every day volunteering in rescue. My kids and I used to just go and walk dogs at the shelter; eventually it evolved into being even more involved. I do transports when a dog or cat needs to go to a different rescue or home, take animals to the vet when needed, do home checks on potential adopters, and foster dogs and cats in my home. I had planned to cut back and stop fostering for awhile to give myself more time to focus on my health, but we had an emergency foster come in last night who was in danger of being euthanized if I did not take her. Once she is adopted, and my other foster goes to her new home, I am not taking any more animals for awhile. I'd say I spend an average of 3 hours a day on rescue, plus 1-2 hours more in pet and foster care (just feeding, walking, exercising, grooming, etc). I also spend an hour or two a week working my Therapy dog, which is lots of fun, and 2-3 hours a week training my other dog. Having time to do what I love is amazing and not for one second do I take this for granted. It's a hobby that I find very relaxing and fulfilling and it just downright makes me happy that I can give of myself in this way. And the animals give back 100 fold. They know when they have been helped and they love you for it.
So aside from that, I do the typical homemaker stuff, keeping up the house, shopping, cooking, laundry, yard work, help with homework and fundraisers, all the usual things all stay-at-home-moms do. On weekends and after school, I spend time with my family. We try to have dinner together most nights. I spend an hour or two most weekdays taking my daughter to her after-school sports and groups, and we're part of an active church family with regular church service and activities two or three days a week. (I have to say I never thought I would enjoy church as much as I do!) I take my two youngest kids to various appointments (doctors, dentist, orthodontist, specialists) and sometimes get together with other Moms to visit and have fun. Sometimes we take the kids to a movie together, or to a big park to play. Last week we went to a fall festival and the kids had a blast! We have dinner with friends about twice a week. I go to meetings related to my science career twice a month (trying to stay in the loop for when I do go back to work). Right now, as I type, I am listening to my daughter practice the violin and I'm pausing to play tug with my dog every so often. Multi-tasking at its best! I also do still work from home but spend less time on that than I used to (just a few hours a week). Plus, you know, I blog once in awhile and sometimes, when everyone is in bed, I just sit down and read or watch reality TV and drink decaf coffee! I love the quiet at night.
Anyway, it's not very weight-loss related, but if you wanted to get to know me better there you have it. I like a simple life. I like sleeping with the windows open and listening to the crickets chirp at night in the summer. I love the seven trees I planted around my house over a decade ago and the huge, mature maples that were already here when I moved in. I love sitting on my porch in a rocking chair and watching the birds and the squirrels in the yard. I love having children (even the adult ones!) and being with family. I do know that all of this will only get better and more sweet as I get to a healthier weight, so I am making time for that, too. I have given a lot of thought to a comment I got some time ago, stating that the commenter looks at weight loss/better health as her "job" and so commits a certain number of hours a day specifically to that; this resonates with me, and when my fosters are adopted, I would like to take those hours I am now using on rescue and spend them specifically on bettering my health. Seems like a great idea to me!
September 30, 2016 at 01:01PM
Alabama Chief Justice Ousted Over Gay Marriage Defiance
http://ift.tt/2djYLZM
The chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court was effectively ousted on Friday by a judicial panel that found he unethically resisted U.S. court rulings that legalized same-sex marriage.
Chief Justice Roy Moore, 69, violated judicial ethics with an order seen as directing probate judges to withhold marriage licenses from same-sex couples, defying federal court decisions, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary ruled.
It was the second suspension for the outspokenly conservative Moore. Earlier, he was sanctioned for refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments in a state building.
Moore on Friday blasted the decision that followed a trial earlier this week.
"This was a politically motivated effort by radical homosexual and transgender groups to remove me as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court because of outspoken opposition to their immoral agenda," he said in a statement on social media.
His lawyer, Mat Staver, said he plans to appeal the unanimous decision to suspend Moore without pay for the rest of his term, effective immediately. Staver said it essentially removes Moore from the bench, as the chief justice will be too old to seek re-election at his term's end in January 2019.
Civil rights proponents hailed the move. "The people of Alabama who cherish the rule of law are not going to miss the Ayatollah of Alabama," Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a statement.
The Alabama Court of the Judiciary said in the ruling that Moore's Jan. 6 order showed "disregard for binding federal law" after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark June 2015 decision giving gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.
The judiciary court rejected the chief justice's argument that he was providing a status update. Moore has insisted there was uncertainty after conflicting opinions on gay marriage from state and federal courts.
"I think this ruling is an abuse of power," Moore's lawyer, Staver, said by phone. "It’s a de facto removal."
The ruling noted the state judiciary court had removed Moore from the bench in 2003 for defying a federal order to take down a Ten Commandments monument he installed in the state's judicial building. Voters re-elected him as chief justice in 2012.
He was charged after the Southern Poverty Law Center filed ethics complaints.
"It undermined the integrity of the judiciary, the spectacle of a chief justice telling other judges not to follow a court order," the SPLC's Cohen said by phone.
(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla.; Editing by David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis)
The Richest Life: Consumer to Advocate
http://ift.tt/2ddRjQ8
You want more.
Yes, you have a high-paying job, a dutiful spouse, and all the modern day accoutrements. Underneath your polished veneer, there is a bubbling restlessness.
Something is missing. And you desperately want to reclaim it.
The issue: defining what ‘it’ is. And then doing something it.
It could represent numbing myopia, mounting indifference, or a stirring wanderlust. As you check off your daily to-do list, you recognize the why underlying your simmering discontent.
Life is too comfortable.
The solution: embrace the discomfort.
In life, we crave the familiar. Our daily routine provides order for life’s responsibilities. There is a comforting predictability. The sameness comes in all forms; we cackle at our boss’s overplayed jokes and order the #2 at our favorite deli. We can predict tomorrow — and six months from tomorrow.
In order to appreciate the familiar, you must embrace the unfamiliar. The well-worn cliches are trite, tired, and true.
Challenge yourself. Step out of your proverbial comfort zone. Embrace the fear. The well-traveled path is the one of least resistance.
“Why?” you sputter. “I have a comfortable, easy life. I don’t need to challenge myself.”
And that is the problem. The unfamiliar adds complexity to the routinized life. We may chafe–even recoil–at the unknown. Leery of failure, your mind and soul slowly wilt.
Life’s challenges provide meaning. As mental health consumers, we understand this better than most. Life’s jagged edges have scraped us. But as mental health consumers–even survivors, we have an extraordinary platform to give meaning to our lives and others.
“How so?” you incredulously ask.
We epitomize discomfort. Depression and anxiety have plunged us into despair. There are hours, days, and weeks where mental health shutters us from family, friends, even reality. But through the discomfort, we persevere. We live our fears. And, on the best days, we embrace them.
Paraphrasing a famous philosopher, the easy, comfortable life is a life unlived. As mental health trials bruise and scar, there is a cruel comfort in our struggles. Unlike most, we understand life’s purpose: to share and inspire. But with that understanding, there is a corresponding responsibility. Are you going to embrace the discomfort? Or shy away from it–retreating into your comfortable cocoon?
Over the past year, I have written about my personal struggles. Psych Central has been my personal confessional. As I write about personal failings, a web of self-doubt envelops me. The discomfort is real. Will there be personal or professional repercussions for divulging my mental health struggles? Are my musings self-indulgent? Do my writing inspire or irritate? As my mind cycles through its ritualistic self-doubt, there is a budding realization: these questions are superfluous.
I have embraced my fears and been richly rewarded.
As you read this — maybe on the bus or the subway, you wonder whether your voice — and your struggles — matter. It does. And they do. But the more relevant question: How are you going to transform self-doubt into self-empowerment? And inspire others on their journey.
Kashak/Bigstock
How Lewy Body Dementia Gripped Robin Williams
http://ift.tt/2dxG73U
In the months before his death, Robin Williams was besieged by paranoia and so confused he couldn’t remember his lines while filming a movie, as his brain was ambushed by what doctors later identified as an unusually severe case of Lewy body dementia.
“Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it. Can you imagine the pain he felt as he experienced himself disintegrating?” the actor’s widow, Susan Schneider Williams, wrote in a wrenching editorial published this week in the journal Neurology.
The title of her piece: “The terrorist inside my husband’s brain.”
Susan Williams addressed the editorial to neurologists, writing that she hoped husband’s story would “help you understand your patients along with their spouses and caregivers a little more.”
Susan Williams has previously blamed Lewy body dementia for her husband’s death by suicide in 2014. About 1.3 million Americans have the disease, which is caused by protein deposits in the brain. Williams was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a few months before he died; the telltale signs of Lewy body dementia in his brain were not discovered until an autopsy.
The editorial chronicles Williams’s desperation as he sought to understand a bewildering array of symptoms that started with insomnia, constipation, and an impaired sense of smell and soon spiraled into extreme anxiety, tremors, and difficulty reasoning.
“My husband was trapped in the twisted architecture of his neurons and no matter what I did I could not pull him out,” Susan Williams wrote.
For nearly a year, in a painful odyssey that will be familiar to many patients, Williams tried to find out what was wrong with himself — and fix it. He underwent tests and scans, tried new medications, did physical therapy, worked out with a trainer, and sought out alternative treatments like self-hypnosis and yoga.
“He kept saying, ‘I just want to reboot my brain,’” his widow recounted.
Nothing worked.
Susan Williams traced the first signs of trouble to a celebration of their wedding anniversary, about 10 months before her husband died, when “gut discomfort” made him fearful and anxious. That set off months of escalating problems.
Williams struggled particularly while filming “Night at the Museum 3” in the spring of 2014. He had a panic attack and had trouble remembering “even one line” in his role as Teddy Roosevelt. By contrast, Susan Williams wrote, he had remembered hundreds of lines without error while performing on Broadway three years before.
Susan Williams movingly described her husband’s rapid shifts in and out of clarity.
“I experienced my brilliant husband being lucid with clear reasoning 1 minute and then, 5 minutes later, blank, lost in confusion,” she wrote.
She added: “I was powerless in helping him see his own brilliance.”
After her husband’s death, Susan Williams wrote that she had many long conversations with doctors to retrace and understand what had happened to him. All four doctors who had reviewed his records, she said, “indicated his was one of the worst pathologies they had seen.”
Though she and her husband both craved a diagnosis during those bewildering months before his death, Susan Williams said in retrospect she is “not convinced that the knowledge would have done much more than prolong Robin’s agony” and turn him into “one of the most famous test subjects of new medicines and ongoing clinical trials.”
Williams has joined the board of the American Brain Foundation, a nonprofit that funds research on neurological illnesses.
“Hopefully from this sharing of our experience,” she wrote, addressing neurologists, “you will be inspired to turn Robin’s suffering into something meaningful through your work and wisdom.”
She added: “Do not give up.”
Republished with permission from STAT. This article originally appeared on September 29, 2016
Are You Turning Towards Your Partner?
http://ift.tt/2ddijPR
Well known couples therapists and founders of the Gottman Method for couples therapy, John and Julie Gottman have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to what keeps couples together in a healthy relationship and what can break a relationship apart. In what they coined The Sound Relationship House, the foundation and inside of a healthy relationship rest on things like trust and commitment, fondness and admiration, turning towards and a positive perspective of your partner, as well as a healthy conflict style, and shared meaning.
Today I am focusing on the idea of turning towards instead of turning away from your partner. In Gottman’s research (in which he interviewed newlyweds and again after 6 years) he noticed one thing that stood out was that those who were still married after 6 year were turning towards one another 86% of the time, and those that divorced had turned towards only 33% of the time. What I gather from this piece of evidence is that the idea of turning towards instead of turning away plays a huge role on the health of your relationship and overall success of it.
So what is turning towards? How do you turn towards your partner and what does it look like when you turn away?
Everybody in a relationship makes bids for attention or affirmation or love. Some are small (smiles and touches) and some are big (asking for advice or help). Both people in a relationship ask bids throughout their relationship. Look at some examples:
What is said/done vs. What is meant:
“How was work today?” — Will you talk to me?
“Want to cuddle?” — Will you give me affection or love?
“A coworker yelled at me today.” — Will you give me advice/listen?
“A smile to you by partner…” — Will you give me attention?
“A touch on your arm by your partner…” — Will you give me affection?
Where the problem arises is when the partner making a bid attempt is not noticed or is shut down. We call this a “missed bid” and is considered turning away.
You may be thinking, “I don’t think I miss my partner’s bids for attention.” If you were to put cameras throughout your house, you would be able to see on a second to second basis your partner’s and your bids for one another’s attention, as well as opportunities missed to turn towards.
Think about times you pass one another in the hallway of your house without giving eye contact or smiling at one another. Missed opportunity to turn toward. Your partner says, “It looks crappy outside today.” You don’t respond (because maybe it seems obvious to you that it is or not something that needs to be responded to). Missed bid. You tell your partner that work was stressful and your partner says, “Sorry to hear that.” Wait, that is turning toward isn’t it? Yes, but it is what we call a passive or low energy turning toward. Your partner responds to you, only they miss the opportunity to ask why it was stressful (which is considered an attentive turning towards).
What about applying this in your relationship? Take a look at how you and your partner are making bids and turn towards. The first step is just paying attention to one another. Turning towards each other increases the positive perspective of your partner as well and promotes health within your relationship. Try it out, you may be surprised at the times your partner sends out bids that you miss! Its these small bids for attention that create a foundation of happiness and health in your relationship and increase feelings of connection and understanding.
monkeybusinessimages/Bigstock
Related Articles
It’s O.K. for Me to Love Me
By Irene Conlan—
Some of us have been around for a long time and we’re just learning that it’s o.k. to love ourselves. We were taught never to put ourselves first, that we were born sinful or bad, that we would never amount to anything unless … (fill in the blank). If we mentioned something positive about ourselves it was called bragging and was not acceptable. We were told in school, Sunday school and at home that “Pride goeth before a fall.” And we were warned about letting things “go to our head.” Praise was considered dangerously ego inflating and the rule of thumb was that if you didn’t hear that it was wrong you probably did a good job.
Those days, hopefully, are gone for good.
Now we know that not only is it o.k, but it’s essential to love yourself. Consider these questions:
- If I don’t love me, who else can?
- If I don’t love me, can I truly love someone else?
Call it what you want— self-love, self-esteem, self-worth—how you regard yourself determines how you will regard others and how you will respond to a relationship. It is NOT —I repeat—It is NOT the “pride” part of “pride goes before a fall.”
I’m not saying that we love only ourselves. Balance requires that we are “other-centered” as well as “self-centered” (self centered in a good way.” It also requires that we can give love as well receive love.
So, how do we build our self esteem, our love of self in a healthy way?
Hara Estroff Marano, in Psychology Today states:
Self-love doesn’t happen by luck or the grace of God. You have to create it. These are among the most important elements of it.
- Honoring yourself and who you really are. Love is your birthright. As Teilhard de Chardin said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
- Telling the highest truth, which is that we are powerful beings capable of creating joy and success or pain and suffering in our lives. We are not destined to be victims. We have the power to choose, and this power is both the greatest responsibility we have and the greatest opportunity.
- Honoring who you are becoming. Self-love involves recognizing that you are constantly evolving and growing to become a more powerful and more loving being.
- Honoring your feelings and responding to those feelings. Remember, feelings are important signals, and even the so-called negative feelings of anger and fear serve the important purpose of alerting us to the obstacles in our life.
- Recognizing that the universe is literally made of love. “If we will just open ourselves to receive, like flowers opening to the sun, then everything is possible,” says Ti Caine, hypnotherapist and life coach based in Sherman Oaks, California.
How do you begin honoring yourself? It starts with awareness. Become aware of who you are, what your strengths are, what you like/love. Pay attention. Accept the fact that you are unique, special, one of a kind. Some of the tools to help you become more aware and accepting of who you are include:
Meditation—this is a time when you really get to know you. Silence of the mind can teach you more that you can possibly learn in a lecture. Use it as a time to commune with your inner self. Have a good chat with your Supreme Being. Do you think for a moment that the Creator made a mistake when you were created?
Journaling—writing down your thoughts and feelings on a daily basis can show you a clearer picture of your strengths and weaknesses. We all have weaknesses so don’t be afraid of them.
Gratitude and Appreciation—As you start being aware of those things you are grateful for and that you appreciate you will find it easier to be grateful for and appreciate things about yourself.
Service to others – There is absolutely no better way to feel better about yourself than to be of service to others. Not just because you receive sincere compliments but because the energy of giving creates something new in you. Try it and see.
There is never a better time to start loving yourself than right now. Go for it.
http://ift.tt/2ddhpmv Self Esteem Feeds
Rapid Inductions Versus Ericksonian Inductions!
http://ift.tt/2ddby07
If you like this, please ‘like’ and share!
This video is my reply to the following set of questions from an NLP Practitioner and Hypnotist schooled in what is often called and ‘Ericksonian’ approach to hypnosis and trance (really ‘post Ericksonian’ or ‘Neo-Ericksonian’ might be better labels as no-one quite does what Milton H Erickson was doing).
Questions:
- Why would you use a rapid induction vs an Ericksonian induction?
- What situations would that be more appropriate for?
- What is it that guides your choice to use a certain method e.g. the person being facilitated? The timeframe you have? The type of intervention you’re going to do? All or none of the above or something else?
- Are they ultimately two ways of achieving the same end or is there more to it than that?
The video above should address all of the preceding questions, either directly or indirectly!
James Tripp
NOTE: The Hypnosis Skills Bootcamp is nearing capacity… you want in? Here’s how!
Embarrassing admission..
The requested site can not be rendered by this script. In order to render this website in its entirety please proceed this link. Due to the viral nature of this special report and the amount of traffic its been receiving we have decided to to only allow looking at the report on our site.
Visit: http://ift.tt/2cJfFlA
Self Confidence Feeds
September 30, 2016 at 04:12AM
What Have Orson Wells, Pokemon and Current Trends On Social Media All Got in Common? Are You A Voice Or An Echo?
http://ift.tt/2cQmJwf
Back in 1938 Orson Welles caused a bit of a stir with his realistic radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” which was dramatised and adapted to depict a Martian invasion of Earth. Updating H.G. Wells’ 19th-century science fiction novel War of the Worlds for national radio, Orson Welles probably did not suspect the ensuing […]
The post What Have Orson Wells, Pokemon and Current Trends On Social Media All Got in Common? Are You A Voice Or An Echo? appeared first on Adam Eason.
The Drink That Really Is A Rapid Antidepressant
http://ift.tt/2d1pR6a
The most well-known effect of this drink confirmed by research.
Alcohol produces the neural and molecular changes of a rapid antidepressant, new research concludes.
The drug lifts depression for up to 24 hours due to its effect on the brain’s chemistry.
Naturally, the study’s authors were quick to warn against self-medication.
Dr Kimberly Raab-Graham, the study’s first author, said:
“Because of the high comorbidity between major depressive disorder and alcoholism there is the widely recognized self-medication hypothesis, suggesting that depressed individuals may turn to drinking as a means to treat their depression.
We now have biochemical and behavioral data to support that hypothesis.”
The research was carried out in animals, but the effects seen were similar to other rapid antidepressants.
The behavioural effects were also similar to those seen in people.
Ketamine is another drug that has been recently shown to produce a rapid antidepressant effect.
Dr Raab-Graham said:
“There’s definitely a danger in self-medicating with alcohol.
There’s a very fine line between it being helpful and harmful, and at some point during repeated use self-medication turns into addiction.”
Doctors often advice against drinking alcohol while taking antidepressant medication.
It can cause a worsening of depression symptoms in the long-run.
Naturally, as this study demonstrates, people feel the benefit of drinking to their mood in the short-term.
Indeed, antidepressants can often increase the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
Repeatedly drinking too much, though, can clearly lead to a worse emotional state — especially the morning after.
Dr Raab-Graham said:
“Additional research is needed in this area, but our findings do provide a biological basis for the natural human instinct to self-medicate.
They also define a molecular mechanism that may be a critical contributor to the comorbidity that occurs with alcohol use disorder and major depressive disorder.”
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications (Wolfe et al., 2016).
Massive U.K. Brain-Mapping Project Releases First Results
http://ift.tt/2dKw6iu
Last week researchers released the first results from the UK Biobank Imaging Study, a massive effort that ultimately aims to scan the brains of 100,000 people and use the data in conjunction with detailed health information to investigate disease progression during aging. The findings from their first 5,000 subjects offer an early peek at an enormous data set that includes a treasure trove of health information from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and other measures. The study is one of several projects worldwide taking a population-level approach to better understand diseases, and is part of an ongoing movement in neuroscience toward global, collaborative brain research.
For many of the diseases that afflict us as we age, from diabetes to dementia, we have no real way of knowing that they are on their way until symptoms begin to reveal themselves. It is likely, however, that there are subtle signs in our bodies much earlier. That’s where the UK Biobank Imaging Study comes in. “The idea is, we’re characterizing people in great detail before they actually have begun to accumulate the health problems that people have in old age,” explains Karla Miller, lead author of the study. “What we’re aiming to do is get a glimpse of the various kinds of markers that we might be able to identify that then presage problems later on.”
This detailed characterization includes extensive surveys about demographics and lifestyle factors, gene expression analysis and in-depth medical tests. Subjects ranging in age from 40 to 69 also undergo six different kinds of MRI scans that capture brain anatomy, microstructure, function and connectivity, along with scans of their other organ systems. Scans are done at three dedicated imaging centers distributed across the U.K. The initial results were published last week in Nature Neuroscience. “To a large degree what we were trying to do in this paper was not to ask any really specific question,” Miller says, “but to demonstrate to people, here's the power of this amazing and very unique data resource”
The value of a data set 100,000 strong is that the participants will inevitably develop a wide array of diseases as they age, which researchers will be able to track through the U.K.’s National Health Service. They can then examine disease progression in the context of other health information recorded in the study, potentially revealing important trends, connections or early biomarkers for disease.
The first batch of data contains tens of thousands of significant correlations between various health measures. For example, the preliminary results revealed a link between increased alcohol consumption and signs of injury to brain connections, along with another link between tobacco intake and imaging signals associated with increased iron deposits in the brain.
Miller points out, however, that simple correlations, even highly significant ones, cannot provide a complete picture of an individual’s health. “A lot of the time, if what you find is that you have a correlation between connectivity in one brain region and a specific aspect of an individual's lifestyle, it's hard to know what to make of that,” she says.
Miller and her colleagues confronted this challenge by using trends consistent across the population in the brain-imaging data as well as in information about health and lifestyle to create composite measures that incorporate multiple factors simultaneously. They found a number of independent patterns of aging that, according to Miller, “are described by aspects of an individual's lifestyle [and] also have an imprint on the brain.”
The researchers are hopeful that further unraveling such complex relationships will eventually allow them to use health measures from the study to predict who will go on to develop a particular disease or who may respond well to a specific intervention.
David Van Essen, principal investigator on the Human Connectome Project (which used MRI scans to create a highly detailed human brain map, released earlier this year), is enthusiastic about the study but echoes Miller’s hesitancy about reading too much into these early results. “They have presented an intriguing potpourri of observations and correlations that pique one's interest,” says Van Essen, who was not involved in the research, “but they have also very thoughtfully included much needed caveats and warnings about the complexities of the data, the complexities of the relationships that we want to decipher, and the issues and potential concerns about overinterpretation or misinterpretation.”
Miller hopes to synthesize the UK Biobank’s research efforts with other ongoing population-scale brain imaging studies such as the Maastricht Study in the Netherlands as well as the Rhineland and German National Cohort (GNC) studies, and even fine-scale brain studies like the Human Connectome Project.
Wolfgang Ahrens, science director of the GNC Association, says that pooling population studies to further increase the number of subjects will be particularly valuable for studying rare diseases such as testicular cancer or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He calls the UK Biobank Imaging Study “the ignition” for the GNC, a testament to the increasingly collaborative nature of brain research. “This kind of research now is international,” he says.
The imaging study was designed with exactly this idea in mind: Like the Human Connectome Project, the Allen Brain Atlas and others, its entire data set is completely open-access. Scientists anywhere can access it for their own research, whether for direct analysis or designing follow-up studies.
The UK Biobank Imaging study is “setting the stage for exploring a wide range of brain-related characteristics to behavior and characteristics that will be predictive of early markers of disease,” Van Essen says. “In essence, we’re looking now at the tip of a large iceberg of important data.”
A paper in PSPB explores factors that lead people to blame victims for the crime committed against them.
http://ift.tt/2dqfPyK
A community for those who are interested in the mind, brain, language and artificial intelligence.
Want to know more? Take a look at our reading list here. If you have any suggestions for further inclusions, post them here.
Awesome Mental Health Resources You Probably Didn’t Know About
http://ift.tt/2d1fTlc
We come across a lot of announcements for this new thing or that, and most of it is garbage. We do, however, like to promote ideas that we feel offer a valuable community service to both mental health consumers and professionals alike.
I’ve discovered two awesome mental health resources you probably didn’t know about, both of which are absolutely free. Whether you like mental health and psychology apps, or psychology and mental books, one of these services can have the potential to change your life.
Free Psychotherapy e-Books
Who doesn’t like a free book? Sure, it’s an e-book rather than a physical book. But what if I told you not only could you download one free e-book, but you can pick from nearly 1,500 free e-books on mental health, psychiatry, mental disorders, personality, and psychology?
You’d probably think I’ve lost the plot a bit, but honestly, I haven’t. What I have done is find this fantastic resource from the International Psychotherapy Institute that offers (currently) 1,459 psychotherapy e-books available for download. The best part? They are all free, and you can download and read as many of them as you’d like.
Now, granted, some of these “books” are actually just government-published brochures from the likes of the National Institute on Mental Health. But most of them appear to be actual e-books, mostly written for mental health professionals. But even non-professionals may benefit and enjoy reading some of these titles. Some of the most popular downloads include:
- The Technique of Psychotherapy by Lewis Wolberg
- The Self and Therapy by Jerome Levin, PhD
- Overcoming Our Relationship Fears Workbook by Lawrence Hedges, PhD
- Achieving Success with ADHD: Secrets from an Afflicted Professor of Medicine by David Sachar, MD
- Symbols in Psychotherapy by Charles Sarnoff, MD
Although the download process asks you to fill out some information like your email address, that form is completely optional and can be skipped if you’d like.
Ratings of Mental Health Apps
With thousands of health and mental health apps to choose from, how do you know which ones actually are worth your time for the download? To-date, there really hasn’t been any good way to understand the quality of apps available for download to your smartphone or tablet. Sure, you could go by user ratings in the app store you use, but those can be easily be gamed. And other people’s opinions don’t tell you anything about whether the app is based upon a solid research foundation and understanding of psychology.
PsyberGuide to the rescue! PsyberGuide is a project of The One Mind Institute (OMI)(formerly named the International Mental Health Research Organization, or IMHRO). It is a non-profit organization that is devoted to funding cures for brain illnesses.
PsyberGuide is overseen by the highly talented Michael Knable, who helps to keep the project on track, getting new apps to reviewers to conduct a thorough, scientific review of the app, and publishing those reviews on the website. The website lists hundreds of apps that have been reviewed by the project, including those focused on helping people with mood disorders, PTSD and other anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, cognitive behavior therapy, cognitive training, dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness, and symptom tracking.
So before you waste your time downloading a single new mental health app, spend a few minutes on the PsyberGuide website and check out what they have to say about the app. And if you want to help support the great work they’re doing, scroll down to the bottom of their homepage and click on the Donate button. Donations like yours help fund new reviews (which are expensive and time-consuming to produce, because they are so thorough).
I'll Bee There for You: Do Insects Feel Emotions?
http://ift.tt/2dss0re
Charles Darwin once wrote in his book The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals that insects “express anger, terror, jealousy and love.” That was in 1872. Now, nearly 150 years later, researchers have discovered more evidence that Darwin might have been onto something. Bumblebees seem to have a “positive emotionlike state,” according to a study published this week in Science. In other words, they may experience something akin to happiness. To some, the idea is still controversial, however.
Unlike humans, you can't simply ask a bee to interrogate its own emotions and describe them. Instead, researchers have to look for evidence that the insects have the cognitive, behavioral and physiological building blocks that, when combined, can give rise to a complex phenomenon like emotion.
Biologist Clint Perry of Queen Mary, University of London devised an experiment to do just that. He and his colleagues trained bumblebees to distinguish between a blue flower placed on the left side of a container and a green one on the right. When the bees explored the blue flower, they found a 30 percent sugar solution. But when they explored the green one, they slurped up plain, unsweetened water. Eventually, the bees learned to associate the blue flower with a tasty reward.
Then the researchers tested the bees on ambiguously colored flowers at intermediate locations. Half of the insects were given a 60 percent sugar solution prior to the test, and those bees flew faster toward the ambiguous blue-green flower. The remaining bees that were not given the sugar flew more slowly.
The assumption that an ambiguous stimulus contains a reward despite the lack of evidence is called an optimism bias. Perry's experiment suggests that a bit of sugar amped up the bees into a positive emotional state, making them more optimistic that the flower would contain a sugary treat.
Sound familiar? Something similar is true in humans—newborn infants cry less if they've been offered a sweet snack, and a bit of candy increases feelings of positivity and improves bad moods in adults, too. “Many of us view the world in a better way when we have a nice piece of dark chocolate,” Perry says.
To be sure that the bees' flying behavior resulted from their underlying emotional state and was not simply a sugar high, the researchers tested the insects on other, unfamiliar flowers in new colors. The effect, Perry says, was specific to flowers with colors that fell somewhere between the blue and green hues they were trained on, not for any other color.
In another test involving a simulated predator attack, the sugar-addled bees showed the same optimism bias. In the wild, bumblebees are sometimes attacked by lurking crab spiders. To mimic such an attack, the researchers gently grabbed the bees with a sponge-tipped mechanical stamp for three seconds before releasing them. The insects that were given sugar water before the “attack” resumed foraging more rapidly than those that weren't, suggesting their positive emotions made them less cautious and more optimistic in this situation as well.
In a final experiment, when the researchers gave the bees a drug that disrupted receptors for dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked with motivation and reward, the bias disappeared, echoing the way this brain chemical works in mammals. “Many scientists, even entomologists, still believe that insects are genetically preprogrammed, rigid, behavioral machines,” Perry says. University of Arizona entomologist Katy Prudic, who was not involved with the study, also disagrees with that idea. “Because they're built so differently, we tend to downplay their emotional states,” she says—“probably because we don't see it in the same way we would with a dog or a cat or a cow.”
There is no intrinsic reason that insects shouldn’t experience emotions. Feelings, on the other hand, are a separate issue. Even though we use the two terms interchangeably in common parlance, scientists use them differently. “Emotions are collections of actions, and numerous species have emoted,” says neuroscientist and philosopher Antonio Damasio of the University of Southern California, “though we can not be certain that they felt their emotings.” In other words, emotions are the body's adaptive response to external events or stimuli. Feelings are the subjective experience of them.
So on receiving bad news, your blood pressure might spike and your respiration rate might plummet. If you saw a mountain lion while hiking, your heart and respiration rates would both increase, your brain would be flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, and your pupils would dilate. These are your body's emotional responses. And they can be, but are not necessarily, coupled with the subjective feelings of sadness or fear, respectively.
The same seems to go for bumblebees, although Perry did not demonstrate that bees have feelings. “We didn't show that they feel happy,” he says. The evidence showed instead that bees possess the cognitive, behavioral and physiological mechanisms that underlie emotions.
“Feeling implies the presence of a mind and a mental experience, [or] consciousness,” Damasio explains. “I have every reason to believe that invertebrates not only have emotions but also the possibility of feeling those emotions.” If insects have feelings, it would have tremendous implications for the way we think about these creatures, including how we attempt to control them as pests.
For now, Perry hopes this research will simply encourage folks to see insects as more than just tiny, unthinking machines.
Teja lost 51 pounds
http://ift.tt/2dcQiev
Transformation of the Day: Teja lost 51 pounds. One day, she just didn’t recognize herself in the mirror and that was her wakeup call. Clean eating, exercise and a great support system has propelled this fit mom to achieve great results. Now, she is using her story to inspire thousand and thousands of others to change […]
September 30, 2016 at 02:42AM
Transformation of the Day: Teja lost 51 pounds. One day, she just didn’t recognize herself in the mirror and that was her wakeup call. Clean eating, exercise and a great support system has propelled this fit mom to achieve great results. Now, she is using her story to inspire thousand and thousands of others to change […]
No related posts.
September 30, 2016 at 02:42AM
Announcement: 12 new world-class Speakers confirmed @ 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit (December 6-8th)
http://ift.tt/2dcqCLv
We’re honored to announce 12 new world-class speakers at the upcoming 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit: Reinventing Brain Health in the Digital Age (December 6-8th). More to come…this may well become the most diverse and stimulating brainstorming on the present and future of brain health and enhancement!
We can’t wait to hear from:
- Alexandra Morehouse, CMO at Banner Health
- Dr. Corey McCann, CEO of Pear Therapeutics
- Dr. Gahan Pandina, Senior Director, Venture Leader at Janssen Research & Development
- Dr. Judson Brewer, Founder & Research Lead of Claritas Mindsciences
- Dr. Lara Boyd, Director of the Brain Behavior Lab at the University of British Columbia
- Dr. Margaret Grabb, Chief of SBIR/STTR programs at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- Dr. Michael Merzenich, Winner of the 2016 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience
- Nikhil Sriraman, IP Analyst at SharpBrains
-
- Richard Varn, Director of the Center for Advanced Technology and Neuroscience at Educational Testing Service (ETS)
- Ron Riesenbach, Managing Director of the Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CC-ABHI)
- Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, Founder and Director, Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas
- Tan Le, CEO of Emotiv
Mental Health Support Aids Those with Breast Cancer
http://ift.tt/2dgAYtj
Sadly, close to 300,000 American women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. For many, initial reactions to learning that they have the illness include fear, anger, and denial.
Unfortunately, the feelings may escalate. Dealing with the psychological fallout of such a diagnosis can be crucial to patients’ physical recovery. As they weigh their medical options, patients also should consider their emotional and mental options.
“Breast cancer is more than skin deep. It’s not just about your external body image. It’s not just about secondary sexual characteristics. It’s not just about breasts. It’s more than that.
“The psyche and the physical body are interconnected, so you really can’t address one and not the other,” said Dr. Georita Frierson, director of Clinical Training for the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program at Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey.
Frierson believes breast cancer patients should consider the following, based on research she and others have conducted, as they fight their illness:
1. Severe and acute stress may occur at the time of cancer diagnosis.
2. Physical activity can improve mood and other outcomes in breast cancer patients following diagnosis.
3. The acute distress accompanying diagnosis can lead to lower quality of life for cancer patients.
4. Patients with poorer coping at time of diagnosis may report lower meaning in life in the year following the end of cancer treatments.
5. Cancer treatments have the potential to impact intimate relationships.
6. Patients may have body image distress following breast cancer surgeries.
7. Treatment or recovery can disrupt one’s employment, including job loss for some.
8. Distressed individuals can have appetite disturbances and/or dietary changes.
9. The taste of foods may change with stress.
10. Disturbances of taste or eating habits (e.g., food restriction or taste aversions from chemotherapy) can occur in breast cancer patients.
11. Disturbed sleep can occur in breast cancer patients, too.
Frierson has conducted a range of research related to breast cancer and other medical topics including a pilot study of the psychosocial and behavioral outcomes in triple negative breast cancer patients during the first year of treatment.
She has been published in peer-reviewed journals on topics that include evidence-based treatment for cancer patients, emotional and psychosocial consequences of cancer, and physical activity among women treated for breast cancer. She has also contributed chapters to books on racial/ethnic minority health.
Source: Rowan University/Newswise
Related Articles
Attractiveness Judged by Group Composition
http://ift.tt/2dcdwhB
New research from the UK suggests that if you want to be considered as good-looking, then it is best to hang out with a group of relatively unattractive individuals.
In the study, Royal Holloway University of London investigators discovered judgements of attractiveness vary depending on who is nearby, and how good-looking they are in comparison.
A person will rank higher on a scale of attractiveness when compared alongside less attractive people, than they would when judged alone.
The finding runs counter to common opinion that a person’s perceived level of attractiveness is somewhat fixed. However, the new study shows that context is key to assessing attractiveness.
Dr Nicholas Furl, a psychology professor and author of the study explains: “Rightly or wrongly, the way people look has a profound impact on the way others perceive them. We live in a society obsessed with beauty and attractiveness, but how we measure and understand these concepts is still a grey area.”
He continued, “Until now, it’s been understood that a person’s level of attractiveness is generally steady. If you saw a picture of George Clooney today, you would rate him as good-looking as you would tomorrow. However, this work demonstrates that the company we keep has an effect on how attractive we appear to others.”
The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, demonstrates that how attractive we are is far from static, it can fluctuate. According to the paper, an averagely attractive face surrounded by undesirable faces will become more appealing than it would on its own.
Participants in the study were asked to rate pictures of different faces for attractiveness, one by one. They were then asked to assess the same faces, placed alongside ones perceived to be undesirable. When adding these ‘distractor faces’, the attractiveness of the same faces increased from the first round of ranking.
Participants were then shown two attractive faces, alongside a ‘distractor’ face and asked to judge between them. The presence of the less attractive face was found to make the viewers more critical between the attractive face, as Dr Furl explained:
“The presence of a less attractive face does not just increase the attractiveness of a single person, but in a crowd could actually make us even more choosey! We found that the presence of a ‘distractor’ face makes differences between attractive people more obvious and that observers start to pull apart these differences, making them even more particular in their judgement.”
Furl concluded, “It’s perhaps not too surprising that we are judged in relation to those around us. This is a trope often seen in teen movies and romantic comedies, where a character associates themselves with a less attractive friend to elevate their own dating stakes.
“Last year’s film The Duff, – an acronym for the rather unfortunate and unfair term ‘Designated Ugly Fat Friend’ explored how the main character felt being physically compared to her friendship group. As in life, this film showed that how we perceive beauty and attractiveness isn’t fixed.
There are many other ways in which we decide who we are attracted to. There will certainly be more research in years to come on this complicated area of human interaction, and I am excited to see where this research takes us.”
Source: Royal Holloway
Related Articles
What Have Orson Wells, Pokemon and Current Trends On Social Media All Got in Common? Are You A Voice Or An Echo?
http://ift.tt/2cQmJwf
Back in 1938 Orson Welles caused a bit of a stir with his realistic radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” which was dramatised and adapted to depict a Martian invasion of Earth. Updating H.G. Wells’ 19th-century science fiction novel War of the Worlds for national radio, Orson Welles probably did not suspect the ensuing […]
The post What Have Orson Wells, Pokemon and Current Trends On Social Media All Got in Common? Are You A Voice Or An Echo? appeared first on Adam Eason.
Mouse Study Shows Alcohol Alters Molecular Path Like Rapid Antidepressants
http://ift.tt/2d0Ub0z
New research suggests having a few drinks when you are down may indeed help your mood.
In the mouse study, investigators found that alcohol produces the same neural and molecular changes as drugs that have proven to be rapidly effective antidepressants.
Wake Forest investigators say the effects are explained by biochemistry.
“Because of the high comorbidity between major depressive disorder and alcoholism there is the widely recognized self-medication hypothesis, suggesting that depressed individuals may turn to drinking as a means to treat their depression,” said the study’s principal investigator, Kimberly Raab-Graham, Ph.D.
“We now have biochemical and behavioral data to support that hypothesis.” This, however, does not at all suggest that alcohol can be regarded as an effective treatment for depression.
“There’s definitely a danger in self-medicating with alcohol,” Raab-Graham said. “There’s a very fine line between it being helpful and harmful, and at some point during repeated use self-medication turns into addiction.”
In their study, Raab-Graham and her colleagues found that a single dose of an intoxicating level of alcohol worked in conjunction with the autism-related protein FMRP to transform an acid called GABA from an inhibitor to a stimulator of neural activity. This amount of alcohol has been shown to block NMDA receptors (proteins associated with learning and memory).
Investigators discovered that these biochemical changes resulted in non-depressive behavior of the mice lasting at least 24 hours.
This study demonstrated that alcohol followed the same biochemical pathway as rapid antidepressants in the animals, while producing behavioral effects comparable to those observed in people.
In recent years, single doses of rapid antidepressants such as ketamine have proven capable of relieving depressive symptoms within hours and lasting for up to two weeks, even in individuals who are resistant to traditional antidepressants.
“Additional research is needed in this area, but our findings do provide a biological basis for the natural human instinct to self-medicate,” Raab-Graham said.
“They also define a molecular mechanism that may be a critical contributor to the comorbidity that occurs with alcohol use disorder and major depressive disorder.”
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications. The research was supported by an National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism pilot grant along with additional grants from the National Science Foundation and other awards.
Source: Wake Forest University
Related Articles
New Weight Loss Approach Helps People Keep It Off
http://ift.tt/2cGj1BU
Losing weight is often not as difficult as maintaining the weight loss over time. A new study suggest a new behavioral treatment method can help people lose more weight and keep it off longer than traditional methods.
The new approach is called Acceptance-Based Behavioral Treatment (ABT), a strategy that links the weight loss effort to a larger personal value beyond weight loss for its own sake. This approach was found to help people adhere to diet and physical activity goals better than a traditional approach in a randomized clinical trial.
Traditional weight loss strategies or Standard Behavioral Treatment (SBT) classically encourage reduced caloric intake and increased physical activity.
The study was part of the well regarded Mind Your Health trial, and is one of the first of its kind. Investigators found that participants who received ABT (which includes all behavioral skills taught in SBT) lost 13.3 percent of their initial weight at one year, compared to 9.8 percent weight loss at one year for participants who received SBT only.
This difference represents a clinically significant 36 percent increase in weight lost for those in the ABT group. In addition, the likelihood of maintaining a 10 percent weight loss at 12 months was one-third greater for ABT with a rate of 64 percent versus 49 percent for ABT alone.
As Thomas Wadden, PhD, FTOS, and Robert Berkowitz, MD, FTOS point out in their accompanying commentary, weight loss with ABT is among the largest ever reported in the behavioral treatment literature without use of an aggressive diet or medication.
“We’re excited to share this new proven therapy with the weight-loss community, and in fact this is one of the first rigorous, randomized clinical trials to show that an alternative treatment results in greater weight loss than the gold standard, traditional form of behavioral treatment” continued Forman.
The ABT sessions emphasized the following principles with the participants to achieve adherence to diet and exercise goals in order to lose weight. Principles include:
• Choose goals derived from freely-chosen personal life values, such as living a long and healthy life or being a present, active grandparent.
• Recognize that weight-control behaviors will inevitably produce discomfort (such as urges to eat, hunger, cravings, feelings of deprivation and fatigue) and a reduction of pleasure (such as choosing a walk over watching TV or choosing an apple over ice cream).
• Increase awareness of how cues impact eating and activity-related decision making.
In the study, 190 participants with overweight or obesity were randomly assigned to SBT alone, or ABT (which fused both behavioral skills from SBT with acceptance-based skills). Participants attended 25 treatment groups over a one-year period, which consisted of brief individual check-ins, skill presentations and a skill-building exercise.
All interventionists were doctoral-level clinicians with experience delivering behavioral weight loss treatments.
“These findings are a boon to clinicians, dietitians and psychologists as they add a new dimension to behavioral therapy that can potentially help improve long-term outcomes for people with obesity,” said Steven Heymsfield, MD, FTOS, a spokesperson for The Obesity Society.
“This study is one of the first of its kind, and offers promise of a new tool to add to the toolbox of treatments for overweight and obesity.”
This is the second study of ABT as part of the Mind Your Health trial, and it found an even more pronounced advantage from ABT than the first study. Forman offers several potential explanations, including the use of experienced clinicians and a revised ABT protocol that focuses on general willingness and accepting a loss in pleasure and less on coping with emotional distress, cravings and hunger.
“These are exciting findings for which I congratulate the authors,” said Wadden in an accompanying commentary.
“Like all new findings, they need to be replicated by other researchers before ABT can be considered a reliable means of increasing weight loss with SBT,” he added. Wadden noted that treatment comparison studies of different psychotherapies have shown that when researchers feel strongly that their therapy will work best, it can influence outcomes.
Therefore, Wadden believes future research should be conducted by therapists who did not develop ABT. Additionally, he said, “Future studies of ABT would be enriched by reporting on changes in depression, susceptibility to food cues and motivation for change in both the ABT and SBT groups.
Long-term follow-up after treatment would also be beneficial to determine if ABT improves weight-loss maintenance compared with SBT.”
The study and its accompanying commentary appear in Obesity, the scientific journal of The Obesity Society (TOS).
Source: The Obese Society
Best of Our Blogs: September 30, 2016
http://ift.tt/2cFQwta
If you are a truth teller you may experience two extremes. There will be people who can’t stand to be near you and others who are drawn to you.
It can be an isolating path when you speak honestly. But when you do it in company of those who are comfortable sharing theirs, it’s like coming home.
All of us are looking to be heard, and validated for who we are. But many of us are too afraid of rejection to remove our protective shells. It’s much easier to hide behind false perfection or superficial niceties.
But when we share what we really think and how we really feel, we open the light in. This light invites others to share their own truth. That’s how we blossom. That’s how we begin to change the world.
The next time someone asks how you feel. Be like our bloggers this week. Take a risk in your relationships. Be honest with them and yourself.
Why Unloved Daughters Fall for Narcissists
(Knotted) – You succumb to their charm every time. Why do narcissists captivate you so? Your childhood will explain why.
11 Superpowers of Kids with ADHD
(Stress Better) – You’re used to hearing all the bad things about ADHD. Here are the surprising strengths that also come with it.
How to Stop Dating the “Wrong” People and Attract Healthy Love
(Happily Imperfect) – You’ve asked yourself this a million times. But here’s the real reason why you keep falling for the wrong partner.
Losing Yourself in a Relationship: 5 Things to Avoid
(Relationship Corner) – You don’t just get involved in relationships. You get submerged into them. Here’s how to stop getting enmeshed.
The One Thing Every Kid with Anxiety Should be Doing
(Parenting Anxious Kids) – If you’re helping your child cope with anxiety by having them think of something else, try this instead.
Related Articles
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)