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Guest blogger Summer writes:
I like to control things. I like to be able to plan things out and know what is going to happen. As my three children enter into the teenage years I am beginning to figure out that there is not a whole lot that I can control anymore. And that makes me anxious. My kids are really good kids and that should make me feel better but there are still so many things out there that could swoop in and destroy their lives. Believe me I have imagined some of the worst.
My husband told me that he deals with things as they come, where it seems I try to deal with things before they even happen. How do I get back to dealing in the moment? Me being the control freak perfectionist that I am, know that I must do these things to lower my stress and anxieties: regular exercise, good nutrition, stop the worrying and turn off the monkey mind in my head. Sounds easy, right?
Did I mention that it is really cold here and my summer walking route is under a layer of ice with more snow expected tonight. My diet is usually pretty good but with all the holiday festivities going on I am more conscious of the fact that everything around me to eat is not what I should be eating. Which either makes me not eat or eat too much of the chocolate fudge that the gals from work bring in. As for not worrying, did I mention that my daughter turns 16 in a month and every night wants to go for a drive (on the ice covered roads). So what can I do? I can still practice my yoga and dig out my old relaxation cd’s. I can write down my anxieties and think of more realistic outcomes. I can go help someone who really does have something to worry about. And I can try to enjoy what is happening today instead of worrying about the future. I can remember that I can only control what is in my power to control and the rest will happen whether I am worrying or not. Maybe then the monkey brain will get the message and leave.
“Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.” — Thomas Szasz
I found this wonderful quote a while back. It is an elegant way of saying that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I myself am guilty of this thinking, and I imagine that you are too. We always seem to think that happiness is something that exists just outside our grasp… if only we could reach it. I don’t think I need to tell you that this type of thinking is plain wrong and that searching for happiness is like searching for your own head.
I often joke about this with my wife. When we look back on our life together, we find ourselves saying, “That was a good time.” A “good time,” as defined by us, is generally one with relatively few problems: financial, marital, job-related, etc. One day, my wife said to me: “Why is it that all of the times in the past are good times but right now seems so tough?”
“That’s because we don’t remember the bad things,” I said.
And it’s true. Even those “good times” we were referring to had bad parts to them. Yet, as time passed, the bad memories faded and lost their potency, while the good ones remained in tact. By and large, humans connect emotions to our experiences. When we recall a memory, we often experience the emotions we’ve attached to it. As time passes, the negative emotions fade, and the good ones often stick around. I’m not sure why this is, but I’ve found it to be true in myself and in others I’ve spoken to about it (not a scientific study, of course, but good enough for me). This isn’t to say that some negative emotions remain firmly planted in our psyche. PTSD is a good example of how such emotions can become tied to specific memories, sounds, sights, or smells. Regardless, as time passes, like water rushing over river rocks, it smooths the rough edges of our memories.
So is the grass really greener elsewhere? Or are we just too busy looking for greener grass that we’ve failed to look beneath our own feet?
Here’s an excerpt from this fascinating article from SciAm:
A research team studying brain signals in mice accidentally stumbled upon what could be an important discovery that could lead to understanding and successfully treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
The finding identifies a new potential target for treating the psychological syndrome, which affects some 2.2 million Americans and is characterized by symptoms including anxiety and excessive behavior such as repeated hand washing and pulling out one’s own hair.
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center made the discovery after deleting a gene in mice while studying neuronal communication in the striatum, a structure in the midbrain that plays a role in information processing, decision making and movement. They had set up 24-hour video surveillance of the critters in their cages after the animals developed skin lesions on their heads and necks four to six months after their birth.
“These mice stay by themselves and are grooming themselves all the time,” says Guoping Feng, an assistant professor of neurobiology at Duke and co-author of a report on the findings published in Nature. He says the mice also show telltale signs of anxiety, hewing to the sides of their cages and staying out of both bright and open spaces.
“We were not specifically looking for OCD … the phenotype itself is by accident,” notes Feng. But, the serendipitous discovery shows “how synaptic dysfunction can lead to abnormal function.”
Obsessive thinking is characteristic of most anxiety disorders. If you ever find yourself stuck on a specific fear, then you’ve experienced obsessive thinking. Unfortunately, OCD is typically characterized in the media as purely obsessive behaviors while ignoring the obsessive thinking that causes these behaviors. This is why any research on OCD is beneficial to anyone experiencing chronic fear.
The Washington Post has a fascinating article on morality, empathy, compassion and their relation to happiness. More importantly, however, recent studies have shown that this morality is actually hardwired into the human brain, likely the result of an evolutionary adaptation that made our species more successful than those without a sense of morality.
While the whole topic certainly provides a lot of food for thought, I’m sharing this with you because I believe that being a moral person is beneficial for everyone, including ourselves. In a sense, having compassion and acting morally can also be selfish as such action brings us joy, happiness, and a sense of self-worth. This model of belief is an ancient tenet of Buddhism and many other religion and spiritual traditions and I find it amusing that only now are scientists investigating this. As much as I love science and rationality, I often find that the uber-skeptics are the same people who completely disregard tradition wisdom in the belief that it’s all nonsense. The research noted in this article verifies the hypothesis that morality has a positive effect on the brain:
The results were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.
So again, I urge you to consider the possibility that one of the best methods for treating anxiety and depression is to stop focusing on yourself and begin to turn your thoughts outward. I’ve personally found this to be a wonderful antidote to anxiety, but I don’t believe I’m alone in this. Helping others is not just something we should do, it’s something we must do.
Read the rest of the article. There’s a lot of interesting speculation about the role this plays in our bodies, minds, human cultures, and even our system of laws.
Zen Habits, one of the best blogs on the internet, has a fantastic article that everyone should read. Even if you follow half of these suggestions, I have little doubt that they will be of great benefit to you. Check it out!
Living with health anxiety or hypochondriasis can be very challenging, and one of the ways we often deal with our anxiety is to self-diagnose. In most people (read: non-hypochondriacs), self-diagnosis can be a helpful tool to pin down a particularly difficult diagnosis, but for hypochondriacs, self-diagnosis always leads to disaster.
Here are a few things you should remember:
- Even with the wide availability of medical information on the internet, the best place to get a diagnosis is with a doctor who is trained and experienced to discover the root causes of your symptoms. Doctors have something we don’t: objectivity. When you’re a hypochondriac, you’re too involved with your diagnosis to objectively diagnose yourself.
- Just because your symptoms match those of a fatal or disfiguring disease doesn’t mean you have that disease. In fact, almost all human diseases — from the benign to the worst — have symptoms similar to those of the common flu or other bacterial or viral infection. There is very rarely a “perfect” symptom, one that definitively proves that you have a disease. So, in short, stop searching for the definitive symptom. You won’t find one.
- You will not find anything that gives you comfort. Googling your symptoms is a sure-fire way to get bad results. Just think about how search engines work and you’ll soon realize that the odds are stacked against you. A search engine is designed to return the most common references to your keywords. So why does the search “headache” often lead directly “brain tumor?” Frankly, because most people with headaches don’t waste their time developing web content about it.
- Almost every site you visit will mention that it might be cancer, so get it checked out. They do this not only for your own benefit, but also to cover themselves legally. If you stumbled upon a site that claimed your headaches were nothing, and it turned out to be a tumor, you might sue the owner of that site and claim that the information urged you not to get treatment. Rest assured, the odds are in your favor that your symptoms are nothing but the result of stress and anxiety. These disclaimers are not intended to be analyzed by hypochondriacs, so don’t pay any attention to them.
Remember, it’s important to stay involved in your own health care. Too many people pretend that doctors are invincible or that they don’t make mistakes, but don’t use this as an excuse to self-diagnose. If one doctor fails you, don’t go running to Google. Instead, find another doctor. Second, third, and even fourth opinions are very common in medicine.
Just to give you an example, my father has a congenital vascular defect in his leg. About fifteen years ago, he began experiencing severe pain and spent weeks unable to walk. His leg turned blue as it was starved of oxygen due to a defective valve in his hip. His first doctor recommended amputation. The second basically shrugged and didn’t know what to do. The third recommended amputation. The fourth recommended a compression boot and blood thinners. My father still has his leg. Sure, it gives him problems from time to time, but if he had listened to his first doctor, he’d now be in a wheelchair or on a prosthesis.
WrongDiagnosis.com has a great page entitled “Self Diagnosis Pitfalls.” I highly recommend you read it, especially the second entitled, “Why Doesn’t Self-Diagnosis Work?” Read it now.
And stay away from the search engine! Unless, of course, you’re trying to figure out how to install a new water garden, in which case, Google on my friend, Google on.
Take a look at this:
Kingston, ON) – Surprisingly, people with mild depression are actually more tuned into the feelings of others than those who aren’t depressed, a team of Queen’s psychologists has discovered.
“This was quite unexpected because we tend to think that the opposite is true,” says lead researcher Kate Harkness. “For example, people with depression are more likely to have problems in a number of social areas.”
Personally, I’ve always believed that people who are prone to depression — myself included — tend to be more socially receptive. That isn’t to say that we’re more social, but rather that we are particularly sensitive to the feelings of others.
What do you think?
Time has an interesting piece on happiness, and how the topic is becoming a point of research among social scientists and psychologists. It’s a fascinating topic, and one that I personally believe to be undervalued in our uber-consumerist Western society. One of the happiness researchers has a few tips for us:
- Be attuned to what gives you genuine satisfaction. Although many people assume that popular activities like watching TV are enjoyable, their own reports generally indicate that they feel more engaged, energetic, satisfied and happy when doing other things.
- Study yourself. To better understand their own happiness, Csikszentmihalyi says, people should systematically record their activities and feelings every few hours for a week or two. In recording your observations, try to focus on how you actually feel, rather than what you think you ought to be feeling or what you expect to feel. Afterwards, note the high points, particularly, and the low ones. Then try to adjust how you spend time according to your findings.
- Take control. Repairing unhappy conditions requires active effort. People often assume external conditions will change for the better or let chance determine their response. That’s a mistake. “Get control,” Csikszentmihalyi says. When things aren’t right, “you have to put in the same effort you would if your business were in trouble. Just as markets move, life changes too.”
As if you weren’t already feeling bad about yourself because of your poor diet, now you have another reason to get more omega-3 fatty acids in your diet. Take a look at this from Reuters:
The imbalance of fatty acids in the typical American diet could be associated with the sharp increase in heart disease and depression seen over the past century, a new study suggests.
Specifically, the more omega-6 fatty acids people had in their blood compared with omega-3 fatty acid levels, the more likely they were to suffer from symptoms of depression and have higher blood levels of inflammation-promoting compounds…
[...]
Hunter-gatherers consumed two or three times as much omega-6 as omega-3, Kiecolt-Glaser’s team notes in their study, published in Psychosomatic Medicine, but today Westerners consume 15- to 17-times more omega-6 than omega-3.
The researchers investigated the relationship among fatty acid consumption, depression and inflammation in 43 older men and women. The 6 individuals diagnosed with major depression had nearly 18 times as much omega-6 as omega-3 in their blood, compared with about 13 times as much for subjects who didn’t meet the criteria for major depression.
Just in case that doesn’t make much sense to you, here’s the gist: eat more foods with omega-3 fatty acids, and less foods with omega-6 fatty acids. This doesn’t mean you should avoid omega-6, but that we should try to balance our omega-3s with our omega-6s.
Phew. Could our dietary requirements get any more complicated? Personally, I believe that if you’re interested in the optimal diet and don’t want to bother with juggling all of the different components, just eat as the Okinawans do.
Take a look at this article from SciAm:
The big news in this study is that at least some cortical inputs to the amygdala — those from the prelimbic cortex — are involved in the expression of conditioned fear. This involvement gives learned fear a previously unrecognized anatomical component. And it establishes that there is at least one difference between the networks underlying the expression of innate and learned fears.
These observations have far-reaching implications. First, they suggest that the expression of learned fear is flexible and subject to modulation by the prelimbic cortex, depending on the circumstances; our expression of learned fears is less rigid and less automatic than the expression of innate fears, which are beyond the reach of the cortex.
These observations also raise the possibility that hyperactivity in the prelimbic region might contribute to human anxiety disorders that are caused by over-expression of learned fear, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. If that proves true, reducing the activity of the prelimbic cortex might constitute a useful strategy for the treatment of these debilitating disorders, while leaving innate fear responses intact. If learned fear is necessary, so is our ability to control it. This study reveals some dynamics that might be crucial in exercising that control.
This is good news for us. Although it’s a bit technical, what’s really being said here is that learned fear is within the reach of our thinking brain. That means we’re able to change learned fear and, subsequently, completely recover from anxiety disorders. This is probably not news to most of us (myself included) who have subscribed to this belief for quite some time now, but many people still insist that anxiety disorders are innate fears that we are born with. This research shows (yet again) that this is patently false.
The post’s title pretty much says it all. You can now reach We Worry: A Blog for the Anxious from weworry.com. Enjoy.
Many of us who deal with chronic stress and anxiety also deal with gastrointestinal distress. I myself am included in this group. Anyone who lives with IBS knows that it can take a terrible toll on your self esteem. During the worst of times, IBS dictates everything I do, from my work day to whether or not I can take my dog for a walk. When this is combined with an anxiety disorder, the cumulative pain and suffering can sometimes become unbearable.
Many people — myself included — have experienced little or no relief from medications. I have yet to find a medication that provides any lasting relief from the symptoms of IBS. This lead me to search for alternatives to pharmaceutical medications, where I found out about peppermint oil, fiber supplements, and probiotics.
Although there has been anecdotal evidence for its efficacy, only recently have clinical trials shown some evidence that peppermint oil really works. If you’re interested in trying it, keep in mind that you probably want to avoid “peppermint spirits.” The spirits will work and it’s much more potent than the oil, but it is diluted in about 80% grain alcohol, so consuming it can feel a bit like taking a shot of peppermint schnapps. “peppermint oil”, on the other hand, is smoother and contains less alcohol. Regardless, make sure that the oils/extracts you purchase are indicated for consumption and not for homeopathy or diffusion.
Additionally, when purchasing peppermint oil, you’ll have a choice of capsules or liquid. I myself prefer liquid, as it seems to work more quickly than capsules. Yet, it’s difficult to carry a bottle of oil with you everywhere you go, so if you’re away from home, the capsules are a great way to carry your relief with you.
Next we have fiber, the importance of which cannot be understated. It is possible that a diet low in fiber is at least partially responsible for IBS in some people. Much of our modern diet is full of fats and starches and a lot of unnecessary junk that does little but fill our stomachs and thicken our thighs. We’ve strayed from the diet that our ancestors ate for thousands of years, and one of the main constituents in that diet were fiber-rich whole grains. Increasing the amount of whole grains you eat is a simple, cheap, and tasty way to enrich your diet and improve your digestive system. Since the U.S. government revised the old food pyramid to include whole grains in 2005, many companies are now making whole grain versions of just about everything. You can find whole grain cereals, whole grain crackers, whole grain breads, and even whole grain frozen pizzas. This makes it even easier. There’s no excuse not to buy the whole grain brand of these products, and doing so can save your stomach a lot of pain!
But sometimes we just can’t eat enough fiber. In that case, try fiber supplements. There are a handful of different brands and when it comes to fiber, you get what you pay for. Believe it or not, any good gastroenterologist will tell you that all fiber is not created equal. You may have to try a few different brands before you find one that truly works. For me, that brand was Benefiber chewables. I prefer chewables because the caplets are huge horse-sized pills that I’d rather not swallow and the powders are too messy. Have you ever tried cleaning a drinking glass after filling it with fiber powder? It becomes a gooey mess likely to solidify into cement if not cleaned promptly. Besides, I’m lazy, and the chewables taste like orange sherbet. Your individual mileage may vary.
Finally, the last thing I’ve found to helpful is yogurt. The concept is simple: keep the digestive system flush with healthy bacteria to reduce the growth of harmful bacteria. The use of “beneficial bacteria” is often referred to as probiotics, and a probiotic diet is likely to lead to better digestive health.
Here are some links for your perusal:
April is Irritable Bowel Syndrome Awareness Month (NCCAM)
IBS information from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
AboutIBS.org
IBS information from WebMD
MyPyramid.gov
Whole Grains Council
Take a look at this article from today’s Washington Post.
Up to 25 percent of people in whom psychiatrists would currently diagnose depression may only be reacting normally to stressful events such as a divorce or losing a job, according to a new analysis that reexamined how the standard diagnostic criteria are used.
[...]
The new study, however, found that extended periods of depression-like symptoms are common in people who have been through other life stresses such as a divorce or a natural disaster and that they do not necessarily constitute illness.
The study also suggested that drug treatment may often be inappropriate for people who are experiencing painful — but normal — responses to life’s stresses. Supportive therapy, on the other hand, may be useful — and may keep someone who has been through a divorce or has lost a job from going on to develop full-blown depression.
I believe that much of our modern anxiety is the result of our lifestyle. The way in which most of us live is inherently unnatural. We’ve truly lost our connection with the rest of the natural world and, as a result, we’ve forgotten our place in it. I myself spend much of my day sitting in traffic where the only animal life I see are those who’ve been crushed on the highway. One could make the argument that, since humans are natural, anything we create is therefore natural. That’s a valid point, but it’s a bit too philosophical for this blog, so I’ll leave that for someone else to delve into.
Nonetheless, when we consciously set ourselves apart of the rest of the world, we can develop a deep sense of loneliness. I’m often amazed at how a simple walk in the woods or a weekend camping trip can really bring me back to the present moment. If you’re interested in some suggestions on how to reconnect with the natural world, take a look at this article from About.com’s Anxiety & Panic Disorders site.
Zen Habits, a blog that covers all sorts of topics related to positive life changes, has a good post on the three secrets to happiness. I think most of us here at WW already have some basic knowledge about what doesn’t bring happiness. When you live every day as if you were on the cusp of tragedy, it certainly brings into focus the basic truth that wealth and material gains won’t help much to alleviate our pain and promote well-being. Regardless, our perspective also causes us to lose focus on some of the other important aspects of happiness and health.
If you take a look at the Zen Habits post, pay particular attention to #3. This is something that I think most of us have a very difficult time with.
As far as #2 — positive thinking — this is a controversial topic amongst the professional worrisome. Personally, I try not to advocate “positive thinking” here on this blog because most people confuse it with thought control. Controlling your thoughts is impossible. Trying to control your thoughts as if you could you change your mind by brute force is a complete waste of your time. So, once again, let me remind you that positive thinking is not related to controlling your thoughts. Rather, think of it like positive redirection. By redirecting your attention (not simply your thoughts) to more positive things, you’re able to give yourself a unique way of approaching your problems. This positive redirection can become an unconscious habit if you work at it.
Many of us worry about the death and suffering caused by disease, but few of us can really do much about it. Aside from getting a Ph.D. and working in a lab, we’re often relegated to sidelines to wait for promising new treatments for humanity’s most painful diseases.But now that’s all changed thanks to the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). Now we can all help!
BOINC is a piece of software that runs on your computer in place of your normal screensaver. BOINC itself is not a research project, but rather a platform for you to choose which projects you want to participate in. Many research projects require massive amounts of computing power, and there are only a handful of supercomputers that are able to handle the enormous amount of data that must be processed. These supercomputers are in high demand and they are very expensive, so the solution to this is BOINC. BOINC allows researchers to use your computer when you’re not using it. Your computer automatically downloads packets of work, crunches the numbers, and then sends the results back to the lab. And all of this happens when you’re not even using your computer!
For example, SETI@home is probably the most well-known of these projects. In case you don’t know, SETI is an acronym for the “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” SETI@home really started the whole concept. I myself have run SETI@home for years.
The project I recommend is Rosetta@home: “Rosetta@home needs your help to determine the 3-dimensional shapes of proteins in research that may ultimately lead to finding cures for some major human diseases. By running the Rosetta program on your computer while you don’t need it you will help us speed up and extend our research in ways we couldn’t possibly attempt without your help. You will also be helping our efforts at designing new proteins to fight diseases such as HIV, Malaria, Cancer, and Alzheimer’s…”
Are you ready to help? If you’re not yet convinced, start by watching this promotional video for Rosetta@home. (Yeah, the speakers aren’t great but the video actually gets better a minute or two into it. Give it a chance.)
Otherwise, all you need to do is download BOINC and select Rosetta@home as one of your projects. Then watch it go to work! Full instructions can be found at Rosetta@home’s website. If you’d like to get started but are having trouble, feel free to e-mail me (see the About page) and I’ll gladly walk you through the process.
For quite some time, I had made a truce with death. I had discovered some simple truths about my existence here on this beautiful rock and those truths comforted me. Once death no longer bothered me on a daily basis, my fears shifted to the many fates that I consider to be worse than death. But then, in the past few weeks, death has crept back into mind and it is again holding my feet to the fire.
My relapse began with an especially deadly week in my home town. There were a handful of car accidents, all of which claimed at least one life. I won’t go into the details, but one of these was especially brutal and involved an explosion. Then, right on cue, my imagination spun into action and I caught myself imagining — in great detail — the last few moments of the poor driver. My thoughts then shifted to my own vulnerability and the ridiculous naivety in which most of us live our daily lives. I noticed that every time I got into my car I was tense with fear while I wondered whether or not today would be the day.
Sometimes I wonder how my grandmother wakes up every morning smiling, despite her frail heart, her arthritic joints, and the growing number of years behind her. (Surely it’d scare the hell out of me.) When I asked her about what keeps her going, she said to me, “What else is there to do?” I later learned that she has made all of her plans. She knows where she’ll be buried. She has all of the legal mumbo-jumbo in place. These things, along with the help of her natural jovial perspective, give her a sense of comfort. She’s ready for whatever, and this readiness allows her to face every day with confidence.
One of the interesting things about us worrywarts is that we excel at imagining the worst possible scenarios, but that’s where we stop. We rarely ever follow through and turn our anxiety into action. Most people don’t just sit around endlessly worrying about their problems… and those that do are likely dealing with some form of anxiety disorder, depression, or — at the very least — they’re not fun people to hang out with.
Here’s a snippet:
My first attack happened a week before my graduation from college. I was in bed, painting my nails bright red, when my heart began racing. I had the sensation that I was watching myself from above — not alive but not quite dead. (I’d later learn that a sense of dreamlike unreality — depersonalization — is a hallmark of panic.)
I wondered at first if I were being punished for drinking too much at a party the night before. Perhaps someone had spiked my drink. (Nobody had.) What if I were actually dying? (I wasn’t.) This is panic’s flailing logic. Other sufferers I know count coins to ground themselves; some clean out their closets. Back then, when the attacks were new to me, I used to match celebrities with their home towns. (I recall murmuring, “Rosie O’Donnell, Merrick, Long Island,” repeatedly.)
I’ve just added this blog to We Worry’s blogroll and it’s worth a look.
Study: Antioxidant Vitamins May Increase Health Risks.
According to the results of a new study, antioxidant vitamin supplements taken by people to promote their health may actually shorten their life. The findings were based on a review of dozens of studies on the health effects of vitamin supplements.
Funny isn’t it? It seems that nothing is healthy anymore.
It seems that anxiety disorders have really been making it into the news lately. At the forefront of the discussion is, of course, the Iraq War and PTSD, but that’s not all it’s limited to. On today’s Diane Rehm show (NPR/WAMU) the second half of the show featured Allen Shawn, author of Wish I Could Be There: Notes From a Phobic Life.
The interview was interesting, although I found myself disagreeing with Shawn on a few things. For example, he places a large amount of faith into Freud. If I understood him correctly, Shawn claims to have an Oedipus complex. Whatever. I can’t say that I’ve ever really found Freud to be enlightening, although some of his theories were unique and a different way of thinking about psychology. Much of Freud’s theories, however, have little conclusive evidence to back them up. In fact, take a gander at this recent Washington Post article: “Was Repressed Memory a 19th Century Creation?”
On the other hand, during the interview, Mr. Shawn spoke a lot about the biological origins of fear and phobias, and I think this discussion is important because many people often forget that fear serves a very important function: it keeps you alive. It only becomes a problem when the fear mechanism is triggered unnecessarily and for extended periods of time.
Anyway, the interview’s worth a listen if you’re interesting. Follow this link and then click on “Real Audio” or “Windows Media Player” to the right of the 11 o’clock segment.
I usually try to stay calm. Not just to deal with the terrible effects of anxiety but also because being angry or annoyed feels good in the short run but, in the long run, it makes life really difficult, especially if you have little control over the circumstances causes your pain. But sometimes, oh sometimes, I just like to get pissed off. So here it is, my constructive way of managing anger. This is a list of things that annoy the shit out of me.
Traffic.
Not too long ago a woman on I-270 decided that I wasn’t keeping up with the stalled traffic, so she laid on her horn. No, I don’t mean she just honked. She held it down for a good ten seconds and then continued to do so. You see, when traffic moves 5 feet, only the morons slam the gas and then immediately slam the brake again. Me? No, that just wastes gas and is hard on my brakes. So I roll up up to the stopped car in front of me. She thought I wasn’t moving fast enough, nevermind the thousands of cars that blocked my path from moving. So, instead of flicking her off or screaming, I just waited for the traffic to move another few feet and I remained still, hoping she’d go around me. Eventually, she nearly killed someone in the lane to the left of me just to get around me, and then I slowly rolled up to her, smiled, and gave her a thumb’s up.
Stupid people.
How you define “stupid?” Well, for me, it’s anyone who is so egocentric that they allow themselves to think that others are just inhabitants of the fantasy world they’ve created for themselves. Stupid people are the ones who are constantly impatient with others, who judge first and ask questions later, who constantly seek social status and define their own happiness by what they own. These people never think about the big picture. They don’t care about the plights of the less-advantaged. They care little for animals (including pets), the environment, history, or other cultures. Their idea of success is having more money than the other guy. Many stupid people hold positions of power because you gotta be an ass to constantly crush your opponents without regard to fairness or justice; in fact, you’ll find many of them in the Federal government.
Anti-Smoking Zealots
I’m a smoker and I try to be a considerate person, so I do my absolute best to make sure that you never have to smell or inhale any of the noxious fumes that I so crave. I’m a strong supporter of totally enclosed smoking sections and some public bans on smoking, but please please don’t give me your treatise on why I shouldn’t be smoking. I’ve heard it all before. I’ve seen the literature.
Bumper Stickers.
This quote from Dimitri Martin pretty much sums it up for me: “I don’t mind bumper stickers. To me a bumper sticker is a shortcut. It’s like a little sign that says ‘Hey, let’s never hang out.’”
Public Cell Phone Chatters
See “Stupid people.”
Television
With the exception of a few shows, television is officially dead to me. By the way, what happened to Saturday morning cartoons? They used to actually be entertaining, for both children and adults. Now they’re just… dumb.
R&B and Modern Rap
I love the old school stuff, but the modern stuff is crap. There’s no rhythm. Most songs can be summed up thus: “I want to have sex with you. I am rich. Look at my car. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.”
Advertising.
I often think that my intelligence decreases the more I see advertising. Sure, some level of advertising is helpful, but I now feel like my entire existence is to be a target for advertising. By the way, you can reclaim your Internet browsing experience by using Firefox’s Adblock Plus plug-in. Install this baby and you’ll never see an internet ad again. It’s free, and if you’re not using Firefox… well… you should be.
Phew. That feels better.
I’ve always been fascinated by the placebo effect, especially after an experience I had when I was in the Army. As a joke, a few of us decided to buy some non-alcoholic beer and place it into real beer bottles. We then decided to spend the day playing volleyball. After about an hour or two, most people were complaining that the beer was weak (and a few immediately knew what it was and we had to let them in on the secret so they didn’t bust us), but there were a few who truly seemed drunk. No one ever got the point where they were physically sick or stumbling, but the effect was definitely obvious. It was good for a laugh, and once we announced the news, everyone was a little embarrassed, some were pissed off, and others just wanted to know where the real beer was.
Anyway, check this story out. The premise: Hotel maids who believe they are getting exercise are healthier than maids who don’t think of their toil as a workout. Even if there’s nothing practical here, this is certainly fascinating stuff.
Now if only I could convince myself that I love sitting in rush hour traffic.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about TeenScreen, a national mental health and suicide risk screening program that is being implemented in some schools. My post was in favor of the program, but reader “Concerned Mom” responded with a well-written rebuttal to my argument, and she called me out on a few of the points. So I’d like to share that comment with you:
————- Concerned Mom Wrote:
What would you think of a diabetes screening for children that had 84% false-positives? (Meaning that 84% of the people screened were falsely identified and didn’t really have the disease?)
Then, with absolutely no objective testing done to show that an actual physical illness existed, treatment was started.
It’s with this view that some parents are objecting to “mental health screening.” The screening “tools” have an 84% false-positive rate. A recent study from Rochester, NY said that this screening should be considered only investigational in nature. The developer of TeenScreen says that the false-positive rate can overwhelm a school with the number of students identified.
Another study shows that 9 out of 10 of the children who see a psychiatrist will come out of the office with a prescription for drugs that the FDA has decided need a “Black Box Warning” for suicidiality.
Screening for mental health is decidely different from scoliosis, hearing vision or diabetes screening, where actual, objective medical testing (x-rays, blood tests, lab work, etc) can be done to determine the existence of disease or problem.
Then there are the issues on school liability. With schools moving into the realm of what has traditionally been the parents job, what are their liabilities?
A lawsuit already exists where a school screened a child without the parents express, written permission. The child came home from school diagnosed with 2 mental disorders. Based on two of her answers, she was told that she was suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder. The OCD diagnosis arose because she answered “yes,” that she did find herself repeatedly doing something she had little or no control over, which according to her meant cleaning her room and doing her chores.
She was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder because she said she felt cut off from friends. She was given no opportunity to say why she felt this way which was because she wasn’t allowed to go out with her friends on school nights. Her parents explain that they don‘t believe children should be out on school nights and so they limit her social occasions to keep her out of trouble.
Also, since when does a screening for scoliosis or vision and hearing have to resort to offering the child “incentives” to bring back the permission form?
TeenScreen repeatedly uses movie and fast food coupons and lottery draws for mall gift certificates to entice the kids to bring back the consent forms from home. Several school have withheld report cards until the child has brought back the form. TeenScreen’s view on this? “Getting the kids to buy in is such an essential thing because for the most part, you’re distributing the consent forms to the kids to bring home to their parents and bring them back. So you have to get their buy in, you have to get them interested in it.”
TeenScreen’s PR company explains why this is important: “Marketing to young people has always been a sensitive topic. But as an audience of 40 million with annual buying power of $364 billion, teens and ‘tweens’ are important customers in the marketplace of products and ideas.”
Then of course, there is the matter of a 10 minute questionnaire being able to correctly identify a child with mental illness. A survey that asks questions such as:
(1) Have you often felt very nervous or uncomfortable when you have been with a group of children or young people - say, like in the lunchroom at school or at a party?
(2) Have you often felt very nervous when you’ve had to do things in front of people?
(3) Have you often worried alot before you were going to play a sport or game or do some other activity?
(4) Has there been a time when you had less energy then you usually do?
(5) Has there been a time when you felt you couldn’t do anything well or that you weren’t as good-looking or as smart as other people?
(6) Has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren’t interested in anything?
Experts say there is no evidence to support that TeenScreen does anything other than guarantee that a large number of children will end up on drugs. In May 2004, after an in-depth investigation, the United States Preventive Services Task Force issued a report with findings that said:
(1) There is no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality; (2) There is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk; and (3) There is insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.
Two years later, on June 16, 2006, Ned Calonge, the chairman of the Task Force, and the chief medical officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, spoke to the Washington Post and said the same findings apply to screening today:
“The panel would reach the same conclusion today… Whether or not we like to admit it, there are no interventions that have no harms… There is weak evidence that screening can distinguish people who will commit suicide from those who will not… And screening inevitably leads to treating some people who do not need it. Such interventions have consequences beyond side effects from drugs or other treatments… Unnecessary care drives up the cost of insurance, causing some people to lose coverage altogether.”
Lastly, any scoliosis, vision, hearing or diabetes screening is not a secretive program. TeenScreen refuses to divulge where they are conducting the screenings, they do not allow parents to view the survey - citing proprietary privileges and copyright protection, and they do not divulge their funding or their sponsors - but their directors and their advisory board is rife with pharmaceutical connections.
So the idea that parents “oppose it solely because they’re uncomfortable with the idea of their children being diagnosed with something that may reflect poorly on” them is not even close to the issue.
There are ways to help our children but screening them for mental health is not one of them.
http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html
19,609 parents, doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers, social workers and nurses agree, Stop TeenScreen!
Dr. Weil has the low-down on L-theanine and whether or not it may be helpful for those of us living with chronic anxiety.
I’ve been meaning to post this Time article for a while. It covers a wide variety of topics but is centered around the “recent discoveries” that the human brain is amazingly adaptive. For example, changing the way you think literally alters your brain chemistry. The article also explores a few of the methods that people have successfully used to rewire their brains (including meditation) and it makes mention of anxiety disorders and depression. As time passes and the research continues to pile up, the “anxiety is a disease” camp grows ever smaller. Research has consistently shown that most forms of anxiety and depression can be effectively treated with a shotgun approach that includes cognitive therapy, medications, and meditation or other forms of “brain rewiring.” In other words, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with you.
The whole “chemical imbalance” stuff is a misinterpretation of the data. It’s your anxiety that causes the imbalance, not the other way around. Your serotonin and noradrenaline problems are real and medication can treat them, but treating the imbalance by itself is only treating the symptons and not the causes of your anxiety and/or depression; therefore, such treatment is only part of the solution.
At the risk of going off on a tangent about my own personal bias for such approaches, I’ll just let you read the article and decide for yourself. Here’s an excerpt:
FOR DECADES, THE PREVAILING DOGMA IN neuroscience was that the adult human brain is essentially immutable, hardwired, fixed in form and function, so that by the time we reach adulthood we are pretty much stuck with what we have. Yes, it can create (and lose) synapses, the connections between neurons that encode memories and learning. And it can suffer injury and degeneration. But this view held that if genes and development dictate that one cluster of neurons will process signals from the eye and another cluster will move the fingers of the right hand, then they’ll do that and nothing else until the day you die. There was good reason for lavishly illustrated brain books to show the function, size and location of the brain’s structures in permanent ink.
[...]
But research in the past few years has overthrown the dogma. In its place has come the realization that the adult brain retains impressive powers of “neuroplasticity”–the ability to change its structure and function in response to experience. These aren’t minor tweaks either. Something as basic as the function of the visual or auditory cortex can change as a result of a person’s experience of becoming deaf or blind at a young age. Even when the brain suffers a trauma late in life, it can rezone itself like a city in a frenzy of urban renewal. If a stroke knocks out, say, the neighborhood of motor cortex that moves the right arm, a new technique called constraint-induced movement therapy can coax next-door regions to take over the function of the damaged area. The brain can be rewired.
Don’t just sit there. Read this! This new way of thinking about the brain is already beginning to make waves among psychiatrists and psychotherapists. Your doctor is following this stuff and so should you.
Like Cindy mentioned, I’ve also been quite busy lately, and this has impeded my ability to post as often as I’d like. But I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t also been lazy. I blame it on the weather (probably just a scapegoat, but we all need them, right?).
I live outside the Washington D.C. area, and it’s been bitter cold here the past week or so. The weather is really irrelevant, but I’m a human and we humans aren’t designed for cold weather… at least not physically. We’re intelligent enough to create clever ways of surviving the cold (clothes and fire being two of the most notable), but our skin is largely bare. We’re generally tall, slender, and have few natural adaptations to severe cold weather. We’re designed for warm climates, the tropics and subtropics. Imagine: remove your clothes and forget about fire. Where could you survive? Not D.C., unless you’re nomadic. If you think about it, all of life revolves around heat. Heat is just energy, and you need energy to keep your organs functioning. Without heat, you die. Simple as that.
It was 8 degrees the other morning. With the wind-chill, it felt like -7. That’s unnatural. Unnatural.
As a result, I hereby reserve the right to be lazy. I’ve often considered moving to Florida, but I’d likely be trading one problem for another. Instead of bitter cold I’d be dealing with hurricanes, floods, tornados, and big ass bugs. I’m not arachnophobic, but no spider should be bigger than my hand (I’m talking to you Florida Huntsman Spider). That too is unnatural.
Anyway, I’ve been ripe with ideas about some things I’d like to share with you. So as soon the temperatures creep back above freezing, maybe my brain will thaw and I’ll get back to regular posting. Until then… stay warm.
I don’t often write personal stories, mostly because I feel that my own life is largely irrelevant to the topics of our discussion, but also because I’m a private person and I don’t particularly enjoy writing about myself. But I’m going to break with tradition here and share a personal story with you. I apologize ahead of time for the length. I am not known for brevity.
Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I decided to listen to Sublime’s “40oz to Freedom,” an album that I spent a lot of time with in my younger years. I sometimes call this period of my life “my greater youth” because, in the strict sense of Earth’s revolutions around the Sun, I am still young (26, to be exact). Yet, I often feel as though I’ve been through enough to qualify as an octogenarian. I age in dog years.
My youth (referring to my “greater youth” here) was a turbulent time. It was filled with drama, drugs, alcohol, and a level of naiveté that I can barely stomach to remember. I thought I knew what was going on. I thought I knew who I was, where I was going, and what life was all about. I thought I knew what I wanted. Frankly, I was a moron. It would take me many years to learn that these things are ever-changing and we can never know them for more than a few moments. Yet, in the span of time that it took me to go from “moron” to the present moment, I rarely listened to Sublime’s 40oz. Instead, the album had become a headstone for an era of my life that was gone: “Here lies Josh’s Greater Youth. 1990-2000. RIP.”
Although I had listened to this album on occasion since my youth, I never really listened to it in the same way that I once did. Instead of hearing the lyrics and singing along (or yelping, rather) as I used to when I was younger, I later used it as a form of background noise. The battered tape (and later the CD) would often find its way to the stereo when some old friends came over for a few beers and to reminisce of the days before marriage and children. Unfortunately, those visits by old friends have become increasingly rare. But yesterday, when I listened to “40oz to Freedom,” I heard the album with new ears. I listened to it in a way that I hadn’t since I was 16.
Yesterday was a rough day. You know the ones: where everyone around you seems rude and inconsiderate; these are the days when you hit all of the red lights, the radio is playing nothing worth listening to, your cell phone battery has died, you haven’t gotten enough sleep, and your mind is consumed with worry over something you have no control over. To top it off, I was on my daily drive home from work and, as usual, I was stuck in a mound of traffic. I had a long ride ahead of me.
I thought listening to Sublime would cheer me up, much in the same way that it had when I was younger. So I removed the CD from the case, put it in the deck, and lit a cigarette.
After a few minutes of listening to it, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. I felt as if I wanted to cry — and not a girly cry either, one of those manly outbursts that involves bashing the steering wheel — but I wasn’t sure why. Yeah, it had been a rough day but it wasn’t that bad. What the hell was wrong with me?
My first instinct was to remove the CD, chuck it into the back seat of the car, and forget that it existed; but I know that my first instinct is usually the wrong one. If I ran from this pain — whatever its source — I wouldn’t be able to develop an understanding of it and, instead, it would control me and potentially send me into a depression. So I listened on, paying close attention to both the music and to the way it made me feel. I listened to the entire album this way (except for the two songs I’ve always hated). I carefully tracked my thoughts as they bounced around, latching on to painful mental images and memories of both laughter and tears.
I never knew Sublime’s vocalist and lead guitarist, Bradley Nowell, but I had always felt that I had. I’ve listened to every song he’d ever written, covered, or been featured in. I can still sing most of them verbatim, without missing a beat (even when the lyrics are in Spanish). I bought every Sublime album, even if I’d already heard all of the songs on it. I even bought albums I didn’t need when I found them cheap at pawn shops and used record stores (I gave them away to friends). I couldn’t bear the sight of seeing a Sublime album sitting amongst the sad stack of forgotten singles and one-hit-wonders.
Even in the years since I had stopped listening to Sublime, I unintentionally discovered many of Nowell’s reggae influences. On more than one occasion I would buy a reggae album (most likely recorded in the 60s or 70s), only to find that the lyrics were the same as those Nowell used thirty years later. In other words, many of Nowell’s songs were covers of older reggae songs, even though I didn’t know it at the time. For example, a few years ago I bought an album by Toots and Maytals and I was shocked to learn that Sublime’s “5446 Was My Number” was actually a cover.
Bradley Nowell was, in a sense, someone I looked up to. He was fun-loving, articulate, intelligent, and — like me — addicted to his own pain. His emotional problems would eventually lead him to a fatal heroin overdose in May of 1996. He left behind a wife and a young son, Jakob. Nowell’s tragic death saddened me in ‘96 and continues to sadden me today. But what really strikes me is the memory of Lou Dog, Nowell’s beloved dalmatian (see the image to the right). 
Nowell often mentioned Lou Dog (or “Louie”) in his music. Here’s a brief story that I think helps to explain Nowell’s love for his pet:
In the early 1990s, Lou Dog disappeared for a week. In the video Sublime — Stories, Tales, Lies, & Exaggerations, Troy Nowell (Bradley Nowell’s widow) says that for the week during which Lou Dog was lost, Nowell spent a great deal of time lying on the couch crying in response to the loss of his dog. Lou Dog was eventually returned to Nowell, who, in response to the situation, later covered the Camper Van Beethoven song “The Day That Lassie Went To The Moon” and changed it to “Lou Dog Went to the Moon.” While Lou was missing Nowell also recorded this song to his home answering machine as a sort of audio lost dog poster.
When I first heard of Nowell’s death in 1996, I clearly remember thinking, “At least Lou Dog lives on.” For some strange reason, I was comforted by the knowledge that Lou Dog was alive and would somehow be a testament to Nowell’s memory. Sure, Nowell’s son Jakob, his wife, and his band-mates survived but, for some reason, I was particularly attached to Lou Dog. Or, more specifically, I was attached to the idea that Lou Dog survived, an idea that I would continue to hold… until yesterday.
As I listened to the album in my car, I traced my thoughts back to the first moment when I began to feel sad. I figured it was a good way to try to find the root of what made me so uncomfortable. I soon realized that this moment occurred in the first few seconds of the first track, “Waiting for My Ruca,” where Nowell can be heard saying “Good dog” as Lou Dog barks at something (or someone?). As I thought about this, I found that my thoughts then turned to the many memories that I created while listening to this music. Then, they veered off and I began thinking about Lou Dog, and I realized that he must’ve died by now. This is where the sadness knotted up in my throat. Lou Dog is dead. Bradley Nowell is dead. Sublime is gone. My youth is gone. My innocence, my naiveté, and many of my friends have gone with them. My attachment to Lou Dog’s survival was actually an attachment to my youth and to the crutches that I used to get through it all.
I now know that Lou Dog died on September 17, 2001, only six days after the terrorist attacks, about five years after Bradley Nowell had died. When Louie died, I probably wasn’t paying much attention to anything other than the cable news channels. The terrorist attacks had gripped my attention as they had most other Americans. The fires at Ground Zero were still smoldering. And in the frenzy of it all, Lou Dog died and I did not notice.
What mattered to me so much in 1996 slipped by me unnoticed only five short years later. I had forgotten Sublime and Lou Dog. Although it’s difficult to verbalize, I think Lou Dog became a sort of archetype for me during those years I spent in an alcohol-and-drug-fueled depression. Don’t get me wrong: I never really paid much attention to it then. It wasn’t as if I had built a shrine for Sublime, Nowell, or Lou Dog. It was much more subtle than that. In fact, it wasn’t until just yesterday that I realized how many times I’d listened to that album in despair and found joy to hear Lou Dog’s bark, or to hear Nowell mention him in a song. It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized how many times I’d visualized Lou Dog and Nowell, running to and fro, having fun and getting into trouble. Sure, these were just fantasies born out of the music’s imagery, but they were well-played in my mind’s eye and they were a source of comfort to me during some of the darkest years of my life.
I’ve always been a dog person and many of the bonds I’ve formed with my dogs are often stronger than those I form with humans. Yesterday, when I realized that both Bradley and Lou Dog were gone, I also realized that a part of me was gone as well. It also reminded me of my own impermanence and the fragility of my own life, my family, and my beloved bulldog, Abigail. None of us last forever. And I also recognized that the passage of time alone cannot heal old wounds. We must attend to them. My refusal to accept the departure of Lou Dog (and, subsequently, of my innocence) only existed because I failed to confront it. I know that I must learn to live with death, loss, pain, anger, and fear. These things are an unpleasant but natural part of being alive. I cannot avoid them, I cannot hate them, or even loathe them. They just are.
I never personally knew Bradley Nowell or Lou Dog. But I knew them and I loved them. So I thank Sublime and Bradley Nowell for their inspiration, their great music, and for the many smiles they gave me during times when the Sun didn’t want to shine. And to Lou Dog: Goodbye my old friend. I’ll check in from time to time.
The Independent, a UK paper, recently published an article about Matthieu Ricard. Here’s an excerpt:
To scientists, he is the world’s happiest man. His level of mind control is astonishing and the upbeat impulses in his brain are off the scale.
Now Matthieu Ricard, 60, a French academic-turned-Buddhist monk, is to share his secrets to make the world a happier place. The trick, he reckons, is to put some effort into it. In essence, happiness is a “skill” to be learned.
[...]
…Ricard, who is the French interpreter for Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, took part in trials to show that brain training in the form of meditation can cause an overwhelming change in levels of happiness.
MRI scans showed that he and other long-term meditators - who had completed more than 10,000 hours each - experienced a huge level of “positive emotions” in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is associated with happiness. The right-hand side, which handles negative thoughts, is suppressed.
I’d love to quote more but I don’t want to step on any copyright toes, so just read the article. It’s short. Science is only now beginning to confirm what Buddhists (and some other meditation-based groups) have known for millennia: happiness is achievable by anyone who is willing to work for it. While there may be many routes to achieve such things, meditation is the most proven.
I do take one issue with this article in that it refers to meditation as teaching “mind control” and “suppression.” This is wrong. I’m unaware of any Buddhist tradition (or non-Buddhist tradition) that attempts to control the mind or suppress negative feelings. In fact, meditation is exactly the opposite. Meditation is a method of allowing negative feelings to enter the mind without judgment. We don’t solve problems during meditation, we just see them so clearly that we let go of them. We allow them to dry up and disappear.
Many people misunderstand meditation as mind control. Meditation is not mind control. Mind control is impossible. Meditation is simply a way to train the mind to see through all of our bull. It allows us to see how we treat ourselves and others without entering into an internal dialogue as to justify our actions. It’s a way of looking at ourselves to discover the painful truths which we consistently hide from, and, eventually it’s a way to discover that true happiness comes in the revelation that all of life is transient and is to be cherished while it’s here. It teaches us to live right here, right now, in this very moment, because it will soon be gone.
This is something we can all achieve. It is not magical, mystical, or reserved for hermits who sit in caves for years on end. This is something you can do on your own, just as you would exercise every day if you wanted to lose weight. And there’s the caveat: it requires diligence, practice, and persistence even when it feels like a waste of time. In this respect, it is very similar to physical exercise: we have to be willing to do it on a regular basis and suspend our desire for immediate results. If you’d like to learn more on meditation or Buddhism, check out my list of recommended books. Two in particular: Breath by Breath by Larry Rosenberg, and Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana. These two books have taught me more about meditation, life, and happiness than anything else I’ve ever read.
I heard a few interesting stories this morning on NPR about magnetic pulse treatment, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, as a potential last-resort treatment for depression. The concept behind this treatment is to provide the brain with a magnetic pulse that stimulates neurons. It’s similar to another treatment which works in the same fashion but uses small electrical currents as opposed to magnetic fields. You can follow the links above to hear two short audio clips (from NPR) about this treatment.
I’m a skeptic, but hey, as long as it doesn’t hurt anything…
Scientific American has this article about TeenScreen, a new “national mental health and suicide risk screening program…” for teenagers.
Past studies have revealed that parents do not know of suicide attempts 90 percent of the time. In fact, roughly one third to two thirds of suicidal teens do not reveal past attempts to anyone.
Teens with mental disorders are at even greater risk—roughly 90 percent of teens who died by suicide had a psychiatric illness at the time of their deaths, according to research by child psychologist David Shaffer at Columbia University. Nearly two thirds of youth who die by suicide exhibit psychiatric symptoms for more than a year beforehand, which makes this time a significant window for potential intervention.
Flynn is now executive director of TeenScreen, a national mental health and suicide risk screening program based on Shaffer’s research. In 2005 the program screened more than 55,000 teens at 460 sites in 42 states and they hope to have exceeded 500 sites by the end of 2006. “The idea is to identify risks early to prevent tragedies,” Flynn says. “It’s amazing when kids who are really struggling and don’t know why then learn what’s going on and that there are things that can help.”
Keep in mind that this screening program is not mandatory. Given this, I’m a bit surprised at the controversy that TeenScreen has caused. The article mentions a number of critics — including Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) — although none are directly quoted in any detail. It speaks volumes to note that some people are actually opposed to mental health screening. Yes, opposed to it. What good could possibly come from opposing something as potentially beneficial as a simple mental health screening? From my standpoint, the only thing one could possibly gain is denial. Although attitudes are changing, much of our society still ostracizes and stigmatizes people with mental/emotional problems. It’s a damn shame.
Of course there will always be a debate on the details of such screenings, and such debate is both necessary and critical to the program’s success; but forthright opposition to screening makes no sense to me. If a teen is feeling suicidal, then it is crucial that he or she receive treatment as soon as possible. Some people want to pretend that depression is something that happens only to weak people, the ones who take medications they don’t need and whine to psychiatrists. But this cultural construct is bullshit and it’s high time that our society recognizes mental illnesses as potentially affecting everyone, even those who routinely deny their own weaknesses.
Would you oppose a screening for diabetes? What about scoliosis screenings? Hearing and vision screenings? The only difference between these common screenings and mental health screening is the social stigma attached to mental illness. That’s it.
I fully understand the concerns about pharmaceutical companies pushing anti-depressants onto teens and pre-teen children. Anti-depressants are greatly abused in the United States and other Western countries, especially when it comes to children. But medication is not the only approach to healing emotional pain, and some treatment is better than no treatment, whether or not medication is a part of that treatment. Denying the problem will not make it go away.
Visit the TeenScreen website for more on the program.
Here’s a story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about a woman whose phobia of doctors and “medical settings” caused her to overlook the growth of a uterine fibroid, a “benign [tumor] composed of muscle and connective tissue that develop within or along the uterine wall.” Her tumor had grown so large that she appeared to be seven months pregnant.
Interestingly, her phobia doesn’t seem to have been directly connected with a fear of disease. Rather, it was doctors, hospitals and the like that caused her anxiety, which manifested in the form of a panic attack. Most of us deal with a fear of disease, which in turn often translates to a fear of death, and this usually have two outcomes: 1) We seek a doctor’s assistance more often in the hopes that it’ll allay our fears; or 2) We avoid doctors because the thought of discovering illness is enough to provoke anxiety.
If you fall into the first category, here’s a bit of advice: You should always see a doctor when you’re concerned about serious health problems, but once you’ve done so, you have to let it go. You can visit a doctor every week and your fears would still not be contained. Constantly seeking reassurance only encourages anxiety and allows it take root. You have to find the strength to resist the urge to run to the doctor every time you sneeze. Try to be rational about it by explaining your symptoms to an unbiased third-party.
If you’re a member of the second category, try to keep regular doctor’s appointments regardless of how you feel. This allows you to experience the doctor’s office without the fear of discovering a terrible illness. If you were to visit only when you’re experiencing high anxiety, then you’ll quickly associate the doctor with high anxiety.
“This we can all bear witness to, living as we do plagued by unremitting anxiety. It becomes more and more imperative that the life of the spirit be avowed as the only firm basis upon which to establish happiness and peace.” — Dalai Lama
In my last post I wrote a little bit about sleep and anxiety, but I didn’t really provide any real information or even a good lead. So I will now remedy that by pointing you to the National Sleep Foundation’s web site. There’s a load of good stuff there, including information on sleep disorders, medications, pregnancy, teens, and a nifty little section for those of us who have trouble falling asleep. Check it out.
Anxiety and insomnia are frequent bedfellows… pun intended. WebMD has a nifty little list of tips that may help you regulate your sleep cycle. After doing a considerable amount of personal research on sleep, I have to disagree with #3, “Limit naps.”
It’s my personal opinion that when I’m unable to fall asleep at night, my first priority is making sure that my body and mind are functioning optimally so that I don’t get into a car accident or run into walls. Doing this often requires naps. It’s true that napping will interfere with your sleep cycle, but if you’re a chronic insomniac, getting bits of sleep here and there can go a long way in keeping your body from crashing of exhaustion. Restoring a healthy sleep cycle is often a more long-term goal that is probably best accompanied with help from your physician.
Although I don’t consider myself an insomniac, my anxiety is usually accompanied by problems falling asleep and staying asleep. When my mind is overactive, it’s difficult to slow it down enough to allow my body’s rhythm to drop into sleep. Not to mention that my overactive mind causes my thoughts to go all haywire when I’m trying to sleep, and this in turn only exacerbates the anxiety.
I eventually learned a few techniques that helped tremendously. One of the best was when I decided to try meditating myself into sleep. It works beautifully, but it creates problems during my daily non-sleeping meditation because I’ve associated watching my breath with falling asleep, so I’m often trying to keep myself from nodding off while sitting on the cushion during the day. Another method I use is visualizations. I often imagine my thoughts as a piece of paper, then I visually crumple that paper into a little ball and throw it off into the distance. When my mind begins racing again, I again crumple the paper and chuck it away. I do this until I’ve managed to slow down enough to drift off.
My biggest problem with sleep is that I always want to sleep when I shouldn’t and rarely want to when I should. As they say, the best nap is the one you shouldn’t be taking.
In his book The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hahn says the following:
While practicing mindfulness, don’t be dominated by the distinction between good and evil, thus creating a battle within oneself.
Whenever a wholesome thought arises, acknowledge it: “A wholesome thought has just arisen.” If an unwholesome thought arises, acknowledge it as well: “An unwholesome thought has just arisen.” Don’t dwell on it or try to get rid of it. To acknowledge it is enough. If they are still there, acknowledge they are still there. If they have gone, acknowledge they have gone. That way the practitioner is able to hold of his mind and to obtain the mindfulness of the mind.
This is a practice that you can begin right now. By objectively observing your mind, you can learn to detatch yourself from your inner monologue. When you get caught up in a stream of unconscious negative or fearful thoughts, the result will be anxiety, sadness, or a panic attack. Instead, direct your attention to being an outside observer.
When you labale your thoughts as “good” or “bad” or “nice” or “scary,” you’re not objectively observing and you’re creating an emotional response to your thought processes. A major part of overcoming anxiety and depression is learning not to attribute too much emotional meaning to your thoughts.
Again, the practice of mindfulness requires practice, but do not give up. The rewards are well worth your effort.
Kojo Nnamdi, a radio host at my local NPR station, did a wonderful show yesterday on happiness. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m obsessed with questions of happiness and the science of happiness, so this show was right down my alley. Here’s the show’s description:
You know happiness when you feel it — but do you know what causes it, or how your happiness compares to that of friends and neighbors? We look at the study of what researchers call “subjective well-being” and the latest theories on what makes individuals and nations happy.
You can listen to the show in its entirety by following this link and clicking on “Real Audio” or “Windows Media Player” to the right of the description. It’s free.
The scientists featured on the show have some interesting findings. For one, they found a correlation between money and happiness. In other words, money does make you happy, or so they say. I actually think they’re wrong about this, but only because they’re measuring the wrong thing. Ponder this: when I say “money makes you happy,” what do you think about? Do you think about all of the stuff you can buy? Do you think about a new car or a big house or a swimming pool?
Money brings with it many things, but the material things are only one aspect of it; one of the most important aspects of wealth is security. A feeling of security makes everyone happy because we’re wired for security. We like to know we’re safe and taken care of. When we feel unsafe or insecure, we feel sad, lonely, and anxious. So, given this, I do not believe that being able to buy crap is what brings us happiness, but the feeling of security — as a result of wealth — certainly can.
I’m not sure what I think about this. This only makes sense if you’re one who believes that all anxiety and depression are congenital disorders. I do not believe this, although I do believe that there may be genetic factors or other congenital factors that may make the likelihood of developing anxiety or depression more likely.
I may be way off the mark on this one, but if I’m not mistaken, an infant’s cognitive abilities are incredibly limited and, for the most part, are dictated entirely by instinctual behaviors. It seems that it would be impossible to determine if an infant had depression or anxiety because it’s impossible to ask them.
For quite some time I was confused about two contradictory pieces of advice. The first piece of advice said that I should try to reduce anxiety by developing a stillness of mind. From my initial interpretation, I had assumed that this meant I should think less. I’d always been hyperanalytical and an extreme overthinker. If it could be delved into deeply, you could guarantee that I’d be delving… until I got bored and decided to delve elsewhere, that is.
The second piece of advice said that I should try to keep busy. The term “busy” could mean many things, but I first took it to mean that I should jump from one activity to the other as quickly as possible without so much as a breath in between. I’ve never been fond of work, and “busy” sounds too much like work for me to get all giddy at the prospect that work will somehow reduce my anxiety. (I always laugh at people who think a ridiculously rigid work ethic is somehow their best character trait. I’ll expand more on this in a later post, I promise.)
So, is it possible to have a still mind while simultaneously being busy?
Absolutely. My problem was in my assumption that busy was synonymous with frantic and disorganized. In truth, an engaged mind is a still mind, but only when you allow yourself to become whatever it is you’re doing. This is essentially the practice of mindfulness, for which I’m an ardent advocate.
In my years of navigating anxiety-related internet forums, I’ve often seen the question of pregnancy arise. I’ve always been wary about responding to such questions because I’m a male and don’t have the benefit of personal experience and because there’s very little reliable information to be found on the topic.
Most respondents attempt to assure the woman that anxiety during pregnancy is harmless to the fetus, but that never seemed very logical to me, considering that a developing fetus is very sensitive to everything. But this puts us in a bind: mothers who constantly worry about their anxiety are only going to make it worse, thereby compounding the potential effects on the unborn child. Additionally, if the woman chooses to take SSRIs during pregnancy, this introduces a whole new variable into the equation.
So, to help understand this complicated question, The Anxiety Disorders Association of America has a special feature this month on this very topic. If you’ve ever asked questions about anxiety and pregnancy, this article will definitely be of interest to you.