Today's (Sunday) *Globe & Mail* includes an article: "Weight training and aerobic exercise linked to better brain health: study" by Gretcehn Reynolds.
Herre are some excerpts:
[begin excerpts]
Exercise is good for the brain. We know that. But most studies of exercise and brain health have focused on the effects of running, walking or other aerobic activities.
Now a new experiment suggests that light resistance training may also slow the age-related shrinking of some parts of our brains.
Our brains are, of course, dynamic organs, adding and shedding neurons and connections throughout our lifetimes. They remodel and repair themselves continually, in fact, in response to our lifestyles, including whether and how we exercise.
But they remain, like the rest of our bodies, vulnerable to time. Many neurological studies have found that by late middle age, most of us have begun developing age-related holes or lesions in our brains' white matter, which is the material that connects and passes messages among different brain regions.
These lesions are usually asymptomatic at first; they show up on brain scans before someone notices any waning of his or her memory or thinking skills. But the lesions can widen and multiply as years go by, shrinking our white matter and affecting our thinking. Neurological studies have found that older people with many lesions tend to have worse cognitive abilities than those whose white matter is relatively intact.
A few encouraging studies have suggested that regular, moderate aerobic exercise such as walking may slow the progression of white matter lesions in older people.
But Teresa Liu-Ambrose, a professor of physical therapy and director of the Aging, Mobility, and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, wondered whether other types of exercise would likewise be beneficial for white matter.
In particular, she was interested in weight training because it strengthens and builds muscles. Our muscles, like our brains, tend to shrink with age, affecting how we move. Punier muscle mass generally results in slower, more unsteady walking. More surprising, changes in gait with aging may indicate and even contribute to declines in brain health, including in our white matter, scientists think.
But, if so, Liu-Ambrose thought, then weight training, which strengthens and builds muscle, might be expected to alter that process and potentially keep aging brains and bodies healthier.
To test that idea, she and her colleagues turned to a large group of generally healthy women ages 65 to 75 who were already enrolled in a brain health study that she was leading. The women had had at least one brain scan. For the new study, published this fall in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the scientists zeroed in on 54 of the women, whose scans showed existing white matter lesions.
The scientists tested the women's gait speed and stability, then randomly assigned them to one of three groups. Some began a supervised, once-weekly program of light upper- and lower-body weight training. A second group undertook the same weight-training routine but twice a week. And the third group, acting as a control, started a twice-weekly regimen of stretching and balance training. All of the women continued their assigned exercise routines for a year.
At the end of that time, their brains were scanned again and their walking ability reassessed.
The results were sobering and stirring. The women in the control group, who had concentrated on balance and flexibility, showed worrying progression in the number and size of the lesions in their white matter and in the slowing of their gaits. So did the women who had weight-trained once a week.
But those who had lifted weights twice a week displayed significantly less shrinkage and tattering of their white matter than the other women. Their lesions had grown and multiplied somewhat, but not nearly as much. They also walked more quickly and smoothly than the women in the other two groups.
These findings suggest that weight training can beneficially change the structure of the brain, but that "a minimum threshold of exercise needs to be achieved," Liu-Ambrose said. Visiting the gym once a week is probably insufficient. But twice a week may suffice.
<snip>
It may be that strengthened muscles release substances that migrate to the brain and stimulate beneficial changes there.
[end excerpts]
The article is online at:
<http://bit.ly/KenPopeWtTrainingAerobicsBrainHealth>
Ken Pope
LEONARD COHEN: "THERE IS A CRACK IN EVERYTHING; THAT'S HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN
SEVERAL OPTIONS TO MANAGE DEPRESSION
Although most research speaks about how a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressant medication is the most effective way to manage depression, here are other options to explore that have also proven to be effective for some folks:
1) Buy a full-spectrum light-therapy box, and sit directly in front of it for 20 minutes every morning. (This is especially helpful for those who suffer seasonal affective disorder).
2) Get plenty of sleep.
3) Eat healthy and nutritious foods.
4) Exercise frequently. Even walking 20 minutes/day will help!
5) Do your best to refrain from isolating yourself from friends and loved ones.
6) Adopt a cat or a dog. Yes, you read that correctly. Adopt a cat or a dog. Research has repeatedly demonstrated the incredible benefits of living with an animal. You will be surrounded by unconditional love and affection. The time and effort required to care for an animal will pale in comparison to the amazing benefits you will receive. It's unfortunate how few people are aware of this.
"Early Childhood Depression and Alterations in the Trajectory of Gray Matter Maturation in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence."
This article was sent to me by Dr. Ken Pope:
*JAMA: Psychiatry* has scheduled a study for publication in a future issue: "Early Childhood Depression and Alterations in the Trajectory of Gray Matter Maturation in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence."
The authors are Joan L. Luby, MD1; Andy C. Belden, PhD1; Joshua J. Jackson, PhD2; Christina N. Lessov-Schlaggar, PhD1; Michael P. Harms, PhD1; Rebecca Tillman, MS1; Kelly Botteron, MD1,3; Diana Whalen, PhD1; Deanna M. Barch, PhD1,2,3,4.
PLEASE NOTE: As usual, I'll include both the author's email address (for requesting electronic reprints) and a link to the complete article at the end below.
Here's how the article opens: "Longitudinal studies of childhood structural brain development using magnetic resonance imaging in healthy children have begun to map the normative pattern of development of gray matter from school age through adolescence.1 Although development of gray matter begins in utero, there has been much interest in its trajectory during the school-age and early adolescent period.2 The specific cellular processes that underlie gray matter change during this period in humans remain to be elucidated. In contrast with white matter, which shows linear increases in volume, findings suggest a pattern of rapid neurogenesis and related increases in gray matter volume during early childhood, peaking in early puberty followed by a process of selective elimination and myelination, resulting in volume loss and thinning.3- 5 The inverted U-shaped trajectory of the development of cortical and subcortical gray matter regions is influenced by sex, pubertal status, IQ, and genetic and psychosocial factors.6,7 The characteristics of this inverted U-shaped trajectory for gray matter have been associated with function across several domains.5 More important, associations between cortical thickness, mood regulation, and executive functioning have been demonstrated in cross-sectional analyses.8,9 There is some evidence that this synaptic pruning-based volume decline is associated with experience-dependent plasticity.10- 12 The notion that the rate of decline of cortical gray matter in humans could vary based on history of experience has powerful public health implications."
Here's how the Discussion section opens: "These longitudinal findings demonstrate marked bilateral decreases in thickness of cortical gray matter and in volume of the right hemisphere (with marginal significance on the left hemisphere) associated with mean level of depression symptom scores and MDD diagnosis experienced from preschool to school age. Children with depression symptom scores 2 SDs above the mean had reduction in volumes of gray matter at almost twice the rate of those with no childhood depression symptoms. Similarly, cortical thickness also decreased more rapidly at almost the same rate. To our knowledge, these findings provide the first longitudinal neuroimaging data showing increases in rates of volume reduction and cortical thinning related to number of childhood depression symptoms and diagnosis during the preschool-age to school-age period."
Here's how the article closes: "Of critical importance is that childhood depressive symptoms were associated with decline in volume and thickness of cortical gray matter even after accounting for other key factors known to affect this developmental process. These findings of markedly increased rates of cortical volume loss and thinning across the entire cortex underscore the importance of attention to childhood depression as a marker of altered childhood cortical brain development. Whether these early alterations serve as an endophenotype of risk for later depressive episodes or chronic course is a question of interest as the study sample is followed up through adolescence. The study findings signal the need for greater public health attention and screening for depression in young children.52"
REPRINTS: oan L. Luby, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 8134, 660 S Euclid, St Louis, MO, 63110 lubyj@psychiatry.wustl.edu
The article is online at:
<http://bit.ly/KenPopeEarlyChildhoodDepressionBrainChanges>
Ken Pope
WHY IT HURTS TO BE AWAY FROM YOUR PARTNER, by Erica Westly
Everyone knows it’s no fun to be away from your significant other. Studies using anecdotal evidence have indicated that long-term separation from a romantic partner can lead to increased anxiety and depression as well as problems such as sleep disturbances. Now researchers are identifying the neurochemical mechanisms behind these behavioral and physiological effects.
In a study published last fall, researchers showed that male prairie voles that had been separated from their female partners for four days—a much shorter amount of separation time than researchers had previously found to affect the voles’ physiology—exhibited depressionlike behavior and had increased levels of corticosterone, the rodent equivalent of the human stress hormone cortisol. Males that had been separated from their male siblings did not display any of these symptoms, implying the response was tied specifically to mate separation, not just social isolation. When the animals received a drug that blocked corticosterone release, they no longer exhibited depressionlike behavior following partner separation, confirming that stress hormones were at the root of the response.
In many ways, separation appears to resemble drug withdrawal. Studies have shown that in monogamous animals, cohabiting and mating increase levels of oxytocin and vasopressin—hormones that foster emotional attachments—and activate brain areas associated with reward. As a result, when prairie voles are separated from their partners even for a short time, they experience withdrawal-like symptoms, says Larry Young, a behavioral neuroscientist at Emory University’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center and co-author of the study. “In the short term, I think [this mechanism] creates an aversive state so that the animals want to seek out their partner to hold that bond together,” Young says.
In a recent study of human couples, social psychologist Lisa Diamond of the University of Utah observed minor withdrawal-like symptoms, such as irritability and sleep disturbances, along with an increase in cortisol in subjects after they were separated four disturbances, along with an increase in cortisol in subjects after they were separated four to seven days. Participants who reported high anxiety about their relationships had the biggest spikes in cortisol levels, but even those who reported low levels of stress and anxiety during the separation exhibited some degree of increased cortisol and physical discomfort. These results, like those from Young’s study, indicate a specific link between separation and increased cortisol, implying cortisol-blocking drugs may benefit people struggling to cope with partner separation, too.
Researchers believe the pair bond evolved from the parent-child bond, which may explain why we feel romantic attachments so strongly. The same neurochemicals—oxytocin, vasopressin and dopamine—have been implicated in both relationships, and the be- havioral patterns associated with parental and romantic bond formation and separation are also similar. “We think about parent-child relationships and adult romantic relationships as being fundamentally different,” Diamond explains, “but it really boils down to the same functional purpose: creating a psychological drive to be near the other person, to want to take care of them, and being resistant to being separated from them.”
Future studies about romantic attachment will focus on using the findings from research such as Young’s and Diamond’s to develop new treatments for grief associated with partner separation or loss and for disorders that involve social deficits, such as schizophrenia and autism.
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Separation Anxiety for Adults".
USING ATTACHMENT THEORY TO UNDERSTAND FACEBOOK STALKING, By Krystal D'Costa on December 15, 2015
Who have you Facebook stalked recently? A former relationship partner? A current relationship partner? A colleague? A “friend” you’ve connected with on Facebook but don’t actually speak to with any regularity? Maybe your interest was piqued by a photo or status that person posted that seems to be getting a lot of attention within their circle. Or maybe this is just a way you spend part of your day. Whatever the case may be, Facebook stalking —perusing (or obsessively checking) the details of a contact's page to learn about what they’ve been up to—is a pretty common type of silent interaction. It’s a way to get information without having to do any of the work required for a social encounter. But it can be detrimental. Facebook stalking can be particularly damaging following a break-up as it becomes apparent that one person has moved on from the relationship. And it can hurt current relationships—both romantic and otherwise—as you may wind up learning something about a person that changes your opinion of them and ultimately impacts the relationship. Why do we do it? Social media has made digital voyeurism the norm. If the opportunity exists, we may look. However, it seems some of us are more inclined to pursue online surveillance than others. And it's our relationships with our early caregivers that may guide this tendency.
One measure of relationships is the emotional bonds that connect individuals. As children we develop an attachment to the people who provide for our safety and security. Psychologist John Bowlby, who pioneered attachment theory, believed this is an adaptive response as it enhances our chances for survival. Adults can encourage these attachments by interpreting and responding sensitively to the needs expressed by the infant, and helping them manage the stress they're experiencing. However, these attachments don't have to be reciprocal. infants will form attachments even if they're not encouraged to do so--after all, they have little means of removing themselves from undesirable caregiving situations. The reciprocity between the infant and caregiver directs the type of attachment that develops. Building on Bowlby's work, psychologist Mary Ainsworth found the nature of the caregiving experience can generate four different types of attachment:
Secure attachment: Infants feel they can rely on their caregivers to meet their needs. This sense of security manifests as confidence as these infants are more inclined to explore within the presence of the caregiver. They are also distressed when the caregiver leaves but are happy when he or she returns because the infant is assured that their needs and communication will be met. (It's understood that every single need will not be met. Secure attachment hinges on the successful communication between the infant and caregiver, and having that communication be successful most of the time.)
Anxious-ambivalent attachment: Infants are less likely to explore and are hesitant to interact with strangers, even if the caregiver is present. They experience separation anxiety when removed from the caregiver, but are not comforted when reunited. In fact, the infant may display anger toward the caregiver, which Ainsworth believed to be an attempt to control the availability of the caregiver via the child's limited means.
Anxious-avoidant attachment: Infants avoid the caregiver because their needs are not being met. Ainsworth suggested that by not demanding the caregiver's attention, the infant would be able to remain close enough for the caregiver to provide protection if needed but far away enough to not be pushed away. This distancing, both physically and emotionally, helps the child manage any desires for attention—if the infant becomes distressed by the lack of caregiver’s attention, it may push the caregiver away removing the potential for protection.
Disorganized attachment: There is no attachment.
As social creatures attachment seems to be a natural tendency that may be beneficial beyond infancy and childhood. Recently, these patterns of attachment have been applied to adults, providing a way to look at the nature of the connections in romantic relationships. Securely attached adults have positive outlooks concerning themselves, their partners, and their relationships. While anxiously attached adults tend to be less trusting and worry more in their relationships. They demand higher degrees of responsiveness from partners, including intimacy and approval, and may become overly dependent or express excessive attachment. They are more likely to try to establish a reconnection following a break-up. Avoidant adults view themselves as self-sufficient and believe they do not need close relationships. They may suppress their feelings and are willing to employ distancing in anticipation of rejection. They’re more likely to look for or consider alternatives to the relationship as they ultimately believe the relationship will not last.
Anxiously attached adults have a positive association with both seeking alternatives and investment in their relationships. The insecurities they have about their relationships and their partners require more from the individual. They're constantly trying to maintain a connection, giving a part of themselves even if it's not reciprocated. These are the individuals who are more inclined to participate in Facebook stalking following a break- up. The greater the commitment, the greater the distress following the break-up, particularly for the recipient in this circumstance. This may drive the individual to monitor the Facebook activity of his or her former partner to see if they have moved on and how they are occupying their days. The potential exists here for a cycle of distress to unfold that inhibits healing and the ability to move on. Constantly reviewing a former partner's profile might lead an individual to draw comparisons against a new partner or to dwell on the relationship itself, as social networking sites can help maintain a record of the relationship if the information isn't deleted.
Our early experiences can indeed have a lasting impact on our lives. And as we learn a great deal about the world and about how to relate to others during this stage, the relationships we have with our initial caregivers are important. It's not impossible to overcome the potential hurdles that can result from disturbances to these relationships, but interaction in online spaces changes the mechanisms that might help us move past hurt and rejection. A break-up changes the dynamic of our networks overall. It requires the removal of a role and possibly the removal of an individual. These actions are vital to the health of the network overall, as they impact how other members of the network interact with each other and with the affected parties. Offline there is a break. And we can mourn and grieve the loss of the relationship, and eventually restructure our network and move one. Online this break does not necessarily exist. If we aren't required to disconnect or break the connection, we never allow the network to regenerate.
Facebook stalking and other forms of online surveillance made possible through social networks may be a part of our new reality. The long term impact of this behavior on our relationships overall may ultimately come back to drive the nature of those early relationships we develop with our caregivers to create a new established model for overall attachment. The result may be less securely attached individuals since the social world presently thrives on generating anxiety, jealousy, and insecurity through a display of perfection and happiness which may not actually exist.
--- Referenced:
Fox Jesse and Tokunaga Robert S.. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. September 2015, 18(9): 491-498. doi:10.1089/cyber.2015.0123.
TEN WAYS TO BE A HAPPIER PARENT, by Rebecca Ruiz
When Brigid Schulte, a journalist and mother of two, learned she had 30 hours of leisure time every week, she was shocked.
Between racing to school activities, rushing to meet deadlines and wrangling a never-ending to-do list, it never seemed her free time amounted to so many hours. Schulte felt powerless over her schedule.
SEE ALSO: This new ad will convince you to never again judge a mom
The revelation about her spare time, courtesy of a time-use expert, inspired Schulte to find out why she felt so overloaded. She wrote about her wide-ranging research in the bestselling book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, and discovered several essential strategies for cultivating fulfillment and happiness as a parent.
Chief among them, she says, is realizing that you can't manage time, but you can change expectations and priorities to reflect your own personal needs rather than society's standards for the perfect parent or employee.
"One of the most important things I learned is the biggest journey is right in your head,"
"One of the most important things I learned is the biggest journey is right in your head," says Schulte, who directs the Better Life Lab at the New America Foundation.
Finding a realistic balance amidst the chaos is also important to Jason Marsh, a dad and editor-in-chief and director of programs at the Greater Good Science Center, a U.C. Berkeley center that explores "the science of a meaningful life." Marsh is constantly thinking about evidence-based tips for parents who crave a more fulfilling connection to themselves, their work and their families.
He often recommends looking for ways to practice and express gratitude more in our everyday lives. That might sound hokey to a harried parent who just wants to shower, but research shows it can make a big difference.
Simply writing down three to five things for which you feel grateful a couple of times per week can elevate your mood and perhaps even improve your health, according to research.
While those suggestions are excellent places to start, Schulte and Marsh had several more strategies to offer. You might be surprised by how much they involve doing something for yourself instead of focusing exclusively on your child.
1. Breathe.
Most people experiencing stress tend to hold their breath, but parents may be especially prone to this habit as they, for example, try to calm a screaming toddler or hunt down missing homework.
Both Schulte and Marsh recommend taking even a few moments every day to breathe deeply and fully. Studies show that restoring breath can lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. "[Breathing] creates space for you to think clearly," says Schulte. Every parent could use more of that.
2. Change your expectations.
With clarity comes the ability to think openly about what you want. Schulte says transforming the experience of parenthood requires a willingness to abandon other people's ideas of what it means to be committed to both work and family.
Companies increasingly expect employees to be available at all hours or on short notice and parents feel growing pressure to be ever-present for their children.
"Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, take a step back and begin to ask yourself some questions,"
"Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, take a step back and begin to ask yourself some questions,"says Schulte. "Why am I doing this? What’s important to me?"
Once those priorities are clear, you can make better decisions about how to spend your time.
3. Make time for yourself.
Parents spend significantly more time with their children today than they did in the past, but still feel guilty taking a moment or more for themselves. These breaks, however, can rejuvenate an overwhelmed mom or dad, which should lead to a better parenting experience for everyone.
Schulte recommends that partners become "sponsors" for each other, allowing the other to schedule time away for activities like a yoga class or bike ride in advance. Even if that kind of distance isn't feasible, particularly for single parents, just taking 15 minutes to meditate or sit quietly (no laundry folding or social media allowed) can provide a much-needed reprieve.
4. Spend time with your partner.
Time-use surveys show that partners are often the last priority when a child arrives, but Schulte says it's a disservice to the entire family when that key relationship suffers. If possible, schedule a regular date night or declare one evening free of devices and work. Instead of filling every conversation with observations about your child, find new subjects that engage you both.
5. Don't panic about your kid's future.
Education is important, but too many parents today are panicked by the thought of their kid not being competitive enough to attend an Ivy League school. The research on long-term fulfillment, though, shows that it doesn't matter which college people attend. Their selection may account for income and prestige, but has very little effect on fulfillment.
What matters more is whether college students had a trusted adult in their lives and were engaged in meaningful activities, among other factors. So parents should relax and stop positioning themselves to constantly rescue their children from failure. "When you scaffold too closely," Schulte says, "you’re not allowing the kids to discover who they are on their own."
6. Make time for "open space."
We may complain about our schedules, but in many ways we're addicted to the high of collecting experiences. If your afternoons and weekends are regularly booked with activities that ultimately leave you exhausted, try considering "open space." This means reserving blocks of time for creative play, exploration and reflection — for both you and your child.
"If that’s the only thing you did in the coming year, that’s a win," says Schulte.
7. Put the phone down.
Your phone may feel like a lifeline to information and conversation, but it can also keep you from engaging with your child and yourself. "If your face is always in your phone, that’s what [your children] are going to see as normal," says Schulte. Try silencing notifications and texts or put the phone in a drawer for a set amount of time every day.
8. Build a support network.
The adage about it taking a village to raise a child is true. But that community is as important for the parent as it is the child. Parenting can be an isolating experience, so work on making connections with like-minded folks who can support you in the journey.
"You don’t want it to be competition," says Schulte. "If it turns into that, then pull out, because it’s not what you need."
9. Practice self-compassion.
There's so much to worry about — how your child sleeps, eats, plays and poops. Guilt, says Schulte, can be particularly pervasive for women who hear plenty about their worth as mothers and still encounter stigma when they work.
Parenting, though, is a lifelong journey and you can't be everything to your child.
Parenting, though, is a lifelong journey and you can't be everything to your child. Research on "self-compassion" suggests that parents may benefit when they focus not on their guilt or lack of control, but on how their difficult experiences are quite common and actually link them to other parents.
10. Express gratitude.
Feeling and expressing gratitude is a practice, and it doesn't mean ignoring upsetting or frustrating circumstances, like a child having trouble at school or a relentlessly demanding workday. Forcing yourself to be positive, in fact, can be a recipe for unhappiness, according to research.
What you want is simply to make a habit of observing moments of joy as well as good things, events and people in your life that you might take for granted. Marsh says the "three good things practice," which involves writing down those observations, is a way to focus on the positive aspects of your life.
For more information on how to practice some of these strategies, visit Greater Good in Action, an online resource created by the Greater Good Science Center.
HOW TO GET THROUGH THE HOLIDAY BLUES-- by Emily Gurnon
In the midst of frenetic advertising, pressure to shop for gifts and the ubiquitous seasonal music, the holidays can be an especially hard time if you’re depressed or missing a lost loved one.
The contrast between the “ideal” of the holiday and how we feel inside can be enormous, making the bad or painful feelings all the more pronounced.
“We feel guilty at this time of year if we personally cannot live up to the standard to be ever-cheerful and happy and joyful,” said Dr. Arthur Hayward, national clinical lead in elder care at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif.
Expectations for merriment and joy are high, Hayward said, as evidenced in holiday greeting cards.
We feel guilty at this time of year if we personally cannot live up to the standard to be ever-cheerful and happy and joyful.
— Dr. Arthur Hayward, Kaiser Permanente
“The wishes are not, ‘Have a pretty good Christmas’ or ‘Have an OK New Year,’ but ‘Have the best Christmas ever’ and ‘a very prosperous New Year,’” he said.
Different for Older Adults
For those who are still active, have children at home or have not yet retired, the holiday season can be a whirlwind of activity that feels draining.
MOREHow to Beat the Winter Blues
Challenging in a different way may be the loneliness of older adults as friends die and family members move away. In a troubling new survey, a quarter of those 65 and older in England said they were not looking forward to Christmas this year, and many of those said it was because “the festive season brings back too many memories of loved ones who have passed away,” according to a poll for the British nonprofit Age UK released earlier this month.
Two-thirds of the 1,793 older adults surveyed reported that loneliness is exacerbated by the holiday season.
Recognizing that many feel a heavier burden of grief this time of year, some churches hold “Blue Christmas” or similar services. December is also the month in which Compassionate Friends, a group for people who have lost a child, holds candlelight ceremonies worldwide.
The Blues or Depression?
The shorter days during winter can contribute to Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. This malady is not just “the blues,” but a type of major depression, according to the Mayo Clinic. People who are depressed may feel sad, hopeless or worthless; lose interest in things they used to enjoy; sleep too much or too little; have trouble concentrating; have little energy; notice changes in their appetite or weight or have thoughts of dying or suicide, the Mayo Clinic says.
MORERobin Williams, Depression and Suicide in Midlife
If you feel that you or a loved one are suffering from depression, it’s important to seek treatment, Hayward said.
As difficult as the holidays can be, Hayward offered some advice for coping:
Tips for Getting Through the Season
- Get plenty of rest. When you take care of your body, you will feel better.
- Try to keep your expectations of the holiday modest. That may help prevent feelings of disappointment or of being let down.
- Know that it is OK to feel sad or lonely. You don’t have to try to fake it to live up to the expectations of others.
- Spend time with friends and other people you enjoy. Do things you wantto do, not just the things you have to do.
- It’s fine to say no sometimes. Wearing yourself out with too many activities will only make you feel worse.
Tips for Family or Friends
- Ask your depressed loved one to do things with you, such as go for a walk or to a movie. If he or she says no, that’s OK. But do ask again in the future.
- Ask how you can help in the person’s day-to-day life. You might do some housework, lawn care or errands.
- Get your loved one to talk about happy memories. This may help him or her feel more a part of the celebration.
- Listen when the person wants to talk. Don’t try to talk him or her out of sad feelings, but acknowledge them.
© Twin Cities Public Television - 2015. All rights reserved.
HOW SUGAR AND FAT TRICK OUR BRAIN INTO OVEREATING (from Scientific American)
Matthew Brien has struggled with overeating for the past 20 years. At age 24, he stood at 5′10′′ and weighed a trim 135 pounds. Today the licensed massage therapist tips the scales at 230 pounds and finds it particularly difficult to resist bread, pasta, soda, cookies and ice cream—especially those dense pints stuffed with almonds and chocolate chunks. He has tried various weight-loss programs that limit food portions, but he can never keep it up for long. “It's almost subconscious,” he says. “Dinner is done? Okay, I am going to have dessert. Maybe someone else can have just two scoops of ice cream, but I am going to have the whole damn [container]. I can't shut those feelings down.”
Eating for the sake of pleasure, rather than survival, is nothing new. But only in the past several years have researchers come to understand deeply how certain foods—particularly fats and sweets—actually change brain chemistry in a way that drives some people to overconsume.
Scientists have a relatively new name for such cravings: hedonic hunger, a powerful desire for food in the absence of any need for it; the yearning we experience when our stomach is full but our brain is still ravenous. And a growing number of experts now argue that hedonic hunger is one of the primary contributors to surging obesity rates in developed countries worldwide, particularly in the U.S., where scrumptious desserts and mouthwatering junk foods are cheap and plentiful.
“Shifting the focus to pleasure” is a new approach to understanding hunger and weight gain, says Michael Lowe, a clinical psychologist at Drexel University who coined the term “hedonic hunger” in 2007. “A lot of overeating, maybe all of the eating people do beyond their energy needs, is based on consuming some of our most palatable foods. And I think this approach has already had an influence on obesity treatment.” Determining whether an individual's obesity arises primarily from emotional cravings as opposed to an innate flaw in the body's ability to burn up calories, Lowe says, helps doctors choose the most appropriate medications and behavioral interventions for treatment.
Anatomy of appetite
Traditionally researchers concerned with hunger and weight regulation have focused on so-called metabolic or homeostatic hunger, which is driven by physiological necessity and so-called metabolic or homeostatic hunger, which is driven by physiological necessity and
is most commonly identified with the rumblings of an empty stomach. When we start dipping into our stores of energy in the course of 24 hours or when we drop below our typical body weight, a complex network of hormones and neural pathways in the brain ramps up our feelings of hunger. When we eat our fill or put on excess pounds, the same hormonal system and brain circuits tend to stifle our appetite.
By the 1980s scientists had worked out the major hormones and neural connections responsible for metabolic hunger. They discovered that it is largely regulated by the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that contains nerve cells that both trigger the production of and are exquisitely sensitive to a suite of disparate hormones.
As with so many biological mechanisms, these chemical signals form an interlocking web of checks and balances. Whenever people eat more calories than they immediately need, some of the excess is stored in fat cells found throughout the body. Once these cells begin to grow in size, they start churning out higher levels of a hormone called leptin, which travels through the blood to the brain, telling the hypothalamus to send out yet another flurry of hormones that reduce appetite and increase cellular activity to burn off the extra calories—bringing everything back into balance.
Similarly, whenever cells in the stomach and intestine detect the presence of food, they secrete various hormones, such as cholecystokinin and peptide YY, which work to suppress hunger either by journeying to the hypothalamus or by acting directly on the vagus nerve, a long, meandering bundle of nerve cells that link the brain, heart and gut. In contrast, ghrelin, a hormone released from the stomach when it is empty and blood glucose (sugar) levels are low, has the opposite effect on the hypothalamus, stimulating hunger.
By the late 1990s, however, brain-imaging studies and experiments with rodents began to reveal a second biological pathway—one that underlies the process of eating for pleasure. Many of the same hormones that operate in metabolic hunger appear to be involved in this second pathway, but the end result is activation of a completely different brain region, known as the reward circuit. This intricate web of neural ribbons has mostly been studied in the context of addictive drugs and, more recently, compulsive behaviors such as pathological gambling.
It turns out that extremely sweet or fatty foods captivate the brain's reward circuit in much the same way that cocaine and gambling do. For much of our evolutionary past, such calorie-dense foods were rare treats that would have provided much needed sustenance, especially in dire times. Back then, gorging on sweets and fats whenever they were available was a matter of survival. In contemporary society—replete with inexpensive, high-calorie grub—this instinct works against us. “For most of our history the challenge for human beings was getting enough to eat to avoid starvation,” Lowe says, “but for many of us the modern world has replaced that with a very different challenge: avoiding eating more than we need so we don't gain weight.”
Research has shown that the brain begins responding to fatty and sugary foods even before they enter our mouth. Merely seeing a desirable item excites the reward circuit. As soon as such a dish touches the tongue, taste buds send signals to various regions of the brain, which in turn responds by spewing the neurochemical dopamine. The result is an intense feeling of pleasure. Frequently overeating highly palatable foods saturates the brain with so much dopamine that it eventually adapts by desensitizing itself, reducing the number of cellular receptors that recognize and respond to the neurochemical. Consequently, the brains of overeaters demand a lot more sugar and fat to reach the same threshold of pleasure as they once experienced with smaller amounts of the foods. These people may, in fact, continue to overeat as a way of recapturing or even maintaining a sense of well-being.
Emerging evidence indicates that some hunger hormones that usually act on the hypothalamus also influence the reward circuit. In a series of studies between 2007 and 2011, researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden demonstrated that the release of ghrelin (the hunger hormone) by the stomach directly increases the release of dopamine in the brain's reward circuit. The researchers also found that drugs that prevent ghrelin from binding to neurons in the first place curtail overeating in people who are obese.
Under normal conditions, leptin and insulin (which become abundant once extra calories are consumed) suppress the release of dopamine and reduce the sense of pleasure as a meal continues. But recent rodent studies suggest that the brain stops responding to these hormones as the amount of fatty tissue in the body increases. Thus, continued eating keeps the brain awash in dopamine even as the threshold for pleasure keeps going up.
Curbing cravings
A kind of surgery that some obese people already undergo to manage their weight underscores ghrelin's importance in weight control and has provided some of the biological insights into why many of us eat far beyond our physiological needs. Known as bariatric surgery, it is a last-resort treatment that dramatically shrinks the stomach, either by removing tissue or by squeezing the organ so tightly with a band that it cannot accommodate more than a couple of ounces of food at a time.
Within a month after such surgery, patients are typically less hungry overall and are no longer as attracted to foods high in sugar and fat—possibly because of changes in the amount of hormones that their much smaller stomach can now produce. Recent brain- scanning studies reveal that these reduced cravings mirror changes in neural circuitry: postsurgery, the brain's reward circuit responds much more weakly to the images and spoken names of tempting foods, such as chocolate brownies, and becomes resensitized to smaller amounts of dopamine.
“The idea is that by changing the anatomy of the gut we are changing levels of gut hormones that eventually get to the brain,” says Kimberley Steele, a surgeon at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. A few studies have documented lower levels of hunger-stimulating ghrelin and increased levels of appetite-suppressing peptide YY following bariatric surgery. As recent experiments suggest, these hormones act not only on the hypothalamus but also on the reward circuit. “In the long term, we can probably mimic the effects of bariatric surgery with drugs,” says Bernd Schultes of the eSwiss Medical & Surgical Center in St. Gallen, Switzerland. “That is the great dream.”
In the meantime, several clinicians are using recent revelations about hedonic hunger to help people like Brien. Yi-Hao Yu, one of Brien's doctors at Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut, proposes that obesity takes at least two distinct but sometimes overlapping forms: metabolic and hedonic. Because he believes Brien struggles primarily with hedonic obesity, Yu recently prescribed the drug Victoza, which is known to reduce pleasure-driven eating. In contrast, drugs that typically target the hypothalamus would work better if a patient's underlying problem was a flaw in the body's ability to maintain a steady weight.
Drexel's Lowe, for his part, has focused on new approaches to behavior modification. “The
traditional idea is that we can teach overweight people to improve their self-control,” Lowe
traditional idea is that we can teach overweight people to improve their self-control,” Lowe says. “The new idea is that the foods themselves are more the problem.” For some people, palatable foods invoke such a strong response in the brain's reward circuit—and so dramatically alter their biology—that willpower will rarely, if ever, be sufficient to resist eating those foods once they are around. Instead, Lowe says, “we have to reengineer the food environment.” In practical terms, that means never bringing fatty, supersweet foods into the house in the first place and avoiding venues that offer them whenever possible.
Elizabeth O'Donnell has put these lessons into practice. A 53-year-old store owner who lives in Wallingford, Pa., O'Donnell learned to modify her personal food environment at home and on the road after participating in one of Lowe's weight-loss studies. She says she is particularly helpless before sweets and pastries and so has committed to keeping them out of her home and to avoiding restaurants with all-you-can-eat dessert tables—which in the past led her to consume “an excess of 3,000 or 4,000 calories.” On a recent visit to Walt Disney World, for example, she bypassed the park's many buffet-style restaurants in favor of a smaller, counter-service eatery, where she bought a salad. That's exactly the kind of simple change that can make a huge difference in the struggle to maintain a healthy weight.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Ferris Jabr is a contributing writer at Scientific American.
HOW BRAIN IS ALTERED DURING MAJOR DEPRESSION-- FROM KEN POPE
The *American Journal of Psychiatry* has scheduled a study for publication in a future issue: "Medial Prefrontal Aberrations in Major Depressive Disorder Revealed by Cytoarchitectonically Informed Voxel-Based Morphometry."
The authors are Sebastian Bludau, Ph.D., Danilo Bzdok, M.D., Oliver Gruber, M.D., Nils Kohn, Ph.D., Valentin Riedl, M.D., Christian Sorg, M.D., Nicola Palomero-Gallagher, Ph.D., Veronika I. Müller, Ph.D., Felix Hoffstaedter, Ph.D., Katrin Amunts, Ph.D., Simon B. Eickhoff, M.D."
Here's the abstract:
[begin abstract]
Objective:
The heterogeneous human frontal pole has been identified as a node in the dysfunctional network of major depressive disorder. The contribution of the medial (socio-affective) versus lateral (cognitive) frontal pole to major depression pathogenesis is currently unclear. The authors performed morphometric comparison of the microstructurally informed subdivisions of human frontal pole between depressed patients and comparison subjects using both uni- and multivariate statistics.
Method:
Multisite voxel- and region-based morphometric MRI analysis was conducted in 73 depressed patients and 73 matched comparison subjects without psychiatric history. Frontal pole volume was first compared between depressed patients and comparison subjects by subdivision-wise classical morphometric analysis. In a second approach, frontal pole volume was compared by subdivision-naive multivariate searchlight analysis based on support vector machines.
Results:
Subdivision-wise morphometric analysis found a significantly smaller medial frontal pole in depressed patients, with a negative correlation of disease severity and duration. Histologically uninformed multivariate voxel-wise statistics provided converging evidence for structural aberrations specific to the microstructurally defined medial area of the frontal pole in depressed patients.
Conclusions:
Across disparate methods, subregion specificity in the left medial frontal pole volume in depressed patients was demonstrated. Indeed, the frontal pole was shown to structurally and functionally connect to other key regions in major depression pathology, such as the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala via the uncinate fasciculus. Present and previous findings consolidate the left medial portion of the frontal pole as particularly altered in major depression.
[end abstract]
The article is online at:
<http://bit.ly/KenPopeStudyOfDepressionBrainAberrations>
Ken Pope
EXERCISE REALLY DOES SLOW THE AGING PROCESS: FROM KEN POPE
The *New York Times* includes an article: "Does Exercise Slow the Aging Process?" by Gretchen Reynolds.
Here are some excerpts:
[begin excerpts]
Almost any amount and type of physical activity may slow aging deep within our cells, a new study finds.
<snip>
Today, many scientists have begun determining a cell's biological age -- meaning how well it functions and not how old it literally is -- by measuring the length of its telomeres.
For those of us who don't know every portion of our cells' interiors, telomeres are tiny caps found on the end of DNA strands, like plastic aglets on shoelaces. They are believed to protect the DNA from damage during cell division and replication.
As a cell ages, its telomeres naturally shorten and fray. But the process can be accelerated by obesity, smoking, insomnia, diabetes and other aspects of health and lifestyle.
In those cases, the affected cells age prematurely.
However, recent science suggests that exercise may slow the fraying of telomeres. Past studies have found, for instance, that master athletes typically have longer telomeres than sedentary people of the same age, as do older women who frequently walk or engage in other fairly moderate exercise.
But those studies were relatively narrow, focusing mostly on elderly people who ran or walked. It remained unclear whether people of different ages who engaged in a variety of exercises would likewise show effects on their telomeres.
So for the new study, which was published this month in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, researchers from the University of Mississippi and University of California, San Francisco, decided to look more broadly at the interactions of exercise and telomeres among a wide swath of Americans.
To do so, they turned to the immense trove of data generated by the ongoing National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, for which tens of thousands of adults answer questions annually about their health, including their exercise habits, and complete an in-person health exam, providing a blood sample.
In recent years, those blood samples have been tested for, among other markers of health, telomere length in the participants' white blood cells.
The researchers gathered the data for about 6,500 of the participants, ranging in age from 20 to 84, and then categorized them into four groups, based on how they had responded to questions about exercise.
Those questions in this survey tended to be broad, asking people only if, at any time during the past month, they had engaged in weight training, moderate exercise like walking, more vigorous exercise like running, or have walked or ridden a bike to work or school.
If a participant answered yes to any of those four questions, he or she earned a point from the researchers. So, someone who reported walking received a point. If he also ran, he earned another, and so on, for a maximum of four points.
The researchers then compared those tallies to each person's telomere length.
And there were clear associations. For every point someone gained from any type of exercise, his or her risks of having unusually short telomeres declined significantly.
Specifically, someone who participated in a single activity, earning them a 1, was about 3 percent less likely to have very short telomeres than someone who didn't exercise at all..... People who reported two types of exercise were 24 percent less likely to have short telomeres; three types of exercise were 29 percent less likely; and those who had participated in all four types of activities were 59 percent less likely to have very short telomeres.
<snip>
The study also couldn't tease out the ideal amount of exercise for telomere maintenance, Dr. Loprinzi say, because the survey asked only whether someone exercised at all, not how frequently.
<snip>
So the message seems clear, he says. "Exercise is good" for your cells, and "more exercise in greater variety" is likely to be even better.
[end excerpts]
The article is online at:
<http://bit.ly/KenPopeExerciseAgingTelomeres>
Ken Pope
HOW ALIENATED YOUTH FALL PREY TO THE ALLURE OF THE ISLAMIC STATE, FROM KEN POPE:
This morning's *Wall Street Journal* includes an article: "How Alienated Youth Fall Prey to the Militant Allure of Islamic State; Paris suspects were a group of guys turned from drugs to terrorism by a potent movement" by Stephen Fidler.
Here are some excerpts:
[begin excerpts]
The profiles of the suspects behind the Paris terrorist attacks reflect a pattern often seen among perpetrators of previous atrocities--a group of guys who turned from drugs and petty crime to terrorism. What's new is the potency of the movement that mobilized them.
To many in the West, Islamic State represents a medieval-style death cult. To its sympathizers, estimated to number in the thousands or even tens of thousands in Europe, its radical message of reviving the Sunni Muslim caliphate is strengthened by the fact that it already rules over territory.
Scott Atran, a Franco-American academic who has interviewed hundreds of radical Islamists over years, likens the rise and allure of Islamic State to the ascendancy of the Bolsheviks in czarist Russia and the National Socialist Party in Weimar Germany.
It wasn't police, intelligence services or military that finally defeated the anarchist movements that sprang up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he says, but the Bolsheviks. Similarly, he says, Islamic State is eclipsing older jihadist movements including al Qaeda, in large part because of its hold on territory in Iraq and Syria.
"What destroyed [the anarchists] was the Bolshevik movement, which was just more brutal," he said. "It was territorially based....They could say 'We're going to change the world just like you guys want but we have the real means to do it.'"
The existence of a "caliphate"--whose creation and expansion Islamic State fighters see as reflecting the divinely ordained Muslim conquests of the seventh century--provides the basis for a more hopeful message for followers than al Qaeda's mostly negative motivation of punishing the West for oppressing Muslims.
"It creates this much more dynamic impetus among these would-be young world-savers, much like the National Socialist movement--which wasn't the case of al Qaeda," Mr. Atran said.
<snip>
The Brussels-based suspects, like the attackers in 2004 in Madrid and in 2005 in London, were rebels on society's margins, generally in their 20s and mostly without religious parents. They converted late, often after dissolute or aimless teenage years when they may have indulged in drugs and petty crime.
They aren't at the bottom of the social ladder; the most humiliated in society tend not to join such groups, though they may be sympathizers. In fact, some of the Paris suspects came from families with some means, owning local shops, bars and sizable houses. Having access to resources allowed them to pay to travel to and from Syria, rent cars, and buy weapons and bomb-making materials.
Such individuals suffer from a double alienation: from their often nonreligious parents and from the Western societies where they grow up and founder.
"The young kids, instead of getting their knowledge and their morals and their values and their dreams in life filtered through [their parents], are going out horizontally and connecting with one another," Mr. Atran said.
Social networks and the Internet connect them to a transnational underground jihadist culture. Instead of broadening their minds, the Internet funnels them into a narrow worldview that resonates.
<snip>
This generational divide is strongly evident in Molenbeek, the mostly Muslim neighborhood of row houses in Brussels where the suspected plotters were raised.
One local shopkeeper said the generation gap was exacerbated by young men's use of the Internet, where online videos posted by groups like Islamic State fuel radicalism.
"This is not us; it comes from elsewhere," the shopkeeper said.
[end excerpts]
The article is online at:
<http://bit.ly/KenPopeArticleAlienatedYouthTerrorism>
Ken Pope
HOW MEDITATION BENEFITS CEO'S, FROM KEN POPE:
*Harvard Business Review* includes an article: "How Meditation Benefits CEOs" by Emma Seppala.
Here's the author note: Emma Seppala, Ph.D., is the Science Director of Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education."
Here are some excerpts:
[begin excerpts]
The research on mindfulness suggests that meditation sharpens skills like attention, memory, and emotional intelligence. I spoke with a number of executives about their experiences with meditation, and saw again and again how their observations about meditation in the workplace connected back to the findings of academic research.
Meditation builds resilience. Multiple research studies have shown that meditation has the potential to decrease anxiety, thereby potentially boosting resilience and performance under stress. That's certainly been true for Alak Vasa, founder of Elements Truffles, who started meditating as a trader at Goldman Sachs and ITG. He claims meditation helped him keep fear and panic at bay, even under duress. "There was this one instance where the market tanked and there was panic on the desk. The trading desk was an organized riot. Thanks to my meditation practice, I was able to keep my composure and propose solutions to reduce the impact of the market crash."
<snip>
Jonathan Tang, founder and CEO of VASTRM fashion, first introduced meditation to his staff after 9/11. "In the aftermath of 9/11, the employees at my company were noticeably shaky and distracted. I decided to bring in a meditation facilitator to offer people the ability to sit silent for 20 minutes. The room filled up quickly as people really needed an outlet for peace. When the session was over, people who had never meditated before were filled with a sense of calm. It helped them be more present at work and even carried forth to being more present with their families at home."
Meditation boosts emotional intelligence. Brain-imaging research suggests that meditation can help strengthen your ability to regulate your emotions.
Archana Patchirajan, successful serial entrepreneur and CEO and Founder of Sattva, shared that in her early years as a leader, she wanted things to happen in her way and on her timeline. "I didn't tend to understand what my team was going through. I would just get angry if they did not perform according to my expectations. " Given research that shows anger's impact on cardiovascular health, it is critical that leaders be able to manage their anger, and put themselves in others' shoes. "Thanks to meditation I have developed patience." Archana says. "I have a better relationship with my team. Best of all, I maintain my peace of mind."
Dr. James Doty, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University's School of Medicine, also values meditation for its ability to cultivate emotional intelligence. A colleague had developed a cutting-edge medical device, but the company he had started to develop and sell the device was on the rocks. Doty, an early investor, became the CEO. At a meeting with vital - but disgruntled - stakeholders, he faced an angry, unreasonable investor. He credits his mindfulness practice with helping him respond with empathy: "I paused and slowly took a few breaths... This led me to actually listen and understand not only his situation, but what he wanted and expected. By not responding in an emotional manner, it resulted in his not only becoming supportive but also becoming an ally in making the company a success. The company ultimately went public at a valuation of $1.3B. "
Meditation enhances creativity. Research on creativity suggests that we come up with our greatest insights and biggest breakthroughs when we are in a more meditative and relaxed state of mind. That is when we have "eureka" moments. This is likely because meditation encourages divergent thinking (i.e. coming up with the greatest number of possible solutions to a problem), a key component of creativity.
<snip>
Meditation improves your relationships. While stress narrows your perspective and that of your team, and reduces empathy, negatively impacting performance, meditation can help boost your mood and increase your sense of connection to others, even make you a kinder and more compassionate person.
Chirag Patel, CEO of Amneal Pharmaceuticals and Ernst & Young 2011 Entrepreneur of the Year, credits meditation with helping him feel more connected to his clients. "In a business you start connecting to your customer as your family rather than merely a business transaction." The same goes for his relationships with his colleagues and staff.
Meditation helps you focus. Research has shown that our minds have a tendency to wander about 50% of the time.
<snip>
Peter Cooper, founder of Cooper Investors, attributes his ability to invest wisely to his meditation practice. "Being an investor requires the distillation of large volumes of information into a few relevant insights. Meditation has helped me discard interesting but unnecessary information and focus on the few things that make a difference to long run investment performance."
[end excerpts]
The article is online at:
<http://bit.ly/KenPopeMeditationBenefitsCEOs>
Ken Pope
POPE: "STEPS TO STRENGTHEN ETHICS IN ORGANIZATIONS: RESEARCH FINDINGS, ETHICS PLACEBOS, & WHAT WORKS"--
FREE FULL TEXT AT:
<http://bit.ly/KenPopeStrengtheningEthicsInOrganizations>
"The real meditation practice is how we live our lives from moment to moment. The challenges we face, the choices we make, the places we go, and the work that we do all become occasions for opening to the life we are actually living and the life that is ours to live if we show up fully and pay attention. You could say life itself is the meditation teacher, curriculum, and the gift that comes to us through showing up for life in its fullness and meeting it with our fulness.... The risk is that we will sleepwalk through large swaths of our lives on autopilot, unwittingly practicing mindlessness and getting better and better at it, and more and more remote from ourselves and the world: 'The great escape'.... It is life itself that is the meditation practice, the real arena of mindfulness. In that spirit, everything and every moment becomes practice and an occasion for waking up.... Wakefulness, as best we can muster it, brought face to face with the human condition itself, this is the challenge of a life lived, and lived fully in the only time we ever get to live or learn or love: This moment, this now."
--Jon Kabat-Zinn, passage I transcribed from a workshop
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS, via Ken Pope:
*Lancet: Psychiatry* has scheduled a study for publication in a future issue of the journal: "Post-traumatic stress symptoms 5 years after military deployment to Afghanistan: an observational cohort study."
The authors are Dr Iris Eekhout, PhD, Alieke Reijnen, MSc, Prof Eric Vermetten, MD, Elbert Geuze, PhD.
PLEASE NOTE: As usual, I'll include both the author's email address (for requesting electronic reprints) and a link to the complete article at the end below.
Here's the abstract:
[begin abstract]
Background
Deployment can put soldiers at risk of developing post-traumatic stress symptoms. Despite several longitudinal studies, little is known about the timing of an increase in post-traumatic stress symptoms relative to pre-deployment. Longitudinal studies starting pre-deployment, in which participants are repeatedly measured over time, are warranted to assess the timing of an increase in symptoms to ultimately assess the timing of an increase in treatment demand after deployment.
Methods
In this large observational cohort study, Dutch military personnel who were deployed to Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Forces between March, 2005, and September, 2008, were assessed for post-traumatic stress symptoms with the Self-Rating Inventory for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (SRIP) questionnaire. Participants were assessed 1 month before deployment and followed up at 1 month, 6 months, 12 months, 2 years, and 5 years after deployment, with changes in SRIP scores compared with pre-deployment using a mixed model analysis. The primary outcome was the total score of post-traumatic stress symptoms measured with SRIP at pre-deployment and the five follow-up assessments, with a score of 38 used as the cutoff to indicate substantial post-traumatic stress symptoms.
Findings
Between March, 2005, and September, 2008, 1007 participants were recruited to this study. The results show two important effects of deployment on post-traumatic stress symptoms. A short-term symptom increase within the first 6 months after deployment (symptom increase coefficient for SRIP score vs pre-deployment...; and a long-term symptom increase at 5 years after deployment....
Interpretation
This study underlines the importance of long-term monitoring of the psychological health of soldiers after deployment because early detection of symptoms is essential to early treatment, which is related to improved psychological health.
[end abstract]
REPRINTS: <i.eekhout@vumc.nl>
The study is online at:
<http://bit.ly/KenPopePostDeploymentPTSD>
Ken Pope
"WIRED TO CREATE: UNWRIRING THE MYSTERIES OF THE CREATIVE MIND, by Scott Barry Kaufman, and Carolyn Gregoire,
Excerpt only, from Scientific American
- Openness to new experiences is the strongest and most consistent personality trait that predicts creative achievement in the arts and sciences.
- Higher dopamine levels drive our motivation to explore and boost creativity but are also associated with an increased risk of mental illness.
- New experiences can shift our perspective and inspire creative leaps.
IT'S TRUE: CHILDHOOD DEPRESSION CHANGES OUR BRAINS! (from Ken Pope):
*JAMA: Psychiatry* has scheduled a study for publication in a future issue: "Early Childhood Depression and Alterations in the Trajectory of Gray Matter Maturation in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence."
The authors are Joan L. Luby, MD1; Andy C. Belden, PhD1; Joshua J. Jackson, PhD2; Christina N. Lessov-Schlaggar, PhD1; Michael P. Harms, PhD1; Rebecca Tillman, MS1; Kelly Botteron, MD1,3; Diana Whalen, PhD1; Deanna M. Barch, PhD1,2,3,4.
PLEASE NOTE: As usual, I'll include both the author's email address (for requesting electronic reprints) and a link to the complete article at the end below.
Here's how the article opens: "Longitudinal studies of childhood structural brain development using magnetic resonance imaging in healthy children have begun to map the normative pattern of development of gray matter from school age through adolescence.1 Although development of gray matter begins in utero, there has been much interest in its trajectory during the school-age and early adolescent period.2 The specific cellular processes that underlie gray matter change during this period in humans remain to be elucidated. In contrast with white matter, which shows linear increases in volume, findings suggest a pattern of rapid neurogenesis and related increases in gray matter volume during early childhood, peaking in early puberty followed by a process of selective elimination and myelination, resulting in volume loss and thinning.3- 5 The inverted U-shaped trajectory of the development of cortical and subcortical gray matter regions is influenced by sex, pubertal status, IQ, and genetic and psychosocial factors.6,7 The characteristics of this inverted U-shaped trajectory for gray matter have been associated with function across several domains.5 More important, associations between cortical thickness, mood regulation, and executive functioning have been demonstrated in cross-sectional analyses.8,9 There is some evidence that this synaptic pruning-based volume decline is associated with experience-dependent plasticity.10- 12 The notion that the rate of decline of cortical gray matter in humans could vary based on history of experience has powerful public health implications."
Here's how the Discussion section opens: "These longitudinal findings demonstrate marked bilateral decreases in thickness of cortical gray matter and in volume of the right hemisphere (with marginal significance on the left hemisphere) associated with mean level of depression symptom scores and MDD diagnosis experienced from preschool to school age. Children with depression symptom scores 2 SDs above the mean had reduction in volumes of gray matter at almost twice the rate of those with no childhood depression symptoms. Similarly, cortical thickness also decreased more rapidly at almost the same rate. To our knowledge, these findings provide the first longitudinal neuroimaging data showing increases in rates of volume reduction and cortical thinning related to number of childhood depression symptoms and diagnosis during the preschool-age to school-age period."
Here's how the article closes: "Of critical importance is that childhood depressive symptoms were associated with decline in volume and thickness of cortical gray matter even after accounting for other key factors known to affect this developmental process. These findings of markedly increased rates of cortical volume loss and thinning across the entire cortex underscore the importance of attention to childhood depression as a marker of altered childhood cortical brain development. Whether these early alterations serve as an endophenotype of risk for later depressive episodes or chronic course is a question of interest as the study sample is followed up through adolescence. The study findings signal the need for greater public health attention and screening for depression in young children.52"
REPRINTS: oan L. Luby, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 8134, 660 S Euclid, St Louis, MO, 63110 lubyj@psychiatry.wustl.edu
The article is online at:
<http://bit.ly/KenPopeEarlyChildhoodDepressionBrainChanges>
Ken Pope
THIS BLOG IS ABOUT BUILDING TRUST, AND FEATURES THE AMAZING CASSIDY LICHTMAN, CURRENTLY PLAYING ON THE U.S. NATIONAL VOLLEYBALL TEAM!
Cultivating the Ultimate Trust
NOVEMBER 26, 2014
Kelly Murphy's serve puts the Chinese way out of system. Their second contact gives them a decent swing, but Jordan
Larson is positioned perfectly and sends a beautiful overhead pass right to Alisha Glass. Kim Hill has had the hot hand so Glass sends a nicely paced ball out to her pin hitter and Hill splits the block and sends the ball to the floor. The match is over. The US wins it's first World Championship in 62 years. The celebration is epic. It even "trended" as "Karching" became a thing. In small pockets across America, where volleyball is so important, people rejoiced.
This was true of our living room in tiny Vandergrift, PA as well.
In the weeks that have followed that incredible Sunday morning I have thought a lot about what makes this team different, what makes them special. I set out to discover

Joyful celebration as the US wins it's first World Championship in 62 years, and the term "Karching" is born and trends.

what it is we can learn from them. What can we use in our huddles, boardrooms and dinner tables that was successfully cultivated in the gym at the American Sports Center in Anaheim by this team and their coach.
I watch a lot of sports. Too much probably. I consider myself an observer. It has kind of been my job on every staff I've ever been on with Ellen Toy. I take the temperature, I watch the team, find out what the kids are thinking, who they are mad at, who they trust and who they don't. With High School kids it's a full time job.
I watch the pro's like this too. Last night Big Ben throws a Red Zone pick and immediately motions to Antonio Brown he was supposed to go the other way. Could have been handled in private, but there, for all the world to see, Ben blamed AB...
Ben and Antonio Brown
How many times have you seen a batter look at a called third strike, or get caught in a rundown, and come off the field and destroy the Gatorade cooler? Or a centerman make a last minute move at the blueline and cause his

winger to go off-sides, then they shoot each other daggers for a minute. Its all there, plain to see.
Should have been a SportsCenter Moment, but...
It even happens in moments when they should be happy. I have never been more disappointed in Sidney Crosby
than I was the night he came back from a long layoff due to concussion, scored on a ridiculous backhander, then screamed "F-ya" for every pre-teenage hockey player to see.
A moment that should be worthy of SportsCenter, and it to me was embarrassing. What a shame. (and please note,
I just love Sid.)
That brings me to my point. These sports, their players, and yes even their very BEST players can learn something from the environment cultivated in the gym at American Sports Center in Anaheim. Karch and his staff are on to something and it has so much to do with trust. Trust in the staff, in the players, in their play and in how the respond no matter the situation. TRUST.
I have watched these athletes closely, for probably two years now. Ever since a chance Twitter encounter with

Alisha Glass set into motion a chance for Ellen to "CyberCoach" from our couch as the US took on Serbia in Belgrade. Then this past summer we journeyed out to Southern California to meet the team and watch the two matches played in LA versus Brazil in the USA Volleyball Cup.
http://www.jamthegym.com/gracefaithcourage/2014/07/summerofus- whats-in-hashtag.html We're hooked big time.
We've watched high school, NAIA, and NCAA
volleyball. I've seen players get emotional, I've seen them crack under the pressure of becoming a service target. I've watched coaches rant, at players and at officials. It's just not happening like that in the USA gym, and it's becoming one of their greatest strengths.
Ellen and I took a group of our High School players on an hour drive on November 18th to listen to the captain of Team USA speak. Christa Harmotto Deitzen hails from nearby Hopewell High School, and it wasn't long before we all realized it was well worth the trip. Christa had three columns marked off on a whiteboard.
Values-Goals-Leadership

Christa looks over her presentation before her talk with students at Hopewell High School.
She explained to those gathered in the gym that these were three things they must constantly ask themselves.
What are my values? What do I hold dear? What are my goals? Am I ready to answer the call as a leader? She would explain to me later "I guess the question athletes constantly have to ask themselves is who is following me?" adding "You are always in a leadership position.
Also knowing that athletes will make mistakes... in the spotlight, but how do they handle the mistake?" This helps me to understand the poise I see on the court from this team, a trust that under any circumstance they can overcome.
Tori Dixon, the youngest player on Team USA eluded to this as well. "When something doesn't go our way, we embrace it. Karch calls it 'embracing adversity'. This can come in small notions, such as not getting upset when a referee makes a bad call, or bigger things, like food poisoning" Karch explains it so well in his blog.
"One of my goals is to prepare the team for as many speed bumps as possible, both in volleyball and in life. I’m going to call it “Adversity School.” Its mission will be to condition ourselves – players and coaches alike – to handle adversity so it doesn’t detract from what we’re trying to accomplish on the court." From the youngest to the guy in charge, this team gets it.
Nicole Davis, the American's longest tenured player explains that it wasn't always this way, and it it something they work on, very hard, every day. "Yes, complete trust is a learned skill, it is talked about, worked on, and revamped often. Our team has had a history of dysfunction, in such a way that has prevented us from reaching our true potential over the last decade(longer, realistically). We started with Karch and along down to the players, decided we were going to do things differently, and the right way this time around, and see if we can't achieve what we set out to accomplish. We are fully committed to be the best human beings we can possibly be to each other. There are challenges everyday to this culture, but we have created an open and vulnerable learning environment in our gym, so that we can hold each other accountable to our words and actions and know that it is always in the best interest of the team."
Cassidy Lichtman explained the bad behavior I've seen and made clear why that just isn't part of the makeup of her team. "I think the people who yell and scream and hit things when they mess up or blame their teammates/coaches often believe that they're just being "competitive". But they've misunderstood. Being competitive means wanting to win and that behavior is not conducive to winning."
Lichtman continued, "I think what you're seeing in our team has a lot to do with the mindset we've collectively adopted. The constant goal on our team is to do everything we can to win the next point. Getting upset generally does not help us reach that end. Poise wins
matches. We might take a moment to be angry about the mistake and then we move on, because our game moves fast. We do hold each other accountable on the court and sometimes that can be done loudly. But that is so we can clarify the error and find a solution so that it doesn't happen again."
Is trust a key point of emphasis? Cassidy thinks so.
"That's where the trust comes in. We have to trust that the people around us are all equally invested in that goal of winning the next point. We have to trust that our teammates want us to succeed. We have to trust that they care about us as athletes and as people. And we have to trust that nobody on our team holds themselves above anyone else. I think it is important, finally, to note that the mindset and the culture of our environment starts at the very top. Karch is a very big part of this and we have a brilliant sports psychologist, Michael Gervais, who helps us to navigate through these areas."
What results when a team establishes this "Ultimate Trust"? A sense of calm that makes them hard to beat. Tori Dixon puts it all in perspective. "As a team, we definitely present 'cool, calm, and collected'. This is practiced on a daily basis. We treat every match we play like a gold medal match. Because of this mentality, I think that is why you don't see any one of us acting out in a dramatic manner. We work on positive body language, we don't yell at other teams when we get points, and we also don't react to teams that yell at us when they make plays. The best mentality is taking every point one at a time and resetting after every point."

I SEE THIS FREQUENTLY IN MY PRACTICE:
I saw a client the other day who had discovered her husband had been cheating on her. She was beside herself. They’d been married 12 years and she’d decided to forgo having children with this man because he already had 2 children from a previous marriage. Not only is she now questioning all the things about him she took at face value, but is also questioning her vision of the future (which had involved growing old with this person). She is confused, disoriented, and in shock. But the real problem is that her husband, whom she loves (or thought she loved), continues to lie to her about things he’s done during the course of their marriage. She’s been gradually finding things out by checking his email and his phone texts. “It’s like I have to put him on the witness stand and grill him each day about something else I have discovered that he’s hidden from me.” She is emotionally exhausted and doesn’t want to be with someone with whom she will from now on have to assume he’s cheating on her and therefore continually check up on. The gracious thing for the husband to do would be to come clean— completely clean, so there are no more “secrets” that may come to her attention in the future. But he is not doing that. He is blaming her for continuing to distrust him, in spite of the fact that new betrayals keep coming to light. Blaming the victim is, unfortunately, a typical mode of operation of emotional abusers. They don’t want to face themselves, so they turn on the very person they’ve hurt, further adding insult to injury. When he blames her for not trusting him, she actually starts to question herself as if there truly is something wrong with HER. He has turned things around so that HE is now the victim and as if SHE has been the perpetrator. She doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t real anymore. His continuing to blame her seems to be working, at least to some extent. WHAT’S GOING ON HERE THAT WE SO READILY GIVE UP OUR OWN REALITY AND ADOPT SOMEONE ELSE’S STORY AS IF THEIR STORY IS SUDDENLY REAL??? Human attachment is of such monumental importance to all of us that we will unwittingly overlook even obvious violations because we don’t want to break the attachment. The need for attachment to another has evolved over thousands of years from evolutionary survival needs, It is so strong, and we can be so frightened of losing an attachment that we will look the other way, sometimes at great costs to ourselves, in order to preserve it.
HERE'S A FUN ARTICLE ON WHY WE FORGET WHAT WE WERE GOING TO DO THE MINUTE WE ENTER ANOTHER ROOM!
MIND
Why Walking through a Doorway Makes You Forget
Scientists measure the "doorway effect," and it supports a novel model of human memory
By Charles B. Brenner, Jeffrey M. Zacks on December 13, 2011
iStock/Robert Vautour
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The French poet Paul Valéry once said, “The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.” In that spirit, consider a situation many of us will find we know too well: You're sitting at your desk in your office at home. Digging for something under a stack of papers, you find a dirty coffee mug that’s been
there so long it’s eligible for carbon dating. Better wash it. You pick up the mug, walk out
the door of your office, and head toward the kitchen. By the time you get to the kitchen, though, you've forgotten why you stood up in the first place, and you wander back to your office, feeling a little confused—until you look down and see the cup.
So there's the thing we know best: The common and annoying experience of arriving somewhere only to realize you've forgotten what you went there to do. We all know why
such forgetting happens: we didn’t pay enough attention, or too much time passed, or it just wasn’t important enough. But a “completely different” idea comes from a team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame. The first part of their paper’s title sums it up: “Walking through doorways causes forgetting.”
Gabriel Radvansky, Sabine Krawietz and Andrea Tamplin seated participants in front of a computer screen running a video game in which they could move around using the arrow
keys. In the game, they would walk up to a table with a colored geometric solid sitting on it. Their task was to pick up the object and take it to another table, where they would put the object down and pick up a new one. Whichever object they were currently carrying was invisible to them, as if it were in a virtual backpack.
Sometimes, to get to the next object the participant simply walked across the room. Other times, they had to walk the same distance, but through a door into a new room. From time to time, the researchers gave them a pop quiz, asking which object was currently in their backpack. The quiz was timed so that when they walked through a doorway, they were tested right afterwards. As the title said, walking through doorways caused forgetting: Their responses were both slower and less accurate when they'd walked through a doorway into a new room than when they'd walked the same distance within the same room.
This “doorway effect” appears to be quite general. It doesn't seem to matter, for instance,
This “doorway effect” appears to be quite general. It doesn't seem to matter, for instance, whether the virtual environments are displayed on a 66” flat screen or a 17” CRT. In one study, Radvansky and his colleagues tested the doorway effect in real rooms in their lab. Participants traversed a real-world environment, carrying physical objects and setting them down on actual tables. The objects were carried in shoeboxes to keep participants from peeking during the quizzes, but otherwise the procedure was more or less the same as in virtual reality. Sure enough, the doorway effect revealed itself: Memory was worse after passing through a doorway than after walking the same distance within a single room.
Is it walking through the doorway that causes the forgetting, or is it that remembering is easier in the room in which you originally took in the information? Psychologists have known for a while that memory works best when the context during testing matches the context during learning; this is an example of what is called the encoding specificity
principle. But the third experiment of the Notre Dame study shows that it's not just the
mismatching context driving the doorway effect. In this experiment (run in VR), participants sometimes picked up an object, walked through a door, and then walked through a second door that brought them either to a new room or back to the first room. If matching the context is what counts, then walking back to the old room should boost recall. It did not.
The doorway effect suggests that there's more to the remembering than just what you paid attention to, when it happened, and how hard you tried. Instead, some forms of memory seem to be optimized to keep information ready-to-hand until its shelf life expires, and then purge that information in favor of new stuff. Radvansky and colleagues call this sort of memory representation an “event model,” and propose that walking through a doorway is a good time to purge your event models because whatever happened in the old room is likely to become less relevant now that you have changed venues. That thing in the box? Oh, that's from what I was doing before I got here; we can forget all about that. Other changes may induce a purge as well: A friend knocks on the door, you finish the task you were working on, or your computer battery runs down and you have to plug in to recharge.
Why would we have a memory system set up to forget things as soon as we finish one thing and move on to another? Because we can’t keep everything ready-to-hand, and most of the time the system functions beautifully. It’s the failures of the system—and data from the lab—that give us a completely new idea of how the system works.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Charles B. Brenner is a second year graduate student in the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis, where he studies memory, language, and event cognition. Jeffrey M. Zacks is Associate Professor of Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. His laboratory studies perception, memory, brains, movies, and space.
Charles B. Brenner is a second year graduate student in the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis, where he studies memory, language, and event cognition. Jeffrey M. Zacks is Associate Professor of Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. His laboratory studies perception, memory, brains, movies, and space.
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DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY BINGO!
I believe this idea originated from an article in Oprah Magazine. Here's how it's played: Two allies draw up their own BINGO CARDS (5 squares by 5 squares). Make sure to leave enough room in each "square" to write in your "predictions". For example, "Aunt Sue gets drunk and hits on Dad". Or, "My sister talks to my mother about me behind my back". Or, "Uncle Jim drinks too much and starts picking arguments". Or, "My brother ridicules me." Or, My dad asks how my job search is going". You get the drift. Twenty-five squares ("predictions") on one card. Duplicate predictions in squares are allowed. Then, you and your ally (most likely your partner) bring your respective cards to the family gathering and inconspicuously draw an "X" through the square when that prediction occurs. The first one to yell, "BINGO" wins. When others ask what's going on, simply say, "Oh, we were just playing a game together".
The therapeutic purpose of this game is to 1) help you anticipate and thus prepare for what you dread will happen; 2) help you keep an "observer's" view of the family dysfunctions instead of getting drawn into them; and 3) bond with your "ally" later that night instead of getting caught into taking one side or the other in the family chaos.
Try it! Everyone I've offered this too has benefited tremendously from it. And had fun at the same time! It helps you enter a potentially tension-filled situation as a "reporter", rather than as a "participant". And because you're doing it with an ally, you will be able to laugh together about it later that night.