Posted by: Gillian Green in depression on
Apr 29, 2009
No-one can really understand how difficult it is to move into our British culture until we listen to those who have tried it. Sometimes life can be so overwhelming that mental health issues can crop up where there were none before - even in the relatively young.
Read the following story and let us know if it ‘rings any bells' with you. Have you experienced anything similar in your life?
Anawara, 39, a British Asian, has had periods of feeling sad and tired throughout her life but until recently was too ashamed to talk about it.
Posted by: Gillian Green in Untagged on
Apr 27, 2009
My father once said to me: to be famous you need to say the right thing at the right time to the right person. How difficult this must be if, added to this, you also suffer from a mental health problem.
I Dreamed a Dream
Watching the YouTube video of Susan Boyle - from the ‘Britain's Got Talent' TV show - brought this home to me. Here was a middle-aged woman, who walked in front of an audience and got the typical reaction: laughter. How dare someone so old, plain and out-of-fashion, as well as having a slight mental condition, have the effrontery to think she was a star?
Posted by: Uticopa in stigma on
Apr 24, 2009
A few years ago, during an otherwise normal working week, businessman Jonathan Naess was very publicly sectioned under the Mental Health Act. It was a humiliating experience. Naess was a successful corporate financier with a long career in the City.
He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (manic depression) and placed in a locked ward in a psychiatric hospital.
While hospitalised, he had an interesting discussion with a psychiatrist about how prevalent it was for businessmen to suffer from a mental illness. It was this discussion which prompted him to ‘come out' as mentally ill to his employer - a risky decision in the competitive world of finance - and to carve out an unlikely role for himself as a mental health campaigner.
Posted by: Uticopa in Untagged on
Apr 24, 2009
There is new pressure for psychiatric 'assistance dogs' to have the same rights and status as those used by blind or deaf people
A dog is man's best friend. It's a heartening sight, throughout the world, to see blind and deaf people with specially-trained dogs at their side. More recently, it's now recognised that dogs have an important role to play in care homes and hospital wards, where patients are encouraged to stroke the dogs in an attempt to bring down patient heart-rate and high blood pressure.
But, until now, mental health sufferers were forgotten.
No longer!
Posted by: Uticopa in Untagged on
Apr 22, 2009
The Daily Mail recently discussed the notorious issue of whether men's mental health was better than women's. I say ‘notorious' because ever since the beginning of time men have claimed ‘superior' mental skills. After all, if their brains are bigger and better, as they claim, then their mental state is bound to be healthier too, isn't it?
Let's divide the issue up into Brain, Sleep, Depression and Stress.
Brain
It is indeed true that men's brains are larger than women's. However, women's brains, though smaller, are more tightly packed with cells in the area that controls mental processes such as judgement, personality and memory.
Posted by: Uticopa in Alzheimers on
Apr 20, 2009
Scientists are now saying that some of us will develop Alzheimer's disease in old age because our brains worked too hard when we were younger.
A study has found that in young people genetically predisposed to the degenerative disease, the brain's memory hub is hyperactive. This raises the possibility that some develop Alzheimer's because their memory is simply worn out.
The brain activity of young people with the common gene APOE4 - that can greatly increase the odds of Alzheimer's - was compared with to those without the APOE4 gene. The young volunteers did equally well on tasks which tested their general mental skills, but subsequent scans revealed the brains of those with the APOE4 gene worked harder when set a memory task, and also when at rest.
Posted by: Uticopa in anger management on
Apr 15, 2009
How do we show our anger?
Here are two people arguing during a political protest. Both protesters became angry and aggressive, as evidenced by their body language and facial expressions. Their faces are flushed, the brow muscles have moved inward and downward, fixing a hard stare on the target. The nostrils have flared and the jaw muscles tend toward clenching. Also, raising of the arms and adopting a squared-off stance are early actions for attack and defense. The muscle tension provides a sense of strength and self-assurance. An impulse to strike out accompanies this subjective feeling of potency.
People use a variety of both conscious and unconscious processes to deal with their angry feelings. The three main approaches are:
Posted by: Uticopa in anger management on
Apr 15, 2009
We all think we understand what anger is. However, today's society produces so many frightening situations triggering our anger - whether it be terrorism on a global scale, or the burgeoning effects of too-many people trying to live in too-small a space - that it's worth ‘unpacking' exactly what anger is so that we can begin to understand and eventually control it.
What exactly is anger?
Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion that sometimes gets out of control. We should remember that it's the body's natural ‘fight or flight response' to the perceived threat of pain. Anger becomes the predominant feeling behaviorally, cognitively and physiologically when a person makes the conscious choice to take action to immediately stop the threatening behavior of another outside force. Anger produces powerful, often aggressive, feelings and behaviour so that we are able to fight and defend ourselves when we are attacked. A certain amount of anger, therefore, is necessary for our survival.
Divorce is a stressful time for all-concerned. Depending on the personalities involved, the transition can move along on co-operative lines, via angry skirmishes or by plain suffering and doubt on all sides.
In a so-called ‘co-operative' divorce, both parents work together to restructure their own relationship and their family to allow the children as normal a relationship with each of them as possible. This means co-operating with each other as to finances, logistics and family commitments as well as actively supporting the children's emotional relationships with the other parent and the extended families. In co-operative divorces the parties consciously try not to engage in behaviour they understand to be inflammatory to the other side.
However, an angry divorce doesn't have to be an alienating one. Alienation occurs when both parents use their children to meet their own emotional needs or as innocent pawns to inflict retribution on the other side. The focus in determining whether or not there is alienation in an angry divorce must be, not on the degree of rage or loss expressed, but on the behavioural willingness to involve the children.
Posted by: Uticopa in anger management on
Apr 01, 2009
"Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world." William Shenstone (Scottish writer, 1714-63)
Change the way you think
Angry people tend to swear or speak in highly colourful language that reflects their inner thoughts. Try replacing these thoughts with more rational ones. For instance, instead of telling yourself "oh, everything's ruined," tell yourself "it's frustrating but it's not the end of the world and, in any case, getting angry is not going to make things any better."
