Alone in a crowd
With human populations bursting at the seams, we see people everywhere we go, but that doesn’t mean we get the social contact us pink chimpanzees need for good mental health. Right now, we’re living in a “social recession,” i.e. time spent with friends has contracted to less than three hours a week on average. For many of us, particularly seniors, that means zero. While chatting up the cashier at the grocery store does help, a dinner date goes a lot further to maintain brain health and prevent dementia. Fortunately, an added benefit to counseling is having a friend to visit an hour a week to help fill the gap while you figure out how to make new connections.—MR
Some weeks I only speak to the postman…
by Anita Chaudhuri, The Guardian US, February 2, 2023
The time we spend with our close friends has plummeted over the past decade. Here is an expert guide to making new connections and reviving old ones.
Betcha can’t eat just one
Remember comedian Bert Lahr as the devil repeating the 1967 slogan for Lay’s Potato Chips above? It may have been funny, but he wasn’t kidding. Highly-processed foods are addictive is because they trigger the release of dopamine (an opioid) in the brain’s reward system at levels comparable to nicotine or alcohol. Many of elders eat them not only because they require no preparation beyond opening a bag, but to trigger pleasure to cope with the difficult emotions associated with aging. Hmmm, perhaps we should call it “dope-of-mine?”
Addiction to Highly Processed Food Among Older Adults
Ashley Gearhardt, Ph.D, University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging, January 30, 2023
Highly processed foods like sweetened beverages, chips, and fast food can be addictive for some people, just like cigarettes and alcohol. Symptoms of addiction to highly processed food include feeling a loss of control over consumption, intense cravings, and signs of withdrawal (e.g., irritability, difficulty concentrating, or headaches). In July 2022, the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging asked a national sample of adults age 50–80 about symptoms of addiction to highly processed food and explored how these symptoms related to their physical and mental health and feelings of social isolation.
Learn a new life
Here’s a personal self disclosure. I deeply believe in the power of education to change lives. When I was was 55, I got a masters degree in counseling and EVERYTHING changed for the better, not only my career. Even an evening class in Thai cooking or a morning class in horse back riding will wake up your brain to make changes that go far beyond flowers or horses. And I am not talking about online education. It takes interacting with real people in real time to shake up your brain to create real change. Actually, that is what counseling is: a learning experience.—MR
Meet the people who took an evening class… and changed their life
by Michael Segalove, The Guardian US, January 8, 2023
Whether you are stuck in a rut or have ambitions you’d still like to pursue, adult education gives you a second chance. Six people tell how taking a course inspired them.
Things are looking up!
Finally! Twenty-first century medicine is finally realizing that “depression” is not a genetic disease like Huntington’s, but a symptom, a condition, like a “rash.” Lots of things can cause a rash, e.g. measles, stress or poison ivy. Lots of things can cause depression, e.g. repressed anger, alcohol, or intestinal dysbiosis, and while a one-size-fits-all pharmaceutical, a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI), might work for a few folks, for millions of Americans who will exhibit depression this year, this class of psych meds will not work at all. Finding a psychotherapist who can help you get to the bottom of your particular complicated reality and get moving on a treatment that WILL help is the ticket to living a life you love. You’re not genetically broken. You’re off balance. Let’s figure out how.-–MR
The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think
By Joanna Thompson, Quanta Magazine, January 26, 2023
People often think they know what causes chronic depression. Surveys indicate that more than 80% of the public blames a “chemical imbalance” in the brain. That idea is widespread in pop psychology and cited in research papers and medical textbooks. Listening to Prozac, a book that describes the life-changing value of treating depression with medications that aim to correct this imbalance, spent months on the New York Times bestseller list.
Get a move on!
Even seven minutes of moderate activity a day protects against dementia! The more the better…—MR
Midlife Cognition Linked With Moderate and Vigorous Physical Activity
by Judy George, MedPage Today, January 23, 2023
Moderate and vigorous physical activity was linked with midlife cognition, a U.K. study showed.
Music to your ears
You don’t need a music therapist to receive benefits from listening to music. You do need to be careful. Each of us has a different reaction to different kinds of music. For example, some folks can’t stand Country music, some love it. If the music you are hearing evokes a feeling of safety and comfort, relaxation or inspiration, it’s most likely therapeutic. If it doesn’t, turn it off or put in your earplugs. It’s just excessive noise stressing your nervous system.—MR
Music therapy heals: License its practitioners in WA
It’s time for the state of Washington to recognize the vital role that music therapy can play in healing and recovery, and to take the necessary steps to protect patients by licensing music therapists.
Being alive
Snicker…. The French wine industry must hate this! It’s hard to be truly conscious when under the influence. It’s hard to be healthy when addicted to a toxic substance. It’s hard to be in relationship with anyone else when your first love is a bottle of wine. If you’re in an abusive relationship with Al Cohol, you may need some help getting out…—MR
‘A trend is starting’: France leading way in alcohol-free drinks boom
by Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian US, December 30, 2022
When Nicole, a retired executive assistant, began preparing her new year get-togethers with family and friends, her first purchase was an artisan bottle of French alcohol-free gin.
Lights out!
One of the most helpful things you can do for your mental health is get a good night’s sleep, i.e seven or eight hours. That’s hard for many of us in this day and age. There’s a lot working against sleep, such as low-grade addiction to substances such as alcohol and cannabis that wake us up in the night when they wear off. Not enough daily walking. Jobs that have irregular schedules or night time hours. A room that’s warmer than 65 degrees. Eating after 6PM. The list goes on and on, but one of the easiest to correct for is having your sleeping space dark and quiet. Make sure ALL lights are out. If it’s still not dark, get black out curtains and use foam ear plugs to silence noise. They take some getting used to, but you’ll sleep a lot better and that’s the more important thing!—MR
Why we need to make the world a darker place
By Johan Eklof, The Guardian US, December 19, 2022
It’s not just bats and other animals that suffer the effects of light pollution – humans need darkness too.
Blue light blues
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) affects thousands of folks in the Pacific Northwest. We literally become sad. Gosh, we live more than 3,200 miles from the equator and the sun has taken its winter break in New Zealand. One of the things that can make SAD’s symptoms worse is blue light from computers and cell phones. If you cannot reduce device usage or fly to Mexico for the winter, try some of the tips in the article below.—MR
How to combat seasonal affective disorder (SAD) while living through the Big Dark
The turning of the seasons, while beautiful with vibrant leaves and the not-so-distant sound of holiday cheer, also casts some into a state known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or winter depression. The condition may leave its victims feeling listless, anxious or deeply in their feels, among other debilitating symptoms. In the Pacific Northwest, the mood swings to match the sky, making way for doom and gloom to set up camp.
A new life is possible
Twice in my life I experienced a “miracle” cure. These two are why I became a mental health counselor almost two decades ago, i.e. I wanted to share what I had learned with others who suffer. The first cure, in my 20s, was from a decade of weekly debilitating migraine, and the other, at 50, was from lifelong chronic fatigue syndrome which allowed me to go back to school to become a counselor. If you have either or both of these issues, let’s talk!—MR
A catalogue of losses: what chronic fatigue syndrome took away from my life
by Mike Mariani, The Guardian US, November 28, 2022
Whether anybody else could see it or not, I had lost someone: my former, healthy self. On Friday, 14 December 2012, I would experience the sudden onset of an illness that, looking back almost a decade later, bears a powerful resemblance to the narratives of those suffering from long Covid.
Bodymind basics
Bodymind Counseling is results oriented. I want you to feel better fast. So to not waste your time and money, before we uncover important psychological, emotional, mental or relational issues that may be negatively affecting your mental and emotional health, we start at ground zero. We ask if there are physical things bothering your brain? Getting at least seven hours of restful sleep most nights—preferably between sundown and sunrise—in which you resolve emotional issues in your dreams is crucial to a sense of well being.–MR
It’s killing us all slowly: how the night shift is taking a toll on US workers
by Michael Sainato, The Guardian US, November 18, 2022
Roger Reinhardt works the third shift at a beer production facility in Michigan from 10pm-8am, four days a week. He started working nights because it was the only shift available when he was hired, but he has continued doing it for the extra pay.
Intentional kindness
Once upon a time, the Dalai Lama was famously asked by to a Western journalist to explain his Tibetan Buddhist religion. He replied, “my religion is kindness.” Jesus would probably agree. There is nothing you can do to emotionally feel better fast than perpetrate a kind act. Even if it’s only a shy smile.—MR
Why we all need to be a lot less hesitant about being kind
by Claudia Hammond, The Guardian US, November 13, 2022
While researching a book on kindness, I found that being kind enhances the mood of not just the receiver – but the giver, too.
Why pick poison?
Pharmaceutical antidepressants have repeatedly been scientifically proven to generally not give patients what they hoped for over time. Here’s another study that proves other treatments with fewer side effects work just as well. I would suggest they work better, because over time a patient has learned how to deal with her emotions. The drugs do not correct chemical imbalance, they just repress emotion, so at the end of pharmaceutical treatment patients are not only addicted to a drug that contributes to dementia but are in the same or worse place they began emotionally.—MR
Antidepressants are not associated with improved quality of life in the long run…
Science Daily, April 20, 2022
Summary: Over time, using antidepressants is not associated with significantly better health-related quality of life, compared to people with depression who do not take the drugs, according to a new study.
Whoa!
Mind boggling.—MR
One in Eight U.S. Adult Deaths Involved Too Much Booze
One out of every eight deaths in Americans ages 20 to 64 resulted from drinking too much alcohol, according to a U.S. population-based study. Nationally, 12.9% of total deaths per year among adults in this age group were attributed to excessive alcohol consumption from 2015 to 2019, and that number rose to 20.3% of total deaths per year when restricted to people ages 20 to 49, reported Marissa Esser, PhD, MPH, of the CDC in Atlanta…
The gut-brain connection strikes again
As biology continues to mature as a science, we learn more and more how the small intestines, i.e. the gut, must be healthy to have a healthy brain. Mind is a different thing altogether and consciousness is, most likely, an all-body mechanism, so being mentally ill is not about the brain so much as it is about the whole body and specifically about the gut. Human beings have known for a long time that if a person goes long enough without sleep, he can die. The utterly fascinating thing that research is showing is that when we go without sleep long enough, it’s not so much the brain that is negatively affected, as it is the gut. We absolutely must sleep or oxidative stress wrecks our small intestines and we die. But we’ll probably go crazy first…—MR
Why Do We Die Without Sleep?
Conversation with Steven Strogatz, Quanta Magazine, March 22, 2022.
The reasons why sleep is so vital often hide in unexpected parts of the body, as podcast host Steven Strogatz discovers in conversations with researchers Dragana Rogulja and Alex Keene.
Let’s get real
There was a time in my life when confronted with a problem or simply some distasteful conversation, I would slip into a Star Trek rerun in my head. Sometimes I would even change the plot line to a more preferable outcome. In a session with my first mental health counselor in the nineties, she saw me gazing off into space. Asking what I was thinking about I described a conversation between Jean Luc Picard and Worf. After that, when she saw me gaze out into my mental stars avoiding a subject in session, she’d snap her fingers and say, “Hey! Get back here!”—MR
I just go into my head and enjoy it’: the people who can’t stop daydreaming
by David Robson, The Guardian US, August 28, 2022
Psychiatrists may soon recognize ‘maladaptive daydreaming’ as a clinical disorder. But what is it, and how can it be treated?
Every day, Kyla* travels to a fictional universe with advanced space travel. It’s not real, of course – but an incredibly vivid daydream, centered on a protagonist with a detailed history. “It covers 79 years in the life of my main character,” she says. “I know how the whole thing plays out, and I can drop into it at whatever point I want to experience.”
Not a surprise
Guess I should be pleased at the news contained in the below article. It will guarantee a steady stream of miserable patients to my offices until I retire. It’s a stunning victory for Big C capitalism and the alcohol and drug industries!—MR
Marijuana, hallucinogen use at all-time high among young adults
by Morgan Sherburne, Michigan News, University of Michigan, August 22, 2022
Marijuana and hallucinogen use in the past year reported by young adults 19 to 30 years old increased significantly in 2021 compared to five and 10 years ago, reaching historic highs in this age group since 1988, according to the Monitoring the Future panel study.
Big deal
Golly gee whiz, the FDA approved the first new type of anti-depressant in 60 years! The below article reports it reduces symptoms a whopping five percent more than a placebo. What it doesn’t say is how long it’s gonna work for someone or what side effects are over the long term. Honestly, does that sound like something to sign up for?—MR
FDA OKs First Oral NMDA Receptor Antagonist for Depression
by Kristen Monaco, MedPage Today, August 19, 2022
The FDA approved combination dextromethorphan and bupropion extended-release tablets (Auvelity) for adults with major depressive disorder (MDD), Axsome Therapeutics announced on Friday.
Why risk it?
The below reviewed book underscores one of the dangers of drinking, i.e. dementia. Its author, Dr. Richard Restak, advises his patients to quit alcohol by 70 at the latest. Over 65, he writes, you typically have fewer brain neurons than when you were younger, so why risk them? “Alcohol is a weak neurotoxin – it’s not good for nerve cells.”—MR
Stop drinking, keep reading, look after your hearing: a neurologist’s tips for fighting memory loss and Alzheimer’s
by Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian US, August 17, 2022
You walk into a room, but can’t remember what you came in for. Or you bump into an old acquaintance at work, and forget their name. Most of us have had momentary memory lapses like this, but in middle age they can start to feel more ominous. Do they make us look unprofessional, or past it? Could this even be a sign of impending dementia? The good news for the increasingly forgetful, however, is that not only can memory be improved with practice, but that it looks increasingly as if some cases of Alzheimer’s may be preventable too.
Heart of the matter
Most docs, psychiatrists, PAs, nurse practitioners and even psychologists who practice under the umbrella of allopathic medicine are focused on alleviating the symptoms of mental illness as quickly as possible and getting to the next patient in their busy day. Finding out what is causing those symptoms and helping tweak the causal structure is simply not their job, hence their reliance on prescribing psycho-pharmaceuticals. Mental health counselors, who do not prescribe, seek the reasons for mental health disorders and help the patient alleviate those causes to achieve a lasting cure thereby mitigating the need for drugs. They are like the Native elders below who get to the heart of the matter and come up with a plan to address the real issue.—MR
‘We look deeper’: the Native court settling cases outside the justice system
by Stewart Huntington, The Guardian US, August 6, 2022
In South Dakota, the Oyate Court – made up of Lakota elders – uses traditional peacemaking principles to stress healing over punishment.
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