March 2008 Archives

Mental Health Care in Rural Communities

Happily married adults have lower blood pressure than singles with supportive social networks. Both men and women in happy marriages scored four points lower on 24-hour blood pressure than single adults. Having supportive friends did not translate into improved blood pressure for singles or unhappily marrieds.

For actress Delta Burke, it was antique furniture and porcelain dolls — enough to fill 27 climate-controlled storage units. For Roger Gorman’s father-in-law, it was books, newspapers, plastic grocery bags and leisure magazines. “There must have been over 2,000 magazines in his apartment,” says the 53-year-old graphic designer from Manhattan. “There were stacks and stacks of them, columns of them. It looked like the landscape of a city.”

Those who spent cash on others felt cheerier than those who didn't   

Girls with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder stand a substantially greater risk of developing eating disorders in adolescence than girls without ADHD, a new study has found. "Adolescent girls with ADHD frequently develop body-image dissatisfaction and may go through repeating cycles of binge eating and purging behaviors that are common in bulimia nervosa," said University of Virginia psychologist Amori Yee Mikami, who led the study.

"Control yourself!" Most of us haven't heard that admonition since our last childhood tantrum. Nonetheless, it's something we often tell ourselves, consciously or not, as we deal with life's daily ups and downs. The ability to regulate one's emotions is critical to successfully interacting with others. How we go about achieving that self-control has an equally important effect on our own well-being.

Workplace bullying, such as belittling comments, persistent criticism of work and withholding resources, appears to inflict more harm on employees than sexual harassment, say researchers who presented their findings at a conference today. “As sexual harassment becomes less acceptable in society, organizations may be more attuned to helping victims, who may therefore find it easier to cope,” said lead author M. Sandy Hershcovis, PhD, of the University of Manitoba. “In contrast, non-violent forms of workplace aggression such as incivility and bullying are not illegal, leaving victims to fend for themselves.”

Researchers at UCL (University College London) have discovered that a system in the brain for processing grammar is impaired in some children with specific language impairment (SLI), but that these children compensate with a different brain area. The findings offer new hope for sufferers of SLI, which affects seven per cent of children and is a major cause of many not reaching their educational potential. To date, it has not been clear whether these children generally struggle to process language, or whether they have specific problems with grammar. The UCL findings reveal the latter for a sub-group (G-SLI), and suggest that educational methods that enhance these compensatory mechanisms may help such children overcome their difficulties.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080304173356.htm

Doctors may one day be able to control alcohol addiction by manipulating the molecular events in the brain that underlie anxiety associated with alcohol withdrawal, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center report in the March 5 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. See also: Health & Medicine Infant's Health Psychology Research Heart Disease Mind & Brain Alcoholism Anxiety Addiction Reference Separation anxiety disorder Addiction Narcotic Drug addiction "The association of anxiety with increased alcohol use is a key factor in the initiation and maintenance of alcohol addition," says Dr. Subhash Pandey, UIC professor of psychiatry and director of neuroscience alcoholism research, the lead author of the study.

http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/
This site provides Christian meditations and relaxation exercises that you can download to your computer or mp3 player. I have personally found them very meaningful and I enjoy listening to them right before I go to bed. They are helpful from two perspectives. They help me in deepening my relationship with God and they help me to relax. There are also relaxation exercises available. I haven't tried those. If you have tried them please comment and let us know how they are.