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Tomorrow stands to be a very interesting day in several ways. In the forefront, this is the day that Mayan calendar ends, and some people predict that means the end of the world. Looking around, I came across many websites completely dedicated to this. One of them is http://www.december212012.com/ Here I found a treasure trove of articles about the Mayan and Hopi prophecies, galactic alignment and consequential polar shift, the I Ching, Edgar Cayce- even Einstein, and it all points to a global disaster of epic proportions occurring on or near December 21, 2012. There is also something entitled The 11:11 prophecy- people that are drawn to those numbers are being given a signal, there is a message being sent to them. They are chosen to usher in the “Age of Aquarius,” a new spiritual beginning due to occur on 12/21/12.
Further research informed me there are people compiling survival kits, hoarding supplies, and stockpiling food and water. There is an “end of the world” countdown clock in Mexico, and an end of the world calendar for sale- “the last calendar you’ll ever need.” There are several end of the world blogs as well, and it seems as if peopleare getting rich selling end of the world supplies from the Internet.
While some people may find this all amusing, others are severely stressed out. Some people with OCD or related disorders may be having a difficult time right now, ritualizing in order to stop the feared event. I came upon this article by Jay Michaelson- http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/5474/religious_belief_or_mental_illness/ Michaelson says that we are being caught up in a general anxiety, which is being fed to us in the form of movies, and other media that are preying on our doubts and fears. As doubt and fear are huge components of OCD, it is easy to see how certain people can become really freaked out!
There are many other sites that state the world will NOT end, that the calendar marks an astronomical event, which is the earth in the center of our galaxy, but they weren’t as entertaining or dramatic as the doomsday ones. I did find out that the ancients knew quite a bit about Astronomy and I question where they got that advanced knowledge. However, I believe that since they wrote their calendars many thousands of years ago, all ancient civilizations simultaneously ended their calendars with earth in the galactic center, as the astronomical cycle would begin again.
I don’t believe the world will end, or that anything will happen at all, except for what humans do to each other as the date approaches. Remember the Millennium and Y2K? I think we should realize that there are people who will try to take advantage of others at this time. Stop and think about this- if the end of the world is really coming and these people really believe it – why are they making lots of money? They are obviously planning for their futures. TV shows make money on advertising for these programs, and movies can rake in millions.
So, to those of you who are worried about the end coming- stop and think about why there is so much commotion about it – MONEY- and money will be no good to anyone if the world ends, will it? I hope we all make lots of money this year and I hope you enjoy the New Year stress free. I wish everyone a GREAT 2013
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It feels like the lights have gone out and the gloom and doom has set in. Depression takes a huge toll on the body, both mentally and physically. It may help if you notice your physical symptoms. Along with feelings of sadness and tiredness, you may get body aches, headaches or stomachaches which you may not realize is depression-related.
Depression often co-exists with OCD and many other mental disorders. All too often, depressed people don’t have the energy to seek help, and when they do, they are prescribed prescription drugs which often only mask the symptoms and do nothing to help underlying cause. Also, there are the unwanted side-effects, some of which are low libido and weight gain.
There is a form of depression called SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, which afflicts many people in the dark days of winter. The symptoms are sad mood, sleepiness, carbohydrate cravings, weight gain, lethargy, and loss of interest in activities. I have been a victim of SAD for many years, until I discovered LIGHT THERAPY!
Light Therapy is administered by exposing the eyes to 10,000 lux of light for about a half hour in the morning, upon arising. I have have spent many days reading up on the safest and best Light Therapy devices before purchasing an Alaska Northern Lights Northstar 10,000 light box- www.alaskanorthernlights.com It has no UVA Rays as they are not needed to treat SAD. I turn it on in the morning and position it two feel from my eyes while I check my email and a pleasant half hour is gone in no time, and I feel great, just like a spring morning in June. I have had my light box for several years, and it has performed perfectly, I have never even had to replace a bulb. There is no glare, as there is a protective screen. There are many other light devices that work for SAD, but I advise not getting one with UVA light, or even one with a UVA shield. I am confident that you will feel a lot better in about 2 days. The benefits are only consistent if you use it every day, or else the SAD will return. Other known benefits of Light Therapy are better sleep, jet lag, bipolar disorder, just to name a few.
Besides Light Therapy, I recommend taking Vitamin D, as people north of Florida cannot produce it from the sun from November to March, and many are deficient. This will also help the Winter Blues.
I hope this helps some of the depressed people out there. I wish you happiness, light, and sunny skies forever!
Sometimes, no matter how much effort we put into something, it doesn’t work out. We may be on the brink of victory, but suddenly fail. Sometimes we begin a project full of enthusiasm and energy, but lose interest and abandon it, and all our time and work is lost. For many people, this phenomenon repeats itself over and over, and the belief that nothing ever works out for them becomes permanently ingrained on their psyches. Why does this happen? Perhaps the answer is not what they may want to believe. It could be a form of self-sabotage. Perhaps they feel guilt or a need to punish themselves (this could be from guilt over their own past actions, from bad parenting, or traumatic childhood memories.) I believe that many people may not even be aware they have this pattern of self-failure- it is very important to be aware of the possibility.
I found this article which describes how people destroy their hopes and dreams, and how not to do this….
7 Top Self Sabotaging Behaviors by By Terri Levine
President, Comprehensive Coaching U
1. Focusing on what is not working or not right.
Problem: Finding that you think a lot and speak a lot about what is going wrong can make you feel dissatisfied and can quiet your sense of purpose and ambition. Notice how often you speak about things that aren't working.
!!Action: Ask yourself a new question: "What's going right?" or "What IS working?" Begin to notice all the things, no matter how small, that are working well. Keep an evidence journal and each day write down everything, I do mean everything, that is working. Change your way of thinking! - Being stuck in fear.
Problem: Do you worry a lot about the future and what is going to happen or might happen? Are you thinking about your fears so much that you are paralyzed and take no action because of fear of what might occur?
Action: It is time to put your focus on the present. We can't control or predict the future or other people's behaviors. All we can control is our own, right here, right now. Ask yourself the question "What is the worst thing that could happen?" Then, let go and know that it isn't in your hands to control the future and that rarely do the scenarios we create in our heads occur. Use the wonderful Serenity Prayer and actually write down the things you can not change, the things you want courage to change, and accept that the Universe, God, Spirit, whatever you call it, is the ultimate guide and you are not able to control the future. Relax, breathe and trust that the Universe will take care of you - it always does.
- Feeling you have no value.
Problem: Do you forget all your accomplishments and lack pride in who you are and what you have accomplished? If you stew and obsess about the past or your lack of success or lack of goal achievement, then you'll be stuck in noticing how much you lack as a person. If you often criticize yourself or can't accept compliments, you aren't allowing yourself to love yourself.
Action: You can choose to notice what you do that is good and that you can be proud of, no matter how small it may seem. Each day keep a log of what you are grateful for about YOU. When you hear your "inner coach" or inner voice telling you what you haven't done right or well, turn down the volume on it and turn on the volume to hear the voice that knows the TRUTH about who you are and how you add value to the world. Acknowledge yourself for at least 5 things each and every day that you did well. Each day, compliment yourself on something you did that you feel good about. Notice your small successes and let compliments others give you flow into your bones.
- Comparison of self to others.
Problem: Do you constantly compare yourself to others and then feel badly when compared to them? Comparison doesn't motivate us to do more or be better, instead it makes us feel we'll never be good enough and we aren't right now.
Action: Write out the 5 qualities you like best about yourself. Then write out what you value most in your life. When you go to a place of comparison, notice how similar you are with the other person vs. what is different. Begin to create a list of adjectives that describe you - at least 25 positive words about your greatness. Whenever you notice yourself in a comparison mode, think of some of the adjectives that describe YOU.
- Meeting goals and then losing them.
Problem: Do you not believe that you deserve to accomplish goals and that you are entitled to what you want? What is the story underneath - maybe that you aren't good enough to have it?
Action: List all the things you have accomplished that then faded away. Simply notice these things with love and pride and don't focus on the fact they disappeared. How did they bring you satisfaction? How did they make you feel? What is the limiting belief that you have that tells you inside why you can't have what you want? Be quiet, be still and listen to it. Write down how you felt when you had accomplished the goal. Write down how you feel now, without the goal. Then write a "bridge belief": A very, very small belief that feels a little bit better than what you now feel. Each week, create a new bridge, that you can really believe. By using these bridges as stepping-stones, you'll shift your limiting beliefs slowly and be on the other side of the bridge and able to maintain it because you will have a new belief inside of you.
- You chase away relationships.
Problem: Do you always feel something is missing in your relationships or find fault with the other person? Perhaps you are afraid of intimacy. Underneath this is usually a fear of abandonment or exposure that causes you to distance yourself from others.
Action: Create a list of the qualities you value in a relationship and the qualities you want to attract in your partners. Cultivate connections you have with people. Express what you want and don't want to the other person and allow them to express the same to you. Create time to acknowledge the other person on a regular basis. Notice when you feel afraid and let the fillings be - accept them and allow them to sit there. Don't try to push them away. Know that the feelings are there and that is fine. Focus on what feels good about the relationship.
- Having no purpose.
Problem: Do you feel you have no reason for being? No purpose in life? We all have some purpose for being on the planet and it is time to notice yours.
Action: Write down all the things that are important to you (include possessions, people and feelings). Then write out what you want to contribute to the world. From your writing, create a statement of purpose for yourself that you can read each and every day. Add spirituality to your life. Give to others, give to the world and feel great about it. Make regular contributions to people and community. To give is to receive. Give, give, give and you'll Feeeeeel your life purpose begin to resonate.
I am a firm believer in the saying- You Are What You Think. Our thoughts create our reality and sometimes we are not aware that our negative thoughts are on auto pilot, creating an inner world of fear, anger, anxiety, and failure. People with OCD and many of the co-existing disorders often fall victim to this self-sabotaging mental trap. Self-awareness is very important if we want to pull ourselves out of inner turmoil and emotional pain. The best way to rid ourselves of it is to consciously change the thoughts and actions that are causing it.
I think that this article can put people back on the right track of manifesting great things. If you are one of these people who have been unwittingly sabotaging yourself, I hope this helps!
On Friday, August 31, 2012, the second full moon of August will glow in the sky. When two full moons occur in the same month, the second moon is referred to as a "Blue Moon," and since this only happens about once every two and a half years, the term "Once in a Blue Moon" was coined. The next Blue Moon will be in 2015.
There had been much speculation, superstition, and folklore surrounding Blue Moons. I found a cool website, Keith's Moon Facts.http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/
You can find! Moon phases, facts, events, travel, eclipse info, photos, maps,folklore,and some great links.
On a more serious note, The moon and mental health
(Following are excerpts from "Lunacy revisited: The influence of the moon on mental health and quality of life," published in the May 2000 issue of the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing.)
Research has shown that a high proportion of health professionals continue to believe the moon affects the mental health of their patients.
According to CAPT Outreach magazine, "Evidence for the supposed influence of the moon on human behavior has proved elusive, but this has not deterred researchers. There is some evidence that there may be a greater amount of abnormal behavior at the times of full moon and third quarter (waning moon).
Researchers discovered an increased number of mental health admissions at full moon. Others have reported a relationship between the full moon phase and homicide rate."
I read many similar reports about increased emergency room visits, accidents, mania, etc. during the full Moon, so despite concrete scientific evidence, it must mean something. The conclusion of this article says..."For example, during the week of the full moon, extra attention could be given to the reduction of environmental stresses in individuals particularly vulnerable to the lunar effect. Similarly, increased counseling could be made available to vulnerable patients at critical times of the month."
I think that there is something to these claims because personally, I can nave trouble sleeping when the moon is full. I hope people will be aware that a full moon can exacerbate certain states of mind and prepare for it. Having said that- Look up at the sky, enjoy the moon, and have a lovely day!
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| Remy, comfortable as usual |
Loss of a Pet- A Year Later
All of a sudden this morning, I was feeling very depressed, a feeling I always dread coming over me. I caught my mind drifting off to August of last year when I lost my beloved cat, Remy, who was my constant companion for the previous 18 years. I think my mind automatically went to this sad scenario because it is once again August, and the coming anniversary of her loss triggered off the blues. I found myself holding back the tears. A bad memory did this to me.
Lately, I have been trying to catch myself from becoming immersed in negative emotions from the past, or worrying about the unknown of the future, so I became aware that my thoughts of Remy’s passing were upsetting me. I then began to think about all the time I’ve wasted due to lingering in bad memories- it may add up to years. I’ve also spent endless hours ritualizing, ruminating, worrying about the past and the future. How much of the present has been lost? Can it ever be recovered? That thought was not cheering me up either, just causing me to feel even more disheartened.
Unfortunately, the past is over and can’t ever be changed, so why wallow in it? We should realize the extraordinary gift of the Present, right now. That is all there really is anyway. The only thing that will come out of lingering over bad memories are more bad memories. That is the law of the Universe- you end up with more of whatever you think and feel. Now is the best time in life to change the future because what we think and do right now sets up the future. We can have hope, we do have choices if we involve ourselves in what is going on, instead of being stuck on Auto Pilot, obsessing over previous hurts.
If you are find yourself in a bad mood over the past loss of your pet or for any other past hurt, command your mind to return to the present and focus on the moment you are in. Notice everything around you such as the sounds, the smells, and look for happiness and beauty in whatever you are looking at. Realize the abundance, not the lack.
If you are in this unfortunate position, and many people are, try to focus on the abundance of good times had with beloved pets, not the short period of bad memories. Remy had a great spirit and a commanding presence, and was always healthy, happy, and confident, no matter what. Even though she was a cat, I always admired that about her. Knowing her, she wouldn’t want me to be upset- she surely wouldn’t be! I hope I will see her eyes once again in another animal that I fall madly in love with. In the meantime, I will shower more affection on my remaining cat, Squeaky Mouse, who has been a good companion to me, especially this past year.
If you are mindful, vigilant of what you are thinking, and grateful for what is right now- what you do have, you won’t be so focused on past hurts. Also, focusing on NOW takes away the worry about the future. I hope there will be no more August blahs for me, and I hope you all have a great August too!
The more I research, the more concerned I have become about the over use of prescription drugs to treat common mental health conditions like depression, stress, and anxiety. Of course, there are legitimate cases where certain people really need these prescription drugs, as they would become much worse without them. But for the most part, people take them without knowing there are natural alternatives that work just as well, without the nasty side effects, some of which are weight gain, dependence, loss of libido, liver problems, high blood pressure, and sleep disorders. I have experimented with several natural therapies and have found inositol to work great for overall well being. I also take L-Theanine, which helps anxiety. St John’s Wort did not help me, but according to this article I came across, perhaps I wasn’t taking the right kind… DEPRESSION, ANXIETY AND A.D.D.: NATURAL ALTERNATIVES TO PROZAC, VALIUM & RITALIN by: DeMarco, Carolyn, M.D. Dr. Carolyn DeMarco is a consultant in holistic medicine from British Columbia who specializes in women's health issues and alternative medicine. She is a well-known author and journalist, and her latest book, Doctor DeMarco Answers Your Questions and an innovative CD-ROM have recently been released. I DEPRESSION AND ALTERNATIVES TO PROZAC TYPES There are many different types of depression. Depression which is cyclical where there are manic and depressive episodes is called bipolar depression. In unipolar depression, the common type of depression, there is just depression without the manic state. It is just the down state, and it can be mild, moderate or severe. It is characterized by changes in appetite and weight, disturbed sleep, fatigue, loss of energy, difficulty concentrating, feelings of worthlessness and suicidal thoughts or attempts. Reactive depression may be brought on by an identifiable event like the death of a parent, or loss of a job, but this is not true depression. Dysthymia means "bad mood" and refers to mild to moderate depression. There is also seasonal affective disorder, which many people in Canada are subject to. Many factors affect depression including diet, excess sugar, sugar substitutes, coffee, alcohol and junk food, which can all create mental state abnormalities. Depression can be a very serious illness and drugs can be a godsend for people with severe depression, especially those who are suicidal and unable to function in any way. There is a place for psychiatric drugs. I would never deny that. However, they are very much subject to overuse. There is less necessity for tranquilizers because there are excellent effective natural remedies. ST. JOHN'S WORT However, there is a great role, in depression, for St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum). I have endorsed one specific kind of St. John's wort because I have had a very good experience with it, and that is Flora's St. John's wort which comes from Greece and it is completely wild. They pick it on the hills, put it in vats of extra-virgin olive oil, let it sit in the sun for 1,000 hours, then take that oil and put it into capsules. It is not a so-called standardized extract, but I have found that it always works well in doses of three or four capsules from two to four times a day, depending on the severity of the depression. All herbs are better taken without food, because they will have an increased effect. Don't take it with food unless you are having a lot of nausea. Take it between meals if you can. So take one dose at bedtime, one first thing in the morning and then just place your other doses sometime during the day. Michael Murray surveyed all the St. John's wort in the U.S. and found out there was much more being sold than there was actually plant material available. So, there are a lot of very weak or ineffective St. John's wort products. So we will have to investigate that. At the very least, if you don't want to try the Flora, try a St. John's wort that is standardized to contain .3% hypericin. There are many good ones out there. Natural Factors and many other companies make some good standardized extracts of St. John's wort. So we still use that 0.3% hypericin as a marker for quality. It grows everywhere in the countryside of Ontario and is also very common in B.C. It is actually considered a noxious weed because it grows so well. St. John's wort has a balsam-like smell. It has yellow flowers and there are little dots on the leaves which contain hypericin, one of the active ingredients. Nobody knew exactly how St. John's wort worked in the beginning; they thought the action was due to the hypericin. Now they have found that St. John's wort affects almost every neurotransmitter in the brain. It affects serotonin, dopamine, GABA and norepine-phrine. Some of you may know about the drug Effexor (used for depression) which targets two receptors: norepinephrine and serotonin. The new trend in antidepressants is to target specific neuroreceptors in the brain. However, St. John's wort actually acts on all the receptors. So it has a complex action, much more complex than they thought at the beginning. There are ten active ingredients of which hypericin is only one. And that is why I still feel there is a place for whole plant extracts. Otherwise the hypericin is a good marker of quality control. And usually St. John's wort is standardized to contain .3% hypericin. STUDIES St. John's wort became accepted in the medical profession when a study was published in The British Medical Journal in August, 1996 which reviewed all the highest quality trials on St. John's wort. The authors concluded that St. John's wort was a very effective treatment for mild to moderate depression. They were careful to investigate all the trials and choose only the best-designed and highest quality. So they were very stringent. Of the 37 studies reviewed, only 23 were accepted. A total of 1,757 patients with mild to moderate depression were surveyed, and St. John's wort was found to be significantly superior to a placebo or a dummy pill. It was also determined that St. John's wort effects were equal to a series of standard antidepressant drugs such as imipramine and amitriptyline, but there were far less side effects. It really was very good news. The studies used products in which the hypericin was standardized to .3%. In three other studies, St. John's wort was compared to standard antidepressants. Basically, they found that the reduction in depression was 63% for St. John's wort and 58% for standard antidepressants. The medical community is very cautious, and they suggest that longer-term studies of St. John's wort are required. Recently, a widely published long-term study performed by the makers of Zoloft comparing St. John's wort with standard antidepressants was inconclusive because the St. John's wort used in the study was not properly standardized. SAFETY You may have seen information in the news lately about the safety of St. John's wort, because if you are an AIDS patient, St. John's wort will actually increase the excretion of drugs through the liver, and you may have to change your dosage. So it is not considered appropriate to take with AIDS drugs. But basically, it has a very wide safety margin. In one study, they monitored over 3,000 patients (and by the way, most drug studies don't monitor such a large number). Over 600 private general practitioners participated in this study, and they found that 80% of individuals with mild to moderate depression showed an improvement. Side effects were rare and mild. So the experience of general practitioners using St. John's wort was that it was both safe and effective. SIDE EFFECTS The documented side effects of St. John's wort are very low, 2.43% overall. The main side effects are nausea, stomach upset, and occasional allergic reactions. The remaining side effects were almost negligible: .4% fatigue and a few incidents of anxiety. There has been some discussion about photosensitivity with St. John's wort, but it is not a major problem. If you want to improve your tanning, it will help, but fair skinned, blue-eyed people should be somewhat cautious; they tend to occasionally experience an allergic reaction. If you know anything about drug profiles (e.g. Prozac), the side effects and contra-indications go on for about four to five pages, and this is true of almost every antidepressant. These are very powerful drugs. Prozac has a lot of side effects and one of them is complete sexual dysfunction. The average Prozac prescription is given after an interview of about three to five minutes, so a lot of Prozac is given out without an adequate history of the patient. If you are taking Prozac for any of the milder problems such as mild to moderate depression, moderately severe PMS, menopause, or other ailments for which Prozac is now being prescribed, you shouldn't go suddenly off your drugs. If you are on the SSRIs (Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft) or tricyclic antidepressants like Elavil (amitriptyline) or Tofranil (imipramine), you must gradually reduce them over four weeks until the St. John's wort starts to kick in. Some antidepressants like Paxil have a serious rebound so that you will feel seriously worse when you go off them suddenly, and you can have a severe crash. Even missing a dose of Paxil can result in a severe emotional crash. Ideally, you should only go off your drugs under a doctor's supervision. As you gradually decrease your anti-depressants, add one St. John's wort the first week, two the second week, three the third, and then the fourth week you are off. The book by psychiatrist Hyla Cass called St. John's Wort: A Common Sense Guide to Understanding and Using St. John's Wort (Avery, 1998) provides a practical guide to using St. John's wort including how to make the switch from drug treatments. SEVERE DEPRESSION Study: Currently, the general consensus of the medical community is that you cannot use St. John's wort for severe depression. However, in a study of severely depressed patients, high doses of St. John's wort produced equivalent results to the standard antidepressants. This was a randomized controlled multi-center test, which means they had divided two groups into two parts: one group received a high dose (kind of a double dosage) of St. John's wort, the other received a high dose antidepressant which was Elavil. This was only one study and it hasn't been widely published, but it is very interesting because the results showed that both treatment regimens were equally effective, except that there were almost no side effects, of course, in the St. John's wort group. There were more side effects with the exceptionally high doses, but compared to the antidepressant group in which 41% (four out of every ten patients) had dry mouth, stomach upset, sweating, constipation - only 23% of the St. John's wort group had side effects and these were a lot milder. SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER (SAD) You can also use St. John's wort for seasonal affective disorder. Many people suffer from seasonal affective disorder in the winter when the light diminishes, and crave food, eat a lot, sleep a lot and become depressed. That is seasonal affective disorder in a nutshell. St. John's wort works like a dream. Four capsules of St. John's wort at night is very effective in preventing that decline in mood. There are studies showing that the results of St. John's wort for seasonal affective disorder are comparable to Prozac. There is no problem with long-term usage. For SAD, of course, you don't have to take it in the summer. It is very, very safe. LABOUR AND CHILDBIRTH We also use a tincture of St. John's wort during labour to lessen the pains of contraction, and for uterine contractions after labour, there is nothing like St. John's wort tincture. Midwives have always used it. Historically, they didn't use it for depression. Maybe they didn't have the amount of depression we have now. HERBAL TINTURES AND OILS You can also make your own St. John's wort in an alcoholic tincture and it is very easy to make. You won't know exactly how to adjust the dosage, but you can use it for mild depression. To extract the active ingredients you need alcohol. You just grind it up with vodka or brandy or some other alcohol, let it sit for about eight weeks and then strain and discard the herb. It is very simple. You are making a herbal tincture. St. John's wort also makes a lovely oil. You put the flowers and the plants in olive oil, which will then turn red, and it is very good for joint aches and pains. In homeopathy, we use it for nerve injuries and head and spine trauma. ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER St. John's wort can also be very helpful for children with ADD and ADHD. It is very safe to use. It helps calm them down. THYROID SUPPLEMENTS There are several natural products that can augment an antidepressant. The thyroid supplements T3 and T4 have been used for treatment-resistant depression. TRYPTOPHAN Another thing that you can use is tryptophan, which is an amino acid, one of the building blocks of protein. I am a big fan of tryptophan. Tryptophan is very good for insomnia and you usually use 2000 mg. at night. It is a great sleep aid; it is totally natural and has no side effects. It is also good for the sleep disorders of chronic fatigue syndrome, grief and menopause. In Canada, it is only available by prescription because a batch of Japanese genetically-engineered tryptophan caused serious health problems and it was taken off the market in the US. 5-HTP (5-hydroxy-tryptophan) can be used instead of tryptophan. 5-HTP is available without a prescription in health food stores. But where you would use 1000 mg of tryptophan, you need only 100 mg of 5-HTP. and that is the ratio, ten to one. COGNITIVE THERAPY This is an inexpensive therapy which has a very good track record. Studies have demonstrated that it not only relieves depression, but it has a much lower relapse rate than any drug, or even herb, because it deals with some of the root causes of depression. Over two dozen controlled studies have demonstrated that by the end of 12 to 20 weeks there is a 70% reduction in depression. So this is a really great therapy. It is hard to find a cognitive practitioner, but you can do it yourself. Some of the books that instruct you how to do it yourself are, Feeling Good Again, The New Mood Therapy, and Feeling Good Again Handbook by David Burns, psychiatrist. It is based on the premise that all thoughts are created by beliefs, attitudes and interpretations. Since your thought interpretations cause your emotional reaction, you can change your original thoughts. Depressed thoughts are dominated by pervasive negativity, thoughts like, "nothing ever goes right in my life; bad things always happen to me; life isn't fair." Other thought patterns that can lead to depression are: "I should be perfect; other people should be perfect; life should always be smooth," things like that. NEGATIVITY If you analyze the thoughts of a depressed person, it seems to be the interpretation that causes the problem. For instance, if a car runs over your foot, an appropriate response would be, "This is terrible, and I will be more careful in the future". An inappropriate interpretation would be: "This type of thing always happens to me; nothing ever goes right." In other words, generalizing from the specific to the general. When you look at your depressed thoughts, they are a repetitive cycle that go over and over in your head, and they can be summarized as Louise Hay says by three phrases: "My body doesn't work; my life doesn't work; my relationships don't work." I think that covers everything. "Something is not working and it never works for me." You can't be positive all the time; but you don't want to dwell in this negativity and live there. When you catch yourself repeating the same negative thought to yourself over and over again in a repetitive manner, this causes depression. By the way, almost everybody's tapes are similar, although you may think that you are the only one who has them. So these books teach you how to reprogram your thinking. They are based on excellent studies and they are teaching general practitioners how to do it. But you can do it yourself. That is the great thing. It is very cheap. GINGKO BILOBA has a natural antidepressant effect, and is a great memory herb. It is very good for treatment-resistant depression. If you are not having good results with your antidepressant, you can add the gingko and it will augment the results. Over forty double-blind studies showed that it increases circulation to the brain. So it is very useful for stroke and for stabilization of Alzheimer's disease. It doesn't reverse Alzeimer's, but it improves the circulation; it improves the memory. It is a fantastic herb and has a frequent antidepressant effect. You can increase the dose; even tripling or quadrupling the dosage has been done because there are no side effects. However, its full effect can take up to 12 weeks to develop. The gingko biloba leaf extract should be standardized to at least 24% gingko flavone glycosides. You have to look very carefully on the package and see if you can find this. Sisu, Genestra, Gaia, St. Francis Herb and Thorne are high quality brands. Genestra and Thorne are not always easy to find because they are professional brands (try Supplements Plus stores). Shawla Herbs are very good too. Gingko biloba is very well researched. In over 44 studies involving 9,772 patients, there were virtually no side effects. Twenty-one subjects had some stomach upset, seven had headache, and six had dizziness. You will never see a drug with a profile like that. Another study of elderly patients (aged 51 to 78) who had depression unresponsive to any drug found that when gingko biloba was added, they had a 50% decrease in their depression score, a dramatic response. The placebo group had a 10 % decrease. AROMATHERAPY is wonderful for depression because it goes right to the limbic system. Lavender is a great antidepressant, but it has to be a high quality lavender. I do prefer the Young Living Oils because I know the quality has been certified. There are other high quality oils from France; they aren't the only high quality oils, but you won't pay anything less that $25 for a good bottle of lavender. It should be certified. Most of the lavender in the stores is low quality. If you paid $5 or $10 for a bottle of lavender you are getting something that is synthetic or has chemicals added to it, and it can actually burn your skin. You can apply good lavender to your skin; you can breathe it. We use a number of oils. Clary sage is another oil that has a hormonal balancing effect and it also is a natural euphoric. It is a very nice oil also. And there are blends in Young Living like Peace and Calming which are very good. They have a lovely combination called Joy which is very uplifting. Aromatherapy is actually very complex and there are a lot of studies which demonstrate its effectiveness. II ANXIETY AND ALTERNATIVES TO VALIUM KAVA KAVA Kava kava is a wonderful herb from the South Seas and is harvested when it grows to six to eight feet in height. It acts on various parts of the brain, and it may even have an anti-convulsive effect. It could be an anti-epileptic as well, though that hasn't been proven. Again, these herbs don't just act on one part of the brain; they have multiple actions. Kava kava has wonderful qualities. It induces tranquility, sociability and a deep restful sleep with no side effects. What could be more pleasant? This is the perfect baby boomer herb with all the great sociable effects, no side effects and no addiction. It is excellent. And although the studies haven't been too extensive, it compares to Valium in its effect. The active ingredients are kava lactones. The label should specify that the kava lactones are between 30 and 70%. One study, which compared kava kava to oxazepam (a cousin of Valium) found that they both reduced anxiety equivalently, but there were no side effects with the kava kava. And as you know, Valium (diazepam), oxazepam and that whole family of drugs are addictive, as well as having drowsiness as the main side effect. In another study a group of subjects taking kava kava was compared to a group who took a placebo (a dummy pill). After four weeks the kava kava had produced an improved sense of well being, a marked reduction in anxiety and no side effects. In one well-designed study, it is described as the perfect herb for menopause because it reduced menopausal symptoms like anxiety and depression, as well as reducing hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms. Kava kava is an excellent herb, but it must be of good quality. Seventy percent kava lactones is ideal, but you will find that not many brands have that concentration. You take 100 mg. of the kava kava standardized to 70% kava lactones. Natural Factors and many other companies have standardized extracts, but some of them are only 30%. If the active ingredients are only 30%, then you would have to double the dosage. There are a number of excellent companies like Thorne and Seroyal, which have very high quality supplements. Gaia is very good. Genestra is excellent. But some companies' products are totally useless. There is a lot of crappy kava kava which is not standardized and may only contain 10% kava lactones. You will not notice much effect with that, and people will think it is not effective. VALERIAN You can try valerian. I don't find valerian is strong enough for a lot of the anxiety that we are facing today, even in combination with other herbs. MELATONIN There is no doubt that we are not getting enough rest and one of the things you can do to help your anxiety is to sleep in a room that is completely dark with no light coming in at all. That is very, very important for proper regeneration. So blacken out your windows and make sure there is no light coming in your room at night. That will increase your secretion of melatonin. By the way, melatonin is very helpful for sleep and for people who are working shift work. Melatonin is a very useful supplement in doses of one to three mg one hour before bedtime, and it is very, very safe. Many tranquilizers are so addictive that you must decrease them very slowly over a one to two month period. You would never do it suddenly. If you don't, you won't go off the drugs successfully. And at the same time increase your herbs and increase your nutritional supplements. III ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER AND ALTERNATIVES TO RITALIN As you know, Ritalin is over-prescribed, and ADD is over diagnosed. The National Institutes of Health are actually conducting an investigation on the over-prescription of Ritalin. Sometimes it is prescribed to keep a child sedated and in line, and a very creative and bright child can be well sedated with Ritalin often without adequate testing. There was one area in B.C. where 10% of the children were being given Ritalin. That is a lot of kids, and there is no evidence that it actually improves long-term school performance. If a teacher recommends it, and the parents don't want to give it to the child, the child can be removed from school. Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist who wrote Talking Back to Ritalin states that the diagnostic criteria focus on behaviours which parents find frustrating and disruptive, and conflicts between children and adults are redefined as diseases or disorders within the children. He believes that Ritalin suppresses creative, spontaneous and autonomous activity in children making them more docile and obedient, and more willing to comply with boring tasks in the classroom. There are children who have severe ADD who cannot survive in the school system, but so many more can easily be helped through natural alternatives. First of all the proper diagnosis must be secured. Secondly, natural alternatives must always be tried first and drugs only as a last resort, not the first approach to ADD. ALLERGIES Frequently, diet is absolutely crucial. It is important to anyone with any kind of mental disorder. Children should go off all sugar immediately and should be examined for food allergies. Studies have found certain food allergies common to children with ADD. Sugar is number one. Common allergens are sugar, wheat, dairy, food additives, egg, corn and citrus. You can use the elimination diet to find out what your kids are allergic to. The first day, you must take them off all food except rice and chicken, then daily you add back foods one at a time and watch for the allergic reaction. Kids can also be allergic to dust, pollen, moulds, animal dander and chemicals. Dr. Doris Rapp is a pediatrician who filmed children before and after ingesting sugar. Beforehand, children who had been behaving very well, after being given a dose of sugar, started attacking their mothers, actually hitting their mothers and their handwriting deteriorated completely. It is a very dramatic video. She wrote a book called, Is This Your Child? which describes common allergic reactions of children. They may have circles under their eyes, and I have seen young children about a year old with a severe reactions to certain foods just arch their head back and scream. These allergic reactions are sometimes almost immediate and sometimes delayed. NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES Children also have multiple nutritional deficiencies. It is shocking what kids are eating. They are eating a lot of fried food and sugar and very little real nutrition. Sugar is constantly being pushed on these kids. Of course, now we have MacDonalds in the schools and it is a nightmare. And often the parents are reluctant to get them off the junk food because you have to go through at least a week or two of terrible trauma as you wean them off all the junk food and sugar. But it is more than worth it. NUTRITIONAL TESTING There is a wonderful pharmacy in Ottawa called Nutri-Chem Pharmacy who do detailed nutritional testing with children. They work with Down's Syndrome children, but they can test any child for nutritional deficiencies. Then they will formulate vitamins in a liquid specific to that child's deficiency. They are very good, and can be reached at 1-888-384-7855 or www.nutrichem.com. NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS Hyperactive children are commonly deficient in zinc, iron and B-vitamins. Studies show that zinc supplementation improves memory, thinking and I.Q. Super green drinks like Greens Plus, Barley Plus, blue green algae or spirulina provide trace minerals that are very important for children. I highly recommend them for ADD. All the green drinks are very useful. Children also need omega-3 fatty acids, flaxseed oil or fish oil for learning. They cannot learn without it. Gingko biloba can be used with ADD and calcium and magnesium are very important for ADD children because magnesium has a calming effect. I am using St. John's wort with ADD kids and it is also very helpful. We can also use herbs like valerian, passionflower and lemon balm. These are calming herbs; they are very, very mild and can be also used for sleeping. TOXIC METALS Accumulation of lead, cadmium and other heavy metals can also cause ADD in some children. AROMATHERAPY is wonderful for ADD. Dr. Freedman has been studying children and found that breathing in lavender, orange or citrus oils can actually change the brainwaves and calm the children down. Nick Begich mentioned that you can teach children to change their brainwaves by using biofeedback. This is a relatively new technology for ADD. They look at their waves on the screen and they change them to a calmer brainwave. Brain Gym is another thing, an extract which unites the right and the left brain. A wonderful doctor in Vancouver, Gabor Mate, MD, feels that ADD is a symptom of our speeded up age and overstimulation (e.g. television images which change every few seconds). He has written a book called Scattered Minds: A New Look at the Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder (for more info see www.scatteredminds.com). He feels that ADD may result from early childhood parental and environmental issues that "morph into a biochemical one". There is an excellent book called Ritalin Free Kids by Judith and Robert Ullman who treated 400 ADHD kids with homeopathy. The other book that I really like is called Natural Treatments for ADD and Hyperactivity by naturopathic doctor, Skye Weintraub. "People who advocate medication as the first way to make children behave, without exploring their life situation and real needs might as well treat unhappiness with cocaine!" (Psychiatrist Dr. Felix Yarochevsky & psychotherapist David Schatzky in Globe & Mail editorial). A lot of these children have very complex family situations and we should at least consider that there are other factors going on before we just sedate them as fast as possible...” I will have more to say about this issue in a future blog. I hope that this has made you aware that there are many great alternatives to prescription drugs.
"I look AWFUL!" That is what I said many times as I was passing through my bedroom and got a glimpse of myself in the mirror, or any mirror for that matter. I remember thinking that looking at nyself was worse than the fright I got while watching a paranormal horror movie- the ghost that popped out onto the TV screen looked way better that me! Along with the shock of my reflection came unstoppable thoughts… “Is that a budge? My hair is a mess! Was that line there yesterday? My nails are horrible! I can never show my feet in public again! No matter how good I looked, I always seemed to pick out the one thing that wasn't perfect.
On and on it went for hours and sometimes days- debilitating overwhelming negative thoughts that just would not stop! I spent so much time stuck and obsessing that sometimes I didn’t even bother going where I was rushing to get to - getting ready became way too much of an effort because I knew that no matter what I did I would never look or feel right. I have wasted many days stuck in this mental torture, because along with OCD, I have been a victim of BDD, Body Dysmorphic Disorder.
Although many people feel dissatisfied with some things about themselves, they usually don’t become obsessed with their appearance and their looks don't constantly occupy their thoughts or cause them to feel tormented. But people suffering with BDD Body Dysmorphic Disorder, concerns about appearance become extreme and upsetting.
Some people become so focused on imagined or minor imperfections in their looks that it overtakes their entire lives, and, if BDD escalates out of control, it can even cause them to commit suicide, as was the case with Nathaniel Asselin. Nathaniel’s father, Denis, is currently on a 487 mile walk from Pennsylvania to Boston in order to raise awareness of this crippling disorder. You can find out more about this by visiting the IOCDF website.
also, http://walkingwithnathaniel.org
More information on BDD you may find useful…
“What Is Body Dysmorphic Disorder?
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a condition that involves obsessions, which are distressing thoughts that repeatedly intrude into a person's awareness. With BDD, the distressing thoughts are about perceived appearance flaws.
People with BDD might focus on what they think is a facial flaw, but they can also worry about other body parts, such as short legs, breast size, or body shape. Just as people with eating disorders obsess about their weight, those with BDD become obsessed over an aspect of their appearance. They may worry their hair is thin, their face is scarred, their eyes aren't exactly the same size, their nose is too big, or their lips are too thin.
BDD has been called "imagined ugliness" because the appearance issues the person is obsessing about usually are so small that others don't even notice them. Or, if others do notice them, they consider them minor. But for someone with BDD, the concerns feel very real, because the obsessive thoughts distort and magnify any tiny imperfection.
Because of the distorted body image caused by BDD, a person might believe that he or she is too horribly ugly or disfigured to be seen.”
Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is defined as a preoccupation with an imagined defect in one’s appearance. This perception of ugliness prevents the individual from functioning in many areas of life. The preoccupation is associated with many time consuming rituals such as mirror gazing or constant complaining. Many people may have some complaints about their body or appearance, but those with BDD are severely impacted by those negative obsessions with their inaccurate perceptions. They often have needless dermatological treatment and cosmetic surgery. BDD individuals have a distorted body image, which may be associated with bullying or abuse during childhood or adolescence.
This condition is commonly trivialized and stigmatized. There is evidence for the benefit of cognitive behavior therapy and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in high doses for at least 12 weeks, as in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. There is no evidence of any benefit of antipsychotic drugs or other forms of psychotherapy. If you believe you or someone you know may have BDD, please seek professional help immediately. If left untreated, BDD can worsen over time and last a lifetime. Don’t let your life disintegrate. Get help before it’s too late.
I found information about herbal supplements that may be useful in treating BDD, but I think they should be used only with the OK from a physician, as herbs have interactions to medicines and can have side effects…
“Herbal supplements have gained momentum over the past few decades in the United States and abroad. Partly due to skyrocketing medical and prescription costs and largely due to spreading knowledge about the unmatched effectiveness of many herbs, plants and natural remedies. There are however, many misconceptions about herbal remedies and what use they play. Seeing as there are countless herbs and plants that have been used for thousands of years, it can be puzzling to someone looking for a reliable alternative or supplement to their existing regiment. Here I will show you my top five herbal supplements that I both use and have received significant benefit from. These herbs help bring relief from such afflictions as depression, lethargy, weak immune system, stress and insomnia with little to no noticeable side effects.’ They are-
5-HTP, Holy Basil, Ginseng, Valerian and Echinacea
Prescription medications to help BDD are basically the same ones that treat OCD…
- “BDD is a physical condition which provokes emotional (psychological) responses. All drug protocols passed by the FDA for the treatment of OCD are serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as: Anafranil, Prozac, Luvox, Zoloft and Paxil.
- Serotonin is a neurotransmitter. (a neurotransmitter is a substance that chemically connects one nerve ganglia impulse to another ganglia. A sufficient amount of serotonin also produces a soothing calming effect to brain activity.
- The Serotonin reuptake inhibitor function is a way to increase the amount of available serotonin.
Another way is to increase the digestion of or the body's production of serotonin.
Other conditions possibly linked with insufficient serotonin are compulsive: Gamblers, Eaters, Sugar Addicts and Alcoholics, Anorexia Nervosa, Self- mutilation, Tourette's Syndrome and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (abnormal dislike for ones looks), Trichotillomania (pulling out your hair) and Hypochondria.’
I think this is useful information that I got from the Mayo Clinic website…
“Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can't stop thinking about a flaw with your appearance — a flaw that is either minor or imagined. But to you, your appearance seems so shameful that you don't want to be seen by anyone. Body dysmorphic disorder has sometimes been called "imagined ugliness."
When you have body dysmorphic disorder, you intensely obsess over your appearance and body image, often for many hours a day. You may seek out numerous cosmetic procedures to try to "fix" your perceived flaws, but never will be satisfied. Body dysmorphic disorder is also known as dysmorphophobia, the fear of having a deformity.
Treatment of body dysmorphic disorder may include medication and cognitive behavioral therapy.
Symptoms are: Having a lot of anxiety and stress about the perceived flaw and spending a lot of time focusing on it, such as frequently picking at skin, excessively checking appearance in a mirror, hiding the imperfection, comparing appearance with others, excessively grooming, seeking reassurance from others about how they look, and getting cosmetic surgery.
Getting cosmetic surgery can make BDD worse. They are often not happy with the outcome of the surgery. If they are, they may start to focus attention on another body area and become preoccupied trying to fix the new "defect." In this case, some patients with BDD become angry at the surgeon for making their appearance worse and may even become violent towards the surgeon.
What is the treatment for BDD? · Cognitive behavioral therapy. This is a type of therapy with several steps:
1. The therapist asks the patient to enter social situations without covering up her "defect."
2. The therapist helps the patient stop doing the compulsive behaviors to check the defect or cover it up. This may include removing mirrors, covering skin areas that the patient picks, or not using make-up.
3. The therapist helps the patient change their false beliefs about their appearance.”
This is a really good article about 4 women with BDD-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/beauty/article-1195336/Body-dysmorphic-disorder-Four-beautiful-women-distorted-way-THEY-themselves.html
I hope this has given you an idea of BDD, an extremely complex disorder which seems to exist under the OCD umbrella. It seems the same things that help OCD work for BDD as well. I have found relief by eating foods with natural sources of serotonin, which are bananas, and turkey. Also, spirulina, flaxseed oil niacin and vitamin B6, and inoistol may also be of help. I hope no one has to endure the agony of BDD, but if you do, please get help and know - THERE IS HOPE!
With the arrival of spring comes many new movie releases. Personally, I am waiting to see the Dark Shadows movie starring Johnny Depp, which will be out in May. I loved the original Dark Shadows TV soap that aired in the ‘60’s and have most of the DVD’s. I am hoping that Johnny Depp will make a great Barnabas, but to me, no one can be Barnabas except for Jonathan Frid, the original. This may not be the best choice of movies for a person with OCD who has fears of ghosts or vampires though, but I have a feeling this new remake was made to be more amusing than scary
With movies in mind, I was thinking about how movies can greatly affect people with mental disorders. Then I received an e-mail from Liz Nutt, a writer for insurancequotes.org who sent me this interesting article, 10 Movies for hypochondriacs. Many people with OCD also can have issues with hypochondria, which is obsessive thoughts of illness or of becoming ill. Hypochondria can render a person immobile and unable to function and keep them in a frightening and extremely unpleasant state of mind. These movies can certainly do that!.
After reading this I was creeped me out a bit. Dark Shadows is looking better and better!
Posted by Staff Writers on Sep 25, 2011
"Although serious hypochondria should be treated by a psychology professional rather than derisive laughter, some of the milder cases can stand a bit of light ribbing. Just like (almost) anything else, really. So when that special friend or family member always crushed beneath the disease du jour stops on over for movie night, the following selections provide epic entertainment far, far beyond the LCD screen's warm, cozy glow. But when he and/or she spends the next morning stirring up an epic ER embarrassment just KNOWING those stomach pains signify the deadly Motaba virus, know that revenge will come unexpectedly sweeping down on swift and dreadful wings. Like a thief in the night, such vengeance. Probably the quintessential film about nasty little diseases hellbent on eliminating humanity, The Andromeda Strain adapted Michael Crichton's suspenseful, intense book of the same name into a viable Oscar nominee. Only Coast to Coast AM guests genuinely think an alien virus sits poised to wipe everyone out almost instantaneously, but hypochondriacs don't need a specific source to find the results triggering. It could, after all, come from monkeys! Or deep sea exploration! Or … like, a drug test gone horrifyingly wrong or something!
Discovering a loved one suffers from a debilitating, degenerative terminal disease is undeniably one of the most devastating, wrenching experiences. Discovering a loved one suffers from a debilitating, degenerative terminal disease so uncommon, nobody's ever researched potential cures, only exacerbates the heartbreak. Though ultimately a hopeful narrative, this movie's central conflict reflects a very real, very terrifying struggle. One that might very well inspire hypochondriacs to call up WebMD and label their symptoms the most exotic and/or deadly options possible — or extend the courtesy to sick friends and family.
Outbreak is notable for its depiction of how the American government might respond to a killer, swiftly spreading virus. Its rather extreme, Hollywood-friendly response, of course. Although the film's microscopic villain Motaba hails from fiction rather than Zaire, the nation did experience a very real Ebola outbreak shortly following its release. A very unfortunate coincidence, but one hypochondriacs won't soon forget. Here, both the real and the imaginary provide hours and hours of anxiety-ridden fun! Will death come instantaneously, courtesy of a carpet-bombing quarantine? Or would the universe rather just sit and watch something a little slower and suspenseful, like severely dehydrating diarrhea and vomiting?
Before Steven Soderbergh tackled the bird flu pandemic in 2011's Contagion, he earned some Oscar nods for another film tackling public health. While everyone else obsesses over Julia Roberts' now-famous cleavage-bearing, hypochondriacs will pay closer attention to the actual plot. Based on a true story, it follows a file clerk in a law office who uncovers a toxic corporate secret. Small town residents soak up large energy company leavings and end up ill as a result. Thanks to greed and cover-ups, anyone, anywhere can unexpectedly fall victim to a company's desire to prioritize profits over the populace. And there's no telling what they may dump in the water supply!
A zombie apocalypse probably won't ever be a thing that happens, but the visceral imagery and concepts associated with the trope contain some obvious human resonance. Not only do the ravaged from 28 Days Later represent the same near-universal fear of no self-control and succumbing to animalistic violence, they also suffer from a hypochondriac cinephile's favorite plot device. Thaaaaaat's right! A destructive, quicksilver virus rockets through London, transmogrifying the afflicted into savage, Romero-esque nightmares. It's two petrifying medical terrors for the price of one DVD or Blu-Ray.
Love him or loathe him, incendiary documentarian Michael Moore undeniably knows how to get Americans talking about important social and political issues. This being an article for hypochondriacs and all, Sicko seems an appropriate choice. It delves into what life is like for individuals and families unable to afford health insurance and healthcare — two very basic human rights so often denied to those inhabiting lower socioeconomic brackets. Even individuals enjoying excellent coverage will brace after seeing how desperate things get for the United States' sick when they can't afford proper treatment.
Another film about viruses, this time based on a Jose Saramago novel. Rather than liquefying their organs or blasting brains into zombie rages, victims here succumb to a blindness known as "White Sickness." With so many citizens panicking — presumably because they've never picked up an issue of Daredevilbefore — the planet erupts into a harrowing, anarchic dystopia. Blindness, however, does provide some hopeful shards to hypochondriac viewers scared stiff of global pandemic possibilities.
Even mild hypochondriacs know that medical dangers loom long before a person becomes a person. Mothers, fetuses and babies alike experience their own issues when it comes to the childbirth process, as this illuminating documentary discusses. The Business of Being Born's main thesis juxtaposes current healthcare approaches to squeezing out pre-adults and their more natural, frequently home-based, counterparts. Viewers don't need kids of their own — or even the desire to ever have them — to find some scenes, concepts and ideas presented more than a mite creepy-crawly.
Neal Stephenson explored the concept of memes and word viruses in his sublime cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, and the quirky film Pontypooltransfers the concept to a horror setting. But rather than mind control, hypochondriacs can look forward to infections causing bloody, visceral hysterics. And since common words, such as "breathe," carry it, doom pretty much awaits us all. Yup. This time, it takes a seemingly minor everyday — and nonmedical! — occurrence to install a terrifying, zombie-like sickness. Sleep well tonight!
Chronic Lyme Disease receives no official recognition from many major medical organizations, and yet people still suffer from its symptoms. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the documentary begging for the condition's acceptance, it boasts enough content to almost permanently prickle a hypochondriac's nerves. After all, if the Infectious Diseases Society of America doesn't think it's a thing, what else are they ignoring? What if a brand new condition springs into existence and the healthcare community just doesn't care?? And who will be the first person to start showing its symptoms???
I am guilty of using the phrase “I’M SO TIRED!” There are many reasons why people say this. It could be the symptom of a physical ailment or a food allergy. Perhaps it is the weather, lack of proper sleep- maybe you are overwhelmed by emotional issues that drain energy such as anxiety or anger over a no-win situation that you can’t see the way out of.
At some point, fatigue affects everyone. For some people, it is an occasional annoyance, but for others, it is a chronic affliction. People with OCD seem to feel tired a lot. The stress of the disorder just adds to general feelings of exhaustion and exacerbates them. I have spent many days just dragging myself through the undeniable urge to retreat into bed. I wonder how much money fatigue causes the work force to lose on a daily basis? It must be exorbitant.
I came across this interesting article by Catherine Pratt that may be of help to those who deal with fatigue often…
"I'm So Tired. What Your Brain Might Be Trying to Tell You.
Do you know someone who is always happy? No matter what, they see the sunny side of the street. You attempt to tell them something unpleasant in you life and they point out the blue sky- the silver lining. When you explain that a crisis is looming they say "What are you worried about-everything will be fine!" Haven't you been tempted to tell them to shut up already and face reality? Why can't they see that your situation sucks? It's annoying sometimes!
But, if you stop and think about it, wouldn't you rather be around a person like that instead of one who continuously preaches gloom and doom? These upbeat, hopeful people trust the big picture and overlook the obstacles and faults, trusting in the future.
What if you happen to be one of the pessimists- the other side of the coin? The glass is definitely always half empty and you always seem to find the fly in the ointment. You focus on the one small, minute thing that isn't perfect. People with OCD often fall onto this loop. It is a pitfall, as it can become a habitual way of life. It is a good thing to be conscious of this, as automatic negative thinking can become a mind-trap.
Looking for ways out of negative thinking, I came across this article, which is about a great book that I have read, The Power of Positive Thinking, by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
Optimism: Steps to Live a Better Life
"The Power of Positive Thinking" is re-released after 50 years. More than 50 years ago, a little book called The Power of Positive Thinking took the world by storm. Written by a minister, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the book was a remarkable mix of natural psychological insight and faith-based principles applied to everyday problems of living.
By
Hara Estroff Marano, published on March 01, 2003 - last reviewed on June 23, 2009
'More than 50 years ago, a little book called The Power of Positive Thinking took the world by storm. Written by a minister, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the book was a remarkable mix of natural psychological insight and faith-based principles applied to everyday problems of living.
The publishers are re-releasing the book, and it crossed my desk the other day. I was astonished when I looked it over. There is a tremendous amount of
wisdom in it.
I thought I'd pass along some of the best advice in the book, because it's worth using. It has a very timeless quality to it, and it does have the power to be highly motivating.
The most important principle is to believe in yourself. The secret, said Dr. Peale 50 years ago, and he might just as well have said it yesterday, is to "fill your mind with thoughts of
faith, confidence and security. This will force out or expel all thoughts of doubt, all lack of confidence."
I found this article and liked it so much that I wanted to share it with you. It is about programming your subconscious, which many people do not realize they have the power to do. If you learn this, you can become happier, successful, and help manifest whatever is your heart's desire. This was written by David Zack Holmes.To read more of his articles see: http://www.davidzackholmes.com"If you know anything about computers, you know there really is not intelligence driving these machines. The only output you can expect from a computer is only as good as the input.Some software programs work efficiently and seems intuitive to our needs. While, other software programs are slow and clunky and can’t be trusted to provide the desired output.Our subconscious mind is very much like a computer. The subconscious mind is the driving force behind our lives and manifests whatever we input. This is why children who are given positive feedback and reminded of their infinite abilities succeed in life while children who are abused and given negative feedback have a hard time getting through life. While we are children, it is up to our parents to feed our subconscious mind, but as adults, we must take full responsibility for what is input in the subconscious.A well-programmed subconscious mind makes the difference between happiness and sadness, success and failure, realizing possibilities and despair.It is easy to program your subconscious mind and I see it as these 10 simple steps.1. Be the guardian of everything that enters your mind. Know that everything you see hear and feel goes directly into your subconscious mind and you must manage the information you allow in. Eliminate negative information as much as you can by limiting the amount of news you read, stop seeing violent movies, read only positive information. Keep the positive information flowing into your mind and your subconscious will naturally become more positive.2. Speak kindly to yourself. When you look in the mirror do you like what you see? Do you compliment yourself on your most outstanding attributes? Stop all negative talk to yourself immediately. You are a perfect creation of God and you have beautiful traits that need recognizing. Remind yourself of your great eyes or your winning smile—whatever sets you apart from everyone else in a positive way. Your subconscious will thank you.3. Surround yourself with positive people. Negative people can quickly lead to negative thoughts. Make sure your group of friends are those that love and admire you for the great person you are. Eliminate any time spent with anyone who brings you down. You can’t afford the hit to your subconscious mind simply to maintain a negative friendship.4. Use affirmations to your advantage and the optimum times when your subconscious mind is listening. Immediately upon waking and immediately upon going to bed are the times when your conscious and subconscious mind are closest. It is at these times when you get the biggest bang out of your affirmations. Use positive affirmations at these times to super-program the subconscious. Some examples of positive affirmations are:I am one with the creative power that is materializing all my desires.Money is my friend. I have plenty of money.I freely express my creativity5. Be grateful Oprah Winfrey has done a magnificent job of reminding us all how important it is to have gratitude in our lives. Having gratitude allow us to realize the blessings we already have and keeps us open to receive so much more. Make a list of everything you are grateful for and grow this list as time goes on. On any day when it seems that nothing is going your way refer back to this list and remind yourself of all the blessings you already have. Your subconscious mind needs to know what you are grateful for so it can manifest more of the same for you.6. Manage your time. There are twenty-four hours in the day for everyone. The wealthy and the poor all have the same amount of time—the difference is in how they use their time. On the first day of each month plan, what you wish to
Dyslexia is basically a learningdisability that impairs an individual’s ability to interpret what they hearinto how they write. It can affect one’s reading, spelling, and rapidvisual-verbal responding. It is not an intellectual disability and has nothingto do with intelligence. Some people have a very mild form, like mixing up theletters b and d or failing to write symbols correctly, as in backwards questionmarks etc. Others with severe forms fail to achieve basic language skills, andcannot read or write without great difficulty. It is usually diagnosed inchildhood and persists throughout life. It often goes undetected andmisdiagnosed. It has been found to be hereditary. Dyslexia can co-exist withOCD, and can add to the general frustration anddespair that OCD can cause.
I recently received an e-mail fromRosa Ray, who works with http://www/Onlinecollegecourses.com. Rosa sent me this very interesting article, "15 Famous thinkers WhoCouldn’t Spell." It got me thinking that perhaps these extremely intelligentpeople, the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein,Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, John Keats, Alfred Mosher Butts –ironically the inventor of Scrabble, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald,Jane Austin, John F. Kennedy, may have had Dyslexia…
“Wordscan be tricky things, often spelled quite differently than how they sound,coming from foreign languages with different sets of rules, or being just plainweird. It's no wonder then that so many people struggle with spelling, eventhose who are generally regarded as having some seriously brilliant minds. No,it's not just grade-schoolers, college students, and theeveryday man who struggles with the age old "i before e" dilemma, butalso scientists, writers, and world leaders. Here, you'll find a list of greatthinkers who made great strides in their respective fields, but never couldquite conquer the perils of spelling.
15 Famous Thinkers Who Couldn’t Spell
Words can be tricky things, oftenspelled quite differently than how they sound, coming from foreign languageswith different sets of rules, or being just plain weird. It's no wonder thenthat so many people struggle with spelling, even those who are generallyregarded as having some seriously brilliant minds. No, it's not justgrade-schoolers, collegestudents, and the everyday man who struggles with the age old "ibefore e" dilemma, but also scientists, writers, and world leaders. Here,you'll find a list of great thinkers who made great strides in their respectivefields, but never could quite conquer the perils of spelling.
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Happy Chinese New Year 4709- the year of The Water Dragon
Chinese New Year begins today, January 23, 2012, on the new moon, and is the biggest holiday in China. This one is particularly big, as the Dragon year is the most auspicious and popular of all.
According to
www.chinesefortunecalendar.com legend has it that dragons come from heaven and 9 of them were sent to help the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. When it was time for them to return, the emperor tried to keep them by putting the 6th dragon under a magic spell so he couldn't leave. The other dragons wouldn't return without him, but they all refused to work for the Emperor and changed their identities and remained in China.
Since then, they have been used as symbols:
Dragon #1 is carved into music instruments, such as violins.
Dragon #2 is on many different handles of weapons.
Dragon #3 is the symbol of safety, harmony and peace.
Dragon#4 can be found on the big bells as a symbol of protection and alertness.
Dragon #5 s the symbol of fire and smoke. His image is often found in temples and on incense burners.
Dragon #6 is a symbol of strength, longevity, and good luck.
Dragon #7's symbol can be found in law offices, courts, and jails.
Dragon #8 is the symbol of knowledge or education and can often be found on books.
Dragon #9 is the water dragon, and is the symbol used to prevent fire and disasters.
Chinese New Year is celebrated for weeks and there is much preparation. Chinese history is steeped in traditions, and as the Water Dragon is the luckiest year of all in Chinese culture, it is the year more people will marry, give birth, buy homes, and open businesses because of increased chances of success. Also, many rituals will be performed in order to attract luck. In addition, there are many superstitions which they will adhere to. These may pose difficulties for some people, especially people with OCD and related disorders, because of fears of misfortune if the superstitions are not heeded.
This is from
http://gohongkong.about.com/od/hongkongfestivals/tp/CNYsuperstition.htm "Chinese New Year may be a time for friends, family and fun, but is also a time for foreboding as the festival is riddled with superstitions. The Chinese, including Hong Kongers, place much stock in the rites and rituals in Chinese New Year superstitions. Check out our top Chinese New Year superstition tips below.
1. Dirty Doings
Put your feet up and relax. Certainly the most enjoyable of the Chinese New Year superstitions, sweeping and cleaning is strictly forbidden. The Chinese believe cleaning means you'll sweep all of your good luck out the front door.
2. Time to Come Clean
Before you can enjoy number two, you need to give the house a full spring clean, before putting cleaning tools in the cupboard on New Year's Eve.
3. Read Between the Lines
Be sure to stock up on reading materials before Chinese New Year, as Hong Kong's bookshops will be padlocked tight. In Cantonese, book is a homonym for 'lose'.
4. Choppy Waters
Make sure you avoid rough seas in the new year by not buying shoes over the holiday period. In Cantonese, shoes are a homonym for 'rough'.
5. Balance the Books
If you're in debt, it's time to dip into your pockets and pay people off. The Chinese believe that if you start the new year in the red, you'll finish it the same way.
6. Ghostly Conversations
Caught round a campfire over th
Can human energymanipulate electronics- and what effect do electronics have on people? Somepeople claim electronic devices freeze or malfunction when they are near, oremotional. This is a something I have been wondering about for a long time. Itis one of those controversial subjects- some people believe it and others thinkit is total quackery.
I found thisinteresting, as I have personally experienced "electronic madness"and increased OCD symptoms during emotional times. I thought perhaps it wasbecause I became so nervous that I wasn't operating my electronics correctly,causing them to misbehave. But how would that affect lights that blew out? Somepeople who know me will attest to this happening.
Also, lately it seems asif everything I touch generates a nasty shock, and not just in winter. I foundout that this is because of a build up in the “electric field strength” which interactswith electrons and ions. I guess my personal electric field conducts the airaround me more than others.
There is much well-known evidence that peoplecan manipulate their personal energy, but does this translate into manipulatingelectronics? Personally, I studied Tai Chi for many years, and the principalwas to move your “Chi,” your personal energy, above the waist so it can flowthrough you and give you strength and energize you. I also took Yoga, which isabout “Prana,” – the vital, life-sustaining energy force that nourishes thebody. I could feel my energy move around while in a Yoga pose, and after practicingTai Chi I could feel the energy in the palms of my hands, like a magnet.
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As we know, this stands to be a very interesting year in several ways. In the forefront, this is the year that Mayan calendar ends, and some people predict that means the end of the world. Looking around, I came across many websites completely dedicated to this. One of them is http://www.december212012.com/ Here I found a treasure trove of articles about the Mayan and Hopi prophecies, galactic alignment and consequential polar shift, the I Ching, Edgar Cayce- even Einstein, and it all points to a global disaster of epic proportions occurring on or near December 21, 2012. There is also something entitled The 11:11 prophecy- people that are drawn to those numbers are being given a signal, there is a message being sent to them. They are chosen to usher in the “Age of Aquarius,” a new spiritual beginning due to occur on 12/21/12.
Further research informed me there are people compiling survival kits, hoarding supplies, and stockpiling food and water. There is an “end of the world” countdown clock in Mexico, and an end of the world calendar for sale- “the last calendar you’ll ever need.” There are several end of the world blogs as well, and it seems as if peopleare getting rich selling end of the world supplies from the Internet.
While some people may find this all amusing, others are severely stressed out by the approaching date. Some people with OCD or related disorders may be having a difficult time right now, ritualizing in order to stop the feared event. I came upon this article by Jay Michaelson- http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/5474/religious_belief_or_mental_illness/ Michaelson says that we are being caught up in a general anxiety, which is being fed to us in the form of movies, and other media that are preying on our doubts and fears. As doubt and fear are huge components of OCD, it is easy to see how certain people can become really freaked out!
There are many other sites that state the world will NOT end, that the calendar marks an astronomical event, which is the earth in the center of our galaxy, but they weren’t as entertaining or dramatic as the doomsday ones. I did find out that the ancients knew quite a bit about Astronomy and I question where they got that advanced knowledge. However, I believe that since they wrote their calendars many thousands of years ago, all ancient civilizations simultaneously ended their calendars with earth in the galactic center, as the astronomical cycle would begin again.
I don’t believe the world will end, or that anything will happen at all, except for what humans do to each other as the date approaches. Remember the Millennium and Y2K? I think we should realize that there are people who will try to take advantage of others at this time. Stop and think about this- if the end of the world is really coming and these people really believe it – why are they making lots of money? They are obviously planning for their futures. TV shows make money on advertising for these programs, and movies can rake in millions.
So, to those of you who are worried about the end coming- stop and think about why there is so much commotion about it – MONEY- and money will be no good to anyone if the world ends, will it? I hope we all make lots of money this year and I hope you enjoy the New Year stress free. I wish everyone a GREAT 2012!
It is well known that many people with OCD have related disorders. For me, one of them has been Attention Deficit Disorder, which has annoyed me since childhood. There are several types of ADD, and they manifest themselves in different ways.
When I was in school, here were several boys who were being extremely disruptive in class. One of them was eventually removed because he would not remain in his seat. I’m betting those boys had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD- the over-active version. With me, it was totally different. I clearly remember being in algebra class and being unable to concentrate. This went on for the entire semester. It got to the point that I was completely lost. As the teacher was explaining formulas and equations, my mind just drifted off to another land. Perhaps, as my sister-in-law Cathy says, I should have been taught in a way that I could understand, because I just could not get it, and fell so far behind that I failed the class. That was just one of my problems focusing as a child. I didn’t realize it until much later, but that was also caused by Attention Deficit Disorder, and a specific type that is mostly found in girls, called limbic ADD.
The symptoms of Limbic ADD can continue right into adulthood, and they are- inability to pay attention (especially to things found distasteful or boring,) mild depression, low energy, procrastination, poor sleep. For those of you who think you may have it, I found this information about Limbic ADD at
http://www.adhd-health.com/philosophy/adhd-6types-type3-5.php
“Limbic ADD
The Limbic System: Includes the thalamus and hypothalamus, regulates emotions, emotional memories, influences the hormone system, has a relay and gating function for sensory information, control of motivation and drives.
Natural Treatment:
• Diet. ADD people have a different metabolism to average people and so do depressed people.
• Omega-3 fish oil.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and/or biofeedback training.
• Aerobic exercise daily for 30-45 minutes, preferably outside.
• Supplement formulations specially formulated for the ADD metabolism and depression:
Limbic ADD is another form of attention deficit, but with the added complication of the brain locked into a negative thought pattern. The other forms of real or true ADHD the inattentive and classic types are resilient and can take knocks, bouncing back. However this type tends to give up easily. Therapy to reset the brain or calm the limbic system, such as some forms of meditation might work well. Stimulant medication is likely to make the condition worse in this ADD type."
The following article is helpful for all types of ADD and I got it from AOL. It was written by Beth W. Orenstein…
“Manage Stress to Stop Procrastinating
When you’re overwhelmed, you’ll find yourself procrastinating more, says Jennifer Koretsky Korey, a senior certified ADHD coach and author of Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD. You can manage stress by slowing down and taking excellent care of yourself. “I recommend that clients take half an hour a day — every day — to relax and recharge,” Korey says. Also, prioritize good sleep habits, good nutrition, and exercise. Even small changes in these areas will make a big difference
Plan Your Road to Success
In order to finish something, you first need to know where to start, Korey says. "If you try to jump into a project without planning, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and shut down.” This is sound advice for anyone approaching a task, but it is particularly helpful if you have ADHD. Korey recommends taking 5 to 15 minutes to step back from the project and plan the steps that you need to take to complete it. “Then when you begin,�
OCD and Brain Fog
I think that Brain Fog is something people should know more about. Brain Fog is just that – you feel unfocused, a bit dazed and you can’t concentrate the way you need to, at work or at school. I have experienced this and believe that there are many others who have also, without realizing the causes. An overworked brain, such as one experiencing OCD or other related disorders, can get foggy very quickly. In researching this, it is not only OCD, there can be many causes of living in a surrealistic state that you may find interesting.
For a correct definition of brain fog, I refer to an interesting article…
BRAIN FOG
by Lawrence Wilson, MD
© January 2011, The Center For Development
“The brain is the crowning organ of the human being. Therefore, dysfunctions involving it are always important. Brain fog is one of the most important symptoms today, even though I have not seen it listed as a diagnosis or recognized health condition in most medical or psychological texts.
A clinical definition of brain fog. Brain fog may be described as feelings of mental confusion or lack of mental clarity. It is called brain fog because it can feel like a cloud that reduces your ability to think clearly. It can cause a person to become forgetful, detached and often discouraged and depressed. It usually is present most of the time, meaning it does not come and go, although it may become better or worse depending on what a person eats, or one’s state of rest and hydration.
Brain fog is not recognized as a clinical diagnosis because it is not easy to test for it. It is quite subjective, in other words. The person just knows that they do not function well, and the mind often seems foggy or cloudy. This is not the same as dementia, mental retardation, anxiety, depression or other common mental symptoms. I hope that medical doctors will soon expand their diagnostic ability to assess brain fog, but for now it is a subjective condition, though it is very real.
Brain fog is quite common. It affects thousands of people, including children as well as adults. It contributes to school and work problems, low self-esteem, accidents, unhappy relationships and often is a factor in crime and delinquency because it can cause intense frustration and inability to function well in society.
The onset of brain fog. Some people have had brain fog for most of their lives, and may even think their state of mind is normal. In some other cases, it comes on slowly with age or time. In still other instances, it may develop almost overnight, perhaps after a mild flu or other illness, or perhaps after a toxic exposure.”
For the complete article- http://www.drlwilson.com/articles/brain_fog.htm
I found some other information which may be useful to some individuals in figuring out exactly what may be causing their misty state of mind…
“Brain fog affects millions and contributes to unhappiness, poor productivity, failing school grades, crime, job loss, accidents, relationship and a range of social problems.
• Anyone experiencing brain fog can begin by improving diet and lifestyle. Reduce, or preferably, eliminate junk food, heavily sugared foods, and highly processed foods. Reduce, or preferably, eliminate wheat, dairy, and other commonly consumed foods that may be causing sensitivities or allergic reactions. Rather than soda pop, coffee, or juice drink at least 6 glasses of pure water every day (preferably room temperature water as it is easier for the body to process).
• Be sure to get enough sleep, take time to relax, and make a point to breathe deeply throughout the day. Detoxification methods like cleanses, colonic irrigation, and saunas can be very helpful - for many, radically life changing.
• In some cases, testing for allergies, illnesses, and brain diseases may be necessary. Bra
Many people are very sensitive to the comments and opionions of others. Even a casual remark can wound and penetrate a fragile psyche, especially that of a vulnerable child. Many people with OCD can fall victim to the ctiticism of others. Some react by arguing or fighting, others by withdrawing into themselves.
What we may not realize is that many times, people who criticise or point out the flaws of others are doing so because of their own self insecurities and lack of self confidence. By exposing other people’s weaknesses, they hide their own.
Having said that, we are often our own victims. I think that in this world of technology and global instant communication, it is possible give out too much information about ourselves, which make people easy targets. Does everyone really have to know when you have your period, or that you were hung over and didn’t make it to work on time? Be aware of spontaneous Facebook postings which will bite you in the end. That goes for emotional textings as well. Does your entire addres book have to get a fowarded message from you ex boyf about how you hate him because he used you and dumped you? Once you write it, it is there forever to haunt you.
Here is a very good quote from Don Miguel Ruiz…
“Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”
Don Miguel Ruiz
I found this on a site – Seven Simple Steps to Inner Peace…
“If we depend on the opinions and praise of other people, we can never have inner peace. Criticism and flattery are two sides of the same coin. They are both the judgements of others. However, we should not allow ourselves to be affected by either. When we do, we feed the ego. We should learn to have confidence in ourselves. This does not mean we will love ourselves in an egotistical way, it means we value our real self and have belief in the good qualities that are part of everyone.” For the full artcle on Inner Peace… http://www.srichinmoybio.co.uk/blog/inner-peace/seven-simple-steps-to-inner-peace/
Here’s to protection from useless and unwanted criticism and an abundance of inner peace!
It's a well known fact that many people with OCD suffer with bouts of depression. What I recently realized is that severe depression can be set off by the loss of a pet.
My beloved cat Remy, who was my constant companion for the past 18 years, is gone. I am lost and desperately lonely without her. Nothing is the same anymore without her by my side, following me everywhere (even doing the laundry with me) sleeping with me, and even sitting on my lap while I wrote this blog so many times before.
I have been crying for the past two weeks and I feel extremely depressed. Having OCD, I know this feeling well and I dread it. I know I must pull myself out of it or the consequences will not be good for me, or for anyone around me. If anyone reading this is depressed, my first advice would to do whatever you can to NOT give in to it. Even though I really would rather stay in bed, I have been forcing myself to get up and keep moving. I have been taking inositol, which also helps OCD as well as calcuim and chromium to balance my blood sugar, since my appetite has been destroyed.
People have been very nice to me- the outpouring of sympathy from family and friends is really appreciated. I still have a void inside, which I'm hoping doesn't turn into s sink-hole. And my OCD is acting up, but I still have it under control. And for those who say "It's just a cat," my response is unprintable.
I am paying extra attention to my remaining cat "Squeaky Mouse" who has been Remy's companion for the past 9 years. She is a sweet cat and comforting presence. She is feeling this too and I don't know what to do about her feelings at this point.
I went online to see what else could lift me out of this mess. I don't want to hear any Rainbow Bridge BS or things like that, personally they do not help me quell my anger and frustration about a situation I can do nothing about. It sucks that pets don't live as long as people - can't someone do something? There are advances in science all the time!
The thing that helped me the most so far is this article from http://cats.about.com/cs/copingwithloss/a/dealingwithloss.htm
It is about Cats, but I think it would apply to any one suffering the loss of a pet...
Surviving the Loss of Your Cat
How to Deal With the Loss of a Beloved Cat and Move Forward Again
By Franny Syufy, About.com Guide
"It hurts. You feel real physical pain-- a black hole in the center of you that once was filled with love and laughter and joy. Now it is a void, only filled with emptiness. You sob for days, and just when you think you've shed your last tear, you chance upon a memento: a worn-out sock in the corner of the room, a dish you had customized with your beloved's name, and the tears flood again. Finally, one day, you accept your emptiness and your eyes become as dry and barren as your heart. "I'll never, NEVER replace him (her)", you state vehemently, when friends timidly approach the subject.
Frequent visitors to this site will know immediately that I am not talking about the loss of a spouse, or even a child, although the emotions are just as real. I'm talking about the loss of your cat, who perhaps was the only creature on Earth who loved you unconditionally. "What's the big deal? It was only a cat. Get over it." Most friends will not be crass enough to voice this opinion, but you can still sense the unspoken words in some.
Here are some Dos and Don'ts for helping to ease the pain of the loss of a cat:
•Do: Allow yourself to cry. Holding back the tears will only stuff all that emotion inside, where it will fester until it surfaces again at unforeseen times.
•Don't: Try to tough it out alone. If you have children, don't feel that you have to be "strong" for them. Sit with your child and say, "I'm sad because Tuffy died, aren't yo
I am often a victim of the inner voice you shouts "YOU CAN'T". This negative inner voice is present in many people, not just those who suffer with OCD or similar disorders. Somehow, no matter how many times we hear positive things, the inner negative ones stick harder, zapping our confidence and enthusiasm.
Looking around the web, I came across this great site, How to Stop the Negative Inner Voice in our Heads by Catherine Pratt, which I found very helpful, not only for stopping negative thoughts, but it can be applied to OCD intrusive thoughts as well. There is the inspiring story of a famous person who just didn't take NO for an answer...
Here is the article:
Silencing the Negative Inner Voice
by Catherine Pratt
www.Life-With-Confidence.com
"Usually somewhere along the way in our journey of life, we have come across someone who tells us that we’re not good at doing something. It could be writing, or singing, or dancing, or speaking. Anything. And, we believe them. The tragedy can come from not following our dreams because we always hear that one negative voice telling us that we’re no good. It doesn’t even matter how many other people we come across who will tell us yes we are good at doing something, we always remember that one negative voice. It’s time to move past the negative voice. Here’s how:
1. Do it anyway — do you love singing? Then sing. How about writing? If you love it, do it. That’s the only reason. It brings you joy, do it. Life is too short to not do the things we love because some misguided person told us not to do it.
If we all listened to these negative people then some of the greatest life stories would never happened. Take this for example:
"Many years ago a young man mustered enough courage to ask a young woman to dance. After he danced with her for a few minutes, the woman told him he was a lousy dancer. She complained that he danced like a truck driver.
To be sure, this bad experience would be enough for most people to quit dancing for good. Watching television or sitting around being bored would be more appealing than dancing again. Yet this man developed a passion for dancing and continued to dance for many decades.
In fact this man became known as one of the great dancers of modern times. By the early nineties, when he died, he had 500 dance schools named after him. At one time, he had been on television for eleven years straight, showing people from all walks of life - including truck drivers - how to dance."
(excerpt from The Joy of Not Working by Ernie Zelinski)
Who was this man? None other than Arthur Murray. Luckily he didn't let that one woman's comment stop him from doing what he loved.
Or did you know that George Lucas spent four years shipping the script for Star Wars around to the various studios and racking up numerous rejections in the process? If he'd let his negative inner voice get to him he would never have ended up having the highest grossing film of all time.
2. Brainstorm and Break Apart — Think of all the steps you will need to do to accomplish the one thing you really want to do above all else. Break the ultimate end goal into smaller tasks and then just start plugging away at them. It’s far easier to take one small step and to keep going than getting frustrated because you haven’t managed to fulfill the ultimate goal yet.
3. Take small steps — so you want to write the next great American novel but your English teacher told you that a three-year old could write better than you. Or maybe they told you not to waste your time doing something that you’ll never be able to make any money at. To get past this, take small steps. Instead of getting frustrated because you can’t write your novel, write a short story instead. Write articles. Write, write, and write some more. Each time you w
It may hit like a thunderbolt or it may slowly creep up on you, but depression is one of the worst feelings there is. For all of you who have never felt the horrors of depression, you are gifted. Depression takes a huge toll on the body, both mentally and physically. It may help if you notice your physical symptoms. You may get body aches, headaches or stomachaches which you may not realize is depression-related.
Depression is like living in an exhausting, smothering gloom. It is caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals and often co-exists with OCD and many other mental disorders. It can be triggered by sudden life changes (30% of new college students have reported being depressed), staleness of routine (when life becomes dull and the mind gets bored), and also, not having job or relationship satisfaction.
Depression feels as if all joy and the meaning of life has been stripped away, and all that is left is a fog-like trance. It may take all the energy you have to just get out of bed. All too often, depressed people don’t have the energy to seek help, and when they do, they are prescribed prescription drugs which may often only mask the symptoms and do nothing to help underlying cause. Also, there are the unwanted side-effects, some of which are low libido and weight gain.
Physical exercise and being absorbed in a cause can help. Another way out of sadness is to force yourself to go out on a beautiful day and commune with nature. If you live near a beach, make the effort to go by the water, as it has been shown that negative ions help mood. Go to a park, to a garden, notice the clouds, watch the sunrise─all these things may help to brighten the mood.
In researching natural remedies, I came across a few interesting things that may also be helpful. I found out that depression may also be a sign of low-thyroid function, especially if you have gained weight, have dry skin, and are sensitive to temperature changes. Low thyroid, or hypothyroidism, can be a sign of low selenium, which is a mineral that helps brain function. I researched natural sources of selenium and found that Brazil nuts are just about the best natural source. Other high-selenium foods are egg yolks, tuna, kelp, seaweed, watercress, parsley, oatmeal, bananas, apples, brewer’s yeast, and Hawthorne Berry and Peppermint teas. Perhaps adding some of these selenium-rich foods may help. I will be incorporating them into my diet for sure.
I hope this helps some of the depressed people out there. I wish you happiness, light, and sunny skies forever!
The mind is really no different than a radio. On the web site, “Big Site of Amazing Facts,” This is this description of how a radio works…
”At the radio studio, the sound waves of a program go into a microphone that has electrical current running through it. These sound waves create vibrations in the current as they travel through wires to a control room.
There, technicians control their volume and send them out through a transmitter. An antenna on the transmitter sends these electrical waves out through the air as radio waves. Radio waves travel through space in all directions, just as waves of water spread out when a pebble is dropped into it.
Each radio station is assigned a particular channel, or electrical path, by the Federal Communications Commission. This channel, called the station’s frequency, must be followed exactly.
You cannot see, hear, or feel radio waves in the air, but the radio in your home, which has an antenna either on the inside or outside, picks up these waves from many stations at the same time. By turning the tuning dial, you can select the station you want to listen to.
What happens is that the current in your radio tunes in to the same frequency as the radio waves sent out by the station you have chosen. An amplifier in your radio strengthens these radio waves, and the speaker changes them back into the original sound waves that went into the microphone in the studio."
The same laws of the universe that apply to radio waves apply to all thoughts. The mind, both conscious and subconscious, is just like radio - it picks up the vibrations from our thoughts and translates them into emotions, which will then dictate our life experiences. Once we feel an emotion from a thought, it affects us in much the same way we feel when we hear happy or sad music. The only difference is that many of us know how to tune a radio to the station we want, but don’t realize that we can also tune what is in our subconscious and conscious minds, which will create better moods and life experiences.
Why walk around with a sad song playing, or even the blank static that we hear on the radio when nothing is on? Be mindful of what “station” your mind is tuned to, and if you don’t like it, change it. Read inspirational writings, watch uplifting movies, put nurturing quotes where you can see them. And most importantly, seed your mind with what you want right before falling asleep- that is the most important time for subconscious tuning. Often, what we hear, read, or see as we fall asleep, ends up in our dreams, which affects us upon awakening and can make or break the entire day.
I hope that this helps, and that everyone is tuned into exactly the station that will make their own inner beautiful music!
If anyone reading this has felt the horrors of depression, you know it is really difficult to accomplish anything, let along something of great importance and significance. All to often, people with mental disorders are ridiculed as insane, or not taken seriously, which is a shame that they have to live with this stigma.
One of my blog readers, Anna Miller, works for Onlinedegree.net, which published this article,"15 Famous People With Personality Disorders." http://www.onlinedegree.net/15-famous-people-with-personality-disorders/ There are great videos for each of the people written about, so it is worth it to go to the site and check them out.
Here is the article...
15 Famous People With Personality Disorders
"At the risk of sounding like the awful US Weekly segment devoted to showing how stars are just like us because they also buy gasoline and eat food (who knew?), famous people are, well, people. They're no better or worse than anyone else, and no less susceptible to things like personality disorders or emotional or mental instability. Unfortunately, problems like that tend to be pretty heavily stigmatized in Hollywood, which drives those who suffer from them to ignore or hide their problems, which only makes them worse. If there's anything to be gleaned from the collective stories of these famous people who've suffered from personality disorders -- some of whom are famous because of those disorders -- it's that it's never too late to get help, and it's always OK to be honest with people about what you're going through.
1.Carrie Fisher: Carrie Fisher has made no secret of her struggles with substance abuse and bipolar disorder. Stephen Fry (who appears later on this list) also suffers from the disease, also known as manic depression, and Fisher appeared on a TV special he did about the disease and its various stigmas and myths. As Fisher said a few years ago, "It is really important to see a doctor, particularly a psychiatrist who specializes in mental illness."
2.Herschel Walker: In his autobiography, former running back Herschel Walker revealed that he suffered from dissociative identity disorder, or what used to be called multiple personality disorder. As a result of the warring personalities, Walker says he doesn't remember the moment or even the season that he won the Heisman Trophy. "I feel the greatest achievement of my life will be to tell the world my truth," he wrote.
3.Howard Hughes: In his prime, Howard Hughes was known for being a pioneer in business, aviation, and filmmaking -- three skill sets that merged when he designed a new cantilevered bra for Jane Russell -- but now he's sadly remembered as a recluse driven to crippling depths by obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yet even his fixation on Russell's physique was a sign of his mind's inability to let things alone. In December 1947, he spent four months in his private screening room, holed up like an animal. He spent most of the end of his life hiding from public view and addicted to various medications.
4.Paula Deen: Paula Deen is known to TV viewers as a cook unafraid to use staggering amounts of butter on everything, but she's also struggled with anxiety disorders. A bout of depression in her early 20s led to an onset of agoraphobia, and she became basically housebound for close to 20 years. She spent most of her time cooking for her family because it allowed her to pursue a skill without having to set foot outside her home. She didn't even know much about her agoraphobia until lear
Sometimes it seems as if the Universe is against me. This past month was one of those times. Besides the mad shopping rush and long retail hours in my store of 7am to 11pm, shopping for gifts and general holiday running around. I had a really bad cold which turned into a sinus infection. This caused a severe nosebleed which caused me to pass out. When I went to the doctor (besides a course of nauseating antibiotics) he sent me to a cardiologist. Diagnosis- stress, wow, what a surprise. Then, there was a blackout in my neighborhood which blew out all my phones and cable boxes. Coming to work the next day, I was greeted by a downed phone line in my store which disabled my charge machine on the three busiest days of the holiday shopping season. Heartburn soon followed- I became the proud owner of a bottle of Nexium and a box of Gelusil. One the one night that I had a chance to sit, just as I turned on "The Sound Of Music," my Christmas tree flared up very brightly and promptly all the lights blew out.
It felt like there were forces out there conspiring to get me. After all that, I began waiting for other things to go wrong, expecting more to come. I woke up saying, "what rotten luck- what else is going to happen"? As I focused on the next wrong thing, I found my mood changing for the worse.
Then I realized that perhaps it was the way I was viewing these circumstances. It hit me, these things were crazy and annoying, but many people have it much worse- they would trade places with me in an instant. These were not terrible things, just temporary glitches. It was a wild string of events, but not horrible, just irritating. Perhaps I didn't have the right attitude. In the big picture, I was really pretty lucky.
If you believe success and luck evade you, no matter what you do, maybe it is your attitude. Like I did, perhaps you expect things to go wrong. Maybe you are focused on negativity. This fascinating article from Richard Wiseman just might shed some light on luck...
= = = = = = =
"I set out to examine luck, 10 years ago. Why are some people always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune? I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.
Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research and over the years, have been interviewed by me. I have monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments.
The results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune."
Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not.
I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: ‘Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $50′.
This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.
As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.
The 4 Principles of Generating Good Fortune
Lucky people are more relaxed and open,
Remember when you moved into your home and decorated your living room? At first there was only empty space, but slowly you filled it up until you were satisfied it looked the way you wanted. You may have installed new carpet or flooring, painted and went shopping for some great new things that made it pleasing, like comfortable couches or a cozy fireplace. You may have brought in a cool entertainment system for your video games, movies, and TV’s. You made it a place to go to unwind, relax, and enjoy.
If you neglected it, after awhile the carpet and furniture became dirty and worn, the paint chipped, and the electronics became useless or outdated. You may have realized it was time to update things, and if you did, it was like a great new room again.
Our minds are exactly like our living rooms. At first there is only empty space. As we go through life, it gets filled with all kinds of thoughts which make us either comfortable or uncomfortable, happy or unhappy, affecting our emotions and ultimately, our bodies.
When a room gets destroyed, what happens to the room? The answer is – nothing. The walls, floors, and furniture are not part of the space. The space is still there, it can never go away. Same with our minds, our minds are permanent, and our consciousness will last forever─ it is the thoughts that come and go, let in from outside sources. Therefore, we are Not our thoughts!
If we are not our thoughts, why are we often controlled by them? It is because we may not realize that thoughts are the furniture of our minds, and we can decorate our minds just like we decorate our homes. We have the ability to pick the thoughts we allow to nestle and reside with us. At times, we forget that we can pack up the bad thoughts and discard them and remodel.
Would you go into a store and pay a huge sum of money for furniture you hate? Why then, do we pay huge emotional sums to decorate our minds with thoughts of fear, anger, hatred, or any other destructive thoughts which entrench themselves and remain indefinitely?
The best way to redecorate the mind is by constant awareness. Focus on what you want, not what you don’t have or don’t want. Dust off the good thoughts of love and gratitude and put them in a prominent spot. Look around in your mind and see what thoughts are controlling your mood--you can develop the ability to throw out bad thoughts just like you discard old, useless furniture.
If we give our thoughts the same consideration that we give our furniture, our minds will be a place we can rely on for comfort, security and pleasure. It is time to redecorate!
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