Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a mood disorder associated with depression that arises at a certain time of the year, usually in the winter – which is why the term ‘winter blues’ is commonly used to describe this condition. A less common type of the disorder can be experienced during the summer months. This type of depression occurs with seasonal variations of light change, which trigger SAD.

Prevalenceand Risk Factors

SAD usually affects individuals who are between the ages of 18 and 30, and like other types of depression, occurs more often in women than in men. SAD is extremely rare amongst people living within 30 degrees latitude of the equator thus a person’s vulnerability to the disorder and the severity depends on his/her geographical locality.

SAD often occurs in individuals from both the northern and southern hemispheres and people who have a family history of SAD or those who have been diagnosed with clinical depression or bipolar disorder.

Causes of SAD

A specific cause of seasonal affective disorder is not known, however, as with numerous mental health conditions, age, genetics and your body’s natural chemical makeup can all contribute to developing this condition. The following factors are known to play a role in the development of SAD:

• Serotonin levels – A decrease in serotonin levels, which is a brain chemical that affects mood, is a contributor factor in the development of SAD. Reduced sunlight can decrease serotonin levels which in return trigger depression.
• Melatonin levels – The change of seasons also disrupts the stability of the natural hormone melatonin. This hormone plays a role in sleep patterns and mood.
• Circadian rhythm – The reduced level of sunlight during the fall months as well as during winter can disrupt the body’s internal clock which is responsible for letting you know when you should sleep and when you should be awake. This disturbance of your circadian rhythm can lead to feelings of depression.

Symptoms of SAD

Seasonal affective disorder symptoms usually build up slowly in late autumn and winter months and disappear during sunnier days of spring and summer. For individuals with the opposite pattern, symptoms usually begin in spring or summer and fade away during darker seasons. Nonetheless, SAD symptoms are usually similar to those of other forms of depression. These include:

• Increased appetite with weight gain
• Increased sleep
• Anxiety
• Difficulty concentrating
• Appetite changes, especially a craving for foods high in carbohydrates
• Less energy and ability to concentrate
• Loss of interest in work or other activities
• Social withdrawal
• Sluggish movements
• Unhappiness and irritability
• Depression
• Heavy, “leaden” feeling in the arms or legs

It is possible for SAD to become long-term depression. Bipolar disorder or thoughts of suicide are also possible in people with SAD.

Tests and Diagnosis of SAD

To help doctors and mental health providers diagnose seasonal affective disorder, they need to do a thorough evaluation.  An evaluation usually includes a physical exam where the health provider checks for any underlying physical issues which may be linked to the depression. The doctor will also ask detailed questions about seasonal and mood changes in ones thoughts and/or behavior. The health worker will also conduct a medical test if he/she suspects that a physical condition is causing or worsening the depression. During this type of medical test, blood will be drawn to rule out the underlying problem.

It is important to note however that even with a thorough evaluation, it can be difficult for a doctor or mental health provider to diagnose SAD as other forms of depression or mental health conditions can cause similar symptoms.

Treatment for SAD

Treatment for SAD may include medication, psychotherapy and light therapy.

• Medication
  Certain individuals with SAD can benefit from antidepressant treatment, especially if they experience severe symptoms. Antidepressants that are commonly used to treat seasonal affective disorders include sertraline (Zoloft), paroxetine (Paxil) and venlafaxine (Effexor). The antidepressant bupropion (Wellbutrin XL) can help prevent depressive episodes in people with a history of SAD.
• Psychotherapy
  Psychotherapy is another route that can be followed to treat SAD. Psychotherapy can be beneficial as it helps patients to be able to identify and change negative thoughts and behaviors that may be making them feel worse. In these sessions, patients can also learn healthy ways to cope with the disorder and how they can manage their stress.
• Light Therapy
  Light therapy; also known as phototherapy, allows patients to sit a few feet from a specialized light therapy box so that he/she is exposed to bright light. This therapy mimics outdoor light and can cause a change in brain chemicals that are linked to mood. Before purchasing a light therapy box, talk to your doctor or mental health provider to make sure it’s a good idea for you to use this type of treatment.

 

When to see a Doctor

Feeling down once in a while is normal for most of us, but if you feel down for numerous days at a time and can’t seem to get motivated to do things you normally enjoy, get help right away by seeing your doctor.  This is especially important if you find yourself turning to alcohol for comfort/relaxation, notice that your sleep patterns and appetite have changed or if you feel hopeless and find yourself thinking about suicide or turning to stimulants such as drugs for comfort.

The last cab ride

Twenty years ago, I drove a cab for a living. One time I arrived in the middle of the night for a pick up at a building that was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window.

Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, then drive away. But I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself. So I walked to the door and knocked.

“Just a minute,” answered a frail, elderly voice.

I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 80′s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase.

The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

“Would you carry my bag out to the car?” she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness.

“It’s nothing,” I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.”

“Oh, you’re such a good boy,” she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, then asked, “Could you drive through downtown?”

“It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.”

I looked in the rear view mirror. Her eyes were glistening.

“I don’t have any family left,” she continued. “The doctor says I don’t have very long.”

I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. “What route would you like me to take?” I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, “I’m tired. Let’s go now.”

We drove in silence to the address she had given me.

It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

“How much do I owe you?” she asked, reaching into her purse.

“Nothing,” I said.

“You have to make a living,” she answered.

“There are other passengers.”

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.

“You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,” she said. “Thank you.”

I squeezed her hand, then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly, lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life. We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware—beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

A true story by Kent Nerburn
http://academictips.org/blogs/the-last-cab-ride/

The best Doctors Around :)

The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they’ll ease
Your will they’ll mend
And charge you not a shilling.
~Nursery rhyme quoted by Wayne Fields, What the River Knows, 1990

Quote – Life

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.  ~Doug Larson

Sit or Squat for Health

Did you know, the modern toilet seat may be one of the main contributing factors to the development of colorectal or colon cancer.

Sitting on a modern toilet seat causes a kink in the in the area where the sigmoid colon connects to the rectum. This results in longer sitting time, the need to push harder and in turn causes hemorrhoids as well as results in a decrease in colon elimination.

Colon cancer is a result of inflammatory bowel disease which can occur when feces is allowed to stagnant in the colon. A kink in the colon can result in only partial expulsion of the colon leading to increased absorption of fluids from fecal matter as well as hardening of feces making it near-impossible to expel.

Squatting on the other hand opens the kink, allowing for full elimination whilst increased pressure is placed on the abdomen naturally. This creates a natural expulsion or laxative effects enabling the bowls to empty fully.

The ancient Romans used the posture shown below on the left. (Togas were easier to deal with than trousers, and provided some degree of privacy.) The last picture shows a typical tourist.

Are todays foods “Emasculating” Men

Ever overhead someone or even your friend saying she wants a real man? You nod politely, completely agree and even sympathize on her idea of this “real man” when in essence is there really such a thing nowadays as a “real man”.

I find myself pondering on this question after an interesting article I read relating to something called man-boobs; your probably thinking typo error, but no, I really do mean man-boobs. The technical term for this condition is gynecomastia and it is an irregular increase in the development of mammary glands in males resulting in a remarkable increase in breast size. The main cause is of course the every annoying hormone fluctuations between testosterone and oestrogen with gynecomastia sufferers producing more of these hormones or having an imbalance.

A main culprit science has pondered on is poultry as oestrogen or hormone pumped up birds are bigger, faster growing and meatier… This has however caused some controversy with many chicken farmers stating they do not use hormones on their chicken. We then move onto antibiotics which chickens can be given from birth to improve growth size and of course for illnesses which many do not dispute.

Pork on the other hand is treated with PST or porcine somatatropin which is a synthetic copy of the natural hormones produced by a pig and according to reports has been tested extensively to identify if these influence the human body in any way.

Moving on to beef… in Europe, a ban has been in place since 1989 preventing hormones from being used in beef cattle production. This is however to my knowledge only in Europe so most probably, the rest of the world is still using oestrogen hormones in their beef production which is potentially man boob causing.

One interesting non-meat product is soy. Soy is full of the female hormone estrogen and therefore eating this puts one at a higher risk of developing man boobs. The prevalence of man boobs does however decrease when soy is cut from ones diet.

On another scale, many a man boob can be related to weight gain and obesity, stress, an overuse of hormones, anabolic steroid use, a lack of exercise and aging with the skin losing its natural elasticity and tone. You know what this means? Everything goes south!

So diet is obviously very important with one article recommending an increase in the amount of zinc consumed as this mineral helps balance hormones. Zinc can be found in lamb (free range or course), oysters, cabbage, cheese, broccoli, crab and Brussels sprouts.

Whether purely a meat factor or a combination of various factors is currently left up to guess work however with today’s technology it’s only a waiting game before the real culprit will be found.

Discover your Talent

Cannot figure out what to do when you are done with school? Feeling pressurized because other children at school are excelling in sports and certain subjects that you are not?

What is to be done?

• Get a piece of paper and divide the page into three columns.
• On the other column write down the things that you are good at (anything from maths, singing or drawing).
• On the other column, write down all the things that you are not very good at, but the things that you enjoy doing.
• Last step, jot down what you have been successful at doing, making a selection from the list of the things that you enjoy for example, if you are good at sewing and you have been making your own clothing or have been making clothes for family members.
• After all these steps have been followed, you have narrowed down your talents to one or two options. This means that your strengths lie in this area or field.

No talent?

Do not give up. Every person has a skill or talent that they are good at. If you wrote the things that you enjoy and good at, but you have not actually done anything with, that does not mean you do not possess any talent. It just means that you haven’t explored them yet. Take all the things that you enjoy doing the most and work from there.

Talents are Good

Being good at something, or by having an interest in doing something, is part of each and every person. Many people ignore that ‘calling’ and take on all kinds of other things such as, studying something in commerce field whereas their passion is designing clothing. This can lead to frustration and lack of interest in a field that they choose to follow.

Ways to strengthen those talents

There are not many ways to invest in your talents, although there certainly few ways that you can use. These ways are:

• Turning your talent into something solid – for example if you are good in writing, then write every day. Try to approach magazines and local newspaper and ask if you can write for them.
• Taking extra classes – you may have talent, but you need to improve on it in order for it to become something worthwhile.
• Start writing down projects and proposals as soon as possible –if you are really good in designing websites, do them for your church or your school.

Nightmares or Night Terrors

Nightmares or Night Terrors

A nightmare is an unpleasant dream that causes strong negative emotions from the mind. The dream may contain situations from physical terror, danger, discomfort and psychological terror. Everyone gets nightmares once in a while, from kids to adults.

When a person sleeps his/her brain does not just switch off. It goes through several stages of sleep including the Rapid Eye Movement sleep. People may wonder why they call it Rapid Eye Movement. The reason is that, during this stage, the eyes move forth and back while under the closed eyelids. During the stage of REM, a person dreams and those dreams can be very upsetting or scary.

It has been researched that every 90 minutes the brain switches between REM sleep stage and non-REM sleep. Towards the morning, the amount of REM sleep increases. If a person awoke during this stage, there is a possibility of remembering what he/she was dreaming about. Most vivid dreams happen in the early hours of the morning.

Why do you get nightmares?

Stressful things that occurred during the day can cause dreams to turn into nightmares. Nightmares can be a way of dealing with events that happen the previous day. A parent or guardian should help children deal with things that kids have had to face during the day such as problems at school, stress from schoolwork, and also problems that they face at home. Changes in a person’s life such as moving, illness or death of loved one might stress a person which may cause nightmares.

Another major cause of nightmares is: watching horror/scary movies, or reading scary books just before you sleep, a high fever or certain medications.

Nightmares may also happen for no reason at all.

Prevention of nightmares

It is normal to have nightmares once in a while. Techniques that parents can use  to reduce nightmares:

• Getting into a healthy sleep routine.
• Sleeping with a favourite blanket or a stuffed toy, it may help kids feel more secure.
• Keeping the door open or a light on can help a child remember that his/her family is close by.

Natural Treatment for Nightmares

OrionRemedies has a natural remedy that deals with Nightmares or Night Terrors called BadDream Twinkles. It’s a granular based Homeopathic Remedy which has a pleasant taste (so no reason for children to turn their noses up at it) and is generally quite palatable and easier to administer. The Homeopathic formulation means it’s safe for all ages and doesn’t work to stop creativity but rather reduces the intensity that some creative imaginings can progress too.

Website: http://www.orionremedies.com/
Contact Number: 877- 519 – 3560 – USA
                           +1-(302)- 607- 1012 – International
Email Address: cassie@orionremedies.com

 

Whoever thought that bananas could be used to brew beer?

Fruits are known to be used to add flavouring to cider drinks, not mainly for brewing. In Kenya and other East African countries, bananas are used more than just as a fruit. Bananas are smashed and alcoholic beverages are made from the fermentation.

Production phase

Banana beer is made from ripe although not to ripe bananas. In order to speed up the ripening of bananas, they dig a hole in the ground and line it with fresh banana leaves then place the bananas in a line and cover them up with fresh banana leaves. They then and put dry banana leaves on top and set it alight and covered with soil. This method is believed to work very well during dry seasons. In rainy reasons however bananas are ripened by exposing them to a cooking fire. After 4 to 6 days the bananas are ripe enough to be used to brew beer.

There are 2 types of bananas that are used to produce beer: igisahira (the middle tasting) and igikashi (the harsh tasting banana). The beer mixture consists of one third of the harsh tasting banana and two thirds of the middle tasting banana. After the bananas are ripened, they are peeled and put in a wooden trough and crushed by hand. The juices are then filtered from the banana and diluted with water. Sorghum is lightly toasted and added to the juice. Before it is filtered, the mixture is left for up to 24 hours to ferment.

After filtering, this banana beer is packed in plastic or glass bottles. The beer can be pasteurized before packaging in order to stop fermentation and to extend shelf life.

Violent Video Games for Children – Steer Clear…

I remember when I was young and even through not an avid video games fanatic, marveled at Sonic and Super Mario Brothers… simple, yet fun games that didn’t involve ammunition and artillery and blood and guts flying everywhere… wow, how times have changed. Walk into any shop selling video/pc or TV game derivatives and you’ll get a full-on-view just how realistic these games can be with grenades and rocket launches and swords so sharp they can decapitate any opponent or medieval creature with one foul swoop.

Then I have to put up with my screaming nephew, pawing at my pants with doe-eyes for the latest-in-blood-and-guts video games; why, because his friend, little Billy at school has the game and he just has to have it too.

Research currently carried out by the Brock University in Canada have found that the continual playing of video games that are violent have been found to increase hostility and aggressive tendencies in young children. This correlation was found to be the same for both genders, girls and boys.

It was also found that children who play violent video games often are more easily provoked even when the aggravating stimulus is unintentional such as a nudge in the hallway or a gently bump on the way to ones seat in the classroom.

Make all the violence stop and be sure to stick to appropriate age related restrictions when buying a video game/PC or TV game. These restrictions are there for a reason and not simply put there as another advertising gimmick.

And if your child, nephew or niece is still throwing a tantrum in the shop for that video game they simple can’t live without, rather spend the money on a suitable Homeopathic and Natural Remedy to help soothe their temper-tantrums like the Orion Remedies Tantrum Twinkles Product.

This All-Natural Remedy is manufactured by Orion Remedies LLC, has absolutely no age restriction and doesn’t require parental guidance (hehe…). It works on a child’s frayed or “ready to explode” central nervous system which is often a result of the large amount mental input and stimulus a young child is subjected too. The remedy can found online at http://www.orionremedies.com/conditons/Temper_Tantrums.aspx

A calm nervous system means a calm and tantrum free child in a shop who maybe then I will consider buying a video game for…