Lifestyle Choices

You Are Not Alone

Many teens suffer from depression, therefore you are not alone. There are effective treatments and hence no depression is a hopeless case. You need to be patient with yourself. It takes time for the mind to heal just as it takes time for the body to heal. Wishing that the depression will disappear is not going to work. It will not go away immediately but it will, eventually. Continuing with treatment and therapy will ensure that that day will come even sooner. In the meantime, try to relax yourself, sort out your feelings and thoughts, and allow your mind and emotions to recover. (more…)

If feelings become so painful and overwhelming that you feel like harming yourself or others, you need to get help right away. Speak to a parent, an adult or a doctor. Ring the

SOS or teenage helpline for crisis counselling. In the meantime, the following suggestions can offer some solace until you find someone you can talk to:

Many teens who have attempted suicide (and survived) say that they did it because they had mistakenly felt that there was no other solution to the problem they were experiencing. At the time, they could not see another way out — but in truth, there is always a way out, even if they could not see it there and then. No matter how horrible you are feeling now, these emotions can, and will, pass. (more…)

There are many self-help activities that can help elevate the mood of seniors:

• Mild exercise — going for a walk is a pleasant way to pass time and keep the blood circulating and the joints supple.
• Music — listen to one’s favourite songs and sing along. Better still, invite friends for a sing-along session. It is more fun when done in the company of others.

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In Type Z diabetes, there is at first no shortage of insulin. In fact, early in the disease, there is more than usual. Yet, despite the insulin making its presence known in the muscle tissue, the muscle remains deaf to insulin’s messages, no matter how many are sent, and does nothing to stimulate the uptake of glucose or the storage of glycogen.

Another hormone which comes from the pancreas, in cells which live very near to those which make insulin, is glucagon. Whereas insulin is the hormone of plenty, glucagon is the hormone of scarcity: so when glucose is taken into the blood from the intestine during digestion of starchy foods, insulin is secreted and glucagon secretion is inhibited. During the night, when there is nothing left in your gut to absorb, glucagon secretion increases and insulin secretion is inhibited. (more…)

When I was a child growing up in Portsmouth, the naval town on the south coast, and we saw someone who was grossly obese, my mother would say pityingly, in a knowing stage whisper, ‘Trouble with their glands, dear.’ In those days Portsmouth was full of sailors of all nationalities and anyone who was very fat was unusual. Now, when I go back to my home town forty years later, the sailors have all gone and people who are very overweight are so common as to be unremarkable. The attitude to these heavyweights has also changed. They are no longer the subject of pity, but of a kind of loathing. Fat today says greedy, slothful and self-indulgent. As I will show you, hormones and obesity and intimately bound together. Trouble with your glands is indeed part of the obesity equation, including a gland that has only in the last decade been discovered to be secreting hormones — fat itself. (more…)

Anything that increases the sticking of cells to the skin or the secretion of sebum can cause acne. The three main influences are hormones, diet (and medications), and the products you use on your skin.

Hormones

These are those magical chemicals that are secreted by your endocrine glands to regulate your metabolism, your sexuality, your growth, your cycles, your mood and your reaction to stress. The hormones that affect your skin come primarily from your sexual organs and from your adrenal glands, the latter of which become more active when you feel either excitement or anxiety. When the adrenals are stimulated they produce more hormones. (more…)

Sexual healing brings changes in how you experience sex that may take some getting used to. Sex isn’t the same for you now as it was before you began healing. While many survivors feel happy about the differences, as with any major change in life, they often experience some disappointments and sadness as well.

Sexual healing can bring with it the loss of some things we enjoyed, even if they were bad for us. If we used to passively withdraw from sex, we may miss how easy it was to avoid sexual situations. It may seem a burden to have to tell a partner directly that we don’t want sex. Similarly, if we used to become overexcited by sex and engaged in it compulsively, we may miss the “high” we used to get. (more…)

This is the most important step of all, for no house can be a real home unless those who live there hold ideals that are kind, noble, and good. Without high ideals it is easy for even the best of homes to drift apart. There must always be some things that will hold the family together, such as family worship, in which all the members may share. These happy occasions are not likely to come by accident but must be carefully planned by the parents. (more…)

A great many of my patients do not really know what stress actually is. They think that it’s an outside force causing them to feel tense. But that’s not stress — that’s a stressor. Stress is a person’s negative reaction to a stressor.

For the most part, people have a negative reaction to stressors when they feel that their stressors are greater than their ability to deal with them. When they feel like this, they see their stressors as threats. On the other hand, if they think they can handle their stressors, they usually see them as challenges and generally enjoy grappling with them.

If you now feel as if your life is full of threats, instead of challenges, you are experiencing stress. If your degree of stress is severe, it’s going to be quite difficult for you to live a balanced, healthy lifestyle free from compulsion, including the compulsion to overeat. (more…)

Stop Killing Yourself, Dad!

Men, let’s stop putting off that all-important medical checkup. Why not make an appointment right now? Better still, let your wife make it for you. She has even more to lose than you have in this. It is time to see your doctor.

Stop driving yourself so hard. You need more rest. Don’t try to whip up those jaded nerves and flagging muscles by using stimulants. These only cover up the problem. They never solve it. Alcohol, especially when taken to excess, is definitely harmful. The man who is wise will leave it alone.

For the same reason it is better not to smoke, particularly if you are looking forward to enjoying a long life free from disease. It is no secret that cancer of the lung is becoming more common every day. Men seem to be particularly susceptible to this disease. Those who get it are almost always heavy smokers. Primary cancer of the lung hardly exists among those who do not smoke. (more…)

Elderly people have trouble sleeping for the same reasons as people from other age groups. But there are additional factors.

• Chronic illnesses. The elderly often suffer from chronic mental and physical illnesses that make it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep. For example: An enlarged prostate is often associated with a frequent need to urinate. Dementia may be associated with confusion and heightened fear after dark (known as sundowning). Painful conditions such as bone fractures due to osteoporosis (especially in women), arthritis and vascular disease can make sleeping difficult. Depression, quite common in the elderly population, often causes insomnia as well.
• Medication. Older people have stronger reactions to medication. Notable effects that these medications such as tranquillizers and hypnotics, have on the elderly include frequent nightmares, insomnia and hypersomnia.

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There are some fascinating differences in the sleep habits of men and women.

• Women sleep four minutes less than men on workdays and fourteen minutes less on days off.’ Women sleep forty to fifty minutes less than men if they cater to the needs of a baby or toddler.
• Scientists have discovered that there are differences in the circadian rhythms of males and females. The fraction of sleep is larger in women. The temperature rhythms are identical in males and females; the sleep-wake rhythms are significantly shorter in females.” “Women have shorter periods of deep (non-REM) sleep than men, making them more vulnerable to ‘tossing and turning’ bed partners and fitful babies.”

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If you have trouble falling asleep, or if you wake up a number of times at night, or if you wake up earlier than you would like, or if you always feel as though you need a nap during the day, or if you fall asleep while watching TV or while waiting for a traffic light to change, you might very well have insomnia. If so, you’re not alone. Fifty per cent of the population have experienced insomnia, the most common sleep disorder.’

Those with insomnia experience an insufficient amount of sleep, or do not feel rested after having slept. This often impairs social and occupational functioning, and can be accompanied by feelings of restlessness, irritability, anxiety, daytime fatigue and tiredness.’ Transient or short-term insomnia lasts no more than a few nights to two or three weeks. It can be caused by any of the following: (more…)

Do you ever collapse after hearing a funny joke, or after becoming very angry? Do you have any relatives who are always sleepy? If you answer yes to these questions, you might have narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations (explained below). Narcolepsy is thought to be an attack of REM sleep during the day.

A person with narcolepsy will have recurring episodes of naps, or lapses into sleep. The narcoleptic will sleep for fifteen to twenty minutes and awaken refreshed, but within the next two to three hours will begin to feel sleepy again. This pattern repeats itself throughout the day. Sudden sleep attacks can occur in situations when it is quite inappropriate to sleep, such as while eating, conversing or driving.” (more…)

Do you find it difficult to fall asleep until well after midnight, yet are able to sleep a normal length of time if you don’t have to get up for work? Or, do you fall asleep too early in the evening and wake up too early in the morning? If so, your biological clock may be out of sync with your preferred sleep-wake schedule.

Someone with delayed sleep phase syndrome has sleep-onset and wake times that are later than desired, but little or no difficulty maintaining sleep once it has begun. Many adolescents, because of their neurophysiology as well as school and social schedules, suffer from this syndrome. (more…)

Persistent bed-wetting, sleep enuresis, is considered a disorder after the age of five. It occurs in all sleep stages, and daytime bladder control can be normal. While the prevalence of bed-wetting in childhood decreases with age, about 3 per cent of adolescents between the ages of twelve and eighteen continue to wet their beds.”

Bed-wetting has a hereditary component. Approximately 77 per cent of children whose parents both wet their beds as children are bed wetters themselves.’ A congenitally small bladder, bladder infections, allergies, obstructive sleep apnoea or metabolic or endocrinologic disorders may be predisposing factors. Contrary to popular belief, bed-wetting is almost never emotionally or psychologically caused; less than 1 per cent of bed^-wetting has an emotional source.” (more…)

You can only be medically examined to support your statement with your consent. Rape is very difficult to prove medically. What does a doctor look for? Evidence of semen in the vagina and on clothes, as well as evidence of internal and external trauma, such as lacerations. You can telephone a friend or relative from the police station, and normally they would be allowed to telephone you back.

See a doctor: After you have informed the police go, or get someone to take you, to a hospital or doctor. You have three worries : (more…)

By ’single’, I mean a woman who is unmarried, divorced, separated, or whose husband is temporarily absent.

Sexual aggression from a stranger may take the form of:

1. Obscene telephone calls.
2. Frottism (such as being rubbed up against in a crowded train or bus).
3. Indecent exposure (such as showing genitals to little girls in a park).
4. Letter threats to rape, maim, or kill.
5. Odd burglaries involving violation (such as urinating on the bed) or the theft of fetish objects such as frilly knickers or black suspender belts.
6. Peeping Toms.
7. Unintentional rape (sometimes called ‘going too far’).
8. Attempted rape.
9.  Rape.
10. Child molestation.

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There are two sorts of crisis: there is the personal one, such as the loss of a job or of a loved one by death or divorce, or the communal one, such as a motorway threat to a village, or a war. But there always seems to be some sort of crisis.

When personal disaster strikes, you probably need sympathy and practical help; but there is a distinct possibility (especially if everyone else is also swimming for the lifeboats) that the only person who is always interested in you, and able to provide you with sustained help is … YOURSELF.

Don’t think ’somebody ought to do something about it’ or `the government should see to it’. Start thinking in terms of self-reliance. What you can do and what you can’t do — that may be all you can count on. Whatever your crisis, force yourself to look cheerful. Shakespeare said: ‘ There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’, and Napoleon added that `the moral is to material as three to one’. I would also say that the quickest face lift is a smile. Go on — try it, just for today SMILE and try to find something good instead of something bad in every new situation. (more…)

You’ve no doubt heard plenty about smoking and your health, that your lungs and heart could be seriously damaged by the prolonged use of cigarettes. But one of the funny things about being young is that you don’t believe any of those terrible things could happen to you. Heart disease, lung cancers are for somebody else, somebody who is, well, old, but not for you. You’re different. You’re young and pretty and healthy … aren’t you?

Well, even if you don’t believe the doctors’ warnings about smoking and health, you may be convinced by some cold, hard facts about smoking and your looks. Cigarettes damage the outside as well as the inside of your body, and some of the effects aren’t too attractive. For instance, the negative effect of smoking on the circulation can show up in puffy bags under the eyes. Nicotine leaves permanent stains on the teeth, making them a dingy yellow or brown. If you hang on to the habit long enough, you may develop stains on your fingertips. Cigarettes leave a stale, acrid smell in your hair, on your clothes, and on your breath. Finally, you may even develop a nasty chronic cough, and the quality of your voice could become raspy and harsh.

Now that you’ve thought about some of the effects on your appearance, maybe you’ll want to think again before lighting up. Smoking and being beautiful just don’t mix and wouldn’t you really rather be beautiful?