Lifestyle Choices

Do you physically act out your dreams? Injure yourself and/or your bed partner? Fly out of bed and have frightening dreams? People with REM sleep behaviour disorder actually attempt to act out their dreams. They kick, punch, leap and run from bed, often injuring themselves and/or their bed partners.

One case in England resulted in a man shooting his new bride to death while he was dreaming of being pursued by gangsters.

We usually can’t act out our dreams. During REM sleep a part of our brain keeps us from moving our arms and legs, although we can still breathe and move our eyes. REM sleep, in essence, is characterized by a highly active, dreaming, brain in a “paralyzed” body. When the normal movement-inhibiting mechanism fails, some people, usually men over the age of sixty, may develop REM sleep behaviour disorder and be able to act out their dreams. The risk of developing REM sleep behaviour disorder increases with age, and men are more likely than women to develop it. (more…)

The behavioural treatment of obesity is based on changing daily habits and behaviours to reach the desired goal. The basic premise of behaviour therapy is to reward beneficial behaviours and discourage detrimental ones. However, state of the art behavioural treatment has a wider perspective and focuses on eating behaviours, social support, exercise, attitudes and nutrition. The aim is to modify the situations which promote eating and to evaluate the consequences of eating behaviour. Behaviour therapy involves specific processes which are aimed at modifying behaviour.

Self-monitoring

The client is asked to monitor when she eats, how much she eats and why she eats. This increases self-awareness so that eating cannot ‘just happen’, and enables her to evaluate her success and whether any changes have occurred. put their eating into context and to learn to say ‘I am not useless, the odd slip is inevitable and I will now return to my diet‘. This eradicates an ‘all or nothing response’ which can often result in the client abandoning the diet. (more…)

A survey carried out in Britain suggests that about one in ten members of slimming clubs such as Weight Watchers and Slimming Magazine reach their target weight. However, it is difficult to understand what these figures actually mean. The clubs do not keep any information as to the weights of these women initially so there is no way of knowing how much weight they had to lose to be regarded as successes. In addition, the clubs cannot provide any information as to whether this includes all the women who drop out from lack of weight loss and whether it accounts for those who leave and then return for another try. It is possible that a woman who left and joined several times could be counted as many members.

One of the problems with assessing how successful dieters are at losing weight is evaluating how much these dieters wanted to lose in the first place. (more…)

One of the most important things to a child is parental warmth and continuity. In his studies on children Bowlby, a British child psychiatrist, showed how a stable relationship with the parents created a feeling of security and a stable base from which to explore. A threat of loss of this security caused anger or fear, while actual loss of a parent or main care-giver caused a loss of interest if the child did not believe that the parent was coming back. Studies on institutions where children are kept with inadequate and inconsistent care show a distinct change in the behaviour of children in the second six months of their lives. Continual crying becomes replaced byan eventual indifference to adults, and a baby would “lie or sit with wide open, expressionless eyes, frozen, immobile face and a far away expression as if in a daze”. Such babies did not babble or coo and felt stiff and wooden when picked up. (more…)

“GOOD BEHAVIOUR” PERSONALITY

The “good behaviour” type has put a tremendous amount of energy into conforming. He relies on others’ opinions and likes to obey the rules. He looks down on those who do not follow the rules or do not act in the proper fashion. He is obedient and authority bound — he is always worried about whether the authority will approve of his actions, and he willtry very hard to please. On the positive side, he may be an extremely conscientious worker.

Childhood background

The childhood history is often one of an over-emphasis on the control of behaviour. Being a good boy or a good girl is more important to the parents than natural expressions of spontaneity. Thus, eating up all your food, or going to the lavatoryonce a day, or being nice, or not being aggressive, becom_emajor issues in which the parents eventually win a battle for control. The child thinks that if he conforms, then at last hewill receive the warmth and security he wants, but howeverhard he tries, he can never be good enough because he will never really be loved for who he is. (more…)