Lifestyle Choices

Who Starts the Quarrels?

How do most family quarrels start? This, of course, is hard to say, for usually there is no single cause. Often there is some underlying discontent, particularly on the part of the wife. Marriage has changed her lot completely, while her husband may be carrying on the same work that has occupied his time for years. He may prefer to continue his routine uninterrupted, while she will want plenty of variety. She may then assume that he does not love her. This may be true in some instances, but not in most. In any case she may begin to feel rather neglected. She wants more attention. A brisk family contention may seem a rather rough way to bring this about, but it usually attracts the attention she craves—sometimes much more! Most men will take just so much, then there may be trouble, perhaps even physical violence. The sensible thing to do is prevent such episodes before they reach the place where there seems to be no turning back. (more…)

Atopic eczema

Onset and inheritance

This type of eczema often starts in the first year of life, though rarely before three months, but may begin at any age. It affects at least one baby in 50 and is usually mild.

Fortunately it clears up in most children by the age of four or five but it may linger on after the age of ten or rarely into adult life. There may be a long gap when it seems to have settled only to reappear. Doctors are very wary about predicting what will happen: for example, in the case of a baby with atopic eczema, there may be an eighty per cent chance of it clearing by the age of five. But that means one in five will not clear and the parents of that one will naturally be disappointed and lose faith in their practitioner. It is best to show a cautious optimism stressing the fact that a great deal can be done to improve eczema. (more…)

Finger nails take three to six months to grow and toe nails twelve to twenty-four months. Nail is made of keratin in much the same way as skin and hair. The visible part is quite inert and not much happens to it at that stage. The growing section lies mainly under the skin and the only part that can be seen is the half moon. Any disease which affects the matrix, as the growing area is called, may produce a variety of changes.

Nails may alter as a result of an internal disease. Iron deficiency, for example, leads to flat nails and liver disease may produce white nails. Some medications produce discoloration. Pits, like those on a thimble, sometimes occur in psoriasis and ridges and depressions may be a feature of eczema. (more…)

Most of the time we take little notice of our hair and nails. During adolescence there may be times we would wish to have different colored or textured hair or curse that our nails break too easily, but after that we pretty well accept our lot. That is until some change occurs. When hair starts to be lost there is not only an immediate cosmetic problem but the scalp may be damaged by sunlight or low doorways. Equally, when finger nails fail to develop properly this problem is both cosmetic and functional: it may become impossible to pick up small objects.

Too little Hair

Male-pattern baldness

This term is used because it is so much more marked in men than in women. The typical changes of receding hair and thinning on top are well known and often run in families: the process may even start before the age of thirty years. Women are much less severely affected and anyway tend to keep the front hair line. However, with increasing age many women notice some thinning on their scalp. The hair loss, in both sexes, is due to the effect of hormones but not an excess of them. The fault lies in the hair roots which become over-sensitive to existing hormone levels. (more…)

The average member of Weight Watchers is 2¹/2 stone overweight. However, this number is high owing to the few obese members who push up the average. Most members have only a stone to lose. Do most of their members need to lose this weight or are they responding to media pressure to be thin?

Slimmer Clubs accept people with only a few pounds to lose. These women are encouraged to see these few pounds as a problem and something to get rid of. They are not asked why they want to be that little bit thinner.

The Cambridge diet is recommended for use by the severely overweight only, i.e. those about 50 per cent above the average weight for their height. Yet it is available to anyone who wants to lose weight — even if that person just sees themselves as fat.

Women who are not obese or even overweight also want to lose weight. They believe that if they could shed a few pounds their lives would be better and they would be happier people. These women also attend slimming clubs and read the dieting literature. (more…)

The first step in managing stress is to recognize the causes and to be aware of the symptoms.

You need to recognize the situations in your life that are the stressors. Try to identify the things that make you feel “stressed-out.” Everything from minor irritations, such as traffic jams, to major life changes such as births, deaths, or job loss can be stressors. Or a stress overload of just too many demands on your time can make you feel that you are no longer in control. You may feel so overwhelmed that you become depressed.

Make yourself aware of how your body feels when you are under stress. Are the muscles beginning to tighten? Are you gritting your teeth, gripping the steering wheel tightly, drumming your fingers, patting your foot, or hunching your shoulders? Can you feel your heart beating faster, your breathing rate becoming faster and more shallow? Are you perspiring, shaking, or getting a headache? (more…)

Reasons for psychotherapy

There are three main reasons for having psychotherapy:

1 When you have a problem, you may want to talk to somebody, without analysis or exploration. This is “supportive psychotherapy“.

2 You have a symptom or a group of symptoms which youwant to get rid of by exploring their psychological origins.Only those aspects that are directly related to the symptoms are looked at — you do not want to explore the rest of your life.This I have referred to as “short-term explorativepsychotherapy” (more…)

You can try short-term explorative psychotherapy (S.T.E.P.) for any depressed state down to grey. Those in black depression could try to deal with their depression in this way but are advised to see a psychiatrist, perhaps in conjunction with their psychotherapy. Any of the techniques described in Psychotherapeutic approaches can be used for S.T.E.P, but in general the alternative approaches tend to work faster. In particular, S.T.E.P. can be useful for:

• Reactions to life events
• Breaking through grey energy
• Dealing with couples problems
• Dealing with family problems.

(more…)

As a young woman you assume that when you want to have a child, you will simply fall pregnant. The average time taken for a couple trying to conceive is between 6-12 months of having frequent intercourse (see ‘Trying to conceive‘ on page 315). Ten to fifteen per cent of couples will continue to have difficulty conceiving after one year of trying. When this happens, the couple is considered to have a problem with infertility. It is a ‘couple’ problem, not one or the other. (more…)