 
A new study suggests that people at very high risk of developing psychotic disorders appear less likely to to do so after taking fish oil for three months.
The study was conducted by Dr G Paul Amminger from the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, and the Orygen Youth Health Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues, and is reported in the February issue of the JAMA/Archives journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
As Amminger and colleagues mentioned in their background information, although there is a lot of controversy surrounding the use of current antipsychotic medication to try and prevent psychotic disorders, there is evidence that early treatment in schizophrenia and other psychoses has been linked to better outcomes.
There was also some evidence that long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) could be be beneficial for schizophrenia and a range of other psychotic conditions, and noted that individuals with schizophrenia may have an underlying dysfunction in fatty acid metabolism.
So, given that omega-3 PUFAs are generally considered good for health and have no clinically relevant adverse side effects, they thought it would be worth investigating whether they might help prevent psychosis.
Their results showed that that individuals at very high risk of developing psychosis seemed less likely to develop psychotic disorders after taking a 12-week course of fish oil capsules that contained long-chain omega-3 PUFAs.
Read More …Â http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/178086.php
 
Social anxiety disorder or social anxiety is an excessive emotional discomfort, anxiety, fear or worry about social situations. The individual is exceptionally worried about social situations, being evaluated or scrutinized by other people – there is a heightened fear of interactions with others. Social anxiety disorder is sometimes referred to as social phobia. A phobia is an irrational fear of certain situations, objects or environments.
A person with social anxiety disorder typically is excessively fearful of embarrassment in social situations – this fear can sometimes have a debilitating effect on personal and professional relationships.
An individual with social anxiety disorder may have signs and symptoms of blushing, trembling, accelerated heartbeat, muscle tension, nausea, sweating, abdominal discomfort and lightheadedness.
Social anxiety often occurs early in childhood as a normal part of social development and may go unnoticed until the person is older. The triggers and frequency of social anxiety vary considerably, depending on the individual.
Most of us may feel nervous in certain social situations, such as giving a presentation, going out on a date, or taking part in a competition (such as a quiz). This is normal and in most cases is not social anxiety disorder. Social anxiety disorder is when everyday social interactions cause excessive fear, self-consciousness and embarrassment. Such trivial tasks as filling a form with people around, or eating in public places or with friends may become considerable ordeals for somebody with social anxiety disorder.
According to Medilexicon’s medical dictionary:
- Social phobia is “a persistent pattern of significant fear of a social or performance situation, manifesting in anxiety or panic on exposure to the situation or in anticipation of it, which the person realizes is unreasonable or excessive and interferes significantly with the person’s functioning; 2. a DSM diagnosis that is established when specified criteria are met.” (DSM = Abbreviation for the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.)
What are the signs and symptoms of social anxiety disorder?
A symptom is something the patient feels and reports, while a sign is something other people, such as the doctor detect. For example, pain may be a symptom while a rash may be a sign.
Social anxiety disorder is a chronic mental health condition in which the sufferer has an irrational fear or anxiety of situations or activities, believing he/she will be observed and judged by others. There is considerable fear of humiliation or embarrassment. There may be physical, emotional and behavioral signs and symptoms.
Behavioral and emotional signs and symptoms:
- Anxiety reaches such a point that daily tasks, including school life, work and other activities become affected
- Avoiding situations where the sufferer feels he/she may be the center of attention
- Children with possible social anxiety disorder tend to be worried about being embarrassed in front of peers, but not generally in front of adults
- Considerable fear of being in situations with strangers (people the sufferer does not know)
- Dread over how they will be presented to others
- Excessive fear of being teased or criticized
- Excessive fear that other people may notice that the sufferer looks anxious
- Excessive worry about being anxious, which makes the anxiety worse
- Excessive worry about embarrassment and humiliation
- Fear of meeting people in authority
- Having severe anxiety or panic attacks when in the feared situation
- Refraining from doing certain things or talking to people because of a fear of humiliation or embarrassment
- The individual worries excessively about being in situations where he/she may be judged
- When in a situation that causes anxiety the sufferer’s mind may go blank
Physical signs and symptoms:
- A feeling that the heart is either pounding too hard or fluttering (palpitations)
- Abdominal pain and/or stomach upset
- Avoiding eye contact
- Blushing
- Children with social phobia may weep, have tantrums, cling to parents, or shut themselves out
- Clammy hands
- Cold hands
- Confusion
- Crying
- Diarrhea
- Difficulty talking; this may include a shaky voice
- Dry mouth
- Dry throat
- Excessive sweating
- Muscle tension
- Nausea
- Shaking
- Trembling
- Walk disturbance – the individual is so worried about how they walk that they lose balance when passing a group of people
Read More … http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/176891.php
Jan
22
 
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Tomorrow will mark the release of the first public draft of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition — also known as the DSM-V. (As you can see, we have an exclusive first-copy of it to the right!)
Because we were not on the American Psychiatric Association’s media list, we didn’t receive a copy of the news releases that the mainstream media will be basing a lot of their stories around that will be published tomorrow. We also weren’t invited to the conference call today, despite our repeated attempts to contact the APA’s media office.
This turns out to be good news for our readers. I’m free to talk about what I suspect will be in the draft that appears on the dsmv.org website tomorrow. I gathered this information from numerous anonymous sources, both online and off. Here’s what you’re likely to find in tomorrow’s draft release of the DSM V:
Autism Spectrum Disorders
As we first noted back in November, Asperger’s Syndrome is slated for the chopping block in the DSM-V. Instead, all the autism-related disorders — including Asperger’s — will be placed into a general category known as Autism Spectrum Disorders. Asperger’s will probably be known as something similar to “mild autism†in this new category in the DSM-V.
Behavioral Addictions
Yes, you heard me right — behavioral addictions as a category has made it into the draft revision (according to our sources). The only behavioral addiction that will be recognized, however, will be pathological gambling. Sex addictionInternet addiction (which, remember, started off as a joke in 1995) will instead appear in the Appendix under the Criteria Sets and Axes Provided for Further Study. In other words, the concept of a “behavioral addiction†will be recognized, but most specific behavioral addictions simply do not have the robust research base to be included at this time. So while technically in the DSM V, Internet addiction and sex addiction are not disorders that can be diagnosed at this time (by providing an agreed-upon set of criteria, the DSM V publishers hope researchers can use the criteria to further research in those areas). and
Substance & Alcohol Dependence Gone
For a long time now, the DSM-IV has made the distinction between someone who was “abusing†alcohol or illegal substances like cocaine, and those who were “dependent†upon them. It was a difference with very little distinction or use amongst clinicians, since substance abuse and alcohol abuse treatment were largely the same no matter which of the two diagnoses you received. DSM-V will rectify this confusing two sets of diagnoses and combine them into one that will have a set of specifiers to note severity and length.
Binge Eating Disorder
Languishing in the categories needing further research for 16 years, binge eating disorder will now be a recognized eating disorder in the regular section of the DSM V. This will come as a relief to tens of thousands of people every year who have this concern, but have not had it officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association until now.
Dimensional Assessments
As we noted way back in May of last year, one of the most significant changes in the DSM-V draft will be the inclusion of dimensional assessments for depression, anxiety, cognitive impairment and reality distortion that span across most mental disorders. So a clinician might diagnose schizophrenia, but then also rate these four dimensions for the patient to characterize the schizophrenia in a more detailed and descriptive manner. We’re not certain how well these catch on with clinicians unless they become required by insurance companies, as past efforts to supplement diagnoses with additional patient functional information have been failures.
Assessing Risk
Prodromal signs is a fancy psychobabble term for assessing risk and looking for the signs of a disorder before it turns into a full-blown disorder. Imagine if we could more reliably and consistently assess risk for depression, actually preventing some people from becoming full-blown depressed? I’m not certain exactly how this is showing up in the draft, but there will be more of an emphasis in the DSM V draft in assessing risk.
Temper Dysregulation in Children
High emotional reactivity, high temper, emotional over-reactivity and affective lability. Now there’s a mouthful! What did I just say? The interpretation of this new proposed disorder for the DSM-V is basically for children who can’t control their temper (you probably know someone like this in your life), and because of the way their anger spills out into their lives, they suffer from depression. It will be characterized by persistent negative mood with bursts of rage. So this new disorder will be known as “Temper Dysregulation with dysphoria,†or something like that, in the DSM V.
So there you have it — a quick rundown of the highlights that you’ll see in the draft public release of the DSM-V tomorrow. Look for it at www.dsmv.org. We’ll have a more in-depth run-down tomorrow about the biggest changes.
Source:Â http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/02/09/a-look-at-the-dsm-v-draft/
WASHINGTON — Don’t say “mental retardation” – the new term is “intellectual disability.” No more diagnoses of Asperger’s syndrome – call it a mild version of autism instead. And while “behavioural addictions” will be new to doctors’ dictionaries, “Internet addiction” didn’t make the cut.
The American Psychiatric Association is proposing major changes Wednesday to its diagnostic bible, the manual that doctors, insurers and scientists use in deciding what’s officially a mental disorder and what symptoms to treat. In a new twist, it is seeking feedback via the Internet from both psychiatrists and the general public about whether the changes will be helpful before finalizing them.
The manual suggests some new diagnoses. Gambling so far is the lone identified behavioural addiction, but in the new category of learning disabilities are problems with both reading and math. Also new is binge eating, distinct from bulimia because the binge eaters don’t purge.
Sure to generate debate, the draft also proposes diagnosing people as being at high risk of developing some serious mental disorders – such as dementia or schizophrenia – based on early symptoms, even though there’s no way to know who will worsen into full-blown illness. It’s a category the psychiatrist group’s own leaders say must be used with caution, as scientists don’t yet have treatments to lower that risk but also don’t want to miss people on the cusp of needing care.
Another change: The draft sets scales to estimate both adults and teens most at risk of suicide, stressing that suicide occurs with numerous mental illnesses, not just depression.
But overall the manual’s biggest changes eliminate diagnoses that it contends are essentially subtypes of broader illnesses – and urge doctors to concentrate more on the severity of their patients’ symptoms. Thus the draft sets “autism spectrum disorders” as the diagnosis that encompasses a full range of autistic brain conditions – from mild social impairment to more severe autism’s lack of eye contact, repetitive behaviour and poor communication – instead of differentiating between the terms autism, Asperger’s or “pervasive developmental disorder” as doctors do today.
The psychiatric group expects that overarching change could actually lower the numbers of people thought to suffer from mental disorders.
“Is someone really a patient, or just meets some criteria like trouble sleeping?” APA President Dr. Alan Schatzberg, a Stanford University psychiatry professor, told The Associated Press. “It’s really important for us as a field to try not to overdiagnose.”
Psychiatry has been accused of overdiagnosis in recent years as prescriptions for antidepressants, stimulants and other medications have soared. So the update of this manual called the DSM-5 – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition – has been anxiously awaited. It’s the first update since 1994, and brain research during that time period has soared. That work is key to give scientists new insight into mental disorders with underlying causes that often are a mystery and that cannot be diagnosed with, say, a blood test or X-ray.
“The field is still trying to organize valid diagnostic categories. It’s honest to re-look at what the science says and doesn’t say periodically,” said Ken Duckworth, medical director for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which was gearing up to evaluate the draft.
The draft manual, posted at http://www.DSM5.org, is up for public debate through April, and it’s expected to be lively. Among the autism community especially, terminology is considered key to describing a set of poorly understood conditions. People with Asperger’s syndrome, for instance, tend to function poorly socially but be high-achieving academically and verbally, while verbal problems are often a feature of other forms of autism.
“It’s really important to recognize that diagnostic labels very much can be a part of one’s identity,” said Geri Dawson of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, which plans to take no stand on the autism revisions. “People will have an emotional reaction to this.”
Liane Holliday Willey, an author of books about Asperger’s who also has the condition, said in an email that school autism services often are geared to help lower-functioning children.
“I cannot fathom how anyone could even imagine they are one and the same,” she wrote. “If I had put my daughter who has a high IQ and solid verbal skills in the autism program, her self-esteem, intelligence and academic progress would have shut down.”
Terminology also reflects cultural sensitivities. Most patient-advocacy groups already have adopted the term “intellectual disability” in place of “mental retardation.” Just this month, the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, drew criticism from former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin and others for using the word “retarded” to describe some activists whose tactics he questioned. He later apologized.
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago contributed to this report.
Source:Â http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5h5A7Uy-3KlpRahG0oqcOoSpIrxWA
 
ScienceDaily — Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder affect tens of millions of individuals around the world. These disorders have a typical onset in the early twenties and in most cases have a chronic or recurring course. Neither disorder has an objective biological marker than can be used to make diagnoses or to guide treatment.
Findings in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier suggest that electroretinography (ERG), a specialized measure of retinal function might be a useful biomarker of risk for these disorders, and retinal deficits may contribute to the perceptual problems associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Over the past several years, research has suggested that cognitive impairments in schizophrenia might be linked to early stages of visual perception. This work is now drawing attention to the function of the retina, the component of the eye that detects light. Within the retina, rods are light sensors that respond to black and white, but not to color. Rods are particularly important for maintaining vision under conditions of low light and for detecting stimuli at the periphery of vision. Cones are light sensors that detect color and perceive stimuli at the center of vision.
Using ERG, Canadian researchers Marc Hébert, Michel Maziade and their colleagues observed that the ability of light to activate rods was significantly reduced in currently healthy individuals who descended from multigenerational families that had members diagnosed with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. In contrast, the response of their cones to light was normal.
“We take for granted that other people experience the world in the same way that we do. It is important to appreciate that for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as for colorblindness or selective hearing loss, people who appear to perceive the world normally may actually have subtle but important problems with perception, which may contribute to other adaptive impairments,” comments Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry.
Scientists are still searching for a valid biomarker for the heritable risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Although the current data are interesting, extensive testing is still needed before the utility of this measure as a risk biomarker can be evaluated.
The article is by Marc Hébert, Anne-Marie Gagné, Marie-Eve Paradis, Valérie Jomphe, Marc-André Roy, Chantal Mérette, and Michel Maziade. All authors are affiliated with Centre de recherche Université Laval Robert-Giffard, Québec, Canada. The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 67, Issue 3 (February 1, 2010), published by Elsevier.
 
Journal Reference:
- M. Hébert, A. Gagné, M. Paradis, V. Jomphe, M. Roy, C. Mérette, M. Maziade. Retinal Response to Light in Young Nonaffected Offspring at High Genetic Risk of Neuropsychiatric Brain Disorders. Biological Psychiatry, 2010; 67 (3): 270 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.08.016
 
Back off helicopter moms and dads.
A new study has found children and young adults are more likely to pursue sports, music or other pastimes when given an opportunity to nurture their own passion.
Université de Montréal researcher Geneviève Mageau performed a three-part study assessing if parental control would predict whether a child develops a harmonious or obsessive passion for a hobby.
Published in the latest Journal of Personality, the study was a collaboration with scientists from the Université de Montréal, the Université du Québec à Montreal and McGill University.
“We found that controlling adults can foster obsessive passion in their children by teaching them that social approval can only be obtained through excellence,†says Dr. Mageau.
“An activity then becomes highly important for self-protective reasons that don’t necessarily correspond with a child’s true desires.â€
From children to adults
As part of the study, the research team evaluated 588 musicians and athletes from swimmers to skiers. Participants were between six and 38 years old and practiced hobbies at different levels: beginner, intermediate and expert.
Kids were recruited from high school or specialized summer camps, while adults were recruited at training camps and competitions. The scientific team used a Likert-type scale to measure how parents supported child autonomy and to evaluate child well-being regarding hobbies.
While parents do well to support their children to pursue an activity, such encouragement can graduate to unwelcome pressure.
“Children and teenagers who are allowed to be autonomous are more likely to actively engage in their activity over time,†says Dr. Mageau.
“Being passionate should not be viewed as a personality trait – it is a special relationship one develops with an activity.â€
Source: University of Montreal
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/02/04/give-kids-space-to-develop-passions/11183.html
 
Innovative neuroscience research and expanded clinical care have been launched at the new Center of Excellence on Mood Disorders at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston.
“New research here is trying to pinpoint the neurobiological mechanisms involved in mood disorders,” said Jair Soares, M.D., co-director of the center and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. “We need to link those discoveries to a better way to treat the disease. In the new center, we’ll be able to combine high-level care with research.”
According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 9.5 percent of the United States population age 18 years and older has a mood disorder in a given year. Mood disorders include bipolar disorder and depression.
“All of us, if we don’t have a family member with a mood disorder, we have a friend or co-worker who suffers from one,” said Soares, who is executive director of the UT Harris County Psychiatric Center and chief of psychiatry at LBJ General Hospital and Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. “New research is showing that a mood disorder has nothing to do with will. These conditions are brain diseases.”
The new center will be able to link with other strong resources of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, including the Center for Neurobehavioral Research on Addictions and the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging, both at the medical school, as well as The University of Texas School of Public Health, which is based in Houston.
“Mood disorders ruin lives; break up families; shorten lives through suicide and medical illnesses. Every phase of life is affected by mood disorders,” said Alan Swann, M.D., professor and co-director of the UT Center on Mood Disorders. “There’s a tremendous need for this center. We will evaluate people, treat and conduct research in a single place. We will be able to educate our students and residents, our patients and their families, and the general public.”
Giovana Zunta-Soares, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the medical school, said researchers including those at the UT Medical School at Houston are beginning to learn more about the relationship between changes in the brain and mood disorders.
“We know bipolar patients have subtle abnormalities in key brain regions involved in modulation of emotions, but we don’t know why,” Zunta-Soares said. “We would like to eventually have a way to diagnose the disease physiologically just as we do in other diseases such as high blood pressure, for example.”
Brain imaging, cognitive neuropsychology, neurophysiology and genetics are components of new research at the Center:
— Adult patients with bipolar disorder are being recruited for an imaging study that will look for changes in the brain that may indicate how mood-stabilizing medications help them.
— For an imaging study looking at the anatomy and biology of important areas of the developing brain, researchers are seeking children ages 7 to 17 who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well as healthy children of the same age. The children with bipolar disease will be treated with mood-stabilizing medications.
— A double-blind, placebo-controlled medication trial is studying uridine, a naturally occurring chemical made by the liver that is involved in many of the body’s processes, including the use of energy by cells. Researchers are testing uridine for safety and to assess whether it is beneficial for the depressive symptoms of bipolar disease in adults.
— Researchers will analyze blood levels from the new Serum Markers of Ilness Pathophysiology in Mood Disorders, a repository of samples, in search of biochemical and genetic abnormalities to help understand biological conditions associated with bipolar disorder.
— Anatomical and biochemical measurements of certain brain regions will be taken in an imaging study looking at the differences along the bipolar spectrum, which includes bipolar disorder type I, bipolar disorder type II, cyclothymia and bipolar disorder not otherwise specified.
— Two studies will look at families. The first is enrolling parents diagnosed with bipolar disease and their children age 7 to 17 regardless of whether the children have the disease. The second is recruiting a family member with bipolar disease and a non-affected, first-degree relative (sibling, parent or child).
— Researchers will investigate neurophysiological and neurochemical studies of bipolar disorder and its relationships to impulsivity, personality disorders and substance-use disorders. In addition to mood disorders, the faculty practice at UT Physicians’ clinics of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences treats patients with anxiety disorders, childhood disorders, personality disorders, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia and substance-related disorders.
In addition to mood disorders, the faculty practice at UT Physicians’ clinics of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences treats patients with anxiety disorders, childhood disorders, personality disorders, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia and substance-related disorders.
Source: University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Â
In his classic, “The Prophet,†Kahlil Gibran writes:
Always you have been told that work is a curse … But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born.
Unfortunately Kahlil’s words don’t jibe with a new Australian study that found almost one in six cases of depression among working people caused by job stress, that nearly one in five (17 percent) working women suffering depression In fact, the US Department of Health reported that 70 percent of physical and mental complaints at work are related to stress. attribute their condition to job stress and more than one in eight (13 percent) working men. In the last decade, the number of American workers that say job stress is a major problem in their lives has doubled.
What do we do? Bring our Kleenex to work and hope we don’t get caught crying, or give our notice with no other job in reach? Thankfully, we have a few steps between these two extremes. Here are 12 techniques that have helped me manage the work blues.
1. Don’t quit yet.
Let me just say this first. Chances are higher that you will feel worse if you quit than if you keep on showing up to a job that you hate. Why? If you’re not working, you will have even more time to think about how much you hated your job. On top of the acute anxiety you feel when you think about how you are going to pay off your next phone, electric, and mortgage bill without the regular paycheck being deposited automatically into your bank account. And then there’s the isolation of having no one to talk to during the day, because … one small detail … everyone else is working. So just sit tight until you read through like ten of these before you gladly give your notice, okay?
2. Learn some calming techniques.
You know what’s cool about most relaxation techniques? You can do them AS you are listening to your boss give you your next assignment. Let’s say, as he is telling you that he hired a nice woman half your age that you now report to, that you suddenly feel lots of tight pressure in your shoulders–naturally, because you have the desire to slug him. You relax your shoulders in a way that relieves some of that tension and tells your body that slugging him isn’t an option (right now, anyway).
Then, as you walk back to your desk, where the kid right out of college hands you five assignments due by the end of the day, you can take ten deep breaths: counting to four as you inhale and to four million as you exhale. If you are allowed to listen to music or noise at work (or if you work from your home as I do), you might want to invest in a CD of ocean waves. Whenever I listen to mine, I take a few seconds to visualize myself on the sandy beach of Siesta Key, Florida, hunting for sea shells, a short moment to catch my sanity.
3. Turn the thing off.
I’m not talking about your sex drive, although if you’re depressed, chances are that that’s off, too. I mean your BlackBerry or iPhone, or at least the “ding†noise alerting you to every new (URGENT) e-mail that you don’t think drives you crazy but does. Trust me. When you turn it off for a day–even commit to a weekend without it!–you will see that it is responsible for a sizable chunk of your madness.
It’s ironic that very technological advances that were supposed to free us end up imprisoning us to our work, argues integrative doctor Roberta Lee in her astute book “The Superstress Solution.†In her introduction, she cites a recent survey commissioned by Support.com: 40 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds said they couldn’t cope without their cell phone, yet the same students reported less stress and had lower heart rates and blood pressure when they stopped using them for three days.
You need not join the monastery. Just try turning the thing off for a few evenings and see how you feel.
4. Make a schedule, and stick to it.
Yes, I’m a tad obsessive-compulsive, but I can feel the stress in me rise and want to explode if I don’t have a handy dandy schedule in front of me that I can follow. No one gives it to me. I make it up, and therein lies its power–I am taking control back in to my own anxious hands! So, upon getting five assignments due the same week from a supervisor, I do the panic dance for 15 or 20 minutes. Then I take out my work calendar and start nailing down my deadlines. Assignment One needs to be done by lunchtime on Tuesday. Assignment Two needs to be done by Thursday morning, so that I have two full days to complete Assignment Three before the week is over. Get it? Things don’t run that smoothly, of course, but by breaking down the goals or tasks into manageable bites, I stress less and produce more.
5. Improve your working conditions.
As a highly sensitive person, I can’t work in certain atmospheres. I need a window … and proper lighting … and an assistant who will fetch me ice-tea whenever I want, with lemon and not too much ice (kidding on that). But there are simple ways you can improve even the most sterile and miserable working conditions: putting a nice plant in your cubicle, hanging or framing personal photos (a recent study say that looking at pictures of loved ones reduces pain), using a 10,000 lux daylight balanced light (a lamp used for seasonal affective disorder, but doesn’t look any differently than an average desk light). Keeping a clean desk will also help you feel less overwhelmed. I’m not going to say anything further on that. If you’ve ever seen my desk you know why.
6. Get a life. Outside of work.
If I were to name the single most important lesson I learned inside the psych ward, it would be this: to get a life outside of work. You see, pre-psych ward, I invested all of my self-esteem into my profession. Thus, each career flop set me back a considerable chunk. If a book bombed, so too did my self-confidence. My goal leaving the inpatient psych program in 2006 was to get a life and to sustain that life.
I’m doing better today. I swim in a masters program. I joined a book group. I’m involved with a moms’ group at the kids’ school. None of these things are related to my job. I have met a whole other set of friends aside from my fellow bloggers, editors, and writers. This gives me some cushion and insurance for the days I get crappy traffic numbers and red royalty statements, as well as inviting me to join the human race on the days I can’t produce a single thing.
7. Get into the (right) zone.
No doubt you’re behind at work and feel like no matter how much you get done the day before, you always begin the next day at the foot of a mountain. You may very well have more work than is humanly possible for one person to accomplish. However, according to Elisha Goldstein, psychologist and author of the meditative CD “Mindful Solutions for Success and Stress Reduction at Work,†identifying the four zones of your work day can help you do your job in less time, which will lower your stress.
This “Attention Zones Model†was developed by Rand Stagen of the Stagen’s Leadership Academy, who maintains that during our day, we are in one of four zones: a reactive zone, a proactive zone, a distracted zone, or a waste zone. The goal is to stay out of the distracted and waste zones: responding to unimportant calls and emails or killing time by surfing the web, etc. Explains Goldstein: “The cultivation of mindful awareness allows you to nonjudgmentally name what is happening right now, and turn your attention to your top priorities in the moment.â€
Click here for five more office depression busters!
Bonuses generate more heat than light:
The engaging behavioural economist Dan Ariely has just become a columnist for Wired UK and in his first article he describes how the promise of performance-related pay often backfires leading people to do more but perform worse.
To see the effect of bonuses on performance, Nina Mazar (assistant professor of marketing, Toronto University), Uri Gneezy (professor of economics and strategy, University of California, San Diego), George Loewenstein (professor of economics, Carnegie Mellon, Pennsylvania) and I conducted three experiments. In one we gave subjects tasks that demanded attention, memory, concentration and creativity. We asked them, for example, to assemble puzzles and to play memory games while throwing tennis balls at a target. We promised about a third of them one day’s pay if they performed well. Another third were promised two weeks’ pay. The last third could earn a full five months’ pay. (Before you ask where you can participate in our experiments, I should tell you that we ran this study in India, where the cost of living is relatively low.)
What happened? The low-and medium-bonus groups performed the same. The big-bonus group performed worst of all.
Link to ‘Bonuses boost activity, not quality’ in Wired UK.
Full disclosure: I’m a contributing editor to Wired UK. I have never received a bonus in my life, but if I do, I hope to spend it on beautiful women and fast cars, although, in reality, I will probably buy a laptop.
—Vaughan
Source: . http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2010/02/bonuses_generate_mor.html
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2010) — Children and adolescents with severe dental fear often come from families with a turbulent background. It is also more common that they have had counselling contact with a psychologist. These are the conclusions of research carried out at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Annika Gustafsson, specialist in child dentistry, has studied children and adolescents of school age who have received specialist dental care because they develop many cavities and also suffer from severe dental fear. “I wanted to investigate how children and adolescents with dental behaviour management problems who received specialist dental care differed from patients of the same age within ordinary dental care. I also wanted to discover why they cancel appointments and fail to attend appointments more often,” says Annika Gustafsson.
Just over 250 children and adolescents with dental behaviour management problems and their parents have completed questionnaires describing their family situation and everyday life. Their answers have been compared with answers from the same number of patients within ordinary dental care. “The children and adolescents with dental behaviour management problems suffered significantly more from dental fear, and they lived in families with lower social class and poor economy. Most often, they lived in single-parent families, they had fewer leisure activities and more psychosocial problems than patients within ordinary dental care,” says Annika Gustafsson.
Their parents, in turn, stated that they also suffered from severe dental fear and had greater problems with anxiety and worry than parents of children and adolescents within ordinary dental care. “I believe that it has a negative effect on a child or adolescent if their parent does not want to go to the dentist with them due to the parent’s own fear,” says Annika Gustafsson, who has compared the number of cancelled appointments and appointments that they failed to attend for the children and adolescents with dental fear and for those in ordinary dental care. “Children and adolescents that avoided dental appointments had had contact with a psychologist or counsellor four times as often,” says Annika Gustafsson.
She believes that it is important that these patients are met with respect and understanding within the dental care system. “We must also become better at discovering at an early age which children and adolescents need help and support. We should collaborate more closely with the social services,” says Annika Gustafsson.
Dental fear
About 5% of Sweden’s population suffer from severe dental fear. The very thought of dental care produces severe anxiety in these patients. The fear may have been caused by frightening experiences of dental care during childhood. Fortunately, many types of help are available, including medication for anxiety, nitrous oxide gas, hypnosis and — in severe cases — anaesthesia.
Source:Â http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100208144453.htm
 
Feb 7 2010 Lesley Roberts, Sunday Mail
CHARLIE McKINNON should have left his scaffolding job by now and be enjoying a quiet retirement.
Instead, the building site worker is at the centre of a major international incident, fighting the White House over the fate of his computer hacker son, Gary.
At home in Glasgow, Charlie spends weekends wondering what to do next, if there is anything more that can be done to save his autistic son from being extradited to the USA to face 60 years in jail.
Charlie can’t retire. He has to take job after job in London because it means that, during the week, he is close to the fight – lobbying the House of Lords or appealing to the High Court – and close to his son, who rarely leaves his flat in the Capital.
And Charlie, 65, knows it’s all borrowed time. He said: “I’m desperate now. I even offered to get him a passport to get out of Britain. I know you can buy these things. I know there are people who sell them.
“I just wanted him out of the UK and away from all this. I said, ‘I’ll get you a passport, son. Just get on a flight and go’.
“But he didn’t want it. Do you know what he said? He told me he had faith in British justice. It’s more than I’ve got.”
Self-confessed UFO-nerd Gary is facing extradition to the States after admitting he broke into the computer systems of the Pentagon and space agency NASA.
He has just won an 11th hour reprieve.
Two weeks ago, a judge ordered a judicial review, to be held within the next three months, which will rule whether the decision by the British Government to hand over the 43-year-old is unlawful because he is high suicide risk.
It is just a glimmer of hope but Charlie, who is married to Jeana, is hanging onto it.
He said: “It makes me feel sick to think about him being sent to the States. In the back of my mind I think it’s not going to happen but as every appeal is dismissed I feel worse.
“It’s like sitting on death row waiting for the phone to ring.
“My ex-wife Janis, Gary’s mum, has been amazing at fighting for him and keeping his case in the public eye – but even she has had abusive emails from people saying what’s going to happen to him when he goes to jail in America.
“He knows what he did was stupid but the Americans are calling him a cyber-terrorist.
“Call him a nerd by all means, he admits that, but you could never meet anybody less like a terrorist.”
Gary – who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome – was in his London flat working on a s150 second-hand computer when he managed to hack into the top-secret files of the world’s last superpower.
He was looking for proof of the existence of extra-terrestrials, an obsession of his since his childhood, and he claims it was a straightforward cyber-stroll to the heart of the classied files.
He even left cheeky messages on the sites, telling the Yanks their security was “crap” and criticising US foreign policy.
The messages gave investigators a digital trail straight back to Gary – and he was still working when officers from MI5’s computer division arrived to arrest him.
Charlie said : “He phoned me and said he was in a police car and that two kind gentlemen had allowed him a phone call because he was being done for breaking into US military systems.
“They said he’d probably get six months’ community service.
“But right away I said, ‘Gary, you’re dealing with the Americans. They’re not going to take it lightly’.”
That was eight years ago, in March 2002, six months after the September 11 attacks – when the USA was particularly jittery about the threat of terrorism.
In 2005, three years after Gary was arrested and released without charge, the US said they wanted him to be extradited to stand trial on American soil.
The British Government said there was nothing they could do under the terms of our extradition arrangements – so the past four years have been a succession of appeals, protests and legal moves.
Charlie said: “When I started working in London I couldn’t find my way about, but now I could get to the House of Lords or the American Embassy blindfolded.
“It’s never-ending. Now we’re having to get our minds around the idea of going to America and watching all this unfold.
“My mother-in-law said, ‘Don’t worry – they won’t take Gary. They’ll give him a job’. That’s what they should be doing.
“He actually did them a favour. He showed up the faults in their security.
“Trouble is, he made them look stupid and they’re making him pay for that. No one is saying he shouldn’t be punished, but he should take his punishment here.”
Gary, who has a number of celebrity supporters including Sting’s wife Trudie Styler, is now increasingly depressed and sees a counsellor every week.
He has lost his house, his job and his passport – and a psychiatric report says he will “almost inevitably” try to kill himself if he is extradited.
Charlie said: “My nephew was reading the Guinness Book of Records and found Gary listed as the world’s biggest military computer hacker.
“He’s more like the world’s biggest plonker. But you shouldn’t get 60 years in jail for being daft.”
. More details on www.freegary.org.uk
IT HAS BEEN HUMILIATIONFOR STATES
Computer security expert David Fox is amazed the US military network wasn’t better protected against hackers like Gary.
The IT boss with network consultants JPY said: “It’s ridiculous that a member of the public in another country was able to do the damage that Gary McKinnon did.
“You wouldn’t expect the network to be accessible at all to the public.
“You would expect them to use Virtual Private Networks which create tunnels through the internet through which you connect private networks together.
“It’s all fairly straightfoward technology so the Americans must be very embarrassed.
“They can try to spin it by saying he was attacking the military but I suspect they just don’t want to be seen to be letting this guy off.
“If they did, it would be open season for anyone who wanted to attack their computers which were evidently not very well secured.”
The Americans estimate that Gary did around s500,000 worth of damage when he hacked their system, leaving around 2000 computers in Washington disabled for 24 hours.
David added: “I can see the justification of wanting to make an example of anyone who does this.
“Put someone away for a long time and you’ll probably stop other people attacking your network.
“But the response has been heavyhanded.
He has actually done them a favour – he forced them to speed up their security.”
Previous Updates
“Gary McKinnon Updates: Death Threats”:
http://aspie-editorial.blog-city.com/gary_mckinnon_updates_death_threats.htm
 
Picturehouse Cinemas has been holding a series of autism-friendly screenings at their sites around the country this year. These proved so popular with families that more screenings have now been organised between July and September.
These screenings, arranged in partnership with The National Autistic Society (NAS), are designed for people on the autism spectrum, their families, friends and carers. During the film, low lights are left on inside the auditorium and the volume of the soundtrack is reduced. Cinemagoers are free to move around, make a noise or take a break during the film if they need to – these are activities not usually encouraged at regular screenings.
The cinema is often not a place that is easily accessible for families affected by autism. These screenings aim to make families feel welcome, comfortable and relaxed in an environment that can otherwise seem traumatic, enjoying a film with other families who experience similar issues.
Mark Allenby, from Picturehouse Cinemas, said:
“Autism-friendly screenings have proved to be a huge success, with regular events attracting diverse audiences to our venues. I am delighted to now be able to extend a warm welcome to members of communities up and down the country who might otherwise feel excluded from the cinema experience.”
Download the PDF document below for the latest screening schedule. We are still awaiting details from a few cinemas so please check this page (www.autism.org.uk/picturehouse) again if your nearest autism-friendly screening is yet to be confirmed.
Alternatively, email helen.dingle@nas.org.uk who will be able to give you up-to-date information on the screenings.
Related resources
Relevant documents for downloading
- Picturehouse Cinemas autism-friendly screenings, February-March 2010 (PDF)
Download this file for details of autism-friendly screenings at Picturehouse Cinemas in February-March 2010.
Source: http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=2122&a=18616