Leslie Glass's Blog, page 272

Is Seaweed Healthy?

From Time Seaweed is a staple in many Asian cuisines, but many Americans still only encounter it when they go out for sushi. As a result, many diners don’t know what to make of it: Is seaweed healthy? Does it count as a vegetable? Are all kinds nutritionally the same?

Miho Hatanaka, a Japanese-born registered dietitian who is based in Oregon, says the sea vegetable is worth getting to know. In the Japanese tradition, “people really attribute their health and longevity to seaweed, and even healthier skin and hair,” she says.

Here’s what you need to know about eating seaweed.

There are many types of edible seaweed

There are multiple varieties of seaweed, all with different nutrient profiles. The three main categories are brown algae, such as kombu, which is used to make dashi; green algae, such as sea lettuce; and red algae, such as nori, which is often used to wrap sushi rolls and garnish soups. There are also plenty of edible seaweeds you may not have tried, including dulse, a red algae that researchers from Oregon State University bred to taste like bacon when cooked.

As seaweed becomes more mainstream in the U.S., it’s also showing up in new forms, like crunchy seaweed snacks and algae oil. Seaweed snacks, like any processed food, can be high in sodium and additives, but Hatanaka says they can be a healthier replacement for chips and crackers. Algae oil can be a good alternative to fish oil for those who don’t eat animal products (or simply don’t like the taste), says Nancy Oliveira, a senior nutritionist at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Massachusetts. Like fish oil, algae oil contains heart-healthy fatty acids.

Seaweed is a low-calorie way to get nutrients

Since there are so many kinds of seaweed, it’s difficult to issue a blanket statement about their nutrition, Oliveira says. But “overall, [it’s] fairly low in calories,” she says, and many varieties are lower in sodium than their salty tastes would suggest. “People will use dried kelp instead of the salt shaker. That can be useful if people are trying to cut down on actual table salt.”

Many types of seaweed have as much protein and as many amino acids per gram as beef, according to a research review recently published in Nutrition Reviews — but since seaweed servings are typically quite small, it may not be realistic to eat equivalent amounts. The digestibility of seaweed proteins also varies by type, according to the paper.

Many types of seaweed are also rich in fiber. A five-gram serving of brown algae, for example, has about 14% of a person’s recommended daily fiber, according to the Nutrition Reviews paper. Fiber aids healthy digestion and keeps you feeling full longer, and research also suggests that fiber-rich foods can help prevent chronic conditions including heart disease and some types of cancer. In addition to fiber, some research has shown that a compound in seaweed, called alginate, may help control appetite and help people eat fewer calories. Many varieties also contain polysaccharides, which can improve gut health and “help to give you a feeling of satiety,” Oliveira says.

Seaweed also comes with many nutrients, Hatanaka says. “Even with a smaller amount of seaweed, you can get a lot more nutrients out of it than ground vegetables,” Hatanaka says, such as magnesium and iron. Many seaweeds also contain vitamin A, vitamin K, folate and some vitamin B12, though not all types contain B12 that can be digested by humans.

But there are some health drawbacks

Research has found that heavy metals lurking in contaminated water, including arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, lead, rubidium, silicon, strontium and tin, can taint some types of seaweed, though the type and amount of contamination can vary drastically depending on the plant’s natural habitat. Hijiki, a thin seaweed that looks black when cooked and is often used in Japanese and Korean appetizers, is the most commonly affected by arsenic exposure. Health officials in the U.S. and Australia, as well as some countries in Europe and Asia, have issued public-health warnings about this type of seaweed, but it’s often still possible to buy and order it.

Some nutrients in seaweed, while healthy for many diners, can also pose health risks for some people. Seaweed can also absorb iodine from sea water, which may be problematic for people who have thyroid disorders, since it can throw off the thyroid’s ability to make hormones, Oliveira says. Seaweed tends to be high in vitamin K, which can interact poorly with blood thinners, and potassium, which can be dangerous for people with heart and kidney conditions that prevent them from filtering excess potassium out of the body, she says.

For those reasons, Oliveira says people should eat seaweed in moderation. While periodic seaweed salads or sushi rolls are likely nothing to worry about, Oliveira recommends thinking of seaweed more as a condiment than a main dish. “My fear is that people are going to take it as a superfood…and eat a lot of it,” Oliveira says. “Eating bowls of seaweed every single day could be too much of these trace minerals.”

Hatanaka agrees, noting that seaweed isn’t a daily staple of a typical Japanese diet either. “I would definitely limit consumption,” she says. In Japanese cuisine “it’s more of a side dish, where you would eat it once or twice a week — or we would sprinkle some on miso soup, but those are very minimal amounts.”

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Do You Need A Measles Shot

Are you wondering if you need a measles shot if you’re an adult? Do you know if you had one long ago? Are babies or other vulnerable people who can’t have the shot in your life? You need to consider what might happen if you are near someone who has it. You may not get it, but can pass it on anyway. In our family we recently had booster shots because of a new baby. Our doctor recommended it. We didn’t know we could unknowingly pass along diseases to unvaccinated babies. We had the shot. Should you? This is what Health has to say about it.

From Health Measles outbreaks are shaking communities across the U.S. As of Friday, 704 cases of the disease have been reported this year, the CDC said.

The CDC recommends that children get two doses of the MMR vaccine, which protects people from measles, mumps, and rubella. The recommendation is to give your child a first dose of the MMR vaccine when they are 12 to 15 months old. A second dose is recommended when they are 4 to 6 years old.R

The recommendations for older adults are more complicated. We asked two experts about what people born before the MMR vaccination became prevalent need to know.

Deborah Wexler, MD, is the executive director of the Immunization Action Coalition. She tells Health that the CDC recommends that adults who were vaccinated between 1963 and 1967 get the MMR vaccine. The reason is this: The measles vaccine administered between 1963 and 1967 wasn’t as strong as the MMR vaccine administered now. “Immunity [resulting from the measles vaccine] isn’t certain during that period of time,” Dr. Wexler says. The vaccine used then was “not a live virus vaccine. [Meaning], it’s not active measles.”

Dr. Wexler says that adults who were vaccinated during this time and people who are unsure of their vaccination history need to get the MMR vaccine.

Aside from those vaccinated between 1963 and 1967, any adult in a “high-risk” group might also need to get the MMR vaccine later on in life. Two such groups are people who work in the health care industry and people who travel internationally.

“International travelers are at particularly high risk now for measles…Those who don’t know whether or when they were vaccinated should get vaccinated before international travel. Two doses are needed, spaced 28 days or more apart. It’s best to be fully vaccinated two weeks before departure,” Dr. Wexler says.

The reason that the MMR vaccination is recommended to health care workers is that if they contract measles, they can easily pass it on to immunocompromised patients. “We want them fully protected,” Dr. Wexler says.

People born before 1957 don’t need to worry about getting the MMR vaccine because they’ve likely already been infected by measles.

Waleed Javaid, MD, director of infection prevention and control at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City, tells Health, “Everybody should talk with their health care provider. There is no blanket statement that the CDC can give.”

Dr. Javaid emphasizes that getting the vaccine isn’t recommended for everybody, pregnant women included. “Some people cannot receive the vaccine. If I was going to advise it to the wider public, I would say everybody needs to talk with their providers.”

Dr. Wexler stresses that people in high-risk communities need to take action sooner rather than later to protect themselves from the potentially deadly virus. “People who live in Orthodox Jewish communities where there is measles—they’re the highest risk group right now,” she says. “Any infant is at risk.”

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Hated Moms Can Be Loved Again

I was one of those hated moms, and it’s a confusing phenomenon. My only wish was to love, help and guide my children through their teen and college years, but they saw me as interfering, controlling, and a little bit crazy. And I was.

Substance use makes all family members more than a little crazy. In my family it was hard work for everyone to come back from the damage done. We had some very bitter years. We even had an actual time out that lasted nearly four years. Time outs can be good things if you use the space to work on yourself and not be furious. Families can learn to love an appreciate each other, and be better than they were before. I can testify to that.

Substance Use In The Teen Years

It’s important to note that not all children who use substances develop Substance Use Disorder (addiction). Many tweens and teens experiment, have difficult years, and with treatment and support come out of it to live productive and happy lives, and to love their moms again. Others do develop SUD (substance use disorder), a chronic, relapsing, brain disease that requires a lifetime of monitoring and treatment. And those children can love and appreciate their moms, too. Either way, the outcome can be very good. Here’s what parents need to know.

Parents have to take substance use (which includes alcohol) very seriously because you can’t assume your child is just going through a phase
Be prepared that for some years love will seem lost forever
Work on yourself to understand yourself and the part you play
Learn the difference between enabling use and supporting recovery

The Substance Use Road To Broken Hearts

Here’s what happens emotionally. Substance use untethers people (at every age) from the anchors, the norms, the values, the relationships that nurture them. For example, when young people are enjoying or dependent on drinking or using substances, they resist any kind of any kind of parental advice or warnings. The more anxious and frightened a mom becomes, the more risk there is for confrontation, anger, and ultimately resistance to any kind of parental intervention.

Mom Loses Authority And Love

Every family with substance use becomes untethered like ships with no rudder. Moms lose both their authority and the love from their kids that nourished them when children were little. Substances and other behaviors replace mom as rudder and guiding light.

Moms aren’t taught to withstand this kind of loss. When a child cannot allow himself to be loved or to love mom (or anyone else), he or she is truly floundering, but rarely knows it. Imagine ocean liners without tug boats to guide them into harbors, or planes flying without radar or air traffic control. That is family life in substance use. While love may drive a mom to save her child at any cost, there is no love coming back at this time to nourish or help her.

Love Can Be Regained

These loses are an outcome for moms from the substance use experience that isn’t commonly explored. Mom loses love and authority, tries to get them back, and risks becoming toxically controlling. We don’t know what’s happened to us and don’t see our attempts at solution as anything but loving and supportive. I felt lost and alone for many years, but I am here to tell you that love isn’t dead during the recovery journey. It’s just in hiding. When mom can accept she’s not in control and adult children have to find their own way, even dark days like Mother’s Day can be joyful again.

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8 Goals For Recoverying Families

According to family experts Friel and Friel, authors of Adult Children, The Secrets of Dysfunctional Families, healthy functional families have eight traits in common. Many who are in recovery are past victims of trauma and/or abuse. In fact, 2 out of every 3 people in recovery were victims of child abuse. Recovery teaches us to choose progress over perfection. This list will help you measure where your family is now and where you want to grow. 

1. Recovering Families Meet Basic Needs

Functional families are consistently meeting each individual’s most basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing. A family that is food insecure, shelter insecure, or without the basic clothing needed, is vulnerable is every way. Growth is almost impossible when survival itself is the everyday focus.

2. Members Are Safe

Beyond food and clothing, safety is a fundamental need for every family member. Being safe from emotional and physical abuse is critical. Family members embrace and nurture each other. They thrive.

3. Family Members Are Loved

Noted psychologist Abraham Maslow explains that we also have a deep need for love and belongingness. For an individual and family to grow, they need to know that they are loved, cherished, and belong to their tribal family. Here the family works as a unit to allow each member to talk about issues, to trust others, and to feel their feelings.

4. Each Person Is Encouraged To Be Unique And Independent

There is a strong need for autonomy or separateness. Functional families allow each individual in the family to grow and develop.  Also called individualization, each person in a functional family becomes a unique self and the family supports this ongoing development. The individual is seen as their own person while still functioning as part of this healthy family system. In this manner, the family also embraces diversity.

5. All Members Are Worthy And Valuable

Families also function to promote self-esteem or a sense of worth in each family member. Each person is seen as worthy and valuable to the family. Family members praise each other. This is about dignity and self-assurance of each individual.

6. Everyone Gets To Make Mistakes

Perfectionism is not a goal for it is unhealthy, and each member and the family itself must make mistakes in order to learn, heal, and grow. Here we realize that we are all imperfect beings in our perfection of our selves. Without making mistakes, no one would be able to cope within this imperfect, perfect world.

7. Recovering Families Have Fun

Play is a very important aspect of healthy development; without it, our growth becomes static, rigid, and perfectionistic. Play also includes exploring the many outlets of creativity. Each family member and each family needs allow creativity such as:

Playing
Writing or journaling
Singing (even if you can’t carry a tune)
Playing sports or doing yoga

Do whatever it is that makes your heart soar.

8. Families Have Spirituality, Too

That old adage about families that pray together has some merit. In spirituality, the family embraces a sense of wonder and awe, of creation and creativity, of joy and sorrow, and of love and gratitude. The family sets the basis of spirituality and allows diversity of belief and practices for each individual.

So, how does your family measure up? Don’t be in a panic if you don’t meet all of these functions. For remember, the family, and each individual, needs to make mistakes in order to develop throughout the lifespan.  Are there ways that the family can improve? How can your entire family explore these traits and focus on healing?

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How It ‘Fell Apart’: Moby Talks New Memoir, Addiction and Trauma

From kqed

In the early 2000s, a shy, nerdy, underground producer named Moby joined the ranks of the mega-rich and mega-famous: gold- and platinum-certified records lined his hallways, he spent his days hanging out with movie stars and models and lived across the way from his childhood hero, David Bowie. One of the decade’s most popular rappers, Eminem, even had beef with him—meaning he’d finally made it into the pop culture pantheon.

But as Moby reveals in his new memoir, he felt perpetually out-of-place and lonely, and was suffering regular panic attacks. In the music video for his 2002 hit “We Are All Made of Stars,” Moby sings, expressionless and wearing a space suit, while TRL-era celebrities party around him—a not-so-subtle metaphor for his mental state at the time.

Moby’s way of coping? Near-constant binge-drinking, party drugs and risky sex, which eventually became unsustainable and destructive. He’s been sober for 11 years now, and looks back on the highs and lows of his substance abuse in Then It Fell Apart (on shelves May 2), which picks up where his 2016 book about the 1990s rave scene, Porcelain, left off.

“The elevator pitch for the book would be fixing childhood trauma with clueless adult decisions, or trying to fix childhood trauma with egregiously bad and clueless adult decisions,” Moby says in a recent phone interview ahead of his appearance at the Bay Area Book Festivalon May 4, where he’ll be in conversation with San Francisco Chronicle critic Peter Hartlaub. “Not surprisingly, it doesn’t work.”

Moby acknowledges that writing about addiction in a non-cliché way is a tricky proposition: people know, on an intellectual level, that drugs, money and sex don’t bring long-term happiness. But as difficulties befall us throughout our lives, we look for short-term relief that steers us away from the hard work of healing our traumas.

Rather than taking a didactic approach, Moby conveys these hard-won life lessons by laying bare his painful childhood memories (including his father’s suicide, his shame at growing up poor and the sexual abuse he experienced at a daycare in San Francisco). Flashing forward into his adulthood, he delves into his trauma-related mental-health symptoms and the ways he attempted to alleviate his pain with the trappings of celebrity.

“My belief, before I got sober, was that fame was going to fix my feelings of inadequacy; that degeneracy was going to fix my depression; and promiscuity was going fix my childhood trauma,” says Moby. “I longed for things to work in that way. I wanted to be fixed by these unhealthy external things. Part of sobriety—and a degree of spiritual fitness—is that we can’t, in adulthood, hold on to crazy, magical thinking.”

In fast-paced, conversational vignettes that weave between his childhood and music-industry heyday, Moby navigates these nuanced themes with great care. He divulges juicy stories involving the biggest celebrities of the 2000s, but even during the glamorous parties and ecstasy-fueled sex, the shadows of Moby’s childhood traumas lurk near. Without glorifying or self-flagellating, Moby offers a candid look at his triumphs and mistakes. The memoir reads as heartfelt rather than preachy, and his attitude is one of compassion and understanding towards himself and, by extension, readers who see themselves in his struggles.

There’s plenty of comic relief in Then It Fell Apart. Like when Moby, new to the Hollywood scene, goes out with Natalie Portman wearing an oversized, gold-lamé Elvis suit because he doesn’t yet own celebrity-worthy attire. Or when he realizes Eminem actually hates him (the two meet for the first time at the VMAs and the rapper threatens Moby on stage).

In addition, the book contains touching triumphs, like when Moby finds himself in disbelief at the surreal experience of performing with his idols, New Order, as well as crushing lows (including suicidal ideation) that happen more and more frequently as Moby’s celebrity starts to fade.

Surprisingly, within nearly 400 pages, Then It Fell Apart doesn’t delve into Moby’s journey of recovery, instead ending on the day the self-described “alcohol enthusiast” admitted he had a problem and decided to seek treatment. He’s saving what came after for his next book, which he says won’t be about recovery per se, but about a larger theme of spirituality.

“I’m not a Christian but my life is geared towards God, understanding God, trying to do God’s will,” says Moby. “Keeping in mind, I have no idea who or what God might be.”

Since getting clean, Moby has released several albums, enjoyed lucrative music-licensing deals and opened a nonprofit vegan restaurant that raises money for animal rights causes. But he no longer cares about being cool, focusing on his spiritual well-being instead—which has been liberating.

“It’s really nice to just accept age, accept hair loss, accept diminishing commercial viability,” he says. “Accepting these things and trying to learn from them is a lot more enjoyable and a lot healthier than angrily fighting entropy.”

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Study Suggests Obesity As An Independent Risk Factor For Anxiety And Depression In Young People

From Science Daily:

Obesity is linked with an increased risk of developing anxiety and depression in children and adolescents, independent of traditional risk factors such as parental psychiatric illness and socioeconomic status, according to new research.

The nationwide study comparing over 12,000 Swedish children who had undergone obesity treatment with more than 60,000 matched controls found that girls with obesity were 43% more likely to develop anxiety or depression compared to their peers in the general population. Similarly, boys with obesity faced a 33% increased risk for anxiety and depression compared to their counterparts.

“We see a clear increased risk of anxiety and depressive disorders in children and adolescents with obesity compared with a population-based comparison group that cannot be explained by other known risk factors such as socioeconomic status and neuropsychiatric disorders,” says Ms. Louise Lindberg from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden who led the research. “These results suggest that children and adolescents with obesity also have an increased risk of anxiety and depression, something that healthcare professionals need to be vigilant about.”

Anxiety and depression are reported to be more common in children with obesity than in children of normal weight, but it is unclear whether the association is independent of other known risk factors. Previous studies are hampered by methodological limitations including self-reported assessment of anxiety, depression, and weight.

To provide more evidence, researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden conducted a nationwide population-based study to investigate whether obesity is an independent risk factor for anxiety or depression. 12,507 children aged 6-17 years from the Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Register between 2005 and 2015 were compared to 60,063 controls from the general population matched for sex, year of birth, and living area.

The research team adjusted for a range of factors known to affect anxiety and depression including migration background, neuropsychiatric disorders, parental psychiatric illness, and socioeconomic status. A total of 4,230 children and adolescents developed anxiety or depression over an average of 4.5 years.

Obesity was clearly linked with higher risk of anxiety and depression in childhood and adolescence. Girls (11.6% vs 6.0%) and boys (8.0% vs 4.1%) with obesity were more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety and depression than those in the general population over the study period.

In further analyses, excluding children with neuropsychiatric disorders or a family history of anxiety or depression, the risks were even higher. In particular, boys with obesity were twice as likely to experience anxiety or depression as their normal-weight peers — whilst girls with obesity were 1.5 times more likely.

“Given the rise of obesity and impaired mental health in young people, understanding the links between childhood obesity, depression and anxiety is vital,” says Ms. Lindberg. “Further studies are needed to explain the mechanisms behind the association between obesity and anxiety/depression.”

The authors acknowledge that this is an observational study and cannot prove that obesity causes depression or anxiety but only suggests the possibility of such an effect. They point to several limitations including that there is no weight and height data in the comparison group; unmeasured confounding may have influenced results; and that rates of anxiety and depression may be underestimated since a large proportion of individuals suffering from these conditions do not seek medical care.

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Millennials Love Wellness. But They’re Not As Healthy As People Think

From Time:

Millennials are often credited with driving the $4.2 trillion global wellness market, with their love of pursuits like yoga, meditation and boutique fitness. But despite their reputation for valuing health and wellness, millennials are in worse health than their elders in Generation X used to be, according to a new report from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

Millennials — who in 2017 were ages 21 to 36 — were overall in good health that year, according to Blue Cross’s data analysis of 55 million commercially insured millennials. But around age 27, millennials’ health began to decline — and trends suggest the downturn may be more than what could be expected from normal aging.

Rates of nearly every health problem that most commonly affects younger Americans rose from 2014 to 2017, according to the report. Behavioral health issues were especially widespread among millennials. Major depression rates increased in this population by 31% from 2014 to 2017, rates of psychotic conditions increased by 15% and rates of substance use disorder rose by 10%.

Eight of the top 10 millennial health conditions — depression, substance use disorder, high blood pressure, hyperactivity, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, tobacco use disorder and Type 2 diabetes — were also more common among older millennials in 2017 than they were among members of Gen X when they were the same age. (Rates of the remaining two of the top 10 conditions for this age group, alcohol use disorder and psychotic conditions, either stayed the same or decreased slightly, compared to Gen X.)

Both generations had relatively high rates of mental health issues, so increases in cardiovascular and endocrine conditions among millennials drove the disparity, according to the report.

The researchers also found that female millennials were in poorer health than their male peers, and widespread diagnoses of major depression, Type 2 diabetes and endocrine conditions were to blame. Women are consistently diagnosed with depression and endocrine problems like thyroid issues at higher rates than men, but researchers are still trying to explain why Type 2 diabetes rates are up for young women and girls.

Other research has shown that young Americans are struggling with record-high rates of issues like depression, anxiety and loneliness. These conditions have many causes, but research has found that they are likely driven in part by stressors including a divisive political and social climate, financial concerns and social media. Many millennials also do not see primary care doctors and struggle to pay for health care. Part of the recorded rise in depression among millennials may also be because they are more likely than older generations to talk about and address mental health issues through therapy, research shows, which could result in an increase in identifying and diagnosing mental health issues.

The new report did not address why endocrine and cardiovascular issues may be on the rise, but higher obesity rates may be partially to blame. (Separate research has also found that certain types of cancer are becoming more common among younger Americans, likely because of a rise in obesity.)

The disparity uncovered in the report highlights how urgent it is “for the healthcare community to recognize” issues facing millennials, the new report’s authors write. “The health status of millennials will likely have substantial effects on the American economy over the next two decades—including workplace productivity and healthcare costs.”

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No Safe Amount Of Alcohol During Pregnancy

From Science Daily:

An international group of researchers has taken one of the first major steps in finding the biological changes in the brain that drive fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). New work using chaos theory to analyze brain signals, discussed this month in the journal Chaos, from AIP Publishing, shows the long-term effects.

Researchers found that teenagers who were exposed to alcohol while in the womb showed altered brain connections that were consistent with impaired cognitive performance. Their findings were reached by measuring the responses from a brain imaging technique called magnetoencephalography (MEG) and then analyzing them with tools developed using chaos theory.

FASD is one of the leading causes of intellectual disability worldwide and is linked to a wide array of neurological issues, including ADHD. While the prevailing theory links expectant mothers’ alcohol consumption to cognitive impairments for children, questions about the extent of this effect remain. Despite the known link, researchers are uncertain about the precise mechanism by which alcohol alters the developing brain.

The group’s efforts mark one of the first times researchers have been able to quantify the effects of alcohol exposure on the developing brain.

“The paper provides important integrative results for the field of FASD,” said Julia Stephen, an author on the paper. “These results may then indicate that simple sensory measures may provide sensitivity for brain deficits that affect the broader cognitive domain.”

Previous attempts to study the brain circuitry in affected individuals have been hampered by the difficulty of drawing conclusions from complicated MEG data.

To get to the heart of the problem, members of the team developed a sophisticated computer technique called Cortical Start Spatio-Temporal multidipole analysis that could identify which areas of the brain were active when research subjects were in the MEG machine.

After data from 19 FASD patients and 21 subjects without FASD was collected, the computational approach revealed several areas of the brain that showed impaired connectivity among the FASD group.

Subjects who were exposed to alcohol in the womb were more likely to have issues with connections through their corpus callosum, the band of brain tissue that connects the left and right halves of the brain. Deficits in this area have been reported in people with schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, autism, depression and abnormalities in sensation.

“This work presents major evidence that children exposed to alcohol prenatally are at risk of suffering from impaired cognitive abilities and other secondary factors,” said Lin Gao, an author on the paper. “Our study … shows that there is no safe amount or safe stages during pregnancy for alcohol consumption.”

The authors hope their work inspires other groups to conduct similarly collaborative research on diseases like FASD that benefit from drawing together medical and computational fields.

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5 Reasons You’re Depressed After Drinking Too Much Alcohol

From Men’s Health:

Drinking to forget your problems will only make you more depressed.

You probably wake up after a night of heavy drinking feeling like crap, but sometimes the aftermath leaves you with more than just a headache and craving for greasy food.

Although people generally drink alcohol to lift their spirits, having too many drinks can leave you stressed, worried, or plagued with guilt, an experience informally called “hangxiety.”

It’s not surprising that anxiety is sometimes fueled by too much alcohol. How many times have you woken up wondering if you said—or did—something offensive?

Clinical psychologist Moe Gelbart, Ph.D., and Executive Director of the alcohol and drug abuse program at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in California, says anxiety about foolish behavior is common.

“There’s lots of behavior that causes one to feel down and strange and sometimes anxious,” he says. “They begin to feel out of control. ‘What did I actually do?'”

It’s important to remember that alcohol isn’t easy for your body to process, meaning you’ll naturally feel fatigued after heavy drinking. Tolerance levels vary, but Gelbart says four alcoholic beverages in one sitting is potentially damaging for anybody. And when talking about hangxiety, it’s important to note that this typically doesn’t occur after just one drink.

“Alcohol is an assault on your body physiologically,” he tells Men’s Health. “It’s kind of like beating up on yourself on the inside.”

This explains why you vow to never drink again after suffering the consequences from ordering that fourth beer. Of course, you feel great while drinking, but that changes when the hangover sets in.

“You begin to feel miserable,” says Gelbart.

Aside from from ruining sleep, alcohol messes with your brain too.

Researchers know that drinking affects neurotransmitters, or chemical messengers that regulate mood and behavior. Dr. Aparna Iyer, M.D., psychiatrist and assistant professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, explained to SELF that alcohol binds to GABA receptors in your brain. This initially makes you feel good, but the effect doesn’t last.

“People who already have a pre-existing anxiety disorder, even if it’s a small one and kind of underlying everything, whatever they have quieted by drinking the alcohol, that can come back full force or even worse,” she told the magazine.

You may want to question the reason for your drinking, because underlying problems trigger hangxiety.

“Not everybody who drinks heavily is depressed afterwards,” says Dr. Lance Dodes, M.D., and training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. “I think it depends on why people were drinking.”

People who turn to alcohol when they’re unhappy will still be upset once the booze wears off.

“Drinking to deal with your problems is like taking your credit card bills and putting them in a shredder to deal with your debts,” says Gelbart. “They only go away for a moment.”

He recommends tallying how often you suffer negative consequences due to drinking. You may want to seek medical help if you’re continually getting into fights after guzzling beers. For more information on treatment options in your area, visit the National Institute of Health.

 
Although people believe booze helps them sleep, research shows the opposite is true.

Your entire sleep cycle is thrown out of balance after four drinks, according to a 2013 review of studies published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. Scientists found that people who drink at least four beers had fewer dreams and were awake for longer periods of time.

“Sleep is an important part in recharging,” says Gelbart. “It restores you.”

Last year, researchers found that anxiety increased by 30 percent in sleep deprived people, Popular Science reported.

“Sleep loss triggers the same brain mechanisms that make us sensitive to anxiety to begin with—regions that support emotional processing and also regions that support emotion regulation,” Eti Ben-Simon, study co-author and researcher in the department of neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, told the magazine.

 

 

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Being Too Harsh On Yourself Could Lead To OCD And Anxiety

From Science Daily:

A new study has found that people who reported intense feelings of responsibility were susceptible to developing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) was published in the International Journal of Cognitive Therapy.

“People with OCD [are] tortured by repeatedly occurring negative thinking and they take some strategy to prevent it… GAD is a very pervasive type of anxiety. [Patients] worry about everything.” describes Associate Professor Yoshinori Sugiura of the University of Hiroshima.

Anxiety and OCD-like behaviors, such as checking if the door is locked, are common in the general population. However, it is the frequency and intensity of these behaviors or feelings that make the difference between a character trait and disorder.

“For example, you’re using two audio recorders instead of one,” says Sugiura when interviewed. “It’s just in case one fails … having two recorders will enhance your work but if you prepare [too] many recorders … that will interfere with your work.”

A problem Sugiura identifies in psychology is that each disorder that sufferers experience has several competing theories regarding their cause.

“There are too many theories and therapies for mental disorders for one expert to master them all.” elaborates Sugiura.

The goal of this research team (consisting of Sugiura and Associate Professor Brian Fisak (University of Central Florida)) was to find a common cause for these disorders and simplify the theories behind them.

Sugiura and Fisak first defined and explored “inflated responsibility.” The team identified 3 types of inflated responsibility: 1) Responsibility to prevent or avoid danger and/or harm, 2) Sense of personal responsibility and blame for negative outcomes and 3) Responsibility to continue thinking about a problem. The research group combined tests used to study OCD and GAD as there had been no previous work that compared these tests in the same study.

To establish whether inflated responsibility was a predictor of OCD or GAD, Sugiura and Fisak sent an online questionnaire to American university students. Through this survey they found that respondents who scored higher in questions about responsibility were more likely to exhibit behaviors that resemble those of OCD or GAD patients. Personal Responsibility and Blame and the Responsibility to Continue Thinking, had the strongest link to the disorders.

The researchers would like to clarify that this preliminary study is not representative of the general population due to the small scale and skewed population (mostly female university students). However, the promising findings suggest that this format can be applied to a larger population and yield similar results.

Sugiura is currently looking into how to reduce responsibility and the preliminary outcomes are positive. When asked for any tips to reduce anxiety or obsessive behaviors he said:

“[A] very quick or easy way is to realize that responsibility is working behind your worry. I ask [patients] “Why are you worried so much?” so they will answer “I can’t help but worry” but they will not spontaneously think “Because I feel responsibility” … just realizing it will make some space between responsibility thinking and your behavior.”

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The post Being Too Harsh On Yourself Could Lead To OCD And Anxiety appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.